Having a panic disorder really sucks.
“You’re not an idiot,” Akilah consoled me. “In fact, you’re one of the smartest people I know. Quick…what’s the capital of Moldavia?”
“Moldavia isn’t a country anymore. You’re thinking of Moldova. And the capital is Chişinău.”
“Kitchen-what?” The strange pronunciation slayed her, her laughter momentarily almost distracting me from the blood pounding in my ears, the fear narrowing my vision.
“Chişinău. Google it,” I growled, ashamed that I could instantly recall dotish trivia like that but couldn’t figure out which bus to hop on.
Akilah was on a mission, though. She saw right through my embarrassment and shook her head in exaggerated mock disapproval. “You see? Which fourteen-year-old Trini girl not only knows that Moldova exists, but knows the name of its capital city and how to pronounce it? You’re a genius!”
“Meh,” I said dismissively. “Such a genius I can’t remember how to get home. Every. Single. Day.”
She laughed, but it was a sympathetic chuckle, not a jeer. Trinidadians made jokes about everything. We laughed at life. It was one of the things that made Trinis special, I thought. But my sense of humor wasn’t helping at that moment.
“Could you just talk to me?” I begged. “Tell me what’s going on with school and church and everything. How did you do in end-of-term tests?”
“Oooh…I got a B in chemistry,” she began in disgust. “Mr. Look Loy said my project was disappointing. Can you imagine? I never got a B in my life….”
As Akilah started talking to distract me, I noticed the breeze even more. This afternoon wind seemed determined to get to me, to find something it could interfere with. It crept under my jeans and my high collar, trying to penetrate the layers of fabric to reach my skin. I could feel it swirling below my clothes. But I was prepared, too wily for the wind. I had on long underwear.
Summer in Edmonton is not hot, but it’s not cold. Unless, that is, you’re used to living in a furnace. I was. I was from the Caribbean, where an average day might easily be twice as hot as an average Edmonton summer day. What was sixteen degrees when you were really built for thirty-two, when your blood was as warm as the Gulf of Paria when the sun was shining down on the chalky finger of San Fernando Hill? Here, I was always cold, bundling myself up in layers and obscenely more layers, wearing all the clothes in my wardrobe at once.
Like a real Trini, Aunty Jillian laughed at me all the time about that. She and her partner, Aunty Julie, couldn’t understand why I was always kitted out like a bag lady in sweater, shirt, long underwear, jeans, and sneakers after my arrival in Edmonton. On really bad days, like today, I wore my coat, a long velveteen number I bought at a thrift store because I wasn’t going to be in this city much longer and I was sure nobody wanted to spend real money on my “penance” clothes. Already Jillian and Julie had paid for my trip to Canada, had welcomed me into their home, were taking care of me. I felt I owed them too much to accept an expensive, brand-new fall coat when it wasn’t yet fall. I’d have to go back to Trinidad soon anyway.
My thrifted velveteen coat was a rich electric blue, the color of the sky at home when it was just about sunset—not on the side with the lightshow of the sun going down in an orange blaze of glory but the other one, the side where night is creeping up and day is already a memory. The sky could be such an elegant, intense, impenetrable, and unutterably lovely blue. When I saw the coat on the hanger, it seemed it was waiting for me. Everybody laughed at my purchase, especially Jillian, who called it my Princess Di coat. In truth it was too formal, and pretty old-fashioned, but I didn’t care. It fit and I loved the color and the smooth, short nap of the velveteen. The lining was genuine silk, which was heavenly against my hands.
Plus, when you’re wearing a big, thick coat it feels like it’s easy to disappear.
“English and Lit were super easy, like I told you. Oh, and I can’t remember exactly what I wrote for the first Literature essay, the one on Julius Caesar—something about portents, I think—but Miss Ramsubir said she wants to publish it in the School Tie next—”
“What’s the School Tie?” I asked. She’d never mentioned it before.
“The school magazine. She wants me to write for it….”
I was a bit closer to the bus station and Akilah’s voice had calmed me down a little. I could pay attention to small things again, like the flowers in front of people’s houses, or the faint warmth of the sunshine on my face.
“Maths wasn’t terrible. I got two questions wrong in the long paper. I hate graphs.” Akilah groaned theatrically.
I kept walking, making a fist with my free hand and sticking it into my coat’s silk-lined pocket. My short nails pressed pink crescents into my palm, the pain keeping me from screaming out when the scary trucks passed with their horns blaring boooohhhhhppp! Devil trucks.
“Nobody ever stops me or says hello or anything,” I suddenly said to Akilah. “I literally walk around here and nobody says a word. Canadians are so into their own space that they try not to interfere with anybody else’s.”
Akilah, used to my disjointed thoughts during my panic attacks, picked up the ball and ran with it. “Not like the macos we have here in Trinidad,” she teased. “Always minding your business. Aunty Cynthia would have got about three phone calls by now from the neighborhood macos if you were home and going down the highway.”
It was true, sort of. At home—home home, not here—people stopped and talked to perfect strangers. Yes, the macos minded your business like it was their human right to do so. But at least you smiled at them and saw in their faces some emotion. Here, a strange and hostile silence fell when the occasional person came near me. Not that I saw too many people on this terrifying jaunt.
“Nobody even walks here either,” I told her, and moaned. “I’m a freak. Aunty Jillian and her girlfriend would have picked me up from the city if I had asked them to, but that would have meant them driving out of their way.” I bit my lip. “I don’t want to be too much trouble.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Akilah sighed. The light behind her dimmed as the sun ducked behind a cloud. “You know they wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, they don’t work in the city!” I argued. “They would have to leave the house, get me, and turn around. I don’t want to be a nuisance.”
I was being dishonest. Yes, they did work from home. They had a computer-based business that they ran from the cool, dry basement of their little house in the suburbs, my temporary home for the past several weeks. But I knew they would have been happy to pick me up from the city. I told myself maybe things would change once I got more used to being in Edmonton, that maybe I wouldn’t feel like such a burden, crashing in and ruining their perfect lives while I served out my penance here. Maybe.