White Girl Problems Read online

  One of them laughed, but it sounded off, and when she spoke, her words were like that movie my dad always watched about the mob. It was like she had a mouth full of marbles. “I would lose my teeth if I bit it now.”

  I laughed and they turned their faces, all but the lady with the marbles.

  A hawk-faced lady gave me a steely-eyed look. “What are you laughing at? Who are you?”

  I shrugged. “Finley Roze.” I turned and looked for Hattie, but she hadn’t emerged from the door.

  “And what are you doing here, Finley Roze?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “What’s with the bandage?” They all eyed me up, all except Marbles. She didn’t move. I felt like I was sweating. I didn’t know what to say or do.

  I shook my head again. “I don’t know.”

  “FINLEY!”

  I turned sharply to see an angry Hattie. “Move your ass.” She turned and went back in the door. I scowled, but the ladies started laughing at me.

  “You better move it, Finley Roze.”

  “Hattie is a mean old bat. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of her.”

  “Yes, move your ass and get us a drink!”

  I ran. Mean old ladies might have been an issue for me. I didn’t have a grandmother or a mother. All I had was Sheila and she didn’t scare me. She was ridiculous.

  Through the door, I found Hattie talking to a fat man in a chef’s uniform. He glared at me and nodded his head.

  “Fin, this is Mike. He’s the chef here. He’s in charge. You will be a server, you will work hard, and you will not sass him. Understood?” She turned and left the steamy kitchen.

  Mike smiled the minute Hattie was gone. “She’s a savage. Your dad must hate you.”

  I winced. “I think so.” I was playing cool, but he was right. My dad did hate me.

  Mike saw the reaction and put a hand up, with a huge knife in it. “I just meant she is so mean. He must be pissed at you to send you here. Where are you from?”

  My eyes never left the knife. “Spokane.”

  He nodded. “Cool. I was there once, nice place. It’s like a desert or something, right? Really dry? I’ve been to Washington a couple times. Once to go to Whidbey Island. I caught the ferry from Victoria. Intense security to get on and off that ferry. I’m actually from Vancouver Island, on the West Coast.” He didn’t look so scary and old as he had a moment ago. I imagined he wasn’t much older than I was. But being fat made him look older. He had thinning sandy-brown hair and dark-brown eyes. His lips were very plump, of course. Guys always had great lips, but fat guys always had fat lips. It was us skinny girls who were always lacking in the collagen.

  He nodded. “Wanna go see if anyone wants a bit of tea or coffee or a cookie? You could take a plate around, but if you see a thin purple bracelet, that means they’re diabetic. You have to give them sugarless cookies.”

  I was lost.

  “You know how to serve, right?” He laughed. “Hattie is a liar. You’ve never had a job before, have you?”

  I swallowed hard and shook my head.

  When he laughed, everything sort of jiggled about like it would on Santa. “Find Mae. She’s out there. She’s a Newf so she sounds Irish and is sort of like Hattie. Tell her you’re new and are to follow her for your first shift. She will get you a uniform and everything else.” He nodded his head at the door I had come through and then went back to cutting vegetables. “It was nice meeting you, Finley.” I was being dismissed.

  I walked back out to the room with the mean old ladies. They were still playing cards at the table in the corner, but there was a new addition to their game. A hot new addition. It was like stumbling through the desert, starved for water and seeing an oasis. He was stunning and young, my age maybe. He was laughing and smiling. I wanted to laugh too. Seeing him in the sunlight that way made me wonder if he was real. The light almost sparkled off of his dark hair. He wasn’t perfection in the way Aaron was. He was something else. Genuine maybe.

  He finished laughing and slapping cards down on the table. When his blue eyes flashed on me, my heart stopped. He gave me a smile that made my face instantly flush, like he knew all my secrets. He was the male version of the Mona Lisa. Seeing me made him stop smiling. He paused, tilting his head and speaking in a low tone. The ladies all turned their heads, except Marbles.

  I felt like I was under a spotlight. I panicked and turned, walking very quickly back to the living room to find Hattie. She pointed at a lady in the corner. “This is Mae. She’s going to show you around.” Hattie turned and left, just like the white rabbit would.

  The lady walked over with a silver teapot in her hand. “Name’s Mae. Now let’s walk and talk.” Her eyes caught my bandage. “Is that a problem for me or you?”

  I shook my head, almost scared we might have to do a Kumbaya girl’s moment.

  She nodded. “Okay, then.” Mae was old like Hattie and just as busy. She speed-walked everywhere she went, speaking very quickly in a dialect of English I didn’t entirely understand. At one point, I was certain there had been a talk of salt cod doing a jig.

  Regardless of not understanding why Jesus kept picking blueberries in a garden, I got the gist of my job.

  Firstly, smile. Not going to happen.

  Secondly, chat it up with the old people. Also, not going to happen.

  Thirdly, pour tea and hand out cookies they called biscuits. That I could do.

  And finally, tidy. I was undecided about it.

  We did rounds, and at every chair or table, Mae did the same thing. She nodded at me. “New kid. Here wit Hattie. Name’s Fin, like a whale has, doesn’t it, then?” The old people nodded and I wanted to run away. Some of the old people sounded like her and called me “my dear” for everything and referred to themselves as us, like the queen might.

  It couldn’t have gotten worse, but it did.

  We finally got around to the table of mean ladies. Mae said her spiel, and they all blushed introducing themselves, as if they hadn’t already given me a hard time. I was disappointed the hot guy was gone.

  I offered the cookies on the plate I was holding, each took one except Marbles. I looked down on her, and I saw something I hadn’t expected.

  When she hadn’t looked at me before, I figured she was the queen bee of the mean girls, seniors’ addition. But she wasn’t. She actually couldn't move. Her face hung on the left side, like it had been squished that way. She smiled at me with the right side of her face only. I didn’t have a response for the way it made me feel until she laughed. “It’s okay, have a look. Never seen a stroke before, have ya? I took it about four years ago. Hurt a lot. The left side abandoned me after that.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but the very same man in the short red shorts and no shirt ran past the window. He was like Robert Redford. So handsome, for an old dude, and running. He was fit as hell. He looked like a body builder.

  The ladies at the table laughed. “Even Fin can’t deny that ass. Look at the mug on her, Mae.”

  I felt my face turn crimson.

  Marbles—gah, Martha—gave me a half-faced smile. “You shoulda seen him when we were younger. It was like winning the lottery, marrying him.” I had to stop mentally calling her Marbles. I was going to say that out loud and she was going to kick my ass, stroke or not.

  I didn’t know what to say to any of them, but thankfully, Mae grabbed my arm gently. “We have dinner to preps for—you girls be good and stop letting Aiden gamble wit yas.” She pulled me away from the table. She was always adding an S to everything. It was weird.

  Mae leaned in and whispered, “Martha is married to Andrew. She always goes on about how handsome he is, but before the stroke, she was a stunner.”

  I gave Mae a look. “He’s here with her? He’s one of the old people?”

  She nodded. “That’s true love, my dear. He knew he didn’t have the ability to care for her, so he moved in here with her. Couldn't part with her. He’s a s
weet man. He could have been living a normal life away from this and just visited her here, but he said no way. I mean, Lord thundering Jesus, they’re only seventy years old. He’s got twenty years left, at a minimum, and he’s spending them here. She’s the one who might have a couple years. So he spends them here with her.”

  “He’s so fit. That's crazy and kinda cool.”

  “Aye, so fit. He runs nearly five days a week and lifts weights like three times.”

  I scowled at her. “Where are you from? They said you’re a Newf—I don't know what that means.”

  She laughed. “My dear, I’s from Newfoundland. Can’t ya tell? You must be a Yank to not know that.”

  “What is Newfoundland?”

  Her freckled face dropped. She stepped back. “Jesus picking blueberries in the garden, ya don’t know about God’s country, then?” She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to an office. “Ya needs a uniform anyway. Lord love a duck, I can’ts believe it. Aye, ya must see it.”

  She plunked herself into a leather chair and pressed a button on the laptop. It flashed on. She typed about as fast as she talked and suddenly the screen was filled with pictures of colorful houses, army bunkers, rocky fields with flowers, and streets full of poorly dressed people. She started to laugh. “My dear, getcha butt down and have a look. My mudder was from da Bay Roberts. She was sum tick wit her accent.” She thickened her already brutal accent to tell the story. “My fadder was from da city, St. Jans.” I could see on the computer screen it said Johns but she said Jans. “We was raised in the city. So my accent’s not so bad.” She started talking normal, for her. “See how grand it is? Now we’ll get ya on a plane and you can get screeched in on George Street. It’ll be grand.” She was up and grabbing a black-and-white uniform before I could get my eyes away from the pictures. She slapped it down and walked out of the office. “Be quick, eh.”

  I watched the door close and quickly Googled Facebook. I signed on and scrolled my page. There was nothing. Not a single person had sent me a message. No inboxes or “Hey, where are you?” There was nothing. The last post on my wall was from Carter about his house party.

  My stomach sank.

  They didn’t even care. I was gone for three days and they had stopped caring. Thus far, the only person who had cared was the airline lady. I signed out and erased the history. I slumped into the leather chair and pulled off my shirt. No one cared. No one cared that I was in Canada. It might as well have been Iceland, ‘cause no one cared.

  We had been friends since kindergarten. How was it possible that not one person gave a shit as to where I was?

  If the shoe were on the other foot, I would have… No. I would have continued partying and having fun.

  But not Linna.

  If Linna had left, I would have been devastated.

  I typed in Twitter and signed on. I checked Linna’s feed. It was rampant with invites to parties and pictures of her and our friends. But it wasn’t those tweets that caught my eyes. It was the post about seven down from the top that said: “A summer without TROUBLE. I think we can all sigh in relief!” She had retweeted Sheila’s post.

  What the fuck?

  Like a sucker for punishment, I clicked on it, seeing the seventy-five responses. All Sheila’s friends had commented on Sheila’s tweet.

  On Linna’s retweet, Aaron was the only person who hadn’t been excited or laughing at me for throwing up in the rose bushes—Carter’s mom’s prize rose bushes. I was in the rose bushes? How was that possible?

  Aaron’s post of a sad face was the only sincere one. Everyone else had guesses of where I was, juvie being the top guess, next to rehab. Did juvie even exist anymore? Either way, most of my “friends” assumed I was in rehab.

  I looked down at the bandage on my arm and a flash of something attempted to surface in my brain. I remembered the rose bushes; I could swear it.

  The door opened as I erased the history, fighting back bile. I looked up to see the hot guy. He smiled. “Playing on the computer or booking your flights home?” He had an English accent to go with his dreamy smile. Gah.

  I shook my head. “I’m not allowed to go home, unless I change.” Oh God, why had I said that?

  “That's a strange thing to say.” It was an odd thing to say, but he unnerved me. It was a peculiar feeling. He shrugged. “Most people are afraid of change. It is the unknown. We spend our lives watching everyone around us try and fail at change. But at the same time, if we indulge in those fears, we risk never becoming the person we were meant to be. Everyone is afraid; conquering that fear is where personal growth comes from. Do you think you can change or are you afraid?”

  I didn't have an answer for that. I shook my head. “My mom used to come here to Hattie’s when she was my age so Dad sent me hoping I’d be more like her.” Oh my God, was I becoming Rain Man? Why was I saying stupid shit?

  His eyes lowered to my chest. “Also a curious thing to say, especially since you are in such an interesting top. I knew you would be fascinating. You have that look about you.”

  I looked down. “What?” My hands scrambled and I grabbed the white shirt to cover my bra. “Shit! Stop looking.”

  “I don't think I could, regardless of how ungentlemanly that is.” He laughed and closed the door.

  “Oh my God!” I sighed and finished getting dressed, pondering why God was against me and why my brand new manicure was peeling already. Maybe it was God. Maybe he did hate me.

  I hurried back out to find the cute guy there, leaning against the wall. He smiled up through his inky lashes. “Aiden, uhm… Sor-Sorenson.” He put a hand out.

  I leaned against the wall. “I don't think we need to shake hands. You just saw me half naked.”

  He grinned. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to my favorites.” He held his hand in a direction down the hall. I pushed off and walked next to him. He nudged me. “Who have you met so far?”

  I looked back. “Everyone, but I’ve only talked to the ladies who play cards at the table and the cook.”

  He laughed. “The ladies at the table are my favorites, hands down. But if you follow me this way, you will meet my second favorites, but you must swear to never tell them I said that.” He stopped at a door and knocked. I looked up and down the hall. “Uh, are we supposed to go to their apartments?”

  He gave me a mischievous smile as the door opened. “Jack, I would love for you to meet Finley Roze.” His eyes never left mine. I tore my gaze and looked at the man in the doorway. He was probably the oldest man I’d ever seen in my life, but when he smiled and spoke with his soft English accent, he was possibly also the most charming. “Why hello, Finley Roze. It is lovely to meet you. Please come in.” His hands shook and his voice wavered, but he was dressed in a suit and vest. It was adorable. He was like an English gentleman. Unlike the other English dude standing next to me, who happened to know my name randomly. I ignored him and looked in the doorway.

  Inside the small apartment, there was a small lady. She was in a dress and looked even older than he did. “Millie, my dear, we have a guest. May I present Miss Finley Roze.” Her eyes landed on me and she nodded. “Hello.” But when she looked at Aiden, her smile grew from pleasant to ecstatic. “Aiden, my dear boy. How are you? How is your grandfather?”

  Aiden shook his head. “He’s not looking so good, but you are. You look remarkable.” He looked at Jack. “I must say, though, you’ve aged terribly.”

  She chuckled and Jack slapped him on the arm. Aiden gave me a sideways glance. “I brought her here to see it.”

  Jack held up a finger. “Of course. Of course you did.” He winked at me. “He brings all the pretty girls to see it.”

  I laughed, almost scared of what IT was.

  Jack turned his back and shuffled his feet over to the buffet near the small dining-room table. He turned back around, carrying something to me. He held a hand out. “Have a seat.” Aiden sat and I sat next to him on the couch. Jack sat and held out a brown picture frame that fo
lded. He opened it, revealing a black-and-white photo of two young people in an old-fashioned city. It was beautiful. They were standing next to a really old-fashioned bike with two seats.

  “The year was 1939, and I was about to join Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. I wanted to join like a regular lad might, stand in line and all. I was walking with my brother down the road when I saw this girl. Her shoe was stuck in the cobblestone. I ran over and the moment her blue eyes met mine, I knew. I knew, no matter how much of a gentleman I was expected to be, I couldn't look away. I boldly looked at her, like a cad. She smiled and I helped her with the shoe. We went for a walk and a man on the road, downtown London, offered us a bike built for two people.”

  “Like the old song,” Millie said. Her accent was as cute as his and Aiden’s.

  Jack smiled at her. “He told us we could use the bike if we agreed to pose for his advertisement. So we posed and he gave us the bike, and we rode all over the city.”

  Millie laughed, and it was like watching her be the young woman she was in the picture. “We rode all over. It was so romantic.”

  Jack smiled. “That was the day I fell in love. So I joined the navy and we courted.”

  Millie giggled again. “We wrote each other every single day he was at war. It was the most romantic way to fall in love.”

  I smiled. “It’s like Internet dating.” I couldn’t believe they had only ever dated each other. Yikes.

  Jack laughed and Aiden shook his head at me. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Shut up.” I shrugged. “It’s a sweet story.”

  Jack gave me a look. “Well, you two kids probably have a bunch of fun things to do today, and I am taking my girl for a soda.”

  Aiden stood and offered me his hand. I took it without thinking about the fact I didn't know him at all. He squeezed and lifted me. “Thanks, Jack!”

  Jack bowed slightly. “Of course. Anytime.” He winked at me again. “Don't let him sweet-talk you. Make him work for your heart.”

  I laughed. “Oh, uhm. Thank you.” That was random and weird. It dawned on me he might have a mental disorder like Alzheimer’s. Aiden pulled me to the door. I waved at Millie. “Thank you for letting me see the picture.”