The Mender

More Work

Esri woke up Sunday morning. It was such a wonderful luxury to be able to sleep in and not have to worry about Jilly, getting up for school, or really anything.

Though Joe occasionally worked on Sundays, it was fairly rare. Often Sunday mornings he would get up to make pancakes and fashion pieces of fruit into silly faces in the pancakes. Jilly's giggles coming from the kitchen were proof that he had done so this morning.

Esri thought about last night's dream. The dreams were coming more frequently now, and they were increasingly lingering in Esri's awake time. Esri worried about what was happening to the people in the dreams, Zura and Dagan. They felt so real. Where on earth were the dreams coming from? Cave people! The dreams kept coming and unrolling in a continuous story, like episodes in a TV series but way more realistic with Esri right there in the middle. And, the biggest mystery of all was why was it not possible to talk to anyone about the dreams?

Esri lay in bed. In a little while, Joe peeked in. "Just wanted to see if you were awake. I'm taking Jilly over to Nasima's. Farhana got free tickets for the girls to go the Halloween Party at Casa Loma today. I'll be back soon and make some pancakes for you."

Esri laughed. "I hope Farhana takes pictures. I'm sure their costumes will be memorable."

"Yeah, probably so." Joe seemed a bit off to Esri, kind of down. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"You ok, Dad?"

"Yeah, but something's come up. We'll talk when I'm back."

Esri got up and started making pancakes. She was putting them on her plate when Joe came back. "So, what's up, Dad?"

Joe poured a cup of coffee and joined Esri at the table. He sat quietly for a minute, looking off into the living room, gathering his thoughts. Esri knew something bad was coming and Joe was trying to figure out how to best to talk to her about it. This made Esri imagine the worst possible thing, which would be that Joe had some kind of terminal disease.

"Walt cut my pay."

"What? I thought Walt was your friend? You've worked for him for years! You're always there whenever he needs you. You even work when you're sick. What a jerk!"

"Calm down, Esri. I'm not blaming Walt, well, trying not to. The kind of contracting work we do has gotten really competitive. People are underbidding each other. Walt's having to drop his prices to get work. So he can't pay people like he used to. He's also had a few people who stiffed him or partly stiffed him when the job was done. He even had to lay off a couple of the regular guys who have worked with us for a while. At least I still have a job but I'm going to make $2 an hour less and that's almost $100 less a week, which means over $400 less a month. We're going to feel that, Esri."

"But I'm earning money from Clea. I'll give you what I make."

"I really wanted you to keep it. Teenagers need money. I don't want you to feel like you can't do anything. I've relied on you so much to look after Jilly and you've done a great job. And there's so much you do here at home, cooking and cleaning. And you're doing well in school. You're a great kid. You deserve some rewards."

"And you're a great Dad. You deserve some rewards, too."

Joe couldn't help but smile. "I've got you and Jilly. I couldn't ask for more. Anyway, I'm thinking about looking for a part-time job that I could do on Sundays, but it would mean you'd be looking after Jilly. Right now, that's your only free time. I wanted to talk to you about it."

"That's not a big deal. You know I can do that. But what about you? Working seven days a week? That's crazy. You need to have some fun too."

"Lots of the people that live in this building work more than one job, six or seven days a week. Anyway, it won't be forever. But first I've got to find this Sunday job." Joe nodded to Esri. "Thanks for your support, kiddo.'

"No problem."

"So, any big plans for today? You should get out and do something."

"Yeah, I'm going downtown with Ada and Luka. There's a concert thing happening at City Hall. One of the groups is from our school. You know Jerome's group."

"Ah right, the kid in the wheelchair who lives in our building. I hear he's pretty good. Sounds like fun."

Early afternoon, Ada and Luka came by and the three of them headed off to Nathan Phillips Square in front of City Hall. It was a crisp, bright day. Groups from various Toronto high schools were performing. The expansive square was packed, and the three friends hooked up with other classmates maneuvering as close as possible to the concert stage. They yelled and screamed when Jerome's group, Veracity, came on. While it wasn't a contest, everyone was clearly there to support the group from their school. Jerome's words and performance were mesmerizing. By the time Veracity finished, the whole crowd was in a frenzy.

Everyone who went to Esri's school knew Jerome. And most, like Esri, were in total awe of him. He lived in Esri's apartment building with his mother and younger sister, Brianna, who Esri knew from elementary school.

Esri usually gave Jerome a wide berth. He was a few years older and often with several other equally intimidating friends, not that Jerome or his friends ever said or did anything threatening. It was just that she was certain she would say something really dumb if they ever talked to her.

As well as being a brilliant rapper/singer/songwriter, Jerome was also an intense and riveting actor and at the centre of the school Drama Club, which is how Luka knew him.

The three friends were excited after Veracity's performance.

Luka bellowed, "Whoa, Jerome is incredible. And he's a really incandescent guy too."

"Luka, everyone and everything is incandescent to you. I think you need a new word," said Esri.

"Seriously, Esri. I know you find him scary, but you shouldn't run when you see him."

"I don't run."

"Oh yeah? Last week you slowed us down going into our building to avoid getting on the elevator with him."

"Yeah, well, now that you two are such good buds . . ."

"C'mon, let's go congratulate him," Luka said.

"Oh god, Luka, that's so embarrassing. He doesn't want to be congratulated by us."

"It'll only take a sec."

They made their way to the side of the stage. A lot of people were standing around Jerome but Luka maneuvered his way through, using his jokey manner to work open a pathway until he was right in front. Jerome was deep in conversation with some flashy looking promoter-type. Surely this was a bad time to butt in, thought Esri. As the promoter guy was talking, Jerome turned his head, saw Luka, and a huge grin spread across Jerome's face. "Hey, man."

"Hey Jerome, don't want to interrupt but just wanted to say that you were IN-CAN-DESCENT and that it was not only our school makin' noise. You had that whole crowd in the palm of your hand."

"Hey, thanks, Luka. Thanks for coming over."

The promoter guy looked annoyed and started talking to Jerome again. Just then, the dead mouse smell, like at the donut shop, hit Esri. She started to slowly back away. The smell was coming from the promoter.

"Ada, are you smelling something gross, like something died?" Esri asked.

"Ah, no. Maybe you stepped on something?"

As in the donut shop, no one else appeared to notice the awful stink.