Swan Dive by Brenda Hasiuk

Author:Brenda Hasiuk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2019-03-21T20:14:48+00:00

October 13, 1999

Before we finished the session, Budgie asked about Fargo again and I told her there was nothing really to say because it was just a school trip. Spend four and a half hours on a bus, sing at the civic auditorium that looked like a concrete bunker, go back to the hotel, swim in the pool, go to bed, wake up, eat cold waffles from the breakfast buffet, spend four and a half hours on the bus again.

But I’ve been thinking about that night in Fargo, how anyone with eyes could see that Elle was different. When she sat on Ivan’s shoulders in the pool, trying to knock Ingrid off Scottie Abrams and Izzie off Luke Chipeway, she looked just like any other girl. With their wet hair it was hard to tell who was who.

But she was acting like any other girl too. They kept yelling at me to come in, or saying they were going to throw me in, but I was pretty sure they didn’t really care if I was with them or not. It’s like they were a bunch of dolphins jumping around in the water playing some game I didn’t understand. And it’s like Elle was splashing ten feet away from me but I was a rocky planet all by myself.

I’m doing this at the tailor shop because there’s nothing to do but listen to the drill of the sewing needles or watch the Filipino soaps they play on the VCR.

I keep thinking about Hana’s wedding. I’m pretty sure once a dead star explodes, that’s it. There’s no going back together, not even for a special occasion, but Ivan said the supernova explosion can sometimes briefly outshine its entire home galaxy.

I remember Elle said she didn’t believe in the paternalistic institution of marriage and that Frieda said it was an outdated custom invented for legal and financial reasons and was exclusionary toward gays and singles. I asked her why she wanted to come to Hana’s then and she said she’d never been to a wedding so it was an experience.

For the reception Amina wanted me to sing “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” except the Elvis Presley version. But it didn’t feel right, maybe because it felt like CristElle’s song and because lightning pretty much never strikes twice.

I looked into “As Long as You Love Me” by the Backstreet Boys, but Elle said it was the processed cheese of love songs and I could never listen to it again without thinking about that. She played Depeche Mode’s “Somebody” for Hana, who actually liked it because she remembered the band from the clubs back in Sarajevo. I asked them if they were serious because those guys looked like zombies with their powder white faces and light-socket hair, and Elle said they were what Ivan called mid-80s New Wave retro. She said Ivan had a CD music collection that took up two walls of his bedroom.

But I still thought that song was just as lame as the Backstreet Boys.

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