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  I say, “You better stop, Mommy. You’re not doing a very good job.”

  I’m surprised the audience laughs at that. Mimi pretends to be hurt.

  Even then, I sort of know she’s joking, but I hug her anyway. I love her so much. I don’t want to make her unhappy. I pat her with my sticky hands and say, “That’s okay. Don’t be sad. You can have one of my twuffles!”

  The audience does that awww thing. I know that’s good.

  I say, “Which one do you want?”

  Mom says, “Can I really have any one I want?”

  I give this big, slow nod.

  Mom thinks about it for a second, then she suddenly leans over and licks the dough off my forehead. I’m so surprised my eyes fly wide open like I’m a character in an anime cartoon or something.

  Mom goes, “Mmm-mmm good!” and hugs me.

  We cut to a commercial. No one can hear her telling me what a great job I did, but I remember.

  I have to admit—that was a really good segment. I was so cute! The hair, the hat, the funny voice. It makes me laugh seeing it again.

  Then it makes me cry.

  7

  Friday, 10 p.m.

  You, You and Mimi

  Mimi and world-renowned nutritional psychologist Dr. Zita Fenwick-Wilson explore the roots and causes of emotional eating in “Food Is Love.”

  I can’t stop bawling. I keep changing the channel but it doesn’t help. Mimi’s on three other stations. What kind of pathetic person is watching this stuff at ten o’clock on a Friday night? I chuck the remote at the TV and get out.

  I go to the kitchen. I’m going to stuff my face with something. Nutella. Bagel chips. A row or two of Fudgee-Os. I don’t care. Just something to fill the hole. I pull open a cupboard door. I see the food and I think of “Eating Like a Birdie.” I start crying all over again. I slam the door so hard it bounces back open.

  I’ve got to get out of the kitchen before I break something. I make it to the door but can’t go any farther. I don’t know what to do. I look up and down the hall as if I’ve never seen this place before. As if I have no idea where to go.

  And I don’t. I’m too scared to move. I’m too scared to even think about moving because I know there will be something somewhere that will get me crying again. For a second, I consider racing down the hall and locking myself in my room, but even thinking that makes my eyes sting again. I know I’m not safe there either.

  I get this picture in my head of the tall blond designer Mom had on that segment “Decorating for Your Teen” and something about that one word—Your—just practically kills me. I slide down onto the floor and bang and bang and bang my head against the wall until I stop thinking about that stuff…

  I’m not sure how much time has passed, but I’m calmer now. I have to do something. Mom can’t find me like this. I get up. I go into the kitchen and make sure the cupboard door is closed. I leave one light on, over the stove. Mimi will turn it off when she gets home. (She can’t stand wasting electricity. Viewers would be surprised to see how cheap she can be.)

  I go to the TV room. I find the remote I threw and put it on the coffee table. I turn off the television. I line the magazines up neatly. I fold the blanket over the back of the couch.

  I wasn’t anywhere else. I didn’t leave a mess anywhere else. I checked. I’m sure. I can go to bed now.

  Except that I don’t.

  I go to Mom’s room.

  8

  Friday, 11 p.m.

  Late Night with Campbell Irving

  Guest star Mimi Schwartz discloses the almost comical lengths she’s gone to for a little privacy in her floodlit life.

  At first, all I do is stand in the doorway and stare. I don’t know why. I just feel like I want to look at it.

  Next thing I know though, I’m going through her bedside table, rifling through her closet, checking her medicine cabinet, her desk. I have no idea what I expect to find. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Some clue, I guess.

  There’s a folder in her desk with my grandmother’s obituary and my parents’ marriage certificate and my report cards and other documents like that. I don’t bother reading any of them. They won’t have the type of clue I’m looking for. I don’t want facts. I want something real.

  Nothing in this room is real. It’s all designer clothing, European face creams, the latest magazines. There’s no Mimi here.

  I see that picture of me on her bedside table and pick it up. When they took it, I hadn’t even got braces or glasses or fat yet. I was just chubby. It hits me that this is like some upside-down version of a “Before and After” segment. This time it’s the “Before” that’s cute and happy and almost pulled-together. It’s the “After” that’s big and lumpy and mad and totally, totally hopeless.

  I ram my palm into my forehead and scrunch my eyes closed. I don’t want to remember the last time I was on Mimi’s show but it’s in my head now and it won’t go away.

  I was about eleven, I guess. It had been a while since I’d been on-air even then, but Mother’s Day was coming up. I had to make an appearance. The wardrobe people wanted to put Mom and me in matching outfits but it didn’t take them long to change their minds. It was pretty clear that everything that looked good on her was going to look terrible on me.

  I had a belly and frizzy hair and bad posture and I couldn’t stop rubbing my nose with the back of my wrist. They made me keep my hands in my pockets and they straightened my hair and put me in black pants and a jacket that accentuated my so-called waist—but none of it helped. Nobody went awww when I came on this time. The hour-long special they’d planned of our mother-and-daughter excursion got edited down to a five-minute segment. The producers tried to fluff it up with fuzzy lenses and long shots of us holding hands and Mimi’s sappy voice-over about our special time together—but even then the problem was obvious.

  Me.

  Big, ugly, awkward me.

  Where did I come from? How could perfect little Mimi Schwartz produce someone like me? No wonder she took me off the air. No wonder she sent me to boarding school.

  I start making these little shivery sobs, but I bite my lip until they stop. I hold my breath.

  Mimi could be home any second. I’ve got to get out of her room—but I can’t. Not yet. Because suddenly I know why I’m here.

  I pull the chair out. I check the curtains behind it and the table beside it. I look for a box, a safe, a hole in the floor. I need to find out where that ring came from. I rub my hands over the upholstery and down the legs. I flip the chair over. The cloth on the bottom is beige and rough. It’s attached to the frame with little round-topped tacks. One of them is missing.

  It’s as if an alarm goes off in my head. I stick my finger in the gap where the tack should be. I can’t feel anything. I shake the chair. I hear something sliding over the fabric.

  I get the letter opener from Mimi’s desk and pry out a few more tacks. I tip the chair again. The corner of an old photo pokes out of the hole. I can’t get at it. I take out a few more tacks. The picture drops onto the floor.

  I don’t have time to look at it. I’ve got to fix the chair before Mom comes home. I have to do it right. Otherwise, she’ll notice.

  I run for the little hammer Anita keeps in the broom closet. I sort of laugh. There was a segment on the other day about how to reupholster a chair. I remember the guy telling Mimi that you have to pull the fabric tight and tack the centre of each side first. It’s sort of funny—Mom has actually managed to teach me quite a bit over the years. Me and millions of others of course.

  I bang in the tacks. I turn the chair over and check to make sure it’s lined up the way Anita likes. I back out of the room, wiping my footprints off the carpet as I go. That’s overkill, I know. Mimi would never notice a little thing like that.

  Or would she?

  I’m safely back in my room, looking at the photo, when I hear her come in. I’ve seen this picture before, or at least one like it. There aren’t ma
ny shots of Mom as a kid. Their house burned down when she was a teenager. They lost almost everything.

  This one looks like it was taken on a class trip. There are a bunch of kids leaning against this lady. There’s a boulder in the background and maybe a beach. Most people are laughing, as if the guy taking the picture just mooned them or something. Mom’s off to one side. She’s not laughing, just sort of smiling. She’s either nervous (hard to believe) or the photographer caught her off guard. There are some names on the back of the photo. They don’t mean anything to me. I don’t remember Mom ever mentioning a Tracy-Lynn or a Lenore.

  I hear Mom walk down the hall. She stops outside my room. I want to ask her when the photo was taken and why she hid it—but I don’t.

  I slip it under my pillow and turn off the light. She knows I’m awake but she doesn’t open the door. She doesn’t knock. After a couple of seconds, she just turns and walks back to her room.

  That’s when I decide to go.

  9

  Saturday, 10 a.m.

  Radio Mimi

  In “True or False,” Mimi welcomes family counsellor Deni Ogunrinde, author of Teen-y, Weeny Lies: Coping with Adolescent Dishonesty.

  Hi Mom,

  Sorry I didn’t get up in time to say goodbye in person. Gone to Dad’s. You can reach me on my cell. I know you’re busy though, so don’t worry if you don’t have time.

  I’m wearing that new shirt you got me in Barcelona. Thanks. I really like it.

  See you on the 21st,

  Robin

  “Hello.”

  “Ah…hi. Kelly?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Robin…”

  “Robin?”

  “Steve’s daughter.”

  “Oh! Sorry. Didn’t recognize your voice.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s me all right, ha-ha! May I talk to Dad?”

  “You just missed him. There a message?”

  “Yeah. I’m supposed to come to your place today—”

  “What? Steve didn’t tell me that! He’s on the road! I don’t know what you’d do here all alone with me—”

  “Kelly?”

  “—I’m teaching yoga! I’m purging! I’ve got to take Bruno to the vet! I’m—”

  “Kelly?…Kelly?…That’s what I was calling about. Something’s come up. I can’t come after all.”

  “Oh…ah…Really? Too bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe we can set something up for another time, you know, one that’s not so busy.”

  “Right. Sure. Well, tell Dad I said hi.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks for calling.”

  “No problem. See ya.”

  “Peace.”

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: So there

  Selena

  Just so u know, I did get off my ass. I’m at the airport. I’m on my way 2 Port Minton, Nova Scotia. I’ll send u a postcard when I find out who gave Mimi the ring.

  Don’t work too hard,

  Robin

  Message 734

  hey anita. i made it c u in 3 weeks R

  10

  Saturday, 7 p.m.

  You, You and Mimi (rerun)

  “Voyages of Discovery.” Mimi interviews women whose lives were irrevocably changed by a simple road trip.

  The bus driver pulls over to the side of the road and goes, “Okay, little lady, this is it! Port Minton.” He cranks open the door.

  I bend forward and look out the window. I go, “Where?” MapQuest just showed a tiny dot for Port Minton, NS (as in Nova Scotia), so I’m not expecting much—a little village maybe, a store or two—but there’s nothing here.

  Like, I mean, nothing.

  I’m talking a couple of shabby houses still sporting their Christmas lights. A mobile home with a dog chained out front. An old boat leaning against a wharf. That’s it.

  The bus driver points across the highway and says, “See that road? Beautiful downtown Port Minton is right at the end.”

  The lady knitting in the front seat laughs, so I kind of laugh too and sit back down again. I figure he’s joking. I guess the guy has to do something on these long trips to keep himself amused.

  The bus driver looks at me through the rearview mirror. “Hey!” he goes. “Isn’t this where you wanted to get off?”

  “You’re serious?” I say. “This is where I get off for Port Minton?” I put on my backpack and wheel my suitcase to the front of the bus.

  Someone says, “Yup—what’s left of it!” That gets a few chuckles.

  The bus driver says, “You never been here before?”

  I shake my head.

  “You got people here?”

  I shake my head again.

  “Then Lord liftin’, girl. What are you doing coming here?”

  Good question. I don’t know. I obviously wasn’t thinking straight last night.

  “Well. Um. I came to see the school,” I say, because I sort of have to say something. “You know, Port Minton High.”

  Everyone’s put down their knitting and word searches now. I’m clearly the most exciting thing that’s happened on this bus route in some time.

  A guy I thought was asleep goes, “That school’s been closed for a good ten, twelve years!”

  “Oh, more than that, Arch,” someone says. “Seems to me it shut down right after the fish plant did.”

  “What’s a fish plant?” I say.

  This teenage kid snorts at me as if he’s Selena’s long-lost brother and goes, “You don’t know what a fish plant is? What—you a Bister or something, girl?”

  I don’t know what a Bister is either, but I know better than to ask. The bus driver shuts the guy up pretty quick.

  “Listen here, buddy, I’m not having that type of talk on my bus. Understood? This young lady’s not from around here. My guess is she’s from the city.”

  He looks at me with his eyebrows up and smiles. I nod. I’m not lying. New York’s a city.

  “No reason you should know what a fish plant is, then. But seeing as you asked…the fish plant’s where they used to clean the cod the men caught. Not much cod around here any more so they shut down the plant. Most everybody had to move to find work. Port Minton pretty much died after that. The high school closed. Any kids still living around here—and there ain’t many—go into Shelton, the town we passed a ways back. People put up a big fuss about it but the kids don’t seem to mind. They like being where the action is.”

  The action. Like there’s any action around here. I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

  The bus driver pulls the door closed.

  “Look, dear,” he says. “You don’t have to get off here if you don’t want. If you can stand me for six more hours, I’ll get you back to the airport. But you got to make up your mind. I got a schedule to keep. If I’m late into Cape Sable again, they’ll skin me alive. So what’ll it be? On or off?”

  The bus driver’s nice enough. He’s not going to hurt me or anything but my heart starts pounding like crazy. I hate making decisions.

  I stand there with this stunned look on my face.

  The knitting lady takes pity on me. She says, “Irvine, the school’s still here. Maybe she just wanted to see the building. For its—you know—architecture or something.”

  The bus driver perks up. “Oh. Is that it?” he says. “You just wanted to see the building?”

  I blink him into focus. I nod. Sure. The architecture. That’s it.

  “Well then,” he says. “That’s easy enough!” He points out the window. “The school’s just ten, fifteen minutes down that road over there. Can’t miss it.”

  He opens the door again. “I’d take you down myself, but like I says, they’d skin me alive if I’m late into the Cape.”

  I thank him and bump my Louis Vuitton suitcase down the steps.

  The knitting lady says, “I like your bag, dear. I bought myself a pink one just like it at the S
ackville Flea Market last week.”

  The bus driver waves and pulls back onto the highway. I stand on the shoulder and look across at the sad little dirt road that leads to Port Minton.

  I kick a paper coffee cup into the ditch. Only I could run away from home and end up in a place like this.

  11

  Saturday, 8 p.m.

  Mini Mimi

  In the first episode of her new teen talk show, Mimi interviews homecoming queens Alyssa Milobar and Erica Allan about navigating the perils of high school society.

  Apparently, Monsieur Vuitton didn’t design the wheels on my luggage for dirt roads. One of them is already jammed. I’m pretty much just dragging the suitcase now. It’s getting all scratched to hell. Anita’s going to kill me when she sees it.

  Good. Put me out of my misery.

  What was I thinking, just up and taking off like that? As if it was going to prove something to Selena. As if Mom ever would have set foot in a place like this. As if I even care where that stupid ring comes from. This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

  Next time I run away, I’m going to Paris. At least I know my way around there. At least there’d be un bellhop to carry mon bagage. At least the food is good.

  Food.

  That’s my problem. That’s why I’m such a wreck.

  I’m starving. How long has it been since I ate? I didn’t eat last night. I had too much to do. Even with Mapquest, it wasn’t easy tracking down Port Minton, let alone figuring out how to get here. (Anita always handles my travel plans.)

  I didn’t eat this morning either. I couldn’t. I was too nervous. I was sure Tony was going to realize something was up. He’s usually standing by the limo for hours, all in a panic, waiting for me. This time, I wanted to go to the airport two hours earlier than scheduled! I’ve just got to pray he put it down to a sudden spurt of maturity.