Lifted

In gymnastics, Dana was not the leader. That was Cheryl Ingram, whose handsprings had spunk. She arched from feet to hands to feet again and again then planted, arms raised, chest puffed like a pigeon.

“That Ingram girl’s got spunk,” Dana’s mother said as they drove home after practice. Snow flurried in the Labrador night. Vanilla Ice on the radio: “If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it . . .” He was the coolest. Dana’s hands smelled of chalk and rubber and bare feet.

Cheryl Ingram’s legs were sinew and muscles and ball joints perfectly aligned and limber and lean. Even her butt poking out of her leotard was muscular. She had a mean underbite that fixed her face in a scowl. Cheryl explained to Dana that her handsprings needed lift. It was all about timing, she said. You either have it or you don’t.

One day before practice Dana peed a little bit. She must have held it too long or maybe she was too cold from the three-minute walk between her mother’s van and the gym. The pee made a dark stain on her leotard and she hoped the others wouldn’t notice. Gymnasts were upside down a lot, though. It was all crotches and bottoms, soles and palms, pits and arms.

They gathered, the team of five taking turns performing their floor routines. Provincials were in Newfoundland in two weeks.

“I smell . . . piss.” Cheryl crossed her arms and squinted as she surveyed the group of ten-year-old girls. They sniffed obediently.

Cheryl leaned into Dana. Dana could see the hair on her crossed arms. “Dana? You pissed yourself?” Cheryl’s stare lowered to Dana’s crotch. “You’re fucking gross.” She shook her head as if suffering on everyone’s behalf then glided onto the floor with the slick grace of a swan. Dana retreated behind the others and watched Cheryl’s routine, which was majestic and stain-free.

Dana’s mind withdrew to Newfoundland, where she spent her summers. There, she picked bakeapple berries, sold them to tourists on the highway then day-tripped with her mother to St. John’s, where she spent her berry money on school clothes

at the Avalon Mall. The mall was more exciting than the moon. Her hometown in Labrador didn’t have a mall. It didn’t have McDonald’s or stoplights or taxi cabs either. You had to take a plane or a ferry to see those things. In the summers, Dana and her parents filled coolers with Oreo cookies, Tang, ham sandwiches, celery, and peanut butter and lugged them onto the Sir Robert Bond ferry, where they set up in a four-berth cabin. When Dana sat on the top bunk, her head grazed the ceiling so her hair floated with static. Her bunk had a night-light that buzzed and the walls creaked as they sailed for thirty-two hours from Goose Bay to Lewisporte, the intercom binging every time it announced the start of a movie or the sighting of an iceberg.

Last summer Dana had toured the Avalon Mall with her older cousin Judy and some of Judy’s friends. Judy was thirteen with friendship bracelets shielding both tanned arms. A streak of blue garnished her blond hair. She wore gold feather earrings, tight, ripped jeans, and studded leather ankle boots. Everyone wanted to be her friend. A group of boys slumped at a table in the food court and one of them hollered at Judy. She glanced, smiled, and kept walking, her feather earrings ticktocking above her neck.

The It Store was new and electric and like nothing Dana had ever seen. It was bursting with toys and noise and games and candy and lights and Dana thought of her home, her street, her school in Labrador and couldn’t understand how those places existed at the same time as this store. Even the carpet was out-of-this-world blue, speckled with comets and moons and planets and stars. Nothing was recognizable, not even the music, which seemed to wobble and click. Judy gave her the tour as if the place belonged to her. One wall was made entirely of Rubik’s cubes. Lite-Brite screens lined another wall with pixelated clowns and sailboats and Pac-Man. Balloons floated around an enormous pillar of candy powder with eight dispensers, each containing a different flavour. Green apple blast, blue cotton candy, dragon fruit. You could combine the flavours to make a rainbow. Judy led them to the back of the store, where the lights were dim and everything had breasts. Mugs with breasts, slippers with breasts, T-shirts and aprons with breasts. Ruby nipples pointed in every direction. Judy put on a breast hat and turned it sideways. One of Judy’s friends choked on her candy powder, laughing, coughing up green apple blast slime, wiping her face with her sleeve.

“You need adult supervision back there,” a clerk barked from behind the counter.

At the front of the store there was a display piled with stuffed toys. Judy casually placed them into sex positions. Giraffes humping frogs, hippos humping elephants, a monkey groping a moose. Her friends cowered, giggled, squeezed candy powder into their mouths, and when Judy twirled on her heel and left the store, they followed.

During the final week before provincials, the coaches took videos of the girls’ routines. In the front foyer, Cheryl sat inches from the TV screen, remote clutched in her hand, replaying sections of her routine. Dana straddled on the floor, stretching her hamstrings.

“Didn’t think my split leap hit 180, but it totally did.” Cheryl paused the video as she crested the leap.

“Awesome line, Cheryl.” Tracy sat in half-lotus on the floor in front of Emily who massaged her shoulders.

“Dana, look at your humpback. I can’t stop looking at it.”

Dana straightened. “What?”

Cheryl paused the video, zooming in on Dana, who stood near the uneven bars, cradling her elbows. She slumped forward, slightly rounding her back.

“Our very own humpback. Humpback of Notre Dana.” Cheryl stooped and snickered.

Emily smiled and focused on Tracy’s shoulders. Tracy stared at the floor.

“And why do you always hold your elbows? You look like a moron.”

Still stooped, Cheryl held her own elbows, rocked, grunted, and snorted as she forced her top teeth over her bottom lip.

“Cheryl, settle down. Not cool.” Tracy kept her eyes on the floor between her legs. “Cool? I don’t give two shits about cool. Poise is crazy important. Moron here is going to drag down our score with her fucking humpback.”

“I won’t slouch at Provincials, Cheryl. It’s just . . . I was relaxing.” Dana’s mouth was pasty. She pretended to stretch her other hamstring.

“You of all people should not be relaxing. Your back extension? S-l-o-p-p-y. Why are you even on this team?”

Cheryl threw the remote control on the floor near Dana. The battery shot out, ricocheted, and hit Dana’s bent knee. Jittery, Dana picked up the battery and replaced it in the remote. Her mouth and throat dry as salt.

“What on earth’s on your arms? Zits? Do you even wash?”

Every winter, prickly red pimples appeared on the underside of Dana’s arms. She rooted in her bag for her sweatshirt and pulled it over her head. Swallowing hard, her throat muscles were tight and hot. Cheryl stomped out of the room. They didn’t watch the rest of the video. Dana was glad of it. She had missed music cues in three places.

The weekend of Provincials arrived and the plane landed in St. John’s at nine thirty in the morning. They registered at the gym. Opening ceremonies started at six o’clock in the evening, which meant a full day at the Avalon Mall.

Dana pictured herself leading her team around the mall. She’d show them the food court. She’d recommend Teen Burgers at A&W, the frozen glass of slushy root beer. She would present the It Store, its candy, its carpet, its breasts. She would place the stuffed toys in sex positions. She’d show them that it was no big deal for her. She’d remember to shrug. Dana would show them that she was all about having fun in the big city.

In the mall Cheryl was on a mission. There was a hot tub in their hotel and she had forgotten her swimsuit. She would meet them at A&W.

The girls ordered their burgers and fries and were just finishing as Cheryl arrived and plopped a bag in the middle of their table. She leaned on the bag as if she was holding down a wild beast.

“I changed the price tag on this swimsuit. Look!” She flaunted a shimmering blue and lime-green swimsuit. Its price tag: $9.99.

“It was actually $29.99.”

“You shoplifted, Cheryl? Seriously?” Tracy dug in her chin, repulsed. The others exchanged glances. Eyes widened.

“Oh, lighten up, Tracy. It’s just a swimsuit.” Cheryl straightened and frowned at the bag.

“It’s really no big deal, Tracy,” Dana said. “It was probably goin’ on sale anyway.” “It’s a Speedo, you idiot. Speedos don’t go on sale. It’s a top-of-the-line competitive swimsuit.” Cheryl glared at Dana and snatched her bag off the table.

Dana’s hands trembled. “Don’t call me that.”

“What are you going to do? Lift your leg and piss on me?” The others laughed and Dana flushed. She got up and walked away, hoping that at least one of the girls would follow but none of them did.

As Dana walked through the mall she noticed a mannequin in a storefront with spiked hair and feathered earrings. She entered and gazed at the clothing thinking of Cheryl’s nasty face, her back handsprings, her hairy arms. Her hands stopped shaking as she sifted through the clothing. Feathers and fringes and spikes. This must be the style for city girls. Judy probably shops here. She should call Judy. No one would laugh at Judy. Dana grabbed an armful of feathery, fringed, spiky items.

In the fitting room she tried on the new clothes. The clothing looked edgy on her scrawny frame as she posed, puckered her lips, and raised a shoulder in the mirror. She was a city girl, just like that. Her spirits lifted. A pink and silver cashmere sweater was the softest and most luxurious thing she had ever touched. It draped her shoulders and even gave shape to her flat chest. All of a sudden she had little curved breasts. She angled the sweater off one shoulder. The fitting room lights caught the silver and sparkled. She stared at herself as though this vision might disappear at any moment.

Dana counted her money and looked at the price tags and made her piles of yeses, nos, and maybes, the way her mother had taught her on their shopping days. The cost of the sweater exceeded the entire amount of her spending money. She tried it on again. Breasts. She sat on the floor of the fitting room.

Dana zipped her coat up to her chin, careful not to hitch the pink and silver wool. She kept both hands on her wallet, holding it tightly to stop her hands from shaking as she paid for the other items. Her heart pounded as she exited the store. Nothing beeped. The sweater was hers. She was a city girl and she had breasts.

As she walked through the mall she removed her coat and tucked it into her shopping bag. The sweater was loose and light and she felt a breeze on her midriff. She focused on her posture and swung her shopping bag like a pendulum. Studded leather boots with heels would make this outfit, she thought. A click-clack to let people know that she has arrived. A group of boys walked in her direction. She was sure that their eyes lingered and she resisted the urge to make eye contact as they passed. They’d look back at her, nudge each other. Perhaps they’d make a comment about her breasts. She found her team outside the movie theatre.

“Wow! Nice sweater, Dana!” Emily pet the wool like it was a lamb.

“How much?” Cheryl snapped.

“Free.” Dana put her hands on her hips. “Lifted.”

“No you didn’t.” Cheryl moved closer, examining the sweater.

Tracy was shaking her head. “You guys are gonna get us sent home.”

“We’re not stupid, Tracy. You don’t take stuff that has detectors on it.” Cheryl touched the sweater, rubbing the wool between her fingers.

“Dana, bring it back. Tell them you forgot or something.” Emily scanned the others for allies.

Dana considered this. She had taken so many items into the fitting room. She could say it was an accident. Or she could go back and admit what she did. Maybe they’d let her off this once, praise her for fessing up.

“The sweater looks awesome, Dana. It’s a perfect fit for you.” Cheryl’s face softened as she linked arms with Dana. The two of them slipped seamlessly away from the group.

Later, Cheryl and Dana walked out of a shoe store with matching black heeled boots that had leather fringes around the ankles. The heels clicked on the tile floor as alarms sounded and lights beamed and flashed. The cashier swept them to the back of the store as she ordered a call for security.

“Boots off. Now!” The cashier was a petite woman with big hair and cigarette-stained fingers. As she emptied their bags her eyebrows lifted, making rows of wrinkles across her forehead that reminded Dana of quicksand. The girls’ old running sneakers poked out of the pile of sparkling, fringed, stolen clothing that was now strewn over the grey carpet. They stood barefoot. Cheryl started to weep.

The security guards’ office was in the basement of the mall. On the desk an ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts and foil gum wrappers and fresh new ashes from the cigarette the guard held between his teeth. Cheryl sat at another desk with another guard, crying, her body coiled and retching. She pointed in Dana’s direction and gestured to her shirt. She was telling them about the sweater. The air, stale and heavy, reeked of cigarettes and damp concrete. Dana felt a hot wave of nausea as the sweater clung to the sweat on her back. She looked down and in the dull light it appeared grey. The bits that made it sparkle, Dana could see, were thin slivers of foil, not unlike the foil in the ashtray. The slivers made her itch and the tag scraped the back of her neck. Cheryl’s sobs morphed into a raspy rhythm of someone sweeping.

In a swift overhead manoeuvre, Dana peeled the sweater from her body and carefully placed it on the guard’s desk. The sobbing ceased. The guard lowered his cigarette, blinking turtle-like at Dana in her sports bra, minding her posture. Through

the arched swarm of smoke, Dana barely recognized Cheryl, her outline concave, wilted. The only sound was the cackle of springs in the chairs beneath the featherweight of their bodies.