Smells Like Heaven

Sally Cooper

Description

Set in the fictional town of Fletcher, the connected stories in Smells Like Heaven span thirty years. Fletcher is a town the characters strive to escape, but keep returning to, as they stumble through life searching for ways to connect and transcend their claustrophobic pasts. Following two sisters—Devon and Christine—as well as their friends and lovers, Smells Like Heaven exposes the core of what it means to be transformed by love.

Informations

• Publié par: Arbeiter Ring Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781894037433
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

SMELLS LIKE HEAVEN


Smells Like Heaven
stories
SALLY COOPER
ARP Books • Winnipeg

Copyright © 2017 Sally Cooper
ARP Books (Arbeiter Ring Publishing)
Treaty 1 Territory and Historic Métis Nation Homeland
205-70 Arthur Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada R3B 1G7
arpbooks.org
Cover image copyright © Melanie Rocan
Book design and layout by Relish New Brand Experience, Winnipeg.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
This book is fully protected under the copyright laws of Canada and all other countries of the Copyright Union and is subject to royalty.









ARP Books acknowledges the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Province of Manitoba through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Book Publisher Marketing Assistance Program of Manitoba Culture, Heritage, and Tourism.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Cooper, Sally (Sally Elizabeth), author
Smells like heaven / Sally Cooper.
Short stories.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-894037-91-4 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-894037-43-3 (EPUB)
I. Title.
PS8555.O59228S54 2017
C813’.6
C2017-900959-1
C2017-900960-5

To Raven and Isis, forever and ever and always


Special
“The rest of you could learn from Devon.”
Mr. Trask waves Devon’s report on the Royal Ontario Museum’s Arctic Exhibit like a football pennant. Devon holds her breath against his smell of lizards and Old Spice. Mr. Trask pats Devon’s desk. “Brilliant insights on the plight of the narwhal,” he says. Then he appoints Devon to babysit Checkers, the class snake, this weekend because he’s flying to Detroit to see Elvis Presley.
“With his lover,” Wendy Booth says at recess.
She means Guy, who lives with Mr. Trask in his house and who helped him bring in their pet Komodo dragon one time.
Mr. Trask says to ask her parents, but Devon doesn’t bother. Her mom wears a ring with a snake’s head poking through a looped tail.
Friday afternoon, the bus driver lets Devon have the front seat to herself. Her knee and hip bones sore from growing, Devon wedges into the corner and straightens her legs. In her Adidas bag, she’s stashed Checkers’s heating pad, light, and water dish. An opaque plastic case, its blue lid poked with holes, carries Checkers himself.
Wendy turfs two grade ones out of the seat behind Devon.
“I’m your backup,” Wendy says. Then she calls Devon gay because agreeing to take Checkers means Devon likes Mr. Trask, which means Gay By Association, though it’s not as if Devon had a choice.
Devon’s test scores were the highest in the school, among the highest in the province. Mr. Trask encourages her, acts like her friend. But she has friends. For instance, she plays with Wendy when Wendy can’t find anyone else, smiley Wendy who has good ideas and doesn’t mind Devon’s smartness or at least doesn’t usually say mean things about it.
“I hate Mr. Trask,” Devon says, knowing Wendy will approve.
Wendy’s family lives right in Fletcher, so she’s supposed to get off at the General Store bus stop with everyone else. Instead she stays on and gets off with Devon, Devon’s little sister Christine, and Will Nestor at their stop north of Fletcher across from the one-room schoolhouse. Their parents went there and most of the teenagers in town, too, until it closed ten years ago. It stood empty until a benefactor converted it into a private school for children with special needs. Apple orchards and a field with a pony in it border the hilly yard behind the schoolhouse building. Little stakes joined by string map the field to the south, which has a gravel road through it for the subdivision that will go there when people buy up all the planned houses. It will be Fletcher’s third subdivision. The fields behind Devon’s house are the only ones left connected to the village. A blue station wagon sits close to the school door, which has GIRLS carved in stone above it.
Wendy stares at Will, hips cocked, arms crossed, until he says, “What?” then tramps off towards his house.
“You, too,” Wendy says to Christine, who doesn’t budge. When Devon says, “Shoo fly,” Christine runs across the road and down their driveway, her legs in their red leotards and black rubber boots pumping hard.
“Let’s give those special kids a treat,” Wendy says after Will and Christine are out of sight. “Let them play Hide and Snake. Get it?” She swings open the gate and runs across the parking lot, the tops of her fingers pushed into her jean jacket pockets.
“Somebody’s here.”
Devon walks over to Wendy, the snake’s box wobbling as she strains to hold it level.
Wendy is cupping her eyes against the pebbled glass window.
“It’s the cleaner.” Devon feels grateful that Wendy hasn’t used her parents’ word for slow kids, a word that makes her hot and clenched. Her cuffs over her fingers, she peers through the window, too. Checkers’s box pokes her belly.
“I have to set up Checkers’s home,” Devon says.
“You don’t get to keep him.”
“I do for the weekend.”
Devon switches Checkers’s case from hand to hand as she slings her bag onto one shoulder and the snake’s onto the other.
“These kids deserve fun as much as you, Devon. Let’s just show them the snake!”
Wendy walks beside her, touching Checkers’s box often, her fingers scrabbling at the lid whenever Devon pauses to adjust the bags.
“Why do you love Checkers so much now?” Devon asks. “You don’t take care of him in class.”
“I’d be better at it.”
“You mean why didn’t Mr. Trask pick you?”
“Cuz I’m not gay.”
“ I can do it.”
“Mr. Trask feels sorry for you. He thinks you’re special because you’re smart, and you have a guy’s name, and you have no friends.”
“What about you?” Devon asks. “You’re my friend.”
“We’re bus friends.”
“And village friends.”
“Who says village ?” Wendy snorts. “You don’t even live in Fletcher. I’m only hanging out with you because you have the snake. You help at the library. What do you expect?”
Devon leans over to set Checkers down. Wendy reaches straightaway for the case, and Devon elbows her to keep her own hand there. Wendy shoves back.
“You’ve got two dogs,” Wendy says. “I don’t have any. I deserve it.”
“My mom’s worse than ten dogs.” Speaking about her mom this way fills Devon with a mean power, but when Wendy bites her lip and nods, Devon’s mouth puckers with guilt. Her mom wouldn’t be the way she is if Devon had done what she’d asked.
“Maybe Mr. Trask knows about your mom’s snake thing and will use it to seduce her so he can get to your dad.”
Devon smiles with relief at Wendy’s change in tactic.
“Eff off. You don’t even know what seducing means.”
“And then Guy will get jealous, and they’ll fight.”
“ Right off.”
“Fight! What if he marries your dad? You’ll be Devon Trask. Or he’ll be Mr. Phipps!”
Devon sets Checkers down to shove Wendy, but Wendy dashes across the road and runs bent over toward town, laughing a silvery, sickening howl. Devon swings her leg back to kick the case but remembers sweet Checkers, who doesn’t know the difference between Mr. Trask or Gloria or even her. She picks up the case, planning the flowers and trees she will colour with magic marker and cut out and glue to Checkers’s home as she walks up the road and down her driveway.
Gloria is sitting on the couch in a tan bra and black underpants, a plate of toast perched on her knee, her old Cosmopolitan with the Burt Reynolds centrefold open on her lap. Her jeans and top drape the recliner, Ron’s chair, the one he won’t share. She holds a mini battery-operated fan above her like a shower head, even though it’s April and Devon’s wearing a turtleneck under her polo shirt. The fan emits a cute whir that masks Gloria’s croaky breathing. Gloria’s job as an exercise rider at the racetrack means she’s home in the afternoon. Devon plunks down Checkers and his bags. Gloria’s feet smell like corn chips. The rose-scented deodorizer she sprays makes the odour worse. Devon drops onto the recliner.
“That is a beautiful man,” Gloria says in her gurgling voice, which sounds like two people talking. Her voice cracks on the word “beautiful,” and she gulps. She points a toast triangle at the magazine. The fan’s wind blows her hair back like garbage bag streamers.
“Mom!” Devon is used to the little scars that crisscross Gloria’s throat. It’s the long pink one like a hem between Gloria’s breasts that cramps Devon’s leg muscles with guilt.
Devon looks away, but then there is Burt Reynolds lying na