Never thought I'd say this but when Monday came, I was glad to get away from the nice people.
All weekend long, Margaret and Lena Lee had given me their full attention. As soon as the latter found out her old jeans and sweatpants didn't fit my Caribbean bootie, she took me on a shopping trip to Calgary that resulted in one good addition: a brand new pair of safety boots. I'd been planning on buying them with my first paycheck but now more than ever I believed in safety first.
The bad thing was that Lena Lee chatted a lot and her son, Luke, who tagged along with us, wasn't much quieter.
At some point, the kid looked up at me and asked, "Are you a boy or a girl? I can't tell."
"Luke!" his mom chastised. "You don't ask people what their gender is."
"But how will I know if I don't ask?" his eyes were wide with the innocence of someone who didn't understand what they did wrong. Seemed pretty typical of a six-year-old kid to me.
"They'll volunteer that information if they feel comfortable."
Little Luke blinked at his mom. "But didn't you once think that Aunt Charlie was a boy and she wasn't? I don't want to be confused like that."
My eyebrows shot all the way up to the sky as Lena Lee's face flushed crimson. She gave me a pained look and said, "It's a long story, I'll tell you later."
No doubt she would.
Turning my attention on her kid, I said, "I'm a girl."
"Then why is your hair like that?" he asked, staring at my buzzcut.
"Okay, that's enough." Lena Lee gave him a look that shut him up. "You're being rude."
"Sorry."
I rubbed my head, feeling the soft bristle of my very short hair against the palm of my hand.
Years ago, I'd had hair so long it reached my waist. I'd been really proud of how gorgeous it was. Thick, glossy and perfectly straight, darker than night and illuminated by thin highlights that I retouched regularly at a good salon. Some women had envied me for the lucky genetics that gave me such a healthy mane of hair, others envied me because I had the means to keep it beautiful.
It was the signature of someone I no longer was. A hypocrite. A product of the expectations around me. I had wanted both to be the mold of what a beautiful Venezuelan woman was, a country that produced Miss Universes like it produced oil, despite that being one of the least important markers of a country proud to be the flagship of what twenty first century socialism was supposed to be.
I went to protests to defend the revolution one day and to the gym and the salon the other, without ever having to line up for hours to get government aid like some of my friends did.
One day, after months living with Alina up in Edmonton, I woke up one morning and saw myself in the mirror. The highlights that I'd maintained regularly had begun to fade. As my natural dark hair had grown, everything from my scalp and down to about my ears was black. Natural. Just like Cata's hair was.
If I let it grow, I would look just like her and I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't bring myself to look at someone in the mirror whose life hadn't been so fucked up.
So I picked up a pair of scissors and got rid of who I'd been.
Later, when Alina took me to a salon to repair the mess I'd made, I asked for this, a buzzcut close enough to my scalp that I barely had to feel any hair at all. It was a lot easier to slip into a new life after that, despite the fact mami spent something like two days crying for my lost hair.
"It's okay," I told Lena Lee and Luke, giving the boy a small smile. "Hair is not really as important as people make it to be."
That got him asking about his math teacher, who was bald. Lena Lee lectured him on why appearances weren't the most important while we were in the middle of the food court at the mall. Which was a draining experience, not just because they worked out their mouths about it for a solid hour, but also because a few of the people around us kept sneaking glances at our table. Specifically at me, the girl with the buzzcut and the full tattoo sleeve, who had more muscles than appeared anatomically possible for women.
Sadly, appearances did matter. They hinted at what kind of people we were, what kind of experiences we might have lived. I hoped that when people glanced at me they didn't see a victim. That they saw someone who would kick their ass if they kept staring.
It was what I banked on when I walked from Margaret's home and to my brand new workplace. Lena Lee's tops fit me well enough and I wore a grey t-shirt under a flannel shirt that hopefully hid my chest well enough. I was a bit curvier at the bottom and even my trusty old jeans, the ones I had on during the accident, weren't good enough at hiding the evidence of my femininity.
The good news was I was prepared. After using the weights that Margaret's athlete son had left behind, I'd got a couple of good workouts in on the weekend and I was fully stretched and ready to toss any catcallers over any bar if I had to.
The walk to the construction site was short. After all, the project was all about adding new housing on the outskirts of town. There was some activity already, despite it barely being half past six in the morning. I found the trailer with a sign that read office and knocked on the door.
After a few hard thumps, Lance opened the door. His portly face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Finally, you're here! Brian, come meet our new crew member."
A second guy popped his head next to Lance. This one was younger and definitely First Nation. "Oh, hi. I'm Brian Levesque."
"Brian is the foreman and he'll show you around."
The foreman walked out of the trailer with two hard hats and handed one over to me. It already had a tag with my name glued on the front above the bill.
"Follow me."
Lance went back into the trailer without further ado, at the same time that Brian veered towards the site. Neither appeared to be people who beat around the bush, which suited me just fine. I followed, careful of where I stepped even while wearing safety boots. I put on the hard hat and adjusted it so it held tight one my head. He headed deep into the construction site.
"Lance said you have no prior construction experience," the foreman said and I nodded. "That's okay, as long as you don't cause any accidents you can learn the rest."
"I was a mechanical engineering student in my home country," I offered, as though that gave me some cred. "And my dad owned a company that worked for the oil industry, so I tagged along with him to a few jobs and helped out when they were shorthanded. I know the basics of site safety."
"Any certs?" he asked and I cringed. "Well, I figured that would be the case. It'll take us a few days to get you certified to work on site but since I had more time to prepare after the, uh, accident, I was able to call up the trainer to start the lessons this afternoon."
"Lessons?" I asked.
"Yeah, the certification requires some classroom training and some hands on experience." Brian stopped in front of a house that looked finished to me. "For the hands-on portion, I figured that this week I'd have you working on this house with a few experienced guys who can keep an eye on you."
I eyed the facade, trying to find anything that needed to be done. "Doing what? It looks finished."
He pushed the front door open. Inside, the other guys were hard at work putting masking tape on the corners of the walls, ceiling and floor. Around them were all the tools needed to paint the house white.
The foreman smiled. "Think you can paint safely?"
"Ah, yes." I straightened. He introduced me to the rest of the crew. The youngest guy was named Shane, then there were two older ones called Paul and Teddy. Teddy's name fit him well, considering he looked like a teddy bear.
"Cora here doesn't have her safety certs yet, so you guys will have to keep a good eye on her, okay?"
The three men gave their consent with nods and thumbs up. Next thing I knew, I was outfitted with a paint roller and assigned my very own wall. There was a radio over one of the kitchen counters, yapping hockey news that kept the men's attention away from the newcomer.
Excellent, this was already the best work environment I'd ever had.
Focused as I was on painting my wall, I didn't catch what was said on the radio that sent Teddy into a fit. "Fuck that! The Eagles haven't been able to defeat us in years, what makes them think this year they'll have a chance?"
Shane, the youngest of the three, burst out laughing. "Careful there, you're going to soil the newbie's ears."
I took a deep breath, but it wasn't enough to let the comment go. With a deadpan stare down at him, I said, "A few fuck bombs or a hundred won't offend my sensibilities."
Far from irritating him, my retort made him laugh. "Then you'll fit in just fine."
"Unless you like the Eagles," the third one, Paul, said as he finished taping up the crevices in the kitchen. "If you do, prepare to not have any friends in this town."
"Who even are the Eagles?" I asked.
All three men paused their various tasks, eyes wide as though I had just declared that Canada was the capital of Mexico or something.
One by one they burst out laughing. Finally, Shane said, "There's hope that you'll fit in, then."
"The Eagles are the bitter rival of our high school hockey team, the Bears," Teddy explained. "All of us here were Bears at some point, by the way."
"Technically everybody who lives in Silver Grove has to be a Bear," Shane said as he handed Paul a bucket of paint, before locating to the wall opposite of mine.
"Ah." I went back to painting.
"Plus," Teddy continued where the other guy had left off. "Bear support is at an all-time high, seeing how we finally have one of us in the NHL."
"Cool," I said, meaning it. After years in Canada, I knew how important this sport was to people.
"It would've been two," Shane said. "If Pace had really set his mind to it."
My paint roller stopped, as if it had a mind of its own and not at all because my entire body froze. I felt like I was trapped in a deja vu cycle as I turned and asked, "The firefighter?"
Shane glanced over his shoulder at me. "Oh, yeah. You met him already. Sorry about the accident."
"We're glad you're okay," Teddy said as he crouched to stir paint.
My face scrunched up and it wasn't just because the crack of his hairy butt came into full view. "Does the whole town know?"
In unison the three men said, "Yeah."
"And out of curiosity, does everyone know everyone in this town?" I asked, half dreading the answer and half knowing it.
They exchanged glances, as though wondering why I even had to ask. Finally, Shane confirmed, "Yeah."
I turned back to face my wall. "Fan-fucking-tastic."
What that meant was that I had to stop this bullshit of jumping half a mile every time the firefighter's name was mentioned before anyone caught on to it and asked the next person if they found it odd. And then they told the next person, and the next, until someone wondered if I had a crush or something.
"It's not so bad," one of them said. "We look out for each other."
I mumbled, "I've noticed."
"So what's your story?" another asked me and I wished they'd focus on the radio show again.
I put more strength onto painting and said, "I'd rather go back to talking about hockey."
That caused a bout of silence, as I'd have expected. I knew I'd have to deal with these guys for a good while, especially while I was at the bottom rung of skill here. It was the reason why I hadn't been straight up rude. I'd have preferred to tell them to fuck all the way off to the icy tops of the Rocky mountains, a standard answer that any man who was interested in me and my past deserved.
Fortunately for everybody, they followed my advice and went back to talking about high school hockey stats.
An hour or so later, I stepped back to stretch my neck and shoulders and that was when I felt something brush against my butt.
Out of instinct, I whipped around and grabbed onto the offender. Ready to attack. Waiting for an attack.
It took me a couple of blinks to focus again and see that I had Shane grabbed by the throat. He'd dropped a half empty bucket of paint and it splashed all over the tarp covering the floor, my boots, clothes and one of his pant legs.
"Whoa!" someone said beside me.
Shane gasped for air and I let him go. An earthquake travelled across my body as I realized what I had done.
Even then, rather than apologizing I asked, "Did you just grab my ass?"
The guy coughed out a, "What?"
Teddy's hands were up, as though he ready to separate us in case of a fight. Off to the right, Paul looked on with eyes as wide as saucers.
I swallowed thickly, hoping I didn't look as scared as I was. "I felt something."
Shane raised a hand as he coughed some more, shaking his head as though that would help him get rid of the feeling of my hand squeezing his trachea. "Geez, no. I saw you were running out of paint and was going to bring you some."
Paul appeared then, nodding so hard he looked like one of those toys taxi drivers in my hometown used to have mounted on their dashboards. "I saw. I think it was just the paint bucket, when you stepped back. Shane would never-"
"Oh." I looked down. "Fuck."
Me jodí.
I was caught.
That wasn't a normal reaction.
I wasn't normal. And now the whole town would know.
What I least wanted everyone to know was that I was constantly afraid. That I didn't trust anyone. That I saw his face in every guy.
I looked up and my mind played tricks on me, because suddenly I was standing in front of three Rodrigos who closed in on me. Who made the walls close in on me.
With my breath caught in my throat, I ran out of the house.