Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien Page B

tell each other everything.”
    Paula took another drink and looked at me thoughtfully. Then she pointed through the window at the back shed. “See that? I
     used to fix cars in there with my dad. I’d lie on my back on one of those trolleys, and he’d roll me under. It’s lonely under
     there, and dark. And then one day I just stopped going. My mom said to me, ‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t be so lazy.
     Your father needs your help,’ I told her that I didn’t want to go to the shed, I didn’t want to be with him. I was too old
     to go there.”
    I looked down at the carpet, shaking my head. The alcohol faded through me in a slow wash. “Paula,” I said. “Stop talking.”
    “My mom told me, ‘This is how families fall apart,’ I didn’t want to believe her, but I did. So I kept going back. I can’t
     stop it. I think maybe I’m the one who’s sick. Sometimes I go into the shed and roll myself underneath the car and I pretend
     I’ve been hit and I’m lying in the road, almost dead. Just in case, just so I know beforehand what it might feel like.”
    I knew what was coming next and I didn’t want to hear it. I shook my head to block her out.
    “Listen to me. It doesn’t matter who you fuck or how you do it. It’s all the same, it always hurts. Why won’t you just stay
     here? If you were here, this wouldn’t happen.”
    I hit her across the mouth to stop her. A loosehit, palm flat, the smack high-pitched. Her mouth fell open.
    She shook her head, hysterical. “I’m not lying.”
    “You shouldn’t let him.” I couldn’t look at her when I said it. “Why do you let him do it?” Then I stood and walked stiffly
     across the living room, down the hallway, to the front door. Paula’s mother came awkwardly to the top of the stairs, her weight
     pulling her side to side. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Who’s crying?”
    I shook my head and pulled on my shoes. Paula’s voice rose higher and higher. Her mom said, “Paula?” and ran down the stairs,
     one hand pressed to the opening in her nightgown. When I opened the front door to leave I could hear Paula sobbing, “Leave
     me alone. Please, just leave me alone.”
    I started walking, past Kingsway and onto Slocan where the traffic lights disappeared and the street was soft in darkness.
     I slowed down, paid attention to each car sliding by, the lights settling on me for half a second.
    A man in a car drove up beside me. He pushed his head out the window, whistling. “Beautiful,” he said. I turned and stared
     at him. He smiled, motioning me towards him.
    I went towards his car, all the feeling in me lost. I opened the passenger door and thought, this is what it all comes to.
     I’d seen pictures of girls like me, hereone moment then gone the next. When I climbed into the car, I thought of Paula sitting on the floor in her living room, face
     in her hands, her mom’s arms wrapped around her. Paula’s expression when I turned away from her. We eased away from the curb
     and he said, “Where are you going?”
    I told him I was going home.
    “Do you want to go there?”
    I nodded.
    He smiled knowingly. “Are you sure?”
    “Yes.”
    He turned the radio on and let one hand drift over to rest on my thigh. I thought, everything has led to this. This is what
     it comes to.
    But he drove me home. He let his car idle behind my parents’ apartment building. When I put my hand on the door handle, he
     said, “Let me kiss you.”
    I looked him full in the face and saw he was older, so much older than me. He leaned towards me, and I remembered what Paula
     said. It doesn’t matter who or how. I turned my face to him, the street empty and the car warm. He kissed me, and I felt his
     moustache on my skin, a passing touch. Then I got out of the car and walked home.
    The next morning, Paula ran away. She left her house as usual, carrying only her school bag, and didn’tcome home. I learned later, from Paula’s mother, that she had