~ Episode Seven ~

A Shadow of Shoes to Fill:

A Cold Pack For the Heart

Eri stood paralyzed, trying to read all the labels displayed on the aisle shelves before her. She barely noticed the biting frost of her neglected slushy cup as she faced a tower of seemingly endless feminine hygiene products.

The local pharmacy itself was cold—not in temperature, but in nature, with its sterile walls and waxy-pale linoleum. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The place smelled like old people.

Mackenzie appeared at Eri’s side from the opposite end of the aisle, noisily slurping away on a slushy straw with a box of tampons loose in her grip.

“Look at all of these,” Eri said, overwhelmed. “…There’s a kind for night-time, a kind for day-time, a kind for when it’s just around the corner. Oh my gosh, there’s even one for when you’re pregnant?! I didn’t know it could happen when you’re pregnant!”

“Those are postpartum pads, hon. For after you have the baby.”

Eri felt queasy at the thought—amidst the queasiness of everything else already going on inside of her. She plucked free another box, inspected the label. “This one has wings—whatever those are…”

Mackenzie tugged the end of her straw with a hollow gurgle. “How did you literally not know this was going to happen? We all had Sex-Ed in grade six. Your school in Borden didn’t have that?”

“Noah and I were home-schooled the couple years we were there, remember? We had no idea what was going to happen with Dad over Kosovo, and after everything with Medak Pocket and Bosnia…”

“Wait, are you serious? Your mom didn’t prep you, like at all?” Mackenzie stared at her with slacked-jawed horror.

Eri supplied a helpless shrug.

“Religious conservatism aside, how did she expect you to deal with this without the talk? My mom doesn’t give half-a-dozen cat farts about me, either, and even I got the talk—on top of Sex-Ed and everything. You’re thirteen, for shit’s sake!”

“I mean—I kind of knew what it was, from like whenever you got yours, I guess—but I didn’t know it was gonna be this bad, you know?” She sighed and continued in a tone that began to quaver. “I guess mine started in the night—I woke up from another bad dream and … thought … I thought … Macks, I thought I was dying. Like, blood was everywhere. And Mom, she … she just…”

You’re a woman now—so act like it.

Eri wiped away fresh tears, murmuring, “I just—I feel so humiliated.”

Mackenzie nodded sympathy, then nudged her with the tampons she found. “Here, this one’s got a calendar—handy, trust me. Eddi-chan, I can understand feeling humiliated. But, if anything, you should be angry.”

Eri took the package, sighing, and together the girls wandered over to the checkout counter. She reached into the back pocket of her jeans for the “special boost” in allowance money Helen had given her that morning. “This is so embarrassing…”

“I still can’t believe she made you come to school today. What a dick move.”

Eri wrinkled her nose at Mackenzie, confused by the statement, as she paid for the transaction. The clerk handed her back some change, as well as the tampons wrapped in a discreet plastic bag. “Thanks for doing this with me … It means a lot.”

Mackenzie caressed her shoulder, guiding her towards the doors. “Come on, let’s get you that ice-cream, huh?”

“Five scoops, remember. Your treat.”

“Sure thing, Eddi-chan. I got you.”

~

“Momma, we’re back!” Mackenzie called out.

A brick wall of tobacco and marijuana struck Eri as soon as she passed through the front door of Mackenzie’s townhouse, which opened into a filth-ridden kitchen. While loosening the ties of her knitted Hello Kitty winter hat, she noticed dirty dinnerware and cooking tools that lay piled near ceiling-high in the dual sinks. A flowery odor seemed to emanate from that area of the kitchen.

As she leaned over to undo her low-cut converse sneakers, Eri instinctively reached out and grabbed onto the edge of what should have been a kitchen table—but looked like a monument of fast food bags and junk mail flyers. Four ratty-looking chairs worshipped around it.

“Sorry for the mess,” Mackenzie mumbled, closing the door behind her.

Eri was used to it, knew well enough to not say anything. The sound of daytime television brought her gaze into an adjoining living room, where the air was thick and smoky. A faint and ragged cough sounded from the couch that faced the TV, where Maury Povich was doing his regular song-and-dance about pregnancy tests over the ruckus of his studio audience.

A weak voice wavered from the couch. “Muh … Muh’kenzie…? Who’s…?”

“It’s just Eri, Mom.” She kicked a plastic three-step stool across the kitchen, where it bumped against the fridge. “Here—I’ll grab you a bag of peas.”

“Hi, Mrs. Thompson!” Eri called into the living room. Her brow furrowed at Mackenzie. “Peas?”

“You heard me.” She slapped the freezer door shut with a bag of frozen No Name brand peas tucked under one arm, and hopped down from the stool. “Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off. Thank me later.”

From the shadows beneath the kitchen table appeared a scrawny black cat, attracted by the scent of new company. It wound around Eri’s denim-clad legs with deep purrs that worked its bony ribs like a bellows.

Eri giggled, stroking down the feline’s jagged backside. “Hiya, Luna.”

“C’mere, you,” Mackenzie said, scooping the cat up into her arms. She passed along the bag of peas to Eri and buried her face into Luna’s neck.

Together, the girls headed up a set of stairs near the rear of the kitchen, where the second floor awaited.

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Opening the door to Mackenzie’s bedroom was like entering an alternate universe that hovered within the confines of the Thompson home. The gray carpet was unstained, the off-white walls lacked dents and scratches with two respective anime posters—Revolutionary Girl Utena and Lum the Invader Girl—that hung perfectly and showed no signs of wrinkles or tears. On the dresser beside Mackenzie’s closet was a stuffed Sailor Moon doll that propped up some make-up supplies, placed in order of brand and color.

“Is your mom doing okay?” Eri asked. She dropped her pharmacy bag and Hello Kitty backpack to the floor, plopping down on the bottom mattress of Mackenzie’s bunk bed. She eased the frozen peas against her abdomen, wincing from the mix of bodily flourishes it induced.

“She’s fine,” Mackenzie muttered, hoisting Luna up to the top bunk through the rails. She then clicked her bedroom door shut and crossed over to a small bookcase beneath her window that housed a TV/VCR combo unit. Its shelves were all stuffed with manga and bootlegged anime recorded onto Kodak VHS tapes. She dropped to her knees and plucked free a video. “Just been making a big deal about her fibro again. Do you remember which episode we’re on?”

The response, as dismissive as it sounded, was understandable.

Unlike the Seruma family, who lived on the shoulders of the local electronics shop Eri’s father owned and operated (not to mention his military pension), Mackenzie and her mom thrived off of a meager stipend graciously mailed out by the government each month—and whatever child support her father felt like passing along, if any.

If there was one thing Eri knew her best friend hated most about being an eighth-grader, it was that she wasn’t yet old enough to legally work. It was tough, being a kid with a caregiver unable to even care for herself. However, that wasn’t all—or even the worst of it. But Eri knew deep down Mackenzie loved her mother, and would do anything for her.

The girls spent the rest of the afternoon watching what Mackenzie referred to as fan subs—bootlegged anime from her uncle who lived in the city. These were Japanese cartoons he’d buy from the Pacific Mall with meticulously-translated subtitles distributed by dedicated otaku via underground means.

As much as Mackenzie loved anime, she absolutely detested the dubbed English-broadcast versions of her favorite shows like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, which had been censored and retranslated for both a younger and puritanical Western audience.

Not only that, but officially-licensed anime was expensive, upwards of about forty-dollars or more per VHS tape, and usually only came with two episodes per volume, at best. But whenever her uncle came to visit, Mackenzie got stacks of pre-recorded Kodak tapes just chock full of the stuff she loved—shoujo mahout—or, magical girl anime.

It was better this way. When it came to shoddy English versions, the censorship of romantic relationships—especially those between same-sex characters—annoyed Mackenzie the most.

That of Outer Senshi Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune came to mind, who were rewritten in Sailor Moon’s English dub to that of essentially kissing cousins.

But Mackenzie’s biggest bone of contention was the utter deterrence of subtle romantic undertones Tomoyo Daidouji shared for her best friend, the title character of Cardcaptor Sakura. Not to mention a plethora of other romantic arcs featured in the series.

Mackenzie never went into too much detail as to why these changes bothered her so much except for an adamant, “It’s not how they are in the original!” But Eri knew how sensitive her best friend felt about these topics and did her best to divert attention whenever the shows’ English versions came up at school.

She studied a sequence of Sakura Kinomoto summoning her Staff of the Seal that currently played out on Mackenzie’s little TV and mentally wandered back to the fight with Kyupo, the night before.

A giant mound of oozing eyeballs that zipped and cut through the air at lightning speed—faster than Eri could ever imagine, considering her own record as a track-and-field athlete. The Monster was so grotesque in nature compared to the cutesy humanoid Clow Card entities any Cardcaptor found herself contending with.

Eri watched the Sealing Staff grow to full size in Sakura’s grasp from that of a tiny wing-shaped key. The Fire Pendant around her throat swelled with warmth.

…Unlock that which is your birthright as a Star Warrior…

The Fire Hammer was massive, despite its feather-light weight. She imagined spinning it around, tossing it in the air and catching it again, much like Sakura did when emulating a baton with her own magical weapon.

Eri giggled at the thought.

The episode drew to a close. The Clow Card was Sealed in a matter of thirty seconds or so. The world was safe again. And Sakura was embraced by her best friend Tomoyo as rivals Syaoran and Meiling Li glared at them from the sidelines.

A sniffle sounded. Eri glanced from where she lay on the bottom bunk with her coveted frozen peas. Macks was curled up on a pillow on the floor, her attention fully consumed by the events on the TV. She reached for a nearby box of Kleenex and wiped her eyes and nose. An emotional shudder went through her.

“…This show makes me so happy.”

Eri couldn’t help but let a tender smile bloom.

The phone on the bedside nightstand bra-a-a-ng to life, startling both girls. Mackenzie paused the video and crossed the bedroom to snap the phone up off its cradle.

“Moshi moshi, Thompson residence.” She blinked, eyed Eri with a concerned look. “Oh, hey. Yeah, she’s here.”

Eri shuddered. “Is it my mom?”

Mackenzie shook her head and rolled on talking into the receiver without skipping a beat. “Eri’s not feeling well—No, she’s not contagious.” She paused, then growled with annoyance. “Listen here, Shinji Izuma! You can’t just dump all this stuff on our plate and then expect us to drop everything because you say so—We. Have. Lives.”

Eri sighed. They were arguing about the meeting Shinji wanted to have this afternoon. She plucked a picture frame from beside Macks’ phone cradle.

The encased photograph was a close-up on a young girl in her mid-teens, surrounded by trees on a summery afternoon. She was smiling over-shoulder at the camera with her wavy blue-black hair flowing with clumsy finesse. She was Amanda Thompson—Mackenzie’s older sister.

Every day, Mackenzie faced the constant chase to fit into Amanda’s shoes. Shoes that would never fit. An impossible battle, the desire to even be seen—recognized—in a home where the only truths visible to her mother were made of painful memories.

Amanda’s death had changed everything.

“Shinji, no. That’s not fair. Listen, I know this thing is important to you, but you gotta realize—” Mackenzie paused, cut off, and followed up with, “Hey, you jerk! Just because I don’t live in a big old fancy farmhouse with rich parents who let me get away with murder doesn’t mean you get to talk to me that way!”

Shinji’s voice raised on the other end: “You think that’s what this is about?!”

“See you tomorrow. In school.” Mackenzie slammed the phone back onto the cradle. She flopped down next to Eri on the bed, fuming. “God, I can’t stand him…”

“Cut him some slack, okay? Shinji’s autism makes him a little blunt sometimes.” Eri fidgeted on uncomfortable words. “And, um … please don’t say God like that.”

“Really, Eri?—Whatever. Anyway, of course you’d defend him. Just because he’s autistic, or whatever, doesn’t give him the right to be a total asshole.” Mackenzie peered over at the photograph in Eri’s hands. “He was trying to give me grief over his precious meeting I mentioned before.”

Eri leaned against her. “Your sister’s so pretty.”

Mackenzie exhaled a ragged sigh and nodded. “Uh-huh. We’d fight about the dumbest stuff, you know? So stupid now, thinking back on.” She wiped her eyes of fresh tears.

Eri placed the picture back where it lived on the night stand. “I know…”

“I’m sorry, Eddi-chan. I’m supposed to be the one cheering you up.”

“No, it’s fine, Macks. It’s not good to keep this stuff bottled. You always pretend like everything’s okay when it’s not.” Eri’s slender artist fingers glided across Mackenzie’s knuckles. She offered a sympathetic smile. “Hey … It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling.”

But Mackenzie pulled away from her, cheeks glowing.

Then as though on cue, the VCR clicked, shutting down the tape they’d been watching. The frozen image of Cardcaptor Sakura embracing her best friend Tomoyo vanished.

“Umm—come on. It’s getting pretty late. I’ll walk you home.” Mackenzie rose to a sudden stand and headed out into the hallway.

Eri stared after her in a confused daze.