Off Limits Page 3

  What was going on? Was he getting a crush on a middle-aged substitute music teacher? He felt like laughing at himself.

  Ms. Flood finished her vocal and started an improvisation of the melody on the keyboard, her body swaying slowly as she played, her eyes half closed, her face soft. It was how she’d looked in class when she put the music on, and how she looked when Birmingham had seen her dancing — as if lost in some kind of passionate dream.

  The strange feeling swept through Birmingham again.

  Keeping his head down, he crossed to where his parents sat. He took his seat as the band finished the song. His father clapped. Ms. Flood glanced across and nodded. She saw Birmingham and waved. A false, bright, teacher-in-public smile replaced the soft, dreamy look.

  Birmingham pretended not to see.

  Mrs. Glover asked, “Do we know her?”

  Birmingham mumbled, “Ms. Flood. Substitute music teacher.”

  The server arrived with their meals. By the time they’d finished eating, the band was winding up the set. Birmingham saw Ms. Flood look in the direction of their table. She took a few steps toward them, but a man, sitting alone, grabbed her hand as she passed.

  Mr. Glover was watching, too. He turned to Birmingham, grinning. “Husband or boyfriend?”

  “How should I know?” said Birmingham.

  The man was wearing a dark jacket over a white t-shirt, and his thick, black hair was slicked back.

  “He looks mad,” said Mr. Glover. He laughed. “Must be her husband.”

  “Derek!” Mrs. Glover said sharply. But she laughed, too.

  They could see that Ms. Flood was trying to pull free, but the man held on. The bass player was watching. He moved toward them, but she waved him away. She said something to the man who must have been Mr. Flood, who was still holding her. She seemed angry, but he grinned and slipped his arm around her waist. With a small shake of her head, she bent and kissed him. She nodded toward Birmingham and his parents. Mr. Flood kissed Ms. Flood’s hand as he released it. She set off toward their table.

  Birmingham noticed that her look for performing was different from what she wore for school. She was in tight, black jeans and a black vest over a white shirt that hung open at the top. A long necklace, dull gold with some kind of blue and green stones, hung around her bare neck. Her hair looked tamed and sleek, a burnished curtain hanging around her face and down her back. She even moved differently. She slouched, hands in her pockets, hips swaying, as she walked. When she stopped at their table, she stood with a sideways thrust of one hip, hands still in her pockets. At school, she looked middle-aged — well-preserved, but still middle-aged. Here, she looked like a teenager.

  Birmingham kept his head down, trying not to stare.

  When she reached their table, Ms. Flood said brightly, “Hi, Birmingham. How are you this evening?”

  As she addressed him, she set her face in a false, bright smile, as he knew she would.

  He mumbled, “Okay, thanks.”

  “Good day at school?”

  He shrugged. What was he supposed to say to that?

  Mr. Glover stood, and Birmingham awkwardly copied him, only half rising.

  Ms. Flood said, “Don’t get up on my account, please.”

  They sat. Mr. Glover looked from Ms. Flood to Birmingham, who explained, “This is Amber — er, Ms. Flood — from school. Ms. Flood, this is my mom and dad.”

  Mr. Glover said, “We enjoyed your music.”

  Mrs. Glover said, “I love that necklace. Where did you find it?”

  Ms. Flood laughed. “At the Goodwill, where I get all my bling.”

  They talked about second-hand clothing stores and dollar stores, and how they were a symptom of the economy. Birmingham’s mind wandered.

  He sat in silence. He recalled how Ms. Flood had talked with him in the music room the day before, how interested she’d been in everything he had to say. How she’d asked him to call her Amber. It had felt like friends talking, not teacher and student. Now she was putting on the teacher-in-public show for his parents. It made him feel like a kid, and he hated it.

  Mr. Glover asked, “Can we buy you a drink?”

  “Thank you, no,” said Ms. Flood. “I need to talk to the band about the next set.”

  But she didn’t go straight to the band. She stopped beside Mr. Flood, who stood and linked his hand with hers. She leaned against him and they kissed before walking together, still holding hands, to join the musicians.

  As soon as she was out of earshot, Mrs. Glover turned to Birmingham with raised eyebrows. “Amber?”

  “It’s what she said to call her,” Birmingham explained. He didn’t say that, as far as he knew, the invitation was just for him, not the whole class.

  “Cool name,” said Mr. Glover.

  Mrs. Glover snorted. “Aging hippie name.”

  “Nice kid, anyway,” said Mr. Glover. He watched the teacher walk across the room with what seemed to Birmingham an exaggerated sway of her hips.

  “Not so much a kid,” Mrs. Glover sniffed. “She’s nearly our age.”

  While Mr. Glover went to the bar to pay,

  Birmingham brooded on Ms. Flood’s changing personality — intriguing, flamboyant, attractive-for-her-age teacher in school; false, cheerful teacher in public; almost-hot musician.

  His father returned and handed Birmingham a CD. “The band’s selling these at the bar. Thought you might like one.”

  The cover was a picture of Amber Flood and her band. The Usual Culprits was written across the top in a flowery font that reminded Birmingham of his teacher’s handwriting on the board at school.

  As the Glovers left the Cellar, the band started up again. Ms. Flood instantly fell into her gently swaying, half-trance state. Birmingham, clutching the CD, was mesmerized and disturbed all over again, as he had been when he first saw and heard her at the keyboard. And he felt the same unsettling stirring low in his body.

  Chapter 5

  “Come on,” said Jenna. “We have time.”

  She tugged him down the hall at the back of the Food Mart, past the washrooms, and outside. It was where the store workers went to smoke, huddled between two big dumpsters and the sheer rock face that rose behind the store.

  “Here,” said Jenna, wriggling between the dumpsters.

  They’d been hanging around town all Saturday afternoon. They were on their way back to Birmingham’s when Mrs. Glover called and asked him to pick up snacks to take to the book club meeting that evening.

  Jenna had started it by fondling Birmingham from behind as he reached for a pack of crackers. When Birmingham had let his hand wander down Jenna’s back as she bent to get a can of peanuts, she’d responded by wriggling her rear against his hand. When she straightened up, she had the slightly glazed look in her eyes that Birmingham knew signalled her desire for sex. So he’d let her lead him outside.

  “Suppose someone comes,” said Birmingham, glancing around.

  “Suppose they do?” she said, pulling him onto a pile of cardboard boxes.

  They were halfway through doing it when they heard voices.

  “Got one for me?”

  “Why don’t you bring your own smokes?”

  The voices were coming from just outside the back door, beside the dumpsters.

  Birmingham froze, but Jenna couldn’t stop.

  Someone said, “We’d be out of the wind up there.”

  Birmingham heard feet shuffling toward them. He reached for one of the boxes they hadn’t squashed and moved it so it shielded them from anyone looking between the dumpsters. At the same time, Jenna started to buck and groan. He put his hand over her mouth until she finished. He held in the snorts and sighs he usually made himself.

  The feet shuffled past.

  He took his h
and from Jenna’s mouth. She started to giggle, so he put it back. When she had her laughter under control, he pulled sheets of cardboard to completely cover them. They lay like that for ten minutes, until the smokers passed by again at the end of their break. By that time, the glazed look was back in Jenna’s eyes.

  They hurried back to Birmingham’s, where the Glover-Reeve Union had a practice while Mr. and Mrs. Glover were at their book club. Geoff arrived with Trish, and the Union played three numbers straight off. As the girls applauded, Geoff announced, “Our next offering, for your musical delight, will be Fly By Night, made famous by —”

  “The Horny Owls!” Jenna finished for him. “I love that band.”

  As soon as the boys started to play, Jenna joined in, singing in a soft, breathy voice. “Gonna leave you. Gonna grieve you. Gonna fly like an owl in the night . . .”

  Birmingham’s fingers on the keyboard faltered. He looked at her in surprise.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Just didn’t know you could sing.”

  “You don’t know much about me, do you?” she said.

  Birmingham realized he didn’t. He hardly thought of her as someone he should get to know.

  She seemed to guess what he was thinking. She added, with a toss of her head, “Just because I’ve got the goods, it doesn’t mean I’m an airhead.”

  He muttered, “Sorry.”

  Geoff said, “The Horny Owls are playing in Fredericton next Saturday night, at the Atlantic Showcase.”

  “Wassat?” Trish asked.

  “Where bands get one hour to play. It’s a chance to show off, like, to promoters and agents and people who might hire them,” Geoff explained.

  “Anyone can go,” Birmingham added.

  “Hey, let’s take a trip!” said Geoff.

  “Last bus home is at seven o’clock,” Birmingham pointed out.

  “Can someone’s folks come and get us?” Geoff asked.

  “Dad’s away with the car at a conference this weekend,” said Birmingham.

  “Mom would drive us, except the car failed its inspection and she says she won’t take it on the road till it’s fixed,” Trish sighed. “What about your folks, Jenna?”

  “They’ll be at the club, like every Saturday night,” she said. “There’s no point in even asking.”

  “And Mom’s working all weekend,” said Geoff.

  Trish grinned suddenly. “We could stay at my Aunt Rose’s in Fredericton. She’s always saying she wants to meet my friends.”

  “So call Aunt Rose and book us in,” said Geoff.

  “We’ll have to sleep in different rooms,” Trish warned him. “Aunt Rose doesn’t allow consorting.”

  “Consorting?” snorted Geoff.

  “That’s what she calls it,” said Trish.

  “Calls what?”

  “You know.”

  “Screwing?”

  Trish nodded.

  “What’s she got against screwing?”

  “She’s not, like, totally against it. It’s just she hasn’t got a man herself. Says if she can’t do it, she doesn’t want to hear anyone else doing it. You better remember it, too, and don’t try anything. She’ll kill you if she catches us at it.”

  “What a way to go,” said Geoff, putting his arm around Trish.

  “Let go of me and play something slow,” she said.

  The boys launched into Lucky Lonesome and the girls danced, standing close and moving their hips and arms in a flowing motion, as if they were underwater. Birmingham watched Jenna’s sinuous movement from the corner of his eye as he played. She noticed, and moved even more suggestively, turning her back and looking at him over her shoulder.

  When the boys stopped to discuss the best way of ending the song, the girls looked through the collection of CDs Birmingham and his parents kept beside the stereo.

  Suddenly, Jenna let out a hoot of laughter. “I don’t believe it. It’s the hippie skank.”

  “What hippie skank?” said Trish.

  “Ms. Flood,” said Jenna. “What’s she doing on the cover of a CD?” She held up the disc Birmingham’s father had bought the night before. “Where did your folks get this piece of shit, Birm?”

  Birmingham shrugged. “Dad bought it.” He felt he owed it to Ms. Flood to add, “It’s not bad.” He already felt guilty for not defending her when Jenna called her a hippie skank.

  “You actually listened to it?” asked Jenna, wide-eyed.

  “What sort of stuff does she play?” Geoff asked, taking the CD from Jenna and examining the cover.

  “Jazz. Blues. Standards,” said Birmingham. “You know, usual sort of bar stuff. She sings, too.”

  “Sings?” Jenna scoffed. “What’s she sound like — a constipated cow?”

  “A duck being strangled?” Trish suggested.

  “Sort of hoarse and sad,” said Birmingham.

  “Where did your dad get it?” Geoff asked.

  “Cellar Club.”

  Geoff raised his eyebrows. “That place is a dive.”

  “It seemed okay to me,” said Birmingham. He instantly regretted it.

  “How do you know?” Jenna demanded.

  He sighed. “I was there last night.”

  “They wouldn’t serve you,” she scoffed. “Unless . . . don’t tell me you went there with your parents.”

  “We ate there, all right?”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “What a loser, going out to supper with Mommy and Daddy.”

  Before Birmingham could tell her to shut up, Geoff asked, “So how did our Ms. Flood look?”

  “Like a fucking hippie ska—” Jenna started.

  Birmingham interrupted. “Not skanky, but almost, like, sexy — if you really want to know.”

  Jenna hooted with laughter again. “Sexy? She’s about as sexy as a portable toilet. I knew you had the hots for her, the way you were watching her in class.”

  “You got a thing for older women, Birm?” asked Trish, grinning.

  “No,” Jenna answered for him. “Just a thing for his substitute music teacher.”

  There was an edge to her voice that worried Birmingham.

  “Give it a rest,” he sighed. “We’re supposed to be practising.”

  The Glover-Reeve Union played two more tunes before Trish said, “That’s enough, boys. We’re not here just to listen to you.”

  She lay on the sofa, pulling Geoff down with her. Jenna led Birmingham from the piano to an armchair. She pushed him into it and draped herself over him, kissing him as she gyrated on his lap. Birmingham was glad they were making out at home, and not behind the Food Mart. Jenna’s choice of places to have sex was beginning to worry him. She seemed to get a kick out of the risk of being seen.

  Jenna took his hand and slid it under her t-shirt. He closed his eyes and an image of Ms. Flood — at the keyboard, lips parted, eyes half closed — rushed into his mind.

  He opened his eyes wide.

  ***

  Birmingham sat at the piano, playing “Who Cares?”

  His parents had arrived home a half-hour before, prompting a frantic rearrangement of seating and clothing. By the time his mother put her head around the door and said, “Hi, kids,” Birmingham and Geoff were standing beside the piano, studying a piece of music. The girls were on the sofa browsing through a copy of Elle that Trish had brought with her. Geoff and the girls left soon after that.

  Birmingham was trying to remember how Ms. Flood had shaped the second phrase of the song, where the lyrics went “Tried to stop but couldn’t.” He tried it three different ways, but it wasn’t quite the same. He reached for a book, Blues Licks and Phrases, wondering if he could find something like it. As he lowered the book to his lap to study, he gave himse
lf a brief, accidental jolt of pleasure. An image of Amber Flood in her soft-faced, eyes-half-closed state shot into his mind, as it had when Jenna sat in his lap.

  He forced the image away and focused on the book. Finding nothing, he decided to search online for videos of the song. Surprised to find Ms. Flood listed at the top of the sites the search threw up, he clicked on the link. The description of the video read Amber Flood and her band, the Usual Culprits, at the 2002 Montreal Jazz Festival. That had to be a mistake. Ms. Flood might be an okay keyboard player and singer, but there was no way she’d ever played the Montreal Jazz Festival. Maybe there was another pianist with the same name. Birmingham clicked Play. The music was clear enough — the familiar opening chords of “Who Cares?” — but the video was grainy and blurry. It could be anybody playing the piano. He was about to shut it down when the image suddenly snapped into focus.

  A bar: an expensive one, judging by the sleek, black decor and the well-dressed patrons.

  A band: keyboard, stand-up bass, guitar, drums — the same lineup he’d seen at the Cellar Club.

  And the keyboard player . . .

  He peered at the screen.

  As the band swung into a second chorus and the keyboard player started to sing, the camera zoomed in so that her face filled the frame.

  Birmingham felt the same lurch deep inside that he’d had watching the band from the door of the Cellar.

  It was Ms. Flood. She was much younger, of course, but it was her.

  And she was drop-dead gorgeous.

  She wore a shiny, jade-green dress that was slit to her thigh, and her coppery hair was long and gleaming. The hottest thing about her was the look on her young face, the dreamy look that Birmingham knew so well.

  He watched until the end of the clip, then discovered two more videos from the same event: a frenzied version of “Catnip Blues” and a mournful take on “Long Time No See.” In the last video, Ms. Flood, half speaking and half singing, almost sobbed the words of the last verse.

  He googled Amber Flood and was amazed when several pages of hits came up, including a website for The Usual Culprits. In the biographical notes, he read that she was married to “the well-known writer of teen fiction, Winter Flood, author of Faking It. This award-winning YA book tells the story of Jeb, a misfit teen, and Walden, a widower in his sixties, who scratch a meagre living busking with their guitars. When they befriend Tina Mere, a troubled and footloose young woman, and she joins them as their singer, they find success, but also jealousy, discord, and disillusion.”