A Drop of Rain Read Online Free Page B

family. A wife and son. There’s no contact at all. Not even letters. Mom hears news about him from an old aunt who still lives in Poland. This aunt has an apartment across the hall from my father’s apartment. She is so old that she actually knew my father’s parents and grandparents!”
    â€œYou could visit your father, couldn’t you?” asks Sarah. “Poland isn’t communist any more.”
    â€œOf course I could,” I say, “if I had the money. And if he invited me. But so far he hasn’t invited me. Mom thinks my father’s present wife is jealous of me and won’t let him see me.”
    â€œIs your Aunt Hanna really old?” says Sarah, flicking her long, perfect hair.
    â€œPretty old,” I say. “Fifty-nine. She’s a total invalid.”
    â€œThat’s awful,” repeats Sarah. “My family is so boring compared to yours. My father calls us a FOOF: ‘Fine Old Ontario Family. Pop, Mom, boy, girl. Healthy. Wealthy. Wise.’ That’s why I’ve got to get out of here. One more year, and Paris here I come. Or New York.”
    â€œI can see your name in lights now,” I say. “TONIGHT: SARAH SMITH!”
    â€œNo, no! Too WASP! I’m changing my name to something Arab, or French, or . . .”
    â€œHow about Naomi Goralski?” I ask, smiling fakely.
    â€œHey! That’s it! Jewish and Polish! How glamorous can you get?” Sarah says.
    Sarah and I make a few more dumb name jokes, then she continues down the sidewalk to her gorgeous, gleaming, white, two-storey, Cape Cod house a few blocks away.
    Sarah lives near where Curtis lives. One day I checked out their addresses in the phone book, and then I walked past Sarah’s house. I was too embarrassed to walk past Curtis’ house, so I don’t know what it looks like. Curtis has not phoned me yet, so I suppose I was mistaken about the intensity of his glances at me. I am really disappointed that he has not called.
    As I trudged up our cracked, weed-filled driveway to my run-down house, I was thinking that Sarah would have laughed hysterically if I had told her about my heartfelt desire to sing with her band and have a boyfriend.

    â€œHi!” I say to Hanna, leaning into my old room.
    â€œHello!” says Hanna. With a single word, she reveals that she is a foreigner. She pronounces
hello
like HALLO.
    Her expression is gentle and sweet. This makes me feel guilty, but I still don’t want to visit with her right now, so I rush off to the kitchen for a snack.
    As I’m eating vanilla yoghurt mixed with sliced banana and granola, I pull my marked history assignment out of my backpack and read Mr. Dunlop’s comments: “A+. This is outstanding. Maybe you would like to collect more of your family’s memories of World War II for a longer, special project.”
    A+? Hey! I am not a bad student. I always pass. But this is my first A+! Trust my mother, the ace student, to get an A+. I get mostly Bs. My mother says I don’t “apply myself”. I could use an A+ in history. But unfortunately, there’s nobody in my family to interview.

    I started working last week. My job is cleaning at the Mapleville Recreation Complex, about six blocks from where we live. The job is hard. Huge mops. Heavy buckets of water. Dozens of toilets and sinks to scrub. Kilometres of walls and floors to wash. Minimum wage. Naturally. Weekends and holidays. Naturally. But I’m lucky to have any job.
    If it weren’t for Mary, I would have quit after the first hour. Mary is a medical doctor from Poland who is working as a cleaner because she’s not licenced to practice medicine in Canada. Mary is older than Hanna: sixty-six. She is well dressed, sophisticatedand humorous. She came to Canada eight years ago.
    Mary has been cleaning full time at the Rec Plex for four years. She is my supervisor, but she helps me a lot. She doesn’t just