Robin

Robin was two years younger than me, 14 to my 16, but compared to her I didn't know a thing.

The year was 1988. She was a ragamuffin of a girl, draped in tie-dye and fringe, hiding under layers of pseudo-hippie-gypsy thrift store finds. She smoked. She drank. She did whatever drugs she could get her hands on. Her thin, straight hair fell into her eyes every few seconds. Her pale hand, patched with eczema, shook as she pushed the hair back behind her ear.

I didn't know myself yet, beyond being that quiet girl with the A+ average. I was attracted by Robin's darkness, her daring, her bad behaviour. I let her take the lead.

She brought me to dim, overstuffed vintage clothing stores in Kensington Market. I watched half in horror, half in awe as she hungrily shoved handfuls of scarves, bangles, beaded necklaces, and whatever was in easy reach, up her wide coat-sleeves.

She led me to the sidewalks of Yonge St. to sit on the concrete, near a steet vendor she had befriended, watching the world go by. The only people I had ever seen sitting on the sidewalk were homeless beggars and bums. I felt very far from my middle-class living room, with the powder-blue wall to wall carpeting, as the cold from the sidewalk seeped through the seat of my jeans.

I was never bold or foolish enough to take up cigarettes myself, but I inhaled Robin's second-hand smoke as though it were medicine that could heal the under-confidence of my over-protected self.

I did shoplift. I still remember everything I stole. A patterned cotton scarf that I used to tie my hair back for years after. A tube of "magic" green lipstick that turned pink once applied. A black beret that's still in my bureau drawer. And the last thing: a silver bracelet that I slid into my shirt sleeve in Eaton's department store. A plainclothes security officer followed me around the store for ten minutes after, as I lurked among the handbags and hosiery, trying to shake him off. Finally I bought a cheap scrunchie, to legitimize my presence, and that seemed to satisfy him. I got away with it that time, but after that I decided that it wasn't worth the risk. I was only stealing for the thrill anyway, to prove that I could. I hadn't taken anything that I couldn't just as easily have bought.

I was playing with these forces. I could chose them or not. I didn't realize how lucky I was, how different from Robin. Over the course of the year I heard rumours through a mutual friend: that her father had touched her inappropriately. That she cut herself. She got suspended from school for a while. She had a severe asthma attack but wouldn't give up smoking.

When the year ended, Robin was among a group of us who went to music camp together. I played violin. She played viola. The camp was used by younger children the rest of the summer. There was a playground. We sat under the slide on a rainy evening, just before dusk, and I watched the tip of Robin's cigarette glow hot orange in the gathering blue. When she had smoked it down to the filter, we knelt in the damp sandbox and sculpted life-sized mermaids. I can still feel the cold sand, grainy under my palms, as I smoothed the contours of my mer-lady's breasts and hips. That moment, from all of my teen years, marks the time when I was happiest to be a girl, celebrating femininity, with no context other than the earth, the cool air, mist, and wide, evening sky.

The last time I saw Robin was ten years ago from today, and also ten years after that summer. She appeared in the health food store where I was working, a scruffy boy on her arm. She had shed her hippie layers for a miniskirt and go-go boots. Her hair was highlighted and done up in fetching waves. But I recognized the shake in her hands, and in her voice, the cigarette cough, the nervousness underlying her jokes. Her eyes darted around, refusing to meet mine for more than a second or two at a time. And then she was gone, probably with some unpaid merchandise stuck up her sleeve.

She's another one I wonder about a lot. God bless, Robin. I hope you found your way to happiness.