COVENANCE
an excerpt

Chapter 2: When Luck meets the blind

A month later saw the manifestation of many of Lucky's dreams. Lackme Yogeswaren, she thought to herself, Welcome to your new world. York University was almost everything she thought it would be. Almost. Driving up there from downtown Toronto with Aloe the past year it had seemed close. Now, without a car (her parents forbid it, even though they could have afforded it) she found it took almost an hour and a half to get down to where the action was. There were buses, walking, subways, more walking. It wasn't quite the inner city experience she had thought it would be. It was inner city, though. She had also found out that the University was right in the middle of one of the worst areas of the Toronto. Drugs, rape, murder, you name it, and she was right in an Ivory tower right in the centre. But Lucky knew she would make the best of it all. She was in the Theatre program like she wanted to be and she was itching to make new friends.

Four days before she and all her stuff were transported into her residence room on the fourth floor of a four floor walk up called 'Summers Residence,' Aloe had moved out with Luis. Things went poorly as Lucky expected. Alison's father had raged, however her mother was strangely silent about the whole thing. When Lucky asked her own Mom why Maddy was okay with it she said they had talked and that Maddy felt a young woman should be able to make her own choices. It also turned out that Aloe could still start school, but late, if things were to go very wrong and that she was going to pay for a room for her and for her tuition without her knowing. Lucky thought this was overgenerous and then immediately felt guilty for the thought. Lucky was living her dream, Maddy was just trying to make sure she had the apple juice ready were Aloe to begin a nightmare existence. Lucky felt certain this would be the case.

Sure enough, two days after Aloe was gone Lucky had a phone call from her. Things were fine with Luis but not with their apartment. It turned out it wasn't quite in Toronto. It was in a city called Hamilton, which was known for steel factories and automobiles. It was a nightmare and it was far, at least a half an hours drive, from Toronto. Telephone wise, it was also long distance so Lucky had barely enough time to say hello, nevermind 'what the hell are you doing, come back right away, your mom has a room for you come to school NOW.' Instead, she found herself just playing along with what she knew was going to be. Aloe would wait until it got so bad she couldn't take it. Perspective was everything, Lucky had thought.

Now sitting in her room after her parents left to go to their hotel she took several deep breaths and sang scales in her head to deaden the nervousness. Her parents were staying downtown at the Four Seasons for the next week. Her father was meeting with some lawyers for a convention and her mom wanted to do some shopping. She had promised to pick Lucky up one day and get her some new school clothes. Having them at least in the city helped with the anxiety of the new. No one else from her highschool was coming to York; most had opted for Carleton, University of Ottawa, or McGill.

Lucky began to focus on the design of her room and started decorating it with large sheets of black fabric that she and Aloe had bought in a fabric store before 'Luis.' She added two big blown up posters of Audrey Hepburn and Lawrence Olivier to the walls, giving them some punch. She smiled at the pictures, then brought out her silver hair brush set, mirror, and jewelry box and added them to her dresser. She smiled at herself in the mirror. To be honest, she admitted to herself, Lucky felt just that. Lucky. Classes wouldn't start for a week in order for all the new students to get to know each other as 'Froshes.' Lucky relished the time to get settled, to buy her schoolbooks, visit with her Mom, and meet new people. There would be games and orientation and trips downtown to visit a really big mall called The Eaton Centre. Because Lucky was staying in the 'Fine Arts' residence there would also be a lot of creative activities. As the finishing touch to her room she took out a big duvet cover that was covered in silver tapestry fabric with images of greek goddesses and big silvertipped oak trees, a parting gift from Aloe's room that had made Lucky cry, remembering the last night she had snuggled in it and felt her best friend start to slip away. She patted down the bed, put on her new white sheets and fluffed down the duvet.

Thinking about Aloe again, she guessed that this was maybe how University changed friendships. But she also knew that she was not the type to just sit back and let that happen. She had already bought a ticket from Toronto to Hamilton and was planning a surprise attack on her friend's new apartment life. Lucky felt that once started a friendship could pass all sorts of tests, and this was just one of them. Knowing how Aloe's mother Maddy was ready to help in case of need also made Lucky calmer. Not telling Aloe about the plan was one of the hardest things she could remember doing. Even harder than the Sears festival of the past year. Lucky had written, directed, and starred in a short play about Ghandi and the Indian revolution. Her Dad's family had been on the other side of the fence and she wanted to write a fair portrait about their struggles in accepting the changes that India would need to go through if it was to become its own country. The play was also about how similar that struggle was to any person's struggles with their family and becoming their own persons. Her father had taken her to Waterloo for the festival because her mother was travel writing in PEI at the time. He had sat in the front row and cried just because it was Lucky up there. She had tried to avoid his gaze and, even though she won at the festival, thought she could have done a bit better overall. That was Lucky's way.

Lucky had a roommate, or at least she was supposed to. She hadn't shown up yet but Lucky knew her name was Stephanie Allone from the poster card tacked to the front of the door. Lucky added a big wipe off board, a small postcard of Audrey in black dress and pearls and a sticker from Lucky brand cigarettes on the left side of the door because she had taken the left side of the room. In her mind Lucky was calling her new room mate Baloney and having jokes with her. They would lay in their beds watching movies and eating popcorn and, of course, Baloney would get along perfectly with Aloe when she arrived too. Far back of her mind, though, Lucky was worried that they wouldn't get along together or that she would feel stifled by Stephanie's attitude or personality. She had no idea what program the girl was in, what she was like or anything. And they had to live together for eight months. Talk about arranged marriages. She tried to push all of the negative things out of her mind as she connected her brand new computer (a top of the line 486 IBM with almost 800 mb of memory). She tried to think positive as she plugged in her little television and VCR. She kissed the box called 'Pride and Prejudice' with Laurence Olivier on the cover and lovingly bestowed it beside the other boxes marked 'Hamlet,' 'When Harry Met Sally,' 'Breakfast at Tiffanys,' and 'Gone with the Wind.' These were her favourite movies. She popped in 'P and P' while she started to take her clothes from her luggage. Her parents were going to come and take all the suitcases except one at the end of the week. For now she piled them under the bed. She hadn't brought a lot of clothes with her. Most of what she had was black but her favourite boots and leather jacket were emerald green, a gift from her mother 'to match her eyes' on her eighteenth birthday. They were from a store in New York City called Hermes and Lucky felt they were magical items. She wore them almost everyday and took care that nothing ever scratched them or got them dirty. She took a deep inhale of her jacket as she hung it up and smelled home smells of maple syrup and cinnamon, her last breakfast at home for a while. The last things she dragged out of her luggage were her books and binders. She had bought six black leather manuscript books for her courses and sewn in some folders for loose paper into them. She had brought only twenty five of her favourite books, leaving the other three hundred in her room at home. Her mother had promised to keep her room for her at home. Since they had two extra bedrooms, Lucky didn't think she had to worry about coming home one Christmas and finding her room full of exercise equipment or sewing material. But thinking about Christmas, and the fact that she wouldn't see her parents until then once they left made her feel a little sad. Lucky had always taken change well, had thrived on activity and adventure, but she knew how much of her life was going to be diverted by the decisions she made in University.

Lucky was very close to her parents. In fact, their own love story resembled her own dear 'P 'n' P'. As in Jane Austen's novel, Lucky's father came from an arrogant and ultra rich family, except these from India, all of whom were lawyers. They had made their money by bamboozling a lot of people back in 'the old country' and Alpesh, Lucky's father, lived under their shadow his entire life. He had been arrogant about their wealth and status, that is until he met Angelica. Her mother was the fourth daughter of a humble set of parents who sold used cars for a living out in Thunder Bay. The two had met in Ottawa when Alpesh defected from his family to work with lawyers in the Canadian government and Angelica took on a job as a travel journalist for the Globe and Mail in Toronto but was positioned for election time in Ottawa. For a long time, Babee, Alpesh's mother opposed the marriage, but Angelica's beauty and sincere nature finally won out over the antics and trashiness of her family tree. And Babee had long since softened and moved out of India to be closer to Alpesh, who was her baby. She chose to live in Montreal, which she said was the closest she could get to Paris outside of Europe. Lucky, Ang and Al's second child, was Babee's favourite. All Babee had to do was raise a finger, she liked to boast, and Lucky would laugh and laugh and laugh. Babee introduced Lucky to the theatre because Babee had once been a renowned singer, before she married into the lawyers of the Yogeswaren empire. Those stories Babee would only tell to Lucky. Dipesh, Lucky's older brother, took after Ang's family and really respected them, and eventually started a huge used car business in Las Vegas. He was making loads of money, but Babee still clucked at his interest in selling what she called 'old curried jalopies.' Currying was Babee's term for tarting up. The first time Lucky wore makeup her Babee told her she looked like a curried lamb. Lucky secretly liked the comparison but didn't let her know. Lucky had gone to visit her brother for the first time that past March and quickly fell in love with the lights, scenery, and shopping in the glittering desert oasis.

Out of Lucky's reverie came a serious clang and crash coming from the residence stairwell. Lucky jumped and ran out her door which was just beyond the stairwell. As the door opened she found herself taken aback. Coming through the door was a six foot tall blond maiden in a red miniskirt with thigh high black leather boots and a small white tank top which did not hide her red bra. The crash seemed to have come from her parents, two small Italian people laden down with plastic bags full of clothes, one of which was now split open. Lucky thought most of them looked to be red leather and spikes. A bag full of these clothes had fallen down a flight of stairs making a horrible crash in their metal castings and grommets obviously. Lucky wanted to rush to help but this tall Amazon was leading the troops safely from the stairs towards her new home. All of this made Lucky gulp with intrigue.

'Down this hall,' the tall one ordered the two small helpers, '412.'
Oh my gods, thought Lucky, that's my room! That is obviously my roommate. All of a sudden she heard a loud laugh come from the front of her room. The rest of the hallways were still silent.
'Wonderful. Wonderful,' the voice said.
Lucky ran to the room to meet this amazon.
'Hey,' she said looking up about six inches. 'I'm your roommate Lucky.'
'Hey Lucky,' said the girl's mother and Stephanie all at once.
'I'm Stephanie,' the tall girl said reaching out a long arm fitted with about a dozen spiked cuffs. 'Visual artist and photographer. I like what you've done with your side.' Stephanie started to move in on Lucky's bookshelf and movies. 'Oh, GWTW, cool.'
'Oh, wow, you like Gone with the Wind? Awesome.' Lucky turned to Stephanie's parents. 'Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Ohloney.'
'It's al-O-nay,' Stephanie said.
'Oh, sorry,' Lucky mumbled.
'No prob,' the giant said.
'Nice to meet you too,' her parents said, 'You'll love Steph. She loves to draw and take pictures. She's a wonderful girl. But she has a secret. She is actually half blind.'
'Really?' Lucky turned to Stephanie, who just shrugged her massively perfect shoulders.
'I'm over it,' she said. 'I can still draw and stuff. I just can't drive.'
'Oh.' Lucky said, not sure what to make of the secret. She imagined this great woman at the wheel of a small British mini car and laughed to herself.
'What program are you in?' Stephanie said.
'Oh, me,' Lucky sighed, 'I'm in Theatre. I love to act and write.' Lucky gave her her best smile. She wanted desperately to make a good impression.
'Great,' said Stephanie, and then there was a moment of awkwardness as the girl's parents put down all her bags and began to say goodbye. Lucky stepped in,

'I'm going to go to the cafe and get a drink. Do you all want something?'
'Oh, we're not staying. We've got the restaurant to get back to. Steph, do you want Lucky to get you something?' Her mother turned and looked up at her daughter, who jangled her bracelets and adjusted her tank top.
'Coffee,' the big girl said over her mother's question. 'I'm drained.'
'Wow, sure. I'll be back in ten.' Lucky scooted away, leaving them to their goodbyes and in awe at the very grown up way Stephanie seemed to carry herself. She hoped that she and Stephanie would continue to get along, but as for the Baloney nickname, that just didn't seem to fit anymore. Lucky felt tired as she ran to the cafe, there was the first hurdle started and cleared. Still she missed Aloe and their easy discussions. The way they knew each other, or used to. These things take time, though, she said to herself.