Nova Crescent
By Jessica Gelar
Mom points to a box in the corner of the U-Haul
truck. “Pass that one to me.” The words Kitchen
Stuff stretch across the centre of the box in illegible
handwriting. Only I know what it says because I wrote it.
I hand the box to Mom and hop out of the truck.
A warm breeze ruffles the leaves of the maple tree in
the front yard. It’s cool for the first week of July. The maple
tree stands at the edge of the curb, outside the bushes
that border the lawn. Its thick trunk and sturdy branches
tell me it’s not young, but not old either—just like this
neighbourhood. Planted in the centre of Mississauga, a
five-minute drive from the City Centre, the houses on
Nova Crescent were probably built in the nineties.
Piano movers struggle to roll our mahogany piano to
the side entrance of the house. Some of the tiled blocks
on the path lift out of the ground. The movers treat the
piano like a baby. They wrapped it in a quilt and maneuver
it with careful, calculated motions.
“Roll it an inch to the right,” says the younger mover
in a baseball cap.
“Okay, now push it gently over that bump,” the older
mover with grey hair says.
The words Piano Movers are painted on the side of their
truck. I wonder if enough people need pianos moved for
them to have a stable business.
Dad holds the side door open for the movers. The side
door leads to our new home, a basement apartment—a
temporary setback for our family of five.
“These are all your children?” The woman points her
bony finger at my sisters and me, dragging it back and
forth in the air. Her saggy arms suggest she’s in her early
sixties, but her unlined face makes her look like she’s in
her forties.
“Yes. Just three girls,” Mom replies.
Jennifer, Sharon and I squish together on a plastic-covered
couch. Mom and the woman sit across from us on
another plastic-covered couch. Dad and the woman’s
middle-aged son sit together on the plastic-covered loveseat
to my right.
The living room has the essential furniture—two
couches, a loveseat and a television—but no pictures, no
plants, no books, no dust-collecting figurines. The room
swallows up the turmeric, cumin and chili pepper scents
floating from the kitchen.
“This is my oldest, Jennifer.” Mom points to Jennifer.
“She’s sixteen.”
Jennifer forces a smile, pulls her baseball cap down
and examines her socks.
“This is Sharon.” Mom points to Sharon. “She’s
twelve.”
Sharon forces a smile, adjusts her glasses, and twiddles
her thumbs.
“And this is my youngest, Jessica.” Mom points to me.
“She turns nine next month.”
I force a smile, hold my pose like a mannequin on display
at a clothing store, and fold my hands.
Mom smiles proudly at each of us, her eyes commanding
us to behave. We try our best to look like good girls
for Mom. If the woman doesn’t like us, she won’t let us
live in her house.
“Very nice girls,” the woman says in a soft voice with
a warm smile. Her eyes assess Jennifer, Sharon and then
me. She nods approvingly.
“Do you girls make a lot of noise?” she asks us, and
before we can answer, she turns to Mom and says, “They
must bring friends over.”
“Oh no, they hardly have any friends,” Mom says.
“What? I have friends.” Sharon frowns at Mom. I elbow
Sharon. “But they don’t come over,” she adds.
“And if they do, they are very quiet,” Mom says. “They
are good girls.”
The woman smiles and nods. “They look like good
girls.”
My sisters squirm. I stay still. We know we aren’t good
girls.
The woman’s son says something in a language we
don’t understand. He waves his hairy arm and gestures
towards the hallway. The woman nods and smiles at him.
“Do you want to see the basement now?” she asks and
rises from the couch.
“Yes!” Dad shouts and jumps out of his seat.
“We need to make some changes,” Dad told us over dinner.
“What changes?” Jennifer asked, scooping up a spoonful
of rice and Mom’s signature Filipino dish, chicken
adobo.
“Well, first we need to move to a smaller place,” Dad
started to explain.
“Where?” Sharon asked and took a sip of her juice.
“We found an advertisement for a basement apartment
near the laundromat,” Mom said, adding more
chicken adobo from the pot into the bowl in the centre
of the table.
“A basement apartment? A basement? How will we all
fit?” Jennifer asked.
“It has two bedrooms. You and your sisters will share
a room,” Mom said as she took her seat at the end of the
table next to Dad.
“I can’t share a room with them. They’re losers.”
My father glared at Jennifer. “You will have to.” Dad
can look scary when he scowls.
“Why do we have to move?” Jennifer folds her arms
and leans back in her chair.
“Because I lost my overtime hours.” Dad said and
ruffled his hair. He often worked overtime. His regular
hours and Mom’s income was not enough to support our
family of five. “Downsizing will help us save money.”
Mom rubbed Dad’s back. “This will only be temporary,”
she said.
“How temporary?” Jennifer asked.
“Maybe one or two years,” Mom replied. “We will have
to see.”
Jennifer dropped her fork. “It was bad enough when
we moved to Canada and I had to leave all my friends.
Now we’re going to live in another family’s basement?
How embarrassing. What if they go to my school?”
“Embarrassing or not,” Dad said, “it’s what we need
to do.”
The woman leads us to a door underneath a spiraling
staircase. The door opens to another set of stairs that
lead to the basement. She flips on a light switch. Mom
follows her down. I stay close behind. The woman flips
on another switch at the bottom of the stairs. Fluorescent
lights reveal salmon-coloured walls and tan-coloured
tiles with criss-cross patterns. The main area has
one tiny, rectangular window. I can see only the bottom
of the fence outside.
“Here is one of the bedrooms.” The woman opens a
door to a carpeted room with a single bed. No windows.
“You can fit bunk beds against that wall.”
If we put bunk beds against the wall, there would only
be enough room to walk in between the beds.
Jennifer opens the closet. It’s shallow and only big
enough to fit half of Jennifer’s wardrobe alone.
The woman shows us the kitchen with a bar area and
then the washroom. The washroom has a sauna and
whirlpool. It’s the biggest room in the basement.
I sit in the back of the U-Haul trying to escape Mom’s
and my sisters’ commands to move this and that. A row
of detached houses stand in front of me. They remind
me of the green Monopoly houses Jennifer always manages
to line up on Boardwalk and Park Place whenever
we play. The houses on Nova Crescent have box-shaped
bodies and triangular heads, all the same distance apart.
They all have one-door garages, paved driveways and
windows facing neatly mowed front yards.
We unpack and my sisters and I settle into our new
room. Jennifer zips open her suitcase. Scissors scratch
the wood of the bottom bunk as Sharon carves her signature
rose. The door squeaks open and then slams shut
as Dad carries boxes down into our basement apartment.
Zip, scratch, squeak, slam: the noises of our new lives.