Mazie Baby (15 page)

“What?”

“You’re breathing funny. And
sweating.” Ariel pointed out the front window. “And the line moved up, like,
two cars.”

“Shit.” She jerked the van forward
then slammed on the brakes.

Ariel giggled. “Can I swear?”

“Only after you get your driver’s
license.” She gripped the wheel with both hands and forced out a laugh.

Time to get her shit together. They
wouldn’t even have found his body yet.

She yelled their order into the
speaker then inched up to the window after the first police cruiser had pulled
away.

“Good morning. Your order was
covered by the car ahead of you.”

“I’m sorry?”

The clerk in the brown polyester
uniform gave her a withering look. “You know, that whole ‘pay it forward’ thing
that’s been going on?”

“No, sorry. I don’t know. The cops
paid for our doughnuts?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mazie shook her head. “Okay then.
How about I pay for the police behind me?”

The clerk flashed a wide grin. “You
bet! Two extra-large double-double and a twenty pack of Timbits. That’ll be eight-oh-seven.”

A bit of good karma couldn’t hurt.

Mazie pulled the van onto Highway Twenty-two
and headed east. The sun was brilliant, the heat penetrated the air conditioned
space and warmed her face. She took a sip of coffee and popped a ball of
deep-fried dough into her mouth. Sour cream glazed, her favourite.

Ariel wasted no time finding a radio
station. She bobbed her head and mumbled the words to some song Mazie was
unfamiliar with.

“Can we put on another station?”

Ariel covered the buttons with her
hand. “No, please? Daddy never lets me listen to my music. He’s always got that
country crap on.”

Mazie grinned. “Fair enough. No
country crap. But maybe when the radio cuts out, we could put in the Beatles or
Bon Jovi or something I know the words to.”

“You’re going to sing?”

“Yes.” Mazie nodded. “Yes I am.”

As they approached the city limits,
a siren whooped behind them. Mazie glanced in the rear-view to find a police
cruiser, lights flashing.

“No, no, no.”

“Are you speeding?” Ariel twisted
in her seat and watched out the back window.

“Nope.” She signalled right, pulled
onto the shoulder, and slowed to a stop. She watched the officer approach in
the side mirror. She gripped the steering wheel, huffed a few breaths like she
was in labour. Not that those idiotic breathing exercises actually worked.

She could floor it just as he got
to her. Get a head start. She looked the rear-view, at the new black and white
Interceptor, another cop in the driver’s seat. She wouldn’t even get half a
kilometre.

He tapped on her window. She jumped,
depressed the window button and waited for it to slide down. “Hi, officer.
What’s the problem?”

He flashed a bright smile at her.
“No problem, ma’am. Just wanted to say thanks for the coffee and Timbits.” He
tipped his hat. “Where you all headed?”

“Just a summer road trip.” Mazie’s
voice cracked.

“We’re going to visit my grandma.”
Ariel beamed at the handsome officer.

“Here, young lady.” He pulled a Tim
Horton’s gift card out of his breast pocket and reached into the van.

His arm was inches from Mazie’s
face, his shoulder brushed her hair. The smell of his cologne and sweat brought
coffee and Timbits rolling up her throat. She swallowed hard. Could he hear her
heart beating?

He handed the card to Ariel.
“Wherever you’re headed, lunch is on me and my partner.” He tipped his hat
again. “Drive safe, now.”

“We will, thank you.” Mazie watched
him in the side view mirror until he disappeared behind the van and the patrol
car pulled out and did a U-turn on the highway. She let out the breath she’d
been holding and blinked a long blink. “All right then. Let’s get on the road.”

~~~~~~~~

The thrum of tires on blacktop,
Matchbox Twenty at low volume, the utter boredom of the flat prairie horizon.
The perfect storm for falling asleep at the wheel. Mazie’s head jerked. She
blinked and tried to focus on the horizon, to ignore the white lines painted on
the highway zinging past her peripheral vision. She pinched her thigh, cranked
the air conditioning, and pointed the air vents at her face. Regina’s meagre
skyline loomed ahead.

“Bug, we’re here.”

Ariel stretched and rubbed one fist
against her eye. “Grandma’s?” During her waking moments, the ‘tween persona
dissolved into the innocence and wonder of a sweet little girl. If only time
could freeze and keep her there. Keep her from maturing and noticing boys. Boys
who turn into men. Men who turn into monsters.

“Not yet. We’re at a hotel in Regina.
I’m done driving for the day. Maybe we can order in some pizza and watch a
movie?”

Ariel straightened and glanced
around, her hair stuck to one sweaty cheek. “Okay. I’m starved.”

Hours later, sated by cheese and
dough, they settled into their shared queen-size bed. Mazie clicked off the
light and pointed the remote at the television, her thumb on the off button.

“Can we leave it on?” Ariel lay
beside her, the covers at her chin.

“Won’t it keep you awake?” Mazie
stroked her daughter’s hair.

“I just want a little light and
sound. This room creeps me out.”

“All right.” Mazie turned the
volume down low and set the sleep timer for one hour. She punched her pillow
and slid down under the covers.

Ariel inched over until their arms
touched.

Mazie smiled. She slipped her arm
under her daughter’s shoulder and hugged her against her body, placed a gentle
kiss against the thick hair on the top of her head. “Night, bug.”

Mazie closed her eyes against the television’s
glow and tried to empty her thoughts, to steady her breath. Lost in the fog
between asleep and awake, Cullen’s hands tightened around her throat. She
fought for air and gasped. The television flickered. The clock glared at her. They’d
only been in bed for fifteen minutes.

Each time sleep beckoned, a leg
spasmed, or her own snorts shook her awake. And guilt crushed her chest. She
hadn’t unloaded the dishwasher. Hadn’t cleaned the bedroom or scrubbed the
carpet.

Cullen would be furious.

Laughter bubbled to the surface. She’d
gone through the daily motions like an obsessive compulsive zombie, dragging
her dead limbs behind her, mindless and rote, scrubbing and washing and cooking
and trying to avoid the inevitable punishment when nothing she did was good
enough. 

It was his turn to be the zombie in
this relationship. His absence from the feeling world was permanent. Why was it
taking so long for that to seep into her subconscious? And when it did, why was
it so damn funny?

~~~~~~~~

A hundred kilometres into day two and
Ariel was already moaning about how bored she was. “It’s just flat and grass
and kilometres of nothing. There aren’t even mountains.”

“We’re in the heart of the prairie.
Haven’t you learned Canadian geography in school?”

“Yeah. But it’s even more boring in
real life.”

“I think it has a quiet beauty
about it. The way the wind makes the fields of wheat wave and undulate. Like a
golden ocean that you can never drown in. And the endless horizon, the sky to
infinity. Look how blue that is.”

Ariel leaned forward and craned her
neck to look up. “I suppose.” She fiddled with the radio dials and grimaced when
she was rewarded with nothing but static.

“When we stop for lunch, you can
buy a book or some magazines.”

“When’s that?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Two hours? I’ll die of boredom by
then.”

Two rest stops and one lunch break
later, they pulled into Winnipeg late in the afternoon. “We could stop here,”
Mazie said. “Or just gas up and keep on going. Get to Grandma’s a day early.”

“Yes, keep going. Can I get some
chips and Coke?”

“That would ruin your dinner. Your
fath…” Mazie clamped her lips shut and glanced at Ariel. “Sure. Why not?”

Just past Kenora, Mazie’s chin
dipped to her chest. Her head snapped up to find the van drifting to the left.
She jerked the steering wheel to correct. Her body jerked along with it, and
Ariel’s sleeping head banged against the door where it rested.

“What was that?” She sat up.

“Sorry. Maybe it’s time to pull
over for the night. I’m getting tired.”

“Mom, look out!”

At the apex of a curve fifty yards
ahead, two deer strolled across the highway. Mazie pumped her brakes and honked
her horn. The deer stopped in the middle of her lane. Their eyes gleamed golden
fire, lit by the setting sun. Mazie pulled to the right onto the shallow
shoulder and skidded to a halt not two feet from the smallest deer.

Adrenaline accelerated her heart
and turned her legs to pudding. She rested her head on her knuckles that had a
death-grip on the steering wheel. “Fuck,” she whispered.

“Shit, Mom. You nearly hit them.”

Mazie smiled at her daughter’s
profanity.

Ariel bounced in her seat. “You
almost killed them.”

“Or they almost killed us.”

“They’re so pretty. I wish we had a
camera.”

Venison on hooves. That’s what
Cullen always called them. Damn it, why wouldn’t he get out of her head?

The deer were frozen in place, like
so many plastic lawn ornaments dotting the highway. One ear twitched on the
largest, an apparent signal to the rest. They reanimated, cantered across the asphalt
and disappeared down the embankment. A semi came at them from the other
direction and honked the air horn. Mazie jumped. “Holy hell.”

“Where should we stop?” Ariel’s
gaze darted side to side, scanning the edges of the highway.

“Well, I’m awake now.” Mazie’s
heartbeat pounded in her ears, and her hands trembled on the wheel. She checked
her mirrors and pulled back onto the highway. “You keep watch for wildlife and
we’ll go for another hour. We can make Dryden tonight.”

“Can we find another Pizza Hut?”

“Oh, sweetheart. I can’t do pizza
again. Let’s see if there’s a steakhouse.”

Saliva filled Mazie’s mouth. A
glass of wine and a giant steak was just what she needed. Maybe between the
food and the alcohol, she could get a decent night’s sleep.

~~~~~~~~

Mazie lay in bed and stared at her
reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. A deluge of thoughts flooded her
brain. Visions of the future were streaked and marred by the failures of
yesterday. When she allowed her mind to find a happy tomorrow, the sight of
Cullen’s body, sliced and diced and left to rot in the torture chamber of her
past, intruded on a perfectly good fantasy.

Even in death, he still ruined
everything.

She pressed her palm against the
lump in her gut. Only two bites into her steak the night before and she’d
pushed the plate away. The juice and blood that oozed from the T-bone brought
visions of crimson stains on her best bed sheets. She’d set aside her red wine
and asked for a vodka tonic instead. Nothing but beige food for a while. And
beige drinks. Beige, beige, beige.

She glanced at the clock radio.
Eight forty-two. They should have been on the road an hour ago.

The sun streamed in through the
dusty drapes and laid a sliver of bright heat across the bedspread. Ariel
squirmed beside her. Mazie stroked her hair and leaned over to kiss the top of
her head. A good night’s sleep had eluded Mazie again. Between the highway
noise and the urine-meets-sweat-sock smell in the room, there was no comfort at
the Comfort Inn. The few times she did find enough peace to nod off, she jolted
awake, her body atremble, her mind filled with murder.

Where were they? She reached for
the nightstand and grabbed a notepad. A pen skittered off the edge of the table
and dropped onto the carpet.

She eyed the hotel address on the
paper. Dryden. Right.

She slipped out of bed and took a
quick shower, pulled her hair into a ponytail and daubed foundation onto the yellow-and-green
bruises on her face.

She ripped open a pack of coffee
and poked the encapsulated filter into the machine, poured water into the
reservoir, dropped the cup under the spout, and gave the start button a hard
poke.

A stream of caffeinated elixir poured
into the cup. Even shitty hotel coffee was better than no coffee at all. She
breathed the aroma deep into her nostrils and closed her eyes.

Before he’d ever said a word, she could
smell his arrival — an intoxicating mix of cheap cologne and post-coital sweat.
His arms circled her from behind, slipped around her waist, tugged the sash of
her robe free and brushed against the soft skin of her naked belly. He buried his
nose in the fine hair at the base of her neck.