Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19 (11 page)

‘You're kidding, right?' Jessie and Rose are back at it.

‘Give it to me,' said Rose.

‘Right. And you give me your new press machiney thing.'

‘Now.'

‘No.'

‘I said now.'

‘Dree, help, I'm being abused!'

‘Not funny, Jessie.'

‘Dree!'

More than anything, I want to fling myself into the cubicle. But Jessie hates me and doesn't know it yet. I leave the book on the table. Rose tries harder to get Jessie's sketchbook and the screaming and crashing make it easy for me to slink away. Somewhere between 4Ewe and Eve's Dentures, I think about Grandma's broken picture frame. Damn. I forgot to get her a new one. Damn.

Wool turns into felt when it's really shrunk – but it has to be 100 percent wool. Check the label to make sure. Once you have a felted sweater, it can be made into anything. Water bottle covers, change purses, hats, mitts, slippers – whatever you can think of. You can cut into the wool and it won't unravel.

You need:

1 wool sweater from someone who's never coming back Yarn for blanket stitching and fat needle

1. Shrink sweater three times in hot water and dryer until it's really thick and really small.

2. Put your hot water bottle on top of sweater and mark with chalk or pins.

3. Cut one full inch outside of chalk line. Blanket stitch, leaving opening at top to fit
HWB
into.

We go home on the late-afternoon bus, and I sit beside a smallish man who looks too depressed to talk. After a limp attempt at growing Abundance Receptors I put the seat back and pull my fleece hat over my eyes. I made it from an old Joan jacket, hideous but cotton, a rare thing in fleece, and even Joan said I did a good job on the blanket stitching.

No sleep for me. Fine. Marcel 2, I am your god. I get out my little bag of pins and socks and scissors and Depressed Man gets twitchy, so I explain about my nineteen baby socks that have to be made into something, and he watches while Marcel comes into being. ‘What remarkable speed,' he says. ‘If only humans developed so quickly.' I'd love to give him Marcel 2 but Marcel 2 needs eyes first. As we pull into the depot, I say, ‘So, hey, there's a statue of Dante in the downtown library. Next Monday I'm going to leave Marcel 2 in there for you.' I can't read his expression. Happy might have been involved.

Joan looks zombified. ‘C'mon, girls, let's get moving.' Usually there's an ‘I missed you.' Usually there's eye contact and hello. Paige clings like a burr. ‘Mom? Mom, what's wrong?'

Work is killing Joan, she's always been the kind of person to do the right thing, which is why her boss Alex trusts her. On cue, Paige says, ‘Of course you are.' Now Joan's being scapegoated. They thought she'd take stress leave but watch out. She isn't going anywhere. She hasn't had a coffee break in two weeks, not like the bloody counsellors who disappear for hours and get paid thirty percent more than she does.

‘So, you got someone fired?' I ask. Last year, Joan got someone fired for stealing a projector. This year she ratted out a porn-surfer. Leonard said people called her the Terminator. Who knows why Rita still has her job because talk about a satisfying target for Joan. Maybe Joan got a payoff. Maybe she gets an ongoing supply of methadone or something.

‘Remember that supervisor I told you about? The gay-marriage person Alex hated? Time-sheet infraction.'

‘Oh, Joan,' I say. She hits the brakes for a yellow light, and I slam against her seat.

‘Seatbelt!'

‘Whoa.'

‘Mom, it's okay,' Paige says, braid-gripping once again, this time like she hopes a parachute will open.

‘Joan, seatbelt's on. The seat's unattached, remember?'

‘So Alex fired her and now everybody hates me.'

Even Paige can't think up something for this one. ‘He fired her for a time sheet?'

‘Infraction. No one else saw it, including Alex, and believe me, he looked every month.'

‘Wow, precise.' It's my best shot.

‘I am not homophobic.'

Again, Paige and I go blank.

‘Gay people have to be accurate too. I could care less who sleeps with who. I don't sleep with anybody, does that give me special rights? Do those people care I can't afford to fix the washer and you're flying around the back of the car like god-knows-what?'

‘No, Joan, probably not.'

‘Your dad would laugh at me.'

‘No, he wouldn't, Mom!' Paige is working hard.

I pitch in. ‘Leonard thought Alex was a sleazebag.'

‘Jealousy.' Joan pulls into our parking spot gradually, and I brace my feet against her seat to stay put.

I run to get to the computer before Paige does, which is what I do when we get home from anywhere. As usual, the computer takes forever to boot. So things feel kind of the same, which means having to remember over and over that they're not. By the time I've disabled the internet, I feel like I've had a series of electric shocks: he's gone, he's gone, he's gone.

‘Clearly, you've done something destructive,' Paige says when I say the computer's not working. ‘How stupid do you think I am?'

I keep swatting but she keeps zooming. ‘Is that a trick question?' I say.

‘Let me see.' She tries to shove me out of the chair.

I tell her I'm working on the mitochondria project.

‘Like I don't know when you're lying.'

‘Go check your medication.'

‘Supper, how many times – Girls, supper.' Joan yells as if we're across a large field.

Her hands shake when she thunks the pot of Lentil Surprise onto the table. ‘Mmm, delicious,' says Paige. Nice try. ‘Pass the plastic butter, ‘ I say.

‘Soy is an unsaturated fat, so much healthier than butter.' Paige holds the plastic tub like she's a priest doing the communion thing. ‘This is what Dad should've had.'

‘Stop.' She does.

Supper will be lentil-related for the rest of the week because not only did the washing machine break and cost a fortune, but gas went up again, and they wouldn't believe the heating bill. Joan looks up from her soup, eyes buggy, forehead bunched up like corduroy.

‘Really, Mom, this is great, Mom,' I say. ‘Delicious.'

‘Yummy,' Paige says.

We tell her Grandma sent down fudge for her and Paige will cook odd days and me evens. We say no, the house isn't
that
cold, and no the lentils don't taste
that
weird. Joan remembers the relaxation
CD
Alex gave her and yes, we think that's a great idea, perfect, exactly what she needs. As soon as Joan slides her chair back, Paige rushes the computer. ‘Hey, how about I do the dishes,' I say. That is the most gracious offer ever made and they totally miss it.

Every few minutes, Paige says, ‘What did you do to the computer,' I say, ‘Nothing,' and Joan says, ‘Girls, please.' I finish the dishes, get out my Marcel supplies, and stay in the kitchen. When the seagulls and wave-crashing start to fade out, I assess Joan's mental state. She's still lying on the living room floor.

‘Mom, she killed the computer,' Paige says.

‘God, you're paranoid.'

‘Girls, please.' Joan is wearing her target sweatshirt, possibly the most appalling clothing item on the planet. Alex the boss gave it to her. As in, Since you make way less money than me but work way harder, here's a hideous sweatshirt made by other oppressed people. Happy Secretary's Day. ‘He meant well,' Joan had said. I look at the lurid orange bull's eye. No, Mom, he did not, I think.

Possibly the primordial sound of waves does something to my brain. I have this embarrassing impulse to nestle my head against Joan's shoulder and smell her v05 hairspray.

‘Marcel 3 will save you.'

‘Hmm,' says Joan. ‘Very cute, but his hat's crooked.'

‘So, whatever happened to old Mrs. Brandt?'

‘Whaaaat?'

‘You know, old – '

‘My head's killing me, Dree.'

‘I'm really sorry but was Grandma Giles ever a psych patient?' Joan suddenly has way too many tendons in her neck. She keeps her eyes shut.

‘We're supposed to do a family genetics thing,' I say in a lame voice that makes Joan say, ‘Oh, really?'

‘Okay, sorry, ten seconds. Why did Grandma hate Leonard so much, was it because Leonard knew she used to be a patient and what's with creepy Dr. Rinkel? What?'

‘You're judging me.'

‘What?'

‘It may not be the most fashionable thing in the world, but he meant well – '

‘No, it's great, totally on target – '

‘Totally cute,' Paige says. ‘Mom, make her fix this.'

‘It's not like people give me gifts every day of the week. You take what you can get.'

‘Joan, Mom. Really, I'm way too self-centred to think about your sweatshirt.'

‘Totally, Mom,' Paige says. ‘Also, she destroyed the computer.'

‘It would explain a few things.'

We wait for pronoun clarification.

‘It would explain a lot. Like mother, like daughter.' Joan stares at the ceiling and mumbles. ‘Mom loved Leonard at first, said he was a sweetheart.'

‘What about Grandma?' yells Paige. ‘Tell me, tell me.' She hammerlocks me and shouts in my ear. ‘What do you know?'

‘Let go of my neck.' She doesn't, so I say, ‘Grandma kind of lost it after the big fire. Right, Mom?'

‘When I was small, she'd stay in bed all weekend. And right now I could go to bed forever.' Suddenly Joan sits up in one
motion like she's rising from the dead. ‘No other jobs, maxed-out Visa. I hate them. They're not going to know what hit them when I'm finished, every time sheet, every memo, every single bloody – '

‘Joan, I'm making you ginger tea,' I say. It's time to yell questions from the kitchen. I bang around the kettle, think about what I most need to know and read our collective emotional state. Swampland. I may as well get Grandma's photo out. One way or the other, we're going down. I clatter cups, yell tea questions, then, ‘So, did Grandma hate Leonard because of the whole Tim thing?'

‘Tim who? What? What, Mom?' Paige is torn between comforting Joan and assaulting me. Joan talks too softly for me to hear, and when I bring the tea, Paige is kneeling beside Joan, stroking her hair. She swats at me. ‘Why can't you leave her alone, that was ancient history.'

‘See, I need to get a new frame.' I sit on the floor and show Joan the picture as if we've been talking about it for the last half-hour. ‘Did Grandma hate Leonard here?'

Joan closes her eyes but looks okay. ‘Rinkel got moved from treatment to administration after Tim's suicide. He's been Mom's supervisor ever since.'

‘So, hey, why didn't we even know about Tim?' I cup my hand around Joan's toes and use my softest, hey-no-big-deal voice.