Mud Girl (20 page)

And yes, it's mostly boys. “That's my brother, Jon.” Amanda points him out, a tall skinny guy with reddish-brown hair. She explains that the others are mostly his university friends. And there're a few girls. One stands out because she
flits. Here, then there, back, around. She's off. Hard to even see her features, except Abi notes a lot of light-coloured makeup on a rather tanned face, and hair with heavy streaks.

“Who's that?” she asks.

Amanda says, “Jon's girlfriend,” and her voice is so neutral that Abi thinks if she knew her better she would know Amanda was saying she doesn't quite like this person. Then again, maybe not. After all, she doesn't like Jude and she's not afraid to let everyone know
that
.

“Come help me make fruit salad.” She leads the way to the kitchen. It's a small kitchen.

Amanda notices Abi looking around the tight space. “Jon and I do most of the cooking, and Dad some. Though Mum loves to bake cookies.” Amanda points to the collection of ancient-looking cookie cutters on the wall. Underneath them is a hook holding a longish rod. Abi guesses that Bobbie uses it to reach up and pull the cutters off the wall.

Amanda works on canteloupe, and hands Abi a colander of freshly-washed strawberries. She begins to carve the tops out and cut them in three or four. Then grapes, mangoes, honeydew. They add their cuttings to a giant glass bowl. Bobbie joins them, working at the far end of the island. She hums as she works, and the sound makes Abi smile.

“Do you know Amanda hums while she works too?” she says to Bobbie. “Christmas songs, even.”

Bobbie laughs. “She learned them from me!”

The screen door slams.

“That'll be Jon,” says Bobbie, and she's right.

“Beer,” he says, and dances around his mother's chair, heading for the fridge. Then he sees Abi. “Whoa! You must be Abi! Amanda's friend. Good to meet you.” He puts a hand on her shoulder as if he's Abi's brother too, and gives her a smile. It matches Bobbie's smile. An unwavering smile. Abi has the feeling that she could tell either of them anything about herself, and the smile wouldn't change. Strange thought. What would she tell?

So Abi's smile does falter a bit with this thought, and yes, his doesn't. “We've been hearing a lot about you. You're gonna be Manda's right hand!”

“Abi's left-handed,” Amanda interrupts.

When did she notice that?

“Okay,” says Jon easily. “You're gonna be Manda's…left hand.”

His mother hands him a knife. “If you're going to stand around and chat, you can chop.”

“Like I said, I'm coming for beer.” He opens the fridge. “Besides, I made breakfast
and
lunch today.”

“Fair enough,” says Bobbie.

He's not finished. “Two loads of laundry, even folded. That's the worst part,” he adds as an aside to Abi.

“Don't let Manda work you
too
hard,” he says as he leaves the kitchen. “She will try.”

He leaves both his mother and his sister shaking their heads after him, and the air is warm with affection. Abi's mind scrambles for the words to describe this – if she can name it, she can hold onto it – but she can't find quite the right words, and she just wants to
be
the feeling, hold it as a wordless thing, for as long as she can. Sometimes you can't snap a picture quickly enough, and you can't record a moment in any way that will preserve it. It's enough, it's all it can be, to be there.

It's a perfect day, really. The hamburgs – as Amanda's dad calls them – are delicious, hot, tangy with spice and tomato and Bobbie's “chutney,” whatever that is. They have a crazy game of croquet. Abi comes to know that the lawn only looks smooth: it is actually full of dips and tufts, places for the hard wooden balls to lodge. With lots of laughter, balls are sent flying to the edge of the property by other players. At one point, one game has nothing to do with the wire wickets, and everything to do with a wild zigzagging gambol through the field and across a narrow ditch that runs beyond the length of the property. (Try rolling a ball over a rough old two-by-twelve, and not dropping it into the deep ditch full of thick-bladed grass and thistles.)

Then it's evening and the air cools somewhat, especially off the river, and Rick, Amanda's dad, builds up the fire in the
fireplace. Bobbie wheels easily across the deck, with something on her lap. A guitar, which she hands to Jon. “Best part of a summer evening,” she says low.

“That's why you paid for all those music lessons.” He tunes it for a few minutes, then begins to play some ballady piece that Abi doesn't recognize.

Jon's girlfriend, Kristen, tries to scoop up Mortimer as he rushes past on one of his puppy excursions, but he dodges her and somersaults in the process. She tries again, and he skitters off to the side. Seems funny to Abi that Kristen, herself a flittering person, wouldn't recognize this need in another.

“Leave him alone,” says Amanda finally, after Kristen's third try, and Kristen scowls and sits next to Jon. Bobbie looks from Amanda to Kristen and then to Jon, and then she begins to sing along, and one after another joins in. Even Kristen after a while. She looks quite pretty while she sings, Abi thinks.

The guests finally begin to leave. A few have had too many beers, and Rick fills his car to take some home. Amanda, or Manda, as her family calls her, fills her van too, but saves the front seat for Abi. She drops Abi off last.

“It's late,” she comments as she pulls in to the blackberries. “You should have just stayed.”

But Abi hardly hears this. She has seen the back end of a truck pulled over a way up on the side of the road. She just
hopes that Amanda hasn't seen, and if she has, that she won't say anything about it. The warmth of the evening is gone, and there's a knot in her.

Amanda seems not to have noticed. “I'll pick you up Monday morning just before nine,” she says. “It's going to be good, working together.”

“Yeah, it will be.” Abi tries to sound as if that's the only thing on her mind. She forces herself to turn and look at Amanda, to give her a smile, to say, “I had fun…Manda – thanks.”

The knot in her stomach is growing.

“Monday,” she says, as she climbs out of the van. She has to extricate her foot from the wash bucket and sponges that are on the floor.

“Monday,” says Amanda, and Abi knows her friend will wait until she goes into the house and closes the door. So she does. Pretends she doesn't see the truck there in the dark. Amanda turns onto the road and is gone.

Aba Zytka Jones stands behind her door, and waits for the knock she knows is coming.

He doesn't knock, but she knows he's there. She can almost hear his breathing. How long can she stand, not opening the door?

There is only silence from the living room. The house is silent. All she can hear is the river. And that breathing. Or is
it her own? She opens the door slowly. Then the screen door, and there is a hand on her wrist. The hand is gentle, though. What is she afraid of?

“Come,” says the voice, the voice that is everything she thought it would be. The hand leads her across the porch, through the path between the blackberries, down to the willow. How can he see in the dark?

He lights a match, shields it with his hands, looks at her briefly, his eyes full. Full of what? Full for her, she thinks, and at the same time, empty of something. Empty for her, too. He's waiting. There's a place for her, just her size. A perfect fit in those eyes. He lights a candle set in a glass holder, and then his eyes hold hers longer – until she can't stand it, and she looks around. They are inside the tent of the willow. The river is at their feet. There are old quilts that make a nest.

“I've been waiting for hours,” he says, and he pulls her close. She has a deep, sudden sense of wanting to cry. Instead, she kisses him, hoping, hoping the feeling will go away.

“Where were you?” he asks the question of her neck.

“Does it matter?” she says with her lips in his hair. She wishes she hadn't worn a skirt, but he has his head at her belly, and his hands are under the fabric, and he is pushing at her to lie down. The quilts are soft and comforting, a place where she'd like to sleep for long hours. But he is all over, and her shirt is open. Where did his pants go?

She thinks of the drugstore, sees the woman asking her, “You doing okay here?”

“What about…protection?” Abi asks. She hardly hears the words herself. Sounds as if they are asked by someone else.
You're not going to have any, and we'll have to stop.

He does pause. Then he finds his pants, digs in a pocket, pulls out a packet.

“Is that all?” she asks.

“Comes with the works,” he says.

The works. What exactly are “the works”?

She can't help but stare as he kneels in front of her. Something in her responds to this, something she'd like to control, but she'd also like not to. That spiralling sense again, down, down. Or maybe not “down” but “away.” Yes, more of an “away” thing. Here is a chance, to forget where she lives, to forget her father in his chair, her mother – damn her anyway – that look on Ernestine's face – oh, all those looks on Ernestine's face – all that lumpy throat feeling over the warmth at Amanda's house. Just for a time, she can forget it all, and she can be with this person by the river. There will be a connection. She can be a part of the world. She can be the centre. The knot in her belly is almost gone now. Her muscles are soft. The sound of the river rises, and nears to carry her away. She is the piece of glass, she is almost to the river,
come, come
it says…her mother cries in the greenhouse, her head
bowed, her shoulders moving with sobs…
no, that picture must go…

Abi sits up.

“What?” His voice isn't so soft now.

“I can't.” The words are choking her.

“But I have protection. Nothing's going to happen.”

“It's not that,” she says.

“What then? What else is there? First, you're not ready. Then. What?”

She's on her own after all. Always was.
This need in him has nothing to do with her. Or anyone for that matter.

He's angry. “It's not fair,” he says.

“It's how it is.” Her own voice surprises her. She buttons up her shirt, pulls at her skirt. “I don't know when I'll be ready.”

“Maybe you'll be like your friend,” he sneers, and at first she thinks he's talking about Amanda.

“You know – the balding one.”

Ernestine.

Then Abi does start to cry. But she can't let him see, so she scrambles to her feet and doesn't stop running until she's behind her own door.

W
hen she wakes up in the morning, her legs are caught in the sheets, stuck with blood from the blackberry
tears in her skin. When she gently pulls them free, they begin to bleed all over again.

Fire Music

W
hen the sun is up, and before she eats, Abi pushes softly at the screen door, lets herself out, walks between the blackberries, feels as if she's in a dream, really – floating – except for the dried fragrant grass that catches at her toes, and she thinks that perhaps, like the river, it is trying to tell her something. She already knows, before she reaches the willow and draws aside the feathery strands, that there is nothing there, and she wonders if it even happened, but she knows it did.

It's over. She'll not see him again.

She thinks back to when he was
My Boy
, out in the field, eating his lunch alone and she could watch from behind her
window. But she did all her crying last night. Now it is time for breakfast.

Muffets and milk, and she questions which chess piece to move, but doesn't touch any. Dad, in his chair, is listening to the local events channel, and there is the sound of dull film fireworks. So unlike the real thing, she knows now. A monotone voice says something about
Fire Music
, the annual celebration of fireworks, an international competition, first weekend in August, blah-blah-blah.

Oh, shut up.
She thinks back to July 4th.

Abi wanders into her room. Picks up the knitting needles. If only she could cast on. Old Ernestine, with her sprayed hair and sky-high heels. And then those hips. Ernestine, Ernestine. Mary.
You
.

Abi stuffs the ball of yarn and the needles back into their paper bag and shoves it into the bedside-table-box. Here's her notebook and that stupid pamphlet
Expand Your Vocabulary
. Right.
You'll go places
. Where are we at now…let's see…the Brooklyn Bridge? The Eiffel Tower…no, the Sphinx. No, again. We're at the letter J!

Abi flops onto her bed and opens the dictionary.
Jamboree
. Where could she go for a jamboree? Was that at Amanda's, last night? Brother Jon with his guitar?
A large celebration or party, boisterous.
Yeah, that would be it. Then it was over. How about
Jekyll, Dr.
? There's a word, a name.
Jekyll and Hyde. Or was that
Jude and Jude
? Here's another –
jetsam: material that has been discarded to lighten the vessel.