One Good Hustle (10 page)

When I get to Willingdon Avenue, I look across the street to the Old Orchard strip mall. The sun is breaking through the clouds and I’m beginning to sweat. I could really go for a drink. Maybe an Orange Crush. Ice cold. But the most immediate problem is money. That’s frequently the most immediate problem. I’m only about five blocks from Marlene now.

It’s not smart working close to home but sometimes you have to.

In the strip mall, outside the drugstore, I hang around the
garbage can till I can discreetly fish out a few cash-register receipts. My dad told me about this one—he used to do this when he was young and broke. You have to act normal, you can’t make a big deal out of hunting for receipts or some uptight tool might notice and go squealing to a cop or something. The best one I find lists a pregnancy test, mascara, foundation, lipstick and blush. Total: $43.50.
Nice
. For appearance’s sake, I snag an empty store bag too.

Inside the store, I lift the items off the shelves. Marlene would freak; she thinks shoplifting is totally low-class.

The problem with this scam, though, is you have to be exact. Not like when Sam was young. Ever since some stores started using barcode scanners instead of perfectly decent price tags, everything’s gotten more complicated.

I have almost everything—the same pregnancy test, mascara, foundation and lipstick—but I can’t find the right blush.
Shit!
I see the tag on the shelf but there’s none left.

My heart starts to pound.

“Can I help you find something?”

Shit-shit!
It’s one of those cosmetic-counter ladies, wearing a dump truck’s worth of makeup and frosty pink nails.

“No. I mean, yeah. I’m trying to find this, um, stuff and they’re all, umm—” Smooth. What a loser.

“Oh, that shipment came in yesterday. I guess they haven’t put them out yet,” she says. “Can you wait just a moment?”

So I stand there and wait for her to bring me some blusher to steal.
God!

When she gets back I choose the “English Suede” shade, thank her with this big phony smile, and take off to another
aisle. When I take the store bag out of my pocket, my chest is banging so hard, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a heart attack. I should put it all back. My legs are all wonky and wooden. I make myself go to the checkout.

I dump the pregnancy test and makeup on the counter and hand over the receipt. The cashier slaps down a pad of return slips. This is the
worst
—when you’re freaking and you still have to close the deal. I take a deep breath, pull my hands out of my pockets, and write down a fake last name and number. As she reverses the charges and I take the cash, I start thinking about how disgusted my dad would be by this lame performance of mine.

“Sammie!”

My head snaps around. Jesus Christ. It’s Drew, three people behind me in line.

I freeze a second. “Hey, how’s it going?” I make a show of checking my watch as I head for the door. “I’ve got to go to the supermarket. For my mom.”

“Wait!” His woolly blond lion hair hides his face as he counts out change to pay for a pack of gum. He told me once that he leaves his hair kind of long to distract from his big nose and his zits, but his skin’s not that bad. And I like his nose.

I feel queasy and melty inside all at once.

“I’ll be outside.” I want to get out of here before a security guy’s hand lands on my shoulder.

Out on the sidewalk, I try to remember this morning’s dream. Something about fire. And Drew held my hand.

He comes out a few seconds later, and we head down the strip-mall sidewalk. The air between us is clunky.

“Where’ve you been?”

He’s acting like it’s no big deal, but I know he’s mad. Before that shitty night when he drove me downtown, we talked on the phone nearly every day.

“I keep calling. But every time, your mom says you’re not home.”

“I’ve been really busy.”

He nods. “You coming to the DYF roller party this Friday?” His voice is tight and the pitch is all wrong.

“Doubt it.”

“When I called the last time,” Drew tells me, “your mom said you were sleeping over at Jill’s. I thought you didn’t—I didn’t think she was your type.”

“We’re not dating, for chrissake,” I say, and roll my eyes as if he’s the biggest moron. “What are you doing around here anyway?”

“Mandy organized this thing at her place this morning, making cookies for the Burnaby Seniors Centre.”

“Mandy, Mandy. Quelle saint!”

Drew stops and stares at me. “Are you in trouble?”

I stop too. My chest clenches like a fist.

“A
pregnancy
test?” he whispers.

He saw. I look away and laugh.

Drew jams his hands in his pockets. He’s got a loose long-sleeved T-shirt on but I can still make out the bones in his chest.

“I was taking it
back
, doofus.”

“Your face is red,” he says.

His is too.

My mind bugs around for an explanation. I hate lying to Drew, but he asks too many damn questions.

“You’re such a goof.” I laugh some more. “My mom bought it by mistake. She thought it was a douche. Okay? She’s a total zone-out.” I start down the strip again.

Drew catches up with me. “Why haven’t you been returning my calls? Are you mad at me for something?”

“Nobody returns calls,” I blurt. “I called my dad a couple weeks ago. He never called
me
back.”

I wish I’d never said that. Now I can’t shut up. “And he’s my dad. But nope. That’s life.”

Drew trots to keep up. “Did you try calling him again?”

“Fuck him.” I shove my way through the supermarket door.

“What?”

I turn and squint at Drew’s face. “Fuck. Him.”

I need some food to bring back to Ruby. People are less likely to throw you out if you bring home groceries once in a while. At the meat section, I grab a package of bacon. Don’t even look at the price. Who cares? I watch my feet on the linoleum as I walk to the bread aisle.

Sappy Muzak dribbles through the store. Drew scrambles along beside me.

“That’s crappy, Sammie. I’m—I’m sorry. I thought you were pissed with
me
. Did you talk to your mom about it?”

I snatch a loaf of grainy bread off the shelf, the kind with sesame seeds all over the crust—the kind they wrap in two plastic bags, it’s so friggin’ fancy—and start back toward the syrup aisle. Real maple syrup, Ruby, the good stuff. Suck on
that
tomorrow morning!

“Why the hell would I talk to
her
about it?”

I can’t find the syrup. Just peanut butter and jam and my head is ready to explode.

I don’t know what to do when I get like this. I don’t know where to put it. This is why I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. Least of all Drew.

“She was funny when I talked to her the other night,” he says. “She thought someone had broken into the apartment and she kept saying, ‘Who’s there?’ in this man-voice. She put the phone down a minute and went to check and then she came back on the line and said she had a hammer for protection.” He laughs. “She wanted me to come over. She’s like—”

I stop in the aisle and stare at him. “She wanted you to come
there?
To the apartment?” This is too much. He has to be bullshitting. Maybe this is Drew getting even with me for ditching him all this time.

“She’d had a few. She didn’t mean anything.”

“Shut up.”

“She kept saying, ‘I need a man!’ ”

My hand shoots out and shoves him against the preserves. His face is shocked as he hits the shelf. A jam jar falls past his ear and busts open on the floor. It looks so horrible, the bloody red of it, like the inside of a skull. We both stare. A big goose egg sits in my throat and I can’t swallow.

Drew looks at me. His mouth opens.

I take off for the cashiers. He doesn’t follow. Who could blame him?

TEN

I GUESS THIS
is Jill’s idea of a good time—what the cool kids do, the ones who aren’t “total suckholes.” So far it seems like a drag.

It’s midnight and I’m sitting on a log somewhere in the uncharted brush of deepest darkest Burnaby. Sparks from the bonfire pop now and then. The Byrne Road bush parties are a semi-regular event for Jill and her pals. The straight kids refer to them as Byrne Road Burnouts. This is the first time I’ve come out to one of these things.

Probably about twenty people down here. Maybe more. Kids wander in and out of the trees. Gabbing, necking, singing. On a log directly across the fire from me some dude who looks a little old for the crowd is playing guitar and singing “Let It Be” in a strained voice that would make any self-respecting dog howl his guts out. Three girls I recognize from school are
gulping orange coolers from the bottle and singing along. Outside the ring of logs, a few guys pass a joint.

One of the orange cooler chicks falls off her log and the rest of them squeal and crack up and drag her back up off the ground.

Jesus. All these jerks want to do is get drunk and stoned. Like Marlene. What they don’t get is, if you act like Marlene, you end up like Marlene. Fucked up and lonely and broke.

I’ve got a cherry Slurpee, nearly melted, that I’ve been nursing for the last couple hours. Nobody says a word to me. I’m just the little defective sitting on a log. The ultimate suckhole. Meanwhile, I know loan sharks, for chrissake! Fences! I’ve seen a gun! Not that I’m all superior about it, but
they’re
the suckholes, not me. These people are clueless.

Jill and Crystal Norris are sitting on the dirt beside me, leaning back on the log, smoking and talking. Each of them holds a 7-Eleven Big Gulp cup. Lemonade and gin.

“Technically he broke up with me,” Jill is saying. “But I was about to do it anyway.”

“Why would you break up with Roman, man? He’s a fox.”

“Because all he wanted was one thing and
I
don’t put out.”

“
You’re
a virgin?” Crystal says.

“Yes.” Jill looks proud about it.

“You are such a lying hosebag!” Crystal laughs.

“I’m a
virgin
,” Jill says emphatically.

“Where? In your left ear?” Crystal laughs even harder.

Crystal drove us here tonight. Her face had pinched up like a big anus the second we—I mean
I
—got into her car.

“Nobody told me it was Suckhole Night.” She laughed, then said, “Just kidding.”

We turned off Marine Drive and headed down another industrial road. I sat in the back and stared out the window, wondering why I’d agreed to come: nothing but gangly trees and scrubby weeds down here. No houses or apartments nearby. No phone booths. I don’t think there’s even a close bus stop. It’s the kind of place where horror stories happen.

We parked on the side of the road behind a few other cars.

Crystal got out and tugged at the tight jeans climbing up her crotch. “These fuckin’ Gloria Vanderbilts always give me camel-toe,” she said.

“No kidding.” Jill grimaced, and tugged at her jeans too.

Crystal walked ahead of us across the grass. At the top of the dirt path she stopped and pulled a bottle from her purse. “Let’s just spike it now. Away from the moochers.”

“Why’d you get
gin?
” Jill moaned. “Gin makes me wanna boke.”

“It’s all we got, so get over it,” Crystal said. “Hold this.” She shoved her lemonade cup into my hand while she twisted the cap off the gin. She stuffed the cap in the pocket of her purse and I held the cup while she popped the plastic lid and poured. She turned to Jill’s.

I debated what to do if she wanted to spike mine. I wished I’d stayed home.

“Nobody’ll mess with you,” Jill had said. “You’re with me.”

Crystal turned back to me. “You going to take your lid off or what?”

I looked down at my two full hands.

Jill put her hand over my cup. “Sammie’s on the wagon.”

Crystal gave us one of her snide-twat snickers. Same laugh she laughed after she shoulder-checked me in the hall.

Jill switched her weight to the other hip and straightened to her full height. Bangles jangled down her wrist as she shoved one hand into her back pocket. “Listen, baby: She. Can’t. Drink. You dig?”

Oh god. Full-on Foxy mode.

Screwing the cap back on the gin, Crystal sputtered with laughter. “Fuck off.”

“What?” Jill stood a full head taller than Crystal. Her tight leather jacket opened to a scoop-neck T-shirt.

Crystal glanced at Jill’s chest. Those big boobs of Jill’s must seem like muscles to some girls.

“A.A.,” Jill said, “do I have to spell it? Tuesday- and Thursday-night meetings. And now she’s got A.M.A. meetings every Friday morning through the whole fucking summer.”

“What the hell’s A.M.A.?”

“Anger Management Anonymous?” Jill enunciated as if Crystal was a massive retard.

Crystal stared at me. “Seriously?” She stuffed the gin bottle back in her purse and said, “That’s fucked up.” She took her drink from my hand as she shot me another look. “You’re seriously in anger management?”

“Fuckin’ A,” Jill said. “It’s part of her probation. She broke some chick’s
clavicle
last year.” She took hold of Crystal’s arm. “And by the way, Twelve Step groups are
seriously
anonymous.
So don’t go shooting off your mouth. If I hear it from someone else, I’ll know who it came from.”

“Totally.” Crystal tugged her arm back. “I’m not saying anything.” She sucked on her straw, looking at me. Then she stopped drinking and said, “Well, I’ll be dipped in shit!” Her mouth opened into a grin.

Jill gave me a quick wink and I looked away, embarrassingly teary with gratitude.

Now the two of them are sitting on the dirt, chain-smoking and talking their faces off, and I’m staring into the bonfire, my butt going numb on this log.

I can’t stop thinking about the supermarket—that jam jar, the red, brainy meat of it lying beside Drew’s foot. If my mother had jumped off the roof the night she promised to, I guess her skull would have busted open just like that.