One Good Hustle (24 page)

The bus is muggy with the day’s stale heat. The month of August always sounds so warm and dreamy when you’re stuck in February but once you’re actually here, right in the midst of worn, old August heat, all you can think about is the fact that September is coming. In the past, I’ve always dreaded the new school year: classes I didn’t want to sit through, schedules I didn’t want to keep. Sitting here on this overripe bus,
September
sounds like a foreign word. What does September mean for Marlene? Or me? Or Sam for that matter?

He’s here, though. Sam could be in any of these buildings, on any one of these streets.

I wish I could meet Sam in person. I’d like to punch him in the face
.

As we turn up Willingdon Avenue, I feel queasy. Maybe just carsick from riding a bus all over hell’s half acre. I don’t think that’s it, though. I’m a creep, that’s what it is. I’m a creep and it’s making me sick.

I’m the one who deserves a punch. I didn’t tell Drew about my drugstore returns, did I. I didn’t tell him about how screaming-good it can be, how when a hustle’s going right it makes your blood sing through your wrists—the way it feels as if your hair is standing straight on end when you walk away scot-free with a pocket full of cash.

And here’s another thing I left out: I
want
Sam to come and get me. I want Sam to drive up in front of Jill’s place and say, “Forget your bags, we’ll buy you clothes along the way. Just get in, sweetheart!”

The best September I can think of would be sitting in the passenger seat next to my dad, driving south, working every angle we can, taking every sucker, from here straight on down the west coast—Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego—milking them dry before they know what hit ’em. Then we’d head east, right across to Florida and all the way up to New York City! I’d be there by his side, proving that I really am Sam’s girl.

I am not the loser in the drugstore, the girl who freaks out when some two-bit rent-a-cop says
boo
.

I am not the sucker in the nurse’s uniform and catering apron, covered in other people’s slop.

Drew’s mother had my number from the second she laid eyes on me. If Drew could read my mind like she can, see my two faces, my itch to be with Sam, he’d know she was right.

Why can’t Sam just call me and tell me the score? Tell me what the hell’s going on?

The bus reaches the top of Willingdon Avenue and the driver is about to head east on Kingsway. But I’m not ready to go back to Jill’s yet. I can’t
stand
it. All of a sudden, I can’t stand the thought of anybody who isn’t us. I’m not Jill and I’m not Ruby and I’m not Drew either. I am Sam’s girl. I am Marlene’s.

I need air.

I reach and ring the bell.

On the sidewalk, I gulp the warmed-over traffic breeze, catch a green light and race across the street. I start heading the wrong way down Kingsway, west, past Old Orchard Mall, jogging. I’m not sure if I’m running from something or running to it.

When I’m out of breath I turn to walk down Sardis, our little side street. It’s not such a bad street. The breeze is picking up, fluttering the leaves overhead, ruffling my hair as it goes, whispering against my ears. I listen to the rustle in the trees and think about the way it sounds serene and restless all at once.

The geraniums in front of the apartment building are fire bright against the dark earth. Why can’t I just appreciate the things that are good? Fine, it’s not fancy around here, it’s not downtown, but it’s not horrible.

I step off the sidewalk onto the dirt and wood-chips of the building’s back garden and try to see into our apartment in the corner. It’s hard to make out the ordinary dim of the indoors when the hard gold of the setting sun is blasting the window, obliterating everything.

I keep behind the pine trees at the rear of our building. I just want to see if she’s in there. If she came home.

A hand reaches out through the curtain and I tense as it pushes the window farther open. Then the sliding door to the balcony grumbles sideways on its runners. And suddenly there’s Marlene.

Stepping outside, she looks unsteady, as if she’s not used to the outdoors, the bright light. As if she’s on fawn legs.

She cups her hand over her eyes. She’s looking up. I stare up too, at the sky, and see that it’s the crows she’s watching. The sky is teeming with black birds heading east for the night.

Every night around sunset the crows leave Vancouver and head out here to Burnaby. They’ve always done it, ever since I can remember. It gave me the willies when I was little, like something from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. But now I like it. I like the idea of all those birds moving together when it’s time for bed, flying east, away from the setting sun, as if they’ve got to get tucked in before the lights go out.

Looking down again, Marlene takes a step farther onto the balcony, sets both her hands on the metal railing and her sights straight back toward the alley as if she’s studying the bushes. She tips her head back once more, and closes her eyes to the sun for a moment. She looks so pretty that I flash back to that day in Orlando: the prettiest woman in the world. Marlene in her flamingo-pink pantsuit, holding my hand.

She leans on the railing for a few seconds, light shining on her blonde hair. I wish I could touch it, the gold of it, but I stand here like a ghost, shielded by the screaming brilliance of the setting sun.

After a little while, my mother lowers her chin and glances toward the sliding door into the apartment. She looks reluctant, as though a prison guard is calling her back to a cell, but she goes.

I watch her disappear inside and then I turn and go too, back in the direction I came from.

TWENTY-SIX

IT’S A LITTLE
before nine when I come into the house. Almost dark outside. Ruby and Lou are on the couch in front of the television. There’s a giant bowl of popcorn between them.

“Aha! The mystery woman returns,” Lou says.

“Jill left for a party about twenty minutes ago,” Ruby tells me. “She wanted you to come along but she didn’t know how to get hold of you.”

“That’s okay. I’m tired anyway.”

“Did you go horseback riding?” Lou asks.

“Na, we just walked around and looked at cows.”

Ruby laughs hard at that one. I don’t know why. She does that sometimes.

They seem so cozy together, Ruby and Lou, that I’m not sure where to look.

“Pull up a chair and stay a while,” Ruby says.

I sit down on the second couch.

“You’re just in time to watch
The Way We Were
,” Lou says. “Want some popcorn? Here, let me get you a bowl.”

Ruby steadies the big bowl beside her as Lou gets up.

“You look like you got a little colour today,” she says.

“Probably.” I rub my eyes. They feel as if they’re full of sand after all that time in the sun.

“I talked to your mother a little while ago.”

I blink at her and keep my mouth shut. The television splashes blue light on Ruby’s face.

“I didn’t call her. She called me,” Ruby says as if she can read my mind.

Marlene called Ruby? I wonder if she saw me sneaking around out back.

Lou returns from the kitchen with a smaller version of the bowl on the couch. He shoves a bunch of popcorn into it and then hands it to me before he sits and licks butter and salt off his fingers.

“She really misses you, Sammie,” Ruby says. “She quit drinking, she told me, and she’s in AA. She sounds pretty damn good, considering. Except that she hasn’t talked to
you
in a while.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“She’d like to see you.”

I glance out the window into the blue dusk.

“Don’t you think you should go and see her soon?”

Lou keeps his eyes on the television.

I nod.

“What are your plans, Sammie? What do you think about September?” Ruby asks.

I look at her.

“Your mom’s doing a lot better. If she keeps it up, you’ll be going home soon.”

I turn my face to the TV. Robert Redford is jogging through the park right past Barbara Streisand.

“It’s started!” Ruby yelps as the piano starts to plink out the theme and Streisand hums along. “Turn it up, Lou.”

She braces the bowl once more as Lou jumps up and turns the volume knob on the television.

“
Memories
 …” Streisand sings. They light the corners of her mind.

Another wrist-slasher of a song. Right up there with “Theme from Mahogany.” I stuff popcorn into my mouth.

My eyes drift to Ruby and Lou cuddled together on the couch. Lou’s got his arm around her, and she’s got her head nestled into his shoulder. What must it feel like to be Ruby, to have Lou watching out for you all the time? A person wouldn’t have to be so careful, wouldn’t have to keep their antennae so pricked. I imagine myself snuggled against Lou’s arm. You wouldn’t have to be big around Lou; you could afford to just let yourself be small.

It’s about two in the morning now and I still can’t sleep. Jill’s not back. Maybe she called home after I went to bed. Probably staying over at Crystal’s house.

I barely heard a word of that sappy movie tonight. Ruby snivelled all over the place and went through half a box of Kleenex. Not me. I was too busy thinking about Drew assuming he could just touch me like that. I can’t figure out if I’m being childish. I don’t even have someone I can talk to about it. Definitely not Ruby.

Ruby is not my mother. These people are not my family.

Drew is not my family either.

Lying in bed, I stare at the ceiling. Outside, headlights come down the road and light up the camper curtain for a second or two. Brakes squeak. There is a pause and then I hear a car door open and slam shut.

The camper door creaks and Jill climbs in, shaking the whole frame. I squint at my watch, trying to make out the actual time.

“Hi,” I whisper.

She sniffles.

“Jill?”

No response. I watch her silhouette as she takes off her leather jacket.

“What’s the matter?”

“Go to sleep.” Her voice is warbly. She unzips her jeans and wriggles out of them, shaking the trailer some more as she sits on her bed. She pulls back the covers and crawls under them. “Where the hell were
you
all goddamn day?”

The booze smell coming off her is sour, as if she’s been drinking all night and it’s making its way out of her pores now.

“I told you. I went out to Langley with Drew.”

Silence.

“Where were
you
tonight?”

“Making a fucking ass of myself,” she says.

“Oh yeah? Right on.” I’m trying to be light, make fun of what likely isn’t a very big deal. “Where?”

“Byrne Road.”

Another bush party. She tells me she got a call about it from Mark, one of the guys from her regular crowd at school. When she couldn’t get hold of Crystal, she called Mark back and caught a lift with him. Once she got down to the Byrne Road bush, the first thing she saw was Crystal Norris on a log by the fire making out with Roman.

Jill’s voice rises as she goes into detail about the screaming and yelling that followed.
Two-faced slut! Lying bitch!

Roman separated them. Jill punched him in the stomach. More screaming.

Mark invited Jill to take off with him, go to another party he’d heard about. But Roman suggested that Jill come back to Crystal’s place with the two of them to talk it through. Crystal’s parents were out of town. And that’s what she actually did. The three of them hiked back along the trail to the road in silence and got into Roman’s ugly black Firebird with the shitty gold bird emblazoned on the hood.

“Why didn’t you take off with Mark?” I whisper.

“Because! I had to know what happened.”

“What happened is: Roman’s an asshole and Crystal’s a twat. That’s what happened.”

“You don’t know jack-shit, Sammie. You’ve never had a boyfriend and you’ve never been in love. You have
zero
life
experience. I had to get closure.” She states this as if it were a life-or-death fact similar to
I had to get a blood transfusion
.

I keep my mouth shut.

“So, I go over there … and we’re sitting in Crystal’s basement.” Jill’s voice is slushy with tears. “Roman thought we should have a drink and calm down so he made us all screwdrivers. I was sitting on the couch with Crystal, and I’m like,
How could you do this, Crystal? You even tried to make me jealous of Sammie and it was you the whole motherfucking time!
She starts crying and saying how sorry she is. Then Roman starts telling me that he loves me but it just didn’t work out. I’m like,
Because I wouldn’t fuck you, that’s why! And she would!
I started getting pretty pissed off again, you know, like I was about to start busting some heads. So Roman made us some more drinks.”

Judging by the smell of her he must have made them strong.

Then they talked and talked some more and then they all cried. Roman too. The whole thing turned into a big gory love-fest. Crystal said that she loved Jill and Jill said that she loved Crystal. Roman said that he loved them both. Then he made more drinks and there was laughing and tears and hugging. Roman kissed one of them and then the other. Crystal kissed Jill and Jill kissed Crystal and the next thing you know, Crystal and Jill are necking with each other and then each of them with Roman.