One Good Hustle (27 page)

She opens the front door and slams it shut behind her. The three of us stare at the television as she stomps across the porch and down the steps. When we hear the tinny slam of the camper door, Lou says, “Hmm. Anyone feel like popcorn?”

At five after ten the phone rings and I dive off the edge of the couch. I’m in front of the telephone before the second ring is finished.

Clearing my throat, I snatch the receiver off the hook. “Hello.” My best voice. The low, smooth one that sounds like I’m an expensive secretary.

“Hey, uh, is Jill there?”

“Who’s this?” I know damn well, though.

“Roman.”

“She left,” I snap. I hate him and his fugly moustache and his crappy Firebird. I hate everybody. “Where the hell have you been? You said you’d call! Or be here, or whatever.”

“Uh, yeah. I fell asleep. Could you tell her I’m sick.”

“Uh, bullshit,” I say and slam down the phone.

Everybody’s so goddamn full of shit. I want to rip the phone off the wall. I want to scream so loud it echoes from here to hell and back. If I drank booze, I’d chug a hundred bottles right now. If I had sex, I’d fuck a thousand men.

TWENTY-NINE

SOMEONE IS BANGING
on the door. Oh Christ, where am I?

It’s the camper door. I’m in the camper. I’ve been dreaming. One of those horrible falling dreams.

“Sammie!” Ruby calls and then she opens the door. “You alive in here?”

I squint at her as if she’s a stranger. Can’t clear the falling sensation out of my guts. It’s hot in the trailer. Airless and still.

“You’ve got a call waiting for you in the house,” she says.

A call? What time is it? Quarter past eleven? Holy Jesus. I’ve been asleep for nearly twelve hours. Jill’s already up and out of here.

My legs swing down and my feet touch the floor. Ruby closes the door.

I pull pyjama bottoms on as the dream flings around in my head: my mother and Drew were a couple. Except that my mother
turned into Jill. Jill kept Foxy-Browning all over Drew and tossing her big hair and telling him all the sex-things she’d teach him. She was twice his size—next to Jill, Drew was just a flimsy bit of string. They went to bed together, just across the camper on Jill’s side. Suddenly Drew changed his mind. He got up and left her over there before they could actually do it. He came to my side where I was pretending to be asleep, and he sat down on the edge of the bed. He brushed the hair out of my face and said that I was going to set myself on fire if I wasn’t careful. I tried to wake up enough to tell him that I wouldn’t do it with him, but I was so tired I couldn’t speak. Eventually Drew gave up on me. The whole camper shook as he walked out. It swung sideways and Jill started to scream. As Drew stepped off the bottom step of the camper, we tipped over sideways. Parked on a cliff, the whole camper dropped right off the edge, end over end, falling and falling.

Inside the house, I can’t shake the off-kilter sense of falling. And being pissed off with Jill.

The receiver is balanced on top of the wall phone. I don’t want to talk to anyone.

What if it’s Drew at the end of the line? I scratch my head hard and pick up the receiver.

“Hello?” I sound like a toad from the ditch in Langley.

“Hi,” Sam says. “You know who this is?”

“No.” Hope it hurts him to hear that. I hope it stings his ears and burns his guts.

He laughs. “It’s your old man!” he announces. “What’s doin’? Sleepin’ late, eh. Guess you’re still on summer holiday.”

“I thought you were supposed to call last night.” I just want him to say it, just say he didn’t call and he never intended to and that he’s a liar. Or else say he did call and he got a busy signal.

“Sorry about that. By the time I got done last night, it was too late to be callin’ over there. Big game. West Vancouver. Lotta money. You got plans today? Can I take you for lunch?”

Holy shit. This is it. Sam wants to meet. We’re going to talk. He’s telling me about last night’s game so I’ll understand: he had to make some money while the getting was good, had to set himself up, set us up. He couldn’t stop to call.

“Okay. Are you downtown?”

He says he is.

“You want to meet at English Bay?” I know just the place. There’s a restaurant by the water. I’ve walked past it before and looked at the people dining on the patio, first-class people with sharp clothes and long, clean fingers. I imagined Sam and me there one day, looking out at the water and making plans for the future. “The Bay Café? It’s down at the end of Denman Street. Near Davie.”

“Can you get yourself down here?”

I look at my watch. “How about two? Is that too late?”

Lou should be back way before then. I could borrow his truck.

“Sounds good. I’ll be the fella in the pink carnation.”

“Ha!” I say. “Ha ha ha!” Just like those little goats in Langley goofing around, that’s Sam and me.

My dad laughs too. “Okey-doke,” he says. “I’ll see you at two.” His voice sounds silly and happy. As if he can’t wait.

We can’t wait!

THIRTY

THE SUN IS
smashed open on the blue water like a broken piggy bank. I’m sitting here in Lou’s truck, listening to the radio and staring out at English Bay while I wait for Sam to show up. It’s still a few minutes before two.

Full of people today. Smart-looking people—downtowners, they look like they know what’s doing, who’s on the take, and who’s a square john. Not to mention the fact that they’ve got this awesome ocean, for chrissake! Why would anyone want to live in Burnaby if you could just shove over about seven miles and have this?

When Lou got home from work, I told him that my dad called, that Sam and I were going to meet for lunch down at English Bay. Right away he offered to loan me his pickup to get myself here. It’s ironic when you think about it: a prison guard lending me a truck to meet up with a guy who’s been in and out of jail as many times as Sam has.

When I hung up after making plans with Sam, Jill asked me if I was going to call in to the Pacific Inn to get some hours for next weekend.

“Can’t. I’m meeting my dad later. I might not even be here this weekend.” I told her where we were going.

“Nice.” She looked like she hadn’t slept much.

“Did you talk to Roman this morning?”

“He’s
sick
,” she said. “Fucker better have malaria is all I can say.”

Her eyes were a bit sad. I tugged at my T-shirt. “I don’t know what to wear,” I said. “Maybe you could … I mean, you always have good ideas about clothes.”

Her face brightened a little. “Um. Sure, I could give you a hand. Come on downstairs and we’ll put an outfit together.”

I wish Jill could get a load of Sam. Sam always looks good. I wanted to wear something sharp like Sam would—something that would make me look like I was used to being downtown by the water. Urban and stylish.

Jill came through like there was no tomorrow. She was nice to me. Nicer than I was to her yesterday, that’s for damn sure. She even offered to do my makeup. I let her do it too, but when I looked in the mirror it was pretty bad. With the summer dress it was like a creepy combination of
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
and
Lolita
. I said thank you and hugged her. Once I had driven a little way from the house, though, I pulled over and wiped most of it off.

The palm trees wave at the twinkling bay as if I’m somewhere exotic. Makes me feel a bit misty, thinking of how nice
Jill was and knowing that after this week, I might not see her again for a long time.

I roll up the windows and take the key out of the ignition, and the truck goes quiet. At exactly two o’clock, I open the huge driver’s door, jump down onto the road and slam it shut. How could you not feel like you could take on the world in a righteous black pickup like this?

I snatch a glance at my reflection in the side window and take one more look at the water before I start toward the Bay Café.

I’m wearing a white cotton sundress with eyelet lace on the bodice and at the hem just like you see in
Seventeen
magazine. Jill went through everything in her closet. I tried on a thousand things. If it was Jill’s it didn’t fit. If it was mine it looked stupid. I was ready to cry, until Jill remembered this dress that her cousin had left in the basement last summer. She crawled to the back of her closet to get it.

Looked awful at first, all mashed up in a plastic bag, but Jill shook it out and pushed me to try it on. It fit pretty well, so she went upstairs and got out the ironing board for me. I was scared I’d wreck it and asked Ruby to do the actual ironing. The next problem was my feet. I didn’t have anything that would go. Jill’s got major clodhoppers and I couldn’t wear anything of hers. A pair of brown suede cowboy boots would have been awesome. That’s what the girls in the magazines wear. Boots would have been so cool—I’d be walking with a swagger if I had boots on right now. Instead, I’m heading up Denman Street in a little pair of leather sandals. Jill calls them
water-walkers
because of the way they look like something Jesus would wear.

Ice cream shops and tourist joints line the sidewalks. The air is extra clear and everything looks a little too new and bright somehow, the colour of Playmobil toys. I glance around at the high-rent clothes people have on. When I look down at my sundress, I suddenly notice a yellow mark on the skirt the size of a quarter. Stopping, I lift the skirt a little and take a swipe at it, as if it might just be chalk. It’s a stain, though. Something sags in the centre of me. The girl in the stained dress. The girl from Burnaby.

I push myself forward. It doesn’t
matter
. Don’t be such a baby. Sam and I are blowing this town. We can buy all the white sundresses we want.

Stepping onto the corner where the Bay Café is, I spot my father down the block. He’s wearing one of those tailored dress shirts of his, baby blue and starched to cut. That and a pair of sleek tan slacks.

He’s coming toward me down Denman Street, and we’re an equal number of steps away from the restaurant door now. He matches me stride for stride. When you’ve got a lot riding on a situation, everything starts to seem like an omen. And this seems like a good one: something about balance, as if Sam and I are both on the same see-saw.

A couple of feet apart, we stop. With the sun hitting him in the face, he shields his eyes. Sam and I are nearly eye-to-eye now. I’m five–seven and he’s just a little taller. I flash on Lou ducking as he passes through to the kitchen. Sam ducks cops, questions and ex-wives. But not me. Not now.

I take another step. Stop.

He’s tanned. As if he’s been in Miami. He raises his arms to embrace me.

Like overstuffed Raggedy Ann dolls, we don’t bend in quite the right places. We pat each other’s back.

“Long time,” Sam mumbles.

It’s been almost a year. I wonder if he remembers that shopping trip. I wish
I
hadn’t thought of that. Marlene’s voice bangs around inside my head:
Come on, Momma. Pushing me into the bedroom. Come, on, Momma, come on … Nice guy, eh
.

I look down at a crack in the sidewalk, rock on my sandals and then stumble a bit as I go for the restaurant door. I pull the handle. It doesn’t budge.

“Closed,” Sam reads.

“How come?” I stare at the door like someone just told me heaven was shut down.

He cups his eyes as he looks inside. “Looks like they’re doing renovations.”

The both of us search around for a sign to tell us what the hell to do next. Two taxis roll by in traffic.

“You cab it here?” I ask.

“Uh …” He looks back over his shoulder. “We’re in a hotel down the block.”

We
meant him and Peggy. At least he didn’t bring her along. That must count for something.

“I could drive us to a restaurant in Stanley Park,” I suggest.

“You got wheels?” He pops his eyebrows a little and smirks and the two of us turn and head for the truck.

As I step off the curb to cross the road, my knees are suddenly stiff. I wonder if Sam might be nervous too.
More
nervous, like the way people say a spider is more scared of you than you are of it.

He gives Lou’s truck the once-over before he gets in. “This belong to your friend?”

“Her dad.”

He eyes the dashboard and comments on how new it looks. “What’s he do?”

“I think it’s leased,” I tell him. “He works at Oakalla Prison and her mom doesn’t do anything.” They’re none of Sam’s business.

I sit up straight and put the key in the ignition. The engine fires up easy and the full-stomach rumble of it makes me feel better.

“Jill’s dad took me to get a road test a few weeks ago,” I say. “I just got my driver’s licence.”

“Jeez and he’s lettin’ you drive his nice new truck already, huh?” he says.

My father rolls down his window as we drive into the park. “So, how’s your life?”

“S’all right. One more year of school. But I talked to the guidance counsellor about finishing early or even in a different city.” This part isn’t exactly accurate. Crystal Norris said once that she talked to Mr. Walters about finishing early. Sam would like it if it were me who took that initiative, though. “Mr. Walters was saying if I—”