SSC (2012) Adult Onset (17 page)

She has lived here long enough to have seen the street change clothes if not character, and behind every new facade she can still see earlier ones layered like old movie posters. She passes the Bloor Superfresh that everyone still calls the Bloor Super Save—it was the first twenty-four-hour store on the strip and in the days before Sunday shopping, certain aisles were cordoned off, it being for some reason legal to buy milk but not Q-tips on the Lord’s Day. She sees one of the dads from Matthew’s school.

“Hi, Mary Rose.”

He is a political cartoonist—or is he the physicist? She slows.

“Hi … Keith.”

“When’s the book coming out?”

It’s a funny turn of phrase, as though the book were cowering in the closet. “When Maggie’s in university!” she replies. Past the natural food store with its medicinal whiff of buckwheat. Vegetarians used to be cadaverous killjoys with no use for food other than to push the food that was already in them out, but now the woods are full of friendly vegans—some things really do get better.

Past the corner of Brunswick Avenue where academic loafers huddle over cappuccinos on the crumbling patio of By the Way Café that used to be Lickin’ Chicken; a woman at a rickety table raises a hand in greeting. Mary Rose waves back, “Hi … (
Blank
).” The woman used to run the box office at the Poor Alex Theatre—she
looks old. Perhaps she just looks her age. Note to self: when past fifty, avoid Bolivian shawls unless you are Bolivian. Past the candy store that used to be a Hungarian restaurant, past the hip clothing store that used to be a Hungarian restaurant, past the Wiener’s Hardware that has always been Wiener’s Hardware—outside Indra Crafts a knot of schoolgirls sample sticks of incense and examine tiny carved elephants on a table crammed with wares; amid a thickening braid of pedestrians from every sidewalk of life she spots the Native guy striding with his German shepherd off-leash at his side. She rides on, past the old Bloor Cinema on one side and Lee’s Palace on the other, temple of indie rock where she did performance art back in the day and got drunk and met Renée—its exterior is still graffitied, but professionally so now; past a Lebanese restaurant that used to be a Hungarian restaurant, past a Hungarian restaurant, past the bookstore that is still a bookstore, and the Starbucks that used to be everything else.

She thinks Renée may have put on a few pounds, but she looked good just now, she has grown her hair, she looks a bit like Carole King if Carole King wore a blue boiled-wool caftan and jewellery made of river rocks and computer parts. Mary Rose and Renée have been on cordial terms for years. Even Hilary has overcome her allergy to Mary Rose’s ex. Renée is someone who can make art out of anything, but when they were together she was also someone who couldn’t make anything into a job. Mary Rose was racked with guilt when she finally left, convinced Renée would fall apart, drink herself to death and wind up homeless.
Spare a loonie?
Renée got a full-time job at a community college and bought a condo. She kept the cats, one of which is still alive at eighteen.

Mary Rose brakes at the lights and considers heading across to Honest Ed’s, the flashing neon emporium where “only the floors are crooked!” But she would need more time for that, not to mention a GPS to find her way out again. She crosses the street and hesitates
before Secrets from Your Sister. Professional bra fitters with nary a gnarly old lady in sight to bully you into the right brassiere—the word itself a burpy bugle-bleat, herald of humiliation and Aunt Sadie palpating Mary Rose’s eleven-year-old chest, “She’s gettin’ bumps, Dolly!” Mary Rose locks her bike—she is a middle-aged, very married mother, there is nothing remotely suggestive in a spontaneous bra fitting mid-week mid-morning. She could use a sturdy new
bustenhalter
, as they say in Germany.

She enters the store with its savvy range of lingerie and everyday “intimate wear”—she brought her own mother here in January. An efficient young woman in heels and a topknot secured by chopsticks greets her with a smile of recognition and Mary Rose prepares to receive serenely the forthcoming gush of admiration along with the inevitable query, “When’s the third one coming out?” But the young woman says, “You’re Dolly’s daughter.”

“That’s right.”

“How
is
she?”

When she has finished bringing the young woman up to date on her mother, she is told, “I’ll need more than five minutes to do a proper fitting on you.” She turns an appraising eye on Mary Rose’s chest as though seeing right through to the faded, ill-fitting sports bra. “I’ll book you in.” As though for a
procedure
.

“That’s okay, I’ll pop by later.”
Pop
. Her mother’s word.

She tries to flee but is snagged by a lacy confection as ornate as it is insubstantial. Hil would look over-the-top in this. Worth its weightlessness in back rubs …

“That cut would be great on you,” says the girl, “you’re on the small side and super fit.”

“Not for me. My partner.”

The young woman does not bat an eye. “Your wife will love it.” Mary Rose looks at her sharply, but clearly no irony has been intended in the young woman’s use of the W-word. Mary Rose is
suddenly aware of having missed a beat, finding herself once again scrambling to keep up with a world she helped to change.

“Doesn’t my … wife have to be here to get fitted?”

“No, it’s for you.”

It all happens so fast. Suddenly Mary Rose is back on the street with a tissue-wrapped girly sex costume. She stuffs it into her fleece-lined L.L. Bean three-season jacket, hops on her bike and rides with renewed energy up Howland Avenue against the flow of one-way cars.

Aunt Sadie had an arranged marriage that blossomed into love twenty-five years in when she threw a knife at Uncle Leo. He ducked. The relationship with Renée lasted well beyond the best-before date and likely would have ended sooner had Dolly and Duncan not been so opposed to it and all that it represented. Renée saw her through the worst of it; they weathered the storm together, tenderly at first in their apartment, then in their own house, neither of which Dolly and Duncan ever visited. As a card-carrying feminist, Mary Rose ought to have clued in after the first time Renée smacked her. But there were extenuating circumstances … alcohol, professional recognition (Mary Rose’s), depression (Renée’s) … as well as Mary Rose’s maddening capacity to find fault with someone just when she had managed to get all their attention.
Smack
. And to be fair, Hil had smacked her too, once or twice in the early days. Mary Rose could get anyone to hit her. She could probably have got Mother Teresa to hit her.

She lets go of the handlebars and relaxes, surfing the speed bumps through the Annex with its big old Victorian houses. Someone in a Volvo drives by, it looks like Margaret Atwood. It is Margaret Atwood.

She puts her bike in the shed, enters her house and tiptoes up the back steps to see Candace and Maggie at the small wooden craft table in the corner of the dining room. Candace hands Maggie the cap from a marker and waits while she snaps it into place. It takes ages. Then she hands her another and waits. Maggie is completely focused. Candace, completely calm.

Upstairs in her walk-in closet, she takes the ridiculous bit of fluff from Secrets from Your Sister and hides it behind a pair of brogues in her hanging shoe shelf. It will be safe there until she finds time to return it, first making sure chopstick girl is not on duty.

Downstairs, the message light on the phone is blinking.

“It’s Mum, you’re not there.”
Click
.

“You’re still not there? Did you get the packeege?”
Click
.

An automaton. “To claim your prize, press two—”

And one from her old pal, Gigi, in her spicy tones. “Hi, Mister, I’m making a pot of spaghetti, should I bring it to you or do you want to grab the kids and come here?” Gigi must be on hiatus between episodes of the cop show she’s running as production manager—not that wrangling a fictional SWAT team has ever stopped her making a batch of meatballs. It might be fun to get together—then again it might be too demanding to be around someone with a fully functional social life.

She reaches into her pocket to pay her nanny.

“Thanks, Candace, see you next Tuesday.”

“Don’t you need me tomorrow night?”

“Oh yeah, the movie, see you.”

Candace leaves by the back door and Mary Rose goes out the front to check the mailbox. There is no package. There is a letter from Canada Post. She opens it:
NOTICE OF SUSPENSION OF HOME DEVILRY
. She blinks.
DELIVERY
. There follows a menu of reasons with corresponding boxes for ticking.
DOG ATTACK
Tick
. She feels her tongue thicken, her esophagus go to glue. Daisy will be seized and destroyed. It is the law. It doesn’t matter that she’s half blind and great with kids, it doesn’t matter that she is old, she’s a pit bull.

What will they tell Matthew? Hil will be devastated, Maggie will grow up grieving and not know why. She wills herself to read on.

Her heart pounds back to life. She has merely to sign the form promising to keep Daisy out of the front yard during delivery hours in
order to avoid triggering an inspection by Animal Control. The
DOG BITE
box is unticked. Thank God.

Pit bulls were once known as “the nanny dog” because they were so good with children. In the seventies, there was a rash of St. Bernards biting kids’ faces off, but no one ever banned them. She signs the form and puts it on a corner of the kitchen table. She and Maggie can drop it at the post office on their way to pick up Matthew from school this afternoon—there’s one at the back of the Shoppers Drug Mart on Bloor. No doubt the packeege is being held there. She’ll be able to phone her mother and break the latest loop before having to endure it in person when she meets her parents’ train next week. This week? When, precisely, are they coming?

Ring-ring!

•

•

“Maggie, it’s time to go, please put the marker down and come to Mumma.”

Maggie does. Wow. Then she goes, without being asked, to the top of the four steps that lead from the kitchen down to the back door and sits smiling at Mary Rose. There is something a little disconcerting in that smile almost … mocking. If it were Matthew, Mary Rose would describe it as mischievous. Thus armed with awareness of her own double standard, she smiles back and stations herself on a lower step. Daisy pushes past them both and sits expectantly, tail sweeping the doormat in anticipation of a walk. Mary Rose takes one small foot in one hand and one winter boot in the other—they will pick up Matthew and stop at the post office on the way home and submit the form, which reminds her, she’ll need to grab it from the kitchen table before they go out the door—and goes to slip it on, but Maggie wriggles free and seizes a ladybug boot from the rack. Mary Rose decides not to insist. It is warm enough for rubber boots, indeed it’s balmy out.

“Okay, Maggie, but wear these boots instead.” Durable, tasteful L.L. Bean boots with reflectors.

“Not these boots, Mumma.”

“Yes, these are your rain boots, Maggie.”

“I will wear Sitdy boots.”

Another full sentence. Very good.

“No, sweetheart.”

She takes hold again of Maggie’s foot and is rewarded with a sharp kick.

“NO!”

Breathe
.

When Matthew was this age, Mary Rose was like Daisy: he could poke her in the eye, pull her tail, nothing riled her. Maggie is a
different story. And Mary Rose is a different dog. “Maggie, you may not kick Mumma.”

“Me may!”

Kick
.

The trick is not to mind it. She has seized the little foot once more and manages now to get the Bean boot onto it, but as she reaches for the other boot, Maggie kicks off the first and looks at her with frank and infuriating glee. It is a look of entitlement that makes Mary Rose see red—how dare this child assume anything about the safety of this world or her right to the good things of it? Maggie laughs and grabs the ladybug boot. Mary Rose grabs it back. Maggie kicks her—

“STOP IT!”
Mary Rose whacks the boot against the step, grazing the little legs. Maggie freezes. Daisy barks, her tail still going.

Breathe
.

“I will let go of your foot now, Maggie, but you must not kick.”

She lets go.

Maggie does not kick.

“Good, Maggie.”

“Sitdy boots.”

Mary Rose sighs. If she gives in now, she will have taught her child to get her way by kicking. On the other hand, maybe she ought to reward the child for not kicking just now. She should have dispatched the “Sitdy” boots to the Goodwill the moment her parents left in January. Shiny red with big black eyes and antennae,
ladybug, ladybug, fly away home!

“Okay.” She holds the ladybugs just out of reach. “What do you say?”

“Peace?”

She hands them over.

“Sank you, Mumma.”

“You’re welcome.”

She resists helping, aware that Maggie’s determination to dress herself is developmentally appropriate. She waits. And reflects that
child rearing resembles war: long stretches of boredom punctuated by all hell breaking loose. At last the boot is on.

“Good, Maggie. Let Mumma do the other one.”

“No sank you.”

A
War and Peace
later, the boot is on.