Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret

by Vicki Grant

  I stared at her with my nostrils wide open and my lips shut tight. I was doing my best to look like I meant it but, inside, I could feel myself starting to cave. The ocean known as Dolores was sucking the sand out from under my feet.

  I couldn’t believe it. Was I actually feeling sorry for her? Or did I just not like the way saying no made me feel about myself? I always tried to be nice. No one, with the possible exception of Hank, had ever needed to plead with me for anything before.

  Dolores stuck out her chin and made her eyes go really round. “It’s only two hours and you’ll get forty bucks …”

  Until she said that, money had been the last thing on my mind—but then I turned and saw the pile of twenties sitting on the counter. It was like seeing a big fudge brownie and suddenly realizing how hungry you are. I wanted it.

  I told myself this didn’t have to be about helping Dolores or feeling sorry for her, or giving in to her, or losing. I could just be doing it for the money. That seemed okay.

  I didn’t say anything for a long time. I let Dolores suffer for a while, then went, “All right. But this is a onetime-only deal. Understand?”

  She nodded and looked so pathetic that I felt obliged to make it clear I wasn’t going to fall for her crap any more. “And I’m not wearing these stupid things either.” I took off the bunny ears and semi-threw them at her.

  “You think they’re stupid?” She studied the ears as if they had some defect she hadn’t noticed before. “I thought they were a pretty strong branding element. I mean, can’t you just see people thinking: ‘I need a cleaner. What cleaner should I get? Those ones with the rabbit ears, what were they called? Oh, I know—Lapins de Poussière.’”

  I said, “We don’t need branding. I’m only doing it today. Remember? Now where should I start?”

  “Tish wanted us to focus on the bathrooms.” Yes, of course. Dolores would call her Tish. “Why don’t you do the upstairs and I’ll do down?”

  She handed me the gloves and a couple bottles of cleanser, then rummaged around in her bag for something else. She took out a bunny-shaped sponge and a pink toothbrush. “More useless branding.” She said it as if it was some little private joke we had. “But the toothbrush might be helpful getting the scum off the shower.”

  Scum.

  Toothbrush.

  My own toothbrush covered in scum. I got the pre-barf jelly knees, but I did my best to ignore them. I just had to concentrate on the sixty bucks. Forty bucks.

  Maybe someday I’d have the strength to get out of town and then I’d need it. I took my cleaning supplies and went upstairs.

  Chapter 7

  I pushed open the bathroom door. Toilet and tub to the left. Sink straight ahead. Shower stall to the right. All crawling with germs.

  I closed my eyes and took a moment to compose myself. Visualize. That’s what the sports psychologist told our basketball team to do if we wanted to win.

  I pictured myself down on my knees, scrubbing sticky yellow pee syrup off the rim of some stranger’s toilet and realized visualizing was a bad idea. I said “Betsy” in a stern quiet voice, took a deep breath and snapped on my gloves. This was not that big a deal. Forget the toilet. Start with something else.

  I held on to the towel rack with one hand, stuck out my neck and looked into the sink. I couldn’t see anything microbial lurking there but it was, at least, hair-free. I inhaled through my nose. I centred myself. I could do this.

  I found some paper towel under the sink, spritzed the mirror with Windex, then began to rub away at the little splatters of soap, shaving cream, toothpaste and spittle.

  I closed my eyes and kept rubbing. Why did my brain insist on torturing me like this?

  Spittle.

  Spittle. Spittle. Spittle. Spit. Ill.

  Sick. Throw up. Puke. Barf.

  “Stop,” I said. “Think of something else.”

  Toothpaste.

  Crest Midnight Mint.

  Nick’s half-open mouth.

  Carly.

  I was losing my mind.

  I wasn’t going to let that happen. I blasted my reflection in the face with Windex, then wiped, squeaking and squeaking until the mirror was spotless. I squeezed Vim into the sink and scrubbed it with the sponge. I polished the handle. I used the toothbrush to clean the tiny wire mesh that covered the tap. I washed down the cupboard. Then I stood back, sweaty and panting.

  The sink, the mirror, the whole vanity was gleaming. I felt weirdly proud—and a little ashamed at being proud too. Some accomplishment. Betsy Wickwire: first-draft choice for the Halifax Junior A Janitors. Woo-hoo.

  I glanced at the toilet but couldn’t trust myself yet. Shower first.

  I didn’t have a clue how to clean a shower. Our cleaning lady always did that. (I didn’t let myself stop to consider what that said about the direction my life was headed.)

  The shower was tiled. I looked at the various bottles Dolores had given me. One was called Tilex. I read the label. Spray on. Wipe off. Blah-blah-blah. Watch the eyes. Whatever. I’d use that. I took all the shampoo and conditioner out of the stall so I’d have room to clean. Someone here obviously suffered from “problem dandruff.”

  Dandruff. I could feel it starting again. Hair.

  Dandruff. Hair. Soap scum.

  The words kind of warbled in the back of my head like ghosts in an old horror movie. “Forty bucks.” I said it out loud this time. I visualized the money. It worked a lot better than visualizing the pee syrup.

  I sprayed the walls and floor of the shower with Tilex, then climbed into the shower stall, got out the toothbrush and started scrubbing. After a while, I wiped the wall with the bunny sponge and took a look at what I’d done. Up to that point I’d thought the tiles were ivory, but I realized now they’d just been grubby. Clean them up and you could see they were actually white. They looked like before-and-after shots in a tooth-bleaching commercial.

  I imagined a whole row of gleaming shower tiles and, just like that, something changed. Life, for that one moment at least, seemed simple. I knew that clean white tiles were better than dirty ivory ones and I had the power to make that happen. I started scrubbing with a vengeance.

  And suddenly I was me again. Wanting something. Going for it. Knowing I could get it. I didn’t care that the brush was splattering me with Tilex and water and miscellaneous other gross and possibly toxic stuff. I was a dog and this was my bone. I threw off my gloves so my hands wouldn’t get so sweaty and started on another tile. The shower door creaked shut but I didn’t bother propping it back open. I was totally focused. I was in charge.

  I was just about to sponge down the fifth tile when the hairs on the back of my neck sprang up like hundreds of miniature dog ears.

  I stopped scrubbing. My face flash-froze. I realized I wasn’t alone. Someone was in the room with me.

  Peeing.

  My mind went as blank as the five spotless tiles I was staring at.

  There was nothing I wanted more than to turn around and see Dolores sitting there with her underwear pooled around her ankles —but I knew I wouldn’t. It’s easy to tell from the sound whether someone is sitting or standing.

  This wasn’t a girly little tinkle. This was a manly gush. The toilet flushed.

  I heard the tap turn on and then the slushy sound of lathering soap.

  I was a foot away from the sink, a glass door away. How could he not see me?

  Could he please not see me?

  I heard the medicine cabinet click open, a pause, more water, then the brushing of teeth. The sunlight kind of winked each time the shadow moved its big grey arm.

  I heard spitting, then the water turning off.

  I hoped the next thing I’d hear would be the sound of footsteps disappearing down the hall, but it wasn’t.

  I heard the puff of something soft hitting the floor, the squeal of the shower door, then a very loud scream.

  Chapter 8

  It was my own scream I’d heard. I’d almost managed to ta
lk my lips into saying “Stop” or “Excuse me” or — as hard as this was for me to believe—”I’m the cleaning lady,” but then I felt something. I realized the guy, or at least one of his legs, was actually in the shower stall with me. I knew the rest of his naked self couldn’t be far behind. Which is why I screamed.

  Then he screamed. Then I screamed again.

  Then I guess he must have had second thoughts about getting into a small enclosed space with a loud hysterical female.

  He either forgot about the threshold or he slipped on the soapy floor. Either way, he crashed backward out of the shower. In the process, his leg flew up and booted me in the ass. I smashed forward into the wall, French-kissed the tiles, then fell backward out of the shower too. And landed right on top of him.

  I tried to get up as fast as I could, but my feet were slick with Tilex. They just skated over the floor. I put my hand down to push myself off and hit bare skin. I screamed again.

  So did he.

  I tried with the other hand, but there was skin there too. In fact, it seemed like there was skin everywhere I put my hands, legs, head, whatever. It was like doing the backstroke in a sea of flesh or tobogganing down a really, really bumpy hill with a totally naked stranger.

  The guy wasn’t liking this any better than I was. He was alternately groaning in pain, yelping and apologizing. I hated to think what kind of damage I was inflicting on his more delicate body parts.

  Speaking of which, I hit something squishy and realized I really, really had to get myself out of this predicament. There seemed to be only one option. I pushed off—the guy made a sound like a dry heave —and grabbed the vanity handle. I’d only just managed to pull myself up onto my feet when Dolores barged in the door.

  She went, “Whoa! What the —!”

  The guy gave another dry heave. He flailed around on the bathroom floor—his arms and legs were everywhere —then he picked up the first thing he could find to cover himself with.

  My bunny tail. It must have fallen off in the scuffle.

  Dolores, seriously, screeched with laughter.

  The poor guy didn’t know what to do. He was making the type of ooh-ee-ooh-ee noise a person makes tiptoeing over hot coals. He did a lot of flipping and flopping around on the floor before, no thanks to us, he was able to scramble up onto his feet and out of the room.

  He switched the tail from the front to the back on his way past. Dolores found that even funnier.

  Chapter 9

  Dolores watched until he disappeared through the second door on the right, then collapsed, howling, onto the edge of the tub.

  “I really can’t leave you alone for a second, can I.” She wagged her finger at me. “You are a bona fide man-magnet. Seriously. I’ve never seen anyone get a guy naked that fast.”

  My insides were shaking like I was one big Magic Bullet but I wasn’t going to let Dolores know that. I turned away and started washing the Tilex—and whatever else I’d picked up—off my hands.

  She didn’t take the hint. “Don’t keep me hanging! What happened? C’mon. Spill.”

  No way was I letting her turn this into a joke. I hoped my voice sounded more or less under control. “I was cleaning the shower. I—I—I guess he didn’t see me.”

  I reached for a towel. Dolores was wearing different glasses now and laughing like a car that wouldn’t start. She looked over at me with her eyes crossed. I didn’t acknowledge that little attempt at humour either.

  “No wonder,” she said. “I thought I was blind. I’m surprised this guy can get around without a guide dog.”

  She took off the glasses and put her own back on. She’d wound down now to the sighing part of hysteria. She reeled off a couple metres of toilet paper and blew her nose.

  “My, my, my. What I wouldn’t do to have immortalized that on videotape. We could have sent it in to AFV. We wouldn’t have to work for the rest of the summer! Seriously. We’d win first prize, pants down … Oh, excuse me. Sorry. I mean, hands down.”

  I must have been glaring at her because she went “oops” and got up off the side of the tub. I said, “Can you just go finish your work now and let me finish mine?”

  “Finish?” Dolores pronounced it like it was some obscure foreign word. “I am finished. Aren’t you?” She gave the bathroom a quick scan. “Guess not. Boy, you ever slow.”

  I tried to think of some suitably withering response but by the time anything came to me, Dolores had squirted a stream of cleanser into the toilet, given it a quick swish and said: “Done. What’s left? … Oh. These.” She flicked the guy’s boxer shorts up with her toe and into the hamper. I didn’t know whether to thank her or smack her.

  “Here,” she said, throwing me the broom. “You sweep, I’ll deal with the shower.”

  That was my shower. I’d been looking forward to doing the rest of the tiles—not that I’d even tell her that.

  Dolores took the shower head off the handle and sprayed down the walls. The five clean tiles stood out as if they were backlit. She moved her lips around her face and stared at them, then took a bottle of foundation off the counter and began to dab some beige liquid onto the clean tiles.

  “Hey!” I went. “What are you doing?”

  “Just scuzzying them up a bit. Can’t leave them like that. They make the rest of the shower look dirty.”

  “It is dirty.”

  Dolores stopped and folded her arms. “Lesson Number One. Dirty is relative. People don’t necessarily want their houses clean. They just want them to look clean. That’s our job. To create beautiful illusions. We’re set designers.”

  She thought she was so bold and clever. It was sad, really.

  She turned back to the tiles. She tilted her head this way and that, then wet a paper towel and dabbed off some of the foundation. She took a step back, checked it out again, and wiped off a tiny bit more. A true artiste.

  “There. Perfect. She’ll never know the difference.”

  I didn’t have the strength to argue. I just went, “Oh, yeah. Perfect.” I didn’t care if I sounded childish. “Let’s get going, then.”

  We were almost to the stairs when the second door on the right opened. The guy stepped out. I jumped back.

  He was only a little older than me by the looks of him and fully clothed now, so he shouldn’t have scared me, but he did. He was extremely tall. I hadn’t noticed that in the bathroom. I guess I was looking at other things—or trying not to.

  He put his hand on his chin. A muscle in his neck twanged. He said, “Look. Uh …”

  Dolores said, “Wow. How tall are you?”

  The guy said, “Six–eight,” and just the way he said it you knew everyone asked him that. He scratched his head and his thick dark hair kind of bobbed up and down. “I just wanted to say sorry. Like, for back then.”

  “That’s okay.” I shrugged and kind of laughed as if it was nothing.

  “I just woke up. I didn’t think anyone was home.” Two red spots, more or less the shape of pork chops, began to throb on his cheeks.

  “Really. It’s okay.” Frankly, I wanted to forget about the whole thing.

  “I didn’t see you,” he said. “I just sort of staggered in. You know. Like, half awake. I didn’t mean it. Sorry.”

  I nodded away. I had the sick feeling neither of us knew how to end this. I was almost glad when Dolores broke in.

  “I bet you’d like to have these back,” she said, and held up his glasses. Before he could take them, she sighed on the lenses and wiped them on her T-shirt.

  “Thanks.” He put them back on, then looked at me, then looked at Dolores and blushed some more. We’d obviously just been shapeless blobs to him up to now.

  He turned to slip back into his room but Dolores was too fast for him. She leaned against the door jamb. “So, Big Boy, what did your mama name you?”

  It was so embarrassing. I felt myself liquefy.

  “Murdoch,” he said.

  “Merrrrr-dock.” She rolled it around in her
mouth, then clicked her tongue. “Well, Murdoch, I’m Dolores and this here is Betsy … But I guess you and Betsy are already”—she smirked—”acquainted.”

  She let that sink in for a second. A tiny shudder rippled through his lanky frame. I totally understood the feeling.

  “We’re co-owners of Lapins de Poussière Cleaning Service.” She said it with a thick French accent.

  “Oh … Right … Mom said cleaning ladies were coming today.”

  “This your room?” she said.

  “Uh-huh.” Murdoch pulled the door closed, but not before Dolores got a peek inside.

  “That poster Polish by any chance?”

  “No. Um. Czech.” He adjusted the collar of his plaid shirt. His hands were huge, even compared to the rest of him. The phrase “World’s Biggest Hillbilly!” popped into my head. I don’t know if I’d read that somewhere or if it had something to do with the horn-rimmed glasses and retro clothes.

  “Czech. Of course! I didn’t get a very good look at it. I love Czech design! Where’d you get it?”

  “Oh, just, like, eBay. I’ve got, you know, a couple of them.”

  “Real-ly? Fascinating. You’ll have to show them to me sometime.”

  Dolores mentioned some designer she adored. Murdoch nodded uncomfortably but I got the impression he liked the guy too. Dolores started talking about the designer’s use of colour and graphic elements. Murdoch didn’t add a whole lot to the conversation but he did mention something about photo manipulation. That sent Dolores roaring off about special effects favoured by Communist Bloc designers in the 1960s.

  I stood there sort of listening to them but mostly just lost in my own brain. I wouldn’t have recognized a Czech poster if it was tacked to my forehead. When I’d run into Dolores at Zinnia’s the other day, I’d been pretty confident that she was the weird one, but things had clearly changed. Here, at least—now, at least—I was the odd one out. Was it my turn?