Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret

by Vicki Grant

  Dolores’s voice kind of disappeared. I watched her gesturing away, laughing, Murdoch nodding, and I had to wonder. Had I used up my entire lifetime supply of popularity? Of normalcy? Was this the way it was going to be from here on in? I felt sort of sad. I looked at my grey, clammy, cleaning-lady hands and sighed.

  “Oops, sounds like it’s time to go.” Dolores nudged Murdoch and made him look at me. “Miss Wickwire is subtly indicating that our two hours are up.”

  That’s not what I’d been doing at all. I glared at her.

  “Oh, sorry,” Murdoch said. “Didn’t mean to keep you.”

  Dolores went, “Yeah, yeah, sure,” then was off talking about some Japanese film that had something to do with a scary naked guy. Murdoch knew the movie too. I was out of the conversation again. I took my supplies and went downstairs ahead of them.

  I was amazed at the transformation. The shoes in the hallway were lined up. The living room was tidy. The magazines were put away, the pillows fluffed, the clothes folded. There was nothing on the kitchen counter any more except that slim stack of twenties.

  I knew Dolores well enough to realize this was a trick, but I still couldn’t help being impressed. I put the broom back in the closet and the cleansers under the sink and acted like I didn’t notice.

  Dolores was standing on the second step now, talking to Murdoch. She still barely came up to his shoulder. He stood with his arms crossed and his hands in his armpits. It’s the way you’d stand if you were cold, but the house was warm. I realized he was still embarrassed.

  “Love to stay and talk but I can’t. Got a lot of houses to do today.”

  Dolores was such a liar. I felt less bad about not complimenting her on her cleaning job.

  “If your mother needs us again, she can always reach us by e-mail or phone.” She ran her finger along the contact information written across the front of her T-shirt.

  It was so blatantly flirtatious I had to turn away.

  Who would act like that?

  I saw a quick flash of myself hanging off Nick, whispering in his ear, kissing him, letting everyone see how crazy he was about me. My skin went prickly and I sucked in my breath.

  “Okay, okay! I’m coming.” Dolores gave Murdoch a face like can you believe this girl?

  She handed him the Vim, tapped a bunch of flyers into shape on the way past, grabbed the money off the counter, then hooked her arm through mine. “Happy?” She made me sound like a little kid with a boo-boo. She twiddled her fingers at Murdoch as she dragged me out the door.

  It was all so fast and irritating and unfair that I almost forgot about the state of my life. That was about as good as things got these days.

  Chapter 10

  Dolores waited until we were about a block away before she licked her finger and counted out the bills.

  “Twenty, forty—there you go. All yours.”

  I took the money and tried not to think about the billions of germs wriggling through her saliva.

  She lifted her shirt and stuffed her half into a shiny orange bra. “Forty bucks for two hours’ work — and I got a nude wrestling show for free too! Not a bad way to make a living, is it.”

  I could see where this was going. “Just forget it,” I said, and started walking.

  “Forget what?”

  “You know perfectly well what.”

  Dolores was doing her best to look confused. I wasn’t falling for it.

  Her phone rang. (Even her ring tone was irritating. Who, over the age of five, would choose “The Wheels on the Bus”?) She found it in the bottom of her grocery bag just before it stopped ringing.

  “Lapins de Poussière Cleaning Service. How may I help you? … Yes … This Friday? Let me see … Hmm. Darn. We’re full up … Oh! Wait … I might have a cancellation after all. Can I put you on hold for a moment?”

  She put a hand over her phone and looked at me.

  “Well?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s a lady calling for her father. Some old guy. No kids. No pets. Just looking for a once-over. Her exact words. A once-over.”

  I stared at her. How do you get through to a person like Dolores? Where is the “off” button?

  She threw up her hand like an Italian character from some corny sitcom. “Forty bucks! Easy-peasy. And I’ll deal with the naked guys this time … Come on.” She went all baby-eyed and pouty on me.

  A voice in my head screamed, No! No! No!

  A calmer one said, Walk away. Don’t even respond. Ignore her.

  Another voice just sighed.

  I know it’s weird after everything I’d been through, but that was the voice that made the most sense to me. It understood the exhaustion I felt at the thought of arguing with Dolores any more, at the thought of coming up with yet another excuse for my mother, at the thought of having to figure out how to fill the endless joyless time stretching out in front of me. I sighed too.

  “So is that a yes?” Dolores said. I didn’t say no.

  Dolores told the lady we’d be there Friday at nine.

  Chapter 11

  I managed to dump Dolores at the bus stop and headed up Chebucto Road alone. The sun was shining. It took me a while to realize that, and a while longer to realize that it was making me hot.

  My T-shirt stuck to my back and my hair felt like a fur hat. Sweat crept over my scalp like ants. I stopped and looked at the purple shade on the other side of the road. It would be a lot cooler over there. I’d have to cross the street. I’d have to wait for a break in traffic. Then I’d have to cross back again when I got to First Avenue.

  Just contemplating all that tired me out. I rolled my sleeves up over my shoulders and kept walking.

  The heat made me think of Williams Lake. I’d have loved to be there right now. I pictured myself jumping off the big bronze boulders, my legs and arms spinning, the shock of the freezing water.

  Then I pictured Carly stretched out on the rock in her pink Billabong bikini. I remembered those boobs she was so proud of. Nick splashed her with his wet hair and everything jiggled. Oh, Nick! Look what you’ve done!

  How could I have been so stunned?

  I turned like a mule and headed down First Avenue. It was cooler here with all the trees, and quieter off the main road too.

  Off the main road.

  How appropriate. The perfect metaphor for my life. Everyone else was parading down Main Street and here I was scuttling around in the back alleys in my cheesy little cleaner’s outfit. It dawned on me that I always used to be in the parade. Now I was just a spectator.

  I kept walking.

  No, I’m not even a spectator. I wondered if there was a word for the people who don’t even bother coming out to watch. I tried to think of one. The distraction was oddly comforting.

  I heard someone gasp. It shocked me back to reality. I looked across the street to the park and saw a guy, doubled over, his hands on his knees, heaving.

  Nick.

  It was as if I’d been sucked backward out of a gash in the side of an airplane. I had no sense of having moved at all but suddenly I was behind a tree, eyes wide open, mouth wide open, everything pounding.

  That’s Nick.

  I tried to stick a strand of hair back into my braid but I was shaking too much. What if he saw me? Had he seen me? I looked at my hands with the dirty nails and the dry patches and the bleeding cuticles.

  I could just picture him staring at me in horror. Or pretending he didn’t see me. Or saying, Oh, hey, Betsy, how’s it going? as if I was someone he sort of knew from someplace else. He’d smile in a vague way and keep doing whatever it was he’d been doing. (That’s how he handled the old lady who lived next door to him. He somehow managed to be nice to her without ever actually having to talk to her.)

  I put my hand on my chest to keep my heart from bursting through. I felt like someone in a song. Dying, screaming, begging, aching — all those words made sense now. Why couldn’t he see what he’d done to me?

 
Maybe—and it was almost more frightening to think this than anything else—maybe that was it. Maybe he just needed to see what he’d done to me.

  Nick wasn’t a bad person. I remembered when Hank got cut from his junior high soccer team. Nick took him out for lunch, he coached him, he built up his confidence, and Hank made the team the next year. Nick had a heart.

  Maybe if he just saw me. He’d realize he’d made a mistake. He’d look at me and his eyes would go all soft again and he wouldn’t be able to help himself. He’d put his arms around me and lean his face against mine and tell me how sorry he was.

  It wasn’t that crazy. We’d had our little spats before and we’d made up. We could do it again. We could get over this.

  I heard him cough in a breathless sort of way. It almost sounded like he was crying.

  I realized for the first time that this might have been hard on him too. Yes, he’d cheated on me and, yes, it was his fault—but everyone makes mistakes. I remembered overhearing Mom say how much Karen regretted leaving her husband. Karen knew she’d been stupid. She was willing to do anything to fix it but Craig wouldn’t take her back. She cried about it for months.

  Nick must have been ashamed of what he did. I thought of all those texts from him that I wouldn’t look at. He could have been apologizing, begging me to forgive him. I should have read them. I should have talked to him when he came over. Dad shouldn’t have sent him away.

  Maybe I should just say hello. What could it hurt? Sooner or later, I was going to run into him anyway and then we’d have to talk. We were together for two and a half years. He must miss me. A little bit. He has to.

  This could be my only chance.

  He gasped again. I should go to him.

  I peeked around the tree, my heart all full and ready as if I was waiting for him to arrive on that very first date, and then I realized what an idiot I was.

  Nick wasn’t thinking about me. He wasn’t crying. He was gasping because he was doing push-ups.

  What else would he have been doing? It was twelve-thirty. When he was on the late shift at Jitters, he always worked out at noon. He always ran from his place to Larry O’Connell Field because it was exactly 5K. (I was the one who’d driven the route to check the distance for him.) Now he was going to do sit-ups and crunches and lunges, then he’d run around Citadel Hill, down Spring Garden Road and home. Shower, shave, at work by three.

  My life had been totally destroyed, but Nick was still running on schedule.

  I rolled back to the far side of the tree and covered my face with my scaly hand. The image of him with his sweaty hair and bare chest was tattooed on my eyelids. I knew then that I’d never get away from it, ever, even if I wanted to.

  He was perfect. And I wasn’t.

  No wonder he’d dumped me for Carly.

  I hid behind the tree until Nick got up and ran away.

  Chapter 12

  A week later, I was sitting at the dining room table, actually having dinner with my family again. If I smelled bad, nobody was mentioning it.

  “You must be exhausted!” Mom said, and dished me out a sumo-sized helping of pasta primavera. (She was a big believer in slender, but skinny scared her. It had a bad-mother ring to it.)

  “Oh, yeah. Beat,” I said. Exhaustion—real or faked— was my best friend these days. It gave me a reason not to talk, a reason not to finish my dinner, a reason to excuse myself from the table early and watch how-to cleaning videos in my room.

  Mom smiled and shook her head like poor thing. Or maybe it was more like thank god. The truth is we were both relieved I was getting out of bed most mornings now and going to work. It occupied my time and, in a weird way, actually made life easier for everyone. It provided my family with a story they could live with: I had a job. I was doing something productive. They didn’t need to worry about me any more. There was still a chance I’d get myself all straightened away in time for university in the fall. They didn’t need to know the truth.

  I could tell by the way Dad scratched his ear when the subject first surfaced that he wasn’t keen about his honour roll daughter becoming a cleaning lady even for the summer, but he came around. Mom just did her PR thing and spun it into something he could like. Betsy has her own business! That shows gumption, enthusiasm, energy! They were both so proud and excited No one needed to concern themselves about me being lonely any more either. They could stop saying embarrassing things like, “I ran into Annie-Mae MacKinnon today. Sweet girl. Why don’t you give her a call?” Or, “I see they’re having a dance at the Saraguay Club this Friday. Could be fun …” That part of my life was all taken care of now. I had a new friend.

  It was ironic, really. What if I’d dumped all my old friends and shown up with Dolores two months ago? What if—and this was even better—Hank had announced he was dating Dolores instead of pretty little Marnie Breed? How fabulous would my parents have thought she was then? I could just hear them buzzing away behind their bedroom door, frantically trying to figure out some politically correct, morally responsible but absolutely foolproof way to get Dolores out of our lives.

  Under the current circumstances, though, Dolores was “a great girl. One of a kind!” Her only fault, apparently, was that she was a bit of a slave-driver. I was too pooped after work to go out and have fun.

  Mom just totally made that part up, but who cared? If that’s what she needed to believe—or, at least, needed her running group or her book club or her business partners to believe —fine. I wouldn’t roll my eyes.

  “This is good, Mom,” I said, and conspicuously loaded up my fork again.

  She dabbed at her lips, her face all charming and amused behind the napkin. “Oh, well, I know how you love your cream, sweetie—especially now that you don’t have to worry about fitting into …”

  You could see the alarm bells going off just behind her eyes as she realized, too late, that that whole sentence was careening full-speed into the dreaded words “ … your prom dress.” Panic broke out over her face like hives. She coughed and said, “ … your winter coat.”

  Hank looked up from his food and said, “Fit into your winter coat?”

  Dad said, “Hank.”

  Mom said, “Here’s to a long and glorious summer!” and raised her wineglass.

  It was probably the most pathetic I’d felt since this whole thing started, especially once Dad and—only because he had to—Hank raised their glasses too. (Toasting anything with a glass of milk is depressing at the best of times.)

  Never in the entire history of our family had either of them ever missed a chance to heap ridicule on someone’s stupid comment—but here they were toasting the fact that I didn’t need to worry about fitting into my winter coat in the middle of July.

  “Speaking of coats,” Dad said, “I’m not pleased with the hospital laundry these days. My lab coats are coming back stiff as a board. You wouldn’t have any tips about how to soften them up, would you, Bets?”

  I looked up, figuring this was the start of one of his elaborate so-called jokes, and felt almost hopeful: someone needed to put this conversation out of its misery. But he was serious. This apparently was an honest inquiry from one professional to another. I could barely look at him.

  “Uh … I don’t do laundry, Dad.”

  “Oh. Right.” He touched his forehead with his index finger. “Of course. Don’t do laundry — or windows either, I guess!” He laughed. Mom said, “Oh, Mike!” and laughed too. I didn’t get it.

  “No, I do do windows actually.” I turned my lips up into a joyless little U and moved a slice of mushroom around my plate like a tiny mop.

  “Really?” Way too much interest. “You should help Hank with that! I bet he’d like to get those old Pokémon decals off his bedroom window. Wouldn’t you, Hank?”

  Hank looked up, all blank-eyed and chipmunk-cheeked with food. We all knew he didn’t care about his windows. We all remembered what happened the last time I went into his room uninvited. And we all, no doubt, were p
repared to have him tell me what would happen to my ugly face if I ever tried to do it again.

  His chewing slowed. He looked at Mom, then at Dad. Then he looked at his plate and said, “Yeah, okay. ‘Bout time I got rid of them, I guess.” He said it as if he wasn’t quite sure if he’d got his lines right.

  Mom slapped the table and promised to get the cleaning supplies we needed. Dad made a joke about videotaping this momentous event for posterity’s sake. Hank and I went back to our eating. I loved him quite a bit then. Not for playing along with them—but for playing along with them as little as he did.

  When I figured I’d choked down enough pasta that Mom wouldn’t feel obliged to force dessert on me, I asked to be excused. Exhaustion, you know.

  “Sure, sweetie, sure,” Mom said. “You relax. You had a big day.”

  Dad actually stood up when I left, as if the Queen were exiting the room or something. Hank gave a little snort at that but he managed to cover it up with a belch, which at least Mom knew how to respond to.

  I dragged myself up the stairs and saw that someone — i.e., Mom—had replaced the photos of me and Nick on the wall with baby pictures of my cousin. Did she really think I wouldn’t notice? That was like using one of those cheap erasers to rub something out. They always leave a bigger, smudgier mess than what you started with. The pictures not being there just made me think about them all the more.

  Nick, I thought, and saw the two of us, in love and smiling, on the hull of Dad’s sailboat the day the picture was taken. Then I saw us on other days when we took the boat out ourselves. And that made me think of the times we moored at Devil’s Island and swam ashore, and how I’d bought Nick the sunglasses he was wearing and how he left them in Bobo’s car after The Trews’ concert, and the colour of his eyes behind them, and him looking at Carly in Jitters, and me catching them about to kiss and then falling apart and hating them and hating myself and cleaning other people’s toilets for a living.