by Vicki Grant
It was like some sick scavenger hunt. I picked up her prescription first, not realizing the pharmacist was going to insist on explaining in great detail what the pills would do to the colour and texture of Granny’s stools. I thanked him—mostly for stopping—then headed off in search of the other items on the list.
The Reversa “Mature Skin” Age-Confounding Anti-Wrinkle Cream and the Dragon Lady Red Kissable All-Day Lipstick were easy but I couldn’t find the corn plasters. I’d never heard of corn plasters before so naturally assumed they were a snack food of some type. I looked for ages but the closest thing they had was Spicy Mexican corn chips. I was embarrassed when the salesperson led me to the Foot Care section on the other side of the store.
The corn plasters package featured a picture of a foot with a throbbing red target on the baby toe and the promise to remove “Corns, warts and fungal matter quickly and painlessly!” I gagged and threw it in the basket.
There was only one more thing on the list. Adult diapers. I had to read Mom’s note three times to be sure I was seeing right.
Granny wears diapers? Granny with her perfect nails and stiletto heels and Tuesday night salsa classes? I felt angry and embarrassed just thinking about it, as if I’d overheard someone spreading a nasty rumour about her.
I found the aisle and the kind of diapers she apparently liked—ultra-thin pull-ups, unscented—and was about to grab a package of the beige briefs and get out of there when something caught my eye. They also came in black bikini-style panties. I sort of laughed but then I remembered Granny in that tight lacy dress at the Latin Dance competition and thought “Why the hell not?” I took the black bikinis.
That made me almost happy. I thought of my own blue-green bikini and that perfect day at Crazee Fun World. I picked up the basket and headed for the checkout. Nick and I were back lying on the grass. I had my hand on his chest and he was begging me not to mention cotton candy or Cracker Jacks or food of any kind until his stomach stopped heaving and he felt halfway human again and I was laughing because he looked so miserable and that’s when I heard someone say, “You gotta be kidding, man. Twelve dollars for pipsqueak little bottle?”
I didn’t need to look around to see who it was. The accent was unmistakable. I started shaking so hard the pills rattled in my basket. What was Bobo doing in the Drugmart at this hour of the day?
The pharmacist led him toward the generic painkillers and I darted down another aisle out of sight. Panicky thoughts flew around inside my head like birds trapped in a house. He’s going to see me. Run. Just say hi to him. It’s no big deal. Run. Drop Granny’s stuff. Run. Hide behind the Pepto-Bismol display. Run.
Run. Run. Run.
I told myself to calm down. There was no way I could say hi to Bobo—but I couldn’t just run either. Granny might really need that prescription. Granny might really need those diapers. The thought of her having an accident when her bridge ladies were over horrified me.
I could hear Bobo still talking to the pharmacist behind me. I could see the checkout twenty steps in front of me. It wasn’t that far and I could keep my back to the pharmacy counter while the cashier rang me in. Any luck and I’d be out the door before Bobo had even decided between gel tabs and capsules. I was going to be okay.
I began to walk the way teachers do when they’re in a big hurry but don’t want some smartass kid reminding them there’s no running in the halls. I was so totally focused on getting to the checkout that it never dawned on me there could be anybody else in the store. I barrelled out the end of the aisle and banged straight into someone coming around the corner.
I threw my arms out and the diapers went flying and my basket emptied and a bunch of boxes exploded off a display. Everything clattered to the floor. The noise was deafening — but not so loud that I couldn’t hear the person say, “Um.
Betsy?”
I looked up —like, way up—and there was that Murdoch guy standing there kind of flustered and awkward. “Sorry,” he said.
I couldn’t answer. All I could think of was Bobo, looking up, seeing us, coming straight for me, and actually—this was the worst—engaging me in conversation. I grabbed the diapers and started scrabbling around for my stuff in the pile of things that had fallen off the shelf.
“Let me help,” Murdoch said.
I went, “No, no,” but he was already crouching down too and handing me random stuff off the floor.
None of it was mine but I took it anyway and just kept rummaging around for my own things. I found the wrinkle cream and the stool pills and was just about prepared to abandon the corn plasters when I spotted them among the stuff at Murdoch’s feet.
“Can you hand me that package, please?” I said, and stood up. I was delusional enough to think I might still have time to escape.
“Yo!” Bobo said, and started coming down the aisle toward me.
Murdoch said, “Here,” and passed me a package.
My fingers wouldn’t close around it. He kept holding it out for me and I kept looking him right in the face and seeing nothing. It was like I was a tuning fork or something. I was all about sound. It was my only sense still functioning.
“Bets!” Bobo bellowed.
Murdoch said, “You okay?”
I made my hand clasp the package. I thanked him. Then I turned around to face Bobo. Just get it over with.
“What’s up, Hot Stuff?” He hugged me and took a step back to give me the once-over. He stunk of beer and yesterday’s extra-sauce donairs. He winked at me, then reached over and shook Murdoch’s hand. “Lucky man, my friend!”
The penny dropped in slow-mo. I looked at Murdoch. I looked at the dirty grin on Bobo’s face. I looked at the box of neon, ribbed condoms in my hand and the package of corn plasters still lying by Murdoch’s feet and said, “Uh. No. It’s not …”
Bobo waved his bear paw at me. He kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “Don’t worry, Bets. Your secret safe with me. You had enough. You deserve good man now.”
“No,” I said.
“Yes!” Bobo patted me on my shoulder, then looked at Murdoch. “Oooh. And black bikinis too. Ha-cha!”
“No,” I said again, but Bobo just laughed and kept laughing all the way to the cashier and out the door.
I stared at the box of condoms in my hand and realized I was now officially dignity-free.
“Could you pass me my corn plasters, please?” I said to Murdoch, and headed to the checkout.
Chapter 18
I tossed and turned for several nights reliving the whole diaper/condom/corn plaster debacle but then I more or less just accepted it. It could have been worse.
Bobo drinks too much, fools around on his girlfriend and never shows up when he says he will, but I trust him. In his one year at Citadel High, “Father Bobo” had become the go-to guy for people with confessions to get off their chests, and, to the best of my knowledge, he’d never blabbed once. He’d said “my secret” was safe with him and I believed it. Bobo might have gotten the wrong impression but at least he wouldn’t be passing it on to Nick—and that was all I really cared about.
In the end, I almost felt worse for Murdoch than me. Here’s this poor dorky guy just minding his own business and Bobo starts winking at him about black bikini panties.
So I didn’t know what to say when Murdoch’s mother e-mailed later that week and asked if we’d come the following Tuesday. My instinct was to say no, but I couldn’t think of any way to justify it. I knew Dolores wouldn’t think the fact that I’d already tussled naked with him once was reason enough to back out, and there was no way I was going to tell her about the Drugmart.
I felt a little better about going when Dolores said Mrs. Latimer specifically asked us not to be there before 10:00 a.m. I figured that was designed to give Murdoch some time to escape.
*
I figured wrong. I did my best not to cringe when we walked in and saw Murdoch, sitting at the kitchen counter hunched over a huge bowl of Froot Loops. My new life, I
realized, was destined to be one awkward situation after another.
“Oops, sorry.” Dolores put her hands over her eyes. “You decent?” She peeked out at Murdoch from between her fingers.
She was so over-the-top embarrassing that I kind of relaxed. At least the things I’d done weren’t on purpose. I got out the broom.
“More or less decent, I guess,” Murdoch said, wiping a dribble of milk off his chin with his knuckles. He didn’t look up from his bowl. “Didn’t know you guys were coming today.”
“Yes. We rely on the element of surprise.” Dolores dropped her eyelids to half-mast as if she’d just said something dirty.
I dug around in the closet until I found the dustpan.
Murdoch went “uh-huh” and pushed his cereal to the side. Gritty pink milk sloshed onto the counter. He moved the bowl over to cover it up and more spilled out. He was so uncomfortable it was painful to watch. It was worse, I think, because of those ridiculously long limbs of his. He reminded me of a big nervous spider.
The Big Nervous Spider. I saw the words in my head.
Mom had always wanted us to write a children’s book together—a little mother-daughter project—but it seemed like a kind of dweeby thing to do. I had this sudden image of a cartoon spider with thick, horn-rimmed glasses and hair that needed cutting—and realized I was dangerously close to losing my mind. How long before I crossed the line between normal goofy and out-and-out bizarre?
Dolores sidled over to Murdoch. “So will you be providing the adult entertainment again this week?”
He sort of laughed at that or at least his body moved in a way that made you think he might be laughing. No sound actually came out. He pushed his glasses up his nose and said, “‘Fraid I hung up my bunny tail. Decided to stick to something I’m good at.”
“Oh, really?” Dolores put her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hands in an attempt, no doubt, at boosting her adorability rating. “And what are you good at? I mean, other than getting things off the top shelf, that is …”
Murdoch’s ears turned the colour of raw hamburger.
“Did your mother leave us a list?” I said to rescue him.
He looked up, then immediately away, and I knew in that instant it was me embarrassing him, not Dolores. Why I thought her little comments would be worse than my all-out assaults on the guy I don’t know. Now we were both blushing.
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked aimlessly around the kitchen. “Um, well, if she left a list it would be here somewhere and I don’t see anything, so I’d just, I don’t know, do the—whatever—usual stuff.”
I could see by the semi-crazed gleam in Dolores’s eye that she was trying to come up with some witty slash inappropriate response to that.
“I’ll do upstairs,” I said. “Get me out of here,” I thought.
I started rooting around under the sink for cleaning supplies. The front door banged open. Murdoch jumped to attention and sent the kitchen light swinging. I popped up too, my heart pounding.
“Eh. Murdo! You’re awake. Mom notice I didn’t come home last night?”
A tall girl with long, dark hair careened into the kitchen. She must have been about twenty-one or -two and probably pretty, but she’d obviously forgotten to take off her makeup before she went to bed the night before. If she went to bed, that is.
Murdoch flopped back on the stool, clearly relieved. I couldn’t get that spider image out of my head. I almost expected him to wipe his brow with the back of one of his eight legs.
“Don’t think so,” he said. “Didn’t mention it to me anyway.”
The girl clapped her hands together in prayer and said, “Thank you, Lord,” like some hick TV preacher. She noticed Dolores and me. “Oh, hey. You must be the ones …”
“Yes, they are.” Murdoch sounded like he was talking through his teeth.
“Oops.” The girl started laughing behind her hand and it dawned on me that she might still be drunk.
Murdoch sighed. “Thank you, Natalie. You may go now …”
She mouthed Sorry, then suddenly leapt and put Murdoch in a headlock. She noogied away at his scalp until his hair was standing out like a small shrub.
He pushed her away but not hard, just enough to get rid of her and she left the room, laughing. He was laughing too, though you could tell he was trying not to.
Dolores watched the scene with a knowing smirk. (Natalie was obviously a member of her tribe.) “Nice ‘fro,” she said, bouncing her hand off Murdoch’s hair. “Makes you look taller.”
“Just what I need.” He pounded his hair down as if he was trying to stuff it into a suitcase. That only made it worse, as Dolores was happy to point out.
This was all too painful to witness. I picked up my cleaning supplies and left.
I’d planned to start on the bathroom but I heard the toilet flush and knew Natalie had beaten me to it.
I swept the hall instead. When Natalie still hadn’t come out five minutes later, I wiped down the staircase and rubbed some fingerprints off the wall. (I always kept my own bottle of Prints Charming Wipe-Out Gel with me now, just in case. It was one of my favourite products.) I waited. I dusted a little folk-art table made from painted twigs, then studied the family portrait above it. I couldn’t tell if Murdoch looked like his mother or his father because everyone was wearing Groucho Marx glasses. They were an odd family.
After a while, I started to think Natalie was either asleep or passed out. I considered going downstairs to do the other bathroom instead, but I could hear Dolores flirting away with Murdoch at full bore.
People still flirt. I was surprised how sad that made me. It was like finding out about a party I hadn’t been invited to. I rubbed away at a black heel-mark on the floor and tried to come up with a nice comfortable daydream to distract myself with until Natalie got out of the bathroom.
Sometimes, when I was by myself in my room and everyone was out of the house, I could think about Nick in just the right way—no Carly, no ugly memories, no expectations, just sort of Nick in space—and it was delicious. It almost put me into a trance, like a sauna would or a massage or a really long kiss that leaves you sort of pleasantly stunned and wobbly.
I tried to do that now. I imagined him, his hands on his hips, shaking his legs out after his run, taking his cap off, wiping his forehead in the crook of his elbow. I walked him through his cool-down as he stretched his hamstrings, rolled out his shoulders, reached back and held his foot up tight against his thigh. He was just so beautiful. I could have stayed here forever, watching him do nothing but be Nick—
“The Flamingo Restaurant? No way. You’re kidding!”
Dolores’s voice deflated my daydream like a giant pin. I pressed my lips together and blew air out my nose. I was like Nick—in that way at least. I couldn’t take distractions. I knew I wouldn’t be able to turn on my little home movie again.
I leaned against the wall with my head back and my eyes just sort of looking for something to focus on. I noticed some dust above Murdoch’s door.
Then I noticed the door was slightly open. My mind went suspiciously blank. I looked at the bathroom. I listened. No sound.
I began to sweep the hall again. When I got to his room, I nudged the door open with the broom.
I kept sweeping the same spot. No one listening would have thought anything was up.
I peeked in.
The bed was unmade and there were a few clothes on the floor but the room was still oddly neat compared to the rest of the house. The shelves were full of books, magazines, CDs, and what looked like vintage toys, all organized by height or colour or maybe even both. There were two big posters on one wall—they must have been the Czech ones Dolores had seen the other day—but the other walls were covered with dozens of big cartoony-type drawings. There were so many and they were so perfectly lined up, they could have been wallpaper. I wondered if Murdoch had drawn them himself or if they were just something he collected.
The answer was
right in front of me.
Just above the desk was a drawing of a tall skinny naked guy covering himself up with what seemed to be a large white bunny tail. I eased the door open a little more to get a better look. My heart was going like a double-dutch rope. I wanted to see how he’d drawn the girl in the shower—or the drugstore.
A tap turned on and I heard the sound of water rushing. I pulled the door closed and skittered down the hall.
“All yours,” Natalie said, patting my shoulder on the way past. “Hope you didn’t need to go as bad as I did.”
I went into the bathroom, locked the door and sat on the toilet. I was kind of shaky, thrown off balance. It was Murdoch’s room that did it, I knew that, but didn’t quite know why. Something about all the drawings and the bright colours and things lined up like that. It was so weird and neat and organized. It made me feel like I was wrong about something.
I picked a wet towel up off the floor and hung it on a rack.
I was wrong about Dolores. That’s what it was.
I looked in the mirror and everything became clear. They were made for each other. No wonder he’d been blushing.
Chapter 19
I was in Mrs. Burton’s kitchen, the Friday after that, polishing her silver. My armpits were sticky with sweat and the tips of my fingers had gone all pruney but there was no way I was stopping. I told myself I wasn’t giving up until the Ashburn Golf Course Senior Women’s Championship Cup gleamed.
I scooped out another splotch of polish and rubbed at a little black spot on the handle. I pictured Mrs. Burton coming home unexpectedly from her Ladies’ Hospital Auxiliary meeting and saying, Oh, my! Would you look at that! I rubbed harder.
The cloth squealed against the silver. I had an uncomfortable feeling that I was being childish, but I couldn’t help it. Something had changed since I realized that thing about Murdoch and Dolores. He likes her. So what? It’s not like I was interested in him. I mean, this isn’t a competition.
It just feels like it.