Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret

by Vicki Grant

  Swim.

  Williams Lake.

  Carly in the pink bikini. Nick with his wet hair.

  “There’s this great spot. Quarry Lake? You know? Just off the Bi-Hi? You got to walk in a bit from the road but that’s okay. Keeps out the riff-raff.”

  I stepped around Dolores and kept walking. She scampered after me like one of those yappy dogs in the old cartoons.

  “Know what? I was in Giant Tiger yesterday and they’ve got these amazingly trashy bathing suits for, like, eight bucks. We could pick up a couple of fluorescent tankinis or, say, a nice little leopard-print one-piece with matching cover-up, then catch the number 47 and charm the bus driver into dropping us off on the highway. I’ve done it before. They’re not supposed to stop on the highway, but they will—providing one’s winsome enough, of course …”

  She wasn’t going to shut up.

  I could easily outrun her, lose her in a block or two and then just go wherever I wanted. Problem was, I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I couldn’t go out. Couldn’t go home. I felt panicky again.

  “And … bonus! … Tigre Géant also has an amazing selection of foodstuffs. We could pick up some inexpensive Chinese interpretations of such classics as Lunchables, Chips Ahoy, Mountain Dew, whatever. Make ourselves a little late-afternoon snack. Sound good?”

  I kept walking. By pure coincidence, I was more or less heading in the direction of Giant Tiger. Dolores took that as her answer.

  “Great! This will be great. I mean, we deserve it. We worked hard this week. How much you think we made? Hmm. Let’s see. Two houses on Monday, two on Tuesday, only one Wednesday but that’s okay because next week we …”

  Dolores kept on like that until we got to the store. After a while, her babbling became almost irritating enough to keep me from thinking about Nick. It allowed me to hover just slightly above despair.

  Chapter 22

  Giant Tiger smelled like discount stores everywhere, sort of a cross between a new plastic doll and powdered popcorn flavouring. It managed to be both too bright and gloomy at the same time. I followed along behind Dolores like some middle-aged husband. We walked down endless aisles of cheap kitchen utensils and novelty gifts until we finally arrived at the “Ladies’ Wear” section in the back.

  Mismatched bikini tops and bottoms were piled beneath a yellow clearance sign.

  “So what size do you take? Two? Zero? What?” Dolores stepped back and looked me over. “You’re definitely a zero.” No argument there. “Hmm. I wonder if they even come that small here. Giant Tiger shoppers are by and large a hefty bunch …” She began rifling through the pile, tossing the rejects to the side as if she were working on a conveyor belt at a factory. “Oh. Oh, wait. What’s this? … Bingo! A zero.”

  She handed me an orange tie-dyed bikini bottom with lime green rings at the side. The fabric kind of squeaked in my fingers.

  “Now we just need to get you a top.” What type of top—and whether I liked it or not—obviously didn’t matter. Dolores dove back in.

  I stood looking at the bathing suit in my hand as if it were some complicated piece of equipment. I couldn’t imagine actually finding the brainpower, the strength to put it on. I felt a dull sense of amazement. People — I knew this was true—actually changed their clothes. Actually went swimming. Actually got kind of excited about it. It was like looking up at the sky and realizing human beings had walked on the moon.

  Dolores was shaking her head. “Things are pretty picked over. Think you could just wear your bra? … Oh. Hold on … Yes … Ye-es …” She pulled out a skimpy black-and-yellow polka-dot top. She slipped her glasses to the bottom of her nose to read the label. “You’re in luck. Another zero. We have snake eyes, folks! They’ll be kind of wild together, don’t you think?”

  Wild together made me think of Carly and Nick, and Nick at the field, and how I looked, and what had happened to my life, and how there was no point to it any more, and that I was going to wind up sad and alone, an old cleaning lady in the same pair of shorts I’d worn since that day at Jitters.

  The tears in my eyes made the orange tie-dyed pattern throb. I knew I just had to turn my brain off. Nothing mattered. I had to believe that. It was the only way I’d survive.

  I nodded and took the top too.

  “I don’t have your tiny waist to show off so I’m going, instead, for an ironic ‘matronly’ look.” Dolores moved over to another table and pulled out a turquoise one-piece with a big, floppy orange flower pinned at the chest. She waved her hand in front of her mouth as if she’d just bitten into a jalapeño.

  “Isn’t this adorable? … Oh, fudge-cakes!”

  She tossed it back onto the pile. “It’s a ten. Too big. Ever wish you were fatter? Had I known, I would have had a few more of Mrs. Burton’s snickerdoodles. They were unstoppably delicious. Did you have any? I hope she wasn’t saving them for anything.”

  Dolores pulled out something that looked like the bag Granny carries her golf shoes in. It was black with runny purple flowers and pleats fanning out at the waist.

  She read the size and clapped it to her chest. “Ain’t life grand? Seriously. You’re heartbroken about something one minute, then next minute—something even better comes along! And look. A matching bathing cap too! The Mother Goddess has smiled upon me.”

  She checked the time. “Ooh. Gotta hurry.” She finished her shopping the same way she finished her cleaning. In minutes, we were at the cash with our bathing suits, a bunch of towels and a pile of petroleum-based food products.

  “That’s $36.17,” the cashier said, then went back to chipping the black nail polish off her thumb. We each handed over a twenty.

  I pictured the yogourt tub on my dresser. I hadn’t spent a single cent of the money I’d earned until now but here I was buying a bathing suit I’d never wear again and food I’d never eat and a towel that was so thin and stiff it would never get me dry. I was wasting money that I could have used to get out of here.

  My brain ran off on me again. I’d never get out of here. I’d never get away from cleaning, or Halifax, or that image of Nick looking at me in utter disgust.

  Stop.

  Stop.

  Stop.

  The cashier stuffed our things into plastic bags and handed back our change.

  “Thank you,” Dolores said. “It’s been a delight doing business with you.” She hustled us out the door.

  Once outside, she seemed to slow down. She leaned against an old rust-coloured car and dumped the food onto the hood. “Just want to make sure we didn’t forget anything. We got lots of cookies but what about protein? I don’t think there’ll be much in the Cheez-Teezers, despite the promise the name holds out. Should we go back for … Oh, hey!”

  I didn’t want to turn around to see who Dolores was waving at.

  “Mur-doch! What are you doing here?”

  His gigantic shadow crept up from behind me, hit the curb and bent sideways at the shoulder. It looked like a pharaoh from an Egyptian mural.

  “I work here. Like, next door. The Flamingo Restaurant.”

  Dolores conked herself on the forehead. “I forgot about that. You’re a dishwasher, aren’t you?”

  Murdoch’s shadow shook and I knew he was laughing. “I don’t like to think of myself as a dishwasher. It’s not something I am. Just something I do. You know.”

  “Well, ex-cuse me. We’re cleaning ladies and we’re proud of it — aren’t we, Bets?”

  Dolores had never called me Bets before. Somehow it seemed like another indicator of how far I’d fallen—as did the fact that, yet again, my response was clearly not required. I was peripheral now. Except for a moment to adjust her knee socks, Dolores hadn’t taken her eyes off Murdoch.

  “We’re going swimming at Quarry Lake. Wanta come? Be awful refreshing after a day slaving over a hot sink …”

  Murdoch moved his head several times before saying, “Um. Well.”

  The Big Nervous Spider Goes Swimming … “I don’t
have my bathing suit.”

  Dolores made a noise like air escaping from a bicycle pump. “So? I know for a fact you wear boxers.” More fidgeting from Murdoch.

  “What are you worried about, Big Man? I’ve even got an extra towel for you. Come on. We’re just going to catch the bus at …”

  “I’ve got my car.”

  “You do? Where?”

  “Your stuff’s on the hood.”

  Dolores coughed as if the shock was too much for her and I knew right then what she’d been up to. Giant Tiger was her park bench.

  “No kidding. This yours?”

  “Yeah. Or, well, now it is. It was my grandfather’s.”

  “Wow. He get it when he graduated from high school?”

  “Close. When he left my grandmother. In 1970 or something. Not many Rebels still on the road.”

  Dolores kind of barked at that. “I beg your pardon. I’m a Rebel and I’m still on the road … or will be, if you’d get a move on.”

  She climbed into the front seat and motioned for me to get in too—the Rebel had a bench rather than bucket seats—but I shook my head and got in the back. Three’s a crowd, I thought.

  Nick and me and Carly.

  Stop, I thought.

  I looked out the window while Murdoch drove and Dolores talked. This was an ugly part of town. Strip malls. Beige siding. Brick apartment buildings.

  Get used to it.

  Chapter 23

  The lake wasn’t that far away but you had to know where to find it. About five minutes down the highway Dolores told Murdoch to pull over. There wasn’t even a sign or a painted rock or a stick marking the spot.

  We waited until a couple of eighteen-wheelers rumbled past, then we sprinted across the highway. Dolores must have loved it when Murdoch helped her over the median. I climbed over by myself.

  We started down the path. It was potholed and rocky and overhung with branches. It looked like the wilderness but still sounded like the highway. I walked behind Murdoch and Dolores.

  I don’t know how long we’d gone when I realized I couldn’t hear the trucks any more. All I could hear was the crunch of footsteps and, now and then, leaves crackling in the wind.

  Sometime later, Dolores stopped and pointed at some bushes. “Okay, children. Boys’ changing room over there, girls’ over here.”

  I went behind the proper bush, turned my back to Dolores and changed. I looked down at my belly and realized I was disappearing. The size-zero bottoms hung off my hip bones. I had no meat on me, no colour. I imagined slicing myself open and finding I was as white and lifeless as a slab of Styrofoam.

  “All set?”

  Dolores was wearing her granny suit and tucking the last strands of hair under her mauve bathing cap. She put on her glasses and tucked the arms in too. Murdoch was fidgeting in his T-shirt and baggy, plaid boxers.

  This is a cartoon. That’s what I thought. My whole life has become a cartoon. Tune in next week to Losers at the Lake on Weirdo TV starring Betsy Wickwire, playing herself. Cruel but true.

  Murdoch held back a branch so we could cut down to the water. There were some yahoos across the way doing cannonballs and no doubt having a couple of beer but otherwise the place was deserted. It seemed odd that I’d lived my entire life in Halifax and never heard of Quarry Lake. The popular kids obviously didn’t come here. I was here now.

  I knelt on the flat top of the boulder, spread out my towel and lay down on my back. I could smell the pine needles and something sort of metallic (coming from the rock) and something sort of plastic (coming from my bathing suit). Dolores and Murdoch sat down below with their legs in the water and talked. Little waves splashed up against the sh ore. Something crawled over my wrist. I wiped it away without opening my eyes. Murdoch the Dock Spider.

  The spider is afraid of the water. His friends have to help him. He learns to do an excellent frog kick with all his eight legs but then a fish eats him and he dies.

  I clearly was in the wrong frame of mind to write a children’s story.

  Maybe it was fear or exhaustion or just plain surrender, but I couldn’t come up with anything else to think about. It was like my brain had been painted beige.

  I must have passed out eventually, because when I opened my eyes I was hot and dizzy and the world was all bleached out. I wasn’t quite sure where I was but knew better than to dig too deep. I peered around. Dolores was lying on her towel now, hands at her side, eyes closed, looking like the type of doll they sell in Giant Tiger. Murdoch was in the lake, floating on his back. Sharp flashes of sunlight snapped around him. I had to blink my eyes a few times to see him.

  I should swim. Cool down.

  I sat up and put my hand over my eyebrows. “How is it?”

  Murdoch’s head moved as he tried to figure out where the voice was coming from.

  “Oh. The water? It’s, um, nice, I guess.”

  I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see so said, “Oh.”

  I looked at the lake for quite a while and then, at some random point, just stood up. Everything seemed to be happening slightly beyond my control.

  I stumbled down to the water. I didn’t check the temperature with my toe or ease myself in. I jumped straight in and sank to the bottom like a lead statue.

  The lake was cool and clear and totally silent. My hair floated up. I only had to work a little to stay down. I saw Murdoch’s legs kicking overhead. The water turned them a yellowy brown, like a tinted picture. I wondered if this was what movies were like in the olden days.

  I could have stayed under water forever, just floating, watching, absorbing. I felt sort of safe there. I didn’t even mind the pain growing in my chest. It felt natural—or at least, real—not like most things in my life right then. I let a bubble of air out of my mouth and watched it wobble frantically away from me. It reminded me of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.

  Murdoch turned around. His legs looked strong. I could see he was probably quite a good swimmer. I felt mean for turning him into a dock spider. No one would want to be a dock spider. What was happening to me?

  He stopped treading water. He was diving toward me now. His cheeks were puffed out and his hair was streaming back behind him.

  I remembered this famous picture of a Greek god, his face all bloated like that, blowing the clouds away, but I couldn’t remember his name or what he was god of. Was there a god of Hopeless Causes?

  Murdoch was coming right for me and I had this sudden, horrible feeling that he wanted to play. Was this some type of game? That made me think of Nick and Carly and the little “games” they played. They were even here in the lake with me.

  Murdoch grabbed my arm and began to pull me up. I thought of how gentle he’d been with his sister when she’d ambushed him the other day. This didn’t feel like playing. I was suddenly frightened.

  Dolores.

  Something must have happened to Dolores. That’s why he’d come to get me.

  I started to kick, move my arms, scramble up to the surface, scared. I was suddenly desperate to get out, suddenly desperate too, I realized, for air. I burst out of the water.

  “You all right?” Murdoch’s face was so close to mine I could feel his breath. He was panting. His eyes were shifting back and forth as if he was scanning me for data.

  “Me? Yes.” I sort of fluttered away from him. “Me? Why?”

  He took a few strokes back too. “Oh, sorry. You were down so long I thought, I don’t know, something had happened to you. Like you’d hit your head or got caught in a rock or something.”

  I turned down my mouth and shrugged. I tried to make out like it was nothing, but I felt a little trickle of fear. I realized I’d had no intention of coming up.

  Chapter 24

  Murdoch was treading water about a metre away from me. “You’ve got a good set of lungs. I wouldn’t have been able to stay down half that long.” He sounded less amazed than disturbed.

  I saw little pinpricks of light all around him. Can a perso
n faint in the water? I paddled over to the side and pulled myself on to the rock.

  Dolores was lying up above, whisking pine needles off her bathing suit. I didn’t know why I’d been so worried. I’d been drowning and I’d been worried about Dolores. I leaned back against the rock, relieved to feel its hard edge on my shoulder blades. I didn’t move for a long time.

  “Oh boy. I’m famished!” Dolores sat up and peeled off her bathing cap. Her hair was as slick and green as seaweed underneath. “Shall we eat?” She dumped the bag of food out onto her towel and started ripping packages open. Food might help, I thought. Maybe I just need food.

  I kept one hand on the side of the boulder to steady myself and climbed to the top. I looked down and saw Murdoch hauling himself out of the water. He was as white as I was and thin too. He stood up. Thin, but his shoulders were broad. He patted his hand on the rock until he found his glasses, then climbed toward us.

  Dolores’s fingers were already dyed radioactive from the Cheezies. “Dig in, guys,” she said, and stuffed another handful in her mouth.

  Neither of us took up her offer.

  “What? No one else hungry?” She seemed offended, as if she’d made the Cheezies herself. She wiped the crumbs off her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at Murdoch. “Two cookies? What’s the matter with you? Have some more.” She shook the plastic tray at him until, one by one, she’d made him take a lap full.

  “Careful,” he said. “I’ll eat them all if you let me.”

  “So? Geez. If you’re hungry, just eat.”

  “Bad advice,” he said.

  Murdoch was sitting on the ground with one knee up and his arm stretched over the top, his hand hanging loose. It kind of reminded me of the Sistine Chapel. My thoughts were all so weird now.

  “If I ate every time I was hungry, everyone else would starve.”

  “How very noble of you.” Dolores cracked open a can of something called Mountain Rain. “But stupid. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, my friend. You know what they say: Do unto others before they do onto you.” She took a swig, then leaned back on her elbows.