One Good Hustle

by Billie Livingston

  “Mom!”

  She jerked around. “Sammie.” Her voice went all honey-pie. “Come here.” She patted the bit of empty couch beside her. “Jack, this is my little girl.”

  “Hello,” the bog-man said. Long, bony fingers wiggled the air toward me.

  “You want to keep it down? I’ve got school in the morning.”

  Marlene often says it’s my tone that pisses her off, not the words. She’d slapped my face once last year for my tone. I’d looked at her with this hard, amused expression that I’d been working on, and she ran like hell into her bedroom and slammed the door. I could hear her dresser drawer rattle as she rooted around for something that would take the edge off.

  Now, her mouth hung open for a good three seconds before she blurted, “You slept last night. You’re always sleeping.”

  “Are you for real?” I said.

  I went back to my room and closed the door. Leaning against it, I listened as Jack made noises about leaving. Marlene told him she loved him again. Jack left.

  I refused to speak to her the next morning.

  She didn’t notice; she was sleeping.

  After school that day, Nadia was outside our open door as I came down the hallway. Her voice was sharp and she was jabbing a finger at Marlene.

  My mother kept her arms crossed.

  Nadia’s expression changed into a smile for me. I tried to make nice as I slipped past her to my mother’s side of the door.

  As soon as I was by her, Nadia went back to that harsh sneer. “You think you can wake up half the building and nothing is going to happen? Not so!”

  “Where’s George? When I signed the rental agreement for this godforsaken hole, I signed it with George.” No matter her history, Marlene figures a guy will always treat you better. She’ll go to the longest line in the supermarket just to deal with a guy.

  “George! George has had it with you. He’d have kicked you out a long time ago except he likes Samantha. He thinks she’s cute. Lucky for you.”

  Marlene’s mouth hardened. “That is lucky,” she said. If she’d been a cat, her tail would have been switching, hard.

  My lungs clenched.

  “If I have to speak to you again, no more chances!” Nadia gave me another gruesome smile before she hurried away, her tough little legs zipping down the hallway.

  I made a beeline for my room.

  Marlene followed me. “George thinks Sammie’s cute! Isn’t she cute with those trashy tight jeans painted on her teenaged ass? Cutest thing you ever saw.” Then she stormed into the kitchen and slammed things around in the sink.

  “What do you figure that little bitch meant by that? You and George spending time together these days or what?”

  I came out and stood in the kitchen entrance. “No. I told you—he’s a drama coach. He gave me his business card because he thinks I should be an actress. He thinks I’m interesting.”

  “I’ll bet,” she said. “I’ll just fucking bet. Maybe cute Sammie could haul her interesting ass in here and clean up the kitchen!”

  I’m standing in the phone booth now. I have to call one of them and I don’t know which one first.

  I stick in a quarter.

  Seems to ring and ring forever.

  Finally, “Hello?” Her tone sounds urgent, as if she’s been interrupted in the middle of performing brain surgery.

  “Mom? It’s me.”

  She breathes out a bitchy kind of disgust. I can almost hear her lip curl.

  “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  “You tell me,” she says.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Excuse me?” she mimics.

  “What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?”

  “You think you’re going to run off with him and just leave me here in the muck? You and Freddy. What a laugh.”

  “Freddy?”

  “The index card!” she says. “I found it, smartass. In the living room. Think you’re so damn smart. There’s code scratched all over it—I can read it.”

  I stand in the phone booth, rain dribbling down the outside of the glass as I try to put it all together. The thought of Freddy’s face up-close makes me want to puke. Then the index card flutters through my brain onto the couch: me in the living room, calling all over town. I forgot to put the card back. It probably slipped down between the couch cushions.

  “I called him because I was looking for you.”

  “See how far you get!” She hangs up.

  Leaning in the phone booth, I watch little rivers run down Kingsway. Brown puddle-waves splash the sidewalks as cars rush by.

  THIRTEEN

  “HAVE I REACHED Samantha Bell? Hello, Samantha, this is Jean White calling. I’m a counsellor from Oak Shore Mental Health. We’re calling to let you know that your mother, Marlene, was admitted here three days ago. I understand you are no longer living at home but we thought we should be in touch.”

  “Mental health? Is that like … an insane asylum?”

  “No, not quite like that.” Her voice reminded me of a school secretary’s: stick-up-the-butt polite. “Your mother’s been having some troubles so she has a bed here until she’s feeling better. If you’d like to see her, our visiting hours are 1p.m. to 4 p.m.”

  I’m sitting outside the main building now, on one of their benches, staring up at steely block letters over the doors: OAK SHORE MENTAL HEALTH. It was easy to get to by bus. Right off Willingdon Avenue. Which is peculiar when you think about it. Willingdon is a pretty busy street. I thought when people had nervous breakdowns, they needed somewhere a little more quiet.

  The place doesn’t look that bad. It’s not a giant cement psychocentre, with bars on the windows, the way you see in movies. Looks more like an old elementary school, stucco and wood.

  I told them I’d be here at one o’clock. It’s twenty after.

  Just when you think a situation is as fucked up as it can get, the fucked-up-itude still manages to knife you in the back.

  I don’t know if Marlene is going to be walking the halls in one of those white jackets with the wraparound sleeves or what. It’s my fault if she is. If I’d just stayed put, maybe I could’ve snapped her out of it. But nope, I buggered off. And that’s what happens when you leave a person alone—they go sour. Like milk.

  Why didn’t she call me herself?

  What if they’re doing awful things to her in there?

  I think I’m going puke.

  No puking. Grow up.

  I stand up finally and head for the door.

  Inside, it’s like a cross between a hospital and a hotel. The linoleum is cream with brown wisps—shiny, as if it gets polished every day.

  At the front desk, I tell them I’m here for Marlene. The receptionist is older with perfect makeup, hair very smooth and neat. When she smiles, she reveals rows of straight white teeth. She looks sort of high-class, which makes me feel better. Marlene likes women who look high-class. She always hates it if I use bad grammar or rounder slang because of how low-class it sounds. Half the time that Marlene criticizes what I’m wearing, it’s that type of issue. “Take that off, you look like a lowlife.” She doesn’t seem to notice so much with men. Or maybe she just forgives them for it.

  The receptionist tells me Marlene’s room number and points me down the hall. I was expecting electronic doors or something. I thought I would have to be buzzed through Security.

  The door of room 126 is open. I stop outside and pull my shirt smooth. Peering inside, I see Marlene sitting there on a single bed, looking into her compact, wiping lipstick from the corners of her mouth.

  I tap my nails on the door. “Hello?”

  “Oh.” She fumbles her compact shut. “It’s you.” When she says you, her voice sounds warm and scared together.

  She chucks the compact into her purse, rubs her palms over her slacks and gets up. She looks beside her and around the room and back at me as if she doesn’t know what to do next. “Well,” she says, and takes a step.
>
  I take a step too and we look at each other and then one of us puts out her hands and the other one does the same and we stand there holding each other’s fingers, both of us nervous, as if we’re standing in a dark alley.

  “Are you skipping off today?” She smiles a little.

  She means “skipping out.” The first time I told her I skipped out on a class, she thought it was hilarious. She pictured me skipping off down the street, she said.

  “Summer vacation,” I remind her.

  “Right.” She shakes her head and looks away. “Are you hungry? There’s a cafeteria we could go to on the second floor.”

  I say no even though I could eat. I can’t stop eating lately. My jeans are getting hard to zip.

  “There’s a common room too. With a TV. Or we could just sit here and, uh … sit here.” A hand goes to her temple, tugs some hair and pulls it behind her ear.

  “Here’s fine,” I say, and sit down in the chair against the wall.

  Marlene sits on the skinny bed. Her skin looks as if I could poke a finger through it. There is a slight tremor in her hands. She sees me looking and folds them in her lap.

  “So,” she says. “Everything’s okay where you’re staying? I didn’t have the number to uh, uh …”

  “Jill’s?”

  “Jill’s. The counsellor knew where to find you. I guess she called Social Services and they had it.”

  I pick at the arm of the chair. “Jill’s mom got them to put her down as my temporary guardian. That way she gets child welfare money for looking after me.”

  “Oh.” Marlene’s mouth opens again and hangs that way for a couple seconds. “I guess everything’s okay there?”

  “Yup. I’m going to take the road test for my driver’s licence this week. Lou’s taking me.”

  “Lou?” She repeats the name as if it makes her sad and confused.

  “Jill’s dad. You met him.”

  “I did?”

  “Ruby and Lou. They went over to the apartment to look in on you.”

  “Right.” Something like fear flashes across her eyes again. “That woman.”

  “Ruby.”

  She shakes her head and takes a big breath. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “I called you a few days ago. Do you remember that?”

  She stares. Her look is buggy and shiny like a cat’s when it’s hiding under the bed.

  “You thought I was going to run away with Fat Freddy,” I remind her. “You said there was code scratched into the Freddy file card and that’s how you knew.”

  Marlene closes her eyes.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said it so bluntly.

  She keeps her eyes shut when she says, “I found that index card in the living room. I guess I got mixed up.” She glances out the window. “The last time I talked to Freddy he said you were turning into a nice-looking little broad.”

  “Ew. He hasn’t seen me since I was, like, thirteen or something. Dumb-ass.”

  She turns her head to me. “Did you just say dumbass?”

  I shrug, smile. Must’ve picked that one up from Jill.

  Her eyelids flutter and she smirks. “He’s a dumbass all right. Maybe he didn’t say it. Maybe I dreamed it. It’s hard to know what was … I remember people watching me from the TV. And the window blind … signalling.” She gestures with two hands as though she’s working the blind strings, opening and closing them. Taking a shaky breath, she looks into her hands, and picks at some chipped polish on her fingernail. “I didn’t think you’d ever leave me.”

  “You said you were going to kill yourself. You said you didn’t want me to have to find you.”

  “I don’t blame you. I just didn’t think you would. Seemed like I was really finished if you left. I dumped the last of the vodka and the rest of the tranquilizers. And then I had a grand mal seizure. Right in the middle of the Mac’s Mini-Mart. Ambulance came … the hospital gave me Dilantin for the seizures and a prescription for more Valium. Or Ativan. I forget … I went back home and downed the whole bottle. Apparently George found me out cold in the lobby and called an ambulance.”

  “The lobby in our building?”

  She nods, puts her palms on the edge of the bed and pushes herself up straight. She runs her teeth over her bottom lip and says, “What did I say to you? Something awful …”

  “You told Drew about a plan to make me famous with a pink Cadillac and pink roses.”

  She looks embarrassed and suddenly I’m not sure if I’m picking on her about the Cadillac stuff or trying to say something nice. If you think about it, it was pretty decent of her to want to make me famous.

  “You wanted to send a picture of me in a pink car with the roses to Phil Donahue because he was Scottish. It was only going to work if all the stuff was pink and all of us were Scottish.”

  Marlene’s not Scottish. Sam is. I’m half.

  “Isn’t Donahue Irish?” she asks.

  I snort and so does she. We’re both looking for a place to make a joke but nothing quite works yet. Or maybe it’s just not funny any more.

  I suck in air until my chest hurts and then let it out. “How long do you have to stay here?”

  Marlene keeps looking into her hands. “I thought they were going to send me home. I didn’t want to go. I guess I panicked. We had a group session and I—” She covers her face with both palms for a second and then puts them down. “I put green eye shadow all over my face. To prove—So they’d see that I definitely …”

  I look at her. “Seriously?”

  She tucks in her lips like a kid who’s been caught swiping pennies. “Group went on like nothing happened. Nobody said a word. Maybe I didn’t put on as much as I thought. They didn’t send me home, though.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Marlene opens her eyes wide, spreads her lips and gives me a crazy fake smile—like one of those old wind-up monkeys with the banging cymbals. Then suddenly we start to giggle, and even when we stop, the nerves in my guts flutter and I’m afraid that if I don’t force some more laughter I’m going to bawl instead.

  FOURTEEN

  I DIDN’T STAY in Marlene’s room that long. Couldn’t stand the clumsy feeling, as if she and I don’t really know each other any more. I liked the part where we laughed about group therapy. But we shouldn’t have. Christ, she’s painting her face green to prove she’s nuts enough to stay in the nuthouse.

  When I left Oak Shore, I didn’t want to get back on the bus either. Didn’t want strangers gawking at me. Feels like you can read it all over me: Loser Orphan Annie. So I’m walking home—no, I’m walking back to Jill’s.

  At least last week I could imagine that Marlene missed me and wanted me there with her. And Sam. Where the hell is Sam?

  Drew keeps climbing into my head. I hear him say I love you again and my insides feel squirmy with it. Thing is, he was probably telling the truth the second time he called—he didn’t mean it like that, he meant it as a friend. He loves me in that Jesus-y way. Not like a guy. The only guys who ever think of me that way are old perverts like Fat Freddy.

  I’m staring at the sidewalk, moving on autopilot. Midway through July and now that the rains have stopped, it’s summer for real. The sun is so hot and heavy my clothes are sticking to my skin. These jeans are too tight; it’s a workout just to walk in them.

  When I look up, I realize that I’m on Sardis Street—almost at our building. Like a homing pigeon. I don’t know why I’m going here. Part of me expects to walk into the apartment and see Marlene and me sitting in front of the boob tube just like old times.

  We used to have a blast making fun of crap on TV. The best was watching glitzy beauty pageants—Miss Universe, Miss America. We’d heat up a frozen pizza and pop some kind of fizzy drinks and we’d time it so that everything would be ready before the show started. When the pageant music began, I’d always yell, “Release the hounds!” Marlene would laugh every time I said it.

  Later on in the show, I might ease up and say somethi
ng like, “Miss Texas is pretty.”

  “Pretty good at fetching papers,” Marlene would answer. “Look at Illinois, I think she’s smuggling pumpkins in her pants.”

  We’d laugh our heads off.

  I guess I kind of do want to go home. I want to see for myself how messy it is. Plus, I need more clothes.

  I always cut through the little path in the shrubs at the rear of the building to get to our apartment on the ground floor. But I feel like a burglar doing it now. What if I run into George or Nadia? I wonder if the rent is paid up. I wish I could just slip over the railing and go in through the sliding glass door, but it’s locked from the inside.

  When I get to our patio, I stand there for a second, hand on the railing, squinting into the living room. Can’t see anything; the curtains are pulled tight.

  Eventually, I walk down the cement path to the back door. I keep still in the corridor a few seconds, listening for footsteps or movement. The building is dead quiet.

  Rushing down the hall, I jam my key in the lock.

  When our door opens, the garbage-stink hits me like a truck. The place is sweltering. I check the thermostat. Holy shit, Marlene had it cranked up to eighty. I pull it back twenty degrees.

  In the kitchen, dishes are piled up and the tap is dripping, one splat at a time on the top plate. It’s not that terrible. Definitely reeks, though. I open the cupboard under the sink. Fruit flies rise in a cloud and waft out into the air around me. The garbage pail is full and rotting.

  Ruby tsks in my head, Disgusting. I’d like to see Ruby pause to take out the garbage before they load her onto a stretcher.

  Batting fruit flies out of my face, I pull the pail out onto the floor, grab the ends of the bag and pick it up like a dirty diaper. The Dumpster is in the basement. I hate going down there. Creeps me out.

  The cool cement of the garage sends a jolt up my bare feet into my shinbones. The slap of each step echoes around the walls. I glance over my shoulder, thinking about all the horrible rape stories that take place in underground parking lots—and slam face-first into George.