One Good Hustle

by Billie Livingston

  We’re sitting in her room, each of us holding a cold can of Orange Crush that she bought us in the cafeteria.

  “You have plenty of personality.”

  “I do!” I laugh my most incredulous laugh, the kind Marlene and I used to use when a really stupid actress was being interviewed on The Merv Griffin Show. I’m faking it, though. It’s not that funny.

  Marlene’s pissed off and I’m glad of it. I feel mean and gristly when I think about what Ruby said, which is better than feeling small and shivery. I just sat there at the kitchen table like a little mute wart while Ruby spewed her crappy theories, even though I wanted to huck my plate through the window. In the end I went out and did something worse, though. More stupid. More useless. I haven’t told Marlene. I can’t.

  “I do not like that woman,” Marlene says now.

  I look at the floor. That dark-in-my-guts feeling is coming back hard. Deceive, delude and desert: that’s all I do these days. Traitor.

  “I guess she’s just trying to help me become a better person.”

  “A better person? So I raised a bad person? Is that where this is going?”

  “No. I just mean that Ruby’s usually all right. She made me a cake. I got my driver’s licence, you know—so Ruby made me a chocolate congratulations cake.”

  “She’s a bossy, abusive person. People like that are emotional bullies.”

  I roll that one around for a few seconds and wonder if it’s a term they use here in group therapy. “She’s not exactly a bully. She just has her ideas about certain things. I guess she’s particular.”

  “Try peculiar.”

  I shrug.

  “Now you’re defending her.”

  I am, even though Marlene is saying what I wanted her to. What I thought I wanted to hear. I wish instead she’d hug me small again. Hug me quiet and soft.

  She shakes her head. “I talked to Margaret, the social worker, because I was worried about our rent getting paid on time. Apparently that little Ruby actually tried to convince them not to give me my full cheque. Ruby wanted the Welfare to deduct the support that was going to her from my cheque.”

  I study her face. “Why would a social worker tell you that?”

  “Ha! I knew it.” She looks defiant and victorious. As if she’s just won big. “Margaret didn’t spell it out in so many words. But I can put two and two together.”

  I focus on the top of my Orange Crush can, watch the little bubbles slide around in the rim, burst and liquefy. “Ruby figured you wouldn’t need it since—”

  “Who the hell is she to say what I need? You know what I remember most about her being in our place that day? The way she kept referring to you as Sammie. Sammie this and Sammie that. Like it was your name.”

  I glance up.

  “Your name is Samantha. Sammie is what I call you.”

  I bullfrog my cheeks and exhale. I play with the pull-tab of my soda can. “She just wants me to feel like I’m part of the family, I guess.”

  “Well, you’re not.”

  I’m the piggy in the middle right now. Marlene is jealous as hell and if I look at it from that angle, it feels kind of good.

  “So when are they sending you home?”

  Her eyes turn dark. They’ve probably been dark the whole time and I’m only noticing now how each black pupil is taking up her whole eyeball.

  She glances out her door into the hall. “Wednesday, I think.”

  That’s two days from now.

  Sitting on her hands, Marlene kicks her feet out a little, looks at the toes of her shoes and then drags her heels back close.

  “I washed the dishes,” I say.

  “What dishes? Our dishes? At the apartment? When?”

  “Last week. Took down the garbage too.”

  “You did?” She looks baffled—as if I just said, I painted the place plaid. Hope you like it.

  “Does that mean you’re coming home?”

  Now it’s my turn to be scared. I don’t want to go home with her. I don’t want to live with her. Not yet. Maybe never.

  “I didn’t think so,” Marlene says, and does that thing with her feet again. “That’s okay. I quit drinking. And the pills too. Whether you come home or not. I’m quitting for myself.”

  I tuck my elbows in and wrap my fingers around the can in my hands, trying not to take up so much space. The walls still feel tight, though, tighter and tighter as if the box is shrinking, as if there’s no room for me anywhere I go.

  TWENTY

  JILL ASKED PERMISSION for us to sleep outside in the old camper Lou and Ruby keep beside the house. Mostly it’s just sleeping space, but there’s also a tiny sink and a bathroom. Except that the water isn’t hooked up. Drag. Still have to head into the house if we need to pee.

  Jill said that sometimes they tow the camper to Vancouver Island or out to the Okanagan Valley. It’s a bit musty but it smells like being away. Not that Sam and Marlene ever had a camper. That wasn’t Sam’s style. He’d rather stay in a hotel and skip out on the bill any day. As far as he was concerned that was the best way to keep the nut down. I wonder how he does it now. Everyone uses a credit card these days.

  I wish I would quit thinking about that stuff. What’s the likelihood that Sam and Marlene and I will ever be on the road together again? Zip.

  I do like it out here in the camper. Especially now, when it’s late. You can actually hear crickets.

  “I bet it’ll be great when it rains,” I say to Jill as we’re lying in the dark. “The sound of raindrops pelting the roof. Our own little house.”

  Jill is lying on the skinny bed on the left-hand side and I’m in the skinny bed on the right-hand side. I just said that thing about the rain to lighten the mood. A few minutes ago I’d asked Jill if she ever missed having a boyfriend, if she missed Roman, and it started to get weird.

  “No way,” Jill said. “It’s summer. Having a boyfriend in summer is like bringing sand to the beach.”

  “Yeah!” I said and laughed.

  It was quiet for a bit. I was thinking about how lame it is that I’m this old and I’ve never even kissed a guy.

  “I don’t think guys like me that way,” I said.

  No comment from Jill. It was embarrassing. Seemed like she didn’t want to lie and didn’t want to hurt my feelings either.

  Then she said, “A couple days ago, my mom sat me down and told me that I should try not to be jealous of you.” There was a long pause. Just as I was about to speak, she continued. “I was like, jealous? Of her? I mean, no offence, Sammie, but I never thought you were anything to write home about.” Jill’s voice had become mocking. Sort of like Crystal Norris’s.

  I stared up at the ceiling, let my eyes follow the cuts of streetlight through the little camper curtains, the way it sliced the room into grey and black chunks.

  Just as I was forming the question, Jill horned in with the answer.

  “The reason she said it is that I told her how Crystal phoned me the other night. She said that Roman saw you and me out on the street somewhere and Roman wanted to know who you were and if you had a boyfriend. Obviously he’s trying to make me jealous by saying that to Crystal, but when I told my mom I guess she was concerned that it could come between us.”

  “I’m not interested in Roman,” I said.

  Roman is this big Italian guy. He’s got a soup-strainer of a moustache and a beak that hangs down over top of it. Jill used to joke that Roman’s nose was roamin’ all over his face. After school, I’d see her get into his ugly black Firebird with the huge flaming decal on the hood. They’d start necking and the tongue action was hard to stomach, but at the same time it was hard to look away. Sort of like when you see a dog throw up on the street.

  “He’s not your speed anyway,” Jill said. Her voice was hard. “Roman is a total boob-man, so you’d have, like, nada to offer in that department.”

  “Totally!” I forced a laugh, looked through the space in the curtains and watched the moths flutter und
er the street lamp. That’s when I said the thing about the rain, how cool it would be to hear the sound of raindrops pelting the roof.

  “My mom thinks you and I should get a summer job,” Jill suddenly says. “I think it’s a good idea. You in?”

  Probably the best part about being out here in the camper is the absence-of-Ruby aspect. But there’s no real escape from her.

  “I’m not sure,” I say, nonchalant as I can be. “My dad’s going to be coming out here soon. What if I have to go out of town? Because, you know, he was talking about me coming back to Toronto. With him. For a while.”

  “He was? When?”

  “We’re playing it by ear.”

  “What does he do again?”

  “Huh?”

  “For a living.”

  He’s a rounder. I don’t actually say that. God, I want to, though. I want to slam her right between the eyes with that one. “Do you know what a rounder is, Jill? Didn’t think so. Not your speed really.”

  What I actually say is: “He’s a salesman.”

  “What does he sell?”

  “Oh, you name it. Cars, insurance, real estate …”

  She’s silent a few seconds, then says, “I don’t want to be tied down either, you know. But I think we should accept responsibility for our finances and know what it means to earn our own money.”

  Clearly parroting Ruby with that last bit.

  “Crystal’s cousin works for Pacific Inn Catering,” Jill continues. “They have the hotel restaurant but they also run a catering company for weddings and stuff. It’s casual. You don’t have to be somewhere every day—you just call in for work when you want it and they give you your hours.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s good money. And it’s almost August. Do you want the whole summer to go by and have nothing to show for it?”

  God, I hate it when she sounds like her mother.

  “Minimum wage isn’t good money,” I say.

  “Minimum wage is $5.50. This pays $6. Plus tips. And you only work when you want to. Weekends mostly.”

  I’m no sucker, I can hear Sam say. I don’t carry a baloney bucket to work.

  What if he calls and asks me what I’m up to. I suppose I don’t have to tell him that I’m waiting tables.

  “Would I have to wear a hairnet?”

  “No.” Jill laughs. “We’d be working in banquet halls. Weddings and stuff. They wear a white nurse’s uniform—those dress-things. It’ll be cute. Mom says they have loads in second-hand stores so we could pick a couple up for next to nothing. Have you got a social insurance number?”

  Is she kidding?

  TWENTY-ONE

  JILL TALKED ME into going with her to some government office this morning. We had to show our birth certificates and fill out forms and then they gave us each a social insurance number. Our permanent cards should come in the mail in the next couple of weeks.

  Seems like every time I turn around, some government-type wants to suck out more information, assign me a number. I can’t get past the sensation that every new number is like another crack in me, another way for the whole world to come seeping in. Marlene doesn’t seem to care about this any more. Suddenly she’s living in the nuthouse, gabbing with her social worker—Margaret, she called her the other day, as if they’re best buds or something.

  Before I left Oak Shore the last time, I noticed Marlene had an Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlet on her nightstand. I made a crack about it. She plucked up one labelled Alateen from underneath it and stuck it in my hand.

  I let my lips move as I read. Alateen is part of Al-Anon, which helps families and friends of alcoholics recover from the effects of living with the problem drinking of a relative or friend.

  “Pass,” I said. “I don’t think I need to snivel to a roomful of dorks about my fucked-up childhood.”

  Marlene inhaled and released the breath slowly. “You were exposed to many things that you shouldn’t have been exposed to,” she said. “Much of that was my fault. I apologize for that.”

  I stared at her. “Oh really.” I couldn’t wait to see where this was going: A request to steal her some Valium? Get some cash together so we could have a fresh start? “And?”

  “And you sound like you have some anger issues. Alateen might actually be a good thing for you.”

  Anger issues? I threw the Alateen pamphlet in the garbage can down the hall on the way out.

  Jill and I are in side-by-side change rooms in a second-hand store.

  Looking in the mirror, I do up the last buttons of a dowdy white uniform. It’s Wednesday. Maybe Marlene’s already been released. Maybe she’s in her living room right now, sitting on the couch, staring at the walls. Maybe she’s at an AA meeting spilling her guts. On the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise me if she painted herself green again so she could stay a couple more weeks at Oak Shore.

  Jill and I have filled out our applications at Pacific Inn Catering. They told us we could start this weekend if we wanted.

  Jill said to me through the partition: “Wanna call in for hours when we get home?”

  “Want is a strong word.”

  I tie the white cotton belt. I try pushing the knot to the side to see if I can make it look jaunty or something.

  Fuck fuck fuck. Look at me—a pathetic little dishrag. If you had told me two years ago in the cab with Marlene—before we even got to Las Vegas—if you had said to me, “This is going to be the night that sends everything down the tubes,” I wonder what I’d have done. Maybe I would have paid more attention to the little hairs standing up on my arms. Maybe I would have faked the whooping cough and said, Forget it, I’m going home. Vegas was the plan of someone who didn’t have her head on straight. It was a new-low kind of hustle, but I didn’t say so. Or maybe I did but I didn’t say it with conviction.

  “What’s taking you?” Jill bellows. “Have you got it on?”

  I pull the curtain aside and step out of my cubicle just as Jill steps out of hers. In front of the large mirror she tries to cinch her waist a little. The white cotton belt seems to sit right under her boobs. “Shit,” she whispers. “I look like a big white maggot.”

  I raise one arm and check the tag dangling there. $4. “At least it’s cheap.”

  She puts a hand on her hip. “Baby, I am a whole lotta woman. This uniform is not built for a body like mine.”

  “Mine neither.”

  Jill fidgets in the mirror. “Maybe if I put some darts in the waist.”

  “I deserve to look like a maggot—just more karma.” I go back into my cubicle and drag the curtain closed behind me.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” I pull off the nurse dress.

  Just before four o’clock Friday afternoon, Jill and I get off the bus outside the Pacific Inn. It’s our first night on the job. They load us and three other staff into the white and blue catering van and haul us with the food to a banquet hall in East Vancouver.

  Jill and I are both in uniform. Each of us has her hair pulled into a ponytail, though Jill has managed to tease out some big curls to frame her face and the usual geyser of bangs jets off her forehead. We’ve each been handed a bibbed apron to wear over top of the nurse outfit, which I like, because it looks sort of Amish, which means that I can imagine I’m Kelly McGillis in that movie Witness.

  While the rest of the staff set up the chairs and unload chafing dishes, Jill and I are given a service lesson by a fussy little man who says his name is Hugh Tink. Hugh Tink is the team captain for tonight’s service: a wedding reception for eighty.

  “Knife on the right,” he says. “Forks on the left, followed by the teaspoon and soup spoon.” Then he moves on to the coffee cup, wineglass and water glass. When the place setting is down, he goes on to the next step. “To maintain uniform service, each of us must serve from the right and clear from the left. Understand?”

  “Sure,” Jill says.

  “Repeat please,” Hugh says.

&nb
sp; “Excuse me?”

  “How do we serve? Serve from the …?”

  “Left,” Jill says. “And clear from the right.”

  “No.” Hugh raises his finger straight up and down between his face and Jill’s nose. “Serve right, clear left. If you serve them right, you can clear what’s …?”

  “Left,” we say in unison.

  “Exactly. Remove dishes only when every guest at the table has finished eating. I’ll leave you girls to it.” He hurries back to the kitchen.

  As the door swings shut behind him, Jill says, “Hugh T’ink he’s gay?” and the two of us giggle uncontrollably. Mostly, I suppose, because we’ve already forgotten what Hugh said.

  We study his place setting and duplicate his example in front of each chair, at each table, seventy-nine times.

  By seven o’clock, a blister on my heel has bloomed, busted and bled all in the space of three hours because I forgot to wear socks and these stupid white sneakers I bought at the second-hand store don’t fit properly.

  Five minutes ago, the bride came barrelling into the kitchen with a cloudy-looking wineglass.

  “Excuse me!” The hand that held the glass was inflamed, the skin cracking. There were scaly pink patches on her cheeks, and she’d covered a rash on her chin with chalky makeup that continued down onto her chest. She looked as if she wanted to beat someone’s head in. “I mean, for pity’s sake, it’s filthy! Do I have to go through the whole place and inspect every glass? That is not my job. That is not my job!”

  “Of course not, madam,” Hugh Tink said. “This is your night.” He gazed at her as if she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

  “Well—well, maybe if you didn’t hire children this wouldn’t happen!” She waved her red cracking hand in my direction.

  Hugh didn’t need to turn his head. He knew who she was talking about. “This is Samantha’s first night. But the rest of our staff are more than equipped to handle your every need. I assure you, you will see nothing but crystal-clear glass from here on in.”