The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes

by Bridget Canning

  He slumps in his chair and sips his wine. His eyes shine in the dim light. She realizes he is close to tears.

  “Let’s get you to bed,” she says.

  She stands in front of him and holds out her hand. He takes it and brings it to his lips. “You’re a good person, Wanda.”

  “Thank you, sweetie.”

  He hauls himself up. She leads him towards the bedroom. He follows her, his head dangles over his heart. The door sways open with a sigh. The walls are barren except for a few small photos in frames. The room is stuffy, but comfortable with the faded odour of sandalwood candles and warmth.

  Wanda unbuttons Leo’s flannel shirt and lays it over the dresser. Once he is under the blankets, he takes off his own pants.

  “Goodnight. I’m going to get a cab.”

  “Stay for a while?” Leo says. Tears drip down his face. “Just lie here with me for a bit. Please?”

  She considers him. He is melting with sadness. She’ll make sure he’s okay. He’ll pass out soon. She lies next to him, facing away. He curls one hand around her waist. “You’re a good friend to me.” He presses his face into the back of her neck. She can feel spots of dampness forming from his breath in her hair.

  She closes her eyes. Sleep is like blowing out a candle.

  The clock glares 7:48am. Leo’s arm is warm and sticky against the flesh of her belly. Her top shifted up in her sleep. Or his arm snaked its way in there. She sits up. No great hangover pain, but technically, she still feels drunk. Her mouth is wet. She has drooled a tiny pool onto Trish’s pillow.

  Leo’s face is slack and peaceful. She pokes his shoulder. “When is Trish back?”

  He sniffs loudly and turns to the clock. “Soon.”

  “Gettin’ a cab.”

  “Okay. They’re pretty fast around here.” He pulls up the covers and is out again.

  Should she ask if he will tell Trish or Ivan she slept over? He is already lightly snoring. She’ll ask him later. Fuck it. Nothing happened.

  The cab arrives quickly and as soon as she settles into the back, the roughness starts. The air freshener says French vanilla, but it smells like bubblegum. It tries its best, but she can still identify the ancient stench of damp cigarettes.

  As the cab pulls away, she catches a flash, a tiny glimpse of Trish’s familiar platinum head, appearing around the corner. She slumps down in the seat. She closes her eyes and tries to ignore the droning cadence of the taxi dispatcher; every beep and burr of the radio makes her belly twist.

  The house is cool and musty when she comes in. No sign of Ivan. A note on the fridge.

  W,

  In case you’re wondering why I didn’t call, Leo texted and told me you were with him. I guess he couldn’t convince you to get in contact with me.

  I need to clear my head. I’m at Sylvie’s for a couple of days. Call me if you need anything.

  I.

  The letters are pressed hard into the paper. Is he really upset or was it just a shitty pen? No apologies or affection. What does “clear my head” mean?

  She gets a Gatorade and gulps a third of it. What will she do if he leaves her? All alone. She imagines calling her parents to tell them, the nervous twang of Mom’s voice, the placating, the “Oh love, that’s too bad.” Dad’s silent, shrugging disappointment. Who would get the house? Would she get a roommate? Are these really her main concerns?

  She goes upstairs and lies down. Bit woozy. Still kinda drunk. Her eyes fall on the canvas bag of unmarked assignments from work next to the bed. Ugh. Her bag of nag. And why? The program won’t exist soon. Her students will be the last ABE graduates. No more students. No more work. No more boyfriend. Her stomach’s contents shudder and wheeze.

  Her phone goes off. Trish. Ignore. She silences the phone. Then turns it off. Just no. She squeezes her eyes closed until sleep takes her.

  It’s afternoon when she wakes up. Small cracks and water stains in the ceiling stare at her. She thinks of the things she does not want to do and lists them on her fingertips. She takes the stairs to the attic with the canvas bag. It slaps her hip with each step. She counts the steps from the top to the landing. Thirteen. Pretty ideal, actually.

  The first stack of papers doesn’t distribute well and only a couple make it to the bottom. By the third toss, she’s developed a good arch and the momentum and distribution is quite even. When they’re all gone, she surveys her handiwork. Not bad.

  She scoops up the three on the top stair, closest to her, and lays them in a pile. For the next three stairs, she stacks the papers by corresponding grade: D-, D, D+. When she gets to the bottom and inspects the A section, she laughs out loud. “Evan McKinnley, you made it all the way.” She grabs his paper and puts it on top of the A+ pile. “Have a great summer.”

  19

  CONSTABLE Lance moves a chair so Wanda can sit next to him and they can both see the computer monitor. When he jerks the mouse, his screensaver vanishes, but she gets a quick glimpse of a family picture: him in uniform next to a petite blond woman with a wide-eyed baby in her arms.

  Constable Lance bites his bottom lip as he types in the web address, his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks. She is reminded of a Cabbage Patch doll she had in grade four. What was the name on the adoption certificate? Alyssa. He frowns at the screen and a tired breath drains from him: coffee and beef stock. All grown up on the inside.

  “Here it is,” he says. The wallpaper on the MySpace page is wine coloured with titles in a light yellow. Designed to look like the cover of the book, but slightly off: the font is Comic Sans. “The MySpace Page of Holden Caulfield.” There’s a bio and links to music videos they figured Holden Caulfield would like—The Smiths, Simple Plan, The National. Various pictures of emo-looking guys with sad faces and hair in their eyes.

  “It’s a high-school English project,” Constable Lance says. “The kids had to create online profiles for characters from their novel studies. I spoke to the teacher who had this class. Each group got an email account and shared passwords so they could contribute easily. Holden’s hat was chosen as a user name because they were focusing on symbolism in the book. They also had characters like Phoebe Caulfield and Ackley.” He picks up a clipboard beside the computer. “The MySpace page is over ten years old. It took a while to get the list of student names that made this particular project.” He pulls out a sheet of paper from the clipboard and hands it to her. “Do any of their names look familiar to you?”

  She scours the list:

  Sam Katsman

  Daniel Burke

  Melody Chen

  Jody McKinnley

  Mia Nguyen

  She studies each name, says it out loud. Nothing. No recognition. “So, how old were these students at the time?”

  “It was level three, so seventeen, eighteen.”

  “So, now they’d be twenty-seven, twenty-eight?” she says. “No one rings a bell.”

  “What about your own former students?”

  “There’s been so many.” And names change, people get married. Is Jody a boy or girl? Does she know any Mias? She’s taught a few Melodys and Mels. She knows way too many Daniels.

  “I can cross reference,” she says, “but I’m usually pretty good with recognizing names. So, if these six people knew the email password, they could have given it to someone else?”

  “It’s possible. However, I noticed a couple of things.” He clicks on the “photos” section of the MySpace page. There are several stock images posted: a picture of a red hunting hat; the Museum of Natural History in New York; a photo of a little girl looking melancholy. The caption reads, “This is Holden sister Phoebe. He thinks she is a little angle.”

  “Since it was a group project, they all had to contribute. Quite a few entries read the way your admirer writes. I think it’s one of the original students.”

  “Really? That�
��s a relief.” And it’s not Karl. His empty bottle of Zyprexa pops into her head. Ugh. Stupid Wanda. The scabs on her arm tingle. Resist, resist.

  “I’ll keep looking into it. The emails continue to come from public computer labs at the university. The messages are not directly threatening, so the most we could do is keep track of them. But I will personally look into each student.”

  Guilt pecks her insides. How many times has she cursed Lance in the past few weeks and he was actually doing his job? “Thank you,” she says.

  “Continue to forward any emails you get. And call if you’re concerned about anything,” he says. She resists the urge to muss his hair.

  On the way home from the cop shop, the wind bites at her exposed hands. She shoves them in her pockets and her phone presses against the inside of her wrist. She checks it. She still hasn’t listened to Trish’s voice mail. There are two new missed calls: one from Mrs. Medeiros, one from Mom. Both have left voice mails. The idea of hearing them speak brings thick ripples of exhaustion through her. The timbre of Mom’s worry. The artificial frothiness of Trish’s voice, like whipped topping.

  Four text messages.

  She gets in the house and faintly realizes she remembers little about the walk there. She’s on autopilot. She swings open the refrigerator and drinks orange juice straight from the container. A small rectangle of notepaper lies in the centre of the dining-room table. Yesterday, she made a list of things to do and they’ve all been done: price security cameras, marinate chicken, put in final grades, organize desk. Each entry is sliced with a red line through it. Her pen is a guillotine, executing tasks.

  New tasks for today:

  Stop scratching fucking eczema.

  See if Leo can bring some weed.

  Sleep.

  The festival is tomorrow. If she can lay low and avoid everyone, it will pass quickly. Bah-humbug to it all. She texts Leo about pot, slathers cortisone cream on her scabs. She opens a bottle of wine and settles on the couch. The rule is to only watch comedies. Intense drama or violence or romance cannot be handled right now. And nothing in a school or post-secondary setting. Leo replies and says he can come over in the morning. Hooray. She can smoke the rest of the weed and get more tomorrow.

  At 1:53am she wakes on the couch. Two empty red wine bottles and an empty baggie on the coffee table. She totters to bed and collapses stomach down. Her eyes squeeze shut. C’mon sleep. Reappear. Don’t forget to put out the recycling. A sound outside, a sharp bang. Her heart jumps. It’s a car door. Pascale’s probably. Or someone outside. Let me know if you need anything.

  She staggers to the bureau and fishes in the top drawer. It was here the last time she checked, amongst her socks and underwear. Her fingers touch the plastic canister and she pulls out the pill bottle. One last pill, the last Valium from Mrs. Medeiros. She swallows it without water and slumps back to bed. The dulling comes, velvet and numb. Thoughts alight on her mind and make no impact. Pictures appear: Ivan’s slumping shoulders, Mom’s jaw moving as she chews the insides of her cheek, Frances Rumstead seated on her sad, drab couch. Florescent lights and moist killer eyes. Her mind becomes a thick slurry where ideas form and float and evaporate without residue. This is good. This was a good idea. Her eyelids leaden and seal like an ancient sarcophagus.

  20

  SHE wakes to the doorbell. Everything external is dry cotton while her inners are infused with a stinging, brackish solution. Slight movements kill. Phone is beside her head. It flashes a text message. She slithers out one hand to check it. Leo.

  She hears the front door swing open. His feet patter upstairs. He sighs at the sight of her. “Jesus Christ, Jaynes.”

  She waggles fingers at him. Even that hurts.

  “So, the doctor says no booze, huh?” Leo says.

  “Oops.”

  “Guess you’re not going to the festival, then?”

  “Can’t. Sick, see?”

  “I brought something to fix you up,” he says. He holds a large plastic cup with a bubble lid and a straw. Real big, venti size. The liquid inside glows bright pink and radioactive.

  “What is it?”

  “All the good stuff. Beets, carrots, celery, pomegranate. I was looking up ulcer-friendly foods last night. This has a bunch of them.” He holds it out. “Drink.”

  She worms her body across the bed and dangles her head off the edge. Leo holds the cup while she sips from the straw like a caged pet at a water feeder.

  “Is it good?”

  “It’s hydration,” she says. “What time is it?”

  “About 1:30.”

  “Wow. I was out like a light.” A light-blue pill.

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “Yeah, well, you got off your face completely the other night. Worry about yourself.”

  “I don’t deny things aren’t great. But I’m scared you’re going to bottom out.” Leo stirs the mixture with the straw. “Did you talk to Trish?”

  “Nope.”

  “She knows you stayed over the other night.”

  “Oh well.” She takes the cup from him. “Thanks for this. I think it’s working.”

  “She’s upset with both of us.”

  “Why? We didn’t do anything.”

  “Yeah, but can you please talk to her?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Does she ever look at herself? Did you tell her about the photo of her and Pike?”

  “Yes. We discussed it.”

  “What’s her excuse?”

  “I’m not getting into this,” Leo says. “Anyway, talk to her, please? She says you haven’t returned her phone calls.”

  “I wish everybody would just leave me alone.” She sits up and rubs her face. “Just get off my ass.”

  “You seem pretty alone already.”

  “Whatever.” She straightens her t-shirt. A red wine stain stretches down the front. Class-say. “Have you talked to Ivan?”

  “A little. He isn’t saying much.” He checks the time on his phone. “I gotta head over to the festival to help him and Ray set up, but I can’t stay there. I think he’d like it if you came down.”

  “Did you bring me some green?”

  He stares at her. She blinks to show she’s waiting. He rummages in his jacket pocket. He tosses a small baggie on the bed. “Try to take it easy. Drink that juice.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  He leans forward and kisses her forehead. “You are loved, remember that.”

  She closes her eyes. “Bye.”

  Leo’s footsteps descend to the front door. She listens for his key in the lock and closes her eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Any sudden movement can ignite pain. Don’t think about bodily functions that require getting out of bed.

  At 4:13pm, her phone goes off. Go away. But it’s Constable Lance. Take the call.

  “I have some information on your pen pal.” Lance sounds like he’s shuffling papers. “One of the students who worked on that project has a definite connection to you.”

  “Really?” She sits up. Her head roars in complaint.

  “I spoke with the original teacher. One of the students used a different name in high school. Melody Chen. She used the name Melody because her classmates had a hard time pronouncing her Chinese name and she got teased. Her name is Liang-Yi Chen. Who we know, of course.”

  The woman in the grocery aisle next to her, the sob and thud to her right. Her pleading voice. Sitting in the parking lot at the vigil, her face in her hands. Here is Wanda, going slowly mad about what she doesn’t remember doing. And Liang-Yi probably remembers very well. Wanda sinks her teeth into her knuckle to halt whatever cry or grunt or wail might exit.

  “Ms. Jaynes? Are you okay?”

  She removes her hand from her mouth. “Yes.” She swipes at her eyes. “Sorry. It’s just coming back or something.”

  �
��I understand. How would you like to proceed?”

  “I don’t know. I’d rather she’d get help than charge her. I mean, could she be dangerous?”

  “We also have reason to believe she may be giving the shooter’s mother a hard time.”

  “Frances Rumstead?”

  “Yes. We don’t know about the phone calls, but someone who fits her description threw a can through her window.”

  “Jesus Christ.’

  “If you see or hear anything from Ms. Chen, call the station.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And if you have any questions, you know where to find me.”

  “Thank you. I realize you didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble.” Lance’s voice is gentle professionalism. “No trouble at all.”

  She hangs up and coils into a ball. More sleep please. But it doesn’t come. Sleep is all she’s done and now Leo has filled her up with vitamins she’ll have to burn off. Just get up and eat something solid, get on with it. There’s leftover pizza. There might be soup. In the freezer, there’s lasagna that Mrs. Medeiros gave them at the birthday party. Her voice bubbles into Wanda’s mind: “When he looks at you, he stares and twitches. His eyes and lips move. Like he’s thinking of something else. He gives me a bad feeling.” Wanda shoots up in bed. The ache sloshes in her brain. Mrs. Medeiros needs to leave Karl Prendergast alone.

  She calls. Mrs. Medeiros’s phone rings. The voice mail would be sweet relief. She could explain it all in a message, not have to answer concerns as to why her son is at Sylvie’s and not here. But Mrs. Medeiros answers on the third ring: “Oh, Wanda, thank God. I have to talk to you.”