Okay, I was angry. And confused. And worried. Not just about the Fridge but about Vanessa as well. I hadn’t slept much. The image of a girl hunched on a bench had come between me and sleep. She seemed so lonely, so defeated. I regretted not running after her the previous night, but there was no point in berating myself with things that couldn’t be changed. I needed to talk to her but had no idea where her father lived. I wasn’t even sure Aldrick was his last name. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Nessa and her mother had reverted to a previous name after the divorce. It was only a niggling half-memory—like I said before, I couldn’t remember Vanessa talking about her father—but it felt right.
The Fridge tried to draw me out, but I was like a clam with additional superglue. Then she changed tack. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Calma,” she said, “don’t you think it’d be a good idea to talk to your dad? He told me he’d tried, but you wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Couldn’t you give him a chance? Just listen to what he has to say?”
I didn’t bother replying and eventually she gave up and disappeared somewhere in the car. I didn’t ask where. Why bother, when you have no idea if the answer you’re going to get has even a passing acquaintance with the truth? Anyway, she left, all tight-lipped and seething with resentment at my lack of communication. She’s got a bloody nerve, I’ll give her that. And my dad. When was he going to stop screwing up my life?
As soon as she was out the door, I was on the phone. Mrs. Aldrick answered after a few rings.
“Hi, Mrs. Aldrick,” I said. “It’s Calma. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to get in touch with Vanessa and I don’t have her father’s number. I wondered if you could let me have it.”
There was a gasp at the end of the line, as if I’d told her I was holding her daughter ransom and unless she dropped three million dollars in a trash bin at the local mall, I’d be mailing amputated extremities to her at regular intervals.
“I’m sorry, Calma,” she said eventually, “but I can’t give out her father’s number. He’s very strict about that.”
“Oh, come on, Mrs. Aldrick,” I said with a hint of exasperation. “It’s me. Her best friend. I mean, I’m not going to post it on the Internet or anything. And I do need to talk to her.”
“I’m sorry, Calma. His number is unlisted for a reason.”
I could tell by her tone of voice that I was up against an immovable object. I had to think laterally.
“Well, how about you call her and tell her to contact me? That would be okay, wouldn’t it?”
There was silence at the other end of the phone. I could almost hear the cogs whirring. I mean, it was a perfectly reasonable request. No one could object to it. So why was her silence swollen with reluctance?
“I can’t do that, Calma. This is Vanessa’s time with her father and I will not intrude on it.” There was triumph in her voice, as if she’d found a foolproof defense against checkmate. The trouble was, the defense did seem solid. I hate losing. It makes me mad. And then I want to get even.
“Okay, Mrs. Aldrick. Vanessa’s back…when? On Sunday evening?”
“Yes. Quite late, usually.”
“Can you get her to call me as soon as she gets back? Doesn’t matter how late.”
“I’ll tell her, but you might have to wait until school on Monday. She normally just wants to drop straight into bed.”
What was it with this woman? Talk about putting obstacles in the way. I hung up, my politeness stretched to breaking point, and sat in the garden for a while, thinking. As far as Vanessa was concerned, I couldn’t see a way around the problem. Her dad must live downtown—I couldn’t imagine Vanessa getting a bus at that time of the evening, so it was a reasonable assumption she was walking to his place immediately after her tearful spell on the bench. I suppose I could have wandered around in the hope of spotting her, but the chances were remote, to say the least. I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I would have to wait until school on Monday.
That left the Fridge. The mystery surrounding her might have been solved by the direct approach, but my pride wouldn’t allow it. If she was going to be secretive, I could be even more secretive. I’d find out, in my own way, whom she was seeing. If it was my father, then I’d head for the Galapagos Islands by myself. But if it was a new boyfriend, I’d humiliate her with prior knowledge. I had visions of a conversation in which I’d say, Oh, a boyfriend, Mum. You mean that Mr. Jones you’ve been seeing for the last month and a half? Tall guy, works in insurance in the city, lives in an apartment on Mitchell Street, divorced, forty-two, has a birthmark shaped like a sperm whale on his left buttock? Oh, I’ve known about him for ages….
Yes. I was going to solve this enigma.
The trouble was, I didn’t have a clue how.
The solution presented itself when the Fridge reappeared, carrying bags of groceries. Call me a genius if you must, but the idea flashed fully formed into my mind. I needed some information first, though, so I bustled through to the front of the house and helped the Fridge get more bags from the trunk. She was surprised by this spontaneous act of helpfulness. I tried a cheery smile, exuding the air of someone now entirely at peace with the world, instead of the premenstrual harridan I’d been impersonating before.
“Do you want me to put these away, Mum?” I said.
“Thanks,” she replied.
“Are you going in to work today?” I shoved packets of pasta into the kitchen cupboard and attempted to sound nonchalant.
“Yes. Four o’clock. Why?”
“Oh, I just wondered if you could give me a lift, that’s all.”
“But you start work at five yourself, don’t you?”
Bugger. I’d forgotten about that. The last thing I felt like was going into Crazi-Cheep, but I didn’t have much choice. You can’t throw a sickie when you’ve only worked a week. And anyway, there were compensations. Like it was also Jason’s shift. And I was going to get paid. About four dollars and fifty cents, probably, but it was better than nothing. I did some quick calculations. Even though I would only have an hour between her shift and mine, I thought it might be enough time to make a start, at least. I’d give it a go.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’d forgotten. Good thing you reminded me.”
The Fridge stopped putting a carton of milk in her namesake and gave me a long, searching look.
“Are you okay, Calma?” she said. “You seem…I don’t know. Distracted. And you have a bath towel welded to the top of your head, for no apparent reason. There isn’t anything you’d like to tell me, is there?”
“Like a secret I’m keeping from you?”
She looked at me even more funnily then.
“Yeah. I suppose so.”
I put on a broader smile.
“Would I keep secrets from you, Mum?” I said sweetly. And that seemed to end the conversation.
I’d given the Fridge every chance to come clean, but she’d spurned the opportunity. If there was any part of me feeling bad about the plan I had formulated, it disappeared at that moment. Actually, I don’t think there was any part, so it was a little academic. I thrust a bag of split peas into a dark corner of the cupboard, where the Fridge was unlikely to ever spot it, and went to my room. I told the Fridge I needed to study math, but it was just a cunning subterfuge.
What I really wanted to do was perfect my disguise.
Now, how do you go about changing your appearance so that not even your mother would recognize you? I suppose my barren dome gave me a head start, if you’ll forgive the pun, but I was uneasy about going out without some kind of covering. Sure, the Fridge would be unlikely to associate a skinhead with her own daughter, but it was a style that attracted exactly the attention I wanted to avoid. So I fished the blond wig from her wardrobe and stashed it under my bed.
I then turned to my own wardrobe. There were articles of clothing in there that hadn’t seen daylight in years. The Fridge used to make
a habit of searching through secondhand shops for the most appalling fashion disasters and then presenting them to me triumphantly, as if I was going to be thrilled at receiving stuff other people had thrown out for quite obvious reasons.
Still, it’s a favorite maxim of mine that you never know when something might come in handy. I pulled out a short red skirt that would have come to my knees when I was thirteen but which now would be useful only as a broad belt. I tried it on and it fitted around the waist beautifully but exposed so much of my legs I wouldn’t dare bend over in public. I also found a glittery silver top. A pair of high-heeled black shoes, which I dusted off with another top, completed the outfit. I put on the blond wig and surveyed myself in the mirror.
It was then I discovered what the Fridge had been attempting to achieve when she bought all this junk. She’d wanted me to be a child prostitute. It was the only explanation. It was strangely empowering. In this getup I could do anything I liked and wouldn’t feel any responsibility. You know, a kind of Jekyll and Hyde thing.
During the day, she is meek, mild Calma Harrison, librarian to the elderly and infirm, but at night she is transformed into…Super Slut!
I glanced at my watch. There was still time for the final touch to my disguise: makeup. I didn’t hold back there either, I can tell you. I put it on with a trowel, and my lack of expertise proved a distinct advantage. Bright, glossy lips and enough black mascara to make my eye sockets seem as if they were suffering a lunar eclipse. I had the face of a nymphomaniac panda.
I stuffed a change of clothes into a plastic shopping bag and glanced out my bedroom window. The car was still in the driveway, but my watch told me the Fridge would be making tracks very soon. I tiptoed out of my room and listened at the top of the stairs. The toilet in the bathroom flushed and I knew the coast was temporarily clear. I clattered down to the hallway, nearly breaking my ankles in the high heels, and opened the front door. Fortunately, the street was deserted and as far as I could tell there were no curtains twitching across the road.
I yelled up the stairs to the Fridge.
“I’m off now, Mum. Catch you later.”
There was a muffled reply, but I closed the front door and scuttled round to the side of the car. Making sure the car body was between me and any windows in the house, I carefully opened the rear door and bundled myself into the well behind the driver’s seat.
Now, you need to understand something about the family vehicle. I believe it is the custom in some households to regularly polish and wax the exterior, vacuum the interior, buff the rearview mirror and generally maintain an atmosphere of cleanliness and hygiene. The Fridge treats the car like a giant trash barrel. There are potato chip packets, battered cups from McDonald’s, copies of the local newspaper with screaming headlines like “Titanic 0, Iceberg 1,” and other assorted detritus. You could hide an elephant seal in the back of the car and be confident the Fridge would never notice.
I tucked myself down and pulled an old curtain over my head. Don’t ask me what it was doing there, all right?
Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long. I heard the Fridge slam the front door and felt the car dip as she got behind the wheel. The engine spluttered into life and the car lurched into reverse. We were on our way. I hoped it wasn’t going to be a long trip and not just because I only had an hour to get there, trail the Fridge, and make it back to Crazi-Cheep in time for my shift. You see, the car doesn’t have AC, unless you count a faulty front window liable to slip down, and it was a hot day.
I risked lifting the curtain a little, just to get some air. It didn’t help much. It was still like being in the waiting room for Hades, but at least I could see. In fact, I discovered a plastic doll I had lost when I was five years old.
I’d always liked that doll.
Twenty minutes later, the car came to a halt and the engine cut out. I was relieved, I can tell you. The Fridge gathered her stuff from the passenger seat. Then the car door slammed and the key turned in the lock. This was the tricky part. How long should I wait before I got out of the car? If it was too soon, the Fridge would spot me, but if I left it too long, then she might have disappeared and the whole exercise would have been futile. Judgment was vital.
I waited until the clack of her shoes faded and then counted slowly to ten. I slowly pushed open the rear door and slipped into a pool of sunshine. Snapping the lock down, I pushed against the door until I could feel the mechanism engage. Only then did I search for the Fridge.
I was in the parking lot of the casino. Of course. Just my luck. The one time the Fridge actually goes to work was bound to be the day I followed her. I looked toward the entrance of the casino, about two hundred yards away, but could see no sign of her. She couldn’t possibly have walked that distance in the time.
I couldn’t believe it. Had the earth swallowed her?
I pivoted around, a dangerous maneuver in high-heeled shoes, and just as I was about to despair completely, I spotted her. She was standing in the middle of the parking lot, talking to a man. He was holding my mother by the arm, in a curiously intimate way, just by the elbow. She was looking up into his face and smiling. It had to be the same man I’d seen last night. I couldn’t imagine the Fridge made a habit of romantic assignations with different people. Even though I couldn’t get a good view because he had his back to me, it cleared up one concern. It wasn’t my dad. This guy had hair. Lots of it, mostly gray. But who was he? I started to walk toward them and that’s when the first disaster happened.
The man dropped my mother’s arm and opened a car door for her. She dipped her head and got in. He walked around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel, and there was a throaty roar from a powerful engine. They were driving off! I tried to walk faster. I would have broken into a run, but the high heels were a danger to life and limb. How do women wear them and steer clear of hospital emergency rooms? I kept tottering to the side and my ankles bowed alarmingly. My call-girl persona now had the additional refinement of apparent inebriation. I watched helplessly as the car, a long, sleek beast, swept past. The Fridge and the driver were gazing into each other’s eyes, so they didn’t notice me. I doubt if they would have noticed if Elvis had materialized on the hood.
The car disappeared down the casino’s driveway and headed away from town, fading into a dim twinkle of brake lights. I hadn’t even had the presence of mind to get the license plate.
Sweaty, irritated, and feeling completely dispirited, I staggered into the casino. I needed the ladies’ room. There was a bloke standing guard at the entrance, all done up in formal gear, but looking like a hulking slab of muscle. You know the kind. Squashed nose, perpetual stubble, and a brain the size of a pea. He leered as I approached, his piggy eyes glued to my silvered, sparkling bust.
“Not a bloody word, mate,” I said to him, “or you’ll find the business end of these stilettos giving you a rectal exploration.”
I left him struggling to find a response and crashed open the door of the ladies’ toilet. Haunted, black-rimmed eyes stared back at me from the mirror. I was exhausted. And it was then, when I was at my lowest, that the second disaster broke into my consciousness.
I had left the bag with my change of clothes in the car.
The locked car.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, my purse and house keys were in it as well. I contemplated the half-hour walk back to Crazi-Cheep, in high heels, in the blazing sun, dressed like a hooker, and I started to cry.
It did absolutely nothing for the mascara.
Chapter 15
From harlot to heroine
If it’s all the same to you, I’ll let the details of my long walk to work remain in oblivion. Maybe deep hypnosis could resurrect the grisly experience, but some things are best left buried.
I’ll tell you one thing, though. It was not a happy, carefree Calma Harrison who finally staggered through the doors of Crazi-Cheep on Saturday afternoon. It was a Calma Harrison in the mood for violent confrontation with any
pensioner who glanced at her sideways. I burst through the automatic doors looking like Sexually Deviant Barbie. Mothers grasped small children to their bosoms as I clicked toward the staff changing rooms. I couldn’t see Jason. That was the only bright spot in an otherwise bleak situation.
At least I had the opportunity to clean myself up. Typically, the store only provided cheap Crazi Brand soap for its employees, but it did the trick. The mascara was stubborn, though. By the time I’d finished scrubbing my eyes with gritty soap, the redness around my face made it seem like I had been sobbing hysterically for a large portion of the millennium. For once I was grateful for the outsized uniform. I stripped down to my underwear and unless a freak tornado careered down aisle twelve and lifted up my uniform, I would remain decent. The wig had to go, as did the high heels. Those things were spawned from a mind of pure evil.
I marched from the changing room straight to Housewares, where I picked up a multicolored dish towel and folded it into a bandanna. With my red eyes and a tea towel on my head, I resembled the late Yasser Arafat, but I didn’t give a stuff. From there, I went to the section that had flip-flops. My transformation from Penthouse Pet to middle-aged housewife complete, I fronted up to Candy at customer service to inquire about my duties for the evening.
I was hoping she would say something about my appearance. I was in that kind of mood—the sort where if someone says, “Good evening,” you’re liable to give them a stiff-fingered poke in the throat. But she just assigned me to shelf stacking again.
That didn’t improve my mood either. I wanted to say, Oh, I was good enough for the registers when you were desperate, but now the brain-dead zombies you call your staff have returned, I’m back to the chorus line, is that it? I didn’t, though. It was just another small flame under my simmering anger.
I plunged through the plastic curtains out the back and loaded up a cart with sundry items apparently in short supply on the shelves. I grunted at one of the men when he smiled and said hello. Provocative bastard!
Am I Right or Am I Right? Page 9