On her day off, Marla leaves early to drive through fancy riverfront neighbourhoods in the Southwest for an ultrasound, something her new doctor wants to see before they meet. Here the houses stand proudly with vinyl siding never needing paint and sidewalks beautifully shovelled and salted. The medical building faces a park full of dads shovelling off a skating rink and tying skates. A pack of kids slides down the hill on toboggans and racing sleds, hollering.
Marla takes one last swig of water despite her bursting bladder and slams the car door.
“It’s going to be a while,” the receptionist tells her. “Wanna come back in forty-five?”
“Can I pee?”
The receptionist directs her down the hall to the bathroom, where Marla half pees, which is so far the weirdest feeling ever.
She cruises the library next door. On a whim, she takes the elevator to the second-floor children’s section. Books are layered on the table in tidy mom stacks, and there are several piles of winter kid gear on the floor. Marla sits in a child-sized chair and thumbs through some books, thinking she’d take her baby here all the time: it’s free.
There are three other moms. One has two big blond kids who are on the computer having a book read to them. Marla would never do that, parent electronically. Another mom with three children leaves her baby strapped into a car seat while she reads to the others.
The third mom is young, with night makeup and highlights, dragging a toddler of indeterminate sex in a snowsuit. She says, “We’re leaving in one minute.” She tosses books at random into a red bag: “Here’s one on dinosaurs, and this one’s about a grandma. You’ll like them.” She picks one more, and the kid whines, pulled along by the sleeve. When the kid’s arm disappears inside the suit in a sit-down protest, the mom hisses in the kid’s face. “Don’t make a scene in here or we won’t come back!” She pulls the kid roughly, and it yelps until she leaves the books on a table and uses both hands to haul her child away.
What a hag. Marla follows her with the books. “You could do better, you know.”
The mom eyes Marla and hits the button for the elevator. “Excuse me?”
“Your kid is probably just tired or something.” Marla holds the books out, but the mom doesn’t take them. The kid, now quiet, is put down. It looks up at Marla and moves closer to its mother in solidarity.
“Are you telling me how to parent? Where are your kids?”
Marla starts to feel like this is a bad idea. The other moms are staring. “Just be nicer, that’s all,” Marla says.
“That’s all?” She gets right in Marla’s face, like Dani would. “You want to come down where I live, clean the shit out of the sheets, and be awake every morning at 5:30?”
Marla shakes her head.
“Then mind your own business.”
Marla watches the elevator door close. With her baby, Marla would lie on a beanbag chair all snugly, but there are no fantasy moms here. It’s this realization that causes Marla to feel something horrible in her gut. She trips over the wheel of a jogging stroller she could never afford and catches herself before anyone can ask if she’s okay. Marla wants to throw up and heads for the bathroom. She walks around the bank of elevators looking for it, past the librarians at the desk who are gabbling like turkeys. Wait. They probably know.
She asks them where they keep the mom books, pushing nausea back down her throat.
“What kind of books, hon?”
“You know. Having a baby and keeping it alive.” Marla digs a piece of hardened gum from underneath the lip of the desk and slips it in her pocket.
The librarian writes down a call number. “Best of luck.” She has a big doughy face. Sincere.
Marla grabs several birth manuals and parenting encyclopedias, because how hard could it seriously be? Okay, so all the moms in the books have husbands and money and expensive jogging strollers and don’t look at all like the woman hauling her kid by its suit. But really, everyone has kids eventually, pretty much, unless they can’t or something.
Marla sits down in a carrel to read some things, flipping from newborn fevers to choosing diapers and removing cradle cap, but she finds the books annoying. They remind her of the checklists Elise used to make for her: “Marla’s Decision-Making Process,” “Marla’s Summer Job Plan,” “Marla’s Transition from High School to Adult Life.” Marla doesn’t consult a textbook to feed herself and have fun. If everyone has kids, this stuff is probably easy.
She checks her phone, but it’s not time for her ultrasound yet, so Marla sits at a computer, clicking aimlessly. If only there was someone she could talk to. Marla phones Liam, but he doesn’t answer. Dani won’t be up yet, and Marla hasn’t told Dave and Elise. She texts Gavin: wanna be an uncle?
Marla looks up plane tickets just to punish herself. Too much money. She could drive to his place in Ontario, or take the bus if she had a week, but she can’t miss that much work. Still, it would be great to see him, and he’s done school now. She should make sure he’s doing okay. Marla checks bus tickets, surprised they are only $170 one way. That’s doable—maybe he could come stay awhile. She could dip into her car fund for that.
She texts again: I’m buying you a bus ticket. come visit! Marla smiles. Suddenly even the covers of the parenting books don’t look so scary. She opens a day-by-day pregnancy guide and decides she’s on day fifty-six or so. The magnified picture of nubby little limbs fills her heart and makes her smile.
Gavin runs in the park, his feet soft and his knees ready in case he slips, hair tied back. He runs here every day, through the trees and up the hills. In many places, his tracks have pushed down to the raw ground under the snow. Frozen mud. He breathes in and out, measured, calm. Here the whole world feels open, unthreatening.
He dreams about running across the country like Terry Fox, but raising money for deaf kids. Watching videos of Terry makes him cry every time. That’s the kind of guy Gavin wants to be.
Back in his apartment, Gavin jots down his post-run pulse in his training log and checks his phone. He sucks in a breath. having a baby? When?
He feels deflated, a bit, because his sister has this perfect life. She’s always so excited about anything at all, like a concert or a breakfast. He tells himself to stop it, that he’s not being generous. Then he reads her other text: a trip.
Gavin’s never been back to Calgary, though his old social worker said they could probably apply for funding for a visit. He’s never told Marla that.
He consults his to-do list on the fridge. It’s a life list, several pages taped together so three-quarters of the fridge is papered over. Many items are crossed off, like “Recreate Antique Inlaid Wardrobe” and “Run in a Marathon,” but he still has lots to do: “Paddle Lake Ontario” and “Find My Father,” although that would be hard considering even his mom probably doesn’t know where his father is. Maybe it’s stupid.
Gavin writes “Talk to Mom.” She’s in Calgary, last he heard. He should see her, or at least try. But that’s just an excuse. If he’s honest, it’s more about what Stephen said: safe isn’t satisfying.
Gavin paces. Everything’s been harder for him, which is what he likes to think when he considers all the work he’s done to get to this, the person he is right now. But everything is controlled: get up, go here, do this. No negative emotions, or almost none. Sure, he could start university with an interpreter and a deaf student society. He’d have his classes signed to him, eat alone, and cross more inconsequential items off his list while other people have adventures and fall in love. On impulse, he texts Marla that he’d love to come. Maybe for Christmas. Can build you a crib. He has lots of savings. He shivers, although he’s not cold.
Gavin opens the handbook from the bus. The interior is totally blank. He takes his to-do list from the fridge and his university acceptance letter and tapes them page-by-page into the handbook. Now it doesn’t feel so empty. He closes i
t and runs his fingers over the title written on the cover. He’d like to be a beautiful person too.
Marla buys groceries for Dani on the way home because that’s what she’s been doing for months. She carts the bags downstairs, feeling the bass line vibrating the walls.
There’s a rig pig in Dani’s chair, flipping through the records in her milk crates, taking them out of their sleeves with his dirty fingers and dumping them on the coffee table. Even his neck is beefy.
Dani has always told her never to waste time; always do the plan. Marla drops the bags and slides her hand under the table, searching. “Who are you?” she says.
He spits on the floor. “A friend. You the roommate?”
“Where’s Dani?”
He stands up, wrapping an arm around her. “Working.”
Marla finds Dani’s bear spray and points it at him. “Fuck off.”
He raises his arms, grinning in mock submission. “I don’t need you, sugar. I already had mine.”
The puppy barks from Dani’s room as Marla pushes the door open. Dani’s counting cash in her panties while an acne-ridden fat guy smokes in her bed. “Hey, the boss is here. Time to go.” She hands Marla several bills and stands in the doorway to watch them leave. “Did he bother you?”
“Not really.”
“Good job, babe. You knew what to do.”
Marla fingers the money, knowing she’s going to take it and hating herself for it. “What’s this for?”
“Paying you back. I’m not a freeloader.” Dani wads the rest of it up and wiggles off a baseboard to hide the money.
“There’s a lot in there.”
“Yeah. I’m making a comeback.”
Marla pulls her ultrasound picture out of her coat pocket and realizes she’s afraid. This isn’t her life anymore. She sits on the concrete block that is Dani’s other piece of furniture and says, “You were right.”
Dani steps into her jeans and buttons them. “How far along?”
“The ultrasound lady said eleven weeks.” Marla pictures lying in bed with Liam on a sunny September afternoon, a breeze in the curtain. She hands the photo to Dani.
“Nice baby! You told Liam? It’s his, right?”
“Of course it is.”
“Just saying, Marla. You gotta have your answers down when you get into these things.” She crushes some pills and snorts them.
Marla shakes her head. “I’m straight now. Stop doing that.”
Dani comes closer, still topless, unsmiling. “So you get pregnant and now you’re better than me?”
Marla takes a step back. Years ago at Jim’s photo lounge, Dani was different: she had long hair, soft arms, and full lips. Jim and Marla had something he called sex, and then he set her up with Dani or some other girl to film.
“No, like you’re fucking,” he said, in a different scummy basement.
Marla bent her boy-body towards Dani, arching into her.
“Like you want it.”
Marla, taking her cue from Dani, tried to make her face sellable.
Jim set his jaw and knocked a chair over. Marla fake-moaned, shaky.
“Hush, you,” Dani said. She let go of Marla and said, “Dim the fucking lights already. She’s a kid.”
Being filmed was much easier than working the street—Jim’s next idea.
Now Dani takes another step closer, but Marla stands her ground. “You’ve been here a long time.”
“A couple months.”
“Eight. You got kicked out of the last place in April.” Marla made Dani sleep in her car because Marla thought Dani would steal if she were in the house. Marla didn’t have much to take, though, and it was cold, with wet, slushy snow falling. The kind of weather that made Marla remember bouncing around and running away. “This needs to be a safe place for the baby.”
Dani fastens her bra. “Look at you, keeping a man and having a baby.”
“Don’t be a bitch.”
“Shut up. You’re so full of luck I could puke.”
Dead stop. “I know that.” Lots of girls didn’t make it.
Dani is a wolverine. “You don’t know. You were part of all that for what, a summer?” She waves her arms to indicate all that.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Tragedy. I’ve got a kid I can’t see and this fucking dead body. Look at me—look me in the eye.”
Marla does and tries to remember that the shirtless woman yelling at her is a friend. Her drug-addicted, once beautiful, thrown out friend. Dani would never cry.
“Dani,” she says, with fingertip carefulness. “I want you safe. Better.” Marla shakes an old film canister from Dani’s dresser. It rattles, full of Dilaudid that Dani’s been addicted to since she hurt her back in a car accident years ago.
Dani slides bangles on her arms. “Didn’t I get it together when I had my kid?”
“Yeah, you did. For a bit.”
“Here’s the more pressing concern. If I’m not here, who’s going to make sure you put gas in your car, turn the stove off, and get up for work? Not your fancy-boy.”
“Don’t say that about him. I can handle my life.”
Dani sniffs a shirt and hucks it in the wash. “Nope. I know what that looks like. Remember all those total shitbags you owed money to, how they came around here? The fire department lecture about taking the food out before you prance off somewhere? The broken water heater that was pissing all over the basement for days?
“No one’s perfect. Look who’s talking.”
“I’m talking, babe, because it keeps you listening. What does Liam say about the baby?”
Marla shrugs. She can’t tell Dani too much.
Dani softens. She gets it. “You haven’t told him. Marla, all I’m saying is that he isn’t ready.”
“I think I want this baby, Dani.”
Dani takes off her bra and replaces it with a tube top. “Of course you do, but you’ll need help.”
“From you?”
Dani looks around. “There’s no one else here. Who’s going to remind you about her appointments? What’s the baby going to do while you’re at work?”
Marla sees Dani playing with her baby, leaving it in a playpen while she hustles. “Dani, let’s go to Sev, get a treat.”
Dani shrugs. “Why the fuck not? I’ll buy.”
While Dani works on herself in the bathroom, Marla rolls tobacco for her. She licks the papers and makes them real tight, the way she used to while she waited for Dani to get home from blowing johns. She sat on Dani’s bed and listened to the patrons of the Shamrock Hotel bottle each other on Saturday nights.
Marla lived with Dani for two months because Jim wasn’t going to bother looking for her once he realized she couldn’t make him any money. There was a new girl anyway. Jim was a problem, a long-haired, initially perfect problem. Dani told Marla that it’s always the same. She had a boyfriend of her own, a fabulous older guy with a car who bought her clothes and jewellery, whatever she wanted. Marla remembered that. There was something delicious about Jim, the way he knew everyone and could take her anywhere. The cigarettes he bought tasted better, and the bars she smoked them in didn’t look sketchy at the time. Or desperate. Then the guy says you gotta help me, you kinda owe me, I’m in a jam, I love you and I wish it didn’t have to be like this. Or whatever. He has friends who back him up. With Dani it was, you have to leave town with me, he says, the cops are after me, I don’t know, for jack shit, let’s get out of here. Oh, and you owe me all this cash for those drugs. Teenaged Dani, locked in a van, then a room. She never finished high school.
In the end Jim was hard and angry, threatening Marla and punching her up, always over money.
“You’re getting out there tonight.”
“I can’t, Jim, I got my—”
Jim got up close to her, his gelled hair
on her face. “Figure it the fuck out. You owe me.”
“But I gave you that money yesterday,” Marla whispered.
His fingers closed around her throat. “Yesterday’s money means shit to me.”
And there was Dani standing over him, naked except for the scarf on her head. “Enough,” she said, solid as a stone, the bravest woman in the world.
She’s ready. Dani emerges from the bathroom with her hair tousled and her breasts corralled but not quite concealed in her tube top. She throws a men’s duster riding coat over the ensemble, leaving it unbuttoned.
Marla tsk tsks her. “You know it’s freezing, right?”
“Whatever.” Dani ties a leash on the puppy and thumps up the stairs and outside.
The snow blown against the concrete foundation is going grey with the wind and the endlessness that Marla feels about living here. The entire street seems wary, leaning away from the river as if in defiance of those who would judge the peeling paint of its houses and the kicked-down stop sign. Marla can feel all the moisture in her skin getting sucked out. “Dani, I need you to keep a secret for me.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“My brother’s coming next week, and you can’t tell him I used to work the street.”
“Funny. That’s the same secret I’ve been keeping from your man.”
“Gavin’s different. I haven’t seen him in years.”
Dani snorts like a horse. “You have to face who you are, Marla. Stop keeping secrets.”
“I’m not a prostitute.”
“Having a job and a man and a car does not erase your past.”
Marla says nothing.
“Don’t cry about it. It happened.”
“No one can know.”
“Or what? They won’t like you anymore?” Dani pulls a cigarette pack out of her pocket and, finding it empty, hurls it to the ground, dismissing the idea. “I don’t hide who I am or what I do.” She kicks a clump of snow down the sidewalk. “I won’t.”
Marla hands her a rollie. “Drama queen. You should do spoken word with me.”
A Handbook for Beautiful People Page 4