She looks in the floor length mirror on the back of the wardrobe door and smiles. Yes, a true professional. Elegant and feminine. And the color was really lovely. It brought out the best in her hair – the harsh ginger she thought she was stuck with for life had transformed into much lovelier hues of henna and copper.
The feel of the silk was wonderful too, the way it floated like a caress across her skin. There's a faint trace of Jenny's sweat and perfume, like a tester strip left too long in your handbag, but Lenise doesn't mind. If she was honest, it makes her feel closer to Jenny, in a sisterly way, of course.
Yes, she likes that, sisters.
To avoid dirtying the blouse, Lenise lays a towel on the driver's seat and heads for her interview over on Barlett Road. When she gets there, she's twenty minutes early so she circles the block and parks under a tree to think through some answers.
She wants a cigarette. But this time she's determined to quit. It's expensive and trashy and since she's turning over a new leaf, there's really no place in her life for such bad habits. Lenise fears she's been a bad influence on Jenny in terms of the smoking. But those had been special circumstances. Well, not any more. All that was behind them now. Mind over matter, she would tell Jennifer, together they were stronger than that.
Thankfully, Lenise has overcome the small problem of not being able to mention her last six months of work history. She was going to tell them about Camille de Silva falsely accusing her of a crime she didn't commit, but then came up with a better idea. She'd stated on her resume she had worked as a receptionist in Jenny's clinic.
"If you could just say I worked here for six months."
"You want me to lie?"
"They probably won't even call."
In the end, after some pretty intensive cajoling, Jennifer had reluctantly agreed. It was irritating that it took so much to convince her, especially in light of how Lenise had gone out of her way to help Jenny in her hour of need.
Lenise unwinds the window for some fresh air and thinks about how she will cope with the big question. Tell us about yourself. A person could get lost in the wastelands with that one but she was fully prepared, had this whole spiel about being a fighter in life, and how even though many times everything seemed to go against her, she'd persevere, and how even though life or God or whatever seemed to take great pleasure in knocking her down, she would simply dust herself off and get back up again. Lenise's eyes begin to well. They'd be fools not to give her the job.
*
The grocery store manager was one of those bitter, older women, who seemed resentful about life. For most of the interview, she sat with her hands laced across her fat stomach looking disinterested in what Lenise had to say. At one point, she even had the nerve to ask Lenise to repeat something because she couldn't understand her accent. You should listen more carefully, lard-arse, Lenise had wanted to say. She had even called the woman Ma'am several times and lardy seemed to like that very much. In the end, there was nothing to worry about because Lenise got the job on the spot. Things were looking up. Her life had turned a corner. She would call Jenny and share the good news.
34
Jennifer sits on the bench in Redmont Park, a green space close to the clinic. It's too cold to be outside but she needs the oxygen because she can barely lift her head. She had to flee that stuffy clinic because everything seemed worse there, with those stainless steel instruments and unflinching eyes looking back at her, right into her soul.
She picks up the limp roast beef sandwich trapped in its triangle plastic capsule, and the meat flaps there like a tongue. She can't bring herself to eat it. Her mouth tastes like a sewer and her throat burns so she tosses the sandwich into the grass where it becomes fodder for the gulls.
She casts aside her coat and the chill finds her tacky skin. Better. She squints at the dwindling triangle of sun and listens to the dull scratch of leaves across the stones.
Up until the point she had buried Hank in the woods, Jennifer's worst crime had been to steal a collection box for the Blind Foundation with Alice Jackson when they were both thirteen. Jennifer's role was to distract the grocery clerk while Alice swiped the box from the countertop and hid it under her trench coat and walked out the door. Afterward they went to Hanson Park and smashed it apart with a brick and filled their pockets with nickels and quarters and pennies and boldly went back the store where they stole it from and spent the entire $23.25 on chocolate milkshakes, Hershey kisses, peanut M&Ms and their very first pack of Marlboro lights.
Jennifer hears voices and looks up. A couple in matching woolen scarves amble along the pathway, a toddler skipping between them. The girl waves at Jennifer but Jennifer doesn't wave back. Instead, she hauls herself up and leaves.
*
Rather than return to work like she's supposed to, Jennifer goes to the cinemaplex, and asks for a ticket. The guy with the Walter White goatee points at the display board above his head.
"To what?" he says.
She looks up. The electronic letters blur into a meaningless smear. She blinks at him. Her eyelids feel like sandpaper.
"I don't care," she says.
The guy shrugs, gives her a ticket and tells her cinema five. She follows the carpet-cocooned hallway until she finds the cinema and takes a seat but soon a woman with a crew cut enters and uses the light from her cell phone to scan the seat numbers then stops abruptly when she reaches Jennifer and demands she move because Jennifer is sitting in her spot, even though there are only two other people in the entire place. Too bone-tired to argue, Jennifer lugs herself out of the seat and into another row.
Her head feels like a balloon and she blots her brow with her forearm. It's too hot in here. Someone should turn the thermostat down. But there's no attendant to ask.
A man three rows ahead glances over his shoulder and gives Jennifer a look. At first, she thinks she must have said the thing about the heat out loud but then realizes the man is giving her a "I want to hook up" look, and she wonders if the guy at the counter was pranking her and sold her a ticket to a porn or something and do they even have those sorts of theatres anymore since the internet but then the lights go down and the titles roll and she sees the movie is a rom com. But the guy looks over his shoulder again and she stares back and thinks about fucking him in this spongy, velveteen upholstered chair, her legs in a V, heels in the cup holder circles, underwear round her ankle, him pounding into her, grunting and breathless, making her think of something else, taking her away from that cadaver stench and single milky eye.
When she wakes up her hair is a curtain over her face. She's drooling like an addict, bent forward in her seat. It hurts too much to swallow and she wipes the saliva on the back of her sleeve. Close by, a cleaner with a vacuum strapped to her back is sucking up popcorn that looks too much like brain matter from the purple carpet.
Jennifer tries to stand but her head spins and she collapses back down. She's burning up. You could fry an egg on her forehead and she laughs a half laugh – Huh – because that's something her mother would say – so hot out here you could fry an egg on your forehead. The cleaner stares at her, rolling the pearl of her gum around her tongue as if she's tying a knot in a cherry.
"You tripping or something?" says the cleaner.
That bad? I really look that bad? But Jennifer doesn't say it because there's a giant slug in her mouth. Her phone buzzes against her thigh, and she digs inside her pocket. She tries to say hello but it comes out only as a soft haaaa like her voice has run out of gas.
"Jenny is that you?"
"Uhuh," which is more like an air leak from a tire.
"What the hell is going on?"
"Uhuh."
Jennifer gives up and hands the cleaner the phone.
*
She is half aware of Lenise, arm hooking through hers, the overbearing citrusy smell of her perfume, walking Jennifer to the car, strapping her into the seat, pushing the nib of the water bottle into Jennifer's mouth which Jennifer bats away
because it hurts too much to drink, and now there's a splash on Lenise's linen skirt, and they are driving on the road, then getting out and going through automatic doors to some sort of clinic that is not her own, she can smell the antiseptic and there are children donging Fisher Price toys and skating matchbox cars down a tiny plastic slide and women studying People magazines and an elderly man in a wheel chair with a colostomy bag peeking out from beneath a crocheted blanket. Two seats over, there's a boy on his mother's lap, leaning against her breast, staring at Jennifer with his cold little eyes.
Then she is sitting alone, like an outcast. Even Lenise is far away talking to someone at the counter, and no wants to come near because of the darkness, it encircles her like some sort of modern day plague.
She wishes this pain would go away. Maybe this was her punishment – disintegrating vocal cords, fire breath, she may never speak again.
She hears her name and looks up to find herself in a different office, the doctor coming at her with a tongue depressor. Say Arghhh. He tuts then declares Strep throat. Maybe some infected tonsils thrown in for good measure. High dose antibiotics. Needs complete rest. And Lenise nodding, of course, doctor.
Then she's home, being chauffeured past a frowning McKenzie, placed into her glorious bed, someone tugging at her shoes.
"I tried to drown my baby."
Then she falls asleep.
35
There's a helicopter in her room, the fan of its blade slicing and whirring above her head in great, heaving whooshes and she sees the President, half bent, holding on to his hat as he exits the Marine One aircraft. Or maybe it's just an opened window and squally wind and blinds batting against the wood, Jennifer can't be sure. Just like she can't be sure there isn't a silhouette framed in the doorway, watching her, like a warden or keeper.
Jennifer tries to ask the keeper's name and where the keeper is from and why the keeper is there but she gets no further than lifting her head from the pillow before she's pulled back under the rolling surf then tossed back out again.
She dreams her fingernails have fallen off and she is lost in the Australian outback and someone has sewn her mouth shut with black cotton. How thirsty she is. She calls for water but no one is there. She will die in this red sand desert.
Then she is in the ground in a grave with roots and stones and bark and pupa and earth-loving arthropods. She is nothing but a rack of ribs, a shoulder blade, an eye socket, home to albino insects that never see the light of day.
*
It begins to change, the heat in her bones. She can feel it slip away, sneaking out the side door like a lover. She almost wants it back. And when Jennifer finally opens her eyes by her bedside is a man – benevolent and competent – ministering to her. But when she looks again, it's Lenise, standing over her, sipping a coffee.
"You look like shit."
Jennifer blinks slowly and licks her lips. She tries to move but can't, she's tucked in tight like a newborn.
"I got the job," says Lenise. "Thanks for asking." Her eyes sparkle at her own joke. "I think it was your lucky blouse. I already told you but you probably forgot."
Jennifer sits up, breaking free from the taut covers.
"Where's McKenzie?" Jennifer's voice does not sound like her own.
Lenise picks up a glass on the nightstand and holds it out. "You should have something to drink."
"Where is she?"
"You worry too much. She's in school. I've been taking good care of her."
"How long have I been out?"
Lenise shrugs, "3-4 days."
Jennifer looks down. She's wearing a nightgown she doesn't recognize.
"I couldn't keep up," says Lenise. "You were sweating so much that you ran out of your own, so I lent you one of mine. It's at the dry-cleaners. I'll drop it off when it's done."
"My nightgown's at the dry cleaners?"
"Your blouse."
"Keep it," says Jennifer.
She puts her feet on the ground and gets ready to lift herself off the bed.
"Oh, no, you need to rest," says Lenise.
"I'm fine Lenise, you can go home now."
Jennifer feels lightheaded but there's no pain and she's hungry.
"You've been sicker than you realize," says Lenise. "I think you should get back into bed."
Jennifer pulls on her robe and goes to the bathroom. Lenise follows her.
"Really, Jenny, this will only set you back."
Jennifer turns around.
"I don't need a bathroom chaperone," she says, firmly closing the door.
*
Jennifer stays in the shower until the water runs cold. When she gets out, she feels better, weak but better. She goes to the kitchen and Lenise is there, putting dishes away in all the wrong places.
"You've lost weight. I'll make you something to eat. Scrambled eggs and sausage?"
"I'm fine."
Lenise fills the kettle with water and spoons coffee into the pot.
"McKenzie has been doing just fine." She looks at the clock. "In fact, she should be home soon."
"I know what time school finishes, Lenise," says Jennifer, putting the empty glass in the dishwasher.
"Why don't you relax in the lounge and I'll bring in the coffee."
Jennifer doesn't have the energy to fight and heads to the living room, stopping short when she reaches the doorway.
"You can't be serious."
"Do you like it?" says Lenise, coming up behind her.
"You rearranged my furniture?"
The sofa now looked out at the pond, the TV was in a different corner and the two bookcases had been switched to the other side of the room.
"A change is always good. Besides, you'll have more space this way."
On the sofa there's a pile of folded blankets, a Harlequin Romance on top of the lamp table beside it, a small overnight bag parked underneath.
"You've been sleeping here?"
"Who else was there to help you?"
Jennifer turns to Lenise. "You must be eager to get back to your own place."
"What are you saying?"
"I can take things from here."
"I see," Lenise looks at Jennifer. "If that's what you really want."
Without another word Lenise packs up her things, snaps the clasps on the bag shut and turns to Jennifer.
"I said I'm much better, Lenise."
"I know. I heard."
"Then what is it?"
"I promised McKenzie I would make everyone a nice dinner, when you got better, over at my house but I suppose that's too much to ask."
Jennifer remains silent.
"I knew you wouldn't be interested," says Lenise. "Well, maybe I've got better things to do."
Jennifer pauses.
"Okay," she says finally.
"Don't look so enthusiastic," says Lenise.
"I said I would come."
"Saturday at 6 o'clock. Don't be late."
*
Jennifer was considering whether she should put the furniture back to the way it was when she hears McKenzie arrive home and head straight upstairs to her bedroom. Jennifer follows and knocks on her door. When there's no answer, she opens it. McKenzie looks up and removes her headphones.
"You're awake," says McKenzie. "I was worried about you, Mom. You were really sick."
That's when Jennifer sees.
"Oh God, what have you done to your hair?"
It's gone. Hacked off. Like someone had been at it with a knife.
"I was sick of having it long," says McKenzie.
It's ugly and Les Miserables short and Jennifer can't help herself.
"But your beautiful hair."
McKenzie kicks off her shoes, lies down on her bed and faces the wall. "It's my hair."
"If you wanted a change I would have booked you in at the mall."
"Please go away."
Jennifer sees the mirror, the towel covering it. "Talk to me, hon. What's going on?"
"I want
to be alone."
"You can't not talk to me forever."
McKenzie pulls a blanket over her head. "You're such a drama queen," she whispers.
Later, when Jennifer opens the bathroom trash to throw away a toilet roll she sees the plastic grocery bag, the bush of hair stuffed inside it, like the corpse of a Pomeranian dog.
36
When Lenise opens the door to greet them, she's wearing a turquoise baby doll dress that belongs on someone half her age. There's been a special effort with the hair too, Jennifer notes. The thick red mane has been brushed umpteen times and sits perched on Lenise's shoulders like two strips of plucked wool.
Jennifer catches the flash of disapproval from Lenise at Jennifer's choice of a GAP t-shirt and jeans but she isn't about to apologize – she's been railroaded into this and just wants to get it over with.
When they go inside, a strange scent assaults Jennifer's senses. Baking milk. Her stomach churns and she tries not to show it. Benign music that could be Spandau Ballet plays on the small compact disc player on top of the sideboard.
Lenise turns to McKenzie. "There's a soda in the fridge for you."
Jennifer watches McKenzie slope off to the kitchen as if she's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
"What do you know about the hair?" says Jennifer.
"I had nothing to do what that," says Lenise. "She emerged one morning after the fact. Never said a word about it."
Jennifer isn't sure she believes her.
"The cleaning's worse, too," says Jennifer. "Now she's washing her hands a thousand times a day and refuses to touch the faucet without a paper towel."
Lenise hands Jennifer one of the two pre-poured Chardonnays from the sideboard. "You exaggerate."
"I am not exaggerating, Lenise. She needs help."
"It will pass."
Jennifer sits down on the tweed couch. "Was there any mention in the papers when I was sick?"
Lenise looks at Jennifer as if she's being particularly slow. "Stop worrying. They will never find him."
The Devil's Wire Page 13