by Julie Frayn
She tiptoed around blood, slid on her slippers to protect her clean feet, retrieved the clothes that waited, folded and clean and tucked safely in the bottom drawer of her dresser, that she’d set aside for the trip. The air left her when each piece — white bikini briefs, camel walking shorts, stretchy black tank, lightweight cornflower cardigan, and her ivory scarf — came out dotted with red spots.
“No, no, no.” She licked her thumb and rubbed at one spot. It didn’t budge. She clamped her eyes shut and held her breath. When she opened them, the spots had disappeared. She flipped the fabric and inspected every inch, but they were clean and blood-free. She buried her face in the soft cotton of the cardigan and sniffed the mountain freshness of fabric softener. Her shoulders shook. She lifted her head from the fabric and giggled. “Jeez Louise, Mazie Baby, don’t lose your shit now.”
She rushed to get dressed, held an un-bloodied corner of the bedroom chair for balance while she slipped each trembling leg into her shorts. “Get yourself together, girl. You can do this. Just a little change in plans, that’s all.” She glanced at the bed. Brandy and bourbon rolled up her throat. She fought back and swallowed the urge to vomit. She nodded. “Just a little change in plans.”
She retrieved the packed luggage from Ariel’s closet, sidestepped her bloody footprints in the hall and on the stairs, bounced the luggage down the steps and stood each piece at attention on the tile floor in the front entry. She ran downstairs, pulled her wet clothes out of the washer and piled them into the dryer.
Coffee. She needed coffee. She started a pot and filled a tote bag with water bottles and snacks while it brewed. She skittered about the house making last-minute preparations. A Thermos filled with fresh, creamy coffee joined the snacks in the tote bag while she ticked off necessities of a long trip in her head.
Food for the trip? Check.
Drained the account of cash? Almost.
Shut off the main water? Check
Unplugged the appliances? Check
Clothes, toiletries, lady products, makeup to cover her bruises and wounds, lots of scarves, all packed? Check.
House spotless?
She glanced around. The main floor was neat as a pin except for a few bloody toe prints. Almost normal. She looked at the ceiling above her and closed her eyes. “Good enough.”
That was going to be her new mantra.
She pulled open the front door. The newspaper sat where it had landed earlier.
“Damn it.” There was always something.
She snapped the elastic band off the rolled paper, found the contact numbers on the second page and made a quick phone call to put delivery on vacation hold. She smirked. Permanent vacation hold. She tossed the paper into the recycle bin and hauled the luggage and tote bags and extra shoes out to the van. After four trips, everything was set. She stood in the kitchen and took one last look around her home.
No, not home. Home is a safe place. Somewhere to find peace and comfort, to look forward to coming back to. This was just a house. A cell. Bricks and mortar and invisible iron bars. She’d never be coming back.
The clock ticked in the silent room. It wasn’t even eight. She couldn’t knock on Rachel’s door this early on a Saturday. She poured the last bit of coffee into a mug, finished off the cream that remained in the fridge and threw out the container, then sat at her kitchen table for the last time. She held the mug with both hands and sipped, the ticking of that damn clock growing louder with each passing minute. She ran her fingertip around the rim of the mug, tapped one foot against the floor and let out a sigh. She had to keep busy.
She Swiffered the kitchen floor and dusted the living room furniture. She’d done both the day before. There was no dust worth cleaning up. She eyed the pink toe prints on the living room carpet, each stain growing more faint the farther from the stairs she had run, until they disappeared just before the kitchen tile. She dug a bottle of soda water from the fridge, poured it on a stain and pressed paper towels into it. It faded but persisted. Mocked her attempts to erase her tracks. She tossed the soiled towels into the garbage, put the bag out in the black bin in the alley, dumped the rest of the soda down the drain and pitched the can into the recycling container under the sink with the other soda cans and Cullen’s empty beer and bourbon bottles.
She stood at the sink, her hands on her hips, and stared at the clock. Eight-twenty-seven. Seriously? Did it need a new battery? She pulled her cell phone from her purse. Nope, it was dead on. She smiled.
Dead.
Why was that funny?
The alarm on the dryer let out its pitiful mewls. She took the stairs at a snail’s pace and stared at the red light that blinked and winked at her. Your bloody clothes are dry. Hurry up and fold them.
She pulled her jeans from the machine, held them up in the dim light of the concrete utility room. Palm-sized stains, rusty and pink, marred the thighs and the knees, and ran down the side seams and the back pockets where she’d attempted to wipe him from her skin. She ran her hands across the denim. Tears welled in her eyes. Total write off.
She was going to miss those pants. She dropped them to the cement floor, climbed the stairs, and left them behind.
She was so done with this house. It was time to get out.
She slipped on her sandals, pulled the front door closed with a quiet click, secured the deadbolt, and headed across the grass. She didn’t look at the house again. Didn’t glance up at the bedroom window where Cullen was growing colder by the minute. Colder than he’d been in years. Now that’s good karma. Or perhaps a twist of sweet irony.
The morning dew still clung to the grass, the cool droplets on her bare toes refreshing. She scooped up the newspaper from Rachel’s stoop and tapped on the door.
The door opened on the first knock. Damn nosy woman had been watching.
“Morning, Rachel.” Mazie held out the paper. “Ariel ready?”
“Just finishing breakfast. Come in for a second.”
Rachel took the paper and tossed it onto a small table near the kitchen as she passed. The flannel of her pyjama pants swished at the thighs with each step.
Mazie stepped across the threshold. In all the years they’d lived next to the Simpsons, she’d only been on their back deck, and that was just to recover Ariel’s Frisbee.
A ball of fur bolted toward her, yapping and sniffing at her exposed ankles. She laid her fluffy little body at Mazie’s feet and licked her big toe.
“Biscuit!” Rachel picked up the dog and shoved her away. “Sorry. She’s usually more standoffish. You must have walked through something yummy.” The woman’s lilting laugh came easy.
Shoes littered the front entry, none of them lined up against the wall, no plastic mat to protect the floor. Dusty prints and clumps of mud crunched under Mazie’s sandals. She pushed shoes aside with her feet, trying to make some small bit of order from the sneaker and sandal and winter boot chaos. Winter boots in the entry. In June?
“Hey, mom.” Ariel sat beside Polly on a tall barstool at an island in the kitchen. It stood high, diner lunch counter-style. Ariel’s hair was a tangled mess. Milk dripped from a spoon and onto her nightgown as she shovelled Cheerios into her mouth.
“Hi, bug. Are you about ready to go?”
“Almost. I just have to get dressed and brush my teeth.”
“And your hair, please.”
Ariel nodded, her mouth full of cereal again.
“You want a coffee?” Rachel had been eyeing Mazie. “Ariel will be a little while, you’ve got time.”
It was the last thing Mazie wanted. Should she agree? An attempt to act normal? Though, normal would never include having coffee with Rachel. Or being inside her house.
Mazie rubbed a growing chill from her arms. “I’d like to get going soon. It’s a long trip. Was hoping to make Regina before supper and spend the night.”
Rachel grabbed her hand and tugged on it. “That’s only an eight hour drive. Come on. You’ve never even stepped foot in my hous
e before.”
Mazie sighed. “All right, one cup.” She went to slip off one sandal.
Rachel waved a hand toward Mazie’s feet. “You can leave your shoes on.”
Mazie swallowed before taking a tentative step onto the carpet. Her shoes would be covered with dirt and dust from the grocery store and the van and the sidewalk. It would get tracked onto the carpet and dull it with filth. One, two, three steps in. Nothing happened. No one yelled at her. No one swatted her and told her she was disgusting and should clean up her footprints.
Rachel’s husband, George, crossed the living room, clad only in a terrycloth robe, a large mug of coffee in one hand. He raised the cup to her on his way by. “Morning, Mazie. Lovely day for a road trip.” He slapped Rachel’s ass.
Mazie stiffened. She looked at her feet, then raised her eyes to the couple.
Rachel jumped and pretended to slap him, her cheeks pink.
George flashed his eyebrows up and down at his wife and kissed her cheek. “I’m going to get dressed and clean up the dog crap.” He turned to Mazie. “You want me to mow your lawn?”
“No thank you. I just did it two days ago.”
“All right then. Just let me know if you’d like some help. I notice your husband is never out there.”
“He works long hours. The house is my job.”
George raised one eyebrow. “That’s a load of bullshit, love. Tell me if you change your mind. And drive safe, hear?”
“I will, thank you.” Mazie glanced around the room and pressed a hand to the growing knot in her stomach. The house wasn’t filthy, but clutter was strewn about. The books on the bookshelf weren’t lined up in a row, some were on their sides and some had the spines upside down. The furniture clearly hadn’t been dusted in days. Tufts of long Lhasa Apso hair stuck to the carpet. Dishes from the night before still sat in the sink, and sugar crystals and drops of cream dirtied the countertop.
George didn’t seem to give a damn that his home was untidy, or that it was almost nine in the morning and his wife hadn’t even dressed yet. He seemed… happy.
Mazie took small steps toward the kitchen. She picked up the sink cloth, rinsed it under the tap, and began wiping down the countertop.
Rachel put both her hands over Mazie’s and stopped the swirling motion of the cloth. “Honey, you don’t have to do that. I’ll get to it later.”
Mazie let go of the cloth, pulled her hands away from Rachel’s touch, and nodded. “Sorry.”
“Go. Sit with Ariel. I’ll get you a coffee. How do you take it?”
“Cream and sugar, please.” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head, mussed up Polly’s already messy mop of copper curls, and sat at the counter.
Rachel placed a mug of steaming coffee in front of her. “Goodness me, you’re trembling.”
Mazie wrung her hands together. “I’m fine. Just a bit hungry.”
“Want some of my Cheerios?” Ariel held up a dripping spoonful of cereal.
Mazie smiled. “No thanks, bug. Maybe we’ll get some doughnuts on the way. There’s a Tim Horton’s in Shawnessy. We can make a quick detour before we hit the highway.”
“Yes! Can we get maple cream?”
“Anything you want.”
“Timbits too?” Ariel’s eye nearly bugged out of her head.
Mazie laughed. “Anything at all.”
Rachel climbed onto the stool across the island from Mazie. The woman’s hair was kinked and tatted, her makeup smudged, flakes of day-old mascara dotting the skin under her eyes. Mazie touched her fingers to her own hair, clean and dry and sprayed into place.
“Is Cullen going fishing while you two are away?”
Mazie swallowed and looked at her hands. “He’s gone.” At least it wasn’t a lie.
Rachel squinted at her. “But his truck is still in the driveway out back.”
Mazie’s heart thumped in her ears. She opened her mouth but no words came. She looked at the coffee mug, at the countertop. Anywhere but Rachel’s nosy face. “He went with a couple of buddies from work. They took one guy’s camper.”
Rachel nodded. “Oh. I guess I didn’t hear them go.”
“Well, they left at some ungodly hour in the middle of the night.” Mazie did her best to sound casual and hoped that Rachel didn’t notice the crack in her voice. “I guess they wanted to get a jump on weekend traffic.”
Rachel nodded.
She looked at Rachel. “Cullen will be gone for at least ten days.”
Ariel hopped off the stool. She grabbed Polly’s hand and the two of them ran up the stairs. Mazie took their bowls to the sink, dumped the milk and remaining cereal into the garburator, and rinsed them under the tap.
“Mazie, stop. You don’t have to clean up after us.”
She spun around. Rachel stood with her arms crossed over her chest, that snoopy look on her snoopy face.
“I... I’m sorry. It’s just habit. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know that. Just sit and relax for a minute. There’s nothing you need to do here.”
Mazie crawled back on the stool, stared at the mug, sipped at the coffee. For a few blessed moments, Rachel shut the hell up.
Ariel’s and Polly’s footsteps thudded down the stairs. They came into the kitchen, their heads close together, both looking at Polly’s phone and laughing. “Mom, do you have your cell phone?”
“In the van.”
“Good.” She took Polly’s phone and thumbed the keyboard. “Text me. All the time.”
Polly nodded. “Ditto.”
Mazie stood. “Ready?”
“Ready!”
“So, you’re gone for more than a week?” Rachel stood, one eyebrow raised in that ‘tell me everything so I can tell the world’ way she had.
“Yes, ten days or so.”
“And Cullen too? We shouldn’t expect any movement in your house for ten full days?”
Mazie stared at her, nodded slowly. “That’s right. Ten days.” She turned and started toward the front door.
“Mazie, wait.” Rachel blew air from her lungs and glanced around her kitchen. Her face lit up. “Mail!”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your mail. Can I bring it in for you? And your paper?”
“I stopped the paper. But yes, the mail.” Why hadn’t she thought of that? “Do you mind?”
Rachel shook her head. “Not a bit.” She made a move toward Mazie. “Look, do you need anything? For your trip I mean.”
“No thanks.”
“I have some spare cash. Do you have enough money?”
Mazie scrunched her face up and shook her head. “Rachel, we’re fine. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Just, you know, call me if you need anything.” She scurried over to the fridge and scrawled on a pad of notepaper stuck to it with magnets. “Here’s my number. Anything you need. Anytime.”
Mazie took the paper. Under the phone number, Rachel had scrawled ‘I understand’ in loose cursive. Mazie snapped her head up and looked at the woman.
She nodded again. “You take care of yourself, Mazie. You hear me?” She stepped forward and crushed Mazie in a long hug.
Mazie stood perfectly still, her arms pinned to her sides. She looked at Ariel and rolled her eyes.
Ariel shrugged.
~~~~~~~~
Three people stood in line in front of Mazie, each waiting for the slowpokes at the two ATMs to hurry the hell up. She tapped one foot on the dirty tile of the vestibule and ran her thumb over Cullen’s debit card. The raised letters of his name taunted the pads of her trembling fingers and made the fine hairs at the base of her neck prickle and stand and on end.
Her gaze ping-ponged about the space and came to rest on a camera above one machine. She slid her sunglasses off her head and onto her nose, pulled up the hood of her jacket and tucked her hair back. Her gaze cast downward, she approached and withdrew the five hundred dollar daily limit. She would drain the balance the next morning, then slice hi
s card to little bits.
Slice, slice, slice. She grinned. Why was that funny?
A block away, she pulled into the doughnut shop drive-through. A police cruiser was dead ahead. Her heart raced. She coughed and covered her mouth and most of her face with one trembling hand, glanced in the rear-view mirror. Another cop car pulled in behind her.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“What?”
“You’re breathing funny. And sweating.” Ariel pointed out the front window. “And the line moved up, like, two cars.”
“Shit.” She jerked the van forward then slammed on the brakes.
Ariel giggled. “Can I swear?”
“Only after you get your driver’s license.” She gripped the wheel with both hands and forced out a laugh.
Time to get her shit together. They wouldn’t even have found his body yet.
She yelled their order into the speaker then inched up to the window after the first police cruiser had pulled away.
“Good morning. Your order was covered by the car ahead of you.”
“I’m sorry?”
The clerk in the brown polyester uniform gave her a withering look. “You know, that whole ‘pay it forward’ thing that’s been going on?”
“No, sorry. I don’t know. The cops paid for our doughnuts?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mazie shook her head. “Okay then. How about I pay for the police behind me?”
The clerk flashed a wide grin. “You bet! Two extra-large double-double and a twenty pack of Timbits. That’ll be eight-oh-seven.”
A bit of good karma couldn’t hurt.
Mazie pulled the van onto Highway Twenty-two and headed east. The sun was brilliant, the heat penetrated the air conditioned space and warmed her face. She took a sip of coffee and popped a ball of deep-fried dough into her mouth. Sour cream glazed, her favourite.
Ariel wasted no time finding a radio station. She bobbed her head and mumbled the words to some song Mazie was unfamiliar with.