One Good Hustle

SEVENTEEN




RUBY GAVE ME five bucks for my allowance again this week. It’s nice that she and Lou do that, but five bucks? What am I supposed to do with five bucks? Sam’s word for money was cush, short for cushion. “Don’t want to leave yourself without a little cush to fall back on.”

Sucks not having any cush but I feel twitchy about pulling any more drugstore returns while I’m staying here. I feel like I’m being watched all the time. Jill likes to hang out with me and she’s completely confounded if I take off on my own. She wants a reason.

Another support cheque came for me this morning. For Ruby and Lou, I mean. Ruby says it’s a good thing, because she’s never seen anyone pack it away like I do. She went bug-eyed a few minutes ago when she watched Jill and me making our sandwiches.

Jill’s is regular peanut butter and jam. I started with peanut butter, sure, but then I felt creative: drizzled on chocolate sauce, sprinkled on some brown sugar, and a few dashes of cinnamon. Just as I was about to top it with the other piece of bread, I noticed a bag of marshmallows in the cupboard.

“Ew,” Jill said as I sliced up a couple and added another layer to my masterpiece. She puffed her cheeks. “I think I’m going to boke.”

“You better watch it, kiddo.” Ruby gave me a backhand on the rump. “Keep eating like that and all you’ll have left is your charm.”

I bet she’d cram this whole mess into her gob in a heartbeat if nobody was watching.

Marlene has beefed up a bit in the last couple of years but she’s never been what you’d call fat. And Sam has never been close to fat. (Although, one time the two of them were having a fight when I was a kid, and Marlene said to Sam, “You’re nothing but a potbellied, little misery-guts.” Sam couldn’t answer—he just burst out laughing.)

Jill and I sit down at the kitchen table now with our sandwiches and Ruby joins us with a cup of coffee. I’ve got one of Jill’s old sundresses on. The top is baggy but it’s comfortable in this heat.

“Hey, um”—I take a bite of sandwich and chew as if it’s a really casual question—“my dad never called here, did he?”

Ruby looks up. “No.” She glances at Jill.

Jill shakes her head, and with a full mouth says, “Mmffn.”

“Are you expecting to hear from him?” Ruby asks.

“He’s probably on the road. It’s hard to get to a phone sometimes when you’re travelling. But he might be coming to town in the next little while so I just wondered.”

“I always write down phone messages,” Ruby says, and she gives me this sort of concerned look. She glances at my chest and then into her coffee cup. “You might want to do up those laces a little tighter,” she says.

I glance down at the bodice of Jill’s old dress. “Nothing much to cover.” I laugh.

“They’re going to hold a shuffleboard competition on Sammie’s chest next weekend,” Jill announces.

Ruby sips and glances at my chest again. Maybe it’s bugging her that I don’t wear a bra. I never wear one. I don’t need one, and anyway, bras are totally uncomfortable.

“You should always pay attention to the way you dress,” Ruby says, and looks me in the eye. “You want to look sexy-sweet not sexy-slut.”

I start at the word slut.

Ruby stares into her coffee cup as if it’s a crystal ball. “If you look slutty, Sammie, you could be the cause of another woman’s rape.”

I stare at her, speechless.

Beside me Jill nods. “Mm-hmm.”

I glance sideways at Jill’s boobs, which are pretty well bursting out of a low-cut white T-shirt.

“I’ve never even kissed anyone,” I say. “How can I be a slut?”

“I didn’t say you are a slut,” Ruby clarifies.

“If you go around looking slutty,” Jill explains, “you get a guy all worked up and he could take it out on someone else. Therefore, you could be the cause of some other girl’s rape.”

Ruby raises her gaze to the window and tilts her head as if Jill has just said something totally profound. “You might get attention by looking trashy,” she says, “but be careful what you wish for.”

I glance at Jill’s cleavage again, take in her dark blue eyeliner and the stripy pink blusher on her cheeks and wonder if Ruby’s actually talking to her daughter.

“The point I’m trying to make to you, Sammie,” Ruby goes on, “is that it’s easy to sit back and rely on your looks. You need to understand, though, that the most important thing for you to be is an interesting person. What you need to develop is a personality.”

I blink into my peanut butter, brown sugar, chocolate and marshmallow sandwich, then I take a huge bite and chew for ages so that I can keep my mouth shut.