One Good Hustle

NINETEEN




“SHE SAID I need to get a personality.”

“Leave it to a lard-arse like her to say an idiotic thing like that,” Marlene says.

We’re sitting in her room, each of us holding a cold can of Orange Crush that she bought us in the cafeteria.

“You have plenty of personality.”

“I do!” I laugh my most incredulous laugh, the kind Marlene and I used to use when a really stupid actress was being interviewed on The Merv Griffin Show. I’m faking it, though. It’s not that funny.

Marlene’s pissed off and I’m glad of it. I feel mean and gristly when I think about what Ruby said, which is better than feeling small and shivery. I just sat there at the kitchen table like a little mute wart while Ruby spewed her crappy theories, even though I wanted to huck my plate through the window. In the end I went out and did something worse, though. More stupid. More useless. I haven’t told Marlene. I can’t.

“I do not like that woman,” Marlene says now.

I look at the floor. That dark-in-my-guts feeling is coming back hard. Deceive, delude and desert: that’s all I do these days. Traitor.

“I guess she’s just trying to help me become a better person.”

“A better person? So I raised a bad person? Is that where this is going?”

“No. I just mean that Ruby’s usually all right. She made me a cake. I got my driver’s licence, you know—so Ruby made me a chocolate congratulations cake.”

“She’s a bossy, abusive person. People like that are emotional bullies.”

I roll that one around for a few seconds and wonder if it’s a term they use here in group therapy. “She’s not exactly a bully. She just has her ideas about certain things. I guess she’s particular.”

“Try peculiar.”

I shrug.

“Now you’re defending her.”

I am, even though Marlene is saying what I wanted her to. What I thought I wanted to hear. I wish instead she’d hug me small again. Hug me quiet and soft.

She shakes her head. “I talked to Margaret, the social worker, because I was worried about our rent getting paid on time. Apparently that little Ruby actually tried to convince them not to give me my full cheque. Ruby wanted the Welfare to deduct the support that was going to her from my cheque.”

I study her face. “Why would a social worker tell you that?”

“Ha! I knew it.” She looks defiant and victorious. As if she’s just won big. “Margaret didn’t spell it out in so many words. But I can put two and two together.”

I focus on the top of my Orange Crush can, watch the little bubbles slide around in the rim, burst and liquefy. “Ruby figured you wouldn’t need it since—”

“Who the hell is she to say what I need? You know what I remember most about her being in our place that day? The way she kept referring to you as Sammie. Sammie this and Sammie that. Like it was your name.”

I glance up.

“Your name is Samantha. Sammie is what I call you.”

I bullfrog my cheeks and exhale. I play with the pull-tab of my soda can. “She just wants me to feel like I’m part of the family, I guess.”

“Well, you’re not.”

I’m the piggy in the middle right now. Marlene is jealous as hell and if I look at it from that angle, it feels kind of good.

“So when are they sending you home?”

Her eyes turn dark. They’ve probably been dark the whole time and I’m only noticing now how each black pupil is taking up her whole eyeball.

She glances out her door into the hall. “Wednesday, I think.”

That’s two days from now.

Sitting on her hands, Marlene kicks her feet out a little, looks at the toes of her shoes and then drags her heels back close.

“I washed the dishes,” I say.

“What dishes? Our dishes? At the apartment? When?”

“Last week. Took down the garbage too.”

“You did?” She looks baffled—as if I just said, I painted the place plaid. Hope you like it.

“Does that mean you’re coming home?”

Now it’s my turn to be scared. I don’t want to go home with her. I don’t want to live with her. Not yet. Maybe never.

“I didn’t think so,” Marlene says, and does that thing with her feet again. “That’s okay. I quit drinking. And the pills too. Whether you come home or not. I’m quitting for myself.”

I tuck my elbows in and wrap my fingers around the can in my hands, trying not to take up so much space. The walls still feel tight, though, tighter and tighter as if the box is shrinking, as if there’s no room for me anywhere I go.