One Good Hustle

THREE




JILL’S LAST EXAM was earlier in the day so she was long gone by the time I got out.

Except for Jill, I don’t have a crowd at school. Part of the problem is, like my dad, I don’t drink or smoke. Sam says addicts are weak. People in this school don’t hold that opinion, though. The halls are full of alkies and heads who think the fact that I don’t drink or smoke weed means I’m a spineless little suck. A chick named Crystal Norris actually shoulder-checked me in the hall once and called me a suckhole. I didn’t do anything about it so maybe she had a point.

When I come through the front door, I hear Jill squeal, “She said what?” Jill’s front door opens into a tiny vestibule with a few coat hooks. Two steps forward and you’re in the living room.

Creeping onto the braided rug, I pause, listening as Jill and Ruby cackle in the kitchen. The hair on my arms prickles. They’re talking about Marlene. I know it. Laughing at her.

I keep still, listening as I glance around. There are two little paintings on the wall over the couch: a happy clown and a sad clown. I hate those clowns. Even the happy one looks miserable.

The furniture is old, but everything’s tidy. Clean. Maybe some dust on the TV screen but that’s about it. Marlene likes to say, “I don’t mind clutter but I hate dirt.” What a laugh that is. My stomach lurches when I think of what Ruby and Lou probably saw over there today. At least Jill wasn’t with them.

“She’s a piece of work all right,” I hear Ruby say.

“How did Dad react?”

It’s quiet a moment. Ruby calls, “Sammie? That you?”

Shit. “Yeah,” I yell through the wall at them.

When I come into the kitchen, Ruby and Jill are at the table, an ashtray and two cups of coffee between them. Smoke wafts out of Jill’s mouth.

“Hey, sugar,” she says. “What’s shakin’?” Bright purple lipstick greases the filter of her cigarette.

“Nothin.’ What’s shakin’ with you guys?”

“My thighs,” Jill says. “Like a Jell-O tree in a windstorm.”

That’s a favourite line of Jill’s. She probably says it five times a week.

Ruby titters and taps ash off her cigarette. “Were you eavesdropping, Sammie?”

My mouth opens. “Excuse me?”

Another one of Ruby’s gotchas.

She bounces her skinny eyebrows. “You snuck through the front door like a cat burglar.”

“No. I just dropped some stuff out of my purse so I was—”

Ruby laughs big. Making me squirm is a total riot, I guess.

Jill picks her compact up off the table. Gold bangles jangle up her arm as she checks out her purple lips in the mirror, snaps it shut. She drops the compact into her purse.

“Well, just so’s you know, we have no secrets around here,” Ruby says. “Sit down so we can talk about you to your face.”

Jill laughs. She brushes some chalky face powder off the strained denim on her thigh. Her thunder thighs, she calls them. Jill is what Marlene would call “built.” About five-foot-ten, she probably weights a hundred and sixty pounds. Boobs out to here, hips out to there. I look like a boy next to her.

“There’s fresh coffee if you want,” Jill tells me.

I go to the counter and pour a cup. I used to only drink tea but coffee’s the thing around here.

“So, I met your mother today,” Ruby says.

I sit down at the table with my mug and dump in extra sugar. Extra cream. I want extra everything lately.

“I called her before I went over and she didn’t seem too interested in company.” Ruby is wearing her ironic face.

“Really?” Jill slaps a hand to her chest for extra mock-value. “How strange!”

Ruby grins. “Very strange. I told her that we were worried.”

I chew off a bit of skin inside my cheek and start in on my bottom lip.

“So, Lou and I went over there.” Ruby takes a drag off her smoke and shakes her head as she exhales. “She hadn’t bothered to get dressed. Just lay there in this old stained negligee, saying her head ached, her back ached, she couldn’t find Freddy’s number—whoever that is—she had the shakes, she needed a drink. She actually asked Lou if he would pick her up something at the liquor store. She said she was scared of getting the DTs. Food didn’t even occur to her. And everything was filthy! Dirty dishes piled in the sink and on the counters. How she can live like that … or let her daughter live like that …” Ruby flicks her cigarette. “Poor Sammie.”

My jaw clenches. “I was going to clean up,” I say. “Before I left … Vacuum. And wash the—”

“Sammie, that was two weeks ago.”

Stop saying my name. “So?”

“So, what self-respecting person—” Ruby stops. “Well, I guess that’s the problem, she’s not a self-respecting person. Or she wouldn’t talk about killing herself when she has a daughter to look after.” She sighs. “The sad thing is, she was probably a nice-looking woman at one point.”

Probably? F*ck. “She’s still—She’s depressed.”

Ruby pats my arm. “Sammie, she doesn’t need your sympathy right now. You did her a big favour when you left.”

Jill eyes me and plucks the gold chain off her chest, plays the little gold cross back and forth with a look that I can’t make out.

“I guess you know she’s drinking pretty hard,” Ruby says. “There was an empty bottle on the coffee table. Nothing in the fridge but sour milk and some condiments. Mouldy bread on the counter. Pill bottles all over the place. I picked a prescription bottle up and she says to me, “Mind your own business, you tubby little dyke.”

I choke back a laugh. Even f*cked up, Marlene kicks ass.

Jill giggles and shakes her head theatrically. “Tubby little dyke,” she repeats.

Ruby butts out her cigarette. “Then she started hitting on Lou.”

Jill’s eyes widen like she just can’t believe it. I know the look on her face now—as if Marlene and I are on one of those TV shows with the white trash characters that make everyone giggle and gag.

“She says to him, ‘What’s a gorgeous hunk of man like you doing stuck with that.’ ” Ruby puts on a drunken, haughty face that looks nothing like Marlene’s. “ ‘Maybe you should come visit me on your own.’ ”

Jill says, “Wow. This chick is, like, not mellow at all.”

Ruby joins in, mimicking the hippie-girl voice. “Totally unmellow.”

I’m glad Marlene hit on Lou. Ruby asked for it. Tubby little dyke.

Ruby takes a fresh cigarette from her pack. Her face becomes suddenly stony as she says, “Seriously, though, Sammie, your mom’s got problems.” She lights the new smoke and thinks for a moment.

Still fiddling with her gold chain, Jill sets her elbows on the table, nudging the coffee cup with her boobs. “What did Dad say when she hit on him?”

“He said no!” Ruby eyeballs the ceiling and then looks back at me. “We did pick her up a few groceries. Milk and bread, cheese … Did you know your mom still holds a torch for your father?”

I huff through my nose. As if!

“Oh-ho, yes. She sure does.”

Ruby doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. I am almost offended to think that Marlene is trying to find Fat Freddy’s number, though. Freddy is the last thing she needs.

He called our place a couple months ago to ask if we’d seen Sam. “He was in town,” Freddy said. “I thought sure he’d’ve called you!”

He knew damn well Sam never called us. He just wanted to rub it in, get even because Marlene had put him on the back burner again.

Now Marlene can’t find his number. She must be really out of it. I don’t want her calling Freddy. Is she planning to go work a few hustles with him? In the shape she’s in? Or does she just want him to bring her a bottle? That weasel would only show up for one reason. The thought of any quid pro quo with Freddy makes me want to spew.