Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret (15 page)

F
riday was a big day for us. We had three jobs: our regular gig at the Oreskoviches', a new house near the mall, and a one-off deal to clean the apartment of an old lady who'd either gone into a seniors' home or died. (Even Dolores didn't want to find out which.)

We got back to my place just in time to make some lemonade and catch ourselves on
Live at 5
.

The segment opened with me face down in Frank's toilet bowl.
“For the past three years, Betsy Wickwire has been a star on the high school basketball circuit. Now she's swishing into a different type of hoop.”

Dolores and I were howling so hard we sprayed lemonade all over the coffee table. It didn't take me long to stop laughing, though.

Heidi introduced Dolores and asked her a couple of questions, but it was pretty clear who she was really interested in. This was The Betsy Show. Betsy's idea. Betsy's
basketball career. Betsy's “shiny chestnut mane,” as if that had anything to do with the mould that grows under the rim of Frank's toilet.

I felt my insides go hollow. I was afraid to look at Dolores. I hit “off” and hurled the remote into the wastepaper basket.

“What's the matter with that idiot? What happened to all the footage of you?”

“Who cares?” Dolores made it into about eight syllables. “Mind if I finish this?” She downed the last of my lemonade in one gulp. “Money, that's what I care about—and that's what this was good for. I mean, who wouldn't hire us now? Frank made you sound like the love child of Mr. Clean and Mother Teresa. Heidi directed people to our website. And I loved—loved!—those little stars they pinged on the appliances to make them shine. C'mon. It's all good. We're going to be rolling in it.”

I studied her face for some sign she was covering up, some hint of hurt feelings, but there was nothing. I could learn from this girl.

She stuck her finger into the glass to get the sugar pooled at the bottom.

“Quit that,” I said. “It's gross.” I loved the fact that I never had to pussyfoot around her.

Dolores mouthed
Chill
, but stopped licking her finger. She squinted at the time. “We got to get going. I want to check out the food stands before Murdoch gets off.”

I changed into my Value Village dress, screamed goodbye, and left before Mom could ask Dolores for dinner.

Murdoch was painting faces at the Waterfront Festival that night. He needed the extra cash because he'd taken $120 out of his savings to pay us to clean the house. I wanted to give him the money back but Dolores insisted that a man should always pay on the first date.

The waterfront was packed. Some people were there for the food. Some were there for the musical acts. Most seemed to be there just because everyone else was.

We were waiting in the fried clams lineup when someone said, “Betsy!”

I turned around. It was Paige Chisholm. Nikita Pillai and Emily McCormick were there too, as well as a couple other girls I didn't know. I was surprised how happy I was to see them. I didn't feel embarrassed at all.

Paige hugged me. “You look great,” she said. “Love the dress.”

“Mary Quant,” Dolores said.

“Oh, hi, Mary,” Paige said.

I laughed. “No, the dress is Mary Quant. This is Dolores.” Dolores raised her hand.

Paige said, “Oops. Hi.” She turned back to me and said, “I've left, like, a thousand messages on your cell. Why haven't you called?”

“I lost it.” Lying seemed easier than explaining.

Nikita stopped texting long enough to say, “How do you survive?”

“It's not that bad. You just—”

The guy at the counter said, “What'll it be, ladies?”

Dolores nudged me. I looked at the menu, looked at Paige, realized the people in back weren't happy with me for slowing things down.

“I better go …” I said to Paige. The other girls drifted away.

“Let's do something,” Paige said, walking backward into the crowd. “Let's go somewhere.”

I smiled. “Yeah, let's. How ‘bout swimming? I know this great lake. I'll call you.”

I heard Dolores order a clam burger for me and had to stop her. I blew Paige a kiss, then said to the counter guy, “No, sorry. Make that a small clams and chips, please.”

I felt so much like, I don't know, Betsy right then. Happy to see my friends again, hungry again, practically lusting for all that grease and salt and lumpy yellow tartar sauce.

We sat on a bench overlooking the harbour. We ate as much as we could, then threw the rest to the seagulls. We watched a couple of buskers juggling and this one guy playing hip hop music on the accordion. (Hilarious.) We laughed at what a rip-off the T-shirts were. We thought about splitting a Beaver Tail but, after all those calories, even
Dolores couldn't stomach it. We wended our way through the crowd and found Murdoch in the children's area.

He was sitting on a kid-sized stool, painting a little girl's face. She was so tiny and he was so big. He must have been like something out of a fairy tale for her. The Gentle Giant.

He dipped his brush in the paint, pushed her curls away, and drew two big swooping antennae on her forehead.

“Oh-oh, Georgia,” he said, all worried. “There's a butterfly on your face … Want me to take it off for you?”

Georgia shook her head seriously. Her mother winked and slipped Murdoch a little wafer of bills. He thanked her and waved goodbye as they left.

“Can you do a couple more, Mister?” Dolores made it sound like she was scoping out a drug deal.

He smiled when he saw us but said, “Sorry. Eight o'clock. My shift's done.”

“Please?” we both said.

“Well … O-kay.” The guy was such a pushover. “Who first?”

Dolores was rooting around in her plastic bag. “Do Betsy. I just remembered I was supposed to call Frank to get his blow-by-blow on the big show tonight.”

I sat down. I felt sort of giggly. I hadn't had my face painted since I was little.

Wrong. I'd had it painted red and gold when Nick's hockey team made the finals. I realized that didn't count and mentally went,
Wow
.

“What would you like to be, little girl?” Murdoch stretched his legs out on either side of my stool.

“A beautiful princess!” I said it with a lisp.

“On you?” he said. “Too easy.”

“Ha-ha. Save your breath. I'm not tipping you.”

“Oh well. Worth a try. So what do you want to be, then?”

“What can you do?”

“I can make you into anything you want to be.”

For some reason that made me blush.

“Um. Well. I don't know.” Relax. I was only getting my face painted. “What do you think I should be?”

Murdoch pushed the hair off my forehead and looked at me, but not like I was Betsy, like I was something to be painted.

Dolores said, “Stupid phone. Battery's dead. Can I borrow yours, Murdo?”

He reached into his pocket and handed it to her, without taking his eyes off my face. “Well. How about …?

“No. Don't tell me,” I said. “Just do it.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “You're brave.”

It struck me that he was brave too—at least here, he was.

He loaded his brush with orange paint, reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. He put a finger under my chin and moved it up a notch.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

The brush was wet and cool and very, very soft. It circled my eyes and followed the shape of my cheeks. I tried to tell myself it felt just like getting a facial, but it didn't. I was suddenly, awkwardly, aware of my breathing and my heart pumping. Murdoch whisked a little something off my lips with his finger. It made me jump.

He said, “Sorry.”

Then I said, “No. Sorry,” and sat up a little straighter.

I tried to keep that level of alertness, that much, I don't know, distance between us, but he turned my face to the side and made tiny brush strokes around my mouth and down the length of my nose and I felt myself slipping again.

He stopped. I took a breath.

He said, “You can open your eyes now.”

I hoped it would make things easier but he pulled his stool up even closer. He took off his glasses.

“Believe it or not,” he said, “this is the only way I can see to do the close-up stuff.”

‘That's okay,” I said, then immediately felt ridiculous. Why
wouldn't
it be okay?

He started to do something to my forehead. A little
flicking something. I hadn't realized he had blue eyes. Not blue like navy or blue like a swimming pool. Blue like denim, with darker streaks and lighter streaks. In the right eye, there was one thick brown streak too.

I sucked in my breath.

“Sorry. Did I do something?” he said.

“No,” I said.
I can't be staring into his eyes. I can't be doing this
.

I dropped my eyelids. Not closed. That would look bad. I just looked down.

He needed a shave. He had a big Adam's apple. There was a smear of yellow paint on his throat. I tried to focus on stuff like that.

He had a scar on his chin where no whiskers grew. His lips were dark red.

Not red. Not, at least, a girly red. More a …

What colour was that? He'd know the exact name of the colour.

Maroon?

No. Too purple. What colour was steak?

My face didn't move but my brain gasped. Oh my god. I shouldn't be looking at the guy Dolores likes and thinking his lips are the colour of steak.

That made me think of Carly. Who I hated. Who had done the meanest thing in the world to me.

Murdoch had nice teeth too.

Oh my god.

I wasn't going to look at his mouth any more. I looked at his legs. They were long and slim and covered in black hair. Just like a spider's.

Murdoch the Dock Spider. Murdoch the Dock Spider. Murdoch the Dock Spider.

I said it over and over in my head, but I could not picture the big, goofy spider with the squeaky voice any more.

“You missed a part.”

“No, Dolores, I didn't miss a part,” Murdoch said. “I haven't done that yet.”

She acted like she didn't even hear him. “I got to get going. Frank friggin' begged me for a game of cribbage and you know me. I'm a sucker for pathetic old men with poor personal hygiene.”

“Wait till we're finished, then Murdoch and I'll come with you.” I hoped I didn't sound too desperate.

“Wait? You crazy? I've got a half-hour window before Frank crashes for the night, and, to tell you the truth, I'm beat too.”

“No. No. Stay. We're almost finished. Right, Murdoch?”

“Nah. I'm out of here,” she said. “Finish your masterpiece and then call me tomorrow. Let's go to the beach or drive down to the Kippered Herring Festival at Blue Rocks. Okay? See ya.”

Dolores was gone in a second. I told myself at least she wouldn't be getting suspicious for no reason.

And there was no reason.
Nothing
was happening here, despite what it might feel like.

Murdoch cupped my chin in his hand and began to paint again. I tried not to lean into him. I tried to hold myself up.

I could smell vanilla ice cream on his breath. It seemed so, I don't know, pure or something. Murdoch seemed pure.

That was another thing I shouldn't be thinking. “Getting tired?” he said. I shook my head.

“Don't shake your head,” he said. “I'm almost done.” “Great,” I said. This had to stop. I could feel my chest moving up and down with each breath. I had to stop doing that too.

He did a few quick strokes on my cheeks. He turned my face from side to side, then his stool squeaked back. “There,” he said. “Wanna look?”

He held up the mirror. I almost couldn't see myself any more.

“Wow. It's really good,” I said. “But why a cat?” “I don't know. You kind of remind me of a cat, I guess. The way they're kind of, like, slinky.”
Slinky
made me laugh. It was a relief.

“Graceful, I mean,” he said.

“Oh.” I sounded like I'd stepped on a pebble. I didn't feel relieved any more.

He began putting his paints away and I noticed again how broad his shoulders were. I looked away. The crowd was thinning out. Families were dragging crying kids home. Drunks were staggering off to find some food. It was getting cooler, too, and people were looking up at the sky as if maybe they should get going before it started to rain.

“Anything I can do? Like wrap something up or wash something off or something?” I said.

“Oh, uh, you could, like, find a garbage can for that paper towel if you want. Thanks.”

I wasn't sure if he needed the help or was just glad to be rid of me for a couple of minutes. He seemed nervous again. I bunched up the paper he'd used to clean his stuff and looked around until I found a bin not totally spilling over with crap.

When I got back, Murdoch was sitting on the stool with his legs stretched out, trying to get some paint off his shorts. “It's supposed to come out with water,” he said.

I couldn't even look at his legs.

It had been a while since a guy had touched me. That's all this was.

“I better get going,” I said.

“I'll drive you,” he said. “You don't have to.”

“It's no problem … I'm going right past your place.” What could I say to that?
No thanks, I'm afraid I'll jump you if we we're left alone together?

I
tried to help Murdoch with his stuff but he shook his head like he could manage and crammed everything into his backpack. I started walking. “No, this way,” he said.

“Oh. Ha. What do I know?” I was trying really, really hard to find the right tone —something jokey and relaxed and natural—but I missed it by so much it almost made me cry.

We walked through the remnants of the festival. There were still boats in the harbour and booths with those cheap T-shirts and some teenage couple having a screaming fight and lots of other things that normally I'd be able to talk to Murdoch about, but I couldn't now.

“Long day?” I said.

“Not too bad,” he said. “How about you?”

“Pretty good.” I held my hand out. “It's starting to rain.”

He looked up at the sky. “Yup. Guess we need it.”

I nodded, although I didn't really know why we'd need rain and I doubted Murdoch did either.

All of a sudden, the sky turned dark. We both went, “Oooh,” which was enough for a small laugh. Then there was a flash of lightning. Murdoch counted. “One … two … three … four …” Thunder boomed. Two beats later, the rain hit, big time.

He grabbed my hand and said, “This way.”

People were in a panic, racing for cover. Murdoch pointed and laughed. A lady ran by holding a piece of pizza over her head, as if that would keep her dry.

“The ferry terminal,” he shouted, and we both went for it.

Everyone seemed to have the same idea. The place was packed with wet, panting people, pulling their T-shirts away from their bodies, wringing the water out of their hair.

“Oh-oh,” Murdoch said once he'd caught his breath. He touched my dress. I looked down and saw black paint dripping on to the yellow paisley.

“It should come out,” he said, “but the dark colours always make me a bit nervous.”

All I could think at first was
Dolores is going to be mad at me
—then a weird thing happened. I almost relaxed. At least it would only be about the dress.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh-oh.”

“Don't worry,” Murdoch said, “I think I can fix it.” He opened his backpack and looked for something. Then he glanced at the concession stands but they were closed. “Here,” he said, peeling off his T-shirt.

His arms and chest erupted into goosebumps. He took his shirt and rubbed at the paint dribbling down my neck. He dabbed at the spots on my dress.

“You all right?” he said. “You're kind of shivering.” For all he knew, it could just have been because I was cold.

He put his hand under the collar and scrubbed at the fabric. I wanted him to stop—or at least I tried to make myself believe that.

“There,” he said. “Your dress'll be fine.” He stepped back and looked at me.

I didn't look at him.

“Ooh. Your face needs some work, though,” he said.

“Gee, thanks.” Good. We were just joking around. That was okay.

“No. No. I didn't mean that. It's just … you've got black paint all over you. You look like a chimney sweep or a miner or something.” He took my chin and started to wipe my face.

I said, “I feel like I'm four years old.” But that wasn't true. This was totally different.

I could smell the ice cream again and the paint and
something else that I wouldn't be able to identify except as Murdoch. I could feel people looking at us and I knew what they'd be thinking.

“Your mascara's running,” an old guy said, and a bunch of people laughed. I turned my head just to sort of get in on the joke —then flicked it straight back.

Nick and Carly
.

I felt like I'd been jabbed with a needle full of some drug. Everything inside me sped up.

They were standing by the newspaper box. Nick was looking right at me with my wet hair and my second-hand dress and paint all over my face. Carly was holding his arm, her face turned away from me, into his chest. I could practically hear her, whispering to him in that little baby voice,
Oh my god. Betsy looks terrible! She's so skinny. Poor thing
. That's what she'd say. Something like that.
Poor thing
. As if she were nice. As if she had nothing to do with this. As if she cared.

I started to shake. I put my hand on Murdoch's wrist.

“Sorry,” he said. “Am I rubbing too hard?”

“No. I, uh, just feel a little dizzy all of a sudden.”

“Here.” He stopped wiping my face and put his arm around me. “You okay? Want to sit down?”

Murdoch had his arm around me.

Two things went through my head.

Dolores isn't here to see it
.
But Nick and Carly are
.

I was still shaking but I smiled and looked up at Murdoch in a way I knew someone watching could misinterpret.

He looked right at me too for a few seconds, then his neck twitched, he took a breath and said, “Better?”

I leaned into his side. I knew that could be misinterpreted too and I felt slightly sleazy for doing it, but it seemed only fair. I pushed my hair back. “How do I look?” I said. I'd never spoken to Murdoch in that tone of voice before.

“Good,” he said. He took his T-shirt and wiped under my left eye. “Perfect.”

We stood like that until his goosebumps disappeared and the rain petered off. People started streaming out of the terminal. I could feel Nick and Carly moving through the doors, looking at me (us), making sure not to look at me (us).

I waited until I could see Nick's blue cap turn right and disappear down the boardwalk before I said, “So. Shall we go?”

I thought of Dolores and made myself take a step away from Murdoch. That side of my body felt cold and bare. I wanted to go right back, but I said, “Which way's your car?”

He pointed to the left.

We walked there in silence.

I couldn't help thinking I'd just gone someplace I wasn't supposed to go.