Mazie Baby (14 page)

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 house 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
his 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?”