Mud Girl (21 page)

Abi jumps up from the bed, carries the pamphlet, the notebook, the dictionary, out the back door, and tosses everything over the railing into the water below. “Go then!” she calls out. “Go some place!” She watches them swirling and poppling away. Does she feel lighter? For a minute she wonders about jumping in after the papers and books – though of course, she knows better.

Sundays can be long.
This is my, my, my beautiful Sunday, when you say, say, say, say that you…

A
bi hears the Dodge pull up at 8:45, and she's out the door, in some comfy old overalls and a
T
-shirt. Amanda –
call me Manda, she'd said at the barbecue
 – grins at her. Abi grins back, and while the newly-hollowed space in her doesn't quite fill, it does feel easier to carry.

Amanda talks about how she started her business. “My mum taught me and Jon how to clean the house. In grade ten, I didn't want to work in a restaurant – I didn't want a boss. It wasn't easy finding my first customer. I had to prove to a few people that a teenager could be responsible and do a good job. It's tough, being young and doing things that are supposed to belong to the adult world.”

“So, how'd you do that?”

“By leaving them with the shiniest house they ever had!” Amanda laughs her big one. “First, though, Jon made me some business cards and flyers and he helped me put up posters around a couple of neighbourhoods. The first call was from someone who knows Mum. She was so happy with my work that she passed my name along to the Georges. Mr. Stewart asked about me, and phoned me. We've only ever talked on the phone and left notes. You know how it works: they tell two friends, and
they
tell two friends, and so on. I've never had any complaints. Now, I charge by the house, instead of by the hour, and I have a bank account for university tuition, so next year I'll take a few courses while I work.”

She sounds so proud, just bustin' with it, thinks Abi.

“Only two houses today, but they're big,” says Amanda. She's right: the first is unlike anything Abi has seen.

“I'm going to get lost,” she whispers. The hallways are wide, ceilings high, and it still feels like a maze of walls and more walls.

“You're whispering, but you have a silly grin on your face!” says Amanda.

“Do I?”

“You do. You don't know that?”

Abi thinks for a minute. “I guess I do.”

Amanda stares at her for a minute. “I have the feeling that you could get through a lot, Abi, with a grin like that, a grin with a mind of its own!”

“Maybe,” says Abi. She'd like to tell Amanda what she's thinking right at this point – that she feels connected with her in a way she's never felt connected with anyone before – but she can't. Just gives Amanda another grin that she's quite aware of and says, “Which way is the bathroom?”

Amanda laughs. “The Syens have five. You'll have to be more specific!”

The morning passes, the five bathrooms are almost clean.

“I lost one of Mrs. Syens's earrings back in that corner.” Abi points to a fancy bit of shelving that the little clump of pearls fell in behind when she was cleaning.

Amanda purses her lips in thought. “Guess we'll have to kludge something together for a rescue.”

“Kludge?”

“You know – put some odds and ends together. A coat hanger and a bit of wrapped-around duct tape, most likely.”

But Abi's stuck on the word. “Let me guess – kludge starts with a ‘K,' right?” Was that just yesterday she threw away the dictionary?

“That's right – a ‘K.'” Amanda's peering behind the shelf.

“I'll find a coat hanger.” Abi trots off, shaking her head.

The kludging works, and Amanda shows Abi a few other
cleaning tricks she's learned. Best, the house is so big they can play two different radio stations full blast, listen to tunes of their choices, and hardly hear each other.

Then it's over and they put their gear together. Amanda empties the vacuum filter into the garbage, and they stop in a park to eat the lunch she's brought along. “I'll supply lunch,” she says. “And how about if you empty the vacuum from now on?”

“Doesn't seem quite fair,” Abi says after a bite of sausage sandwich. She knows why Amanda is offering this. “How about if I take out the garbage too?”

“All right,” Amanda agrees, after a moment. She seems to realize that Abi likes to hold her end of a deal.

At the end of the day, Amanda writes a cheque. “This is just for today. I'll start to write them out every second Friday, okay?”

“Okay,” says Abi, again aware of the exhaustion in her muscles.

Amanda looks at her keenly. “Make sure you drink enough water while we're working. Maybe with some lemon in it. It's hard work, Abi. Go to bed early tonight, okay?”

Abi just nods.

“And thanks,” says Amanda. “I think we're going to be a great team.”

“I think so too,” Abi manages to say.

At home, after Amanda has dropped her off, she lies down on her bed – just for a minute, she thinks – and when she awakes, it's dark, the middle of the night. In the fridge are some milk, an apple, a few slices of bread and some cheese. She leaves enough milk for cereal, and eats everything else. Now it's tough to go back to sleep. She can hear the river without the constant hum of traffic, and her own thoughts seem too loud. Ernestine keeps coming to mind, accompanied by a memory of the anger that Abi had felt toward her.
You can come back now, Ernestine.

The thought of Jude comes too, but she pushes it away.

From the paper bag, she takes the one complete piece of sweater, tucks it under her pillow, keeps her hand there, and at last falls back to sleep.

B
y the time Thursday rolls around – it's a slow roll – Abi's muscles are getting used to the work, and she's able to eat supper after work before she goes to sleep. The cupboards have some food in them, and the fridge its own stock.

She's missed Colm's and Fiona's Wednesday visit, and she's happy for that. She's not happy to see that the chess set is untouched, though. “Dad?” she says, but he doesn't answer. He's hardly spoken since Mary-Ernestine walked through the door that day, and the empty pop bottle has been on the floor beside
his chair for days now, untouched. Abi leaves him a bite of food, as usual, washes his bowl from something-or-other that he's made himself during the day. She finishes her own food, and sits watching her dad, then can't stand it. The summer evenings are getting shorter now, but they're still long when you're alone.

She catches a bus and takes it down River Road, gets off where she needs to, to walk to Horace's house. He's on the front porch as if he's been waiting for her.

“Abi! You've come for tea,” he says.

The train is already circling through the garden. He's added a couple of buildings, she notices, a library, and out over the pond, a house not unlike her own.

“My house,” she says.

He nods. “Do you mind?”

“No,” she says slowly and kneels for a closer look. It is different though. There are bright curtains in the windows, and the whole house is blue. How did he know the back of the house is blue?

As he pours tea, he asks, “Have you seen her?”

Abi knows who he means. “No – have you?” Ernestine must have told him about the blue.

“No.” He sips his tea and the train runs by their feet. “I've phoned and phoned, but she never answers, and she has no voice mail.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“These days, I'm wishing I was at work instead of here with my four weeks vacation to get through.” He shakes his head. “I've sat in front of her house for an entire day, and not seen hide nor hair of her.”

“Nor hairspray,” adds Abi, and he looks at her in surprise.

“Nor hairspray nor bright yellow-and-black,” he says.

So he's noticed the bumblebee thing too. They share a laugh, a sad laugh.

“What's happened?” he says.

“What about the shop where she works? Do you know the name of it?”

“I phoned there twice,” Horace says. “The first time, the person who answered told me that Mary would call back, and she never did. The second time, they told me she wasn't in.”

“How about if I try tomorrow?”

Horace nods. “Okay. I'll give you the number.” He finishes his tea. “What if she's not there?”

Abi looks out at the world he's created –
Ladner Junction
. There's something changed, apart from the two new buildings. “You move the people around,” she realizes.

“Sure,” he says, “you can't always stay in the same place.”

Whoo-whoo…whoo-whoo…

“You don't suppose she's left town, do you?” she asks.

“You don't think she'd do that, do you?” he asks. Neither answers the other.

That's it, until Horace drives Abi home.

W
hen Abi calls the yarn shop in Vancouver –
An Olde Yarn
 – they tell her the same. “She's not in today.”

“When will she be in?”

“We don't know. She didn't say.”

Abi has the feeling they're not telling the truth.

Dad's watching the local events channel again. No, not watching. He has it on. That's all.

Abi can hear from where she eats her supper at the table.

It comes to her: there is one place Ernestine will be, if she's still in town. There is one place.

Jar of Buttons

S
aturday is the first night of the international fireworks competition downtown. If Ernestine is still in town, that's where she'll be.

Abi can imagine Horace shaking his head on the other end of the phone.

“But how, oh how, are we going to find her there – if she's there – in all those people?”

“There are four nights of competition. We'll search a different area each night.”

“It's dark.” Horace doesn't sound despairing; Abi knows he just doesn't want to get his hopes up, only to bring them back down again. Hopes are kites.

“We have to try,” she says. She has a couple of questions for Ernestine.

“I'll pick you up at six,” says Horace. “That'll give us almost four hours of daylight before the fireworks start.”

“Sounds good,” says Abi. The hours stretch ahead. She wishes that Amanda worked Saturdays too. But by Saturday, most people want to finish their work and enjoy their clean house. She thinks of the thirteen houses they've cleaned. Right now, half past eight on a Saturday, everyone's eating breakfast, preparing to go to the beach, asking a dad to set up the badminton net, still in bed, reading a book with a mum popping in, asking “What would you like for breakfast?” What about that Mr. S, all on his own? What would he be up to? Not picking up his socks, that's for sure. Maybe he takes an hour to make breakfast, something with cheeses she doesn't know the names of, and he knows how to cut fruit to make it look like something she's never seen. Then he reads three newspapers from three different cities, leaves his dishes in a heap, hoping someone else will do them, and goes for a long bike ride, down to Mt. Baker with its summer snow peak…okay, she's being silly. Funny thing to think about: what other people do on Saturday morning.

An engine comes to a sudden stop outside, dust rises. Before Abi can get up from her chair, there's a frantic scramble outside the door, a hard knocking, and the door opens.

Jude and Dyl.

Jude's face is pleading. “Abi, I've gotta ask you one more time. Please. I've gotta leave Dyl with you. My boss needs me to work today.”

“What about your mum?”

“She's sick.” He pauses. “Real sick.”

Abi looks at Dyl. His little face is scared. As scared as his grandma is sick, Abi suspects.

She stands straight and looks at Jude, holds his eyes. “What time are you finished work?”

“My boss said I'd be able to leave at 4:30.”

“Okay,” says Abi, “I'm not working today, so I'll take care of Dyl. Because I like him,” she adds, “and because your mum is sick. But be back on time, because I'm going out.”

He looks contrite.

“4:30,” he says.

This time, Dyl seems to accept that his dad doesn't hug him goodbye. He stands in the middle of the kitchen, his arms hanging at his sides, and says nothing. Abi stands by the door, looking at Dyl, wishing he'd do something, but knowing that if he did, if he ran to the door, screamed, called after his dad, burst into tears – if he
fought
 – it would break her heart.

She slams the door shut after Jude and then slows, picks up Dyl gently. “
We
,” she says, looking into his face, “are going to have
fun
today.”

“Boats?” he asks, filled with hope.