Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen (7 page)

Ah yes. Better. Exquisite. I love the opening music to this opera. The norns — the three fates — dark figures encamped on the walküre's rock, shrouded in fog, weaving into a rope the strands of the story past, the story to come.

Such music — the soft, undulating murmur of the mists of dawn, or is it the fire in the distance beginning to flicker?

And now, yes, they begin to sing. The three of them mourning Wotan's slaughter of the sacred ash tree.

I wake up before the Triple S morning staff begin their hustle bustle. The earphones have fallen off and the CD has, I'm sure, finished playing. For once the Triple S ranch is close to being completely quiet.

I think about the norns, the three fates, spinning the deeds of the world and the overworld of gods.

Somewhere in that spinning is an answer. We weave our own stories...but to find the right threads. A bit of light creeps beneath the Venetian blind. A simple, dim shaft of light tracing a line along the wall opposite.

And then the idea begins to form. Simple as a straight line.

Mr. Muss-something, Tamara's social worker, will be told. And the Shadbolts, too. A summer job for Tamara. Paid companion to an old woman who needs help at home for a couple of weeks, getting the house ready for sale — or some such story.

Yes. Morning light is becoming stronger. Insinuating its way into the room. The problem shifts to how to convince the Triple S that it's okay for me to be gone for two weeks. They don't need to know that the only one with me will be a skinny hard-nosed grade-nine kid. A practical nurse will be in attendance, of course, during my home stay, I'll tell them.

Timing. It will all depend on timing. Byron off to the Philippines, and then letters. A letter to the Triple S. A letter to the Shadbolts. A letter for Mr. Muss-whatsit.

“You'll need to type the letters,” the Wrinkle Queen tells me. “Letter perfect. I'm presuming you know how to type.”

She looks at me with her little witch eyes. It's raining buckets out so we're in her room. She's on her bed in a shiny quilted bathrobe. Me on a chair by the bed.

On the way in, I ran into Mrs. Golinowski, who practically hugged me when I told her I'd come to see Miss Barclay all on my own “just because she's so neat!”

“I can type,” I say. “Just not very fast.”

“They'll need to sound authentic. I'll dictate the drafts to you. Tell me everything I need to know about your foster family. And your social worker. Have you got a notebook?”

She watches me rummage through my backpack. Most of the stuff I've told her before but I guess when
you're a hundred or so, stuff doesn't stick like it used to.

I open my binder and hold my pencil like I'm a secretary in a
TV
show. The Wrinkle Queen looks at me sharply.

“Dear Director — no, dear Mrs. Golly-whatsit...”

“Golinowski.”

“Yes, Golinowski...Sierra Sunset Seniors' Lodge...” She pauses to see if I'm keeping up. “I have arranged for my aunt, Jean Barclay, to spend two or three weeks at her home, assisting with preparations for the sale of her house. A practical nurse has been engaged for the required time. If you would be so kind as to arrange for a taxi to take her on the morning of...check the calendar, Tamara. What's the Thursday before we go?”

“August 2nd.”

“The morning of Thursday, August 2nd, the nurse will be there to meet her. I will be returning from a business trip a day or two later...”

She closes her eyes when she finishes rattling off that one. Her voice, which was strong a few minutes ago, shifts into a crackly whisper.

“Dear Mr. and Mrs. — what was it? — Shadbolt?...” She rattles off another letter, all the time watching me as if she doesn't believe I can write English. But she runs out of steam about half way through.

“Requires the services of a companion...” I repeat the last words. She's suddenly really tired. Her eyes close.

“Someone to assist her getting ready for bed,” I suggest. “Etcetera.”

The eyes snap open.

“Yes,” she says. “Etcetera. New paragraph. We are pleased to pay Tamara a stipend of five hundred dollars per week.”

“Sti-what?” She frowns at me. I guess it's too much to ask that she use normal language instead of sounding like she's swallowed a dictionary. She spells out the word impatiently.

“We expect Tamara's services will not be required for longer than two weeks...”

“Do you want to do the last letter?” I ask her when we've finished that one. “The one to Mr. Mussbacher? We could do it another day.”

“No. Let's do it and get them all done. I'll need to look at the typed letters when you get them finished anyway. Like I say, they need to be letter perfect.”

Imagine having the Wrinkle Queen for a teacher. Must have been a barrel of fun.

“Fire away,” I say.

She looks at me oddly and gives her head a little shake. The rooms at the lodge always have their heat
jacked up so it's like you're in a jungle. The Wrinkle Queen is looking totally wilted.

“Dear Mr. Muss...”

“Mussbacher.”

“Mussbacher...”

“I think I can figure it out,” I say. “I'll just take some parts from the other letters.”

When she nods her head, I stow my binder in my backpack and check the calendar again. I have three exams next week but there's one study day.

“I can drop by on Thursday and you can see how the letters turned out.”

Maybe she's gone to sleep. I'm ready to tiptoe out when she rears her head and says, “How's the driving coming?”

“I've had four lessons. Only killed one garbage can so far.”

But she's got her eyes closed and she's muttering away again as I head out into the hall.

Actually, Herb's not a bad teacher. Very patient. Obviously not from the same school that trained the Wrinkle Queen.

We have a lesson tonight. Herb laughs at how fast I clear away the supper dishes. I've made it part of my proactive thing, and Shirl acts like she's died and gone to heaven when she sits down and has another cup of
tea and watches one of the Oprah shows she's taped because it always comes on while she's getting home from the daycare.

The one tonight is on makeovers, and I can't help bobbing back and forth between the kitchen and the living room to see how Oprah's specialists change a dowdy-looking middle-aged lady with gray hair down to her waist and another woman who's overweight and goes around in sweats all the time. Quite amazing, and it wouldn't hurt for Shirl to take a few notes.

“Oh, my,” she sighs when they come out at the end of the program. “You can hardly believe it's the same people.”

“So, Tam —” Herb's given the gremlins their baths and got them into pajamas. “Ready for the garbage can derby?” He winks at me.

Tonight we're practicing parallel parking. Herb takes the wheel first. He must remember all the stuff he used to say when he was a part-time driving instructor.

“Pull up beside the vehicle just ahead — and you want to be pretty close. Not so close you're gonna scrape the door handle, but almost, and when you've got the nose of the car just about to where the parked car's windshield is, then...”

He shows me on three vehicles. And then it's my turn.

“Good. Right turn arrow on. Now put it in reverse and turn the steering wheel...”

This is scary. It would be so easy to connect with the other car. And if you do, does that mean they take away your learner's permit?

“Don't tense up,” Herb is saying. “Just take it slow and easy. That's it...now straighten the wheels out.”

He makes me do two more. When I finish the last one, I lean my head against the steering wheel.

Why does everything have to be so hard?

I feel Herb's hand squeeze my shoulder.

“You did good,” he says. “Just fine.”

Now I am crying. Don't be nice to me, Herb. In a few weeks I'm going to be papering your mailbox with letter-perfect lies and running away to the edge of the world with the Wicked Witch of the West.

Byron and I are sitting together in the Triple S cafeteria. He's speechless. He holds the vacation package in his hand and keeps looking at it, ignoring the candle that the cafeteria chef has lit on the pink-frosted cupcake.

“Happy Birthday!” I say, raising my glass of cranberry juice.

“But it's not for a month yet.”

“I want you to be on the beach at Puerto Galera on your real birthday.” I try to look him in the eye but, like his father, he can't keep his gaze steady for longer than one and a half nanoseconds.

“And there's more,” I say. “When you come back, we'll put the house up for sale. And the car, too.”

“Auntie!”

“Now, now.” I pat his hand. “I know I'm not going to be able to live there again. And Lord knows I'll never
drive again. You can be my agent in both deals. A good commission.” I raise my glass again. “And, of course, it will all —”

“Thank you.” He captures my hand with one of his own restless ones and, for once, he does lock eyes with me. He looks like my brother Raymond the Christmas morning he unwrapped a ham radio set our parents had bought him.

Yes, Byron, enjoy your little stretch of paradise. I plan to find my own. The same ocean, but half a world away with the lights of Seattle like the flashing gold of the Rhine. And, inside the opera house, the music swelling like a great wave, beautiful beyond bearing. No wonder Ludwig, the young king of Bavaria, was driven mad by it.

“Are you okay, Auntie?” He has blown out the candle and inhaled the cupcake.

“Oh, yes.” I laugh.

As he leaves, Byron keeps looking back over his shoulder, as if he can't believe the fortune the last hour has brought him. He offered to take me back up to my room but I told him I'd be fine and I wanted, after all, another cup of coffee.

“Aren't you afraid it'll keep you awake?” he fretted.

“Byron, my dear...” I patted his hand again. “You don't think they actually have caffeine in anything they brew here!”

When he's gone, I work the walker out to the patio. The June evening is warm and no mosquitoes yet. It will be possible to smoke in absolute peace. I wonder what she's doing, the Tamara girl. Scrapping with her foster family? No — probably not. Not with the prospect of the trip to Vancouver and her modeling course hanging in the balance.

Eddie, the caretaker, spots me from a hall window and comes out to join me. He lights up a cigarette of his own.

“I have it for you,” he says in a low, conspiratorial voice. “A bottle of brandy. A carton of cigarillos. How can you smoke those...?” He shakes his head and laughs sadly. “They should have killed you years ago.”

“Perhaps they contain the elixir of life. The magic smoke of an immortal dragon.”

“You sure that's all you been smoking?” Eddie makes a little twirling gesture by his ear.

“You're right, Eddie,” I chuckle. “I am a bit crazy tonight. And I'm glad you've brought a carton. I'm going on a little trip and I like to be well supplied.”

“A trip!” He looks at me with surprise. “Hey, look at you! A tour!”

“Yes, Eddie, a tour.” I finish my smoke and he helps me up to my room, coming back in a couple of minutes with a small shopping bag.

“Usual spot?” I nod and give him his money after he stows the bag's contents in the back of the bureau drawer, third one down. Tonight a more generous tip than usual.

“Hey!” he smiles. “You have a wonderful trip. Mexico? Hawaii?”

“I'm still deciding,” I say. “Pour us both a little drink of brandy. I feel like celebrating tonight.”

Eddie retrieves the bottle from the drawer and pours shots into two plastic glasses.

“Bon voyage!” he says.

When I take the Wrinkle Queen printed-out copies of the letters, she eyeballs them and makes a few corrections.

“I used spell check,” I tell her.

“No good with apostrophes or homophones,” she says. “I'd think by the time you're in grade nine you'd know the difference between p-a-s-s-e-d and p-a-s-t. If you're going to be a model and move in the higher circles of society, you're going to have to learn to use language correctly.”

“Maybe I'll just keep my mouth shut,” I tell her.

“It's probably not a bad idea.” She gives me one of her death stares. “Fix the mistakes, run the letters off again, and I'll sign Byron's name and they'll be ready to pop into the mail. Look in that top drawer, will you?” She gestures to her bureau.

I pull out a letter. It's got an American stamp on it.

“From Ricardo. He's got tickets and he's put them aside for us.” She smiles and pats the letter. “You realize they're worth a small fortune, and we were lucky to get them at this late date. Bless Ricardo's heart.”

“Yeah. Wow.”

She looks suddenly mad and then sighs and leans back against her pillows.

“Maybe just a bit more enthusiasm,” she says. She's sounding crankier by the minute, and she keeps rubbing the knee that had surgery. I guess when you're pushing a zillion, just about everything starts to hurt.

“I think I need to get up and walk.” She struggles to sit up. She's wearing a pink dress today and probably hasn't noticed the coffee stains down its front. She tries to tell me how to support her as she gets off the bed, but I guess I don't do it right and she's moaning by the time I get her into a chair and set up her walker.

“You have the gentle touch of a prison warden,” she mutters, waving a bony hand at her purse on the bureau. She's not going anywhere without her brandy and smokes.

It's going to be a trip to remember. Two weeks with a miserable old nag who's losing her marbles.

I smile at her.

It's raining today but we find a picnic table beneath
a roof overhang on the patio. Of course she has one of her skinny cigars out and is puffing away as soon as her slippers hit the patio blocks.