The Checkout Girl (24 page)

“Oh, Kathy,'” Connie says, “What's the matter?”

“Shelly's lost,” Kathy tells her.

“Kathy,” her mother says and her voice trails off. “Oh, Kathy,” she says again. “How could you?”

“Mom…” Kathy says. “Please.”

Connie doesn't answer, so there's nothing for Kathy to say. No excuses: I didn't mean it. It wasn't my fault. It only took a minute. No apologies, nothing.

“I'll get Al,” Connie finally says. “We'll be there as soon as we can. If you find her, if she's hiding, wait for me. Don't let anyone touch her. Don't you touch her. Just wait until I'm there.”

Then there's a click. Kathy holds the receiver. Darlyn takes it from her hand and hangs it up.

“Tell people if they find her, not to touch her,” Kathy says.

“Oh, Kathy,” Darlyn says, and tries to hug Kathy, but Kathy moves away. Darlyn leaves to find Donny and spread the word.

In the end, it's Kathy who finds her, in the barn, tucked between several loose bales of bedding straw. No one could have seen her, not only because it's almost dark, but because she's jammed herself so far into the bales she's invisible.

Kathy found her when she went into the barn to have a moment alone before her mother arrived. She'd asked Darlyn to keep an eye out. To call her when she saw Al's car. She needed time to compose herself, to remind herself she was responsible so she wouldn't be tempted to make excuses.

Kathy was leaning against a horse stall, thinking, trying not to cry, when she heard, “Almost-a-ton. Almost-a-ton.” Not really hearing the words, but the rhythm of them, a flash in memory of having heard them before.

“Almost-a-ton.”

Kathy goes to the barn door and tells Darlyn, says to make sure to thank everyone, but to ask them to leave. And to tell Connie where they are.

Then, like that, Connie's beside her. Kathy points to the back of the barn.

“Back there,” she mouths.

Connie's holding a flashlight, motes of dust drifting through the beam. She turns it off and the darkness is entire.

“Honey,” Connie says making her way slowly to the back of the barn. “Shelly, honey.”

Connie keeps walking and talking until her foot hits a bale. She kneels.

“Shelly,” she says again.

There's a rustle, nothing more.

“Shelly.”

“Help me,” Connie calls to Kathy.

Together they lift away lengths of straw, as carefully as if they were glass. Their eyes adjust to the dark, so they can see, but only just. And there she is, lying quietly, face sideways, still scrunched by her parka hood. Connie sits beside her.

“I'm here,” she says. She reaches out her hand, but Shelly moves away.

Then Shelly's standing. “Almost-a-ton,” she says, and she turns from them and walks toward the lighted doorway.

Kathy will drive Connie and Shelly home. Al will take Darlyn and Donny. Shelly walks in front of them to the car and gets in the back, just as she did last time. She shuts the door. When Connie tries to get in back with her, she screams, so Connie gets in front with Kathy.

They don't speak during the drive home. When they arrive, Shelly gets out of the car and walks into the house. They follow her. The house is hot, filled with the smell of sauerkraut and meat.

Once inside, Connie takes command. Al is to turn the oven to low; Donny and Darlyn are to set the table. She tells Shelly she's going to give her a bath. Shelly doesn't protest but goes into the bathroom and undresses while Connie runs the water. Kathy stands in the doorway. Connie turns from the tub and asks her to go out, and please shut the door.

Kathy goes to Connie's bedroom and lies on her mother's bed. She listens as her mother bathes her sister. Listens as Connie makes soothing noises, as she pours water over Shelly, listens to her there-thereing while Shelly hums “almost-a-ton.” She listens to Donny and Darlyn and Al move around the kitchen and dining room, hears the murmur of their voices. She listens as her mother takes Shelly to her room and settles her there.

Then the bedroom door opens and Connie comes in. The mattress beside her compresses and Kathy smells her mother's sugary smell. She feels the whisper of her breath on her neck. Her mother's arm slides out from between them and rests a moment on the length of Kathy's body. Then it pulls her closer and their bodies are spooned together.

Her mother holds her, and she doesn't say a word.

When Kathy wakes, it's light. She can hear Connie talking and Al replying, not the words, but the soothing sounds the words make. She closes her eyes and sleeps again. Next time she wakes, she gets up.

“Where's Shelly?” Kathy asks when she walks into the dining room.

Al carries his coffee to the table and sits. Connie pours two cups from the percolator on the stove and sets them on the counter. Kathy leans against the doorway watching her mother. Connie's hair is wound in toilet paper rolls, her lipstick is on, her mascara is perfect. She's wearing a royal blue fake kimono Al gave her from his lingerie line. It shimmers in the sun from the window.

“She's in bed,” Connie says. “I gave her an extra sedative in the night. She'll sleep until noon at least. But she's fine, Kathy. She's fine.

“Roy and Sally took a doggie bag home but Darlyn and Donny stayed for supper last night. They wanted to wait until you woke up but it got late. They took a taxi home.”

“Mom,” Kathy starts.

“We watched a movie on TV. Then Al went home and I slept on the couch.”

“I feel so …” Kathy is close to tears.

“Don't,” Connie says.

Kathy comes into the room and sits. Connie brings their coffee to the table and sets a cup in front of Kathy.

“Honey,” Connie says, but doesn't say anything more.

Kathy turns her coffee cup handle one way, then the other. She lifts the cup, blows over the surface of the coffee and takes a sip. It's strong and bitter. Connie sips her coffee. Kathy sips hers. The furnace comes on, a metallic pop, then a steady low thrum. Cool air circulates, then warm. Al gets up.

“I'll clean up the rec room,” he tells them. He pulls an envelope out of his shirt pocket and sets it on the table.

“Your mother and I meant to give this to you at the party,” he says.

He goes downstairs. They hear the clink of beer bottles and the vacuum starts up. Kathy moves the envelope with her finger, then slides it back to where Al left it.

“Honey,” Connie says again. “For a long time after Charlie died I was afraid. I was afraid for Shelly. She was so difficult and I wasn't sure I could love her the way she needed to be loved. I wasn't sure I could take care of her. And I was afraid something would happen to me, because if something happened to me, what would become of Shelly?

“I was afraid we'd be poor. That I'd lose the house, that the car would break down and I wouldn't be able to afford another. I worried about everything. I was terrified of life.

“Then I hit middle age and I stopped being afraid. Oh, I know I talk about worry keeping airplanes up in the air, and I still think there's some truth to it. I keep that damned scrapbook (she waves her hand toward the refrigerator) of worry. But really, I don't worry about any of that any more. I don't worry about myself or what will happen to me. I don't worry about Al. I don't even worry about Shelly, not in the long run at least. Not more than I should. I'm not afraid of any of us dying. It will happen when it happens.”

Connie gets up and pours more coffee into her cup, brings the pot over and tops up Kathy's. She sits down and pulls her kimono around her legs. She leans back in her chair.

“The only thing I really worry about is you. You're the most perfect thing in my life. I know I'd go on if something happened to you. I learned I could do that after your father. But when your friend Pete died… I realized if it had been you… I'd be so…so diminished. So entirely full of sorrow.”

Connie stops then. She stands, picks up her mug and takes it to the sink. She faces the window and looks out; she pours her coffee down the drain. Kathy hasn't moved, not since her mother started talking. She's been looking toward her mother, but not looking at her. She tried to, but she couldn't bear it. All that love.

She sits a moment longer, then gets up and goes to the sink. She stands beside Connie, gently butts her mother's head with her own. A paper roller crumples, then pops back into shape. Connie laughs, shifts her body away from Kathy, rinses her mug and sets it in the sink.

“I have to get dressed,” Connie says. “Al and I are going to church. You can stay and look after your sister.”

“Mom,” Kathy starts.

“Shhh,” Connie stops her. She kisses Kathy on the cheek, holds her lips there a moment.

“We'll have leftovers for lunch,” she says. “So you can catch up to us. Otherwise Al and I will do you in with our farts.”

She says the last part over her shoulder, grinning as she walks away.

Kathy watches her walk out of the kitchen, watches her walk through the dining area. Watches her disappear around the corner, a shimmer of blue.

The air is yeasty when Kathy goes outside to pack the Valiant. Weston's is baking and the scent seems to warm the still, cold air. It's dark, but the street lights are bright enough to see what she's doing. Not that she's taking much, a small suitcase with some clothes and three paper bags of candy. One small bag of Turkish delight, another of assorted cream-filled chocolates and one with five fat foil-wrapped marshmallow Santa Clauses left from Christmas.

Kathy stopped to say goodbye to Connie and Shelly last night. As she stood in the front doorway, Shelly wrapped her arms around Kathy's waist and pressed her face so tightly into her diaphragm she could hardly breathe.

“You're the lucky one,” Connie said. “She must think you're going away forever.”

Connie handed Kathy the paper bags.

“Snacks, for the road,” Connie said.

Then she leaned over Shelly's body and hugged both girls together. Shelly squirmed, but didn't complain. Connie kissed Kathy on the lips and pulled away.

“You be good,” she ordered.

Kathy's maps with the routes marked out are on the front seat, highways through Ontario to cross into the States at Buffalo, then through New York State straight into Massachusetts. There's a Boston city map so she won't get lost driving from the YWCA, where she's going to stay, to the Garden, where she'll be watching a home game of the defending champions of the Stanley Cup.

In the envelope Al set on the table the day after Shelly got lost was a ticket for the Bruins game. And there was a card with fifty dollars in it, for gas and a room, the card said, love Mom and Shelly and Al. So Kathy had checked with Larry, and he'd said no problem, take a few days. Chance of a fucking lifetime, he'd added.

Kathy throws her skates into the trunk. She intends to skate on the Garden ice one way or another, because when she gets back, she wants to tell Larry — and her students — she skated on the same ice as the Boston Bruins and Canada's own Bobby Orr. She slams the trunk shut. In the car, the upholstery is cold. Connie's chocolates sugar the air. Behind the rumble of traffic, in the pulse inside her ears, Kathy hears her own heart pounding, a little loud, a little nervous, so much good fortune.

She pulls cold air deep into her lungs and lets it out slowly, her breath condensing along the edges of the windows. When she leans forward to put the key in the ignition, the seat creaks, metal clicks on metal. A few hard pellets of snow ping off the windshield. She turns the key but the engine hesitates, it misses. She gives the gas pedal a fast tap, hoping the engine doesn't flood. It catches with a roar and then there's nothing left to do but to start.

The End

Andy Watt never gave up on me, though I believe I stretched his patience to its limit. As my first reader, he was both kind and truthful, the best help possible.

Susan Brown, without whose reading of — and subsequent enthusiasm for — the first draft of the manuscript, I might have given up, and whose comments were invaluable during the re-drafting the novel: thank you.

Librarians and archivists are the hidden help in the writing process. Between the archivists at both the Yukon Archives & the National Library, I was kept supplied with newspaper microfiche for a year. Jennifer Stephens at the Yukon Public Library, Whitehorse Branch, and Susan Hoffman at the Kitchener Public Library helped with particular questions.

Anne Knittle, Bernadette Bryans, Nancy Zettell-Pope, and Jerry and Loretta Zettell liberally shared their stories, and their home-town knowledge. Patrick, Jim, Jackie and Jerry, and Daniel and John, and the Watts remained fans even when there was nothing to get excited about. Marion Thompson, Sarah Beck, Wendy Smith and Penny Steele have walked with me through all drafts of the novel, and have kept me steady through life's ordinary and extraordinary events. Laura McLauchlan, Bonnie Thompson, Danny Robinson, Jerome Stueart, Jane Isakson, Russell Colman, Ruth Schneider, Brigitta Buehlmann, Duncan and Chrissie MacEachern, and Kathy Zinger: constant. John Roberts and Fenella Nicholson kept me attached to my garden even when I couldn't be in it. During several long Cape Breton winters, Bill Nicholson skated with me in Baddeck most Friday mornings. For helping me to keep
my
heart on the ice: thank you, Bill. The St. Ann's Bay Book Group, intelligent readers all, sustained me. Tunnel Inn and music consultant: David Papazian. One snowy February afternoon, Carol Kennedy and Deanie Cox shared deeply personal and honest memories of young womanhood. Alistair Watt shared his musing on his 1966 Valiant. Gil Levine and Brian Williamson shared their knowledge of unions. Playwright Bev Brett talked to me about dialogue.

Karen Haughian's advice throughout has been sage and kind. There would be no book without you. Thank you.

Unless otherwise noted, all newspaper reports are from the
Kitchener-Waterloo Record
: January 1970 — December 1970.
Bobby Orr: My Game
(Little, Brown and Company, 1974) by Bobby Orr with Mark Mulvoy was an invaluable resource. I read
Searching for Bobby Orr
(Knopf Canada, 2006) by Stephen Brunt after I had finished a draft of my novel, which was then called,
The Bobby Orr Guide to Becoming a Woman
. It proved a wonderful read, and helped me fill out my portrait of Bobby Orr, and to more clearly understand just how complicated a man Bobby remains, and how good a skater and hockey player he was.
Proud Past, Bright Future
(Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1994) by Brian McFarlane showed that despite this book's stance, women have played hockey for as long as hockey has been played. I came late to hockey through
MAMMAH
(Middle-aged Menopausal Mothers Attempt Hockey). All of my teammates inspired me, but special thanks to Heather, Jan, Barbara, and Robin. Although I never did learn how to twirl,
Baton Twirling: The Fundamentals of an Art and a Skill
(Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1964) by Constance Atwater provided useful information. Sections of Tim Ralfe's
Just Watch Me
interview with Pierre Trudeau were taken from
Quebec 70: A Documentary Narrative
, John Saywell, Toronto University Press, 1971.

I am privileged to live in the community of St. Ann's Bay in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Through the writing and rewriting of
The Checkout Girl
, I was encouraged at every step by friends, neighbours and acquaintances. I thank each and every one who said a kind word. I needed them all.

Historical incidents and persons are as accurate as newspaper reports allow, and I beg forgiveness for any errors, or any liberties I may have taken. All other persons and incidents are pure fiction.