The Gum Thief (14 page)

Bethany told me about something you wrote, about how animals are the voices of the dead come to speak to us. I don't know if they're here to console us or to warn us and scare the crap out of us. I like animals. They're better than people. Even when they're mean they're pure, whereas people, when they're mean, are simply lost.

Did you know that Bethany's stepbrother hanged himself? Oh, that was awful. Devon. He was a lost soul. Bethany found his body. He did it with the twenty-five-foot orange extension cord from the leaf blower, strung on the chandelier in the front hallway. She looked at him for a half-hour before she phoned anybody.

Chandelier: that sounds so swanky, but it wasn't. That was when I was married to Kenny and we were living in this
Brady Bunch
house in an okay suburb. I woke up every morning with my stomach clenching. Why? Because I felt like a useless member of society and I could feel the ghosts of the people who built the
Brady Bunch
suburb surrounding me. I knew they were better people than I'd ever be: industrious, optimistic and dutiful-and I could feel them judging me. I could never live up to the expectations of people who built such cheerful, well-Laid-out 3BDRs with dormer windows, rhododendrons and garages lined with pegboard where the tools could be alphabetically arranged, and where orange extension cords always had a special cord-only spot above the pesticide cupboard. I couldn't enter the garage because of that goddam pegboard wall, and because I was spooked I'd meet the ghost of the guy who installed it. The ghost would see me, and he'd know that Kenny beat me with full plastic bottles of fabric softener, that Kenny hectored and teased his son, who hanged himself because of it, and that Kenny treated Bethany as if she didn't exist-literally, like that game you play with kids where you pretend you're unable to see them, except that Kenny did this all the time. I think this is why Bethany wears all that Goth makeup and pretends not to care-it's a testament to my lack of care back then.

God,
Kenny-he
feels like forever ago. Not even a ghost. Listen to me: ghosts, ghosts and ghosts. I often wonder if I'm genuinely haunted.

Bethany's first friend, Becky, died of cancer. I remember that, but if I'm honest, I was more wrapped up in taking Bethany's father to the cleaners after he left us. I can't even put a face on Becky, though she was doubtless cute as a button.

I got zippo in the divorce because Reid (that was his name) was
a shitty-businessman
broke-oh, there was some furniture, and the minivan was paid for, but that was it.

A year later, both of Bethany's grandfathers died within five days of each other. What are the chances of that? My father hit an oncoming semi-trailer loaded with raw telephone poles on the 99. Grandpa Mike, Reid's father, had a kidney stone so big and sharp it sliced his kidney from within. The slice got infected with some drug resistant bug, and within thirty-six hours it was curtains. Ever done two funerals in one week? Not fun. Especially if you're not wanted at one of them, and especially if all the family members involved with the other funeral are unstabilized psychos off their meds.

About a year after the funerals I married Catastrophe Number Two, Eamon, a handsome devil, but a devil. His daughter was a sweet thing named Julie, and her nineteenth birthday was the same day as our wedding, I remember that. A few months later her life partner, Jed, clobbered her and then threw her out a window. Her shinbone punctured her lung. He's eligible for parole in 2028.

That Thanksgiving my mother died of emphysema. We knew Mom's death was coming. Bethany, I might add, pretty much lived in the hospital for a month, taking care of Mom. She is a good kid. I don't deserve her. That is my mantra:
I don't deserve her.

If
I remember correctly, next Mr. Van Buren, Bethany's band teacher, got killed-another car crash on the 99, driving up to Whistler. They should throw that highway into the trash and build a new one. It's cursed.

Oh, hell, then Kurt Cobain blew out his brains, and then Ginger and Snowbelle-our pair of twin Persians got diabetes and we couldn't afford the treatment and that was that. Bethany was sixteen or so when two of her pals smoked dope laced with angel dust. Cops found their bodies in the duck lagoon at Ambleside.

By then I'd divorced Eamon and married Kenny, and a year after that is when Devon hanged himself from the chandelier with an electrical cord.

Shit.

I'm going to pour myself a drink.

My sister Paulette, was next, and she is, I promise, the last death I'm going to tell you about. I hated that woman, but boy, I loved her too. Her primary means of expressing emotion was sponging stencilled Mother Gooses onto the dado of your guest bedroom. Or showing up at barbecues with potpourri gift baskets shaped like frogs wearing RayBans. She had no sense of humour; none!!!

But then at the dinner table one night (Paulette cooked, even when she came over to my house), Kenny made a joke about Muppets in a leather bar and Paulette laughed, and the two of them hit it off, and I was so jealous I thought my eyeballs would pop like popcorn. Paulette had married some wimpy dude named Miles back when she was twenty-two, divorced after three months and never remarried. I think she was a dyke, but what's done is done.

Even after Kenny and I divorced, he remained the best of pals with Paulette. I bumped into them once, coming out of a Meg Ryan movie at the Esplanade Six theatre. Almost in stereo, they said, "I don't buy that Meg/perkiness thing anymore," and off they went, riffing away while I shot invisible Drano-tipped pitchforks at their backs from my forehead.

During Paulette's breast cancer, I was a wreck, but so was Kenny.
It
was almost like a sitcom, the way the two of us tried to "out-care" each other on Paulette's behalf, while at the same time avoiding each other. We were both seeking out the usual stuff: vitamin therapies, inspirational paperbacks, online breaking news on experimental treatments, wacky get-well cards and lymph masseuses-all of this while Bethany did the meat and mashed potatoes stuff like picking things up and delivering Paulette to the chemo sessions. Yet again, I was drunk with self-centredness and Bethany paid the price.

In the end, we did the usual nothing-ventured-nothing-gained stuff: Mexico, herbalists in Manitoba, a child in South Carolina who would breathe a miracle onto your loved one's photo for a twenty-dollar donation. But the cancer was one of those forest-fire varieties.

Roger, I am not a monster, but I
am
tired and I am now officially drunk.

If
Bethany helps you in writing your novel, then that's a wonderful thing. But if you hurt her in any way, I will kill you.

DeeDee (DD)

Glove Pond:
Gloria

Brittany followed Steve into the kitchen, leaving Kyle Falconcrest to sit on the sofa beside Gloria, who seized this opportunity to bombard the young author with question after question after question about his writing habits, his characters, his personal life and his opinions about her opinions. He was obviously riveted, and he chose to sit mostly silent, letting Gloria do the driving. All too soon, Brittany came back into the room, putting an end
to
their glorious engagement.

"How's dinner coming?" Gloria asked.

"It was hard to tell," Brittany said. "I'm not much of a cook. I work, so Kyle and I mostly eat deli food. Or order in-when we're not out at parties and galas and dinners." She sighed.

Young Brittany looked unhappy. "Brittany, you appear troubled-"

"It's nothing."

"No," said Gloria. "Nothing is always something." She felt like Noel Coward for having uttered such a witticism-or Edward Albee, or the Bard. She stared up at her book collection.
I love calling Shakespeare "the Bard.
"
It
makes me feel like I have a personal relationship with him,
one that's far superior to other peoples
personal
relationships with him
.
She looked at
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,
a 259-volume set bound in unborn pigskin.
I remember the day I bought those-Steve and I on our honeymoon in the swan-filled, ambiance-rich town of-Stratford-upon-Avon in England. Everywhere I looked-culture! Culture! Culture! And one of these days, pending a break in my busy acting schedule, I'm going to read one of those books.

Oh, right.
She'd been asking if Brittany was feeling troubled about something.

"I think it's stress," the young woman confessed.

"I thought you seemed blue," said Gloria, noticing that Kyle took this chance to pour himself a Scotch and excuse himself to look more closely at the bookcases.

"Come on, Brittany, tell me everything."

"It's just that ... I've been performing so many surgeries lately, and with Kyle's schedule, too, it's just so hard to keep on top of things."

"Surgery? A woman performing surgery?"

"Yes, I'm a surgeon."

"Really! I'd never have guessed-a surgeon-we gals sure are coming a long way these days. Are you a specialist? "

"I mostly do brain surgery-elective brain surgery. But I'm starting to move into oncological surgery-the removal of cancerous growths."

"I think I have a remedy for your stress."

"A remedy? Really?"

"Yes. Come with me."

Gloria motioned for Brittany to come with her up the stairs. Kyle looked up, but Gloria waved him off.

"No, no, young man, gals only. You stay down here and have noble ideas and enjoy our large and diverse book collection."

"Right. Will do." Kyle gulped a finger-and-a-half of Scotch while Gloria led Brittany up the stairs and into her boudoir. The smothering sensation of scents and dry powder on her face and in her nose made Brittany cough.

"You poor thing," said Gloria. "Have a seat."

Gloria pulled up a guest tuffet beside her chair, a chunky silk bonbon. "Let's put some makeup on you right now, young lady. Makeup is the answer to your problems."

"Makeup? I never wear makeup."

"Well, from now on you will. Your unmodified eyes remind me of newly born pink mice, and, my dear, I think you have approximately one-third of a pimple near the corner of your nose."

"That's Helen."

"You name your pimples?"

"This one I do. Helen is this pimple that migrates around my face but never quite leaves." "My dear, Helen must die." "I don't understand makeup, Gloria-why wear it at all? Isn't it dishonest?"

"My dear, the reason we wear makeup is to prevent the world from seeing what we're like underneath." "What's wrong with that?" "What's wrong with
that?"
Gloria was in the midst

of swishing about a small sand dune of face powder in a cerise lacquered box. "My dear, if you allow your feelings to be exposed, people will hurt you with them.

They will use your feelings against you. Something once private and sacred to you will be transformed into a weapon. Something precious will be damaged. You will experience pain."

Brittany looked sombre. "Now, may I put some powder on your forehead?" Gloria asked. "Yes."

Roger

Not the best day.

This morning I had one of those from-hell wake-ups where all you can think of is fear and loss and the people you've hurt and all the damage you've done. You put your hand out from under the sheets and the air is cold. It's like not wanting to be born. And then, finally, your head can't stand lying there thinking anymore, so you jump up and run to the bathroom and put your head under the shower's jet, hoping it will fuzz out the feelings, but instead there's only a tiny amount of diversion.