The Hour of Bad Decisions (25 page)

And that, Ian knew, was at the heart of why he was at the Seashell – at least, that had been the idea. He knew it might take his family a week or more to come and check on him – it was summer, and no matter how wonderful a companion Tip was, Ian had read too many newspaper stories about the nasty things pets did to their former owners. And he knew that part of him might lie there in the heat, ruining everything that he had ever done. At least at the Seashell, he knew someone would find him within a day or so.

He just hadn't expected that it would have to be Rosie.

She was working double shifts now, trying to make more money. He had thought of paying her a day's wages, and telling her to take her little boy to the beach. She had told him about herself, about her son,
John, while making the bed and pulling the bedspread square. A little boy, brown hair, and blue eyes, a little too close to his father's looks for Rosie's liking.

“I guess I thought a youngster would make things better, make us a family, like,” Rosie said. “Guess I was wrong.”

“There are worse mistakes to make,” Ian said. “At least you've got John.”

Rosie's eyes agreed: she was using her chin to help fold fresh towels.

With Rosie working seven days a week, the four-year-old spent most days with his grandmother. Every day, Ian heard a little bit more: about how Rosie was just a few courses short of a college degree; about a house she had looked at renting; about how there was always something falling off her car.

“Wiper blades flew right off in the rain. First the passenger side, then mine.” Rosie laughed. “Took right off, straight up, like they had wings. Driving down the highway at twenty 'cause I couldn't see anything.” And as soon as she got new wipers, the wiper motor packed it in. Ian was amazed that she could still seem so cheerful.

“Find a new daycare?” Ian asked.

“Yup. Be easier if his father would just pay his share,” she said. He could hear her lining up the toiletries, moving his shaving kit around on the counter. Then a pause.

“Lotta medicines in here, Mr. K,” Rosie called from the bathroom.

Ian was flicking through channels on the television
he imagined her looking at the big brown bottle, the one where the level of the pills never changed, wondering why.

“Yeah, well, I'm old. You'll be old one day too, Rosie.”

“I'm hoping I will be,” Rosie said. “See ya tomorrow.”

She closed the door to the room, and he heard the cart make its short trip to the next room, the wheels clattering on the rough pavement. The family from next door was gone – as usual, it had been just one night that they'd probably all soon forget, and it was the full clean, everything off the beds, the bathroom stripped right down to the towel racks. Folding the hide-a-bed back into the couch, all re-made and ready for the next family.

Ian had heard that there had been a fuss in the States about hotels saving money by not properly cleaning the rooms between guests. There was even a company marketing a sort of sleeping bag of sheets that you could slide into so you never even touched the hotel linen. He'd seen that on cnn and had just shaken his head – hotel linens were one of the best parts of a journey.

Rosie said there was never any problem changing a room over – that it was easier than cleaning one up where someone was staying an extra night.

“You just ball up all the sheets and try not to think about what might be on 'em. Better not to look sometimes,” she said. “Towels too. Then you just start fresh and brand new.”

Fresh and brand new – he had liked the sound of that. Tried it on the next morning, and walked a different way down the highway, strolling down a side road past big, new, expensive houses that got smaller as the road narrowed. Finally, just before the road ended, he came to a small house with a gabled roof, laundry hanging limp on the line. The yard was surrounded by a low fence and peonies stood all along the foundation on the sunny side of the house, the big balls of the buds hanging down slightly. It was the kind of house that he could imagine himself living in, or that might even suit Rosie and John. Anything's possible, he thought suddenly, why not? Why not all of them together? It wasn't impossible. Pierre Trudeau had conceived a daughter when he was seventy-two, for God's sake. Whoa, Ian thought just as quickly. You're way ahead of yourself here. Like Don Quixote, he thought. Like some lascivious old Don Quixote, riding to the rescue of a damsel who didn't really need rescuing, just an honest-to-God streak of good luck.

Walking back, Ian realized something else; it was the first time in months he had actually thought about some kind of future – the first time he had actually considered even having one. Too long in an empty house. His boys with their own families, his wife dead for ten years now, and Ian realized that he had always expected the little house to fill right back up all by itself. That he had been waiting for years for some different notion of family to appear and take up permanent residence.

Back in the motel unit, he sat on the end of his bed, thought for a moment about how the nape of Rosie's neck might feel. Then he shook himself, thinking this is stupid – the girl doesn't even call me by my first name.

He turned on the television, flung down the remote control.

And stopped.

A newsreader was talking about a missing man, and up in the corner of the television was a picture of himself – it was an old picture, from a family reunion highlighted by the spectacular food poisoning that had hit everyone who had eaten the potato salad. It was a picture that made Ian feel that he looked vaguely like an owl.

Then, the picture was bigger, filling the entire screen.

There was a knock on the door.

“Housekeeping,” Rosie called, the master key scraping in the lock as she came in.

Ian scrambled for the unfamiliar remote control, but succeeding only in turning up the volume.

Rosie stood in the narrow hall, staring at the television, then staring at Ian, as a police telephone number unspooled across the bottom of the screen. The announcer's voice again, saying that the police wanted to hear from anyone who might have seen Ian Kinley, that the police felt there was a reason for concern.

“Well,” she said, before going quiet for a moment.

Then, she said, “Well. Nobody needs to know that. We don't have to say anything, and they like you at Mae's, too. And maybe we can just get your beer delivered to the front desk.”

Later, at the end of her shift, Rosie came back, without the cart but still dressed in her uniform.

She sat on the end of Ian's bed.

“I can't help it, this isn't right,” she said. “I can't help thinking about your family, out there wondering where you are.”

Ian tried to explain that he didn't really think it was like that, and the last thing he expected would be that they would be losing any sleep about him being alive somewhere. Told her about the note, and that, if they knew he was missing, they had to have found the two short pages of lined paper where he had outlined all his reasons. They were calling him missing on television, but truthfully, they had to be expecting that he was dead.

“They shouldn't be worried about me,” Ian said. “They're just looking for the body, really.”

“That's horrible too,” Rosie said. “If you left a note for me, I'd want to know what happened to you. And I'm putting those pills down the toilet.”

Ian rested his chin in his hands – this is all so much more complicated than it was supposed to be, he thought. It was a simple plan with no entanglements, and now it's all knots and no rope.

“A few more days, Rosie, that's all I want,” Ian said finally. “Just a few more. Then you can call them.”

Rosie wasn't convinced. “We'll see.”

The next afternoon, Ian sat in the long recliner next to the pool, the sun shining on his white, knobby legs. Bud was away from the desk again, tired of waiting for guests who didn't arrive. He was
scooping up the stray grass that had blown across the surface of the water when he mowed the lawn, along with picking out the occasional pool-bound ant struggling feebly.

Ian smiled. Bud shrugged, scooping another load of grass and bug bits from the blue water of the pool.

They'd figure it out eventually, figure out that he wasn't dead after all, and come and get him. They'd figure it out or else they'd just cancel his credit card, thinking someone had stolen it.

Until then, though, it was the simple wonder of clean sheets and restaurant food. And family. Bud had left the pool deck, and was unrolling a long hose, setting up a sprinkler to water the grass. Ian could hear the clattering wheels of Rosie's cart moving away down the pavement in front of the units. He imagined her legs, her uniform, the shampoo bottles rattling together on the cart. The look of deep concern that sometimes crossed her face like changing weather.

Nothing better than family, he thought. Nothing better at all.

Then he had another thought: some clam chowder perhaps, and later, I might go for a swim.

First of all, I know l'll have forgotten to mention many people who made this book possible, and who have my gratitude even if they aren't named individually. There are also several who deserve special recognition

In St. John's, my colleague and friend Pam Frampton read and edited many of the original drafts of these stories. They have been thoroughly edited by Leslie Vryenhoek, whose care, counsel and sheer hard work has made each and every one of these stories much, much better.

This collection could not have been completed without the good-natured and thorough support of my editor at Coteau, Edna Alford, who read the stories before they were even accepted for publication, and told me straight out to start thinking about how I would want a book cover to look. Her belief in this book has been nothing less than awe-inspiring. Joanne Gerber, who accepted the first story I published at
Grain
, has been integral to bringing this work to the light of day.

This collection of stories would not have been possible without the time and dedication of the variety of people who have worked with me under the auspices of the Banff Centre's writing programs: David Bergen, Moira Farr, Ian Pearson and Rosemary Sullivan are just four of the people who deserve credit there. They, like Joanne and Edna, have always viewed me as a professional, a kind of support that is an essential recognition for any writer.

Christopher and Mary Pratt, and Barbara Pratt, showed me that art is both constant dedication and hard work.

I can't help but mention the unfailing enthusiasm of my sons Philip and Peter, and the cautious but well-meaning trust of my parents, Peter and Eleanor Wangersky.

As well, this collection could not have been completed without the support of Miller Ayre and the editorial staff at the
St. John's Telegram,
who both supported me and picked up the slack while I was away working on this and other writing projects.

Some versions of the stories have appeared before: “Hot Tub” was published in
Prairie Fire
, and both “Mapping” and “The Latitude of Walls” appeared in
Grain
.

R
USSELL
W
ANGERSKY
has received several National Newspaper Awards, won
Prism International's
Creative Non-Fiction competition two years running, won
Prairie Fire's
Creative Non-Fiction competition once, and has been a finalist for many other editorial and writing awards. His short fiction has been published in
Prairie Fire
and
Grain
.
The Hour of Bad Decisions
is his first book publication.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Russell Wangersky has lived in Canada since age 3, most of that time in the Maritimes. He currently works as the editor-in-chief of the
St. John's Telegram.