When the Saints (28 page)

“The screen’s jammed and I’m about to bash it through the wall.”

“Well, don’t do that, hon, or you’re going to have two problems—three when your wife comes home. Now, I can help you un-jam that fucker, but first I’m going to need the serial number, so do me a favour. Put the beer down and go look at the sticker on the back of the grey rectangle majigy.”

“I don’t drink beer. It’s Scotch.”

“Really? Now I’m impressed. Here I took you for a simple beer man. What’s your name?”

“Larry.”

“You’re kidding me? I got a brother named Larry.”

“No you don’t,” West says.

“I do for the rest of this call. See, now Larry isn’t going to fight with me. We’re practically blood.”

West grins. “Yeah, all right. I can see you being real good at this. Just don’t cuss in the interview and you’ll be vacationing in a Swiss chalet in no time.”

“No, it’s a gift certificate to the Swiss Chalet
restaurant
.”

“What? Solace River don’t even got one of them.”

“I know. We’d have to drive all the way to New Minas.”

“That ain’t even worth the gas money.”

“Then we’ll sell it.”

“Hold on, now. I heard their chicken’s pretty tasty.”

“Well, don’t count your chickens yet. I have to get the interview first.”

Jewell types me up a resumé and pays the motel clerk to fax it to the Clien-Tel head office. She doctors all my previous experience to make it look legit and adds a waitressing job at a restaurant that doesn’t exist. She gives her motel room phone number as the reference number for my fake former manager, Wendy. Every time the phone rings, she chirps, “Sunnyside Café, Wendy speaking,” just in case it’s someone from Clien-Tel. Whenever Jackie calls to check in from the construction site, he asks Wendy what colour panties she’s wearing.

The woman finally does phone and Jewell tells her I was the best waitress they ever had, that I never broke a glass or stole nothing, and that I could shoot the breeze with everyone from welfare drunks to lawyers. It must have done the trick, because later that night I get an automated phone call asking me to press one if my name is Tabatha Saint. I do and a robot voice gives me an interview time slot.

I feel less nervous this time, until I put on the dress and the
little matching jacket. I’m a wreck walking in and after the interview’s over I go straight to the tavern for a drink. The door is held open with a boulder. West hears my heels on the floor and his head darts out from the back. His smile sinks when he sees the look on my face.

“Beer?”

“No, thanks.”

“How about a hug?”

“How about a fucking margarita?”

“I knew it!” He leaps over the bar and lifts me up into the air. When he sets me down again, he says, “Margarita? Where do you think you are, woman? I don’t even got straws.”

T
HE JOB DOESN’T START FOR ANOTHER MONTH, BUT
I find ways to keep busy. Jewell’s making a quilt for the baby and I offer to help. She’s using pieces of Janis’s and Swimmer’s old baby clothes. I pull out Ma’s yellow dress and Daddy’s shirt, and we cut out patches from them too. Quilting gives us tons of time to talk, and I discover I can ask Jewell anything.

“How come Ma was so close with Bird’s kids, but she never sees Jackie’s?”

“Well,” Jewell sighs, “when Jackie and I started going together, his exes banded together and threatened to cut off access to the kids. He calls the exes the three Cs because of their names, but I’m not so polite. Anyway, they were just trying to get his attention, but it spooked your mother so bad she stopped trying to see
the boys. Losing Josie and Michelle was really hard on her.”

I finally have to ask Jewell what she sees in Jackie.

“It’s not what I see,” she says. “It’s his smell. I can’t get enough of it. He walks into a room and I scratch the eight every time.”

That’s pool slang. It took me a while to catch on. Jackie told me Jewell used to run the table at the Lighthouse for ten bucks a game, said she even has a fancy cue engraved with her initials. I asked him if he ever played her and he said, “Fuck, no. She’d hand me my nut sack.”

One day I was telling her how West finally ripped out the soggy walls of the shower and installed an enclosure, and she said, “If I was you, I’d stick my rock with that man.”

“I envy you, Jewell,” I confess. “You coupon, you win at bingo, you somehow managed to turn my womanizing fuck-up of a brother into a decent person. You make heart-shaped sandwiches, for Christ’s sake. I don’t even get why West wants me around.”

She knots her thread, bites off the loose end and spits it out. “Tabby, look how much you’ve done for this family. West has two eyes in his head. He can see you don’t just skip out on people when things turn to shit. Not like that skank ex-wife of his. What’s her name—Magical?”

“Abriel.”

“Umbilical?” She scowls. “Whatever. Who cares.”

I finish the patch I’m on and start packing up to leave when she asks me not to. “I feel like maybe the baby’s coming.” She presses in on her belly with her fingers. “Can you stay with me a bit longer? Something feels off.”

“Where’s Jackie?”

“They all went to the lake for a swim.”

“What do you mean, ‘something feels off’? Off what? What’s off?”

Jewell watches the clock while I pace in front of the window. Half an hour goes by and she says, “I think I’m okay. You should probably get home for dinner. West’s going to wonder where you’re at.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“Then I’ll come with you. I’m dying to get a look at this man.” She grabs her purse and I help her up into the truck.

On the drive, I keep an eye on her belly, but she suddenly seems fine, staring at the sunset and humming along with the radio. When we get to West’s, I see Ma’s and Jackie’s cars sitting in his driveway.

“What are they doing here?”

Jewell shrugs. I go around and help her out of the passenger side and she doesn’t say a word.

“SURPRISE!” Janis yells before my foot’s even in the door. Behind her I see Ma, Jackie and Swimmer seated at West’s kitchen table. I recognize the extra chairs from the tavern. Bird’s parked in his wheelchair at the far end and West is standing at the counter holding a cake lit with candles. Jewell snaps off the lights and they all start singing “Happy Birthday.” Except for Bird. He’s singing the theme song from
Hockey Night in Canada.

I make a wish and blow out every candle. West winks at me then goes to the stove and starts yanking lobsters out of a giant
pot while Jewell lays down newspaper so we can just toss the shells on the floor as we eat.

“Remember when Daddy stole all them lobsters out of someone’s traps up in Yarmouth?” Jackie asks, butter grease on his chin. “He found a buoy close to shore, dove down and pulled a few up with his bare hands. Then he kept on going under, swimming them to the bank two and three at a time and chucking them into his back seat. He come home with his hands all sliced up, had about twenty of those friggers crawling inside the car. We ate lobster for a month. You remember?”

“I wasn’t there,” I remind him.

“Oh.” Jackie looks down at his plate. “Right.”

Ma clears her throat. “Your father made a saltwater tank in the living room. Poppy gave all the lobsters names and put bath toys in with them.”

“Wait a minute,” Janis interrupts. “Lobsters don’t come from water.”

“Sure they do.” Jackie nudges her. “Where did you think they came from?”

She turns pale. “The woods.”

“You ever seen a lobster in the woods?”

“They go down in tunnels under the trees.”

Jackie breaks off a crustacean leg, slurps the meat out of it next to her ear. Janis says she’s going to be sick, pushes her chair out and takes off down the hall. She wanders back as West starts cutting the cake.

“Want to know where ice cream comes from?” Jackie asks her. He starts describing cow udders and she covers her ears.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Bird trying to feed cake to Swimmer. He keeps missing his mouth, mashing it into Swimmer’s chin, until Swimmer gets fed up, grabs a hunk and dumps it on Bird’s head. Janis runs over and scolds them to save a piece for Poppy. I look around and there are lobster carcasses and cake smears all over the kitchen.

“Sorry,” I mouth to West.

“For what?” he mouths back.

After dinner, we have a few drinks and I get to hear about more of Daddy’s stunts that I missed. My favourite is the one where he stole a cop car and dropped it back off at the station in the middle of the night filled with empty beer cans.

After everyone leaves, West won’t let me help clear the dishes. After he’s washed up and put them all away, he joins me at the table. I lean forward and brush the hair out of his eyes.

“How did you pull this party off?”

“You can thank your brother.”

“My brother? Which one?”

“Bird.” West tries not to smile. “He put the whole thing together.”

“I’d sooner believe Bird stood up and danced the Macarena than I’d believe this was Jackie’s idea.”

“Jackie called me up to say he was picking up a bunch of lobsters. Then he called three more times, told me Jewell was baking a cake and asking me what kind of ice cream I think you’d like and all that.”

“Wow,” I say. “I’m shocked he even remembers what month I was born in.”

“I have something for you.” West jumps up and goes down the hall. I hear a crash and he comes back carrying a big, odd-shaped box. It’s so large he had to use three different kinds of wrapping paper on it.

“What—”

“Shut up and open it.”

I find an edge and tear into the paper, tossing green and yellow pieces over both shoulders. The cardboard box beneath is taped shut, but West is already standing over me with his pocket knife. He slices the seals then stands back as if something’s about to come flying out at us. I open it and reveal a vinyl case. I undo the clasps, lift the lid and feel my heart rise up and stick in my throat. The sheen of the thing is almost blinding. I reach down and gingerly lift it into my lap, running my fingers along the curves of the wood and the gleaming silver keys.

“You bought me a red guitar.”

I finger the tag hanging off the neck. West blushes as I flip it around and read the two words he’s written in big, loopy letters:

Love, David.

M
A IS MAKING A BIG SHOW OUT OF THE BLINDFOLD.

“For Christ’s sake, Jackie, I’m going to break my neck.” She flails her arms as he steers her across the parking lot toward her car, pushes down on her head like a cop to guide her into the back seat. She’s still talking as he slams the door and drowns her out.

Janis and I jump in and wave to Jewell behind us in the Tercel with Bird and Swimmer. Jackie didn’t want Jewell to see the house till it was completely finished, but I gave in and snuck her out there last week. We walked through all the rooms gaping at our reflections in the shiny wood floors and appliances.

“Your mother’s going to
shit her pants
,” Jewell announced.

“She better, or Jackie’s going to be heartbroken.”

Now I glance at Jewell’s belly in the rear-view mirror. It’s gotten so big she can practically steer with it. “Got any baby names picked out yet?” I ask Jackie as he climbs in the driver’s seat and pulls out of the Glooscap.

“Don’t get me started,” he says. “She’s got this book full of dumb-ass names. Cellophane, Poseidon, stupid shit like that. Duplex, Dynamo.”

“Cellophane?”

“How about Flipsy?” Janis suggests.

“Just don’t name her something that rhymes with something else,” Ma harps.

She thinks she has to talk louder because she’s wearing a blindfold. I glance in the back seat and see her gripping the door handle like we’re about to crash.

“Then why in the hell did you name me Tabby?” I ask her.

“I named you and your sister Tabatha and Lollipop because I knew you’d get called Tabby and Poppy. I like double letters. I really wanted to name you Hannah, because it’s spelled the same backwards and forwards, but your father yelled, “Hannah banana! Hannah banana!’ until I couldn’t stand it no more.”

“And scabby, crabby, shabby Tabby never crossed his skull?”

“You’re lucky you were born at all,” Ma says. “I made him pull out.”

“Nice, Ma.” Jackie checks the rear-view mirror to make sure Jewell’s not directly behind us before he spits tobacco out the window. “We’re glad you’re here, Tabby.” He reaches over and messes up my hair.

I adjust Daddy and Grandma Jean on my lap. Janis and Swimmer drew all over the boxes. Amongst a lot of scribbling, I decipher what looks like a cat puking on a dog and a man with a green moustache.

Once we’re on Victory Road, Jackie can hardly sit still in the
driver’s seat. He punches my arm excitedly as the house rises out of the trees then parks at the bottom of the driveway so Ma will get the full effect. We both take a good look. The siding is almost the same colour as the paint of our old house, though we chose it for the name more than anything: Halo Yellow.

The Tercel pulls up and I help Bird into his chair as Jackie arranges everyone in a line facing the house.

“Can we please enjoy this moment fart free?” Jewell requests of whoever laid one.

“All right, Ma.” Jackie rips off the blindfold. “Feast your eyes.”

Her gaze travels from the porch up to the peak of the roof then down again. She takes in each of the gleaming windows staring back at her and puts one hand on each of Jackie’s and my shoulders for support.

“Oh my,” she finally gasps.

“Come on!” Janis yells, grabbing her arm and hauling her up the driveway. Jewell waddles behind them as fast as she can, not wanting to miss a moment of Ma soiling herself. Jackie takes Bird’s chair handles and pushes him slowly up to the house, pausing to show him the wheelchair ramp he built himself. Bird nods his head side to side, running his hands along the wooden rails on the way up.

I hang back with Swimmer and watch them all vanish through the front door. The sun has set fire to the tops of the evergreens behind the house, making them shimmer as if there’s gold tinsel strung in their branches. It’s Christmas in July.