Cool Water (15 page)

She gets her cheque book out of her purse and says, “How much?” but Karla says, “That's okay. I didn't really do enough of a job to charge you.”

“No really,” Vicki says, her cheque book poised and ready. “How much?”

“You don't want to write a cheque for five bucks,” she says. “How about I keep track and add it on next time you come?”

Vicki puts her cheque book back in her purse. “Okay,” she says. “That's fair, I guess. As long as you remember.”

“I'll write it down,” Karla promises.

In the living room, everyone looks contented, sitting in front of the TV and watching cartoons, even Mr. Norman. Except for Shiloh, who has moved to the floor and isn't really watching. Maybe he's getting too old for cartoons, Vicki thinks. Maybe his thoughts have turned to a young man's thoughts.

“Do we have to go?” asks Daisy. “We're right in the middle.”

“Of course we have to go,” Vicki says. “Karla has other people coming for haircuts. Besides, we've got work to do, remember. Let's go. Toot sweet.”

“What are you up to?” Karla asks as the kids line up behind their mother like a small brigade, all but Shiloh, who goes to the door and walks out without a word.

Vicki rolls her eyes at Karla,
See what I have to put up with,
trying not to look worried. Then she says, “What are we up to?” to the rest of the kids.

“Beans,” they say in unison.

Karla laughs. “I can see you're full of beans, every one of you.”

“Not that kind of beans,” says Lucille, still playing with her lopsided hair. “Green beans.”

“Oh, I see,” says Karla, although she doesn't.

Just as they're about to file out the door, the phone rings again and Vicki hears Karla answer and say, “Oh, it's you,” and then, “I said I would. Okay. Later.” Then she hangs up.

When they get outside, Vicki sees Dale Patterson's red truck round the corner. Well, well, maybe that had been Dale on the phone, calling Karla from in front of her house. And maybe they're heading for a fourth engagement. She has no real opinion on Dale Patterson and Karla Norman. Well, actually, she does. She thinks Karla is too good for Dale, but then what does her opinion or anyone else's matter when it comes to love?

As they walk by the three shiny cars, she notices a scratch on the hood of the black one, the Trans Am, a fresh shiny scratch. The rooster is pecking at Mrs. Baxter's lawn nearby and Vicki wonders if he is responsible. She's pretty sure he would lose his head if he were caught in the act of damaging one of old TNT's prized possessions. Why in the world do they keep three cars? She's heard a story that Lou and Karla had a big fight over the cars, that Lou thought they should all be sold and the money used for their father's care, but then Karla said the cars were his only pleasure and she went out and sold her own car and now drives one of her father's when she needs a vehicle, a different one every time she goes out. Imagine the cost of keeping the three of them licensed, Vicki thinks. She looks down the walk to her own rusty old Cutlass, expecting to see Shiloh, but he isn't there.

“Shotgun,” shouts one of the twins when he sees that Shiloh isn't in the car. He races to the street and yanks the passenger door open and gets in before his luck runs out and Shiloh appears to take control of the front seat. But then Martin says, “I'm older,” and tells him to get out and in the back, and he dutifully does.

Vicki notices that Shiloh's backpack is not in the car where he left it.

“Darn him anyway,” she says. “Well, get in, kids, I guess we have to go looking for your brother. Funny thing, when the oldest gets to be the most trouble.”

“Will Shiloh catch heck?” Daisy asks.

“I'm not sure,” Vicki says. “Probably not. He's likely walked over to Main Street. Although he should have said something.”

They drive the few blocks to Main, and Vicki looks up and down but can't see Shiloh. She angle parks in front of the post office and tells the kids to stay in the car while she goes to collect the mail.

The mailboxes are open at the back to the inner workings of the post office, and as soon as Vicki has her box open, Mrs. Bulin, the postmistress, says, “Hi, Vicki. How's the day treating you so far?” She doesn't wait for an answer before she says, “I guess hell must be freezing over. They say it might rain.”

“Where'd you hear that?” Vicki says. “Doesn't look much like rain.” She can't see Mrs. Bulin, but she speaks to the voice. Mrs. Bulin talks to everyone who comes in for mail, but the whole town knows not to say too much back. Mrs. Bulin is approaching sixty-five and has expressed no interest in retiring. She likes her access to information too much, so the story goes.

When Vicki leaves the post office with a phone bill and a bank statement she doesn't care to open, she sees a middle-aged woman with red hair and green shoes talking to Martin through the car window.

“Hello,” the woman says to Vicki when she sees her. “Your kids and I have been having quite the conversation here.”

Just then they hear the sound of a ring-tone coming from the open window of a truck piled high with furniture and packing boxes, and towing a trailer.

“My phone,” she says. “Best answer that.” She gets in the truck and flips open her phone, but it looks as though she's missed the call. She waves at Vicki and the kids as she pulls away. “Keep your eyes open for a grey horse,” she calls.

“Well, that was a funny business,” Vicki says to Martin after the woman is gone. “What was she talking about?”

“She lost her horse,” Martin says.

“Pretty stupid,” Vicki says. “How do you lose a horse? And I don't know why she'd be telling you.” She turns to look at the kids in the back seat and says, “What do you say we go buy Karla Norman a birthday cake?”

They all cross the street to the grocery store, where Vicki goes to the bakery section to check out the cakes. There's one devil's food cake but it looks as though it's been there for days. The chocolate icing is dry—the top of the cake resembles a bare field baked and cracking in the sun. She'd have to be desperate to buy Karla that cake, Vicki thinks, but then she sees it has a half-price sticker on it, so she buys it anyway. She pays with her debit card, holding her breath while the clerk rings in the sale, and it goes through. She should be getting her groceries and putting everything on one sale, but she has things to do and she doesn't want the groceries to sit in the car on such a hot day. Blaine's ham would be green by the time they got home.

“Hey,” Daisy says when they get back outside. “There's Shiloh.”

Vicki looks in the direction Daisy is pointing and sure enough, there he is at the end of the street, heading for the railway tracks.

“Good,” says Vicki. She reaches through the open car window and gives the horn a couple of blasts, but Shiloh doesn't turn around and look. She hands the cake to Martin, who has positioned himself once again in the front seat.

“All right,” she says. “Everyone in. We collect Shiloh, go for a quick swim, do our errands and drop off the cake. Then home again, home again.”

She looks at her watch.

“What about Hank's calves?” Daisy asks.

“Oh my gosh, we forgot to tell someone about Hank's calves. Okay. One stop to make a phone call, and then the swimming pool, and then home.”

“Toot sweet, right,” says Lucille.

“That's right,” says Vicki. Even though she knows it's getting a bit late for toot sweet.

Key Lime Pie

Lynn Trass has found a recipe for key lime pie on the Internet. She likes to try new things, and key lime pie is something she and Hank discovered on a trip to Florida last winter. They'd started out thinking they would go to a lot of casinos, but they'd ended up going to a lot of restaurants, looking for key lime pie for Hank. In between tasting sessions, they visited Disney World, an alligator farm and the Everglades swamp, which Hank was amazed to find resembles a tall-grass pasture, at least until you step in it and discover yourself knee-deep in swampy water. He'd been expecting a lush canopy of trees with huge trunks and moss hanging everywhere, but Lynn said he had Florida mixed up with Louisiana. He was also amazed at the tenacity of the mosquitoes, and concluded that maybe Saskatchewan in the winter isn't such a bad place after all because it's mosquito free.

When Hank comes into the restaurant he sees one of Lynn's high school girls, Haley Barker, waiting tables. She's wearing a skimpy little T-shirt that looks as though it shrunk in the wash, and has a gold ring in her navel, which she absently plays with all the time, turning it round and round. A man can't help but notice.

“Hey there, Haley,” he says. “Getting ready for life in the big city?”

“Not really,” Haley says.

A few locals and a couple of truckers are having break
–
fast. He can smell the bacon. Lynn won't let him eat bacon, for his own good, all the fat and nitrates.

“Well, don't get too smart to be useful up there in Saskatoon,” Hank says.

He goes to the kitchen looking for Lynn, and finds her getting ready to cut one of a half-dozen key lime pies into slices.

“Is that what I think it is?” Hank asks.

Lynn hands him a slice. “Let me know what you think,”

she says. “Or rather, what your taste buds think. It's low-fat, but I probably shouldn't have told you that.”

Hank takes the plate and sits on a chair in the kitchen so he can talk to Lynn while she works. Once he bites into the pie, though, he doesn't want to talk. He closes his eyes and rolls the custard around on his tongue before he swallows it.

“I guess it's a hit, then,” Lynn says.

“You'd better give me another, just so I can be sure.”

Lynn slides another piece of pie onto his plate while Hank admires its lovely green colour. In spite of his lack of sleep the night before he couldn't be happier, sitting here in Lynn's kitchen, the promise of a new day all but guaranteed by a counter full of sweet and tangy green custard.

“So what happened to you last night anyway?” she asks. “I thought you'd be home.”

“Got as far as that campground just east,” Hank says. “Couldn't quite make it the rest of the way.”

Lynn knows he's referring to his habit of falling asleep at the wheel. She often does the driving when they're out late.

“Did you get your trailer at least?” she asks.

“Nope,” Hank says. “Rusted right through above the wheel wells. Tried to tell me he thought I was asking about a different trailer when he sent the pictures. I was none too happy, but what are you going to do. Turned around and came home.”

When Hank has finished the second slice, Lynn tells him that's all he can have, she wants to try it on someone other than him.

“You're the boss,” Hank says, and heads back into the restaurant to see who else has come in for an early coffee or a late breakfast. As he's about to go through the swinging door he asks Lynn if she knows the end of the world is coming. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the yellow flyer that had stuck to his windshield, and holds it out to her, telling her about the flurry of paper in the parking lot.

She gives it a quick read. “You know I don't have much patience with fanaticism,” she says, and then wads it up and tosses it in the garbage. Haley comes through the door just then with an empty coffee pot and tells Hank he'd better get out of the way, she's coming back through with a tray of clean cups.

“Out of the kitchen,” Lynn says to Hank, and he goes into the restaurant and lets the door swing closed, and Lynn picks up another piece of paper that fell out of Hank's pocket. The one that says
Joni
and gives a phone number.

As Lynn stares at the name and number, she feels as though she's having heart palpitations, or a stroke maybe. The big, loopy script and the little smiley face dotting the
i
jolt her back to a time—long ago now—when she spent hours of every day and night imagining Hank with girls who had flirty hair and makeup and names like Joni and Cindy and Louise. Hour upon hour with her imagination running away, picturing barrel racers and trick riders and girls who wouldn't know one end of a horse from the other; waitresses and hairdressers and elementary school teachers. Hours of every day, jealous and miserable with not knowing for sure, and then knowing, absolutely, and then not knowing again, back and forth, the truth as illusive as a poltergeist. The sudden memory is so intense she feels faint. She leans against the kitchen counter and thinks,
The past never leaves you.

When she and Hank were first married, Hank had a hard time with the idea of “forsaking all others,” mainly because several of his buddies were still living the bachelor life. When Lynn had become pregnant at twenty-two, she and Hank had a quick wedding, and not long after that, she'd heard the words from a distressed friend,
I don't want
to tell you this, Lynn, but if it was me I'd want to know.
According to the friend, Hank had spent the weekend with someone he'd met at a rodeo dance north of the river while Lynn thought he was at a cattle auction in Alberta. It had almost been the end of them, but Hank had admitted to the dalliance and had sworn that it was the only time—
the
only time, Lynn, I swear to God, and it meant nothing, it
was just the stupid booze, an old habit.
When their daughter Leanne was born, and a second girl, Dana, a year later, he'd turned into a responsible husband and father. He continued with the amateur rodeo circuit, but he was now introduced by the announcer as a family man, and the farm and his girls took priority over going down the road. Everyone but Lynn knew that. She couldn't get the rodeo-dance girl out of her head. She'd never heard the girl's name, but for years after, she'd looked for evidence, a scrap of paper hidden in a pocket, a name written on a matchbook cover, and her obsession had almost driven her crazy. Her doctor had even given her a prescription for antidepressants at one point but she'd never filled it.