Helpless (11 page)

“Okay, then, I was thinking of driving to Gerrard Square and buying her some clothes.”

“Doesn’t she want a salad?”

“I’ll pick up something from Valu-Mart on the way back. She wants the clothes right away.”

“That’s good. See? She’s already adapting.” He rings open the cash register. “How much do you need?”

“A hundred, hundred and fifty.”

He comes around and plants the money in her palm. “Are you all right?”

“Yep.” She forces a smile. Those little brown eyes of his usually don’t miss much.

“You’re going to hear things,” he says. “On the radio, in the checkout line, wherever. Don’t let it get to you. In fact, don’t even listen to the radio.”

“Right.” She’s dying for a smoke.

“And lay off the dope. I can smell it in your hair.”

I
N THE
farthest corner of the Gerrard Square parking lot Nancy opens the driver window a crack and lights a joint. The rain is pounding down so hard that the phone booth, only a few feet away, is almost invisible. If she wanted, she could take this for a sign that she and the phone booth aren’t in tune right now, on a psychic level. She could drive off and forget the whole thing. Except she promised. And in her book you don’t break a promise to a kid, especially a kid who can see right through you anyway.

She blows smoke through the crack. Just a few puffs, she tells herself. Got to stay clearheaded.

Now there’s something Ron said that makes sense. When she’s with him, everything makes a kind of sense, but when she’s by herself, hardly any of it does. This whole business of driving to Florida and straightening Rachel’s hair…what was that about again? And why does he hate the mother so much? Oh, yeah—she remembers—because the mother brings Rachel to bars and makes her sing. But is that so bad? Nancy’s father used to bring her to bars and make her wait in the cold truck where drunks banged on the window and offered to keep her warm. She told this to Ron only a couple of months ago and what he said then was, “Someone should’ve turned that bastard in.” Okay, so why didn’t he turn the landlord in the first time he saw him feeling Rachel up under her pyjamas? He could have driven to a phone booth and called Social Services, used a made-up name, and he wouldn’t have had to worry about the lines being tapped, either.

The phone at Rachel’s house will be tapped, all right, Nancy can be sure of that. She digs the piece of paper out of her pocket, extinguishes the joint, grabs some coins from the change holder, climbs out of the car, and for about the tenth time in the past few hours seems to wake up. What is she thinking? She has to buy the clothes
before
she makes the call. The police will be all over the phone booth in five minutes, she can’t come waltzing out of Zeller’s with a bunch of new clothes that just happen to fit a nine-year-old girl and expect she’ll be allowed to drive off.

She heads across the parking lot, not running, wanting the rain to slap some sense into her. A backing-up van forces her to jump out of the way, and she finds herself thinking about the time her father almost ran her over with his truck. She was seven maybe. She and her sisters were holding
hands and skipping down the middle of some deserted concession road that seemed raised to heaven because of the fog lying on the fields and packed in the ditches. They had on their good dresses (they must have been returning from church or someone’s birthday party) and were yelling, “We don’t stop for nobody! We don’t stop for nobody!” Which didn’t mean much, since there was nobody to stop for. But after a while a truck appeared…it was like a ghost truck, breaking out of the fog. They slowed a bit. They didn’t let go of one another’s hands, though, not until Libby said, “It’s Daddy!” and then they all ran to the ditches. All except for her. She froze. A lot of time seemed to go by—blank, peaceful time—before the truck roared past, barely missing her, the wind of it spinning her around so that she saw her father’s wild face hanging out the driver window, looking back. Her sisters were in awe. “You nearly died!” they said. “He nearly ran over you!” They kissed and patted her, and so did he, later. He told his friends who came to play cards that she had nerves of steel.

If only, she thinks, entering the mall.

Her hair is plastered to her head. She’s shivering and limping. How will she be able to shop without arousing the suspicion of the security guard? But nobody seems to notice her, and once she’s digging around in the bargain bins, she starts to feel better, almost like a real mother. Aside from underwear, socks, and T-shirts she gets a pair of sneakers in what she hopes are the right size (she has noticed that her own feet are only slightly bigger than Rachel’s), a pair of fluffy pink slippers, two pairs of shorts, a striped sailor jersey, a pink pleated skirt, two pairs of jeans (one blue, one purple), and a pink cotton nightgown. The checkout girl doesn’t look
twice at her, and the security guard doesn’t grab her arm as she’s leaving. In fact, he holds the door open and says, “It’s cleared right up.”

It has. A good sign. She throws the bags into the trunk and walks toward the phone booth. And just stands there, feeling her nerve give way. She climbs back into the car and lights a cigarette. What she needs, she tells herself, is some relaxing music. She turns on the radio and punches around for the easy-listening station.

“…She loves all animals,” a woman says in a whispery, emotional voice, “including snakes and lizards.”

Nancy’s hand goes still.

“Even insects,” the woman says. “We had hornets in our apartment once and she got stung, but she wouldn’t let me kill them. Rachel has always forgiven any harm done to her, so I know she will forgive you, if—”

Nancy frantically changes stations.

“…It’s not too late for you—”

She hits the knob again. “…That it might be too late, but there’s always—”

She switches off the ignition and sits, puffing on her cigarette. She can’t believe it. Every time she turns on the radio…

She’s being tested, she thinks. Her love for Ron is being tested. No, it’s not even that anymore because who is going to believe she isn’t his accomplice?

She will forgive you.

Will she? Nancy thinks dully. She opens the car door, then remembers about fingerprints and takes a couple of Kleenexes out of her purse.

T
HE RAIN IS
a loud spattering, like something frying in a pan. A few minutes after it starts, the man, Ron, comes pounding down. Rachel shunts to the far side of the bed. But he’s only letting Tasha in. She waits until he’s back upstairs before she’ll even move.

“Here, girl,” she whispers, patting the bed. The dog jumps up and lies next to her, and she nuzzles the soft black fur, which reminds her of Happy’s fur. She bets that Happy and Osmo know she’s in trouble. Last year when she was at science camp, they moped for the whole two weeks. She wonders how upset her friends are and if they’re leaving flowers in front of her house. She cries a little to imagine her best friend, Lina, crying.

She wishes she knew what time it was. One thing this room doesn’t have is a clock. Nancy left about fifteen minutes ago, it feels like. So maybe she has already made the phone call! “Maybe, maybe,” Rachel whispers. She gets out of bed and eats a Pringle, her eyes on the television. There isn’t cable—she checked—but what if there’s a satellite dish? What if she’s on the news!

She finds the remote and presses
ON
. A fuzzy screen comes up. She changes channels, all the way from 2 to 60. Nothing. She hits
MENU,
then
INFO,
then some other buttons, and then she hunts around unsuccessfully for a satellite remote.

Outside in the rain somebody is hammering. She carries the desk chair over to one of the windows and climbs on, grabbing hold of the ledge. She can’t quite reach the curtains. She climbs down, piles the seat with books and tries again.

The security bars don’t surprise her. The windows do, though, the frosted panes. Why are there curtains when you can’t see in or out anyway? If this were
her
room and she were a kidnapper she would cover the windows with grilles, like the ones at her school.

A small hope seizes her. She gets down and starts searching for a pole, a broom handle, something hard and long. Except she has searched before, she knows what’s here. Still, she opens drawers and cupboards. She opens the closet, which doesn’t have hangers, then pushes up the lid of the toy chest and takes out the doll on top: African American Princess Barbie. “Loser,” she says, to think of him buying it. Even when she played with Barbies she never had any of these princesses, who are only good for gliding around and giving orders.

Under African American Princess Barbie is Imperial Russian Barbie. She takes her out and considers the large, pointed crown. She tears open the packaging, removes the doll. The crown is hard, harder than she’d really expected, and the doll itself is just about long enough. She goes to the desk, rips a piece of paper off the pad and with the orange
marker writes:
My name is Rachel Fox. I’m locked in the basement under the store that fixes lawn mowers. The man is Ron. The woman is Nancy. Don’t believe them that I’m not there. They are liars.

She folds the paper into a square. On the front and back she writes
HELP
and then tucks it into her pocket. She doesn’t intend to put it outside right away (it’ll only get soaked) but she wants to have it ready. All she needs to do now, while the hammering is going on, is to make a crack big enough that when the rain stops she can slide the paper through. She picks Barbie up by the feet and climbs back on the chair.

The hammering outside is fairly steady. “One, two…,” she whispers, establishing the rhythm. On “four” she hits Barbie crown-first against the glass and almost falls forward as the doll’s head caves in. She adjusts her grip higher up the body, squeezes the doll between the bars, and tries a few short, sharp taps. The head still collapses but not as much as before. The crown stays firm. To make sure Ron can’t hear, she continues keeping time with the hammering.

The glass doesn’t break, though. She switches to gouging with the crown’s peak and after a few minutes produces a scratch. Her heart begins to race. She gouges faster. She forgets about the hammering, about Ron coming down. She doesn’t even register the books sliding out from under her. At the last second she grabs for the bar and misses, knocking over the chair and falling on top of it.

Tasha jumps around, yelping. “Quiet,” Rachel moans. The whole side of her body feels broken. Oh, and he heard! He’s coming down! She crawls off the chair but when she tries to stand, her foot gives out and she falls again.

The door opens. “What happened?” he says. He lifts the chair out of the way.

“Don’t touch me,” she cries.

“You’re hurt.”

She gets herself up and limps to the other end of the room.

“You’ve got a sprain,” he tells her.

She shakes her head.

“I’d better take a look at it,” he says.

He notices the window. Stepping around the books he goes over and reaches up to open the curtains wider. As he does this, his T-shirt comes loose from his belt, and his stomach bulges out like a loaf of bread.

“Nancy can look at it,” she whimpers.

“Nancy will be a while yet.” He wipes a finger under each of his eyes. He clears his throat. She wonders, astonished, if he’s crying. Finally he says, “You can’t break these windows. They’re covered in a special film.” A glance in her direction. “I’m just going to go upstairs to get some bandage.”

She listens for the door to close at the top of the stairs before taking the note from her pocket and sticking it under the toy chest. Then she quickly gathers up the books and puts them in the shelf. Her arm and leg are red and scratched. What if he wants to rub antiseptic cream on her or make her soak in a bath? She yanks the duvet off the bed, wraps it around herself, and sits on the sofa. She’ll let him bandage her foot, she decides, but that’s all. Maybe it
is
sprained. It hurts.

“The rain’s letting up,” he says, coming through the door. No mention of the duvet. He drags the chair over and sits in front of her. He’s wearing cologne. Musk, it smells
like, the same as Mika wears. He must be on his way out, she thinks, and her fear eases slightly.

But at his touch, she begins to shake. He cups her foot in both hands, like you’d hold a bird. “It’s swollen,” he says. “How does it feel?”

“Okay,” she murmurs.

“I should have brought down some ice.”

“I don’t want ice!” She wants him to just hurry up and finish.

“All right. No ice.” He sets her foot on his knee. And now, all of a sudden,
he’s
shaking…so hard that he can barely cut the bandage. He wraps it too loosely and has to start over.

What’s the matter with him, she wonders. Her own shaking stops.

“It shouldn’t be too tight,” he says.

“It
is,”
she says.

“Sorry.” Bubbles of sweat dot his forehead. He unwraps what he’s done and starts a third time.

“When my mom finds me,” she says, “you’ll be arrested and go to jail.”

He feels around in his pocket for something. Metal clips. He attaches them, then takes her foot off his knee. “There you go,” he says. He runs the back of his arm over his forehead.

The bandage is still too tight; her whole foot throbs. “What did you kidnap me for?” she asks angrily.

He looks at her. She looks away, frightened again. She tucks her bandaged foot under the duvet.

“It’s what Nancy told you,” he says. “You were in a
dangerous situation. At the motel where your mother works. At your house. Certain men…”

The bandage roll has dropped to the floor, and he picks it up and presses it between his palms. His legs still shake a little. “You’re a very beautiful girl,” he says, glancing at her. “There are men who would like to take advantage of that. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

She isn’t sure. “No,” she says.

“They want to hurt you. For their own pleasure.”

Oh, she thinks. For sex. She thinks of Elliott, the unemployed drunk man from across the street who yells, “You don’t love me anymore!” at her mother. Her mother just laughs. All the neighbours put up with him and say he’s harmless. But once, when she ran over there to get Happy’s ball, he jumped out from behind the hedge and growled, “How about a kiss?” and tried to grab her arm. His dirty fingernails left a scratch. She didn’t tell her mother because her mother would have gone crazy.

“Do you mean Elliott from across the street?” she asks Ron.

He blinks a few times. “I couldn’t say.”

A notion strikes her. “Do you work for the government?”

“No, I don’t. Why?”

She shrugs. If he
was
a spy, he wouldn’t tell her. But he wouldn’t be worried about the police, either. Or maybe he would, she reasons, if his mission was top secret. But she really doesn’t think he’s a spy. “Who are they then?” she asks.

“I haven’t got names.”

“Not Mika who lives in my house.” Her throat tightens. “You don’t even
know
Mika.”

His eyes are on her lips. She jerks her head to the side.

“Not Mika,” he says. He stands. “Nancy will be back soon with your new clothes. And maybe”—he’s glancing around the room—“you’ll let her put some ice—”

“How long do I have to be down here?”

He picks up the Barbie doll. “I don’t know.”

“A week?”

“Longer.” He adjusts the crown.

“Two weeks?”

“Longer than two weeks.”

“But I’m supposed to go to music camp!”

The look of surprise that crosses his face gives her hope.

“It’s been paid for and everything!”

“I’m sorry.” He frowns at the doll.

Tears prick her eyes. “I want to go home now. I don’t
care
about the men.”

“Nancy won’t be too long.” He puts the doll on the toy chest and leaves the room, Tasha running out after him.

Rachel buries her face in the duvet and cries. Not for very long, though. She’s tired of crying. She undoes the bandage and wraps it again so that it’s looser.

She’s trying to remember all the men she has ever met. There are so many. Of all the video store customers and neighbours and people from the bar, only Elliott pops up as bad. Eventually the idea of slave drivers occurs to her. Lina’s older brother, who was born in Mauritania, says that slave drivers from Africa are stealing dark-skinned girls off the streets and shipping them out of the country in orange crates. The police won’t do a thing about it, he says. When Rachel told her mother this, her mother said, “Lina’s brother has an overactive imagination.” But what if it’s true?

The more Rachel thinks about it, the more true it seems.
It explains, for instance, why Ron never went to the police. And why he can’t tell her the men’s names. If he doesn’t come right out and
call
them slave drivers, maybe that’s because he’s worried she’ll start screaming and he won’t know what to do. He’s a very sensitive person, it seems to her…crying about the window, shaking the way he did.

She feels a twinge of guilt to think how hurt he looked when she told him he was going to jail.

T
HE CALL
comes in not five minutes after the news conference.

Celia and the deputy chief of police are drinking coffee in the dining room. The powder-fine fingerprint dust, which started out black and white—black for the light surfaces, white for the darker ones (but now, having endlessly risen and resettled, is ash grey everywhere)—has been ineffectively wiped off the table, leaving a silver sheen. Celia rubs X’s in it. She is trying to compose herself. By the end of her statement her voice had disintegrated to a cracked whisper. She didn’t break down, though. She didn’t need the deputy chief to take her arm, although he did.

His name is Martin Morris. He’s a tall man with a long, worn face and heavy-lidded eyes full of some private misery. And yet his voice is deep and reassuring, and listening to him now (he’s saying that several radio stations interrupted regular programming to broadcast live) she thinks maybe it isn’t misery, it’s exhaustion. He has told her he’s an insomniac. She wonders how
she
looks, how she looked on the TV. On the slim chance that Rachel sees her, she hopes she came across as in charge. How awful to think that instead of comforting Rachel she’s giving her something else to worry about. Whenever
there’s a small crisis, a cheque bouncing or the car not starting, Rachel is the levelheaded one. As she, Celia, begins to lose it, Rachel’s face takes on this long-suffering expression no nine-year-old child should have access to.

“I can’t vouch for the networks,” Martin Morris says. He’s still talking about live coverage. “CTV potentially, on their all-news station.”

“So the call could come any time now,” Celia says.

The call to Mika’s cell—that’s the number she gave. Even so, when the phone in the kitchen rings at exactly that moment, and despite the fact that it’s been ringing all day, she gasps.

Big Lynne answers. “Fox residence, Constable Shriver speaking,” she says in her loud, no-nonsense voice. A pause. “That’s right.” And then, “I’m here. Who’s calling?” Another pause. “I can promise that.”

In the silence that follows, Morris scrapes back his chair.

“Can you tell me…” Big Lynne starts.

Morris comes to his feet. Before he reaches the doorway Big Lynne is there. “Pablito,” she says to Celia. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Oh, my God,” Celia says.

“She’s alive,” Big Lynne says.

The room goes black.

When Celia regains consciousness, Morris has left, and Big Lynne is pressing a wet sponge to her forehead.

“Boy,” Big Lynne says, “did you go out like a light.”

“Where is she?”

“We don’t know.”

“I thought the calls were traced.” Celia pushes away the sponge. “I thought it was instantaneous.”

“It is practically, but the call was made from a phone booth. At the Gerrard Square Mall. Pape and Gerrard. It was a woman. She said Rachel is fine and being looked after by people who just want her to be safe and would never hurt her. She said tell the mother ‘Pablito,’ that Rachel told her to say it.”

“Oh, God. Oh, thank God.”

“You pray for miracles and sometimes you get them.”

“It’s our word. You know? Our secret word.”