When the Flood Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  The cashier shook her head. “You want a bag for these? Well, to answer your wondering, nobody cares. More jobs would be good, but they could always build their chicken plant on another piece of land, couldn’t they?”

  “That’s what I thought.” Lacey glanced over her shoulder, but there was nobody waiting behind her. “Someone said Eddie was a bit of a loose cannon, maybe even dangerous?”

  The woman laughed. “Eddie Beal? Somebody’s pulling your leg, lady. Unless they confused him with his brother. Eben gets hot under the collar, all right, been known to take a poke at some who got in his way. He’s the idea man, though. If anyone finds a way to get new industry in this part of the RM, it’ll be Eben.”

  Taking a poke at people who got in his way. Lacey had met more than a few of those on patrol. They started off yelling, did some shoving, and finally a punch was thrown. Misdemeanours brought about by temper. Such a man wouldn’t bother with prowling around at night. He’d march right up to the front door and pound on it.

  “A live wire, is he? And Eddie’s not?”

  “You got that right. Eddie’s the slow and steady sort. Takes a lot to get an idea into his head, but once it’s there he just keeps on truckin’ until the job is done.”

  “Thanks.” What if the job this time was stalking Dee for his brother? Lacey took her bag and turned away, then turned back. “Do they look much alike, Eddie and Eben?”

  “Identical twins. Have a nice day now.”

  Chapter Eight

  After a shaky morning and a late lunch, Jan made her way down the hill to the museum. She parked, locked up, and made a firm promise to the van that it would get home before Terry got back from his office in Calgary. Up the shady north face of the building she walked, over the deep-blue paving stones to the log colonnade and under the giant hockey banners. She paused inside the huge atrium for a deep breath and got a lungful of construction dust and paint fumes instead. Oops. Better to have done that outside.

  Reflected sunlight from the river wavered over the varnished log walls and the deep-blue Rundle-stone floor. Only one thing marred her pleasure in the soaring space: Lacey over by the west stairs, glaring at her like she was a blob of pond scum. Lovely. Couldn’t the woman let go of a bad first impression? She turned away without waving and took the elevator up to the top floor, relieved that the half pill this morning had behaved as she had hoped. She could stand upright without holding on to walls and her hands were not shaking. Neither was her mind. Half was the magic number.

  Rob awaited her on the atrium skywalk with a clipboard, a digital camera, and a pair of wiry workmen. He led them all into the bare gallery.

  “You’re to stay right up on this floor, Jan,” he said, looking her firmly in the eye. “No running around. These guys will do the heavy work. The hooks are already up. Camille will have to sign for the shipments, being the only director in the building this afternoon. She says she’ll be in the theatre straight through. Just go to the top entrance and wave, and she’ll come right up. The Cadot and two others are coming direct from the owner’s place. They could be here any minute. Any questions, you call me, even if I’m still driving.”

  Jan flipped through the clipboard’s paperwork. Hanging layout all correct — a page of neat, numbered squares and rectangles for each wall — and the last page was an index matching those numbers to paintings.

  “How’d you get Camille to agree to take my orders?”

  “She thinks signing makes her important, that an oil baron will believe she personally has charge of his precious paintings. As if he’ll ever see the form unless there’s a need to assign blame. But what that woman doesn’t know about galleries! Anyway, if you need a rest, use the lounge past the potters’ gallery. I opened the fire door there so the air is fresh for you. Got everything you need to hang around up here for a couple of hours?”

  “Cellphone, fully charged. Water bottle. Snack. Sweater. Extra pen. Even a paperback in case I have a long wait for the truck.” She waved the clipboard. “And your layout looks fine.”

  “On paper. If you really hate it once you see the living colours side by side, you’ll tell me? It’s not too late to shift some smaller pieces around. I can’t afford to have anything not exactly right.”

  “It’ll be okay. You’re that nervous about this opening, huh?”

  Rob clutched his frosted hair in both fists and shook his head dramatically. “Babe, I’m dying. Haven’t eaten in a week. All the fat cats will be here, and if one damned finicky thing goes wrong, I can kiss my permanent contract goodbye. I’m tired of being an itinerant art historian. I want stability.” He waved toward the gallery’s glass doors and the river view beyond. “I love this place. This building. This village. The small minds that fear we’ll kill their old community centre but are too polite to tell me so. The lady at the coffee shop who feeds me leftover strudel from her brother the Bavarian chef. Even the oil boom cowboys don’t get on my nerves. I look out my office window, listen to the water burble by, wonder which mountain trail I can bike up next weekend. It’s my spiritual home.”

  “Not to mention the steady job keeps the student loans people off your back.”

  “That, too.” Rob’s phone beeped. “Gotta go. You are a lifesaver, hon. I couldn’t be in two places at once, and the only way to get the correct paintings from Calgary is to go myself. Did you have to take another pill to be here?”

  “Half,” Jan admitted. “The other half is in my pocket in case I start to crash. If I have to be dragged home in a state of collapse for the second day in a row, Terry is apt to divorce me. He won’t be happy that I chose to spend another afternoon here. Being out today pretty much guarantees I won’t attend the gala.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “You know the perfumes and stuff will make me sick. So does Terry. He’s just tired of going stag when most people will have someone on their arm.”

  “I’d offer to be his date, but I’ll be working. See you later, babe. Phone me if there’s any snags.”

  She watched him hurry away. Dear Rob. Best of her friends from UBC, working at the museum partly on her recommendation to Jake’s ex-wife. He was one of the only people here who had known her before she got sick. He never made her feel like a burden, only like an old friend with new limitations. Speaking of limitations, she had to respect them, too. Even though the magic Adderall was keeping her pumped, the ideal position for oxygenated blood to reach all her major organs was lying down with feet raised. She moved slowly to the wide-open lounge past the pots gallery and stretched out on a varnished log bench. Nobody was in the theatre lobby across the atrium, so she had no compunction about putting her feet up on the bench’s arm. It wasn’t the most comfortable resting place, but it gave her a unique view of the small carvings that decorated the beams and railings: here a pair of bear cubs peeped out, there a sleepy owl. The elevator across the way dinged, disgorging workmen, along with a new guy and a trolley carrying an immense Styrofoam-and-slat crate. The Joe Cadot, centrepiece of the opening show, had arrived.

  Camille appeared in the theatre entrance and followed the trolley across the atrium skyway. She hovered as the huge painting was carefully uncrated and, when the new guy handed an electronic clipboard to Jan, she snatched it. “I’m the signatory,” she said. “Jan, I assume this is the correct painting?”

  Jan nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself about people who signed for things they had no clue about. “There should be two smaller paintings with this batch,” she said to the new guy. “An Allen Sapp and a Vaughan Grayson.”

  “In the truck,” he said, and, to Camille, “You want to come down and sign for those, lady, so I can get back on the road?”

  Camille pouted. “If I must. Jan, can’t you …?”

  “No,” said Jan. “I stay with the Cadot until it’s hung.” She didn’t need to consult Rob’s chart, but she made a show of it anyway before pointin
g the workmen to the back wall. Then she said to the new guy, “Sorry, but I have to see each painting before anyone can sign off on their delivery. A Vaughan Grayson may not be worth as much as a Joe Cadot, but it’s still a unique item with an important place in our show.” The guy shrugged as if he had expected that, and off he went with the trolley.

  Camille glared at Jan. “Now I suppose I have to hang around until that Neanderthal shambles back up here. I’m in the middle of rehearsals over there.”

  Jan swallowed her first snarky reply, surprised how fast it popped up from brain to tongue tip. Magic pill. “What’s hung here will showcase the facility’s high standards, not only at the gala, but for the whole summer. Surely you can spare two more minutes.”

  Camille stalked away.

  Jan turned back to see Rob’s efficient workmen already in position. The immense frame, bigger than a billiards table, was gently connected to its hooks and hoisted into position. Joe Cadot was the best of the Western Métis painters, as well as one of the bestselling. His photo­realist landscapes each contained evocative human touches that caused many an argument over whether he was a true photorealist or merely a neo-Victorian romantic. They were eternally popular with the rugged oilmen and ranchers of Alberta and hung in many Calgary boardrooms. This one featured a wintry glade where men and horses huddled at a campfire beside a frozen pond. Weathered hockey sticks leaned by a tree and skates dangled from a low branch. A good choice to anchor the hockey show. What luck Jake had convinced his buddy to lend it.

  While waiting for the next two paintings, Jan looked around the gallery. When she’d been up here the other day, the borrowed hockey memorabilia had still been in crates. Now it was placed in display cases, hung in clusters in the corners, and even standing front and centre, in the form of a life-sized mannequin wearing a vintage blue-woollen jersey and stripped leggings. She was about to risk bending down to read its label when a familiar face on the portable screen behind it caught her eye. It was Mick Hardy, or, to be more specific, Mick’s rookie card from many years earlier. Beside it, in the same frame, was another rookie card. The hockey player was wearing a helmet and visor so that only his chin was visible, but the label informed her that the player was Jarrad Fitch, Mick’s protege. He was also the hockey player who’d caused Dee’s broken ankle last winter. She gave him a slit-eyed glare on principle. Below the cards was a reproduction newspaper clipping, topped by a photo of Mick with one arm around his wife and the other hand on a much younger Jarrad’s shoulder. Jarrad had grown to manhood since then, his whole face and body so matured that his younger self was only recognizable in the bone structure around his eyes. Camille looked pretty much the same as now, while Mick appeared old enough to be, if you didn’t know better, a proud father standing between his children.

  The story below was loosely familiar: a summary of Mick’s twenty years in the NHL and his retirement to focus on bringing hockey to kids, applying his years of experience by leading skills camps for teenage hockey players. Based in Ontario then, he’d seen the potential in Jarrad while watching a regional midget tournament and taken the boy under his wing. The article quoted him on the occasion of Jarrad’s World Junior Hockey win; how did it feel to see his protege wearing the same medal he’d won himself three decades earlier?

  There was no mention of Mick having married, and Camille’s name wasn’t in the photo credits, just the words his wife. Jan thought about that while she circled the gallery, casting her old professional eye over Rob’s floor layout. What was it like to be valued only as an arm decoration for an older man? Camille and Mick had bought the corner house below Jan and Terry’s maybe six years ago, not long before Jan’s first big relapse and the life-shattering diagnosis. Their settling into the neighbourhood was a blur while Jan was fighting to save her barely begun career and marriage, but she thought Camille had been a lot nicer then. Quieter, as befit the small-town librarian she had been before Mick rolled into that small Ontario town and swept her into a speedy marriage. That made up the total of Jan’s early memories.

  Camille had always been in Mick’s shadow then. Maybe the nice Camille was still in there somewhere, but from what little Jan had seen of her in the past few years, now she was all about the luxury lifestyle Mick’s fame had wrought and clutched at every iota of privilege that being his wife might confer. Witness her snit-fit over waiting five minutes to sign off on the next paintings. Which should have been up here by now. Jan headed for the atrium and saw the elevator light go on. Finally. Time to call Camille back from whatever she was up to in the theatre.

  The officious blonde stood at centre stage, half-draped over her pet hockey player, Jarrad. The kid — a man now, surely twenty-three or more — had his hand on Camille’s thigh. Not groping, just resting it there like her thigh was a piece of furniture, another gilded support for his golden life. Another man yelled at them in the melodious monologue of a professional actor. The gist was quickly clear: Camille’s star turn at the gala was as an adulterous wife caught with her lover. How crushingly blatant. Poor Mick. Even if he didn’t attend the show — and gossip said he was not coping well with his new pacemaker — all his friends and neighbours would have the affair thrust before their eyes. Grinding her teeth for Mick’s pending public humiliation, she stepped into the sound-and-lights booth and flipped the clearly labelled in-house mike switch.

  “Camille, the next paintings are here.”

  An hour later, after the first full truckload of Rob’s selections from the secure storage warehouse had been checked in and hung, Jan at last remembered who else would be upset by Jarrad’s presence in the building. She went back to her bench in the lounge and called Dee. The call went to voice mail. She left a message, but under the circumstances, that didn’t seem sufficient. When she turned back to the gallery and saw Lacey hurrying away from it, her first impulse was to flee in the other direction. She reminded herself that Dee must be warned, and yelled instead.

  “Lacey! Wait.” Ignoring the pinched nostrils, she paced a few steps closer, slowly, conserving energy. “I just left a message for Dee, but if you spot her coming in here this afternoon, get to her right away and tell her Jarrad is here. It really won’t do for her to run into him without warning. Thank you.”

  She walked away, head high, proud of herself for her control of voice and face. No trembling, no tears, just the professional woman she used to be. But when she got into the gallery, the old bone-deep tremor was starting. The afternoon’s running around had cost her, and approaching that distasteful friend of Dee’s had eaten the last of her energy. She would have to take the second half of the pill after all.

  She reached home just before Terry, whipped pasta onto the table, and then was too jittery to eat. She poked the food around on her plate while she glossed over her day and asked about his. He wasn’t fooled.

  “You took another pill, didn’t you?”

  “I split it in half. And I lay down with my feet up partway through the afternoon. You’d have been proud of me.”

  “That’s what half a pill six hours ago does to you? Don’t make me laugh.”

  She jumped up, grabbing her plate. “So I had to take the second half later on. Big bloody deal. I was down there longer than I expected.”

  “You’re turning into a drug addict before my very eyes and I’m not supposed to say anything?”

  Jan screamed, “I am not an addict!” and flung her plate into the sink. Mushrooms and sauce splattered up onto the window in a hideous melange. She stared at the mess, hands to her mouth to stifle more screaming. What was happening to her?

  Behind her, Terry said, quietly, “That’s the pills talking right there. Mood swings are a known side effect.”

  She turned, tears pouring down her face. “I can’t give them up. I can’t. I have to walk, to talk, to work. I’m nobody without a job, Terry.”

  He put his arms around her. “You are not nobody. You’re just r
unning on a permanent energy shortage. These pills are fake energy. They’re using up what little power you can generate much faster than you can replace it. Surely you can see that. Smashing things is not you, honey. There’s got to be a better way.”

  “There is no other way,” she sobbed into his shirt. “I’ve tried them all. You know I have.”

  “You haven’t tried a wheelchair,” he said, holding on to her shoulders as she pulled away. “Hear me out, now. Just standing up and balancing uses almost every muscle in your body. It’s energy wasted. We could get you a sleek, office-style chair and you could cruise around the house and down to the museum as much as you wanted. I can rent one tomorrow and you can ride it to the gala. A queen on her rolling throne. You can save all those nice folks from Jake pumping them for his ex’s location. You know he’s gonna do it, and he’ll think he’s being sneaky about it.” He paused, waiting for her to smile at the picture of the rough-cut tycoon trying to tiptoe around a subject.

  If he hadn’t mentioned the gala, she might have been distracted. She might even have been persuaded to try one out. But to appear in front of all those elegant trophy women and hard-driving oilmen in a wheelchair? There wasn’t one sleek enough in the world for that. She pulled away.

  “I am not a cripple. No wheelchair. No gala. Now leave me alone.”

  “But no more pills, either?”

  She threw his plate into the sink on top of hers and didn’t flinch when both of them broke.

  Chapter Nine

  It was after six when Dee returned with a massive stack of pizzas for the overtime workers and volunteers swarming the building. Hurrying to help carry the food, Lacey quietly passed on Jan’s warning. For a microsecond, Dee froze. Then she looked hard around the parking lot, closed the car door with her hip, and headed back indoors, where the aroma of hot cheese drew everyone in the building down to the kitchen in record time. Nobody gave her a second glance, and she seemed to have recovered completely from the fractional pause outside. Whoever Jarrad was, he was not going to have an impact here and now. Lacey put him out of her mind, inhaled three slices of chicken taco pizza, and got back to work.