by Darren Hynes
“She’ll pay you for them. Take it off her cheque.”
“Then when I ask her to come to my office for a little chat, she says that I can say whatever I have to upstairs. That’s when I noticed her eyes, bloodshot and practically seared shut. Stoned right out of it, she was.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I’m telling you, Emily, she was. The whole time I’m talking to her, she’s smiling, chewing with her mouth full, Crunchet bits caught between her teeth. ‘No odds,’ she says to me then, ‘I’m leaving anyway.’”
“Leaving?”
“‘Moving to St. John’s with the band,’ she said. ‘There’s more to this chicky than bagging groceries,’ she says to me over her shoulder as she’s walking out. ‘Look for me on Much.’” He pauses. “What’s Much?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Anyway, you can talk to her yourself. She’s coming in later to pick up her final cheque.”
She looks away, then rests her forehead in her hand. Rubs her eyes. Who else will she drag into this mess before Friday? Heather out of a job on account of her, she and her mother destined to eat Spaghetti-O’s straight out of the can.
“I’ll need you to pick up the slack until I find someone else.”
She nods.
“Can I count on you for Friday then?”
“Won’t be here.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Friday’s fine.”
“I’d appreciate it.” He smiles, then says, “No complaints from me, seeing more of you.”
A long silence then.
Neither of them seems sure where to set their eyes.
Using the armrests, Emily gets to her feet. Stands there looking down at him. “Opening up or what?”
He goes to stand too, but then changes his mind. “I’ll be right up.”
“Okay.” She turns and leaves, passing through the storage area en route to the stairs. Stops at the bottom of them. Always climbing stairs, she thinks. She grips the handrail and trudges up like someone twice her age.
4
AS SHE WAITS TO GO UP TO THE TELLER, Emily takes the old electric bill out of her pocket and transplants it to the bottom of her purse beneath a hair-infested brush and a pack of Juicy Fruit. She takes her hand out only to shove it back in again. It’s there, see. Safely at the bottom of your purse. She zips up and then shoves the bag into the hollow of her armpit.
Muriel, the only other teller besides Sonya, calls the next person in line.
Emily’s next. She considers turning around and telling young Peter Dawe to go on ahead of her so that she doesn’t have to cash her cheque with Sonya. Not that Muriel, with her wrinkled, smelling-of-sour-milk skin, and a finger always partway in either ear is much better. But Muriel at least has a limit to how much gossip she likes to either hear or spread. And if you catch her on a good day, Muriel will hardly talk at all. Just punch her computer keys with bony, almost transparent fingers, her face, despite thick glasses, so far forward that it looks like she might kiss the screen.
Someone’s tapping her shoulder.
It’s Peter. “She’s ready for you.”
“Come on up, my love,” Sonya says, waving her hand.
Comforted by the fact that, after today, she’ll never have to see the teller again, she goes up to the counter.
“How are you, my love?”
“Good,” Emily says, reaching inside her purse and pulling out the cheque. “You?”
“The best kind.”
“Good.”
Sonya’s makeup is inches thick. “How’s the darlings?”
“The darlings are fine,” Emily says.
“And that handsome husband of yours, how’s he?”
“Handsomer.”
“Not possible.” Sonya leans forward a little. “I believe you’ve gotten tinier.”
Emily looks down at herself, then back at Sonya. “I don’t think so.”
“Yes, you have. Melting away is what you are. Not sick are you?”
Emily shakes her head, then hauls back the sleeve of her sweater revealing her Timex. She taps the top of it. “I’m on my break.”
Sonya goes back to sitting upright in her chair. Starts hitting the computer keys with the tips of her glue-on nails. “The usual?”
“No,” Emily says, herself the one leaning closer now. She notices the remnants of a bagel or toast trapped in the lipstick on Sonya’s top lip. “I’d like it all.”
Sonya’s fingertips freeze on the keys. She looks up. “Hmm?”
“I’d like it all, I said.”
Sonya’s mouth slightly parted now. “Nothing in the account then?”
Emily takes in the bulging eyes on the other side of the counter, then shakes her head.
“That’s a change for you, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares back until Sonya’s fingers go back to work on the keys. “In denominations of twenties, tens, and fives, please.”
Sonya flips the cheque over and stamps it harder than Emily feels is necessary. “Give me a minute,” she says.
Emily watches her struggle to lift her bulky buttocks off the chair, then waddle to the back, her slacks too tight and showing the outline of her massive underwear.
Next to her, Emily hears Muriel call Peter up and then ask him about the university he’s attending in Halifax. “Sure, you’re all grown up,” Muriel says.
“You haven’t aged a bit,” Peter replies, kissing the older woman on the cheek.
Muriel laughs like a teenager, then says, “The charmer, just like your father.”
Something stirring in Emily’s belly causes her to clutch the handle of her purse and shift closer to the counter. She shuts her eyes for a moment, then opens them.
Muriel and Peter are still engaged in small talk despite the people waiting in line. Peter holding a blue bankbook in his delicate-looking hand. A hand that, she thinks, has grown accustomed to flipping through the pages of a book, and hitting the buttons of a computer. A hand so unlike her own calloused and dry one, its skin cracking from counting old money, lifting packages out of boxes, pricing cans of soup, and tearing receipts from a till.
She turns away. Lets go of her purse only to latch onto it again, afraid of letting go for some reason.
Across the room, Sonya is holding out her palm as Phonse Avery, the bank manager, places crisp bills there. After every few he has to lick his thumb and forefinger. His belly hangs over his belt, and the bottom button of his dress shirt is undone, which no one has bothered mentioning to him.
“Criminology,” says Peter.
There’s a pause before Muriel replies, “Well, it sounds important.”
Emily loosens her grip on her handbag, then takes a deep breath.
Remembers a time when she herself, like Peter, was filled with excitement about the future: studying at a university, meeting new people, traveling perhaps. Tired muscles around her mouth, back then, from all that smiling.
Sonya rises to her tiptoes and whispers something in Phonse’s ear. They both look at her, Phonse waving, his hairy belly button visible at the opening in his shirt. She tilts her head to him, then watches Sonya walk toward her, bills that look ironed in her hand.
It occurs to her that the girl she once was is gone forever, replaced by this older, more cautious version. A woman perpetually glancing over her shoulder although no one’s there, who weighs less but treads heavier, who sometimes has trouble lifting her eyes from the floor.
“Sorry for the wait, my love,” Sonya says, lowering herself back onto her chair like a person recovering from a herniated disc. The chair strains under the weight of her. She starts counting out the money, her knuckles rapping against the counter with each laid bill. “Five hundred and thirty-four dollars and eighty-three cents.”
Emily takes the change first, putting it in her coat pocket. Picks up the bills.
“Big plans, my love?” Sonya asks.
She stops in the middle of unzipping her ha
ndbag. Stares into the teller’s eyes. “Did I say I had any?”
Sonya shakes her head, then says, “I just assumed that with – ”
“St. John’s – ”
“What?”
“St. John’s, if you must know. We’re leaving on Saturday.”
“That’ll be nice, won’t it?”
She resumes unzipping, then hauls out her wallet and shoves the money inside. Puts it back in her handbag.
She should be out the door by now, she knows, walking back to finish her last shift, but she can’t seem to pry herself away from the counter.
“Is there something else, my love?” Sonya says.
Sixty dollars a week, she thinks, so that when the time came, Kent wouldn’t see a large withdrawal on his bank statement. He’s provided everything: the bills paid, the mortgage, the groceries, clothes for the kids, for herself. She’s wanted for nothing.
“Emily,” Sonya says, “was there something else?”
But she’s raised his children, hasn’t she? Taken care of the home, cooked and cleaned, and worked herself now this past year.
“Others are waiting, my love,” Sonya says.
“Say hello to your mom and dad,” Muriel says to Peter.
Peter says, “I will.”
“Next,” Muriel says, her pinky so far in her ear you can barely see it.
He’ll be in Gander for half the night, won’t he? And by the time he goes to the bank himself, she’ll be gone, right? What’s a little extra for all that she’s put up with? If anyone’s entitled, she is.
“Emily –”
“There is something.”
“All right.”
“I’d like to make a withdrawal from our joint account.”
“How much, my love?”
She says nothing.
“How much?” Sonya asks again.
Emily feels herself trembling. When she speaks it doesn’t sound like her voice. “Half of what’s in the account.”
Sonya freezes for a moment, then leans so far forward that her breasts plop atop the computer console. “What?”
“Half, I said.”
Blotchy patches break out along Sonya’s upper chest and neck. Eyes opened so wide that the balls themselves look like they might pop out onto the counter. “Half?”
“That’s right.”
Sonya’s face contorts with longing, like a child lying awake on Christmas Eve. When she’s able to speak again, she says, “Swipe your client card.”
Emily does.
“Punch in your –”
“PIN, yes I know how to do it,” Emily says.
She watches the teller get up again and walk to the back on wobblier knees, fanning her doughy, flushed cheeks with the withdrawal slip.
5
THE WIND’S SO STRONG SHE CAN barely catch her breath. She tucks her chin downward toward her chest and leans into it, as if walking through water, her handbag pressed against her, underneath crossed arms, her fingertips pushed into the groove of each underarm. The handbag’s the only thing, she thinks, anchoring her to the street. It’s a fatter bag now, she knows, So many bills inside that she had to ask Sonya to wrap the bundle in elastic bands, then place it in a large manila envelope. Sonya’s eyes on her as she walked out. Through the window too, probably, though Emily had refused to turn around and look.
She steps over a Coke can that the wind blows into her path, then narrowly avoids getting hit by a piece of flying cardboard. She’d walk faster if the wind would allow it.
She wonders if there will be room under the basement floor to accommodate the extra money, and if not, where she should hide it. Everything’s been set into motion by making the withdrawal, she knows. Out of her control now. A plane nose-diving towards earth.
Cry, laugh, scream – it’s like they all want to come out of her at once. Tingling in her belly and in the tips of her fingers and toes. Racing heart, deeper breath, her limbs looser, her mind focusing on what lies ahead. One shot. That’s all she’ll get. One. Friday. Tomorrow. My God, tomorrow. It’s here.
Someone’s shouting her name. She lifts her head and sees Heather, waving to her just outside the main doors of Hodder’s Grocery and Convenience.
They walk towards each other, meeting in the middle of the street. Emily’s not expecting the hug that Heather gives.
They part.
“What have you got in there?” Heather shouts, her voice nearly drowned out by the wind.
Emily looks down at her handbag. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“What?”
“I said, wouldn’t you like to know?” She presses her bag against her chest like a youngster carrying schoolbooks.
Heather smiles.
They stand looking at each other for a moment, like people who’ve shared something, revealed parts of themselves.
“I’m sorry.” Emily says. “About your job and everything.”
The wind blows open Heather’s jacket. She grabs the fluttering coat and zips it up. “Don’t be. It would have happened sooner or later.”
The top of a garbage can goes sliding across the street, getting trapped beneath the back wheels of a parked truck. A pair of underwear, probably from someone’s clothesline, sails past, just above their heads, white boxers with blue stripes. A pair of pantyhose goes whipping past too, wrapping itself around the railing of a front porch.
The younger woman says, “Fuckin’ wind, eh?”
“Yeah.”
A car horn blares behind them. Heather takes Emily’s wrist, pulling her to the shoulder of the road. After the car passes, Heather says, “Come to the marina for a farewell coffee.”
“I can’t.”
“Come on.”
“Break’s over.”
“It’s dead in there; Terry’s dusting the Kraft Dinner for something to do!” She grabs hold of Emily’s wrist again. “Come on, half a cup.”
She looks down the road towards the front window of Hodder’s Grocery and Convenience, half expecting to see Terry behind it, clipboard in his hand and pencil behind his ear, pants too tight and shiny shoes. His eyes always searching for her, she knows. Always for her. That’s why she can’t not go back for the rest of her shift despite having the money in her purse. Despite her mind being gone already. Because of him. Terry.
“Okay. Half a cup.” Emily says.
“Let’s go then before we blow away.”
* * *
PAT GULLAGE, THE OWNER OF THE MARINA, stands over them, a pot of freshly brewed coffee in his hand.
“Just half for me,” Emily says. She starts unbuttoning her sweater.
“Fill them to the rim, Pat.”
“Heather –”
“To the rim, Pat.” She shoots Emily a sly smile. “Dusting boxes of Kraft Dinner, remember.”
Emily shows the younger woman the palm of her hand, its fingers splayed. “Five minutes.”
Pat pours. “It’s a system up from Florida.”
“Hmm?” Heather says.
“The wind.”
“Oh.”
“One hundred and forty kilometres by this evening, the weather man said.”
“Jesus,” Heather says.
“Gonna bring some rain too.”
Emily feels a chill pass through her. She’s never taken the weather into account before, the possibility of it hindering her escape. She looks up at Pat. “How long’s it supposed to last, do you know?”
“Tomorrow morning, they’re saying.”
If the weather can turn against her, what else can, she wonders? She imagines a fire in the galley of the ferry, a sleepy driver at the wheel of their taxi, their plane falling from the sky.
Heather pours some cream into her coffee. “You sure keep track of the weather.”
Pat lifts his head, stares across the room at Anique, from Anique’s Antiques, his only other customer. She’s sitting at a table near the window, a pot of tea and a half-eaten slice of toast in front of her, staring out at the sea, her tremo
r making it look as if she’s stuck saying ‘No.’
He looks back at them. “Lots of time on my hands.”
Emily sips her coffee.
Heather rips open three sugar packets and drops them in.
“Worse now with the layoffs,” Pat says. “Who wants to spend ten dollars on Flipper Pie when they can’t afford to heat their house?”
Neither woman says anything.
“I give this place ’til Christmas.”
What odds, Emily thinks. She’s been gone for ages anyway. In Lightning Cove physically, but elsewhere in her mind.
No one speaks for a moment.
She wonders if Pat’s just going to stand there refilling their cups all afternoon.
“And me and Joan with the young one wanting to go to university too,” Pat says, finally, his eyes once again scanning the empty room. “I should have seen it coming.”
A middle-aged couple that Emily’s never seen before walks in front of the window.
Pat zooms in on the out-of-towners as they stop outside the door. The woman holds onto her hat to keep it from blowing away, leaning against the glass to peer inside. The wind blows her partner’s trench coat tightly against his longish limbs as he reviews the menu, his own hat in his hand, and not a hair on his head for the gale to blow asunder. He bends over to say something to her; she’s much shorter. She nods, then loops her arm through his. They walk away.
Emily takes a sip of her coffee, unable to look Pat in the face.
Heather adds another sugar packet.
“I’d give you those on the house, but…”
“Wouldn’t hear of it, Pat,” Heather says. She reaches inside her leather jacket for some change but doesn’t have any. She looks across at Emily.
Emily finds a toonie and some quarters in her pocket and hands them over to Pat.
From the other side of the room Anique raises a shaky hand. “Pat,” she says, her voice weary.
Emily waves to the old woman. “Hello, Anique. How are you today?”
Anique leans forward. Concentrated eyes through thick spectacles. “Who’s that then?”
“It’s Emily.”
“Who?”
“Emily.”
“Oh.”
“How are you today?”
