Road to Thunder Hill

by Connie Barnes Rose

  Funny where the mind drifts, I’m thinking, home in my own bathtub, surrounded by the sight of blackened grout and cracked tiles. This bathroom needs fixing, but I’ve resisted my mother’s offer to pay for it. Because then I’d need to get someone in to do the work and she’d start asking questions about why Ray can’t do it on one of his weekends home and I don’t want her to think he has left me again. And besides the bathroom’s not so bad if I keep my eyes closed.

  Lately, the idea of a hot bath is the only thing that keeps me going after a day of standing on the cold cement floor of the factory. No matter how many sweaters I wear, the chill stays even after I blast up the heat in the car on the drive home. But once I’m in my bath my mind can drift to the hottest places. For years, the big crush I had on Kelly, my boss, was enough to keep me warm. But then one day Kelly came really close to my ear and asked me to stay after work. I wondered if I’d finally get to act on the fantasies I’d had about him. Like the one where he looks over his glasses and asks me to lock his office door. Without another thought everything on his desk goes flying off, including the picture of his wife, Jilly, and his children, and then we’re both crashing and banging away on his desk or else I’m bent over the same desk staring at the picture of Jilly and the children while he’s busy filling me up from behind. I’ve often wondered about women who fuck their bosses. I suppose nothing ever works the same between them after that.

  Alana didn’t know about my fantasies, but she sure knew about the crush. She thought it was healthy. “Look,” she said. “First, you invest enough into it to keep your imagination alive when you’re having the same old, same old, with your real man. Second, when your man is being a real asshole, which, face it, they all are, it’s nice to know someone’s out there who thinks you’re pretty cute. Fact is, it’s much easier to get out of bed in the morning when there’s someone to look forward to seeing at work.”

  So imagine where my head was at that day after work and I stepped into his office. I sat across from his desk, flipped back my hair, which was longer then, and certainly a lot less grey. Mind you I was fatter then too. But in my daydreams, he raves about my roundness.

  “Been doing some thinking,” he said, looking at me all earnest like. He tapped a pencil on the notepad in front of him. “It’s nuts on my part really, that it’s taken me this long to realize this. And on your part, well…”

  “What?” I licked my lips then, and realized I was starting to shake like I had a fever. “On my part what?”

  “Irresponsible. On your part, downright selfish for not coming forward with … your …” The phone rang then. By the way he was talking, I guessed it was Jilly on the phone. When I got up to leave, he raised a finger to keep me there. I could feel my heart race.

  What was it Alana had said about actually seeing a fantasy through? Something about it usually not living up to the billing. I thought at the time to ask her how she had come to know this, but the subject had somehow changed before I’d had the chance.

  “Earth to Trish, earth to Trish.” Kelly was smiling and snapping his fingers at me. The phone was back on the cradle.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Did you say something?”

  “I was saying that Jill sold a crib for a hundred dollars at the school bazaar.”

  “A hundred dollars is great.”

  He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “Wherever you were a minute ago looked a lot more interesting.”

  I cleared my throat. “So Jilly’s at the big bazaar right now?”

  He nodded and stared straight into my eyes. “Uh huh.”

  So this was why he chose this day to invite me into his office. The question was, would I risk my marriage to make love to this sexy, but more than that, one of the most decent and fair men I have ever known? It crossed my mind that if he were to actually make a move, I might be forced to change my opinion of him. Meanwhile I couldn’t help but think ahead to going home right after doing the desk thing with Kelly, and how I’d need a shower because Ray is sensitive to smell and he can always tell when I’ve snuck a cigarette or even eaten a piece of licorice.

  “I want to ask you something,” Kelly was saying. “And I don’t want you to answer right away, okay?”

  “Okay.” I whispered.

  He took his glasses off. “You know how we’ve been having problems with defects lately, especially with key-rings?”

  He must have thought my silence meant I was interested instead of feeling confused because he went on about the time I discovered the tiny but sharp filament jutting out from the side of the mold. When the entire quality control team hadn’t been able to figure out why there were so many complaints of pricked fingers! Would I consider becoming his Production Co-coordinator?

  “I … I … you know, I pricked my finger while I was handling it and that’s how I found it.”

  “Now stop being so damned humble, I’ve also noticed how much your co-workers like and respect you. How many people can claim that? Take me for example,” he joked. “No-one around here has neither respect nor admiration for me. So let me tell you, I am always impressed when I discover those qualities in someone else.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, “Everybody loves you.”

  “You see? You even know how to butter up the boss!”

  I laughed. “This may be true, but what does that have to do with production co-ordination?”

  People skills, he told me. It always boiled down to that. Then he went on about getting workers to take pride in their productivity by appealing to their team spirit, their sense of community. I sat there wondering how I could have been so wrong about everything. I used to think I could read men’s signals.

  He winked. “And if that fails, then you offer them shares in the company. So how about it, Trish?”

  “Well, can I think about it?” I said.

  “Sure you can. Take all the time you need.” He leaned back in his chair again and folded his hands in his lap. “Okay, time’s up. Seriously Trish, this would be a great opportunity. So just say yes.”

  “Yes, okay,” I almost looked around to see who could be so rash as to say yes without even talking this over with Ray.

  “Great!” said Kelly, standing up to shake my hand. “Let’s get you started next week.”

  I drove the whole way home in a total daze.

  As soon as Olive heard about my promotion, she invited us to supper to celebrate. “It’s not that big a deal.” I told her over the phone.

  “It’s not every day one lands a big promotion! We’ll expect you at seven.”

  A big promotion. All that it meant, I tried to convince myself in the middle of the night, was that my duties would shift a bit. A bit? I’d be responsible for products traveling as far away as California. England, even. And I might even have to go to these places too.

  The next day everyone lifted their glasses to toast my success.

  “England, you say?” said Arthur, in the British accent he and Olive seemed to acquire whenever they drank.

  “How much of a raise will it be, Patricia?” Olive said, looking up from slicing a leg of organically grown lamb.

  I stared at the knife. “I don’t know, probably not that much. Actually, we didn’t talk about that part.”

  “You mean you didn’t discuss a raise?”

  “No.” I reached for the Swiss chard.

  Olive was staring at me in disbelief. “How can he do that? I can’t believe the nerve of people who come into depressed areas and take advantage of their workers.”

  Ray said, “Foghorn Pewter pays decent wages. Eight dollars an hour.

  Olive waved the knife in the air. “Perhaps for unskilled labour, but Patricia is no longer unskilled. She has just been promoted to management, which carries far more responsibility than merely working on the
line. In fact, the success or failure of the whole operation falls squarely upon her shoulders. Isn’t there something like seventy families depending on their jobs? Seriously. And her boss doesn’t bother to mention a raise?”

  “Workers of the world unite!” Arthur said, standing suddenly, and almost losing his balance in the process. “Olive, I do believe you’ve found your true calling.”

  Olive gave Arthur a look that might as well have been a push, the way he fell back into his chair.

  She continued, “Well, at least Patricia won’t have to actually work with pewter now. I can’t get over these companies who expose their workers to health hazards they wouldn’t get away with in a more environmentally conscious area.”

  “What’s wrong with pewter?” said Ray.

  “Lead!” Olive practically shrieked. “Don’t you know how much lead is used in pewter? Look at your wife’s hands. Patricia, show Ray how rough your hands are.”

  I put my hands behind my back. “Ray has seen my hands for almost twenty years, so I don’t know why I should have to show them to him now.”

  I didn’t sleep at all that night. The next morning I knocked on Kelly’s door and told him I couldn’t accept the promotion, that all I needed was a change from pouring molds. Maybe I’d buff for a while, and then move on to picture frames. I hadn’t yet poured picture frames.

  He held up his hands. “Look, I thought you’d do well at it, but hey, you don’t need to explain.”

  But explaining was all I seemed to do for the next while.

  “When do you start the new job, Trish?” said just about everyone.

  “I decided not to take it after all. Too much stress for one thing, and not enough pay for another.”

  Only to Ray did I confess I couldn’t handle the responsibility of being in charge. I couldn’t take the blame if things went wrong.

  “You used to like being in charge.” Ray said. “Think of all those times your father offered his accountant to do our income taxes. But you made us sweat over them every fucking year.”

  “You used to be so pissed off about that.”

  “But I’m not anymore because it turned out that you were right. That way we knew exactly where we stood. If his accountant had done it, then your father would have known more about us, than us.” He reached his arm over in the darkness of the bedroom to stroke my back. “It’s your decision not to take the job, but I’m surprised because you’re so good at ordering people around.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No sweat. That’s what I’m here for.”

  Gayl’s reaction stung the most. “Chickened out, eh?” she said, spitting toothpaste into the sink. “Way to go, Ma. Great role model you turned out to be.”

  “I didn’t chicken out,” I said, as I smeared night cream over my face. “I just thought it would be too much with all my other responsibilities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like taking care of this place. And your father. And you.”

  “Oh yeah, as if you have to take care of me. Or Dad.”

  “And your Grandmother.”

  Gayl stopped worrying about a pimple on her nose long enough to look at me in the mirror. “You hardly ever see Gran. I bet Olive sees her more than you do.”

  “That’s going to change. In fact, we’ll invite Gran here for the weekend and you can play cribbage with her the whole entire time. What do you think of that?”

  “I think you make it sound like some kind of a punishment.”

  The next day, I went back to work at the buffing bench and felt totally relieved. Who needed work that would follow you home at night? Olive was right. Feeling responsible for seventy families was a lot to handle. I could buff pewter pieces with my eyes closed. And then there was Paula with her funny stories about her idiot husband Larson and her insane mother-in-law.

  One thing changed though. I stopped thinking about Kelly as anything other than a boss. And if I happen to take my mother to church and I run into Jilly, I make sure to ask about their kids.

  Yep, funny where the mind drifts, I’m thinking, here in my tub. I reach for the hot water tap with my toes and slide my body down until only my knees and chin ruffle the surface. Olive had said she’d stop at Alana’s to get gas before heading home. I picture her shaking the snow off her cape just as Alana’s pulling on her garage parka to pump Billy full of gas. Inside the store, Olive will move past the canned goods and pickles to where the stove and couch and chairs are at the back of the store. She sits right down in Alana’s rocking chair, the one that faces the window and has a long view of the road. It always amazes me how Alana doesn’t shout at Olive, “Hey! Outta me chair!” like she does if anybody else takes her seat.

  Olive looks around the store like she’s sizing it up. She told me that if it were up to her, she’d have a garden center over by the window where the videos are kept. She might keep the sitting area, because of the country store quaintness about it. But she’d get rid of the nubby couch and chipped enamel table where Alana keeps her tea canister and cookie tin. The pinball machine would be out on its ear, replaced with bins of nuts and grains and assorted dried fruits. I told Alana about these plans and she found it funny that Olive wanted to turn her place into one of those fake country stores you see in resort areas.

  Wouldn’t the rats love all those open bins of nuts, I’m thinking, as my toes once more reach for the hot tap. Olive would be in for a rude awakening.

  Only last week I found Alana smearing peanut butter onto a big old rat trap.

  “Ugh, I hate these traps almost as much as I hate rats,” she said, as she secured the spring. I watched her place the trap on the floor near the wall behind the cash. We both held our breaths as she released her hand because once Danny’s finger got broke from a trap and he hasn’t set one since.

  “It’s understandable to hate rats,” I said. “But lately I’ve been wondering why do you think people hate people?”

  “Hmm.” Alana said. She had picked up a cloth and began wiping the counter but now she stopped wiping long enough to consider my question. I thought she might wonder why I asked but she said, “I think hate happens because of two things. At least that’s what I’ve noticed.”

  “Who have you ever hated?” I said. “Except for Rena Dickson.”

  “I don’t think I ever hated Rena Dickson.”

  “You hated her for screwing Danny that time.”

  “Yeah, well, who didn’t she screw back then? Or blow, as you well know. I really never thought that much about Rena, you know, whether I hated her or not.” Alana said, as if this might be something worth thinking about now. “Is it Rena you’re talking about? I thought you’d gotten over all that long ago.”

  “Yeah, like you ever forgive a woman for doing your man,” I said.

  “Yeah, and just think if she’d been a lesbian. Then we’d all be in trouble, and not just the men!”

  Before Alana had a chance to run further with this idea, I pressed on. “Now about those two reasons for hating someone.”

  “First just let me write a note to remind Danny about the rat trap.”

  Alana disappeared behind the counter to rummage through a shelf and then popped back up. “This is just a theory but I think that when you find yourself hating somebody it’s because that person has something you’ll never have or never will be.”

  I waited while she scribbled a note and taped it above the trap.

  “Or?”

  “Or … that person reminds you too much of yourself.” Alana stared down at the trap like she was daring a rat to appear.

  “Well that’s stupid. You might as well go around hating yourself.”

  Alana shrugged. “Sometimes it amounts to the same thing, don’t you think? But what do I know?”

  “You know everything!”


  “Right,” Alana said. “And you keep on thinking that, okay dearie? It’s music to a psychic’s ears.”

  The subject changed back to the rats. There’s no use telling her to get a cat either. A big tabby has been making the rounds in the neighbourhood but every time Alana goes out to pump gas she wears Danny’s work boots in case it rubs against her leg. If there’s one thing Alana hates worse than rats, it’s cats.

  Why can’t I just enjoy my nice hot bath without thinking bad thoughts? At times I feel like my head is filled with stations of worry, just like those on a radio. Like right now, I’ve just switched the Four Reasons station to the Gayl station. She should have arrived in town by now. Hadn’t I told her to phone as soon as she got in? She’d likely go straight to my mother’s and chances are good she’d forget to call. But what if she got hit by one of the salt trucks that bomb down the highways like they own them? Minnie Partridge’s car got slammed by one last year when she slowed down to turn into her driveway. She ended up walking away from it, but by all accounts she must have had a guardian angel watching over her that day. Would Gayl be so lucky? She could be in a ditch somewhere with the car looking like an accordion on account of the culvert it hit.

  Time to change stations back to the Four Reasons. It’s much safer than thinking of Gayl in a ditch.

  Where was I? Oh yeah, Olive is there in Alana’s chair and Alana will come in from the pumps blowing on her hands.

  “I sure don’t like the looks of this weather.”

  Olive will get to the point. “I was just over to see Trish.”

  “Oh yeah, how’s she doing?”

  Olive sighs here. “Poor Trish. She’s a wreck without Ray.”

  I picture Alana cocking her head, like she does when she senses trouble.