All I Ask

by Eva Crocker

  * * *

  The last chore on moving day was a trip back to Patrick Street to load up the cats and a sad, sunken loveseat that had been cycling through communal households for years before it ended up with us. A ’70s-style velour couch with skinny mustard and forest-green stripes, coated in cat hair. The insides had given up. When you sat on it the cushion collapsed onto the floor and the wooden frame banged against the underside of your knees. The surprise of hitting the floor was like missing a step.

  The cats were light enough to stay afloat on the cushions, though, and Snot had often spent the afternoon there. Guests who didn’t know about the couch ended up with sore tailbones and a matt of fur on their pants. We posted a photo online offering free delivery with the caption “Still some life left in this relic” but no one had responded.

  Viv and Mike helped me load it into the van and then we all threw the garbage bags from the heap outside the house onto it. Viv helped me catch the cats and force them into the large carrier I used for taking them to the vet. I put them in the front footwell and sat with my sneakers on top of the carrier, knees against my chest. Courtney was shivering in the back of the carrier, Snot kept rearranging himself and letting out awful howls.

  I thought Holly would be annoyed about the trip to the dump because it was all my stuff. We were being charged for mileage on the van on top of the rental fee and gas. But she was in a good mood. Before we left Patrick Street she handed me the ripped corner of a flyer with a string of numbers written below the Shoppers Drug Mart logo.

  “That’s the account number for the internet. Do you want to call and switch it over? That girl said we can just add ourselves to their account,” Holly said.

  “It’s Rogers?”

  “Yeah. She said to say, ‘I want to take responsibility for the account,’” Holly said. “You have to say that.”

  We hadn’t discussed whose name the bills would be in. I’d already e-transferred the damage deposit to the landlord because Holly had been working the day it had to be sent. But Holly was driving, so I googled the Rogers number and dialled. I was on hold all the way to the dump. I put the call on speaker and dropped my phone in the cup holder, letting elevator music fill the cab. Every few minutes Snot wailed. I kept catching flashes of his yellow eyes through the ventilation holes in the side of the carrier.

  At the dump I laid the phone on the back bumper of the van while we flung bags of garbage over the railing into the dumping port we’d been assigned. Dumpsters that got emptied throughout the day were lined up at the edge of each port; beyond them a sea of garbage was being raked by bright yellow backhoes. Seagulls circled overhead. I saw the blur of at least three grey rats swimming through the trash directly below us.

  I climbed over the couch, leaving footprints on the velvety cushions. I got behind the armrest and pushed it to the doors of the van. Holly lifted the opposite end up onto the rail. I gave it a good, hard shove. The creaky frame rocked on the rail for a moment before sliding into the dumpster. I hopped out of the van and looked over the rail at that last piece of me and Viv’s life, half submerged in puffy garbage bags.

  It wasn’t until we were almost back at the house that the music cut out and a voice came through the speaker, “Hello.” The Rogers employee had a Newfoundland accent. I assured the woman I was a roommate of Natalie Swanson’s, that we lived at the same address, and I said, “I’d like to take responsibility for the account.” I heard the clicks of a keyboard on the other end as I recited my date of birth and social insurance number.

  * * *

  After the young cop had finished reading me the warrant, he’d flipped back to the front page and laid the papers on the table. I pushed my chair back and stood up.

  “Oh, you can stay seated. Sergeant Hamlyn is going to ask you a few questions now.”

  “Can I call my mom?” I’d asked.

  “No.” The young cop stood up. “You’re going to need to answer some questions for Sergeant Hamlyn right now.”

  The bald cop sat in the chair beside me, splayed his legs wide and flipped open a notebook. I couldn’t believe he was taking notes by hand. I crossed my bare legs, my spandex shorts riding up.

  The other cops were pacing around; the front and back doors kept opening and closing, letting cold air into the house. My arms and thighs were covered in goosebumps; thin hairs stood up in the puckered skin.

  “Whose name is on the internet account?” the bald cop asked.

  “Mine,” I said, rubbing my arms.

  “Is it password-protected?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who has access to the password?”

  “My roommate.”

  “That’s it? Just you girls?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No one else?”

  “No.”

  “No one else? You can definitively say no one else has the password?”

  “It’s on the fridge.”

  “Here’s a tip for you, keep your internet password private. Keep all your passwords private. We’re going around to schools teaching them that.”

  I tried to keep the irritation off my face.

  “People don’t realize. And another thing we tell them, don’t put anything out there you don’t want traced back to you. The second you hit save or send or upload or whatever — it’s out there just waiting to come back at you like a boomerang.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t do the presentation, Sergeant Leslie Brace does the presentation. The presentation is . . . the kids really respond to it.”

  He flipped back through the notebook.

  “And this Holly, she’s not on the lease?” he asked.

  “She’s on the lease.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  “A few months? Less than a year. Neither of us are involved in this, whatever you’re looking for.”

  “How do you know her?”

  Over the bald cop’s shoulder, I saw the young cop come down the stairs with my laptop under one arm and three or four flash drives dangling from his fist by their lanyards.

  “What’s he doing with that?” I asked.

  “If I were you, I’d want to co-operate as much as possible.”

  “I’m co-operating, I’m just —”

  “Because things can go a couple of ways here today. We all want this to go smoothly.”

  The flash drives had been in a compartment of the jewellery box I kept on my dresser. The jewellery box was filled with precious junk, letters from when Viv lived away, trinkets from friends and lovers, my grandparents’ wedding photo. The flash drives bounced on their cords with each step he took.

  * * *

  On our first night in the new house I’d sat with Holly while she unpacked. She unzipped a suitcase, took out a wrinkled sheet and flapped it twice in the air. I helped her stretch the bunched corners over Natalie Swanson’s mattress. The sheet was cream with butter-coloured roses on it. I was surprised by her soft, feminine sheet set.

  “There’s hangers here,” she said when she opened the closet door.

  “Take this down?” I asked, my hand poised over the rock-climbing poster still stuck to the back of her door.

  “Oh yeah, please.”

  The glossy poster ripped in the middle as I tore it down. I picked four carefully rolled balls of tape off the door. I scrunched the poster up with two hands and tossed it into the hallway. Then I sat on the bed and watched Holly feed hangers into the necks of baggy sweatshirts.

  “You know those bookcases people make with milk crates and zip ties?” Holly asked.

  “Yeah.” Viv had one when I first met her.

  “I’m going to make one of those, I just need to find some milk crates. I’m getting my books shipped down here eventually — it’s so expensive, though.”

  She held up a black velvet dress with wires in
the bodice and a crinoline under the skirt. It was strapless; she wrapped the ribbons sewed next to the armpits around the hanger’s hooked neck.

  “No one dresses up here,” she said.

  “Not really, I guess.”

  “I miss dressing up. I’ll probably never get to wear this here.”

  The heavy dress swayed in the closet.

  “You could wear it,” I said, leaning forward to smooth her creamy sheets with my palms.

  “It’s not fun if no one else is dressed up.”

  “Heather Canning dresses up.”

  Holly flipped the top of the suitcase closed on the rest of her dresses and unzipped a compartment on the front of it. She took out a plastic clamshell filled with thumbtacks and laid it on the windowsill. Then she took out a tin and popped it open. It was full of skinny Polaroids taken with an Instax camera. She started pinning them to the wall in a cluster by the mirror.

  The photo on top of the sloppy pile left in the tin was of Holly and a guy in bed topless. The guy was looking into the camera and Holly had her eyes closed, lips pressed against his cheek. It was so clearly staged, with her looking demure and adoring. It grossed me out. And Holly had become moody. I felt like she didn’t want me in her bedroom anymore.

  “I’m not connected to the internet,” I said. “I’m going to get the password.”

  I’d left the scrap of flyer with the internet information on the kitchen counter earlier. The lights were off downstairs but it wasn’t dark; a streetlight’s swan neck curved over the dumpster, making it look like a prop in the middle of an empty stage. My things were strewn around the living room. Except my mattress — Holly had helped me push the mattress up over the stairs and into my room.

  The couch was in the centre of the room and the cushions were piled next to it. The legless tabletop was face down in front of it. I felt a pang of pride that I’d put all the table screws into a Ziploc bag and taped them to the table’s plywood underside. The chrome legs were bound together with sticky knots of packing tape.

  I turned on the light above the stove and leaned in under the hood. I typed the string of letters and numbers Natalie Swanson’s roommate had written in red pen below the Shoppers logo. The first time it didn’t work. I spent a few frustrating minutes swapping out “5” for “S” and “0” for “o.”

  Me and Holly had ordered pizza earlier in the day. I wriggled a cold slice out of the box in the fridge. It was only 8:30 but I was exhausted from moving. I walked into the living room with my pizza, noticing the stiffness in my butt and thighs. I put two of four cushions on the couch and sat on it. “Incorrect Password” kept popping up on my phone’s screen. I typed the numbers in again, extra slowly. Snot poked his head around the corner of the basement door and crossed the room, meowing at me. When he hopped into my lap I rubbed the glossy fur between his ears. Courtney was stretched out in the cool bathtub, sleeping. There was music coming from Holly’s room, something gothy. I tried turning the Wi-Fi off and back on again.

  I was mourning all the systems Viv and I had developed. There was an agreed-upon plan for which sauces went in the fridge and which went in the cupboard. Other people’s mail slid between the posts of the banister. An understanding about how long the litter could go unchanged and dishes could be left in the sink unwashed. Borrowing books from each other without asking, but checking before wearing one another’s clothes. Clean towels stacked on the stool by the bathtub. A psychic connection that let us know when we could wander into each other’s bedrooms and when one of us wanted to be alone.

  Finally, the curved bars in the top corner of my phone filled in.

  I heard coughing so loud it sounded like it was right there in the room with me. I dropped my phone and clamped my hands down on Snot. I looked around the room and then out the window. That was the first time I saw the hacking woman at her post on the bottom of the fire escape. She had curly grey hair that hung down her back and wire-framed glasses. It looked like she was staring straight into the living room at me but I could tell by her expression that she was lost in thought.

  Six

  As a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. They often took me for long drives, usually to visit my grandfather’s relatives who lived around the bay. I sat in the middle of the back seat, swaying back and forth as we drove the old road to Spout Cove. The old road is two lanes that wind past fish and chip shops and Chinese takeouts that closed down when they built the new road. The windows of the restaurants were smashed and covered with wet-looking plywood. My grandmother kept saying, “It’s nice to take the old road and see the fall colours.”

  My great-aunt’s house was on the side of the highway, across from a cliff that skidded into the ocean. There was a car parked in the tall grass beside my great-aunt’s house, so we parked on the cliff side of the road.

  “Be careful of cars getting out,” my grandfather said. “They won’t expect you.”

  I got dizzy looking over the guardrail at the drop into the choppy bay. My grandmother took my hand and we crossed the highway together. We walked between the house and my great-aunt’s silver Sunfire to the back door.

  “I should come out here and mow the grass on the weekend,” my grandfather said. He called out to my great-aunt as he opened the unlocked door.

  My great-aunt didn’t stand up when we came in. She was wearing a turtleneck sweatshirt with a polar bear in a swirl of glittering snow on the front. I couldn’t imagine a grown-up woman picking out that sweater for herself. Her shoulders curled beneath the fabric, dark purple veins snaked over her knuckles and up into her sleeves.

  “Get the girl a bun,” she said.

  She pointed to a see-through bag of raisin tea buns on a white Styrofoam tray. My nan pulled out a chair across from my great-aunt, saying, “Have a seat, Stacey.”

  My grandfather ran a finger along the window ledge, checking for moisture. He walked into the hallway and bounced on the floorboards, flicked open the fuse box and looked over the rows of switches.

  “How are you holding up, Alice?” Nan slipped the tip of a steak knife into the folded bit of red tape sealing the bun bag.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said, how are you holding up?” The plastic bag twirled open in my grandmother’s hands.

  I heard the gentle knocking first.

  “Gerard comes by every evening, bless him,” my great-aunt said.

  A bumping with no rhythm to it.

  Nan turned her head towards the sound. “What’s that?” The question was directed at my grandfather, out in the hall.

  “Gerard comes by most evenings.” My great-aunt raised her voice. She ran her hand back and forth across the vinyl tablecloth.

  My grandfather, my nan and I listened. The sound was something soft battering itself against a hard surface.

  “It’s coming from the stove,” my grandfather said, and he crossed the hall and pushed the living room door open. My nan put the buns on the counter and followed him. My great aunt watched her leave the room. I could see she was used to being out of the loop, she accepted that things would either make themselves clear eventually or not, it was out of her control. The thumping quieted and then returned in short urgent bursts.

  I heard my grandfather in the other room saying, “It’s a bird in the stove.”

  “I’m going to go see, I’ll come right back,” I told my great-aunt.

  “Go ahead, get yourself a bun,” she answered.

  In the living room my grandparents were leaning over the wood stove.

  “Shut the door and open the window, Stacey,” my grandfather said.

  “A bird in the house,” my grandmother said.

  “Louise,” my grandfather said.

  I twisted the brass door handle until it clicked and rushed to the window. At first I couldn’t get the window open; I turned the lock on top of the frame
and pushed but it didn’t move.

  “That’s alright, give it another shove,” my grandfather said.

  I pushed as hard as I could and the window screeched open. I kept both arms over my head, holding the bottom of the window in case it slammed shut. I watched over my shoulder as my grandfather knelt in front of the stove and opened the door. A bird covered in ash shot out, smacked into the wall and fell behind the couch. It left a streak of grey ash on the pink carpet.

  I let go of the window and backed away, watching to see if it would start to slide down. My grandmother and I looked into the dark space between the back of the couch and the wall. The bird had a cream-coloured chest and a brown body. A brown so bright it was almost gold in places. Its claws were curled up; somehow I knew that wasn’t good.

  “Dead,” my grandmother said.

  “Could be stunned.” My grandfather stood, leaving the stove door open. He pulled the sofa away from the wall and scooped the bird up. My grandmother watched. He carried it across the room and dropped it out the open window into the tall grass growing alongside the house. He wiped his ashy hands in his corduroys.

  “He might wake up yet.” My grandfather put his hands on my shoulders and turned me towards the door. “Go keep your aunt Alice company.”

  In the kitchen, my great-aunt was still sitting at the table, looking at my empty chair. My grandmother was vacuuming the carpet in the other room. My grandfather walked through the upstairs, checking for leaks.

  “There was a bird in the stove.” I stood next to my great-aunt and said it loudly. “Flew down the chimney.”

  “A bird in the house is bad luck,” she told me.

  “It flew into the wall but it might wake up yet,” I said, mimicking my grandfather.

  “Have a bun,” she said. “I bought them for you.”

  Before we left, my great-aunt Alice gave me a decorative spoon with a photo of the Pope on the oval tip of the handle. She’d bought the spoon when the Pope visited Newfoundland in 1984. She told me he’d held her hands and kissed her head.