Cleaning up, p.14
Cleaning Up, page 14
One afternoon as Jess paced in the rec hall listening to the rain patter on the windows, she got a text from Matt.
“Dearest Jess,
“Yes, yes I know, no one ever writes ‘dearest’ anymore, but they should! For you, Mystery Girl, are dearest, even if you are departed. I know that sounds like you are dead (Are you? I’m hoping not.) but you did depart rather suddenly. One day you were a fellow hoe-er and burgeoning musician, and then poof you were gone. Of course if we KNEW where to find you, we could visit.
“I just want to tell you the MOST exciting news. The Barn Doors have a gig in Kingston this Friday! A real gig at the illustrious Grad Club, where we are opening for Terminal Three, which if you were listening at all, is Cat and mine’s favorite current Kingston band. We are looking for our tambourine player and backup singer. We need you, lost member of Casa Vegetable, Jess of the Hoe, Farmer Girl with the braids. Will you come? Email me, text me, send me a message by carrier pigeon or just show up for rehearsal today at four. You don’t even have to worry about what to wear. Cat has been haunting Value Village and has found several dresses in various styles and sizes with you in mind. How do you feel about plaid? Or are you more polka dots?
“Jess, are you out there? Where do you even live? I realize my failure to draw you out, to give you a chance to talk is entirely my own fault. Note to self: listen more, talk less! Mystery Girl, are you in a witness protection program?
“Love and peppers, Matt.
“P.S. Liz is trying to get in touch with you. I bet she’s drowning in dust since you abandoned ship. Later Gator, Matt-a-tola.”
The text traveled down the length of Jess’s screen several times. It would have taken Matt ages to text all that. But he did, for her.
Jess stared out at the wind-tossed trees outside. She could bike back to the barn and offer some lame excuse — a family emergency, a mother needing post-surgical assistance, a nonexistent niece whose day care closed. Or she could just shrug and say she’d been busy. Then she’d pick up her tambourine, close her eyes and be part of The Barn Doors: Matt on his bass, Cat wailing at the mic with her guitar and Yolo banging out a steady beat. She could wear some cute rockabilly dress, a blue polka-dot number with a rounded collar, or a red plaid dress with a belt. She could wear her boots. And Matt would be there, with his silly band names and his smile.
As if she was going.
If she saw them, they’d know what she did and the shame would be like cobwebs sticking to her skin. She wouldn’t be able to peel them away.
Jess turned off her phone. Now Matt couldn’t text her anymore. And if she never turned her phone on again, she’d never know the messages even came.
Jess kept her phone off for five minutes. Then she turned it back on.
A message from Liz flashed across the screen: “I’d still like to talk to you. I was thinking I could come by Lake Grove this Saturday, maybe in the morning, and we could talk? I have some questions, but also some things to tell you. Let me know.”
Jess felt her stomach drop, her throat grow dry. How did Liz know where she lived? She stared at her phone. Cold sweat formed on her palms. She should change her number or throw away her phone, but Liz knew where she lived.
What if she sent a quick text? “Dear Liz, I’m sorry I stayed over at your house. It was the wrong thing to do. Please forgive me.”
Would that be enough?
Jess pressed her fingernails into her palms. On Saturday Liz was going to show up and her dad would be drunk, or worse, and Liz would see that she didn’t even have a house to live in and she’d call Children’s Aid and Jess would have to live with some foster family.
There was only one solution. She needed to leave for the weekend.
Jess took a deep breath and typed into her phone. “Hi, Mrs. M, I haven’t heard from you in a while. I hope you are feeling okay.”
When Jess’s phone pinged with a response a moment later, she felt relief surge through her.
“Hi, Jessica, I see that I didn’t respond to your last message. How careless of me! I must have been back at the hospital. Anyway, I am MUCH better now, and Ted and I would love to see you. Perhaps you could come to dinner? We are free all the time as we are going nowhere until my health is 100%. Until then dinner with you in Reddendale will be more than exciting. Best, Mrs. M.”
Jess imagined angels trumpeting. She hugged her arms around herself, then called Mrs. M’s number. As she listened to the phone ring she imagined Mrs. M scurrying through her living room to answer. She’d be wearing her white fluffy slippers and one of what she called her home outfits — a matching tracksuit, sometimes in a terry-cloth fabric. Mrs. M was the only person Jess knew who owned matching tracksuits, or slippers.
“Hello?”
Mrs. M was also the only person Jess knew who still used a landline, who didn’t have call display.
“Hi, Mrs. McConnell, it’s Jess Darling.”
“Jessica! It’s so nice to hear from you.” Jess could hear the smile in Mrs. M’s voice. Warmth passed through Jess’s shoulders and she let herself slump further against the bench seat.
“I’ve been dying to hear how you’re doing,” Mrs. M bubbled, “but I didn’t want to cramp your style and, you know, mother you.”
Jess’s breath caught in her throat. She had to swallow before she managed to say, “Everything is going good.”
“Oh, wonderful.” Mrs. M sighed. “I bet it’s just lovely out there at the trailer park. All that water and fresh air.”
Jess looked out at the lashing rain on the dark trees.
“Yep,” she said.
“Oh, I’m so relieved you are having a good summer. Now will you come to dinner? Ted and I miss you and want to see how you’re getting along.”
“I’d love that,” Jess said, not bothering to hide her relief.
“Oh, super. How about Friday? Or if that’s no good, Saturday.”
“Friday would be great.” She could switch her Kingston cleaning day to Friday and then stay on. “I don’t have any plans for the weekend,” she added.
“Well, if you’d like to stay the night, we’d be happy to have you.”
“Um,” Jess pretended to deliberate. “That would work out okay.” She let her eyes close. When Liz showed up Saturday morning, Jess wouldn’t be around.
“Wonderful. Ted and I are arguing about one of the garden beds and I need help picking the tomatoes. I was thinking about making sauce and I’ve never done it before and I was just thinking, I bet Jessica would be good at that.”
“Sure.” If she let Mrs. M go on, she’d tell Jess about the problem with her computer that she hoped Jess would help her fix (unlikely) and the songbirds she couldn’t identify (also unlikely) and the book-club book she’d like Jess’s opinion on.
Jess let her rattle on a few minutes, because Mrs. M was talking to her, and no one had done that all week.
“Okay, looking forward,” Mrs. M sang into the phone.
“Great,” Jess said. “See you soon.”
Jess went back to her tent and got into her sleeping bag. Outside the wind howled, making leaves scurry in circles. The crick in Jess’s shoulder that had bothered her all week finally felt better. She exhaled and then hugged her knapsack to her chest. She rubbed her mother’s shirt between her fingers through the denim and then counted off her other items.
The diary felt like a missing tooth.
11
Jess left for Kingston early Friday morning before her dad woke up. Jim Stewart, the manager of the trailer park, gave her a ride into town and dropped her off with her bike at Division and Princess. From there Jess biked down to the Muellers’ to clean and then made her way west to clean at the Chins’.
Jess arrived at the M’s house sweaty and disheveled late in the afternoon. She forgot about her appearance as soon as she saw Ted McConnell in front of his house weeding his garden.
Mr. M, balding and with a developing paunch over his belted jeans, put down his trowel as Jess pulled up. With his usual half smile, his moustache lifting on one side of his face, his eyebrows falling over his craggy face, he kissed Jess on the forehead the way he always did. Then he pointed out the blooming hydrangea and filled Jess in on Mrs. M’s condition. She was still fragile and underweight from chemo but was coming along nicely.
“You’ll notice her hair is different, and she tires easily, but she has her spirit back,” Mr. M said.
Jess knew what he meant. Sometimes she wondered if it was exhausting to be Susan McConnell. You had to smile all the time and be so busy. Mrs. M volunteered with the symphony, the writers’ festival, a homeless shelter, plus she was always smiling, even when she was on the phone organizing people’s lives. Jess wondered if she ever sat down in her chair in the kitchen and let her face relax. Maybe she kept herself busy to keep things at bay, like the baby photo in the front hall with the dates 1996–1998 engraved on it. That would have been the McConnells’ third child, a boy named Michael.
Jess followed Mr. M up the driveway to their redbrick house with its attached garage. Usually Mrs. M came to the door when she heard it open, but today she let Jess and Ted find her in the kitchen where she sat at the table with a cup of tea.
“Come, sit,” she said to Jess, patting the chair next to her. She was wearing one of her matching tracksuits. Her tidy blonde bob had been replaced with a shorter auburn cut, a wig.
Jess leaned over to kiss Mrs. M’s hollow cheek.
She saw how fragile Mrs. M had become in the last six months. Jess wanted to grab her hand and squeeze it tight.
She had forgotten that the McConnells redid their kitchen last summer, that the 1970s pine cupboards and wrought-iron drawer handles had been upgraded to soft white marble and hanging glass balls over a shiny new island.
“So,” Mrs. M said, pouring Jess a cup of tea from a floral teapot. “What’s new with you? How’s Westport?”
Jess sipped the tea she still didn’t like much — an orange-cinnamon concoction that Mrs. M drank constantly. There was also a plate of sugar biscuits from the tin Mrs. M always kept on the kitchen table.
“Well,” Jess said, “Westport is fine. Not much going on there.”
“But you managed to find some work?”
“I’ve been doing some cleaning and some gardening. I made a picture for you of a garden I’m thinking about.” Jess pulled out the copy of the secret garden she had designed for the Guptas’ field.
Mrs. M put on reading glasses to study the picture.
“Why thank you,” she said. “It’s lovely. I’ll put it on the fridge.”
This made Jess smile. For as long as she could remember, she’d been bringing Mrs. M pictures — almost always gardens and flowers — and Mrs. M had been putting them on her fridge.
“Oh, Jess,” Mrs. M said, grabbing her hand across the table, “I’m so glad things are working out for you.”
Jess swallowed a lump in her throat and smiled.
“Yes,” she said, “everything is going good.”
“And your dad? How’s he doing?”
Jess shrugged. “The same as usual. He says he’s going to get us another apartment soon. Maybe next week.”
Mrs. M smiled. “Well, I’m glad to hear he’s looking out for your well-being.”
Jess squinted a little, trying to read Mrs. M’s expression. For the first time she thought she heard the tiniest hint of criticism in Mrs. M’s voice.
Then Mrs. M said brightly, “Well, now, why don’t you put your bag in the guest room and then you can help me trim the green beans.”
Jess nodded. Those words, “trim the green beans,” were like magic. For twenty-four hours she would trim the green beans, set the table, wash the dishes. She’d even clean toilets if Mrs. M wanted her to.
Jess walked to the guest room where she always stayed and put her bag next to the bed with its white eyelet bedspread and matching pillow shams. A stack of Mrs. M’s book-club books and an old-fashioned pitcher and bowl — as if Jess might wash her hands in this room — decorated a white dresser with fancy metal handles. A small window overlooked the M’s neat flower beds.
Jess sat in a white wicker chair and gazed out at the green canopy of a chestnut tree. She closed her eyes.
How many times had she pretended this was her room, the McConnells her family? She used to imagine herself a cousin or even a younger sister to Natalie and Kim.
Jess opened her eyes. Maybe it was Mrs. M resting at the table instead of bustling around, but today she felt unsettled, like an intruder. She wanted to melt into the TV-room couch with her feet tucked under her, the way she’d seen Kim and Natalie do, but it didn’t seem possible.
She thought Mrs. M’s house would be far enough away, but even if her phone was turned off, Matt and Liz were still with her.
In the kitchen Jess trimmed the green beans and tried to ignore that Mrs. M was still sitting at the table instead of standing beside her.
“I bought ingredients for a salad,” she said, “if you look in the crisper.” Jess nodded and pulled out a cucumber, a red pepper and a head of lettuce and started cutting them.
“So,” Mrs. M said, “tell me what you’ve been up to besides working.”
“Well …” Jess focused on washing the lettuce. “I was sort of in a band this summer.”
“That sounds fascinating!” Mrs. M said, getting excited the way Jess knew she would. “I didn’t know you played an instrument.”
Jess flushed. “Oh, I was just the backup singer and I played a tambourine.”
“Excellent,” Mrs. M said. “I remember you liked to sing. Now you’ll have to find some time to keep that up.”
Jess pretended to smile back. It was easier to reassure Mrs. M than tell her the truth. Cat and Matt and Yolo were probably getting ready for the gig right now, without her.
“And how about friends?” Mrs. M said. “Have you met some new people?”
“Well,” Jess said slowly, “I hung out with the band a lot this summer.” Jess thought about pulling out her phone to show Mrs. M pictures, but she didn’t feel up to that. Cat was probably putting on her makeup right now or writing out the set list.
All evening Jess imagined Cat, Matt and Yolo at the gig. During dinner she thought about the pizza or hamburgers they might be eating. When she walked the McConnells’ dog Coco with Mr. M through the quiet streets and Mr. M told her about the neighbors’ gardens — a topic that usually interested her — she imagined Matt, Cat and Yolo unloading Matt’s truck at the Grad Club.
When Jess and Mr. M returned from their walk, they found Mrs. M snoozing on the sofa even though it was only eight o’clock. Mr. M tucked a blanket around her.
“Susan is so happy that you are doing well,” he said, settling into his armchair. “She couldn’t wait to be well enough to have you visit.”
“I could come more often and check in on her during the day. I work near here, usually on Wednesday afternoons,” she said, thinking of the Chins.
“Susan would love that. But you’d have to pretend you were just dropping by and not doing it because you were worried about her.”
“Maybe I could help in some way,” Jess said, “like making dinner.”
“Yes,” Ted said. “Or if you went with her to the grocery store. She’s insisted on doing that herself again.”
He smiled and turned on the news. Jess sat on the couch beside the lightly snoring Mrs. M and stared at the TV screen. She checked her phone. Matt had put the poster of The Barn Doors with tonight’s gig information on social media. It seemed a long time ago that Jess had played tambourine.
If only she had ignored their drinking, she could still be in the band, playing her tambourine right now, the heels of her cowboy boots keeping the beat alongside Yolo’s drumming.
Jess imagined the band belting out a song until her phone vibrated, startling her.
“Hey where are you?” her dad texted.
“Kingston, I told you.” She had texted her dad this morning from the road.
“Yeah but where?! I gotta know where to find my girl.”
“I’m visiting the M’s, remember?” She had told him her plans a few days ago.
“What about our camping trip?”
Jess exhaled slowly. “I didn’t think you had actually planned it …”
There was a long pause and Jess imagined her dad sitting in a lawn chair in front of the trailer among the mess of empty bottles and full ashtrays.
“When are you coming back?”
She felt like writing, Never. How many times had he disappeared on her?
She sighed. “Tomorrow afternoon.”
There was another long pause. “Jessie-girl don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not.”
“It was just one last party.”
Jess didn’t respond. It was never just one last party.
She sat for a few more minutes. The wind had picked up outside and she imagined the loose vinyl siding of the trailer flapping in the wind.
She hugged her arms around her. Even sitting next to the M’s, she couldn’t shake the lonely feeling inside her.
Jess woke the next morning to the smell of brewing coffee. In the kitchen, sunlight streamed over the table where Mr. M drank his coffee with the paper. Mrs. M was at the stove. Although she wore a flowered scarf instead of a wig, she looked more rested.
“Good morning,” she sang out to Jess. “Did you sleep well?”
Jess nodded. “You look better today,” she told Mrs. M, helping herself to coffee.
“Yes,” Mrs. M said. “I overdid it yesterday. I tried to shop and tidy the house, and it was too much. I fear I was terrible company last night.”
“Well,” Jess said.
“We both enjoyed your musical snoring,” Mr. M said from behind his paper.
