Eleven

Blessed, miraculous, luxurious, heavenly Saturday morning. It must suck to love your job and not feel any different when you wake up at the weekend. I yawned so hard I did a spit squirt, then put my hands above my head and pushed against the panelling boxing in my bed at the top. Last, I straightened my legs and pushed my feet against the panelling boxing it in at the bottom. Six months of power yoga and I’d be able to split this little boat in two. As it was, I made it give one small creak then relaxed.

“It’s wasted on you,” said Todd’s voice.

I pulled off my sleep mask and stretched out a hand for the coffee cup I knew would be there. I don’t even flinch when Todd’s at my bedside these days.

“What is?” I said after the first sip.

“This bed with the solid wood bracing at the top and bottom,” Todd said. “So much resistance and all you do is stretch in it.”

“Todd, I told you before,” I said. “I am ready and waiting for a kind, funny, honest, intelligent, solvent, woke, genitally intact—”

“Racist!”

“American isn’t a race. Male, between thirty and fifty with no drama, no resident kids, no strong feelings against having any more kids, and no guns. Find him for me and I’ll happily break my bed. Until then, why don’t you and Roger come for a sleepover one night?”

“Girl, please,” Todd said, which I took to mean Roger and Todd could sink Creek House without trying. “Anyway … Kathi’s got some sewing for you to do, easier than a zipper this time. And Roger has some very interesting news about Tam. And I need a wingman. Interrogations begin today, Lexy. I’ve got three lined up and they’re bound to lead to more.”

“What the hell time do you get up in the morning?” I said. “Not just you. All of you! What interrogations?”

“Of sixty-eight-year-old Cuento-ites who might have been at the reunion.”

“How did you get their names?” I said, swinging my legs out of bed.

“And get a pedicure!”

“It’s winter!”

“What if I find him today? Captain Foreskin?”

“Then I’ll get a pedicure.”

I stumbled along the corridor to the bathroom, leaving Todd to choose an outfit for me. Is it disgusting to take your coffee into the loo? If Todd ever did find me a guy, or if I did it myself, would I have to stop? How long could I be single before moving back into intimacy with someone would be more effort than I could face?

“You should hold your pee a coupla times,” Todd shouted. “Good for the pelvic floor.”

Or maybe I wasn’t as rusty as all that at intimacy anyway.

The sewing job Kathi had on her docket this morning was to reverse the crotch rot in a pair of linen floods. She pulled them out of a packet and spread them on the folding table to show me.

“They’re pretty new,” she said. “But they’ve worn out in the inner thighs already. Eighty dollars’ worth of pants. Twenty dollars per wear.”

Dollars-per-wear was a big thing with Kathi. She priced out her jeans and polo shirts at fractions of a penny and had plenty to say about my wardrobe. Almost as much as Todd did, in her way.

“I said I could fix it,” she said, poking her hands through the holes. “Can you fix it?”

“It’s one of the great ironies,” I said turning them inside out and taking them off Kathi’s wrists. “They look like the ultimate fat pants. But if you’ve got the slightest little whisper of thigh rub, you’ll turn them into assless chaps in six months. I don’t suppose you asked if she’s willing to sacrifice the pockets, did you?”

Kathi shrugged.

“Have you got a phone number for her?”

“I do,” Kathi said, “but I was really hoping for slick, quick service. Rather than a lot of dithering. You know?”

“Maybe she’d think a phone call was extra-attentive,” I said. “If she’s the sort to buy them in the first place and pay to have them mended …” I was checking the pockets as I spoke and both of them were in tatters anyway. “Hm,” I said. “Pockets not functional. But on the other hand, pockets definitely well-used. I really need to check what she wants, Kathi. Give me the number.”

“What the hell shreds both pockets in four wears?” said Kathi. “Keys? Pocket knife? This chick needs a tool belt.”

“They’re elasticated,” I said. “A belt would pull them down.” I squinted at the phone number on Kathi’s order screen and dialled it.

“Speak!” said a voice.

It sounded familiar.

“Oh!” I said. “You’re not a cat groomer, are you?”

“What?” said the voice. “Who is this?”

Kathi was miming a lot of strong foul language at me and slicing her finger across her throat. I hung up.

“What the …?” she said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll call back from your line. She won’t know it’s the same person.”

“Right. She’ll think it’s some completely different extra from Outlander. Jeez, Lexy.”

“Oh, yeah.” I felt so at home here now, I kind of forgot that I stuck out when I opened my mouth. “Sorry. Right, you phone. And ask her if it’s okay to stitch up the pockets and use the fabric to effect the repair.”

“Effect the repair,” Kathi repeated, dialling. “That’s good.”

“Tell her it’ll give a better silhouette,” I said. “Pocketless.”

Kathi nodded and then started speaking. She listened to the answer, gave me a thumbs-up, and then kept listening. Her eyes widened. Her mouth formed an O shape as if to start asking “What the …” again but she remained silent. Eventually she cleared her throat, said, “It’ll be ready on Monday. Thank you for using Sew Speedy,” and hung up.

“What?” I said.

“The pockets are shredded from her key chain,” she said.

“Right,” I said. “Like you thought.”

“Because her keychain is made out of her cat’s jawbone,” Kathi said. “It’s dead.”

“I’ll bet it is. Is that a thing? In California.”

“It’s not even a thing in the Inca Empire! It’s gross.”

I couldn’t argue, but then the things that I thought were gross around here was a long list. I was dreading my first funeral, because an open coffin with a rosy-cheeked corpse in it struck me as beyond barbaric. I was no fan of the open salad bar either, if I’m honest. And as for mud baths! I was in one the first time it occurred to me that the mud wasn’t changed between customers, and that this sucking, sticking cloying vat of organic goo, just the perfect temperature for bacteria to replicate in, had been sucking and sticking and cloying to that old guy who’d come waddling out of the changing room as I was going in. I felt the pustules begin to heave under my epidermis as I sat there. I felt funguses blooming and viruses spreading. When the attendant had the nerve to say detox I couldn’t even laugh.

“So I can use the pockets?” I said. “I only need one. Or one half of two. Tell you what, Kathi. Keep the other two bits on file under her name and tell her when this lot wears through again—and it will unless she goes on a major diet—you’ll repair them again for free.”

“You’ll repair them again for free?” Kathi said.

I hadn’t been willing to discuss the fee breakdown for Trinity Solutions, because I didn’t want to give it oxygen, so I didn’t know if I was being kind or being had. I nodded and bent my head to start sewing.

Todd was waiting for me when I left the Skweeky Kleen (featuring Sew Speedy) half an hour later. He was perched on top of the bonnet of his sparkling black Jeep. A stranger would assume he was posing there, getting a bit of height so that his golden perfection could be seen by more of the lesser mortals around him. I knew he was keeping his feet off the ground where the insects live. My heart ached a bit and then melted a bit as he gave me a brave smile. So when Della and Noleen both ambushed me in a sweet pincer move, they each got me a good one.

Della opened her door with a kitten under each arm. “His skin is broken,” she said, brandishing Flynn at me. He meeped forlornly.

“Today,” I said. “I promise, Della. Today.”

“He is crying.”

“I can hear that. Look, hold him up.”

I had put a pair of scissors in my back pocket while I was sewing and forgotten to remove them. As Della held Flynn out, belly forward, I made a few snips into the wads of congested fluff in his armpits. They split like loaves of garlic bread, still holding at the hinge side nearest his skin, but now with a bit of play in them. Flynn stopped meeping and let out a rusty little purr instead.

“There,” I said. “That’ll hold him.”

Della put him down and watched him walk away, the clods of matted fur now dangling like windchimes. “Ugly,” she said.

“Is Florian okay?” I said.

She turned him round and lifted his tail, getting him closer to me than I would have wanted before I managed to step back. “What the hell are you feeding him?” I said, even though I knew what she was feeding him because I was buying it. Like I bought the fish food and the live shrimp for the seahorse and the bedding and day-old veg for the rabbit. I left it outside their room so Della didn’t have to say thank you, but she was still angry about being beholden. Hence the war of the groomer currently being waged.

“He climbed up on the counter and ate a bowl of refried beans,” Della said.

I swallowed hard.

“They took thirty-five minutes to go through him,” she added.

“Della, you’ve got to bathe him!” I said. “You can’t leave him like that until I find a groomer. You can’t let Diego play with him when he’s covered in bean-shite!”

“Diego is at the Mathnasium,” Della said. “Of course I’ll wash him. I just wanted you to see.”

“Well, thanks,” I said, quietly taking back everything I had ever said about baby pictures being the worst thing ever. I backed away and turned to find Noleen’s face an inch from mine.

“Jee! Zuz!” I said.

Noleen’s face in close-up was a wonder. From a distance she was a plain woman, with strong features and no ornamentation, but from the four-inch distance I stumbled back to, she was beautiful. Her eyes were clear and flecked in seven different colours and her eyelashes and brows were a strong natural black. Her grey hair sat in little curls like Julius Caesar’s without the leaves, and her skin was perfect. She was lined, but she was poreless and she had less of a ’stache and chin strap than I did although she had twenty years on me.

“Good morning, Nolly,” I said. “You’re looking lovely this morning.”

“Sarcasm rolls off me like split mayo,” she said. “Listen up.”

“I meant it!” I said. “You look very well and very prett—-pared for anything.” I had bottled it. Noleen’s t-shirt this morning said I will cut you. Even for her it was a bold choice. “I mean, I’m listening.”

“You need to get with Trinity,” Noleen said. Her voice was low and from the chin jerk that went with her words, I gathered Todd wasn’t to hear. “Get over yourself and get with it. ’kay?”

“Any reason you can share?” I said.

“If Kathi loses the Skweek, this whole place’ll go down,” she said. “And the new owners’ll slap an eviction on you quicker’n you can dial the international code to tell them at home you’re coming back.”

“But business is good, isn’t it?” I said. “You were full all summer, nearly. And most weekends since.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Noleen. “Business is fine. I’m just asking you for favors on account of how much I love asking for favors.” She moved even closer. I could see how smooth her lips were and how well-flossed her teeth were. “It makes me feel all warm inside to discuss my private business and beg for help.”

“What do you use on your skin?” I asked her. Truly, she was poreless. Even the creases at the sides of her nose looked like marble. Mine looked like peppered jerky.

“The tears of wiseasses,” Noleen said.

“Aren’t the tears of asses … piss?” I said. “And I wasn’t being a smart arse, by the way. I meant it.”

“Kick me while I’m down, why don’t you!” Noleen said. “So that’s a hard no, is it?”

“You are a lot of work, you know,” I said. “No, it’s not a hard no. It’s not even a soft no. It’s not a no.”

“So that’s a yes.”

“No,” I said. “Look, Noleen, I don’t even know if Trinity Solutions is legal. Is it a company? Is it registered? What’s the liability? What if someone takes the hump at something Todd says or does—”

“Don’t say hump.”

“—and sues us. Doctors can’t use their insurance for lawsuits that aren’t medical, can they? And a solicitor’s fees would shut you down quicker than a rival dry cleaners, wouldn’t it? And I can’t get sued, because if I lose, I’ll get deported.”

“Only if it’s a crime of moral turpitude,” Todd put in. He had sneaked up behind me. “Not if it’s a civil dispute over a contract to deliver services. What are we talking about? Who’s suing you?”

Noleen gave me a look that said over to you, sweet cheeks, but before I was forced to dredge up an answer, my phone started ringing. To be precise, it started singing “Car Wash.” I looked at the screen, saw a picture of my mum and, unable to put one and one together and get two, answered.

“Lexy?”

“Mum?”

“There you are!” she said. I looked round wildly at the car park, chain link, drained pool, and walkways of the Last Ditch. If my parents ever visited me in California, I was in no doubt that it would be a surprise.

“What? Where?” I said. “Where are you?”

“Where do you think I am?” my mum said. “I’m at home.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Bare-faced lie,” my mum said. “Either that or you’re not answering your phone. I just called you at home and left a message then I tried you on your mobile. Where are you?”

“I am fifty feet from my front door,” I said. “Mum, how are you phoning a mobile?”

“Oh! Oh! How did I get this number? you’re asking! That’s cold even for you, Lexy.”

“Because the only reason I’m shovelling out cash for a landline every month is so that you and Dad can call me. If you’ve wrapped your head round calling me on a mobile number, I can yank it.”

“And what am I worth to you every month, Lexy?” my mum said. “What’s the outlandish sum that you can barely thole to keep your own mother close to you across the miles?”

“Ninety dollars,” I said, beaten.

“Ninety! That’s … That’s … ”

“Sixty pounds.”

“That’s daylight robbery. See, this is why you’re always short at the end of the month, Lexy. You fritter it all away on things you don’t need. You’ve always been the same.”

“I bought a Nissan Micra for cash on my seventeenth birthday!” I said. I had saved my pocket money and Saturday job wages for two years to get that little car and it broke my heart ten years later when the head gasket went and it wasn’t worth repairing.

“Who needs a car at seventeen?” my mum said. “My point exactly.”

“Didn’t stop you taking lifts in it.”

“And how do you think that made me feel?” said my mum. “You dropping me off at Keep Fit in that old rust bucket instead of a natty little hatchback.”

“Wha—?” I said.

“Showing me up.”

“Wow,” I said.

“What’s happening?” said Todd.

“Is that Todd?” said my mum. “Now, Lexy, you know I don’t like to interfere, but he seems like a very nice young man. Family-minded. Very polite and helpful.” That was one mystery solved then. Todd had given my mum my mobile number and tutored her on international dialling to a cell phone. “The only thing I didn’t manage to find out was what he does for a living.”

I paused. If I told my mother that the nice young man was a doctor, she’d be on the next plane over with a big folder full of sample menus, a list of free dates, and her own veil wrapped in tissue paper. If I told her we were in business together, ditto. And none of the other jobs I could think of—bus driver, bingo caller, milkman—seemed like real things that people still did. The truth—that he was off on long-term sick-leave with a psychological disorder—would slow her down, but Todd was standing right there and I didn’t want to hurt him.

“He’s married,” I went for.

“Now, Lexy, we both know that’s not true,” my mum said.” I asked him what his wife would think of him spending so much time with you”—oh, she was good—“and he said he didn’t have one.” Oh, he was great. “Why would you say otherwise?”

“Mum, is there anything I can help you with? Because Todd’s waiting for me. We’re going out for the day.” Oh, I was best. She couldn’t get off the phone quick enough, horrified to think that her daughter and a nice, family-minded, polite, helpful young man were being delayed going on a picnic together. “Take photos and tag me,” she said.

“I will,” I lied. I wouldn’t. If Mum saw Todd, she’d pay an extra plane fare for the priest and bring him with her.

“Why is my mum’s ringtone ‘Car Wash’?” I said when I had hung up.

“You said you hated when people chose ringtones to match people. So I went random,” Todd said. “Duh.”

“Silly me,” I said. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”