If you don’t tell Clyde Campbell what you want on your fries, he adds everything: ketchup, vinegar, gravy, dressing, salt, pepper. Imogene doesn’t mind, really. “How can you eat that?” Nan says. “That man is foolish. Looks like a chemical spill.” Meanwhile, she douses hers with so much vinegar, her eyelids flicker while she eats. Imogene imagines Nan with a secret vinegar addiction. She’s picked it up from years of using it as an all-purpose cleaner. It’s gotten into her system and now she has to have it, she’s a junkie, man.
They are waiting at the Petro-Can for the bus to arrive. Maggie arranged to fly into Deer Lake. On the phone, she said she wants to take the bus to St. Felix’s so she can enjoy the scenery. “I can’t imagine enjoying the scenery,” Imogene said. “Once you leave, you realize how beautiful it is,” Maggie said. Imogene rolled her eyes on the phone at that one.
Maggie will stay the summer with Nan and Imogene. She wants to help Nan with the house and work occasional shifts for Uncle Eli at the club. Miss Coffey suggested Imogene’s name, and now Imogene has a summer job at the Youth Centre library. Her days will be spent repairing or replacing damaged books, reorganizing the card filing system, helping catalogue new additions and guaranteeing she gets no tan whatsoever. Which will get some comments. Oh my, you’re some white. You been sick? But it will keep her out of the house and away from people she doesn’t like.
“There’s the bus,” Nan says. “Come on, she probably has lots of stuff.” A surge of anxiety wafts through Imogene, like she’s about to walk on stage. Before she left the house, she went through her notebook and reviewed the questions:
She drew a line through number six: Did something happen between you and Cecil Jesso? Staring at it made her shake and she slapped the notebook shut. What if the answer is yes? Maybe it’s better not to ask. Maggie will be here until Labour Day. There will be time to ask these and other questions. Like, how did she and Tony meet and was he nice and what the fuck can we do to convince everyone in this dump that Cecil Jesso has nothing to do with them? She’s not going through this shit again in grade eleven.
Maggie is the fifth person off the bus. She wears tight faded jeans, high-top sneakers with baby-blue slouch socks and a baby-blue baggy sweatshirt. Her bangs stretch up, reaching for the sky before arching back in sweet surrender to form a frozen wave of rich, dark hair. She smiles, exposing her deep-set Tubbs’ dimples, like nickels in her cheeks. She is thirty-one years old.
Maggie hugs Imogene hard, and then regards her at arm’s length. Imogene imagines she looks pretty unkempt (bit of a streel today, according to Nan). Ponytail, oversized T-shirt and jeans. They look each other up and down. Maggie’s smile is huge, but her eyes are too shiny. Everything feels a little off. Which is to be expected. Who is Imogene to her anyway? Some foreign thing that invaded her body before she knew her body at all? The Creature from the Swamp of Past Mistakes in Judgement. The Secret Monster from the Dark Pit of Wrong Place, Wrong Time. Imogene averts her eyes from Maggie’s. “I like your blue clothes,” she says. Maggie hugs Imogene again, leaning into it so their shoulders touch, but no chest to chest contact. “My God,” Maggie says. “You change so fast. We’re going to have so much fun doing your hair.”
On the drive home, Maggie sits in the front of the Beretta and spouts about Ontario and Robert. She makes comments about the potential real-estate value of random St. Felix’s homes. “With the fishery in trouble, there won’t be new families moving out here. But as retirement homes or upscale cabins, there could be some great spots.” Nan says nothing, but a tiny spasm flutters through her closed jaw.
Over supper, Maggie asks Imogene questions. “How was your report card?”
“Good.”
“Do you like school?”
“Sometimes.”
“Who do you hang out with?”
“Rita.”
“Gotta boyfriend?”
“No.” (Although she has the photo of Jamie and her in her bedroom and the ones of Anton, so some proof something happened a couple of times.)
Maggie continues to grin in a way that doesn’t touch her eyes. She makes a show of doing the dishes. “I’m not a guest,” she says. “I’m going to be here all summer.” She produces gifts: a new popcorn maker, a forest-green hooded Roots sweatshirt for Imogene. She says everyone wears them in Toronto. Dark green is a good colour for Imogene.
Before bed that night, Imogene tiptoes out into the living room to get her copy of The Handmaid’s Tale. Nan is asleep on the couch, The National blaring on TV. Maggie is on the phone. She leans against the wall, eyes on the kitchen window. Each time she speaks, she makes sure to smile, but her face is wooden as she listens.
“I forgot how fresh the air is here,” she says. “I love seeing the cliffs and the water. No, Robert, you can’t compare it to Lake Ontario. Here, you can see where things end. I like that. The house needs a coat of paint though. Maybe that’s something Imogene and I can do.”
Jesus, more chores. Maggie lets out a sharp sigh. “No. No, I’m not getting into it. We’ve been over this.” She passes a hand down her face as she listens. “Robert, I told you, that isn’t why I came home. I’m focussing on making positive memories, okay? Just let me have a nice summer with my mother and Imogene.”
She doesn’t say my mother and my daughter. Imogene steals another look before turning back. Maggie’s gaze centres on the window, the image of the trees silhouetted against the darkening sky and her own reflection in the glass.