Maggie lets Imogene drive the car. It’s much easier than driving with Nan in the passenger seat, who white-knuckles the armrest and pumps the ghost of the brake pedal. They drive down to the end of the pavement, turn around in the MacIssacs’ driveway and then up to the church parking lot. Maggie keeps two orange pylons in the trunk so Imogene can practice parallel parking. “This will be the hardest part of your driving test,” she says. Imogene parks the car, over and over. Sometimes there are people in the cemetery. Once, Bryce Benoit and Murray Wells leaned on the fence and watched Imogene park while their wives weeded graves. “Well isn’t that charming,” Maggie said.
Maggie also likes to take Imogene “out.” She dresses up for it every time. She packed an array of planned outfits, belts that match tops, earrings that match bracelets, shorts that show off her hips and neat little legs. It’s a bit much as there are only three places to be taken: Seymour’s Pool Hall, the take-out, and the Petro-Can. Maggie likes Seymour’s the best. It has one pool table, three pinball games, a Space Invaders tabletop console, Pac-Man, and a jukebox that hasn’t been updated since 1986.
Seymour’s is two large rooms: one for the arcade and canteen counter, the other a barren room for the occasional teen dance. Every year, Victor Seymour paints the walls a pastel shade of cheap, latex paint, and if picked at, it peels off like sunburned skin to reveal the previous colours. There is a sign that reads Any vandals will be banned from Seymour’s and have to deal with the RCMP.
Maggie and Imogene go to Seymour’s during quiet times, like early Monday evenings. They play pool badly, but can do so without shame. Bending over the long green table feels vulnerable when there are others present. Imogene expects a shove, a goose, a rude comment, farting noises. But her and Maggie bend, shoot, miss, and scratch in peace. Maggie punches Opus’s “Life is Life” into the jukebox. She does most of the talking. “We should play pool all the time! You can go back to school a pool shark. I want a Space Invaders game like this! Robert and I could use it as an end table.” Crystal works the canteen counter for her summer job. She offers an occasional baleful smile at Maggie’s exuberance.
One night, the pool table is occupied, so Maggie buys two hotdogs and two cans of pop and they drive all over St. Felix’s. “This is what we used to do once we got our licences,” she says. “We just drove around all night. Nothing better to do. I guess not much has changed.” She says this with a titter.
She’s still on edge. Imogene forces a smile. Imogene the silent alien. Or the Tony Green Monster. Or the Creature from the Rapist Lagoon.
“Butter Brook Beach,” Maggie says. “Ha, this is where everyone used to go parking.” She aims the end of her straw into her mouth while she drives. “You know, Imogene, you don’t say much. And Mom doesn’t tell me anything. All you’ve done is work at the library and skulk around the house. Who do you spend time with?”
Very few, actually, since most people see her as half drunken mongoloid and half skank. Very few because Imogene has proven she’s angry and violent. She chews her hotdog. “Me and Rita do stuff,” she says.
“Well, I hope things are okay. If you ever want to talk, you can call me. I know my mother’s resources are limited, so you can always ask if you need anything.”
Imogene nods. This is it.
“You and Tony drive around much?”
Maggie places her can in the cup holder. “Yes, he and I drove around. He didn’t have a vehicle, but he’d borrow one from one of the guys he was working with. I’d tell Mom I was going for a walk over to Kelly’s and he’d pick me up.” She crumples her napkin in her fist. “Jesus, if Dad had been alive, he would have killed me.”
“For being with him?”
“Hell, yes.”
“Whose vehicle?”
“I told you, he didn’t have one.”
“I know, but whose did he borrow?”
“Oh, one of his buddies. Bryce or Murray probably. Aubrey Murphy.”
“You didn’t know?”
“Well, he had different ones all the time.”
“They’d give him their car?”
“Sure. Those guys were all buddies.”
Imogene thinks of Bryce Benoit’s truck. One time, he was parked outside the Kwik Stop and Rita leaned against it while she was fixing her shoe. He and Wish came out and he said, “Wish, tell your friends other people’s vehicles aren’t for them to touch.” He wiped her fingerprints off the door. Would Bryce Benoit loan some guy from Port aux Basques his truck? To drive around with Maggie Tubbs?
“Never thought you were around those guys much,” Imogene says.
“Well, through Tony. Funny to see them around now. They seem so much older.”
“They’re up at Cecil Jesso’s a lot.”
Maggie stares out the windshield. “Yeah, they did back then too.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Hang out at Cecil’s.” Imogene’s voice turns to dregs, like water sucked down a drain.
Maggie doesn’t say anything, but she flicks the indicator to pull over. She parks the car on the edge of the ditch.
“Okay,” she says. “I was a little afraid of this.”
“What?”
Maggie shakes her head. “People whispered a few things back then. Rumours and lies.” She keeps her hands on the wheel, like the car might decide to take itself out of park. “Only a couple of people knew about Tony and me where I was young. Besides Kelly Abbott, we were around Cec and those guys because Tony wanted to party and they were partiers. So, people think they’re putting two and two together. They’re not.”
“Okay.”
Maggie flicks the indicator again to turn onto the road. Her eyes are too shiny. “And when people don’t know anything, they should keep their mouths shut.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’ve been away too long. It’s not fair to you. I haven’t been fair.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Imogene should do something. Hug her. Say something good. Maggie exhales hard and grips the wheel. “Let’s go home. I feel like just sitting on the couch and watching some crap on TV. Sound good?”
“Sure.”
Maggie puts the car in drive and pulls out. She sighs a little. “Like I was saying before, think of us when you’re finishing school. Because you don’t have to stay here.”
“I know.”
“Robert and I are waiting to hear on a house in St. John’s, something to rent out. If you want to go there, there will be a place for you. Maybe Mom too.”
“Really?”
“I worry about her health. I’d like to see her closer to hospitals.”
“I can see that.”
“I’m not saying you have to leave here or that you should. I mean, Ontario drives me nuts sometimes, but when I left, I liked that no one knew me.”
Imogene nods. Yes. Being a stranger. A great release fills her chest. Maggie says it’s not true. She can say that now: my mother said it’s not true. She gazes out the window. Past the Whalens, past the Clearys. They’re all full of shit. Everyone can take their ideas and opinions and beliefs and stick them in their individual wood stoves.
“I mean, there’s lots of great things about St. Felix’s,” Maggie says. “But in a place as small as this, people think they know your story. They trap you with it. Feeling trapped is the worst. You’ll never be trapped if we can help you, Imogene.”
“Thank you.”
She takes one hand off the wheel and presses the radio on. “Every Rose has its Thorn,” by Poison fills the car. An insipid song. She’s relieved. If one of her favourites was on, it might make her react. She and Maggie, staring out the windshield, choking on silence.
Maggie stuffs the napkin wad into the ashtray. It struggles to stretch out, sides un-sticking from each other, like a waking moth. They turn around in the MacIssacs’ driveway and head back.