“Secret admirer, my ass! There had better not be any nonsense with a boy going on behind my back, my lady, or your behind will be so red you won’t sit down for a week.”
By now, Adele’s fat, red hands were abruptly twisting the water taps on, and the small room filled with the sound of thundering water. She wet a scrubbing cloth and bent her girth over the tub rim, planting her left hand on the tub floor for support, and her right arm began to scrub, churning round and round in clockwise circles, grinding the cloth and the green cleanser over an imagined ring on the tub wall. Her breasts slipped over the tub edge and hung down into the empty space, swaying and jiggling with the motions of her arm. Fine gritty powder rose into the air.
“A very precious gift I send to you indeed. I’ll give you a precious gift, my girl, once I find out what’s been going on. My father didn’t have any nonsense in his house, by God, because he knew how to use a belt, and I don’t intend to have any either.”
Louise’s voice returned.
Neither Angelo nor I are prepared, Adele, to put up with any of today’s nonsense.
Adele’s arm ground the cloth around the curve of the tub, coming upon the water-spotted chrome faucet and taps. She shrilled aloud at her own bobbing reflection.
“Who do you think you are anyway, Louise?”
Adele felt cleanser grit collecting along her lips. She bent forward and took a mouthful of water from the faucet, swished, and spat.
Angelo and I made a rule, Adele. We decide these things together, as I’m sure you and Gerald do.
Huffing and puffing as she resumed scrubbing, Adele spoke aloud with an ever-rising pitch.
“Angelo, Angelo, Angelo! Big dumb Angelo! Doesn’t look as if he could decide his way out of a wet bag; only knows how to tie a bloody apron over that big stomach of his and stand behind a meat counter all day; he’s probably told when to go to the bathroom.”
Adele leaned close to the faucet to make a point and hollered above the din of the running water.
“We know he makes money, Louise. Everybody eats meat. It didn’t take brains to figure that business out.”
The heat of humiliation suddenly flashed through her as she remembered what her own husband, Gerald, did for a living. An itinerant pharmacist, a wanderer from the business of one to the business of another, always a fill-in, never an owner, never even acquiring the status of full-time employment with a single employer. The reminder fuelled her rage.
“Lackey! Spineless lackey, Gerald. No ability whatsoever to stand on your own two feet.”
The sight of her own teeth flashing in the wet chrome arrested her. She hauled her heavy breasts back over the tub rim and began to scrub in silence. Her thoughts continued to swirl.In a minute she was speaking again.
“By the gods, Cathy, you’d better be home here right after school, or you won’t live to tell about it.”
We told our girls, Adele, no dating until they’re eighteen and then only with young men we approve of beforehand. Neither one of us is prepared to put up with any of today’s nonsense. And if they don’t like it they can go board with the nuns. They know that I have all of that information handy in my dressing table drawer. I can have it all arranged in an hour. Now, this might not be at all what you want for your girl, of course.
Adrenaline shot through Adele. Both arms pumped furiously underneath her, up, down, up, down, up, down, as she bellowed into the trough of the tub: “What do you think this is, Louise? Open house? No rules? I let my kids run wild?”
The cloth flew out of her hands and landed on the floor behind her with a loud, wet splat. Defeated, she slumped back on her heels.
The school bus departed on its last journey of the year at its usual time that afternoon. By then, the day was darkening rapidly with an approaching thunderstorm. Behind the bus, the sky had already turned a deep steely blue, and dust and paper litter blew up at the sides of the roads, scurrying ahead with the message of impending rain. Cars began to drive with their headlights on, and the greengrocers in the centre of the city were out on the sidewalks in front of their shops in their long white aprons, hurriedly winding their canvas awnings back into retracted positions and dismantling their displays of fruits and vegetables.
The students riding home together from St. Joseph’s and St. Michael’s were jubilant with the anticipation of two months of summer holidays. The dramatic clouds, rising wind, and dropping temperature heightened their excitement. They shrieked and hollered at one another, tossing a melon-sized green foam rubber ball back and forth across the aisle. The driver followed the proceedings in his mirror, occasionally trying to spike the errant ball back into the seats with his free hand.
Cathy Mugan sat with her head resting against the bus window, watching the telephone wires turn from black to copper green against the dark sky. As a little girl, she had interpreted this strange metamorphosis as a mysterious, private sign from heaven that a storm was coming. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the other students playing their game. If the ball came near enough to bounce off her head, she swatted it away, smiling, and then went back to her wire-gazing. Beside her, her classmate and best friend, Janet St. Amand, popped up and down in the seat, participating vigorously in the game, calling out loudly for the ball to be passed to her.
When the bus began to slow down for her stop, Cathy looped her school bag over one shoulder and pushed herself out of the seat past Janet. She felt sick to her stomach. The words “secretive and uncommunicative” escaped from the report card at the bottom of her schoolbag and scrawled themselves in a mean-lipped script across the air in front of her in dark, navy blue ink. Instead of letting the canvas bag hang at her side, she scooped it up and folded her arms across it so that it pressed against her queasy stomach.
The two Miller boys who lived next door and Dan O’Neil from across the street had been up in the aisle playing furiously since the bus left the school parking lot. Now, along with Cathy, they descended the stairs of the bus to depart, still in possession of the ball, looking to make one last great serve. At the last moment, Scott Miller lobbed the ball into the centre of a mob of friends and skipped out of the bus.
The three boys called goodbye to Janet, who hollered out over the din that she would phone Cathy later. Cathy waved to her friend but turned her head away from her neighbours without saying a word.
The bus stop was at the foot of the Mugan driveway. Cathy crunched up the gravel shoulder of the road towards the pavement, surreptitiously watching for movement behind the white lace curtains on the laundry room windows. She could see nothing.
The laundry room was empty when she stepped into it, but before she had completely closed the door behind her, she heard footsteps approaching. Her mother snapped on the overhead light and the two of them stood for a moment in the yellow glare, observing one another. Cathy noticed the fired-up, glassy eyes and the fine dusk of perspiration glistening on her mother’s upper lip and cheeks. Coming down off the single step leading from the kitchen into the laundry room, her mother advanced towards her, cracking a yardstick in front of her on the plastic runner that protected the carpeting.
“You’d better be here, miss.”
The final hiss was pressed out from between her mother’s teeth as if from between steel rollers. Carefully, Cathy leaned back on the door, pushing it gently closed.
“It’s almost past 4:15. You’re to be home here on that bus by 4:15, sharp, miss. No excuses! Do you hear me? And don’t think I don’t know what goes on, on the way home, my lady.”
Cathy dropped her gaze to the carpet. It was a long way from here up to her room.
“I saw you getting off that bus