Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret (5 page)

I
t was my own scream I'd heard. I'd almost managed to talk my lips into saying “Stop” or “Excuse me” or — as hard as this was for me to believe—”I'm the cleaning lady,” but then I felt something. I realized the guy, or at least one of his legs, was actually in the shower stall with me. I knew the rest of his naked self couldn't be far behind. Which is why I screamed.

Then he screamed. Then I screamed again.

Then I guess he must have had second thoughts about getting into a small enclosed space with a loud hysterical female.

He either forgot about the threshold or he slipped on the soapy floor. Either way, he crashed backward out of the shower. In the process, his leg flew up and booted me
in the ass. I smashed forward into the wall, French-kissed the tiles, then fell backward out of the shower too. And landed right on top of him.

I tried to get up as fast as I could, but my feet were slick with Tilex. They just skated over the floor. I put my hand down to push myself off and hit bare skin. I screamed again.

So did he.

I tried with the other hand, but there was skin there too. In fact, it seemed like there was skin everywhere I put my hands, legs, head, whatever. It was like doing the backstroke in a sea of flesh or tobogganing down a really, really bumpy hill with a totally naked stranger.

The guy wasn't liking this any better than I was. He was alternately groaning in pain, yelping and apologizing. I hated to think what kind of damage I was inflicting on his more delicate body parts.

Speaking of which, I hit something squishy and realized I really, really had to get myself out of this predicament. There seemed to be only one option. I pushed off—the guy made a sound like a dry heave —and grabbed the vanity handle. I'd only just managed to pull myself up onto my feet when Dolores barged in the door.

She went, “Whoa! What the —!”

The guy gave another dry heave. He flailed around on the bathroom floor—his arms and legs were everywhere
—then he picked up the first thing he could find to cover himself with.

My bunny tail. It must have fallen off in the scuffle.

Dolores, seriously, screeched with laughter.

The poor guy didn't know what to do. He was making the type of
ooh-ee-ooh-ee
noise a person makes tiptoeing over hot coals. He did a lot of flipping and flopping around on the floor before, no thanks to us, he was able to scramble up onto his feet and out of the room.

He switched the tail from the front to the back on his way past. Dolores found that even funnier.

D
olores watched until he disappeared through the second door on the right, then collapsed, howling, onto the edge of the tub.

“I really can't leave you alone for a second, can I.” She wagged her finger at me. “You are a bona fide man-magnet. Seriously. I've never seen anyone get a guy naked that fast.”

My insides were shaking like I was one big Magic Bullet but I wasn't going to let Dolores know that. I turned away and started washing the Tilex—and whatever else I'd picked up—off my hands.

She didn't take the hint. “Don't keep me hanging! What happened? C'mon. Spill.”

No way was I letting her turn this into a joke. I hoped my voice sounded more or less under control. “I was cleaning the shower. I—I—I guess he didn't see me.”

I reached for a towel. Dolores was wearing different
glasses now and laughing like a car that wouldn't start. She looked over at me with her eyes crossed. I didn't acknowledge that little attempt at humour either.

“No wonder,” she said. “I thought I was blind. I'm surprised this guy can get around without a guide dog.”

She took off the glasses and put her own back on. She'd wound down now to the sighing part of hysteria. She reeled off a couple metres of toilet paper and blew her nose.

“My, my, my. What I wouldn't do to have immortalized that on videotape. We could have sent it in to
AFV
. We wouldn't have to work for the rest of the summer! Seriously. We'd win first prize, pants down … Oh, excuse me. Sorry. I mean,
hands
down.”

I must have been glaring at her because she went “oops” and got up off the side of the tub. I said, “Can you just go finish your work now and let me finish mine?”

“Finish?” Dolores pronounced it like it was some obscure foreign word. “I
am
finished. Aren't you?” She gave the bathroom a quick scan. “Guess not. Boy, you ever slow.”

I tried to think of some suitably withering response but by the time anything came to me, Dolores had squirted a stream of cleanser into the toilet, given it a quick swish and said: “Done. What's left? … Oh. These.” She flicked the guy's boxer shorts up with her toe and into the hamper. I didn't know whether to thank her or smack her.

“Here,” she said, throwing me the broom. “You sweep, I'll deal with the shower.”

That was
my
shower. I'd been looking forward to doing the rest of the tiles—not that I'd even tell her that.

Dolores took the shower head off the handle and sprayed down the walls. The five clean tiles stood out as if they were backlit. She moved her lips around her face and stared at them, then took a bottle of foundation off the counter and began to dab some beige liquid onto the clean tiles.

“Hey!” I went. “What are you doing?”

“Just scuzzying them up a bit. Can't leave them like that. They make the rest of the shower look dirty.”

“It
is
dirty.”

Dolores stopped and folded her arms. “Lesson Number One. Dirty is relative. People don't necessarily want their houses clean. They just want them to look clean. That's our job. To create beautiful illusions. We're set designers.”

She thought she was so bold and clever. It was sad, really.

She turned back to the tiles. She tilted her head this way and that, then wet a paper towel and dabbed off some of the foundation. She took a step back, checked it out again, and wiped off a tiny bit more. A true
artiste
.

“There. Perfect. She'll never know the difference.”

I didn't have the strength to argue. I just went, “Oh, yeah. Perfect.” I didn't care if I sounded childish. “Let's get going, then.”

We were almost to the stairs when the second door on the right opened. The guy stepped out. I jumped back.

He was only a little older than me by the looks of him and fully clothed now, so he shouldn't have scared me, but he did. He was extremely tall. I hadn't noticed that in the bathroom. I guess I was looking at other things—or trying not to.

He put his hand on his chin. A muscle in his neck twanged. He said, “Look. Uh …”

Dolores said, “Wow. How tall are you?”

The guy said, “Six–eight,” and just the way he said it you knew everyone asked him that. He scratched his head and his thick dark hair kind of bobbed up and down. “I just wanted to say sorry. Like, for back then.”

“That's okay.” I shrugged and kind of laughed as if it was nothing.

“I just woke up. I didn't think anyone was home.” Two red spots, more or less the shape of pork chops, began to throb on his cheeks.

“Really. It's okay.” Frankly, I wanted to forget about the whole thing.

“I didn't see you,” he said. “I just sort of staggered in. You know. Like, half awake. I didn't mean it. Sorry.”

I nodded away. I had the sick feeling neither of us knew how to end this. I was almost glad when Dolores broke in.

“I bet you'd like to have these back,” she said, and held up his glasses. Before he could take them, she sighed on the lenses and wiped them on her T-shirt.

“Thanks.” He put them back on, then looked at me, then looked at Dolores and blushed some more. We'd obviously just been shapeless blobs to him up to now.

He turned to slip back into his room but Dolores was too fast for him. She leaned against the door jamb. “So, Big Boy, what did your mama name you?”

It was so embarrassing. I felt myself liquefy.

“Murdoch,” he said.

“Merrrrr-dock.” She rolled it around in her mouth, then clicked her tongue. “Well, Murdoch, I'm Dolores and this here is Betsy … But I guess you and Betsy are already”—she smirked—”acquainted.”

She let that sink in for a second. A tiny shudder rippled through his lanky frame. I totally understood the feeling.

“We're co-owners of Lapins de Poussière Cleaning Service.” She said it with a thick French accent.

“Oh … Right … Mom said cleaning ladies were coming today.”

“This your room?” she said.

“Uh-huh.” Murdoch pulled the door closed, but not before Dolores got a peek inside.

“That poster Polish by any chance?”

“No. Um. Czech.” He adjusted the collar of his plaid shirt. His hands were huge, even compared to the rest of him. The phrase “World's Biggest Hillbilly!” popped into my head. I don't know if I'd read that somewhere or if it had something to do with the horn-rimmed glasses and retro clothes.

“Czech. Of course! I didn't get a very good look at it. I love Czech design! Where'd you get it?”

“Oh, just, like, eBay. I've got, you know, a couple of them.”

“Real-ly? Fascinating. You'll have to show them to me sometime.”

Dolores mentioned some designer she adored. Murdoch nodded uncomfortably but I got the impression he liked the guy too. Dolores started talking about the designer's use of colour and graphic elements. Murdoch didn't add a whole lot to the conversation but he did mention something about photo manipulation. That sent Dolores roaring off about special effects favoured by Communist Bloc designers in the 1960s.

I stood there sort of listening to them but mostly just lost in my own brain. I wouldn't have recognized a Czech poster if it was tacked to my forehead. When I'd run into Dolores at Zinnia's the other day, I'd been pretty confident that she was the weird one, but things
had clearly changed. Here, at least—now, at least—I was the odd one out. Was it my turn?

Dolores's voice kind of disappeared. I watched her gesturing away, laughing, Murdoch nodding, and I had to wonder. Had I used up my entire lifetime supply of popularity? Of normalcy? Was this the way it was going to be from here on in? I felt sort of sad. I looked at my grey, clammy, cleaning-lady hands and sighed.

“Oops, sounds like it's time to go.” Dolores nudged Murdoch and made him look at me. “Miss Wickwire is subtly indicating that our two hours are up.”

That's not what I'd been doing at all. I glared at her.

“Oh, sorry,” Murdoch said. “Didn't mean to keep you.”

Dolores went, “Yeah, yeah, sure,” then was off talking about some Japanese film that had something to do with a scary naked guy. Murdoch knew the movie too. I was out of the conversation again. I took my supplies and went downstairs ahead of them.

I was amazed at the transformation. The shoes in the hallway were lined up. The living room was tidy. The magazines were put away, the pillows fluffed, the clothes folded. There was nothing on the kitchen counter any more except that slim stack of twenties.

I knew Dolores well enough to realize this was a trick, but I still couldn't help being impressed. I put the broom
back in the closet and the cleansers under the sink and acted like I didn't notice.

Dolores was standing on the second step now, talking to Murdoch. She still barely came up to his shoulder. He stood with his arms crossed and his hands in his armpits. It's the way you'd stand if you were cold, but the house was warm. I realized he was still embarrassed.

“Love to stay and talk but I can't. Got a lot of houses to do today.”

Dolores was such a liar. I felt less bad about not complimenting her on her cleaning job.

“If your mother needs us again, she can always reach us by e-mail or phone.” She ran her finger along the contact information written across the front of her T-shirt.

It was so blatantly flirtatious I had to turn away.

Who would act like that?

I saw a quick flash of myself hanging off Nick, whispering in his ear, kissing him, letting everyone see how crazy he was about me. My skin went prickly and I sucked in my breath.

“Okay, okay! I'm coming.” Dolores gave Murdoch a face like
can you believe this girl?

She handed him the Vim, tapped a bunch of flyers into shape on the way past, grabbed the money off the counter, then hooked her arm through mine. “Happy?” She made me sound like a little kid with a boo-boo. She twiddled
her fingers at Murdoch as she dragged me out the door.

It was all so fast and irritating and unfair that I almost forgot about the state of my life. That was about as good as things got these days.

D
olores waited until we were about a block away before she licked her finger and counted out the bills.

“Twenty, forty—there you go. All yours.”

I took the money and tried not to think about the billions of germs wriggling through her saliva.

She lifted her shirt and stuffed her half into a shiny orange bra. “Forty bucks for two hours' work — and I got a nude wrestling show for free too! Not a bad way to make a living, is it.”

I could see where this was going. “Just forget it,” I said, and started walking.

“Forget what?”

“You know perfectly well what.”

Dolores was doing her best to look confused. I wasn't falling for it.

Her phone rang. (Even her ring tone was irritating.
Who, over the age of five, would choose “The Wheels on the Bus”?) She found it in the bottom of her grocery bag just before it stopped ringing.

“Lapins de Poussière Cleaning Service. How may I help you? … Yes … This Friday? Let me see … Hmm. Darn. We're full up … Oh! Wait … I might have a cancellation after all. Can I put you on hold for a moment?”

She put a hand over her phone and looked at me.

“Well?”

I shook my head.

“It's a lady calling for her father. Some old guy. No kids. No pets. Just looking for a once-over. Her exact words.
A once-over
.”

I stared at her. How do you get through to a person like Dolores? Where is the “off” button?

She threw up her hand like an Italian character from some corny sitcom. “Forty bucks! Easy-peasy. And I'll deal with the naked guys this time … Come on.” She went all baby-eyed and pouty on me.

A voice in my head screamed,
No! No! No!

A calmer one said,
Walk away. Don't even respond. Ignore her
.

Another voice just sighed.

I know it's weird after everything I'd been through, but that was the voice that made the most sense to me. It understood the exhaustion I felt at the thought of arguing with Dolores any more, at the thought of coming up
with yet another excuse for my mother, at the thought of having to figure out how to fill the endless joyless time stretching out in front of me. I sighed too.

“So is that a yes?” Dolores said. I didn't say no.

Dolores told the lady we'd be there Friday at nine.