Island Girl (2 page)

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Authors: Lynda Simmons

BOOK: Island Girl
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“Wonderful news,” she announced, waltzing herself over to the barber’s chair that takes up far too much room in this tiny house but has enormous sentimental value. “I have decided to have both a trim
and
a permanent wave. But you’re not to cut my bangs. If you so much as brush my bangs with your nasty great shears, I shall be utterly wretched for weeks.” She sat down and started pulling pins from her hair, slowly unleashing miles and miles of frizzy salt-and-pepper tresses upon a hapless world. “Now, I must know. Did you get your secret paramour out before Grace woke up, or is the poor boy still hiding upstairs?”
Mary Anne is the only person I know who is ever
utterly wretched
or refers to men as
paramours
. I put it down to too many years teaching Jane Austen at the University of Toronto. If she had taken a sabbatical now and then as I suggested, or perhaps taught contemporary lit for a few years, she might have something in her closet now besides long skirts and straw hats—and she might even let me update her hairstyle by at least a century.
“Jack is hardly a boy,” I said, writing
Check appointment book
at the top of the next page in my notebook and underlining it. Twice. “And he was already gone when I woke up.”
She squinted at the page. “Was that planned?”
I closed the book. “No, but it’s for the best. And Grace will never be the wiser.” I poured boiling water into the teapot, went to the table for the cozy, and glanced out the kitchen window, thinking I’d see Grace on her bike, certain she should be home by now.
While I like to start my day with a paddle around the lagoons, my younger daughter prefers a morning ride, pedaling the five kilometers from our house here on the eastern tip of Ward’s Island, all the way across Centre Island to the dock at the western end of Hanlan’s Point. I like to think she pauses there, giving a finger to the Island Airport before starting back, arriving home while the air is still cool and the ferries have yet to start bringing the hordes across the bay from the city.
Hundreds of years ago the hordes could have come on foot because the Island was nothing more than a peninsula of sand-bars protecting Toronto Harbour from attack. All that changed in April 1858 when a storm severed the peninsula once and for all. Decades of dredging and remodeling since have created five major landmasses all connected by paved paths and foot bridges and collectively known as the Island—the city’s oasis in the lake.
A ten-minute ferry ride is now the only way over, and from mid-April to October three of them ply the water between the Island and Toronto Harbour every half hour. During the summer months, sweltering city dwellers jam those boats every day, coming across to enjoy the parks, the rides, and Toronto’s only nude beaches. Don’t misunderstand me, I know I’m lucky to live with the parks and the beaches, and the hordes would be fine if they stuck to Centre and Hanlan’s. But inevitably they find their way here, to the narrow shaded lanes of Ward’s and Algonquin.
They wander our streets and peer at our homes, taking pictures and passing judgment—
My God, these places are small
.
Why are they cheek by jowl like that
?
And honestly, look at that garden
—acting as though they’re visiting a zoo, as though we can’t understand what they’re saying or doing. Most of them are okay, but there are always those who knock on our doors, demanding to know how much it costs to rent a place on the Island for the summer. It never fails to amaze me. They live ten minutes across the bay yet have no idea that we’re here year-round and have been for generations.
“Ruby?” Mary Anne called. “Ruby, are you all right?”
I turned to find her watching me intently. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’ve been staring out that window for the last five minutes.” She sat back, massaging her scalp with her fingers. “Tell me the truth. Are you unhappy that Jack left?”
I laughed and put the cozy back on the table. “Not at all. I just didn’t think he’d do it on a flight out of the bloody Island Airport. But on the plus side, I scored a shed full of tools. Know anyone looking to buy a miter saw?”
She went back to pulling out pins. “They say a vengeful heart is usually a broken one.”
“And sometimes it just wants to make a buck. Would you like tea?”
Without waiting for an answer, I poured a cup and set it in front of her, hoping to avoid another rant about the inseparability of love and sex in the female constitution. Because no matter what I said—or how loudly—Mary Anne would smile and nod knowingly, confident I was covering up. Lying to avoid confessing to a shattered heart, a splintered soul, or something equally ridiculous when the truth is that I have never been even a little bit in love with most of the men I have known, including Jack Hoyle. It was sheer coincidence that he was the first one to stay under my roof in close to eighteen years.
With two daughters in the house, discretion was always my first concern. Even when they lived in the city I was vigilant, keeping sex and home separate, knowing it would matter when Grace came back again. Jack Hoyle had been a slipup. Someone tall and strong, and standing in the right place at the right time when I hit a low ebb. He didn’t question why I was waiting on the stairs wearing nothing but high heels and a frosty bottle of his favorite beer when he came back from lunch. He just went along. Swept me off my feet and carried me up those stairs. Allowing me to believe, if only for a while, that I still had something to offer, that I wasn’t already finished.
It was a scene Mary Anne would have appreciated if I’d told her about it, which I hadn’t because I was still embarrassed by my own reaction. Who knew he’d pick that moment to pull a Clark Gable on me? And who knew I’d like it? But I would never mistake lust for love.
“Ruby!” Mary Anne said too sharply. I looked over. She was watching me again, obviously waiting for an answer, but I had no idea what the question had been. “Ruby, what is going on with you?” she asked, and I could not have been more grateful when Grace came up the stairs calling, “I’m home,” saving me from a discussion I was not yet ready to have.
“You’ll never guess what I saw,” Grace sang, shedding sandals, notebook, and binoculars on her way to the fridge.
My younger daughter may be an adult, but she’s as carefree as any ten-year-old. Her hair is usually caught up in a ponytail, she wears jeans or cutoffs, and her T-shirts invariably have a slogan: Walk for the Cure. I’m with Stupid. The list goes on and on. She picks them up at the Bridge Boutique, our local clothing swap at the foot of the Algonquin Island Bridge.
This morning she’s sporting an electric blue number that is far too large and reads It’s Good to Be Queen. As always, I am struck by how beautiful she is. Tall and willowy with white blond hair, pale blue eyes, and a misty, far away look, just like her father. Eric Kaufman. Now there is a man I have loved. One who will never know he has a daughter who looks just like him.
“I saw a Cooper’s hawk,” Grace said, her head in the fridge, her hands routing through jars and plastic containers. “That’s really rare, and since I don’t have any customers till ten, I—”
“Grace, I’m sorry.” Her hands stilled and I took a step toward her. “I know this is short notice for both of you, but I have to go into the city, so you’ll have to take care of Mary Anne.”
“Fine by me,” Mary Anne said. But I didn’t breathe until Grace said, “Okeydokey. Just don’t ask me to cut those bangs.”
Mary Anne pointed a triumphant finger at her. “There’s a girl who knows a thing or two about hair. I shall trust you to give me both a trim
and
a permanent wave.”
Grace laughed, a sweet, rippling sound that had my shoulders relaxing, my breath returning to normal. “Anybody want eggs?” she asked, holding the carton aloft like a prize.
Like the morning ride, eggs are also part of her new routine—two over easy with two slices of toast and two cups of tea. At lunch she’ll have a sandwich, usually grilled cheese, and for dinner she likes chicken or beef with potatoes and any vegetable that isn’t brussels sprouts. She only likes surprises at dessert, so I try to make sure she doesn’t have to deal with them at any other time. But Mary Anne had been a surprise even to me this morning, and I was lucky things had gone so smoothly with Grace.
“She likes her perms tight,” I reminded her.
“And her tea with milk and sugar. I remember.”
I glanced over at Mary Anne. Her tea was still untouched. I had served it clear. Damn.
Grace slipped bread into the toaster, then carried milk and sugar over to Mary Anne and lifted a few strands of that salt-and-pepper hair. “You need conditioning.”
Mary Anne nodded and poured milk into her cup while Grace went back to her eggs. They were settled and happy. I could leave, confident things would go well. Grace loves Mary Anne and she was born to do hair. When she was little, she was always with me at my shop in the city, Chez Ruby on Queen, playing with dolls in the waiting room, coloring pictures by the shampoo sinks. Unlike Liz, she loved being at Chez Ruby and she loved being with me.
Some people think I was wrong to start training her when she was only thirteen, but the girl was going to need a trade and time to learn it. Why pretend? Why put off the inevitable? And look at her now. She’s a good hairdresser and the clients love her, especially the seniors.
I always thought Grace and I would work together at Chez Ruby on Queen forever. But after that trouble with Liz a few years back, I moved the shop here instead, bringing the barber’s chair and some of the other equipment with me. I lost a handful of customers at first. But when I lowered the prices to reflect the savings in overhead, more and more of them started coming across the bay in all but the very worst weather to join us at Chez Ruby on the Island. As I say to Grace all the time, that’s what comes of good service.
The horn blast from the dock reminded me that I had five minutes before the ferry left. Grabbing my notebook, I read
Find Liz
again, then stashed the book in my purse. “I’m off,” I said, giving Grace a hug on my way out the door.
The morning was already hot, the air close. In the garden, the lilac still needed pruning, the rich purple faded to brown weeks ago and waiting patiently for me to get busy with a different kind of shears. My grandmother planted that lilac bush in 1943, the year she built our home. It’s now fifteen feet tall and the pride of a property that has been nurtured by Donaldson women ever since. On any other morning, I’d pause to inspect the daylilies, the climbing roses, the pots of geraniums. Taking time to breathe in the perfume that is unique to this garden, this Island. But not today. Today I have to find Liz.
Kicking back the stand on my bike, I gave Grace a quick wave as I pulled away, still grateful to see her at the window, to have my girl home again.
I pedaled carefully along the narrow lanes, dodging cats and kids, giving way to the bikes moving faster than mine. With the exception of emergency crews and park staff, motorized vehicles are prohibited on the Island. No cars, no Vespas. Definitely no golf cars. Bicycles get us where we need to go, with carts on the back and baskets on the front to help us carry groceries, liquor, tired kids, and anything else we need from the city because there are also no stores on the Island. Life can be hard in the winter when the wind cuts your face and heavy snow makes the going impossible on two wheels. But Islanders have always been a different breed. Urban misfits the lot of us, happy to sacrifice a few comforts for a life apart from the push and shove of the city.
There used to be five thousand of us here, with houses and businesses spreading from Hanlan’s Point to Ward’s Island. Everything from hotels to corner stores and a milkman who came to our doors every morning. Life was good until the late fifties when the city decided the Island should be a park. Year after year they came with their sheriff and their bulldozers, pushing us back farther and farther until we finally took a stand in July 1980. Banded together and said no more. We would not be moved.
There are only seven hundred of us left, but instead of chasing us away, the hardships make us stronger, more determined to hold on to the homes and the life we love. Which is why another blast from the ferry had me pedaling faster. I could not afford to miss that boat.
My bike is a black 1946 Schwinn. Brand-new when my grandmother brought it over after the war and in its prime when my mother claimed it as her own in the fifties. But now, just like me, the poor thing is well past its best before date. There won’t be anything worth passing on, so I never bother with the lock when I leave the bike at the ferry dock. If some kid pitches it over the wall into the eastern channel, I won’t mind. In fact, I can’t think of a more fitting tribute for the old girl than to be laid to rest among the other bikes at the bottom of the gap.
Jamming the Schwinn into the last available spot, I raced aboard the
Ongiara
, the small ferry that trundles back and forth between Toronto and Ward’s year-round—the one meant for Islanders. The 8:30 A.M. serves mostly commuters, and I moved through the crowd as I used to every morning, calling hello to people I knew, nodding to those I only recognized. There was a time when I missed my daily commute. Missed the small talk, the gossip updates, and the money that came with working in the city. But like Grandma Lucy, I’ve come to prefer the pace and freedom of working from home. And I have always known how to stretch a buck until it screams—something Liz’s father used to admire about me.

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