Mud Girl (14 page)

H
alcyon – a period of time that was idyllically happy.
And there's a second meaning in the dictionary.
A mythical bird that breeds in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice. Charming the wind and waves into calm.
So it's summer, and it's a river, running away to the sea. Close enough.

“T
here's something different about you,” says Ernestine. She has a forearm crossed underneath her bosom – not a word Abi uses regularly, but with Ernestine it
is
a bosom.
Amanda
comes to her mind. Another possessor of
bosom
.

Then Ernestine uses the back of her hand to prop up her forearm which in turn props up one side of her face. Abi has
the feeling that Ernestine really does need all this propping up just to contemplate Abi's face.

It is
serene
. There is something stopped in her. She no longer feels a sense of franticness. There is something in her that usually sits up with teeth bared and ears pricked. Now…it wants to stretch lazily in the sun, roll over, go to sleep. She's moving slower.

Abi smiles at her, a smile that stretches loosely, and Ernestine looks more worried. Abi doesn't tell her that she doesn't need to: let her worry.

Ernestine holds up a bag. Is there relief in her motion? “Skeins,” she says. “I need help rolling skeins into balls.” She pulls thick green wool, dark and rich, from the bag, definitely winter colour.

“Here.” She takes Abi's two hands and pulls them out in front of her. She untwists the skein and pops it over Abi's hands, pulls them apart to make the yarn taut. Her movements are so quick, so familiar, so thoughtless. Then she takes the end of the yarn and wraps it around her own hand and begins to form a ball. As she pulls the yarn from the skein Abi feels a tug on first one hand, then the other.

“Go with it,” says Ernestine, and she tugs harder, until Abi's hands begin to swoop like swallows over a field, anticipating her smooth pull. Swoop, swoop, swoop, and they turn the five skeins to balls.

“You could start a sweater,” she says as she plops them into the paper bag.

“No,” Abi says. “It'd take too long.”

“Then a little sweater,” she says. “These five balls should just do it. I'll bring a pattern next time.”

She shows Abi how to cast off the stitches of the scarf, and it feels strange, off the needle, the piece of red fabric it's become. Ernestine bundles it around Abi's neck and the sudden warmth after wearing a halter surprises her. Makes her feel she's had a chill all day.

They've been sitting out on the car seat by the front door, and now Abi slams through the screen to show Dad. She bends over in front of him, his eye level. “What do you think?”

He reaches out and touches the scarf, all that bright colour. Then he looks puzzled. “It's not Christmas,” he says.

Abi laughs. “Ernestine thought it would take me forever.” There's a boastful tone to her voice that she doesn't mind at all. “I made it,” she adds.

He still appears puzzled. But eventually he says, “That's good. Yeah, that's good.” His face smoothes with recognition. Abi has to struggle with how that makes her feel, and as she stands, she pats him on the head as if he's a little child, and has a thought: maybe she can make a big sweater instead of a little one, and he can have something to bundle up in for the winter
in his chair. But no – it'll be all she can do to finish a little one. She's not even sure what makes her want to do that.

Back on the porch, Ernestine is busily casting on, starting her own project. “How's the job search coming along?”

“Not too bad,” Abi says, suddenly glad she left those résumés in the block buildings with letters on them.
Which were they?

“Do you feel you have a vocation?” Ernestine asks Abi. The wool she's using is pale yellow. On skinny needles. Funny – Abi always thinks of her as a bright yellow person.

“Not really,” Abi says. Hasn't given that part of her future a thought really. All she's been thinking of is a job, and to get out. Doesn't matter what the job is.

“Because you know…” Ernestine goes on.
Click, click, with those skinny needles…
“If you don't have love in your life, it's good to have work. Work that means something to you.”

Abi hopes her silence will help Ernestine to pick up on the fact that she's stunned.

Finally, Abi gets a few words out. “I thought you weren't supposed to say stuff like that anymore. I mean, aren't women supposed to be able to have everything now? That's what they always say at school.”

“You sound too cynical,” Ernestine says, “for sixteen.”

“You started it,” Abi says, “and I'm almost seventeen.”

“Well.” Ernestine sniffs. “We're not supposed to knit either.”

“But those guys – those convicts in the South – they knit.”

“So then it makes it okay for women to knit again?” The look Ernestine flashes at her is an angry one, but Abi knows she's not angry with her.

“I'm only saying that if you don't have the family you want…well, having a job you enjoy can make a difference in your life.”

“Does it for you?”

Never once have Ernestine's fingers stopped moving. Now, if anything, she knits faster. “Well…” she begins. And ends.

The answer is no. Abi backs down from saying it aloud and she doesn't want to hear Ernestine make something up. Not for Abi's sake. So Abi's glad when a vehicle comes to a sudden stop by the blackberry bushes. A cloud of dust rises, and she can't see who steps out. A semi-truck's horn blows; someone's not happy about the sudden stop.

A voice calls out. “
SORRY
!” after the truck. As if the driver can hear! The cloud begins to settle, and someone comes their way. It's Amanda from the beach.
The hen.
“I had to track down that Jude,” she begins, “to find
you
.” She points to Abi, then holds out her hand to Ernestine. “I'm Amanda,” she says.

Ernestine gives Abi a look of surprise. “I'm Mary Rhodes,” she says. “Very pleased to meet a friend of Abi's.”

“Likewise,” says Amanda. She straightens her back and adds about three inches to her height. “I need you,” she says, turning to Abi. “Your help. With my work. I have three houses to clean today. Got double-booked with one, and lost my partner. Can you do it?” She speaks all machine-gun fire now, her loose friendliness put aside.

Abi hesitates – she still isn't sure how she feels about this person – and Ernestine speaks up. “Don't let me stop you. Maybe this is what you've been looking for.”

Abi has to laugh.
Aba Zytka's vocation has come a-calling. Somebody's taken note of my sparkly Saturday kitchen, and as it turns out, it's my Destiny.

But at her laugh, Amanda steps back and looks through narrowed eyes. “Hmm,” she says. She speaks to Ernestine. “I have a hunch Abi's a cleaning machine.”

Ernestine gives a nervous, quick smile and pushes the screen door open. “See for yourself,” she says.

In goes Amanda, and Ernestine pushes Abi after her. They follow burly Amanda, and Abi is relieved to see that Dad has gone to his room. With the three of them standing in the kitchen, the house feels very full.

Amanda's eyes take in everything, and she speaks. “Jude said something about you two having lunch today. I told him that that wasn't today – must be some other day.” She ignores Abi's gasp.

How could she? Is she just a little crazy? Is this something Jude already knows about her?

But Amanda's quick bobbing movements make Abi curious, and the grin on her face does warm her.

“Oh, look at this faucet,” Amanda says, wiping her finger around the base. She peers into the sink. “And your sink! Quite glorious!”

A titter of laughter escapes Ernestine.

“Windowsills.” Amanda checks. “Corners.” She peers into the corners of floor and wall. “Oh, yeah, baby!” and her tone is jubilant. “You're on!”

“I'm on what?”

“You're hired!” she shouts.

Ernestine whispers. “I think you just went through a job interview.” But she does look perplexed, too.

“Mind if I whisk Abi off?” Amanda asks Ernestine.

“Seems to me,” says Ernestine with a smile, “that you do whatever you need to.”

“That's right.” Amanda's nod is a snap of her neck, and she leads the way out of the front door, down the walk to the ancient Dodge van parked out front. Abi follows – not sure if she should be thankful or resentful – and Ernestine is close behind, thrusting yarn and needles into the knitting bag.

Abi peeks into the back window. Everything's in there.

“Yep, fully camperized,” Amanda says with a grin as she opens the passenger door. “It's my mum and dad's.”

“Your Mum-and-Dad's?” The phrase rolls off Abi's tongue.
Does anyone have a Mum-and-Dad? Not a mum or dad, but a Mum-and-Dad?

“Yep.” Amanda closes the door after her. Abi waves to Ernestine, who stands nearby, clutching her knitting bag to her belly. She does have a funnily round little tummy, Abi notices. Abi waves back.

“You live with your Mum-and-Dad?” she asks Amanda as she plops into the driver's seat.

“Oh, yeah. They're the best, my folks.”

Funny to hear that warmth in her voice. Makes Abi feel even colder somehow.

“We've done a lot of camping in this.” She motions to the back, to the miniature stove and sink, the icebox with the Mac-tac front, the nubbly plaid seat cushions with the foam showing through at the corners.

“You and your Mum-and-Dad?” Abi asks. She just wants to hear those words from her own mouth, but if her tone is different, Amanda doesn't seem to notice.

“My brother too,” she adds.

Abi looks at her as she drives. She's checking her side mirror, changing lanes, all thought on the road.
Does she have any idea how lucky she is?

She goes on. “Me and my brother drive it now. My dad doesn't want it to go over the mountains again, 'cause it'll need another tranny, and he's tired of putting a new one in every time.”

Abi's thoughts are away over their own mountain.
Why, if a person had a vehicle such as this, they could live in it. Travel. Imagine hearing the highway hum under your floorboards.

“You just shivered!” Amanda looks at her for just a moment, and she has a frown on her face. “You're not ill, are you?”

“No,” Abi tells her. “No, I'm just fine, really.”

Amanda looks at her, unsure. “We have a big day ahead of us.”

Abi's on the borderline of feeling truly annoyed now. First, this girl comes after her for help, cancels her date, and now she seems to be ready to drive her back home.

“I'm up to it,” Abi snaps, pulls herself up in the seat and looks ahead.

“Okay,” says Amanda easily, and begins to slap a tune into the steering wheel.

They drive on, getting closer to the part of town where the houses are in rows, big houses with no trees between them, only fences. High fences. These houses are not on the bus route.

“So what exactly is this big day?” Abi asks.

“As I said. Three houses. Mr. Stewart's. The Ralphs'. Last, Grinsteads'. Two or more hours each,” Amanda says. “Without
you, it'd take me four, and I couldn't do it. I've never let a customer down.” She speaks this last quite fiercely as she pulls up in front of an enormous mint stucco house. The front yard is jam-packed with oddly cut bushes and cement figurines, and not one, but two fountains.

“Is the inside as cluttered as the outside?” Abi asks.

Amanda grins. “And they say you can't tell a book by its cover!” She laughs and swings out her door. Abi follows and Amanda pulls open the side door. “Take this.” She hands Abi a large bucket filled with cleaning products and rags, sponges and rubber gloves, and an odd plastic and metal contraption. Abi isn't at all sure what it is, but Amanda must see her questioning look.

“That's my robot arm. It's supposed to be a kid's toy, from the toy-store.” She picks it up and demonstrates how the lever on one end works to move the robotic “fingers” on the other. “You'll see what
this
is for!” She plunks it back into Abi's bucket, then grabs a mop in one hand and hefts the old Filter Queen vacuum easily to the door. “Let me know if I work you too hard!” She grins. “I think I did poor old Brad in.”

“Brad?”

“Yup. He was my right-hand guy until this morning.”

“What happened?”

“I don't know. He didn't show. I waited half an hour, then I couldn't wait anymore.”

She seems so cut and dried. But maybe not. She adds, “I'll talk with him tonight.”

“So I'm just filling in?” Abi asks, suddenly realizing that somewhere in the back of her mind she'd been adding up hours and dollar figures.

Amanda looks keenly at her. “For now.” She's opened the door and pushed through the scraggly potted plants to the kitchen. “You might not even like the work,” she says.

Does it matter?
“I'm not looking for a vocation.”

Amanda turns to her at that word. “I thought vocations come looking for
you
,” she says.

“Is that how it works?”

“I've heard.”

“This isn't yours, then?”

Amanda looks thoughtful, and she pauses in the doorway. “I don't think so,” she says.

Abi follows her and she points to several boxes on the table.

“This place is the worst.” She says it quite cheerfully, though. “Mr. Stewart leaves stuff everywhere, and before we can even clean, we've got to go round and pick up all the junk, put it in a box. We leave the box in the room so he can put it wherever it does belong.” She lowers her voice as if someone – Mr. Stewart – might hear her. “I don't think he ever does put it back.” She points to a stack of books on a chair. “I'm positive that pile was on that other chair last time
I was here. That vase with dead flowers in it was in the middle of the table with different dead flowers and very smelly water…” She pauses to sniff at the vase, half an arm's length away from herself. “Yep. Smells like the same water to me!” With a quick movement, the flowers are in the garbage, and she's poured the offending water down the drain.