Mud Girl (5 page)

“Maybe someday you'll come out of that house of yours and meet with me in the blackberry patch for lunch.” The laughter has returned to his voice.

She nods dumbly.

A man – a Hood, no doubt – calls from a back room. “Jude! If you have a minute!”

“Coming!”
My Boy
answers. He whispers to Abi. “That's my boss. Thinks I'm going to take over here someday, and manage the place.” He reaches for the artist's brush again, holds it in front of her. “But I've got dreams.” He turns and disappears into the back room.

Abi leaves quickly and wishes there was somewhere she could go and shout the name jude. “Jude,” she whispers as she waits between trucks to cross the road. “Jude.” Deep inside her there's a feeling, fuzzier and pinker than she's ever felt.

And a son. A son he takes care of. She knew it somehow – that he was capable of that.

Over the Line

“W
ould you like to go over the line? See the Fourth of July fireworks?” Rhodes stands at the door in a red-and-white striped western shirt with blue jeans, and heels with a narrow band of cut-out stars across the toes.

Abi tries not to smile at the shoes and shakes her head, mumbles something about the lineup there'll be at the border crossing. The few times she's been there, Blaine and Peace Arch were always busy. Besides, except for the flag and the water-melon, she doesn't usually do anything about Canada Day.

But Rhodesy is rattling on with her firecracker speech: “It's wonderful fun! The best. I never miss fireworks! Sure you don't want to come?”

Abi shakes her head. “No thanks.” She resists saying that she doesn't have the right footwear.

“Well,” says Rhodesy, “another time, then.” Her car – Betty, is it? – is almost in the blackberry bushes, there's so little space by the road. She has to wait until there's a hole in the traffic before she can open her door. She gives a little wave of her round white hand before sinking into her seat, then she fiddles with the radio. Looking for someone to travel with, Abi thinks.

Mum always said, “You have yourself. That is enough. It's all in here.” She'd tap her head. Abi can hear those words now. No, there was no looking for someone to travel with, with Abi's mother – God-Rest-Her-Feet.
Happy Independence Day, Mum
, Abi wishes. She wonders if Dad has ever sent Mum a message in a bottle. A bottle would have about as much luck at finding her. A thought comes to Abi now, though.
Mum is nowhere near water.
She turns the thought over in her mind. It looks the same upside down, and from any side. She knows it is true. So – one other piece about her mother.

A
bi's head is in the kitchen sink. It's the easiest way to wash her hair, instead of in the rust-tub. The bathroom fixtures predate Uncle Bernard, who lived in the house before them.

The water flows at the nape of Abi's neck, round her ears, down her cheeks, and is cooling on a warm July day. Her eyes are closed, but she can feel the room change, and she reaches for a towel with one hand, the tap with the other, and gathers her hair into the towel and turns, and yes, he's here.

“I let myself in the screen door,” he says.

She feels strangely unselfconscious. It should bother her that he's let himself in, and that she's standing here with wet hair in a terry cloth turban. But it doesn't bother her; quite the contrary – it feels right.

“In an hour it'll be twilight, and there'll be fireworks at the Point.”

The Point: she'd forgotten Point Roberts, that little apple-pie-shaped piece of America that dangles from the Canadian border, just half an hour from here, population not much more than a thousand. Still has more trees than people, more vacation cottages than houses, though just the other side, the Canadian side, is a well-developed suburb.

“They have fireworks there?”

“Of course.” He grins.

For Canada Day fireworks, you have to drive an hour into the city.

He holds out his hand.

“My hair,” she says.

“You have no excuse,” he says. “You've washed it, you're ready to go.” He takes off her turban, makes a sort of dance step of it, turning her around under his arm. Then he combs his fingers through her hair.

“Perfect,” he says.

Perfect
. No makeup, wet hair, her mother's left-behind jeans. Okay, now she's self-conscious.

“Gotta get something else on,” she mutters, and moves quickly toward her door. She wonders if he's noticed Dad yet. Doesn't seem to have, when she opens her door moments later, changed, hair slicked into a pony, a touch of Cinnamon lipstick. Mum's colour – went with everything, she said, sad days and happy. The woman at the drugstore warned Mum that the cosmetics company had discontinued it, and Mum bought every last stick. Went with everything, but not her; she left them all behind. Even so, Abi doesn't wear it that often.

They're at the door when Jude –
JUDE
, she shouts inside – says, “Are you just leaving the
TV
on?”

So he hasn't seen Dad yet.

“It's always on.” They slip out.

“And I already know you don't lock the door,” he says.

“Nothing to steal.”

“You should lock it when you're home,” he says.

She likes how he says that. Makes her warm. Could be early January instead of July and she still wouldn't need a coat,
the way he says that. He opens the passenger door of the old blue pickup truck and closes it after her.

“Where's your son?” she asks suddenly, surprising herself. Didn't know the kid was bubbling near the top of her brain like that.

“He's with his grandma,” he says easily as he pulls the pickup into the roadway.

Again she feels a stab of self-consciousness. She thinks of what it takes to make a baby. “Been there, done that,” he could say. Evan kissed her once – a guy at school, the only guy who's ever offered her a ride home. She's wondered since if the ride and the kiss wasn't some sort of dare. Almost seventeen, and never really been kissed. She suspects that this is something she's supposed to worry about. That's probably what it says in those magazines that other girls read.

Jude is staring at her. “Hallo?!” he says, waving a hand in front of her face. “Earth to…whoever you are…” He laughs. “Who are you?”

“Aba.”

“Like the old pop group?”

She shakes her head. “One B. Just Abi will do.”

“What do you mean ‘
Just
Abi
will do
'?”

He stops the truck at a light and looks at her. The stop-light could turn green, but he's not going anywhere. She doesn't like this light-headed feeling: as if she might do something
she would never do with her head clear and her feet on the ground. It suddenly seems to her that her head has always been very clear and that the ground has been
very
under her feet. “Know where you are, what you are doing, what you want,” Mum always said. Clear and grounded. Until now.

The car behind them honks, and Jude –
JUDE
 – moves forward. She breathes as he looks away. No, she doesn't like this at all.

For some reason she sees Dad in his chair. Is this how he felt about Mum? Is it possible Mum ever felt this about him? It's not possible, is it? If it was, they wouldn't be where they are now. You can't feel
this
, and become
that.

The sun is setting as they reach the crest of the hill. The tall trees to the south of the border make it seem even darker, the lineup of tail lights shines warm colours.

“The fireworks are at Lighthouse Park,” Jude says. “Do you come down here at all?”

She shakes her head. “Haven't been for a long time.”
Don't go anywhere anymore
.

Then it's their turn; the guard stares at her. “ID?” he says.

Jude nudges her. “He's asking for your identification.”

“Oh.” She pulls the school card from her bag.

Even though there is a line of vehicles behind them, the guard scrutinizes the card, looking between Abi and her photo several times.

“Fireworks?” he asks.

“Yes sir,” says Jude. “We'll be heading back when they're over.”

“Drinking age is twenty-one down here. You know that.” The guard looks so serious. Abi wonders if he has kids of his own. He makes eye contact, like a grade school teacher. She bets he's always warning his kids about everything.

“We drive in miles per hour, not kilometres.”

“Yes sir,” says Jude with not so much as a squeak of sarcasm.

The guard squints at Jude. “All right,” he says sternly, and waves them on.

At the beach, Jude reaches into the back of the truck for a couple of blankets and two bottles of fancy juice in pretty, long-necked bottles that Abi has noticed at the store. “Can't be caught with anything else down here,” he says. “Friend of mine was – Big Trouble he's in now.”

How old is Jude anyhow?

He takes her hand as they walk down the beach. His is a big hand. Or perhaps hers is small. She never thinks about her hand in relation to anyone else's. It feels good.
In relation.
She can't remember when someone last touched her in any way, except maybe by accident in the school caf lineup. Or someone brushing by on the bus. She giggles and Jude squeezes her hand ever so slightly. She's afraid to look at him
so she looks over the beach to where there's a group of children, voices loud in the summer evening. You can tell they're so happy to be up this late. But Jude pulls her in the other direction, toward a giant log lying on its side, to where the noise of the children seems far away.

He spreads one of the blankets on the sand, pulling the corners out just so, and readies the other blanket over the log. “Sit,” he says, and they do, shoulder to shoulder. He reaches around and draws the blanket on the log down around them, and she's glad for the warmth. She hadn't realized how chilly the air had grown.

People are now spreading over the beach, people of all shapes, sizes, and ages. The sun is setting, warmth beginning to rise from the sand. Abi takes her sandals off and burrows her feet into the toasty grains. Jude looks at her, amused. “Just don't get sand on the blanket,” he warns with a grin.

Out on the water, boats bob, their lights flickering, and between them and the boats are so many heads in silhouette.

BOOM
! The first of the fireworks makes Abi jump. “Oh!” She's not even aware she's said anything until she sees a face, turned around and looking back at her.
Rhodesy!

“Aba!” she says, and for just a second something passes over her face – not a look of anger; more of sadness, a grey sadness that causes her face to close down momentarily. Then her face opens again in a big smile. “I'm glad you won't miss them,” she says, and motions to the sky.

Abi is glad for her pointing finger, and she looks quickly away to the green and pink against the dark.

“Wow!” breathes Jude.

“Dyl,” Abi dares to say the name aloud, “would love this, wouldn't he?”
Wish I couldn't feel Rhodes right in front of me. Wish I didn't feel as if I've betrayed a friend. I hardly know her, really.

Jude doesn't take his eyes from the exploding colour. “I suppose he would,” he says, nothing more.

BOOM
!
BOOM
!
BOOM
! Will it ever stop? Abi is shivering now, and wonders how long it will go on. Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? Maybe someone will just drop a match and blow it all up at once and get it over with.
Please…
If only she didn't feel as if she'd made a promise, then broken it. She didn't promise Rhodesy anything. She just said “no” to her invitation. That's not the same, is it?

Beside her, she can feel Jude closer, can feel his weight. There's a warmth on her neck and she turns at the suddenness of it, and they're connected. Just like that.

Abi's not prepared for it. She always thought her first real kiss would be something she could recognize at the time. But before she can tell herself what's happening, it's over.

“What do you think?” he asks, his voice husky.

I don't want to think.
She kisses him back because it's easier than talking.

She doesn't want to think about those magazines and what they say to do. She doesn't want to think about what other girls think. Mostly, she doesn't want to think about Rhodesy up ahead there. Something haunts Rhodesy, Abi can feel it. She doesn't want to know what, though, she really doesn't. She doesn't want to think that maybe she's added some bit of black to the blues in Mary Rhodes.

She kisses Jude again. No, no thinking.

Da Capo