One Good Hustle (11 page)

Maybe I
should
be in anger management.

I look at Jill, her purple lips dark in the firelight. Cigarette smoke curls around her face. She’s a better hustler than I would have thought. Better one than I am, probably.

Every now and then Crystal glances up. She’s cross-legged and drunk and ever since Jill’s performance at the top of the path, it’s as if Crystal hopes I’ll laugh at her jokes, agree with some remark she’s made.

“… just like with Sammie,” she’s saying to Jill now. “I didn’t used to get Sammie at all but it’s like, you know, man, you see things in people that maybe other people don’t, right.”

Crystal looks so small down there in the dirt now—a blowup monster that’s been popped with a pin.

I’m so deep in thought, I don’t notice anything’s different until a German shepherd pokes his damp black nose in my face.

“Hi,” I say, and touch his fur. He’s excited, shoulders wiggling, sniffing the ground.

I look down, see shoes and realize that a cop’s got hold of him on a leash. My stomach flips at the squeak of the cop’s leather gun-belt. Have to remind myself that I don’t have anything to worry about. I’m not drinking. There’s nothing hot in my purse. No loaded dice, no marked cards. I am not Sam. I’m not Marlene.

The guitar playing stops.

I watch the dog trot from log to log, see the orange glow from the fire lighting up his coat and wish I could grab handfuls, push my face into his thick fur.

“Any open alcohol around here?” the cop calls out.

There’s a second cop on the other side of the fire. He kicks a little sand into the flame.

A kid in a ball cap shoves something under a log with his foot and then sidesteps into a nearby group of guys.

The dog keeps sniffing here and there until he comes to that log, stops, barks and digs and barks some more. The dog-cop leans down and pulls a plastic sandwich bag out from under the log.

“Who does this belong to?” He shakes the baggy in the air. It looks empty but there’s probably a bit of weed. He throws it into what’s left of the fire.

“For fuck sakes,” the kid in the ball cap hisses.

The second cop now has Crystal Norris’s Big Gulp in his hand.

“Hey, man,” Crystal says. “You got a warrant?”

He opens the cup, puts his nose in. “Whew!” he says. “Bad girl.” He dumps the bit that’s left into the sand.

“Fuckin’ pigs,” she mutters.

“Excuse me?” he says.

Jill has shoved her cup between her back and the log. She holds up empty hands.

“How about you?” the cop asks me.

I take the lid off my cup. “Cherry Slurpee. Straight.”

He sniffs. “Good for you. The designated driver.” He tips the dregs out anyway, looks around and yells, “Up and at ’em. Move it out and take your garbage with you.”

The dog is still prancing, sniffing pant legs and purses.

Everyone is up off the ground now. Jill tries to tuck her cup into her jacket as she stands. The lid pops off and what’s left dumps down the front of her jeans.

“Motherfucker!”
She’s covered in sticky lemonade and gin.

The cop with the dog laughs. “That’s karma, kiddo.”

We all plod back up the path toward the road.

“Holy shit, I’m wasted.” Crystal giggles and grabs hold of my arm.

Jill takes Crystal’s other arm. “Jesus, didn’t you eat before you came out?”

Jill’s a little drunk too, but nobody looks as bad as Crystal.

“Sure I ate. One piece of dry toast and half a grapefruit,” Crystal slurs. “I’m doing this grapefruits diet, man. You should try it.”

“Why,” Jill asks her. “So I can be an assless wonder too?”

Crystal giggles. “You’re just jealous. Do you know what size jeans I wear? Grapefruits, grapefruits, grapefruits.”

The cop with the dog trudges behind us and the other one stands at the top of the path, giving us each the once-over.

As we pass him, Crystal holds up my hand and slaps her car keys into it. “Designated driver!”

When we find the car, Crystal gets into the passenger side. Jill sits in the back and takes out her cigarettes.

On the driver’s side, I buckle my seat belt and stare ahead through the windshield for a couple seconds. “I don’t have my licence,” I say.

“You do so,” Jill bellows from the back. I can hear her lighter flick and a quick inhale before she blows smoke and says, “You started going to those classes, like, the day you turned sixteen.”

“Oh yeah!” Crystal squeals. “I saw you staying after school for driver’s ed. I thought you were such a
fag
.” She cackles her ass off and then in a booming announcer’s voice says, “Young Drivers of Ca-na-da!”

I took those classes all right. I caught the bus way out to the east burbs—Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody—so I could pull off enough drugstore returns for the fee. They held the in-class stuff in Mr. Walters’ Trades Math room. Then we did another three weeks of actual driving in one of those freaky cars with two steering wheels. I loved it. Driving was like growing wings. I was determined to get my licence. Then things went off the rails with Marlene.

I turn the ignition.

Crystal screams. “Fuckin’ Sammie! You don’t care about
anything!
You’re so fuckin’ cool.” She looks over at me with watery eyes and slurs, “Seriously, Sammie. I just didn’t get you before, but you’re …”

Jill pushes her head between the front seats. “She’s the baddest chick in town.”

Peels of laughter from Crystal. “Foxy fuckin’ Brown!”

I’d like to slap Crystal. I can almost feel the heat of the slap in my palm as I adjust the rear-view mirror.

I’d give anything to have Drew with me now. Drew has his licence. An image of him flashes in my mind, bent over the steering wheel, carefully putting his father’s car into drive.

ELEVEN

I’M ON THE
couch with Jill. It’s one-thirty in the afternoon and we’re still not dressed because it’s pouring today. Pissing sideways.

I’m kind of happy, though.

Lou came home from work a minute ago. He stood here in the living room, taking up the entire door frame, and said, “Sammie, I understand you had to drive the girls home from a party the other night. Some drinking involved.” He scowled at Jill.

“
Daddy!
It was Crystal, not me!” Jill sounds like a six-year-old in a tutu when she sugar-talks her dad.

Lou looked back at me. “I just want to say that I appreciate you trying to do the responsible thing, Sammie. But I don’t want you driving without a licence. So if you want to make an appointment to take your road test this week, I’d be happy to give you a lift.” Then he lowered his head in that funny, bashful way he has and went upstairs.

I feel as if I’ve got sparklers in my gut right now. Nobody else except maybe those born-again kids talks like Lou, makes out like I’m a good girl, a dignified kind of person.

“Sammie, you’re blushing.” Ruby smirks. She’s sitting kitty-corner to us on the other couch, sewing the hem on a pair of Lou’s pants.

Whenever a person tells me I’m blushing, it just gives me an even bigger lobster-face. Lou’s so nice it’s embarrassing.

Jill is in her fuzzy purple bathrobe. I’m in my pyjamas and a beat-up University of British Columbia sweatshirt that once belonged to Jill’s ex-boyfriend, Roman. Roman used to play basketball for UBC but he was flunking so they kicked him out. He was way older than Jill. Twenty-two. I asked Jill once why Ruby let her go with a guy that old and she said, “I do what I want no matter what she says. And she’d rather know the truth than have me lie.”

Staring at the TV screen, Jill says, “Man, is Billy Dee Williams not the finest looking man you ever saw?”

We’re watching some old movie called
Mahogany
.

He looks a bit slick if you ask me. Like a hustler who doesn’t know enough to downplay it. “What else has he been in?”

“You never saw
Lady Sings the Blues?
” Jill says, as if I must’ve been raised by wolves.

She’s got the soundtrack from
Lady Sings the Blues
in her bedroom. The
Mahogany
one too. Diana Ross singing her guts out. Jill must have a dozen Diana Ross albums.

“If I married him,” Jill says, mooning at the TV, “I wouldn’t even have to change my last name.
Jill Williams, meet Billy Dee
Williams. Why, hello, Jill. You are one hot mama and I think we would have beautiful babies together
.”

“Better watch it,” I tell her. “Maybe he’s not just any brother. Maybe he’s
your
brother.”

Ruby titters. “I think I’d remember that,” she says.

Hardly any black people live in Burnaby. Or Vancouver either. There are only two black kids in our whole school, which is probably why Jill’s so fascinated—she thinks it’s exotic.

I wonder what Jill’s dad thinks. My dad is pretty weird about black people. His friends are too. Marlene told me about this thing that happened before I was born. She said that she and Sam were over for drinks at another couple’s place: Peggy and Mike. Peggy—she’s now with my dad—was going out with a loan shark called Mike McGee back then. They were sitting around drinking wine and talking about how the white neighbour lady had gotten married to a black man.

Peggy didn’t think it was such a big deal.

Her boyfriend, Mike, said, “That sounds okay to you? Would you sleep with one of ’em?”

Peggy said that it depended.

“Would you sleep with a nigger or not? Answer the question.”

Marlene flashed her a look, trying to signal Peggy to say no.

But Peggy answered, “Maybe if I fell in love with one of ’em.”

Mike slapped Peggy in the mouth. Then he grabbed her by the hair, dragged her off her chair and called her a whore and a slut.

Marlene and Sam got out of there. Peggy was on the floor and Mike was waving a gun around before they left the house.

I wish I hadn’t thought of that. Makes me think I
was
raised by wolves.

Sitting here in the living room now, I watch Ruby’s sewing needle poke in and out of Lou’s jeans. Lou would never talk the way Sam and his friends do.

Diana Ross is singing on TV, asking whether you know where you’re going to and if you know what life is showing you. I hate this song. It’s the most depressing song ever written. It doesn’t even have a proper title, just “Theme from
Mahogany
.”

Jill is warbling along.

This song is an even bigger drag than “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” and
that
is an all-time wrist-slasher if I ever heard one.

The doorbell rings.

Jill looks at her mother. Her mother looks back.

“You get it,” they say in stereo. Then they both turn to me. “Sammie, you get it.”

The two of them are still giggling their asses off when I get up and open the door.

Standing on the porch is Drew, soaking wet.

My stomach drops as if I’m flying down the first hill on a roller coaster.

“What are you
doing
here,” I whisper, slip outside onto the welcome mat and pull the door behind me. Beyond the overhang, rain is pelting the steps.

“I looked up Jill in the phone book.”

I can just make out that stupid shitty
Mahogany
song still plinking away in the living room.
When you look behind you
, Diana says,
there’s no open door. What are you hoping for?

“I was going to just phone you but—” Drew pauses. “That thing in the supermarket, I just—” He sputters,
“P-p-p,”
as if he can’t make words for a second or two. “What’s wrong with you? Why did you do that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m—” I feel the goose egg in my throat again. It’s ready to burst. Inside the house:
Do you know where you’re going to?
Over and over. I can’t talk.

“I don’t get you. What did I do?”

“It’s not about
you
. I’ve got other stuff going on.” I look down at the weather-beaten porch between my bare feet. “I’m not even dressed.”

He looks away, shaking his head like he can’t believe it. For a second I think he’s going to walk down the stairs, back into the rain, and be done with me.

Instead he says, “I came here because you’re not home. I mean—” He sighs as if he’s collecting himself. “I thought I should find you because, um, because I think something’s wrong with your mom. She called my place yesterday at, like, five in the morning. My mother answered and told her I was still sleeping. So then she called again at seven. My mom was so mad.” He laughs nervously because Drew and his mom don’t get along.

Then there’s a long pause until he says, “She was pretty revved up. She had this whole idea—your mom—about making you famous. I’m supposed to take a picture of you with tons of pink roses in a pink Cadillac. She said she drew me an illustration. Everything has to be pink for it to work. Then we’re supposed to send the picture to Phil Donahue, the talk-show guy. Everyone in the plan is Scottish, she said, so it would work
because of the pattern. Because you’re Scottish, and I’m Scottish, and she’s Scottish and Phil Donahue’s Scottish …”

I move past him to edge of the porch. A drop of cool rain slants in and snaps my face. I wrap my arms around my ribs. I shouldn’t even have a friend like Drew. Drew is going to heaven. Me and Marlene are not.

He leans against the railing. “She kept asking if I could see the pattern. It was like she’d decoded the pattern and she could see it and nobody else could. Um. I said that sounded neat or interesting or whatever. Maybe we could talk about it later. So, I called her last night to see how she was doing and she had a whole other plan about making a million dollars. It had to do with pills and doctors and this secret code on pill bottles. She said it would work because of everybody being Chinese. She’s Chinese and so is her doctor.”

I turn around. “She who? My mother is Chinese?”

“Yeah. And some guy named Freddy.”

I look out at the rain hitting the parked cars and the sidewalk and the road.

“Sammie?”

“Yup.”