New Year's Eve (3 page)

“I don’t have a bathing suit.”

Sharla shrugged, her shoulders lifting out of the water to make ripples. “Take off your socks and sit on the edge, it’ll warm you up.”

I was still cold from the drive. I pulled off my socks and rolled up my sweat pants.

The edge was sharp. It dug into my butt no matter how I sat. But the water was hot, hot, hot. I bent to let my hands dangle in the heat. It felt good.

“Oh, come on, take your sweat pants off at least. The water’s so good...”

I couldn’t.

“Too chicken?”

“Too fat to get in a hot tub,” I said. “Still haven’t lost the baby weight.”

“You look okay. You’re not that much bigger than you were at my wedding.”

I must have looked mad, or sad, or something. There was a pause. I thought she was going to apologize. But no.

“Are you and Ron going to have kids?” I asked.

She drank another vodka shot, her last one. Four empty glasses in a row on the edge of the tub.

“I’ve had three miscarriages so far,” Sharla said.

I didn’t dare look at her.

“They just keep dying on me,” she said.

I had no idea what to say.

After a minute I stood up and pulled off my sweat pants. I got down into the water with her.

“Sorry,” I finally said. “I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah. The first was the day before my wedding. That was fun. Another last summer. Lost the third one just before Christmas.”

She leaned over the edge and stared at Daisy’s upturned sleeping face.

“She is pretty cute,” Sharla said.

Then she jumped out of the tub, grabbed a towel, and ran across the tiles, leaving damp footprints. “Shit! I forgot the wings!”

The chicken wings were good. Not too burnt. Sharla brought them on a tray and we ate them while we sat in the water.

After that, the hot tub was too hot. Even the room was too hot.

“Let’s go over to the town hall,” Sharla said. “It’s just across the road.”

I had leaned out of the tub to check on Daisy. Still sleeping. Sometimes I want to wake her up and play with her. But that is never a good idea.

“What’s over there?”

“Community dance,” Sharla said. “Ron doesn’t go to dances. If you party with people, it’s harder to arrest them when they’re driving home drunk. But we could go, by ourselves.”

“I can’t go in sweats. I ’d have to get my suitcase from the car,” I said.

Sharla said she had stuff that might fit me.

The master bedroom had a huge bathroom off it, with twin sinks and a Jacuzzi tub. Sharla and Ron must spend a lot of time in water, I thought. A lot of mirrors, too. Sharla didn’t have to avoid them, and Ron didn’t seem like the vain type. He was okay-looking. But you noticed how nice he was before anything else. Like a big nose or a mole, his kindness stuck out.

Sharla pulled rodeo-style shirts and jeans out of the closet, checking which looked best in the mirror. She shoved a pair of jeans at me, new, with the tags still on.

“Got these at Winners in Edmonton last fall, they’re
way
too big for me. Before they changed their take-back rules.”

“I’ll pay you,” I said. Then I remembered that I had no money.

“Don’t bother,” she said. “They were, like, ten bucks. Good if somebody can use them.”

I was very relieved. And the jeans even fit. The zipper did up without too much straining.
The shirt had pearl buttons that were actually snaps. As soon as I did them up, they snapped open again.

“I’ll wear the shirt open,” I said, giving up. I pulled my spare t-shirt out of Daisy’s diaper bag.

Sharla was busy putting on mascara. Her mouth pulled down to stretch her eyes open. She said
mm-hmm,
and did the other eye. A big makeup case sat on the bathroom counter. Eighteen eye shadow colours, about forty lipsticks and blushes.

She made me sit on a stool while she made up my face.

“You’re good at this.” I tried to speak without blinking.

“I thought about being a makeup artist,” she said. “Like for the movies? But my dad wanted me to be a dental hygienist.”

She did have really white teeth.

“Are you working now?”

“Part time, two days a week. I don’t like the dentist, though.”

This was pretty weird, to be having an ordinary conversation with Sharla.

She turned me so I could see myself in the mirror. She’d done a good job.

Then she brushed my hair out and pinned up a couple of twists, so most of it was piled on my head. With the curling iron, she caught some smaller strands. In no time, I had little ringlets falling on each side.

It was the best I’d looked in years. All sparkling. And I liked those jeans, they made me feel trim.

“Good,” she said, turning me from side to side. She sprayed my hair like crazy.

Then she turned aside and went to the bedroom, stripping of her towel and bodysuit on the way. She picked a new bra and socks from a drawer. I felt pretty awkward being there while she wandered around naked. She paid no attention to me at all. I couldn’t help seeing that the rug did not match the curtains, if you know what I mean. So the blonde hair was a dye job. But she had smooth, unstretched skin and nice little unsaggy breasts.

I turned to the baby so I didn’t have to watch Sharla.

Daisy was awake, beginning to move her head from side to side. She reminded me of her dad, waking up.

I undid the straps and took Daisy out of the car seat, holding her tight. We walked in front of the long mirror.

I’d been in maternity jeans for more than a year. The ones I had on now were my first pair without a wide band of elastic across the belly. Zipped up snug over my pale leftover baby flab, the jeans looked good.

“Okay!” Sharla said, pulling a rodeo belt tight around her tiny waist. The shiny buckle was bull-rider size, as big as a pie plate. “Let’s get over there, get this party started!”

I changed Daisy’s diaper and put her in a clean sleeper and back into her snowsuit. She didn’t like that too much. She waved her arms around and said
Nahh!
in little explosions. One of her kicks got me straight in the jaw. But I was the boss of her, and we were going to the dance.

Sharla found a blanket to fold around Daisy. We wrapped scarves up to our eyes, but it was still cold. Ice under the snow made me slide a couple of times, but we got there.

Trucks filled the parking lot by the hall, and more were parked along the road. A yellow light bulb lit up the front door, where people were going in and out.

Inside, the hall was hot, with more of those yellow lights glowing. People stood in bunches around the bar and the food table. Fewer out on the dance floor, but enough. It was noisy.

“Hey, there’s Jade,” Sharla said. “Jade!” she called “Jade!”

A woman waved and came toward us. A fringed jacket hung easy over her wide shoulders. As she walked the fringes swayed a little.

Sharla spoke in my ear. “Jade—she’s Tim Lamont’s wife. He’s the Mountie in charge here. The one who went to Vegas without her.”

Jade was taller than me, with long dark hair. She was really good looking. She looked like the woman jeans were invented for. I felt young and shy and stupid.

But she smiled at me with an open face when Sharla said who I was. About the snowstorm and why we were there. Jade gave me a hug, for nothing.

Then I forgot how beautiful she was and just liked her.

Good thing I did. Because Sharla, again, was not too friendly.

“Why don’t you like her?” I asked Sharla when Jade went back to her table to get her drink.

Sharla shrugged. “I never said I didn’t. She’s bossy, I guess.”

Sometimes people see their own faults in other people.

I set Daisy’s car seat on the table so she could see the dancers. I rocked the seat gently to the music.

An older guy stopped beside Sharla. He bent his head to speak, and she went off with him. They joined the two-stepping couples on the dance floor. I could never get the hang of the two-step. I always turned it into a waltz by mistake.

Up on a small platform behind the dancers, the little band was not bad. Five or six old guys. They played country tunes, some newer. But not very new. “Achy Breaky Heart,” for instance, which was old when I was a kid.

Jade came back and sat on the edge of the table by Daisy, putting her fringed jacket on the chair. At the neck of her soft denim shirt, her collarbone showed like a smooth stick.

“What a cute baby,” she said. “How old?”

We talked about Daisy and how great she was. Jade showed me her two boys, fifteen and seventeen. They were standing with their friends by the far wall.

She didn’t look old enough to have a seventeen-year-old kid. Or even a seven-year-old.

Jade said the best part of kids growing up was not needing sitters any more. We talked about that for a while. How hard it was to find someone you could leave your kids with and not be nervous. She was easy to talk to.

Tim, her husband, was having a good time in Vegas, she said. “He’s been having a hard year. Needed to get away from all this. Be by himself.”

Talking about her sons, her face had lit up. When she talked about her husband, the light went out. She looked sad.

I wondered what was going on with Grady and Ron and the buffalo.

Then I realized why I was thinking about them. Because of the lights. Through the window, I could see the rolling red and blue lights of the police cruiser.

I leaned to peer out. They had stopped a truck on the road close to the hall. Ron was standing by the truck window, listening to the driver.

I could see Grady inside the cruiser. Talking into the radio, his face thoughtful in the dashboard light. Seeing him at work always made me like him again. That he would want to do this stupid job.

Jade asked if she could hold the baby. She lifted Daisy out of the car seat with strong, thin arms. When Daisy stretched out her legs, Jade let her stand up.

I loved to watch Daisy being held by someone else. It was like I could see her better as herself. And she could see me, and that made her happy. She jumped and bent on Jade’s knee, dancing to the music. I kind of wanted to dance, too, to try out my new jeans.

A couple of guys asked Jade to dance, but she smiled and said she was taking a break. Everybody gave me a nod of the head or shook my hand. Most people said how cute Daisy was. They were a lot like Drayton Valley people.

“I could use a drink,” Jade said.

She got up and handed Daisy over. I was glad to have her in my arms again.

“You?” Jade asked me. “Or are you still nursing?”

I said I was.

“How about soda water with a little cranberry juice in the bottom?” she suggested. “I used to like that.”

Jade started for the bar.

Out on the dance floor, someone began shouting. The music broke off, then someone crashed into the band platform. The old guys shrank back to the wall with their instruments.

A couple of kids were yelling at each other. The dancers stood still, watching. Everybody in the hall was watching.

One young guy shouted, “You don’t even know who she’s—”

The other one swung a punch and connected with a sound like fudge boiling, a wet plop. The first guy went down, out cold.

At that, three or four other kids rushed onto the dance floor and started hitting wildly. The dancers got out of the way, Sharla among them.

The fight looked nothing like a movie. These guys weren’t good at fighting, but they really wanted to hurt each other. They grabbed each other, clung together, then swung. They hit too slow or bashed heads. Pretty soon, most of them were bleeding and some of them were crying.

A woman at the table beside us stood up on the bench to take pictures. Tears were running down her face. She kept yelling, “Stop, you boys! Stop them!” Then she’d snap another picture. I think she was the mother of one of the boys.

Sharla worked her way back through the crowd.

I was strapping Daisy back into her seat, figuring that was the safest place. I wanted out of there. Those country fights can get bad fast, because everyone’s related.

Somebody smart must have stuck a head out the door and yelled for the cops.