Snapped (18 page)

George hates me. He hates me. He hates me.
I’ve kept his card. It’s addressed and stamped but I’ve kept it. Maybe I’ll leave it at the bar, slip it under the door when I know he’s not there. Maybe he’ll have a change of heart; perhaps I should send a fruit basket. I know he likes tangerines.

There’s a note taped to my door. I recognize George’s handwriting. The fuck-off letter. I take a deep breath and unfold it.

He’s worried and he wants me to call. He wants to see me. It could be a trick, he could be stringing me along a little longer as per the instructions of the DON’T cabal. The effigy, the celebration in the square—it’s not impossible.

I let myself in and gasp at what I see. There are black handprints on the walls, the counter, the fridge, the floor, the stairs. The boxes of
Snap
s are still out and empty beer bottles are scattered everywhere, some tipped over, others half-full. I clear them up and shove the
Snap
s back in their boxes and lug them one by one to the storage closet in the back near the bathroom. But the handprints—I need spray cleaner and a rag. I look under the sink because that’s where people keep cleaning things and am for a moment surprised to find an array of chemical potions, sponges, towels and rags. Tim is nothing if not thorough. I snap on a pair of yellow rubber gloves just as I hear a knock on the door. George?

“New look?” It’s Eva. And Brian. It’s Monday afternoon and I’d completely forgotten they were coming to look at the magazines for their mysterious project. “It’s cute. Very domestic.”

I force a smile and invite them in. I point them in the di
rection of the magazines. “Please put them back exactly the way you found them,” I say.

“Of course.” Eva grins and bats her eyelashes. Brian says nothing. He doesn’t look at me.

I strip off the yellow rubber gloves. I’m not going to clean while those two are here. I’m dying to ask what they’re looking for, accidentally drop something near the long reading table Tim found for me at an estate sale in the Townships and catch a glimpse of their notes, pick up a snippet of conversation. But I don’t. I make a vow of eternal dignity and plant myself at my computer, listen to my messages and check e-mail.

There are two messages from Eva, left before I talked to Ted, so sweetly asking me to call her back, saying that she’d really, really appreciate it if I’d let her look at the magazines. I delete and delete. I think I scowl and that isn’t a very dignified look so I go instead for disaffected or stoic, but it’s a challenge since she’s sitting across the room humming and flipping through my magazines with her precious gloved hands. There are six calls from George and three from Esther. Ellen called, too, to say she was coming to Montreal again on business in a few weeks. Esther is excited—she’s found
just a ton
of old magazines and books for me. This gets me excited, too, but I have to listen to George’s six messages repeatedly before I call her back.

I’m not calling anyone until Eva and Brian are out of here. I don’t need that little cunt eavesdropping, knowing anything about me, anything about my life. My e-mail is mostly spam and messages from local gossipmongers and
Snap
clients wanting to know
what happened? Call me! What are you doing now?
I’m reading fucking magazines. I shake the profanity out of my head and wonder if there’s a patron saint of dignity.

“Hello? Sara?”

I look up from my computer. “George!”
Don’t sound so eager.
“Hey.”

“The door was ajar.”

“Did you just say
ajar?”

“I did. Where the hell have you been?”

“Away.”

“I gathered that.”

I lower my voice and nod my head in the direction of Eva and Brian. “We can talk about it later.”

“Gotcha.”

Eva’s eyes are glued to us as we walk past the reading table and through to the kitchen. “I like the handprints,” George says. “Did you do it yourself or did you pay someone to do it?” George likes to tease me about my newfound hobby of paying people to do things.

“It’s strictly D.I.Y.”

“I like it. Really. It’s kinda cool-looking.”

He’s right. It kinda is. I’m not so horrified anymore—not by myself, not by Eva, not by the black handprints on the walls. The others, though, the handprints on the floor and the counter and the stairs, those will have to go.

Eva and Brian take what seems like forever to finish whatever it is they’re doing and I’m impatient for them to leave. George couldn’t stay long and is back at the bar. When he kissed me goodbye I felt all swoony and practically floated past the reading table where Brian had his head buried in an issue of
Vogue
and Eva sat ramrod straight, staring at me, watching me walk to the stairs and promptly trip up the first few steps, nearly falling on my ass.

I hunch in the corner of my loft bedroom and call Esther.

“Why are you whispering? Is everything all right with you, my dear? I’ve been concerned,” says Esther.

“I’m fine. There’s just some, uh, people here.”

“You can tell me all about it when I swing by with June and Nick. You’ll be home for a while?”

“June and Nick?”

“My niece and her husband from Winnipeg. They came in last night. They offered to help bring the boxes of books and magazines over to you.”

“That would be great. But you know, I can send someone to pick them up.” If tripping up the stairs wasn’t enough to jolt me out of my kissy-floaty state, news of June and Nick certainly is. Esther has a married niece who lives in Winnipeg. I should know this. I should send Esther a card apologizing for being such a self-centered shit. I make a silent promise to get back to my three-questions-a-day, learning-about-Esther schedule.

“Don’t be silly. We’ll be there in an hour.”

I yawn loudly and stretch my arms out and pace the length of the reading table, back and forth, back and forth. Every once in a while my hand cramps and I shake it and make controlled claw movements like I’m a one-pawed tiger in a community theater play or auditioning for
Cats.
If Eva gets the message that I want her to leave she doesn’t show it. Rather, she yawns when I yawn and seems to move slower. Brian is shifty in his seat. He flips through his notes, checks his watch, rolls his eyes to the ceiling. But Eva holds out, not moving from her seat until Esther shows up.

“Oh, my, let me help you with those! Brian!” Eva’s playing helpful and pert; she commands Brian to help Esther’s niece and her husband carry in boxes from Esther’s car.

I slide a box out from the backseat of Esther’s old Mercedes but my right hand is lame and I drop it onto the sidewalk. I think I hear Eva, who is efficiently carrying two boxes,
tsk
me. A handful of vintage paperbacks spill out of the poorly sealed box.
The Single Girl
catches my eye. I crouch down and scan the back cover:

I stop reading. The book was published in 1961. Its cover is pink, the woman pictured looks forlorn. Not much has changed.

“You could at least get a lawn chair.” George is looking down at me. He’s grinning and I’m on my knees on the hot concrete with a book called
The Single Girl
in my good hand.

I shove the book back into the box, along with the others that are scattered around me. “I dropped the box. It’s my hand, it won’t—” George’s grin fades. He takes my hands and examines them. “This one.” I poke at him with my right hand.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s fucked up.”

“From now? From the box?”

“No, from before. On the weekend. It’s cramped. I wrote too much. Come here.” I lead George into the building.

Esther is unpacking boxes, piling books and old magazines on
the reading table and chairs. “They wouldn’t let me carry boxes, so this is the least I can do,” she says apologetically as I stand there, hands free, pointing George in the direction of the kitchen counter to lay down the box of paperbacks. “George! How wonderful to see you! Sara didn’t mention you’d be stopping by.”

“Sara didn’t know I’d be stopping by. Bar’s slow, so I thought I’d pop in.”

“I’m so pleased that the two of you have become friends,” Esther says.

“We’re definitely friends,” George says.

Esther’s eyes dart to me. “I
see.
”

“I should help those guys bring in the rest of those boxes,” George says. He lifts my right hand gently and kisses it. My face is so hot I’m surprised it doesn’t start to bubble and peel away from my skull.

Esther stops unpacking and walks over to the counter. Eva, Brian, June, Nick and George rotate in with the last of the boxes. She wags a finger at me. “You’ve been keeping secrets from me, Sara,” she says quietly so the others can’t hear.

“I know. I wanted to tell you, but I wasn’t sure what there was to tell. I’m still not sure. I mean, I like him and I see him every day—well, except that one night last week when he didn’t stop by after closing the bar—but I’m not sure, I don’t know—”

Esther pats my shoulder. “Relax, my dear, or you’re going to have another one of those anxiety attacks of yours.”

This reminds me that I have to go back and see that doctor to get a refill for my Ativan since my problems are, without a doubt,
persisting
. He’ll probably want me to see that therapist he recommended. I guess I can always make an appointment for sometime after I see the doctor and get the refill and
just cancel on the therapist if I decide I don’t want to go. I know I should go, but it’s hard for me sometimes to do everything that I should.

Right now, however, I should stop Eva from rifling through the boxes, pulling out issues of
Look
and
Glamour
, oohing over trashy paperbacks with titles like
Temple of Lust
and
Strange Nurse
. “We really need to sort those,” I say.

“I can’t believe what you have here—it’s like a
library. Where
did you get all this stuff?” She tugs open another box and I pull it away from her with my left hand. She sticks out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. “Come on, Sara. I’ll help you unpack.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll
pay.
”

“For what? To help me unpack?”

“To go through all this. Maybe borrow a thing or two?”

Eva wants to pay me to look at my old magazines and books. Eva’s a pest and a manipulator. “How much?”

“I don’t know. Fifty bucks?”

I snort like this is a grand insult and a little bit of snot sprays out of my nose. I absentmindedly use my cramped hand to wipe it. “Ow! Shit!” George picks my hand up and examines it again. There are no clues or any indication of my pain except that my fingers curl in as if I’m limply holding an invisible handbag.

“Okay—a hundred,” Eva says.

What we’re bargaining for I’m not sure, but it’s sort of fun. Esther and June, Brian, Nick, George—they all watch and listen. “This is worth way more than one hundred.”
What is?
I almost laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“One-fifty. Come on, Sara. For a year.”

Brian speaks up. “I’d pay two-hundred if, you know, I could just drop by when I needed to.” Eva purses her lips in displeasure.

“How about this—two-fifty a year. You can come by Tuesday through Friday afternoons, from one until…” I look up at the clock in the kitchen; it’s just after five. “Five. And if you want to borrow anything it’s extra and you’ll have to put down a deposit in case you wreck something or skip town.”

“I’m not going to wreck anything,” Eva says, scowling.

“Take it or leave it.”

Eva sighs. “Fine. Will you take a check?”

I shake my head. “Cash only.”

“Where’s the nearest ATM?”

“There’s one at my bar in the next block,” George pipes up. “I’ll walk with you. I should check on things.”

“Fine,” Eva says.

Eva and Brian trudge off to the bar with George and I don’t like this but I know I shouldn’t care. It’s not like Eva is going to seduce George in a half block and fuck him on the futon in his office. I feel ill. It’s hard for me sometimes not to care about everything that I shouldn’t.

“That was quite the negotiation,” Esther says, chuckling.

“I’m not sure what that was,” I say.

“I think you agreed to let them join your library,” says Esther’s niece, June.

“I think you’re right.”

Eva and Brian return with their cash but George isn’t with them. “He stopped at that
self-help
bookstore.” Eva says this in an exaggeratedly sad voice, like George needs
help
and pity. “Here.” She hands me the cash. Brian does the same. “Shouldn’t we get a receipt or something?”

“I’m having cards made up. I have to take your picture. For your library ID. Just a sec.” I find my camera bag in the kitchen but my hand is too sore to handle the weight of the camera body. I grab my purse off the counter and take out the Polaroid. I ask Eva to stand against the wall. She drops her chin and turns her head slightly, looking straight at the camera from beneath her eyelashes—she knows how to make her face most attractive in a picture. Then I do Brian, who blinks, but doesn’t seem to care. “You can pick up your cards next Tuesday.”

“You won’t be open before then?” Eva whines.

“No. We have to get things organized,” I say.

“Everything must be cataloged,” Esther says.

“Fine, then. We’ll be by on Tuesday. Will there be a party?”

Why would there be a party? “Of course there will be a party,” I say. “And your cards will be
laminated.
”

Eva and Brian finally leave and I flop onto the couch in the main room across from Esther, June and Nick. “What am I going to do?”