The Perils of Pauline (20 page)

“Yes.”

“I can’t do that. I’m wearing a skirt.”

“So?”

“Someone could see me.”

“If someone can see you then you could wave at them to come let you out.”

“There’s no one around.”

How has my mother lived so long without getting murdered by her only daughter?

“Isn’t there anyone else you can call? Brian maybe?”

“Brian isn’t answering his phone. I’m hardly going to call anyone else either. It’ll get out. They’ll blab it all over. This kind of gossip spreads like wildfire.” Her voice rises to a sarcastic singsong: “I can just hear them now: Wee hee, Marion got locked in her own car.” She pauses to take a breath. “Don’t even suggest I call 911. For God’s sake, I don’t need police and fire trucks and a big scene on the street. They’ll put my name in the paper. This is a narrow town you know.”

Maybe I could call 911 myself. She’ll get over it eventually.

“I know what you’re thinking and don’t you dare. If you call 911 you can forget about the last installment I was planning to give you.”

By the time I roll across Narrow Town, I find Brian in the driveway with his head stuffed under the hood of the car. He’s replacing the battery and checking the wiring. “Your mother is inside, resting,” he says, in a cheery voice.

I storm into the house. Mom is sitting in the living room reading a book. “Why didn’t you at least text me to let me know Brian got you out?”

“I hate texting. Takes forever to tap out a message.”

Before I can complain that I had to rearrange my whole day to get away, she hands me a check.

First item of business this morning, I call Serenity into the office.

“Chill out, Mom. Nothing happened.”

“Chill out? Nothing happened? Wendy left a customer in charge of the store. Then when I needed her most she never came back. I had to close the store yesterday to go rescue your grandmother. I have to let Wendy go. Or I should say, you have to let her go.”

“I can’t. You don’t get it, Mom. She was hungry. She hadn’t eaten for two days. Besides, I gave her two weeks advance on her pay so if you fire her now, you’ll probably never get it back.”

What? No wonder my overdraft is so high. “You cut her a check without my approval? When did you do that?”

“I dunno. A couple of days ago. You were gone out to the Laundromat or something. Wendy was behind on her rent and the food bank can’t give her any more groceries until next week.”

“How can she afford a phone then? She never puts it down. She’s texting and tweeting and facebooking all day long.”

Serenity’s eyes go all wide. Give up a cell? That’s so harsh.

“Fine, but you have to explain to her that she can’t leave the store unattended ever again. Ever again, got it? She needs to pay attention to the schedule. No more texting except on her scheduled breaks. And for God’s sake make her stop leaning over the counter like she’s a gas station attendant.”

Check Fire: In artillery, mortar, and naval gunfire support, a command to cause a temporary halt in firing.—Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

Ghostly Garth just stepped through the door with a tin of pumpkin muffins reminding me that Thanksgiving is only a few short weeks away. Business is picking up and I’m finally starting to adjust to the ebb and flow in the store. We have our regulars, a few avid reader types, and the a.m. crew who filter in for coffee and newspapers. There’s Ghostly Garth and there’s Yard, the delusional street guy who thinks he’s a bike courier (Yard is short for Yard Sale because of a spectacular wipeout when he left a spray of pedals, chains, and water bottles across someone’s front lawn). When he comes in to pick up his deliveries, bike helmet stuffed up into his armpit, Wendy gives him a coffee, a muffin, and a few dog-eared envelopes wrapped with a rubber band to deliver to the florist at the other end of town. The florist, who is in on the game, gives him some change and sends him on to the dry cleaner who passes him back over town to the print shop. The printer eventually dispatches him to back to us. The run generally takes all day or longer, since Yard’s bike is patchy and prone to flat tires, so it works.

“Pay attention,” Garth commands, holding up a radio-like contraption. “This is known as a tri-axial EMF meter. It’s very sensitive to magnetic flux densities.”

I look up from scanning shelves for a few missing books that are listed as in stock. Garth twists the knobs. Nothing happens. Too bad his contraption can’t locate my lost inventory.

“Wait a minute.” He begins searching through his bags.

I pluck a diet book out of the magazine racks and return the wanderer to its proper place. A minute later I hear a loud whump. I turn to find my most expensive coffee table book flipped open and upside-down on the floor. Garth stands nearby, his ample hip inches from my book display table. He lifts his arms in a show of surprise.

“Did you see that? Unbelievable. That book flew off the table all by itself!” He shakes his head as if overcome with astonishment. “Poltergeists often throw things. They are so strong they can even toss a person out of bed.”

I’d like to thump Garth on the head for hip-chucking my book off the table but he makes up for it with regular deliveries of too-delicious homemade treats made by his wife. Garth’s wife should consider becoming an author herself, of a recipe book on how to make incredibly scrumptious baked goods.

“It should be working properly now,” announces Garth after a few more adjustments. “This is the most active building in town. The readings in this room are usually off the clock. I’ll show you.”

Serenity pops the lid off the muffin tin, and we each grab one while carefully standing back to watch Garth’s demonstration. He twists another dial, and the machine immediately begins to emit an excruciating, high-pitched nails-on-blackboard shrieking sound. Serenity drops her muffin and leaps at the machine.

“Turn it off!” she screams.

Garth grapples with all the knobs to no avail while two customers browsing in the bestseller section hold their hands over their ears.

“Garth, take that thing out of here,” I yell as I beat a retreat to the storeroom.

I stand behind the door and rub my forehead. The change in weather plus Garth being Garth is giving me a headache. A few minutes after I settle down to work, Serenity pokes her head into the
storeroom office to say the school principal is on the line. With trepidation, I pick up the phone. What did Jack do now?

“I have Olympia here in my office. She’s having a rough day,” the principal says. “According to the teacher on yard duty, Olympia punched a boy in the Peace Garden and knocked him over. His arm is showing some bruising.”

I withhold a cheer—no rotten boy messes with my girl—as the principal goes on.

“Olympia says the boy threw an earth worm at her. The boy says he was only pretending to throw it. She put the worm on his desk. We have the worm here.”

I don’t know what to say. I’m wondering why she has the worm on her desk. Is the worm okay? Am I supposed to ask about the worm’s well-being?

“We feel Olympia is exhibiting bullying behaviors. Board policy requires a two-day suspension for this sort of thing. Both children are banned from using the Peace Garden for the rest of the term.”

That’s good news for the worms I guess.

“Has Olympia ever had a pediatric assessment?” the Principal asks.

“No. She’s usually very healthy.”

“I meant developmental behavior screening. Perhaps it would be a good idea,” continues the Principal. “Olympia’s teacher says Olympia is having difficulties listening and following classroom rules.”

The Principal is waiting for a response from me regarding Olympia’s lack of proper playground etiquette. I refrain from sharing my nostalgia for the golden age of xlacker attackers and Skip-it trippers. I’m thinking all the fun toys have been taken away and all the kids have left to work with is their fists.

“I’ll call Olympia’s doctor today and ask for a referral,” I proffer.

“Olympia’s suspension begins immediately,” the Principal says, and hangs up.

What am I going to do? I can’t bring Olympia to work with me. She’ll drive me bananas. Serenity has a prenatal appointment tomorrow, and Jude is in rehearsals so neither of them can cover the store, and I have no backup sitter arrangements. I hate to leave Wendy in charge. She and
Yard seem to have become an item lately. Whenever he comes in the store, lately two or three times a day, she loses all her ability to work. I have to conjure up some proper help. After all, it was less than a week ago Mom had me drop everything to rescue her from her car. Now it’s me with an emergency. She owes me one. I call her. “Would you be willing to watch Olympia, please? I have to be in the store tomorrow.”

“I can’t, I have life drawing class.”

“Can’t you skip it for one day?”

“You don’t understand, Pauline. I’m the model.”

I call Michael. All he can offer is: “Far too many kids are on Ritalin these days.”

Apparently Michael watched a special on TV recently and he knows all about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. He should know. There’s only one kid I know who is wilder than Jack and that’s Michael’s son.

“I have to go now but whatever you do, don’t put Olympia on drugs,” he warns me.

I go online to run a search. There’s plenty of information available including a self-test for adult ADHD. Adult ADHD? Symptoms range from “a tendency to be easily distracted” to “chronic lateness” to “frequently feeling tired.” I run through the whole list, checking off many of the items and press the submit button. According to the test, I have “a strong tendency toward ADHD.”

I study the list of symptoms again. A prisoner of the moment. Chronically late or chronically in a hurry. Often have piles of stuff. Easily overwhelmed by tasks of daily living. Mood swings. Sense of impending doom. I have all that and more. What a relief.

I print out the list and, locking up a few minutes early, race over to Bibienne’s. “Look—I have Adult ADHD.”

She peers at the list for a moment and then tosses it on the kitchen table. “I don’t know any women with kids who don’t have all those symptoms. Piles of stuff? Chronically late? Come on. Stop worrying. I’ll make you a drink.”

“Fine.” But I remain unconvinced. Two of the biggies are relational difficulties and a frequent search for high stimulation. Maybe a blast of Ritalin is what I need to overcome my troubles with Donald and Michael.

Giving up dairy is highly recommended for persons suffering from ADHD. I poured all the cow milk in the house down the drain (ugh, cow’s mucus) and replaced that toxic waste with healthy rice milk, which comes in four flavors: chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and plain. At dinner, I offer a glass of the vanilla rice milk to Olympia, who allows but one tiny bud on the tip of her tongue to make contact with the liquid. Immediately, she spits it out and wipes furiously at the entire surface of her tongue with her fingernails.

“I don’t like it,” she screams. “It tastes like puke.”

“Wait,” I say, “Puke isn’t one of the flavors. Here, try the chocolate one. I’m sure you’ll like it.” I add a white rice milk lie: “All kids like chocolate rice milk.”

“No, they don’t,” she screams. “I don’t want it. I hate rice milk.”

I pour a glass and demonstrate intense enjoyment of rice milk by slurping and making a large milk mustache. Olympia is right: the vanilla one is kind of pukey.

I just spent an hour making a mushy looking soup with fifteen kinds of vegetables. There’s every color of vegetable except yellow, as all yellow vegetables and fruits are verboten. Bananas are acceptable as long as you don’t allow the yellow of the peel to touch the white part of the banana.

Olympia hates the ADHD diet with a passion. I offer her a bowl of soup.

“I’m not hungry. Can we have pizza?” she asks.

“No. Pizza is a very unhealthy choice.”

Serenity and Shae choose this exact moment to traipse in the door with a pizza. It smells yummy even though it has congealed cow’s mucus smeared all over its surface. The tomato sauce probably came from a can—disgusting—and the pepperoni is nothing less than discs of toxic sludge. The mushrooms are, I’m sure, the mold-bearing kind, but I don’t recall a prohibition against onions—and pizza has no soy
products, which are expressly forbidden. Therefore, based on the fact that the pizza is loaded with delicious onions, and the fact that we’re observing the rule on soy, I think we should go ahead and enjoy. Olympia picks all the onions and green peppers off, and eats three pieces.

I’m about to rustle her upstairs for her bath when the phone rings. It’s Donald. He grabbed a cab from the airport shuttle and he’s on his way home. I wasn’t expecting him until tomorrow. Olympia shrieks and runs to pin up the Welcome Home banner she made while serving out her suspension and driving me to distraction at the store this week. A few minutes later Donald walks through the door wearing a black cowboy hat and the biggest silver belt buckle I’ve ever seen. The white-cotton-shirt-and-jeans look is actually kind of Butch Cassidy hot. Jack and Olympia race to greet him. “Daddy! Daddy!” they scream.

“Howdy, partner,” he says to Jack while scooping Olympia into the air and up onto his shoulders. With Olympia still perched on his shoulders he crouches down to bear hug Jack and then fishes into a bag, producing Calgary Flames jerseys and candy bouquets. The kids crawl all over him, shrieking with excitement. I step back to watch this splendid family scene. Donald should go away for long absences more often.

After a few minutes he looks up from tussling with the kids and, catching my eye, tips his hat and winks. He stands up, popping the hat on Olympia’s head and comes over to greet me with a kiss. On the cheek. “You look great,” he says.

Donald smells different. Good different. A new kind of aftershave, I guess.

Olympia wants Donald to read her a bedtime story. He picks up his bags by the door, and our eyes meet.

Awkward. Do I want to invite Donald back into the bedroom? That would be wrong on so many levels. Does he even want an invitation? Who makes the first move? King to Queen, or Queen to King? Is there an opening advantage? This feels more like the endgame. What are the rules to this stupid game anyway?

“I’ll put these in the spare room on my way up.”

I nod. King checks Queen in another stalemate.

On Monday morning I drive Donald back to the airport shuttle. We stop at the bookstore on the way. As Donald climbs out of the car, he winces at the sight of my wooden store sign, which I can’t bring myself to replace. It’s hanging precariously above the door, crooked and peeling and full of fabulous faded-glory character. “The Pita Gnat is constantly complaining about the sign, but he can stuff it.”

“The Pita Gnat?”

“See that short guy standing over there? That guy who’s staring at us? He hangs around in his entrance all day. I don’t know how he gets any work done. All the business owners hate him because his food is terrible and he’s rude to everyone.” I wave across the road. Pita Gnat wheels back into his shop and slams his door.

“I see what you mean.”

We go inside. Jude is chatting up a customer while Serenity is wiping down the espresso machine. She picks up a coffee scoop. “How about Ethiopian Mochacinos? Fair trade, of course.”

While we wait for our coffees, we stroll about the store. I straighten a book on the front table. “There’s lots left to do but it’s coming along, don’t you think?”

Donald nods. “Absolutely.”

I reward him with my best smile.

An hour later, as I watch the shuttle pull away, I think how the Calgary Plan could prove to be a real lifesaver for my sunken marriage. We were carefully cordial all weekend. Friendly even. No one brought up tough questions about marrage, separation, or divorce. Donald even complimented me on my business plan. Every husband should be sent to live thousands of miles away when things get rough. When they come home for a visit, it’s handsome smiles and pretty compliments, aftershave and big buckles, and best of all: they will even fix the broken washing machine without being asked.