Things Withered (18 page)

“Sor
-reee
,” he said, and muttered something about someone being a little cranky under his breath. He settled in on the living room sofa, out of Janet’s line of vision, but she heard him open the paper.

She felt mildly guilty for snapping at him when he’d just woken up—Les was not a morning person—and so called to him in the living room, “How come you’re up so early?”

He grunted. She waited for his answer, and realized the grunt was going to be all she got, and so bent back over her receipts, searching for something, anything, over the last six years that would save her ass.

“Dear Mrs. Lancaster,” the letter has started. Right away, reading it, before she even opened the envelope in fact, she knew it was bad news. The long, thin, pristine white envelope was addressed to her and her alone, the erroneous “Mrs.” making it somehow worse. The corner was stamped with a government of Canada logo and no return address. Under the logo was “Department of Revenue,” and her stomach had tightened.

She had come home after her shift smelling like French fries and mud pie and wanting nothing more in the whole wide world (ever again) to take her shoes off and sit on the couch. Les’s truck hadn’t been in the drive and that had given her a little lift. The house would be empty and quiet. She didn’t even wonder where he was, didn’t give it a thought (although hoping in the same breath that he was out looking for work and knowing that it was more likely he was playing pool at the legion or else was at his mother’s cadging twenty bucks). She grabbed the mail not even looking at it and threw it on the table. The letter from the government skittered out, sliding across the Formica with its weight.

“Dear Mrs. Lancaster,” it began. “A review of your 2000 tax remittance noted that you filed $362.96 in income under ‘other source.’

“Your explanation of the additional income was for gratuities received through your employment at the Happy Diner where you are listed as ‘serving personnel.’ A sequential review of tax information filed for the years 1996-1999 indicated that while during those years you were also employed by the Happy Diner as serving personnel, no gratuities were claimed for those years.

“You are therefore required to appear at your nearest tax office on or before February 13, 2001 with records indicating this discrepancy in an independent audit. Please call the number at the bottom of this page to make an appointment with your auditor, no later than ten days after the receipt of this letter.”

It was signed by a secretary for a director at Revenue Canada (Auditor’s Department!) whose name was Mr. Peter Norris. Peter Norris. She’d never heard of him, never would meet him, but she had a vague feeling from then on that he had her file on his desk ready to be stamped, “Guilty,” the implications of which could only be dreamed about, in a nightmare fashion.

She’d left the letter lying around for a couple of days, never once forgetting about it for even a moment. That had been a Friday. Saturday night her and Les had gone out for a couple of beers with their friends Gord and Paula and Janet had drank more than a couple of beers, uncharacteristically, pissing Les off because it meant he had to drive them home and he’d had a warning four years earlier for drinking and driving. “They’ll cut my ass off, I get caught,” he’d said, petulantly, more than a little in his cups himself. She’d laughed at that. “They won’t
cut
your ass off.
They’ll take away your license,” she’d said, matter-of-factly. “Cut your ass off. What does that even mean?” She could get snarky like this only when she was a little drunk.

“Same thing,” Les said. She fell asleep in the car and
even then
, didn’t stop thinking about the audit.

She finally told Les about it that Sunday, when he was trying to watch football and nursing a hangover with a beer. “Get yourself a lawyer,” was what he said.

She told her mom and dad that same day, walking over to their place right around supper time, needing just a little comfort food and maybe a bit of advice. What she thought she really wanted was to hear her dad tell her it was all right and then to tell her to bring her stuff over to him and he would take care of it. Maybe call her Princess, like when she was little.

“Just get your things together and explain to the government that you didn’t know you had to declare your tips and that you’re very sorry and you won’t do it again,” her mother told her. She made beef casserole with shell noodles. It tasted like grade five and homework, because of how she felt.

“You never should have declared them in the first place,” her dad said, from his chair in the living room, where he was watching the game and switching over to Matlock, between quarters.

On the following Monday, Abby at work said, “You get yourself a good accountant and let them do the work.”

She got herself Ramona Jacobson, who
tsk-tsk-ed
and
oh my-ed
everything, called her
Lancaster
and charged by the hour and talked really fast. The woman wore those half-glasses that old people wore, even though she didn’t look more than ten years older than Janet, and sometimes she peered at her over them as though Janet were some sort of alien creature worth a second study.

Ramona Jacobson scared her almost as much as the audit, but at least she was on her side.

The phone rang at eight-thirty just about knocking Janet out of her slippers. Her eyes were stinging from being open so long and her fingers were black and coated with ink. It rang twice before she realized Les wasn’t going to pick it up and she got up off the floor, very careful not to disturb any of the fifteen piles of varying years and subject matter (unfortunately in no particular order) that were distributed around the floor in the kitchen.

Les was still reading the paper. He shifted without looking at her, his bulk moving slowly over the vinyl seats of the sofa, so that air escaped from one of them making a hissing sound, like a fart.

She grabbed the phone on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” she said, like a question.

“Lancaster, I just wanted to remind you to bring all the co-malgamated T-7s. And while I got you, don’t forget the super-annuated close forms. Even the ones for your spouse.” Ramona Jacobson spoke
very
fast on the phone, breathing it all into Janet’s ear like sitting too close to a speaker for too long.

“Huh?” she said. “Bring the what?”

“That’s right. And the T-6s, too. From the legion work. Gotta go. If you need anything, I’m in a meeting for the next hour and then you can get me on my cell. You have that number?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s—” and then at the speed of light she rattled off what seemed to be an account number at the world’s largest bank.

“Um thanks,” Janet said.

“You can get me on it until 11.
Shit!
I have your Geswins! Well, that’s all right. What time’s the appointment?”

“Um—”

“1:30, right. Hmmm. Forgot about that. Anyway, I’ll meet you there. If you need me, you can still get me after the hour. Gotta go, I’m late, good luck!” And she hung up.

Janet hung on to the phone, desperation creeping over her face more quickly as she realized that Ramona Jacobson had hung up before she had a chance to ask what co-malgamites were. And the super-annuated thing? Had she said that? malgamites, or something. What was that? Something else too. She hung up before Jan had a chance to ask—

What everything is.

She hung up and stared at the phone as if it was going to ring again. It didn’t.

“Who was that?” Les said from the couch.

“The accountant,” she said, bewildered.

“Oh yeah, when’s that thing?” He turned a page of the newspaper with such slowness, such snapping of newsprint, such rolling of fat that she wanted to turn and scratch him to pieces as though making him bleed and scream would somehow release the rising pulse of terror inside her.

“1:30,” she said. The only thing she knew.

“Well, you’re in for it. Shouldn’t have claimed them in the first place,” he said, then he chuckled. And he folded the paper over, smoothing the pages down against the coffee table. Jan went back into the kitchen, glancing up at the clock. It was 8:35. She had three hours left before she had to get in the shower and get dressed and down to the auditor.

There was a fourth box in the kitchen when she re-entered. It was perched on the edge of the vinyl chair that was covered with brown flowers, a cast off from her mom’s place. Their old kitchen suite. The kitchen chairs of her youth. If you got close enough they smelled like her sister and mashed potatoes.

On the side of the box was written, “taxes 1997.” She thought she had been through all the ’97s. Her heart sank, and yet lifted at the same time, as though in this new box might be the answer, the legendary, mythical piece of paper that would lead to the path that kept her out of prison. The Holy Trail.

Ignoring the rest of the receipts in the box she’d last opened (“tax crap ’98 or ’96”), she went right to the new box and pulled open the flaps. Little pieces of paper fluttered up. She grabbed one closest to the top.

“Windlemiers,” it said at the top. She frowned. Windlemiers? She shook her head. There were a series of code numbers at the top. Then a lonely figure. “$267.95.” Two more figures followed, the only two she could puzzle out.
The itemized taxes: Provincial and federal.
Okay that’s good.
Janet nodded encouragingly to herself.
Taxes, right, good; that was what she was looking for, right?
Under the taxes was the total and then another series of codes. A figure that might have been the date seemed absent. She puzzled over the first series of codes, in case that was it, and then the one at the bottom. Nothing seemed remotely date-related. She tried to think of what on earth might cost $267.95 all at once and could come up with nothing but a car repair. They rarely had $267.95 (or even just $267.00) all at once to pay something. Not after pay day, anyway.

She nodded to herself. Car repair. That would be good. She could say it was car repair to get to a Legion job. There was no date. Her heart pumped a little harder with the lie. (Not that it was
necessarily
a lie, it could be true, how did she know?
How on earth
was she supposed to
know?
)

She dropped it with haphazard abandon in the vicinity of the pile supposedly of “car repair.” The year no longer seemed to matter. She could hear the clock ticking in her belly.

The phone rang again about twenty minutes later and it was for Les. Jan had just cut her finger, a paper cut, and it stung. She stuck it in her mouth and sucked, the pain exquisite and small. Through that, she heard him mumbling into the phone, listening with only half an ear (he wasn’t currently cheating as far as she knew, and he wasn’t actively seeking employment and so it would only be some bum friend or other and therefore was not very interesting). Then he called from the living room.

“Hey Lancaster!” he called (he had taken to calling her that when she told him about the accountant calling her that; he thought it was funny). “Call-waiting for you.” She stumbled into the living room, her eyes unable to see great distances after all their small work.

She looked at him questioningly. He shrugged.

“But get off, ‘cause I have Beaner on the other line.” A bum friend.

She took the phone and the man on the other end was talking before it even got to her ear.

“—confirming your 1:30
P.M.
appointment. You understand that you’re expected.” Her mind snapped awkwardly on the moment and gave her all her reference material out of panic.

“Yes, I understand. I will be there. I am meeting my accountant,” she said, hoping the last bit came out with some authority.

“Good, good,” he said, and then paused with horrible time-stealing importance and affability. “So many people just try to avoid the inevitable by not showing up, you understand. It’s not that I believe you won’t be here—I’m not saying anything at all about you personally, it’s just that many people try to avoid the inevitable,” he said. It seemed to Jan that he had just spoken in a loop, saying every word with such deliberation that the time it took excluded the others and so he repeated them, endlessly.

“Yes,” she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else.

“And you’ll be sure to bring your liabostities?” he asked.

“Yes?” she said firmly, having no idea what he was talking about.
The accountant will take care of it
, she heard her father’s voice in her head. And Abby’s. And her mother’s. Even Les might have said something like that right after sex. Maybe.

“Good, good,” he said again, his voice on a loop. She nodded into the phone, eyes glazed over, looking towards the sunburst clock over the dresser they kept in the livingroom to keep their CDs in. There were sweaters in the bottom drawers. “Yes,” she repeated, because he seemed to need something more.

“Good, good, then,” he said. It was almost 9:30. “At 1:30
A.M.
, then,” he finally finished, as though it were an affair or something pleasant. His voice was
affable
, something she’d only read about and that filled her with suspicion. He hung up and she handed the phone back to Les.

“Thanks for taking so long,” he said, sarcastically. She went back into the kitchen.

Three more boxes were in the kitchen when she came in.

One was beside the stove, and written in big, bold black letters, all capitals was, “Existentials, 1999.” The other two were half-hidden under the table, but she saw them, even as they tried to wiggle closer under. The box she had been working on was only just started, but she tore into the new one with a fierce sort of will. The kitchen was littered with paper, her comings and goings had scattered some of the neat stacks until they were literally piles.
You get piles from sitting on cold cement in your pyjamas,
she thought wildly; her mother used to threaten that.

Ripping open the new box she stared blankly at a receipt that appeared to have no dollar figure. The date was ’99, though, as the box had promised. For this, she was eternally grateful.
June 16, 1999. Thank you, Jesus, I am absolved of sin in the blood of the receipt. Thank Jesus.