Mazie Baby (27 page)

She opened her eyes and looked at
him.  Most lawyers she knew were pretty damn unethical. They’d sell out their
own mother just to make a case.

He reclined in his chair, chewed,
and stared at her, that half-grin betraying his joke.

Damn, he was cute.

“Right. High ethical standard.”

“I am curious though. You just looking
to avoid tax?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“You seem to know a lot about these
cases. Not these particular cases, but the way they feel, why they did what
they did.” He popped half a dumpling in his mouth. “Your ex,” he said through
the food. “He hit you, didn’t he?”

She shoved as much chicken in her
mouth as would fit and chewed. Can’t talk with your mouth full, that’s what
mother always told her. She shrugged.

“Come on, he either did or he
didn’t.” He sighed and tossed his empty plate into the trash can, the
chopsticks clanged against the metal. “You can trust me. You really can.”

She pitched her chopsticks on top
of her plate. She still had a pile of chow mein and Kung Pao, but her stomach
had turned on her.

“Why do you need to know?”

“Well, for one thing, I can help.”

“Yeah? You can make a man stop
being an alcoholic, stop punching me, throwing me into walls and furniture,
nearly drowning me, choking me, raping me? You can do that?” She covered her
mouth with one hand and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears dripped from the corners.
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

He leaned forward, took her other
hand and stroked her knuckles. “Don’t be. I’m sorry, on behalf of all men, that
you endured that. The bastard doesn’t deserve you.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She
snatched a tissue from the box on his desk and pulled her hand away, wiped her
eyes, and blew her nose. She scrunched the tissue into a ball, squeezed it in
her fist, and stared at her hands.

He pulled her hands apart and took
her snotty tissue from her, tossed it in the garbage. He leaned his elbows on
his knees and lifted her face with one finger under her chin. “You’re not
divorced, are you? You ran away.”

She stared at him but no words came.

“He must be looking for you.”

Anything she said would be a damn
lie and she had already lied to him enough. To Ariel. To everyone.

“Is Charlotte Smyth your real
name?”

She shook her head.

“I see. I bet all your
identification is in your real name, right?”

She nodded.

“And you never ordered another
birth certificate for Clementine.”

He wasn’t asking. He knew the
answer.

“Charlie, you’re not a criminal. I
know you don’t want him to find you, but you have done nothing wrong. You
shouldn’t be the one hiding. Or running.”

She bit her bottom lip and looked
up to the stained ceiling, willed the tears to dry up.

“I could represent you. We could
make the divorce legal, get you full custody of Clementine. And he would be charged.
Do you have witnesses? Proof?”

Air huffed from her nostrils.
“Scars. Photos. A journal. And Ari —” She clamped her lips closed. “Clementine.
She called the police, they arrested him. Just a couple of months before we
left. He was good for a few weeks. He didn’t get angry. At least not on the
outside. He drank himself silly of course, but I think all that did was make it
build up inside.” She slumped in her chair and stared at the lines on her
knuckles. “When his court date came, I went too. Told them I’d take him back.”

“Wait, he was home with you before
his sentencing? That violates standard conditions of release.”

“I let him. For Clem. And he really
was trying. But after court, everything he was bottling up came out. And it was
the worst. He said he wanted our daughter.” She shifted her gaze to the monitor.
She couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Wanted her for what?”

“He was bored with me.” Her voice
was barely a whisper. “Kept talking about her hair and her figure.” She dropped
her head and wept. “I just couldn’t let him. I had to do it, I had to.”

“All right, all right.” He scooted
his chair closer until her knees were between his, and took her into a gentle
hug. “Let’s just forget we had this conversation. But I’m coming with you
tomorrow.” He stroked her hair and let his fingers trail down her spine. “And maybe
in a few months you can go back to your regular hair colour.”

She pulled away, ran a palm over
her fake blonde locks. “You can tell?”

He smiled. “Everyone can tell. You
have black eyebrows.”

Her hand darted to her forehead and
she touched the tips of her fingers to her brow. She pressed her lips together.
“I’ve got to get home.”

She was a lousy fugitive.

“Busses are only running every hour
at this time. Let me drive you.”

“No, that’s okay. I have to run an
errand.”

“I can take you for your errand
then drop you at home. Save you an hour at least.”

She relented and let him drive her
home with a quick stop at Wal-Mart.

He rolled to a stop in front of the
apartment building. She fished her keys from her purse and stared at them
gripped in one hand. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. For seeing through
me perhaps? Except if you can, then maybe others do too. That scares me.”

He put a hand over hers. “I don’t
see through you, Charlie. I just see you.” He lifted her hand and kissed her
knuckles. “Now go see that daughter of yours and I’ll pick you up right here in
the morning. Eight o’clock?”

“Eight o’clock.” She ran up the
walk and punched in the access code. The door buzzed and the lock released with
a loud click. Once inside, she turned back. He was leaning over the passenger
seat, watching her to be sure she got in safely. She smiled and waved. He waved
back before pulling away from the curb.

Inside the apartment she kicked her
shoes off, draped her coat over the armrest of the couch. “Clementine? Oh my
darling, Clementine!”

Her daughter came from her room, a
bowl of ice cream in her hand. “What’s up, Charlie Brown? Er, Smyth.”

A glint of light sparkled on
Ariel’s nose. Mazie took Ariel’s chin in one hand and turned her head sideways.
A tiny crystal stud nestled in the crevasse of one nostril. “Where did you get
this?”

“Jen’s mom has a tattoo and
piercing shop. She did it for free.”

“Without my permission?”

“Mom, I’m thirteen.”

“Who is Jen?”

“She’s in my homeroom. And we have
math together. She’s a whiz at it. Said she’d help me.”

She was still compelled to get good
grades in math. Would they ever truly be free?

“You didn’t get a tattoo did you?”

“Of course not. You have to be
sixteen for that.”

Mazie pursed her lips and sucked on
her front teeth. In the short months since they’d left home, Ariel had become a
woman before her very eyes.  “I like it. It suits you.” She tossed the Wal-Mart
bag at Ariel. “Now help me dye these damn eyebrows.”

~~~~~~~~

Mazie split the blind with one hand
and peered out. Norman’s car pulled up to the curb. Eight o’clock on the dot.

“I’m going now.”

Ariel came out of the bathroom,
toothbrush in her mouth. She waved her fingers.

Mazie kissed her cheek. “Straight
home after school. And do your homework. There’s a plate of spaghetti in the
fridge in case I’m late.”

Ariel rolled her eyes. “I’ll be
fine, Charlie.” Toothpaste sputtered from her mouth. She walked into the
bathroom and spat in the sink.

Mazie grabbed her purse, ran down
the three flights of stairs and out into the sunshine of a late summer morning.

Norman leaned against the car, an
extra-large Tim Horton’s cup in one hand. “Double-double?”

“Oh, bless you.” She took the cup.

He held the door open and she
climbed in.

An open box of Timbits balanced on
the console between the bucket seats. She plucked a sour cream glazed from the
box and popped it into her mouth.

She should feel awkward sitting
next to him, so soon after she almost allowed confessions of murder to slip
from her loose lips. Self-conscious. Something. What she shouldn’t feel is so
damned calm. So perfectly at home.

“Clem off to school?” He turned
left and eased onto the on-ramp of the four-oh-one westbound.

“Not yet.” She fished a dutchie
from the box and bit into it. She covered her mouth with the other hand. “She
got her nose pierced,” she said through the sweet dough.

He gave her a sideways glance. “You
okay with that?”

“Too late now.” She dug a raisin
from between her front teeth and sucked it off her fingernail. “It looks nice.”
Trees flew by her window, streaks of fall colours dotted the mass of green
leaves. The highway was arrow-straight, almost as dull as driving through
Saskatchewan. “She’s not the same kid that I dragged away from home three
months ago.”

“How so?”

“Became a teenager, got her period,
dyed and cut her hair. Makeup. Piercing. And attitude to spare.” She sipped at
her coffee. “Keeps calling me Charlie instead of Mom.”

“Her whole life did change in an
instant. Does she want to go home?”

“Sometimes. She misses her
friends.”

“What about her father? Does she
miss him too?”

Mazie looked at her lap.
“Sometimes.”

“What the hell?” The car slowed
behind a long line of red taillights that loomed ahead. In the distance, red
and blue flashes bounced off the cement of an overpass. Norman tsked. “Accident.”

Mazie craned her neck, but could
see nothing but the tops of cars. The left lane merged into the right, the line
of traffic inched forward. When they neared the scene, an officer guided traffic
through a narrow laneway. They squeezed past a car that had slammed into the
abutment head first. An ambulance waited on the west side of the overpass, fire
and rescue pried the car open with the Jaws of Life. As they inched past, the cop
stared straight at her.

She held his gaze, her breath shallow,
her heartbeat heavy.

He nodded at her and waved them
through.

When they were clear of the
wreckage, Norman picked up speed. “Hey, you okay?” He patted her hand. “You’re
a little flushed.”

“Yeah, fine. Just a nasty accident
is all. Maybe slow down a bit.”

~~~~~~~~

Bright lights assaulted her eyes,
the blinding wattage reflecting off the white walls. Mazie brought her scarf to
her nose, shielded herself against the mingling of piss and vomit and
pine-scented cleanser.

Norman seemed immune. He rested his
forearm on the high green countertop of a nurses’ station. “We’re here to see
Elizabeth Wardell, please.”

A large woman, her bubble-gum
scrubs in stark contrast to her short-cropped hair and full tattoo sleeve on
her left arm, looked past him to Mazie. “You Charlotte Smyth?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Jess. We talked on the phone.”
She pulled a pen from behind her ear. “Betty won’t shut up about you. She’s
been writing your name everywhere. Asked me last night when you’d be coming.
Never seen her like this.” She put her fingertips on a piece of paper held
firmly to a clipboard, spun it around on the counter and dropped the pen beside
it. “Sign in. I’ll get her into an exam room for you.”

The room faced east. The sun, high
in the late morning sky, streamed through the large windows and lit the space
like a thousand-watt bulb. It was stark and sanitized, white and beige, plastic
and steel.

Perched on a hard chair near the
window, Betty stared out into the world she was no longer allowed to be a part
of. She didn’t turn when they entered. Didn’t appear to notice them at all. Unkempt
hair fell past her shoulders, faded copper witness to an old home-dye habit. Eight
inches of mousy grey roots was evidence of years of not giving a rat’s ass.

An oversized sweater engulfed the
slight woman, the loose knit of its orange yarn pilled at the elbows and
clashed with cornflower blue hospital pants.

“Betty.” Jess’s voice boomed in the
tiny room.

Betty’s shoulders jerked. She
turned and met Mazie’s gaze. A glint flashed across her eyes.

Excitement? Mischievousness? Or
perhaps uncertainty and mistrust.

She slipped a glance at Norman,
pointed to Jess and jerked her head.

Jess approached and Betty whispered
in her ear. The nurse patted Betty’s shoulder and straightened. “Sorry, Mr.
Day. You’re out. Just Charlotte.”

Norman nodded. “I understand,
Betty.” He touched two fingers to Mazie’s arm. “I’ll wait in the lobby. Take
your time.”

Jess let Norman out of the room and
winked at Mazie before clicking the door shut behind her.