Whatever (9 page)

“Good. Don't look.” Things were back to normal, whatever normal was in our house these days.

Andrew asked for more cheese biscuits. I didn't have Mrs. Johnson's recipe, but I found a recipe on the internet that sounded the same and made biscuits for Sunday dinner. Mom cooked a roast and bought some macaroni salad. She insists we eat dinner together, the whole family—she read somewhere that doing that will keep your teenagers off drugs, or something equally bizarre. So unless someone has a meeting or a game or a rehearsal, we always sit at the dining-room table and eat dinner together. But usually dinner wasn't this fancy, with a roast and my biscuits.

Dad and Andrew ate so many biscuits I moved the remainder beside my plate. “You're both cut off until Mom and I have had our share.”

“Maybe there will be some left for breakfast,” said Andrew.

Dad nodded. “If only we had some strawberry jam like my mother used to make . . .” He saw the look on Mom's face and shut up.

“I'll see what I can find at the farmer's market,” she said, her voice tight.

“Maybe Darrah can learn how to make jam,” said Dad. “Do you suppose your Mrs. Johnson can teach you how?”

“I can make it by myself. There's recipes on the net, I'll look one up.”

“Why don't you stick to making biscuits and try to enjoy the jam I buy from you know, one of those stores where they sell food? Not every woman is born wanting to make jam,” said Mom.

Dad and I looked guiltily at each other. Mom could be sensitive about her cooking—or rather her lack of cooking. “I have a job outside the home,” she said. “I do my best, but I don't have time to make jam. Or biscuits.”

Monday afternoon I was back at Mrs. J.'s.

“Jam?” she said, horrified. “You're not ready, not nearly. Besides, I gave away my jars and canner last year. It got too
hard to clean the fruit. Got two big flies in my last batch of peach jam; decided it was time to give it up.”

“Are we going to cook?” Again the house was spotless, clean blue and white tea towels hanging by the sink, the crocheted slippers nesting tidily in their basket, the kitchen floor swept. There were no area mats in the kitchen or anywhere else that I had seen. No place to hide dust.

“Not today. You can read me the paper.”

“Still can't find your glasses? Want me to look for them?”

“No, leave it be. Just read.”

The town's twice-weekly paper was the only newspaper on the kitchen bench; Mrs. J. must have been recycling. Or else she'd had her grandson put the other papers in the garden, for, what was it she said, “mulch”? Curious, I asked.

“I cancelled my subscriptions,” she said. “Can't get around to reading everything these days.”

“I could read them to you.”

“No thanks. You're only going to be with me a few weeks. What will I do after you've gone? Besides, it isn't the same as reading by yourself.”

“Sorry.” I was miffed and my voice showed it.

“You're a good reader, it isn't that. But I miss . . .” She stopped and sighed. “So put on your best stage voice and try to make local politics sound interesting.”

There wasn't much in the paper this week. The tent city was being dismantled by the
RCMP
, the mayor was looking for funding to reopen the old hotel that used to be a homeless
shelter; the columnist was going on about problems in the schools. There was, for a change, nothing about the controversial gold and copper mine that was to be built a few miles out of town. Even the most outspoken writer of letters to the editor had taken the week off.

I finished reading long before six. “What should I do now?”

“Go scrub your hands, in the bathroom this time, not in the kitchen sink. Then let's go for a walk.”

“Walk?”

“Just around the back of the house. I want to check on the garden.”

The bathroom was as clean as the rest of the house, the old-fashioned sink sparkling, the linoleum on the floor spotless, no floss specs on the mirror. I stole a look at the plastic seat perched high over the regular toilet seat—her throne. There was a night light by the sink, in the shape of a bouquet of glass flowers, and it made the counter sparkle with white and yellow light. In the front hallway was a similar night light, red and white, and a soft purple and white one in the hallway.

When I finished, Mrs. J. was already outside the door, a brightly coloured shawl over her shoulders, a knit cap in the same pattern pulled down around her ears, her cane in hand. I pulled on my coat and shoes. She made me make sure I'd tied my shoes properly so I wouldn't trip and pull her down with me when I fell. We moved slowly along a narrow, cracked cement path. I felt her grab me a few times to keep her balance,
but we navigated the path safely and turned the corner.

She stopped by a weathered wooden bench under a big tree. The leaves were gone. Even though it had been a mild fall, most of the trees had given up their leaves by the middle of October. Mrs. J. slowly lowered herself down to the bench. “I miss my garden. Sit here a lot in the summer, it's shady and quiet. Good spot to think.”

“It's too cold to think today. Can we go in?”

“In a minute.” She looked over at the square of earth. “I usually turn it over myself but couldn't handle the pitchfork this year. Love the smell of the earth.”

I sniffed, but couldn't smell anything special. The small garden had been dug up, “turned over,” and the earth looked damp. A few spiky things, sort of like green onion tops but bent over, clumped together in one corner.

“Perennial onions.” Mrs. J. was pointing to the spiky clump. “Make new little onion bulbs right on top of each stem. I used to pick them off and use them in my mustard pickles. Haven't made pickles in years.”

“Maybe you can teach me?”

“Perhaps. But it's too late in the season to get good pickling cukes. Besides, I think my pickling days are over.”

Then she looked away from the garden and changed the subject. “Did I tell you Mrs. Barrett called me?”

“Why?”

“Just to see how things are going.”

“She's checking up on me?”

“Perhaps.”

“I'm doing my sanctions. I signed the agreement, didn't I?”

“She also wanted to find out how we are getting along.”

“Oh. What did you tell her?”

“It doesn't matter. She was content.”

“She didn't have to call you.”

“It's not worth getting mad about. I think it's just a follow-up, probably a rule of this circle thing.”

“She's treating me like I'm a criminal.” Oops. What had the little constable said about me breaking a part of the Criminal Code of Canada? I was a criminal.

We were both silent for a while. Then she asked, “Want to tell me why you were so upset that day at the hospital? It was more than missing the audition, wasn't it?”

“No.” I stared at the clumps of dirt that would be a garden in the summer. There was a scattering of frost clinging to the bigger lumps, like an uneven dusting of white. Suddenly I felt colder.

“Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?”

“It was nothing.”

“Really? Seems strange that ‘nothing' made you so angry.”

I was relieved when Dad poked his head around the corner of the house. “I thought I heard voices,” he said. “Evening, Mrs. Johnson. No biscuits today?”

“I hear you ate a lot of them. They must have been acceptable.”

“They were.”

“She's just beginning. Wait a few weeks and see what the girl can cook.”

Dad helped Mrs. J. back down the path and up the stairs; she leaned on his arm as if she were tired, although we hadn't been out for long.

“Thank you,” she said from the front porch. “Goodnight to you both.”

“You're welcome, Mrs. J.,” I said. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

“Sounds as if things are going well,” Dad said as we drove off.

“She's okay. For an old lady.”

“For an old lady with a broken leg which was your fault, I'd say she's more than just ‘okay.'”

I stared out the window and was quiet the rest of the way home.

Chapter Eight

WEDNESDAY, I PEELED
potatoes and carrots, cleaned and chopped celery and onions, browned chunks of meat and put a stew on to simmer. The next week I did more cooking: shepherd's pie on Monday (mushy hamburger with mashed potatoes on top), and Wednesday I made chicken soup, starting with raw chicken legs. I didn't like taking the meat off the chicken bones very much; it was greasy and looked gross. But the soup I left cooking for Mrs. J.'s dinner smelled good, not at all like canned stuff.

On Saturday, a strange thing happened. I got a phone call from a boy. That didn't used to be strange. I had a boyfriend last year, but so far this school year I hadn't even thought
about one. Can't go out on dates when you're grounded. Can't keep a relationship going when you have to use the phone in the kitchen with everyone listening.

Mom looked puzzled as she handed me the phone. “He says his name is Robin.”

“I don't know any Robins. What does he want?”

“I didn't ask him that,” she snapped. “Last time I asked someone's name, you called me an interrogator from the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Why didn't he call my cell?”

“Ask him yourself.”

“Hello? This is Darrah.”

“Oh, hi, I'm Mrs. Johnson's grandson.”

“Grandkid Number Five?”

He was silent for a moment. “How did you know that?”

“What do you want, Number Five? Are you Five of Nine? You related to Seven?”

“No, there are only five of us. It's Five of Five. You like
Voyager
, too?”

“I like
Next Generation
better, but I've been watching both lately. So, what do you want in my universe, Five of Five?”

“I'm calling for my grandma. She invited friends for tea on Sunday, and she wondered if you'd come after lunch and help her. Make gingerbread, set the table and stuff like that, I guess.”

I didn't say anything. He spoke into the silence. “You are the girl who's been helping her, right? Grandma said something about a school work experience program.”

“Something like that.” He didn't know why I was really doing those hours. Thank you for that, Mrs. J.

“Glad I got the right person.”

“You did. And you're the person who dug up her potatoes so I didn't have to. I owe you.”

He laughed. “There weren't many. Grandma's garden has been getting smaller and smaller every year. It didn't even take an hour to get those spuds up and washed.”

“I'll have to ask my mom about Sunday.”

“I can pick you up and bring you back. I'm invited for tea, too, but probably only because she wants me to run taxi service for her friends.”

Mom had been hovering, listening hard. It had been months since a boy had called me, and she was having a hard time keeping her curiosity in line. “Can I go to Mrs. Johnson's tomorrow, Mom?”

“Will that count as time towards your sanction hours?”

“I don't know. Her grandson will pick me up and bring me back.”

She raised her eyebrows, mouthing “grandson?” I nodded and went back to the phone.

“Okay, Robin, I'm cleared.”

“I'll pick you up at one, if that's okay.”

“No need to come in; I'll be watching for you.” I rattled off our address, then hung up.

“Make sure you keep a record of these extra hours,” Mom said. “You might need to take an afternoon off sometime or—”

“Mom, drop it.”

“I wonder why she didn't call you herself?” Mom stared at me thoughtfully and I stormed off. Why did it matter who phoned? It wasn't as if this was a date or anything.