The Checkout Girl (19 page)

“A-l,” Connie said stretching the letters of his name into two syllables. It was her way of warning him.

“I'm going to give this to Kathy to read,” she said, changing the subject. “You know what she told me the other day? She said she's waiting to hear about a job in the Tribal Liberation Shop. It's some kind of hippie co-op that sells trinkets and crafts. She says she'll be working one day a week for free to support the communal effort, but when the shop starts to make some money, she'll start to get paid a percentage of the profits. I don't know, Al.

“The other thing she wants, is to get a job skating. Hockey skating, Al. She's a girl. Not that she can't skate, but it's a hobby, not a career. She got the notion from Charlie that girls can play hockey, and I thought it was cute when she was little. Then he died and left her high and dry. She's living in a dream world, Al, only I don't know if it's her dream or Charlie's.

“She seems so confused these days. Am I wrong, do you think?”

Al hadn't told Connie this yet — it takes a certain energy and preparedness to talk to Connie about serious subjects — but ever since Margaret left, he's confused. Margaret's living in a communal house with women from her collective. Four are single, two married with young kids, two are Margaret's age, late forties, and one is in her sixties and has finally left an abusive husband. He can understand that, but the ones with kids he doesn't get. Taking children from their fathers to live in what will likely be poverty. He wonders how they got that desperate.

They were starting a magazine, Margaret told him. She was going to devote all of her energy and talent — she has a talent for writing, she said — into making it a successful magazine. She apologized for all the years she was a wet rag. They were wasted years for both of them, she said, and she was sorry. She wasn't exonerating him, but with the help of consciousness-raising she'd moved beyond anger at Al per se, to understanding it was patriarchal institutions that were oppressive.

She was never meant for marriage, Margaret said, had never liked sex (at least not with men, she said, but she didn't elaborate, and Al didn't ask) so it had been unfair to stay married. Al was a decent enough person. For a man, she added. (She didn't elaborate on that either, and Al certainly didn't want to hear any more about his male privilege and what pigs most men were.) She said it was perfectly legitimate for a woman to be single, and she'd work with Al to get an annulment from their marriage, if that's what he wanted.

Margaret also told Al that she wasn't blind; she knew he'd been in love with Connie for a long time. She thanked him for not doing anything about it (he didn't tell Margaret that Connie would have nothing to do with him as long as he was married), and said if he wanted to date Connie, Margaret would understand. In fact, she'd be happy for him, and for Connie, if Connie decided she wanted to go out with him.

Margaret had gone to Connie and said that when the scales fell from her eyes and she saw how women were treated, she realized that Connie had been living a free and independent life as a widow, while she, Margaret, had lived in married bondage. She said she had a lot to learn from a woman like Connie, who hadn't immediately married again.

Connie didn't point out that very few men wanted to marry a woman with two children, one autistic and difficult to handle, who would never grow up and move away, the other a dreamer with no apparent ambition except skating, and even that seemed to be unrealizable. She told Margaret she was happy for her, and any time she wanted to talk about marriage and its advantages and disadvantages, Connie would welcome the chance. She invited Margaret to join her card club where they could chew the fat on a regular basis.

When Margaret mentioned dating Al, with her blessing, Connie acted surprised. But when Al asked to take her and Shelly to the drive-in, she said yes. They'd had a good enough time. The movies, a double bill, were nothing special. Shelly sat between them, sharing popcorn and Orange Crush. After the first feature, she had her sleeping pill and crawled into the back seat, wrapped herself in her cartoon quilt, and slept.

Al took Connie bowling once (she hadn't met Jerry Rahn and she hadn't won $300) and they went out to supper a couple of times, but most evenings Al came over and they drank instant coffee and read the newspaper together before Connie left for work. Al taped Connie's clippings to the refrigerator door, the latest about Arab terrorists, who hijacked a plane from Greece and were getting what they demanded: the release of their imprisoned compatriots.

Connie ranted about that, said politicians shouldn't give in to thugs, it made flying unsafe for everyone. Connie said even if Greece expelled all the Arabs, as they said they might, it meant nothing now. Terrorists knew they could get their way by hijacking planes, so the precedent was set and the world was less safe as a consequence.

These days, although Al's rattled and confused, he's happy. To be able to sit in Connie's living room and listen to her particular views on life, to look at her perfect black hair and her beautiful red lips. (Lips she lets him kiss, but that's all until the annulment.) To be going next door to the first birthday party anyone's had for him since he was a child. Even though he doesn't understand what's going on half the time, life isn't so bad.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Da-ad. Happy birth…”

Whump! A ball of fire explodes from the hibachi. Flames leap toward Al and Darlyn, who is singing to her father.

“…day to Mother-of-Christ-what-the-ahhhhh…”

Darlyn's eyebrows are smoking. The rainbow-coloured ribbons dangling from the ends of her pigtails are smouldering. Al's holding a can of lighter fluid in one hand and a lit match in the other. His eyebrows are smoking, too. Steam rises from his hair.

“Oh-my-god,” he says. He reaches for Darlyn's braids. Darlyn sees the match and lighter fluid coming her way and she screams. Al backs away. He looks down at his hands.

“Oh-my-god,” he says again, and tosses the match into the barbeque. It flares again but not catastrophically.

Shelly's standing beside Al. She puts her arms down at her sides, turns her face skyward and screams along with Darlyn, an ear-piercing mix of terror and delight. Donny's drying a beer for Margaret from the water-and-ice-filled wading pool with a tea towel. Margaret grabs the towel and runs to Darlyn. She flaps the towel at her and the smouldering ribbons flare.

“Jee-zus, Mom,” Darlyn yells. She grabs the towel from Margaret and beats at her braids, but the smouldering continues to rise up the ribbons. She drops the towel and beats with her hands. She screams again.

Shelly, who stopped screaming when Darlyn did, resumes, vigorously and joyously. Margaret steps backwards until she bumps into the wading pool. The inflated edge squishes under her weight and she loses her balance and plunks onto her bum. Water and ice swoosh over the edge of the pool, over Donny's feet.

“Damn,” he yells when the ice water hits his feet. He lifts one, then the other.

“Christ Almighty!” Margaret shouts, floundering in the pool. Floating bottles rattle against her, clink together. She gets on her hands and knees and Donny helps her out.

“Sh-sh-sh-it,” she says, her teeth chattering.

Darlyn stops screaming to watch her mother. Margaret's hair drips, her shorts and shirt stick to her skin, her breasts, which have been bra-less since she moved into the women's commune, look like two vacuum-packed pork roasts attached to her chest. Darlyn laughs. She can't help it. Even though the smouldering ribbons are scorching her braids and the air begins to smell of burnt hair, she laughs.

Kathy's laughing too, so hard she's snorting. She empties her beer glass on the grass, scoops ice water from the pool and dunks each end of Darlyn's braids. The smouldering ribbons fizzle out, once and for all. The smell of burnt hair mingles with the smell of lighter fluid emanating from the hibachi, which, despite the whoosh of flame that caused all the trouble, isn't going. No sparks, no embers, no coals, only one thin line of smoke snaking up from the spent match.

“Give me that.” Connie's taking charge. She grabs the lighter fluid from Al and shoos him away. “I told you that was too much starter.”

She tells Kathy, “Stop that stupid snorting and go help your sister.” Shelly's now screeching ha-ha-ha in big hoarse gulps.

She turns to Darlyn and says, “At least you're not burned.”

“What do you call this?” Darlyn waves her singed, wet pigtails in Connie's face.

Squishing over to Darlyn, Margaret says, “Sweetie.” Her wet shorts are bunched in her crotch, underwear lines show along the tops of her round thighs. She hugs Darlyn.

“You're wet,” Darlyn says.

“Welcome to the suburban barbeque,” a voice says, and Pete Lehman rounds the corner. Barry and Rachel follow behind him. Connie had suggested Kathy invite her friends. I'd like to meet them, she'd said.

“What a pleasure to have been invited,” Pete says.

They turn to see who's speaking. Pete walks toward them unbuttoning his shirt. His skin is tanned, silky black hair shines in a line from his navel to the belt buckle at the top of his fly. He walks to Margaret and swings his clean, white shirt smooth-as-butter-chivalrous over her shoulders.

Shelly's ha-ha's stop and she stares at Pete.

“How gallant,” Margaret says, pronouncing it
gal-lont.
She plucks her shorts from her crotch and holds out her hand. “Margaret Smola,” she says. Like Shelly, she can't take her eyes off Pete.

“Charmed,” Pete says, taking her hand. “Pete Lehman. I'm Kathy's friend.”

He turns Margaret's wet hand over in his, draws it to his lips, and kisses the palm. Margaret blushes, but doesn't take her hand away. Pete puts his hand over hers, then draws both of his away from Margaret's, slowly, until only their fingertips touch. He holds the pose a second, then steps back. Margaret's hand floats in the air in front of her. Pete turns full circle and winks at them all.

“Is that sausage I smell?” he asks. His grin invites them to smile.

Darlyn laughs. Kathy has never really stopped. And soon they're all smiling and laughing, except Shelly, who just stares. And Al, whose expression is pained and apologetic.

It doesn't smell like sausage; it smells like burnt hair, beer and lighter fluid-doused charcoal. It smells like devilled egg, coleslaw, raw onions, raw meat and coconut suntan oil. And above all, there is the smell of aftershave. Al seems to have bathed in it today. Aqua Velva, because Connie said she liked it. When he arrived, they — each of them separately — suggested he take a dip in Shelly's wading pool to wash it off. He ignored them, of course, but when Connie said he stank, he looked particularly hurt.

“Aqua Velva,” Pete says, shaking Al's hand. “My dad used to wear it, too.”

Pete turns to Connie. “You must be Connie,” he says. Connie nods. “Thanks so much for inviting me. I'm sorry Penny and Rhettbutler can't be here, but they're visiting with Penny's parents.”

“Pete Lehman,” she says. She looks him up and down. “Good to meet you, at last.” She turns, and though Pete has already spoken to each of them, Connie says to her guests, “Pete Lehman, everyone. Kathy's friend and landlord.”

Pete turns and bows. Then he goes to Shelly.

“And you must be Shelly,” Pete says. He kneels in front of her.

“What pretty hair,” he tells her. He doesn't touch her but with his hands makes a halo in the air around her head. She looks at his face, levelly and unafraid. She reaches out and makes a halo in the air around Pete's head. She puts her hands down at her sides and leans forward ever so slightly and sniffs Pete.

“Pete, Pete, Pete,” she yells, and runs away from him, her arms windmilling, propelling her in circles around the yard.

By the time Rachel and Barry are introduced, beer is being opened, and everyone is talking. Darlyn and Margaret go next door to change into dry clothes. They bring back a portable radio and tune it to a soft rock station. Glowing coals have miraculously appeared in the hibachi.

Al grills hamburgers and Connie hands them to Kathy. Kathy ladles potato salad and coleslaw onto plates and encourages people to eat. Shelly's floating her hamburger on a paper plate in the pool; she keeps her eye on Pete at all times. Darlyn and Donny and Rachel and Barry dance until someone calls out, switch partners, and they do as they are told before they drift over to the picnic table for food.

When Al is almost finished his food, Connie nods to Darlyn and they disappear into the house. Connie comes out first, carrying a huge rectangular cake covered in penuche icing. Lettering in blue frosting says,
Happy Birthday, Al
. Forty-eight blue-and-white-striped candles blaze and dip, then blaze again.

“Happy birthday to you,” Connie warbles as she walks down the steps onto the lawn. As their voices join hers, they warble too, but quickly harmonize, except Shelly's, which bellows.

Darlyn slips behind Connie. As Connie nears the picnic table, she begins to twirl two batons, a deft routine of throws and spins as sparkly as the candles on Al's cake. When she reaches her father she kneels before him and tosses her batons into the air. She stands and catches them over his head, twirls them there, whirling like helicopter blades. She slowly moves them alongside Al's arms and brings them in to her sides and stops. The sudden shift in the air makes the candles on the cake flicker, but they hold.

As they sing the last
to yo-ou
, Al blushes and grins. He claps his hands, and they all clap with him. Then Al leans over the cake and in one big breath blows out the candles, splattering bits of blue wax over the icing and onto the plastic tablecloth.

Kathy sings too, sings loud and strong. But she's not thinking about Al; she's thinking about tonight. Two things are happening after the party. Kathy and Darlyn and Donny and Barry and Rachel and Pete are going to Varnum Park for a bonfire. Kathy's invited them to come with her to get rid of a few things that need getting rid of, she told them. Just a bag of old stuff.

After the bonfire, Donny and Darlyn are going home to sleep at the Smolas'. Rachel and Barry are driving back up to Rachel's parents' cottage and they will sleep there. Pete and Kathy are going home; sleep may or may not be what they do.