“What did you say?”
Shit. Had she said damn out loud? She had. And she didn’t even swear. Shit. Shit? Normally she didn’t even
think
in swear words. “Dan, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you were worried. Hey, you know, you have a car, and I have a car. Why don’t I meet you back home?”
“You’ll meet me here now.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Damn. “Sure. That’s better. That’s a better idea.”
“Where are you, Janie?”
She looked up at the sign. “I’m leaving Abundance.” She mouthed the word
goodbye
to the shimmer of silver. “I’ll meet you at the McDonalds on Robson.”
She cautiously opened the door and tried to turn away from the smiling face of Ronald McDonald. She stepped into the swirl of customers, the orange and red signs, and Dan’s disapproval.
He looked like the Dan she’d left at home on Monday. He stood in line, wearing his middle school principal uniform of pressed khakis and a light blue button down oxford shirt. He was clean shaven. His hair, dark blond and trimmed weekly, was still his standard length. But he hadn’t been angry Monday, and he looked well and truly pissed.
She joined him, and when he turned to face her, she tried a smile, an apologetic one she’d never had to use before. Dan’s lips didn’t lift into anything friendly. In fact, his expression deteriorated as his eyebrows came together in a pretty large divot of irritation. Fifteen years of marriage and she’d not seen that face before. “I’m so sorry, Dan.”
“Are you having an affair?”
She blinked at him, too surprised to respond. An elderly couple in the middle of the line turned to stare at her, and she forced herself to smile. “Of course not! I’d never do that.”
But he made a sound of dismissal that shocked her almost as much as his out-of-left-field accusation of… god, she couldn’t even think the word
infidelity
without hesitation. “You wouldn’t leave a Middle School Association meeting and drive to Canada for bubble bath either, Janie. Excuse me if I’m confused.”
More people in line were cranking their necks around to stare, and she felt disoriented by his sarcasm and the volume of his sarcasm. She tried smiling a little wider at the gawkers. “Dan. You’re yelling.”
“I am not yelling! I never yell!”
She pointed at the menu board, a last attempt at normal for the onlookers. “The Egg McMuffin is so good here. They have processed cheese. But they say pro-cessed.” She scooted closer to him. “You’ve never yelled before, but you’re yelling now.”
“My wife disappeared for more than twenty-four hours! At seventy-two hours the police could have been called.”
She felt herself soften. He’d researched missing person procedures, and whatever doubts she’d held about his love for her seemed silly in the face of his concern. “You were really worried about me.”
But he didn’t even seem to be listening. It was like he was talking to himself. “It’s just not like you. You’re a reasonable, stable person, Janie. You don’t go off and do stupid, spontaneous things. You’re not that kind of woman. I did not marry that kind of woman.”
She took a step back. For a second the sharp pain of it brought her right back to college. It was ridiculous to even think about the past, all those years ago when she’d run into Dan’s ex-girlfriend in the university commons, that vibrant, wild girl who’d left Dan alone until he’d found someone like Janie, a woman apparently too boring to do anything out of the ordinary.
She saw his eyes drop from her face to her chest a second before he blurted out. “What the hell are those?”
She followed his gaze down, hoping that he was yelling in the middle of a crowded McDonalds about something other than her breasts. What plural thing would he be referring to in the same region? Maybe two lady bugs had landed on her shirt. She checked, no vermin. He
was
gesturing at her chest, and he even had the McDonalds workers staring. There’d be no social recovery from that, so she pointed to the open V of her shirt. “These would be my breasts.”
He looked horrified and brought his hands up along the sides of his chest. “They’re all squished together.”
“It’s cleavage, Dan. Cleavage.”
He pointed at them in accusation. “I didn’t even know they could do that.”
The man, the only man who had seen her naked in over fifteen years didn’t think her breasts were capable of looking good. “Well, I didn’t know they could do it either, but they can!” She wanted a cup of blazing hot coffee, and she knew exactly what crotch she wanted to scald.
The teenage boy behind the counter cleared his throat while he stared at her chest. “Can I take your order?”
She stepped up. “Boiling coffee. No cream. A McMuffin with pro-cessed cheese and bacon.”
Dan followed her to the counter, narrowed his eyes. “You don’t eat bacon.”
She leaned forward, smiled at the boy. “Extra bacon.”
Dan pointed at her head and then waved a finger at his own head. “And your hair. It’s a different color. It’s like…” He seemed to search his memory. “It’s like Farrah hair.”
She flicked a strand. “I got highlights. Blonde Farrah ones.”
The elderly woman in line tsked her disapproval. Her husband nodded in agreement, and Dan tipped his head in thanks for their vote. He motioned toward Janie’s chest as if drumming up more support.
“Oh for God’s sake.” She lifted the underside of her breasts and jiggled them up for a moment. “I’ve got cleavage. What the hell are you going to do about it?”
He staggered back in shock, his face pale, but his voice booming. “You
are
having an affair.”
Unbelievable. The man was unbelievable. She spread her arms wide, took in the entire fast-food audience. “I am. I’m having a wildly hot and forbidden affair with the one person I’m not supposed to give myself to.”
She heard his breath sucked in. “My brother?”
The elderly couple gasped, and she rolled her eyes. “Your brother lives in Detroit, and he’s an idiot.” She thumped Dan in the center of his chest. “So are you. It’s me, Dan. I’m paying attention to myself.”
He didn’t seem to register the chest poke. He was so deep in concentration. “Who? Who is it?”
The boy behind the counter handed over her coffee and breakfast to go. She picked up the cup and decided she really didn’t want to waste caffeine on Dan’s khakis, so she headed for the door.
“Janie.”
She turned, and it seemed the entire room waited.
“Do not walk out that door.”
She laughed. That wasn’t the best that he could do. “Good one. Did that work before?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never had to use it.”
She waited for him to remember the real weapon.
“Your son needs you.”
She nodded. That was the way to control a mom, but it wasn’t going to work. “He’s gone for a month. I have a month.”
“You do not have a month.”
“Have it and taking it, thank you very much.”
“What the hell are you going to do with a month, Janie?”
She took a sip of coffee, enjoyed the heat and aroma. “I have no idea.” But the days rolled out in front of her like the blank page of a new calendar, and she loved that it was clean and white and unwritten.
It took her twenty minutes to drive back to Gastown, and in every one of those minutes she’d felt the anger and wild excitement vibrating out of her. Now both were gone, and panic and fear moved into the emptiness.
She parked in front of Gretchen’s store and looked up at the twin windows of the loft. She felt her body shaking as she reached for a cardboard tray that held the two coffees and a soda she’d picked up on the way. She got out of the van and gripped the drinks as she pushed open the door to Abundance, and struggled to keep herself upright in the dizziness that washed over her.
“Mara!” Celia beamed from the front counter.
“Yep, it’s me, Mara.” She felt her legs wobble and put the drinks down. She pulled one out and handed it to Celia. “Mocha for you.”
“How’d you know?” Celia asked.
“You’re a woman. It’s chocolate.”
“Thanks.” Celia looked as thankful about being called a woman as receiving a drink.
“Is Stella here?”
“Sure. Go on up.” Celia took a sip of her coffee and sighed.
Mara picked up the tray and walked through the workroom, dropping off the soda on Dylan’s table, as she made her way upstairs.
She moved down the hallway but hesitated before she got to Stella’s door. Why was she even considering staying in Vancouver? Why wasn’t she even now on her way home? And how could anybody justify—”
“Don’t think you can hide out there. I can smell the damn coffee.”
Mara moved into the doorway and walked over to Stella’s desk, handing her the cup. “Can I rent the loft for a month?” Saying it took her last bit of energy, and she sat heavily in the nearest chair. Her grandmother might have said the morning had taken the starch out of her. Maybe the starch leaching went back further than the dawn. The dawn of
man
kind maybe.
Stella didn’t instantly react, just took a drink of the coffee, black and strong. Mara had known better than to add coconut syrup, skim milk and whipped cream, or a shot of peach-wildberry, whatever wildberries were. Stella had learned to drink coffee in the fifties. She wouldn’t be the kind of woman who messed around with fruit.
Stella put her coffee down and tilted her head lower to get a good stare going over the top of her purple rimmed half-glasses. Mara wished she’d gotten herself another coffee so she had something in her hands, something to do while Stella studied her very soul and told her to straighten up and fly right, but Stella just shrugged. “Don’t know why not.”
“Don’t know why not?” Mara felt the edge of a crazy laugh that would lead to crying or blacking out or maybe, just maybe, wetting her pants a little. “I can think of about a million reasons why not!” She took a deep breath and looked around the room to give herself a minute to pull it together. One wall held a rack of pegs with half a dozen pair of overalls hanging. Several feet lower on the wall a small overall rested on its own peg. Mara turned back to Stella in question.
“Shipping crew.”
“Huh.” Mara shook off the vision of a seven-year-old union worker. But the distraction had calmed her some. Maybe she could clarify for herself what she was doing. “I want…” What did she want?
“You want to leave the family in the station wagon for a little while and have a cup of coffee by yourself.”
Mara leaned forward, her arm on the desk. “Yes!”
Stella shrugged.
Mara sighed and sat back. “You’re right. Everything will be fine. Dan will get over the shock. It’s just a month, and I’ll go back, and things will be normal and fine.”
“Didn’t say that.” Stella took the lid off her coffee, tossed it, and took a bigger drink.
“What? What will happen?”
“Hell if I know,” Stella snorted.
“Hell if I know,” Mara repeated.
Mara considered the immediate future if she left. She’d just put on her frumpy sweats and drive back. She was certainly capable of that. “It’s not that I can’t go home.” Her palms started to sweat, and she thought of the work that waited there, that always waited. She didn’t want to go home, yet.
The thought of Dan upset in the middle of McDonalds made her feel both ill and irritated, but the thought of giving up the month that had just come to her made her feel hopeless. “I just want more.”
Stella raised her coffee. “The loft is yours.”
Mara wished she’d thought ahead and brought travelers checks. Thought ahead. That was a good one. “Do you take credit cards?”
Stella laughed. “I think we can work it out.”
First, she needed some more clothes, one good outfit and some frumpy sweats, that she refused to wear again, weren’t enough to get her through a lovely July in Vancouver. The thrill of it shot through her in equal parts excitement and pee-your-pants fear. Maybe that was the definition of thrilled. And after clothes shopping, she’d need a few things for the loft, then a bath, a nap, maybe a matinee, or dinner out in a restaurant she’d never experienced before like Turkish food or Canadian cuisine. What was Canadian food like? Well, she’d figure that out. She had a whole month to discover a whole world. She entered the clothing store and found the clerk hanging housecoats on an aluminum framed clothesline with shiny red clothespins.
“I’m Mara, I need another outfit, and you’re good at it.”
“Gretchen.” She studied Mara, smiled. “Farrah hair.”
Mara tossed her head. “Yeah, I thought it went with the clothes.”
“Good eye.” Gretchen looked around the store. “I’ve got most of the seventy’s pieces this way.”
“No. Something different. Something that flows.”
Gretchen looked at her from sandals to highlights. “Chiffon. I’ve got a chiffon blouse in sea foam green. Classic. And some trim eighty’s pants in black for evening. The sandals will still go. For day I’ve got a peach linen skirt. I think you’d like the green pedal pushers…” Gretchen pointed her toward the dressing room and took off across the store. Mara went into the small room, sat on the chair in it, an old round back wooden one with a pink polka dot seat.
Gretchen returned and handed over a pair of black pants and a nearly sheer blouse that gave the word
flow
new meaning. She draped it over Mara’s arm, and it felt like the freshness of spring. And when Mara put it on, it felt as lovely as it looked. The pants came in tight at the ankle and were stretchy and sleek, and she knew she’d never worn pants like them before. She’d worn trousers and occasionally suburban jeans that were just looser, higher-waisted versions of the kind of jeans she’d worn in her twenties. She couldn’t wait to try new things in the loft too. “Oh, I need a few things to furnish my apartment.”
Gretchen continued to toss clothing over the curtain rod, a sixties geometric shirt, a couple of cropped pants that made Mara long for a Schwinn, floral sun dresses, and under the curtain, happy flip-flops with rhinestones and plastic butterflies. It was the middle of summer, and she’d be in Vancouver long enough to enjoy the fun of the season.