Colours in Her Hands, page 9
He let the women out at the entrance to Sears and parked the car. When he got inside, he found them among the racks of lingerie.
“Mina needs underwear,” Gabriela said.
“Fine, where are the granny bloomers?”
“Bruno!”
“What?”
“Granny bloomers?”
“You,” he asked Mina. “Do you want bikini panties?”
“No!”
“Okay, then we need underpants that will stretch around your ginormous bum, but let’s not call them granny bloomers.”
Mina started blinking, the corners of her mouth turning down.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. She didn’t usually mind when he talked about her size. If anything, she seemed proud of her girth.
“You. You’re n-n-not nice to Gabriela.”
He glanced between the two women. Gabriela’s face was stiff, ignoring him as she sorted through piles of underwear. He grabbed a hanger with a clutch of large underpants. “What about these?”
Mina’s eyes widened with shock.
“What’s wrong now?” He looked to Gabriela for an explanation.
She seemed puzzled too. “Why not, Mina? I think they’ll fit.”
He held them over Mina’s bum but she swatted his hand away. “Too s-s-sexy.”
“These?”
“The holes.”
The fabric had a miniscule eyelet pattern. “You think someone will see through the holes?” He held the panties up to his face to show her how unlikely that was, but she refused to look.
“How about these?” Gabriela had found some equally roomy panties in plain cotton.
Bruno was the only man in the lineup at the lingerie counter. The women who were waiting held their scant handfuls close as if to hide them from his voyeuristic eyes. He dangled Mina’s huge panties with insouciance, rocking the hanger on his finger.
As he waited he kept an eye on the red pompom. Gabriela and Mina had made their way as far as the sweaters. He couldn’t hear but he could see how Mina stuttered with yearning. Walking with her through a store was like trailing flypaper. In any direction she would see something she wanted with all her heart.
At least she wouldn’t be able to steal a sweater. People were fooled by her slow walk, but her hands were quick and her pockets deep. She’d been caught shoplifting several times, and each time Bruno had to convince the store management not to bring charges. Legally, they could. He’d even wondered if it might not be a good lesson for her to spend an afternoon in jail — except would she understand that it was the consequence of taking without paying? Cause and effect never seemed to register with her. He couldn’t tell if she truly didn’t understand or didn’t want to. The threat that she might get caught again was too abstract, whereas all those delightful small items she could snatch were so real. Her shelves, cupboards, and dresser were packed with notebooks, soaps, batteries, ankle socks.
By the time Bruno had paid for the underpants, Gabriela and Mina had moved along to the racks of plus-size dresses. Now and then Gabriela held one up. The neckline had to be high. Mina wouldn’t wear anything below her collarbone. Sleeves had to be short because long ones flopped past her hands.
When Gabriela finally had a few possibilities, she and Mina went to the change room. He could hear Mina’s voice raised in complaint, then hooting with laughter. After a very long time she reappeared, face red from exertion, hair swiped aside, the frayed edges of her long johns under the sagging hem of a navy blue dress.
“Does it fit?” he asked because he couldn’t tell.
“She can get into it and the waistline sort of sits on her waist, except we’re not really sure where that is, are we?” Gabriela smiled at Mina, who was gazing up at her happily.
“Good! We’ve got a dress.” He gave a thumbs-up, though they weren’t even looking at him. Great, he thought. I guess I’m just here to pay and carry.
The afternoon wasn’t over yet, because shopping trips with Mina included tea and a muffin. Slowly they crept in the direction of the food court, Mina mesmerized by every store they passed. She came to dead stop before a kitchen display.
“What do you see?” he asked warily.
She pointed at a bright yellow mixing bowl.
“But you have lots of bowls and you don’t cook anymore.”
Her lips puckered until the word burst. “Splool!”
He considered the bowls and utensils. “The spatula?”
“Yeah!”
“What are you going to do with it?”
She didn’t answer but her eyes were attached to it as if with strings.
“Go ahead then,” he said. “Buy it. We’ll wait for you.” All the money he was spending today came from her account, but he’d allotted it for clothing. If she really wanted a yellow spatula at designer store prices, she could pay for it. That was why she had spending money.
“Didn’t b-b-bring money.”
“You never leave your apartment without your wallet. You know you’re not supposed to. All your important information is in your wallet.”
She squinted at the contradictions she was going to have to navigate to keep up the masquerade. “My wallet,” she admitted. “Mais pas d’argent.”
“Ah . . . there’s no money in your wallet.”
“Yeah.” She looked relieved she’d outwitted him.
“Stop teasing her,” Gabriela said.
“I’m not teasing her. She’s teasing me. Let me see your wallet, Mina.”
Reluctantly she fiddled with the snaps and compartments of her bag and tugged out the wallet. Gabriela muttered something in Spanish that could have been lord-give-us-mercy or what-an- asshole. But he knew Mina was lying. He wasn’t even surprised to find the bill section empty. “You knew we were going shopping and you didn’t bring any money. What if you saw something you wanted?”
“You pay.”
“I pay, eh?” He slid a finger into the inside pockets of the wallet until he found the folded square. Three twenty-dollar bills and a ten.
“Th-th-th-th —”
“Look at this! You can even contribute toward your dress.” He didn’t expect her to but he couldn’t resist the dig.
“M-m-my money!”
“The dress is for you, isn’t it? I’m not going to wear it.”
“Stop it!” Gabriela snapped. “Give her back her wallet. I’ll buy the spatula.”
“She should buy it herself.”
“Why?” Gabriela turned on him. “Give me one good reason why.”
“I’ll give you a few reasons. Because it makes no sense to buy her something she’ll never use. Because her apartment is stuffed to the ceiling already. Because that spatula will cost more here than just about anywhere else. Because if she absolutely wants something stupid, she has her own money to buy it. Because —” Mina had started sniffling. “Stop that,” he told her. “Gabriela’s got her wallet out. Looks like she doesn’t mind being a sucker.”
“Come.” Gabriela slid her arm across Mina’s shoulders to bring her into the store.
And Gabriela had the nerve to accuse him of not knowing where to draw the line. At least he could tell the difference between a legitimate and a ridiculous grief.
Mina reappeared with a beatific face, her new yellow ergonomic spatula in a paper bag that sprouted ears of tissue paper. Brightly Gabriela said, “Are we ready for muffins and tea?”
He walked ahead. Why even pretend to walk with them, since he was the big bad meanie who’d been excluded. Though he forced himself to keep the pace slow, knowing that Mina didn’t move fast. He wasn’t going to argue now in front of her, but boy oh boy, he and Gabriela were going to have a talk about this, oh yes.
There was enough bustle around them at their table that Mina didn’t notice his silence. Gabriela was asking her about the wedding she was going to. Did she know Pierre’s cousin? No. Then why was she going? For the dancing! Mina loved dancing. Back when she still belonged to a social group, Bruno had asked if they could be taken dancing instead of bowling for a change, but Social Services had decreed that bowling was more beneficial.
“What about you?” Gabriela asked Mina. “Have you ever wanted to get married?”
Mina shook her head.
“Why not?”
“How about we leave well enough alone?” he said. “It would be very complicated for Mina to get married, so it’s fine that she —”
“Dishes,” Mina said. “Clothes. W-w-washing . . .”
“That’s housework, sweetie. That’s not the same as being married.”
“That’s what she saw our mother do,” Bruno said. “Anyhow, can we drop it?”
“Maybe someone should explain to her what marriage is.”
“Okay,” he said. “Mina, do you want Pierre to live in your apartment?”
“No!”
“Being married is when someone lives with you and you share everything.”
Her eyes fixed him with cross-eyed intensity. “You’re not married.”
“Not everyone who lives together gets married. Gabriela and I are fine the way we are.” But he didn’t look at Gabriela.
Mina wrinkled her nose, either not understanding or getting bored with the talk.
“How’s your new shaver?” he asked. He hadn’t been able to return the one she’d broken but he’d found another model reduced by fifty percent.
“D’okay.” She touched her jaw as if making sure, but he could see she’d shaved for the outing.
“Do you put cream on your skin after you shave?” Gabriela asked.
“What?”
Gabriela explained. Didn’t she understand this would now be another thing Mina would decide she absolutely had to have? “Any old cream will do,” he interrupted. “The one you already use for your hands and face.”
Mina looked to Gabriela for confirmation, not at him.
She finally finished her muffin and they shuffled through the shopping mall again, Bruno trying to herd them toward the middle of the concourse, as far as possible from the stores. At the closest exit he escaped to fetch the car.
Gabriela got in the back with Mina and the two whispered and giggled as he drove. So Gabriela could still have a good time. Only not with him.
At Mina’s, he carried in her bags and the box with the new lamp which he forbade her to open. He would come very soon to put it together. No, he didn’t know when. For now, how about she be happy with her new underpants, her new dress, and her new yellow spatula?
When he returned to the car, Gabriela had moved to the front but she didn’t speak until he signalled to turn at the head of the street. “Where are you going?”
“To return the car.”
“Can’t you take me home first?”
“You can walk home with me.”
“I’m not wearing boots for walking in snow.”
It was only a few blocks. A few blocks she could walk.
She said nothing but as soon as he parked the car, she got out, slammed the door, and strode across the lot. “Wait!” he called but had to run after her. “I thought you couldn’t walk in those boots. And tell me, what was that good cop/bad cop stunt you pulled with the spatula? One day you accuse me of being too involved in her life, the next you’re playing fairy godmother.”
“A spatula, Bruno. Get some perspective.”
“I have the gobsmacking advantage of a 360-degree perspective! She’s my sister. I watch out for her.”
“She’s her own person.”
“Believe me, I know that better than anyone. But she’d be flatout broke if I didn’t handle her money, and who knows how Social Services would do it if I didn’t.”
“At least they wouldn’t give her a big guilt trip every time she wanted a treat.”
“She gets lots of treats. Today she got a new lamp, a new dress and —”
“Underpants!” Gabriela clapped her gloved hands. “Aren’t you generous? I was in the change room with her and let me tell you, she needed new underpants!”
“So I’m supposed to check the state of her underpants too? I thought I was doing too much for Mina — but now you’re implying it’s not enough?”
Mouths bitter, jaws clenched, they marched along the street, turning down theirs.
But when he unlocked the door, leaving it open behind him, she didn’t follow. She stayed on the sidewalk, three steps down, framed by the wood-panelled entrance.
“Aren’t you coming in and closing the door? Or are we heating the street now?”
She looked up at him. “I can’t anymore, Bruno. I just can’t.” She hadn’t shouted. She’d simply said it.
He didn’t ask what she meant. The sadness on her face drained his anger. He didn’t know either. How could they continue like this? His hands hung.
She lowered her eyes and walked out of the frame.
He nearly called after her but didn’t. What could he say if she was ready to walk away from what they had because she wanted something else?
He shut the door gently, pulled off his boots, and went to the living room where he collapsed on the sofa.
* * *
The toilet lid dropped with a loud clap. One of these days it would break. Everything was waiting to break. That was how things were.
Mina sat carefully on the lid, a pair of the new underpants in hand, her stretchy bellbottoms beside her on the vanity. She lifted one foot and aimed it into one leg hole. Got balanced with her foot on the floor again. Stretched the underpants so she could see the other hole. Lifted the other foot.
Juliette was coming at 11:00 to do her feet. Mina liked Juliette, who had a soft voice and strong hands. In her satchel she carried all kinds of pretty things to snip and to rub with. Not long ago, when Juliette left the room to wash her hands, Mina slipped a pair of little scissors with red handles under her cushion. Later she tucked the scissors in the top pocket of the raincoat she didn’t wear anymore because the snaps were broken. Also in the pocket were Bruno’s striped blue socks. She’d been at his house and the socks were in a pile of folded laundry on his bed. She couldn’t wear them because they were too big and Bruno would see them. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had them. They were hers now.
She had to stand to pull up her underpants and now had to sit again — carefully! — to put on her bellbottoms. They were harder because the legs were long and her feet had farther to go. She hoped the bellbottoms weren’t twisted around with the bum part over her belly. That was almost funny when it happened, except it was so much work to get them off and start again. She knew the tag was supposed to be at the back. Mama had showed her a long long time ago when she was little. The problem was that no matter how she started, the pants could twist around.
She grunted as she stood to yank them up over her belly. Her elbow knocked hard against the sink. “Taberouette!” The bad word jumped from her mouth. It used to jump from Daddy’s too. You weren’t supposed to say bad words but her princes sometimes did. Pierre shouted cunt and bitch and fuck-you when he was doing sex.
She patted around her hips and belly. The bellbottoms were on the right way. Good. She looked again. Yeah, they were.
She squeezed her eyes shut for pulling on her T-shirt. This was harder because things could happen. Her arms getting stuck or her glasses crooked or she could get dizzy. The bathroom was too small. She’d told Bruno and he said, Too small for what? She couldn’t explain. Why couldn’t he see? The handle on her toilet broke and had to be changed. The shampoo spilled outside of the tub and Evita got angry about having to wipe it away. It wasn’t her fault! It happened because the bathroom was too small.
Once her arms were in the sleeves and the T-shirt was over her head, she pulled it straight. Gabriela’s puppy was on the front. She patted its head and laughed because she was patting her titty too. Good puppy, good titty.
Getting dressed was a big task and she only did it every few days. It was easier to keep the clothes on. In the mirror she saw that her hair was messy from pulling on her T-shirt but she’d already brushed it and wasn’t going to brush it again. She didn’t have to shave because it was Tuesday. She only shaved on Wednesday and on Sunday. She still needed to put on her fleece to stay warm but it was on the sofa. She didn’t have to go into the bathroom and close the door to put on a fleece or a sweater.
By the wall was the box with the new lamp. She hadn’t opened it, but she wrote MiNA with heavy purple marker on the top and all the sides. Bruno better come today and set up the lamp because she needed it.
She squirmed her bum up onto the sofa and got settled with a pad of paper and marker pens to print letters. Different letters got different colours. B was red. N was orange. That was why she needed a whole package of markers. It was okay if Juliette came and she had to stop doing letters, because later she could look hard at the letter and tell what it was. An A had a point at the top. Both T and J had hats and sticks. That was harder. An S curved. But if she really couldn’t figure it out, she could throw away the paper because it wasn’t in a notebook. That was why, when she made letters, she used a pad with pages that tore off.
On TV a big hairy dog was gobbling a bowl of food. She patted the puppy on her T-shirt. “Look.” The puppy saw but it didn’t need food because it was on her T-shirt.
The phone began ringing while she was in the middle of a P. P, she thought, P, P, P, P. That would help her remember. Then she grabbed the phone. “Oui?”
“Mina, it’s Juliette. Listen, I’m sorry but I’ve got a problem with my car.” She kept talking fast.
“Wh-what?” Something about a car. Cars always made people late.
“Are you going out this afternoon?” Juliette spoke more slowly. “Can I come at 2:00?”
“Leven,” Mina said. They already had an appointment and it was for 11:00.
“No, I can’t. I’m sorry. My car broke.”
Mina was impressed. A car was a big thing to break.
“Can I come at 2:00? Will you be home?”
“My program —”
“Your program, of course. Don’t worry, you can watch TV and I won’t talk to you.”
“D’okay.” Except it wasn’t. Mina liked to watch Juliette do her feet. She felt she was being cheated of something. She wasn’t sure what, but all of a sudden the whole day was upset.
