Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood

I threw my arms around Toby and hugged her, but she said I should watch that – a laundry-room girl hugging the manager. Then she said I shouldn’t get too involved with Amanda: Amanda had a tendency to go too far, she didn’t know the limits of her own strength. I wanted to ask her what she meant, but she was walking away.

On the day of the visit, Toby told me that Amanda had been alerted that I was coming; but the two of us should wait until I was inside the door before hugging or shrieking or other demonstrations. She gave me a basket of AnooYoo products to deliver, as an excuse in case anyone stopped the van and asked where I was going. The driver would wait for me: I would have only an hour, because it would look odd for an AnooYoo girl to be wandering around in the Exfernal too long.

I said maybe I should go in disguise, and she said no, because the guards would ask questions. So I had to put on my pink AnooYoo top-to-toe over my work smock and cotton pants and go off with my pink basket, like Little Pink Riding Hood.

I got delivered to Amanda’s falling-apart condo by the AnooYoo minivan, as planned. I did remember what Toby had said. I waited until I was inside the door, where Amanda was waiting, and then we both said, “I can’t believe it!” and held on to each other. But not for long; Amanda had never been much of a hugger.

She was taller than when I’d last seen her in the flesh. She’d got a tan – even through the sunblock and hats – from doing so much outdoors art, she said. We went into her kitchen, which had a lot of her designs pinned up on the walls, and some bones here and there; and we had a beer each. I’ve never liked drinking alcohol that much, but this was special.

We started talking about the Gardeners – Adam One, and Nuala, and Mugi the Muscle and Philo the Fog, and Katuro, and Rebecca. And Zeb. And Toby, though I didn’t say she was now Tobiatha and managing the AnooYoo Spa. Amanda told me why Toby had to leave the Gardeners. It was because Blanco from the Sewage Lagoon was after her. Blanco had the street rep of snuffing anyone who’d annoyed him, especially women.

“Why her?” I said. Amanda said she’d heard it was some old sexual thing; which was puzzling, she said, because sexual things and Toby had never fitted together, which was most likely why we kids had called her the Dry Witch. And I said maybe Toby had been wetter than we’d thought, and Amanda laughed, and said obviously I still believed in miracles. But now I knew why Toby was hiding out with a different identity.

“Remember how we used to say, Knock knock, who’s there? You and me and Bernice?” I said. The beer was creeping up on me.

“Gang,” said Amanda. “Gang who?”

“Gang grene,” I said, and we both snorted with laughter, and some of the beer went up my nose. Then I told her about running into Bernice, and how she’d been as crabby as ever. We laughed about that too. But we didn’t mention dead Burt.

I said, “What about the time you arranged that superweed treat for me with Shackie and Croze, and we all went into the holospinner booth, and I threw up?” So we laughed some more.

She told me she had two roommates, who were artists as well; and also, for the first time in her life, she had a live-in boyfriend. I asked if she was in love with him, and she said, “I’ll try anything once.”

I asked what he was like, and she said really sweet, though moody at times because he was still getting over some teen-lust girlfriend. And I said what was his name, and she said, “Jimmy – maybe you knew him at HelthWyzer High, he must have been there about the same time you were.”

I got a very cold feeling. She said, “That’s him on the fridge, two pictures down, on the right.” It was Jimmy all right, with his arm around Amanda, grinning like an electrocuted frog. I felt as if she’d stuck a nail right into my heart. But there was no point in spoiling things for Amanda by telling her that. She hadn’t done it on purpose.

I said, “He looks really cute, and now I have to go because it’s time for the driver.” She asked if there was anything wrong, and I said no. She gave me her cellphone number and said next time I came to visit she’d make sure Jimmy was there, and we’d all have spaghetti.

It would be nice to believe that love should be dished out in a fair way so that everyone got some. But that wasn’t how it was going to be for me.

I went back to the AnooYoo Spa feeling totally dumped out and hollow. Then, just after I got back, when I was carting the towels around to the rooms, I almost ran right into Lucerne. It was her time to have her face lifted again: Toby had warned me about it each time she came so I could lower my profile and evade her, but because of Amanda and Jimmy it had gone right out of my head.

I smiled at her in the neutral way we’d been trained. I think she recognized me, but she blew me off like I was a piece of lint. Although I hadn’t ever wanted to see her or talk to her, it was a very bad feeling to know that she didn’t want to see me or talk to me either. It was like being erased off the slate of the universe – to have your own mother act as if you’d never been born.

At that moment I understood that I couldn’t stay at AnooYoo. I needed to be on my own, apart from Amanda, apart from Jimmy, apart from Lucerne, even apart from Toby. I wanted to be someone else entirely, I didn’t want to owe anyone anything, or be owed anything either. I wanted no strings, no past, and no questions asked. I was tired of asking questions.

I found the card Mordis had given me, and left a note for Toby thanking her for everything, and saying that for personal reasons I couldn’t work at the Spa any longer. I still had the day pass I’d used for Amanda, so I left right then. Everything was ruined and destroyed, and there was no safe place for me; and if I had to be in an unsafe place it might as well be an unsafe place where I was appreciated.

When I got to Scales, I had to talk my way past the bouncers because they didn’t believe I was really looking for a job there. But finally they called Mordis, and he said oh yes, he remembered me – I was the little dancer. Brenda, wasn’t it? I said yes, but he could call me Ren – I already felt that comfortable with him. He asked if I was really serious about the job, and I said I was; and he said there was a minimum undertaking because they didn’t want to waste the training, so would I be willing to sign a contract?

I said maybe I was too sad for the job: didn’t they want a more upbeat personality in their girls? But Mordis smiled with his shiny black-ant eyes and said, as if he was patting me: “Ren. Ren. Everyone’s too sad for everything.”

So I did go to work at Scales after all. In some ways it was a relief. I liked having Mordis for a boss because at least it was clear what pleased him. He made me feel safe, maybe because he was the closest thing to a father I was ever going to get: Zeb had vanished into thin air and my real father hadn’t found me very interesting, and in addition he was dead.

But Mordis said I was really something special – I was the answer to every dream, wet ones included. It was so encouraging to be doing something I was good at. I didn’t like the other parts of the job that much, but I did like the trapeze dancing, because nobody could touch you then. You were up in the air, like a butterfly. I used to picture Jimmy looking at me, and thinking that it was really me he’d loved all along, not Wakulla Price or LyndaLee or any of the others, or even Amanda, and that I was dancing just for him.

I do know how useless this was.

After going to Scales, I was only in touch with Amanda by phone. She was away a lot, doing her art projects; also I didn’t want to see her in person. I’d feel uncomfortable because of Jimmy, and she’d pick up on that feeling and ask about it, and I’d either lie or tell her; and if I told her she’d be angry, or maybe just curious; or she’d think I was being stupid. There was a hard side to Amanda.