Miriam Toews - Summer of My Amazing Luck

We couldn’t leave right away like Lish wanted because Hope and Maya refused to miss any school. We would have to wait until the end of June. This was a good thing anyway, because there were a lot of details to work out. When you’re on welfare, you are not allowed to leave the province. Everyone does from time to time, but you have to make sure you’re covered in case your dole worker decides to surprise you with a home visit or if one of your appointments falls into the period of time you plan to be away. Also, Rodger was going to do some work on the van, make sure it would get us to Denver and back. And we wanted to find a tent and sleeping bags somewhere, maybe a pawn shop, because we couldn’t all sleep in the van and we certainly couldn’t afford motels. We couldn’t even afford the gas to get us there, but Lish said she had a plan.

So in the meantime, all we had to do was get through the rain and the bugs for two more weeks until school was out and we had come up with the extra cash to get us to Denver. Lish’s parents had to come to Winnipeg on some business. Her mom phoned and said they’d be staying at the Four Seasons with the rest of the conventioneers, but they would try to make it over to Lish’s place at least once over the weekend. Her mom told her it was important for her to be in Winnipeg as well because it was a kind of cosy spousal convention, where her absence would be noted and all sorts of rumours would fly and Lish’s dad’s job might come into question because of his questionable stability and marital standing.

Later we were sitting around at Lish’s place, drinking coffee and eating lemon loaf, burning patchouli incense and talking. We agreed we would never act like Lish’s mother: not trying to see our kids when they were only a few blocks away and we hadn’t seen them in six months and some man forbade it, some man trying to get a promotion.

“Would you like a beer?” asked Lish. She wandered over to her fridge and took out two bottles. “Glass?” she called from the kitchen.

“No, thanks,” I said.

She handed me the beer and sat down with her own. “What the hell,” she said.

We were quiet for a while. Lish drank her beer in about three minutes and went to the fridge to get another one. She held one up and looked at me. I shook my head. She came back and sat down in her big brown chair and flipped her legs over one of the chair’s arms. “You know,” she said, “I’m a lot like him in some ways.”

“Like who?” I asked.

“Like my father,” she said. She had a sip of her beer. “He’s never come here to visit us. He’s never called to say hello. Years ago, when I told him I was pregnant with Hope, he said, ‘I expected more from you.’” Lish had another sip.

I grinned. “More kids?” I asked.

She smiled, and sighed. “We both want what we want, he and I,” she said. “So fucking badly.”

“And what would that be?” I asked.

She paused. “Another beer,” said Lish. “Yourself?”

“Half,” I said.

Suddenly Lish blurted out, “That’s it. I’m going there. I’m taking the girls to see them. And Lucy, you and Dill are coming along! GIRLS, WE’RE GOING TO SEE GRANDMA AND GRANDPA AT THEIR HOTEL!!!” she shouted. And so we did. Lish told the girls to dress up, and because Lish did not believe in telling them how to dress, they put on bizarre outfits, too small, too big, clashing colours, discarded costume jewellery, and, of course, garish face paints in place of real make-up. Hope made a fake cigarette out of rolled-up paper and put it behind her ear. Lish put on a black sequined dress she had picked up at the Junior League, and her long square-toed shoes. She polished her spider and put it on the lowest part of her brim so it looked like a third eye. She doused herself with patchouli oil and rose water. She put on all her clanging bracelets and a ring on each finger. She tossed the rest of the lemon loaf in a Safeway bag to bring to her parents. I changed Dill’s diaper, gave him a cracker to chew on, and we were out the door. The twins in the wagon with Dill sandwiched in between, the older girls dancing along behind it, Lish, bent over in her sequined dress and square-toed shoes, and me, taking turns lugging the wagon to the Four Seasons Hotel. It was only sprinkling outside, and besides, Lish said she didn’t give a flying fuck if we got soaked. She had a plan.

The doorman of the Four Seasons was not sure what to do with the wagon when we got there. He held the door open for Lish and the girls and at the same time tried to help push the wagon over the door stoop. It was harder than he thought, and he let go of the door. The door swung back into Lish’s face. The wagon perched in between the doors. Hope and Maya started pushing it from the back and the twins began to laugh. The doorman stood up and looked at Lish for guidance. She said, “Look, just everyone let go of the frigging wagon. I’ll do it myself.” She backed out and tried the revolving doors. This time the wagon wedged itself into one of the sections and wouldn’t move. Lish told the girls to get out and squeeze through the space. The older girls stood outside helplessly. “Go through the door, Jesus,” muttered Lish through the glass pointing to the non-revolving door. The doorman ran to that door and pushed. Hope and Maya were pushing too. “For Christ’s sake …” Lish moved the doorman away from the door and Hope and Maya burst into the hotel and fell on top of each other.

“I hope you’re not expecting a tip,” said Lish to the blushing doorman. He laughed, and Lish rolled her eyes at him, straightened her hat and told her girls to follow her to the elevator. The man behind the front desk leaned over its marble surface. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

“What.”

“What are you going to do with your wagon? And who are you looking for?”

“Mom, the wagon’s still stuck. You can’t leave it there. Geez.” Maya looked disgusted and straightened Hope’s cigarette.

“I am not going to do anything with the wagon. The doorman—” Lish stretched this word out and paused briefly after saying it—“will somehow remove it and put it in a suitable place until I come back to get it. I, we, are going to the convention in the ballroom on the sixth floor. Is there a problem with that?”

“Well, are you a member of the convention or …”

“Yes, I am.” Lish put one of her hands into the other one and cocked her head. Dill had fallen asleep on the way to the hotel and I stood beside Lish holding him over my shoulder and shifting around from one foot to the other, trying to assume a confident stance like Lish’s, but thinking I looked more like a refugee at an appeal hearing. Please sir, I felt like blurting out in broken English, grant my infant son and me asylum at the Four Seasons Hotel.

“Are you sure, you don’t—”

“I don’t have a sitter, you’re right,” said Lish. “This convention came up out of the blue and I didn’t have enough time to get one. Fortunately, my girls are used to this type of thing. They come out for every Kids at the Office Day and are very wellbehaved.” Alba was grabbing her crotch, desperate to pee, and Letitia had pushed every floor button of the elevator. Hope and Maya were chasing each other around the potted trees in the lobby. Lish went on, “I really must go. I have an 11:30 presentation to make on Bank Security Measures.” Lish grabbed Alba’s hand away from her crotch and called to the others, “Girls, time to go.” The front desk guy pursed his lips and started clacking away at his computer.

Lish spotted her parents in the ballroom immediately. John was holding forth on some hot banking news. He had a sharp dark suit on. He was talking very loudly. As a child Lish could never lose him because of his booming voice. The men he was talking to were inches shorter than he and they gazed up at him while he boomed. John glanced around the room, looking over and around their heads. Lish’s mother smiled demurely at his side and picked a piece of lint off the back of his jacket.