Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood [144]
Charis and Zenia are sitting at the kitchen table. They’re finishing supper: baked potatoes, mashed-up squash, a cabbage salad. This cabbage came from the market, because Charis’s own cabbages have all been used up. They’ve been turned into juice and poured into Zenia, green transfusions.
“You’re looking stronger today,” says Charis hopefully.
“I’m strong as an ox,” says Zenia. She puts her head down on the table for a moment, then raises it with an effort. “Really, I am.”
“I’ll make you a cup of ginseng,” says Charis.
“Thanks,” says Zenia. “So, where is he tonight?”
“Billy?” says Charis. “Some meeting, I guess.”
“Don’t you ever worry?” says Zenia.
“About what?” says Charis.
“That it’s not just some meeting.”
Charis laughs. She has more confidence lately. “You mean, some chick,” she says. “No. Anyway, it wouldn’t interfere.” She believes that. Billy can do what he wants with other women, because it wouldn’t count.
Billy has begun speaking to Zenia. He now says good morning to her, and when he comes into a room she’s already in, he nods and grunts. What he calls his Southern manners are having a struggle with his aversion to Zenia, and the manners are winning. The other night he even offered her a puff on the joint he was smoking. But Zenia shook her head and Billy felt rebuffed, and that was that. Charis would like to ask Zenia to take it easy on Billy, to meet him halfway, but after the way he’s behaved she can hardly do that.
Behind Zenia’s back, Billy is if anything even ruder than he was at first. “If she has cancer I’ll eat my hat,” he said two days ago.
“Billy!” said Charis, appalled. “She’s had an operation! She has a big scar!”
“You seen it?” said Billy.
Charis hadn’t. Why would she? Why would she ask to see a person’s cancer scar? It wasn’t something you could do.
“You want to place a little bet?” said Billy. “Five bucks there isn’t one.”
“No,” said Charis. How could you prove such a thing? She had a short vision of Billy rushing into Zenia’s room and tearing off her nightgown. That was not something she wanted.
“Penny for your thoughts,” says Zenia.
“What?” says Charis. She is thinking about Zenia’s scar.
“Billy’s a big boy,” says Zenia. “You shouldn’t get too anxious about him. He can take care of himself.”
“I was thinking about the winter,” says Charis. “How we’re going to get through it.”
“Not how – if,” says Zenia. “Oh, sorry, too morbid. One day at a time!”
Mostly Zenia goes to bed early because Charis tells her to, but sometimes she stays up. Charis makes a good fire in the wood stove and they sit at the kitchen table and talk. Sometimes they listen to music, sometimes they play solitaire.
“I can read the cards,” Zenia says one evening. “Here, I’ll read yours.”
Charis isn’t sure about this. She doesn’t think it’s such a good idea to know the future, because you can hardly ever change it, so why suffer twice? “Just for fun,” says Zenia. She has Charis shuffle the deck three times and cut away from her so the bad luck won’t come towards her, and then she lays the cards out in rows of three, for the past, the present, and the future. She studies the rows, then adds another set of cards, crossways.
“Someone new is coming into your life,” she says. Oh, thinks Charis. That must be the baby. “And someone else is going out of it. There’s water involved; a crossing of the water.” Zenia herself, thinks Charis. She’ll get better, she’ll leave soon. And anyone who leaves here has to cross water.
“Anything about Billy?” she says.
“There’s a jack,” says Zenia. “Jack of Spades. That could be him. Crossed by the Queen of Diamonds.”
“Is that money?” says Charis.
“Yes,” says Zenia, “but it’s a cross card. There’s something off about the money. Maybe he’ll take up dealing drugs or something.”
“Not Billy,” says Charis. “He’s too smart.