Chapter Eleven
Dawn
“And do you know anything about gardening?” the woman asked, fixing me with a don’t-even-try-to-bullshit-me stare. She was at least eighty, but the stare was still really powerful.
“Not really,” I admitted. “But I’m looking forward to learning.”
“What about cooking? Can you cook?”
“Not well. Again, though, I’m interested in learning.”
“Is there any point in even asking if you can play bridge?”
“Well, I play euchre—is that kind of the same?”
Her pitying look made it clear that they were not the same at all. I sighed. The job had been a long shot, but it was my twelfth application that week and I was getting discouraged. It turned out finding a job that would give you new experiences was a lot harder than finding a job that had you doing the same old stuff you already knew.
But then the old lady, Mrs. McMann, turned to her daughter, who was hovering in the background, and said, “Fine. This one.”
Her daughter stepped forward with a frown. “This one? She just said she doesn’t know anything about any of the skills you’re looking for.”
“Exactly. That means she won’t have picked up a bunch of bad habits! Imagine the frustration if I’d hired someone who bids with weak twos?”
The daughter gave me a doubtful look, maybe because she understood the bit about weak twos about as well as I did, then shifted her attention back to her mother and shrugged. “Okay. It’s only for five weeks, and someone will be up every weekend. I’ll check her references, but other than that? If she’s clubbed you over the head and left you to die in a pool of your own blood, we’ll find out about it on Friday night.”
“I don’t know anything about that, either, if it helps,” I volunteered. Quite possibly I should have kept my mouth shut and let them have their weird conversation on their own, but I’d never been much good at staying out of things once they caught my interest. “Murder, I mean. Zero experience with clubbing people over the head. And, honestly, I don’t think I have quite the same level of interest in learning about it. I don’t mean to come off like a prima donna, but the other stuff sounded way more interesting.”
The daughter snorted, and Mrs. McMann beamed. “I’m an excellent judge of character,” she told the room as a whole. Then she turned to me and added, “We’re going to have a lot of fun, you and I.”
“Fifteen dollars an hour, seven hours a day, weekdays only, and flexible hours are preferred,” the daughter said. She was already sorting through a bunch of forms, clearly ready to get going with the paperwork. “I’ll leave you my number in case of emergency, but my mother, despite some evidence to the contrary, is completely in control of herself and her own affairs. She’s your boss. If she tells you to help her do something weird, but not dangerous? Just save us all the trouble and go along—even if we argue about it, she’ll win in the end.”
“Okay,” I said. “Got it.” Thirty-five hours a week was a lot, but I was only working weekend shifts at the Grill and there were other people who’d want more hours at the thrift store if I gave some up.
The daughter squinted at me as if she was evaluating my sincerity, then nodded brusquely. “Good. That’s taken care of. I’ll leave you guys to set up hours—Mom, do you remember where you left the handyman’s card?”
“Oh…” Mrs. McMann waved a hand vaguely. “It’s around, somewhere. On a horizontal surface…with some other papers, I think…”
The daughter looked as if she hadn’t expected anything more precise and went off to search for the card. I was left with Mrs. McMann.
I started filling out the forms—standard employment stuff—but didn’t get too far before she said, “Just so you know—I hate gardening.”
I looked up at her, cautious but intrigued.
“It’s backbreaking, and I’d prefer to just hire someone to do it. I have enough money to hire people for things. And I’m not crazy about cooking, either; I’d rather eat out, or munch on something simple if I get hungry at home. Bridge is lovely, but I have my regular partner back in Toronto and I think she’d get a little jealous if I had a fling with someone else.”
“Please don’t tell me you are hiring me to commit murder.”
She laughed. “I’m hiring you so my daughter will stop feeling guilty. She was originally planning to be up here with me for the summer, but she’s got a great business opportunity—don’t ask me what, exactly, because I drift off about thirty seconds into her talking about business—and she needs to be in the city for the summer. She worries about me being up here on my own—as if I’m living in the wilderness or something, instead of right on the edge of town—so you’re here to babysit me.”
“Oh,” I said.
“You sound disappointed. I just told you your job will be much easier than you thought it would be, and you’re disappointed.”
“I was just—I was hoping to learn something. Be exposed to new things. You know? That’s what I was supposed to be doing.”
“Supposed to be?”
“It’s a long story. But, yeah, I was trying to find a job that would make me a bit more awesome. I mean, fifteen dollars an hour is more than I was making at my old job, so—I’m fine. It’s just not quite as cool as I’d hoped.”
“You really wanted to learn to garden?” She sounded skeptical.
“I don’t know. I mean, I wanted to try it. You know? I want to try new things. Would gardening be for me? Maybe not, but at least I’d be able to cross one possibility off my list.”
“Well. This is very interesting. I’m going to have to think about this.” She seemed pleased, which was a relief. Sometimes honesty really is the best policy, I guess. “For now—finish up that paperwork. And then—” She looked at her watch. “It’s past noon. Do you know how to make a martini?”
“Uh, no. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. This is excellent—you wanted to learn things, after all. I’ll teach you to make a martini, and then we’ll sit and come up with a list of other things I know that you don’t know. I’m sure it will be a very, very long list. We can work through it and see how far we get by the end of our time together.”
“That sounds great, but…I’m supposed to be working for you. Do you really want to start teaching me everything?”
“Do you remember what my daughter said about going along with me unless things were dangerous?”
“I do.”
“Do you think there’s anything dangerous about me teaching you things?”
“I guess it would depend what you teach, but in general…no?”
“Excellent. So you’ll go along with me. Get that paperwork filled out. We have a busy afternoon ahead of us. And that martini’s not going to make itself.”