Who Is Frances Rain? Read online

  I wonder now if Dad asked to come back, because Tim hollered that she owed that bastard nothing, and what kind of a hold did he have on her anyway?

  “The man walked out on you and three kids, for God’s sake,” he bellowed. “And hardly a word for two years. He’s the one who’s wrong. Not you. When are you going to figure this out?”

  After that, Mother came home a little later every night. Tim seemed to take it all right, but a few times I caught him looking out the front window at night, shoulders slumped, hands in pockets, waiting for her.

  It was his idea for all five of us to drive up to Rain Lake for the summer. Mother hadn’t had a holiday in years, and although she’d put up a fight, he’d come out the winner. Temporarily, I was sure.They hadn’t had a honeymoon yet and this was not going to be it. The romance was definitely over. They hadn’t said a word to each other, except “Pass the coffee,” or “Stop at the next picnic site,” since we’d left the city.

  I should have been gloating, I guess, but instead I felt something that smelled like guilt at my part in the whole miserable business.

  By now, you could be thinking that Tim seems like a nice guy and I’m a jerk. But at the time, I saw him as a big sliver under my nail. Someone who’d pushed his way in without asking. And how could we be sure he wouldn’t clear out, too? Why waste time on someone when they could just as easily walk out? Like Dad did.

  It’s funny, too. Because inside, there’s a me that’s actually very nice, an almost grown-up, thoughtful me. Being with Gran made it easier to be that Lizzie. Evan and Mother and Tim seemed to bring out the me I wasn’t too crazy about.

  In the car that day, I only knew that I didn’t want Mother and Tim around with their long faces and adult problems. They were going to ruin everything. I just knew it.

  Chapter Three

  WHAT with all the pit stops, doggy stops and nearly-out-of-gas stops, it was almost dark by the time we rolled through Fish Narrows. I’d fallen asleep somewhere near Minago River and I woke up groggily, feeling as if someone had crammed cotton wool into my head while I was asleep.

  All five of us peered dismally out of the dusty car windows as Tim slowly wound his way along the narrow, private road that ended at Pickerel Bay Lodge, about fifteen miles from town.

  “Aren’t we going straight to Gran’s?” asked Erica plaintively. Her hair was sticking up and her eyes were puffy with sleep. She pulled irritably at her new red shorts. Tim had bought them for her. And to go with it, fashion experts, a striped pink and orange shirt.

  “Don’t you ever listen, Chubber?” drawled Evan. “It’s too late for Terry to be out on the lake at night. She’s meeting us at the landing dock on Rain Lake tomorrow morning. Just like she does every year.”

  Erica glowered at him. “I forgot. And don’t call her Terry. She’s Gran. And don’t call me Chubber, you weirdo!”

  That’s Evan all over. Mr. Personality. Erica still had what Tim called baby fat. He was always telling her that she’d outgrow it. But the way Erica ate, I doubted it. Gran was a great cook, so maybe it was just as well he’d bought the shorts three sizes too big.

  “That’s enough, Erica,” said Mother wearily. “May Bird at the lodge will give us a decent meal and a good bed to sleep in. Maybe then your good humour will return.”

  You’ll notice, of course, who got the blame. Not Evan. Never Evan, unless he used inexcusable language. Calling someone Chubber wasn’t inexcusable, I suppose.

  Erica looked at me and I winked. She winked back, with both eyes, and flopped back in her seat. A smudge of chocolate stretched from her mouth to her round chin. She looked like a sad little clown.

  When the car came to a final lurching stop, I threw Bram and his fishy stench out the door. He ran around in crazy circles before lifting one expensively perfumed leg and spraying the nearest tree.

  I stepped out of the car, adjusting my jeans and damp T-shirt. Pickerel Bay was shimmering ahead in the dusky light. A huge German shepherd loped around the corner of the lodge, making ominous rumblings deep in his throat. Bram’s tail stood straight up, quivering. Tim edged back into the driver’s seat and slowly closed the door. What a man.

  “Hi, Silver,” I called out, letting the snarling beast hear my voice. He danced up to me, a soft sloppy look on his big-bad-wolf face. While I patted his gargantuan head, Bram ran back and forth between his legs, finally nipping his throat in frustration. This got some attention and the two dogs raced off into the night. Tim nonchalantly inched his way back into the open. My hero.

  We stretched and yawned — all except Mother. She never stretches or yawns, or looks crumpled or tired or sweaty. Tim looked as if a mugger had rolled him for his wallet.

  The tall silhouette of a man appeared around the same corner that Silver had come from. As the shadow came closer I got the shock of my life. It wasn’t a man at all. It was Alex Bird. His aunt and dad ran the lodge, and Alex spent his summers repairing motors, chopping wood and guiding fishermen to choice fishing spots. He’s a year older than me, and he and Evan always fished together when Alex had the time.

  When I was smaller, I used to beg to go along, but it was always no girls, no girls, no way. Sometimes Gran made them take me. That made them mad. Alex, a short fat kid for most of his life, figured it was his mission to tease me until I cried. Naturally, Evan helped out.

  Last year, Alex had added on a few inches, but was still pretty hefty. Now, I figured he must have stretched up five inches and dropped twenty pounds. The only thing I recognized was his big hawkish nose. It seemed big noses weren’t the only thing we had in common anymore. This year we both towered over Evan.

  Alex aimed his light at each of us in turn. For some reason, I thought he shone it a little longer on my face than on the others’. Normally I would have said hi, and then something rude, but my tongue had turned to wood.

  “So, if it isn’t the McGill family. I heard you were all driving up this year,” he said. “Aunt May’s had her eye pressed to the back window since dinner.”

  “It’s Alex, isn’t it?” asked Mother. “Well, Alex, I hope we aren’t so late that we’ve caused any inconvenience for her or your father. My husband, Mr. Worlsky, is a very slow and cautious driver.” She made it sound like a learning disability.

  “No problem.”

  “In that case, could you give us a hand with our overnight bags? You too, Evan.”

  “Sure thing,” said Alex, brushing past me.

  “Evan?” said Mother.

  Evan was walking towards the lodge, waving away mosquitoes with a paperback book. “The hired help can do that surely,” he said. “Isn’t that what we pay them for?”

  My shrimp of a brother had taken one look at Alex and was eaten up with jealousy. Tim made it to his side in a half dozen long strides. In the dimness ahead, I heard the menacing murmur of Tim’s voice and saw Evan pull away from the ham-hock hand on his shoulder. Could it be that Tim had finally threatened to push in my brother’s snotty little nose?

  “Aren’t you going to say hi?” asked Alex, when Evan had slouched back to the car. “Or don’t the upper classes speak to the help either?”

  Evan reached into the trunk. “Hi,” he muttered.

  “How about you, Stringbean? Don’t I get a hello from you either?” Alex looked straight at me with a wide grin.

  The year before I would have peered down at him. Now, we were eye to eye. “I thought I did,” I said.

  He shrugged and ran a hand through his dark straight hair. “Maybe you did. All I can hear are these stupid mosquitoes. Don’t just stand there, Stringbean. Hoist some bags. May’s kept the dining room open for you guys.”

  I grabbed a couple of bags out of the trunk and followed him into a side door. A few minutes later we were settled around one of the large wooden tables. Evan had strutted towards us like a little crow
n prince, cocky as usual, but I had a feeling backed up by the flush on his cheeks that he wasn’t sure how far he could push things this time and still get away with it.

  I watched Tim watching him as he played the big man with the waitress, Alex’s Aunt May and an old friend of Gran’s. Even Mother’s smooth forehead wrinkled when my darling sibling demanded ice in his water. He tipped back his chair. I willed it to fall over.

  May looked down at the little twerp and a slow smile creased her cheeks into fine furrows. “Sorry, kiddo, ice for cocktails only. Pretty limited space in our freezers. Besides, Evan, that’s fresh spring water and it’s plenty cold as it is. What’ll you have, cookie?” she asked Erica, still smiling.

  Erica settled on a hot beef sandwich, fries, apple pie and a vanilla shake. She always ate big when there were family tensions in the air.

  After May walked back into the kitchen, Evan scowled. “Seems to me if someone asks for something, one should get it. Poor way to do business, if you ask me.”

  “Nobody asked you,” said Tim in his low, easy voice, but something in his dark eyes made me uneasy. “And sit up properly.” The last words cracked across the table.

  The chair legs landed on the floor with a thud. Evan looked at Mother, who was looking at Tim, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed. Then a slow, smug smile spread across Evan’s face. If he kept quiet, Tim would come off as the heavy. Mother looked back and forth between the two of them before taking a long drink out of her water glass. Nothing more was said during the meal.

  “Let’s get some sleep,” said Tim finally, breaking our long silence. There was a resigned tiredness in his voice, which kind of caught me by surprise. He always seemed to have the energy of ten men. Had we finally worn him down?

  Our chairs scraped back from the table at the same time. Erica and I always shared a room. We loved this one overnight stay at Pickerel Lodge every year — it marked the beginning of summer — but that night I felt empty and exhausted. I trudged upstairs behind everyone feeling like I had a cord of wood in each leg. No one said good night.

  Chapter Four

  THE next morning I wandered down to the kitchen where May was hard at work making the guests’ breakfasts. I was able to grab a couple of baking powder biscuits dripping in honey before giving her a hand rolling biscuit dough. That way, I managed to avoid my sour-faced and silent family when they came down to eat.

  May and I laughed and talked while we worked and for the first time in a while I felt almost happy. I liked May. Her great-grandmother was a Cree who’d married a Scottish trader. May’s father had been the principal of the local high school and a town councillor for almost thirty years before he died.

  May and her brother Jack, Alex’s father, took over the summertime business of the lodge after that. Jack was a history teacher in the same school during the winter, and he and his wife and Alex lived in a big log house down the shore. May lived alone at the lodge.

  She’s a little gnome-sized woman who always wears moccasins on her feet and a sweet surprised look on her face most of the time, but she doesn’t miss much.

  I rolled out a ball of smooth white dough, watching to make sure I kept mine the same even thickness as hers.

  “So you have a new stepfather, eh?” she said in her deep musical voice. She put a pan of biscuits into the cookstove. “He seems a pleasant sort of chap. Like a big red bear. I sense a gentleness from him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He’s just a big, red pain in the you-know-where. I don’t want to talk about him, okay?”

  She smiled slowly. “Okay, Lizzie girl. But he might be just what the doctor ordered. Especially for Evan. Getting awfully big for his britches, isn’t he?”

  “You just noticed?”

  She tapped one flour finger on her chin. “According to your gran, you’ve been housekeeper and mother in that family for the past year and a half. Maybe you’ll have time for some fun now. Maybe get better grades too, and go to college.”

  My hand holding the cutter stopped in mid-air. She laughed. “I’m only saying what Terry says. You know, you’ve changed this past winter. You suit your hair long and fluffy like that. Caramel brown, we used to call it.”

  “Mousy brown, you mean.”

  “Why, you’re almost pretty, you know that?” she continued, ignoring me. “Of course, your gran thinks you’ve got great possibilities.” She smiled slyly.

  “Gran talks too much.” I caught her eye and grinned. “Well, she does.”

  “And if you’d stand up straight instead of slouching all the time, you’d look less like a skinny Hunchback of Notre Dame,” said a voice from the back door.

  Alex was lounging against the door jamb. An angry burning rush moved up my neck and flooded my face. One of my least attractive traits, I assure you.

  “You must have won Mr. Congeniality at your school again this year,” I said.

  “Alex! You finished that load of wood yet?” his aunt asked curtly.

  “Not quite. Hey, Stringbean, you think you might be able to beat me yet in a chopping contest?”

  “Don’t even imagine that you’ll talk me into doing your work for you, Bird. I’m not that stupid anymore.”

  He shrugged. “Too bad. You used to be a sucker for that one. You and Evan going fishing soon? I know a great place for big trout.”

  “You’ll have to talk to his holiness. Besides, no girls, no way, remember? He might not even want you along. He’s decided he’s too good for the plebs of the world. Comes from riding his tricycle to university, I guess.”

  “Ah, he’s always weird when he first gets here. He’ll come around. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll let you tag along.”

  “Don’t do me any favours, please.”

  “Alex! Work!” May jerked her head towards the door.

  He shrugged again, threw a grin around his big nose and walked away. May gave me a funny look, smiled to herself and took the biscuits out of the oven.

  “You want one of these?” she asked. I shook my head.

  Suddenly, a small figure scuttled across the room from the back door. “Well, by God, I know I do, and that’s a four for sure, darlin’.” It fell back in amazment when it saw me. “Well, I’ll be ... look who’s here. Is it that time already? If it isn’t the blessed granddaughter of my own dearest friend, Terry MacCallum, eh?”

  “Hi, Harvey,” I said, smiling at the bundle of grimy jackets and sweaters. A small grizzled head topped by an oily baseball cap stopped grinning toothlessly at me and eyed the crisp brown biscuits on the table.

  He made a grab at one, but May was quicker. She reached across the table and hit him with the flat of her knife.

  “And now what did you do that for? I wouldn’t have taken more than one.” The little prospector nursed his hand, his unshaven chin wobbling.

  “I know you too well. You sit over there, like always,” May ordered, pointing to a small table by the door, “and I’ll get your breakfast.”

  He shuffled over to the table, where he took the position of a very good first grader at his school desk.

  I eyed Harvey with a horrified fascination. There were even more long hairs growing out of the top of his nose and ears than there’d been last year, and his eyebrows grew like wild ground cover across the narrow forehead.

  He pulled a pair of yellow false teeth out of one of his sweaters and slid them into his mouth. Giving them a couple of satisfied clacks, he started in on his plate of bacon and eggs. When he was through, he picked his teeth with a black thumbnail, took them out and dropped them back into the depths of his woolly pocket. A final gulp of coffee, a quick look around the room, and he was gone. May shook her head.

  “That old buzzard owes me a pile of money,” she said, her deep voice full of laughter. “Hard to believe he’s got a bank balance that would choke a donkey.”

>   We worked together for another half hour and May practically had to throw me out the door when Mother called that they were ready to leave.

  Just before the car pulled away, Alex shoved a forgotten Adidas bag through the back window.

  “I hear you’re quite a fisherman, Alex,” Tim said. “Maybe you’d drop around and give me a few tips.”

  Evan snorted.

  “Sure thing, Mr. Worlsky. I’m usually over on Rain a few days a week. Maybe I’ll see you there, eh, Evan?”

  Evan shrugged. “Yeah. Gran’ll want pickerel. Why not? See ya tomorrow, maybe.”

  “Okay. Tomorrow’ll suit me. See ya.”

  Alex turned and walked away without saying a word about my going along. Nothing had changed. He was still a jerk, and I was still going to be on my own.

  Chapter Five

  TIM bumped and rattled the car to the end of the dirt road where he parked under a clump of birch. The baggage had to be lugged a good two hundred yards along a footpath to a high rocky clearing along the shore of Rain Lake.

  The sun glinted off an aluminum boat tied up at the dock. Gran stood up in the glare and waved. I recognized her straw hat and felt a rush of happiness. We all waved back and began to walk down the sloping rock.

  Tim, hulking along behind me on the footpath, had managed to step on the backs of my sneakers about fifty times, so I was glad when we could spread out on the downhill walk. Evan ran down onto the dock and leaned over to swing Gran up and out of the boat. At least that was his intention, but it’s hard to swing almost six feet of stringy muscle up and out of anywhere. They compromised. Gran hoisted one long thin leg and then the other over the edge of the boat, throwing an arm over his shoulders. Erica, who’d raced ahead too, caught her somewhere around the mid-section and the three of them, locked together, walked carefully onto shore. Evan’s face was spread with the first real smile I’d seen on it in months, but when he saw the rest of us watching, he pulled himself together and scowled.