Island Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

in over two years yet she looked as normal as she ever had: body fit, back rigid, red hair skillfully colored and cut. Nothing about her suggested confusion or anxiety, and I admit I was vaguely disappointed, hoping I’d catch her talking to herself or flirting with the coatrack. Something that would get her carted off to a safe place with coded doors and bath chairs, giving me a good story for the pub. So my mother went crazy at Fran’s.
    “Liz?” Mark said. “Are you still there?”
    “Where else would I be?”
    “Inside with Ruby, perhaps?”
    “Dream on,” I said, paying close attention to the way she opened the menu and studied the pages, biting her lower lip and shaking her head as she moved through the choices. Pretending she was tempted by everything she saw when I knew damn well she was merely avoiding eye contact with me. Trying to make us both believe she had no idea I was standing on the other side of the glass in my orange and white Donut King uniform—complete with flattering hairnet—while Mark pleaded her case and the streetcars rumbled past. Ding, ding. Ding, ding . Assholes.
    My boss at the Donut King two doors down knew I was there. I was already late for my shift when I’d walked into the place earlier, and I should have ignored the voice in my pocket hollering Answer your goddamn phone! The phone was new, an update from Mark, and I’d been playing with it at the pub the night before, snapping pictures and sending them to my buddies at the next table. I took one of the bartender and she said, “Hey, let me program that for you.” So I handed her my phone.
    I should have known better—that woman has always had a twisted sense of humor. But I kind of like the obnoxious tone, and who ever calls me anyway? Only Mark. And only if it’s important. So I’d ignored the Donut King’s dirty look and answered my goddamn phone, hoping it wasn’t bad news. Hoping harder it wasn’t about Grace.
    I almost hung up when Mark said he was calling about Ruby. But when he mentioned Alzheimer’s and suicide, and told me she was at Fran’s at that very moment hoping to meet with me, morbid curiosity had me walking away from my post behind the crullers and down the street to Fran’s with the King himself, Mr. Lau, right behind me. “Hey, you. Where you going?”
    “I’ll be back,” I said. I even smiled and waved, but he didn’t smile back. Just shook his pointed head and went inside. Chances were good that I was already fired, which was just as well. This was my third week on the job, and boredom had set in after the first. But I was going to miss the free day-olds at the end of the shift—Mr. Lau’s idea of a benefit plan.
    “What’s your mother doing now?” Mark asked.
    “Ordering tea.”
    “How can you tell?”
    “Because she’s doing that embarrassing pantomime. The one where she shows the waitress that she wants the tea bag in the pot, not on the side.”
    I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “I remember,” and I felt genuinely sorry for him. To be Ruby’s child was a cruel twist of fate, but to be in love with her was a curse, one not easily lifted.
    “Liz,” he said. “Will you please go inside? Just say hello.”
    Just say hello. He made it sound so easy. But what to do after hello, that was the hard part because she would say hello too. Then she’d probably invite me to sit down, join her for dinner, maybe even try to hug me, and then what? Hug her back? Order a burger? Or simply be honest and throw the tea at her. Hope it burned. Or melted her. Either one would be appreciated.
    “I don’t have time,” I said, glancing along the street to the Donut King. “In fact, I should be at work right now.”
    If I got there and discovered I no longer had a job, so what? The good people at the Mucky Duck would love to see me walk in early. The Duck is my hangout, my local, my Cheers. It isn’t much, just a little dive near Spadina, but the bartender knows how to make a