Free The Checkout Girl by Susan Zettell Page A

she’d linger in front of us, but she’d never look in the window, like she was pretending we weren’t here. Like she just had this sudden urge to go for a little stroll with her trusty axe. She’d hold the axe down beside her leg, almost hidden. We could see the metal glint in the porch light every now and then. Scared George shitless. No making out with her around.”
    â€œRemember Mrs. Hauser, the Regal card lady?” It’s Kathy’s turn. “How she never left the house, not even to go to church. Mom sent me over there to get cards sometimes. Her hair was always perfect, in waves like chocolate icing on a bought cake. And Jake and Frankie — remember them? — they delivered the catalogues and orders when they did their paper route until their mom got uterine cancer and died. She used to tell Mom the tumour felt like a baby in there, floating around. Felt just like when she was pregnant with her boys.
    â€œDid you know that Jake and Frankie bought cars with their paper route money?” Kathy says.
    â€œGo away.” Turning to look at Kathy, Darlyn adds, “My mother told me Mrs. Hauser was addicted to Valium.”
    â€œHow would your mother know?”
    â€œBecause she’s addicted to Valium.” Darlyn laughs, but not very hard. “Did the boys really buy their cars with paper route money?”
    â€œYup. Jake and Frankie. We shoulda married us those rich paper boys. Frankie was in love with me in grade two. Remember? Used to follow me into the girls’ washroom. Sister Ursula would head him off at the pass. She left the convent; did you know that? She came through my checkout at the store. I hardly recognized her; she’s a middle-aged hippie with a long greying braid. Looks good, though. Still a do-gooder. A peacenik. She’s going to Biafra because of the famine. She knew me right away,” Kathy says.
    â€œWhere’s Biafra?” Darlyn asks.
    â€œAren’t you smart?” Kathy laughs. “That’s the exact question Trudeau asked, according to the newspaper article my mother has pinned to her fridge scrapbook. Africa, west coast, broke away from Nigeria. That’s all I know. What are you up to these days?”
    â€œDoing some substitute teaching, twirling in between. Still winning the big prizes but it’s not exciting anymore. I’m competing against sixteen-year-olds. I was named North York Twirling Queen for baton and two kinds of strutting. I also took a first in senior fling twirling and twirling with two batons last week.
    â€œI love twirling, Kath. But I’m getting too old. Turning twenty, and who twirls at twenty? I don’t know. Feeling kind of lost lately. Time to move out. Maybe I’ll open a studio and teach. Twirling. Some dance. A wall of trophies to impress the Westmount types. What about you?”
    â€œI’m a checkout girl again, same store as before, except now I’m at the bottom of the food chain again. When I left Vancouver, I somehow forgot to tell Doug I was going. Pretty funny, eh? If you’re lost, Darlyn, then I’m so far off the path I’ll never find it again. But don’t tell my mother I admitted that.
    â€œYou know what I really want? I want to do something with skating, but I don’t know what, except I want to be able to skate all the time. Maybe we can have a school together, you teach baton routines and I’ll teach hockey moves, except I need a rink for that.”
    The runway lights flash off and on. Al’s standing on the porch. They wave, and he waves and goes back inside.
    â€œYou still going with George?” Kathy asks.
    â€œWe fight and make up,” Darlyn says. “I suppose I’ll have to marry him one of these days.”
    The first time George asked Darlyn to marry him was in grade seven, on a school bus trip to Niagara Falls. Darlyn ignored him, so he said he’d let her off the hook if she’d go out with