Fine
By Elaine Hayes
On an early February morning, Dad brought home the Ontario Application for Social Assistance. It came with a brochure listing the assets an applicant had to convert to cash prior to qualifying, as well as those an applicant could keep. I was eleven and excited and naïve. I expected furniture rental companies and landlords would once again be eager to deal with us; after all, we’d have regular income, an income as reliable as the government supporting us. But Dad said no, that’s not how it worked, and there was a stigma to receiving Assistance. It'd be best, he said, if we kept that information to ourselves.
Mom, Dad, my little brother Kyle, and I sat in the kitchen as Dad read aloud the brochure’s must-sell list: Stocks. Snowmobiles. Boats. Dad grinned at Mom: “Lovey, it’s a good thing we sold that yacht!”
On the okay-to-keep list: Clothing. Household items. Trade tools. Awards for pain and suffering. Prepaid funerals.
“Prepaid funerals?” Mom shook her head.
Dad had to explain to Kyle what prepaid funerals were, and Kyle wanted to know how you could tell if someone was really dead instead of faking it and what are brain waves and do they turn to ice when you get brain freeze?
“Put it to rest,” Mom finally said, like she always did when she’d heard too many questions, too much complaining, too much bickering.
After that discussion, a prepaid funeral became our inside joke, a unit of measure. “More expensive than a prepaid funeral,” Dad said when we asked about a neighbour’s new car. “As useless as a prepaid funeral,” he said when we wanted to order an infomercial gadget. And, when circumstances gift-wrapped themselves—like the time a grocery store error got us a free, family-sized package of chicken drumsticks—instead of saying, “That’s a steal-of-a-deal,” Dad said: “Kids, this is way better than a prepaid funeral.”
And Kyle and I, on cue, would scream, “Put it to rest!”
Sometimes, though, people behind us in the checkout line stared.
On a Saturday morning in February, instead of heading out early to the library like we always did, Dad, Kyle, and I prepared for a visit from Mr. Stanwick of Stanwick’s Lifestyle Rentals. The guy wanted his TV back.
I was happy for the delayed start to our library trip. I’d dreaded it all week, fearful the librarians had exhausted all their goodwill.
Dad shut off the apartment’s gas heater, even though freezing rain pelted the apartment windows. Kyle and I assumed our positions, huddling under blankets in front of the TV. Dad explained he’d left the heater’s pilot light on. “Stanwick needs to think we can’t afford heat, but let’s not blow up the place and lose our damage deposit,” he said with a wink.
The heater sat in a hallway that strung the bedrooms and bathroom and kitchen together like the skipping rope on Kyle’s kindergarten field trips. All winter long Dad had tinkered with its pressure regulator. Sometimes he’d even phoned the landlady to complain. But sometimes Dad said it was the wrong time of the month to bother her. I used to think he meant the landlady was PMS-ing. When I started my own periods, though, I realized no one was that regular, that predictable.
“I’ll put the heat back on after Stanwick’s gone,” Dad said. “And it’ll be toasty warm again by the time we get back from the library.” He positioned our cereal bowls and spoons on the coffee table, stood back to admire their placement, and stuck up his chin to scratch his neck. It was covered with tiny red spots. Dad had forced Kyle and me to watch a lot of boring documentaries that winter, and on one we’d learned about the resurgence of communicable diseases. Kyle had pointed to my chin zits. “Could be leprosy,” he’d said with a grin. Dad had scolded Kyle, but he’d smiled, too.
While we waited, I wondered if I could convince Dad he had measles. It would be a desperate move, but I needed to buy time to avoid that library trip. Weeks earlier, in preparation for an assignment on the Great Wall of China, I’d checked out three reference books from the library, and I’d returned all but one within the lending period. I’d looked everywhere for that third book. I’d pulled out every piece of furniture I could. I found crumbs, the five of spades, and a blue pencil crayon.
On the following Saturdays, using my sweetest little-girl voice, I confided to the librarian on desk duty how we didn’t have internet at home anymore and how I really needed extra time with that one late book. Each time, the librarian tapped their keyboard and mumbled a version of: “No worries, dear. Lots of people keep library books past their due date.” And then they’d let me borrow more books.
As the weeks passed, the librarians’ smiles disappeared. Their voices chilled. Their heads shook hard. “It’s seriously overdue.” “Are you aware there are two holds on this book?” “If you don’t bring it back next time, we can’t authorize any new loans for you. And we’ll send a notice to that effect to your home.” I wasn’t worried about the mailed notice. We’d moved so often they probably had an old address. But I was worried about no more loans. Dad would get suspicious, and I wanted to keep the maybe-lost problem from both him and Mom.
My friends laughed at me when I begged them to check their bedrooms, in case they’d accidentally taken the book home after a visit. No one cares about those fines, they said. But, unlike me, they hadn’t watched a show about a Michigan lady who’d once faced larceny charges for forgetting to return a Dr. Seuss book to the Tecumseh Library. I hoarded my allowance and swiped a little spare change left out on the counter, but I became increasingly obsessed with finding that book. I snooped in Kyle’s room and even in Mom’s nightstand drawers. I skipped recess—claiming really, really bad cramps—to rummage through classmates’ backpacks. I called the bus company again to see if it had appeared in their Lost and Found; I was frantic and foolish enough to think that maybe the finder (or thief) had kept the book only long enough to read it.
“He’s late,” Dad said, his head pressed to the window.
I stifled a smile. It made perfect sense for Stanwick to keep us waiting. Hadn’t we made him wait for payments?
The later it got, the more convinced I was that Stanwick was, unwittingly, my guardian angel. I also hoped for a natural disaster to complement the situation. Another crippling ice storm, maybe. In a perfect scenario, Stanwick would keep us waiting until well after lunch, and the weather would get worse and force buses off their routes and libraries to close. And the libraries would, of course, temporarily suspend fines, liked they’d done with all the other storms of the century.
Kyle fiddled with the TV remote.
“Dummy, you know we have to hide the remote before Stanwick gets here,” I said. For a kid who could supposedly read several grades above his classmates, Kyle was slow to catch on to our sketchy little repo-day skit.
Kyle tossed his stuffed moose, which smelled like a leaky basement, towards me. I reached for an accent pillow to retaliate and thought back to how I’d once threatened to smother Kyle with that pillow. Dad had scolded me and said we’d never be able to trade in the sofa if a cushion was locked up in an Evidence Room somewhere. (As Mom often said, Dad could be “a real card, sometimes.”)
“This is ridiculous,” Dad said. He sat with a huff on the sofa beside me, and I realized Dad’s neck was irritated only because he’d shaved for the visit.
Stanwick arrived fifty-four minutes late. He wore cowboy boots with heels higher than Mom’s job interview shoes.
“This is my daughter Jenny and my son Kyle,” Dad said with a wave in our direction.
I shivered, pulled my blanket to my chin. Kyle tugged at the sleeves of his too-small sweater.
“Hello there,” Stanwick said. His wandering, teleprompter gaze darted over Kyle and me and settled on the TV screen. His TV screen. Dad steered him down the hall.
At first, I couldn’t hear the mumbled pleasantries from the kitchen. Then Dad’s voice boomed: “We may be hurting from the plant closure, but I’ve got so much to be thankful for. I still have two wonderful children.”
Kyle and I grinned at each other. Wonderful!
“I appreciate it’s difficult for you,” Stanwick said. “Can’t imagine not having a missus around to take care of the littles.”
I assumed Stanwick had misunderstood Dad. I thought of poor Mom and her long shifts at the Dollar Store, dead on her feet with varicose veins that bulged and twisted down her legs.
On Stanwick’s TV, Road Runner sidestepped around another bow-topped crate of nitroglycerine. “Beep, beep,” Kyle shouted.
In the kitchen, Dad launched into a prolonged coughing fit, our prompt for the entrance of Hungry Child.
Kyle and I grabbed our cereal bowls and sprinted down the hall. Kyle hesitated at the kitchen’s entrance. “Daddy?”
“Son, don’t interrupt,” Dad said softly. “Mr. Stanwick is very busy and—”
Kyle held out his empty bowl. “Please, Daddy. I want some more.”
His plea was too loud. His arms were outstretched too far. It was all too theatrical. In that role, I’d learned to soften my posture and to lower my voice, to make my listener strain a little and lean forward to hear me.
“I’m sorry,” Dad said with a long sigh. “We don’t have any more. Go back and watch your cartoons while you can, son.”
“I appreciate you taking time to talk to me,” Stanwick said, minutes later. “Lots of folks who get behind don’t bother. They just take off or sabotage stuff. No respect for property nowadays.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Thank you for the extra time. The TV is all we’ve got, entertainment-wise.”
“This is a good compromise,” Stanwick said. “This dinette set is our most popular style. Our best-seller, ha ha ha. I’ll have it rented out by the end of the day. And it’ll fit right fine in the back of my truck, too.”
Dad and Stanwick stood at the doorway to the living room. They each carried two of our kitchen chairs. Dad leaned forward. “Kids, I want you to thank Mr. Stanwick for leaving us with the TV.”
“Thanks,” Kyle said without looking up.
I hesitated. A gumball-sized lump of saliva was caught in my throat.
“Jenny? Didn’t you hear me?”
“But Dad,” I said. I sat upright and glanced bug-eyed back and forth from those kitchen chairs to my father. I wished I knew how to blink an SOS, like a movie kidnap victim. “Umm, could I talk to you? In private?”
Dad put the chairs down, and I thought he’d read my distress, understood something was wrong. His voice fell. “Just a simple thank you, that’s all I—”
“But this isn’t right,” I said. “That dinette set. Mom—”
Dad raised a hand in a quick, windshield-wiper wave that dismissed me instantly, that said: Stop. It. Right. Now.
My eyes stung. Was he doing this intentionally? Had he orchestrated this, much like the TV shows that switched out actors, anticipating the inevitable fan backlash, but doing it anyhow?
Or was this an honest mistake? I wanted to believe it was.
I recognized that, if I stepped up and said something to Dad about that dinette set being a rental from Rory’s Easy Rentals, not Stanwick’s, I would be blamed for blowing the deal they’d struck. And maybe Stanwick was smarter than I gave him credit for. Maybe he knew the dinette set wasn’t from his company, but he was willing to intentionally repo someone else’s merchandise because he could re-rent it. Income was income, after all.
The sun broke through the clouds, and I slumped back with the realization that even my hopes for a storm, one that would keep us stuck inside and away from the library, were trashed. We’d probably have to spend hours on the bus going from one rental store to another to replace that table and those chairs. Then I realized this was exactly what I needed. This was good, I told myself. No, it was better than good, better than a natural disaster and much better than a stupid prepaid funeral. We definitely wouldn’t have time to go to the library that day.
“Jennifer. Did you hear what I said?”
I inhaled. I crossed my legs at my ankles. I folded my hands in my lap. With a tilted head and a wide smile and a drawl that made my brother giggle and my father scowl, I said, finally: “We’re much obliged, Mr. Stanwick, sir.” And I sat silent in that pose as the two men struggled, as they grunted and swore and manoeuvred those chairs and its matching table down three flights of stairs.
“That was teamwork!” Dad said, hauling out the ancient Yellow Pages book left behind by a previous tenant. He sat on the sofa between Kyle and me.
I waited for Kyle to say something, to mention the free hot dogs and keychains we’d received at the Grand Opening of Rory’s Easy Rentals, on the day we’d rented that dinette set. Or maybe Kyle would remember the discussions that evening and the heated argument Mom and Dad had over the mattresses and box springs Mom also rented there. Dad said he couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping on a rented bed—a “used” bed—and claimed he could negotiate our old mattresses back from the last landlord. Mom replied that renting beds was no different than spending the night in a fleabag motel and God knows we’d done that often enough, thank you very much.
Maybe Kyle was too young to remember anything and that’s why he said nothing as Dad flipped through pages in the phonebook, pages with ads crossed out and scribbles in the margins.
“Let me pick,” Kyle said, and I knew he’d choose the first big ad without paying attention to those all-important letters: OAC. On Approval of Credit. He heaved the phonebook onto his lap and mouthed the syllables of unfamiliar words, just as Dad had taught him. “Same day delivery.” Kyle grinned. “That’s the one!” His index finger stabbed the page.
Dad turned to me. “We may not get to the library today,” he said with a grimace. “Sorry, but we really do need to replace that kitchen set. Pronto.”
I nodded. I shrugged. I smiled a sad, wise smile. Maybe I sniffled a bit, too.
Dad raised his chin and scratched his shaving rash and leaned over the open phone book. “Acme Rent-to-Own? Sounds just fine, Jenny, don’t you think?”
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Elaine Hayes studied creative writing at the University of Calgary and the Humber School for Writers. She is the author of White Margarine: a novel, and her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Alberta Views, Grain Magazine, and the following anthologies: (M)othering, Writing Menopause, and Somebody’s Child: Stories about Adoption. elainehayes.com