Chapter 15. Jenny
JENNY
Simon’s face shifted in the shadows from the lantern.
Familiar and sweet, the boy with the friendly smile who lived at the marina next door, then switching into the black eyes and hard jaw of the boy she’d run away with.
They had a small fire burning. Simon didn’t want to draw attention so they couldn’t buy bundles of split wood from the office.
They’d scrounged the forest floor for dry branches and twigs that Jenny now fed to the fire, the hot lick of flames against her fingertips.
She held her hand out longer each time until she couldn’t stand the heat and would snap it back to safety.
She liked the crackling and sudden pops of orange-red embers and sparks that sprayed out.
They’d stamp on them, brush them off their bodies, moving in a jerky sort of dance.
Later her hair would smell smoky, and she’d hold the strands under her nose, breathing in the scent.
She’d never been camping. Not when her father was alive.
Not with friends or as part of a school trip. She’d missed so many things.
“We don’t have enough cash,” Simon said. “It’s going to last a week. Two tops.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I’ve got to rob a corner store. Maybe a gas station.”
“No, it’s too risky! We can get jobs. It might take longer but—”
“You can’t get a job pregnant, and people want ID.”
He was right. She couldn’t say it, though. She couldn’t make the decision. He moved closer and put his arms around her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze.
“What if you get arrested? What would happen?” She imagined him being hauled away in handcuffs while she helplessly watched from the RV.
“They’d figure out who I am, then I guess I’d be sent to Kingston Penitentiary.”
“Where’s that?”
“Ontario. One of my dad’s deckhands was an ex-con. He served time there.”
“Where’s the women’s prison?”
“Don’t know. Maybe Ontario too. But we’re not going to get caught, okay?” Simon said. “You’re not going to have this baby in prison.” He leaned over from his chair and rested his hand on her belly. She placed her hand on top of his. “Don’t even think about it,” he said.
She had tried for days to make her mind believe that they wouldn’t be caught, but ever since they’d left White Cliff she kept imagining what prison might be like, visualizing gray concrete and steel bars, cruel prison nurses taking her baby away.
She’d hated when Alice brought it up outside of the bank.
It was the first time she had felt angry at the woman.
“Someone could get hurt.” Alice had predicted that too. Was she right?
“No one’s going to get hurt.” Simon pulled his hand away, took a sip from the wine bottle he’d found in the RV. His dad was a mean drunk, so Simon rarely touched alcohol. Maybe a few beers at the beach. She’d never seen him drink wine. She didn’t know what this meant.
“You said that when you stole from the biker.”
“He came after us.”
She lowered her head, scuffed her feet in the dirt.
Her legs were aching. Her calf muscles cramped all the time since she’d gotten pregnant.
It had been weeks since she’d danced. Her feet naturally wanted to settle into a turned-out position.
She forced them straight. She flexed a toe, rubbed at her ankle.
Simon lifted her foot up into his lap and began kneading the arch.
“I’ll make Alice do it with me,” he said. “The newspaper described you and me, so it’s better that Alice is older. She can collect the money while I stand guard.”
Jenny felt a small measure of relief that she wasn’t part of his plan. She didn’t think she could do the robbery with Simon. She’d be too scared. “What if Alice refuses?”
“I’ll threaten her.”
“I didn’t like it when you said you would kill Tom.”
“I didn’t mean it. I would have left him somewhere.”
She knew that Alice was just trying to scare her when she said that Simon enjoyed hurting people.
He wasn’t evil. He only did what was necessary.
Like when he hit the biker with the RV. But what if Tom and Alice tried to escape?
Tom might attack Simon like when they fought over the gun.
Would Simon think it was necessary then?
She pushed away the bad thoughts. None of that was going to happen. Simon was too careful.
“If we get caught, tell the police everything was my idea. Say you’re scared of me.”
“Alice and Tom know that’s not true.”
“Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s not going to happen. Tomorrow, we’ll go to a thrift store for disguises. Then we’ll case a few places. Something out of the way.”
“Have you done this before?”
“You think I was robbing houses in White Cliff?” His eyebrows pulled together, a hurt expression in his dark eyes.
“Sorry.” She touched his arm. “You just sound so confident.”
“That deckhand I told you about. The ex-con. He liked to brag about all the robberies he did and told me his tricks. He’d target businesses late at night or first thing in the morning when there weren’t any customers and there was only one person working.”
“He got caught, though.”
“His car broke down. But we’ll get away easy. We’ll park the RV somewhere nearby so I can run to it. No one’s going to think the robbers are driving an RV.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He leaned forward and kissed her. He smelled of woodsmoke, his skin warm and his lips soft, but he tasted of wine. She pulled away and fed more sticks into the fire.
They stayed up until they ran out of firewood and the campground had grown silent. No more kids on bikes, barking dogs, distant laughter, music. The only sound was the rush of the river.
“I’ll be fast,” Simon whispered before he disappeared into the dark. He’d told her to wait inside the RV, but she refused. She needed to see him come back.
She scanned the darkness, staring at every shape, listening for his footsteps. He was so quiet, she nearly screamed when he suddenly appeared around the front of the RV. He held his finger to his lips, but he was smiling when he flashed her the license plate hidden under his shirt.
“I’ll put it on tomorrow,” he said, “when we’ve left the campground.
” He reached for her hand and helped her up.
She wondered what it would be like when she was big and round.
Her mom had hated being pregnant, something she reminded Jenny of frequently, and how it had ruined her body.
Jenny liked the idea of changing. Her body had never felt like her own anyway.
Long after Simon began snoring by Jenny’s side, with Tom’s snores echoing from the back, she remained awake. She thought of her father. How she’d fall asleep to the sound of his snores through their thin apartment walls, how unbearably quiet it had been after he died.
Within weeks her mother had given away or sold his belongings.
All that Jenny had left were photos and a box of rocks that she and her father had collected.
She’d only been eleven when he died, and she’d missed him so much.
When she couldn’t sleep, she’d take out one of the rocks and hold it in her hand, remembering how his green eyes crinkled when he smiled, his Irish Spring soap smell.
He taught her about rocks and minerals, showing her photos in books.
Tom reminded her of her dad. They had that same excited way of talking about things that they were interested in.
Maybe they would have been friends. She didn’t think Alice would have liked her mother.
She imagined them meeting. Maybe in a bookstore, after one of Robert’s readings.
She’d overheard so many of her mom’s conversations, she could write a script.
Her mother would start with a compliment, probably something about Alice’s curly hair, and how she was brave for wearing it natural.
Then she’d talk about Robert, how his last book was a bestseller.
Twelve weeks on The Globe and Mail! And then a finalist for the Governor General’s Award.
Such an honor. His new book was going to be amazing, even better than the first. He was almost finished.
Any day now. She’d find a way to mention how they’d left Vancouver so that Robert could be inspired by the peace and quiet of a small town, and that they’d bought a lovely home on the cliffs so that he could look out every day at the ocean.
She wouldn’t share how she thought White Cliff was boring and dreary, or that she’d only agreed to move because Robert would buy her a dance studio. She’d never admit that four years had now passed, and Robert was always locked in his office, ripping up pages of his book.
Next was the part that Jenny hated the most. Her mom would lean closer, lower her voice, and say that her first husband had died in a terrible, terrible accident at the plant where he worked. Poor man was crushed by a machine. She’d begged him not to work late.
Sometimes Jenny thought her mom might even believe her own lies, she said them so convincingly, but Jenny couldn’t forget how her mom would pick at her dad. Why don’t you ask for a raise? How are we supposed to live like this? You need more hours.
After her mom would tell someone about the accident, she’d sigh and say how hard it had been to raise her daughter alone.
She’d make it sound like she was left with nothing, but Jenny knew there’d been insurance money.
Enough for her mom to buy clothes and makeup and move them to a better apartment.
Enough that she was able to go out and look for a new husband, leaving Jenny alone, sometimes overnight, sometimes for days.
And once, when Jenny had the flu, in the back seat of their car, with a blanket and pillow, while her mom was inside a restaurant.
The story usually ended with her mother touching her heart, and saying, with a dreamy smile, how she’d thought she’d never find love again, until Robert swept her off her feet.