New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan (book club suggestions TXT) 📗

“You’re awfully good at it.”

“Better than the French, right, miss?”

“Un peu,” I said.

Lucille had gone upstairs to fetch more blankets and now came back into the kitchen with Doug in tow. “Look who I’m after finding, lurking about in the hall, making a mess with his snowy boots,” she said.

Doug raised his eyebrows when he saw Calvin sitting beside me.

“Now then, Doug,” Lucille said. “How long do you think Rachel was in the water?”

But Calvin answered first. “About five minutes, I’d say.”

“That’s not so bad,” said Lucille. “I allows she’ll be right as rain soon enough.”

“Plows are out in Clayville,” Doug said. “With any luck, they’ll get out this way later. I could run you home, Rachel.”

“No!” Lucille’s voice was sharp. “She’s not leaving this house tonight. I wants to keep an eye on her. I think we could all use a cheer up, though. Rachel, are you up for a kitchen party?”

I gestured at my borrowed robe. “I’m not sure I want to wear this in company.”

But Lucille said she had some clothes belonging to Linda that would fit me just fine.

“Miss,” said Calvin. “Will you play the fiddle tonight? We listens outside the Mardy pub sometimes.”

I held up my reddened hands. “I don’t think I can tonight, Calvin.”

I DIDN’T REALLY WANT a party, but Lucille said people wanted to come see me. The hookers came, and Eddie Churchill and Phonse, and Judy and Bill, and even Calvin’s mother, who took my hands into hers, rubbing them to try to heat them up.

“T’anks for saving Ruthie,” she said. “She means the world to Calvin.”

Phonse patted my head. “You must be wore out, girl. Rest up, sure.”

Judy and Bill waltzed around the kitchen while others took it in turn to play a tune or sing or recite. About an hour into the party, Doug walked in carrying his mother in his arms. “I couldn’t fit the wheelchair through your door, Lucille,” he shouted across the room.

“Grace!” Lucille fought her way through the crowd. The two women looked at each other for a good minute before Lucille reached up and stroked Doug’s mom on the cheek. “My God, girl, it’s some good to see you.”

“I decided I could get out more,” she said. They made space for her on the daybed beside me, and she accepted a glass of wine. “What a brave thing you did,” she said.

“More like foolish,” said Lucille. “Now Grace, give me a minute to pass ’round these sandwiches, and then I wants a chinwag.”

Lucille had told me to avoid alcohol, but my glass was on endless refill of soft drinks. People I didn’t know squeezed onto the daybed on the other side of Grace to chat. Some praised my bravery; others lamented my foolishness. When Lucille returned, I bragged to her that someone had called me a chucklehead.

“They think I’m funny!”

“They thinks you’re stunned, more like,” she said.

“I s’pose it’s a fine line sometimes,” said Grace.

Then Lucille bent down and whispered in her ear. Grace nodded and Lucille called Doug over and asked him to carry his mother into the living room. “It’s been too long,” Lucille said. “We needs to catch up, and there’s too much of a racket in here.”

I held Doug’s beer while he moved his mother. He came back and sat beside me. We didn’t say much, just sat in companionable silence. At some point, I noticed his arm was around my shoulders.

Late in the evening Roy Sullivan arrived with a case of beer on his shoulders. “Where is she?” he asked, moving through the crowd. He put the case of beer at my feet. “Sorry about that bust-up,” he said.

I managed not to ask which one.

“You got some courage, girl,” he said.

I asked Doug to open the case of beer and he handed one to Roy, who twisted off the cap and passed it to me, then opened another one for himself. It was against Lucille’s advice but I clinked bottles with Roy, then said, “You know what courage is?”

“What?”

“Stepping away from a family tradition that doesn’t work for you. Following your own dream. That’s real courage.”

Doug inhaled sharply and pinched my waist, but Roy Sullivan held my gaze for what seemed like a long time. Then he nodded and took a long swig of his beer.

26

The day after the rescue, I felt well enough to drive myself home to Clayville. Lucille insisted on sending a food package with me—a loaf of her bread and a jar of pea soup. I told her I was good for milk.

On my return to school on Monday, the students all wanted to talk about the weekend. When I suggested we do so en français, they were less keen all of a sudden.

I perched the little bird that Calvin had given me on my desk beside my stapler. Calvin’s behaviour was impeccable in class these days, but never again did he participate; he endured. It was obvious to me that he wasn’t going to pass French again this year, and after asking around the other staff members, it seemed that the same held true in other subjects.

While researching scholarship possibilities for Cynthia in the library, I found a file folder labelled “Careers.” I flicked idly through dog-eared brochures for various apprenticeships, a few universities in the Atlantic provinces, the RCMP and the Canadian Forces. Tucked at the very back of the folder was a brochure for an arts college in Nova Scotia. After reading it, I went to find Judy.

“High school is wasted on Calvin,” I said. “He’s seventeen, he could leave if his mother would let him.” I waved the brochure at her. “I found this in the library. Did you see that wood carving he gave me?”

Judy took the brochure and set it on her desk, barely glancing at it. “Calvin can’t go to arts college,” she said. “Not in Nova Scotia, and not anywhere else. But there’s a trades college in St. John’s where he could study carpentry.”

“No!