Libby gave the kitchen floor a final swipe, emptied the pail of sticky water in the kitchen sink, grabbed the white garbage bag, opened the back door and clattered down the wooden steps. She always wore high heels even with short shorts. And short shorts she was wearing on this beautiful prairie summer morning. They were white and looked great with her tan. She took the lid off the metal garbage can and threw the bag inside. Clang went the lid. As she climbed the steps, she was aware that her neighbour Estelle was watching from her apartment balcony. Estelle was doing her tanning routine. Estelle had a routine for everything. Libby cringed.
'Oh, she will notice that I have been crying. Why do I have to live next door to Mrs. Canada -Perfect? Nothing goes wrong in her house. She still makes her daughters’ pants from flour sacks and this is 1951. She is a survivor of the Great Depression and can’t break the thrifty habit. She survived as a brave wife, while her husband was overseas fighting the Second World War. She even survived her husband’s failure at chicken farming. She is an expert on waxing floors and does the budget thing. She thinks that I read so much. Meanwhile, I wonder if she ever went to school.'
Libby composed herself after the morning crisis. Her enfants terrible were now taking their afternoon naps. She checked them as they slumbered peacefully in their cribs. Her children with their blonde hair and flushed cheeks, perfect angels in repose, a dear daughter and son, born thirteen months apart. Libby then reflected in a state of near panic.
'Estelle does not think much of my timing when it comes to birthing children. She engages me with her steady brown eyes and quietly reminds me that her two daughters are four years apart. Therefore, they received the necessary love and attention from her and the failed chicken farmer at an appropriate time in their childhood and will ultimately turn out to be wonderful fulfilled human beings. I will likely raise monsters and after this morning, I think that it may be entirely possible! Well, I am only twenty-one with a lifetime of learning in front of me!'
Lost in this philosophical reverie, Libby heard a gentle tap on the door. Libby was not surprised. Estelle had a nose for trouble. The Betty Crocker Queen was dressed in her afternoon outfit. Pink and white checked gingham—what else? Libby caught a whiff of Yardley’s lavender. Estelle had a compact little figure and her red hair was perfectly coiffed. She had brought Libby an upside down cake. Canned pineapple, cherries, brown sugar and all that jazz. Her bright brown eyes were inquisitive under her penciled raised eyebrows.
“Libby, I dropped over to see if you were okay. Saw you going down to the garbage and you seemed teary. Oh my goodness, the kitchen floor is sticky. Good job that your mother doesn’t live nearby. She would be upset. My mother was a perfect housekeeper. Her floors shone. You could see your face in them. She dedicated her life to her floors. All that waxing and polishing and then the stripping of the wax and the whole ritual of starting all over again. A true labour of love. What brand of floor wax are you using?"
“Estelle, it was a bad morning. I made an angel food cake and inverted it in the cake pan as the recipe advised. Then I changed my son’s diaper on the kitchen table and you know what, when baby boys pee, they are not good with their aim. He pissed all over the cake and the cake couldn’t handle the pee. So the cake collapsed on the floor and ruined my wax job. I threw the cake in the garbage. It may be my last angel food cake ever. All those egg whites gone to waste! No wonder that you gave up on chicken farming!”
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