It smelled of cotton and cardboard. Fresh and clean. And unexpectedly soft.
There was even a cap, with the Sûreté Academy insignia on it, and some words in Latin.
Velut arbor aevo.
Amelia had slowly lowered the hat onto her spiky black hair and adjusted it. She wondered what the words meant. Well, she knew what the Latin translated into, but not what they meant.
She’d stripped down and put on the uniform. It fit. Then she stole a furtive glance in the mirror. A young woman stood there, a woman who lived in a whole different world from Amelia. One that could’ve been hers, had she turned left instead of right. Or right instead of left.
Had she spoken or remained quiet. Had she opened the door, or closed it.
She could’ve been the girl in the mirror. Shiny and neat and smiling. But she wasn’t.
As she tossed the hat on her bed, Amelia heard a footfall outside her door and her eyes zipped to the lock, making sure.
There was a sharp rap and then a sweet voice.
“Just checking to see if you got the package, ma belle.”
“Fuck off.”
There was a pause, then the footsteps receded and with them a soft chuckle.
On Amelia’s first night in the rooming house, the landlady had suddenly opened the door and peered in. Amelia had just managed to shove what she held in her hand under the bed. But not before raising the interest of the flabby landlady, who stank of smokes and beer and sweat.
“I heard noises and thought you might be sick, ma petite,” she’d said, the scent of urine, soaked into the carpet in the hallway, wafting in with her.
Her small eyes scanned the room.
Amelia had closed the door in her face, seeing the plump cracked lips, the veined and bulbous nose, the blotchy complexion. And those runny eyes. Filled with guile and plans.
Since then, Amelia had been sure to lock the door as soon as she entered, and whenever she left, even if it was a quick trip down the hall to the toilet or the shower.
Amelia despised the landlady. And she knew why. As soon as she’d walked through the door of the rooming house, Amelia had the instant and overwhelming certainty that she would never leave.
The landlady was her.
And she was the landlady.
Amelia suspected that the woman had also been young, slender, in from the country. Looking for a job in Montréal. A typing course certificate in one hand, a small suitcase in the other.
She’d taken a temporary room there, not realizing that she’d crossed a threshold. And there was no going back.
She’d never left. She’d rotted there.
And Amelia would too. It had already begun.
After four months of applying for all sorts of unskilled jobs and not getting them, Amelia began lowering her sights to just above blow jobs on rue Sainte-Catherine. Until she’d finally taken the pail the landlady held out.
That became her job. To clean the toilets. And showers. To unclog the drains, pulling out stringy hair and other things.
Some nights she sat on her knees in the men’s shower and wept into the drain. Her life, she knew then, was as good as it was going to get. At twenty, the best was behind her.
She began numbing herself with dope, bought from the ragged man down the hall in exchange for blow jobs. She’d promised herself never to stoop so low, and now she wondered how low she was going, and where the bottom might be.
So far she’d resisted crack and heroin, but only because she couldn’t afford them and wasn’t yet prepared to do what was necessary in exchange.
But finally the need to numb had overwhelmed all barriers. The weed wasn’t working anymore. In what she knew was her last act of self-respect, and recognizing how ludicrous it was, she’d showered and put on clean underwear, before going out. The point of no return was right in front of her. She would at least cross that line smelling of soap and baby powder, though she suspected the scent of stale urine followed her everywhere now, like a vestigial tail.
She walked down the stairs she’d only just scrubbed.
They were cleaner than they’d been since she’d arrived. As were the toilets and showers and carpets. The other residents began to notice and some even started cleaning themselves.
But it would always be a losing proposition. The filth of the place was not on the surface. It could never be disinfected. The rot went too deep.
“Where’re you going?” the landlady had called through the crack in her door.
“None of your fucking business,” said Amelia.
“Don’t swallow,” said the landlady, laughing, sweaty legs spread wide on her Barcalounger. “But you know that, little one.”
Her television was on and there was a report of a murder in a village south of Montréal. First the body of a boy had been found, thought to be an accident and now known to be murder. And then a second death.
Amelia had paused, and through the crack in the door she’d watched. And seen a youngish woman being interviewed. They identified her as the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec.
Amelia took a step closer.
The woman wore a nice suit. A skirt and light blue top and a jacket that draped. Not at all masculine. A feminine cut. Practical, yet attractive. Simple.
There was a badge on a string around her neck and a holster on her hip.
Large men in uniform stood behind her. Respectfully.
The landlady twisted in her chair, her naked legs squealing on the Naugahyde as she moved.
“What do you think she had to do to get that job?”
The plump lips glistened with spittle and the laugh followed Amelia down the hall and out the door.
Amelia found the answer to that question that night.
But not on rue Sainte-Catherine. She found it in the apartment of her only friend, a gay man from the same village she came from. He’d come to Montréal a year ago and was dancing in a male strip club. It was a good job and he could afford his own small place.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded, handing her a spliff and leaning over her as she tapped on his laptop. “You’re googling the cops?”
Amelia didn’t answer.
By the time she returned to her room she had a sheaf of papers, each explaining the entrance requirements for the various police schools. The next day, as she scrubbed, she composed the letters. The résumés she’d send off.
They were not, of course, completely accurate.
“They’ll never take you, you know,” her friend had said. “Look at you. You’re on the wrong side of the prison bars. You’re the one they’re trying to arrest.”
They’d both laughed at that, knowing it was true. But unlike her friend, Amelia thought maybe she could get to the other side. And be the one with the nice suit and clean hair. With large men behind her, not leering at her ass but there to follow her orders.
Maybe she could be the one with the power. And the gun.
That was before the rejections started. First the Montréal Police College rejected her. Then the Sherbrooke Police. Then the Quebec City Police. And even the tiny private college, apparently in some fellow’s barn in Rivière-du-Loup, didn’t want her.
The Sûreté Academy didn’t even bother to reply. Of course.
She’d gone back to the floors, and down the drains. And one cold night she found herself on rue Sainte-Catherine. There, behind a strip joint, she’d done the very things she’d sworn never to do. And worse.
And with the money she’d bought cocaine. And then heroin.
She’d had two hits in two days, and while it freaked her out, the goal wasn’t to enjoy it. It was to end the pain.
One more, she suspected, and there would be no going back. There was nowhere to go back to anyway. And no forward.
And then, as the snow began to fall, the letter had arrived.