Deluded Your Sailors by Michelle Butler Hallett Page B

tried to puzzle out why accepting favours from Dory felt like accepting charity when she probably loved him. Does she? He backed out of the driveway, straining to see past the various old trees, turned south.
    Dorinda listened to Gabriel drive off.
    Assess, Dory, use your brain. Wiggle your toes. Good. Feeling in both legs. Good. Yes, damn strong feeling in the broken ankle. Roll over, gently, gently. Good. Get my breath back. Gabriel won’t be long – oh right, sit on my arse and wait, Dorinda, Dorinda, let down your hair. Bracing her hands against the step, Dorinda pushed herself arse-first up to the next step. She rested a moment, heaved again, and repeated this exercise eight times until she sat in the main porch. The door to her part of the house lay ajar. Just another few scoots ... And Dorinda banged her temple off a radiator. Dizzy, she leaned against the wall a moment, resumed her journey. Kitchen. Success. Dorinda got to her knees, grabbed the counter and hauled herself up, caught the cell phone and slipped again, this time smacking the pointiest part of her right cheekbone against granite. Wrenching her back to avoid bearing weight on her ankle, Dorinda descended in jerks, landing on her left hip. Eyesight blurred with angry tears, she flipped open her phone and pushed the hotkey for 911.
    Nichole tried to keep her voice quiet, but her words pattered quickly. She knew she sounded manic. Lithium, oh, lithium, oh, have you met lithium. —And then I report to the ACHE Board of Directors, and it turns out not one of them has read the outline I e-mailed them because they’re all too busy freaking out over Seth Seabright being cast, when it was them all along who told me to cast him. And now it turns out he’s Actors’ Queue all right, but not TFAT –
    â€”Tea fat?
    â€”Tourist. Friendly. Arts. Template. Remember all that stink over Seabright’s last play, language and whatever, and how he got invited to Toronto and flew up on the NL-Canada Tourism Ambassador Program, but then couldn’t stage the show once he got there because they couldn’t understand his accent?
    â€”Bit more to it than that, I heard. That young fellah came out drunk to the dress rehearsal and took a piss on stage. I saw that play here, just before TCR closed down the Hall. Really good.
    â€”I am never gonna get this done! Now ACHE needs a new draft per TFAT submitted to a committee at TCR so they can study it before granting funding approval. I might not even get paid for this. I’ve worked my arse off drafting this play, and they just feed me some line about tourism. On top of that, they’re all upset because they think I’ve changed the dates, that I’m making up my own play and defying the mandate. But I’m not. Port au Mal had settlement before 1760. I’ve got written proof. I can’t just ignore it.
    â€”You’d think the ACHE crowd could take a little creative license of their own and realize the history they started with is wrong.
    â€”Incomplete, at least.
    â€”You want my advice, ducky? Fuck TFAT, and fuck Settlement 250.
    Nichole sat back hard in her chair. —All the money’s tied up in Settlement 250.
    â€”If you don’t mind me askin, what did you do with that load of money you got from that land sale? Didn’t some church buy a few acres off you?
    Nichole blushed. —Church of Prevenient Grace out in Port au Mal. Land my grandfather Wright left me. I took the money just before I decided to go off the lithium, and that fucked me up, because I shouldn’t have been on that shit in the first place. I got to feeling the money was dirty, so I gave it away.
    Gabriel stared at her a moment, then laughed. —Who’d ya give it to?
    â€”Women’s shelters. Spent a few dollars on some new clothes; my weight goes up and down. I just – hated having that money.
    â€”The day I left St Raphael’s, the brother in charge gave me