We All Love the Beautiful Girls

by Joanne Proulx

  Peter and Helen have all that. Claimed the cash came from her parents as part of some tax-saving deal, assets tipping from one generation to the next without the grief of anyone actually dying. Most summer weekends, he and Mia and Finn are invited up to the cottage. In winter, it’s the chalet in Orford. He supposes all that’s over now. They’ll be making other vacation plans. Other plans, period.

  Michael thought he knew the deal with Peter. Like Mia said, the man was born lusting after money. He stretches the truth and bends rules to get more of it. Michael’s seen him do it countless times at work. Hell, he watched him pluck twenties from his mother’s purse back in high school, helped him smoke the pot he bought with the stolen bills. Still, Michael had somehow convinced himself that Peter’s greed would never trump their friendship. Hundreds of teenage parties, hockey games, baseball games, dozens of girls. And later on, hadn’t Peter shown up at Mia and Michael’s door, suitcase in hand—not once, but twice—after finding out that his then fiancée had been cheating on him? Hadn’t he lived with them for months? They were close, for Christ’s sake. And Peter wasn’t stupid. He knew he needed Michael to soothe the staff and charm the customers while he took care of the dough.

  When the company had started to take off and they sold their first few franchises, it was Peter who insisted they formalize their arrangement. Michael hadn’t even wanted a shareholder agreement. They’d always worked on a handshake-is-my-word basis and there’d never been any trouble between them.

  Except for the incident with the boat. A two-hundred-horse bowrider, wraparound white leatherette seats trimmed in navy, surround-sound stereo, built-in cooler. He’d only had it a couple of weeks when their bookkeeper, Jill, all six feet two of her, had marched into Michael’s office, closed the door and told him about the unauthorized $35,000 withdrawal from the company’s main account on the same day Peter purchased the boat. Michael wasn’t sure if he didn’t totally believe her, didn’t want to believe her or simply didn’t want to confront his friend, but he never said a word. Told Jill to leave it alone. She stomped around the office for a few weeks until Peter found some excuse to let her go.

  He never told Mia about it. Hadn’t wanted her to worry or think he didn’t have things in hand. And if he’s honest, he hadn’t wanted her to force him to, well, rock the boat, because he knew it was something she wouldn’t let lie. He wonders what would have happened if he’d confronted Peter then—this was ten or eleven years back, now—if the company would have blown apart or if they’d have come out the other side on more even ground.

  His throat anaesthetized by frigid air, lungs pruned by cold, Michael wheezes his way through Kettleman’s parking lot. Choking back a cough, he peers through the front window, streaming with condensation. Booths of kids, ski jackets, flushed faces, saggy tuques, he searches for but can’t find the right combination. The neon blue of Finn’s jacket, the pocket of brown hat, the jut of dark brown hair.

  He yanks open the door, stumbles into steamy heat, young noise and yeasty wafts of baking bread. A deep, wood-burning oven runs fifteen feet across the store’s back wall; the bagels are fed into the oven on wooden pallets the length of a grown man. Like a crematorium, Michael can’t help thinking every time he sees it.

  College kids who’ve outgrown worried parents hang along the counter beside the oven. The bearded guy who begs change outside Metro hunches over a shaky metal table by the front window—drafty, second-class seats in winter. In one of the middle booths Michael spots Tristan, a friend of Finn’s, with two girls whose backs are to him. It isn’t until he’s standing at the end of the table that he recognizes Frankie. Her curls are hidden beneath a floppy tuque, her eyes glassy and unfocussed. He gives her a stiff nod. “Francine.”

  “Hi, Michael.” A red flush creeps up her neck. She holds herself a little straighter and starts fiddling with the straw in her cup. No one else says hello or glances up from their phones.

  Frankie looks drunk. Tristan looks drunk. The blond girl—they all look drunk.

  Despite his joking at the chalet, Michael can’t get used to it. The fact that the kids are drinking. That they’re out this late. That Finn is AWOL and Frankie is apparently wasted and now has a hoop through her nose. He stifles his fatherly instinct to bawl her out. To drag her from the booth by her nose ring—wasn’t she supposed to have gotten rid of it?—and march her on home. Any other night he’d have done it. Any other night.

  “Have you seen Finn?” He directs his question at Tristan, who slowly turns his way.

  “Finn?” he says, all bleary-eyed and amused. “Hey, Frankie, have you seen Finn?”

  Frankie’s golden ski-tan turns pink.

  “Have you seen him?” Michael’s voice is harder now, louder.

  “He’s probably still at the party,” the blond girl says.

  “What party?”

  Eyebrows raised, she flashes him an incredulous look. “Eli’s.”

  Shit. He should have woken Mia up before he went out looking. She would have known about the party.

  Tristan reaches across the table and nudges Frankie’s shoulder. “In the laundry room,” he says. “Right, Frankie? Right?”

  “Don’t.” She bats a hand vaguely at Tristan, at the straw standing erect in the cup in front of her. For a second Michael thinks she might cry.

  “Tristan,” the blond girl says, “don’t be an asshole.”

  Michael’s halfway out the door when he stops. “Francine!” he hollers. And waits until she’s looking. The frigid air seeping in from outside, the raised voice, have everyone muttering. “Shut the fucking door!” one kid yells. Michael ignores him, and the rest of the irritated chorus. He and Frankie make eye contact across the bagel shop. “You should go home.”

  “I’m staying at Brooke’s,” she calls, as if that explains everything.

  “Well then get yourself there. It’s late,” he says, letting the door slam shut behind him.

  —

  THE KELLYS’ FRONT PATH looks like it hasn’t been cleared all winter; end of February and the walkway’s a ragged trough of frozen footprints, melted and thawed a dozen times over. Despite his chunky boots, Michael can feel the jagged edges of ice as he picks his way up the path. With every twisted step, he thinks lazy, he thinks stupid, careless people. Rich pricks, he thinks. Assholes. He wonders how many people Don Kelly screwed over to pay for this place.

  Michael actually hates the house. When the Kellys bought the property a few years back, they had the original Tudor demolished and threw up a palace of glass, a James Bond beach house spliced into a Victorian neighbourhood. Tonight, the house is a scream of light, nothing turned off, nothing shut down. Through the glass of the front door, free-floating wooden steps fan gracefully up the foyer wall, like something in a modern art museum.

  Michael steps onto the porch. Leaked from inside to out, he can both hear and feel rap music pounding into him like the home’s own erratic heartbeat. To his left, a floor-to-ceiling window showcases the living room. The white leather sectional, empty now like the rest of the room, could fit twenty people. Beer bottles and red Solo cups clutter a glossy coffee table. From the arch of a chrome lamp, a video game controller dangles like a gutted forest creature.

  Michael knocks, but only waits a second before he tries the handle. He isn’t surprised when the front door swings easily open. And he doesn’t even bother shouting for Finn—the music, the absence of people—it isn’t worth the effort. He finds no one in the marble bathroom. No one in the laundry room. Only stacks of beer cases and boots and hockey bags, and a chalkboard with “Be good!” written at the top and a long-distance number scrawled below. Michael shouldn’t have worried about running into either Don or Dorothy; he’d forgotten they spend most of the winter in Costa Rica, a credit card or two left behind to ensure their precious boys have everything they could possibly need—other than a bit of parental guidance.

  In the kitchen, a haphazard pyramid of dishes teeters in an industrial-sized sin
k. Domino’s boxes litter the counters. The long kitchen island is the only surface that’s clean, with a water pipe standing alone at its centre. Smoky blue belly, long, delicate neck, a medusa of darkened tubes, it stands on the granite counter like a signpost confirming kids travelled beyond rolling papers and pot.

  Upstairs the music loses its power. Michael starts calling for Finn, but the ceilings are high, every angle sharp, every surface hard—glass, metal, stone. His voice sounds thin and hollow, as if he’s searching for his son in an abandoned mausoleum. He ghosts his way along the hallway, trying every door—glancing around the empty rooms, fingering the icy phone in his pocket. He’d found Mia’s cell in a clutter of papers on the front hall table and propped it against her bedside lamp, ringer on full. Just in case. But his plan is not to wake her. He’ll find Finn. He’s here somewhere. He’ll find him and bring him home. They’ll deal with him together in the morning. At least one of them will be well rested.

  Michael puts his shoulder to the oversized door at the end of the hall, the bottom edge resisting the thick carpet. Inside, a light from the ensuite cuts a swath across the room. Adrenaline slams through him. On the bed, two kids sleep in a tangle of sheets; he’s sure one of them is Finn. Banded by bathroom light, the torso of a girl—flat brown belly, a scrape of ribs, high breasts, one sculpted shoulder—and a boy. Shit, now that his eyes have adjusted he can see the kid, compact and muscular, is nothing like Finn. It takes a minute for Michael’s heart to slow to a dull, flat thud and for his limbs to lose their tingle.

  “Hey,” he says, loudly. “Hey.”

  The boy doesn’t budge. The girl whimpers, reaches up, one arm twisting, slim and beautiful, before dropping back onto the bed with a fleshy slap.

  “Hey, wake up. I’m looking for my son.”

  Michael flips the switch inside the door, flooding the room with light. The bed is the size of a squash court. Its headboard climbs halfway to the ceiling, a black leather monolith. He takes in the scatter of clothes at the foot of the bed: a pink sweater, lacy red underwear, a bra with red cherries, a pair of jeans peeled inside out. A black glove. It looks like Finn’s but any black glove would. Michael steps forward and picks it off the floor. If he were alone, he’d put it to his nose and inhale, see if he could pick up a scent.

  He clears his throat. “I’m Michael Slate.” He keeps his eyes off the girl. “Finn’s dad. I was told he was here.”

  The boy squints across the room, looking baffled, indignant. Even with his face screwed up, Michael recognizes Eli’s brother, the feral good looks that easily cut to mean. “Turn off the fucking light,” he says, scrambling the sheet up.

  “I’m looking for Finn. I was told he was here.”

  “Finn?” The boy says the name as if he’s never heard it before.

  “Yes, Finn. Finn Slate.”

  “Go ask Eli,” he says.

  “I can’t find Eli. I can’t find anyone. I’m looking for Finn.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I got it.” The boy’s eyes sweep the room. He jabs his chin at the corners. “Do you see him?” His movements are exaggerated, impatient, performed for the benefit of an idiot. “Seriously, if you wouldn’t mind turning off the fucking light on your way out, that would be great.”

  A couple of long strides and Michael is at the bed. He smacks the boy with the glove, a quick, weightless slap across first one cheek, then the other, fighting back the urge to grab him by the throat. If the kid had ever dared talk to Michael’s father that way, well, he would have done it.

  The boy bats the glove away and swings his legs off the bed. “What’s your fucking problem!” He drags the sheet onto his lap, uncovering the girl.

  Long black hair. Full lips. And all the rest. It’s a shock to see Jess lying in this bed, with this boy, like tripping over her, spaced out and panhandling for change, on a grubby downtown sidewalk. Christ, why does this night just keep getting worse? Jess should be twelve years old, wearing pink flip-flops, a Kermit the Frog T-shirt, a pair of faded jeans. She should be perched on a stool in the kitchen, talking to Mia, or stretched out on the living room floor reading Dr. Seuss books to Finn. She should be smiling at him from behind the cash at Metro or better yet, jumping out of the crabapple tree into their yard, like she did when they first moved in and Michael hadn’t yet pried a couple of boards off the fence to make a passage, so she wouldn’t get hurt making the leap.

  “I could sue you for that.”

  Michael looks down at the boy. “What?”

  “Hitting me. You fucking hit me.”

  The glove in Michael’s hand. “Go ahead,” he says. “Call the cops. They’ll love the bong in the kitchen.”

  An injured moan from the far side of the bed has both of them staring. Jess inches herself up, or tries to. Her elbows buckle and her head hits the mattress before she stumbles to her feet and staggers naked into the bathroom. There’s a thump, followed by the sound of hollow retching.

  “Nice,” Michael says, shaking his head at the boy.

  “It’s not my fault she got trashed.”

  “But you thought it was a good idea to bring her up here?”

  “She was the one who dragged me upstairs.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  “Whatever. She’s my girlfriend.” The boy—Eric, his name’s Eric—lunges for the jeans on the floor, a pair of boxers settled inside. He misses and rocks back onto the mattress, still clutching the sheet to his waist. Michael kicks the clothes toward him and starts slapping his own leg with the glove.

  Finn was here? Yeah. You saw him here? I said he was here. When? Earlier. I don’t know. What condition was he in? What do you mean? I mean was he drunk? Yeah. How drunk? Very. Very drunk? Yes. Jesus Christ. The boy smirks as he zips up his jeans. When did he leave? Who was he with? Where did he go? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

  In the bathroom, Jess begins to vomit.

  When she’s through, Michael goes in and flushes the toilet. He has to step over her, curled up on a plush white bathmat, one cheek resting on the cool tile floor. He grabs the cleanest-looking towel from the rack, wipes her face with one corner, and does his best to cover her up while Eric watches from the doorway.

  “Jessica. Hey, Jess. It’s Michael. Your neighbour. You okay?” He keeps his voice even, holding back judgment, the stiff edge of impatience.

  Her eyes blink slowly open. “Michael,” she says, one corner of her mouth creeping up.

  He gives her shoulder an easy rattle, pushes away all recognition of warm, young skin, the way the towel is slipping off her breasts. “You okay?”

  She squeezes her eyes closed. Her jaw muscles pulse. Michael can see she is probably going to be sick again. “Jessica? Jess. Do you know where Finn is?”

  “Finn.” She gives Michael a sudden radiant smile, a drunken laugh. Her breath is foul, biting. “I just love Finn.”

  —

  IT’S OBVIOUS FROM his narrowed eyes and the snarly twist of his lip that Eric thinks Michael is a complete moron. “They always party downstairs.” With the gentlest of kicks, with one big toe, Eric glides open a sliding door to reveal a descending staircase.

  Even Michael can’t believe he overlooked this door, just down the hallway from the kitchen. He’d thought it was a closet, hadn’t even considered the possibility that it might open onto anything but a rack of coats. Unlike all the century-old homes in the neighbourhood, with their squat, damp basements—more dungeons than rec rooms, most often accessed via witchy exterior doors—this modern marvel would have an incredible lower level. Michael hasn’t moved, but he can already see Finn asleep on the floor in front of a wall-wide TV, or sprawled on a leather couch, or worst case, worst case, passed out on the floor of a bathroom, fully clothed and two floors down, but otherwise in the same condition as Jess. At this point it would be a thrill to clean him up and take him home.

  Eric shoves his feet into a pair of running shoes, flicks another switch, and a half-acre of snow-covered yard appe
ars from the black beyond the glass of the back door. In the centre of the soft-lit yard, a kidney-shaped indent, like a gigantic footprint, delineates the off-season pool. On the right, a cabana, window-deep in drifted snow. Eric yanks open the door and tramps across the unshovelled deck. Apparently done with Michael and the search that hasn’t ended, he unzips and begins adding to one of the pitted ponds of frozen boy piss that trench the deck’s edge.

  Michael can’t help staring at the grey glow of the backyard, like a still from an old Hitchcock movie. The trees that line the back fence look flattened—filigreed silhouettes stamped onto a cold-sharpened sky. The snow itself appears illuminated, as if it has a hidden power source and is giving off its own light. The dent of the swimming pool is darker, the block of the cabana darker still. But it’s the electric-blue shimmer emanating from the snow at the cabana’s far corner that holds his eye. The only shiver of colour in a monochrome landscape, it’s like a mirage, there one second, gone the next. An electric-blue shimmer riding the crust of the snow. Then gone. Then back.

  Michael crashes out the door and tumbles across the deck, falls into the yard, slips in his socked feet as he trips toward that shimmer. Finn is sunk deep in the white. It’s his sleeve Michael had seen, propped up a little higher than the rest of him, barely breaching the lip of snow that encases him. Michael stumbles closer, Finn’s whole jacket now a bright blue scream in the spotlight that hangs, snow-dipped, from the eaves of the cabana.

  Michael drops to his knees beside his son. He hovers over him, afraid to reach out, afraid to touch him. The boy’s eyes are frosted shut, his skin otherworldly. Michael has to force himself to move, to bend, forward, like a spastic robot, to turn his head and press an ear to Finn’s icy lips. In his panic he is not certain there is breath. He is terrified of its absence. He pulls away, presses two trembling fingers to his son’s neck, beneath the jaw, so cold it’s like touching death. Frantic, he grapples for Finn’s wrist, bare, no glove—the glove upstairs—the hand dark and fisted. With his fingertips he listens for a pulse, but all he can hear is the bang of blood in his own ears.