We All Love the Beautiful Girls

by Joanne Proulx

  What?

  The psychologist. He frowns a bit when he says it, like he just swallowed a bug.

  Fine. I’m keeping the bad arm out of sight, down low between the seat and the door.

  Okay, he says, still frowning. If you say so.

  What?

  I just don’t think you’d need new clothes if things were going fine.

  I drop my head onto the headrest, stare out the window. It’s not raining, but it should be. The blue sky and sunshine, the perfect summer weather, doesn’t really fit the mood in the car. Why couldn’t Mom drive me, again? I ask. Does she have a meeting or something? Weren’t you supposed to go with her? After that it’s pretty quiet, just the two of us taking deep breaths and feeling like shit, so I don’t even mention anything about him not working anymore or all the arguing they’ve been doing lately.

  We pass the mall, a ton of cars in the lot. Pass Canadian Tire. Local Heroes, where I had a hockey banquet once. This one kid, Simon, choked on a chicken wing and the coach had to give him the Heimlich. We hang a left at Home Depot. Glenmore, the rehab clinic, is a couple blocks up, a two-storey jobbie, green mirrored windows along the upper level, lots of concrete below. I am very familiar with the building. My dad signals the turn into the lot, the sound of clicking loud between us.

  At the front door. You sure you don’t want me to come with you?

  Positive.

  Ask about the prosthesis, he says. I can’t understand why they’re not moving on that.

  I will. And Eli’s picking me up. You don’t have to wait around. I get out of the car. Wave goodbye with my good hand, pretend to go inside.

  —

  BEHIND MIA THE door opens and David strolls back to his desk. Only a few inches taller than Mia’s five foot six, he’s not a big man but is one of those guys who look great with silvery hair. He’s wearing it longer than when they worked together, and slicked back. He’s slimmer too, trim from a cholesterol scare and his new habit of biking to work. The fact that he’s recently single and probably for the first time making his own meals is probably also a factor.

  “If you can get Michael to look this over”—he hands her a photocopy of the case chronology they’ve been working on, listing all the relevant dates and documentation—“and let me know if there are any inaccuracies, that would be great.”

  “Sorry he’s not here.” She doesn’t mention the half-dozen texts she sent Michael before the meeting, all of which went unanswered, nor the words they had on the way home from the theatre.

  “We’re doing all right.” David’s easy grin contradicts his precisely cut suit. “Old hat for us, no? Working together on files.”

  “Yeah, although normally I didn’t have to foot the bill.”

  “Peter will play his games, he’ll drag things out, make sure Michael feels the pain financially, but he’ll eventually settle. He won’t want all the details of how he screwed his partner getting aired in court. And no one likes to be confronted with the reality that their partner’s been ripping them off. Worse when it’s a friend.”

  “It makes you question your own judgment,” Mia says. “It makes you question a lot of things.”

  “Listen, what’s happening here with Peter? It isn’t unique. You know that. Majority shareholder gets what he can out of his minority partners, then convinces himself they’re leeches, cling-ons, and promptly proceeds to deny them their share of the profits. Happens every day. Greed. The deluded belief that you deserve more than everyone else. It’s fucked up, it’s sociopathic, but it’s what keeps me in business.” David glances at his watch, perfectly at ease. Like he said, this is everyday stuff for him. “How about lunch?”

  The thought of a restaurant, no doubt filled with half the men she used to work with, tires her. But so does the thought of going home and confronting Michael. Or sitting in this office one moment longer.

  “How about the patio at Delilah’s?” David says. “You love their salmon.”

  She does. And the slim asparagus, which she now avoids buying at Metro given the expense. The cold, crisp glass of pinot grigio. Unlike most of her business socializing, lunch with David always felt more like fun than work, or worse, a clumsy date with some man she would never choose to be with.

  “You don’t think Peter will be there?” She’s a little jittery every time she leaves the house, but thus far, she hasn’t bumped into either of them. She has spoken to Helen once. In late March she’d called the studio, and for some reason Mia picked up. The conversation had been awkward. Helen’s brother, who neither Mia nor Helen particularly likes, had been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Frankie was struggling in math. She asked about Finn. Mia had offered a guarded update, but when Helen claimed that Peter had never meant to cut Michael out of the company, that it was all a big mistake, a mess-up in paperwork, Mia told her she could believe that if she wanted, she had to find some way to live with the guy, but they both knew it was complete bullshit, and the call had ended abruptly.

  “You shouldn’t be ducking around Peter Conrad.” David leans over his desk and lowers his voice to a confidential register. “Just between you and me, Mia, the man does not have a lot of friends.”

  “I don’t have a lot of friends,” she says, feeling like a petulant child. “Peter and Helen were our default. It’s pathetic. I need to join a women’s group or something. A book club.”

  “You get along better with men.”

  “I don’t even like men.”

  “Ah, but they like you.” He grins. “Our Little Red Ferrari.” Mia’s nickname in the corporate world, never said to her face. She hadn’t found out about it until after she quit, but apparently all the guys she worked with knew it. And the tagline that followed: hot, fast, and every man wants to take her for a spin. She supposes it was better than being the Rusty Beige Civic or the Blue Dodge Minivan, but still. She was a fool to think she could have ever been just one of the guys. Sure, she was good at her job, but she had hips and tits and a warm nook between her legs and no two ways about it, they all thought about fucking her. She’d come back from maternity leave, a new mom, soft with love for her son, her breasts swollen with his milk, and hubba hubba, they barely skipped a beat.

  “Vroom, vroom,” David says.

  “It’s not funny.”

  He laughs. “Come on,” he says. “Lighten up. Come for lunch.”

  —

  LISTEN, ELI SAYS, drumming the table with his fingers. I have to tell you something.

  We’re at Kettleman’s. Having smoked meat sandwiches, our backs to the body ovens. When he glances at me, I see it right away. The apology that’s coming. The mash-up of pity and guilt.

  I toss my sandwich down. You’ve got to be fucking kidding, I say, and stab my pickle into the coleslaw. Don’t, I say, threatening him with a limp cucumber and a bit of shredded cabbage. Okay? Just don’t. We are not having some fucking talk.

  He actually looks relieved. Usually things are chill with him. Usually he does not want to get into that night—what happened with Frankie in the laundry room, what happened in his backyard—which is perfect, because neither do I.

  On the table, Eli’s phone lights up. He swipes the screen. Oh hey, Jess, he says around a mouthful of meat. Yeah, he says. With Finn. He glances over, and his face is pretty much back to normal.

  Put her on speaker, I whisper. He shrugs me off. I lean across the table. Smack him in the arm. Put her on speaker.

  I quit my job. Her voice floats from Eli’s hand. Come get me. I’ve got the whole day off.

  —

  FIFTEEN MINUTES later: I love the Caddy on days like this, Jess says, leaning forward, her arm dangling into the front seat. Feels like the first real day of summer.

  Mostly I see her at night, in my room, and up close she’s gorgeous and everything, but today with the top down and the sun blazing and her hair blowing in the wind she’s so real and so right-out-in-the-open. Eli glances over at me, so I stop staring, and Jess, well, she fades into the b
ack.

  We head over the Canal Bridge, through downtown and north out of the city. Hit farm country, miles of flatness, before we start the climb into wilderness. Lots of trees and the occasional man-made cliff where the road got blasted through rock. Sheers of pink granite. Limestone—maybe. Some other sort of brown-rock rock.

  Half-hour and we’re in the Hills Provincial Park. Only a few paved roads, rolling bands of blacktop slicing through forest, and no cops around ever, so Eli drives fast through the park. A blur and flicker of sunshine and Jell-O green leaves either side of the car, the air fresh, recently cleansed by nature. And the Caddy’s suspension is unreal. We float through the curves, roller-coaster over the rises, stomachs lifting, dropping as we cruise down the other side.

  Jess rolls an elastic off her wrist and puts her hair in a ponytail while I fiddle with the radio, find a station we all like, then, yeah, I stretch my good arm along the seatback, so I can half turn to look at Eli, hey dude, look at Jess, hey Jess, awesome day, right? Just being friendly, singing along with Kanye, his god dream competing with the wind. Just letting my hand dangle behind the seat until Jess casually reaches up and low-down curls her baby finger around mine for, like, a millisecond of contact.

  We park in the lot beside the Parkway—a good ten-mile cut of forest road that’s closed off to motorized vehicles.

  You up for it? Eli says.

  Definitely.

  How about I go get us some drinks? Jess says. Eli tosses her the keys and starts rattling around in the trunk. She climbs over the seat. One long leg, then the other, one creamy-brown hand reaching for the wheel, her ass hovering above my head, a fantasy framed by blue sky.

  The Caddy kicks up dust as she pulls out of the lot. I force myself not to watch.

  Left this at my place last fall. Eli drops my longboard at my feet and hands me a helmet. New. Not mine. He gives me a slide glove, the left one, which also looks new, the thick, waxy pucks on the palm and fingers unmarked.

  He waits as I work it on, pumping my hand and using my teeth at the wrist.

  Where’d you get this stuff? I ask when I’m done.

  Garage.

  Looks new.

  He just shrugs and holds out the other glove.

  Seriously, dude?

  You wanna tear that up?

  He tosses the glove to me and I pull it on the short arm. The empty fingers flop back like some limp-dick joke. Eli positions the palm puck on the end, pulls a roll of duct tape from his pack, starts taping down the deflated digits. He doesn’t look at me when he does it, doesn’t ask if what he’s doing is okay, he just tapes me up like he’s been doing it all his life.

  Let’s roll, he says when he’s finished, and pushes onto the Parkway.

  The ride out is fine, it’s good, I mean, I feel normal and the glove works and it’s a sick day and the road’s clean and smooth and dry and it’s awesome to be out here, but halfway along, I tell Eli I’ve had enough. I make some excuse about being out of shape, feeling weak, I actually use those words, feeling weak. I tell him he should keep going, definitely, no problem, I’ll hang with Jess, keep her company, or whatever, I’ll just hang. And what’s he going to say? I mean, I lost my fucking hand. It gives me some room to manoeuvre.

  On the ride back, I surf the hills like an ultralight beam, tucking low and fast into the curves, barely using my hands, keeping the board right under me, pushing hard on the flats, the wind whipping past, the sun on my back and my plaid shirt flapping, feeling so good, so good, and at the top of the next big rise I swear to God a freaking owl swoops out of the forest, wings outstretched, shadowing the road, shadowing me, I can feel it above me, we glide down the long slope together, my trucks chattering, the owl drafting overhead, catching a current, carving higher, flapping silently away like it never even happened, and me down below, ripping along alone, every cell in my body lit, every atom thrumming with the speed and the heat and the bird and the slap of my sole on the pavement and Eric in Vegas and one last hill between me and the girl.

  —

  MIA AND DAVID stand side by side in the smooth drop of the elevator, face to face with their own reflections. “Handsome couple,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. “Poster kids for Viagra.”

  Mia laughs, then runs her hands down her thighs. Paired with strappy sandals, her short orange skirt is barely passable as business attire, although her simple white blouse helps balance things out.

  “No offence,” David says, “but when I rebound, I’m going for someone younger. Much younger.”

  “Oh. How daring of you.”

  “Someone supple and tight and ready to please.”

  “Jesus, David, please don’t make me hate you.”

  “Relax,” he says. “I’m just trying to bug you. So tense, my friend, so tense. Maybe we should skip lunch. Go to my place and get high and fuck?”

  “Ha! What are you, sixteen?”

  “I may have had a reversion.”

  For a second, Mia considers his offer—made in jest, she’s certain—and how easy it might be to set in motion. She could kiss him right there in the elevator. Push him up against the fake wood wall, grind her hips against his, lift his hands to her tits. It could happen. They get along. There’s always been something between them. Mia wouldn’t exactly call it heat, it’s more like a vibe, a sense that they resonate at the same frequency, especially when it comes to having a good time. David’s easy to be with. He expects very little from her. After what would only be described as a harrowing winter, she could use a little David right now.

  So why not make it happen? There’s a part of her that wants to. But honestly? David has never been her fantasy.

  This is her fantasy: She walks away. Out of the house, down the porch stairs which need a coat of paint but she no longer cares about those steps, that porch, the door behind her, the people behind the door. She carries only her camera. She holds on to no one’s hand. She boards a bus and lets it take her deep into the heart of nowhere. A scrubbed-clean motel room on the edge of a forest. A cabin on the shore of a lake. No need to share the bed with anyone, to spread her legs to someone else’s hand, to rise to make another breakfast, to taxi to another appointment, to have even one more heartening talk.

  A single pair of underwear drying in the bathroom. One soft pair of jeans. A roomy white T-shirt to sleep in. A television that plays only comedy while she laughs and eats crackers from a box.

  The elevator glides to a stop. The doors open, four men in dark suits nod, she and David move to the back. A minute later, they all step out into the sun-bright lobby, soaring three storeys to a glassy atrium, so much space and light. The heels of Mia’s sandals click on the polished marble as David guides her through the scatter of lawyers and bankers, admins and security guards, his hand resting light on the small of her back.

  —

  THE BARRED WHEEL on the screen of Michael’s laptop spins. He logs on, navigates his way to LinkedIn’s “Create a Profile” page. Until today, he’s managed to avoid the whole internet networking thing, both corporate and personal. Fifteen years at the same company and with a wife who handled their social life, he didn’t really need to be plugged in.

  He pecks in his coordinates, confirms himself via email, humbly informs the LinkedIn gods that yes, he’s looking for a job—a worthy excuse for skipping the lawyer’s meeting, since Finn blew off the shopping. When queried about his current state of employment, he gets up from the kitchen table and pours himself another coffee. In the front hall, he sorts through the mail. Bills mostly. An envelope from Glenmore. Some notice from the City. He opens nothing, but sticks a sheet of coupons from a local pizza joint up on the fridge.

  Back at the computer, headlines of the day’s not-to-be-missed LinkedIn stories have already popped up on his screen. “Why Leaders Should Always Make People Feel Like They’re On A Winning Team.” “Four Strategies To Renew Your Passion For Work.” “Five Career Mistakes You Won’t Survive.” Michael’s pretty sure he’s already
made a couple. And he wonders about the need for capitalization. Does Every Word Need To Shout?

  He checks yes to linking up his email contacts, but immediately regrets it. Shit, will everyone now get some goddamn message informing them Michael Slate is on the hunt? He watches as a banner of polished people, a small sample of every person he’s ever worked with, played golf with, told a dirty joke to, loads onto his screen. For the first time since leaving Conrad, he misses his secretary Bev. He doesn’t even know how to put up a picture, although the site strongly recommends it; members with a photo get eleven times more views, and Michael’s just a grey, jug-eared head.

  And then, of course, there it is. Of course the platform has an algorithm that selects the people he’s most connected to. Peter Conrad’s grinning face. President and CFO of Conrad Management Group, with nine hundred plus connections. In the photograph, his long surfer hair doesn’t even look to be thinning.

  Christ.

  Michael can’t figure out how to abort. Delete his profile. Get the hell out. The last person in the world he wants to reach out to is Peter Fucking Conrad. The Guy Who Screwed Him Over. The Guy He’d Most Like To Punch.

  He panics and shuts Peter down the old-fashioned way: presses the button at the top of his laptop and kills the power.

  —

  AFTER LINGERING OVER LUNCH, neither David nor Mia is in any rush to go back to where they belong. He calls his admin and clears his calendar and Mia, well, she turns off her phone. They decide on a drive, and at David’s cajoling end up in Old Aberdeen, parked across the road from Peter and Helen’s place. Mia leaves the Jetta idling, in case they have to make a getaway. Technically, they’re doing nothing wrong, but it doesn’t feel that way. The red flag on the mailbox is up; someone—Helen most likely—might come out for the mail.

  David, however, apparently shares none of Mia’s angst. In the passenger seat, he looks like a man setting out on vacation, his favourite hotel already booked. His hair, bright silver in the sun, his face tanned from biking or some recent winter escape. The sleeves of his shirt—purple and expensive looking; Mia has an urge to reach over and touch the fabric—are turned to his elbows, one of which is cocked out the open window.