Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

by Theodora Armstrong

  Once the fire starts glowing good and hot, Charlie turns on one of the burners and heats some butter in a pan for eggs. He throws back two aspirin, crunching the pills into bitter powder and letting them melt down his throat like an acidic regurgitation. He feels hollowed and equates that with hunger, a need to be filled. Two eggs over easy. The yolk breaks on the second one and ruins the egg, but Charlie will eat it anyway. James calls to say he’ll be late — things are a mess in Lions Bay. Charlie grabs a place setting from one of the empty tables and sits at the pass-bar, angling his plate and straightening his knife and fork. He takes a bite and the silence in the restaurant grows deeper.

  Last night, when he arrived drenched and breathless at the hospital, a nurse helped him into a yellow gown and cap. In the delivery room he headed straight for the baby without realizing where he was going. There was a crowd of people working around the baby, grabbing tubes and vials, their hands on the tiny body, which was blue-skinned, not his, not of this world. He wanted to push past all of them so that he could stand above the baby, inert, and stare. All he could think was: People get things they don’t deserve all the time, so why can’t I have this?

  “You look cheery in yellow,” Aisha said, as he brought his face close to hers. Her eyes were swollen from crying. “It’s a girl,” she said. “Go with her.” He followed the baby out of the room and waited on the outskirts of the neonatal unit. Doctors and nurses asked him questions, but he didn’t hear much. He and Aisha hadn’t talked about anything yet. The barnacle was here and she didn’t even have a name. Every time he tried to think of one, lists of food whirled in his head. You couldn’t call a child Dijon or Scallop or Frissé. Through the viewing window all he could see was one of her tiny hands, delicate as a sugary roll of tuile. The rest of her was obscured by tubes and tape and machines. “Every hour she remains stable is a good sign,” was all anyone could tell them. One of the nurses pulled Charlie into the room and encouraged him toward the little plastic portal of the incubator. “It’s good for them,” she said, patting his shoulder. “They want to know you right away, the second they enter the world.” He scrubbed his hands three times before putting on gloves and reaching into the incubator to run the tip of his finger over her forehead and along the ridge of her tiny nose. His hands still didn’t seem clean enough.

  ROSE COMES IN LOOKING tired, like she had no sleep. She walks right by him and goes straight for the coffee machine. Her hair is pulled into a messy loop at the crown of her head and she’s wearing the same top from service last night, with a food stain on the sleeve. She stands at the back sink and tries to rub it out before sitting in front of him with her cup of coffee and taking out her scratch pad. She searches through her apron for a pen that works, squiggling invisible lines down the top page.

  “You’re here early,” he says, measuring oil for a vinaigrette. Charlie’s not sure why, but he needs her to look at him, and she does, but blankly, and then she looks back down at her pen. She shakes it vigorously and sucks on the tip, trying to encourage the ink to the nib, her cheeks hollowing in a way that makes her look gaunt, but pretty. She tries the pen again and the ink flows freely.

  “Where’s the fresh sheet?” she says, focusing on the little X’s she’s drawing at the top of her pad. There’s a spot of ink in the middle of her lip.

  “Hungry?” Charlie has a glob of egg stuck somewhere far down, where he feels dry and raw.

  “This is my breakfast,” Rose says, holding up her cup of coffee and giving him a look hairy with suspicion.

  Ever since he touched the baby last night, he can’t stop looking at his hands. For the first time he notices how ugly they are, covered in scars from burns and slips of the knife. He had tucked his index finger into the baby’s palm, which was pure and untouched by the world. A baby’s palm is as simple as it gets — it was the most delicate thing he’d ever felt in his life. Aisha was sleeping when he left the hospital. He left a note on top of a turkey sandwich wrapped in cellophane that he had bought from the vending machine: Be back after the brunch rush. He tries to dispel the image of Aisha sitting alone in her hospital room, eating the sandwich. She won’t be alone, her sister will be there fussing and clucking and making enough noise for a roomful of people.

  Rose pushes away from the counter and picks up a dishrag. He knows he should tell her about the baby’s birth, but there’s something stopping him, as though the words are buried in the deep layers of fat in his gut. He’d need a shovel to dig them out.

  “You might want to wake up Martin,” he says instead. “He’s passed out on the couch.”

  Rose rolls her eyes, indifferent. “No one’s going to come in today anyway.”

  ROSE IS WRONG. MORE than half the North Shore is without power from last night’s storm. People’s homes are cold. No one can turn on their ovens or coffee pots this morning. Trees came crashing through front living rooms last night, leaving sopping messes of the carpets. The lineup goes out the door of the restaurant, along the sidewalk, and into the alley. Susan has to put on an apron and relive her serving days. She keeps sloshing coffee all over her tray. She and Rose dance around the room in an elaborately choreographed ballet. The bills come into the kitchen in a continuous stream — chk, chk, chk — long floating ribbons Charlie flourishes in the air, singing eggs benny, French toast, florentine, side of sausage, side of bacon, hash browns, hold the hollandaise. Charlie slides plates onto the pass-bar one after the other, lining them up, and Tara starts throwing down melon wedges. The din in the dining room makes it impossible to hear and Charlie has to shout his call times. “How long on fourteen?” Charlie mops his forehead with his sleeve as sweat pours off his brow.

  “Minute left over-easy,” Rich says, fondling a couple of eggs. Charlie can see him starting to panic.

  “Rich, where’s my bacon benny?” Tara shouts across the kitchen. “My crab cakes are up. I need it now.”

  Rich stands frozen in the middle of the chaos, rubbing his chin. It’s something Charlie has never seen him do before. “What that?”

  “The benny, Rich.” Tara’s voice is getting shrill.

  Rich grabs a couple of English muffins and fumbles, almost dropping them on the floor. He grabs a ladleful of hollandaise and just as the golden liquid hits the eggs, Tara shouts, “On the side. Hollandaise on the side, dammit.”

  “Aw, fuck it,” Rich says, throwing the ladle down and storming out of the kitchen.

  Charlie follows him and finds him sitting on an overturned bucket beside the refrigerator, crying. There are new knuckle indentations, four perfect circles, in the fridge’s door. Several matching impressions adorn the stainless steel surface.

  “I buried so deep,” Rich says, hiding his face in the crook of his arm.

  “Come on, Rich,” Charlie says. A separation occurs in his brain; the response he expects from himself — shouts, expletives, threats — doesn’t materialize. His blood bubbles through his veins normally, his heart rate remains steady, his breathing calm. He grabs Rich under the armpits and yanks him upright the way you would a child who refuses to leave the birthday party. “We need you out there now,” he says, but his voice is gentle.

  “Deep, Chef,” Rich says, tears wetting his cheeks. “I deep in shit. No way out.”

  “Come on,” Charlie says. “We’ll get you out. You’re good,” he says, patting him on the back as he shuffles him back toward the kitchen. “You’re good.”

  Rich turns to look at him, blinking a little in disbelief. “Thanks, Big Chef.”

  Charlie and Rich stand side by side on the hot line and as the minutes tick by the streamer of bills gets shorter. Sweat is pouring off Rich’s brow and his normally gravity-defying hair is limp and plastered against his forehead, but his eyes are sparkling now and he’s slapping the English muffins on the plates with gusto. Charlie’s singing and Rich joins in and James keeps saying it’s the end of the world.

 
Despite the disaster, the feeling in the air is almost festive. The noise of people’s voices, the clank of cutlery, the dishwasher going in the back. He can hear the dish boy — Tim, it suddenly dawns on Charlie, Tim is his name — singing along to Metallica. Which means if he can hear the new stereo, it’s too loud — but for some reason this morning he doesn’t care. He pulls a bewildered Tim into the kitchen to make salads. Everything comes together inside the restaurant in a way that is purposeful and meaningful. The food looks more colourful and smells better. There are many mouths to feed. It’s their busiest brunch of the year, and for this Charlie feels happy.

  As soon as the last plate goes out, Charlie takes off his apron and heads for the door. In the back hallway, he interrupts something between Rose and Susan as he rounds the corner, the two standing close with a crate of empty bottles at their feet. “Good work this morning, ladies,” he says cheerfully, bustling through them and enjoying their confounded looks.

  He sits in his car for a minute and watches Rose skip down the steps carrying the milk crate of empty bottles, which she dumps in the recycling bin with a loud clatter. He rolls down his window and calls after her as she goes back up, taking the steps two at a time. She stops in her tracks and turns, squinting in his direction with a hand on her hip. “What is it? I’ve got a table.”

  “Aisha had a girl.”

  “Oh!” He can see by the way she moves down one step that she wants to approach him, extend a hand or a hug, but she stops herself. “Well, congratulations,” she calls out. “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why are you here?” she says, shooing him, her arms batting the air. “Get going!”

  “I’m outta here,” he says, starting the car’s engine. But once she’s up the stairs and back into the restaurant, he lets the car idle. The motor’s vibrations surround him and his face feels tight with dried sweat. He stares at his empty hands in his lap, strange in their stillness. He rubs the thick callus on his right-hand index, where the edge of the knife’s blade creates friction. Even if he gives up cooking, the callus is something that will be with him for a while, maybe even forever.

  Over the ocean, the sun is breaking up the clouds and he blinks back the bright light. He pulls down the visor and the yellow envelope falls in his lap. After a moment of turning it this way and that, he rolls down his window and chucks it into the dumpster, sending a seagull into the air. “Take it with you,” he yells at the bird.

  He pulls out of the restaurant parking lot and heads for the hospital — the barnacle needs a name.

  THANKS TO CARIN

  I EXPECT MY SISTER, Carin, to look surprised when I walk into the restaurant, but when she sees me she just smiles, almost wickedly, like you’re in for some trouble now. For a split second I want to leave, drive back down to the coast and my routine. It’s the same feeling I used to get when we were children and our desire for mischief became overbearing. I knew if I didn’t go play by myself, Carin and I would soon be covered in permanent marker or picking gravel out of our knees or lighting our dolls’ hair on fire. Retribution was always swift in our house, as Mom was on her own. Sitting on a straight-backed kitchen chair, I’d get the lecture — the one about being older and more responsible — until the tears ran down my cheeks and I got my back rub and glass of milk. Carin, in her defiance, always got the worse punishment.

  I sit at a table near a window while Carin moves around the room, chatting up customers, dropping off beers for the afternoon drinkers. She makes waitressing look like fun, like a good career move, something you could be happy doing for the rest of your life. She glides by my table to set down a colourful drink and I get a whiff and glimpse of hair from her armpit — still a hippie. “I’ll be off in fifteen,” she says. “And by the way, June, what the fuck are you doing here?”

  I smile and take a sip of my drink. It tastes like booze and strawberries. Out on the strip the squat motels sit up and down the sand-swept road, trapped forever in peach or sea-green paint. Nothing ever changes here. Mom is gone now, but otherwise everything is exactly the same, as though I’ve stepped into one of our round-cornered photos from the seventies, all the colours tinted gold-brown. The only new addition is a huge inflatable plastic mountain floating in the lake with kids scrambling and falling off the sides into the water. It looks so temporary, like it could disappear with the prick of a pin.

  Carin comes out from the back room, her apron gone, a big bag slung over her shoulder, and steps behind the bar to pull a six-pack of coolers out of the fridge. The bartender cocks an eyebrow and she flashes him a grin. “I’ll get you back.”

  “Sure you will,” he says, rolling his eyes.

  Carin comes around to pull me close in a hug. I stiffen involuntarily, the smell of her sweat sweet like overripe fruit. “She’s getting married,” Carin declares to the bartender, who shrugs with indifference. “Not for a couple of months,” I say. The bartender has already turned his back to slice limes.

  “Is it that soon?” Carin gives me a rough kiss on the cheek near my mouth.

  “You look good,” I try, giving her an approving nod.

  “You hesitated.” Arms akimbo, she takes a moment to look me over before batting a hand at me and laughing her way out the door. I fall in step beside her as we head down the strip. Teenagers hold hands along the promenade, and on the beach kids sit at their parents’ feet, digging holes in the sand. Every second storefront is selling ice cream or sunscreen or bikinis. Carin holds her bronzed arm next to my pale one. “Don’t you get any sunshine in the city?” She throws her arm around my shoulder, the way she used to when we were kids. “Are you checking up on me?” she says, squeezing me around the neck, and then without waiting for my answer, “Did you bring a bathing suit?”

  ONLY SIX HOURS AGO I was in the city with Anton, standing on the street in front of our condo, trying to explain the reason for my impromptu trip to visit Carin. Along Davie, businesses were setting up for the day; the window seats in the coffee shops full; The Elbow Room packed, a single frazzled waiter buzzing among the tables; the salespeople pulling and tugging at the mannequins in the boutique windows. Earlier this morning, between showering and breakfast, I was struck with an urge beyond reason to see Carin. It was impossible to wait; I had to see her this very day. So I called in sick to the insurance office where I worked and packed a small bag.

  “Doesn’t your sister live in a shack with hippies?” Anton asked. He was sitting on the hood of my car as I searched for my keys, his eyebrows stitched with worry.

  “She lives in a trailer,” I said. “She’s sick. The flu. She doesn’t have anyone there.”

  In fact, I hadn’t talked to Carin in months, so for all I knew there was nothing wrong with her. I kissed Anton’s hand and put the car in drive, sending a resolute wave out the window as I drove away, a gesture that said: I have a job to do. But in all honesty, I have no idea why I was so desperate to drive five hours through the mountains to see my sister. A tension had been building inside me for a while now, but it was only last weekend at my own shower that I realized something was wrong. I wasn’t the only one getting married — in fact, it seemed all of our friends were. For the past several months my calendar had been packed; I was organizing engagement parties and showers, attending weddings. I was thirty years old — it was that time in our lives. But on the day of my shower nothing felt right. The backyard garden looked trapped in the aggressive hands of a five-year-old girl: pink napkins spread out on knees, rose petal plates, miniature food, and heart-shaped balloons. It all left me feeling nauseous. I was alarmed by the sight of a cluster of women (my friends) gathered around a large sheet of paper fastened to a tree with several loops of masking tape. Each one of them, armed with a crayon, added lewd details to an anatomically incorrect life-size male (my husband). One of them waved a long, skinny balloon in my face. “Who’s pinning the first penis on Anton?” I was alarme
d, but the strange thing was, I had organized parties exactly like this one.

  Over the past few weeks, thoughts — random things like the dry cleaning, upcoming dinner parties, the wedding invitations — had been accumulating in my mind, teetering as I balanced them one by one, and once Carin popped into my head, I couldn’t rid myself of her. The thought of her was throwing the tower off kilter. I suppose I could have sent her an email or picked up the phone. But even if she was not actually sick, there was always something awry in Carin’s life, and so in that way the lie wasn’t really a lie at all.

  And now, as I float beneath an unrelenting blue sky, I’m already reconsidering my decision to visit. Whenever I’m around my sister it feels as though someone has tightened a bunch of screws in my head. Carin is stretched out on an air mattress the size of a queen bed, looking sphinx-like, her long dark hair parted in the middle. I am in the inner tube, limbs jutting from the donut hole, floating like an upturned beetle down the channel.

  “I never get sick of this,” Carin says, reaching for two coolers from the six-pack at her feet. She opens one, flicks the bottle cap onto her mattress, and takes a gulp before opening mine. “The last time we did this I was dating that guy with the Supra.” She snaps her fingers. “What was his name?”

  “Something with a K. Kyle, Kurt — I don’t know,” I say, rubbing my temples.

  “Man, I loved that car.” Carin passes me the bottle and thinks. “That was almost two years ago.”