by H. B. Hogan
“I’m just saying.”
“Let me up!” said Martin.
Judy shushed him.
“I need a coffee!” Martin insisted.
“In a minute, dear,” Judy muttered.
Evelyn willed her focus away from the car and let it drift back across the parking lot to the highway. Above the whine of speeding cars, a solitary starling tweeted its heart out, oblivious to Evelyn’s plight. She closed her eyes and isolated the bird song, concentrating hard until everything else around her disappeared.
Prior to meeting Martin, Judy had been single for thirty-two years. Evelyn’s father died when Evelyn was six, and Judy never remarried. The years passed without Judy going on a single date, and she always said she managed just fine with the love and companionship of her one and only daughter.
Evelyn had never dated, either. She lived alone in the basement apartment of a townhouse near an off-ramp just outside Toronto. She kept a goldfish. Its name was Darlin’. She drove from Toronto to Wainfleet every Saturday to spend the night and most of Sunday with Judy.
Sometimes they rented a movie on Saturday nights, but Judy was a fan of swashbuckling epics and Evelyn wasn’t, so mostly they just watched TV. Judy would fall asleep in the La-Z-Boy around ten thirty, and Evelyn would poke her with the remote and tell her to go up to bed. On Sundays, they drove to the mall and had lunch in the food court before Evelyn headed back to the city. That’s the way they’d spent every weekend for fifteen years.
Evelyn worked as a customer service clerk in the tax department at Toronto City Hall. She hated it, but over the years she had developed a method of going into a state of mental and emotional detachment during her morning commute, and this made her job almost bearable. Her office was a dusty, grey-upholstered cubicle; one in a sea of identical grey-upholstered cubicles. Judy liked to call Evelyn at work a few mornings a week to tell Evelyn what she’d had for dinner the night before and relay what she’d seen on Dr. Phil. When Judy called Evelyn at work one day to tell her she’d fallen in love with someone, Evelyn thought she was going to have a stroke.
“Mm-hmm?” was all she could say each time Judy paused to breathe.
When Judy told her that Martin had already sold his bungalow in Cheektowaga so he could move into Judy’s townhouse, she smacked her hand down on her keyboard and yelled, “Jesus, Mom!” Her mouse clattered to the floor.
All work-related activity in the cubicles around hers ceased.
Evelyn didn’t want her outrage to betray her envy. She groped through her shock for something she could be justifiably outraged about. “Wait,” she said. “You met him where?”
“Online,” Judy said in a sulky voice.
“Like, on the Internet?”
“Yes.”
“Like, with one of those dating services?”
“That’s right.”
Evelyn heard someone behind her stifling the giggles. She heard her mother’s monologue in snippets—his name was Martin, he was a seventy-year-old retired electrician, and he was wonderful.
“Does this mean you have a dating profile?” Evelyn shrilled, scandalized.
“Of course, dear.”
“Well what does it say? Did you use your real name?”
“Evelyn…”
“What picture did you use?”
“Evelyn, honestly!”
Evelyn held her head in her hands and said, “Oh God.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Evelyn,” Judy snapped. “You should be so proactive.”
Evelyn didn’t go to Wainfleet that weekend. She expected Judy to call her at work the following Monday, but Judy didn’t call. She didn’t call Tuesday, either. Evelyn told Darlin’ she was looking forward to finally having her weekends all to herself.
Mina stopped by Evelyn’s desk one day a week later. Mina was the team leader for Accounts Receivable. She reeked of hairspray, and the horny bent toes sticking out of her high-heeled sandals sported cherry-red nails that looked capable of splitting packing tape. Mina kept up a friendly act, but she was always scoping out whether or not a better conversation was taking place elsewhere.
“Heard the big news about Judy,” Mina said, glancing over Evelyn’s head at the people chatting by the photocopier. “How’s her new love life going?”
“Fine for now, I guess,” mumbled Evelyn, busying herself with shuffling the papers on her desk.
“I think it’s great that she met someone. You must be excited for her.”
“I guess.”
“So what about you, Evelyn? When are we going to hear all about a special guy for you?” Mina’s eyes levelled squarely with Evelyn’s.
“I’m too busy to date,” Evelyn said.
“Too busy doing what?”
Evelyn blushed. “I just want to focus on my career right now.”
“Oh,” Mina said in a tone that made Evelyn feel small. “I see. You just want to be the best clerk you can be, is that it?”
“That’s right,” Evelyn said.
Three more weeks passed with no word from Judy. Evelyn told Darlin’ she’d never felt so alive. No more interruptions at work, no more lame movies, and no more taking care of needy old Judy. On Saturday nights, she rented movies she actually wanted to see, and watched them alone with an air of self-righteousness.
Since Judy’s announcement, Evelyn found the gaps in her memory representing her father had been knocking around in her skull. Evelyn’s father’s name was Dale. Dale Pratt. Evelyn knew nothing else about him, and there’d been no pictures or mementoes of him in their house when Evelyn was growing up. It was an emotionally difficult subject to bring up with Judy. The most Evelyn had been able to cobble together was that Dale had died suddenly due to a terrible and mysterious illness. That had satisfied Evelyn’s curiosity up until the day she’d started working for the city. She’d gone for a coffee on her first day with Mina, and Evelyn had provided her usual answer to Mina’s usual questions about family. “I was raised by my mom—my dad died when I was very young.”
“Oh,” said Mina, her eyes growing wide. “I’m so sorry! How awful!”
Evelyn shrugged and sipped her double-double.
“What did he die of?”
“It was very sudden,” said Evelyn. She enjoyed being nonchalant.
“Was he ill?”
“Yeah, sort of. It was a mysterious illness.”
“What kind of mystery illness?” Mina asked. “Like a cancer?”
Evelyn was now in uncharted territory. She hadn’t ever been asked this many questions about Dale before. People usually changed the subject after the “mysterious illness” line.
“I guess so,” Evelyn had said. She was astounded at Mina’s questions, and bewildered by her own lack of answers.
Mina was floored. “You mean you don’t know?”
Evelyn shook her head and looked at her lap.
“You mean your mother never told you?”
Evelyn blushed and shrugged.
“Evelyn,” Mina said, “how can you not know how your father died? He’s your father!”
Once Mina put it in those terms, Evelyn couldn’t fathom not knowing such a thing. She was embarrassed by the way Mina was staring at her. Evelyn knew that look. It was the look you gave stupid people when you couldn’t believe how stupid they were.
Evelyn went home that weekend on a mission to find out about Dale Pratt. She was setting the table when she brought it up.
“Mom, what did Dad die of?”
“What?” Judy asked, and the air in the kitchen immediately went brittle.
“What did he die of?”
“Your father loved you very much. He was a warm and affectionate man.”
So far, the conversation was a carbon copy of every other time Evelyn had asked about Dale. This is where she usually gave up, because she felt so bad asking Judy questions that Judy obviously didn’t want to answer. Judy’s discomfort made no sense to Evelyn because, if Dale really was a warm and affectionate man who loved he
r very much, Judy would have enjoyed reminiscing. Maybe, thought Evelyn, Judy’s heart was still broken.
Thinking of Mina, and of how she might be able to save face if she went to work on Monday with more information, Evelyn soldiered on. “What kind of illness was it, exactly?” she asked.
“Your father was a wonderful man, Evelyn.”
Judy was beating eggs for their quiche. Evelyn watched her back jiggle. Most of their important conversations were carried out in this fashion—Judy at the counter cooking or cleaning, Evelyn scrutinizing Judy’s back for body language that would either corroborate or contradict whatever Judy said. A quickening of the egg-beating told Evelyn that she was pushing her luck.
“You mean, like a cancer?”
“It was very sudden.”
“You mean, like—”
“Evelyn!” The egg-beating ceased entirely. Judy leaned against the counter and gripped her forehead with both hands.
Evelyn hurried out of the kitchen on her tiptoes and hid in the TV room until Judy called her in for dinner. They ate in silence.
Four weeks after her Martin announcement, Judy called Evelyn at work and, as if no time had passed since their last conversation, asked Evelyn to join her and Martin on a road trip to Casino Niagara. It was Evelyn’s turn to work the customer service desk, which she, like all the other staff, loathed. Evelyn turned her back on the lineup of people at the counter and tried to maintain an air of cool indifference.
“It’ll be a fun way for you and Martin to get to know one another,” Judy was saying.
“But I don’t gamble.”
“They have a lounge there, Evelyn, with wonderful performers. And Martin really wants to meet you.”
Evelyn wondered when Judy had started hanging around in bars watching lounge acts. She guessed it was probably around the same time Judy started trawling the Internet for men.
Judy said, “We can have a drink and watch the show.”
“A drink?” Evelyn was incredulous. Judy never even had a rum ball at Christmas.
“You know what I mean, dear, you can have a drink and I’ll have one of those v-i-r-g-i-n-s.”
“I don’t know, Mom.” Evelyn wanted to say no. She glanced over her shoulder. The woman at the front of the line was leaning on the counter, giving Evelyn the eye. “I can’t really talk right now,” Evelyn said.
“We don’t have to talk. I’ve told Martin all about you and he can’t wait to meet you. Why don’t you come down on Friday after work? You can stay over and we’ll make a day of it.”
“Mom, I said I don’t know!”
The woman at the counter sighed and said, “Does anyone work here?”
The man behind her said, “Sure as hell don’t look like it.”
“Evelyn, don’t be difficult,” her mother was saying. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Mom!”
Judy hung up.
Evelyn stared at the receiver in disbelief.
“Lord,” the woman at the counter bellowed at the ceiling. “I sure hope one day I get paid with tax dollars to stand around yakking it up on the phone. Sure would be nice!”
The man behind her said, “Sure as hell would.”
Evelyn took a deep breath. “Can I help you?” she said in a flat voice.
“I doubt it, honey,” the woman said, turning around to wink at her smiling audience, “but it would be nice if you tried.”
The next day, as Evelyn merged with the highway traffic and headed towards Wainfleet, she felt optimistic despite her frustration with Judy. She had realized Judy might have a particular taste for a particular kind of man, and that Martin might reveal something of Dale in their similarities. Granted, she wouldn’t be able to appreciate or even recognize those similarities, since she had no impression of what her father had been like. Evelyn had decided to look forward to meeting Martin anyway.
Evelyn pulled up in front of Judy’s townhouse and sat in her car with the engine running. She stared at the new lawn ornaments that blighted the yard. An American flag fluttered in the pudgy fist of a gnome at the end of the driveway. On the lawn, a ceramic frog held a crisp brown geranium plant in its smiling mouth. A white plastic lamb in Judy’s flower bed strained beneath the weight of a bronze plaque that read No Bloody Swearing.
Judy appeared at the front door and scurried down the driveway to meet her. “Sweetie, did you get my message about the macaroni salad?”
“Yeah—Mom, what is all this?”
“Oh, it’s just Martin.” Judy said with a wave of her hand. “Isn’t he terrible? Listen, did you stop and pick up the salad like I asked?”
“I said yes! But, Mom…”
Judy came around to the passenger side and grabbed the bags from the seat.
Evelyn recalled a fight they’d had when Evelyn was eight and they’d driven down to Florida with one of Judy’s bridge partners. Pink flamingoes were everywhere in Florida, and Evelyn had begged her mother to buy one for their lawn back home.
“Absolutely not, Evelyn,” her mother had said. “Lawn ornaments are for trailer trash.”
Evelyn tried to remind Judy of this.
“Oh, have a sense of humour, Evelyn,” Judy said. “I’ve been telling Martin how much fun you are, what a wonderful sense of humour you have—now, don’t you go making a liar out of me.” She hustled up the driveway, opened the screen door, and called into the house, “Martin, honey! She’s here!” She held the door open for Evelyn. Cigarette smoke wafted out past Judy’s smiling face.
“Jesus, Mom, is he smoking in there?” Evelyn hissed.
Judy ignored her. “Martin is so excited to see you. Martin?”
The hallway was cluttered with an unspeakable number of knick-knacks. A stuffed and mounted fish, its gills furry with dust and cobwebs, leaned against the wall. “Are you kidding me?” said Evelyn, pointing at the fish.
“Well, sweetie, it’s not fair to Martin if he can’t bring any of his things into the house. It’s called compromise.”
A torrent of phlegmy coughs erupted in the den. Evelyn’s heart sank as she walked down the hall towards the noise.
Judy got to the den first. “Martin, didn’t you hear me, sweetheart? Evelyn is here to see you.” She had to yell over the television. Martin was watching golf, and had the volume turned up so loud that even during the quiet moments there was an audible hum.
Evelyn stopped in the doorway beside Judy. A pudgy man with an enormous polyester-clad belly sat prone in the La-Z-Boy. He wore a foam baseball cap and large, clip-on shades that were so dark they looked opaque. There was a rhythmic whistling and popping that Evelyn surmised was his breathing. A lit cigarette dangled from his mouth. The air was blue.
“Evelyn, dear, this is Martin.”
Martin gave no indication that he was aware of anyone else in the room.
“Martin, honey,” Judy shouted, “this is Ev-e-lyn!”
Evelyn stared. Martin didn’t move.
“And look, honey, she brought your favourite! Macaroni salad!”
The crowd on the TV burst into applause, and the noise was deafening.
“Are you hungry, dear?” Judy hollered, smiling at Evelyn. “I’ve got your favourite dish warming in the oven…”
Judy trailed off as she disappeared toward the kitchen. Evelyn pried her eyes off Martin and followed her mother down the hall. She felt sick. She sat down at the kitchen table. Judy was rambling on as she wiped the kitchen counter, her back to Evelyn.
“…and when we got to the deli counter, I wondered if maybe I should try the chorizo sausage instead of the fennel.”
Evelyn fiddled with a corner of a placemat and stared at Judy’s back.
“And Martin, gosh he’s so funny, he says to me, he says, ‘Well, why don’t you just try ’em both?’ and I laughed.” She paused to draw a ragged breath and then continued, “Because, I mean, chorizo and fennel? Together?”
Judy opened the oven door and bent under the weight of a large ceramic casserole d
ish.
“So then I turned to the woman behind the counter, and she knows I always get the fennel because I’ve been shopping there for, heck, must be going on fifteen years now! She’s the one I told you about, Evelyn, the one whose daughter-in-law—”
More coughing from the den. Judy raised her voice. “Whose daughter-in-law works in the City of Welland tax department, remember I told you? What was her name now, I can’t remember…” She stood at the table with one oven-mittened hand on her hip and the other on the lid of the casserole dish. “I can’t for the life of me think of her name…”
Evelyn knew the girl’s name was Caroline, but she didn’t say anything. She watched her mother stare off into space.
“Anyway,” said Judy. “Where was I?” She looked at Evelyn. Evelyn looked at her. Evelyn wanted to ask what that hideous slob was doing in Judy’s living room. Evelyn wanted to remind Judy of her self-righteous stance on lawn ornaments, mounted fish, and cigarette smoke.
From the den, above the roar of the television: a wet-sounding belch.
“Mom,” Evelyn said, “why is he wearing sunglasses in the house?”
“What, dear? Oh, I remember—the sausage!” Judy’s face came back to life. She lifted the lid, placed it on the counter, removed the oven mitts, and opened the fridge. “So I tried both! And you know something?” She turned back towards the table holding a bottle of white wine and a bowl of greens. “It actually works!” She laughed and put the wine and the greens on the table beside the casserole dish and the macaroni salad, then spun around to open the cutlery drawer.
“You bought wine?” asked Evelyn.
“Yes,” Judy said, rummaging for the corkscrew. “I thought we’d celebrate.” She found the corkscrew and reached up into the cupboard for wineglasses.
“Celebrate what?”
Judy handed Evelyn the corkscrew. “You’ll have to open it, dear,” Judy said. “I can never manage those things.”
Judy pulled her chair up to the table and sat down with a contented sigh.
Evelyn hadn’t moved.
“What’s the matter, did I not get you a glass?” Judy made a move to get up.
“No, Mom. Just sit. I’ve got one.”
“Well, then what are you waiting for, silly? Open the wine!”
