“No, that’s sick.” I was about to get up. The question was possibly innocent, but felt like judgment, like a hidden thought she had, and I wanted her to take it back. But Carla kept going, lost in her own reality.
“I just, I don’t want to be like my mother,” Carla said. She rarely mentioned her mother.
“Come here.” I opened my arms. She curled up inside my arms like a child, with her face resting against my chest, vulnerable as a baby bird, her skin soft against mine.
“My mother was a lesbian, but she didn’t do anything with her partner. They would read the Bible every night together instead of having sex. They thought they were sinners, but they loved each other and lived together for fifteen years like that, fighting, praying.”
“You never told me that. That’s just … sad. I don’t want to be like your mom or her girlfriend. And we’re not sinners.”
Carla’s lips came up to meet mine and we kissed softly. It felt like goodbye.
How time changed things.
When I needed Carla, she was there. Even the worst days with her were better than all the lonely days without her. Even the days when I was starving or mean or struggling with flashbacks, she made me feel loved, told me things I needed to hear. “I won’t let you drown, Jojo. Shush, it’s okay,” she’d say while she rocked me on my bed for comfort. And she didn’t let me drown. And we laughed. We laughed and laughed when, drunk, we missed our mouths with cups. We laughed together at dialogue in movies and cried together in the cinema, staying in our seats long after all the other moviegoers had left, while young employees swept popcorn around our feet. And we never stopped loving poetry or making up characters for our imagined movies. We talked about getting old, how she would paint and I would write, or we would move to Florida and have a food stand by the ocean.
Carla showed up in my darkest moments when no one else would, and no one could see just how special she really was. But it was in the light, in public, where that tenderness and support faded, where she became a stranger. It was our undoing.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“HEY, CARLA.”
I ran to where other people were greeting her at her film opening at the Uptown Theatre on Yonge Street. She looked beautiful in a pantsuit, jacket, and new boots. I’d even dressed up, worn a blazer and shirt and shined my shoes. I wanted to give her a big squeeze. It was thrilling to be at the Uptown with her.
“Hey.” She gave me a quick hug, then whispered in my ear, “You need to sit in the middle of the theatre. You can’t sit with us.” She pulled away from me, smiling. “Hope you like the show.” She walked away to join her film partner in the first row of seats.
I looked around and saw familiar faces from the film industry. My heart was racing. Why hadn’t we discussed this?
People waved or smiled in recognition, took their seats, so I had to take mine, relegated to the role of acquaintance, not allowed to sit with Carla on the opening night of her movie, but among strangers in the middle. All I could think of was having to pretend Carla and I weren’t lovers, that we didn’t read together, drink, laugh, sleep, or spend our nights together. It took everything in me to force a smile, to clap and cheer, to pretend as I stood at a safe distance while people shook her hand at the end of the movie, as fans and peers offered congratulations, hugs and kisses. She didn’t look at me as I stood near the concession stand, as I watched life happen around us, as if the movie hadn’t ended and the projector was still running. This was indeed fictional and required my best acting.
I finally found my courage, squashed the dragons out of my belly and made my way to where she stood with her film partner as people trickled out of the theatre. She smiled at me and introduced me to a small group gathered around her.
“Do you know Joanne Vannicola? She’s a great young actress, was in one of my films.”
I smiled again, feeling just that much more uncomfortable, barely able to keep the bile out of my throat. No, actually, I’m your girlfriend, your lover.
“Hi, nice to meet you.” With a forced smile, I shook the hands of strangers. “Well, I just wanted to say that I loved the film … and, um … well, I guess I’m going to be going,” I said.
“Thanks for coming,” Carla responded.
I didn’t leave right away, but slowly walked toward the washroom. Several minutes later, I came out with very clean hands to find Carla still had a group around her. I walked past and waved goodbye. She didn’t wave back.
I dashed out of the building and walked and walked as the clock pushed past 10:00 p.m., then 11:00. I calculated the distance between Carla and me, the age gap large enough for a whole lifetime to pass, fifteen years. I had left home around that age.
Perhaps it was my fault, not standing with her, taking up space, but I knew not to. It was like a gay code one shouldn’t break.
I went into a coffee shop and sat looking out through the glass window onto Yonge Street, where people walked back and forth, holding hands, talking, or were simply alone. I finally understood that it had nothing to do with me; it was about her. Though I wanted to believe she would come out and that I would be enough for her, I wasn’t. I knew I would never bury my truth again — wouldn’t allow myself to hide, even if the price was high, even if it cost me my own career. How many times had I hid behind some mask of makeup in an audition room? Or tried to cover up being lesbian to please the men who sat behind tables, with stone expressions or eyeballs too wide for their faces, staring at places below my neck as I recited lines from scripts, wondering if they would hire me? They perused my resumé after my chest, legs, and hips, undressing me with their eyes, projecting their likes or dislikes so obviously, smiling or distant, or unimpressed. Stone.
Do you mind pulling up your pant bottoms and unbuttoning a few buttons of your shirt?
Yes, I do mind.
Once in a while there was magic, a moment when a director was excited because I gave a solid performance, but those moments were rare. Acting was like heroin, chasing the first high, the best role, the applause, but I wanted something real, wanted more.
I had met Carla in one of those rooms, but I didn’t think of what happened between us in the same way because she wasn’t a man, and because we both lived in a misogynist and homophobic culture. Even with the power imbalance between us, I thought what we had was special, maybe because she was my first female partner. Perhaps it was special, but it was doomed. I was finally ready to be out because of love, but Carla wasn’t.
I fished out my watch from my pocket, the old-fashioned kind dangling from the end of a long silver chain attached to my belt. It was late. The streets were bare, with few people walking by. The sky was dark blue, almost black. A man tapped my shoulder. “Can you spare some change?”
He had lines marking his entire face, a grey beard and hair, saggy dirty pants, and gentle eyes. His fingers were long and thin and marked by age. I stood and gave him what I had left in my pockets. He looked at me and I saw how any one of us could be him. I was afraid of losing everything, but understood that some things were out of my control.
I left the café having made a decision. I was going to break up with Carla.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“NO ONE’S EVER going to love you like I do.”
Carla was angry.
I was walking behind her on Parliament Street after we exited the Irish pub. It was a couple of days after her film’s release. I had tried to let her enjoy that first, before we saw each other again.
“Maybe it’s true.… I don’t know, Carla.… Don’t be mad. Don’t —”
“Look, do what you gotta do. I’m not going to stick around if your mind is made up … but I love you and you’re making a mistake.” She looked at me, but I didn’t know what to say. “Fuck it.” She stopped walking and looked back at me. “I love you, okay? I would have loved you for a long time. I wasn’t asking for much.”
“Okay,” I said back. I was so stupid, such a child, couldn’t even figure out how to answer, h
ow to give a response like Being closeted is too much.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Yeah, me too. Bye, Joanne.”
“Bye.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
IT WAS THE WINTER of 1989. I was in my studio watching the evening news in the dark. It was horribly cold and snowy. Injured from a fall a few days after breaking up with Carla, I was lying on my couch, doped up on Percocet, when the breaking news hit the screen and images of ambulances and gurneys, sirens and mayhem took over all the programming in the country. It was December 6, the day of the massacre at École Polytechnique in Montreal: the deadliest mass shooting in Canada’s history. Many were shot, and fourteen women were killed.
M.L. called them “feminists,” gunned them down after separating them from the boys. As the news of the dead and injured continued into the night, her name suddenly flashed across the screen: Geneviève Bergeron.
The night slowed and the moment was memorialized as one young woman after another was transported from inside the school on gurneys. Footage flashed across the screen with bodies covered up, cameras, the whirl of sirens, screaming bystanders, crying family members. I didn’t know what to do, but all I could think about was my friend Marc. He and Geneviève had been girlfriend and boyfriend for five years. I last saw them laughing in the theatre in Montreal, with their beat box, holding hands, teens in love.
I picked up the phone to call him. His mother answered, and I heard his grief in the background. “He’s on the bed with his teddy bear,” she said, heartbroken. “He can’t come to the phone.”
“Tell him I love him, I’m so sorry. Wrap your arms around him for me.”
I spoke with a couple of friends from my old theatre company in Montreal during the night. A private pain turned into a public outcry, a public moment of shame and anger over the loss of so many young female lives.
It unhinged me. Something came undone, fell away; the dream of life in the world getting better for girls was wiped away in a heartbeat. I wanted to believe in the goodness of people, that all would wake up one day and want to end oppression. Why would people not want equity for their daughters and mothers? It seemed like a no-brainer. The world was not safe. I knew that already. But girls were getting shot, and Geneviève was dead.
The culture was broken.
There were many of us who knew those fourteen young women — hundreds — and then thousands who knew the hundreds, and millions around the world who were touched by this moment of grief, this act of terrorism. I didn’t know why men hated women so much, or why people hated gays or black people or Indigenous people. Humanity confused me. I wanted life to be about love. Maybe love ran alongside life, and if you were lucky the lines would cross and you would experience love. But I understood that there was very little that was humane about us. We were a violent species. We were flawed and constantly digging ourselves out of the wreckage.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
IT WAS THE MIDDLE of winter when I descended into darkness.
It was so cold outside and the view was always the same: naked tree branches, snow lining the buildings and streets. Frost and ice collected inside the window sills, fogging up the glass. A deep fog had taken over my body as well. I had no family, I was out of work, I was still struggling over the shooting, and Carla was gone.
I walked to the washroom, opened the cabinet, then turned the tap on in the sink and splashed water all over my face. I grabbed the cold white porcelain and stared into the drain, hearing the words in my head, the message growing stronger and stronger. Do it. I felt like there was a layer of gauze wrapped around my entire body, unravelling, exposing old wounds.
I lifted my face to the mirror. Indifference clouded my senses, taking over as if I had swallowed a handful of pills. The quiet held the ghosts of my past, and my mother’s eyes were nearly visible in the reflection in the mirror behind me.
I screamed, then started to kick the wall. I kicked and shouted. I pulled the shower curtain down and put a hole in the wall with my foot while I continued to scream. I opened the cabinet above the sink and threw the contents onto the ground, then grabbed the thin glass shelf that held the bottles and soaps, pulled it out of the cabinet, and smashed it on the floor.
Sweat mixed with tears, my heart beat quickly as the rage lifted and I fell to the floor in exhaustion. I looked at the broken glass beneath my body, small shards all around, and I grabbed a piece and felt its sharp edges with my fingertip. I started to slowly cut into my wrist, drawing a tiny amount of blood.
“Oh shit.” I stood up and turned on the tap, stuck my hand under the stream. The air was thin as my limbs started to shake. I put a bandage on and made my way outside, where everything seemed upside down, clouds beneath my feet and my head in the ground, suffocating. I hopped on a streetcar and decided, without thinking, to go see Alice. There was no place else to go.
Alice sat in her chair while I was curled up on the floor holding my legs, words falling from my mouth. I’d showed up unannounced, frantic. I’d already told her about the break-up with Carla, before I fell on my back and ended up at home on painkillers. But I didn’t know how to stop the downward spiral. I searched for the wolf in her eyes, but never saw it. I dropped my head down again, faced the floor, words desperate to come out.
Alice looked at me without speaking, waiting for me. I had been carrying around this horrible question I didn’t know what to do with.
“Carla asked me if I thought I was a lesbian ’cause my mother sexually abused me.”
“What did you say back?” Alice asked.
“I said no.” I looked again at Alice, wondering if she might hate me, if she would think there was something wrong with me. “You don’t think I’m a lesbian because of what my mom did to me, do you?” I didn’t know what she thought, but I was afraid that when she looked at me, she saw something horrible.
“No, I don’t think that. What do you think?” she asked.
“I think I’m a lesbian because it’s who I am, because I like women. I think I’ve always been like this, but Carla … it was like she brought my mother right into the room with us and I couldn’t see Carla sometimes, just my mother, and I don’t want my mother to be in my relationships with me. I want to get her out. I was a kid and she was my mom and I didn’t turn into a lesbian because of her … and anyway, it doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t girls turn straight and want guys if women molested them, if they didn’t want to be reminded of their abuse?” Then I laughed and imagined how many lesbians there would be roaming the planet if it were true, because men had raped women in the millions. “But asking me that is like asking straight women if they are straight because they were abused by their fathers. Why ask me that about my mother? It’s gross.”
“Do you think you saw your mother in her because of the age difference?” Alice asked.
“No, it was more like shame. We couldn’t tell anyone. I told Carla I didn’t feel bad for being a lesbian.”
“Do you think she does?”
“Yes, I think so. But I can’t hate being a lesbian. I don’t want to hide and I don’t want to think about my mother in this way …” I’d never had a conversation like this.
“You don’t have to,” Alice said. “Do you think people are who they are inside no matter what others do to them?”
I nodded yes while I picked at my jeans, still looking down. “My mom was crazy. I mean, she was smart and sometimes she was funny and people really liked her, but at home … at home she did things no one would believe, like she did with my dad. She would just make shit up and pretend we did something wrong when we didn’t so she could watch him beat us up. She knew he would beat us. He was vicious.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was out at a bar with Martha and she told me that my mom confided in her …” I stopped speaking.
I dropped my head, chin to the floor, not wanting to look at Alice. I didn’t want her to see how ugly I was, how disgusting. And that old inner voice came bub
bling up from deep inside, coming awake from a sleep, winding her way through my belly and into my throat: She won’t believe you. No one ever does.
“What did Martha say?”
“I was afraid to tell you when I met you.… I thought you would think I was lying. I wanted Martha to take it back, so I could pretend I hadn’t heard the things she said about my mother …” I stopped talking again.
“It’s okay to say. I believe you,” Alice said calmly.
She waited for me to speak. I saw her shift in her chair slightly.
“I was in shock. I was just trying to keep it together. I told Martha I forgave her, but I didn’t. I just didn’t know what to do. She knew about my mother.” I looked at Alice.
What was Martha sorry for all those years ago? For knowing my mother was a pedophile?
“Sorry for what?” I said loudly, punching the floor in front of Alice. “I looked up to her. I trusted Martha. She didn’t give a shit about anyone but herself. I did everything I could to get away from my mother. I was dying, Alice. I was starving to death.”
Stop talking, because she won’t stay. She’ll crack you open, scatter you around in pieces and I’ll have to clean up the mess. You have to shut up. Shut up, Joanne!
I wrapped my arms around my legs, my eyes closing, axis shifting sideways, like time didn’t exist, rolled back, back into my house where I had my fort under the porch, back to her, my mother, on her bed or in the bath, larger than life.
“Why didn’t anyone stop her?” I asked in a small voice.
Don’t. Don’t do it.
“What did your mother do?” Alice asked.
Please listen, she’ll hate you if she knows. She’ll think you’re awful, dirty. Stop now. The voice inside was so loud.
“I didn’t understand why my mother wanted to lie down with me. I just felt bad. I felt sick, like I didn’t know who she was, like she was a different person, because I didn’t recognize her. I didn’t understand.”
All We Knew But Couldn't Say Page 17
