He remembered Amanda. In his role as absent uncle returning from afar, it seemed proper that he bear gifts. She would be sixteen. He had no idea.
“You leave that to me,” said Melissa.
“I don’t know what she listens to, what size she would wear, what she likes. I don’t know anything.”
“As long as she’s not a goth or something.”
Melissa treated him to a questioning look. He didn’t know; as an uncle, Zane was proving deficient. He hedged his bets with I-don’t-think-so, and regretted it, realizing too late that this was simply moronic.
Melissa, having dragged him through a series of boutiques, picked out a pair of earrings, small oblong silver pendants with a design picked out on the face in gold.
“She’s only sixteen.”
“You really are a complete idiot.”
Melissa snapped the box closed and handed it to him, and he added it to his growing bundle of shopping bags. A sudden panic seized him. With the act of buying the gift, his impending visit to Connie became a reality.
“I need some decent clothes.”
He made Melissa wait while he looked at shirts, contemplated a tie. Perhaps a sports jacket.
“If you wear a tie, what am I going to wear?”
“Just be yourself. She’ll love you. Especially if you keep calling me an idiot.”
I guess I can keep it casual then, she said. Zane settled on a shirt, no tie, no sports jacket. He bought Melissa a new shirt. They got changed in advance. The car was ready, and he was out of excuses.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Connie lived in a sprawling new house on the south edge of Calgary, backing onto the Bow River flood plain. Its architecture recalled an older style, a style that predated the uniform suburban boxes, bungalows and split-levels of Zane’s childhood and now was back in vogue. Gabled windows overlooked a driveway of interlocking paving stone, with sand still fresh in its crevices, leading up to a three-car garage. Three small saplings loitered in the front yard. They had yet to grow into the roles which fate and landscape architecture had assigned.
“Some house,” said Melissa.
“Jim’s a plastic surgeon.”
“Big money in boob jobs, I guess.”
You can dress this kid up but you can’t take her anywhere.
“He does reconstructive surgery. On burn victims. He teaches at the University hospital.”
Zane tilted the rear-view mirror and fussed briefly at his hair, and then gave it up as pointless. Too little, too late; you’re not about to fool anyone, new shirt or no. Melissa’s face will get all the stares in any case. She had donned her sunglasses, which as a disguise proved no more effective than his abortive attempt to tame his hair.
“Showtime,” he said.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“You wait.”
He got out of the car and closed his door. The latch punctuated the afternoon with a satisfying, decisive clunk.
A magpie called, a sound like a creaking gate, which confused Zane until he located its source, perched on the peak of the garage roof. Beside the front door, Connie had installed an ornate wooden mailbox with a painted wooden face peeking out over the top. Kilroy was here but has now gone kitsch, spelling out a welcome in chunky wooden capitals. It was the kind of thing Zane’s mother might have put up, to go with her overstuffed furniture, her flower prints.
Something in this icon of suburbia, or in his own reaction to it, bothered him. You don’t want to be a cynic but at the same time you instinctively write it all off as tacky, condemn each token of conspicuous consumption even as Lapierre’s voice intones that it is not wrong to want these things. You recognize the road not taken even as you bomb it. Not one of us is incapable of pettiness.
Zane stopped on the front step to gather himself before ringing the doorbell, but the front door confounded him by opening of its own accord.
Revealed in the doorway, a cheerful family portrait: Connie in sundress, Doctor Jim in khakis with dress shirt open at the neck, daughter Amanda smiling between them. All this scene lacks is a mid-toned backdrop lit by a couple of studio flash units bounced off umbrellas.
Connie’s smile seemed unnaturally rigid. Zane felt scruffier than usual, and acutely conscious of the bruises peeping from behind Melissa’s sunglasses. The moment stretched thin. Then Zane remembered himself and introduced Melissa.
“What happened to your face?” Amanda, guileless and sixteen, broached the unbroachable.
Melissa removed her sunglasses.
“I got beat up.”
“How?”
“Old boyfriend. Long story.”
The tension deflates with an almost palpable sense of release. The important thing, it seems, is that Melissa did not incur these injuries by walking into a door. This would be embarrassing for everyone.
Connie took Zane’s hand and tilted her head to one side and smiled weakly.
“It’s been a long time.”
“It sure has.”
Watching a faint tremble in Connie’s chin, Zane felt a sense of panic. Are we all supposed to be this fragile? You get the awkward sense that you’re supposed to be equally emotional, that you’re supposed to do or say something. All of us kittens, hanging in there; we’ve sure got guts. Then it occurred to him: the conventional thing would be to give her a hug. He felt stiff and uncomfortable as her tears wet his cheek.
Inside, the house seemed almost empty, the effect of its open concept design and vaulted ceilings. An awkward silence echoed momentarily through the space.
“Amanda, I can’t believe how you’ve grown.”
Melissa kicked Zane in the ankle.
“Your uncle is an idiot.”
As an ice breaker, this was certainly unique, not to mention effective; everyone save Zane agreed. Zane flexed his ankle, indignant less over the kick than over the lack of a serious injury about which to complain. Being lame was not in itself a problem; it was the sense of the word that was troublesome.
“Anyway, we got you a little something.” He held out the box containing the earrings.
“They’re gorgeous.”
“Melissa picked them out.”
Amanda started chattering at Melissa. Zane felt his stature deflate, but he had no one to blame but himself.
“Come on out back,” said Jim. “You want a beer?”
Zane nodded. He was going to be needing a beer.
Jim pointed to Melissa and raised an eyebrow.
“Just a pop or juice or whatever is fine.”
At the back of the house a sliding glass door opened onto a broad wooden deck. Below, the Bow River snaked across its flood plain. Jim’s barbecue, an enormous, stainless steel monster, lit with a push-button. No fumbling with matches, no eyebrows in peril as propane and air approached the correct explosive ratio. Zane felt this detracted somewhat from the manliness of the exercise.
“It’s burgers,” said Jim, and motioned to a platter where the patties were stacked. “But I got chicken for you.”
“Thanks.”
“Short bowel is no fun.”
Talking shop, the consequence of being an expert on the one piece of equipment that everyone owns. Every body a conversation piece. Those 1958 Zanes, you know: good model year, but you really got to watch the head gaskets. After a while they start leaking all over the damn place. Next thing you know the thing blows a seal, one hell of a mess. And eventually they just more or less conk out.
“I’m off red meat, anyway.”
The sight of loose ground beef ordinarily made Zane feel distinctly ill. He looked away from the platter and took a long pull from his beer. It was so cold that his teeth hurt. He couldn’t taste a thing.
Connie emerged from the house and drifted over to Zane and squeezed his arm and pointed him at a chair at the patio table. Zane took up his indicated position, in the shade of a green cloth umbrella. Connie sat opposite.
“It really is good to see you.” Connie possessed a fey, ineff
able fragility, a wispiness that Zane could not quite fathom. Her voice was soft and seemed insubstantial, as if she was not there.
“It’s been too long,” he said.
Connie looked off over the river and he felt the need to fill the conversational space.
“I really can’t believe how much Amanda’s grown.”
“Kids grow up,” said Jim. He was a merchant of the obvious.
“She’s just about grown up.”
“Let’s not rush things,” said Connie.
“She’ll be off to university soon.”
“She has two more years of high school.”
“What’s she going to do?”
“I don’t think she knows. She’s not as grown up as she looks.”
Connie nodded towards the back lawn, where Amanda and Melissa wandered together. They were too distant to be overheard, but their laughter carried up to the deck. Zane felt certain that he was the butt of the joke.
“It’s nice for your friend to have someone to talk to, a little closer her own age.”
“We’re not together.”
“You’re driving her around just because?”
“I’m doing a story on her, Connie.”
Connie sipped at her drink and looked out again at Melissa and Amanda, whose heads were now close in sisterly conversation.
“Women amaze me,” said Jim. He turned away from the barbecue and waved his spatula in the general direction of the lawn. Zane suspected that he secretly wanted to wave it at Connie. “Five minutes, and they’re old friends.”
“Melissa has that effect on people.”
“You two seem pretty close,” said Connie.
“We’re not.”
“Pretty familiar, anyway.”
“I’ve kind of adopted her. She’s a nice kid.”
“So you won’t be sharing the guest room, then.”
“I’m fine on the couch.”
“What happened to her face?”
Connie was perhaps less fragile than she appeared. Zane pushed away his irritation. It’s none of her business but then again, it is the obvious question.
“Like she said: she got beat up.”
“What I mean is, how, and by who?”
“She told you, her old boyfriend.”
“I’d say a current boyfriend. Those bruises are pretty fresh.”
“A former boyfriend.”
Connie raised her eyebrows. Is it possible to become so defiled that your own sister will not recognize you?
“You know me better than that.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
“I haven’t been through that much.”
Connie sipped at her drink.
“Anyway, it’s her story to tell.”
Connie put her drink down and stood up. “I’ll go get the plates.”
“You want to watch those orbital bones,” said Jim.
“They’re fine, apparently. Just the stitches.”
Jim stood by the barbecue and looked out over the valley and hefted his spatula, as if testing its weight.
“You should visit more often,” he said, as if addressing the river. “It’s good for Connie, to see you.”
“It’s a long way to come.”
“She wants to see more of you, you know.”
Jim lifted the lid and flipped the burgers, and then asked Zane if he wanted another beer, as if nothing else had been said. Zane accepted, and Jim pulled one from the icebox.
“Those stitches look like a good job.”
Zane let that one ride, thinking, doctors.
“She’s going to have a scar, though.”
“Eyebrows like a hockey player.”
“What about you? How are you doing these days?”
“The diet gets me down.”
“You aren’t looking so good.”
Zane put the beer down on the table. It now seemed important that he not drink it. Melissa and Amanda, down on the lawn, were sharing another joke.
“It’s just I don’t sleep so well, these days.”
Jim looked out at the river and hefted the spatula again.
“I love living on the Bow,” he said. “I go down in the evenings to fish. I got a drift boat in the garage. There’s nothing like trout fishing, Luke. It helps me get my headspace, you know?”
Headspacing, as it had been explained to Zane, was a measurement important to the correct adjustment of a machine gun. This was no way to live.
“I always found fishing a bit goofy.”
“A jerk on one end of the line, and a jerk on the other.”
“Something like that.”
“No, it’s relaxing.” Jim opened the lid and checked the burgers again. “I can do skin grafts all week and then Saturday I do a float trip down the Bow with my fishing partner and all that stuff just flies away.”
A magpie lighted in a tree at the edge of the lawn.
“I got a case last month. Young guy, British soldier. You know, they train down at Suffield, just east of here.” He took a pull of his beer and then set it down and closed the lid of the barbecue. “Anyway, he was in a tank, or whatever, and somehow they got hit by friendly fire. In training. Can you believe that?”
Zane said nothing. This was precisely the territory he preferred to avoid. It gets so the sight of ground beef makes you sick.
“Anyway, the burns were pretty bad.”
“I can imagine.”
“I’m sure you don’t need to imagine.”
“No.”
Zane picked up his beer again and took a swig. Despite the sun, the breeze felt cold. Jim continued squinting at the river, as if he expected to spot rising trout.
“Anyway, if you want to talk to someone, I can refer you to some pretty good people. There’s a guy at U of T.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s too bad you aren’t staying a couple days. We could go fishing. Goofy as it is. You wouldn’t believe the browns we get.”
Jim now devoted himself to removing the burgers from the grill, as if they had been discussing trout fishing all the while.
They ate on the deck. The sun had dipped below the edge of the patio umbrella. Melissa, sitting beside Zane, dropped her sunglasses over her eyes. The sun felt warm on his arms and a cool breeze out of the southwest washed over him. He sat back in his chair and stretched out his legs and smiled at his sister.
“This is nice.”
“We won’t be getting many more days like this one.” Connie turned her head to look out over the river, where the sun played on the riffles. “Amanda starts back at school next week.”
Amanda, wearing her new earrings, scowled at the prospect.
“Your whole life can’t be a vacation,” said Jim.
“It’s working out just fine for Zane.” Melissa skewered a cherry tomato with her fork and smirked at him. He felt a sudden desire to critique her table manners.
“I miss the postcards,” said Amanda. And to Melissa: “Uncle Luke used to send me postcards from all over, when I was a little kid.”
“I don’t travel much anymore.”
Not to mention which, all the fun had gone out of it. The joke had run its course. The last time he sent her a postcard was from New York, a Manhattan skyline with the World Trade Center. He had no idea, when he mailed it, what was about to happen. He was in town to meet Jack, the day before. After she saw the postcard, Connie called him a sick man, told him never to send another.
“Those cards were so random. When I was in, like, Grade Two, I brought postcards from Sarajevo for show and tell. My teacher totally freaked out.”
“Some of those postcards freaked me out,” said Connie.
When the siege was on, there was no mail out of Sarajevo. Zane collected the postcards and mailed them from Graz, filled them with chatty remarks on such topics as Bosnian coffee, the weather, and all the new friends he pretended to be making. He never mentioned the wars. He told himself that he was playing a game with his young niece
, so that she could look up all the places he had been in an atlas and learn about the world. but he was playing a game with himself, pretending that he was a simple tourist. Making up a different and more peaceful life.
“I bet you have some crazy stories.” Amanda pushed the salad around her plate and looked at him expectantly.
“Zane’s a bore. He doesn’t like to tell stories,” said Melissa.
“Your uncle’s probably tired out from all that driving,” said Jim.
Connie said nothing. Zane concentrated on his salad.
“Those postcards were so random. Uncle Luke was always my coolest uncle.”
Jim had only sisters.
“I was there when the Berlin Wall fell.”
“When the what?”
“When the Berlin Wall fell.”
“You were there?”
“I sure was.”
“Wow. We talked about that in History.”
Melissa started to giggle. You get kicked in the ankle and called an idiot but chances are that Amanda’s history textbooks include your photos.
“It was very exciting.”
Melissa laughed out loud.
“Okay, well, she wanted a story.”
“‘It was very exciting’ ain’t a story, Zane.”
“So what about this story you’re working on now?” Connie had finished her meal and now neatly laid her knife and fork at four-thirty, as if waiting for a waiter to come and clear away the paper plates.
“Just a documentary thing.”
Amanda made a disappointed face: “Documentary is a movie only four people watch, and three of them are sleeping.”
“Sounds about right,” said Zane. He was simply thankful that she had changed the subject.
“But what’s it about?” said Connie.
Zane found it necessary to turn over his plastic fork and closely inspect the tines.
“It’s about how I’m going home to make a fresh start,” said Melissa.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why a fresh start.”
Zane picked up his fork again. Each of the tines had a small reinforcing rib near its base, perpendicular to the load-bearing surface, and the tine itself was constructed as a U-shaped channel. He supposed this gave the fork greater strength than a plain plastic fork would possess, although food would get caught in the U-channel. But then, you weren’t supposed to clean and reuse these things. This was not among the design requirements.
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