Honey

by Brenda Brooks

  I drove up to Crystal Lake once, but never again. I saw her in the woods everywhere — concealed in the brush, her body found in early spring. Or worst of all, her pale face under the ice, her body slipping away into the frozen depths of the lake, my terrible dream come true. Each time I got back to Montague Street I worried that I’d missed her while I was wandering.

  That’s why I decided not to leave the house, ever again. Because with my luck she’d come straggling back from some abandoned cottage up north and toss a handful of pebbles at my bedroom window, all dappled with moonlight like in some movie, and the projector would break down mid-scene, and the victory music grind to a stop, because I missed my cue — off somewhere scouring the countryside in the old Chevy.

  I bought a few supplies in preparation for her return: bottles of wine, that bourbon she favored, a few groceries. All that gourmet stuff she went on about — cheese and pâté mostly, some caviar, as if I knew anything. I even bought a pack of those cigarettes she liked in memory of that night up on Mt. Vista when she gave me that first dirty kiss of hers. I settled in, got into a routine: get up, play a little piano, look outside for tracks in the snow, go to bed. I’m not sure how long it took me to realize she wasn’t coming back, that she’d never set foot on the verandah of the house on Montague Street again, not in winter, not spring, or any season at all.

  There were mirrors in the house of course, and you’d think I would have seen myself in them, but if I did I didn’t care. I never checked time or day, because I seemed to have developed uncanny insights into more important things. Time was stupid, for instance. And winter was wrongly maligned, because if you stepped outside naked it didn’t take long to start feeling warm and even pleasantly lethargic. I must have had a few baths but can’t be sure. One day I smoked a few cigarettes and thought about cutting my hair short like Honey’s had been when I last saw her — but there was nothing, nothing in the world, like Honey the last time I saw her.

  * * *

  Now this is where it gets strange, because you see I thought that I went straight from the house to the mental health ward down in Torrent. It seemed to me that a guy from the electric company (that was the first time I saw my condition — in his eyes) came by to check the meter and got freaked out and called the cops, who called an ambulance. But I’m told it wasn’t that way at all. Instead, the security guard at the police auto compound found me sitting in the Caddy sipping bourbon out of Honey’s flask at 2:03 in the thirty below. And how I got there, and how it got to be February, I didn’t know, and didn’t care. And when he asked me what on earth I was doing there they say I told him, “Earth? I’m leaving earth. Stand away from the afterburners.”

  But that smacks of exaggeration if you ask me, just another swarm of blackflies and rumor; the sort of theatrical bullshit people make up because they live in towns where nothing ever happens.

  19.

  I decided to think of my time at the ward as a kind of enforced caesura, and me beating out the time like my father’s old metronome. They certified me after the Eldorado episode because of my condition, but that really wasn’t necessary because I didn’t care where I was, or why, so hanging around with a bunch of disheveled, addicted euchre players was fine by me. They wouldn’t catch me stepping across the line on the floor that separated the patients (inmates) from the great outdoors.

  I gave music lessons, mostly for guitar, which I could play a little too in a pinch, and entertained the troops on Saturday nights after the double-feature. I became part of a little coven of women who were either coming down from drugs, kicking alcohol, or putting screwed-up relationships behind them. But some were just pale and sad and didn’t know why. All were depressed, anxious — and really nice people. You’d almost be forgiven if you thought this might be one of their problems: they were too nice. But at the same time their various conditions made you believe it just isn’t possible to be too nice to anyone. I don’t know. I thought of them as another collection of folks, like the casino crowd, who had gambled and lost a rigged game, but there were differences: none of them bothered writing requests on a piece of paper and leaving them on the piano, an old Heintzman upright — they just shouted them out. Country, rhythm and blues, southern rock — whatever they wanted.

  All the folks knew each other’s business and weren’t shy about offering opinions about my situation. They reminded me of a kind of unkempt ladies film club, a bunch of hyper-vigilant, rough-hewn critics who got together every Sunday to pop some corn and pick apart that month’s offering. They took it personally, defending their point of view sometimes to the point of anxiety attacks.

  Some of them (the realists) thought Honey had been the force behind the whole thing all along: she and Lynch had killed Aurbuck and I’d been seduced into their game for the insurance policy money, and then Lynch had to die when things started to close in; Honey couldn’t risk her being caught and spilling the beans. They were amazed I couldn’t see that and worried about how I’d make out in the world once I pulled myself together and got released.

  The majority (romantics) were sure that Honey and I had both been blackmailed from the start, that Eva Lynch — jilted, swindled, and broke — had Aurbuck trailed by the guy from Silk Lake. The scene behind Havenhurst was a gift to Lynch. She forced Honey to steal the fifty grand and ask for more, or she’d send the video to the cops, or kill us both. To spare my feelings, my coven stopped short of conjecturing about what had happened to Honey, although I could see the awful scene in their eyes.

  I never did see the video Detective Smith refused to show me that night, but his words, the expression on his face, were enough. I didn’t care which scenario was true. I just wanted Honey to be alive somewhere, anywhere. I pictured her lying in bed (alone) in a room by the sea or strolling a beach, a sack of seashells dangling from one hand, a glass of one of those idiosyncratic rosés from Abruzzo in the other. The original girl from Ipanema or Tuscany — or wherever there was a curve of sea so clear that its boats seem suspended on air, their shadows stretched out on the pale sand below.

  On the other hand if that’s where she was, without me, I couldn’t help hating her all over again, just as I had when she vanished from Buckthorn at eighteen. And when that happened I reminded myself of poor Johnny Farrell in Gilda, which is a fucked-up role to get stuck with — being so in touch with those rotten, wrung-out feelings and no one there to be stung by your bitter repartee.

  Jealousy. What torture. It’s like getting hung up on barbed wire somewhere deep inside yourself.

  * * *

  Detective Smith, after he recovered, visited me a couple of times at the ward and made an appearance the day I got out. I think he assumed I might be worried about some sort of blowback, that I might be found complicit in some way in the death of Aurbuck and maybe even Eva Lynch. And yes, I felt guilty, but I didn’t really care what happened to me. Still he went out of his way to suggest that, in his view, the only thing I had been guilty of was being a half-assed sleuth trying to make sense of her own blackmail. On top of that I had saved a policeman’s life, he said — the 9-1-1 call, which I thought anyone would have made, and my attempt to stop his bleeding from Lynch’s attack. But how could I have done otherwise when he reminded me so much of my mother?

  As for the compromising video, the voice was, perhaps, Honey’s, but was the other figure me? Wasn’t it just as likely that it was Eva Lynch? The whole mystery was inconclusive unless I confessed, and although I didn’t really care about living anymore I especially didn’t want to feel that way while in prison, where someone might rescue me if reality became too much.

  At our last meeting he asked me, “Just out of curiosity, did Honey happen to own a gun?” When I didn’t answer — it seemed I couldn’t stop being cagey — he said the whole thing was curious because it wasn’t a bullet from his own police revolver that took Eva Lynch down, as even he (dazed and half-dead) had thought at first.

  “It was fr
om an old Browning pistol that we traced back to a gas station robbery in Buckthorn County forty-three years ago. Almost certainly the same gun that killed Aurbuck.”

  I thought of spilling the whole thing right then and there. He might have enjoyed hearing about Inez trying to hold up Aurbuck for a loan. But if I did, he’d have to fill out a report, and one thing would lead to the next, and the facts might start interfering with the truth. He didn’t press, I stayed neutral: our usual agreement.

  “Curious,” he said.

  Before we parted he asked if I’d sprung the Caddy from the police compound. “Long gone,” I said. “Given to the guy whose cab I stole and dented up pretty badly the night we — went looking for Honey.”

  The cabbie had told me that he planned to mount a light on top and swan the summer tourists around in style, but we both knew that would never be. No one bothers with cabs in Buckthorn anymore unless they’re looking for a cruise back into the “happy golden days of yore,” which apparently never happened anyway. But you can’t go by me.

  * * *

  As I said, I promised myself I’d never go back to the house on Montague Street — afraid of what I’d find there: 2,000 square feet of nothing, the limbs of the giant maples heavy on the ground, the birches jumpy in the ruined wind, my father’s guitar unstrung on the porch. But it turned out that whether I chose to return or not was beside the point — because it was as if that house had been waiting for the developer (or the guy from Pottery Barn) to throw open the gate — and then it shed its skin like a living thing and escaped the spot where it had stood for over a century. It drifted around until it found me, and now it’s become some kind of willful thing I’ll never be free of, nudging me from behind and gone when I turn around. I see now that me and the house are stuck with each other, the two of us inhabited by the absence of each one of them — all my missing.

  * * *

  Another few months go by and still my setlist hadn’t changed much since the Crescendo. Wherever I went, there was no shortage of people prepared to get misty over songs like “I Put a Spell on You” or “Someone to Watch Over Me” — anything that helped them latch onto a dignified reason for feeling bad, and then have it draw to a conclusion with the song, although I can’t say it worked for me.

  I’d be bullshitting if I said I didn’t think about her all the time, especially at work when I allowed myself the rare indulgence of closing the set with “Lover’s Concerto.” I’d let myself get lost again, imagining my silly vignette, the one I described to Honey that last night at the Grand Hotel when I finally told her how much I loved her. I look up from the keyboard one night and the casino door opens — cue the sexy sax riff, the lazy ceiling fan, close in on the piano player’s hands, wearing her luckless good luck ring . . . But as I said it was a ridiculous indulgence. Because that little dream is nothing more than a fantasy from a certain kind of movie known for its moody lighting and shiny nighttime streets: unhappy ending, nobody wins.

  * * *

  A few weeks ago I took a job at another casino. It doesn’t matter where, by then they’d all become one single gambling hall, each one merging into the next, every town the same too, slightly larger or smaller, most of them failing. I added a few new songs — the same combo of pop and blues: “What’s New,” “On the Sentimental Side,” “Since I Fell for You.” I had to laugh at my overly sincere song list. Just like my old man, but I did a hell of a job; I’d gone from being a half-baked crooner to a vocalist and singer, it seemed, in spite of myself. I could go on about texture and color, a certain raw catch in the throat, but it was more than that. I’m not blowing my own cornet, because it’s just another example of serendipity, or fate, if you like, and had nothing to do with me. It’s just that Honey had taught me how to put a song together by breaking something in me. And now I was fit to understand what my father meant when he told me, “Master the instrument’s rules. By all means be intentional and perfect. But then, when life —” I know now he meant love “— comes along and drags you to your knees, throw everything away — and get down to making music.”

  I always rented a room wherever I traveled rather than apartment or suite because I knew the time was limited before I’d set off again. A packet of forwarded mail caught up with me at the latest address, most of it bills that I’m embarrassed to say went unpaid for months because of nothing more than forgetfulness and neglect (my new philosophy). I sat down one night to make things right, got them all squared away, stamped and ready to mail at the post box in town. No online convenience for me. I had cut my cord to the world, I guess you could say — gone offline and barely used my cell phone. My plan was to become a piano playing hermit on the move, swept back into the past, maybe, but what did it matter? I only know I was halfway there.

  The last piece of mail was one of those brown five-by-seven envelopes with a mess of colorful postage stamps: depictions of small dwellings, white and ochre, on a rocky cliff. Inside was a fold-out map showing a long stretch of coastline and a small island beside it, a ragged scrap of washed-out green, as if that’s all that remained after being worn away by the sea. It had been circled two or three times with a blue marker, and then a quick sketch of a window with curtains lifting in the breeze. I could smell the salt air, the rosemary, and lemon trees.

  I felt dizzy, then faint, like that day in the change room at Robinson’s. I watched her hands tie back her hair, as if she was right there with me, and longed to press my lips to the little brass safety pin that held her bra strap together. And where should I run to regain my composure now? Back to an empty house on Montague Street in a town that no longer existed? Wouldn’t it be just like me to doubt her secret sign, the very one I’d searched for everywhere, as if it was nothing more than another Honey-related rumor, someone’s sick lie, and dig up some reason to stay put in my crumby life. But here’s the thing: in all the times I’d lost her, I had never felt her absence as keenly as when I sat in the hotel room, staring at that little blue scrawl, and imagined finding her again.

  So to hell with composure, and even self-control. I’d throw myself away, like I was meant to do from the start. I’d pack my banged-up suitcase and join her on that island of hers, with rose-colored sand or whatever it turned out to be. Who cared if it was nothing more than the half-assed dream of a woman who couldn’t face up to the world’s facts? I mean, who really can, if we’re honest. Sometimes the truth is all we’ve got, even if we keep it to ourselves.

  And didn’t we agree to meet up later if we ever parted — some train station in the middle of nowhere, or a cabin up north with a dilapidated dock and a banged-up rowboat knocking alongside? Of course we did. We made the pact at eight, at thirteen, at twenty-four, and in the middle of every long night we spent together.

  And I realize now that’s just what my father promised my mother on her birthday every year as he clowned his way through that corny Aznavour tune, with nothing but aching candor for the last eight bars.

  Acknowledgments

  Heartfelt thanks to my agent, Samantha Haywood at Transatlantic Agency, and my editor, Jen Knoch at ECW Press. They are all the proof I need that Lady Luck smiled on me twice. How awesome of ECW Press to let Honey hang around their offices with all the cool and talented people. Thanks to the cast at ECW Press: Jessica Albert, Crissy Calhoun, Emily Ferko, Tania Blokhuis, Leah Kleynhans, and Laura Pastore.

  I’m grateful to Barbara Pulling, Pearl Luke, Mona Fertig, Michelle Benjamin, and Shari Macdonald for valuable input.

  Love to my sister, Barb Egerter, my brother, Mike Brooks, and my friend and business partner, Kim Nash, who helped me find the time to write this novel. Thanks to Michael Egerter for that inspiring postcard from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

  Some time ago, the family of my high school writing teacher, Judy Wilson-Bucknam, returned to me, after she died, a scrapbook of poems and photographs that I gave to her on the last day of school. I thank them for their kindness, and I remember her.


  About the Author

  Brenda Brooks has published two poetry collections and a novel, Gotta Find Me an Angel, a finalist for the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. She lives on Salt Spring Island, B.C.

  Copyright

  Copyright © Brenda Brooks, 2019

  Published by ECW Press

  665 Gerrard Street East

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4M 1Y2

  416-694-3348 / info@ecwpress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Editor for the press: Jennifer Knoch

  Cover design: Natalie Olsen / Kisscut Design

  Cover photo: © Jen Squires / www.jensquiresphotographer.com

  Author photo: Shari Macdonald

  “I Remember” from ALL MY PRETTY ONES by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1962 by Anne Sexton, renewed 1990 by Linda G. Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.