A Way West

by Peter Westaway

  Chapter Five

  Monica was once again not sure of anything. Maybe she should have stayed in Ottawa. This was Jeff’s dream to go out west, not hers after all. She was just desperate for some kind of change but maybe this was the wrong change to make. But she keeps her mouth shut and tolerates Pete smoking a joint before the pizzas come. Issy has a couple of small puffs of the joint but Jeff does decline when it is offered to him. The pizza is delicious; she had never tried meatballs on one before. She even relents and accepts one of Jeff’s beers to wash the pizza down. She doesn’t participate in the small talk between the others but tries not to be rude. So she relaxes a little but not much. She has two pieces and finishes the beer.

  Monica then gets off the bed and puts her shoes on. “I am going for a walk, I need some fresh air... and to think about things.”

  Jeff jumps up and opens his arms wide, “Hey baby c’mon, chill out. We are just having some fun. Did your pizza go down good?” Then he wraps his arms around her.

  She returns the hug, a little reluctantly. “I will be fine Jeff, I just would like to be alone for a little while. I won’t be long, so please behave while I am gone.” And with that, she lets him go, and reaches for the door.

  “Okay baby if you insist, but please don’t be long, or I will have to call for a search party.” Jeff tries his best to keep the mood light.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Issy offers, as she is chewing on her pizza, and grabbing for her beer.

  Monica looks over at her, “No Issy thanks, but could you make sure Jeff here stays away from Pete’s drugs.”

  “Sure girl I will babysit both of them.” Issy says, raising her beer in a toast to Monica.

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  Well this just may work out after all. I must be a privileged cat that gets more than one catserver. My catserver has apparently left me now for some unknown reason, but it obviously first trained this other catserver to prepare my food properly. My new catserver’s offerings were actually quite delicious for its first attempt at my meal. I am not about to die of starvation waiting for somecat to explain to me why this has happened, after all. So now that I have a full stomach, finally, I can now go back to concentrating on trying to solve all these new mysteries about my lowly catservers. They seem to be just beyond my grasp of understanding. And now that same bird seems to be trying to attract my attention on my Palace grounds again. It doesn’t have to worry about me having any desire to devour it any time soon. I have to admit it has been a very big relief to not have to endure that old catserver always hoisting me in the air every time I see it, and squeezing me tight against its torso. The Great Sphinx does have wondrous control over these simple creatures and made sure that I was rewarded with a more satisfying one. It is so pleasant to finally be drifting off to sleep at last with none of that anxiety nonsense I had been forced to endure.

  “Leonardo, I am trying my best to keep this family together. If only you had maybe spent more time with the children. You should have made some effort to make them appreciate you for the wonderful man that I know you can be.” Victoria is serving her husband the meatloaf and Spanish rice that he likes so much. He has pretty much left all the parenting of their two children to her. He thinks that since she stays home and he goes to work every day that she should dote on the children. He seems to want to do nothing about them but pay for their activities and tell them “Good job” if they ever succeed at anything. Well neither of their children has succeeded at much in recent years. At least both of them finished grade twelve. It is so disappointing that neither of them is going on to university, or even community college. Tony has hung around and done nothing for a full year now.

  “I am thinking that if Monica is going to be stupid enough to stay out west with that creep, and since Tony refuses to do anything, maybe we should sell the house and just get a one bedroom condo for the two of us.” Leonardo says this, between large mouthfuls of his dinner.

  Victoria can only stare at her husband, while picking at her own food. “You wouldn’t dare do that to this family!” She finally manages to blurt out.

  “It is the obvious thing to do now that the kids have grown; I have worked hard to pay the god-awful mortgage on this place. It would be real nice to downsize and save some money. And a little apartment condo would be much easier for you to keep clean. You would have more free time, especially if we are lucky enough to get Tony to move out.” Leo is steadily making his way through his dinner while explaining all of this, and not once even glancing at his wife.

  “You have this whole thing planned already?!” Victoria slaps her fork on the table, stands up, pushing her chair back, and reaches for the counter. She grabs the edge of the counter for support, then spins around and raises her outstretched hands in the air. In a soft yell, she proclaims to her husband, “My baby girl is gone for two days!” She pauses, and doubles the volume. “And you are already about to put the house up for sale?!!” She drops her arms, puts her hands on her waist and glowers at Leo. At least he is finally looking at her... but his face is only showing confusion, and irritation. She takes a deep breath and says very quietly, “I don’t think I can take anymore of this.” Putting her face in her hands she promptly heads out of the kitchen. Her head is starting to throb and she feels an inevitable onrush of tears.

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  “Well that’s a relief! Getting rid of that buzz kill of a wife of yours.” Pete looks over to Jeff. Pete’s sitting cross legged in the middle of his bed. He has a little pile of pot on the pizza menu in front of him, and is rolling another joint.

  Jeff is still leaning against his head board, a beer in one hand and a pizza crust that he is gnawing on in the other. Waving the crust at Pete, after a quick glance over at Issy, still directly across from him, he says, “Hey, she is cool, she just doesn’t like drugs. Her brother, who’s only a year older than she is, has been into lots of drugs for a long time, and she hates how much it has changed him. She drinks a little as you saw, but she’s never even tried pot. So she hated that I was a pothead. The only reason I ever got together with her is because she didn’t think I smoked dope for those first few dates. Luckily for some reason she didn’t ask me. I am such a hunk I guess, because she fell in love with me anyway after she found out. But I knew I was going to lose her soon if I didn’t quit.” Jeff tosses the rest of the crust in the pizza box beside him. He still had a couple of pieces left. He closes the lid and guzzles his beer.

  Pete is licking the Zig Zag paper and twists the end of the joint. He lights it up and takes a couple of deep drags. With his lungs full and trying to hold the smoke in he passes the joint to Issy.

  But Issy shakes her head, “No thanks, I’m good.”

  Pete blows his smoke out in a big cloud up to the ceiling and holds the joint towards Jeff, “C’mon man you got to miss getting stoned, we won’t tell that buzz kill of yours. Go ahead, this stuff is probably better than you’re used to up in that frozen north.”

  Jeff knows better, and says to his empty beer, “No dude I’m not crazy. Monica would smell it on me...and taste it in my mouth.” He reaches for another beer.

  Monica is walking slowly up the street. The temperature seemed just about perfect and she feels a light breeze. Her head is on a constant slow swivel looking all around. Like Jeff, she has travelled very little, mostly the old family camping trips. She tries to forget her current uncertainty and starts to enjoy just wandering up the street a little aimlessly, taking in the various new sights of the few people sharing the sidewalk and the many different little store fronts vying for her attention. Without giving any of it much thought she let her mind slip into a bit of a trance. She lost track of time for a bit, but not long, because a short while later a sign in a small restaurant window catches her attention. It says “Internet Cafe- $3.00 an hour”. The word internet snaps her out of her little trance. This offer was one she knew she h
ad to jump on, and she goes in.

  She orders a coffee at the counter and asks the lady handing her the coffee where the computers are for the internet access. The lady smiles and points to the back. Monica sees the two small tables by themselves against the back wall, both with old style monitors on them. They are both unoccupied, in fact there was only two other people in the restaurant and they were both sitting at a table up front by the window, enjoying an animated chat together while sharing a pitcher of beer and a large plate of nachos. She is told she can pay for the coffee and computer when she is done.

  She thanks the kind lady and heads to the back. Both of the computer keyboards and monitors look equally old and somewhat dirty, so she sits down at the one on the left and pushes a random button on the keyboard. She gets a little excited, as the computer lets her get on the internet almost instantly. She first checks her email. The only two emails in her inbox are the ones she expected. The first one is from her mom of course. She knows what that one will say, so opening it isn’t an option for the moment. But the second one waiting is the one she opens immediately, her best friend, in fact her only close friend besides for Jeff, did not want her to leave Ottawa. She has known Christine since they were both in grade seven together. They were almost inseparable until Jeff came into Monica’s life. Christine had a couple of different boyfriends in high school but nothing long term and certainly nothing serious. Christine claimed to still be a virgin and Monica not only respected her for that, but often wished she was as well. She felt very guilty losing her virginity to Jeff at such a young age, but kept trying to convince herself that since she loved him, and wanted to marry him someday, that it was okay. Christine likes Jeff, but did not approve of this move out west in the least. They had both been planning to go to university together, and now that is not going to happen.

  With a little trepidation, she reads Christine’s message. “Hi Monny, you have only been gone for two days but I am already missing you like crazy. And speaking of CRAZY! I still think you are crazy to go on this trip. I hope hope hope it is going well for you but I wish wish wish you would come back NOW NOW NOW! Please let me know how it is going because I am worrying about you constantly. I am going to go see how your mom and Juniper are doing tomorrow morning. I am sure your mom will cry the whole time. If you do end up staying out west please come back as often as you can because I really doubt I will be able to visit you out there for a long long time. luv ya 4ever, Chris”

  Monica smiles, and tastes the salt of her tears, that started to flow almost instantly when she started reading. Good friends were hard to find, great friends were almost impossible to find. Thank god for the internet, she will be able to stay in almost constant contact with Christine. She reads the message three more times and then as her tears are magically drying, she opens her mom’s message.

  “Dear Monica, I have no idea why you would do this and I am sure you will soon regret it. I pray that you don’t die on that horrible motorcycle. You should have talked to me about it before you left, I thought you loved me. I am sorry that I didn’t get to talk to you when you phoned this morning. Please come home, you are just a child and have your whole life ahead of you. What you are doing will affect the rest of your life. Your father doesn’t always show it but he loves you very much. Let me know what I can do different to make you come back, and I will do it. I will take care of your cat, but please let me know what is going on. Love, Your MOM”

  Well that wasn’t quite as bad as she expected.

  Monica then logs on to Facebook. She is instantly inundated with messages. Some begging her to stay in Ottawa, but most telling her to have fun out west. Christine had even started a group a week ago called “Stay home Monica”. She is surprised her mom didn’t get wind of it. She skims over the bunch of messages from “friends” she barely knows at all. Christine didn’t leave her any though, figuring probably that the email was enough. BUT just as she is thinking about this she is thrilled to see that Christine just logged on. She clicks on Christine’s name and excitedly types her greeting.

  “Hey Issy, why do you put up with this crazy fucker?” Jeff is laughing at Pete doing a little strange circle dance around the old wooden coat rack that was by the front door.

  Issy is still on her bed and is laughing too. “I don’t know Jeff, he is pretty lovable most of the time.”

  “Hey I am lovable all the time and you know it!” Pete lets go of the rack and lands on the bed at Issy’s feet.

  Pete then crawls on top of Issy’s legs and up her body. He brings his face up to hers, then proceeds to plant kisses all over her laughing face, and ends by planting a big slow one on her lips. He then backs away and sits on the bed facing Jeff. “So my Canadian friend I think it is time for you to loosen up a little and smoke a joint with us. To hell with your girlfriend, I know you want to get STONED.” He then gets up to get the pot and papers off the dresser, still on the pizza menu. He sits back down on the bed and looks over to Jeff who is nursing his beer.

  “Ah c’mon dude! Stop bugging me about it, you know I’m tempted. I used to love getting stoned. It feels so good but it seems to suck all of my ambition away. I find that once you start getting high, you don’t want to do anything accept keep getting high.” Jeff looks at Pete and then drains the rest of his beer.

  “Ya Pete stop bugging him about it. You heard what Monica said. You know damn well she will freak out if he smokes. Do you really want her freaking out on all of us?” Issy says this to Pete, while rubbing his back with the hand that isn’t holding her beer.

  Pete says nothing and continues to roll another joint.

  Jeff tries to change the subject. “Issy, so what is Issy short for anyway? That’s not your given name... is it?” Jeff looks away from the newly forming joint and over to Issy.

  Issy is looking at Jeff, and flashes him her big gorgeous smile, “Isabella, but no one calls me that but my mom. I have been Issy for as long as I can remember.” “

  I like Isabella, but Issy is pretty cool too.” Jeff tries to return her a nice smile. “You are going to go work in your Uncle’s hardware store. Have either of you ever worked in a hardware store before?... Or any store for that matter?”