by Moondi, Romi
I stayed out late alright, but it had nothing to do with work. Instead I would wander the streets of Toronto aimlessly after dark, connecting only to symbols that reminded me of Erik.
On this particular night, freezing rain fell fast on my uncovered head, as I stared into the window of a music shop. There was a shiny acoustic guitar front and centre. I gazed at it, remembering how embarrassed Erik had been to play that song for me. It made me smile.
The shopkeeper, who saw me randomly smiling into the window, offered me a smile in return.
An awkward smile, to be exact.
***
Despite my emotional state (which demanded I go back in time so I could be with Erik again), over two weeks had passed since our final goodbye, and a week since his heart-crushing voicemail. For today’s highlight, he’d removed me from Facebook as an extra stab. I could barely process this latest rejection, as I stood in my room with the song we made together playing loudly. After he’d played it for me over the phone, he’d added in the harmonies and sent me a professional recording. It was fantastic, though by the final verse, quite saddening. Why did I have to write such depressing lyrics?!
I pulled out the New York Rangers T-shirt I’d worn on our second day and held it out in front of me. Erik had snuggled the shit out of me in that T-shirt, and it still faintly smelled of his cologne.
I inhaled the shirt deeply, and sighed out loud for no one to hear.
I held the shirt in front of me a final time, then wrapped it in a ball and tossed it in the trash.
***
Three weeks, two days, and twenty-one hours after that wretched voicemail from Erik (and a month after the last time I’d looked into his eyes), the sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky. For the first time in a while, I actually welcomed that warming sun.
With confident strides I walked up the main street of glitzy Yorkville, wearing big sunglasses, a bright pink sparkly scarf and a cute yellow blouse beneath a light jacket.
I was back.
I went right past the restaurant where Laura and I used to hang out (I still didn’t dare set foot in there after my outburst), and headed to an Italian espresso bar instead.
As I walked down the steps to go inside, a scruffy old man smoking a cigarette signalled for my attention. When I turned to him, he coughed up some phlegm and finally spoke. “Do you know where your boyfriend is?”
Uhh...back in Denmark super-busy getting laid every night? Oh wait...he was never even my boyfriend.
“He’s at a strip club getting lap dances!” He coughed again, as I wondered why he’d chosen me of all people.
“It’s because you can’t fulfill his needs!” he finally added.
This guy didn’t know anything about being subtle, so I nodded sarcastically and went inside. I found Laura at one of several neat white tables in this small café, a table that was far from the window and that lunatic.
Laura stood out against the black and white backdrop in an emerald green sweater, as she waved at me excitedly. I’d only answered her calls twice in the last month, and she carefully hadn’t mentioned Erik even once. Today though, as we finally met each others’ eyes once again, I knew it wouldn’t be so easy.
I ordered a cappuccino from the counter and approached her table.
She stood to maul me in a hug, which was funny since I was five inches taller than her. “Hi!” she said.
I smiled as she hugged me tightly, and her smile stayed on as we sat back down.
“Sorry I haven’t been around,” I said. “I missed you though!”
“I missed you too!”
We both looked around the café.
“This place is cute,” she said.
I nodded. “Yeah...”
She looked at me nervously.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know we’re going to talk about it. Might as well get it over with, so I’ll start first: did he ever contact you or Dave about any of this?” I was hoping for some sideline excuse for his cold goodbye.
“He didn’t, I swear. Dave even e-mailed him to ask what had happened, and all he did was ask not to bring it up anymore. He gave Dave his new contact info and that was it.”
I shook my head. “That really gets me, you know. I mean...when I wrote him that hate message wishing for him to die a day after he sent me that voicemail, it was a totally normal reaction.”
She nodded encouragingly. “Of course!”
“And when I wrote him a few days later to take it all back and wish him well...that was a normal reaction too. But nowhere in-between did I get anything! Not even a ‘hey, sorry about that asshole voicemail but my girlfriend was standing in the room’...which she obviously was!”
The very Italian-looking waiter placed my drink on the table and clucked his tongue. “Any man who does not appreciate your beauty deserves a lifetime of infinite sadness!”
I stared in shock as Laura started laughing.
“Uhh...thanks,” I said.
“Anytime for you, bella.” He walked away briskly.
“Did you pay him to say that?” I said.
Her eyes widened. “No!”
If that bar we’d discovered a month ago was our new night-time hangout, this would for sure be our new daytime place. Can’t go wrong with hot Italians.
“Well that was...nice,” I said. “Now what was I saying?”
“You were explaining how Erik is such a douche bag.”
“If only it were that simple. The truth is he was amazing in so many ways.” I sighed.
“But he was flawed,” she insisted.
I stared at her hard. “But everyone’s flawed. Rules exist, but rules don’t stop you from meeting people. And when you connect, and I mean TRULY connect...who’s perfect enough to be a robot to all of that?”
“But he let you go.”
I frowned. “Yeah, but I can’t really blame him for that either. He did what ninety-nine percent of guys would do, which is surrender to the convenient life.” I shook my head. “His job is there, his family is there, his friends are there, and this woman who loves him despite his mistakes is there. He can spend the rest of his life on auto-pilot, and all those things that everyone wants will come so easily to him...marriage, kids, grandkids...he’s all set!” I hadn’t cried in a week, but I was close to breaking the streak.
“Romes...”
“No it’s okay. I mean this is it, right? Remember when we talked about good versus evil and taking something that wasn’t mine? I knew what I was getting into and here it is, my karmic bitch-slap: being utterly heartbroken a month later.” I shook my head. “What I still don’t know is: what’s HIS karma? He got to keep everything and move on!”
Laura smiled.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because he DID get his karma!”
“Huh?”
“You said it yourself; he’s all set with everything on auto-pilot. But what kind of life is auto-pilot? He’s not alive like he was with you, no matter how much he convinces himself that staying with her is what he wanted all along.” She shook her head as her Italian eyes brightened in fury. “I mean you don’t just have an experience like that and throw it away! Not without having the life ripped out of you first, which by the way is what happened to him, because he’s obviously living a lie now.” Her fury had now transitioned to a general disgust. “That’s his karma, Romes, the lie he’ll live every day. Only amnesia will make him forget you, and even if it’s not every minute of every day that he remembers you, and even if he convinces himself that his comfortable life is pretty damn great after all, any time you cross his mind---which you totally will---he’ll remember what a coward he was. And that? That will torture him forever.”
She smiled her most evil smile. I really did love her.
“I guess that’s a pretty good punishment,” I muttered.
“Of course it is! And let’s not forget something else: you said to me once that you wanted to start living, since all these years had passed when you�
��d barely lived at all.”
“Yes,” I said. “And look how much living I did on that weekend, I even got to see the ocean! All thanks to Erik...” My eyes quickly started to darken.
“No! Stop thanking him! It’s because of what YOU did. Like do you even know what kind of balls it takes, to hop on a plane and put your heart on the line when everyone and their mother thinks it’s a waste of time? And sure, maybe it didn’t work out, but in those three days? You lived more than some people get to live in their whole lives. So start being proud of yourself!”
I smiled. “Wow, I should’ve called you earlier if that was the speech I’d get.”
“Or maybe you should’ve answered the phone all those times I tried calling YOU.” She raised an eyebrow.
“Trust me Laura, there are some things even a best friend shouldn’t see. Like hours of continuous sobbing...” I shuddered at the memory.
“Well it’s all in the past, okay?” She smiled at me reassuringly. “So now what?” She started sipping her coffee casually, the cloud in the air finally lifted.
“Well...at first I thought I’d be clueless and hopeless without him, but surprisingly I have it figured out.”
“Oh?” She looked intrigued.
I nodded. “So here’s a summary of the things I’m sick of: a lazy boss who wears man-heels, parents who will be totally disappointed in me until the day I marry a nice Indian boy---which is NOT going to happen---and not having enough time to write.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my god...I think I know what you’re about to say.”
I smiled. “Yes...Paris. Obviously I can’t afford a work visa, not to mention the idea is to have free time...so I’ll just have to live off the money I save.” I paused and started doing some math in my head. “Which means I might go broke if the book sales dry up, but then I remembered I get a pay-out of investments when I quit...”
“Oh my god! When is this happening?”
“It’ll be a couple of months before the paperwork is done, but June is way too early to leave.” I shook my head. “I’d like to save some money first, in case the book sales don’t stay steady. So I’m thinking...September? Autumn in Paris!”
Laura smiled warmly. “I’m so proud of you. And oh my god I’m gonna miss you! How long will you be gone for?”
“Well without having a job in Paris, I’ll have enough money for eight or nine months. Barely. But that’s the worst case scenario where I don’t finish my next book and get more money from that...which by the way I will totally finish!”
She squealed. “That’s amazing! And oh...what’s the sequel about?”
“Well I was thinking...you don’t just have the most amazing experience of your life and let it gather a bunch of dust, do you?” I winked at her, which turned out awkward since I really didn’t know how to wink. “So yeah, this insane and unexpected year? That’ll be my writer’s inspiration.”
“Now that is one book I can’t wait to read,” she said. “So when are you going to tell your parents?”
I practically choked on my cappuccino. “Give me some time to figure that one out.”
Operation: “don’t let them kill you” begins...
Chapter Twenty-Six
My thirtieth birthday was a bad number. A poisonous number.
I didn’t mind being thirty at all, and according to my plans it was going to be the best year ever.
According to my parents however, my age reeked hard of expired milk.
No matter how disappointed my parents were, they’d always manage to get us kids a grocery store birthday cake each year, which we’d always have to awkwardly cut as a family. Things were no different this time, as I sat in a chair with a confetti vanilla birthday cake before me. When we were younger, my parents used to buy those candles that were shaped like numbers to signal our age, but once our ages had become too embarrassing (twenty-six), they’d resorted to the single ambiguous candle.
My sister, brother, brother-in-law and parents sang “Happy Birthday” to me in a mixture of monotone (my brother) and off-key (my sister) tones, after I blew out the candle and made my wish of escape.
My parents handed me an envelope and kissed me on either cheek. I opened it to find the usual “To the most amazing daughter in the world” card, rich in calligraphy and flowers, even though the words in the manufactured greeting were never once acknowledged in real life. I also found a fifty-dollar bill as was custom. Booze money.
Before I could even cut the cake, my mother looked up to the heavens. “Just let her get married this year.”
Right.
This wasn’t the best day to be starting any family drama---like how I wanted to escape to Paris and live out my dreams---especially not when I hadn’t even processed my visa (a visa I’d be picking up in person at the French embassy, since I knew how much my parents liked opening my mail as a personal favour). Instead I ate my cake in silence, smiling when I thought I should smile at my brother-in-law Anil’s lame jokes, and counting down the months to the start of my scandalous life...
***
My real birthday present came a few days later, when I received an e-mail from a France. It was about the apartment I’d been trying to secure in Paris’s Latin Quarter. They had just received my deposit which made it official: I have a place to stay in September! I’d found the apartment through an online agency that specialized in long-term rentals, and discovered this little jewel at a rate I could actually afford (thanks to book sales that were still holding steady). The place was fully-furnished but tiny, and thankfully it had its own private bathroom (my research had alerted me to several apartment listings that said “shared bathroom” in the tiniest font). The apartment didn’t have an oven or full stove, but one cooking ring would be enough for me to sauté the hell out of anything. Though I guess I won’t be baking cookies for a year.
Perhaps the best part of all was that the place was right above a cute café that had a lovely terrace.
Parfait!
***
Two months later...
With my apartment in place, my book royalties growing in my bank account, and the income from my investments finally calculated (a number I’d secretly obtained without my boss finding out), I finally had my long-term visitors’ visa.
This meant the time to break the news to my parents had arrived.
Each night before this day of doom, I’d been praying that my sister would announce a pregnancy, since being a grandparent was the ultimate self-actualization of an Indian adult. But nooo...my sister just has to stay carefree and childless! Damn her.
It was just as well, because if ever there was a time when the only person who could save me from my life was me...well this was it.
I entered the family room, where my father watched his Indian news on the big-screen TV, and where my mother sat reading the paper with her usual frown. I hadn’t been on the best of terms with my parents, as I’d continually rejected every printed husband profile they’d sent my way. Meanwhile I was spending more and more time in my room working away on the sequel. I was, in short, a disappointment.
I took a seat on the empty couch facing my parents, which to them was an instant alarm bell, since my brother and I avoided family meetings like rabies-infested syringes.
My dad hit the mute button on the news and looked serious. “Oh no,” he said, turning to my mother slowly. “It’s happening.”
My mother folded away her paper and looked ready to kill me. Or him. “It’s your fault. I told you this would happen.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You don’t think we know?” said my father. “We always knew you would come out with a boyfriend to shame our family name.”
I wondered how much worse this would be if I was actually “coming out” of something...like a closet. I realized then that Paris wasn’t as bad as bringing a girlfriend into the house, so dammit they would learn to live with it! This gave me a little extra confidence.
“I D
ON’T have a boyfriend,” I began, “but you know I wrote a book and I’m working on another...”
“This book nonsense! When will you stop?” My mother had smoke coming out of her ears. At least in my imagination. It was grey.
“It’s not nonsense!” I said, my voice coming out louder than I’d expected. I cleared my throat. “I’ve almost been making a second salary with this book; it’s what I’ve always wanted to do since I was a kid.”
My father shook his head. “No, when you were at school you were SO strong in science and math. You wanted to be a doctor!”
“But then who knows what happened,” my mother said.
“I never wanted to be a doctor!” I cried. “That’s always what YOU wanted. You never even asked what I wanted. I’ve been writing since I was seventeen but you never even knew! And you still don’t know me now because you never want to know the truth!” I lowered my gaze to my feet. “I’m like a stranger to you,” I added quietly.
‘So what then?” said my father, still sounding quite upset.
“Well...I need to focus on my writing, so I can make it even better and sell even more.”
They looked at me with blank stares.
“So...I’m going to move to Paris for a year, because I need to start seeing the world so I can be a better writer.”
Once I broke the news, there was approximately...fifteen seconds of silence.
“France?” my father whispered.
“Yes.”
My mother it seemed was too angry to even weigh in.
“What about your job?” my father asked.
