by Teresa Toten
I was still burping on my way to the park. What was in that stuff? I checked my watch and sat on the bench, our bench. Would he come? Would he know to come? How long should I wait? What the hell was I doing? Twenty minutes passed. This was nuts. I was nuts. Well, that much was irrefutably proven last night; this was just the icing on the proof, or something.
I felt him before I could see him. It was always like that, but only when it came to Luke.
My hickeys throbbed. Okay, and David too, but only in a bad way.
Luke came up behind me and kissed the top of my head, right there, in public and in front of everyone, including his old guys three benches over. He reached around in front of me flourishing a Styrofoam coffee cup. “Double-double for my angel.”
“Goody,” I said.
“How are you?” He leapt right over the back of the bench. My heart snagged on something sharp, that careless goofy grace, showing off and not even realizing it. Doing it just because you could was so something high school boys did. Not a married man and a father.
“I’m good.” I just wanted to sit and soak him in while he smiled at me. “What’s up? You look excited.”
“I am I guess.” He shrugged. “I’ve just completed all my qualifying courses to start a part-time diploma at Ryerson in January.”
“Great!” I hugged him. A whoosh of guilt swamped me. Was that adultery? Okay, maybe not, but there was a whole other commandment about coveting and that hug definitely felt like a coveting-type thing. I let go.
“Yeah, so the marketing program is where it’s at, you know?”
I nodded. “Like advertising?”
He pulled off the lid to his coffee and raised it to the old guys. They raised theirs. Quite the little ritual. “Yeah, that’s what my old man does.”
“Advertising?”
“It’s his firm, so one day it’ll be mine, right? I’ll just get this dink certificate and onward and upward, you know?”
My neck pulsed. I could feel heat rising off my hickeys. Should I ask? No. None of my business, absolutely, none of my … “What happened between you and David Walter?” I was as surprised as he was that it came out. I was even more surprised to see him look away. He examined his running shoes for quite some time. “Why? Did he say anything?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s just that you two were so tight and now, well, like did he just desert you?”
Luke’s little something on the side.
My hand flew to my throat.
Luke shook his head. “Naw, it wasn’t like that.” He finished his coffee. “See, David always wanted what I had.” He looked at me. “And he wanted Alison, you know?”
Something unplugged in me. David and Alison Hoover? Alison double-D black-eyeliner Hoover? “But …”
“Yeah, I know you’re thinking that David has pretty much had any girl he wanted. But thing is, he wanted Alison because she was mine. It was always like that between us, ever since we were kids.”
But, Alison Hoover? Okay, I thought. Maybe, yeah, sure, that might make sense.…
“David was always jealous of me. He didn’t know I was going to end it with her.” Luke reached over, stroked my cheek.
I dissolved into his fingers.
“End it and be with you.” He leaned closer. “If he knew about you, Sophie, he’d come after you just to be another notch on his belt.” Luke touched my hair, brushing it behind my shoulder, lingering. “And to get back at me. He doesn’t know about us, does he?”
Luke’s little something on the side. I felt sick. It explained everything. Shame pitched around in me like I was a pinball machine. I shook my head.
“Good, keep it that way. Keep far away from him, Sophie. Your coach is no angel.”
Okay, right, that was for sure, but even in my re-adoration of Lucas Pearson, it hit me that he wasn’t exactly a candidate for the priesthood either.
“… and it won’t be forever. My dad’s on the case, and like I said, I’ll be at the firm in no time and cut loose. I’ll have done my time. But, meanwhile, there’s us. I can’t stand being away from you, Sophie.” He put his arm on the back of the bench and leaned in even closer. “I so want, need, to touch you again, to know if you’ll wait for me. Meet me somewhere, anywhere, more private. Meet me, Sophie, so I know I have you to keep me going. I need you. At least promise that we can meet here again to talk about it some more.” I inhaled the scent of coffee and cream on his lips. “Please, Sophie.”
He needed me. Lucas Pearson needed me, needed me.
“Just nod, and we can work it out later, Sophie. Say we’ll meet here again and that will let me get through Christmas. I won’t make it without you. That will be my present. No shopping, no gift boxes, just you.”
Shopping! I jumped. “Got to go! I’m meeting Sarah at the Bathurst subway station. We’re going to … buy stuff.”
He grabbed my wrist. “Say it, Sophie. Say we’ll meet again.”
I got up.
“Say we’ll meet!”
I slipped my hand out before turning toward the subway station. I looked back at him looking at me. “We’ll meet!”
“When?” he called.
“January, the middle of the month!”
“I’ll be here every Saturday in January, just in case. Merry Christmas! I’ll be waiting!”
I broke into a run with my heart erupting. I tried to grab hold of myself while I ran down the steps to the subway. That whole episode scared me. Hell, I scared me. What did I just agree to exactly? What in Buddha’s name was I doing? And just as bewildering, David, jealous of Luke? David wanted Alison? It didn’t make sense, but then, who cares? Not me. I had enough on my messy moral plate. So I went back to obsessing about what it was I had agreed to with Luke and how much trouble I was going to get into because I had agreed to whatever it was.
When I finally stumbled out and into the station, all that stuff left. The Bathurst subway station! I was almost run over by the rush of memories.
“Over here!” Sarah waved by the doors. “What are you smiling at?”
“I think I used to live around here.”
“You think?”
“A long time ago,” I said. “We moved a million times right after Papa was sentenced. It gets confusing.”
Sarah slipped her arm through mine. “Sorry. So when was this?”
“This.” I turned and led Sarah on to one of the residential streets, Euclid Avenue. “This was before that. Euclid was before prison, before drinking, well, that’s not completely true, but before prison for sure. Euclid was when we were happy.” She squeezed my arm into her. “Do you mind walking a bit? I want to find my home. We’re close, I think.”
Sara nodded while rifling through her big bag. She pulled out my purse. “You left this at Madison’s. Where did you take off to?”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m surprised you noticed, what with you and George sucking in the same oxygen and all.”
She let that pass. “How could I not notice when our assistant coach kept rousting around and demanding to know where you were.”
“David?” The hickeys throbbed on cue. How annoying was that?
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Something happen between the two of you? I mean something other than you throwing rocks at each other?”
Being pulled into him. “We had words,” I said.
“You are the most combustible couple in the whole school.”
“What the hell, Sarah! We are not a couple.”
She stopped in her tracks, and since she had me by the arm, she stopped me too. “Whoa, where there’s that much smoke …” She put up her hand. “It seemed like he was worried is all. He kept asking if you often went home alone, how far away was it, did you usually walk, et cetera, et cetera. I’m telling you, Janice was steamed. She was ready to do him right then and there.”
“So, did he leave with her?”
“Why on earth would you care, Sophie?” She dug her elbow into my side.
“I don�
��t. Not a bit. I’m not another notch.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Did you know that he’s always been jealous of Luke?” Sarah looked skeptical. “Everybody says so.”
She shook her head. “That just doesn’t seem right. Half the girls in the known universe are panting after him. Madison could find out …”
“No!” We started walking again. “I mean, who cares either way, right? Let’s just walk, okay? It’s so good to be home.” I looked up. “Euclid Avenue. This is it, Sarah. My street.”
“Cool! Which one was your home?”
Yes, which one? “Number 362?” We walked up to 362. Tidy and tightly bunched semi-detached homes lined both sides of the street, each a replica of the other. In the summer, instead of front lawns, little rectangles teemed with dahlias and preening gladiolas mixed in among beefsteak tomatoes and monster zucchinis. Every slit of a veranda had at least three chairs for sitting on, for observing and inserting yourself into street theatre.
Was this it? Could be, but … it was always summer in my memories and now the gardens were buried in greying snow. The fences had changed, paint colours were updated. It threw everything off.
“Is this your house, Sophie?”
“I don’t know! My God, I really don’t know. How is that possible? It was in my head all these years. Home, the last place I was happy …” I walked over to number 364, back to 362, then to 366 and back to 364.
“Sophie?”
“I don’t know, Sarah. I just don’t know.” My heart raced. “It’s all so different, but not! I can’t tell which one’s my house.” Tears bullied their way up to my eyes. “It was so important, this house where we all lived. This was home and now I can’t even find it! I’ve lost my home.”
“No you haven’t, you dope!” Sarah threw her arms around me. “What are you talking about? You have a home with Mama and us and the Aunties and even Papa.”
I groaned.
“It’s true! This,” she flicked her hand at the houses, “whichever one it’s supposed to be, is not your home. We’re your home.” She grabbed a wadded-up Kleenex out of her pocket and gave it to me. “Get it?”
It took forever just to unfurl the Kleenex. “Yeah.” I blew into it. “Sorry, I’ve been a wreck lately.” I blew again. She looked skeptical. “No really, let’s go. Time for Honest Ed’s!”
We marched back to Bloor Street, but not so fast that I wasn’t whiplashed by how different the people looked. This neighbourhood was one of those long-established and long-suffering entry points for Canada’s immigrants. So, of course, just about everyone looked like they came from some unpronounceable place, but that wasn’t it. On Bloor and Bay, it was the seventies: maxi dresses, wide-leg pants, perms, psychedelic colours. On Bloor and Bathurst, it was still the fifties: narrow ties, housedresses, fake pearls, and real gold.
And in Honest Ed’s, it was the land that time forgot.
“Wow!” said Sarah when we stepped in. She couldn’t navigate the rabbit’s warren of aisles, half floors, and stairs that didn’t seem to go anywhere. I grabbed Sarah and yanked her through aisles of tables loaded down with copper pots, men’s underwear, and packages of Epsom salts. I pulled her down one set of stairs and up the other, until we got to the pharmacy, and then I inhaled and walked straight over to the pharmacist, like my old librarian friend, Mrs. Theodora Setterington, had coached me to last year.
“Excuse me, sir. We’d like to buy some condoms, please.”
Sarah squealed and would have run off, but I had a death grip on her ski jacket. The pharmacist, an ancient-marinertype guy, just looked at us, from Sarah to me and back to Sarah. Okay, this could go so wrong.
“Sheepskin or latex?”
We looked at each other. “Eeew, they kill Lamb Chop for this?” Sarah whimpered.
“Latex, please,” I said.
“Do you think that a box of eighteen will be, uh, adequate?”
Sarah wanted to bolt again. I held tight.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
I reached for the box but he took it back. “I think you may want to pay for it here.” He nodded his head at Sarah. “She’s not gonna make it through the front checkout line.”
He had a point. Sarah was whiter than a toilet bowl. “Yes, sir. Thank you so much, sir.” I gave him a twenty and he fixed us up.
We bolted out of Honest Ed’s like our butts were on fire. Back on Bloor Street we allowed ourselves a little victory dance.
And then the skies opened up and it started to pour. Sarah and I tore off laughing for no good reason, all the way to the subway station. The rain came down in sheets punctured by the occasional lightning bolt. It was December and this kind of storm was strange. I couldn’t help feeling that it was some kind of major sign, except I couldn’t figure out the message. I was a mess of guilt and good—good guilt? Given what I had just done for Sarah, what had happened with Luke earlier, and what had happened with David last night, God and everybody living on my altar were either spitting on me or absolving me of my sins. Thing is, if a verdict came in at that moment, I had a nagging feeling that I’d come out way more sinner than saint.
I dreamed about him last night, again. David I mean. It was humiliating. Every night I’d go to bed thinking about Luke, Christmas presents, and Papa, and then I’d toss and turn under David’s hands on me.
Even in my dreams he’s all superior and despicable. I needed an exorcism. If I could just put him in his place. After I brushed my teeth, I went to Papa’s mirror where I do all my best posing. I visualize myself walking into the library and bumping into David. I toss my hair just so, as he says, “Hey, Sophie, what a surprise meeting you here.” He drinks me in all lazy-like, which of course offends me, so I retort with flashing eyes and nostrils flaring. No, that was probably too Harlequin romance, too Sweet Savage Love. I check the mirror. It definitely looks like I’m having a spasm; have to work on that. Anyway, with flashing eyes and barely flaring nostrils, I retort charmingly, “Yes, David, shocking isn’t it? I can read!”
Hmmm, a titch too hostile. I make him look hurt though, which I like, a lot. I spend the next twenty minutes trying out different poses in reaction to what David might say. I smile, I sparkle, I gasp with thoughtful concern, all this while sharing bracingly intelligent repartee about America’s exit strategy from Vietnam. I’d have to go to the library and get stuff about America’s exit strategy or some other big-brain item that I’d floor him with. The girl in the mirror looked skeptical.
I could hardly blame her. I turned and went to my altar, turned my Buddha back around, lit the candle, and started praying, hard.
Dear Everybody, please forgive me for all my impure thoughts, my inclination for revenge, and for thinking about myself so much. I ask you for blessings for my family and friends and, if one of you is not too busy with the world’s more pressing problems, could you please make sure that Papa never takes a drink again and comes home very, very soon.
Thank you, thank you.
Amen.
I thought about tacking on the AA prayer about changing the things you can change and leaving the rest alone, but the phone rang. I blew out the candle and ran to get it.
“Buboola, baby, sveetie!”
“Hi Auntie Eva.”
“Your Mama is to home?”
“Nope, either at the office or showing houses.”
“Tell her zat for sure I’m vanting to do za Christmas dinner here, vit everybodies.” Long pause. “It vill help vit za engraving.”
“You mean, grieving?”
“Zat is vat I said.”
“Sorry, I misheard.”
“Iz okay. You are okay, buboola?”
I shrugged and then realized that she couldn’t see me shrugging. “Yeah.”
“You don’t sound happy enough.”
“Happy enough?”
“Da! Christmas is coming, your parents are behaving nice, you are beautiful, and you are young.”
“Yeah, that’s a lot.�
� I had to agree.
“You must be young for all of us, baby buboola.”
“Whoa, too much pressure, Auntie Eva! Why don’t you guys just relive your own youth?”
Nothing.
“Auntie Eva?”
“Sorry, darrrling. You don’t know because ve don’t told you. Ve ver never young, not really. Zer vas za var, zer vas za Communists, za fascists. Zer vas too many knockings on za doors in za night, for Radmila, Luba, and your Mama.”
“And you too.”
“And me too.”
I did not deserve to breathe. “I’m sorry, Auntie Eva. I knew a bit, even though you guys don’t talk about that stuff. I am so, so sorry!”
“No, no, no, stop! Iz finished, kaput! And ve are having a party!”
“Okay, so, about that.”
“Madison and me sent out za invitations, but it must be a secret surprise.”
“But it’s almost two months away!”
“Ve vant to make it sure.”
I would have to kill Madison. She should know better than to get caught up in an Auntie frenzy.
“Already, za peoples are saying zey are coming and zey are exploding vit za excitement.”
Okay, maybe too late to pull the party plug. “Uncle,” I whimpered.
“Da, Uncle Mike vill be zer, pa sure, iz his restaurant, and Uncle Dragan too, but ve old people vill be gone, I hope to die, by za midnight.”
I started to hyperventilate. A guest list, invites going out, people coming. Everyone staring at me. And then the big bad thing would happen. “Who did you ask?” I heard rustling and shuffling.
“I have it here in my hands your list. Za old people you know.”
I nodded, my stomach tightened.
“Your basketball team and za boyfriends, ahhh, za nephews, peoples from your English and chemistry class. Some boys from za football, some senior boys, ahhh …” crinkle, shuffle, “some senior basketball boys …” Tighter, tighter, tighter … “Valter David of course!”
“NO! Don’t!”
“Yes! Vat no? Vhy not?”
“He won’t come!”
“Darrrling buboola, he vas za first von to say he’s coming for sure! Absolutely!”
