Troy’s Possibilities

by Rodney Strong

  At the interval I checked the programme. Jasmine was played by Elissa Sanders.

  ‘The girl who plays Jasmine – I think she’s the one who came to our door the other morning.’

  Emily attempted innocence. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Sure – we work at the SPCA together. She told me she was in a play so I said I’d come and watch.’

  ‘Did you also tell her you were dragging your flatmate along under duress?’

  ‘Are you saying you’re not enjoying it?’

  I clamped my mouth shut and turned away.

  She laughed. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I sulked.

  ‘She’s cute,’ Emily observed, and when I didn’t answer she prodded. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘She’s all right – for a crazy woman.’

  Emily turned to study me. ‘What makes you think she’s crazy?’

  ‘She’s friends with you, isn’t she?’

  ‘So are you,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I’ve never said I wasn’t crazy.’

  ‘So you’ll have things to talk about later.’

  ‘Later?’ I asked with a sinking feeling.

  ‘When we meet her at the pub,’ Emily replied smugly, further conversation cut off by the lights dimming.

  ‘Bitch,’ I muttered. She patted my arm in silent victory.

  The rest of the play was pretty good, I think, but I was still fuming over Emily’s upcoming attempt to set me up with her friend.

  After the applause died down we shuffled outside and stood amongst the mingling crowd. As it began to thin out, a side door burst open and Cat spilled out into the foyer. Despite knowing her real name now, the rebellious child inside me refused to use it, preferring to think of her as someone from a Possibility rather than the real person standing in front of me.

  ‘What did you think?’ she demanded of Emily, full of adrenalin from the performance.

  ‘Magic.’

  They hugged, then she turned to me. ‘Come here.’ She grabbed my hand and led me across to the exit she’d come out of, where she positioned me on one side and told me to knock on the door. Then she went through and closed it. Confused, I knocked on the door. It immediately opened.

  ‘No,’ Cat said, then slammed the door shut again. I guess I deserved that.

  It instantly opened again and she grinned at me. ‘Now that’s out of the way, let’s get a drink.’

  Emily looked bewildered. I said I’d explain later.

  The nearest pub was a five-minute walk. Cat walked between us, talking non-stop about the performance, relating how the director had panicked due to one of the actors being five minutes late, and how the prop doorbell had malfunctioned. None of which had been apparent to the audience.

  The bar was half full, not bad for 9.30 on a Thursday night. The girls found a table while I ordered the drinks – vodka for me, gin for Emily, red wine for Cat. For the next half-hour conversation and alcohol flowed in equal parts. Cat was as intriguing as I remembered, but of course I wasn’t supposed to know that so I pretended we were meeting properly for the first time.

  Despatched back to the bar for the last refill before home time, I sensed someone step up beside me.

  ‘Hi, Troy.’

  I internally cringed. Standing next to me was a tall brunette. Jennifer was one of the girls Emily tried setting me up with. It wasn’t until after we slept together that I realised she was completely bat-shit crazy. The morning after she’d started talking about love at first sight, and meeting her parents. It had taken some fast talking, and changing my cell phone number, to extract myself from the situation. It’d been eight months, and she didn’t look happy to see me.

  ‘Hi, Jennifer.’ I flicked a desperate look over to our table, but the girls were deep in conversation.

  ‘How’ve you been?’

  I offered a non-committal response, hoping to end it before we got in too deep.

  ‘You know I loved you, Troy.’

  Too late. ‘You didn’t really know me Jennifer.’

  ‘I knew enough. Sometimes the connection between two people is instant.’ She reached over and placed her hand on top of mine.

  I gently pulled it away.

  ‘You can’t deny there was something between us. The sex was amazing,’ she argued.

  Actually the one time we had sex was pretty great, but any future attempts were stalled by her already picking out her wedding dress. I hadn’t needed a Possible future to tell me it was going to end badly. ‘Look, Jennifer, it’s nice seeing you, but I have to get back to my friends.’

  She grabbed my hand again. It was like having an eagle land on you, talons digging into flesh like a dead rabbit.

  ‘Don’t deny you loved me. I saw it in your eyes.’

  Surely all she saw in my eyes was panic. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and I was spun around. There was a sharp crack and my head snapped sideways.

  ‘You bastard,’ Cat said. ‘You think you can get me pregnant and then go and chat up any slut you meet?’

  ‘I…I…um…’

  ‘Save your smooth talk. I can’t believe I fell for all your lines.’

  ‘Who are you calling a slut?’ Jennifer demanded.

  ‘Save it, lady. This guy promised to marry me, got me pregnant, and is now trying to weasel out of it.’ Her nostrils flared, eyes glared at me, and for a second I thought maybe we had slept together. Over her shoulder I could see Emily staring in shock.

  ‘Is that true, Troy?’

  Their matched expressions of outrage burned holes into my face. ‘It must be,’ I finally got out.

  Cat turned her attention to Jennifer and offered a rueful smile. ‘I’m sorry I called you a slut. It must be all the hormones inside me.’ Damn if she didn’t actually put her hand on her stomach. A bit overkill in my opinion.

  ‘Of course. I didn’t realise. I’m so sorry. I hope things work out for you two. I…’ Jennifer stopped, clearly embarrassed. ‘I think I should go.’

  We watched as she scurried out the front door as quickly as she could.

  Cat turned to me. ‘Well?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied.

  She snorted and shook her head slightly. ‘Whatever. How was the acting?’

  I rubbed the side of my face. ‘Believable.’

  She shifted uncomfortably, then reached up and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Sorry about that,’ she whispered, her warm breath caressing my skin.

  ‘I’ll forgive you.’

  She stepped back and grinned.

  ‘If you pay for this round,’ I finished.

  She took another step back and laughed. ‘I’m a poor actor.’

  ‘Just my luck,’ I muttered, pulling my wallet out. The bartender winked at me as I shook my head.

  ‘You know, you’re pretty strong,’ I told Cat as I set down the glasses.

  ‘Damn straight. You probably could have handled it without me though.’

  I shook my head. ‘Nah, I’d rather run than fight.’

  ‘Doesn’t that get tiring? How do you know when to stop?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How long have you been running?’

  ‘About ten years,’ I replied softly, drawing a sharp look from Emily.

  Cat peered under the table.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Emily asked.

  Cat winked at her. ‘All that running –, he must have calves of steel. I look forward to seeing them.’

  My face exploded with heat as I shifted my legs self-consciously. Cat just laughed.

  We said our goodbyes on the footpath. Emily got a firm hug, I received a sketchy wave, before we climbed into cabs and went back to respective houses.

  Along the way Emily asked, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘The current economy, you moron. Elissa, of course.’

  ‘She seems nice.’

  Emily leaned back in the seat, eyes closed,
a satisfied look on her face.

  ‘But, Ems, nothing’s going to happen.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ she replied smugly.

  ‘Ems! I’m telling you, nothing is going to happen. Yeah, she seems nice, but she’s not interested and I’m not interested so nothing is going to come of you playing matchmaker.

  ‘We’ll see,’ she repeated, and despite my continued protests she refused to talk about it any more.

  That night I lay in my room thinking about Cat. I recalled her lying next to me, under me, the smell of her skin, the taste, and the warmth. My body reacted accordingly, but instead of giving in to basic urges I restlessly kicked the covers off, flicked on the light and paced the room. Something about this girl was getting under my skin.

  My left hand itched. I glanced down in surprise. The last time it had done that I was fifteen years old and…I turned my attention to the canvas in the corner.

  ‘Fuck that,’ I said bitterly and drank myself to sleep.

  The next weekend was my birthday. It’s difficult to get truly excited about turning twenty-six when you’ve done it a few times, but for my parents it was a one-off so they insisted on celebrating.

  Celebrating for Mum and Dad is dinner at their house, so luckily my birthday fell in February, and the weather was warm enough to barbecue. My mum is a brilliant baker, but her cooking lacked any imagination. Instead Dad would be let loose on the grill, where he would make my favourite – prawns in garlic sauce. This had stopped being my favourite dish about a hundred Possibilities ago, but Dad didn’t know it, and never would.

  Emily let me borrow her car, and as I was walking to it I came across the couple from down the road. They were standing outside their bright-green house having an argument about the letterbox.

  The woman snagged me by the arm. ‘You, help us out. This one or this one?’ She held up two pictures of letterboxes. ‘This one is guaranteed to last ten years, and this one is likely to fall apart in two.’ No prizes for guessing which one was her preference.

  ‘That one,’ I pointed to her option and she gave her husband a triumphant look.

  Mum had ordered me to come around at 3pm on the Sunday to help in the garden before dinner. She was in the kitchen when I arrived, icing some homemade biscuit fudge – still my favourite despite all the Possibilities. I watched her for a moment. Mum was forty-nine years old, a tall, proud woman, slightly overweight, hair coloured brown to hide the greys. As always she wore a blouse, slacks and slippers. The slippers were black, paper thin, and older than me, well me in real life anyway.

  ‘Hey, Mum.’ I dutifully kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Your father is out the back. Can you go make sure he doesn’t pull up too many flowers?’ she replied absently.

  ‘Sure.’ I went out the back door, feeling her eyes on my back. It was a standard exchange between parent and child, repeated in countless homes across the world, but I knew it hurt her every time we did it. We’d been close, all three of us, and then one day things changed and she didn’t know why.

  ‘Hey, Dad.’ I spotted him in the process of pulling up one of Mum’s prize petunias.

  He paused and wiped his face with the handkerchief that always sat in his left trouser pocket. He was overweight, a mirror image of Mum, with thinning hair cropped short, and thick-rimmed glasses. ‘Hi, Troy. No Emily?’

  ‘She’s in Christchurch for work. You know you’re pulling up Mum’s pride and joy, right?’

  He looked down at the half-manged bush in horror. ‘Bugger. Help me put it back in.’

  Dad hated gardening – to him it was a necessary chore – but he knew the consequences of pulling up the wrong thing. Between us we managed to repair it, although its chances of living were marginal. We spent the next two hours destroying weeds and by the time Dad called it quits I was sweaty and tired.

  ‘Fire up the beast, Troy. I’ll get the meat.’ Dad disappeared through the back door while I uncovered the four-burner gas barbecue, nicknamed The Beast. It was immaculate, the grill lovingly cleaned after every use and the outside rubbed down with a damp cloth every day, even when it wasn’t used. Some men going through midlife crises bought sports cars. My dad bought a barbecue.

  I studied the backyard. This was the house I’d grown up in, spending lazy summer days playing cricket, or inventing games that I always won – my games, my rules. The house hadn’t changed in twenty-five years, apart from a new paint job, but the backyard had tried out several looks during that time. My earliest memory was of a small vegetable patch in the back corner, a washing line, great for spinning around on, and grass covering everything else. As the years went by the vegetable patch got bigger, the clothes line was replaced by a retractable one, and the grass became patchier. Then one day, when I was eleven, I came home from school to find my mother ripping out all the vegetables and planting flowers. When I asked her why, she said she needed more beauty in her life. We ate mainly vegetables for a week. And I didn’t really understand why, but there was a strained silence at dinner for a while.

  In the past ten years of my real life the flower garden had gotten bigger, to the point it had taken over the entire backyard. I’m not a flower guy, but even I had to admit it’s impressive – every summer an explosion of colour moving gently in the breeze. If you sat in the middle of the garden it was like all the world smelled sweet, the only sound an occasional bee lazily floating from flower to flower. I felt at peace here and would have come every day, except that would have meant seeing my parents. I’ve tried recreating the feeling in the backyard at our flat, but it’s not the same.

  Dad came back outside with the plate of prawns and as I watched him cook we went through the normal dance:

  How’s work? Fine.

  And Emily? Good.

  Did I have a girlfriend? No.

  Did I have a boyfriend? I’m not gay, Dad.

  You should call your mother more. I will.

  He sought the answers my Mum wanted but without asking direct questions, because they wanted to know I was okay yet were afraid I wasn’t.

  Are you okay? Not really.

  What’s wrong? I think I’m crazy, but if I’m not then I have the ability to live multiple lives

  Why are you so distant to your mother? Because I love her.

  That’s not an answer. It’s just a phase, I don’t mean it.

  Because even if they asked the right questions there are some things I can’t tell them. Which isolates me from the rest of the world. Because what I can’t tell them – what they wouldn’t understand – is that I love them more than anything. But with this thing I have that curses me to live Possibilities, in all those lives I’ve watched my mum and dad die over and over. After a long and fulfilled life, or brutally early, or losing the battle with illness – the how doesn’t matter as much as the what.

  I remembered the devastation of the first time. I was thirty-five when Mum succumbed to cancer. Standing next to Dad, hand on his shoulder, listening to friends, family, strangers talk about the wonderful person she was. Dealing with the aftermath, the kind words, the shaking heads, ‘taken too soon,’ comforting a grieving widower while dealing with my own emotions. The days that followed were filled with anger, and loss, and disbelief that one of the two constants in my life was gone.

  Snapping back to my real life, seeing her for the first time again, alive, standing in her kitchen making biscuits, flour on her hands, a little smudge on her face. Looking at me with concern as I burst into tears. Then it happened again, and again. As a child you expect to outlive your parents, but when they die it leaves a hole. When they die repeatedly the hole stretches into a bottomless void that sucks your emotions in and leaves you with … this.

  That’s why I don’t call Mum as much as I should – the pain of losing her all those times was too much.

  The one with the birthday present

  Emily’s birthday is two weeks after mine, a fact that had been the source of many joint flat parties. Thanks to my meticulo
us planning and organisational skills, I left it up until 4pm on the day of her birthday before panicking about her present. With my birthday being first I had the benefit of gauging effort and cost from her before having to reciprocate. Unfortunately both were usually high. I think she did it on purpose, laying down the challenge. Thankfully I was usually up for it, but not without considerable angst. Every year I vowed to allow plenty of time, and every year I don’t.

  This year she bought me the latest book by Oliver Atkinson, my favourite author. And she’d had it signed by him, with a personal inscription. Bitch. How could a pair of gloves or some nail polish compare with that? To make it worse, this year was her thirtieth, so the stakes were even higher. Nothing good came from a birthday with a zero on the end, especially when you’re the one who has to buy the present.

  Adding more fuel to the train wreck that was my present-buying ability, Emily was back with her on-again off-boyfriend, so there was the minefield of buying something not too intimate, yet reflecting our friendship. In other words, I had no idea.

  Which is why I was standing like a statue on the ground floor of the biggest department store in Wellington, debating whether to turn left to women’s clothing, go straight to make up, right to household goods, or up the escalator to electronics. The choices were almost non-existent. Right would have gotten me slapped, up was too impersonal, straight was a road I didn’t want to go down, so left it was.

  I knew the sort of things she wore, so I wasn’t starting completely from scratch. Yet it was still fraught with dangers.

  ‘Can I help you?’ The smartly dressed shop assistant in her early twenties made me feel old.

  I told her I was after a birthday present and she nodded, like it was the only reason people came into the store. ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘Friend.’

  ‘Girl?’

  I looked around me and she smiled. ‘We’re told never to make assumptions.’

  ‘Yes, girl.’

  ‘Are you close?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s your budget?’