A few years later, a young cousin of Kyle’s named Chad who lived in Ottawa came to stay with them for the summer while he worked at a day camp downtown. His mother’s family was Spanish, and he had blue-black hair and olive skin, like he’d been rubbed with tea leaves every day since birth. He could read and speak Spanish, and on his first night in their apartment, he taught Kyle and Charlene some crude sayings: Charlene worked hard to get me cago en la leche de tu puta madre (I shit in your whore mother’s milk) to come out right. That one bothered Kyle a little, and it bothered him that she liked it so much. Who was she ever going to say that to? It didn’t matter, she told him, it was funny. He preferred No me jodas! (Don’t fuck me around). It was simpler and more useful. Why didn’t she use that one instead? Wasn’t it better? She would not admit it was better. He vowed to use it at work, where a few people spoke Spanish.
Chad giggled and laughed at the slightest thing. He didn’t like being alone, and would follow them both into the kitchen if they left the room, like a puppy. Kyle said it drove him crazy, but Charlene didn’t mind – she thought it was cute. It was his first time living away from home, he told her. His girlfriend dumped him just before the beginning of summer.
“I think she wanted to be free to fuck around while I’m here. I know that sounds totally harsh, but you’d have to know her.”
“Why is he telling you this kind of thing?” Kyle asked.
“I don’t know. He just wants someone to talk to. He’s always hanging out here at night.”
She liked Chad – she was used to Kyle, who treated conversation like a precious resource to be used sparingly, or like something inherently suspicious, something corrupt.
“He should go out and make some friends.”
“We’re not his parents. He can do what he likes.”
When Kyle did a run of double shifts at the shelter, Chad and Charlene would make heavy pots of spaghetti with garlic bread. Chad never offered to help clean up the dishes, she noticed, but kept her company in the kitchen while she did them, so she didn’t mind. She would come out in the morning and find him asleep on the couch, on his back, with the cat on his bare chest.
“I’m surprised you can breathe with him on you.”
“My cat at home used to do this. He’s even fatter.”
She noticed how dark the skin on his chest and arms was, and how smooth. After having a shower, he often walked through the apartment wearing only a towel. He ate lots of junk food, and would always eat tons of whatever they had for dinner, but there didn’t seem to be any fat on him. He always walked to the day camp where he worked, though it was a few kilometres away. He walked there in the morning and jogged back at night. He used to work out a lot, he told Charlene. He had a whole weight set in his room at home, but hardly ever used it anymore. He didn’t want to become one of those weird guys who gets all obsessed with that kind of thing, with getting big muscles. Chad’s body had definition. He had a T-shirt he liked to wear that was tight and wonderful. Kyle’s body was never something she could really focus any erotic thoughts on – they slid off too easily. She liked it when she and Kyle had sex, and she liked the feel of him, but just seeing him in the shower or covered in sweat from a run or a bike ride wasn’t enough. Kyle could sometimes be so sweet and nervous with her that she would fuck him as a kind of reward, a treat.
“How long did you lift weights?”
“Honestly? Until my sister asked me if I was gay. I had all these muscle magazines I was always reading. It sort of ruined it for me. She really thought I was going that way. I started to worry about it, too – there’s only so long you can spend looking at all these oiled-up gym rats before you start to, like, forget. So I just stopped.”
On a night when Kyle was working an overnight shift at the shelter, and wouldn’t be home until nearly eight in the morning, Charlene and Chad made their spaghetti, bought a case of beer, and watched movies on the couch. They huddled under some blankets, and before the first movie was even half over, their hands were under each other’s shirts and they were kissing hard. Chad was hesitant, but Charlene pushed him into the couch, positioning herself so that, should he want to, he could easily get her bra unhooked and her shirt over her head. She felt like a deaf person whose hearing had been restored in the middle of an electrical storm. Her head was full of noise.
“We shouldn’t do this,” Chad said, pushing away from her and wincing.
“We shouldn’t,” she agreed, pulling him back.
She got his pants open and put her hand around his cock. She couldn’t see it well because they’d dimmed the lights for the movie, but she imagined it had been rubbed with tea, as well. It hardened in her hand like a pet that was eager to show a new friend what tricks it can do. She bent toward it, but he began to resist. She allowed herself to be pushed away.
“I’m just, I’m still all fucked up about my girlfriend. And Kyle’s like, my cousin. I don’t know.”
Charlene reached under the coffee table where they’d stashed the beer and pulled out two bottles. She offered one to Chad, who took it from her without saying anything, a reflex gesture. She was a little thrilled with how blasé she was being, how in control, as if she did this all the time. It was almost as exciting as the thought of fucking him had been.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You must think I’m a total asshole for this.”
She thought about it. “No.”
Chad promised her he wouldn’t tell Kyle or anyone else. He kept telling her it was his fault and that she must think he was a prick. She reassured him, telling him she thought his ex-girlfriend would probably come to her senses if he just left her alone for a while to think. He was a really nice guy. There was a small part of her mind that hoped these reassurances would lead to more kissing. She was determined, if it started again, to get her bra off before he could object and get his cock in her mouth. He offered to move out the next morning – there was a guy at the day camp who told him he could stay at his apartment if he paid some of the utility bills. He said again that he would not tell Kyle what happened.
After he left, his blankets and sheets were left on the couch. She found a T-shirt he’d left behind and almost inhaled it. She masturbated with it twice before throwing it away in a moment of panic and shame.
She told Kyle herself, weeks later, while they were on their way to get groceries. She immediately wished that she’d waited until they were already done their shopping, because now it would be hard to get everything they needed.
I don’t get it, he kept saying.
What was there to get?
“I’m so sorry. It wasn’t anything. It was stupid. It was really, really stupid. I wasn’t even thinking. We were drunk and being stupid. Don’t be angry at Chad – be angry at me. I’m sorry, I love you.”
Kyle slept on the couch that night, and the next night, too, using the same sheets Chad had used. Charlene thought that was fair: they would end up smelling like her husband, like everything else did, and whatever craziness she had fallen into would evaporate. On the third night, he came into the room, sat on the bed, and made her promise it was just a stupid one-time thing, that she’d never done something like that before and never would again. She did, and meant it, and was happy to have him back beside her. As had happened after the cottage party, Kyle became uncommonly sweet and flexible for a while, and she decided that was what she’d wanted all along.
* * *
At some point, rumours started going around the Ice Shack about Charlene and Jeremy. That they had a thing going, that there was more to the dinners they sometimes had together, that she would stay overnight at his house when Kyle was out of town, and worst of all, that she got paid more than anyone else at the bar. Charlene found out from another waitress, who came right out and asked her if it was true.
“I’m married!”
“That’s why I was a little shocked, to be honest – ab
out you, not Jeremy.”
Charlene carried her anger around with her for days. When she finally confronted him about it, he just laughed, which made her even angrier. There was no point even thinking about it, he said, trying to calm her down. The Shack ran on beer and gossip. Next it’d be him and Tyler who had something going on. Seriously, it wasn’t worth it.
Did he know people were saying this shit?
He told her he’d had no idea. Which was a lie: he’d been hearing rumblings for a while. It had spread wide enough that one of the regulars had made what he must have thought was a clever sideways reference to it. A week or so later, another regular came up to him, swaying in an invisible breeze, and said it must be nice to have the pick of the staff.
Jeremy shut the idea down as best as he could: “The one thing I’ve learned long ago about this business – about life, never mind – is that you don’t shit where you eat.”
“That’s gross, bro. I was talking about fucking.”
Charlene could tell by the look on Jeremy’s face that the rumour was not news to him.
“So basically everybody thinks we’re having an affair?”
“I don’t think everybody thinks that. And if some people do, so what? They’ll figure it out.”
“How long will that take? A year? It’s insulting.”
“Oh thanks a lot. I guess I’m not as big a catch as I thought I was. Thanks a lot.”
“I’m serious!”
“I know, sorry. Look: this will die out. I’ll take a couple of the biggest mouths aside and tell them to cool it. Then, in a few days or a few weeks, something will happen to somebody else that will get everybody all giddy and excited, and they’ll all start talking about that instead. The harder you try to deny something like this, the more people believe it. That’s how it works.”
Charlene wasn’t convinced. “What if Kyle hears something?”
“Who’s going to tell him? One of the dishwashers? He barely ever comes in here – which I’ve noticed, by the way. But if you want, I’ll call him myself and tell him there’s nothing going on.”
She thought about it. “That would make things worse.”
“There you go,” he said.
“GETTING OLDER IS NOT ABOUT CLOSING DOORS, IT’S ABOUT LEARNING TO OPEN WINDOWS.”
– Behaving like Grown-Ups, Believing like Children, Theo Hendra
In the mornings, while Charlene set up chairs and wiped down tables, Jeremy would work away in a corner booth, totalling receipts and talking on the phone. He almost never worked downstairs in his office. If she brought in music from home, he always asked her what it was. He did this even when it was clear he hated it. One morning it was Yo-Yo Ma performing Bach’s Cello Suites. Her favourite elementary school teacher used to put it on in class whenever they were working on group projects or doing silent reading. It always made her feel as though she were working toward something, preparing the ground for something momentous to happen to her. All she had to do was wait, be ready, and recognize the signs when they came. Jeremy sat there for nearly 10 minutes while the lone cello sawed away, then finally asked her if the whole thing was like that.
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s sort of the same thing over and over again.”
“Not at all! It’s constantly changing.”
She put the music back on, and the sawing began again in earnest. He tried to ignore it, then put up his hands in surrender. “Maybe stick to things with a little more get up and go. I thought I was floating on the ceiling for a while there.”
In the afternoons, they took turns eavesdropping on the group of young men, mostly teenagers, who took over a corner booth to play Tactix, a strategic game in which each player was half-cyborg, half-medieval knight. They had asked Jeremy if they could hold their games there, having been kicked out of the library, their usual spot, for sneaking in food. After determining that the game involved no twisted Nazi shit, and that a disgruntled player was not likely to show up one day with a shotgun under his trench coat, Jeremy said yes. He needed the daytime business, even if it was only a dozen Cokes and a few baskets of fries. He and Charlene were both fascinated by the young man who adjudicated the tournaments: a little older than the rest of the group, his official title was Master Guardian. His name was Donnie. The younger men huddled near him, in awe of his skill with the game, his ability to anticipate everyone’s next moves, and his card collection, all contained within a leather binder. Donnie was patient with them, like a fat mother pig being rolled and jostled by her rebellious piglets. After a game in which he was soundly defeated by a younger player, Donnie had to endure a few minutes’ worth of teasing and boasts about who would be the next Master Guardian. Before leaving, he sat at the bar and finished his Diet Coke.
Jeremy said, “Sounds like they gave you a hard time today.”
Donnie held his glass in front of him, swirling it slightly as if it were expensive Scotch. Charlene had to fight to stop herself from laughing. He reminded her so much of some of the guys she’d known in high school – awkward misfits who, having grown too large to be physically bullied, stopped being fearful and skittish and became angry about their exclusion from the brighter world of teenage popularity. That anger fuelled arrogance, which brought on the long, black coats, the wraparound shades, the heavy, buckled boots, and the black gloves. Some of them had been her friends in elementary school – she had to fight her way out of their orbit once they got to high school, where those associations would’ve been fatal.
“I don’t get caught up in who’s winning or losing,” Donnie said. “You can’t worry about one game, one day. They see the battles, I see the war.”
Jeremy liked that – they see the battles, I see the war – and adopted it as his own. It was almost as good as anything he’d read in a Theo Hendra book. True victory was always just over the horizon; it was better to live to fight another day than lose everything trying to defend a lost cause. He told Charlene to make sure Donnie got a free Diet Coke the next time he was in, but to be discreet about it, or else she’d have that whole pack of monkeys on her, demanding free drinks.
If it were a warm and bright day, Jeremy would insist she come out onto the deck with him for a few minutes to soak up the sunshine. He sometimes brought peanuts for the squirrels, and the two of them would laugh at the contradiction between the animals’ furtiveness and the massive facts of their tails. It was like trying to sneak into a house wearing clown shoes. He made her stand on the bench along the edge of the deck to look down into the ravine. She would almost get sick at the sight of the drop, but she did it. When she felt steady up there, she stretched out her arms in either direction and loudly declared herself king of the world, which Jeremy smiled at, puzzled.
“That from a movie?”
He pointed out where that poor kid had jumped from the bridge and been speared through the thigh all those years ago, a story she’d heard before, though in a much more gruesome form.
“Didn’t it go through his neck?”
No, no, he said, and laughed, as if the very idea were absurd.
“Apparently, all the schools went crazy with safety lectures after it happened,” he said. “My sister told me her class had a cop come in three times in one year to talk to them about not doing stupid dares. As if having a cop at school would stop anyone who wanted to be that goddamned stupid. Did they do all that at your school?”
“I . . . don’t think so.”
“You don’t remember? It was a pretty big deal.”
Charlene admitted, reluctantly, that the jumping incident had happened shortly before she was born, while her mother was pregnant with her. She knew this because her mother told her she’d spent about a week completely broken down over the idea that someone’s child – who’d once been a baby in a belly, just like Charlene was at the time – had nearly thrown his life away for absolutely nothin
g, on a stupid dare, showing off, not even thinking.
“Didn’t the guy almost drown? That’s what she told me.”
Jeremy ignored her question. “You weren’t born yet?” He suddenly felt as though he were telling her about something from way back in history, like D-Day or the Beatles.
Her mother might’ve been talking about someone else, Charlene suggested. Another accident, another teen.
Jeremy shook his head. “You know how to spoil a day, you really do.”
* * *
Jeremy was not yet what he would call old, but he could already feel parts of himself losing the fight to stay young. He never missed a chance, when passing the broad mirror behind the bar, to check his reflection. What he saw there was a thickening man drawn tight by his own tools and clothes. His head of dense curly hair gleamed with the synthetic dew of hair product. It had been wood-stain brown his whole life, though a kind of frost was creeping into it. Wood stain after a few seasons of hard weather, maybe. The closely trimmed beard he’d worn for decades was gone, and he couldn’t decide whether its absence made him look older or younger. It made him look a little less serious, which he decided was okay – he wanted always to be approachable – but it revealed the softening curve of his chin and jaw. His hair, his gut, and the flesh around his eyes were drifting away from the rest of him and falling asleep on themselves, like peripheral friends at the far end of a long table full of people, pushed out of the stream of conversation and too drunk and tired to fight their way back in. Every year something else gave up. His feet were growing tough and square. The pink rim of his ears kept producing long white hairs as hard as little feathers.
Ever since he’d quit smoking – at the urging of his mother, whose extended family seemed to contract different forms of cancer the way other people caught colds – food had rushed in to fill the void. He fought back, having only some kind of salad for lunch, and another one for dinner, then putting an exercise bike in his office. His stomach, if left alone, would happily spread out, the same way his hair was just waiting for the signal to clear a tiny helipad at the back of his head.
Congratulations On Everything Page 9
