Cadillac Couches

by Sophie B. Watson

  Out of over a hundred students from all over the country, we were the youngest—there were even some twenty-year-olds in the program—and that made us feel unspeakably glamorous (relative to our peers back home) as well as slightly out of our league. But we knew how to bluff, especially Isobel.

  Isobel was no longer a goofy young girl; she was a gorgeous teenager with a nice brown tan, those amazing green eyes, and Liquid Paper white teeth. She was tall and thin and her light brown hair was all one length but short-ish and parted to the side like she’d seen Ralph Lauren models do on Fashion Files on TV. I still had braces on my teeth and not a lot of confidence. Recently I’d given my image an overhaul and gotten rid of my Chrissie Hynde/footballer eye-makeup and Sid Vicious hairstyle; I felt a bit exposed without all the eyeliner and hair product, but I had to face the fact that real punk was way before my time and my parents wouldn’t ever let me dye my hair blue anyway. Besides, punk boys don’t necessarily go for punk girls. Look at Billy Idol’s wives. Looking feminine felt pretty unnatural to me.

  Montreal city, Dorval airport, was where the gong show began. We had to wait there for a couple of hours before taking a little plane up north. On the way to the Edmonton airport, Dad had said: “Now, girls . . . don’t think you need to have a drink in the airport. There’s no reason to go nuts now, just because you’ll have no parental supervision for six weeks and you’re going to a province with a more liberal approach to drinking ages. What I’m saying is: BEHAVE yourselves and don’t act like WILD ANIMALS!”

  Isobel figured out we had to go to Gate 10 to board the next plane in four hours, so we thought we’d follow Dad’s advice and try our luck out at the lounge. We sat down, trying to look as sophisticated as possible. I kept my jacket on so they wouldn’t see my Billy Idol White Wedding Tour T-shirt. I stopped smiling so nobody would see my braces. On our table beside the peanuts there was a card featuring a cocktail special: Fuzzy Navel (Peach Schnapps and Orange Juice). The waitress didn’t blink when we ordered a couple of those. They were fizzy, sweet, and delicious; we got wazooed pretty quickly. It was our first major drinking experience. At home we’d only sampled the odd beer or sipped our miniscule quota of Christmas cava.

  Three hours later and three Fuzzy Navels each, we realized standing at Gate 10 that it was Gate 32a we needed to get to—it was obvious to me then how bad Isobel’s French was (she’d been in charge of listening for the gate number while I was on peanut refill duty). We ran at least three laps around the airport: north, south, east, before running down the right conveyer belt. Hallelujah—drunk, huffing and puffing, we made it on to the little passenger plane: destination Jonquière!

  Once on board, we sat in the last row. Right from the get-go, Isobel caught sight of her dream boy sitting adjacent to us in a window seat. He was sexy in that boy-who-listens-to-the-Smiths kind of way. He had tortoiseshell glasses, Jesus sandals, and a James Dean hairdo. He sat on my right and Isobel on my left. She spent the whole flight leaning forward, making me sit back so she could check him out at her leisure. I had a peach fuzzy headache and felt a little uncertain about everything up in the sky in our little tin can of an airplane.

  In the Lac-Saint-Jean region in northern Quebec, Jonquière was not far from the aluminum capital of the world where they made ALCAN, the tin foil our moms used to wrap leftovers. The factory gave the area a smell that was noticeable right off the bat, a bit like the pulp mill pong in Hinton, Alberta. On the plus side, it made for some crazy-gorgeous-coloured sunsets.

  When we landed it was a rainy night and there were definitely no parents in sight. We took a taxi to the residence and checked in and dropped off our suitcases. After the success we had had at the airport ordering drinks, we figured we were brave enough to hit the streets of small-town Quebec.

  Our first stop was at the dépanneur to buy some gum. I noticed right away that there was beer in the fridge. In Alberta adults had to go to a government store to buy booze. Unparalleled freedoms! Isobel brazenly walked over, opened the fridge, and picked up a couple of Budweisers. The guy at the counter was very friendly: “Salut, les filles? Ça bouge?”

  “Uh, bouge?

  “Et oui, Ça gaze?”

  “Uh, oui . . . wee wee wee!”

  “Ah, vous êtes des anglophones la! Pis ba . . . Je comprends . . . ow are you? You’ve just arrived ear in Quebeck and you tought you’d get some Buddy-wisers, asteur la, ahhhh!”

  We laughed with the guy. He reminded me of my friendly postman from back home. I put the beers in my bag for later, and off we went clunking up the street. Chez Max’s neon blue sign featuring a large-sized man with a chef’s hat looked appealing as a first stop. We walked in and headed for a booth table. There was only one other customer in the six-table place: the James-Dean-hairdo guy from the plane.

  We sat down at the booth beside his. Isobel was trying not to smile too much, but her voice had gone up three octaves: “Poutine, what’s that, do you think?”

  The waiter came up saying something about us being square heads. “Poutine is de food of de people, it iz frites with fromage and sauce. It is essentiel for all Québéçois people.”

  “S’il vous-plaît, oui . . . Je suis nouveau ici . . . Je suis faim, eu, non J’AI faim!” I said.

  The waiter walked away, shaking his head.

  “What did he say was on top?” Isobel asked me.

  “It’s topped with squeaky cheese.” The James-Dean-hairdo guy turned around. “Cheese curds from the region. This cheese is famous for squeaking when you put it in your mouth. Ça chante.”

  I found it hard to believe that cheese could squeak.

  He held out his hand to shake mine and said, “Enchanté. Idaho.”

  “Nice to meet you too. Alberta.”

  Isobel elbowed me in the ribs. “It’s his name, not where he’s from.”

  “Idaho?”

  My first Québécois morning I woke up sleeping top to tail with Isobel, with a pounding in my brain, feeling like an aluminum factory had been built on my head. There was also a dangerous rumbling in my guts. I looked down the bed to Izzy, who was holding her hand against her forehead. “Annie, a great illness has befallen me.”

  “Me too, girlfriend, me too. Good God! Maybe we got some kind of poisoning, maybe we got alcohol poisoning!”

  “Don’t exaggerate, c’mon. Oh God, do you think that’s possible?”

  “I hope they don’t call our parents. They wouldn’t do that, would they?”

  “Or the police, ’cause we’re underage?”

  “No way. What’s the bartender gonna say, Deez girlz ad two maybe tree Fuzzy Navels, pantoute!”

  “Oh man, I think I gotta hurl.”

  “Hold it . . . maybe you just need some air.”

  “The main thing is not to panic.”

  We spent the morning outside the residence, lounging in the park trying not to vomit. We had to be at the orientation for the program at 5:00 PM. Other students played Frisbee and sat with their groups of friends. We made a list of modest goals for the summer:

  French kiss at least one boy.

  Try every kind of alcohol available.

  Learn to be suave in French.

  Absolutely no baiser-ing. (don’t want to get pregnant!!!)

  It was a hot July day and there were no mosquitoes. Idaho wandered along wearing sunglasses, a floral shirt, and cutoffs.

  “Girls, what’s the hangover index this morning? Mine’s off the scales, those Fuzzy Navels you like to drink are nothing but sugar.”

  “It wasn’t poisoning then? We don’t have to get our stomachs pumped?!” I asked, despite knowing I was revealing nerdiness.

  “Have some Gatorade, gotta replace your fluids. You don’t go to the hospital for Gueule de bois—that’s French for hangover, it means woody mouth,” Idaho told us. He had been at this same program the year before and had a handle on the essentials—he was fast becoming our mentor.

  I had blunt-length curly hair. The major bonus of my hairdo
was if I had to, in an uncomfortable situation, I could untuck my hair from behind my ear and shield most of my face from vision. I needed to do that immediately when a Frisbee landed near my foot and some guy ran up and plunked himself down to introduce himself. He was a preppie boy wearing desert boots, a cream-coloured cotton surfer hoodie, and an almost offensive amount of Polo cologne, every preppie’s signature smell. He wasn’t my preferred new-wave, punky type of guy, but he had the kind of blue eyes that people write songs about.

  “Salut, je m’appèle Johnny. D’ou vous venez de . . . aw shit . . . I’m Johnny. Where are you guys from?”

  “Alberta, Edmonton.”

  “Vous êtes des cowgirls?”

  “Oui, oui, mon cheval est dans ma chambre,” Isobel said.

  “Et toi?” I managed to ask.

  “Toronto. Me and those guys over there all go to the same school.”

  Isobel chatted nonchalantly with him, I hid behind my hair and tried to think of something to say. Everyone was speaking quietly in case there were any French spies around whose presence we’d been assured of.

  “You like to Frisbee?” he asked me.

  “Ya, you know, it’s fun.”

  “Ya.”

  Oh man it was painful. Why had he sat down? When would he leave? Would he come back after he left? Isobel was so at ease. Unlike my mom, Isobel’s liked to give boy advice. She had told her right before we left: “Now, Isobel, I want you to know, sometimes it happens that you meet a boy and maybe you spend a lot of time together and then maybe you start fooling around, with clothes on and maybe . . . you start to feel really good . . .”

  “Mom?!”

  “No, but seriously, I am no fool. Your mother understands these things. But the most important thing that I want you to remember is that before you go too far: think of me, think of my face. When you think you might lose control, imagine me.”

  I had never even gone to a spin-the-bottle party like I’d seen on TV. My whole romantic history consisted of that one-sided kiss with Mike the Spike. He basically planted one on me, and I was too stunned to respond, imagining Isobel’s mother. I hadn’t moved my lips at all, so he had never called me again. That was ten months ago. Since then I had read lots of divorcee romances that I borrowed from my mom’s divorced friend. Second Chance Romances had given me a few ideas. I really wanted a second shot at it, vowing I would definitely kiss back this time round.

  It was a major coup to score the hottest guy in the program; I have no idea how I did it. I think it was just geographical—I sat next to Johnny at Chez Max. He had four Old Stock 7% beers and then leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Let’s hang out,” he said.

  Later that night, outside of the dormitory, we were the last two to go inside. It was twilight and we kicked off our shoes. He took my hand and walked me on to the grass to ballroom dance around the pine trees. My head rushed when he dipped me tango-style. Standing there with blades of grass tickling the skin between my toes, he put his finger under my chin and raised my mouth to his. He put his lips on mine. The stubble on his chin scraped my cheek, but his lips were warm and soft. I was ready to move my lips, determined not to relive the Mike the Spike routine. I banished Iz’s mom from my brain, and I went for his lower lip and took it in between my lips. He giggled and then licked me lightly. I got my tongue out too. We touched tongues! Then I ventured my tongue into his mouth and tried to probe around like they described in the romances. He tasted of barley. It was fun. I ran my tongue along his teeth. Slidey and gooey. I was kissing and being kissed. I was normal. I was a teenager kissing. I could do it. I wanted to run around the town naked, yelling full blast: “HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH, I am a kisser, I can kiss. I’m a FRENCH KISSER!!”

  When I looked in the mirror the next morning I saw with gruesome embarrassment that I had a clown’s mouth—all that kissing had chafed my upper lip and doubled its parameters. At breakfast in the cafeteria, I tried to eat with one hand casually covering my mouth. Idaho said I should be careful of Toronto private school boys; they were rich and ambitious. Albertans like to make fun of eastern boys, saying their nails were clean but their motives were dirty, but I thought Johnny was supernaturally beautiful now that he had kissed me. And I liked that his excessive use of cologne drowned out the town’s aluminum smell.

  We spent all of the following evenings together by the river chugging Le Vigneron (three-dollar white wine) out of the bottle. He always remembered to get me a straw for the wine. We fooled around. He sucked my neck and gave me a hickey the size of Lake Ontario. I was mortified and pleased; it was a badge of honour.

  During the day, we students went to class for five hours, going over and over the complications and nuances of French grammar. The teachers knew we partied and were tolerant of our daytime sleepiness. They understood that the best way to learn the language was to socialize and that eventually we would understand the whole direct and indirect object/subject agreement liaison stuff.

  Johnny and I spent a lot of time liaising and eating poutine at Chez Max with our buddies. Johnny and his friends were the type of guys who made fart noises with their hands in their armpits, but they were funny enough. His friend told me Johnny got suspended from school because he mooned some family driving by when he was on the school bus going on a field trip. Johnny used words like horny when I would have said amorous.

  Sex for me seemed like a faraway country I would go to some day way in the future. “What are blue balls?” I asked when he said he hated them one night, lying in my single bed. Unlike him I was happy to roll around for days, just playing together. It was like I had a chastity belt in my mind that no eighteen-year-old Houdini could crack. Both Isobel and I had no intention of losing our virginities that summer. Isobel was getting busy with Idaho, but every time he would get too steamy, she had flashing images of her mother. Still, she was a faster learner than me.

  I was a little intimidated by Johnny. Boys and penises were so foreign, I didn’t know how to approach them. As the summer nights rolled by, I worried. I knew Johnny was a fast mover, and there were only so many dodging routines I could maintain. I could shift to lying on my tummy. I could try to distract him with kisses. I could grab his hands and put them around my neck. I particularly liked being his girlfriend when there was no danger of sex; riding the public bus was ideal—I made him do a lot of sightseeing. I liked it when he kissed my earlobe and breathed in my ear.

  One night he reached for my pants. “I think you’re really special, Annie.” He unzipped his fly. “I want to show you how I really feel for you. I really like you, Annie. You’ve got the face of a cherub girl when you come out from behind your hair.”

  His compliments made me feel wonderful. I felt indebted, almost obliged to give him something back, but I still knew I would not be able to go that far. We smooched, and he continued to make attempts at unzipping my pants. Each time I managed to catch his hands. I had to be vigilant. I did try to touch his penis one time, but it felt like a weird rock.

  After three weeks of stiffies sans action, he said, “Look, I don’t want to play anymore. It’s not worth it.”

  “What do you mean? I thought you thought I was special? Johnny?”

  “Thing is, I’m eighteen years old, and this is my summer.”

  “Your summer for what?”

  “Never mind, Annie, I’m going to sleep in my room tonight. You should try not to be such a tease.”

  “What do you mean tease? I don’t want to get pregnant, Johnny! I’m not on the pill and a girl can pregnant the first time she has sex and what would I do then? I can’t get pregnant. I’m fifteen; I’m not on the pill.”

  “Pregnant, that’s a joke! You think you can pregnant with your panties on?! Grow up, Annie!”

  He walked out. I felt sick. It reminded me of the first time I ever got winded when I had fallen off a swing in the park and landed flat smack down on my back. I stayed in my room for two days with only intermittent visits from Isobel, who was mostly busy canoodl
ing with Idaho.

  I felt like it was the end of the world.

  Isobel said she felt like she was in a movie. Turns out Idaho was as romanced by A Room with a View as we were, although he did tell us we should read the book as it was far superior. He had studied George Emmerson’s mannerisms and liked to make a question mark out of the food on his plate. Isobel had no problem pretending to be Lucy Honeychurch. She had practised talking about Beethoven for months. They dressed up in linens, which tellingly they’d both packed. He coiffed his hair like George. She mock brooded and had fits of passion. They played tennis in the early evenings and drank tea. Idaho told us we had to see Betty Blue and Diva; he introduced us to French cinema, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and all things cool. He wore trendy jeans and studied theatre. He was so sophisticated we felt almost worldly just by association.

  But I wasn’t feeling so glamorous when I finally left my room because for the next five days Johnny avoided me. I didn’t know what to do except try not to look too woeful—it was challenging. I concentrated on looking bored. Friday night Isobel, Idaho, and I were doing the usual post-dancing eating thing at Chez Max and Johnny was there with a big group of people. I avoided looking at him and focused on my Fuzzy Navel and that strange Goth guy from Manitoba who tried to convince me that it was way colder there than in Alberta. I didn’t believe him. I went downstairs to go find Isobel but saw her cornering Johnny near the bathrooms. I lurked behind the cigarette machine to watch.

  “Why did you stop seeing Annie?” She asked him, mock beating his chest.

  I felt sick.

  I slinked back up the stairs so they wouldn’t see me. I ordered a beer and sat sipping it while Reuben from Montreal tried to talk to me about banjos and “Funky Town” played on the radio for the third time that night. I hid behind my hair and tried not to cry. Two minutes later there was a banging noise coming from the stairs; instead of someone falling down the stairs it sounded like someone was falling up them. I looked at the doorway and saw Isobel with her hand in his waistband dragging Johnny up the stairs like he was on a leash. His shirt was untucked and I could see the tanned skin of his hip. When they got to the top, both laughing, she took a big breath, squatted a little, and picked him up fireman-style, over her shoulder, and brought him over to me like some sort of sacrificial offering.