Then I realize I’ve spent twenty whole minutes fretting over what to wear to see Jem, and I want to hit something.
Frank doesn’t quite know how to read my appearance when I go downstairs. I don’t look like I’m going out on a date, precisely, but I don’t look like I’m just going to school, either.
“Who are you going to be with, again?” he asks. It’s useless to lie to him in such a small town.
“Jem Harper.”
My answer irritates Frank. “You’re going out with that kid?”
“It’s not a date. We’re just hanging out together.”
“Alone?”
“Just us two, yeah.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Frank narrows his eyes at me. He’s a hard man to read, but I see the worry under his ambiguously slanted brows.
“We’re friends.”
“Will, I know you’ve had a rough time these last couple years, and I don’t have anything against you being nice to the Harper kid, but you have to be careful.”
“I am.” I consider telling Frank how often Jem and I meet at each others’ houses when he’s on a long shift and that we don’t just do Soc homework, but I don’t want to give my brother a stroke. He worries enough about me.
The doorbell rings. I head to the front hall and quickly grab my jacket and purse. Frank follows me warily, like he’s preparing to send me off to my death.
I open the door and Jem smiles at me nervously.
“Hi. Let’s go.” I put a hand on his arm and practically shove him down the front steps. I want to get out of here before Frank gets the idea to lecture us, or to threaten Jem with the treat-my-sister-right-or-else speech.
Frank comes out onto the porch and Jem says, “Nice seeing you,” over his shoulder as we walk away. Frank doesn’t say anything. He just folds his arms and glowers at us across the driveway.
Jem seems to find my behavior funny. He smirks at me and follows me around to the passenger side of the car. “You look really nice,” he says softly. If he said it at normal volume I’d think he was just paying me a generic compliment—an obligatory social nicety—but his voice was so quiet that only I could hear, and the implications of that make me antsy.
“So do you.” He looks good in a dress shirt, or maybe it’s just the way this shirt actually fits him. He swims in the sweaters and long-sleeved tees he wears on a daily basis.
Jem smiles at the compliment and turns to open the car door for me. Oh God.
“You know this isn’t a real date, right?”
“I know.” His smile wavers a little. “I’ll drive you home whenever you like.”
I get into the car and he closes the door after me. I wonder if he opened it for me to prove to Frank that I’m not going out with some jerk, or because he’s trying to get something out of me. He holds open a few doors, does the gentlemanly thing in public, and in return my hand goes down his pants by the end of the night. Thus altruism dies with a groan and a sticky mess.
It takes thirty long seconds for Jem to get in the car and pull away from the house and my glaring brother on the porch. As eager as I was to get away, once alone in the car with Jem, I start to get nervous. What did I get myself into?
“What are you expecting tonight?”
My question puzzles him. “A fun night out, where I—hopefully—don’t get sick during.” We come to the stop sign at the end of my street and he looks over at me with furrowed brows. “What are you expecting?”
“I don’t know.” I really don’t. Confusion is starting to become my natural state around Jem.
The drive to Ottawa doesn’t feel as long as it usually does. Jem keeps the conversation going, chattering in a nervous way until we’re on the highway, and then he begins to relax a little.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“No. I like surprises.”
“But you already know.”
“I enjoy giving surprises.” He looks over at me and smiles. “I hope you’re hungry.”
Suddenly the sheer lunacy of the prospect of going to dinner with Jem hits me, and I laugh. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t do normal, pedestrian things like dinner dates. As little face-time as I can get with a guy while still satisfying us both is my preferred MO—it’s clean, it’s uncomplicated, and I don’t miss him when he’s gone.
“What’s the joke?”
“You wouldn’t get it.”
*
It’s nearly dark by the time we get to Ottawa. Jem takes us through an old, hilly neighborhood not far from the busy Rideau Street area, and parks along the street near a convenience store. He says this is the closest parking to where we’re headed.
“Ready?”
We have to walk about a block through tidy streets—Jem says the borough is called Sandy Hill, and he used to live around here—before rounding the corner toward a sidewalk-side plaza with a food co-op and a new age bookstore. Jem points out the third and farthest storefront as our destination.
I can’t help but chuckle when I see the sign. The Circle: Lounge and Gastropub. Underneath the main shingle is a poster with their hours of business and a guarantee of ‘the finest vegan cuisine in Ottawa.’ I wonder if they have much competition for that title.
“It was your idea,” Jem says with a smirk. He has a point, and a damn good idea it was. He’ll have more of a selection here than he would on the average restaurant menu.
Inside, The Circle feels a lot like a living room. Tables of varying sizes and shapes share the U-shaped dining space with couches and easy chairs. Bookshelves line the walls and there is a tea and dessert bar on the left wall. In the centre of the restaurant a wide-beamed staircase leads up to an open loft and further dining space. No two pieces of furniture are the same, so the seating is just as eclectic as the books on the shelves. Slow music plays at low volume, emphasizing the easygoing atmosphere of the restaurant.
“For two?” a passing waitress asks.
“Please.” Jem gives her his name to cross off the reservation list.
“Sit wherever you feel most comfortable.” She continues on to serve other patrons, and Jem gestures that I should select our seats.
I choose the back corner. It’s quieter than the front of the restaurant or the area near the serving bar, and close to the bathrooms. Jem takes the seat nearest the wall and I move my chair to sit beside him instead of across.
“Would you rather have this seat?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I just like to people-watch.” True enough, but I also don’t like the face-to-face setup; it feels too much like a date, which this isn’t.
The waitress comes by with two menus and a pitcher of water. She looks sort of badass, with a labret in her lip and dreads knotted into a bun. I like her immediately because she looks without staring.
I give a little sigh of relief when I open the menu and see that the general ingredients of each dish are listed. That’ll make it easier for Jem to order. I find myself scanning the list of options for something he can eat before I consider my own selection.
Jem frowns at the menu like it’s written in Swahili.
“The unbeef stew looks good.”
He looks up and I point to the item on his menu. It’s not so different from the soups I’ve made for him recently, except that it contains tofu and a little more spice than I would venture to use.
“It does look good.” He gives me a grateful little smile and clears his throat. “What are you getting?”
I order the veggie potpie with a side of chickpea salad. Jem orders the unbeef stew and decides to stick with water for a beverage, so I order a glass of soymilk that I can trade with him if the stew is too spicy.
This is a neat little place Jem chose. I would come here for the books alone. They’re eclectic and rare and some of them are meant to be signed by diners, like a guestbook. I reach around Jem’s head and pluck a copy of Jane Eyre off the shelf. It’s a well-kept second edition, printed in London. I wonder
how it ended up in a vegan lounge in Ottawa.
“Have you read it?” he asks.
“A time or two.” Gross understatement. “I own two copies—I loaned one to Tessa and she killed it.”
Jem smirks. “How do you kill a book?”
“You read it to death—until the pages are loose and the glue on the spine is crumbling and the covers are bent and the corners are dog-eared. I still have the beat up copy, but it’s so fragile it’s practically unreadable. I had to buy a new one.”
“She must have really liked that book.” He takes the restaurant’s copy out of my hand and skims through it. The pages smell old and the cloth cover is discolored with light damage.
“She wasn’t much of a reader, but she did like the Brontës.”
“Doesn’t it bug you to volunteer at the hospital?” Jem asks suddenly. “It must remind you of…” He leaves the sentence hanging. He can’t describe what he means, and there’s no need to.
“No. It’s…comforting.”
If Jem had eyebrows, one would be raised right now.
“After awhile it feels…like only the people there get it. Everyone is dealing with tough shit—the nurses who care but are tough as nails, the patients, the families…. It’s the only place where I really fit in anymore.”
“You fit in well at school.”
“I lie through my teeth at school.”
Jem smirks at me. “I figured.”
*
The unbeef stew has chunks of potato, tofu and vegetable floating in the broth. Jem doesn’t attempt these at first, playing it safe with spoonfuls of broth. I’ve eaten with him every day at school for over a month now, but when it’s just the two of us it’s different. I try not to eat too fast so he won’t feel rushed.
“How’s your potpie?” It’s surprisingly tasty for a vegan dish. The filling is creamy and the crust is flaky without being dry. The chickpea salad is equally delicious, served with garlic bread for dipping. I offer Jem a taste of the latter, but it’s too sweet for his liking.
“Must be the relish.”
“Well damn,” he says.
“What?”
“I always liked relish on hotdogs.”
“You might again, eventually.” He shrugs like he doesn’t hold out much hope, and I make a mental note to hunt down a recipe for mild relish.
Jem spears a chunk of tofu with his fork. “Should I?”
What am I, the food whisperer?
“Chew it slowly.” He’s used to soft and pureed foods. He’ll have to chew long and carefully to avoid upsetting his stomach.
At first I think it’s the tofu that gives Jem a hard time, the way he makes that face, but the potatoes and carrots present the same difficulty. The stew is almost room temperature now because of his slow pace, so heat shouldn’t be an issue.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Jem winces. “It’s just tough to hold it on my tongue for so long.”
“Too spicy?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Just…a lot of flavor.”
I offer him my soymilk to take the edge off. From the outside we must look like an old couple, chewing long and slow, with up to a minute between bites. Jem’s bites become smaller and smaller as he attempts to compensate for the strong flavor and the amount of time he has to chew. His pace slows to a crawl and I can see he’s struggling to work up the nerve to take each small bite.
I squeeze the hand that holds his spoon. “You don’t have to finish it.”
“I just need a break.” He sets his spoon down and turns his attention to me. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Anything. Where did you work when you lived in St. John’s?”
“I had a part-time gig at this little shop called Independent Music.” Jem’s eyes light up like I’ve just revealed some wonderful secret. “We sold CDs and vinyl on the first floor, and the second floor was for instruments and recording equipment—microphones, speakers, and the like. A lot of the regular customers would give the employees free tickets to their shows. The boss called it ‘market research’ to get all the staff to go.”
“And why the hell did you leave?” Independent Music was the perfect job. Jem would have loved it, too.
“Family troubles, mostly. My parents were on the verge of kicking me out, but Frank took me in.”
“Why’d they want to kick you out? You seem pretty responsible.”
I casually wave away the subject. “Call it a persistent difference of opinion and one major attitude problem.” And that’s all he needs to know.
I steal a piece of potato from Jem’s bowl and he pretends to scowl at me. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Any fascinating student jobs?”
Jem shakes his head. “I temped one summer as a filing clerk for the architecture firm my mom used to work for.”
“In between stints at music camp?”
Jem’s eyes narrow. “Yes,” he answers carefully. “It’s not as dorky as you think.”
“You don’t know what I think.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Try to eat more and I’ll tell you.” I nod to his bowl. Jem grudgingly breaks off a piece of carrot with his spoon and begins to chew at a glacial pace.
“In my experience, the band kids are a pretty wild bunch. Their travelling competitions sound like one long party.”
Jem points out that he wasn’t a band kid. “Music camp is more politics than party. It’s extremely competitive.”
“Art is vanity.”
He smirks wryly at that.
“So how many people wanted to strangle you when you won that competition to play with the orchestra?”
Jem’s cheeks turn pink. I don’t understand his sense of embarrassment—it’s an accomplishment to be proud of, not to hide.
“Well,” he says slowly. “About five wanted to strangle me—the five that were also in the running for the top spot. And then there were another four cellists who didn’t qualify to begin with, but who still would have enjoyed dislocating my fingers one by one.”
“But they all smiled and congratulated you, didn’t they?”
“That’s the culture of performers for you.”
“I used to tap dance,” I volunteer. Jem seems to be struggling not to laugh.
“Really?”
“Yeah, but I sucked.”
This time he does laugh. “Is that why you don’t dance in public anymore?”
“I dance in public. I’m just picky about where and with whom.”
“Bit of a snob, are you?” he teases.
“We all have our weaknesses.” I steal a carrot out of his bowl. “I make bad decisions. You throw up.”
“I haven’t all week.”
I give him the eye. “What, you think you’re better than me now?” He snort-laughs at that. I better not ever crack a joke while he’s drinking. The results would be disastrous.
“It’s good to hear you’re feeling better.” I nudge him under the table with my foot. Jem nudges me back.
The waitress comes by to clear away my empty plate. She asks if Jem is finished, even though his bowl still has plenty of food in it. He admits he’s eaten all he can and the waitress offers dessert menus. Neither of us are hungry enough to eat more.
“Do you drink coffee?” Jem asks. His tone makes me think that he wants me to say yes so we can stay here longer. This is sort of a record for us in terms of comfortable conversation.
“Two mint teas, please,” I tell the server. She leaves with the order and Jem quietly tells me that he really isn’t up to eating or drinking anything else.
“I don’t expect you to finish it. A mouthful or two is enough—it cleanses the pallet. How’s your stomach?”
“Fine. Full.”
“A little mint tea helps digestion.”
We’re both too wussy to drink the tea steaming hot, anyway. We end up staying at The Circle for another hour, waiting for the tea t
o cool and sipping slowly. There are no lulls or gaps in conversation—everything and nothing is a suitable topic, from his favorite haunts in Ottawa to what I miss about St. John’s, and what we’d each choose if we could have a superpower.
“Telekinesis,” Jem declares without hesitation.
“You’re a control freak, aren’t you?”
“Whatever,” he says with a laugh. “What about you?”
“Invisibility.”
Jem nods. “Sounds like you.”
“And you say you don’t get me.”
“I don’t.”
“Liar.”
*
The drive home feels even shorter than the drive to Ottawa. Jem even walks me to the door at the end of the night. None-date or not, that’s a new thing for me.
“Thanks for coming out with me,” Jem says. “I had fun.”
“I did too.” My simple admission makes him beam. “This was…nice. Not at all what I was expecting.”
“What were you expecting?” He slips his hands into his pockets and I look him up and down, trying to find the right words to explain what I had in mind before we went out. He dressed nicely, made an actual dinner reservation, treated me politely and asked me about myself; all new things for me, but none of them wholly unpleasant.
I shrug. “I don’t know. That it would blow up in our faces and make school awkward. Or that we would just piss each other off and I’d have to find a place to bury you in pieces.”
Jem chuckles at that. He gets my humor.
“Thanks. This was…different.”
“Better than the hypothetical?”
“Much.”
Jem smiles and I half-turn to put my key in the door. I wonder if I should invite him in. I usually don’t tell guys where I live, never mind bring them home, but this technically wasn’t a date and it’s not like Jem hasn’t been inside my house before.
Warm fingers touch the underside of my chin, turning my head gently. When my face comes around he’s right there, closer than I expected and leaning down to my level. He kisses me, and it is the strangest sensation I’ve felt in a long time. He uses so little pressure that the warmth of his skin is more noticeable than his lips. It’s a chaste kiss, but he lingers over it; not long enough to be gross, but enough to give the impression that he enjoys it.
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