by Karina Halle
All of a sudden I realize that the last four months did nothing to change me. I am still the same as I was before I left.
I had gone overseas in hopes of finding myself. In this moment, I know I hadn’t been looking for anything.
I had been running away.
Chapter Three
JOSH
On the scale of sex, there are four different ways to measure your fuck. There is sex. Good sex. Amazing sex. And mind-blowing sex. There is no bad sex because, I mean, it’s still sex. At least to me. I’m not picky. But what I did with Gemma, that fucktastically hot foreign minx, is in another category of its own.
That was pure, primal, crazy, sweaty, erotic, sensual, rabid animal, life-changing sex. That was the sex that happens once in your life, if you’re lucky. I cannot get it out of my head. I cannot get her out of my head. For the next few days after Halloween, Gemma and her come-hither eyes and thick hair and infectious laugh are all I can think about.
But I never even got her last name.
When Monday rolls around, however, I’m given something else to think about. I have a morning shift and I smell like Hollandaise sauce and drip coffee when I get home. There’s a stack of mail on the kitchen table. My mother, the workaholic Realtor, is out somewhere, probably showing some sad sap a house and trying to convince them that they can afford Vancouver’s outrageous housing prices.
I pop open the fridge and grab a can of Coke and start riffling through the pile of envelopes and catalogues. I start getting nervous for some reason and then I see it.
A large envelope from Emily Carr, the art school I had applied for. It was only for a few courses—3-D Computer Animation, Illustration, Comic Book Storyline, Design for Motion, Art Direction—but they would be enough to get my life heading in the right direction. I wanted to ease into it and then see if I could actually get my degree down the line.
I take in a deep breath and rip it open. On the first page it says I’ve been accepted. I had submitted my work late so it was always up in the air, but there it is. I start my courses on January fifteenth.
I close my eyes and smile. I am beyond relieved. The school doesn’t take just anyone and some of the courses are for second-year students, but somehow I made it in. I squeezed through the cracks.
Holy fuck, I’m actually going to be a student. Things are finally going to change, going to turn around. And yet, as I lean back against the fridge, staring at the paperwork, I’m left wondering: Will this be enough?
Before I can continue my thoughts, my cell rings. I pick it up. It’s Vera.
“Hey!” I say brightly into the phone. For once I have something to say to my sister. It seems her life is so interesting and exotic while mine never changes at all. But not today.
“Hey, bro,” she says. “You sound happy.”
“Fucking right,” I tell her. “Guess what?”
There’s a hesitant pause and then a squeal. “You got into Emily Carr?”
“Yup.” I can’t help but grin at her reaction: more squealing.
“Dude,” she says and I hear her take a sip of something, then swallow. “I am so proud of you. What did Mom say?”
“She doesn’t know yet. I just got the acceptance letter.”
“Good,” she says. “I like that you got to share with me first. Unless, of course, you’ve managed to snag a girlfriend in the last week.”
I’m so tempted to say something about Gemma but I’m fully aware that I’m talking to my sister. I don’t discuss my sex life with her, though she doesn’t seem to have that problem with me. Sometimes I have to remind her I’m her brother first, friend second, and the freaky stuff she does with her older boyfriend, Mateo, is absolutely none of my business.
“Joshua?” she asks, using my full name to bring me back to attention.
“Yuh huh?”
“So, what are you going to do now? I mean, about your job.” I hear her swallow again.
“Are you drunk?” I ask.
“Drinking,” she says. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Where’s Mateo?”
“He’s reading in the living room.”
“How exciting.”
“It is. I’m drinking on the balcony.”
“And you’re not freezing your ass off?”
“We have an outdoor heater thing.” Interesting. A few months ago, Vera would have said, “He has an outdoor heater thing.” She’s starting to really put down her roots, even after all the shit she and Mateo have gone through. Sounds like she’s there to stay now. I don’t know why that burns a bit. “Anyway, back to the school stuff. Are you going to look for a new job?”
I shrug, though she can’t see it. I don’t understand why everyone is so against me as a line cook. I mean, I’m not terrible at it. Sure, there was that one time I used cayenne pepper instead of smoked paprika, but anyone could make that mistake.
“I don’t know, I just got the letter. Give me some time to think.”
“Sor-ry,” she says, exaggerating the word. There’s a pause. “Oh, by the way,” she says way too casually, “I’m not coming home for Christmas after all.”
I’m stunned for a moment before I yell, “What?!”
“Yeah,” she says cautiously. “I just . . . I’d rather stay here with Mateo, and we don’t want to leave Chloe around this time of year, so . . . yeah.”
I feel my head get hot and my stomach sinks like a stone. “Vera, you can’t leave me alone with Mom and Mercy. You know that Christmas is at Mercy’s house this year, with all those stuck-up fucks. I can’t handle them alone. I can barely handle Mom.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” And she does sound sorry. But that’s not enough. “I’ll miss you, but I don’t know. I have my own life here. I was just at home in September. I just don’t see any reason to go to Vancouver and be surrounded by people who don’t really care if I’m there or not.”
“I care.”
“Only because you need me to take the pressure off of you,” she says quickly. “When I’m there, I’m the black sheep, not you.”
She’s right. With her overseas, she’s no longer the screwup of the family—it’s me. And yet I feel that even with her around, I’ll still be the one picked on. Vera has grown up a lot in the last year, and it shows. She doesn’t give a fuck about our sister, Mercy, or our mom, or any of the things she used to. It’s a good thing, believe me. But it doesn’t stop me from feeling jealous from time to time. Vera has something, someone. She has a life.
I’m starting to fear that I don’t.
“You’ll be so busy preparing for school, though,” she says. “You won’t even notice I’m not there.”
It’s a lie but there’s no point in resenting her. She’s got her new life. And come New Year, I’ll start to have mine.
But when I hang up the phone and spend the rest of the day working on sketches in my ongoing comic—Detective Demento—my mind keeps wandering. I find myself sketching a femme fatale who looks just like Gemma. She’s wearing a black sequined gown, her wavy, glossy hair over one eye. She comes from a land of fire and water, and as I draw, I remember the taste of her on my lips, the way she arched her neck when she moaned. She was incredibly, incredibly sensual but still had her sass, that smirk, those eyes. She had the whole package.
I sketch her all day in various stages of undress. It doesn’t bother me to draw her this way, though maybe it should. Whatever. The female body is meant to be appreciated, replicated. I do have to stop several times and jerk off—the memories are too much for my hormones to handle. I find myself having a fantasy about sketching her live, nude, while she fucks me. Screw Jack and Rose, that’s how it really should have gone down on the Titanic.
But when night falls and I hear my mom’s car pull up in the driveway, I realize that Gemma has been a pleasant diversion. My memories of our night t
ogether lead me somewhere, to some edge, and all I have to do is grab my dick and jump. Instead, I’m in my room and she’s some phantom I never knew, living some life far away.
I feel trapped and frustrated and I find myself crumpling up the last drawing and chucking it hard at the window. It rattles an empty beer bottle but it doesn’t fall. I want it to. I want it to fucking smash.
I should go into the kitchen and tell my mom about the school. She’ll probably be happy, but it won’t be a business degree like every other good son has, or a real estate course that she thinks would serve me better. It’s school but it’s art school, and even though I have the chops—my illustration won a contest that helped pay for my car—it’s still a fruitless career. To her, anyway. I know that the arts are hard and the odds stacked against you, but I also believe that the harder it is, the greater the reward. Besides, why not? Millions of artists have their art as their career. Why can’t that be me?
It’s so easy to think that, but I wonder if I still believe it deep down. I’m great at lying to myself.
But I don’t go into the kitchen. I stay in my room, attempting to draw her, but after a while it all looks like shit so I toss the sketchbook across the room. I go to my computer instead, put on Tomahawk’s “God Hates a Coward” and start looking up everything there is about New Zealand.
It’s more than just hobbits and Kiwi birds, I know that. But I had no idea how beautiful it really was, how adventurous, how fun. It looks a lot like British Columbia but with a hint of the tropics thrown in.
Suddenly I find myself wanting to go there. To see something. To see her.
“Jesus, Josh,” I mutter, pushing myself back in the chair. I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to shake some sense into myself. I’m contemplating some crazy fucking stuff that might just make me a pathetic stalker.
Yet I realize it’s not about Gemma at all. I don’t know her. Yes, we had amazing sex and I can’t stop thinking about her, but the fact remains: I. Don’t. Know. Her.
Of course, I want to know her. I want to get to know everything about her. I want to touch her. Kiss her. Fuck her. Be with her. Just to see if it was everything I remembered. Just to see if it’s the same girl in my drawings, or if I conjured her up from thin air.
But what intrigues me more than her is what she represents. She’s the freedom. She’s the unknown. She left her home for whatever reason and went traveling by herself, to a whole new land. She had boobs and balls. I saw this life and vitality and courage in her that I didn’t realize I lacked in myself.
I want to feel her, I want to feel like her. I want to do the running man and throw caution to the wind and do something a little bit crazy. It worked for my sister, after all. Why should she get all the adventure that life has to offer?
I’m not as impulsive as Vera, though. I take a look at my bank and credit accounts, take a look at my work schedule, take another look at the acceptance letter. There has to be some strategy when you’re dealing with such a big trip and such little money.
I’ve almost got it all figured out when my mother knocks on the door. I tell her to come in and she does so cautiously. She looks tired and wired, her hair starting to come out of her tight bun, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. I remember how scared Vera was when she told her she was moving to Spain to be with a man. I remember how mad Mom was. But I feel no fear. I feel clarity jiggling through my bones.
I haven’t decided anything and even that is enough to get me revved up. Gotta get your motor running, your engine humming.
“Haven’t seen you all evening,” she says to me, stopping just a few feet away. She always acts like she has to wear a hazmat suit whenever she’s in my room.
I nod and try to contain my smile. Smiling too much around her is dangerous. “I have some news.”
She tilts her head and appraises me. “Oh?”
“Two things, actually,” I say. I lean over and pick up the acceptance letter, handing it to her. “One is I got accepted to Emily Carr. I start January fifteenth.”
She looks skeptical at first. Then she takes the paper from me and she nods as she looks it over, as if she’s impressed. “Very good, Joshua. I guess that means you’ll have to cut your hours at work.” A line of worry threads her brow. “Have you talked to them about this? Will they let you?”
I lean back in the chair. “It doesn’t really matter. I’m going to quit. Tomorrow.”
And then I’m smiling because I said it and it’s real.
“Well, you need to have a job, Joshua,” she says, tossing the paper back on the desk. She tips up her chin and folds her arms. She looks like a disgruntled schoolteacher from an Archie comic.
“I’ll get something,” I say. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Someone has to,” she says. Her voice is still stern but she seems to be relaxing a bit.
So I ruin it. I’m good at that. “So the second thing is that I’m going to New Zealand for a few months. I won’t be home for Christmas. I will be back for school.”
She’s stunned. She’s trying to process what I said and realizes it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
“New Zealand?” she mouths.
“I just bought a plane ticket,” I tell her but I’m lying. I haven’t done that yet, I’m just curious about her reaction. If I say it, it will happen. “I leave November twenty-third and come back on January tenth.” She’s still speechless, so I go on to add, “I’ll find a new job when I get back. Something I want to do. Something that works with my school schedule. I’ll pull it off, I always do.”
“But you don’t,” she says, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t sting like a wasp. But as with a wasp, I swat it away.
“I will, Mom,” I tell her. I’m starting to feel defensive, and when I get defensive I get angry. There’s no use being angry with my mom; she always uses it against you. It’s her weapon, along with her overly pointy fingernails. “It’s just a short trip, what’s the big deal?”
She narrows her eyes. “The big deal is you have no money.”
“How do you know? You have no idea what I save.” And that’s the truth. I have been saving for emergencies, for rainy days, for the moment I’m sure she’s going to kick me out of the house. It’s probably the most responsible thing I’ve done, and I’m about to do the most irresponsible thing with it.
“A credit card—” she says and I raise my hand, cutting her off.
“My credit card limit is low, my payments are manageable, and I don’t think I really need to explain myself anymore.”
She raises her eyebrows, eyes wide. She’s not used to me talking back.
“And anyway,” I continue, “I’ll still pay my rent when I’m gone, so don’t worry.”
She sucks at her teeth and looks around the darkened room, as if it will give her answers. Where did I go wrong? I can imagine her saying.
Finally she looks back at me and she seems tired, like the lines around her eyes suddenly deepened. “This is just so . . . impulsive, Joshua. You’re just like your sister.”
That was meant to cut like a knife, but it doesn’t hurt. “And just like my sister, are you going to let me back into the house when I return? Or will the doors lock on me, too?”
Her eyes narrow into slits. “That is not fair. Vera went to live with a married man. That behavior is unacceptable.”
After all this time, my mother still doesn’t get it. It doesn’t matter that Vera is happy, that Mateo got a divorce pretty much right away, that things are great for them and they’ve beaten a lot of those heavy odds stacked against them. None of that matters. Your fuckups will never let you shine in the Miles household.
“Well, she did it anyway, despite what you think, and I’ll be doing the same.”
A weird softness comes into her eyes for one moment, like she’s peeled off a mask.
“Why do
you hate me so much?” she asks so quietly I can barely hear her.
Now I’m the one who’s stunned. “What? I don’t hate you.” I just don’t really like you most of the time, I think, and it surprises me. It’s strange, actually, to think about your parents in terms of liking them or not, like they’re some person you kind of know and you can form an opinion of them based on how they act, how they treat you, whether you click or whether they annoy the shit out of you. We’re all thrust into our parents’ lives without a choice, and you grow up together as they raise you. You love them and they love you.
But liking them, as people, to be around—that’s a whole other bag of balls. I love my mom because, well, I do. I’m her son. She’s my mom. But for the first time, I realize I actually don’t like her at all. It’s fucking weird.
“I’ve gone wrong somewhere,” she says, going into her dramatics. Whatever vulnerability I saw, that little thing that made me like her a bit more, is gone.
I contemplate saying, Look, Mom, I love you but I don’t like you. But instead I indulge her and say, “Well, Mercy turned out great. Married to a rich husband with a stick up his ass. Nice house, though.”
“Joshua,” she says. “Watch your language.” But she doesn’t argue my statement either.
After that, she leaves, looking defeated, as if she just lost a sale to another Realtor. The funny thing is, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I was actually going to quit my job and buy a plane ticket to the land of Gandalf and flightless birds and backward draining toilet water. But now, after her reaction, now I’m sure. I’m going.
And I don’t even know why. It comes back to Gemma, of course, but I don’t think she’s the reason for me taking flight so impulsively. I don’t even plan on looking her up—how could I find her anyway? I don’t even know her last name, and the last thing I want to be is a stalker.
But she was at least the catalyst, the push I needed to go into the great unknown. You can only ignore the call so many times before you know it’s time to go.
Life is spreading her legs for me.
I’m going in.
