All I Ask

by Eva Crocker

  “I’m just looking for my friend,” I told them and let the door swing shut.

  I found her outside, smoking with Holly.

  “Holly came!” Viv said.

  Holly smiled at me. “You look cold.”

  I’d left my jacket inside. Holly was wearing the wide-legged jeans with the ragged hem and a silk, tiger-striped zip-up under a jean jacket. I felt silly in my tight dress.

  “I was just looking for Viv.” I turned to Viv. “I didn’t know where you went.”

  “Just out here,” she said, handing the cigarette back to Holly.

  That night Holly stayed at our house. She slept in the freezing living room with her coat on. In the morning I passed by the living room and saw she’d pulled the folded quilts and crochet throws we piled on the back of the couch over herself. Her head was resting on a decorative pillow and her feet were sticking off the couch. She had on one powder-blue sock with a filthy sole, the other foot was bare. Her sleeping face was turned towards the door. I realized I was holding my breath, afraid of her waking up and seeing me. I left the doorway.

  I went to the kitchen to make coffee and feed the cats. I moved around as quietly as possible, cringing when I had to pull the French press out of a jumble of dishes in the drying rack. I took the cat food out of the cupboard and the animals started mewling. The smell of tinned meat farted out of the can when I peeled the lid back, bringing my hangover to life. Meat water sluiced around a pale pink puck flecked with brown. I whispered “shut up, shut up” at the cats as I spooned the oily meat into their bowls. For a while I sat by myself in the quiet kitchen, scrolling through social media on my phone, exhaling hard through my nose to drive out the smell of cat food. The days were shrinking. The sun hadn’t been up for long, washed-out yellow light streamed in the window.

  When Viv came down I poured her a coffee and we talked quietly about the show. Who we’d talked to, how much we drank, did even one woman or person of colour play? No! Except, oh yeah, the bassist in the first band was a woman, right, but just her. All white people. Almost all cis dudes.

  Mike came crashing down over the stairs, his footsteps loud in the hall before he arrived in the kitchen. I checked the time, twenty to eleven. He was going to be late for work at Long & McQuade.

  “Is there coffee?” he asked.

  Viv put a finger to her lips. I held up the French press.

  “Holly’s sleeping in the living room,” Viv said. “A new friend.”

  He took a travel mug out of the cupboard. “I’m not taking the last of it on you?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “All good.”

  “I think the lid for that is in the second drawer,” Viv said.

  Mike put the mug on the table and I filled it for him. He lifted his jean jacket off the back of my chair.

  “I’m late,” he said, and left with the uncovered mug. A couple of seconds later the front door slammed. We heard the couch creak on the other side of the newly installed blanket. We listened to Holly’s footsteps crossing the living room.

  “Hi,” Viv said when Holly lifted the blanket. “Did we wake you?’

  I got a mug and poured Holly a cup of coffee from the bottom of the French press. It was lukewarm and silty.

  “I’ll make a new pot.” Viv took the cup from me and dumped it in the sink.

  Holly sat down. “Thank you, I’m not really a morning person.”

  “It’s almost eleven,” I said.

  “That’s morning,” Viv said, even though we both usually got up at dawn.

  Me and Viv were going to an anti-austerity rally at Harbourside Park that afternoon. We were going to bike down but Holly wanted to come so we decided to walk.

  “It’s kind of a long walk,” I said, as we laced up our sneakers in the front porch.

  Viv said, “They cut the subsidy for the helicopter that flies food to Labrador. And they were talking about closing public libraries. Do you know about Muskrat Falls?”

  “I definitely want to go,” Holly said.

  On the front step I turned my back to them to lock the door. The sky was bright blue but it was cold. On the way down Patrick Street, Viv explained how the Muskrat Falls hydro dam would poison Lake Melville with methylmercury.

  “You’ve heard of Grassy Narrows?” Viv asked.

  Holly told us she was from Ottawa, had been living in Montreal and moved to St. John’s to do a master’s in Gender Studies at MUN. She’d taken a basement apartment up behind the mall without realizing how far away it was from everything. Neptune Road. The bus never came on time, or sometimes it showed up ten minutes early and just went on if no one was at the stop.

  “It’s really hard to find a one-bedroom place here,” Holly said.

  “It’s not really a rental city see,” Viv told her. “Or town I guess. It wasn’t built that way.”

  It was a smaller rally compared to the ones that we’d been to in the spring. There’d been a rash of big rallies in April and May, right after the provincial budget was announced. The unions showed up to those with speakers on tall spindly legs and played “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Hundreds of people gathered at the Confederation Building and chanted “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! The levy’s got to go!” The Telegram flew a drone overhead. Me and Viv watched the footage later and saw ourselves pumping signs we’d been handed in the air while someone from the St. John’s Status of Women’s Council talked into a megaphone.

  This time, the last speaker was finishing as we arrived at Harbourside Park; the crowd was redistributing itself and moving into the street. We walked three abreast, chanting slogans that had become familiar over the past few months. “Shut Muskrat Down!” “Can’t listen, can’t lead! Dwight Ball, resign!” The atmosphere at rallies in St. John’s was boisterous, almost joyful. No one got arrested for protesting in St. John’s. Not like in Labrador, where cops were sent up in hordes to violently arrest Land Protectors.

  After the day of the small rally, Holly slept on our couch all the time.

  Viv was always saying, “You can’t take a cab home, it’ll be twenty bucks.”

  Often Holly slept until two in the afternoon, when the sun finally found its way over the houses on the opposite side of the street and into our dim living room. Her book bag was permanently slouched against the couch and her school books were always stacked on the coffee table between empties and weed crumbs.

  Viv started talking about finding a place for the four of us, somewhere that wasn’t so drafty.

  “With four people, in a better-insulated place? Our bills will be so cheap. I can’t afford another winter here,” she said. “They’re saying electricity rates are going to triple in the next two years.”

  “Because of Muskrat Falls?” Holly asked, dipping a chip in the guacamole Viv had made and set in front of her. Viv nodded.

  I wanted to bring up the unopened window kit but I left it.

  * * *

  In October, Joanna Spencer, one of my co-workers at the theatre, had held a rock opera movie‒marathon fundraiser at Eastern Edge Gallery. I’d thought it was strange that Viv agreed to go with me. It wasn’t her kind of thing, and I probably wouldn’t have gone either, except I was trying to make friends with Joanna. I knew her from school — we’d worked on a couple of projects together at Grenfell and gone to the same parties. In the three years since we’d finished school, her first short film had played at a festival in B.C. and she got funding to make the second one through a competitive first-time filmmakers’ program that set you up with equipment and helped you find a volunteer crew.

  I’d heard she was applying for money to make a feature about two women in an outport community: one works at the convenience store and the other is married to the owner. The employee is having an affair with the owner and in the second act the women learn they share a father. In the final act, the employee confesses about the affair and t
he women have a physical fight before reconciling. Joanna told me she thought I’d be a good fit for one of the roles but she didn’t say which one, or how big of a part. The rumour was that things were looking good for the funding.

  “It’s supposed to be like gritty realism about rural life,” I told Viv.

  “She’s from town, though, isn’t she?” Viv’s mom was from Roddickton, a tiny community on the Northern Peninsula.

  “Yeah, but I feel like she has family somewhere around the bay?” I said. “I’m not sure.”

  Viv rolled her eyes at me. I wanted to remind her that she also grew up in town but I kept my mouth shut.

  I’d heard cover at the fundraiser was ten dollars, or five with a costume. I let Viv borrow my sky-blue fleece bathrobe with the melted sleeve and she wore it over a pair of jeans and a bulky knitted sweater. She sat on the bed while I tore things out of my underwear drawer. I wanted to wear this frilly slip I got at the Salvation Army. I was pretty sure I’d seen it somewhere recently.

  “Joanna Spencer pierced her own nipple at a party once, I was there.”

  “Holy fuck.” I clamped my hands over my breasts.

  “Well, she started to.” Viv took a slug from her tall can of beer.

  “Viv! Stop, that turns my stomach.”

  “Do you want to wear this bathrobe?”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ve got another bathrobe.” I gave up on the slip and got an even rattier fleece bathrobe off the floor of my closet. This one was lime green and covered in grey nubs of dryer lint. “My aunt gives me one of these for Christmas every year.”

  Viv left her empty beer can on the overturned milk crate I was using as a bedside table. Downstairs, Mike was sitting at the kitchen table noodling on an unplugged electric guitar.

  “We’re going to this movie marathon thing at Eastern Edge now,” Viv called down the hall to him.

  “Cool,” he yelled back.

  Holly was in the living room FaceTiming with someone in Montreal. She had a pair of hot-pink earbuds plugged into her laptop. We called goodbye at her as we put our sneakers on. Holly glanced up and smiled, waving without taking the headphones out.

  “That’s just Viv and Stacey leaving,” she said to the screen.

  Viv and I were both wearing hip-length fall jackets, and the bathrobes fluttered around our thighs as we made our way down Pleasant Street. The air was warm and there were greasy smears of fall leaves on the sidewalk. It had snowed once but it hadn’t stuck around long.

  “Joanna said I could read the script, she asked me to read it,” I said, “for feedback. I feel like that’s a good sign. She wouldn’t do that if she wasn’t seriously considering offering me the part. Do you think? I mean it might not ever be produced, but who knows.”

  “So you’re networking,” Viv said.

  “No, gross.”

  “You are, though. That’s why you want to go to this thing.”

  “I would never use that word,” I said. “Anyway that’s not why I want to go to the thing, they’re showing Jesus Christ Superstar.”

  I threw my head back and sighed. I could see craters in the moon, the sky was full of bright, pinprick stars. I wanted to point out to Viv how clear and beautiful the night was but I was too annoyed with her.

  “But that’s the motivation for going, to talk to Joanna Spencer about this part you want.”

  “I can talk to her anytime, we work together.”

  “You’re so defensive,” Viv said.

  * * *

  At the gallery, me and Viv bought cocktails with bits of herbs floating in them and sugar on the rim of the ribbed plastic cups. There weren’t many people there when we arrived. It was easy for the big space to feel empty. People were sitting crossed-legged on the floor and Tommy was being projected on the wall. There was a card table in the back with a restaurant-sized tub of Neapolitan ice cream, a dish of maraschino cherries sitting in their fluorescent syrup, a can of spray whipped cream and a few bottles of sprinkles. Joanna Spencer was behind the sundae table accepting handfuls of change and giving out Styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons.

  At another table Christie Fleming was painting people’s fingernails. She had a huge collection of half-used-up polish bottles spread across the table. Johnny Howse was sitting across from her in a folding chair, his hand flat on the table between them.

  “Are you going to the sundae bar?” Viv asked.

  “When I finish my drink. Let’s say hi to Christie, you know Christie, right?”

  Christie was brushing a pale coat of forest-green paint on Jordan’s thumb.

  “You’re getting your nails done,” I said. Jordan turned to look at me and Viv without saying anything; it felt like we’d interrupted a private conversation. I regretted inviting Viv down to the gallery. I’d hoped Dana, my co-worker and a friend of Viv’s, would be there; she’d said she was going to go.

  “Yeah! Five bucks, it’s a steal, are you going to do it?” Jordan asked, suddenly warm.

  “We’re going to do a glitter top coat over this,” Christie said.

  “Not for me. I think it’s a fun idea, though.” Viv picked up a bottle of clear polish with hearts in it and shook it.

  “What about you, Stacey?” Jordan asked.

  “Maybe I’ll circle back, I definitely want to go to the ice cream bar. I just wanted to say hi.”

  Jordan picked a top coat with star-shaped sparkles in it. Eventually Viv and I walked to the bar and ordered a second round of mixed drinks. We stood by the door in our matching bathrobes, watching people gather in front of the movie with bowls of ice cream.

  “After this drink we can go,” I told Viv.

  “Don’t you want to talk to Joanna?”

  “No.”

  “Did I make you feel weird about it? I’m sorry.”

  “I thought it would be more fun here, I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It could be fun, if there were more people,” Viv said. “The only good part of this movie is that Tina Turner scene, the rest is basically filler.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t wear the slip.”

  “We came down too early,” Viv said. “I bet it’ll be really on the go later.”

  We crunched up the ice in our glasses and dropped the empty cups into a big recycle bin by the door. We hadn’t been there very long but the wind had come up and it was colder outside. I balled my fists inside the sleeves of my jacket then shrugged them into the synthetic warmth of the bathrobe.

  “We should’ve taken our bikes,” I said.

  “I have to tell you something,” Viv answered.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think me and Mike might get our own place.”

  “Okay.” I tried not to let my feelings show on my face.

  “We didn’t plan it, we just saw a place.”

  “Yeah, it’s okay. I mean obviously, it’s okay. It’s nice. For you guys to do that.”

  “You and Holly could find a place, though, there’s lots of two bedrooms right now.” We were rushing because of the cold, the bathrobes streaming out behind us.

  “Right, yeah. If Holly wants that.”

  “I love living with you, obviously.”

  So this was why she came with me. To tell me. And probably Mike knew. When he called out from the kitchen he knew we were going to talk about this. I thought it was always me and Viv talking about Mike but of course, of course, she talked to him about me too.

  “I’m sure Holly will want that. Who else would she live with? She doesn’t know anyone here. I actually saw a nice two-bedroom spot, I’ll send it to you. On Coronation Street, it’s cheap and there’s a backyard,” Viv said.

  “You’ve been looking for a while?”

  “We were looking for something for the four of us. We just didn’t see anything. You know there was nothing.”

 
“Sorry.”

  “Unless it was like out by the mall.”

  “It’s really okay.”

  “This place is just really cheap. And there’s a jam room.”

  “I know, I get it. I’m sorry.”

  Viv pulled me into her in the middle of the sidewalk. “It’s not going to change anything.”

  I shrugged out of the hug and kept walking.

  “You’re going to come over all the time,” Viv said. “Right? You’ll come over?”

  “I know, I’m okay.” My chest was burning. “Look at the moon.”

  Four

  In junior high I used to go to all-ages shows in the church hall by my house. At one of the shows the singer of a band called Sewer Standoff got duct-taped to a chair. The bassist walked in a circle around the singer, wrapping tape around his torso and the back of the chair. Then the bassist dragged the chair across the room and set the singer in front of the drum kit.

  The wiener who’d organized the show was yelling about scratching the waxed hardwood floor. The bassist knelt and wrapped tape around each of the singer’s calves, strapping them to the front legs of the chair. The singer could still bend his elbows — he held the mic up to his right shoulder and craned his neck to scream into it for two songs. At the start of the third song he kind of jerked around for effect and knocked the chair over.

  The band kept playing and some older guys in the front righted the chair. Three of them lifted the chair up over their heads; the crowd pulled away like a tide going out. But then someone passed the mic up to the singer and he started screaming along with the music and the crowd rushed back in. The older guys bounced the chair in the air, lurching the singer back and forth, and the crowd yelled along.

  I was standing beside Candice Walsh and we were both shouting the words. When the mosh pit threw us together her big boobs would smoosh against my arm and we’d smile at each other like “what can you do?”