He went to the Elephant Castle, ordered a beer, then took it to a booth near the back where he sat with his phone, working up the courage to call Leo and ask about a job. He was just about to do it, when his phone rang, the vibration causing it to glide ominously along the varnished surface of the table, sliding towards him as if being nudged by an invisible hand. He was filled with sudden dread. He looked down at the display: it was Ken. “Hello?” he answered, slouching down in the booth.
Ken said he wanted to meet for a drink. He said there was something important that he needed to talk to Matt about but wouldn’t say what it was. Matt didn’t press him too hard. He closed his eyes and hung his head and said he’d be there. Tonight, yes, at 8:30, yes, he’d be there, he said.
When he hung up, he sat for a long time, staring into space in the dim light of the bar. Ken hadn’t sounded angry; he’d sounded like his usual self, yet Matt knew him well enough not to trust him; he’d seen Ken’s playfulness flash to anger enough times and what else could it be? It had to be the letter. There was nothing else. By the time he left the bar, Matt’s thoughts of a new life had vanished and returned to this one thing: the letter, the letter, the letter.
Later that night, Matt walked into a pretentious downtown nightclub that throbbed and pulsed with blue light and young bodies as if the crash had never happened. He found Ken lounging on a leather sofa, quaffing back a martini and was surprised that Ken had invited another friend to their little rendezvous, a young man named Justin who kept pulling his lips back in an exaggerated smile so that his teeth glowed ghostly blue under the black lights. Matt didn’t know what to make of it. He stood in front of the sofa staring at the two of them, trying to assess Ken’s mood, then Ken laughed and said, “Quit being so uptight, Matty. Sit your ass down here and have a drink with us.”
So, Matt drank. They ordered one round, then another. Ken and Justin began to smile wider and talk louder. Their eyes wandered loosely to the bar with its blue glow and world-weary female bartender, then to the groups of girls with their bare legs scissoring underneath the high glass tables as they leaned forward and whispered to one another over cosmic coloured drinks, their dark-lined eyes darting about to see who was watching.
Matt kept an eye on Ken. He kept drinking and watching and little by little the booze seemed to seep under his skin and he felt his consciousness peel like a blister off the real-time version of himself so that he became both at once: he was good ol’ goofy Matty, smiling at Ken’s stories, laughing at all the right times but he was also hanging just above the action, watching himself smile and laugh, a presence that was cold and calculating and removed. The feeling was strange and powerful.
“So, I had to go to the doctor the other day,” Ken announced with steady, pale sincerity. “I had these little porcelain splinters in my ass. It was a fucking embarrassment. Half an hour, pants down on the table.”
Justin guffawed, lips curling back from his flashing teeth, then he glanced around to make sure the girls with their scissoring legs noticed what a fantastic time he was having.
“Time for a new toilet seat or what?” Matt quipped, his irritation with Ken’s endless stories simmering just below the words.
“No man, it wasn’t that. Isabella threw a plate at my head and it smashed all over the floor. The woman is crazy. She’s totally insane when she’s angry.” He said this with a great display of wide-eyed amazement, awe even, as if female craziness was an erotic blessing, a great sexual windfall he’d stumbled into. Matt wanted to smack him.
“So how’d the splinters wind up in your ass then?” Justin prodded. Matt groaned inwardly. They were so predictable, like a bad movie.
Ken raised his eyebrows and regarded them as if he were a great sage of female ways. “Anger is a type of passion,” he replied. For the first time in his life, Matt felt wholly outside the power of Ken’s charm. He felt unreachable somehow, like he’d grown beyond it.
“So we’re fighting and throwing plates and screaming, then all of a sudden we’re kissing and going at it. Our clothes are coming off and she’s pushing me down to the floor. Best sex of my life.”
Now Justin jumped in with a story about a Brazilian ballet dancer he’d hooked up with. “I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing or what but I didn’t even know some of this stuff was possible. I was like a project for her, a quaint Canadian boy that had to be re-educated.” Matt’s eyes wandered around the room.
“And what about the foxy, young Mrs. Campbell?” Ken asked, calling his attention back.
“Jen? Yeah, she’s good. She’s doing lots of work on the house, redoing all the floors in the basement . . .” He could see their eyes glaze over; he could see Justin’s eyes flicker to the girls with their dangerous black-rimmed eyes over the bowls of their drinks and their long smooth legs crossing and uncrossing underneath and suddenly he felt mean and cruel. Suddenly he wanted to hammer them with the drudgery of life. He wanted to rub their noses in it. You think you know but you don’t know, he wanted to say, how different those scissoring girls will turn out to be outside the violet lights. “She’s got Jacob in pre-school twice a week,” he went on. “She’s been taking a yoga class.”
“Yoga’s cool,” Ken offered.
“I met this yoga instructor online once,” Justin began and Matt sat smiling and nodding and watching himself smile and nod as Justin explained how natural and flexible this woman had been. “You know, an anus was just a thing to her. Same as a foot or a hand. It was wild.”
They traded stories a while longer, then talked about the crash but briefly, in a superficial poor-suckers kind of way, then Justin wandered over to the bar to cast his teeth and eyes about and Matt and Ken were alone.
Ken was nodding to the thump of the music, looking out across the sea of pulsing bodies on the dance floor, his eyes glazed and far away and, for a moment, Matt had the sense that their old roles had been reversed, that he was clear and sharp while Ken was clumsy with liquor, then Ken turned towards him and was instantly sober, his blue eyes sharp as ever. It was as if someone had flipped a switch. “So Matty, you going to tell me what’s up?”
Matt’s sense of being outside himself came crashing down. His face began to burn. “What do you mean, what’s up? Nothing’s up. I’m having a drink, that’s what’s up.”
Ken looked at him hard in that psychologizing way he used to use to drag the truth out back when they were still in high school, that look that said, ‘I already know so don’t bother hiding; I know you better than you know yourself.”
“You asked me to come here,” Matt stammered. “Here I am, drinking.”
Ken continued to regard him silently and Matt felt wretched and transparent under his gaze. The moment stretched on, Ken staring him down, regarding him like a wounded animal until the tension was so unbearable Matt thought he might break and admit what he’d done just to put an end to it; he could feel the desire to confess rising up inside him, to end it, to end all the gut-twisting not-knowing tension and just get it over with, but then Ken shook his head and looked away. “Alright, Matty. Don’t get your knickers in a knot. You just seem a bit off, that’s all. Distant.”
“I’m not distant. I’m right here aren’t I?”
“You forget Matty, that I know you and it’s pretty fucking obvious that something’s bugging you. You were never any good at keeping secrets.”
What did it mean? Was he fishing? Bluffing? What? Matt thought he might pass out with the stress of it. “There’s nothing,” he managed. “Woman stress. Money stress. I don’t know. The usual shit.”
“If you need money, Matty, I can . . .”
“I don’t need any more help with money, thanks,” he snapped and immediately he regretted it. He was strung out, he realized, still half crazed by his sleepless night.
Ken didn’t respond. He looked out at the dance floor and sipped his drink. When he finally turned back to M
att he looked tired, sad even. “Look, Matty, if you want to talk about that contract, we can talk about it tomorrow. Not tonight, though. Tonight is special. Tonight, I wanted to ask you something personal.”
Matt’s mouth was dry. He could barely speak. “What? What is it?”
Ken leaned forward so his face was very close. Matt could smell his aftershave. “Well, as you know, my girlfriend Isabella and I are getting married and we’re starting to plan the wedding. I wanted to ask you, since you’re my oldest friend and all, if you’d stand for me at the wedding?”
Matt hung his head. He looked down at the dark tiles between his feet. He wanted to feel warmth inside him; he wanted to feel happiness for his friend, to be overwhelmed by memory, by nostalgia, by something, yet all he felt was relief that it had not been this other thing.
“Matty?”
Matt looked up. Ken’s blue eyes searched his face. “Of course,” he said. “I’d be honored.”
They embraced and Ken thumped his back so that the impact reverberated through Matt’s chest, echoing through him as if he were hollow inside. Quickly, Matt called for drinks to celebrate; he called for shooters; he called for dancing; yet he was unable to shake the sense that the keen and watchful part of him that stood apart was still there, watching, judging, even as he congratulated his friend, even as they walked arm in arm to the bar.
Several hours later, Matt hurried along the wet sidewalk, hunched under his umbrella. It was late and the streets were quiet except for the hiss of the rain. The reflections of the streetlights were smeared on the glistening pavement and somehow this made him lonely, like looking at the lights on the highway outside of River City used to make him lonely. He walked on, passed city hall then passed the library where he saw a young man and woman huddled under the awning, their lower bodies wrapped in a pile of blankets and sleeping bags. They were talking quietly to one another, the steam of their breath back lit as it passed between them, the girl’s cheeks pink and round despite her poverty, the weedy young man leaning close to her, speaking excitedly, about what? about the world’s problems maybe or politics maybe, or dreams; the young man’s eyes were so bright and hopeful that Matt felt embarrassed as he passed; he felt embarrassed for the hollow knocking of his good shoes in the steaming, whispering street.
When he got to where he’d parked his car, he got in, put a penny on the dash like a kind of talisman, then headed home on the wet, black streets. It was late and there was very little traffic; yet each time the headlights of another vehicle approached in the opposite lane, he was filled with a horrible panic. He used to get it sometimes in high places, whenever he stood at the edge of a balcony or a cliff. It wasn’t vertigo the way others described it, but a sense that he couldn’t quite trust himself not to jump, that his body might just do it, that it might just launch him out into nothing against his own will, not a suicide wish but a lack of trust, that he might jump, that he might steer into the opposite lane, that the self could slide out from under conscious control and act on its own dark and poorly understood intention.
Another week went by and still Matt couldn’t sleep. He checked the post box every day but there was nothing, only bills and threatening letters from the bank. At night, he kept returning to the computer to look at the picture online. Annika Torrey. He kept staring at it, trying to make some sense of it, but the more he looked, the more confused he felt. Twisted Anni’s. Saltery Bay. Ken’s pale and steady eyes. There was a lie here somewhere yet he couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
Eventually, he called Ken again to ask if there’d been any news about his contract but Ken just sounded annoyed and told him to be patient. He said there were no exact time frames, no way to predict these things. He didn’t offer anything more. He asked Matt about Jacob. He talked about the wedding plans.
But Matt couldn’t stop thinking about it. Saltery Bay. Twisted Anni’s. Was this woman sick? Had she stolen his money? He started doing research, looking into cases of fraud; it was like a wormhole. Back in the eighties during the AIDS crisis it had been the wild west. They’d regulated things since but could he really trust Ken? It would still be possible for someone to fake a medical record, wouldn’t it? He kept going over and over it in his mind.
Finally, he decided he needed to do something, to take some kind of action. If Ken wanted to behave like an obfuscating fuck and this woman wouldn’t even bother answer his letter, then he’d go down there and find out what was happening for himself. Was she sick or not? At least if he knew, he could make a plan. At least then he’d know.
The next day, he packed a duffel bag full of clothes and told Jen that he was going on a little road trip to look into an investment opportunity on the San Juan Islands. He said that business was slow in Seattle and he wanted to look at other options. The funny thing was, he thought as he pulled away, it didn’t even feel like a lie.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Annika had Barry over to dinner sometimes. It was only dinner and it made sense that she would, that they would get together in this way because they both lived alone and it was quiet in the off season. She busied herself about the kitchen, thinking it would be nice to put the candles out, but as she rummaged in the bottom drawer she paused, then closed it, worried that candles would send the wrong message. She didn’t want things to get confused.
Outside, darkness came down and the fog crept up the shoreline. She tended the fire, then went out to the woodpile with the basket she used to carry the wood. The night was so thick and heavy she had to navigate by feel, her hair standing on end as she piled up the logs in her basket then she hurried back, slamming the door behind her, relieved to be inside again with the warm, comforting smell of the roast cooking in the oven. She checked it, then sat down, then got up again. She rubbed the steam from the corners of the windows and looked out but there was only darkness.
At five past six Barry arrived. He was wearing a dark button-down shirt tucked neatly into his jeans and he stood in her doorway holding two bottles of wine, one in each hand. He grinned at her in his lopsided way and she was glad; she felt a kind of full body relief to have someone there. She took the bottles and thought to kiss him lightly on the cheeks the way the French do, the way she used to do when Hamish had friends over. How she’d hated those dinner parties with all their affectation and chatter and people she had nothing in common with, that pretentious kiss kiss kiss in the doorway; yet how she missed them now sometimes. There had been a lightness to them, a frivolity that didn’t ask too much; sometimes it was nice. She leaned in close and saw Barry’s eyes twinkle, then she pulled back, took the wine and said, “Hey Barry, make yourself at home.”
“Smells delicious, Anni.” He stepped in and immediately stooped to scoop up Zebedee who’d made the mistake of coming near. Zebedee was tolerant though not affectionate towards Barry and sat in his arms with his silver limbs sticking out stiffly as Barry whispered “sssss sssss sssss, what a good pussy. Aren’t you a good pussy?”
Annika set the wine on the counter and watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was barely able to support the cat and yet he still twinkled with his juvenile humor. Pussy. Honestly!
And yet a smile tugged at her lips. Sometimes Barry reminded her of the guys on the fire crew, after they’d accepted her. That easy rapport. The foolish banter. Those young, strong men . . . It was strange, she thought, to have reached an age where people were not just who they were now but who they used to be also. She looked at Barry: here was the class clown with his pussy jokes, here the handsome lawyer, here the shaking cripple. Sadness filled her.
The handsome man he must have been was so close, so close to the surface sometimes, it was right there, almost touchable and somehow its presence made his decline all the more poignant. Being with him she oscillated between irritated amusement and the desire to take his face in her hands and say, I know. I understand.
Now he put the cat down and came over to th
e counter. He was shaking badly. He opened the cupboard and reached for the wine glasses and she paused, unsure of whether to help him or not. She decided not. She wouldn’t want people pandering to her should she face the same. She thought back to her relationship with the stairs during her illness. Sometimes she thought the stairs had kept her alive. He took the glasses down and they chittered against one another but he got them safely to the steady surface of the counter.
“Red or white?”
“Red. I cooked a roast.” She handed him a corkscrew and turned away.
“Red meat and wine. Will you look at us? We’re just a couple of Healing Journey rebels.” He handed Annika her glass.
“Back of the bus!” she quipped as she clinked his glass. “I’m even serving regular plain old gluten-filled white dinner rolls.”
“Sweet blasphemy. Susan would have an absolute shit.” He smiled, and there it was again, the ghost of a dashing man.
Annika turned quickly then set down her glass. She crouched to check the roast. Heat from the stove blasted her in the face.
Barry made his way over to the couch and lowered himself down. He picked up the book she’d been reading, then set it down. “I enjoyed your little F bomb at Marion’s the other day.”
Annika sliced into the roast and blood came out onto the plate. “I don’t know what got into me. It just came out. I knew you were laughing!”
“Well, what can I say? Your little ‘fucking’ was the most action any of that crew has seen in a long time.”
Annika started to laugh then was quiet. It was a dangerous thing to do, to let sex out in the open, she thought, even as a joke. She set the meat on the table and turned back to get the potatoes.
“So you never actually said what you plan to do.” His voice was serious now. “Are you going to write them back or what?”
Annika pursed her lips as she set the steaming pots on the cork board. “I don’t know. At first, I thought I would write him and ask him not to contact me but, I just . . . I don’t even know if it’s worth responding to.”
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