‘Ernie – you shouldn’t—’
‘No. Consider it a finder’s fee. You were great.’
‘The Web’s just common sense, you know.’
‘No, it isn’t. It’s a mess, and you rescued me.’ He squinted at the time in the screen’s corner. ‘I have to go and pick up my granddaughter at skating. What are you doing for dinner tonight? Call me forthright, but I don’t see a wedding ring.’
‘I didn’t have any—’ The wedding ring came off the day the divorce decree had been signed.
‘So then let me take you out.’
‘Ernie! You’re so—’
‘The guy who fixes my brakes recommended a place to me. I went and had a look – pretty nice. “Sir Steak”.’
Janet suppressed a laugh.
Ernie said, ‘I know, I know – what a dumb name, but I really like steak. See you there at 7:00?’
‘OK.’
And then he was gone and Janet realized she was having her first date in forty-three years.
The weather that night was warm and un-Vancouver-like. The wind felt like hot breath against Janet’s skin. She was early at the restaurant and waited outside; the heat reminded her of her summer youth, long before the era of air-conditioning.
Ernie showed up in a blobby late 1990s red Impala. This was the first car model Janet had noticed since the 1965 Mustang; Impala was the make her father had driven. So something else from back then has made it this far, too. She scanned the car to see if it had mutated as much as she had. Ernie said, ‘So you’re a car buff, then?’
‘Me? No. My dad used to drive an Impala. I haven’t thought of that car in years.’
‘Good car. Reliable, affordable and comfy. Are you hungry?’
‘Me? Hungry? Lord, no. Two Jell-O cubes and a grape would suit me just fine.’
Sir Steak was a carnival of rayon heraldic buntings fluttering amid air-conditioning gone mad. Delinquent-looking teens in ill-fitted period costumes carried about electronic clipboards and gave the illusion of service.
‘This place is so gee-dee weird,’ said Janet, ‘it makes my head spin.’
“‘Gee-dee”? I haven’t heard that expression since … since—’
‘The 1950s?’
‘Well – yeah.’
‘We’re museum pieces, Ernie.’
Once seated, a waitress took their drink orders. ‘I think I’d like a screwdriver,’ Ernie said. He looked at Janet.
Best not to tell him about my mouth ulcers. ‘Decaf coffee, please.’
Blip, blip, blip
Their orders were input into an electronic slate and their child waitress strayed from their table. Tinny generic-sounding Spanish music squeaked out of wall panels, as though mice were partying inside. Dinner menus arrived with drinks.
‘Great-looking salad bar,’ Ernie said. ‘Did you see it?’
‘I certainly did. Salad bars are like a restaurant’s lungs, Ernie. They soak up the impurities and bacteria in the environment, leaving us with much cleaner air to enjoy.’
‘Maybe I’ll pass.’
‘Ernie, I’m going to go wax my skis. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ Janet went off to the ladies’ room and took a dronabidol tablet to boost her appetite. Why is it still so shameful to be seen taking a pill in public? She looked in the mirror. I’m hanging together well today. She returned to the table, where Ernie had removed his jacket.
‘Ernie, you’re relaxing, I see.’
‘It’s a nice place here. Fun.’
‘Ernie, do you ever wonder why, of all animals, it was turtles and parrots who live for centuries? Why not, say, jaguars or mallard ducks? It’s as if parakeets and turtles won the animal kingdom lottery draw.’
‘People don’t do too bad. Seventy-two-point-five is okay.’
‘You mentioned your granddaughter, Ernie. Where’s your family?’
‘I’m a widower. Two years now – Lucy. Hodgkin’s lymphoma. One, two, three, gone.’
‘Sorry.’
Ernie sighed. ‘We move on.’ He sipped his drink. Another delinquent teen arrived and took their dinner order.
‘So what’s your story, Janet? What’s a woman like you doing in a cybercafé? You seem to be more the SPCA and yoga type.’
‘Today I was downloading NASA information. I have a daughter who’s an astronaut. Sarah.’
‘So you are … you’re Sarah Drummond’s mother. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to bring it up. Caramba! I’m dining with a celebrity. Wow.’
Janet wondered how Ernie would be different, now that he was connecting with fame in a once-removed way.
Salads arrived. They went on to discuss their teeth, the muggy weather, bees and the schools they’d attended – they had an acquaintance in common, a childhood friend of Janet who’d worked in Ernie’s office in Manitoba. They talked about Ernie’s two married sons, one far away in Strasbourg, France, the other in town and in the midst of a messy divorce with custody issues.
Their meals arrived, and they discussed the impending shuttle flight. It’s so nice to chew the fat with someone of my own vintage – no need to explain anything.
Janet managed a few bites of her chicken; the plates were removed. Ernie asked if she would like anything more.
‘How about a mudpie?’ Janet asked. ‘I used to make mudpies in the back alley in Toronto. They were wonderful. My mother would have died had she known we ate them.’
‘Mudpies are pretty rich,’ Ernie said. ‘Why don’t we share one?’
Janet agreed and they ordered one. In the meantime, two decaf coffees arrived. Ernie drew a deep breath and asked, ‘Janet, you know, you still haven’t explained to me how it is that you know so much about the Internet.’
‘I used to be afraid of the thing, but if you know my story, you’ll see why.’
‘What’s your story?’
‘You’ll think differently about me after I tell you.’
‘Oh no, how could I?’
What am I going to do here – lie? Of course not. ‘Here goes: My ex-husband, Ted, he dumped me for a trophy wife about four years ago. I’m an idiot for not having spotted it sooner, but I’m spotting that kind of thing these days. So now I’m in this big suburban house by myself, with the three kids gone. I adjust. I reignite a few old friendships, take night courses on the Internet. Then one day my first-born, Wade, makes a surprise visit from Las Vegas, where he’s been living for I don’t know how long. Wade’s the family tumbleweed. Con man. Lovable. My favorite child, but I’ll deny it if you ever bring it up in public. So Wade comes into town, meets a bimbette named Nickie at a local bar and they have a tumble. Afterwards he goes to visit my ex-husband, Ted, in this ridiculous new house he had then, and who should walk in the door but Nickie – turns out the bimbette is also Ted’s trophy wife. It’s a farce, I know. So Wade scrams. He comes over to my place, where we have a lovely little dinner until Ted shows up and pops Wade in the gut with a handgun. The bullet passes through Wade and enters my sternum.’
Janet pointed to her wound.
‘Good God,’ said Ernie.
Janet had told the story many times. She knew how to pace it. ‘So fine, then. Ted’s an asshole and no charges were filed. Wade returns to Las Vegas. A year later I come down with pneumonia. They run a check and … you guessed it’ – the moment of truth – ‘HIV. From my kid. So I call Wade and tell him, and it turns out he’s been sick for a year but they thought it was his liver, which after the reconstruction is about the size of a dinner mint. He gets tested, and lo and behold, it’s HIV. I don’t know where he got it, and it doesn’t matter. Both of us now live on pills.’ Janet stared down into her cooling coffee. ‘There’s more, but that’s the gist. The story of me.’
The mudpie arrived with two forks. Ernie was silent. Janet picked up a fork and took a bite of the pie. ‘Ernie, you going to have some mudpie?’
Ernie looked at his hands.
‘It’s a good mudpie, Ernie.’
Ernie m
oved his hands in the pie’s direction, but quickly stopped.
Janet put down her spoon. ‘I think now’s the time I leave, Ernie.’
Ernie’s head appeared to be vibrating slightly.
‘It’s OK, Ernie. But I think I ought to be going.’
‘I’d eat some of the mudpie with you, Janet, but I’m—’
‘Shush!’
‘But—’
‘Shush.’ She looked at his face. She walked out of the restaurant and got in her car.
Our leaders are dead.
History has abandoned us.
The past is a joke.
She drove west towards the sunset; the news had said that a forest fire on Vancouver Island was going to transform the sky into spectacular colors, and it was right. There in her car, Janet felt that she was for the first time driving away from the people in her life, their needs, their lovers, their flaws, their lists of unmendable wounds, their never-spoken-of unslakeable thirsts, their catalogues of wrongs.
She passed an overturned Camaro, surrounded by the RCMP and a cluster of dazed-looking teenagers, then drove on.
I’m diseased. My soul is diseased. She felt a lifetime of chemicals washing through her body’s fibers and bones: vaccines, the Pill, pesticides, Malathion, sweeteners, antibiotics, sulfa drugs … God only knows what else.
Maple trees, condos, seagulls and flatbeds loaded with SUVs slid past Janet’s vision. So this is the future – it’s not the future I expected but I’ll be damned if I’ll be ignored by it.
Janet felt her entire brain-load of personal snapshot memories fluttering out the window – all those sad little 1956 notions of propriety – gone like mosquitoes in August – six and a half decades of kindnesses gone unthanked, passionless sex, crippling guilt that went nowhere, abandonment, weekends spent trimming azaleas, darning holes in Sarah’s stockings – all gone.
The sun made its final dive behind Vancouver Island.
25
Florian appeared at the front door promptly at six, a bland, slightly puffy gone-to-seed blond. The whites of his eyes were yellow, and one of his front teeth was ochre with nicotine, and snaggled. He could easily be the guy who sold Janet a set of snow tires the previous winter. What was I expecting – a halo? Cary Grant? Yeah, I was. Janet was pure hostess: ‘You must be’ – a pause – ‘Florian. Come in – please – it’s so hot out.’
‘But first I must kiss your hand.’ Florian kissed her hand. Janet sensed the tip of his tongue – or did I?
‘Ooh my – how continental.’
‘Enchanté.’ He stood up and peeked inside. ‘This is your house?’
Janet looked around as if being charged with a crime she hadn’t committed. ‘Good God, no.’
‘I’m so relieved to hear you say that.’ Florian took a moment to fully absorb Gayle’s interior design statement. ‘The overall look really does leave one aching for a nice empty Japanese room with only a vase and a cleverly twisted branch.’ He quickly peeked into the living room. ‘Gott im Himmel!’
‘It’s a scream, I know. What do you think of this place – Tara, eh?’
‘And you, such a lovely magnolia.’
‘Give me two shakes of a lamb’s tail and I’ll fetch my things.’
‘Such as … your pills?’
Janet smiled. ‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Oh, but I would. The family business, you know.’
‘Why yes, of course.’ Janet retrieved her pill caddy, and the two stepped out the front door, which Janet left unlocked. She asked, ‘Where should we go for dinner?’
‘I’ve selected a place a few miles down the coast. To be frank, I’ve never set foot in Daytona Beach or its environs before.’
‘Well, around here it’s either steak or a seafood-bacteria filet. What I’d really like is a French restaurant, but dream on, Janet Drummond. All that delicious butter, and the French never chintz on the salt.’
‘Oh!’ said Florian. ‘You’re a salt nut, too.’
‘Oh my, yes. If you can locate a salt lick in a cow pasture, I’d happily have dinner with you there.’
‘Janet, I simply must send you a bottle of this Maltese sea salt, Fleurs de Sel Sardaignain – little specks of anchovy built into each grain – so subtle.’
‘I think I saw that on Martha Stewart.’
‘Oh.’ Florian briefly entered a sulk. ‘Why must that woman popularize everything?’
‘They’ve taken the salt out of all the food these days. Food has gotten so wimpy. Have you noticed?’
‘Hasn’t it, though? Please, hop in.’ Florian held open the rear door of a Lincoln Town Car, the driver separated from the rear compartment by a slab of smoked glass. Janet got in, and Florian said to the smoked glass, ‘Tio, to that seafood place we selected in New Smyrna Beach.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Is the rig set to go?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The rig?’ Janet asked.
Florian turned to her, and pointed to a mobile home of Texan dimensions, pulling out into the street behind them, and said, ‘I’m the opposite of a light packer. But enough about boring, boring me – what about you?’
‘Me? Dull, dull, dull.’
‘That’s not strictly true, Janet. For starters, how did you contract HIV?’
‘Oh. That.’ The story took them the entire way to the restaurant, thirty minutes south, and with its telling Florian learned a great deal about the Drummond family and couldn’t have been more sympathetic. He held her hand: ‘You poor, poor woman. You deserve kindness, and what do you get? This.’ Florian nodded toward a bar they were passing with a large BIKERS WELCOME sign out front, as if it summed up the entire aura of the culture.
‘It’s not so bad, you know,’ Janet said.
‘Janet, you lie like the rug. Tell me, how often do you take your pills?’
‘Every four hours.’
‘I rest my case.’ The car entered a large mall parking lot and slowed down outside a place called The Shanty. The RV lumbered in behind them. ‘Shall we dine?’
They entered the restaurant; the walls were mint green, and the air carried the odor of cigarettes, janitorial cleaning solution and a dock. Florian was obviously horrified, ‘This is a gaffe on my part, Janet. My apologies.’
‘No, let’s stay, Flor. We’ll smoke – I just decided that I’m going to start smoking again tonight, after a ten-year hiatus.’ Why did I decide that? Well, why not?
‘I love smoking,’ Florian said. ‘And you called me “Flor”. So cheeky. So insouciant.’
Janet was surprised. ‘You mean you didn’t smoke in the car because of me? You’re so sweet.’
A young and yawning woman with processed crimped hair of deepest mall showed them to a booth, or rather marooned them in a booth to the restaurant’s east edge, where streaky sunlight limped through the window. Janet said, ‘Thank you,’ to which the young woman said, ‘Like I have any choice in the matter.’
Once she was gone, Janet said, ‘It really does make you wonder if management could drain the dining process of any more joy.’
Florian cracked open a pack of Dunhill cigarettes. ‘Please.’
Janet accepted and lit up, a roil of nicotine licking her tonsils and transporting her to the world of 1950s sophomore mixer parties. ‘This is so lovely,’ she said to Florian. ‘Why ever did I quit?’
‘I bet you I can have our hostess fired in two phone calls,’ Florian said.
‘Bet me what?’
‘If I win, you buy dessert.’
‘You’re on.’
Florian placed a call on his cell phone and barked sentences of German into the receiver, then hung up. He made one more phone call, put his cell phone away and said, ‘Watch this.’ The phone at the front desk rang, the hostess answered, listened, shouted, ‘Same to you. I hated this shit-hole anyway,’ hung up and stomped – noisy stomping – out the door.
Janet’s cigarette wasn’t even halfway smoked. ‘Dessert’s on me.’
‘I love being petty,’ said Florian.
‘I wish I could be petty,’ Janet said.
‘No, you don’t.’
‘But I do. Because if I were petty, it’d mean I didn’t care so much about things.’
The few staff members who remained ran about like rabbits, and took turns going out to the parking lot to commiserate with the axed hostess. Amid the service vacuum, Florian went to the bar and poured two gin martinis. As he sat down at the table and handed one to Janet, he nodded out the window and said, ‘Look how even the sacking of one employee cripples an entire economy – in this case, The Shanty’s economy. My father always said that the fastest way to cripple any economy is to manipulate the key labor unions into striking. This invariably makes the middle classes flip out, and before you know it, boom, there’s a tyrant running the show. Anything to keep the lettuce arriving in the supermarkets on time. Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’ They clinked glasses. Janet said, ‘But you know, Flor, that’s nothing I haven’t already figured out on my own.’
‘Really now?’
‘You wouldn’t believe the things I find on the Internet.’
‘You like trolling the Web, do you?’
‘Oh, God, yes.’
‘Your friends troll, too?’
‘Pffft. No. I’m actually quite disgusted with my own generation. They’ve lost their curiosity, but not me – I love the Internet. All these facts that were once forbidden are all so easily available.’
‘Such as?’
‘Medical stuff first. And second, government files and documents – I’ll never trust any government anywhere again.’
‘A smart decision. Any naughty chat ever?’
‘Yes, but I’d be mortified if my family knew.’
‘What’s your secret Web name?’
Janet blushed.
‘Oh come on now, tell me, Janet.’
‘Promise you won’t laugh?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘HotAsianTeen.’
Florian’s laugh was like a dog’s bark. Janet blushed.
‘Any hot dates?’ he asked.
‘No, but I could have if I’d wanted to.’
All Families Are Psychotic Page 21