Madeleine placed the handset back in the cradle of the old wall-mounted harvest gold phone that had hung in the kitchen for as long as she could remember. She was still listening intently on her own cell phone for any sign of Kara’s return to consciousness when her father stuck his head in the kitchen.
“Everything go okay?”
“She’s hurt!”
“To be expected,” he agreed with kindness in his eyes.
She simply shook her head. “No, Dad. Physically. Something happened when she was at rowing practice today. I…I think I have to go to Toronto.”
Silently he backtracked to the living room, returning with his laptop and setting it open in front of her. “Okay then. Let’s get you a ticket.”
Chapter Sixteen
Madeleine was last to board the United flight to Chicago. She’d haphazardly thrown things into her suitcase and let her dad drive, racing her out to the airport in his beater of a pickup truck. After delivering a warm-hearted bear hug to him, she hauled her suitcase out of the truck box and leaned in the window. “By the way, I like the Jessepp and Daughter Construction,” she said, tipping her head toward the vinyl graphics wrapped along the sides of his work truck.
“Any day you want to step in and take over you just tell me. And sweetheart, you take care.”
She smiled but didn’t trust herself to answer. Nodding her thanks, she turned for the terminal unwilling to watch him leave.
The flight to Chicago was short. With her connection details in hand, she made it to the next gate in record time, only to find the flight to Toronto delayed. At least she was in an airport where she could get a decent cup of joe. When the airline announced they would board in twenty minutes, she was touring Barbara’s Books but hadn’t found anything to capture her imagination. Grazing through the selection of techno-thrillers, romances, and business start-up books she did wonder what she was looking for. Maybe what she wanted was advice. Someone to explain what she was feeling, this longing. Surely someone had experienced this sort of wonder before. She couldn’t be the first woman whose head and life had been completely turned around by another woman.
Walking back to the gate she lined up with her boarding pass and thoughts so deep she felt alone in the throng. What am I trying to understand? Is it my feelings for her? Is it her as a woman? She smiled at the thought, remembering the feel of Kara in her arms. Yes, she had held Kara just as much as Kara had held her. Entwined together, there had been a balance between them, a symmetry she’d never experienced. And it wasn’t just about Kara being a woman. It was more about Kara being who she was. She could be intense and focused, but even when she seemed hardest, she seemed…What was the word to describe it? “Kind” didn’t cover it. Not even close. To a certain degree, you could say “intuitive” and “inherently kind,” but even these were poor descriptions.
Pinned in the aisle, she was looking for enough room in a nearby overhead bin when a pudgy little man offered to be her knight in shining armor. As if she needed some guy to lift her suitcase up. “I’m okay, thanks.”
“Hey beautiful, don’t kill the messenger. It’s not my fault you women don’t know if you want us to be gentlemen or not.”
With her back turned to the man, she rolled her eyes before taking her seat, and turning to answer him, said, “Thank you for your good manners, but I’m fine.” Seated, she pulled the emergency procedures card from the seatback and pretended to be interested in the pictorial instructions for a water egress. It was easy to hear him mouthing off with his buddy as they took seats in the row behind her.
“What’s with these fucking bitches? ~ Yeah man ~ They’re all like, act like a gentleman, and then they shoot you down. ~ Yeah man. She’s probably a fucking dyke. ~ No fuckin’ way is that one… ~ she’s got no tits man and look how tall she is! What’s with you and tall bitches? ~ You think that’s a dyke? ~ Fuck yeah.”
Normally this kind of crap from guys made her want to punch the living daylights out of them. Tonight though, she buckled her seatbelt and shared a look with the flight attendant. Maybe she was switching teams simply because it was time. Her women friends were always saying there were no good guys out there. Lots of guys, so very few good ones. Suddenly it was clear. It wasn’t a lack of confidence that drove a woman into another woman’s arms, but the heightened level of personal value more prevalent among women every day. Her mother had raised her in the belief that she needed a man to be complete, but more than that, to be safe. The husband, she had been told many times, was a woman’s safety net. Without it, she should expect to be preyed upon by men, physically, mentally, emotionally and even financially. But her mother’s worldview had changed. Had hers too? She smiled again as the commuter jet rumbled down the runway, seeming to jump in the air, angling itself almost straight up like a rocket. It suited her mood and her mission. Yes, it felt like a mission, a mission to state her case, demonstrate her care, and if nothing more, create a dialogue between her and the one person she truly connected with. Who am I kidding? For me, she’s the new world and I’m ready to burn my ships to demonstrate my commitment!
The flight was pleasant although rough. Standing in the aisle with the other passengers waiting to deplane, Madeleine switched her phone out of airplane mode. She was relieved to see a text message from Joanne that Kara was okay. She had waited until she was in the boarding lineup in Chicago before texting her that she was on her way.
Entering the Toronto customs hall she was temporarily confused. With signs in English and most everyone speaking English, she had completely forgotten she was entering a foreign country.
When the customs officer asked her reason for entering Canada she stammered. “I… Um… Someone I care for, my friend I mean, has been injured.” The officer was a big man with a barrel chest and the looks of grizzled old Scotsman. He stared down from his raised booth, peering over the reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. By contrast, his deep French accent and jolly tone softened his message. “Ah, it is for the love you come. Who is this boy you come to see?”
“I… Um… It’s, it’s a girl,” she stammered again before forcing herself to stand proud and admit, “She’s a girl, I mean woman.”
Peering over his glasses again, he seemed to be looking for some telltale signs she couldn’t comprehend. He smiled then. Stamping her passport and handing it back, he said simply, “Love is love. Bienvenue au Canada. Next!”
With adrenaline still pumping she made a beeline for the exit. Passing through the opaque doors, she was surprised to find herself in the open arrival hall just steps from the exit. So there were two things she could say were different about this country already. First, she had expected the customs officer to react to her admission, demand her name, rank, serial number. His admission that it was all the same to him was both a relief and curiosity. Were all people like that here? Of course there were always bigots. She knew that. So what made this experience different?
Stopping just outside the exit doors she checked her phone again. The directions Joanne had sent said she was to meet their car and driver next to pier four. She didn’t know what constituted a pier at an airport, but she put her money on the large numbers posted around the top of each of the giant pillars and began her trek in descending order from nine. This end of the terminal was surprisingly quiet while the high-numbered piers were overrun with people, limos, taxis, and private passenger cars. In her direction, there were only two cars near pillar four. An SUV swarming with teenagers and a black town car. Beside the sedan, the driver stood holding a sign and looking very formal in his black suit and mauve turban.
The moment he spotted her, he jogged in her direction. “Ms. Jessepp, I presume?”
With his smooth complexion and baby beard, she was momentarily confused by his accent. It was more South Jersey than South Asian. She chastised herself, remembering this was the capital of multiculturalism. “Yes, how did you know? Wait, never mind. Do you know where we’re going?”
He took cha
rge of her suitcase and led her back toward the town car. “Joanne said they were at Toronto General. Now that you’re here, I’ll send her a quick text just to be sure they’re still there.”
Slipping into the back seat she thanked him for closing the door for her. When Joanne texted she was sending the car, she had half expected it to be a limousine, not this nondescript Lincoln. Then she remembered a comment Kara had made the night they joined the West Coast guys to go dancing, when they had rented a limo so they wouldn’t have to drive or wait for a taxi that could accommodate five passengers. Kara had commented that she thought it ostentatious. Fun for such an outrageous holiday but immodest from a business sense. An immodest car…hmm.
Climbing in the front, the driver looked back at her. “Joanne said she’s being released to home care.”
Before she could ask the young man behind the wheel anything else, her phone tinged its notification. In long texts Joanne was trying to explain the diagnosis in layman’s terms. Madeleine quickly tabbed back, “Mom is a nurse. I’m up on the verbiage. How is she?”
“Herniated disc. It’s ‘bulging.’ Not sure what that means.”
Madeleine enjoyed her conversations with Joanne, even their text conversation. In a way, it was like having her own baby sister back. She tabbed quickly, Imagine standing inside a shoulder-high stack of donuts. They sit nice and level, tight around you. But if you were pregnant, your belly would bulge out between two of the donuts, unbalancing the stack. Only with Kara, it’s not a baby bump protruding but an inflamed portion of the spinal cord.”
“Why didn’t the stupid Dr just say that?”
“Not all doctors learn to explain things. That job usually falls to the nurses and my mom’s particularly good at it.”
“Cool.”
“So what’s next? Your driver says you’re taking her home?”
“Harjitt. He’s Kara’s assistant, and he’s taking you to her place. We should be there before you. If not, just have Harjitt take you upstairs. He has keys and knows where everything is.”
Madeleine looked up to the driver, at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. He seemed so young for this job. “Excuse me. Umm, I just got a text from Joanne. She’s suggesting you take me to Kara’s apartment.”
“That makes sense,” he answered amiably.
“Can I ask you a really rude question?”
“If it’s about my turban, I wear this color because I like it and it looks rad with this suit, and it’s the favorite color of the Starfish.”
She flushed at his response, relieved to know her face wouldn’t be visible in the dark sedan. “I like the color. Actually, I was wondering about your accent. I mean,” she stumbled again, “you sound like you’re from here but your accent is different from Kara’s.”
She met his eyes in the rearview mirror. He grinned. “That’s ’cause I’m from Brampton,” he said, pointing over his shoulder as they flew down the highway and obviously sure she knew where he meant. “Kara and Joanne are Rosedale kids,” he added. “Although they don’t act like it. They’re pretty cool. Especially Kara. She gave me this job. Well actually, she made the job for me.”
“How’s that,” she asked, absently reading through Jo’s latest text at the same time. She only clicked back into his rambling story when he began describing his first meeting with Kara.
“…I was so relieved Kara wanted to go downtown. My uncle sent me to cover the airport just because it’s such a crapshoot. Everyone takes Uber now or the new train. I’d been sitting in the line for four hours when she jumps in. When she said ‘downtown’ I wanted to cry, I was so happy, I told her I could love her! She laughed and said she was ‘too old and too gay! And speaking of old,’ she says, ‘there’s no way you are old enough to be driving a commercial vehicle!’ That’s it, I thought, I’m busted! You see, I was using my uncle’s license. I had a driver’s license but I was only sixteen so not the right kind, but you know what? She was so cool. She just asked if I liked it or did I have plans for college? I love cars and being on the road. I love everything about it. Hey, have you seen the Fast and Furious movies? I’m kind of car crazy like that but without the crazy stunts or breaking the law. Anyway. Kara said I should call her when I finished high school and talk about what I wanted to do. My uncle said she was just being nice, but I saved her number and sent her a text to tell her when I graduated and you know what she said? She told me, have fun. Enjoy your day to the fullest. And be in my office Monday at eight a.m.! How cool is that?”
“I take it you went?”
“Oh you bet, and she was so nice. Well, of course, you know that, you’re her girlfriend, so you know how amazing she is. Anyway, we talked cars for the whole hour then she asks if I want to have my own car and drive or come be an intern at her office. The office is so cool. You’ll love it. Anyway, I looked around, and she asked lots of guys to talk to me about what they did. It was interesting but, well…”
“Well, they weren’t cars, right?”
“Yeah!” he said, as if she had just made some difficult connection. “She sits me down at a computer and says to research how much it would cost to operate a car for the company. You know, take people to the airport, pick up clients, run errands, take Kara or Joanne to meetings and stuff. And she warned I might have to work nights and weekends and keep her calendar too. I did, and the next day we went out and looked at cars! You should have seen my uncle’s face when I pulled up at home in a new Lincoln just two days later!”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I know. Oh, here we are,” he said, flicking on the blinkers for their exit.
“Yonge Street? Is this a major artery through town? Kara told me her place isn’t exactly downtown.”
“She’s crazy. She’s in the core. Technically, it was like a different village a million years ago, but it’s pretty much all downtown now. Geez, she’s all of two blocks from the Eaton Centre. You can’t get more downtown than that. Well…” He paused long enough to check for traffic before turning right on the red.
Madeleine used the time to enjoy the new surroundings. The car was comfortable and quiet, gliding by swarms of pedestrians. “I can’t believe the number of people out on the street at this hour.”
He nodded, slowing for jaywalkers on Front Street. “This is Saint Lawrence Market. It’s pretty touristy. A lot like the Distillery District. Still, they’re both cool places to party, you know, when they’re not filming a movie or something.”
Before she could comment or ask questions, they turned up another street. She listened as he pointed out buildings, describing their backgrounds. “Is that the Armoury? Jo told me Kara served there.”
“Yeah but not here. This one’s Moss Park. Here we are.” He turned onto Shuter Street then down an alley and stopped at a tall loading door and clicked the built-in garage door opener. He was finally quiet, tabbing through text messages on the car’s entertainment system. “They’re here. Joanne wants me to show you upstairs.” He put the car back in drive and eased into what looked like a long narrow garage. Pulling up right at the end, he powered down the window and pressed a large green button.
She expected the door in front of them to open and was momentarily confused as the car began to move. It took a moment to understand what was happening. “This is an elevator?”
“Yeah. I guess there was no room for a ramp when they built this place, so they put in the elevator. Pretty cool.” They settled and watched as the doors opened into a vaulted garage. There were only a handful of cars in the space. Several shipping crates were bunched in a corner, all marked Promotional. “I’m sorry to bring you through the garage. Kara wouldn’t like it, but Joanne said it would be faster.”
The car parked and her suitcase in hand, he said cheerfully, “Please follow me, Ms. Jessepp.”
Joanne met them at the threshold to Kara’s living room. She welcomed them by hugging Madeleine and thanking her profusely for coming as if the emergency were life-threatening. She ordered Harjitt t
o deliver Madeleine’s suitcase to the guest room. She then informed him he wasn’t to leave until he’d helped himself to the stores of food she had ordered for them all. It was easy to imagine her dealing with her children in much the same way.
Trailing Jo into the kitchen, she was surprised again, both by its size and the look of rare use. The second shock was just how much food Joanne had ordered. Takeout bowls stood on the counter, only half open. Before she could ask, two little rug rats and their father wandered in. “Zack. Please feed the kids while I help Madeleine get settled.”
He nodded, more interested in the food while offering absently, “I never expected to see you here.”
“Zack!” Joanne shook her head at him before turning back to her kids.
“Mommy, can we sit here?” the oldest asked, eyeing the barstools facing the island counter. The younger girl had wrapped an arm around Madeleine’s thigh, staring up with big blue eyes.
“Yes you can, now get your plate and Daddy can help you get your pasta.” Madeleine recalled Joanne mentioning her son was a precocious seven-year-old, while the doe-eyed little blonde wrapped around her leg had just turned three.
“Poutine!” Zack sang out opening the last of the trays. Madeleine’s eyebrows rose at the sight of a dish consisting of French fries, cheese curds, and gravy.
“I want pizza! I want pizza!” the boy chanted while his mother all but slung daggers at their father.
Collecting her daughter from around Madeleine’s thigh, she hauled the small child up on her hip, adopting the typical supermom pose and exhaling her frustration. She planted the child on a bar stool beside her brother then placed one small slice of pizza on her plate and added a spoonful of macaroni and cheese from one of the open takeout containers. As the kids began to chow down, the elder child was on his knees on the stool, eyes fixated on Madeleine. Around the half masticated and the overly large amount of pepperoni pizza, he asked, “Are you Aunt Kara’s girlfriend?”
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