by Norman Crane
note to water them only after remembering who they are for. How strange that they are not for me. I drive under the limit in the left-most lane without the intention of ever turning left, because I can. I only make way for an ambulance because its sirens slice through the density that is my arrogance. And then, all at once, I feel horrible again, like I did in the flower shop. The car behind me rejoins traffic but I stay pulled off to the side with my right blinker flashing. My body goes through the motions of vomiting without anything coming up. My throat is an empty conveyor belt. For an instant, I feel generally empty: a petrified body housing no mind, no emotion and no soul. Except the tulips still smell despite being baked inside the interior of a car—and the smell reminds me of Rosie, who is always reasonable. I can almost hear her voice telling me that my feeling of being devoid of emotion is itself an emotion, thereby making my entire fear irrational. But even in my head, she says nothing about my mind or soul.
Rosie’s no longer at the office by the time I get back. I’m disappointed. I’ve already forgotten the strangeness of her being there earlier and I just want to see her again. I want to make her happy with flowers. That Boris also isn’t there, I’m glad. My desire to gloat is gone.
Winterson’s office door is closed and I slip past on my way out without making a sound.
Amanda smiles in reception from behind her desk and doesn’t ask how things went. She’s too wise to make that mistake. Her job is to keep track of where her lawyers are and to make sure we make our appointments. Results are beyond her domain. I wish Amanda a happy weekend. Her sons are going to be in town.
I take the direct downtown route to Rosie’s building, avoiding rush hour because I ended work early, and ride alone in the elevator to our apartment to which I let myself in with the key she gifted me in December.
Rosie’s not home yet, which isn’t unusual. She’s trying to earn her way into a more prestigious criminal law firm and you don’t do that by cutting corners on a Friday.
Although I’m in a better state of mind than at almost any time today, I still don’t feel sufficiently at peace. I remember my feeling of elation after leaving the settlement conference and want that elation back. I’m a winner and I deserve to feel good. I don’t want to remember how I felt—how I still feel—about Mrs. Johnson.
Spreading the curtains of the twelfth-storey window overlooking the city, I take this apartment for granted. I take the existence of both my nipples for granted. Mrs. Johnson has a nipple less than me and the odds are she’ll lose her house if she gambles on the outcome of her case. It’s a probability I want to forget. Ever since law school, I’ve had it drummed into my head that I need to learn to separate my clients’ lives from my own, but how does one do that? Comparisons are inevitable. Mrs. Johnson is poor and I am on my way to being wealthy. Once I pay off my student debt, I’ll remove my shackles and hand them to Mrs. Johnson, who’ll add them to the shackles she already wears. If she wins her case, I win. If she loses her case, I still win. Either way, I’ve done compensable legal work, but my ill feeling festers. Most people believe justice means matching a certain action with a sensible reaction: a transgression with a punishment. However, there’s a well known theory of justice which argues something different. According to this theory, justice has nothing to do with action and reaction and all to do with predictability and universal application. A society is just if all its members know the punishment for a crime and that punishment is equally applied to all transgressors. This is a democratic theory. A virus is also democratic. It wants to spread to everyone. If it’s a deadly virus, it will kill everyone. Maybe I’ve been watching too many zombie movies, but I don’t think a normal person would claim a virus is good simply because it predictably ends us all equally.
“That’s hyperbolic,” Rosie tells me after I present the same metaphor to her during dinner. I still haven’t given her the tulips. They’re waiting in a jug of water in our apartment bathroom. “Moreover, there is no one fairness. Fair is always a subjective, not objective, valuation. Pretending otherwise can too easily serve as a shield for injustice.”
She makes a valid point.
“And, Charlie, you’re not in ethics class anymore. You don’t have to worry about this. Leave it up to the legislators. They work for you, and you work for your clients. Keep it simple or you’ll go insane.”
“I’m sorry. I had a stressful day, I guess,” I say.
“You don’t need to be sorry.”
“It’s your birthday.” Rosie’s thirty-seven today. “I don’t want to ruin it with philosophising and pointless moaning.”
“You already ruined the cranberry sauce,” she says—in jest, but it sounds mean anyway. Nevertheless, I like having a relationship solid enough not to have to rely on politeness and biting one’s tongue.
“Can I be honest with you?” she asks.
“You just were.”
She ignores my sarcasm. “When I was first starting out, I did a lot of public defender work. The government would pay my airplane ticket north to a remote town and I would do my best to defend domestic abusers, gasoline sniffing thieves, prostitutes and the bluest-collar cheats you can imagine. It paid well but I considered it the garbage of legal work, a necessary gauntlet that all lawyers had to pass to join the club. I was sure it would get better, or at least cleaner, once I established myself. But the truth is it never gets better, only less pure and less direct. Today I deal with the same garbage. I successfully defend people who deserve to get punished. I fail to successfully defend some who don’t. I don’t fly as much and sometimes I have a junior do my leg work, but it’s otherwise identical. What has changed is my position vis-a-vis the constants. I don’t let the rot get to me and I don’t try to change the world. It makes me a better lawyer. I’m focussed, I’m sharp and I represent all my clients to the best of my abilities. When I lay down at night, I fall asleep without trouble. You said you had a bad day…”
“Stressful,” I correct her.
“Thank you, counsel. A stressful day. What made it stressful? You attended a pre-trial, the judge preferred the opposition. You had a settlement conference, you won the conference. In between, you had to change clothes, you ate lunch and you went home early on a Friday.”
I open my mouth to object but don’t know to what.
“You’re still green as a lawyer, but what you did today is light. I say this with the greatest regard for you both as a person and a professional. If you can’t handle today being your every day, you might wish to consider an alternate career.”
I bite my tongue. Maybe our relationship isn’t yet as solid as I’d like, or maybe I’m not used to talking shop with Rosie. Because I feel like a scolded child, I emphasise the petulance in my voice. “Pass the potatoes, please.”
She passes me the dish and I take it. “Charlie, I’m serious.”
“You’re seriously trying to convince me I’m not cut out to be a lawyer over a birthday dinner I made for you?”
I can see her jaws grind against one another. She’s tense. I’m tense too. “First, the dinner is wonderful and thank you. Second, I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m giving you my honest advice. Third, you were the one who started whining. Unlike you, I forgot my workday at the fucking door.”
Fucking door? I stop chewing my potatoes. Rosie never swears. In the entire time I’ve known her, I’ve heard her say the word “fuck” in a non-sexual context less than ten times. “Is everything OK?” I ask.
“Everything is all right,” she answers.
But I can see that it’s not. Behind her forced smile, something’s wrong. Her knuckles are white from holding the silverware too firmly. Under the table, her leg is bouncing up and down, bringing the end of the tablecloth up and down with it. Details are off. Rosie is usually still. I’m the anxious one. As she holds her smile, the creases and wrinkles on her skin catch shadows, making her look aged.
I stretch my hand toward her. “Did you have a bad day at the office, honey?”
>
She recoils.
“Nothing extraordinary.”
Several thoughts burst from the gates and race through my mind. The first is that Rosie is repulsed by me as a bad, whiny lawyer. That can’t be true, however. I’m about to ask if she’d still love me if I wasn’t one, but backtrack once I realise the word itself—love—has never been exchanged between us. Rosie, who is proud of her sharp, stinging candour, has not once told me she loves me and I’ve not had the bravery to tell the same to her.
“I’m so sorry,” she says without explanation.
“For what?”
The tiny space between her nose and upper lip twitches. I love that space. I want to use the word aloud in any context. “Rosie, I—”
“For ruining your birthday plans for me. Your mood. This dinner.”
“I love doing stuff for you.” This time it’s my turn to force a smile, not because I don’t mean it but because I’m ashamed of the juvenile way I just phrased my adult feeling for her. My smile is a cover-up. “And you didn’t ruin anything. I want your advice, your true opinions and feelings. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”
I grip her hand.
It feels cold, and tears well in her eyes.
She rips free of me, pushes her chair neatly back under the table and whispering another apology makes for the bathroom.
I stay where I am. “Rosie?”
“One second, please.” I hear the bathroom tap turn on, water splash. She must be washing her face. She must be composing herself in front of the mirror. I wonder suddenly how many times she’s done this before, not with another man but because of work, which I refuse to believe is not to blame for our spoiled mood. I feel guilty for not asking more often about her day. In hindsight, I’ve been selfish, self-centred. I vow to change—
Rosie exits the bathroom holding my bouquet of two dozen tulips.
Water drips from their severed stems to the floor.
“For me?” she asks.
“Of course they’re for you,” I say, already striding across the dining room to wrap my arms around her.
The hug I give her is as loving as it is romantic, and I don’t stop giving it until she covers my cheeks awkwardly with kisses. The tulips smell good, but as usual Rosie smells better.
When I finally let her go, she backs away clutching the tulips to her chest. “I apologise for my behaviour,” she says.
I shake my head. “You’ve no reason. I adore you. Don’t hide yourself from me.”
“And you’re right that it is work. I’ve been working so hard lately, trying so desperately to stand out and make a good impression. My career is important to me, Charlie. I need you to know that.”
I take her hand and absentmindedly play with a ring on one of her fingers. “Of course I know that. You’re a great lawyer and you deserve the best.”
“Thank you, Charlie.”
“For the tulips?”
“For the compliment. For the flowers. For understanding, most of all.”
I don’t have any Finnish soaps and I messed up the giving of the flowers, but if I could make her happy tonight, I might be able to forgive myself. “If I ever quit being a lawyer, maybe I’ll go into the understanding business,” I say to try to lighten the mood.
She responds with: “Let’s drink.”
Soon I hear the clinking of glass bottles, a sound both familiar and distant, drift toward me from the the kitchen cabinet where Rosie and I keep our alcohol. The cabinet is seldom opened. I rarely drink with Rosie and she rarely drinks at all, but she returns holding two glasses filled with what looks like rum and coke and an unopened bottle of brandy.
I take the glass she holds out to me, bring it to my lips—and hesitate.
Rosie takes a sip of her drink. “Let me correct myself,” she says. “Let’s not just drink. Let’s get drunk.”
A reality hits me. I’ve never seen Rosie drunk.
I down half of my drink at once.
I want to see her drunk. I want to steal her inhibitions, force her to let loose, help her do whatever it is people do when they let themselves get carried away on a tidal wave of booze. But as Rosie takes merely another sip, another reality hits me. This one’s a sucker punch. She’s never seen me drunk either. I finish my drink to stop the flashbacks of my first year of university that I’m about to have, but the shame’s already creeping up on me. I vaguely remember pool parties, dopey sex, awful sing-alongs on public transportation and my own awkward goofiness.
Rosie refills my glass. “Give me your phone,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because I want to remember you like this.”
I fish my phone out of my pocket and toss it to her. She makes the one handed catch with no problem, flicks the screen a few times and points the phone’s camera at me. I raise my glass and smile. “Pour yourself some brandy,” I say.
She ignores me. “Smile.”
I smile, and she snaps a photo.
“Now pout.” I pout. “And drink.” I drink. “And now a monkey face.” Pretending to be a chimpanzee, I am in awe of Rosie’s voice pronouncing the words “monkey face”.
“Brandy,” I remind her.
She pours one but gives it to me instead of drinking it herself. Or maybe that’s hindsight. “Now Chinese,” she says.
“What?”
“Make a Chinese face.”
I put down my glass, thin out my lips and use my fingers to slant my eyes.
I drink brandy.
“Dance.” I dance. “Take off your belt.” I take off my belt. “My turn,” I say, already feeling a gentle slur, reaching for Rosie and the phone she pulls playfully away from my grabbing hand. “Not yet. Get more alcohol in you first.” I crawl toward her. She takes a swig of brandy straight from the bottle, lets me kiss her and spits the brandy into my mouth. It burns. Rosie burns. Rosie is hot. “Call me a nigger,” she says. “What?” She responds by sliding a tulip into my mouth. The phone is between me and Rosie. “Call me a bitch.” I call her a bitch. Lights keep flashing. “Now drink this.” She gives me a bottle that I take in both hands, raise above my head and whose contents I let flow down my throat, into my gut. It’s not brandy. It’s rum. I cough at the sweet, leathery taste and knock the bottle over trying to find the floor with its bottom. My eyes fog up from the inside. I can’t find the switch to turn on my windshield wipers. Dummy, I think. Windshield wipers only go back and forth on the outside. I no longer remember how long any of this has been going on. “What do you want to do to me?” Rosie asks. “Fuck you,” I say automatically. We’re in the bedroom. We’re almost naked. I have an erection and the aftertaste of beer on my tongue. The ticking of the clock is driving me mad with its irregularity. And those lights. Faulty mechanism. Faulty mechanism. Faulty. “Monkey face again,” Rosie says. “Now Chinese again.” Slanted, enchanted. I burst out laughing. Rosie and I fuck. I think. There, that fixed the clocks. Rosie wipes her face. Rosie sounds funny, like a furry frying pan bouncing on a glass stove top and when I give her a hug she feels like it too, and under her eyes I lick at drops of brandy that taste not like brandy but like salt and I fall soundlessly asleep.
It’s dark when I wake up. The blinds are closed. My first instinct is that I napped, but one shake of the head dissuades me of that silly notion. My head hurts. I’m hungover. I’m also naked and alone. I put on a pair of boxers, slide across the bed, noting the warmth on the mattress beside me, and rubbing my temples stagger out of the bedroom.
Rosie’s sitting in the kitchen. She doesn’t look hungover but she doesn’t look good either. “Good morning,” I say.
“Good Saturday afternoon.”
I open the fridge, take out a bottle of water, crack open the top and drink all of it in one gulp. If it’s Saturday afternoon that means I slept for a long time.
Rosie’s already dressed. “How long have you been up?” I ask. I barely remember anything that happened.
“A while.”
“Is
everything OK?” I ask.
“Every is all right, but I have to go into the office for the evening.”
She’s being formal. I run my hands through my hair. Perhaps I should be concerned but I’m not. Rosie is just being Rosie, after all. I can’t expect her to change because of one wild night. Still, watching her, I’m certain whatever we did last night was a good step in the direction of being OK with being embarrassed with each other. We opened up. We let loose.
“I have to run now,” she says. “I was just waiting for you to get up.”
“When will you be back?”
“In a few hours. I don’t know precisely.” And, heading through the door, “I left your phone on the desk by the computer,” she says.
When she’s gone, I dress myself in jeans and a t-shirt and flop down on the couch, trying to decide if I’m hungry or not. I decide I’m not. I stand by the living room window instead. I look at the city, then slide open the window and breathe the city in. Fresh air is what I need. I grab my wallet and my phone, which is indeed by the computer, and take the elevator down to the main floor of the apartment building. My head is throbbing by the time I take my first step outside but I ignore the suggestion to stay inside and bum around. I’ve been drunk enough times to know that exercise, air and coffee is what I need. Leaving my car behind, I take off down the sidewalk. There’s a coffee place nearby but it’s posh and I don’t want to go to it. I want to go somewhere else, somewhere cheaper, somewhere where normal people go.
The farther I walk, the better I’m able to form coherent thoughts. Boozy cobwebs crumble away from my brain. When I feel satisfactorily sharp, I duck into the first Tim Horton’s I see.
The place is almost empty.
I’m glad.
I order black coffee and a bran muffin and sit by myself at one of the tables pressed against a wall of windows looking out on a sidewalk along which nobody passes. By most standards, it’s a beautiful summer day but the streets are devoid of humans. Only cars stream by, streaks of colour smeared by the unclean glass. My coffee is hot and double cupped. I let it steam. Because no one’s ready to order, the guy behind the counter steps out and starts mopping the floor. He adjusts a bright yellow “Caution: Wet Floor” sign. I bite into my muffin, which tastes fine, and consider the benefits of non-carpeted floors. It’s not a sincere topic. It’s a roundabout way of imagining the house Rosie and I will have.
A bell dings, announcing the arrival of a new customer.
The guy with the mop leans it against the sign and scurries behind the counter, fixing his cap. I place silent bets on what the order will be. What kind of person comes here on a Saturday afternoon: lost, friendless, poor?
“One large coffee, double double. And give me one of those chocolate peanut butter chip cookies. They look good today,” the customer says.
I don’t recognise the voice right away, but when Mrs.