Juliet Was a Surprise

by Gaston Bill

  Lily smiled here and looked over her glasses to say, “Hello, Petterick.”

  Yes, and worst—he’d continued, but only in his mind— like all Peters everywhere he had to deal with the life absurdity of a given name that had also been given to the penis. Imagine: whenever a male suitor named Peter came to sit and wait and stare down a dark hallway and picture her beside that tautly made bed, smoothing on a cream, eyeing the flirt of a curl, spraying something lovely onto something lovelier, how could she hear his name and not see a peter perched too alertly on the edge of the couch, panting like a coyote? RAY LEFT IN A FLURRY of keys, elbows, sleeves, and finally door, then there was a silence so complete it couldn’t contain a mother; it simply couldn’t.

  Peter didn’t know what to do. He’d already flicked off the TV as a kind of rebuke when Ray had turned in search of shoes, and it would be a defeat to flick it back on. The magazines he could see through the coffee-table glass were identical to those he disdained while waiting to have a molar steadied or testicle checked. He was too wound up to read anyway. If he looked inside himself, he saw all nerves roaring. If he looked deeper, he could see that this nervousness was but a small part of something far bigger; nervousness was just the face, or maybe even the hair, of a monstrous hunger. And he was tired of it. This long string of Sundays was about one thing: the hope of one day being invited to her bed. Others used dancing or walks or dinners, pick your ritual. Theirs had been Sunday movies, most of them in and of themselves meaningless, cinematic rehashes of the blindingly familiar, as if only childish verbs were used in the storyline, so that in the aftermath bus ride, no adult words were worth wasting on them. But if this string of Sundays hadn’t been a long bus route to sex, what had it been? If Darwin was even half right, every breath he’d ever taken was sexy respiration meant to keep him alive for—this afternoon.

  The smell had somehow grown worse. He peered through it down her hallway. She had so much power, and he had none. He was more than tired of this. He stood.

  Because wasn’t this the ultimate signal? The kind that knowing girls sent to awkward boys all over the globe? A boy perched and ready, a girl ear-cocked and waiting. Would any leading man in any movie not heed this signal? Not stand and go to her? Even Forrest Gump would have read this one. Woody Allen would have gone three times by now.

  Maybe she saw it differently. Maybe she thought she had no power. Waiting for him in her room, maybe she saw the power to be all his, this power of advance, which did indeed seem to belong to the man. A power to take her yet again. Good God.

  Peter found himself padding softly, entering the hallway’s shadow. His plan was to knock on the mother’s door when he came to it, and if she appeared he would claim a search for the bathroom—a known door he had already passed, but no matter, since she was the kind of matron whose smile grew when correcting stupid boys. And now he stood at the mother’s door. The smell grew more vile here, but he didn’t want to consider this. He rapped a single knuckle on the wood, deftly casual. His body had steeled itself for mother-rage, an explosion that would blow off his clothes then attack him for the nakedness.

  No one. No uncle, no mother. Standing in the way, no one but himself.

  Confidence, Peter said to his legs, getting them to move again, is charming.

  He manoeuvred the hallway, trying not to wonder about that bed, or how this might go. He stopped at and pretended to be interested in a painting, in folk-art mode, of a red boat and white dock and two coils of very yellow rope. He pretended to care that such a bright painting had been relegated to shadow. Then, taking three side steps, he stopped, for here was her door—which was also in a frame, a coffin-shaped trap set for hall-walking men. Maybe she would guide him. He knew that for all their show of innocence, women were connected to earth in the deep ways. They were the bowl and the man but the spoon. Or the spigot. Maybe the bent faucet. One of Peter’s knees buckled. Maybe, maybe she would help him. If he was confident enough to let her.

  The smell had grown again. Peter lost his mind and knocked.

  “Yes?” It was a sound of surprise. But they are actors.

  “I’ve come … to see your room again.”

  Lily opened her door just as he finished speaking and said, “Oh,” giving away nothing. Light streamed from behind her, darkening her hair and making her head look smaller. But what he could see of her face was beautiful. She added, “Aren’t you worried about the movie?” They toss out diversionary signals in counterpoint to the main one.

  “No.”

  “I was hurrying but I couldn’t get off the phone. We were having a bit of— Okay, come on in, I guess.”

  Peter had not exactly pushed past her but he’d entered confidently, a blood-pounding feeling of incandescence. He stood in the room’s centre, surveying it, hands on hips, incandescence fading. He nodded once, but that felt foolish. He didn’t look at the bed.

  Now Lily was acting at nervousness. “But you really like this director. What’s his—?”

  Because he was in socks he felt too short. Though she was in socks too. The smell was even worse in here.

  “Who were you talking with?”

  “I’ve been wanting to tell you about Michael, but—”

  “Everybody has a Michael.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Everybody has a Michael. Every Mike has a Michael to—”

  “Peter? This one is what you’d call a boyfriend. Maybe. I’m not sure. But, Peter? You never seemed to show much interest in, I don’t know, ‘me,’ so Michael was a kind of— What are you …?”

  He was lying on her bed, not sure how he’d got there or what he was doing. A sob almost came out, but it would have been fake. A moan sounded right, one suggesting he was on this bed against his will. Then an “um” in the English accent. Then a short, soft whistle. Nothing he did could be trusted.

  “Peter?”

  He was on the bed. He’d landed. It was a kind of big bang, because here he was void of thought, at the still point, at ground zero, with his atoms flying away in all directions. He coughed, and then he was sort of laughing, and in a wobbly voice it all came out of him, as he jerked with laughter, then a sob that was possibly not fake. He couldn’t tell how she took any of it: the apology, the declaration of love, his hunt for sex today, I had designs on you confessed while shaking his head, him an absurd virgin at twenty-nine, an awkward idiot, he probably had a syndrome, unique and undiagnosable, he had Petterick, he was frozen and doltish at what everyone else on earth could do well and easily. At some point during this outburst he’d flipped to nose into her pillow, smelling it deeply. It smelled wonderful, almost a talc. And now Lily was on the bed too.

  She sat beside him, fingers on his neck. She told him not to get her pillow wet, but she said it affectionately and with humour, a signal that she at least considered him the kind of buddy who’d also see the humour.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  “Frame it,” he said, tapping the pillowcase, being that buddy. She had several times joked that his used napkin or ticket stub should be framed because he would be famous someday, though for what she never said. He had never written a poem, never tweaked software.

  “No,” she said. “It’s— Well, Peter? I thought you were gay. Or, you know, I ‘wondered.’ The movies, always on Sunday. You never, ever—”

  “So Sunday’s the gay day?”

  “No, but you know.”

  After a pause, just long enough to deepen her voice, Lily added, “The thing is, I’ve always found you, actually, very good-looking.” The fingers on his neck grew warmer, more silken, their multi-digit signal somehow hinting at rhythm. Then the fingers were removed.

  The sudden removal was bad. It felt possibly terminal. Though her hip was an inch from his, though they were on a bed, this gap was— He needed to decide something, say something and say it now. And what he said had to be—

  But it was Lily who spoke.

  “So let’s take a shower.”<
br />
  Her fingers landed back on his neck. Playful now. Sporting.

  “A shower?”

  “That thing where water sprays magically out of the wall?”

  “Now?”

  She nodded.

  “At the same time?” he said.

  “It is written. Nobody’s here.”

  Lily led him up by the hand. She jerked him comically across the dark hallway when he hesitated. Not knowing what to say he said nothing as clothes fell around their feet and Lily reached in to turn on taps. They stood quietly naked for a weird span of time before she sent a hand in to test the temperature. Weirder, neither of them dropped their eyes below chin level. Peter aimed blindly and placed his hand on her naked hip, and Lily let him. He was about to step in for their first hug, which would be naked, but she led him into the spray.

  And then they were hugging, they were hugging and moving, and she brought soap into the mix, and he was quickly almost delirious. There, a squat white tile bench was built into the wall, and upon it glorious things were going to happen.

  Her angel’s mouth was breathing an inch from his ear.

  “Peter, I’ve also wanted to tell you that you really—you really—need to shower more often. I’ve been meaning to say something.”

  “I smell?” He pulled his cheek away from hers. “That’s—” He was unable to look at her. “That’s been me?” His hold on her shoulders softened. The glorious warm spray had become mere water. It was a world going limp.

  Lily pulled back to reassure him at arm’s length. She smiled so beautifully that Peter could only believe all she said.

  “Look, here we are. Lovers have to be honest. Don’t we?” She stared at him, naked and smiling, and he was an empty baby. “Isn’t this okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s nothing. It’s a small thing.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “There’s always soap!”

  “There’s … never not soap.”

  “It’s even funny. Uncle Ray,” she said, skewing her mouth to signal a joke and shaking her head fondly, “he called it ‘a deal killer.’ Well, look how wrong he was.” She did so, taking in the proof of the shower, the walls, even the ceiling, and then their feet.

  “Uncle Ray.” Peter shook his head as if fondly too. “He’s a unique kind,” he said, boldly letting the oxymoron stand.

  They came together and kissed, Petterick’s first. And as he rose again to delirium, apparently Darwin’s main signal of success, he noted the knowing dance of their lips and tongues, a wet and glorious language that was very much beyond him.

  Geriatric Arena Grope

  When Vera Barnoff got home and in the door her phone stopped ringing, then almost immediately started again, so she knew it must be something important. Her heart flipped in the foolish hope it was the doctor’s office with glorious news that they’d mixed up the lab work and she was fine. But it turned out to be good news anyway—she picked up to learn her daughter, Lise, had scored three tickets for tomorrow night.

  Lise snorted when Vera used the word “scored”—sixty-seven-year-old mothers didn’t use such words. Except they did.

  “Well, happy birthday, Mom.” Lise paused. “So I’ll phone Dad?”

  “It’d be wasted on him.”

  “He said he’d go.”

  “That’s different than wanting to go. Most people’d kill to go.”

  Lise was silent, wouldn’t give up on her father.

  “Or, Lise? We’ll scalp it!”

  “Yes!” Lise wasn’t serious, but into the spirit.

  “For booze and drug money!”

  She’d deflated her daughter again—mothers didn’t talk about booze and drugs. Vera could’ve added that Leonard Cohen himself was older than she was, had tried every drug known to man and chose a Scotch-guzzler for a guru. Her daughter had somehow missed the wisdom that it’s okay to play, it really is. Though maybe she wasn’t as stiff with her friends. But God, she wasn’t even forty.

  “Thanks for doing all that work, dear.” She knew Lise had had to bypass Ticketmaster, among other nefarious and complicated things. She’d probably spent lots of money.

  “Mom, no, I love this too! Did you read the review?”

  “Which one, dear?” Vera had been reading them all. He was roaming the continent. Leonard was coming to town.

  “I don’t know but it said he skips off the stage, between sets.”

  “It’ll be fun.”

  “The first note of ‘Hallelujah’ I’m going to be crying.”

  “It’ll be fun,” Vera said again. It would be. Lise’s enthusiasm sounded real, and for decades Vera had never not been buoyed by the sound of her child’s excitement. She believed it was in the tone of voice itself and was neurological. An electric signal to a mother’s brain, pulsing, All is for the moment right. Life was simple sometimes. For the moment, she could feel in perfect health.

  LISE’S GAMBITS TO GET Vera and Mac back together were touching. She’d been at it ever since learning they were meeting again for lunches and even a few dinners. Dates, Lise liked to call them. Once Vera had told her that she and her father had “hooked up” the night before and Lise did a comic shudder, but it might have been real.

  Lise understood what had happened nine years ago because they told her everything. Mac had had an affair with a rather young substitute teacher at the high school where both he and Vera taught—Mac English, Vera biology. Vera told Lise that though her father’s affair coincided with his forced retirement at sixty-five, a psychologically difficult time for him, it was no excuse. Vera stayed on at the school, where everybody knew, and it had meant “the death of my pride.” She explained further that it was animal pride, the kind that does not heal.

  So Lise understood why they’d separated nine years ago, but during that entire time she’d been eager for the merest hint of reconciliation. Not long after they sold the house and bought their separate condos, Lise informed Vera that according to her pedometer, she and Mac lived barely eight hundred steps from each other. Lise shared this fact with a wry smile, the same smile she would probably use to say, “You still love each other. Quit pretending.” This year Lise had one of her own two children graduating from the high school Vera and Mac had both retired from, but she still acted the hopeful child of a broken home.

  Lise, darling Lise. Vera remembered how Mac let her name their child Lise, Vera’s desire being to grab something French Canadian. Something of Montreal. She still thought it her hometown, could still conjure the smell of any given season, as well as certain alleys.

  MAC CALLED HER that night pretending to be mad. “How do you know I wouldn’t kill to go?” he said.

  So it was clear how much detail Lise had betrayed. Just as she told Vera that Mac had asked her why someone her age would go see Leonard Cohen if she wasn’t being paid to. Mac was always being funny. Or, at least, was always not serious. It was hard to know what to call his constant light mockery of everything, including himself. Last week he’d told Vera his autobiography would be called Canoeing in Azkaban: My Fictiony Life. Only later did Vera get that it referenced not the Middle East but Harry Potter.

  “You don’t like Leonard Cohen,” Vera said into the receiver.

  “Actually I do.”

  “You’ve told me you don’t. I have his music and I remember—I remember clearly—you yanking it off at a party.”

  “He’s not party music. I’d yank ‘The Volga Boatmen’ off too.”

  “He’s uplifting.”

  “So’s a choir. A choir can’t party either.”

  Mac had her smiling a little. For some reason, this firmed up her decision not to tell him the news. It could wait. Mostly, she didn’t want Lise to know, not yet. And it still might be nothing. The doctor called them shadows.

  “Anyway, I do want to come. I need to protect my women from the Great Seducer.”

  “It’s up to Lise. She got the tickets.”

  “The only Canadian in h
istory who tries to fuck everything in sight.”

  “Stop.”

  “I won’t go if you don’t want me to go.”

  “Fine. Go. Come.”

  “You know I saw your big droning Leonard way back when?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Well yes, I did. Amsterdam or—”

  “You would have told me this.”

  “I probably did tell you. Probably a hundred years ago.”

  “Really?” She recalled having arguments about Leonard in the past, and you’d think that during one he’d have mentioned seeing him live, if only to use as leverage, as he was doing now. Or was it possible that this was an old man’s long-term memory kicking in, as they said it would? The old bag tipping over, spilling the long-lost shiny bits? The childhood hamsters and bicycles?

  “It was Amsterdam, I think. It was outside. There were screamers and the sound was horrible. That’s all I remember. But, Vera? Screamers? For a poet? And shitty sound, when the only important thing is the words?”

  Words were not the only important thing. She was more convinced now that Mac didn’t appreciate Leonard.

  “Anyway, may I come?”

  “You may.”