The next morning, Callum is released from the hospital and wheeled to the front entrance where Victoria gets him into the car with some difficulty. He is tall, unsteady and still fairly doped up. He isn’t used to the crutches and the concussion is screwing up his balance. When he gets settled in the seat, he stops her before she closes the door. “Wait,” he says, taking her hand in his. “Thank you. From my heart. The bottom of it. Thank you for this.”
She ignores the intimate gesture, chalking it up to pain meds and points the car to Park City. She has never had a man in her car before. Sure she has given a co-worker a ride home on occasion but not a man like this. Tall, gorgeous, British. She points out different sights and mountains she thinks he would find interesting. Playing tour guide helps her pretend this is normal.
Victoria hasn’t dated much. Who has the time? But she has enjoyed a friend or two over the years who have helped keep certain needs in check. There is a bartender she used to work with and they still get together from time to time, always at his place, when Marina is on a sleepover or once in a while during the school day. She is a busy single mom, but she isn’t dead for goodness sake. At thirty-one, these needs call loudly from time to time. If she does sleep with Callum, she decides it should just be once or twice on his way out the door. She smiles at that him sitting in the car at her side.
“What?” he asks. “You look like the damn cat that ate that poor canary.”
“Nothing,” she protests.
“Sure nothing. Remember, no funny business,” he says as Victoria pulls into the little neighborhood of dark wooden houses that are so common here. Hers is set on the sharp incline, backing up to a snow covered mountain. She is pretty damn proud of this three bedroom house. The rooms are large and bright with lots of windows and mountain views. This house is the result of years and years of bartending, living in a tiny apartment spending too little time with her daughter, and a hard fought for nursing degree, one class at a time. Her house has a garage which bring her endless joy. She pushes the button and the large wooden door rises at her command. Heaven!
“Nice,” Callum says.
Marina runs out the door in a tee shirt, sweat pants and bare feet, despite the snow. “Marina, shoes!” Victoria demands.
Marina doesn’t even bother responding to her mother. She opens the door for Callum and helps guide him from the car. He can’t put any weight on her, but she helps with the balance. “I made some soup if you are hungry, Mr. Townsend.”
“Callum please. No soup now. Just sleep.”
Marina leads him into what is his bedroom for the next days or weeks. Victoria watches from the doorway as Marina eases him to the bed and shows him how she unpacked his clothes and which drawers to find which items. She lined his shoes in the closet and arranged his toiletries on the dresser below the mirror. The blue quilt is folded down to the bottom of the bed in thirds and she has turned down the corner of the gray sheets. Three water bottles line the end table within easy reach. He sits on the bed and opens a brown bottle of pain killers, shaking one free and swallowing the pill dry.
“I moved my stuff into Victoria’s bathroom so you can have this one all to yourself.” She points out the bathroom that connects to his room and her room. “Mine’s locked and I locked this side for you so you don’t have to be weirded out about it.”
“You call your mom Victoria?” is his only comment and it is steeped in disapproval.
She shrugs off his comment and Victoria intercedes. “Come on honey. Let’s get out of Callum’s hair so he can get some sleep.”
Victoria shuts the door and drives Marina to school late so she can finish out the day.
Four
The room is pitch black when Callum awakes and he has no idea where he is. After getting his bearings, he assesses the pain and decides to forgo the pill. The leg is manageable enough and he is getting used to the low throb of the headache. Tylenol will do the trick. He’s ready to start feeling like himself not like he’s moving under water.
It takes a moment to find the switch on the cord and turn on the lamp. When the room is illuminated, he surveys his temporary home. The walls are painted stark white, but they are covered with seemingly local, western inspired oil paintings, mostly landscapes, with lots of earth tones. The furniture is simple and inexpensive. A light wooden dresser with a mirror faces the bed and two matching bedside tables with black wrought iron lamps and white square shades sit on either side of the large bed. Overall, the look is inviting without being fussy and he likes it. Nice enough digs. No TV though.
He throws off the blankets and hops his way to the bathroom, double checking that the door is locked on Marina’s side. This Brady Bunch bathroom doesn’t inspire feelings of confidence for privacy. He pulls on a tee shirt and shorts, opens his bedroom door and peeks into the hallway. Marina and Victoria are arguing in the kitchen.
“We need to talk about this Marina. Cutting school is bad enough but what the hell happened at Red Canyons with Callum?” Victoria demands, not for the first time.
“Nothing.” Callum can’t see Marina, but he imagines her shrugging with a shitty, disrespectful facial expression. Brat.
“Nothing is not good enough Marina,” Victoria tries to keep her voice calm, but Callum can hear the struggle in it. “We have that poor man in our guest room. Why Marina?”
Callum decides she isn’t talking anyway and he really wants a Tylenol or four, so he inadvertently rescues Marina by crutching his way to the kitchen. He has to practice this crutch thing.
“Good morning,” he says despite the blackness outside the windows.
“Well for you it is.” Victoria pulls a chair out for him. “How are you feeling?”
“Sleep was good. It was nice to be out of that fucking hospital.” He glances at Marina. “Sorry. Damn hospital?”
“Fucking hospital is fine,” Marina ladles soup into a blue bowl.
Callum looks to Victoria for confirmation. It is her house. She offers a sideways smile and a nod, acquiescing.
Marina watches the exchange and gives him a snotty I told you so grin before setting down a bowl of soup and a plate with a thick slice of bread. She has laid a blue ironed, folded cloth napkin with silverware on a green placemat in front of him. Butter and a tall glass of ice water are within reach. This gesture of food warms his heart. He knows he is still coming down from the drugs, but if he let himself, he could cry. He can’t even remember the last time someone made him a meal like this. He doesn’t let on that he is overwhelmed by their kindness but just tastes the soup. “Thank you Marina. This is simply lovely,” is all he says.
“I figured we’d start you off slowly on food and we need to hydrate you. How many pain pills have you had today?” Victoria asks.
“Two. I’d like to try to stop them though. I need to get back to my own head. Do you have Tylenol?”
She opens a cabinet and pulls out a small bottle handing it to him. He takes three and then digs into the soup. It is better than he expected with onions, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes, cannellini beans and chicken. He would have added chorizo and some fresh herbs, but it is a good balance of flavors and textures. This soup was finished with lemon juice. Very few people know to finish a soup with acid to make the flavors brighter. The bread is full of nuts and whole grains and the butter is sweet. This is the best meal he has had in days. He nearly starved to death in the hospital.
“So Callum, what do you do? Professionally, I mean.” Victoria asks. She truly doesn’t know a thing about him.
He doesn’t really want to get into it. I was a chef until I fucked my partners wife and told him about it so he’d leave her and she’d run off with me. But it all blew up in my face when they rededicated themselves to each other, threw me out and decided to have a baby.
“I worked in restaurants back in England, but I’m taking a sort of sabbatical. I was pretty burned out. I’ve been visiting my sister and traveling the states.” He sits back in his chair, crossing hi
s arms across his chest defensively, awaiting interrogation. Marina offers him more soup, but he declines. His appetite isn’t there yet.
“Marina,” he says, turning his attention to the little girl who makes good soup but apparently beat him to shit on the slopes. She squirms in her seat under his gaze. She manages to keeps her eyes to his and holds her defiant chin high. He realizes she looks a lot like her mom.
“What happened at Red Canyons?” He uses in the same voice and deep tone he uses with the line cooks. It is a telling tone not an asking tone. It doesn’t leave much room for bullshit. He taps the passing seconds off with his index finger on the table.
Marina looks to her mother as if waiting for Victoria to intercede. She does not but squares her eyes on Marina. She and Callum share a patiently awaiting united front.
“I cut school,” Marina says.
“Alone or with others?” Callum figures Victoria would want to know. He has years of experience with being questioned by adults in power for his bad behavior. Being on this side of the table for a change is actually quite satisfying.
Victoria tries to sink into her seat. She doesn’t get far into the wood though.
“Answer my question Marina,” Callum wonders if he is pushing too far, but he doesn’t give a shit. He remembers his last headmaster at boarding school, his favorite. The name is escaping him now.
“I cut with a few other girls,” she looks towards her mother, “Rebecca, Lindsay and Alyssa. And some guys.”
“What happened?” he asks.
“We were buying lift tickets and the guy asked if we were cutting school. You were ahead of me in line so I said you were my Dad and we were here on vacation from Delaware.”
“Why Delaware?” he asks even though it isn’t important. But he is curious. Where the hell is Delaware anyway? He might need to learn a thing or two about American geography.
“I didn’t think it had a recognizable accent like New York, New Jersey, Texas or whatever,” she explains.
“Good thinking,” he agrees. “Marina, how did lying to buy a lift ticket translate into me flat on my back with a broken leg and a concussion?”
She winces at his words and the guilt is all over her face, but she does start talking. “The guys have this club.”
“A gang?” he asks and Victoria gasps.
“This is Park City Utah for Christ’s sake. We don’t have gangs here!”
“Actually, Mom, there are a lot of gangs around Salt Lake.”
Callum is happy to hear her use the word Mom. “So?”
“So these guys have been messing around, talking about starting a gang at our school,” Marina explains.
Victoria leans forward ready to jump in and Callum places a hand on her knee under the table to stop her. It is a subtle message, but she takes the hint. Marina is talking, let her.
“They decided to have an initiation. You had to hurt someone bad enough to leave a mark. Most of the kids, even the girls were picking fights at school. I’m too small to fight, but I’m a good skier. I decided to knock someone over, but I didn’t really want to hurt anyone, like a kid or an old person or something. Callum is big and a good skier. I just meant to knock him over and then the kids would leave me alone and let me in.”
“Where did they go after we collided?” he asks.
“They left me there.”
“Even Lindsay and the other girls?” Victoria asks and Marina nods.
Now that it is out, she seems to want to finish it. “So I cut into Callum’s path he was going fast and he tried to avoid me.” Her blue eyes fill with tears. “If he’d just hit me, he would have been okay, but he didn’t want to hurt me. He cut hard and his ski popped and hit him in the back of the head. Then he went down and his leg snapped. It was so loud. It was so horrible.” The memory of the sound of the break stops her from talking. She cries quietly. After a moment he lifts her chin with his index finger and looks into her eyes. Her eyes aren’t as sinister as he thought. But he always was a sucker for a few tears.
“Callum, I am really sorry,” she says and just like that, his anger goes. He isn’t much of a grudge holder and he has a lot of shit to be sorry about too. He’s sorry about fucking his best friend’s wife. He’s sorry about letting himself love her. He’s sorry about telling her husband even though she begged him not to. He’s sorry she told his mother to get back at him. He’s sorry he has no job and the best part of his day has been shaming women into giving him blow jobs.
“I forgive you Marina,” he says. “I understand the pressure of the assholes at school. I was one of those assholes.”
She was not expecting that. She leans in and hugs him hard. He was not expecting that. He manages to lift a hand to give her a there there pat on the back. It seems the right thing to do.
Victoria hugs Marina too and thanks her daughter for being honest, finally. She says something about punishments being forthcoming, after some consideration. Then Victoria sends Marina off with instruction for homework and no texting.
“You make good soup,” Callum calls to her as an afterthought.
When Marina is clear of the kitchen, Victoria falls heavily into the kitchen chair, folds her arms on the table to cradle her head and sobs as silently as she can manage. Callum isn’t sure what to do so he reaches a hand over to pat her shoulder for more there there. She puts a hand up in protest, palm out, letting him know no thanks.
So he waits it out and resists the temptation to check game scores on his mobile. Within two minutes, she sits up and wipes her face with a napkin and tops it off with a good nose blow. He notices that she missed a button on her shirt again and decides not to mention it. This bra is just as frilly but black. Lovely.
“Jesus Callum I am so sorry,” she says.
“Don’t be.” He can’t believe he is defending her, but the apology was sincere. “She’s just a kid.”
“I’m a shit mother,” she says and dabs her eyes again with the napkin.
“No you aren’t,” he says with fake confidence. For all he knows she is a shit mother.
“And how would you know?” she asks.
“The same way you knew I was a good guy.”
“Oh. It’s total bullshit then,” she says with a snorty laugh.
“Exactly,” he agrees.
She pulls a Ben & Jerry’s carton from the fridge and offers him a spoon. “New York Super Fudge Chunk. Want a bowl?”
“Besties don’t need bowls.” He dips his spoon into the carton and wonders what she looks like naked. When she leans forward, the missed button gap shows more creamy fair skin and soft curves around the black lace. She is so much more than he expected.
After the kitchen drama, he goes back to bed and sleeps another three hours, waking after midnight. The Tylenol is managing the pain well enough, so he pops another three and then he’s up. He walks the house quietly while Marina and Victoria sleep, learning the lay of the place. A TV with three remotes is daunting so he decides not to bother. American TV doesn’t really work for him anyway. He reviews titles in a bookcase. Lots of nursing books, parenting books, and a plethora of young adult fiction series: Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, Uglies, Pendragon, Maze Runner, and a few classics, presumable assigned reading. At least she is well read.
He pulls out the first Hunger Games book. Jennifer Lawrence is hot and he can fantasize about her while reading it. That is about the best he is getting for the immediate future.
He sits on the brown, leather couch and with a little effort, elevates his leg onto the coffee table, carefully hanging his foot over the side. It is one of those tables that looks like the slab of a big tree but shellacked and glossy. He pulls a soft, blue blanket from a basket nearby and covers up.
He wishes he had a cup of tea and tries to remember the last time he had a cup of tea. On Anna’s porch swing. John was taking the girls for a walk with his neighbor Joe. Two big men and two little baby girls in strollers. You have to respect a man who can look manly pushing a strolle
r. For a quick, lonely, up in the middle of the night moment, he regrets his decision not to call Anna. He knows she’d come, but it would be a hardship. They are too new for him to be a hardship to her.
He reads about Katniss Everdeen and District 12. He tries to read anyway. He is a terrible reader.
Marina wakes early, before seven o’clock. She walks by Callum’s door and leans her ear against the wood to hear if he is up. She can’t hear anything so she tiptoes toward the kitchen to make coffee and finds him asleep on the couch. He is slumped down into the cushions with his arms crossed over his chest and the bad leg hanging over the table.
Callum startles awake when she enters the room. He stretches painful kinks from his back.
“Sorry, I woke you up,” she says. “You didn’t look very comfortable though.”
He rubs his eyes with his fists like a five year old and groans at his back. “No problem. The pills have my days and nights all turned around.”
“Do you drink coffee? We have tea too.” She adds since he is from England.
“Mornings are coffee. Afternoons are tea for me. Thanks. Can you grab the Tylenol from my bedside?” Callum asks.
Marina is happy for a task. She gets his Tylenol, a sweatshirt, fresh water and makes good strong coffee. She brings him a mug full and sits in a burnt orange chair, crisscrossing her legs.
“Do you have kids?” she asks, “or a wife?”
“Neither.”
“Ex-wife?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.” She wonders how long he’ll let her go on.
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