by Melissa Yi
He frowned. "What about it?" He looked away, focusing on the boisterous birthday crowd in the corner.
I tried to ignore the foot-in-mouth feeling. He was the one who'd mentioned his roots. "I don't know. Your family? Oktoberfest?" I paused, trying to dredge up more memories of the area. "The Mennonites?"
His fingers tightened on his chopsticks before he carefully laid them back on the tablecloth. His eyes didn't quite meet mine. "Have you been talking to people?"
I shook my head. I'd hardly had a chance. After orientation, I'd zipped to my new apartment, moved in a few boxes—the rest were coming via the Zippy Moving Company—showered, and slipped into a strappy silver top and a black miniskirt. My hair was barely dry before Alex had buzzed my apartment. "What's wrong?"
He picked up his chopsticks and arranged a smile on his face. "Nothing. Do you want wasabi or pickled ginger?"
"Uh—" I was still five steps back.
"I find that people are either into one or the other, not both. What's it gonna be?" He gestured at the triangular green mound in the centre of the dish. "I bet wasabi. Because you're a very hot chick." He waggled his eyebrows with the last three words.
I giggled. Tucker could take lessons from this guy. You can say cheesy things, as long as you're funny. "Well, I've never been into the ginger."
"See?" He picked up the soy sauce and poured a black puddle into a porcelain dish in front of me.
The sushi turned out to be delicious. No oily roe eggs. When some wasabi shot up my nose and made my eyes water, Alex handed me his napkin and watched me in concerned silence. I had to laugh as I wiped my eyes. "I'll live, doctor."
"Yeah, but I don't want you to hate sushi from now on. First the roe eggs, and now, attack of the wasabi."
"I don't hate sushi," I said softly, to my porcelain plate.
"Good." He took my hand. His hand was bigger than my ex's and definitely paler, with blunt-cut fingernails.
No. This was not the time to think about Ryan Wu. I smiled at Alex instead. He smiled back.
For dessert, I would have been happy with green tea ice cream, but Alex said, "I want to take you downtown, show you the action. There's a nice café on Ste-Catherine."
"Sold." I squeezed his hand before I reluctantly dropped it.
I would have split the bill, but Alex waved my MasterCard away. He wouldn't even let me see the final tally. "You can get the next one," he said, as he scrawled his signature.
I had to admit, I was relieved not to know the damage. I'd be getting my first paycheque in two weeks, but my student loans and moving costs cried out for repayment. "Thanks."
He reached out to run his thumb up the delicate inner skin of my wrist. I had to catch my breath. He said, "You're welcome."
As Alex ordered dessert at the café, I watched the passers-by on Ste-Catherine through the glass windows on its south wall. Just walking down the street seemed to be a Friday night party. A guy stumbled along in a green-sequined miniskirt, fishnet stockings, and high heels. His friends bellowed and laughed and shoved him down the street, probably on their way to a stag party.
I realized, too late, that Alex was handing the cashier a ten for our slice of Black Forest cake, coffee for him and papaya juice for me. I unzipped my purse, but he shook his head and faked an accent. "Your money no good here!"
A group of college kids lounged at the back near the bathroom. They seemed to be playing some sort of game, not checkers, but using the same board. A middle-aged man read the newspaper and nursed a coffee near the front of the café, ignoring the Ste-Catherine pedestrian party.
Alex chose a small table on the west wall, facing a quieter side street, away from everyone else. He slid our cake and drinks off and dropped the tray on an empty table behind him. When he put away his change, he ended up flashing a pack of cigarettes tucked away in his pocket. He caught me staring and said, "They don't let us smoke inside anymore, but we can hit the sidewalk if you want."
"You smoke?" I stalled.
"Sure. They're clove," he said, as if that made a difference.
I had taken a drag or two of clove cigarettes during medical school and enjoyed posing and flicking the ash. But first I had to be a nerd. "You're a doctor."
He laughed. "Yeah." He plucked a cigarette out of the packet and held it expertly between his teeth while he still managed to speak. "And you're Little Miss Muffet."
"Shut up." Just for that, I wasn't going to smoke. Peer-pressure booted me in the opposite direction. "But I thought you said they didn't allow smoking in restaurants anymore."
A red lighter appeared in his hand. He flicked it on, and brought the flame to the end of the cigarette.
I glanced around to see if anyone was watching. The counter girl shot me a worried look. I pointed at her. "See?"
Alex mimed astonishment. "Hey, you're right! My bad." He pocketed the lighter and held the cigarette out for me to inspect. The end hadn't caught.
I didn't understand him any better than this crazy city, but both of them were growing on me. "So where are we going after?"
"There are a few clubs downtown. But it's still early. They don't start rockin' until after midnight."
I struggled to keep a deadpan expression. "Rockin', huh?"
"Rockin'," he repeated firmly. "You probably don't know what that means, after living in London for four years."
I raised my eyebrows. "Have you ever been to clubs in London?"
"Yes." His lips quirked.
I believed him. "Dang."
We both laughed. He said, "You like frosting?"
I nodded. "It's the best part."
He spun the plate around so the cake's frosting end pointed toward me and the tip toward himself. I toyed with the cool metal handle of my fork and dug in. Thank goodness, they used real whipped cream. I'm a real snob about that. In short time, we polished off the cake.
Alex's cell phone played a tinny, Bach riff. He held it up to his ear and almost immediately, his eyebrows drew together. "Yeah."
I sipped my too-sweet papaya juice. Maybe we could hit the Jazz Festival. Place des Arts was probably within walking distance, and I'd heard that there were lots of free shows. It was almost ten, so we still had two hours to kill before midnight.
"So?...Uh huh. Yeah." Alex was half-turned away, his shoulder hunched. "Yeah. Okay." He jerked his chin at me, then at the door. He was going outside to finish the call.
I reached for my purse. He shook his head, gestured at me to stay there. He held up his index finger.
I got it. One minute. Well, that would give me a chance to go to the bathroom.
The bathroom was small, with cobalt tile walls and a terra cotta floor. More importantly, it was pretty clean except for a twirl of toilet paper in the corner of the stall. An ad mounted on the door warned me about sexually transmitted diseases. Nice.
I washed my hands and combed my close-cropped black hair. I'd cut my hair during clerkship, on my surgery rotation, and kept it short because I liked it. My eyes were a bit red, from smoke and from my contact lenses, but I looked good. My skin was a clear, smooth tan, and my smile was genuine.
I refreshed my burgundy lipstick, winked at myself, and sashayed back into the café.
Alex hadn't made it back, but his unused cigarette lay on the plate. I sat back down and crossed my legs. The college kids behind me burst out laughing, but not at me, I hoped.
The Ste-Catherine traffic ground to a standstill. A bunch of girls in skimpy club outfits shrieked and pushed their way through the cars. A Camaro played dance music with such a heavy bass that my chair vibrated with it. Behind it, a Mercedes broadcasted rap, while the little, white driver and his buddies nodded along. How could Alex hear anything out there?
Alex. I scanned the crowd. He wasn't in front of the café.
No. That couldn't be right. I half-stood, craning my neck. He must have gone around the corner, to get away from the mob.
Why did he go out there, anyway? It was louder out there than i
t was in here.
Better reception? But that was lame.
I crossed to the front of the café. Across the street, I caught sight of a guy with brown hair, his head tipped down. He held his shoulders like Alex. I rapped on the glass.
The guy turned west and disappeared into the crowd.
"Wait! Alex!" I called.
Beside me, the old man with the newspaper cleared his throat.
I muttered, "Excusez-moi." I shoved open the glass door and sprinted out on the street.
"Watch it, lady!" hollered a guy on the pavement. I barely registered him and his blanketful of necklaces and earrings.
"Sorry," I called over my shoulder, and I started running after the guy. I nearly knocked down an elderly couple who were arm in arm, taking up most of the sidewalk.
I stopped at the blue and white metro sign near the Paramount theatre. Herds of people pushed past me, intent on seeing Twilight or Despicable Me. I scrutinized their faces until I realized that I was, to stretch the movie analogy into retro territory, on my own mission impossible.
Alex had vanished.
"Worst. Date. Ever," I muttered, but it had been great until the phone call. "So his dismount needs work."
A guy who was passing by gave me a strange look and hugged his girlfriend closer.
Okay, now I was talking to myself. I joined the crush of people and snagged a lobby pay phone. I dug in my purse for Alex's numbers. The phone rang once, twice, three times.
Click. "We're sorry. The Bell Mobility customer you have reached is not in service."
It wouldn't even let me leave a message. What the hell? Was he still talking on the phone?
On my last quarter, I tried his home phone number. It rang four times. A recorded female voice, the phone company default one, intoned, "You have reached 555-2431. Please leave a message."
I wouldn't have figured Alex for such a vanilla message. Was this even the right number? I said, "Alex, it's me. Hope. What's up? I lost you at the café. I don't have a cell phone"—I'd planned to buy a new one in Montreal—"and my pager's back at the apartment. So I'll check for you, and then I'll, uh, head home, I guess. Call me." I left my apartment number and hung up.
One last try. I walked back to the café. A breeze raised goose bumps on my arms. I rubbed them.
"I'll keep you warm, baby!" a guy yelled. He was standing with a group of friends outside Club Sexxxy's drawings of chesty danseuses nues.
I gave him the finger. It made me feel better, even though he just cackled.
In the café, the old man was still reading his paper, a couple perused the display case, the college kids played on, and a server was wiping down the tables. No Alex.
My heart sank. I headed outside to ask the guy on the pavement with the necklaces. He looked like a middle-aged hippy, with a graying brown ponytail and a Guatemalan poncho even though it was a warm night. He smiled. His teeth were crooked. "Wanna buy something? I got the best beads."
Chunky plastic beads and some silver rings. I tried to look interested. "Hm. Maybe." I paused. "Did you see the guy with the cell phone who left the café? Brown hair, about five-seven, black T-shirt and jeans?"
He shrugged and smiled some more. "Wanna buy something?"
"Did you see him?" I countered.
"Yeah, I saw him." He gestured at his blanket ware. "I don't have all night, you know."
He did have all night. And silver doesn't complement my coloring as well as gold, but better that than plastic beads. I pointed to a plain silver ring. "How much?"
"A steal. Six bucks." He grinned, displaying nicotine teeth with a gap between his incisors.
Cigarettes reminded me of Alex. Something had to be really wrong for him to leave without a word. I shook three toonies out of my change purse. Before I handed them over, I prompted, "The guy with brown hair?"
"Yeah," he said. "I saw him." He grabbed the money. "He went that way." He gestured north, up the little cross-street.
"But—" I should have seen him. I'd been sitting right alongside—I checked the name—Ste-Alexandre. But then I'd gone to the bathroom. And north of here was McGill University. Alex had said he lived in the student ghetto. Had he chucked me and gone home?
"Here." The street guy held up the ring. His eyes were soft with—was that pity? I was now being pitied by a guy who sold chunky beads?
I snatched the ring away and headed back to the metro.
"Hope!" A guy's voice.
My head snapped up, my heart drumming at hummingbird speed. Then I saw the white-blond hair and more angular face. It was Tucker coming down the street toward me. Tori raised her hand in a cautious wave, and Anu beamed at me.
Shit. The last thing I wanted to do was face my new classmates. Clearly, Montreal wasn't that big a city.
"Hey guys," I said, adjusting the purse strap on my shoulder.
Tucker said, "Hey, we tried to call you. We're going to grab a bite to eat and check out the Jazz Fest. Wanna come?"
I shook my head. "I'm beat. Gotta unpack, and I've got the first emerg shift tomorrow." I bared my teeth in a cheery grin. "But have fun, okay?"
Tucker opened his mouth, but Tori said, "Sure. Some other time" and towed him off. Anu waved.
Once on the metro's orange and white plastic seats, I closed my eyes and tried not to feel like a disaster. My feet hurt, my eyes felt dry beneath my contact lenses, and I didn't know whether to worry about Alex or strangle him. The metro car was almost deserted. An electronic board flashed the names of the next stop and bus numbers for transfers, as well as ads and tidbits of news. My main companion was the recorded woman's voice that announced, "Prôchaine arrêt..." Everyone was heading downtown for the night, not partying in Côte-des-Neiges.
Actually, that was something else to worry about. When Alex picked me up, he told me that my neck of the woods "wasn't the greatest area."
At my expression, he tried to back peddle. "You probably don't have to worry. The real low-income housing is on Van Horne." Right by my neighbourhood grocery store. After I freaked out more, he said, "Look. It's probably just a bad rep, because Côte-des-Neiges has a lot of immigrants. And some students, because it's near the U of M, l'Université de Montréal." Then he smiled and said, "Don't worry. I'll protect you."
He wasn't winning any gold stars right now. The Université de Montreal metro stop was only a five minute walk from my new place, but his warning had me jumping at every shadow behind a tree. I didn't dare cut through the university. I stuck to the poorly-lit streets. During the day, the maple, ash, and birch trees were pretty, but at night, they could hide a family of rapists. The sound of my own steps beating on the sidewalk, the wind in the leaves, the shadows in the apartment balconies—all of it spurred me, until I was almost running down Mimosa Avenue. My keys were clenched in my fingers, pointy side out, ready to take out someone's eyeball.
At last, I dashed up the concrete walkway to my three-story brick apartment. Only two dim torches lined the path. As soon as I opened the building door and stepped into the well-lit front hallway, I felt safer. Even silly. No one had attacked me. The silver mailboxes and buzzer system inside the entrance looked perfectly innocent.
Like St. Joseph's, the apartment had probably been beautiful when it was first built, but it had fallen into disrepair, from its overgrown, dandelion-fiesta lawn to the cracked glass in my balcony door. It was really two buildings, with an arched wrought iron sign between them that read, MIMOSA MANOR. Still, there were Art Deco squares of glass on either side of the outer door and I had real hardwood floors in my apartment.
I unlocked the inner building door, ambled up the staircase and turned the key in my apartment lock. I half-expected Alex to be there, saying, "Boo." But it was empty. I could hear the silence. Only a tap dripped in the kitchen.
I marched down the hall, to the kitchen, and tightened the faucet. I'm an environmentalist. I'd hate to end the day by wasting water, too.
The phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I had to
race back to my bedroom to pick it up. I'd only brought one phone. The rest were on their way, in the moving van. The phone had rung four times before I snatched it up. "Hello? Alex?"
"Who's Alex?" said my mother.
"Are you making friends already?" said Dad. "That's good."
"Oh." I sunk into bed. "Hi guys. I was going to call you."
"I miss you!" said my brother, Kevin. He's only eight. My family makes weekly phone calls with everyone on a different extension.
"I miss you, too, bud." My throat tightened. I felt perilously close to tears. Ridiculous.
Dad said, "You sound like you have a cold!"
I cleared my throat. "I don't have a cold."
He tsked. "Well, you sound like you're getting one. It's a long drive from London. You should have let us help you pack!"
"It's too far. And you have Kevin." I took comfort in our old argument.
"I could have helped!" Kevin protested.
"I know, bud. But then you might have missed your violin lesson."
"Good," he muttered. My mother started scolding him.
I felt almost normal again. No matter what, my family was always there for me. I told them I was starting with an emerg shift at 7:30 a.m. Not a word about Alex, even though his name was throbbing at the back of my brain.
"Wow. We'd better not keep you up too late, then," said Dad immediately. "You need your rest."
"Wait, I wanted to tell you Grandma still has that cough, but she's feeling better." Mom went on at some length. My grandmother is very healthy, but we all need up-to-the-minute bulletins about her few vagaries. Especially me, the family doctor. I thought I heard a noise in the front hall, but turned back to hear, "Kevin is going to start summer school, but we could still go on a trip in August—"
I sighed. "Mom, I told you, I don't want to take a vacation at the beginning of residency."
"Right, right, right, I was just going to say, or we could come visit you. Maybe spend a week. What do you think?"
I looked around. My one-bedroom apartment was littered with a handful of half-unpacked boxes. "You guys would sleep in the living room?"