"Oh yes?" She leaned back, inviting me to share, all I could think was that the billion ants that had crawled into my crotch came from the way her breasts swelled as she did so. At least I told myself that was the reason.
"There is darkness there," she said. "Let the light shine through, Daniel."
I chewed my lip, wondering whether showing vulnerability would get me into her pants again. Before I could make the assessment, my mouth just sort of blurted out the admission.
"My father passed away just before Christmas. Because of me."
Rather than looking shocked, she looked intrigued. "Poison?"
I laughed, catching the tease. "Nope. Tea."
Thankfully, she didn't laugh at me.
In the short pause something, a strange image, came into focus within my brain. She had mentioned a forest of trees. Of course, the painting in the video wasn't complete yet, but as the scene on the projector in my mind narrowed and focused into a sharp image, I realised it was the one she talked about.
"I've seen that painting." I scraped the last bit of lobster from my bowl and popped it into my mouth.
She didn't look surprised. "I figured you'd visit the site," she said.
I grinned because I simply couldn't find the words to admit it.
She might as well have reached straight into my fantasy world and put her fist through the glassy image. "You're imagining me right now aren't you?"
"How did you know?"
She gave me a dry look. "You don't think I've seen that look before?"
"Sorry," I said.
"Oh, it's okay. It doesn't really bother me. It's just flesh. Skin. Did you like it?"
Now we were getting somewhere. I wiggled my brows at her. "Loved it."
She rolled her eyes and I thought of Jesse. Quickly, I squished that little image into a doughy ball and kicked it to the back of my brain. One does not want to imagine his sister while he's planning to ravage a woman.
"I meant the painting."
"I guess so. But it doesn't make any sense. Why are the trees people?"
"They're not. It's about seeing things in places you don't expect. The faces in the shadows of the tree bark are only there for as long as the light is in just the right position. One moment the light hits the bark just the right way and those people are visible, the next they're gone."
"That's nice."
"Nice? It's life. If you don't pay attention to things, they disappear. We disappear. We view everything from our perspective---but what if we're really just shadows waiting for the right light to be seen by someone else?"
For some reason, I thought of Dad and the way he'd painted our house after my school chum died. I squirmed in my chair.
"That's too deep for me. I'm a shallow kind of guy. I prefer the white things. The bright things."
"Most people are. I am. Tell me more about your father."
"No. You tell me more about why you are here."
We faced off across the table. She stared me down, and I stared her up. Neither of us would give in. Obviously, her secret was as heavy as mine.
Neither of us spoke until after the main entrees had been brought. Mine, steaming grilled haddock took up too much room on my side and I had to shuffle my coffee to the outer edge. Hannah didn't seem concerned that no conversation peppered the air.
Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. "My father had diabetes."
She looked up, interested.
I continued, aware that I was talking way too fast. My feet and my mouth seemed to be in some sort of race. "Ever since I can remember, his diabetes was the main focus of the house. He was an old fisherman. Big. Really big man. He fished in the worst winter weather. I remember one storm; no one went out. But Dad called his hired men and told them to be at the wharf at 4 a.m."
It was tough eating while talking so fast. I started to choke on a bit of potato. I thought of old Scrooge; I sure hoped no ghosts would visit later should that potato lodge undigested somewhere in the upper lining of my stomach. Hannah pushed my water glass toward me. I took a swallow, and promptly choked on that. I sat coughing and spluttering water all over my dinner.
Hannah remained nonplussed. Patiently, she lifted her glass to her lips and drank. Then she cut out a nice square from her chicken breast. I spluttered; she chewed.
When I finally caught my breath, she looked back at me. "Ready?"
I shook my head. It was an omen. Had to be. God had looked down at me, knowing everything he knows, and realised that it was too early to have me purge. He simply peeked down and said to himself, "Nope. That boy there should feel guilty for just a little longer. Let's make him choke on that thought."
"Oh come on, Daniel," she prodded. "You can't stop now. Show me yours and I'll show you mine."
Tempting. Truly tempting. I took a quick glance heavenward. I opened my mouth; I formed my tongue to speak. Nothing happened. No lightning. Perhaps God looked the other way.
"Well, nobody wanted to fish," I said, hesitating at first.
"Dad reminded them that if they wanted their jobs, they had to. So. They went out. I remember getting up because Mom and Dad were arguing in the kitchen. I was probably 15. Mom said it was too bad out. It wasn't fair to risk lives for a little bit of money."
"Sounds like your mother is a smart lady."
I nodded. "She is. But Dad said it wasn't a little bit of money. It was a lot. And he was right. Lobster brings a pretty penny in the winter. So he went out. Him and his crew. He said if he could go out, what with his diabetes and all, then so could every one of his healthy crew."
"What happened? What does that have to do with killing him with tea?"
"Nothing. That is, it has nothing to do with tea. But it has everything to do with him and I."
"So?"
"So, one of the men fell over. They never retrieved his body."
Silence, that adversary of my boots, descended upon the date. I didn't know what to say; Hannah obviously couldn't say anything. So we didn't. We ate for a little while; I actually began to think I was off the hook.
Hannah spoiled my sense of safety. "Your father sounds like a control freak."
I nodded, feeling like I had gone just one step too far and that now that I had thrown myself onto the dangerous path, I might as well keep going.
"Dad insisted the reception be at our house. Then he made sure every light in the house was on. The house was so bright, you could hardly stand to keep your eyes open.
"Everyone thought it was some kind of special remembrance. But I always wondered about it. Maybe his behaviour had been some sort of cry for help that no one recognized.
"Once," I said. "When I was in grade 12, and trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life, Dad asked me what I wanted to be most in the world. I couldn't tell him I wanted to garden. What kind of man would want to garden? I knew he'd fly off his handle, so I told him I wanted to be a ballerina. I figured if he'd fly, he might as well go at Jet speed."
"Did he? Fly?" Hannah's face looked pinched.
"Hell, yeah," I said. "And then afterwards he told me I'd fish like a man. Except I was terrified of drowning. I begged to go to business school. I don't think he ever thought the same of me afterwards. Anyway, Mom minced about the house, Jesse turned into a smart ass---Dad even commented over and over that if he'd known his only son would be feminine, he'd have drowned the first born. Me. Obviously, he thought I was too girly. I even had the nerve to drink tea with my mother every morning. It was like a little ritual. Jesse would lay in bed until the last minute, so Mom and I had the kitchen to ourselves. God. I bet that's what the womb is like. That feeling. Mom and I, just us. Drinking, talking."
Hannah shifted in the hard-backed chair. I realised we had both finished our meals. But now that I was talking, I hated to stop. I grabbed my ice-cold coffee and pretended it still tasted good.
"I moved out. Years passed. Last year, Dad developed gangrene in his left foot."
The coffee tasted horrible. It had a
brown scum on the top that clung to my lip when I took a gulp. I didn't think I could actually lick it off but to maintain the appearance of enjoying the coffee, I did. The grimace hit my face before I could stop it.
Hannah mistook my reaction. "Was it gross? Was his foot green?"
I shook my head. "Not really. The doctors had to take a toe, but he recovered.
I eyed her thoughtfully. "You know," I said. "You don't seem half as upset as you did when I called."
"I guess you're good for me."
My belly felt warm. "I'm glad."
"I wasn't sure it was you."
"No?"
She shook her head. "Not when I first answered the phone. I thought it might be someone else."
"Someone you don't want to see."
"Someone I'm running away from."
That was a hell of an admission. "And can I ask who that is?"
"Shakespeare. Or more specifically, Hamlet."
"Do you want to go to the lounge?" I asked. This was simply way too weird to be hearing without benefit of a whiskey or two. "I think I need a whiskey and apple juice."
"What? That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard."
"Obviously, you're not listening to yourself."
The lounge waited only about 30 feet away, up the carpeted ramp and past the check-in desk. Even though the place was nearly deserted, we selected a booth in the farthest corner, in the shadows, as Hannah said. The bartender refused to pour apple juice into my whiskey, but the ginger ale suited me fine, anyway. Hannah ordered a Shirley Temple, saying she wasn't overly keen on carbonated products but the water in the town tasted like absolute crap.
I played with the idea of reaching my hand beneath the table and smoothing my fingers up her thighs. I got quite a rush from it. Living was starting to be fun again.
"Did you ever confront your father?" she asked, throwing verbal cold water on my fancies.
I shook my head. She wasn't getting away with that. "Did you confront Shakespeare?"
She nodded. "I'm sure you noticed the portion of Shakespeare at the front of my website."
When I offered what must have been a stupefied expression---Shakespeare? On her website? Did she remember that she painted nude on her website?--she continued, but with a heavy sigh.
"Well, I have a portion of a sonnet on the opening page. Just because I'd read it somewhere and thought it fit. I don't know much about Shakespeare. But when I started getting emails from someone who used that as a username, I thought it was interesting. You know, I like shadows."
Hannah took her drink from the waiter with an affected smile. I took my whiskey with relief. I told the young man to keep a tab and passed him my Visa. I had a feeling this was going to be as cathartic as a vomiting hangover.
"Right about the same time, I began painting that piece you saw on the site. It was the first time I decided to record the work as well as sending it live. Anyway, about two days in, I received an email that I thought was kind of intriguing."
I slurped loudly. "What did it say?"
"Not much. That he'd found a better Shakespearean sonnet for the opening page. Something about an eye playing the painter. Useless stuff, really. But he got my attention when he mentioned that a dream itself is but a shadow."
"Sounds kooky to me. Did you answer him?"
She cocked her head. "Do you think? I found it odd, but not kooky. Not any kookier than I am, anyway. But no, I didn't answer. I have a policy of only answering emails from people I know. Besides, my chat line was set up for that kind of stuff."
"What's the difference?" Chat line, I thought, I hadn't seen any chat line.
"The difference is that the chat line is run from Howard's server. He offers tons of chat lines. It's how he makes his living. It's also how I was able to set up my stuff. He's a huge help."
"But Shakespeare? What happened?"
She shrugged. "At first nothing. The emails sort of died down and I forgot them. Then I met someone at a coffee shop. Dark, brooding guy. Handsome. We went out a couple of times." Hannah fiddled with the condensation on her glass. She drew a smiley face. "Say hello to Ophelia, Daniel."
I waved. Ophelia did nothing.
Hannah sighed. "He got violent. Kept saying he knew the darkness in me, that we were partners in the shadows. I stopped seeing him." She wouldn't meet my eye when she said that, and I had the feeling she wasn't being totally truthful.
"After a while, I started getting texts all hours of the day and night. Then I started getting flowers. Tenders of affection, he called them."
Now I was truly confused. "How could he send flowers? Did you give him your address?"
She set her lips in a grim line. "I told you; we went out a couple of times.
"Meaning you fucked him," I said, my voice filled with the dread of the answer.
She ignored my jab.
"He began texting to me as if I was a character from a Shakespeare play. The emails doubled as though now he'd finally met me, he couldn't get enough. I got tons of weird messages that made my hair stand on end. And through it all I kept painting and selling. Stupid. I was so stupid." She shook her head and some fringes of hair caught on her cheek.
I reached across the table. Her hand fit beneath mine as if it belonged there. When she didn't pull away, I squeezed. "But it's over, right?"
She relaxed visibly. "I thought so. Even Howard was convinced it was over. But then a bouquet of dead daisies showed up on my doorstep."
The whiskey needed to feel wanted. I threw the entire contents of the tumbler down my throat. I couldn't speak. And at least the whiskey gave me excuse.
She, however, went on as if the devil himself required it. "I don't answer the door while I'm online. Naked, you know. But the buzzer kept ringing. It rang and rang and rang. So I threw on a housecoat and padded to the door. "
"What did you do?"
"I called the cops, that's what. I had a hell of a time getting a restraining order put on him because I couldn't prove it was him, and even after the restraining order, it didn't stop. As a matter of fact, it doubled. What good is a tiny document against such mental energy."
I wanted to help her, wanted her to feel safe with me. I stammered some sort of foolish motherly, its okay. It's okay. Hannah pulled her hand from mine.
"More emails came after that. Some, the ones I knew came from Shakespeare, I trashed. Others came in from different accounts. He must have had a ton of hot mail accounts, because I didn't always know they were from him. Those ones were really weird; they were written as if he actually knew me. They spoke of things I'd done or planned to do. They made me feel raw to my soul.
"So you came here."
She nodded. "I got my friend, Howard, to help set up so the site would play archive video. He's been a fantastic help; especially with the archive. He wrote a program to automate and simulate my usual work practices. He even offered to check it while I'm away. Since the troubles had been going on for so long, I thought the first painting I had taped would be the best. I wasn't sure if Shakespeare would remember it. I had to take the chance. I'd always planned to go back, but I think, now, I might stay. That's why the loan. I want untraceable cash. I'll get Howard to pull my money out of Toronto, then I'll get him to come help. Then when that server's running, he'll return to Toronto to dismantle the old one. Hopefully, there won't be much of a gap."
"But won't most of your customers notice that the painting isn't new?"
"Daniel, most of my customers just want to see me naked."
"But you can't set up here in the hotel. You couldn't afford to stay here indefinitely anyway."
She sighed. "You're right. I went to the library today. I logged into my site. Of course, he's sent more emails. One of them said, I know where you are. Did you think you could just run from me? Or something like that. Anyway, when you called, I was petrified it was him. I panicked."
"How did he know where you'd gone?"
"I have no idea." She stared down at the table. "But I
've got to get out of that hotel."
"I know just the spot." I felt a little like Jesus. No wonder he came all the way from heaven to provide salvation. It was quite a high.
It had been a long day for William. It had been an even longer evening. He ended up spending as much time as possible on Hannah's website. Earlier in the morning, when laughter had crept out from beneath his bed, and he'd scrambled from the sheets out into the middle of the bedroom floor, panting, gasping, Hannah was the only thing had kept him from screaming out loud. Surely her benevolent presence would be enough to hold back the evil spirits. It wouldn't matter that her presence was merely digital. It would ward off the demons as well as a crucifix and holy water could keep the devil at bay.
So he'd sat at his computer for most of the morning while he watched her painting take form. The sun moved from lighting the backs of her knees to her thighs, waist, and finally, to the bit of shoulder visible beneath a towel she had thrown across. When the light reached her hair and caught like jewels embedded in fabric she changed the position of her easel and threw the towel from her shoulder to her workbench. That was a sure sign the session was over. William's heart beat faster because now nothing stood between him and the thing that wanted him.
No sooner had he pressed the monitor button than he heard a window shatter. He wheeled about to find shards of window glass blown into his apartment. They were like odd sized knife blades littering the carpet. Pieces stuck point down into his couch. Chunks of them landed on and in the dozens of boxes he hadn't bothered to unpack when he'd first moved in. Something had come in. Something hid in his apartment. Something new.
"Not now. Not today," he mumbled as he minced around the apartment, tiptoeing around the bits of glass. "Keep calm, Willie. Don't get upset. It'll go away if you pretend you're not scared."
With his fingers laced and fumbling around each other, he stared hard at the boxes. Some of the boxes were open with bits of paper from magazines hanging out, others had collapsed in on themselves, casualties of William's occasional bouts of clumsiness--or panic. Some were even empty, with William having found enough energy to begin the unpack but, inexplicably, not enough to discard the cardboard.
Miss You Mad: a psychological romance novel Page 7