The Waterproof Bible

by Andrew Kaufman

  After the success of the bracelet, other experiments quickly followed. When she failed to land an axel in competition, Rebecca kept her skate laces. When her teacher gave her a failing grade, she took his coffee mug. When Jenny Benders didn’t invite her to her birthday party, she stole her hair clip.

  All of her keepsakes were put into a shoebox, which she kept underneath her bed. It wasn’t long before there were two shoeboxes. Then three and four and five.

  When Rebecca turned fourteen, she began collecting mementos from all the good moments in her life. Her emotions had become so powerful and important to her that when one of them left her, she felt incredibly vulnerable. Keeping these feelings of joy to herself kept her from feeling exposed. It gave her some privacy. It soon became a habit that every time Rebecca experienced a moment that produced any significant emotion, happy or sad, she stored a souvenir. The number of boxes under her bed grew and grew. By the time she was sixteen, the shoeboxes were stacked three high and took up all the space under her bed. When she went to university, she took the shoeboxes with her and rented apartments based on closet space. When the closets weren’t big enough, she got rid of her roommate and used the second bedroom. Then the living room. Then the kitchen. Finally, Rebecca rented unit #207 from E.Z. Self Storage near the corner of Queen and Broadview in downtown Toronto and moved all of her boxes there, where they were safely secured under lock and key.

  “Where’s Dad?” Rebecca asked.

  “He’s inside. Where’s Lewis?”

  Rebecca’s response was a guilty feeling, mystifying her mother. She felt guilty because it was her fault that Lisa had married Lewis in the first place.

  When Lisa finished high school, she and Lewis had moved to Halifax together to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Lewis still thought of Lisa as nothing more than a friend—the apartment they rented had two bedrooms. Even more than she hated Lewis, Rebecca hated knowing that her sister would never get her heart’s desire.

  Both sisters were home from university for the holiday, and on Christmas Eve Day their mother sent them to buy wrapping paper. It was a task easily accomplished. With time to kill and a desire to avoid a relative-filled house, Rebecca and Lisa drove around and eventually parked in the lot of their old high school.

  “Do you remember those white jeans that Phillip Wilson used to wear?” Rebecca asked.

  “Lewis still thinks of me as a friend. I don’t know what to do.”

  For some moments it was quiet inside the car. For once, it was Rebecca who saw the simple solution. “Where are the bedrooms in your apartment?” she asked.

  “At the front.”

  “Right next to each other?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you share a wall?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How thick is it?”

  “It’s not thick at all.” Lisa turned in her seat and faced her sister. “It’s really thin. Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

  “Do you really love him?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Is he worthy of you?”

  “I know you don’t think he is, but he really is.”

  “So, yes, I am suggesting that. Everyone and anyone. Start the night you get back, if you can.”

  Lisa took her older sister’s advice. The shared wall proved even less soundproof than imagined. Lewis lasted three weeks. Nineteen months later, they were married. Rebecca’s plan had worked, and she’d never forgiven herself for it.

  “Rebecca?” her mother repeated.

  “We almost got in an accident. Then he just left. He walked away. He said he was sorry.” Rebecca looked up at her mother and tried to smile. “Should we go in?”

  “Okay.”

  Still holding her mother’s hand as they walked into the church, Rebecca saw her father sitting in a pew at the very front. But as they walked towards him, Rebecca began to feel very strange. With each step she took the strange feeling grew. And as she took her seat beside her father, she realized it wasn’t a strange feeling. It was no feeling at all.

  3

  Forty-five square feet of canvas

  One thousand, eight hundred and four kilometres west of Lisa’s funeral, Stewart Findley waited on the top step of the only post office in Morris, Manitoba. Metaphorically, Stewart was waiting for a number of things to happen, but at this precise moment he was waiting for Margaret, his boss, who was now forty-seven minutes late.

  Taking his cellphone from his pocket, Stewart confirmed that he had no missed calls and then hopped down the steps to the sidewalk. He looked south down Main Street but still didn’t see her. He kicked the large cube, which was made of several layers of folded canvas, at the bottom of the stairs, then turned and continued to wait. As he checked his cellphone again, he heard Margaret’s truck.

  The truck came into view, red, old and given to as many eccentricities as its driver. Seeing Margaret behind the wheel, Stewart tried once again to guess her age. Of all the strange things about her—she seldom blinked, her skin often had a greenish tinge to it, she was very strong, and she owned and operated a hotel that rarely had guests—it was her indeterminate age that Stewart found the most perplexing. He had been the Prairie Embassy Hotel’s only employee for three and a half years, but he had never been able to figure out how old Margaret was. His highest guess was seventy and his lowest was thirty-seven; with both estimations he’d been confident that he’d finally got it right. As Stewart watched Margaret park in front of the post office, he made another guess: fifty-seven, as there was something taxed and sweaty about her today.

  Leaving the engine running, Margaret slid across the seat and out the passenger door. She kissed Stewart on both cheeks. “The goddamn council meeting went long,” she said. “Guess what the idiot’s solution to the drought is?”

  “Which idiot is this?”

  “The mayor. Fifty-four days, with crops perishing in the fields, and what’s his brilliant idea? He’s hiring rainmakers. Two of them, father and son. I said they could stay at the hotel for free.”

  Stewart ordinarily had little interest in the doings of the Morris Town Council, and today he cared even less. With a sweeping motion, he pointed to the cube of folded canvas on the sidewalk. It measured three feet on each side. Margaret immediately recognized what it was.

  “Is that it?” she asked.

  “It is.”

  “Your boat has a sail!” Margaret punched him in the arm, the impact knocking Stewart off balance.

  For three years, six months and one day Stewart had been the Prairie Embassy Hotel’s only employee. This, less three weeks, was exactly the amount of time he’d been building his sailboat. Although Margaret had witnessed every stage of construction, she’d never commented on the fact that he was building a sailboat in the middle of the Canadian Prairies. Or, more specifically, on a bend of the Red River that could float a boat only once a year, for a few days during spring runoff. But Margaret was not someone who needed to pry. This was partly her respect for privacy and partly due to her love of eccentricity, but mainly because she had secrets of her own.

  Stewart opened the tailgate. Margaret adjusted her scarf and they each picked up a side of the sail.

  “It’s heavy,” she said.

  Stewart nodded his agreement, rendered speechless by the weight. Taking tiny steps, they moved towards the back of the truck.

  “One, two, three,” Margaret said. On three they heaved it into the bed. The truck rocked on its springs, and a thin layer of dirt was knocked to the ground. Stewart closed the tailgate.

  “Should we tie it down?” Margaret asked.

  “It’s not going anywhere,” Stewart said, but he drove slowly. They had made it past the town’s population sign when his cellphone rang. Stewart looked down at his phone. Margaret studied his face.

  “It’s her. I can tell,” she said.

  “What if it is?”

  “Then you just don’t answer it,” Margaret said, trying to pull t
he phone out of his hand.

  “She’s just lost her sister!” Stewart said, holding the ringing phone as far away from Margaret as possible.

  “That’s true,” Margaret said. Her hands fell to her lap. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Answer it, then.”

  Stewart nodded. He swerved onto the shoulder and stopped.

  “Rebecca?” he said to his wife, a woman he had not seen in three years, six months and one day.

  Stewart had met his wife not by accident but because of one. Pushing an overly burdened grocery cart across an icy parking lot, he’d slipped. The cart got away from him and rolled towards a row of parked cars, picking up speed on the ice. Lying prone, he predicted that it would hit either the rusted Ford Tempo or the cherry red Karmann Ghia.

  To his surprise, Stewart hoped it would be the Karmann Ghia, although he wasn’t sure why. If it hit the Tempo, the bumper would absorb the impact, whereas a collision with the Karmann Ghia would destroy the right tail light. Stewart watched as the cart, seemingly of its own will, veered slightly left and struck the Karmann Ghia. As predicted, it shattered the tail light.

  Stewart got up and retrieved his cart. He was squatting to survey the damage when a shadow crossed his face. Looking up, he found Rebecca looking down.

  “Had a bit of an accident,” he said, words he would later conclude to be the worst opening line in the history of love.

  “I can see that.”

  “I can fix it.” He raised his head and looked her in the eye. Somehow he could feel her doubt. Not just by inferring, or assuming, or being empathetic—he literally felt it. “Honest, I’m good with my hands,” Stewart said and, as if to demonstrate, he produced a business card.

  “General Repairs,” she said, studying his card. “Impressive.”

  Her voice was icy, but Lewis knew—again, he could feel—that she was actually quite attracted to him. He had always had trouble reading women, but this one seemed unable to hide her true feelings, which made her very appealing. Plus, she had long, shapely legs that even in the dead of winter were covered not by pants, a long skirt or a parka, but just by black tights and shapely boots.

  “I’ll need your phone number,” Stewart said. He realized that she was only feigning impatience as she asked for another card and wrote down her contact information on the back.

  The replacement tail light was more expensive than he’d hoped, but three days later Stewart phoned ahead and went to her house, tools in hand. Finding the car parked on the street, Stewart began work and was crouched beside the rear bumper when he felt her shadow on him.

  “Good morning,” Stewart said.

  “Hello. Make sure you do it right.”

  “I will.”

  “Just remember, I don’t trust you at all,” she said. Stewart felt that the opposite was true.

  He did not question being able to feel this woman’s emotions. Stewart rarely thought anything was strange. This was one of his gifts. Another was his innate ability to build or fix anything. It was as if he could hear how the pieces wanted to fit together. They were not exactly speaking to him, not with words, but they let him know what needed to be done. The proof was irrefutable in the cars he’d rebuilt, the houses he’d rewired and the lifespan of household appliances he’d greatly extended, so Stewart just didn’t question it.

  He’d finished the job before his hands were cold. Rebecca had stayed with him, watching over his shoulder.

  “Do you want to pop the hood?” he asked her.

  “Why?”

  “I just thought I’d give it a look over.”

  “The engine’s in the trunk.”

  “Right.”

  He looked at Rebecca. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, and her face held a sour expression—yet he could feel how much she liked him. With this in mind, he opened the trunk, bent over the motor and over-tightened the butterfly valve, ensuring that the car would have problems as soon as the temperature dropped below −10°C.

  “Listen, if you have any more problems, just call me,” he said.

  “I have your card.”

  “Don’t hesitate to call.”

  Three weeks later, there was a cold snap. But it wasn’t until he’d rescued her for the third time that Stewart finally found the courage to ask her out.

  “Rebecca? Why aren’t you at the funeral?”

  “I am. Stewart, listen to me. Something horrible has happened. I’ve lost my love for Lisa.”

  “What?”

  “Or at least, I’m losing it. It’s not all gone. But some of it is.”

  “You’ve lost what?”

  “You’re not listening!”

  Stewart felt how scared she was. One of the strangest things, of the many strange things, about his relationship with Rebecca was that Stewart could feel her emotions through the telephone. This did not happen when Rebecca talked on the phone with anyone else. Stewart was the only one.

  “I’m sorry, Rebecca, I’m just not getting it. What’s happened?”

  “It’s all about when she moved out …”

  “That’s the story you’re telling at the funeral?”

  “Yes, but just listen. I can remember everything about it. All the facts. The rain. What the van looked like. What Lisa was wearing. That’s not the problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just listen. Please. The problem is that it doesn’t make me feel anything. Not happy, or sad, or how I loved her more than ever when she came back. All those emotions are gone. They’ve vanished. They’re just gone!”

  “That’s, that’s …” Stewart said. “Hold on for a second.”

  Making a worried face to Margaret, Stewart got out of the truck and walked into the wheat field he’d parked beside. The stalks grew higher the deeper into the field he went. He continued walking. The stalks were slightly taller than his waist, but he still didn’t know what to say.

  4

  The Derrick Miller memory

  Rebecca sat on a child-sized chair in the basement of the church. Having hastily excused herself to go to the washroom, Rebecca had come down here instead. She assumed that someone was already looking for her, and knew that it wouldn’t be long before they’d find her. She had not turned on the overhead fluorescents, leaving the glow of her cellphone as her only source of light. Feeling disproportionately gigantic, she moved her phone from her right hand to her left, pressing it firmly against her ear as she eagerly waited to hear her estranged husband’s advice.

  “For the time being, let’s forget about why it’s happened,” Stewart finally said. “It’s just happened. You know? Who knows why? These things just happen. Okay?”

  This perspective was precisely what she needed to hear. The fact that Stewart never questioned the strange things that commonly happened to Rebecca was the main reason that she’d fallen in love with him. It was certainly why she loved him still. Stewart never doubted her, or made her feel weird. He just listened, then immediately began constructing a way for her to cope.

  “So, are all your memories affected?” he asked.

  “No. Just that one. Well, no others that I know of.”

  “But it’s the one you’re using for the eulogy?”

  “Yes,” Rebecca said.

  “Why can’t you use it?”

  “Because it doesn’t make me feel anything. I’d feel false and phoney, and people would feel it.”

  “So just use another one, then. You’ve got tons of them.”

  “But that was the perfect one.”

  “What about the party?”

  “What party?”

  “The one that went wrong. The Derrick Miller party.”

  “I don’t think …”

  “Try it. I’ll wait.”

  “Okay,” Rebecca said.

  Setting her phone in her lap, she leaned forward and looked at her shiny black shoes. She closed her eyes. She saw her fifteen-year-old face reflected in the front hall mirror of her parents’ house. Her parents had gone away
for the weekend, leaving Rebecca and Lisa alone, which was something that had never happened before. In her right hand was a telephone and on the other end of the line was Derrick Miller.

  “I’m thinking of maybe having a party,” Rebecca said, studying her pores in the mirror.

  “When?” Derrick asked.

  “Tonight.”

  “Do it!”

  “I don’t know, though.”

  “No, do it. Completely.”

  “You think?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Who should I invite?”

  “Everybody!”

  “You think?” Rebecca asked. This was more ambitious than her original plan.

  “For sure!” Derrick said.

  “All right. I’m doing it.”

  Rebecca began making calls. Derrick Miller made many more. The first guests arrived at 7:30 p.m., and although Rebecca recognized their faces, she didn’t know their names. They entered her home without taking off their shoes. They opened the refrigerator and moved condiments to the kitchen floor to make room for beer. Sitting on the kitchen counter, they talked amongst themselves. Bottles were opened, caps fell to the linoleum, and Rebecca attempted to laugh in all the right places.

  By 9:00 p.m. the party was already a success. Teenagers stood shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen. Music Rebecca had never heard before played on her family’s stereo. No one was using coasters. With a roll of paper towels under her arm, Rebecca travelled from room to room, sopping up spills. The first glass was broken just before ten. Around eleven a painting was knocked off the wall in the living room. Just after midnight people started smoking in the house and a couple disappeared upstairs.

  At 1:00 a.m. Rebecca noticed a bottle of peach schnapps on the kitchen counter. Her arms full of empties, she stopped. Derrick Miller was down on all fours, his head completely inside the liquor cabinet.

  “What are you doing?” Rebecca asked, her voice high and squeaky.

  The beer bottles in her left hand were slipping. Derrick pulled his head out of the liquor cabinet.

  “Just don’t,” Rebecca said. Putting her index finger in her mouth, Rebecca began biting her fingernails. She was filled with anxiety. She felt like the party was now beyond her control. These feelings went into the heads of everyone in the kitchen. They went into the head of Derrick Miller, who reached into the liquor cabinet, pulled out a bottle of vodka, then released a short, disdainful laugh. Derrick twisted off the lid. The cap fell to the linoleum and spun. Derrick raised the bottle and saluted her. Lifting it to his mouth, he drank. The guests in the kitchen cheered, and Rebecca’s anxiety increased.