“Not sure I like that, either.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, let me do something that you will like …”
James hears giggling, and then fabric slipping, and he wonders if the three-thousand-dollar duvet cover and dry-clean-only sheets have fallen on the floor.
“Hey, what … where are you taking me?” Sidney yelps.
“Out onto the balcony,” wheezes the Red Buffoon, “We’re gonna do it Romeo and Juliet style!”
“No no no no no no no! It’s right over the driveway! What if James comes home?”
What if James comes home? Now he understands. She wants him to catch them, to confront the Red Buffoon, to save her, to be Her Hero once again.
“Come on, baby,” Roland Baron says. “It’s romantic.”
“It’s dangerous,” she says, in that scolding tone that James has heard many, many times before.
“Dangerous is sexy,” the Red Buffoon rasps.
James grips the handle of the snow shovel and steps up onto the top floor landing. As soon as Sidney says “No” once more, as soon as she cries out for help, James will run right in there and clang the Red Buffoon on the back of the head. James will save her, and everything will be okay.
But Sidney doesn’t say no. She doesn’t cry out for help.
What she says is this:
“Ohhhhh … okay. Let’s do it, Romeo. It’s the year of living dangerously, right? Grab another condom, though.”
“I’ll bring three!”
Through the bedroom doorway, James can see their backsides, his hairy and hers smooth, reflected back at him from the mirror on the Mission-style dresser, which was a wedding present from James’s parents. It has been in the family for five generations. Both of James’s parents cried when they handed it over. Sidney never thought it quite fit the décor and has been planning to replace it with something else, something more chic, ever since.
In the mirror’s reversed image, James watches his wife and his nemesis scamper toward the bevelled-glass doors and out onto the balcony.
James can’t look, but he can’t look away.
Sidney leans over the balcony, her hair rippling in the light breeze.
The Buffoon barks like a drill sergeant cliché, “Who’s the Red Baron?”
“You are!”
“And who’s the Red Baroness?”
“I am!”
“Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!”
“Oh … oh oh oh oh … oh, damn! Oh, damn!”
When the Red Baron starts singing an out-of-breath, off-key version of Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” James decides that he has seen and heard enough.
In the kitchen, there is a used condom draped over the edge of the quartz-topped kitchen counter. James picks up a torn-open gold-foil packet from the floor.
“Ribbed for her pleasure,” he reads. “Spermicidal lubricant.”
There is also a note, written in Sidney’s impeccable handwriting:
Don’t forget to go to Priya’s place tonight !
DON’T FORGET!
James folds the note in quarters and tucks it into his right front pocket, then, between the thumb and finger of his right hand, he twists his wedding band back and forth until it pops over the knuckle of his ring finger.
James never liked this ring; it’s the same sort of huge, gold-and-platinum, jewel-encrusted, attention-seeking sort of thing that Harry would wear, which wasn’t surprising, given that Harry had chosen it for James.
The ring clanks atop the quartz where Sidney’s note had been, beside the empty gold-foil condom packet. Maybe Roland will like it.
James drifts into the foyer and wipes up the puddles of rainwater from the mosaic-patterned floor. He reaches into the closet, retrieves his comfy hiking boots and his battered old leather jacket, and puts them on. He places the snow shovel back outside the front door.
And then, before the prints of his toes have evaporated from the steps of the spiral staircase, James Yeo is gone.
You Deserve Better! You Deserve More!
Normally he sleeps right through it, but tonight Keegan Thrush is rattled into consciousness by the noise of the morning train thundering past beneath the window. Atop the bedside table, the digits on the alarm clock glow red:
8:11 a.m.
If she were awake right now, she would get all excited about that. Lately she’s moved from astrology to numerology, or whatever. Atop the nightstand on her side of the bed (well, technically both sides of the bed belong to him) sits the latest pink-flower-festooned soft-cover library book she’s reading:
Take Control of Your Life
with
NUMEROLOGY!
If she were awake right now, she would tell him that the glowing red LED number eight is like, oh my gawd, the infinity sign turned sideways, and eleven is, like, the number of balance and change.
Whatever. She’s hot. And she’s a fucking maniac in bed.
As he rolls over, he says, “Hey, baby, it’s eight-eleven. Wanna turn sideways? Or maybe you’d like to balance on top of my … hey, where the hell are you?”
She must be in the bathroom. He flips over, and his bare feet touch the cool white-tiled floor.
“Fine,” he says, “I’ll come getcha in there.”
On his nightstand is the latest hardcover guidebook for Successful Alpha Male Business Champions, written by an author with an unlikely but somehow authoritative name: Stringfellow Foley. The book’s title is embossed on the dust jacket in three-dimensional gold letters:
YOU DESERVE BETTER!
YOU DESERVE MORE!
Rule the Boardroom! Rule the Bedroom! Rule the World!
The red glow of the alarm clock illuminates the small square of lavender-coloured notepaper that she has left behind, neatly centred on the book’s front cover.
He reaches for the note, which is written in her tight, ornate script.
I know what you did.
Did you think that I wouldn’t find out?
I’ll be leaving on a train tomorrow,
and you’ll never see me
or touch me
or hear from me again.
Goodbye forever,
Emily
PS I hope you die and go to hell.
His system immediately switches into Crisis Containment mode. He grabs his slick new smartphone and calls her number, his mind racing to invent a believable explanation.
A pre-recorded voice informs him “The number you have dialled is not in service.”
He grabs the clothes that are lying on the floor, dresses, and sprints for the door. Maybe he can catch her before she leaves, tell her it wasn’t what it looked like, that it was all just a big, crazy misunderstanding.
“Fuck that,” he says to his translucent reflection on the floor-to-ceiling windows of his condo. There is no “maybe” for men in his position. He lives at the top of the world. He has it all. He deserves it all.
From up here, he’s got a view of the CN Tower and the Air Canada Centre, where his firm owns platinum season’s tickets for the Leafs. He raises both middle fingers and aims them at the Air Canada Centre.
“Fuck you guys!” he says. “I’m better than anyone on your pathetic team.”
Keegan was scouted to play for the Leafs and several other NHL teams, but the scouting reports described him as “temperamental,” “inconsistent,” “uncoachable,” and “not a team player,” so his father eventually had to call in a favour and get Keegan a job at an investment firm, where he makes as much money as an NHL all-star anyway.
On a clear day, Keegan can see friggin’ Hamilton from here. It isn’t clear today, though; through the falling rain, the towers that surround him are simple geometric blurs. Today his view reminds him of the prints of Impressionist paintings that she’s hung all over his con
do, to “give it some life.”
“Be vital!” he commands his reflection. “You will catch her at the station. You will tell her that she’s wrong. And you will convince her to come back with you. Be vital.”
He’s about to sprint to the elevator, when something occurs to him. “My ring! My fucking lucky ring!”
When Keegan set the Wheatfield Major Junior Hockey League’s (still-unbroken) record for Most Goals Scored in a single game, he and his teammates left the arena immediately to go celebrate at the Ooh La La All-Nude Gentlemen’s Club; the stretch limousine, the drinks, and the girls were all paid for by Keegan’s father. The next day, when Keegan realized that he had forgotten to claim the puck that hit the twine for his eleventh goal of the game, he raced back to the Faireville Memorial Arena to claim his prize.
By then the puck was long gone, but the arena manager had found a ring on the ice, engraved on the inside with the words Forever More. So Keegan claimed that instead.
“Fucking right, Forever More!” he says to himself now. He does deserve better. He does deserve more. “I am Keegan fucking Thrush, muthafuckahs!”
With his lucky ring in place, Keegan smirks and winks at his reflection again.
“You’re the Man in Charge, pal. You’re a gunslinger. You’re a fucking gunslinger.”
He tugs his index fingers from their front-pocket holsters, cocks back his thumbs like hammers, and takes aim at his reflection.
The makeup sex is going to be insane.
Outside his building, Keegan waves frantically for a taxi, but each one passes him by.
“Shit! I’d give my fucking life for a cab right now.”
Then, through the hiss of the rain on the pavement, he hears the sore-throat rumble of a V8 engine approaching. As the limousine turns the corner, its engine gets louder, its pitch higher.
He steps onto the road and waves his hand in the air. “Taxi! Taxi!” he shouts.
Inside the car, the driver slumps against the door, his life taken in an instant by a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. His life is over, just like that.
The driver’s black suit is crisply pressed, and the bill of his chauffeur’s cap shines as brightly as his patent leather shoes. The brass plaque on his lapel reveals that his name was Carl.
The limo veers toward Keegan. He is frozen in place.
The high-beam headlights are like angry eyes. The chrome teeth of the grille are snarling, predatory.
“Get out of the way!” Keegan commands himself, but his body does not obey.
There is the hissing of tires on the wet sidewalk and then a thump, followed by shattering as the limo smashes through the glass-shrouded foyer of the gleaming condominium tower.
And then there is the faint scent of burnt rubber in the thick, damp air. There is the rattle of stray raindrops on the sidewalk, and a sound like fingertips drumming on the metal of the trunk of the car, which protrudes from the building like an undetonated shell.
Some distance from the body of Keegan Thrush, his lucky silver ring jangles on the sidewalk.
She is aboard a train bound for somewhere new, her face pressed against the glass. She watches the scenery race past, backlit by the first orange sunlight of the day. The retreating rain clouds are beautiful; they remind her of the prints of Impressionist paintings that she had to leave behind.
Her heartbeat plays counterpoint to the metallic rhythm of the wheels on the tracks, and she repeats her new mantra, which seems to have entered her consciousness from somewhere beyond this mortal plane:
“You deserve better. You deserve more.
“You deserve better. You deserve more.”
She smiles at her reflection in the window, as if she’s posing for a new headshot for her portfolio. This photo would be a nice one: Beautiful Lone Traveller Bravely Begins a New Life.
For a moment, she wonders if he has found her note yet, and if it has shaken him up at all.
Then she turns back to the image of herself in the window.
Escape Velocity
es·cape ve·loc·i·ty
ɪˈskeɪp vǝˈlsɪti
The velocity that a moving body (as a rocket)
must attain to escape from the gravitational field of a celestial body (as the Earth).
Sangria Red and Ocean Blue
James pushes the creaky door open and tiptoes into the foyer of the old house, which is divided from the landlord’s domain with nothing but old curtains. The probably senile old guy never remembers James’s name, and refers to him as “Priya’s repairman.” James supposes that this description is apt enough.
When Sidney first sent him over to help Priya with her apartment renovations, the work was pretty demanding:
Scraping off decades-old, smoke-yellowed wallpaper, inches at a time.
Patching the holes in the plaster that had been hidden under the decaying wallpaper.
Tearing up the matted, cat-piss-and-puke-stained carpets to reveal the maple floorboards underneath.
Sanding off a century’s worth of paint layers from the mouldings and banisters to get to the wood underneath, which Priya and James then stained and varnished to its current glorious condition.
Carrying the practically antique kitchen appliances down the narrow staircase to the curbside and, as Priya could afford them, lugging the new appliances up.
Filling in and painting over the damage to the staircase wall caused by lugging appliances up and down.
Painting the walls Priya-style colours: Blackberry-Wine Purple. Spring-Meadow Green. Sangria Red. Ocean Blue.
On the one and only occasion that Sidney stopped by to give her Professional Opinion on their progress, she disapproved of Priya’s colour choices.
“Good gawd, James, why didn’t you stop her? The place looks like a candy store! Or a playground. Yeah, that’s what these colours remind me of! Those indoor playgrounds for kids, with the room full of coloured plastic balls.”
The interior of Sidney’s North Toronto mansion is finished in neutral, resale-friendly colours: Latte Beige. Hazelnut Beige. Burlap Beige. Wheatfield Beige. Roasted Sesame Seed Beige. Hampton Beige. Butterscotch-Martini Vomit Beige.
(The latter appeared on the bathroom wall after one of Sidney’s outings with Roland Baron. James cleaned it up, while Sidney snored “Rrrrrrroland … Rrrrrroland …” Ah, the power of denial!)
The voice of Priya’s landlord crackles from behind the faded, musty curtains. “Somebody out there? Somebody come to see me?”
“It’s me, sir.”
“Priya’s repairman! Wanna sit a spell and chew the fat, son?”
The old guy is nice enough, and normally James would stop to talk with him. But not today. James needs to see Priya right away.
He pulls open the apartment door that he helped paint (he did the rolling, Priya did the details), and James ascends the staircase, which is so narrow that his shoulders brush both walls as he climbs. He turns sideways to avoid bumping the reproductions of paintings by Manet, van Gogh, and Goya, which Priya once found leaning against a Dumpster in an alley; she has the rare ability to find the value in things that others have abandoned, to transform the discarded and devalued into treasures again.
James needs to see Priya.
She is usually there to greet him at the top of the stairs.
“Priya?” James calls out.
There is no reply.
He looks at the 1940s movie posters that hang in the narrow hallway: Casablanca. Citizen Kane. Notorious. The Maltese Falcon. An Affair to Remember. James and Priya have watched all of these films together, sneaking out to the local repertory theatre when they were supposed to be scraping, sanding, and painting. Sidney despises such “boring old stuff,” preferring loud, glossy, new Hollywood movies with THX surround sound and CGI and “actors who are still alive.”
“Priya?�
�� James calls out again.
Still no answer.
He examines the painting that Priya bought from an elderly couple’s yard sale just up the street. She thought that it was a scene from Old Montreal, but James was pretty sure it was Sacré-Coeur in Paris. Priya decided she liked that explanation better, and she paid the old couple five dollars for it, when they were only asking for one.
“I paid five times the asking price, and it’s French,” she said. “I now officially own a piece of real art!”
James had to laugh at that; Priya was making fun of Sidney’s sudden expertise in art. All of the paintings in the McMansion were chosen by an interior decorator hired by Sidney on the strong recommendation of Roland Baron. Directly quoting the three-hundred-dollar-an-hour decorator, Sidney described the two huge new “investment pieces” in her living room as “vibrant abstracts in kinetic teal,” and she scolded James when he referred to the colours as “greeny blue” or “bluey green.” Like the suddenly insufficient diamond in Sidney’s engagement ring, the two paintings cost more than James’s first three cars combined.
James still likes Priya’s five-dollar painting of Sacré-Coeur better.
“Priya?” James calls out again.
No reply.
The landing at the top of the stairs is almost too narrow for James to turn around. He looks to the right, into the tiny, makeshift kitchen. Priya is sometimes in there making tea when he arrives. She isn’t there today.
James looks to the left, down the dangerously narrow hallway; dangerous because it runs parallel to the staircase, divided only by a knee-level railing. Once, when they were on their second can of paint and third bottle of cheap Bordeaux, James took a half-step back to admire his work and nearly toppled ass-first over the railing. He and Priya laughed until they couldn’t breathe.
“Hey, Priya! Are you here?”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” comes Priya’s muffled voice from behind the bathroom door. “Make yourself at home.”
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