She smiled. “Maybe it’s for the best if the fish gives everyone botulism.”
“Ronnie, would you like to run away with me?”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t really care. Away from all of these godawful people.”
“All these godawful people you’re supposed to be meeting tonight?”
She looked around the room and, after deciding no one was eyeing them, she stepped forward, lightly pressing her body against him while slipping her empty shot glass into the same pocket the plastic-wrapped cookie came out of. She let her hand linger briefly inside the pocket before pulling away. He panicked slightly, but then eased into the moment letting his clumsy fingertips graze the hem of her dress, and then the outside of her bare thigh. Then the inside of her bare thigh.
“I’d like to see you again. Please,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
When she stepped back they both noticed the blonde staring.
“I should go find that caterer I’m embarrassing.”
“We should run away.”
“I should go find the caterer.”
“Okay, then I suppose I should go find my wife. At home. It was nice to meet you Ronnie.”
She had already turned away.
( CHAPTER TWO )
“Who was that you were talking to out there?” Aaron asked when Ronnie pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen and desperately scanned the room for more peach schnapps.
“Some old guy,” was her nervous response.
“I think he’s supposed to be important or something. Like they’re having this party for him.”
“He didn’t mention that.”
“Couldn’t you tell by the way all of them are staring at him?”
“I didn’t really notice.”
“What were you two talking about?” he asked. The question came less from a place of jealousy and more from a concern that she was jeopardizing his well-paying catering gig with her drunken conversations.
“Old movies,” she managed to reply, supporting herself on the kitchen counter as the room began to descend into a slight spin.
“Oh Rons, you must be bored out of your mind. These academics are a snooze fest, but thankfully have money to burn on hors d’oeuvres.”
“Yeah. Yawn,” she lied, pushing a recently prepared salmon canapé into her mouth. “Actually, I think I’m going to go home.”
Aaron looked disappointed for a moment and then smiled thankfully. “You do look tired.”
“The dog needs to go out anyway.”
“Well, thanks for coming with me, babe. You want me to call you a cab?”
“No, I want to walk a bit. Then I’ll just hop on the streetcar.”
Aaron wiped his hands on his apron and leaned over and gave her a kiss, hovering over a cheese platter ready to be brought out to the living room. When he pulled back he made a face. “Have you been drinking peach schnapps?”
Ronnie nodded.
“You know you really shouldn’t be drinking. Just in case.” He gently patted her belly, still speckled with cookie crumbs, and broke into a grin. “When can you take a test?”
She flinched, stepping back slightly. “Aaron, don’t.”
“But . . .”
“Don’t. Not here.”
“I’m sorry. Call me when you get home.”
“I won’t wait up.”
“Take the cheese plate out with you while you leave.”
Charlie loved his wife. He would go home to her that night and fall asleep next to the familiar comfort of her aging body, listening to her noisy sighs while he slipped in and out of vivid dreams of Ronnie—an Angela Vickers look-alike in a little black dress, a pale girl with the most piercingly beautiful laugh he’d ever managed to pull from someone with the minor wit he was able to muster.
He would never tell his wife about what happened at the party, about those dreams he had in their bed that night. Instead he slipped out of their bed and crept noiselessly past Noah’s bedroom door and into the bathroom. He found his prescription sleeping pills, washed them down with tap water from his cupped palms, and only briefly wondered if it was unwise to mix them with drink. He returned to bed and lay staring at the ceiling, waiting for the pills’ gentle wave to take him, hoping that he would sleep deeply enough to avoid further thoughts of Ronnie. But when his eyes opened and his whisky and peach schnapps hangover set in, her face was all he could think about.
The next day he called the party’s host and found out that Ronnie was “no one. Just the caterer’s girlfriend.”
“Bit of a crush, Charles?” the party’s host said good-naturedly.
“At my age you get your thrills where you can, I suppose.”
“You know, we throw an entire party in your honour and you spend the night talking to the caterer’s girlfriend. Typical Charles Stern.”
“I don’t know. I liked her. I found her relaxing.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be surrounded by beautiful things.”
He asked for the caterer’s contact information.
( CHAPTER THREE )
Ronnie was a slight girl. A slip of a girl, her mother would tell her. Slender and pale, like a fragile bird with a boisterous, bawdy laugh. She was one of those girls who was sick all through her childhood, who missed school repeatedly and was always in the midst of getting tests done for something or other. They never found anything concrete, but her mother would force-feed her protein drinks “to keep her weight up” and would constantly hover over her in fear that she would suddenly collapse or relapse.
Despite the fact that it was morbid, a doctor’s office was where Ronnie always felt most at home. Even when she got older and stronger she would relish a trip to the doctor to fight an ear infection or get a tetanus shot. She longed for the coolness of crisp paper gowns and shiny stainless steel countertops, enjoyed the sterile order of glass jars full of cotton balls and wooden tongue depressors. Enjoyed the way the doctor would touch her in his cold, impersonal way.
Even though she was always sick, Ronnie grew to become reckless about her survival. In the face of her frailty, she had an optimism and vigour that poured out of her, flushing her cheeks, as if she might collapse from the sheer joy of being alive. A youth that teetered on the brink of supposed death gave her a fearlessness that most would never enjoy, and while those close to her were consumed with an anxiety about wellness, she had virtually no problem venturing into the world without the worry it would betray her. For these reasons it was natural she would wander over to Charlie at a party where she knew no one.
Charlie was the opposite—at his core he was resilient, robust, and ruddy, but hopelessly and helplessly neurotic. In perfect health, barely a case of the common cold to his name in the past decade, he obsessed over the various cancers he believed he was possibly and probably developing daily. Charlie was well travelled, experienced and educated, yet constantly terrified. Simple tasks like checking into a hotel, getting a haircut, or dining at restaurant were close to impossible for him thanks to his irrational fear. Spontaneity of any kind was completely out of the question. He was outwardly confident in a cocky, charming way, yet his swagger was peppered with a self-deprecating awkwardness that had allowed Ronnie to dominate the banter, allowed her to feel like she was in control. For these reasons it was natural he’d be charmed by Ronnie approaching him at a party where he knew everyone.
( CHAPTER FOUR )
Ronnie found out that Charlie was a writer a few days later. She was on a break from her shift at the hair salon, seated in a folding chair, absently watching that afternoon’s hair appointments while eating the prosciutto and Gouda sandwich Aaron had made for her for lunch. While casually flipping through the weekly free paper with vague interest, there, on page sixty-two, was a picture of Charlie in the books section.
Charles W. Stern is an award-winning novelist, poet, and teacher. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Tamara Gardiner, and their son, Noah.
According to the paper, he was giving a talk that week at the university, an event sponsored by the faculty to celebrate his new position as writer-in-residence, starting in January. The date and time was printed below the photograph—a grainy black-and-white headshot that was obviously taken ten years previous, his round smiling face staring back at her from the page on her lap. Ronnie had never been to a talk by a poet before, never felt the desire to do so, but she took careful note of the date and time and considered what it would mean to see him again. Reasoned the interest was harmless.
Clutching the paper, Ronnie stared out into the mid-afternoon chaos of the salon: the flash of scissors, the hot roar of dryers, her co-workers stern-faced and clipping, or engaged in the same repetitive small talk every new client brought with them. She ran her finger over the shot of Charlie a few times, her fingertips blackening slightly from the ink, and then shut the paper abruptly. It should have occurred to her earlier that a poet might appear at a faculty Christmas party, might be the focus of interest for the other guests, but her concerns had been more focused on cookie crumbs and dress hems than his vocation.
She tried very hard not to romanticize this new detail, but it was close to impossible not to savour the fact that she had shared peach schnapps shots with a published writer. That she was the only one in that room of people that he had showed interest in. It simultaneously terrified and elated her.
Maybe, if she was lucky, he was unhappily married.
“Hey, Rons. Space cadet, wake up.”
Lisa, a curvy and broad-shouldered fellow hairdresser with sleeve tattoos and dramatic makeup, suddenly called in her direction and broke her from her thoughts.
“Your two o’clock cut and dye is here. And if you’re not done that sandwich, I’ll eat it ’cause I know that wonderful boy of yours made it for you.”
“Scavenger.”
“Hey, I don’t have anyone at home making me sandwiches, thanks very much. I take what I can get.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got enough boys buying you dinner.”
“Give me the fucking sandwich.”
Ronnie smiled and offered the other half in her direction. “You’re welcome to it.”
Ronnie stood up, kicking clumps of cut hair from underfoot and brushing crumbs from her lap. As an afterthought she turned and reopened the paper to page sixty-two, carefully tearing out the picture of Charles W. Stern. She folded it twice into a tiny tight square and stuffed it into the billfold of her wallet.
“Man, this shit is delicious,” Lisa said with her mouth full as Ronnie returned to work.
On Thursday evening Ronnie told Aaron she was running some errands and instead went to see Charlie read at the university. She sat quietly in the back of a theatre with what felt like endless rows of seating and watched as Charlie read a handful of poems and gave his talk on the creative process. She barely understood any of it, the poems or the creative process, and was embarrassed as she watched those around her nod in agreement or stand in single file at the microphone to ask him questions about his genius.
They would announce their credentials before they spoke, as if to prove to him that they were allowed to speak.
“My name is Emma, and I’m doing my master’s in . . .”
“My name is Alan, and I have my Ph.D. in . . .”
“My name is Joyce, and I’m the author of . . .”
My name is Ronnie, and I cut hair.
She began to think coming had been a terrible idea. Without the confidence and buoyancy of a bottle of red wine and a little black dress, Ronnie felt like a stupid girl whose job it was to bring canapés on trays. She pulled on a frayed piece of wool from her blue cardigan and longed to retreat out the back door.
Onstage Charlie was a different man than the one she had met at the party—now confident, learned, his answers constructed of words Ronnie didn’t know. Despite her insecurities, she was pleased to be in the same room as him, happy to know he still existed a week later, that she hadn’t imagined him at that party.
When the talk was finished and the audience burst into a wave of applause, Ronnie was sure Charlie had spotted her at the back of the room. He paused ever so slightly, shifted his frame toward her, and seemed to squint in her direction, before his face relaxed into an expression of pleasure. He was escorted off to a table piled with books by a pretty blonde girl, barely twenty and likely a university volunteer, but instead of lining up or waiting for him to finish his signing and say hello, Ronnie pulled on her coat and left. When she was in the street in front of the venue she felt hot with the embarrassment that she had stalked him and was worried about what he would think. It didn’t occur to her to be concerned that she had an urge to see him at all. That she had lied to Aaron about where she was.
On her way home from the event she picked up some dog food and milk from the convenience store, proof to show Aaron that she was engaging in something innocent and helpful. The items were unnecessary, given that Aaron barely looked up from his place on the couch when she wandered into the living room and said hello.
“How was your day?” he asked absently, flicking through channels until he settled on a predictable sitcom complete with canned laughter.
“Uneventful,” she offered, nestling in beside him.
She lay her head in his lap, and while he ran his fingers through her hair, she thought of Charlie.
( CHAPTER FIVE )
CHARLIE
I write because it makes me feel interesting, wanted, desirable, wise. Because it’s an itch that won’t be scratched, but I just keep scratching and scratching until it bleeds, because that word was fifty cents and that one a dollar, this one two, and after this sentence is done I’ll be able to buy a steak dinner.
I thought that being a writer would satiate me. I thought once I was the greatest, the beloved, the celebrated, the critically acclaimed, the itch would finally relent. But it never did cease, and as time passes I become more and more paralyzed by my own success. By my own failure that only I call failure. It’s impossible to complain about success unless you’re paying someone $175 an hour to listen (which I do, thank you very much). No one wants to hear how dismayed you are by the fact that everyone adores you. About how you feel like you’re not doing enough to be adored. But I am dismayed. I live in a constant state of discomfort and dissatisfaction, amused by nothing and disappointed by everything.
This feeling? This quiet nagging voice inside my head that proves I’ll never be satiated? This is where all the romance, all the “I’m a writer” bullshit goes to die.
What once was thrilling—a “craft,” a “calling”—has become nothing more than an endless stream of tiny hotels and tiny towns, readings to a packed house and then readings where two people show up—one is a homeless man there for the snacks and the other is my publicist. Late nights spent away from home staring at the flashing cursor on a computer screen, paralyzed because nothing comes even though the questions of “how’s it coming” never cease. Interviews and discussions and talks about “process” and young men who smell like cigarette smoke and too much sex asking me to mentor them, to read and critique their manuscripts about consuming lady flesh and doing blow. I listen to them talk about authors and ideologies, and I am keenly aware that there is a certain type of female that falls all over herself to grind her pelvis against their corduroy crotches. The kind of female who thinks a poem written about her is a gesture with meaning, when really it has even less depth than a porn pin-up pressed under a mattress.
I met Ronnie on a Friday evening in December at a university party at someone’s too-huge-for-two-people Annex house. The kind of house where the books are shelved chronologically by genre and dusted by a maid service. A well-meaning professor friend of mine in
vited me in the hopes of impressing the faculty with my presence, and I just drained the host’s expensive whisky offering, nodding my thank-yous at people who let me know they enjoyed my latest book.
“Oh, that’s good, because I wrote it just for you,” I longed to smarmily spit in their faces.
But you can’t.
You have to be grateful.
Always grateful.
Always humble.
“Thank you. That means so much to me. It’s an honour.”
I don’t imagine I impressed anyone.
I just drank more whisky and contemplated the diseases I could acquire from room-temperature decapod crustaceans prepared by imbeciles, and then Ronnie appeared. Tall and sleek and semi-clad, her hair so shiny, she walked across the room toward me in a little black dress—and she wouldn’t have cared about books if I had begged her to. A girl like that doesn’t care about books. A girl like that has a single shelf of mismatched volumes, gifts she’s never read from friends she doesn’t much like. One of the books is full of martini recipes and another is Horton Hears a Who! She reminded me of my irrelevance. She had no idea who I was in a room full of people who desperately needed to know me, people who threw empty compliments my way, female students who wanted to claim I had flirted with them, people so pleased that I would be the Massey College Writer-in-Residence in January, and who hoped I’d agree to attend their dinner parties. Judge their competitions. Mentor their sex-and-smoke-stinking faux poet children.
The next day my wife asked me why there was a shot glass in the pocket of the pants I’d left on the floor when I had gone to bed the night before. The only thing I could think to tell her was that I stole it. She just stared at me and shook her head.
I write because I don’t have to be cautious when I do it. With my wife l have to be cautious. With my son I have to be cautious. When I write I can simply destroy everything I touch. While strangers think my life is incredibly thrilling, it’s actually so completely fucking boring that I’m forced to write books about the things I really want to do. About the drama I want to create. About the girls I want to fuck. About this girl I want to fuck.
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