WEEKEND
Copyright © 2016 by Jane Eaton Hamilton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.
ARSENAL PULP PRESS
Suite 202 – 211 East Georgia St.
Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z6
Canada
arsenalpulp.com
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund) and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program) for its publishing activities.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons either living or deceased is purely coincidental.
Cover and text design by Oliver McPartlin
Edited by Susan Safyan
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:
Hamilton, Jane Eaton, 1954-, author
Weekend / Jane Eaton Hamilton.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55152-636-2 (html)
I. Title.
PS8565.A556W44 2016C813’.54C2015-908288-9
C2015-908289-7
for those who pour love in
Contents
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Joe
Ajax
Acknowledgments
AJAX
Logan and Ajax spooled out the miles along the Toronto lakefront, Logan’s pale hand spinning the wheel of the Mustang as they sped farther from downtown, leaving high-rises, museums, galleries, Logan’s roof-top condo, even buildings Logan had designed, behind.
In the backseat, Logan’s Great Dane, Toby, hitched his head over the edge and drooled down the turquoise paint job, jowls bouncing, grey ears fluttering like flags. Please don’t shake that head, thought Ajax.
It was hot—rays climbing to perpendicular, thermometer pulsing thirty-five. The day seemed half-mirage, the sun turning skyscraper windows to swimmable blue pools. Ice melted in their lattes. Ajax sweated between her breasts, under the nose pads on her sunglasses. Didn’t matter how fast Logan drove, there’d be no relief with the top down; Ajax’s sun-stung legs stuck to the leather seat. She harboured hope Logan might stop so they could swim.
But Logan, of course, didn’t even sweat. Hard, like they’d designed themself, a skyscraper. All shiny glass and downtown angles. All boi smoulder, hard between their legs.
They’d been driving through the percolating city every day that week since Ajax had arrived from Vancouver. Passing dykes, femmes, queers, passing queens and kings and strippers and hustlers. Church Street. Suits, the high heels, the shimmer of stockings, the coifed heads, people sewn so tight they squeak-walked. Queen Street West. Queen and Dundas. The homeless, shabby with rusty supermarket carts and garbage bags. Danforth, Bloor, Yonge, the Beaches, Baldwin. Dog walks—throwing sticks by infernal numbers into Lake Ontario, Ajax keeping her lips pressed tight about the lake’s basic wrongness (pretending it was an ocean) and wishing Toby had been left at home so they could spread out on a blanket on the human-designated part of the beach instead, even though the dog was what had brought them there. Stopping for lunches and dinners, brushing the sweep of Logan’s hard thigh. Cabbing to bars for Logan’s poison, vodka.
Fucking on the conference table at Logan’s firm. Fucking in the alley behind a sex shop after Logan stepped in alone to find something to surprise Ajax. Fucking on some barely accessible part of the beach, sticks jamming into Ajax’s ass, sand fleas biting. Fucking on Logan’s rooftop.
What the fuck fucking, thought Ajax repetitively; she was behaving like a kid, a teenager, locked into limerance.
Some bridge over Lake Ontario glistened as they drove past. Ajax wanted a photo, said so, watched it tool past. On her own, she would have found a way to turn around, to get back. But Logan didn’t retrace their steps.
Logan’s goddamned singularity spinning Ajax’s head, a protractor reeling.
On the Gardiner, struggling through construction. Off the Gardiner, heading west and north out of Toronto, surprising Ajax.
“Where are we going?” A snag in Ajax’s voice.
“Baby, this is your birthday surprise. Don’t ask questions.”
Driving. Driving.
Logan’s cockeyed grin, insouciant lock of black hair loose down their forehead, their thick mobile eyebrows, their pebbled voice. It looked good. Toby woofed, knocked the headrest with his horse-sized head, and swung his spittle.
“I mean it, Logan.” Ajax swabbed down the dog slobber. “We’re going north?”
“Just taking a drive. Didn’t you say you wanted a picnic for a present? I aim to please,” said Logan.
North, north. Ajax hadn’t realized how far they’d travelled. She noticed rolling pastures with cattle and goats and sheep. Just-shorn alpacas. Fields of wildflowers—Shirley poppies, candytuft, Dame’s rocket, coneflower. Plentiful white daisies thick as butter, brown cow-eye centres. Flowers caterwauling, This is summer! Summer! Fertilize!
Every time they slowed for a stop sign, they could see bumblebees lollygagging in the blooms—bluebells and phlox and coreopsis—and took in the explosion of summer scents—wild grass, manure, the fruity smell of wind. It was cooling, nominally, though not enough for jackets. Ajax stroked the leather upholstery beside her leg, the bumpy texture of animal pores. Going by fast: Green fields. Ochre wheat. Rustling corn. A cornflower sky puffing with cumulonimbus clouds, horizon lined with cirrus. Ajax leaned to rub Logan’s neck, feeling the urban stress go out of her too. Logan touched Ajax’s leg. Willow trees leaned over streams. Horses swished tails. A family of quail crossed the road, babies round as tennis balls, causing Logan to slam on the brakes.
Woke Ajax right up.
Toby howled and shoved his drooling face into Logan’s neck.
Logan pulled over. For awhile, the car idled on the side of the rural road, cows at the fence chewing cuds and mooing, Logan held Ajax’s face tenderly between their palms. They feathered kisses across Ajax’s chin, cheeks, eyelids, forehead.
Ajax whispered, “Don’t fucking love me.”
Logan said, “I think that’s exactly what somebody needs to do to you. It’s what I imagine doing forever.”
Ajax shivered in the heat.
“And it’s too late now, anyway,” said Logan dropping their hands. “I already love you. Except for your gutter mouth.” Logan climbed out of the car. The quail were long gone, so they let Toby romp on a short leash through the tall grasses in the ditch, now dry with summer. They bent to plant a kiss on Ajax’s forehead. “Okay, even your gutter mouth.”
Ajax said quietly, “I love how you ache.”
“I love that you notice,” said Logan.
“I notice,” said Ajax. “I notice mostly your roots. A bit of stem. Some showy blossom.” Ajax touched the side of Logan’s mouth. “You know what your secret weapon can be for when I’m
pissed at you? Just grin. Just show me that smile and I’ll turn to putty.”
The dog took a crap, which, even here, mere feet from cow patties, Logan cleaned up, and the two of them, Logan and the dog, took off jogging, Toby a galloping tank as they disappeared into heat waves.
Blue wolf, thought Ajax about her partner. Person only half tame. She wondered if she should feel safe or scared at how serious they were getting.
A cowbell sounded close by, making Ajax jump. She jumped the ditch and gave the cows a scratch. They liked it; they pushed hard into her hands, bone close to the surface under hides. They reminded her of childhood, the field, full of cattle lowing, that had backed onto her elementary school. Smells of un-mown grass, manure, puffballs bursting spores. The first girl she liked had lived near there; Ajax remembered sitting on a three-legged stool beside a cow’s full udder, Cara’s hands over hers, showing her how to milk the teat, Cara’s hand stroking hers to encourage the milk to let down. Shooting milk streams at Cara, Cara giggling, the sound of milk sizzling into the pail. When the pail was half full, Cara dipped a cup, held it for Ajax while she drank, milk running down her chin, her neck.
Cara licking her clean. Their first kiss.
“We should get going,” said Logan behind her, slapping the hood of the car. Heavy dog exhalations.
“I’m famished.” Ajax picked her way back to the ditch, leaped over it, and grabbed Logan’s hand. “How about you?”
Logan unpacked a tablecloth, a basket from the trunk. “Want to have lunch with your new friends? We have plenty of time, in fact, McIntyre. All weekend.”
“We’re away for the weekend?” Ajax was pleased. “But I didn’t pack.”
“Got you covered there. I grabbed your things.”
“Sneaky,” said Ajax. “My meds?”
She followed Logan to the open meadow across from the pasture. The blanket billowed. Ajax settled against an apple tree trunk. In the speckled light, they dished out the food. Grapes, strawberries, cut kiwis, deli meats. Thick crusty slices of bread.
“Your meds. Of course your meds. You think I don’t take note, McIntyre, but I do.”
A cooler with lemonade. A steamed artichoke produced from the bottom of the basket. Gorgeous green thistle, which Logan served protractedly, dead sexily, leaf by slowly dipped leaf until, at last, the heart was exposed and cut into small manageable bites.
“We’re not going home? Really?”
Logan flopped on their back chewing on a grass stalk, and Ajax snuggled in the crook of their arm.
“We’re blowing that pop stand, honey. We’re going north, baby, all the way north.”
JOE
Elliot pulled back the curtain, grommets squeaking against the metal rod, and said, “Clear night.”
Joe looked up from the nursing baby. She felt Elliot’s restlessness and said, “Still?” Beaming hot day, but rain was forecast. The infant in her arms was somnolent, droopy, barely awake, and, really, so was Joe. Maybe it was hormones, or maybe the effects of the bitterly long labour. She’d been staring so hard at their baby, at her wisps of red hair, her birth-blue eyes, the button of her ski-jump nose, and the vernix gummed between her fingers, she’d given herself double-vision. Maybe she was trying to uncover whispers of some kind of message about what the hell she was doing here, in Ontario cottage country, a mother for the first time at her advanced age, a mother with qualms.
Too casually, Elliot rubbed her stomach. “I’m nauseated. What did I have for breakfast?”
“I hope you’re not getting sick,” said Joe. Without noticing, she pulled Scout closer so Elliot’s germs wouldn’t get on her.
“I hate my body,” said Elliot, throwing herself on the couch.
“I hate my body.” Joe’s middle was distorted by birth, an unrecognizable heap. Why had she thought she’d shrink right after pushing Scout out?
“It can’t do anything,” Elliot said.
“Your body does everything,” said Joe. Elliot cut a stunning muscled figure, but dissatisfaction plagued her. “Your body runs and eats and swims and fucks and, god, everything.”
“I wanted to be Scout’s mother. I can’t breastfeed and I couldn’t get pregnant.”
“We can keep trying if you want. I wouldn’t mind if Scout had a sibling, would you?”
“Unlikely, they said. Heart-shaped uterus. Doesn’t that sound like somewhere a baby would want to be?”
“Unlikely is far from impossible.” Elliot had been so moody. “I conceived and there wasn’t much chance of that, either. And as for breastfeeding, you still might be able to. You could go to La Leche League. They could—”
“So the baby drinks your milk from my faux nipples. No, thanks.”
“Yes,” said Joe, but she thought, Don’t be petulant. “I’m sorry you got cancer. You were way too young.”
“Yes! Yes! I was!”
“… and it’s not fair,” concluded Joe.
Ell said, “It’s not fair! I shouldn’t have had the mastectomies. Do you get how much I regret doing that now, with Scout? It’s not fair only you get to be close to her like that.”
“I know,” said Joe. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair at all. Honey, I’m truly sorry.” She thought, At least it never came back. The choice back then had been lumpectomies and chemo and radiation, or mastectomies and chemo. A decade ago, but it was shocking how much something gone and done still ran their lives, how worrying about recurrence set them reeling. Whenever Elliot had a rogue pain, they ran through the chant liver, lungs, bone, and brain, the places breast cancer was likely to metastasize. Joe had never gotten over the sight of Elliot waking up in the recovery room bandaged with drains, begging Joe to tell her if it had turned out to be cancer, in the end, and whispering, Yes, it was, and then, later, after surgical recovery, Elliot flopped in the chemo recliners at the cancer agency, all the toxic warnings of the drugs they pumped into her. How she bloated, how she lost her hair, how she lay on the couch, depressed and too fatigued to move.
Elliot shrugged. “I just wish the nausea would stop. Remember after chemo I couldn’t even drink water? It’s kind of like that. Plus I’m having trouble swallowing.”
“For god’s sake then, Elliot. We should go back to Toronto; you need to see your doctor.”
Elliot coughed and said, “Logan’s driving up.” Elliot was twitchy, a kid with ADHD; she couldn’t stop herself from changing position every five seconds. Crossing her legs, scratching her head, flinging herself onto her back, sitting bolt upright.
Joe said, “I don’t care. We can be in Toronto before midnight.” Pain on swallowing? This was not good.
“I want to see Logan.”
“With that woman?” Was she bringing girlfriend number 786? The current woman of the many auditioned was Ajax, a woman no doubt like all of Logan’s other women, but, for all that, a woman about whom Logan had been uncharacteristically closed-mouthed. They were both used to Logan’s conquests—the women who waterfalled over Logan’s precipice on their plunge to the sharp rocks of reality. Logan the Legend, they called them to their face. Logain d’Amour behind their back. Anaconda d’amour. Joe had been crushed out on Logan since the first time they’d met. Crushed out bad. Crushed out so she tingled at the thought of them. Crushed out embarrassing.
So crushed out she’d walked into a washroom Logan was using at a friend’s party and let Logan press her up against a wall and slide their fingers down her pants. She still remembers Logan growling, Don’t flirt with me, lesbian. Don’t flirt and expect me to stop. Joe’s arms above her head, wrists held. It was the only time in Joe’s life she’d come fast and soundlessly, lips pulled inside her mouth, biting down so as not to scream.
She was partnered with Elliot, of course—poly Elliot, who maybe wouldn’t have cared, but even so, Joe had never breathed a word. She wanted to keep Logan like an amulet, all to herself, so as far as Ell knew, Joe had been faithful since the day they’d said their first Hey you’s, because poly wasn’t Joe’
s thing. Her partner having other women—okay. The two of them in bed together with other women—also okay. But other partners for Joe, nope.
Her personal choice was fidelity.
Except for that sneaky time with the one person about whom Ell had said, “Go ahead and do whatever your heart desires, just as long as it’s not with Logan.” Not with Logan. Because Logan was Ell’s. She’d claimed that territory as her partner, way back, and they still fucked.
But for Joe, pregnant that last trimester, Logan splashed in her brain, doing a cannonball, over and over. Vivid anchor drops of the time she went behind her partner’s back with not a second of forethought or guilty afterthought and did the dirty with the sexiest person on the planet. Logan, all fifties Elvis, all charm and snarl, coal hair drooping across their forehead. Logan tall and pale as early sunshine. Logan with the heartthrob fingers. Just the mention of Logan, of Logan coming up here to the cottage, here, to their joint property, made Joe’s clit jump, minnow leaping up out of that much wet.
Now Scout, the baby, yawned, her delicate red mouth opening in a perfect O, and Joe yawned too. The birthing tub was still in the extra bedroom, drying, that deep blue hulk up on its side. The assemblings of a home birth—the Ina May Gaskin handbook, the nasal syringe, the stethoscope, the rope that descended from the second floor, a focussing tool she clutched in labour—those artifacts were still set up as if a second babe was on the way. Joe had dangled from that lanyard as if it was the rope ladder into the lake and relief from summer heat, while bouncing on a blue exercise ball she really had wanted to punt-kick across the room. Clutter was everywhere. Joe had her nest set up in the spare bedroom but also had gotten Elliot to drag a mattress onto the floor in front of the couch for a change of venue—she was not about to try stairs, not yet, and the couch was too deep. Change table, cradle, diapers, cornstarch, sleepers, socks, toques, bottles, nursing bras, nursing pads, soothers, teething rings, stacks of presents from friends, baby mobility playground at the ready.
Toys in their groomed adult cottage, garish moulded plastic clashing with their taupe walls. The very brightness made Joe weary. The very plastic-ness of it exhausted her. Sometimes she’d think—Are you kidding? Twenty years of this ugly crap? That’s what we signed on for?
Weekend Page 1