by D. D. Miller
“Well, actually, I’m a student. Is that a problem? I’m a hostess at a restaurant on the weekends.”
“Which restaurant?”
“Francesca’s. You know it?”
It’s in Little Italy and Sandra and I have been there a few times. I try to think about the hostesses, but nothing comes to mind. They are all attractive, I assume. Hostesses are always attractive.
“What do you study?”
“Sociology. At U of T.”
“Are you single?”
“Excuse me?” Her tone tightens. “This is a lot of information.”
“It’s just that . . . it’s just that the last tenant was engaged to this jerk and . . .” A bead of sweat slides into my eye. It burns. “The police had to be called.” I rub it away.
“Oh. I’m single. Right now. I’m single.” Her voice cracks. “Jesus.” A big exhale.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. That’s too personal,” I say.
“No, no. It’s fine. I just broke up with my boyfriend. That’s why I’m looking for a place.”
“Wow. I. Oh, so sorry.”
“He’s not a jerk though. Like violent or anything. You won’t need to call the cops.”
“Okay. Right. Good. Thanks.”
Silence.
“So can I see the place?” All of a sudden she sounds tired.
“Yeah, sure. Yes.”
She asks when, and I mention this evening, right after work. Then I have to think fast.
“Can I just confirm that you have the right address? I manage a few places.”
She reads the address back to me. It’s across town, but not too far out of the way.
I arrive earlier than I expected and wait in my car. The apartment is in a small building in a residential area in the west end. It looks more than adequate for a young student living alone. I wonder if her parents are paying for it.
I ate too much at lunch and have to undo my belt a notch as I sit in the car. The other day Sandra mentioned that I was putting on weight. I told her that it was my winter insulation. She pinched the fat above my hips. “You’ll definitely be warm this winter,” she said and laughed. We used to go for walks, but then Sandra started going to a gym about eight months ago; she has a personal trainer and uses all those machines they have. I don’t like to walk alone.
Angela is about ten minutes late, but I know who she is as soon as she turns the corner, eyeing the numbers on the buildings. She’s East Asian, and I wasn’t expecting that. She’s wearing skinny blue jeans, a big wool sweater and has a large reddish purse over her shoulder. She’s attractive in an undergrad kind of way. Her flesh still looks young; her face is full and round and a small chin protrudes. Long, straight black hair hangs in crisp folds over the bulk of her sweater. She finds the right address at the moment my phone rings. I check the number: Sandra
“Mom wants to know if we can pick up a couple bottles of wine for Thanksgiving dinner,” she says without even a hello.
“Sure. Of course.” I watch Angela take a quick look around the building.
“I figure two is fine. I’m sure they’re already well stocked.”
The girl walks up the few steps and tries the door, but it’s locked.
“So you’re okay with that?” I can hear the sounds of Sandra cooking: a spoon tapping the side of a pot. “Where are you anyway?” she asks.
“Yeah, fine,” I say. Angela’s reading the names on a board beside the door. It looks like she’s about to push one, but then stops and takes a look around. She looks right at me in my car.
“Maybe you could grab some now? So we don’t have to worry tomorrow.”
“Yup. I’m driving. I shouldn’t be talking. I’ll be home soon.”
Angela is staring at me. She takes a step down, squinting. I keep the phone to my ear. Now that she is staring right at me, I see that she is attractive. Beautiful even.
I put down the phone and start the car. Angela turns back to the building and pushes a button on the board. As I pull away I wonder if I’m beginning to think that all women are beautiful.
“No one drinks red wine with turkey.”
“I thought maybe before. Or after.” I bought a bottle each of red and white. Sandra’s just noticed now that we are in the car and on our way north to her parents’ house at the lake.
“God. Hopefully they have a bottle too.” She sits far back in the seat. She looks tired. She was at the library till late doing research. “I’m glad Jim isn’t here this year,” she mumbles. Jim is her younger brother.
“I’m glad the kids aren’t here,” I say. Traffic is moving slowly: the Thanksgiving exodus out of the city.
“That’s what I meant,” she says.
Jim and his wife have three kids. They live in Winnipeg and only make it home for Thanksgiving every two or three years. Last year the kids were four, seven and nine. It was exhausting because Jim and his wife pawned babysitting responsibility off on us. As I would have, I’m sure.
“I’m not looking forward to winter. Why doesn’t winter get any easier as you get older?” She brings her right knee up to her chest. Her shoe is on the seat. It leaves a mark of dust.
“You think we can swing a trip down south this year? Maybe Cuba? It’s cheaper.” We’ve been going down south almost every winter for a while. Different countries each year, but they might as well be the same when you go to those all-inclusives.
“I’m sick of those trips.” Her cheek rests on her knee and she looks over at me. “They’re not even trips; they’re vacations. Remember how we said we’d never go on trips like that.” She’s almost pouting.
“Things change,” I say. When we were younger we used to go backpacking for extended periods of time.
“But for a while there, we actually got more bold as we got older. Remember Vang Vieng?” By our early thirties we’d already done Europe and South America and moved on to Asia. Sandra was a fearless leader on those trips. Leading us through jungle hikes; city tours; long rides on overcrowded, dilapidated buses. She could communicate with people so well – it didn’t matter the race or culture or language. She’d been good at getting her point across.
“That was stupid,” I say. “We got more stupid as we got older.” In Vang Vieng, Laos, we’d decided to smoke opium and ended up staggering around the forest in a dream state, lost for what seemed like hours.
“It wasn’t stupid. Dangerous maybe.” She shifts and rests her chin on her knee, stares up at the highway ahead. “There’s a difference. And it was no more dangerous than dropping acid at that full moon party in Thailand, or getting on a random bus in Goa and ending up in the middle of nowhere.” She looks sad as she says it. Sometimes memories, even happy ones, aren’t good things to have.
“So, I don’t understand. Are you saying we should go on vacation or shouldn’t?”
“I’m saying our vacations suck, so I don’t care if we don’t.” She’s looking away from me, out the window, and I wonder what she’s remembering, and if it’s the good things like the double hammock in our tree house in Chile, or the weekend stay in a blissful Shinto temple in Japan.
I reach over and pat her thigh. I leave my hand there, but she doesn’t take it. I’m not sure how to reassure her because I’m not sure what she’s unsure about.
When we pull in at the cottage, Sylvia, Sandra’s mother, is already standing on the front steps. She’s got a glass of red wine in her hand.
Sylvia is still an attractive woman. She’s grown solid with her age and, despite a few lines in all the typical places, her face has retained the essence of its youth. Her hair, still dark, hangs down to her shoulders. She’s wearing a long skirt and a shirt that isn’t buttoned all the way to the top and I admire her cleavage. I’ve always thought that, physically, Sylvia is a future snapshot of Sandra, and I’m okay with that. I’m okay with how Sandra will turn out.
She smiles and raises her glass. Her teeth are already darkening with the wine. “Couldn’t even wait for us to get he
re before you got started?”
“Relax, Sandra, it’s a holiday.” She kisses her daughter’s cheeks and then grabs me in an awkward hug. I worry about wine sloshing down the back of my coat. “Hello, Timmy,” she says and kisses my cheek. I can feel the dampness of her lips and the warmth of her breath against my skin. “Why don’t you tell my daughter to lighten up?”
Sylvia and Mark’s cottage is more like a home. They own a condo in the city but only ever spend winters there. The cottage has a wide-open main room containing the living room, kitchen and dining area, centrepieced with a wall of windows that looks out over the lake. With furniture, they have a tendency for the gaudy: Victorian-like and imposing. Walls overfilled with paintings, pictures. Elaborate lamps with even more elaborate shades.
Mark enters from the back deck through the sliding doors. He hugs his daughter and nods my way. Sandra may look like her mother, but she’s daddy’s little girl, and she and her father share a similar temperament.
“Oh good! You brought another bottle of red!” Sylvia pulls our wine out of the brown paper bags and checks out the labels. “Can we open it now? Let’s open it now.”
“Why not?” Mark says too loudly. “Tim, interest you in a brewski?” He walks to a cooler that he has set next to the fridge.
The beer is cold. Bits of ice still cling to the label, and it sweats in the warm air of the room.
“So how’s the insurance business?” he asks.
“Fine.” We are standing at an island in the kitchen. I can hear Sandra and her mother talking about Sandra’s thesis at the dining-room table.
“You sell to companies, right? Not individuals.”
We have this conversation almost every time we speak about my work.
“Probably more secure a job, right?”
“Why? You know something we don’t?”
“No, no. I just mean if shit ever went down. You know, economic collapse and whatnot. Selling insurance to companies is probably a safer thing to do.”
“Would you just listen to the four of us!” Sylvia stands up and comes into the kitchen area. “Talking about work and school! The things we should be avoiding on the holidays.” She opens the fridge and pulls out a plate of veggies and a dip, and slides them onto the counter. We all reach for something and stand in silence. Sandra walks over to the window to stare out over the lake. I take too many sips of my beer, and eat four slivers of red pepper.
“I see your hair is starting to thin, Tim.”
“Mom!” Sandra from the window.
“What? Sorry? Is it something you’re embarrassed about?”
I can feel myself turning red, “Um, no, no. Not really.”
“Oh yeah,” Mark says, leaning in and squinting at my head.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Tim, you’re almost forty. I’m sure you’ve got a good few years left yet.”
“Jesus, Mom. Are you drunk already?” Sandra moves toward us.
“Sandra, watch your language.”
“You know, Tim,” Mark begins, “it happens to the best of us.” He puts his hand on his hips and bends forward as far as he can. Sure enough, I can see a smooth, round section of exposed scalp right in the centre of his head.
“What? Jesus?”
“Yes, Jesus.”
“I’ve only really noticed it myself, recently,” I say to Mark.
“I’m an atheist, Mom. And since when do you care?”
“I thought you said you were agnostic?”
“When was the last time we even went to church?” Mark asks, emptying his bottle.
“I just said that so you’d think there was a chance I’d come around,” Sandra says.
“So you don’t believe in God now, is that what you’re telling me?”
As I turn to escape to the washroom, I hear Sylvia say, “What does Tim have to say about this?” but I pretend that I don’t hear her.
In the bathroom, my phone rings. I answer it.
“I don’t know who the hell you are –” I immediately recognize Angela’s voice.
“Hello? Sorry?” I feel the sweat at my temples. Building along my hairline.
“Don’t pull that bullshit on me. I don’t know what you think you were trying to do –”
“I’m sorry you must have the wrong number.” I want to hang up but I’m afraid she’ll call back.
“It was dangerous. Sending me over there like that. Who knows what could’ve happened –”
I can’t believe I didn’t consider the fact that she had my number. How could I not have thought about that?
“And it turned out the stupid apartment was already taken.” She begins to cry.
“Angela,” I say her name, but I’m not sure what else to say. I look in the mirror and stare at the top of my head. I move forward to take a closer look, adjust a few strands.
“Asshole.” She hangs up. I look down at my phone and turn it off. I know that I’ve done something wrong; I’m just not exactly sure what.
“The turkey is delicious, Sylvia. Delicious.” And it is. The dark meat melts in my mouth.“Honey, you have hit a homer this year.” Mark’s got a glass of white wine and another beer on the go. I’ve switched to the wine, but it seems too dry after the beer.
Sandra’s mood has worsened. She’s brooding. Sitting in silence, hunched over her plate.
“It’s quiet without Jim and the kids here.” Sylvia has placed a few roasted potatoes, some squash, a spoonful of stuffing and two dainty slivers of turkey on her plate. She’s barely even touched it, but she must be on her fifth glass of wine.
“So I guess we can stop waiting for you guys, eh?” Mark says, his mouth half-full.
“Dad!” Sandra’s fork clatters on her plate.
“Sorry, Sandy, it’s just . . .”
“So they don’t want children. Not everyone wants children. They kind of ruin your life.”
“Sylvia, don’t say that.”
“Well I don’t mean ruin. Maybe I should have said ‘take over.’”
“We can still have kids. A kid, maybe,” Sandra says, but it’s barely a whisper.
“Aren’t you a little too old?” Sylvia’s got the bottle of wine next to her plate. She keeps filling her glass before it’s empty.
“I’m not too old.”
“I think we might be too old,” I blurt out. We’ve never had this conversation. Once, a long time ago, on a beach in Costa Rica, we even made a pact to never have this conversation.
“Technically, we’re not too old.” She glares at me, and I don’t know why.
“Think about how old you’ll be when the kid goes to university. No one wants old parents,” Sylvia says.
“That’s true.” Mark hasn’t stopped ploughing down the food through the whole conversation. “I couldn’t imagine having kids in school right now. It’d ruin retirement.”
“You probably wouldn’t even be retired,” I point out. I’m not sure how Sandra and I ended up on different sides of this argument, but I stare at her and wait for her to look at me.
“I still feel young,” Sandra says, but she doesn’t look up from her plate.
I want to do something to confront her, but I feel like anything I do will backfire; that the gesture would either make her cry or make her glare at me again. So I jab a piece of turkey with my fork, slide it through the pile of cranberries on my plate and put it in my mouth.
Mark looks ominous standing over the fire. His face glows red, cut with shadows so specific I could trace the outline of his wrinkles. His eyes are like two glass marbles. He sways a bit. I wonder if he’ll fall into it.
“Sandy says you guys aren’t going south this year?” It was from Mark and Sylvia that we originally caught on to the all-inclusives.
I take a sip from my beer and shake my head, surprised that she brought it up with them.
“Look, if you guys need any help . . .” He moves away from the fire and plops down in the lawn chair next to mine.
“No, no. Tha
t’s not it at all. Really.” I wonder what she has told them. “We could go, if we really wanted to. It’s just more responsible to take a year off.” I take a drink and stare straight into the fire. “You know, with Sandra back in school and all.”
“Sure, sure. Yeah. But –”
“Really, Mark. Thank you.” We sit in silence by the fire. Sandra and her mother retired to the throw rugs in the living room with the remnants of the wine, and Mark decided that he and I should burn the last of the summer firewood in the firepit. Mark shifts in his seat. He groans, and winces uncomfortably.
“Goddamn. It’s a terrible thing getting old.”
“Is it?” I ask, because I’m not sure what he wants me to say.
“The body. The mind. Emotions even. It all starts to go.” He takes a long drink of his beer. He’s sitting to the right of me and his face is only a silhouette against the lake beyond. “It all becomes a war. Or worse, just boring.”
“A war?”
“Every relationship you can possibly have with everything and anything. It all becomes a war.”
He stares straight into the fire for a few moments. “Nothing lasts forever, that’s the thing. There comes a time when everything becomes a job. I . . .” Then he turns to look at me and even in the darkness I can see the pain in his eyes. He wants to tell me something. Something huge: something that will change my life. But I also see that he doesn’t want to burden me with this information, and he is weighing that. He looks back to the fire.
“But this,” I say with what I hope is a lightness to my voice, “this is what life is all about, right?” All I can hear is the fire and, every once in a while, a light lapping of the water on the lakeshore. “There is just something about sitting next to fire and water like this.”
Mark struggles to his feet and grabs a piece of wood. “It’s just basic is what it is,” he begins. “Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and,” he throws the wood onto the fire; sparks shoot high into the air, “and the deteriorating human body.” He stands there tottering over the fire, and again I worry about him falling in, but now, with the way he’s leaning – and that wild stare – it looks as if he might jump.