Francesca walked slowly and quietly downstairs, outside, into the backyard and to her father’s work shed. It was her father’s domain, full of grease and tools. There was a roll of toilet paper that her father had kept around to wipe his hands, his mouth, spills, anything. Francesca grabbed it and stuffed pieces into her mouth, chewing, swallowing. She could not explain why she did it. It seemed the only thing to do because her mind held no words that could make sense of what she witnessed. She never saw Mr. Rossi and her mother together again, and she never mentioned it to anyone.
From that day, something like a tornado, swirling and thickening, began to build inside her. Her body shook with its force. Francesca was afraid it would exceed her body and pour out of her, wreaking violence on everybody around her. She no longer trusted her mother. Every night when her mother prayed with her rosary, Francesca would watch her fingers move across the beads and feel the storm rising inside her. The image of her mother like an animal, pushing against Mr. Rossi’s grunts, disgusted her. This disgust was mixed with a kind of titillation that shamed her, and she pushed it deep down. She would escape to the washroom and eat the toilet paper like Communion, her body like an earthquake.
Once, her mother had found her in there, sitting on the cold tiled floor beside the toilet. Her mother had rushed to her, held her like a baby, rocking back and forth with words of comfort. Francesca felt like it was a movie, this scene of the mother cradling her crazy daughter and calling to the Virgin for help and protection. It felt like someone else’s life. Her mother’s wails both ravaged and cheered her. She never asked Francesca why.
Once Francesca married Nick, she let her mother believe that she’d healed. Her mother had told her not to tell Nick about the shakes. He wouldn’t understand, she said, pressing a finger to her lips. But when Francesca felt the familiar panic close in on her, dashing to the bathroom, sitting on the cold porcelain and grabbing at the paper to put into her mouth was the only way she knew to quiet her mind and make the tremors stop.
That April, a bite of winter still in the air, new neighbours moved in next door. From her front window, she watched the movers unloading their truck, and from the looks of their belongings, Francesca knew the new people would be different from everyone else on their street. Most everyone got their furniture from Sears or Simpsons, but these people’s items made for a strange collection: antiques—an old, heavy-looking wood desk and a matching chair on wheels, wood bookshelves with glass fronts, and a giant globe on its own stand. Meanwhile, their other things looked very new and very expensive, like the top-of-the-line Hoover. Francesca knew it was top of the line because a salesman had come to the door trying to sell her one—for forty dollars! Finally, the family pulled up in an old Volkswagen van and parked crookedly between two remaining ice mounds on the street. She made a mental note to tell Nick that these people would probably be in the market for a new vehicle.
A blond woman with tanned arms emerged from the passenger side, wearing a tight mauve V-neck T-shirt and bell-bottom jeans. How in the world did she get such a tan in April? She was thin in the Farrah Fawcett way—long and lean but with ample breasts that bounced as she made her way to the front door, a baby on her hip. She walked with the confidence of someone who was accustomed to having a lot of people make a fuss about her looks. A man stepped out of the driver’s side, raised his arms and stretched. His moustache and shaggy brown hair that reached past his ears reminded Francesca of Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two of them looked like they could’ve been from Hollywood. Francesca strained to see if they had California plates, but the van was angled away from her.
A few days later, Francesca spoke to the husband for the first time. She was sitting on her porch on one of the first warm days with a supermarket romance novel. He walked out of his front door in bare feet with the baby in his arms and pointed at the air with his chin. “Nice day, huh?” he said, grinning at her from his porch.
“Yes, it is!” she hollered back, surprised by the volume of her voice. She crossed her arms awkwardly and half closed her book, hiding the garish cover of The Forbidden Valley with her hand, not sure how to continue the conversation but knowing she was supposed to.
“What’s that you’re reading?”
“Um . . . this?” She flipped the book to look at the cover as if she didn’t know. She was embarrassed by the illustration of a man crushing a woman to his chest. “It’s something a friend lent me. Silly.”
He strode up her walk, hand extended. “Paul Willis. Just moved in with my wife, Cheryl, and our baby girl, Megan.” He hoisted the baby with thin, blond hair standing on end like a crown.
Francesca took his hand, noting the firm grasp, the light hair on his arm and the lopsided smile. “I’m Francesca. My husband is Nick. Welcome to the neighbourhood. Hello, Megan.” She gave the baby’s hand a little squeeze.
“Francesca, eh? That’s pretty. I think I’m going to call you Frankie, though.” He winked. Francesca blushed and hated herself for it. She raised the book to her face to hide.
“I bet I can write those . . .”
She brought it back down and blinked, not understanding.
“Those books. Those romances. I bet I can write those and make a million bucks too.”
“Oh . . .” She hadn’t expected that.
“I’m a writer.” He shrugged. “But nothing like that garbage. I’m a struggling schmuck of a writer. But shit, maybe I should knock out some of those romance novels and use a pen name . . . Ha! Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend your taste in literature. I’m bitter. I’ve been trying to finish a novel that will likely be read by ten people.” He smirked at his own self-deprecating humour. The baby began to squirm. “Better get in; it’s time for the morning nap.” He stroked the baby’s buttery arm. “See you, Frankie. Good meeting you.”
Over the next weeks, Francesca took to bunching her sheer curtains together in her fist and standing behind them to spy on the Willises. Paul was around a lot, either sitting on the porch or coming back and forth from walks or the store with Megan in a stroller. Francesca was too afraid to talk to him again because she could feel heat rise from her neck and creep up to her face. There was no reason; he hadn’t been very charming or even interested in her as a person, let alone anything else.
On weekends, Cheryl was also home. She mentioned to Francesca that she worked as a copy editor in an advertising firm and wanted to become a creative director. Francesca had pretended she knew what that meant, but she had never met anyone in advertising before, let alone one that looked like Farrah Fawcett. Even on Cheryl’s days off, with her messy ponytail and bare face, she still looked like she’d walked off a magazine spread. Francesca would furtively glance at Cheryl’s long legs and the perfect cleavage dotted with freckles peeking out of her V-neck T-shirts. One warm May day, Nick was grilling at the barbecue and began chatting easily with Cheryl and Paul over the fence while they frolicked with their child. Francesca tried to look busy, running in and out of the house to fetch condiments and plates and napkins.
Each time she appeared, Nick would try to include her in the conversation. “Franny, guess where Paul and Cheryl lived? On Beverley Street when they were going to college.” He turned to Cheryl. “That’s just around the corner from our old ’hood, where we both grew up.”
“Really, Nick? We loved it there. It was so authentic!” Cheryl made a wistful face. Francesca wondered what she meant by “authentic.” Nick smiled.
“Yeah, we loved doing our grocery shopping in Kensington Market,” Paul added.
Nick brightened. “Did you ever go to the chicken place on Augusta? You know, in the market? My uncle Luigi owns it.”
“Oh, we’re vegetarian, Nick. I always felt so sad for those chickens.”
Francesca looked at Cheryl, who shook her perfect head and bit her lower lip ever so slightly. She certainly did look sad, Francesca thought.
Nick flipped their steaks. The grease sizzled on the grill. France
sca knew he was very proud of Uncle Luigi. The whole Italian community got their chickens and eggs from his store. She felt embarrassed, but then she was confused about whom she was embarrassed for. She headed back inside to get some salt and pepper even though they normally didn’t bother with extra seasoning. While she was gone, Paul turned on the sprinkler. She returned to see the three of them running through it, howling with laughter, while Nick chuckled and called them a bunch of grown kids. Cheryl and Paul with Megan between them were leaping through the strings of water until their clothes clung to them. Cheryl’s hard nipples and Paul’s chest hair pressed against the thin fabric of their shirts as they all tumbled together on the grass. Tiny rainbows formed in the water around them.
Francesca’s interest in her neighbours shifted. She replayed their conversations in her mind throughout her days as she vacuumed, mopped and cooked Nick’s dinners. Innocent encounters on their front lawns or in their backyards, talking about the weather, would merge with her imagining running her hands over Paul’s chest or up Cheryl’s long legs. In the middle of the afternoon, she would take long hot baths, her legs straddling the faucet, trembling as drops of water hit her. In her fantasies, she was never herself, but Cheryl. She was leggy, full-breasted and tan with tumbling honeyed hair, quaking from Paul’s tongue between her legs. In her thoughts, they were entwined, like legs, like lips, like passion.
Her body never felt satisfied, and her chest would feel hollow. She would rock herself in the water that had grown cold, feeling shame for how she’d run her hands over her own body, for the state she’d just moments before been in, and repeat exactly one hundred times, “Nick is a good man. I love Nick,” before slowly climbing out of the tub.
Her hunger would reawaken in the evenings, when she would curl her fingers through Nick’s hair, not caring that it wasn’t Tuesday or Friday. She dabbed Shalimar behind her ears. When he turned on the game after work, she sat in his lap. Nick, surprised by Francesca’s boldness because she had never initiated sex, would rush her to the bed. They would laugh like they were being naughty children while he undid the buttons of her blouse. But the sex was quick, efficient. Francesca’s crotch was wet all the time these days, moist with her thoughts of Paul and Cheryl. Nick would admire that she was so ready, and ten minutes or so later, it’d be over. He would shiver ever so slightly before pulling out of her, drop a small kiss on her forehead, then head to the bathroom to clean himself up. She would stay in bed, trembling and unsatisfied. When he came out, he would look at her and shyly ask if she minded whether he caught the end of the game. In the past, she’d always given him a smile, sat up and said something like “Go get ’em, Tiger,” to reassure him all was well.
She still did this, but anger came into her throat now, and she would let it simmer and rise. Along with her sexual need, she’d given shape to that anger, picking fights with him now about small things: taking out the garbage, leaving his socks balled up at the end of the bed. Before, she’d cluck her tongue and say Nick would be Nick. Now, the smaller the thing, the more outraged she became. She reminded herself that this was what married life was like. She tried to calm down with breathing exercises, but nothing worked except eating the paper. Nick started asking her more often if it was her time of the month, which only succeeded in making her start to despise him. The more Nick annoyed her, the more guilt she felt for not being satisfied now that she had everything she ever wanted. Most of all, and perhaps the most damning, she realized she didn’t love him enough.
One afternoon in June as she was walking home from the Dominion, hefting her bread and bananas in a paper bag, she saw Paul pushing Megan in the stroller. The sight of him excited her, but then she felt afraid. They were away from their houses, their fences, the things that helped them keep their distance. She fleetingly imagined turning around and walking back toward the store.
Even though it had been a while since they’d seen each other, Paul didn’t bother with pleasantries. “I just found out that Portuguese woman down the street killed herself last night.”
She felt her stomach lurch and tightened her arms around the bag. She had seen Mrs. Da Silva yesterday walking up and down the street talking to herself.
“And I heard there was another suicide earlier this year. That empty house?”
Francesca was still trying to grasp the death of the poor mad Mrs. Da Silva and trying to steady her balance, fighting the desire to fall on her knees on the sidewalk.
“I guess it’s not that big of a surprise.” He shrugged. “Existential crisis. It happens in places like these.”
Places like these? Her mind tried to register what Paul was saying. What were places like these?
He lit a cigarette and drew on it, and let the smoke escape from the corner of his mouth. “The picture-perfect suburban dream with the groomed lawns, nine-to-five jobs, 2.5-children kind of places. Domino effect. One person decides this ridiculous life is unbearable and utterly boring and then they all fall down.” He swept his arm up and down the street as if to explain everything, a contrail of smoke following his thought.
A flash of both anger and awe cut through her whirling thoughts. Who was he that he could gather and explain all these lives in a few sentences, flatten her whole neighbourhood with a simple gesture of his arms? Paul’s words and his confidence shocked her even if she didn’t completely understand. This life was better than she could have ever dreamt for herself and was certainly more than her mother would have ever expected. It truly was better. Was it happy? Was it so unbearable to be bored? Had Mrs. Da Silva been bored? Francesca gripped the bag of groceries hard until her nails dug into her palm and she felt the pain. She nodded at Paul, pretending she agreed. She wondered whether Paul was bored too, or whether he was above such things.
She felt humiliated to be cast as a part of this group of people he could so easily dismiss, and yet Francesca hoped he saw her as his confidant, someone who felt and thought these big thoughts about others too. She hoped he didn’t include her as one of those living ridiculous and meaningless lives. Paul tossed his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it with the toe of his sneaker. When he turned back to look at her, he must have seen distress on Francesca’s face.
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Paul paused and pulled her against him for a hug, the bag of groceries between them. “Ah, sweet Frankie. I’m sorry if I sounded flippant about it.” She felt the muscles of his arms around her and let him hold her for a moment before pulling away. His touch felt like an electrical shock.
That fall, Janine Bevis, one of the stay-at-home moms Francesca knew, hanged herself in her upstairs bathroom. The women on the street were divided into two categories: the working moms and the stay-at-home moms. The working moms were always purposeful in their stride between their front doors and cars. They wore makeup and polyester pantsuits and blouses that tied into bows at the collar. The stay-at-home moms wore flared jeans and sneakers. Their hair was lank and dirty, and sometimes their breath stank because they hadn’t had time to brush their teeth. Some of the stay-at-home moms looked after the kids of the working moms after school. Despite this overlap, it was a business arrangement, and the two types of moms did not otherwise socialize. There was a general distrust between the two groups of women; each made the other feel a sense of inferiority.
Francesca belonged to neither group. She did not work outside of the house nor have children to tend to. But Janine Bevis had befriended Francesca. Francesca was often embarrassed that Janine would spot her staring out her window, something she did often. Janine always waved and, once caught, Francesca would wave back. Janine began to take this as an invitation to come to the door. They would sit at Francesca’s kitchen table over coffee and chat. It was easy to talk to Janine because Janine liked to talk about herself. At first, it was breezy conversation—gossipy tidbits about the other neighbours, Janine’s frustration with potty-training her toddler, the weather. But one day, Janine grabbed Francesca by the elbow and pulled her closer and asked, “Can
you keep a secret?”
Francesca felt dread. She hated secrets, wished they didn’t exist and that everybody could be who they seemed they were without these hidden layers. But she nodded anyway, not wanting to let her new friend down. Janine whispered that she had had an abortion. Francesca had never met someone who had one before. Janine also didn’t seem the type. She wasn’t some unwed teenager.
Janine quickly apologized to Francesca. “Oh shit, sorry. Here I am going on about this, and you don’t even have a child yet.”
Francesca said, “No, it’s okay.”
It was enough for Janine to go on talking. Over many cups of coffee during quiet mornings and with Janine’s youngest child napping on the sofa, Janine talked obsessively about it, torn between necessity and morality. She didn’t want any more children because she felt they were already barely getting by on her husband’s, Anthony’s, salary. Anthony was raised Catholic and she knew he wouldn’t agree, but she went ahead and did it anyway. Janine was terrified he would find out.
No one else knew, and Francesca didn’t know why she was singled out, but it felt good that Janine trusted her. She began to look forward to Janine’s visits, which usually came in the wake of another fight with Anthony. Francesca liked sitting Janine down at her kitchen table while her counter and floors gleamed with cleanliness. She took out the coffee pot she had received as a wedding present and kept topping up her guest’s mug while Janine gulped from it between sobs. At critical moments, Francesca would reach across the table to enfold Janine’s hands in hers. Offering comfort to Janine in crisis made Francesca feel like she was part of something colourful and dramatic.
That Time I Loved You Page 4