by Flora Lanoux
Her directness makes me smile. “I don’t need to put anything on my resume—”
“Look, love, you can fool yourself if you want to, but don’t try to fool me. You’re here because you need to be here for some reason; and at present, I’m just not interested. Now, if you could think of some way to make it interesting for me, I might reconsider.”
Enjoying myself, I say, “I don’t know why I’m here, Mrs Beacham. I just am. Why don’t we agree on a business arrangement? If it doesn’t suit one of us, we’ll cancel the contract.”
She gives me a direct look. “The arrangement will be no nosy questions, no superficial talk, just a little bit of living and some decent conversation.”
It’s only when I cross the room to shake on our deal that I notice an other-worldly quality about Mrs Beacham, which is heightened by her pale yellow pants and cream angora sweater. She’s a small woman, what people in the fashion industry would call petite, and has dyed auburn hair. A link to her past? Already, she has shown herself to be a woman of contrast, her Scottish accent engaging you while her terse manner keeps you a comfortable distance away.
“Call me Verna,” she says. “How much time do you have?”
“About an hour.”
“Alright, let’s go for a walk.”
I’m noticing small things about Mrs Beacham, like the way she avoids eye contact unless speaking to you, and the slight limp on her left side. It’s just something I do. When I meet people, my mental register takes a complete inventory: clothes, hair, manner, smell. No detail is too small to neglect. It’s a parlor trick that paid high dividends when I was young: fewer scars. When my father came out of the bedroom smelling of stale alcohol, his forehead furrowed and his upper lip dehydrated to a point, and dressed only in his burgundy terry cloth housecoat with the cigarette holes, I knew to run like hell.
Verna suggests a walk in Hillside Park, so we head outdoors. The afternoon sun is shining brightly, and I’m glad for the shade of trees. There’s something magical about a Michigan summer.
When we reach the park, Verna sits on a bench, and I join her.
Turning to me, she says, “Are you afraid of where the truth might take you?”
I smile. “Probably. I mean, I love the thought of total honesty, but if I practiced it I’d be afraid of the effect on other people.”
Verna reaches into her carry bag, grabs a handful of seed, and throws it over the ground. With confidence, pigeons land all around her. “Then you’ve misunderstood the question,” she says. “Divine honesty has to do with your own honesty, your own relationship with the universe. You can’t alter another person’s truth, you can only follow your own. Are you afraid to discover the truth as it applies to you?”
I shrug. “Maybe, just a bit. But it doesn’t stop me from looking. Guess I’m pretty much driven to find it. Aren’t we all?”
She frowns. “No, Rachel, a lot of people run the other way.” Looking into the distance, she calls out, “Moses, Moses,” and an albino pigeon swoops in, lands at her feet, and eats from her hand. Glancing at me, she says, “I’m Scottish and I’m superstitious, Rachel. I believe in psychic energy. You’re surrounded by confusion. Can you tell me why?”
Since my grandmother taught me to respect spirituality, I give Verna’s question serious consideration. “I guess I’ve been distracted lately,” I tell her. “I feel like something isn’t right, but I can’t quite figure out what it is.”
She nods. “Intuition always kicks in before the brain does. You need your tarot cards read.”
I laugh. “Maybe I do. What are they?”
She holds out the bag of seed, and I take a handful.
“They’re cards that can guide you in life and help you look into the future,” she says. “They prepare you for it. We could get Elizabeth Gretcham to do it. She lives at the manor. She’s very good. I’ll ask her if you like.”
“Sure,” I say, tossing my seed. “My grandmother used to read my cards when I was little. She used a deck of playing cards.”
Verna smiles. “They work too.”
On the walk back to Northcliff Manor, I tell Verna about my work as a vet. When we reach the parking lot, we make plans to meet again on Monday morning at ten.
Leaving the manor, I go to Mike’s place in the suburbs. Driving past the closely built houses, I feel claustrophobic. The yards, heavily sprayed with chemicals, are devoid of life, and the dandelions, bees, and birds I enjoyed as a child are nowhere to be seen.
Walking into Mike’s house, I see that Gordon has unexpectedly come for dinner. At nineteen, he still sits on the sofa waiting to be served. Mike walks over to greet me. It amazes me that we have this attraction for one another. At forty-four, he’s fifteen years older than I am, but when he holds me and looks into my eyes, I just don’t see the age difference. Gordon looks like his dad—they both have the same clean-cut boyish look—but there are no other similarities.
“So, how’s life at the manor?” Mike asks.
“Different, very different.”
“Well, a change is as good as a vacation.”
Feeling desperate, I say, “Mike, how about going to a movie tonight?”
“Sounds like a great idea. Hey, Gordon,” he calls out, “how about going to a movie tonight?”
My idea for a stress-free evening has gone cold.
“I thought we’d just hang out in front of the TV,” Gordon says.
Mike looks at me like he’s done so many times before. “Maybe tomorrow night.”
Feeling like the life has just been sucked out of me, I say, “I’m kind of tired anyway. Do you mind if I take a rain check on dinner?”
Having had a hard day as well, he’s too tired to try to change my mind. “Sure, honey, that’d be fine.”
Gordon shifts around on the sofa and noisily yawns.
I know what Mike will do next; it’s the reason I was attracted to him: his simplicity, no contrivances. He’ll come to me, even with Gordon in the house, and he’ll kiss, touch, or hold me, but this time I let him off the hook.
“Bye, Gordon,” I call out. “Great seeing you.” I give Mike a quick kiss and fly out of the house.
Chapter 3
Driving home from Mike’s place, I feel antsy. On impulse, I decide to stop by Michelle’s place to see if she wants to go to a movie. We’ve hardly seen each other since I started seeing Mike. For six years during university, we lived together, and she’s like a sister to me.
As I park in front of Michelle’s apartment building, I see her on her balcony.
“Howdy, stranger,” she calls out. “I’ll be right down.”
Michelle has a manner, a look, an aura, that instantly puts you in a better place. Hers is an unconditional friendship. Once, when I apologized for saying something rather bluntly, she said, “Lighten up, Rachel. If you love someone and they say something that can be taken in a good or a bad way, you take it the good way. Besides, I know what a bitch you can be.”
Running out of the building, Michelle gives me a bear hug; then she holds me at arm’s length and says, “Shit, you look awful. So this is what love does to you?”
I shrug. “I’ve had a hard day. What about it?”
“Christ, you look like you’ve had a hard ten years. Alright, you’ve busted out for the night, so let’s get on with the good times.”
I suggest a movie, which she readily agrees to. The movie—a comedy—turns out to be pretty good. Leaving the theatre, we head to a nearby bar, where Michelle knows a good reggae band is playing. From the parking lot, we hear and feel the music pulsing. As we walk into the bar, warm moist air hits us. The place is packed.
Easily, we slip into a night made magical by music that is hotter than the room, and rhythms that carry us off to the Caribbean. In no time we get lost in the sultry party atmosphere and get slightly drunk from one too many vodkas with orange juice.
Now, Michelle is dancing with Ed, a tall Ethiopian, and I’m dancing with his German sidekick, Jon.
Turning, I see Ed kissing Michelle passionately on the dance floor. Jon gets excited and tries the same with me. Before he can get started, I politely pull away and make my way to Michelle, who is only too happy to leave. She gives Ed her real phone number and is mortified by her mistake: she’s out of practice. Too woozy to drive, we leave my car in the parking lot and walk to my place laughing all the way. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun. Michelle decides to spend the night at my place.
In the morning, the sun, rather than the clock radio, wakes me. Drat! I forgot to set the alarm. In a rush, I go into the living room to wake Michelle, who’s sleeping on the sofa bed.
“Better move that butt of yours,” I tell her. “We’re going to be late.”
She groans, looks at my wall clock, and then instantly comes alive. “Holy crap!” she says, tossing aside her blankets. “I’m already late. The bastard’s decided he wants me there at seven thirty in the freaking morning.” As breakneck speed, she dresses and then phones a cab. Hugging me, she says, “Next time we’ll talk.”
“Only if you don’t have someone’s tongue shoved down your throat.”
“Bitch,” she says, and leaves.
After a quick shower, I put some bread in the toaster and listen to my phone messages. The first one is from Reynaldo, a gorgeous and very amorous Filipino I went out with twice a year ago, who won’t take a nice No for an answer. Reynaldo remains an enigma. He can mesmerize me by simply looking at me or talking to me, he exudes that much sexuality, but I’m not attracted to him at all brain-wise. It goes to show the power of the primitive brain. The next call is from Mike. As soon as I hear his voice, my heart reacts. “Hi, Rachel. Sorry about earlier on. Why don’t you come over for the night? It doesn’t matter what time it is. I really want to see you.”
Driving into the clinic parking lot, I see Mike talking to Meg and Tom, the owners of the yellow Lab. When I get out of my car, Mike waves to me.
“I’ll see you inside,” I tell him.
Lucy is already at the front desk. Today, I find her eagerness annoying. Mike calls her the most capable person he’s ever met. Her hands tremble whenever he gets near. She not only manages the clinic and lends a hand whenever she can, she also takes care of wounded wildlife in her barn at her home in the country.
As I’m working in my office, Mike takes Meg and Tom to his office next door, and I hear them talking through the thin wall.
Tom does the talking. “We’ve decided to have Nick put down,” he says. “We know he’s in a lot of pain. We’ve brought him some of his favorite things.”
“He’ll be in no pain when it’s done,” Mike says. “He’ll just feel like he’s going to sleep.”
“Can we be with him when you put him to sleep?” Tom asks, sounding pretty choked.
“Absolutely,” Mike says. “Nick will be in a comfortable bed, and you and Meg can pet him as he goes to sleep. I promise, it will be completely painless.”
In a word, Mike is kind. And I am uncontrollably drawn to kindness in a way that only people deprived of it from a young age can be.
Already, Mike reminisces about our first meeting, which took place at a veterinary seminar on orthopedic surgery: “You came in like such a ball of energy and grabbed my hand so hard when we were introduced. God, I liked that!” The behavior he liked so much was my grandmother’s doing: “Don’t be afraid of people,” she’d say. “When you meet someone, put your shoulders back, your chest out, and announce yourself loudly and clearly.”
What I remember most from that meeting was what was said. “How do you do?” I asked Mike. “I do fine,” he answered, with a warm, easy smile. His answer amused me, and I said, “I think that you probably do.”
At the end of the day, as I’m in the lunchroom getting ready to go home, Mike slips his arms around me. “Hey, beautiful. How about my place for dinner tonight?” he asks, caressing my shoulder and nuzzling me.
“Not tonight, Mike. I want to go home and relax.”
“You can relax at my place.”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
My visit with Verna has left me restless, with a tightness of skin against flesh. Are you afraid of the truth? she asked. You’d better not be. She brings it out of you.
Chapter 4
Driving home from the clinic, I decide to drop by Michelle’s place again.
“Want to go to another movie?” I ask, walking into her apartment.
She frowns. “Now I know something is bothering you. The more movies you go to, the more worried you are. Why don’t you just bite the bullet and talk about it?”
“After dinner.”
I know what Michelle will have for dinner. For the six years we lived together she ate the same thing every night: pasta and canned artichoke hearts, with a light sprinkling of vinegar, salt, and pepper. I’m one of the few people who know that she eats a minimum of three bags of chips a day. Foraging in her cupboards for my meal, I find a lonely tin of brown beans surrounded by several cans of artichoke hearts. As we lay out the feast and joke around, she tells me about the bastard she works for. Wanting to work with wildlife and zoo animals, she needs experience treating a wide range of animals. The clinic she works for specializes in birds, rodents, reptiles, and fish, which is why she puts up with the bastard. “No offence,” she says, “but I’d rather die than do dogs and cats.”
After our meal, she goes to a cupboard and pulls out two bags of chips, a box of strawberry-flavoured cereal, a bottle of red wine, and two wine glasses.
“Let’s retreat into the lounge,” she says, handing me the cereal. When we’re settled onto the sofa, she says, “Okay, what’s up?”
I sink into the sofa. “I wish I knew. I guess the problem is with Mike and me.”
“I hate to tell you this, but that was fairly obvious.”
“I feel like I’m in a black hole, Michelle, and I don’t know how to get out. I have really big highs when I’m with Mike, but sometimes he’s responsible for my worst lows.”
“So, you’ve let him get close?”
“Yeah, and I did it without thinking. I know you think I’m naive, but I really thought you chose who you wanted to be with. I figured you met someone you thought was nice, you went out together for a while -- and then, using your brain, you decided if you wanted a relationship or not.”
“I wouldn’t know about any of that. I get carried away by the animal attraction thing. I figure your Mike deserves a medal though, for busting through that line of defence you set up. I remember that spiel you gave me about the power thing.”
Returning home from one of her sexual escapades during the first year we lived together, Michelle asked me why I didn’t want to fool around with some of the guys who asked me out. I told her I didn’t want any man to have power over me. I was going to wait until I had a job and money before I chose a suitable candidate. My mother had neither; so when things went bad, she couldn’t leave. She found another way out and drank herself to death. That was definitely not going to happen to me.
I still remember Michelle’s answer. “For heaven’s sake, Rachel, lighten the heck up and stop living through your mother. We’re liberated now. You don’t have to give away your power. I’m just talking about getting laid and getting some technical expertise while waiting for Mr Right.” But I couldn’t change who I was.
“Okay,” she says, “so what’s the problem?”
“Well, it’s like Mike’s not really available. I figured if you had a relationship, there’d be this kind of fence around you where nobody could come in. A place to feel safe. Then you could face anything. With Mike, there’s no fence. When I go into his space, it’s like a free-for-all. I take abuse from his children, who are adults, and Mike doesn’t do anything about it. He doesn’t even seem to notice when they treat him or me like shit. It drives me crazy.”
Michelle nods. “A man with emotional baggage. I’ve been out with men who have kids. The kids treat you like an extension of that parent. If they treat thei
r father like crap, they treat you like crap. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“What did you do?”
“I stopped going out with men who had kids.”
The truth is so easy for Michelle.
“It’s hard dating men with ex-wives and kids,” she says. “You’re walking into an established family dynamic. It’s tough. Too tough for me. It’s no fun being second wife.” The two of us munch on some chips. Then Michelle turns to me. “So why are you sticking around, Rachel? It’s not like you to take shit from anybody.”
“I think it’s the sex. It must be addictive. When Mike touches me, nothing else seems to matter. The earth disappears. I disappear. But here I am, more miserable than I’ve ever been.”
She takes a minute to think over what I’ve said before passing judgement. “Well, I figure he’s worth a second chance. You’ll just have to spill the beans and see what he does. If he doesn’t change, get the hell out because I can’t stand what it’s doing to you.”
“I know. You’re right. I’ll do it.”
“The next time you see him.”
“Yeah, the next time I see him.”
“Good, because I’m tired of seeing you look like death warmed over.”
I laugh. “It’s a good thing I’m thick-skinned.”
We continue to talk about everything and nothing until nine o’clock, which is when I leave for home.
As I’m unlocking my door, Myra, my neighbor, pokes her head out of her apartment and asks me to go over to her place. She has taken to mothering me since she found out my mother passed away. Walking into her apartment, I walk into a fifties TV show: everything is from the fifties and in near-perfect condition.
“I’ve got something to show you,” Myra says.
She leads me to her fifties kitchen table, where there’s bottle of wine and a vase full of extraordinarily beautiful flowers. I smile but don’t understand their significance.
“Mike was over, dear. He came to see you tonight and brought these. Well, I knew you weren’t in, so I went to tell him. He insisted on giving them to me. Won’t you take them?”