Left

by Theanna Bischoff

  In high school, when I had sex with Cam, and that other guy—who, actually, I never told you about, but it was only a couple times so it doesn’t really count—I never had an orgasm. Which Cosmo says is actually not that unusual, apparently something like fifty percent of women never achieve orgasm, and I’m not going to kid myself and think I’m in the lucky half.

  Anyway, that was then, this is now. The other night, Cam was doing this thing where—

  Oops. Well, I guess you know my secret now.

  Judge all you want to.

  Yes, he’s engaged. Yes, he totally rejected and humiliated me when we were teenagers. Yes, he’s my ex and he’s my daughter’s father, and I swore I wouldn’t date anyone until Summer was much older because I didn’t want her to ever feel like you did when Dad started dating my mom.

  But this is different. This isn’t about wanting him to be my boyfriend. This is just about sex. Really good, toe-curling, Cam-has-to-have-me-now kind of sex. Maybe now that he’s older, he’s just better at it, he’s had more practice. This is just about two people who have this crazy hot connection.

  And you’re not here to tell me not to do it again.

  NATASHA

  MAY 2002

  Natasha spends longer than usual in the shower, squeezing raspberry shower gel onto her purple loofah and running the lather up and down each of her arms, across her breasts. Most mornings, she showers quickly, ties her hair into a ponytail, throws on a pair of scrubs, and drives to work while it’s still dark. The sun has been rising earlier, now that it is spring. Sometimes she catches the violet dawn blossoming across the sky on the way to the hospital. Not having to deal with rush hour most days is certainly a job perk, as is comfy clothes and shoes. All Natasha has to do is grab a pair of cotton scrubs and her sneakers and go. Sometimes, when she has extra time, or when her shift starts later in the day, she puts on a little mascara. She’s been wearing more makeup lately, carrying mascara and blush with her in the car and applying them in her rearview mirror before she leaves the hospital parking lot to head inside. Depends whether a certain attending is on call.

  Natasha closes her eyes and lets the hot water run over her one more time before turning off the spray. Tonight, she’ll wear her hair down and loose. She would ask Abby to curl the ends for her—Abby’s always been good with hair and makeup—but then she’ll have to deal with Abby’s questions, and she’s not ready for that yet.

  Last Christmas, Kathleen gave Natasha a pricey bottle of Chanel Gardénia. Kind of a useless gift. Natasha isn’t supposed to wear perfume at work, given her patients’ sensitivities and allergies. In high school and university, she had faithfully spritzed her wrists and neck with Blue from The Gap; she knew Greg loved the smell. Personally, Natasha prefers the smell of the Gardénia to the Blue, despite the fact that she can’t wear it often. Perfume always reminds her of the day she got her period. Kayla was with her dad that weekend and Natasha’s dad was out of town, and Abby was at daycare, so Kathleen took Natasha for pedicures, followed by drinks at the Glencoe Club (a cocktail for Kathleen, a mocktail for Natasha). Kathleen had given her two Midol for cramps and then offered her a spritz of Chanel No. 5. Natasha recalled her own mother applying perfume to her wrists and rubbing them together. When Natasha had copied this gesture in front of Kathleen, Kathleen had said, “Oh, no, never do that. It crushes the scent.” Kathleen had then lifted Natasha’s hair and spritzed just under Natasha’s earlobe, telling her, “The key is to spray it where you want to be kissed.” Kathleen squirted the bottle towards her own ample cleavage. Were Kathleen’s breasts real? Natasha knew her stepmother would never admit to having had an augmentation, even if Natasha asked.

  Now, Natasha drops her towel, spritzes some of the Gardénia into the air, and walks naked into the mist. She has never really dated like this—getting dressed up, planning ahead, surprise reservations. When she started dating Greg, they’d first eaten lunch together in the school cafeteria, then hung out in a big group, then hung out with a small group of friends, then hung out at each other’s homes doing homework… Each claimed that the other had initiated their first kiss, which Natasha actually recalled as awkward and chaste, neither of them opening their mouths. At some point, she’d opened her eyes. At what point were you supposed to pull away? Should she let him pull away first?

  Her first kiss with Greg had been her first kiss with anyone. “Mine, too,” Greg had said. But a year or so into their relationship, he admitted that he’d actually kissed two girls before, one girl he hadn’t wanted to kiss at a spin-the-bottle party, and one he had wanted to kiss at a dance in the eighth grade. The kisses didn’t bother her, but Greg’s lie did, the fact that their first kiss had now somehow lost some of its magic. Greg didn’t think it was such a big deal, and when she got upset he told her he regretted confessing after all, which just made it worse. His confession had led to one of their first blowouts, followed by her freezing him out. This lasted a week, after which Greg had called Josie and asked Josie to give Natasha a letter in which he’d asked her if she still wanted to be his girlfriend.

  How juvenile this all seems, now, as she steps into a set of nude-coloured nylons, stretches the sheer fabric up the length of one leg before spotting a run, several inches long. Since splitting with Greg, she’s been asked out numerous times, and each time, it’s felt like someone asking her to strip naked so they can examine her bellybutton or the creases between her toes. At Solomon’s last birthday party, a party she didn’t want to go to but did because she couldn’t let Josie down, a male friend of Josie’s from church had touched Natasha’s elbow and asked her whether she believed in Christ. Josie had made eye contact with her across the kitchen and winked. Yuck! Natasha had snuck into Josie’s garage for a break from all the evangelizing and stumbled into Solomon, hunched over on the garage stairs. He stood and swirled around, a stubby cigarette pinched between his first and second finger, a trail of ash dripping from it onto the concrete floor.

  He looked at her, eyes wide. “Don’t tell Jo,” he said. “I—I used to, um, when I was a teenager, and I quit, but then, when my grandfather died, I guess, the smell reminded me of him...” He dropped the cigarette to the floor, stubbed it with his shoe, kicked the remains under the garage stairs. “Everybody has vices.” Solomon reeked. Josie had probably already caught on to Solomon’s new vice—if she hadn’t, she was super naïve. It was like he wanted to be caught, huddling with his cigarette less than a metre from the door, where his wife could enter at any minute.

  So much for sneaking off for some fresh air. She turned to go back into the house, and Solomon reached out and grasped her arm. “You shouldn’t wear tops like that,” he said. “You’ll attract the wrong kind of attention.”

  She looked down at her pale pink, long sleeved, V-neck sweater. Tops like what? Was it the neckline he had a problem with? It barely exposed her chest—only the tiniest hint of cleavage. Or the fact that it was snug against her body? Either way—he should mind his own business. And stop touching her. She shook him off and went back into the house, found Jo, told her she had an early shift the next day, and hurried down the street in the cold to her car.

  Then, when Jason came by to fix the Internet and set up the baby monitors, they’d been having such a nice chat, and then he’d had to wreck it by asking her if she wanted to grab dinner afterwards. “I never told you this, you know, because of Greg,” he confessed, not looking directly at her, but rather, at some wires he was twisting into place, “but when we were kids, I had a crush on you.”

  She’d known. Jason was also recently single, having split from his son’s mother. Seriously, all these people who were not fit to be parents were having babies—first Jason’s girlfriend, then Abby. Natasha saw pregnant women and engagement rings everywhere she went.

  A few days after Jason asked her out, Natasha had gone to Starbucks to do some budgeting in anticipation of her niece’s birth. She’d asked a guy who looked like he was probably in his mid-thirties if he
would watch her spot while she went to use the washroom. Later, when she’d gotten up to leave, long after the guy had left, too, she found he’d scribbled a note and tucked it in her belongings—his name and phone number, and a line saying he thought she was beautiful. She’d sat there beside him for how long, with this note there, in between them, her not knowing. She’d balled up the note and slipped it in the garbage on her way out. Next time, she would make coffee at home.

  Pav had asked her out one night in the cafeteria with Melissa, and Melissa had answered, “She’d love to!” before Natasha had a chance to say, “I just got out of a long-term relationship...” Only later did she realize she might actually be excited about going.

  Now, she discards the ragged nylons into the trash and reaches for a new pair. She could probably go without—but there’s something sexy about wearing nylons, and since Pav insisted on keeping the name of the restaurant a surprise, it’s better to err on being too formal versus not formal enough. Greg’s idea of romance was a cheesy card plucked from one of the aisles at the grocery store. He always signed his name at the bottom, never wrote his own words. The other day she was rifling through all the compartments in her car looking for a CD she couldn’t find—1983, which Abby swore she hadn’t borrowed, but was for some reason missing from its sleeve—and found an old card Greg had once given her. She’d stared at the card, a red lollipop emblazoned on the front, and bubble letters, “I’m sorry, I suck.” She couldn’t remember what he’d done. Sometimes Greg had just seemed like a little kid trying to get his TV privileges back.

  A couple of years ago, Natasha’s unit held a black tie fundraiser to purchase new hospital equipment, and Natasha had brought Greg as her date. She’d worn a long mauve dress and put her hair up. She’d introduced Greg to many different co-workers that night, and can’t remember whether Pav was one of them, whether the two men actually talked. Shy, introverted Greg, had shaken hands with all these strangers, sipping his wine and nodding, but not adding to the conversation. Had Pav brought a date or a girlfriend? She recalls Pav at some point joking about her seeming taller because she’d worn heels and he’d only ever seen her in sneakers. Was Greg standing next to her when he made that comment? Does it matter now? Probably not. Just weird to think about. Greg will probably eventually find out about Pav, likely through Abby, if they keep seeing each other, that is. She doesn’t necessarily want Greg to find out, and she doesn’t want to know if Greg is seeing someone new, although she keeps changing her mind on this—some days, she does want to know, or, at least, a masochistic part of her wants to know. But if Abby knows something, everyone knows it, too, and Abby treats Greg like a big brother.

  What if Greg is seeing someone else? Greg will, eventually, end up with someone easy to love, someone who looks confident in a sweatshirt, hair a messy pile atop her head. Someone who will join him in the swimming pool, in a shiny blue one-piece and goggles, instead of watching from the stands. Someone who accepts an apology with a kiss, who cooks like an artist, who goes hiking sans makeup and tips her freckled face to the sky with a genuine smile, needing nothing more than that moment. Someone easier to love than her.

  As a little girl, Natasha’s mother read her Anne of Green Gables chapter by chapter each night before bed. Later, Natasha tried to read it to Abby, but Abby didn’t have the patience for long bedtime stories, so they never finished. “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it,” Anne’s beloved teacher had said to her, in the story, and then added, “Well, with no mistakes in it yet.” The quote offered little comfort when she would awaken next to Greg in the morning and stare at her sleeping boyfriend, all their history, all the mistakes, all the things she couldn’t change, flooding over her.

  After splitting with Greg, she’d boxed up all the clothing that reminded her of him (pretty much her entire closet) and sent them off to charity. Then she’d blown through an entire paycheque replenishing her wardrobe. She hadn’t had an opportunity to wear the black Calvin Klein sheath she’d purchased last summer after the saleswoman had told her how great she looked in it, how she couldn’t pass up such a classic little black dress, one that would never go out of style. “Perfect for a first date,” she’d added. At what point had she started giving off a single-girl vibe, having been practically married since high school? Practically, but not actually married, she’d reminded herself, and slid her credit card across the counter. A vital distinction. Natasha slips the dress over her head. Is it worth it, trying again? Starting from scratch? The dress is almost a year old, but it still has the tags.

  REUBEN

  SHE SHOWED UP AT HIS CUBICLE WITH COFFEES, ONE IN EACH hand. “Can we chat?”

  Is he supposed to know who she is? Clearly she knows who he is. She puts one of the coffees—a large to-go Starbucks—down on his desk, and moves to take a seat.

  “Uh…” Reuben has a stack of files on his desk, a meeting with his sergeant in an hour. “Now’s not a great time…”

  “I’m Sylvie,” she says, “from the university criminology department? I had a chance to look over the Bell file. Larsen asked me to share my thoughts. And I brought you an Americano.”

  Now he knows who she is. And despite the fact that she clearly asked someone what kind of coffee he likes, he already hates her. Does she think she knows something Reuben doesn’t? Does his boss, Larsen, think she knows something Reuben doesn’t? Her thesis is on missing and murdered Indigenous women, and last time he checked, his vic is as Caucasian as they come. Larsen must think Reuben is a fuck-up if he’s asked some student to audit Reuben’s work.

  Reuben gets a whiff of the coffee, can practically taste the dark roast. Almost erotic, since he’s so used to the horse piss the station machine spits into his Styrofoam tumblers every couple hours. Reuben reaches out, wraps one hand, then the other, around the white paper cup. So warm.

  Sylvie drags a nearby chair over to Reuben’s desk. Up close, she’s quite striking. Large blue eyes, long lashes. Apple cheeks. Her top is tucked into pale jeans. A visitor pass hangs on a lanyard around her neck, between her ample breasts. A thick honey-coloured braid hangs down her back.

  Reuben takes an overeager sip of the coffee, which scalds his tongue. Fuck.

  Sylvie sits, crosses her legs, pushes her sleeves up. “Okay, so I’m just going to get right to the point. I reviewed the file several times, and I’m leaning away from Morgan as the perpetrator.”

  Reuben crosses his arms. First she taunts him with real coffee, now she’s flat out trying to discredit everything he’s been working towards for the past six years? His tongue feels fuzzy. “And why is that?” he challenges. She hasn’t even brought the file with her. She’s just flying by the seat of her jeans.

  Sylvie gives Reuben a small smile, like this whole thing isn’t her fault. Like she wishes she could just agree with him. “Cases like these—it’s usually the boyfriend, or the ex, or what have you. I’m aware of the stats. But sometimes that view can be too narrow—”

  Reuben feels a hot flare in his gut. “Narrow?”

  Sylvie leans back in her chair. “I’m just saying there are alternatives that might warrant a closer look.”

  Oh really. She thinks he hasn’t covered all his bases. Thinks she knows better than a seasoned detective who’s been wearing this case like contact lenses for the past six years. “Like who?” he says, between clenched teeth. Can she feel the rage wafting off him right now? He reaches for the coffee and takes another sip. Burns the roof of his mouth. Fuck! Why does he keep doing that? As he sets it back down, some of the coffee sloshes through the lid and down the side of the cup.

  Sylvie takes a measured sip of her own coffee, shows no signs of having just been singed. “For starters,” she says, “the construction workers in the neighbourhood. They certainly had opportunity.”

  “What about motive?” Reuben can barely feel his mouth.

  “Any one of those guys could have been a sexual predator,” Sylvie says. “That’s plenty of motive. And we�
�ve got the pickup truck now. A pickup screams handyman to me.”

  We’ve got the pickup, she says, like they’re working together, like it’s her case, too. “I checked that angle—” Reuben starts, but Sylvie cuts him off.

  “Back in ’02. But, like I said, we’ve got the pickup now; I think it warrants a second look. And if it was a sexually motivated attack, the perpetrator has probably reoffended. We could do a search for similar cases, run background checks on the guys who were working at the time. See if any of them have a record now, even if they didn’t have any priors.”

  Reuben plucks the lid off the felonious coffee, releasing steam into the room. Is she seriously telling him how to do his job? “The bulk of the evidence suggests the ex,” he insists. “We’ve got an informant who says he was abusive—”

  Again, Sylvie cuts him off. “I think that post is bogus.” Her lipstick has stained the lid of her coffee. “Natasha wore short-sleeved scrubs to work. Her arms were bare all the time. There are pictures in the file of her, that spring, in a running race, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. No bruises whatsoever. She went for a physical every year—did you ask her GP if he saw any evidence of physical abuse? I doubt you’d find any. Not to mention that none of her co-workers owned up to writing the post.”

  She’s making it sound like victims of DV walk around with bruises and black eyes twenty-four-seven. Doesn’t she get how calculated this perp is? Emotional abuse, intimidation, these kinds of things don’t leave visible scars. Maybe he got rough once or twice; that wouldn’t show up in photos or be detected at a doctor’s appointment. Some criminologist. Reuben’s mouth tastes sour. “DV is complex. Subtle. You should know that. And whoever wrote the post is too scared to come forward.”