by Ian Williams
Girl in uniform, girl in nurse’s outfit, bad librarian, the stock characters. The Mansion’s steady patrons knew the canon of routines and spoke passionately about the girls’ artistic development and their bodily virtues. The real old-timers spoke of the girls as fondly as daughters: she did that throwback number last year, bone in her hair and everything. Took the bone out at the end. Shook her head. Haha. And she gave Dale a kiss every night he cried out Wilmaaaaa! Wonder what she’s doing now? Because, truth of the matter, is that the girls went on, had last dances the same night their replacements were introduced. Oliver thought he might see them in the mall one day, just catch up with them, as if he knew something about their lives. At the checkout. But every girl to whom he said, You remind me of— Did you ever— (for he couldn’t finish) looked at him strangely, without the sympathy of these girls. These girls who would drag on your cigarette outside wrapped in a parka with their little knees showing, their shoulders slipping out before shuddering and running in. He wanted to help these girls. True. Superman fantasy be damned. It was true.
The private rooms didn’t have doors, for the girls’ safety, but beaded curtains, and the back of the couch was turned to the doorway, so if you ignored the red card in the pocket on the door frame, you’d only see a guy’s head lolled backward, arms spread across the back of the seat. There was a no-touch policy as well. The private rooms each had strong coffee tables that could be improvised stages, depending on a guy’s taste. Most of the girls didn’t use them.
The woman on stage now was black and new. This might be the first time they had a black dancer. How could that be? Not the first, but definitely the best—prime. The others were a bit dumpy, a curiosity more than a pleasure, they were good fun though, athletic or matronly, he wouldn’t mind lying on their breasts, being clutched into comfort. Or giving them a little slap to test the reverb of their flesh.
This one had long thin braids. Flag theme. A military outfit with patches that peeled off. Different parts of her body had different flags. Oliver could identify most of them. The epaulets were union jacks with fringes. Clever. Entertaining and educational. This girl went to school.
Onyxxx untied the knot from her waist and unbuttoned her shirt. Revealed a Jamaican bikini. Stars and stripes on the bottoms.
One of Oliver’s Mansion friends (whom he never saw outside of this place, never discussed children, or work but only sports scores and girls) shouted, Show me the Beaver, and Onyxxx slipped down the waist of her pants and flashed a maple leaf thong.
Oliver held up a two-dollar bill, which she took with her teeth, some jungle reference. He allowed himself ten dollars whenever he came here. That would be five girls or maybe a dance every couple of weeks.
He should go to the police about his guitar. Felicia had told him that some young boys on her island skinned a pig and hiked the skin up the flagpole of the central police station to protest the acquittal of two Indian officers who murdered a deaf black teenager after a fête. Oliver wanted to know the logistics of getting pig skin up a flagpole under twenty-four-hour police surveillance. She shrugged. When she told stories like this, she never seemed particularly interested in the how.
The music ended with a few bars of O Canada, where her salute dropped from her forehead down her shoulders, her breasts, her waist, to her hip and circled around the groove of her pelvis into her crotch.
The DJ said, Give it up for Onyxxx. Happy belated Canada Day, boys. (It was, in fact, two weeks after Canada Day.) She set off some fireworks for me. Make some noise, fellas.
The Mansion provided theatre for Oliver, so stimulating, often surprisingly tasteful. No lower nudity. In Montreal the girls bared all, and in the States. Where else could one get a show with lights and sound, plotless plots, good girls and bad girls, histories, post-routine analysis, mounted sports TV in the background and two pounds of chicken wings for the price of one on Wednesdays? Come on. What red-blooded man could ask for more? (More of a man than you’d ever be, the ex had said.)
Onyxxx approached the steps. There was no backstage adjoining the stage so the women had to walk through the crowd to get to their dressing rooms while someone else scooped up their clothes. The men weren’t allowed to touch the girls but they might accept your hand to come down the stairs in those towering heels. They were sweet.
Thank you. Onyxxx took his hand.
They’d accept a few more dollars one-on-one. Maybe he’d get a lap dance later.
Where you from? he asked her.
Windsor, she said.
He meant, Really, where are you from?
Long way from home, aren’t you? he said.
She laughed.
Oliver hadn’t made anyone laugh in so long. Flirting. He still had it. Only here.
I wouldn’t say no to a ride, she said. All wink without winking. Then she left.
What day was it? Tuesday. Oliver hoped they kept her on.
He walked to his truck. He usually parked at a far end of the lot, under some trees, near the dumpster, because, he was prepared to say, he didn’t want anybody dinging his truck, because that spot kept his truck cool, he was prepared to say. He laid an old Entertainment section on his lap. He closed his eyes. For the first fifteen seconds, he was lying on the left side of the bed and his wife was stroking her clavicle. For the remaining forty, he was sitting on the floor of Felicia’s bedroom, looking up at her legs. When he opened his eyes Sophie Fortin’s backless back was wet.
Felicia
Exchange
The Sunday she told Army she was going to a church function and felt Oliver’s eyes all over her, she sped to Toronto, hoping she hadn’t crossed Edgar on the way, forestalling him from—how did he find out where she lived when she had only been there since June? Weeks. Who did they know in common?
Edgar didn’t invite Felicia inside. Instead he kicked his feet into some flattened loafers and walked her around the outside of the house toward the woods.
I wasn’t sure where we left off last time, Edgar said. I didn’t feel we could speak frankly in my office.
Her heels perforated the moist earth as they walked so she took them off and wore his shoes while he walked barefoot and held hers. There was something honeymoon-on-a-beach-in-silhouette about their stroll.
Also, he added, I hadn’t heard from you so I was wondering if that was a sign of, he hesitated, a sign of something.
Felicia frowned and looked at his shoes.
Have you had dinner? Edgar asked.
It really didn’t suit him, the small talk, the solicitousness. Felicia said, You don’t have to be nice.
I’m not being nice, he said. I mean, I’m not trying to be nice.
What’s the matter now?
Nothing’s the matter.
The matter you wanted to discuss.
Edgar caught on. Let’s walk some more.
The matter, as far as Felicia could discern, was a kind of mid-life crisis. He wanted to sell the house. He wanted to resign. He wanted to move to the mountains or maybe buy a cottage. He wanted to join a men’s basketball league. He wanted find a pair of soft, comfortable jeans. His first.
He showed her the two trees he had planted at the head of their mothers’ graves.
I got the Japanese maple for Geraldine and I got this one, he said, pointing to his right, the cotinus coggygria, for Mutter. It’s also known as a smoke tree. That’s the only reason I got it. But out of death, life, he said. That’s in the Bible somewhere. Or the Bard. I don’t remember.
It wasn’t until an hour had passed and they were sitting on a stone bench near the graves that Edgar approached the heart of the matter. The evening had cooled down. Felicia folded her arms when she caught Edgar looking at her breasts.
I don’t think people take me seriously anymore, he said.
Why?
Isn’t it obvious?
To me, yes, but to everybody?
He sighed a sigh that made her think of Oliver. I’m a man in the prime of his life—
Past.
In, he insisted.
Felicia was unprepared for the sudden touchiness.
And what do I have? A house. That’s all I have. A house.
A job, Felicia continued the list. Money in the bank. You’ve travelled up and down.
Garbage. Edgar waved dismissively. I suppose next you’ll say I have my health.
Count your blessings. Felicia saw her opportunity. What you saying now is something I telling you donkey years ago. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world?
When you’re in my world, Edgar said, and you’re in your forties—
Fifties.
He froze her with a look. And all the other men around you keep talking about their wives and their kids’ soccer matches and they bring around those fundraising pledge forms and you don’t have any of those things, two things happen. One, you want to take an axe to their faces. Two, they start to think you’re kind of funny.
She had never had that doubt about Edgar. Everybody knows you don’t like men.
I don’t mean like that. He eyed her covered breasts. I’ll get you a sweater when we go back. I mean—
They don’t take you seriously.
They used to envy me and now—pity is a strong word but I feel, he hesitated, condescended to. I lack gravitas.
Felicia felt anger rise in her. Oh now he wants a family.
I am ungrounded by commitment. I always wanted to be married. That’s probably why I married Sophie so young. And you too. In the hospital, you told me you wanted the husband, the kids, the white picket fence. Remember? I’m talking too much. How about you? Are you seeing anyone?
Off limits.
I don’t see why that should be off limits. We used to be able to say anything to each other, he said with a false, pleading tone that irked Felicia. Devious through and through.
I think you’re forgetting vast swaths of things you neglected to tell me, she said.
How’s work? he said, bypassing the prompt.
Edgar, she said. Stop asking me the same nonsense.
Okay, he said. Yes, I was wondering if, well, two things. One: Has anyone contacted you?
Does anyone know I’m out there?
Not as far as I can tell.
She wouldn’t say it but Felicia really thought that Edgar was worried over nothing. No one was going to contact her. She was not the main story. The main story was the bad actress who forgot she was married to a man with a shady reputation for harassment in his father’s company. But he was so self-centred and self-important and, what was Army’s word, self-dramatizing, yes, that he thought even the Russians were spying on him.
There’s your answer, she said.
That’s good.
And you would like to keep it that way.
Yes, that was what the second thing was going to be. How could I help you maintain your privacy through all of this?
What if I don’t want privacy, she said, but she was just being contrarian. She mentioned nothing about the two Paperplane envelopes that had arrived in the mail.
If they haven’t contacted you, I don’t see why you would go after them. There’s nothing to gain.
Are these women charging you or is it just an HR thing? She wanted Edgar to come clean, stop trying to play her for a fool.
Edgar ignored the question. Initially, we—
Who’s we?
My team and I. He paused. Right, yes, as I was saying, we thought that the best strategy was to lay low and to solicit a settlement under whatever terms worked for both parties, but in the last week or so we’ve been toying with the idea of another strategy.
I don’t want to be part of any strategy, Edgar, if that’s where you’re going.
No, he said. Well, not exactly. I thought of this before the divorce and the allegations.
Why should I be part of any strategy?
We can come to the why later, he said. Just hear me out.
She straightened her shoes between Edgar and herself.
And for the record, Felicia. I don’t care what happens with these women. I just want the true story out there for the record. Your story.
That’s not going to help you.
Or our story, which is that we met while I was married, yes, but while both our mothers were in the hospital, dying. And that you and I entered a relationship, the seed of which was grief. He pointed her shoes at the trees. You cared for my mother. I cared for you and for our son. I’ve never denied him, Felicia. You know that.
Felicia bit her lips. This was rich. Meet my black wife and son. Maybe they could get a profile story in a women’s magazine with her and Army seated on a settee, Edgar standing behind them with his arms spread over the engraved frame. Maybe he had political aspirations.
Edgar was still talking: We remained committed to each other although you chose—
I chose? I chose?
to live a separate and private life.
I have to stop you right there. Felicia looked up. Lord, grant me the serenity.
But regardless, he said, of how it came about, this is our—
It is not our story atall, Felicia said.
I don’t know what your story is but this has been my story. You know, not a day goes by that I don’t think
Stop it, Edgar, she said. He was embarrassing himself.
about you and little Armistice and how we could have done things differently, maybe got a station wagon, with some planning.
He’s fourteen, going on fifteen.
But you left in such a hurry.
You put me out, Edgar. Felicia withdrew her feet from his shoes and took hers from him. She ground her heels into the tongue flap. You brought me down the stairs and beheaded me in front of some prostitute you had masquerading as a nurse—for Felicia had discovered that the agencies he used to watch Mutter were in fact escort agencies—and told me, she slapped his arm with each word, to leave the key in the mailbox.
I was ending our work relationship. It wasn’t fair for you at nineteen, twenty, to care for Mutter. You were in school, finishing up your— You finished?
Of course I finished.
It just wasn’t right to put that responsibility on you. I don’t remember saying anything about the key.
You said it. You told me to leave the key in the mailbox by Monday morning. I remember clearly.
I don’t have any recollection of that.
He was talking like he was in court already.
If your version is true, then why did I come see you in the hospital? You can’t have a selective memory, Felicia. I was right there when you named him Armistice. He was in the premature ward. Your Canada and the World history textbook was on the side table. There’s nothing wrong with my memory.
And yes, she remembered, Edgar had held Army, with his shoulders up to his ears, held him carefully, and Felicia thought, I did this. I brought this child here so you could look at yourself while looking at me, look into a mirror reflecting a mirror. She remembered the blue gown. She remembered how large Edgar was in contrast to how small the baby was, and how the baby, Army, white as a piglet, yawned his toothless mouth and how his upper lip was larger than his lower, and didn’t care who was holding him, just wanted to sleep while being held. She had hoped that the baby’s presence would create some change in Edgar. How could it not? The baby was an offering, a peace offering, something she was offering him at great personal cost to her reputation, but she was willing to let that be. She had trembled with hope. She had, in motherhood, ascended to another state of being where she had to forgive, where she couldn’t be angry, where she was willing to sacrifice even more for this one thing, one thing. Just make us a family. It’s the only thing she would ever ask for.
And after that, Edgar? Felicia asked.
I—
He, indeed. He came to Christian Lady’s house a few months later and sat in the formal living room drinking some juice, probably cursing that Christian Lady’s house was a dry house. Felicia was bouncing A
rmy with a cloth on her shoulder. She was constantly in profile. She asked him if he wanted to hold the baby. He said no. She extended the baby to Edgar and he shook his head. Felicia thought that if he had just held the baby that day, things might have been different. But they fought instead about why he didn’t want to hold the baby, and he dug in, and looked incapable, distanced, and uncomfortable on the formal Italian settee. He left and came back, as he used to do. Not to see the baby again though. All Edgar wanted was to tell her that she should have been honest with him if she wanted to have a baby. They fought in the foyer. She said she didn’t want to have a baby, and his last words to her for fourteen going on fifteen years: If you didn’t want to have a baby, then why did you have one?
You have a penchant for the macabre, Edgar said.
Felicia protested. I just remember everything.
How come you don’t remember good things, Christmas, eggnog and cake?
Because that never happened. I wanted to make eggnog and you said it gave you gas and when I made ginger beer you filled yours up with rum. And I asked you to measure the currants and raisins and you made me make a mess of the cake and—
Okay, okay.
What I don’t appreciate, Felicia returned to the matter, is how you think you’re outsmarting me somehow. If you had come to me at the beginning of your troubles and said, Felicia, girl, I know I don’t deserve anything from you
I don’t.
but I in some real hot water now
I am.
and I was hoping you could help me out
Yes, yes.
by pretending we stayed in touch over the years and that I was providing for you and your son.