In Search of the Perfect Singing Flamingo

by Tacon, Claire;

  “We’d have gotten to the reno, you know. Eventually.”

  “It was a long drive to pick up Starr. You wouldn’t let me pay your gas.”

  She brightens, wipes her napkin over a smudge on the glass table. “Thanks. It was nice of you.”

  Surely Melanie knows it was her mother’s idea.

  The waiter brings the tea, righting the upturned cups with a smooth flip, not unlike a Ferris wheel bucket rocking. A motion he’s done a thousand times before.

  “Chester noticed some of the books in our bathroom were missing.” Her eyes dart up from her tea.

  “Do you mind?”

  “I’m just surprised.”

  The books all say to follow the lead of the person involved. She’s broached the topic, but I’m not sure how to respond. “I started flipping through. We don’t have to talk about it.” Probably I shouldn’t have skimmed the introductions.

  “No, it’s fine. I’m happy to talk about it.” She doesn’t say anything more.

  The first dish arrives, green onion pancake. Melanie swirls equal parts of soy and chili sauce together on her plate. She relaxes again, distracted with the business of eating. “I guess you’ve had a lot of time alone at the house.”

  “It’s made me glad you had your mother this year. That she was able to be a good listener.”

  “We were talking last night. She told me about your job –”

  She’s interrupted by a new server who brings the beef and broccoli, a plate of noodles and prawns, spicy fried chicken, and rice, annexing the neighbouring table to make space. It’s a noisy rearrangement, Melanie dividing up the pancake to clear dishes. We both wait with lukewarm smiles until our table is ours again.

  “I’m sorry about what I said the other night,” she says. “It must have been a hard week for you.”

  “You shouldn’t be. I was – what was your term? – filtering.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about how I said it.” She laughs, a spark she quickly squelches by biting into her chicken.

  “They talk about that in the sibling book.” All these years that Kathleen’s been grooming Starr for independence, Melly’s been training too. It isn’t the way I’d run the race – in my heart, I’d rather Starr lived at home forever if it made her happy – but I can see that Melly’s crouched at the start line, arm extended, ready to catch the baton. “I haven’t given you credit for how much you have on your plate.”

  Melly’s chin crinkles up, her face pulling into itself. I start furiously spooning food onto my rice. I end up dropping a slice of beef into my water glass. It sinks to the bottom without either of us acknowledging it. I’ll lose my nerve if I don’t steam ahead.

  “Some of that book also made me angry – the word burden. The chapter about cutting ties.”

  “Just because it’s in the book doesn’t mean I agree with it.”

  “When I got blindsided, all of you knowing what’s really going on. I’m better than how I reacted.”

  “Dad.” Melanie folds her hands over the table lip and leans into them.

  “Financial support’s a mess right now.”

  “It was Mom who offered. I don’t care if you can’t. I’ve just felt, for the past eight years, like –”

  “You can’t think I’ve been holding that over you?”

  That’s exactly what she thinks.

  “At the police station, in front of everyone, you asked me how I could let it happen.”

  That doesn’t seem true. That doesn’t seem like what transpired. But I’m not sure she’s wrong. In the moment, in the shock.

  Melanie continues, “She’s always gotten the best of you.”

  I roll that over like an oddity at a parts store, something not easy to figure out, but obviously important.

  People talk about parenting styles. Disciplinarian, permissive. Going into it, I’d thought that meant something, that you were one kind of parent or another, but it’s not true. You’re a different parent to each kid.

  It’s not that I love Starr more. I’ve just been a better father to her.

  When we leave, Styrofoam containers bursting out of the thin plastic bag, I walk Melly to her car. The humidity’s dropped and the city air is almost fresh. Now that I’m laid off, I’ll get to sleep in tomorrow, something I haven’t done in months. Kathleen’s suggested brunch, a stroll to the farmer’s market, just the two of us.

  “It’s not the way you think it is,” I say, awkwardly, as Melly unlocks the hatchback. “You’re just harder for me to decode.”

  She steps back onto the curb and I duck into the passenger-side footwell to bolster her leftovers with a bag of discarded coffee cups. The smell of soy sauce and sour milk tails me out of the vehicle.

  “Don’t take the corners too fast.”

  Melly shifts her weight from her right leg to her left, tucks her arms across her waist. “Starr’s always going to be part of my family. You know that, right?”

  She waits for me to signal before pulling out and we caravan all the way up to the 401. Long before I slow for the exit ramp, my daughter’s hand is up, waving, unsure when I’ll catch her benediction.

  DARREN

  WHEN HENRY SHOWS UP, HE LOOKS TIRED. I HAVEN’T seen him in the months since Chicago but it’s like he faded along with the leaves. He stands dead centre in one of the aisles of the make space, afraid to get close to the machines. I’m sure, given a minute or two, he could figure out how to use, even repair, any of them, but maybe because it’s a university lab he’s reluctant to touch things.

  “So you’re working here?”

  “Four afternoons a week for a few hours. It’s good. I can do my own projects.”

  “So what are we looking at?”

  We’ve got a 3-D printer attached to a new scanner. Next to it is a bucket of test jobs – a Yoda head, a couple moulds, a custom part for a prototype caliper. Henry picks up one of the doodads and checks the flex. I can tell he wants to put more stress on it, see if it will snap. I give him a hammer and lead him over to the wood shop. He gives the resin a few polite taps.

  This is the part of the make space that I spend the least amount of time in. A lot of it is standard woodworking fare – band saws, plane, 12 ton press, shelves of different lubes and glues. There are some metal tools too, and I point out a donated lathe. “It was used in aviation construction. Our CNC machine is on loan right now, or I’d let you try it out.” Henry’s one of the few parts of my old life that I miss. I hadn’t expected him to accept my invitation.

  “It’s a playground.” He hands me the resin bit.

  “Keep it. Anytime you need parts for the basement. I can help with the AutoCAD file.”

  We’ve circled back to the electrical area and take a seat next to soldering supplies.

  “How’s the engineering workload?”

  “So far it’s okay. I’ve got forced study time here.”

  “Was Starr right? Have you been going to keggers?” Henry smiles now.

  “No,” I laugh. “But I’ve been to the bars a couple times and there’s a sci-fi film society. Close enough to horror.”

  Henry fiddles with a solderless breadboard and we fall into silence. The last I’d heard, he wasn’t working at the Mississauga Funhouse anymore, but I got that second-hand. If it’s true, I have a bad feeling that it has to do with me and I’d like the chance to apologize.

  There’s some scrap balsa plywood from an architectural model and I ask Henry if he wants to play with the laser cutter. At first, we run the tutorial, a square with an inset circle that’s engraved with the manufacturer’s logo. It’s supposed to be a coaster.

  “It’s like the wood burning art my mother used to do in the seventies,” Henry says. He runs his hand over the tiny letters. “Could it do a photo?”

  “As long as we get the speed and power settings right.” The whole thing functions like an old dot matrix printer. Depending on your levels, the laser shoots at one spot to engrave, cut or burn. I pull up the previous projec
ts log and try to find something similar.

  He shows me a picture of his daughter Melanie and someone who I guess is her husband. They’re at a swim-up bar with fancy cocktails in their hands. It’s right out of a TV commercial for Imodium. Don’t get caught at the wrong time. The way the picture’s framed their sunglasses take up most of the shot.

  “We have to convert it to stencil first.” It takes a few tries to get a clean line around their features. Since we’re flattening it to three levels in Photoshop, the crappy camera phone resolution actually helps. “How big?”

  “Something they could hang above a chair. Like in the living room.”

  “Okay.” I blow it up to two feet by three feet and convert it to a .dxf file. “Ready?”

  We’ll do three passes, like a screen print from lightest to darkest. As the machine hums to life, Henry follows the laser’s movements like a cat. We watch his daughter’s jawline slowly form.

  “We sell community memberships.”

  “I’m doing enough commuting.”

  “Are you only in Toronto now?”

  “Niagara. You’re looking at the Cataract Casino’s trainee slots manager.”

  It’s hard for me to look him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have gotten you involved.”

  “I’d known for a while that it was time to leave. Really, it’s fine.” He coughs into his hand. “I’m just glad the listing came up before I had to do another skills workshop at the employment centre. For the first time, I understood my father-in-law’s complaint about the retirement home. ‘I’m surrounded by old people.’ He was eighty-nine.”

  “I know you liked the Funhouse.”

  “The machines aren’t that different.” Henry’s chuckle doesn’t feel honest. “You know, one month into the job I helped one of the blue rinsers with her bags and someone nominated me for a customer shining star award. They gave me a crystal punch bowl. Felt like I’d cashed in a garbage bag of Funhouse tickets.”

  “Big spender.” The laser tracks back to its starting point and I queue the next layer to begin. “I guess they’re making enough.” When your employees are around money all day and have no natural light you must have to shell out for morale.

  “You have no idea how much cash feeds into those machines.” Henry flicks his right hand like he’s dropping a line of tokens into the coin pusher. “I see the same people every week. They’re not fancy.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Better hours, better pay and a crystal punch bowl. If you need it for one of your res parties, it’s yours.” He shifts his face, grins. “You get home much?”

  “Just once over Thanksgiving. It was nice to see my family.” I doubt I’ll be back before Christmas. Mississauga feels even smaller than before. “You know the charges got dropped at the hearing.”

  “I heard through Greyson. Next time you’re home, come get the crapped-up suit. Change the head and you’ve got a Halloween costume.”

  “Also, I went bowling with Jeremy and his girlfriend. They’re back together.” Henry peaks his eyebrows.

  “It was kind of fun. When he’s not trying so hard to impress people, he’s a lot better.” His girlfriend’s off at Western so Jeremy’s the odd one out. He spent most of the night talking about colleges he’s been checking into. Actually, now that my parents aren’t pushing it, Jeremy feels like family. That dumb cousin you’ll know your whole life.

  The machine has stopped and the picture looks better, more defined than I thought it would.

  “Wow.” Henry holds it at different angles under the fluorescents. “Can I pay you for the wood?”

  “No. I still owe you a lot from Chicago. I never got to thank you for it.”

  Henry grabs a square of sandpaper and runs it along the rounded corner. “In the end, I’m not sure there was much to thank me for.”

  “There was.”

  “You heard from her?”

  “No, but it helped. I’m not waiting.”

  “You seeing anyone here?”

  “Total sausage fest. Did you see the class photos in the hallway? There’s about a two percent chance that I’m not dying celibate as a priest.”

  “Kathleen brought home one of those Belgian monk beers. There are worse ways to go.” Henry winks. “There’s always online dating.”

  “Sure, I’ll use my Frankie photo. Looking for the perfect singing flamingo.”

  He laughs, says he’d better head back so he can catch dinner with his wife.

  “I have something for Starr.” I pull out a large tortoise toy with a birthday hat on and click the button underneath. I’ve rigged it with an arduino chip and a sensor in its head so it will bob up and down when someone is near and will walk toward movement. “The inside is hollow. You just need to change the battery if you leave it on too long.” I show him how to unscrew the bottom shell. “Bring it back if it crashes and I’ll fix it.”

  He holds his fingers up and the turtle dips like a dog sniffing him out. “She’ll love it.”

  “Is she okay? She sends me Facebook hellos sometimes. I write back but she mostly just says hi and asks how I’m doing. I saw her birthday was coming up.”

  “She’ll be okay I think. We haven’t found her a job yet.”

  “Wish her a happy birthday for me.”

  I help him to the car with the portrait and the turtle.

  “First the crystal bowl and now this. I’m going to be spoiled.” Henry says it flippantly, but as he shakes my hand he reaches around to squeeze my shoulder into a hug. I don’t feel so foolish for wanting him to visit again.

  “One more thing. For all your real estate needs.” I slip him a Leung Technical Solutions business card. As he backs out of the space he pins it between his thumb and the wheel. He glances at the picture again and laughs and laughs.

  HENRY

  FOR HER BIRTHDAY, STARR HAS ASKED FOR A POTLUCK dinner. Just family. Kath and I are making the lasagna, Melanie and Chester have brought ice cream cake and Starr’s starting us off with salad. There are three kinds of beans lined up on our counter, sandwiched between the pepper mill and a bottle of white balsamic vinegar. Starr’s assembling all the ingredients so she can share the recipe with us, demonstration style. For the past four Wednesday nights, she’s been attending a continuing-ed class called Take-along Favourites.

  Melanie is on sous-chef duty, chopping the celery and onion. Kathleen and I take our cue to back off and keep busy putting out cheese and crackers. As she replaces the Wheat Thins, my wife makes a point of rolling the new wire bin in and out of the cupboard. It’s a fix she requested years ago. Now that I have two full days off a week, I’ve been ticking through home projects. She runs her hands around the basket’s perimeter, hamming it up like Vanna White. It’s been nice to have time together that’s not taken up by laundry.

  Chester sits on the far side of the breakfast bar, nursing his beer and cranking open the cans Starr hands him. With his long arms, he’s able to jiggle the tap on from his seat. I gesture to the draining chickpeas.

  “This is looking too healthy for a birthday. What did you call it again? Boulders and goats?”

  “Rustic Mountain Salad.” Starr rolls her eyes, trying not to smile. I peck her cheek, forcing the grin. She lets me sneak a broken mandarin segment before banishing me to the corner. “Too many cooks in the kitchen!”

  She’s at the community centre four days a week now – once for day program, once for class and two afternoons volunteering with the preschool. A month at home eroded our hard line about work-for-pay. Starr prepares and delivers the kids’ snack then joins in for story and song circle. The agency says that to get hired permanently she would have to get a certificate as an early years educator, but the community centre manager told us there are a few programs he thinks she could help with. He’s trying to pull together some discretionary funds to bundle up fifteen hours a week at minimum wage.

  Melly lifts a ceramic ramekin off the stack. Dollar store special. “You want me to set
these on the table?”

  “Leave them,” Starr says. “We’re serving the dressing on the side. That way if anyone’s on a diet or doesn’t like dressing, they have options.”

  “You think I need to go on a diet?” Melly pops her stomach out and rubs it. Starr notices the blue mark inside her sister’s elbow and runs her finger along it. The nurses doing the daily blood draws at the clinic aren’t always gentle.

  “Ow,” Starr says. “Are you feeling better?” She leans close enough to rest her head on her sister’s shoulder and the two of them watch the salad spinner rotate the greens.

  The demonstration begins with a music cue, “Scarborough Fair” from The Concert in Central Park. According to the instructor, this is a hippie salad. Starr distributes copies of the recipe so each of us can follow along.

  “First,” she says, “you need a really big bowl.” She dumps in all the prepped veg, pausing to tick off the ingredients with a dry-erase pen. The recipe card from class has been laminated, something I wish we’d thought of when she was in catering. Starr braces her hips against the drawers and gives the mixture a good stir. “We have to coat the beans in a light vinaigrette.” She deftly pours half a cup of vinegar into the measuring cup, adds the oil and whisks the two together with a fork. As she drizzles it over the beans, the flecks of parsley take on a well-lubricated sheen.

  “Using an ice cream scoop can help with portion control,” Starr says, brandishing her other bargain purchase. She motions for Melly to hand her the side plates, which are sprinkled with mixed greens. She places a perfect round of bean mixture onto the cloud of lettuce. A feast for the world’s fanciest longhair.

  As she reaches for the second plate, Starr’s elbow knocks the bottle of olive oil. It teeters, launches neck-first toward the tile. Starr’s hands clap over her ears. The scoop drops, flinging beans across the cabinetry.

  Melly’s already on the floor retrieving the bottle. “It’s okay. The lid was on.” But the plastic’s cracked along the seam. By the time we locate the funnel, invert the bottle, there’s a slick down Melanie’s arm, marks along the skirt of her dress.