Catching the Light

by Susan Sinnott

  He was nice too. There was that lazy word again: nice. Well, he was friendly and he was kind. Not great looking but not bad either, and he was only a bit shorter than Cathy. He just yakked about his classes at Dalhousie and his girlfriend and his family back home in New Brunswick and he was funny sometimes and Cathy didn’t feel she had to answer with something smart.

  He asked her about art school, said he’d never met an artist, and next thing she was telling him all about her wanting to paint forever and he didn’t seem a bit bored.

  ***

  There were a lot of artsy hairstyles around campus: streaks in wild colours and whole heads in blue or green. Orange and yellow streaks would have been fun, but Cathy couldn’t afford them. At least her hair had a shape these days, thanks to Raylene, but as it grew longer the front bits got in the paint or the spaghetti sauce, or the wind blew it in her mouth. She took a section of hair from each side of her face, tied them together with an elastic at the back, and practiced doing it in front of her mirror. At first it pulled her skin tight and made her eyes water, but after a bit she learned how to make it stay together in a looser way, prettier.

  She bumped into Jeff in the hall and he said, “Nice hair.”

  Cathy looked at the floor and grunted. Muttered thank you so low that maybe he didn’t hear, so she said it again a bit louder, but that was overdoing it so she said about her hair being like her Russell grandmother’s, although she’d never seen her grandmother, but people back home said it was and….

  She stopped in the middle of this puddle of words and lifted one foot up and put it down on dry land, then the other foot. Then realized she’d moved away from Jeff, which looked unfriendly, so she moved back. They headed for the door and Jeff did that two-handed struggle thing with the locks.

  That uppity guy had complimented Jessica yesterday in art class. She had been wearing a scarf tied in a cute way and huge earrings and bangles. He’d looked her up and down with a sleazy grin and said,“Hmm, nice.” Cathy would have scowled or turned her back but Jessica smiled showing all her teeth—the way Jenny Sheppard used to—and said, “Oh, thank you, Fraser.” And she just stood there, not at all uncomfortable, and she looked good.

  Jeff had the door open now and when they were out in the sunlight he looked at Cathy’s hair again and said it was pretty. So she straightened, stuck up her chin, and smiled a bit.

  “Thanks.”

  First Year

  When Hutch arrived Paul was out on the sidewalk. “New jacket?”

  “North Face,” Hutch said with a nod. He had on his new fleece, a checked lumberjack shirt with a white tee, his best jeans, and his favourite trucker hat.

  “Nice.”

  “Mom bought it in St. John’s end of the winter last year. She hid it until she was sure I was going away, said no way I was going to wear my red-and-black plaid in Halifax.” He grinned as he remembered her face. She’d probably have burned that plaid if he’d tried bringing it. “Got me a Columbia winter one too.” He stopped then. Didn’t mention how they’d had to cut off his Ski-Doo jacket in the ambulance.

  Paul took the biggest bag and Hutch slung on the bulging backpack and picked up his laptop. The first flight of stairs had a handrail but the next flight didn’t. It was tight and steep with a narrow tread and his backpack kept pulling him backwards. Hutch had to lean ahead and slide up the wall, good foot up first each step, and he had to slam his phony foot right to the back to make sure he didn’t overbalance.

  “Sorry,” said Paul. “Old house. We had to buy small furniture so we could get it up the stairs; you should have seen the trouble they had with the fridge.”

  “No sweat. Just being careful.” Might have to use the cane on this.

  “I ordered pizza. Should be here any minute.”

  They went into Paul’s area first: a high-ceilinged room with two trestle tables, bar stools, and a sink, an easel, a three-way mirror, and paint stuff stacked everywhere. “My studio,” Paul called it. A big old fridge, which he’d bought for a song, rattled and chugged by the door—too big for his apartment.

  There was a great view of roofs and the sunset through Paul’s wide vinyl windows like the ones Hutch’s dad had put in at home. The rest of the room was tall walls and cracked plaster and a dingy stucco ceiling stained with damp marks.

  “The folks had a new roof put on but we haven’t got to the ceilings yet, and the old windows were about to shake themselves out into the street, so they had to go.”

  There was a door in the corner into an apartment full of Paul’s stuff and they ate the pizza at a little table in the kitchen with cold beer to celebrate Hutch’s arrival. Paul said Hutch’s room was only big enough for a rabbit—hutch-sized—and pointed out where he could store his overflow in the studio and said please use the fridge.

  Hutch was just glad to unload his bags, make up the bed, and fall into it, saying he’d leave the evaluations until morning.

  ***

  School was the easy part, once Hutch was used to Dal’s layout and the distances he had to walk between classes. He enjoyed the classes, got on with the other students. He sat on the end of a row where he could to give himself stretch room, stood up now and then when he was at the back. One prof asked him about that after class and when Hutch explained he just nodded and said carry on.

  A guy who looked like he worked out a lot came up to Hutch in the cafeteria one afternoon. Sean.

  “You sound like a Newfoundlander,” he said. “Where’re you from?”

  Sean was from St. John’s but it turned out his brother had known Eugene. They got talking and went for a beer after class that day. This was Sean’s second year, so he knew the ropes. He was friendly, greeted everywhere he went, stopping to chat to each person. Lots of backslapping and tall tales, but he listened to people too, remembered what they’d told him last time so they could carry on where they’d left off. There was another round of Q and A when he introduced Hutch. It took a long time to reach the bar.

  Sean ran his hands through his hair all the time when he was thinking, just like Jack, but instead of looking like a ginger birch broom, Sean’s hair always looked Hollywood. “Designer casual” Mom would call it. He was a good-looking guy and girls’ eyes followed him even more than Paul, but he wasn’t into fashion. He recycled the same five T-shirts through the whole school year and the holes in his jeans grew big enough to need safety pins.

  Sailors became Hutch’s favourite bar in Halifax. First because they didn’t check his ID, but later, when he’d seen inside a few more bars, for a whole slew of reasons: mostly because there were always people in there whatever the hour, and he liked being in the middle of things; the noise level was just right; it was dark enough to be interesting and scruffy enough to feel friendly, but the glasses all shone. And the beer was cold and foamy and good.

  Sean was having a party that Saturday and invited Hutch to bring Paul along too. A girl in Hutch’s math class said there was always a party at Sean’s.

  ***

  A few weeks into the semester Hutch sat next to the window on the bus in his usual morning stupor. A big woman with a puffy brown jacket squeezed in next to him. She overflowed onto him from shoulder to knee. He pulled over as much as he could but she just spread out more. She radiated warmth like a hot water bottle. The bus was swinging and bouncing and someone almost fell in the aisle. Never been this bad before.

  “Driver had a fight with his woman and he’s still mad,” the guy in front said.

  “Too much coffee,” said the guy’s neighbour with the big mole on his cheek.

  “…shouldn’t be allowed.”

  “…should have his license taken away.”

  The comments came from all around. Hutch smiled slightly. It took a shared gripe to make people talk to each other at this hour of the morning.

  Then the woman next to him said, “There’s going t
o be an accident.”

  Pain shot down both legs so sharply Hutch gasped. He could hear metal screeching, Jenny screaming. There was glass bursting and he put his hands up to cover his face. But when he opened his eyes there was no glass, just the guy with the mole and the hot-water-bottle woman digging around in a bag on her knee.

  “Excuse me. Getting off next stop.”

  Hutch could hardly get the words out. What his eyes saw didn’t match what he could hear. His stomach roiled and he could taste acid at the back of his throat. He wasn’t sure he could walk.

  The hot-water-bottle woman swung one leg out into the aisle and hauled herself up by the back of the seat in front. She was saying something but Hutch couldn’t hear because of the noise in his head. Her canvas bag had a picture of Fidel Castro on the side and she was only holding one handle so it tipped and things started spilling into the aisle: a newspaper and some pink knitting with the needles stuck through a ball of wool. He heard Eugene yelling, “Oh my god,” and there was a tight band round Hutch’s ribs so he couldn’t take a breath and he tried to say thanks but didn’t know if any sound came out.

  He staggered down the aisle and thought maybe he’d stood on her knitting and there was a tug, but he felt strangled so he didn’t look down—just had to get off that bus. And later he thought maybe he’d seen something pink by his foot as he stumbled down the steps. He staggered across the sidewalk, bumping into something or somebody he didn’t see, and he wondered after if that bus had flown off through the lights trailing pink knitting. He grabbed the top of a low railing and held on like it was the only thing stopping him from hurtling into space. Everything was spinning with a rushing noise and a gurgling, then gradually it shrank back to a kind of sobbing gasping stillness.

  Someone asked if he was all right and he managed to say he’d be okay in a minute thank you. His voice sounded strange and his head pounded and he could feel his foot twisted around and the exact position of every inch of both legs. He could even feel that slice of metal stuck in his side, making him double over. Hutch just stood there holding on for grim death. Good expression, that. He wanted to lie down and die. He wanted to go home.

  He stayed leaning on the railing for ages until he felt more like himself and the leg pain had shrunk almost to a normal bad day, although his stump was real sore. But when he set off back to the apartment the pain round his hip got worse and worse. The cane would have been handy but it was under his bed. He’d shove it in the bottom of his bag from now on. He was surprised he still had his backpack. It took a long time to walk home.

  Hutch kept hearing Jenny and Eugene. Ages later—felt more like days later—he crawled up the stairs, took a handful of painkillers, and fell on his bed fully dressed, yanked off the leg and let it drop on the floor, let everything go. But the tears he’d been holding back had solidified into a lump in his head.

  He awoke to knocking on his door. Paul. It was almost dark.

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, bit of trouble on the bus. Long story.”

  But Paul looked like he was putting two and two together.

  Change of Style

  “Have you seen Miss Congeniality?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going tonight…if you want to come.”

  “Okay.”

  “This isn’t a date or anything.” Jeff stared straight ahead as he walked along. “I have a girlfriend back in Shediac. Corinne. I’ve mentioned her before.” Yes he had, every Thursday. “It’s just nice to have company.”

  “Yes.”

  So they saw the movie and chatted about it on the bus home and about how they loved Sandra Bullock as the lead. They walked the ten minutes from the bus to their house, being extra careful on the black ice, and when they parted in the hallway Jeff caught Cathy by the shoulders and gave her a quick kiss.

  “Just for being sweet.”

  As a first kiss it didn’t rate, wasn’t even on the scale: it was so quick it was more of a bang on the lips. He had a little bristly bit that he’d missed shaving, and their lips were freezing cold instead of burning with passion. As she brushed her teeth Cathy pictured Paul kissing Jenny. He’d have been shy at first but he was so in love he would have forgotten about that once he got started. She had toothpaste foam dripping down her front before she pulled herself out of that little dream.

  Still, a kiss was a kiss. Don’t knock it.

  ***

  All the Fine Arts crowd was going to the Christmas dance. Some were going in couples but there were enough singles that Cathy thought she’d go too.

  What to wear? She looked at every item in her size in the thrift store. The racks were packed tight so she had to pull things out to look and some items were left spread out on top, hiding stuff underneath. Cathy walked up Sleeveless Tops and down Short-Sleeved Blouses and tried to picture herself wearing them until her eyeballs hurt.

  She walked round the block to clear her head and went back to Women’s Long-Sleeved Blouses and picked one in a dark fuchsia with a wide neck, and another in gold. She tried them both. The gold one was loose and the other fit perfectly but showed up her shape and she’d never worn anything like that, so she left it outside the fitting room and took the looser one to the checkout.

  There were three people in front of her in line: one woman bought half the store and one had six wine glasses, which were being wrapped separately with enough paper to keep Cathy supplied for a month. The last girl was counting up a handful of small change and digging around in her pockets. Cathy shifted from foot to foot.

  You’re Junoesque, Cathy. And models are all tall, Sarah had said. Think of the clothes you could wear. All those things that make me look like a dust bunny.

  Mom had spent years trying to get Cathy into pretty clothes, but pretty didn’t suit Cathy. There was just too much of her. Black and baggy was comfortable and easy and she didn’t have to think about choosing stuff every morning. Hair, she could manage, but the less she had to think about the rest of her, the better.

  The girl with the coins was dribbling them into the cashier’s hand. Cathy pulled herself up to her full height and marched back to the fitting room and hung up the gold top. All of a sudden the checkout was empty so there was no chance to dither. Next thing she was walking home with the fitted fuchsia shirt under her arm. And when she tried it on again in front of the bathroom mirror it looked—sexy.

  Well, she couldn’t hide being six feet tall and when she slouched she just looked like six feet folded at the top. Sarah’s words. The rest of her was built to match and she couldn’t hide that either. Cathy was practicing tall more often these days, although she still forgot when she sat down. But she was not used to showing her shape. Flowing and loose was good. An extra layer to hide the paint marks was good. But Cathy Russell was no chicken. If Hutch Parsons could parade around with a fake leg and still act like he owned the place, then Cathy could show off her figure.

  Some artificial flowers caught her eye at the dollar store. Anemones it said on the label—made of fabric in deep colours the same tones as her shirt, one maybe exactly the same, with bendable green stalks. There was some ribbon in the same purple. She spent nine dollars, which was almost as much as the top. But she loved the necklace it made and there was one flower left to stick in her hair and her neck no longer looked so very bare.

  Cathy went to the dance in her best pants that only had one paint splash, which she’d hidden with some black marker. There was a lot more paint on her sneakers but she didn’t have markers that colour and who looked at feet, anyway?

  She tall-walked up to Jessica’s group. Some of the guys were looking as if they liked her outfit, looking surprised, looking like they thought—sexy. Well, good. She sat down with them. Don’t slouch. She liked the feel of hair on the back of her neck. Kept that part warm. All this bare skin was drafty. And the anemone necklace was a bit scratchy but three g
irls said they liked it so it was worth the discomfort.

  One guy called Luke asked Cathy to dance and she almost said no. But how difficult could it be? She didn’t step on anyone and didn’t look any sillier than anyone else. Dancing was like art. If you stood on one leg with both arms in the air and yodelled nobody would take any notice if you did it with—whatever that word was of Sarah’s. Something with fruit in it.

  Aplomb: noun: calm self-confidence.

  Cathy had to stop thinking about Sarah.

  She kept looking out for Paul but he wasn’t there. She’d only seen him a few times since the start of school, in a hallway or in the cafeteria. He’d stopped the first time and said he was glad to see her at NSCAD, asked how she was doing. But that was it. Just a smile and a hello ever since.

  And after an hour or so Jeff turned up. He had said he might drop in after work. She wasn’t too sure she wanted him there because Luke was kind of nice, but at least it was company for the walk home. So Jeff talked about hockey and she listened, and she talked about art and he listened and they drank a few beers—well, she drank one and he drank three or four, and they tried a few dances.

  In the hallway back at the house Jeff kissed her for longer than last time and pulled her a lot closer. He breathed nachos and beer and peppermint in her face, mumbling about her being sweet, until Cathy pulled away with a thanks and a goodnight, and ran up the stairs in a way that said Enough.

  She hung up her shirt on the outside of the closet door where she could see it and lay in bed reliving her first dance with a little smile. She bounced out and hung her necklace over the shirt on the hanger and fell asleep with the light on, looking at it.

  ***

  Cathy wasn’t going to send anything to Sarah for Christmas but Sarah sent her a book about colours—a kind of encyclopaedia. A thoughtful gift, Sarah would have called it. So Cathy made a big card for her and painted a bit of Halifax Harbour on it. She wrote a careful thank-you letter like one she’d seen in a magazine at a checkout when she’d been stuck in a line for ages. Thank you so much for the beautiful (bad eggs are useless to ill folk ul) book. I shall always treasure it.