Catching the Light

  “Yes she is. Not an ounce of fun in that girl. Ruined a real good snowstorm one time—”

  Coffee flooded over Hutch’s thumb and Paul rolled his eyes. Hutch licked his hand clean with a lot of mmming and lip smacking.

  “Had this big storm early in the season back in grade ten, or nine maybe,” he said. “You’ll be cursing the snow in May when it won’t clear off, but it’s perfect in October on a school day. Everything closed. Temperature around freezing so the snow’s all sticky—great for holding a shape.

  “I take off before Dad grabs me and line up a couple of dozen snowballs at Roberts Corner. Perfect spot for an ambush. And I lie in wait. And wait and wait. Hoping for a bunch of girls. I could take on three or four with my stack of ammo. They’d swarm me in the end but that’s the best bit.” He leered at Paul. “And who comes along but Cathy Russell. Well, I wasn’t wasting good snowballs on her. Only she turns up the shortcut and there’s a tree on the corner just loaded down with snow, at least a foot deep on a branch over the track. She doesn’t have her hood up. If I aim at that big pile just at the right moment….” Hutch was aiming at an imaginary target across the room. “And I got her. Right on the head and down her neck. Beautiful. Couldn’t have done it better.”

  He paused in his story and reached for the radio fast to turn off Britney Spears singing “Baby One More Time,” but Paul got there first.

  “So what happened?”

  “Nothing. She just kept right on walking.” Hutch shrugged. “Didn’t even look round to see who’d done it. Didn’t even knock the snow off herself. No fun at all.” He shook his head in disgust. “There I was with the sun coming out and my snowballs all melting and nobody around for a game.”

  And here she was in Paul’s building like a black hole. Paul’s parents and Sarah Brooks had cooked it up between them, even to her having studio time, which was a bummer. At least he could forget about her when she was in the basement. Hutch could hardly remember the guy who had that apartment last year, probably only saw him twice.

  ***

  Hutch was well into the semester and swinging along nicely. It had been two months since those planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York and it was still the main topic of conversation, but everyday things were squeezing back in and classes were no longer disrupted. The anthrax scare in October brought terrorism even closer somehow, because postal workers were dying from handling contaminated packages and his Aunt Liz ran the post office back home. Not that terrorists would have ever heard of Mariners Cove, or Newfoundland for that matter.

  He was surprised how much he enjoyed his classes, even calculus, but his English course was still a pain. It was just the grammar, a bunch of stupid rules, but it was like walking—when he was in a hurry he limped.

  It was great seeing familiar faces again, to be back at Sean’s parties. And he was going out for the third time with this girl from PEI, taking it slow and casual. Ever since Samantha Hutch had been cautious. Maybe he’d been a bit pushy on dates when he was younger. He didn’t rush anything these days and the less he pushed the more they pulled—must be some law of physics.

  His back was much better after the summer. They’d said it would improve with time but he hadn’t really believed them. But things felt more solid, like he could rely more on everything working. Didn’t hurt as much—not all the time, anyway—and usually he could work out what had stirred things up. Then he could decide whether it was worth doing whatever again and paying for it, or not—like running for the bus that time or helping Sean move all those crates of bottles.

  Paul had said some girl needed computer help, something about her having trouble with photographs. Hutch was all smiles. When he heard who it was, the smile fell off his face altogether.

  “She’ll drive me crazy, Paul. Not doing it.”

  So Hutch was not in the best of moods when he knocked on Cathy Russell’s door. But she said all the usual come-ins and thank-yous and looked straight at him instead of somewhere past his left ear. Acted normal. Her apartment was bigger than his own, but you could hear cars gearing up from the corner and smell exhaust fumes. At least his room wasn’t level with the traffic.

  Her only table turned out to be one of those wobbly things you let down from the wall with a pull-out leg.

  “Can’t trust these one-legged things,” he said and looked at her sideways but she didn’t crack a smile.

  He went all the way upstairs for his cane and by the time he came back down his leg was bugging him. Paul owed him. Hutch adjusted the length of the cane and rammed it under the edge of the table to stabilize it.

  “Neat,” said Cathy.

  He found an outlet nearby, hauled up the one chair, and opened up his laptop.

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “What Paul bribed you with to come and help.” Cathy was bringing over a fold-up metal chair from the bedroom.

  Hutch snorted a laugh and said, “Three six-packs.” Then he straightened his face and said, “No, no, I don’t mean that. Just teasing.”

  “You weren’t teasing when you said it was too much bother to be polite to the lighthouse.”

  “What?” He caught himself gaping and closed his mouth. “What are you talking about?”

  “One summer. By the ramp. Jack Sheppard was trying to hush you up but you didn’t feel like keeping your voice down.” Cathy shrugged. “Maybe you thought I was too dumb to know what you meant because you said, ‘Nobody remembered to switch on the light in that one.’”

  “I never.” His Mac was flashing at him but Hutch was staring at Cathy.

  “Maybe you don’t remember, but I do. Every word.”

  He looked down at his laptop. Felt like walking right out and almost turned it off, but a little memory was dancing around just out of sight. Jack. Hear you in Bonavista.

  “Well, if I did, that was a mean thing to say and I’m sorry.” He drummed his fingers on the table, wanting to get started. “Sort of thing kids that age say, I guess. Stupid.” Stop making excuses, Parsons. “Sorry.” He started connecting to a photography site. “But I called you Lighthouse since about grade two because there were two Cathys in our class. I called Cathy Tizzard Tizzy. She didn’t mind. Told me she liked it.”

  “She would. Thinks the sun shines out of you.”

  And what was he supposed to say to that? “Called you Lighthouse for fun. And you never told me not to.” He glared at her. “Don’t know much about fun, do you?”

  “Being called dumb is not fun.”

  “Well, if you think I’m going to crawl on my belly for some stupid kid’s comment I made back—god knows—back when I was a stupid kid, you can think again.” He powered down his computer, yanked out the plug, started winding up the wire.

  “Sorry.” She hunched up her shoulders, grabbed her elbows, and squeezed herself in. Lord, she’d do herself an injury. “I’m sorry I said that. After you apologized.”

  Hutch laid his laptop on the chair, lifted out the cane, and started to put it back to its normal length.

  “Can we start again?” she said. “Please?”

  He stood with the cane halfway fixed and there was a watchful little silence. He almost said no effing way but she looked like she meant it—those big eyes looking all sorrowful.

  There they stood, staring at each other like a couple of idiots, and it was one of those moments where you sometimes act stupid because you’re annoyed. But he could hear his folks: “Be nice to Cathy. She doesn’t know how to be with people.” He tightened up the cane and whacked it back under the table with so much force that the whole thing shuddered. He sat back down.

  Cathy looked embarrassed and pleased and angry all at once. How did she do that? She was the least comfortable-in-her-skin person he’d ever met. Polar opposite of Sean. He wondered what Sean would make of her. Of course she wouldn’t get near him for all the girls
orbiting. He could imagine Sean wondering, who is that black bear in the corner? Hutch almost smiled, but grabbed it just in time.

  “So what do you want to know?”

  It took nearly an hour but in the end nobody had thrown anything. He risked giving her his phone number and said to call if she had problems.

  ***

  Faraday’s was a little bistro on the student beat which prided itself on good cheap food. It had wrought-iron tables and chairs and it must’ve taken algebra to work out the maximum number of seats that would fit in that minimum irregular space. Earlier in the fall they’d had chairs out on the sidewalk too and in their tiny backyard. It was Hutch’s favourite place to eat.

  On Mondays they had a special: soup and a big bun with as much coffee as you could drink. The soup was usually beef-vegetable or split pea—something homemade and filling—followed by a bologna sandwich back in his room. The Monday special almost felt like home.

  He wasn’t up to socializing on Mondays after a heavy weekend so he would have liked someone easygoing to sit with, but a lot of the guys had class, including Paul, and Sean never went anywhere without a girl. Hutch didn’t have the energy to tidy himself up for a girl. So he went on his own. All the tables were for two and the place was always packed, so two Mondays in a row he ended up opposite someone he would rather not have ended up opposite.

  The first was a girl who kept trying to flirt with him. She seemed to think he must be out for a pickup if he was on his own. He was too tired to fake interest, even if she looked like that fantastic girl on the Coke commercial, or Jennifer Love Hewitt, or…well, maybe then. She was probably a nice enough girl and afterwards he felt a bit mean for cutting her off, but he just wanted to enjoy his meal and linger over coffee. He nearly scalded himself drinking the second cup too fast.

  The next week he hid behind the latest Sports Illustrated, his Christmas gift from Brian and Lori. But there was an article on sports injuries and the guy sitting opposite him just had to be doing kinesiology and just had to explain every juicy detail about the inside of a knee joint. The beef in Hutch’s soup started to look human and there were some bits floating around that he couldn’t identify so he almost didn’t scrape the last bit of glaze off the dish like he usually did.

  That Saturday he poked his head into Paul’s studio and Cathy Russell was there. She was painting a glass with an off-centre light. Hutch remembered Paul doing the same piece last year. He walked over to take a look, ignoring her glare.

  “That’s really good,” he said, surprised, “The way you’ve caught the light.” Paul’s hadn’t had such a shine.

  “Thanks.”

  She sounded like she wanted him to get lost, and kept right on painting. Just what he needed at Faraday’s. One word every half hour would be perfect. He thought of mentioning it. Nah. Cathy Russell? Nah.

  “Paul around?”

  “No.”

  “Know where he is?”

  “Out.”

  “Well, I guessed that much.” Hutch was heading for the door. “Know where?”

  “Not really. Gone for a run.”

  “Tell him I dropped by. Please?”

  She said okay, but she probably wouldn’t bother—or she’d be too busy painting to remember. Then again she might because it was Paul. She could be like a scarecrow at Faraday’s, frightening everyone away.

  ***

  Hutch had managed one quiet Monday on his own at Faraday’s, but had to skip the next two for a project deadline. Then it was Christmas. So it was January of his second year before he was ready for the Monday-night routine again.

  He strolled into the studio on the first Saturday morning back at school to find Paul was out for a run again. Crazy idiot on all this ice. Cathy had breakfast spread out—she was painting it, not eating it—and was staring at a jar of marmalade.

  “Nice shadows,” he said, just for something to say.

  Cathy kept staring at the marmalade.

  “All that black shows up the shapes.”

  She looked irritated so Hutch kept prodding, trying to get a rise out of her. “Round jar’s nice. That one of your mother’s?”

  “Yes.”

  Was that her teeth grinding? He felt a laugh building but froze it, tried to look innocent. “But couldn’t you find a better plate?”

  “No.”

  “Just sayin’. There’s a chip in it. Did you see that?”

  “Of course I saw it.” She stopped painting and glared at him. “Artists see things.”

  “Always knew you were crazy.” That got her. Ready to choke him. “Joke,” Hutch said. “Just a joke.” He sat down, lifted his leg out a little. “Looking at things right is science, not art,” he said in his best lecturer voice. He’d had this conversation more than once with Paul and some of Paul’s artsy friends. “In science you measure everything. Over and over the same way. Accurate. An artist paints his own view of stuff. Interesting maybe, but not accurate.”

  “He or she,” Cathy said, turning away and looking at the floor, not at her artistic breakfast. “And it’s more accurate. Shows more than just boring measurements.” Cathy frowned at him. “And shadows aren’t just black stuff. They can be all different shades.”

  She stopped and her eyebrows went up a notch and she stared past him, said maybe that was why ghosts were called shades sometimes. “They’d have to be different from each other because of the people they’d been.” Her voice had grown softer, dreamy almost. “Shadows have the tiniest bit of purple in them sometimes or blue or green. A pale one might have a flick of yellow.”

  “That’s when you take it to a doctor.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, Cathy, you’re supposed to be the one with the imagination! When a shadow gets pale you take it to the doctor.”

  She just looked at him like he had two heads but her lips squeezed together a bit and maybe curled up a fraction at the corners. Two degrees max and he wouldn’t bet on it. But her lips still looked good even pressed together. What a waste of great lips, hanging them on Cathy Russell.

  He started designing graphics in his head with lips running around on high heels then added some guy lips in sneakers chasing them, then realized he’d seen something like that on a commercial.

  “That’s not for you to eat,” Cathy roared suddenly. “That’s for my picture.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Hutch was finishing up the toast. And on the spur of the moment he said, “Want to come for soup and coffee at Faraday’s next week? Make up for the toast.”

  Cathy’s mouth fell open but no sound came out. Before she could say no Hutch explained about the Monday special and said he couldn’t stand these chatty people sitting opposite him but the food was too good to miss.

  “So I’d come to fill a chair.” Her face was blank, voice flat.

  “Well…er…kind of.” Not to be rude or anything, but better not give her ideas. Holy shit, no. Not that she looked like she had any—more likely to thump him.

  “As long as I’m just filling a chair, I’ll come.”

  Still the blank face. Hutch hated it when people did that.

  Change of Outlook

  Cathy had been floating on dreams of breathing the same air as Paul Wilson that whole summer before she moved into his building. Now it was ruined by that piece of pollution up there. She paced her apartment the first night, swinging from anger at Parsons to anger at herself for letting him upset her. Sarah would say it was just another problem to tackle but Cathy wasn’t going to think about Sarah either.

  She would forget the dumb jokes that Parsons creep played on people. He couldn’t help his sick sense of humour. And he may not have done everything—just because he never missed a chance to throw snowballs in someone’s face doesn’t mean it was him dumped that load down her neck at Roberts Corner. And it could have been Jed Batton who spray-paint
ed her pictures up at the lighthouse. Probably. Batton’s jokes were meaner.

  But she would never trust Hutch Parsons and never let him near her sketchbook.

  ***

  Cathy only began to notice a world bigger than her own after Nine Eleven. She followed the news every chance she had—not just to help vocabulary and listening, but for the first time to actually find out what was happening. She started asking why—and found the reasons were different depending on who was doing the answering.

  She began to realize how little she knew and, also for the first time, she felt the need to learn more about world things, people things. She wished she could talk to Sarah, ask her what to listen to, what to read, what she thought about it all. Sarah knew so much about what went on outside. This was something for Cathy’s Projects Book. A guy in her class loaned her a copy of The Economist; it took her a month to get through it. Cathy listened to talk shows and conversations going on around her and thought about the human race and she even said something now and then when kids were chatting in her classes, in corridors, the cafeteria—just like everybody else.

  She thought several times of phoning Sarah but never quite got as far as pressing Talk. And Mom was too full of all the planes that had been grounded in Gander after Nine Eleven to think about anything beyond. But even that was something different. Usually there was a pattern to those phone calls:

  “What did you cook for supper tonight?”

  “Just let me tell you what happened at the bake sale….”

  “You’ll never guess what Gert said this time.”

  Cathy’s part in these conversations were scattered yeses and nos to keep things flowing. Now and then there’d be something new—“Missy brought home a stray tomcat last week. Scary-lookin’ thing with a squashed face and half its tail missing”—and Cathy wanted to ask if Mom had offered it a bowl of milk and a muffin on one of the good plates, but she couldn’t get a word in. By the next call the stray had disappeared.

  Dad had asked Cathy to phone home every week and Cathy wanted to, but she tried to call when she was in the right mood and sometimes days would go by when she wasn’t. And even though she knew it was stupid, she always felt guilty because she wasn’t home for her mother to talk to every day.