“Can’t you at least call him Dad?” Krista asked.
“You call him Dad, for all I care. He’s not my father. Try to clean up a bit in here, okay? You too, Harper.” With that, Therese winked at us both and left the room.
We spent the afternoon in sweats watching videos and eating popcorn sprinkled with ranch dressing powder. Upstairs, we could hear Therese rotating Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and Loverboy albums as she conducted her own spa treatment. Every once in a while, she would descend, toes splayed with cotton balls, polish hardening, or hair smeared in an odd-coloured treatment and covered with a plastic bag. She would perch on a chair to watch the TV, look at us with disdain and then return upstairs.
Following a series of yelps, Therese came downstairs in a T-shirt and panties. Her legs were red and raw-looking from ankle to knee where she had just waxed. From knee to crotch she was pasted in cream bleach, rank with the smell of chlorine and ammonia. She couldn’t sit down like that so she stood and stared at Krista and me while we attempted to ignore her. We had moved on to eating marshmallows, expanded and browned in the microwave.
“You girls really are disgusting. Not only is that fattening, it’s zit-producing. And sweatpants? No woman should ever wear sweatpants. Even at the gym, there are far more flattering things to wear.”
“Yeah, like spandex, eh, Mom?” Krista took a marshmallow, placed the whole thing in her mouth, then displayed it for her mother. Therese looked genuinely saddened and left the room, stiff-legged.
“Where are your parents going tonight?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t think Harley’s going anywhere. Who knows where she’s going. It’s so embarrassing. Just be thankful your mother isn’t so embarrassing.”
As far as we knew, Mr. Delaney hadn’t come up from the basement the entire afternoon. We could hear the TV down there emitting cheers – there were only two channels in the basement, but each of them had been broadcasting playoffs of some sort all day.
Therese finally emerged, free of treatments and bleaches, reeking of imitation designer perfume. Her hair was sprayed into a wall that rose from her forehead and her eyes were lined cobalt blue to match the metallic blouse that hung low and clung to her propped-up, unnaturally tanned breasts. She wore a tight black skirt and high heels. She paused at the top of the stairs to the TV room and frowned toward the kitchen. “Eating again?” she asked. “You two had better clean that up before you go out.” She then swept down the three steps into the TV room and leaned over gingerly to place her cheek first on Krista’s, then on mine, kissing the air around us like she was suddenly European. Straightening up, she adjusted her breasts, then smiled at us with her head cocked, as though we had endeared ourselves to her over the course of our afternoon on the couch.
Krista had told me some of the things that she knew about her mother’s past. Tammy, as she was once known, had grown up in the Fraser Valley on a dairy farm where Krista’s grandparents still lived. She had left the valley with a leather jacket and a duffle bag full of hip-huggers and halter-tops, and she had straddled the backs of motorcycles that took her south, then east, as far away from B.C. as she could get – we had imagined her chasing heady, drug-charmed nights, desert stars on acid. We couldn’t figure out what had made her return. But she did, and shortly thereafter married Krista’s dad, Harley Delaney, who we knew from the photographs of him, with side-burns and tight faded jeans, must have been a catch then, though this thought repulsed us.
The newly married Delaneys moved to Sawmill Creek for the reason most people had at one point or another – Harley had gotten work at the mill. They lived at first in the trailer park that is still across the highway from the plant. Harley likes to remind Krista and her mom how much money he once made – how much everyone in forestry was making – in their first few years here. Mrs. Delaney told us about her days before Krista was born, when Harley assured her that she didn’t have to work, the long summer evenings spent on makeshift patios with the girls, passing around magazines, cigarettes, and beer. We knew from the old photo albums that in the summer they hitched a small motorboat to the back of the truck and went fishing. In the winter, they snowmobiled up into the mountains, across frozen lakes to cabins. We imagined that they both loved to be outside, going fast. That they enjoyed beer around a campfire or Scotch by a wood stove. This, Mrs. Delaney had made clear, is where Krista slipped in, somewhere between a forgotten birth control pill and a couple of drinks.
The forestry market never did quite pick up, and the day she dropped Krista off at kindergarten, Mrs. Delaney enrolled in a small business program at the community college satellite campus. By the time Krista was in grade two, she was spending her afternoons in the back of Rim Rock Records, colouring books and crayons fanned around her. This is a point of pride for Mrs. Delaney and I have heard her remind Krista on several occasions that it’s because she had the balls to start her own business that they live in this house and that Krista and I are allowed the luxury of watching TV all day, brushing food off our laps and onto the carpet in their rec room.
Later that evening, while Therese was getting ready, we suspected Harley was drunk in front of the TV in the basement. We imagined that the sound of her clicking heels coming though the ceiling above him would let him know when Therese was about to leave. When she was finally ready, she yelled, loud enough for him to hear, we thought, “Bye-bye, girls. Have a great night. Don’t do anything I would do!”
We called out our goodbyes to her, then Krista and I tried to figure out how we’d get to the farm.
“Didn’t you make arrangements with Gabe?” Krista asked.
“Um, no, not really. I just said we’d come. Can’t we take the truck?”
“I don’t want to take the truck. I can’t drive the truck and drink – it’s New Year’s for crying out loud, there’ll be roadblocks. Call him.”
I had to call back a few times to get someone coherent on the phone. The first person who answered yelled, “Whah?” repeatedly, even when I was not saying anything, then hung up. The second prattled an incoherent joke, half in and half out of the receiver. I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me or at someone on the other end of the line. Finally, the third person was able to understand me. “Just a minute, I’ll find him,” she said in a way that restored my faith in the ability of human beings to communicate over small distances.
“Yeah?” Gabe answered and I got caught on my own words, then was able to ask if he could come pick us up. “Um,” he hesitated, “Sure, yeah, of course. I’ll be there in a bit.”
Pilgrims Art Farm on New Year’s Eve was everything the Free Church hadn’t been all week – hot, loud, crowded. The crush of bodies when we entered the cookshack made me feel strangely secure. I was anonymous there as I couldn’t be anywhere in Sawmill Creek. We pushed ourselves through banks of revellers. The smell was unfamiliar. Smoke, definitely, but other smells – something spicy, something that smelled like the dark, moist dirt washed off potatoes, something that might have been sweat but was sweeter.
“Come with me.” Gabe leaned into my neck, his breath hot on my ear. I turned and raised an eyebrow at Krista, a motion to follow. He led us through the crowd and pulled back a curtain to a side room that appeared to be a pantry. “You can leave your coats here.” He motioned to the deep freeze. Krista and I took ours off, spread them over the bluff of coats already there. When I turned, Gabe caught me between his body and the freezer, pressed the fabric on my shirt to my arms as his hands travelled from my shoulders to my hands. When he met my palms, he joined his thumb and forefinger around my wrists.
Krista laughed, said, “Okay, then,” and turned to leave the pantry. When she did, Gabe took my hand, and we followed her out.
“I want you to meet my mother,” he said.
“Sure,” I said, feeling my hand in his. His skin. Near the wood stove people played fiddle, banjo, and guitar while others clapped and spun around. Children wove in and out of legs, stopped to regain their balance or to hic
cup. I lost sight of Krista, then recognized the other man I had met the first night, Thomas, sitting across the room on a bench, a woman perched on his knee.
Gabe and I walked toward them. “Susan, this is Harper,” he said to the woman when we were in front of them. His hand loosened and I let mine drop from his hold.
“Oh, hello – she’s beautiful, isn’t she, in a slightly unusual way.” Gabe’s mother said, speaking in third person but directing the words straight at me. Then, “Hi, Harper, welcome to the farm.” She didn’t smile, didn’t lift her hand to shake mine, just stared. Susan was very thin, her cheek bones cutting sharp angles into her face, giving it the appearance of an inverted triangle. Her eyes were large, like Gabe’s, and webbed with fine lines.
“Harper, this is Susan,” Gabe said and I held out my hand automatically, smiled. Susan looked down at it for a moment, then took it in her own, something that wasn’t quite a smile on her face.
“Good to see you back, Harper,” Thomas said and moved out from under Susan, his hands on her hips, shifting her weight. “Sounds like they need some help up there,” he directed his chin toward the musicians. “Enough of this blue-grass, eh? Methinks we need some jazz.” And he left.
“So, Harper – that’s a great name – you from Sawmill?” Susan asked. She didn’t look at me but felt around in her pockets. When she found a smoke she looked up, blankly, hands on her knees, as though she had forgotten who she was talking to.
“Here.” Gabe reached out his lighter.
“Uh, yeah, basically,” I answered, embarrassed at my lack of eloquent speech.
“Hmm,” Susan said in response, no indication of whether she was thinking about my answer or about something else completely.
“Don’t ask her if she likes it,” Gabe said.
Susan let out one chuckle, then said, “All right, I see you two have already been through this.” She paused to take a drag of her cigarette. “Well, I hope you have a good time tonight, Harper. I’d better go …” Her voice trailed off, eyes already somewhere else in the room. She got up and walked off.
“Sorry,” Gabe said.
“No, no. For what?”
“I don’t know. Susan’s not really used to having me around yet. She – I don’t know.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that you can never apologize for your own mother.” I looked around, not knowing that I was looking for Krista until I spotted her. Across the room, I saw the pale curve between her jaw and shoulder blade when she threw her neck back, laughing. People walked in front of me and I lost sight of Krista. Then I saw her again, hand over mouth, chin lowered, her shoulders bobbing. I stared at her until she looked up and waved. I felt like I knew who I was while in a group of people if I could use Krista as a reference point.
“Do you want to sit down?” Gabe asked.
“Depends where,” I answered.
He led me back into the pantry, spread out the jackets on the deep freeze and then lifted me up onto them. The curtain was pulled back, open to the rest of the room. I turned my head and watched the musicians. Thomas was up, his cheeks expanding as he blew into the sax. The banjo had been replaced by a stand-up bass. And, true to Thomas’s word, the music was sounding more like jazz. Gabe stood, facing me, his hands on my thighs. I could feel him watching my face. I tried to swing my legs in time to the music but the rhythm lurched. I kept trying. The feeling of my clothing rubbing against Gabe left a small, tight feeling in my stomach. My throat expanded.
“You cold?” Gabe asked. I shrugged. He reached behind me and pulled a coat over my shoulders. As he did, I parted my legs and he slid between them until his pelvis hit the deep freeze. When he pulled the coat around me, I leaned into him. He lightly tugged on my hair, then drew me toward him with it. The way we kissed then was urgent, awkward. I could feel the edge of the deep freeze on the back of my thighs, his tongue smooth in my mouth. My desire slid down between us, jumping then retreating like the jagged music from the next room. I leaned back from Gabe for air, dizzy and giggling. I felt delirious. When I turned my head to take a breath, I caught Thomas’s eyes on me from over the sax, his flared nostrils. Or at least thought I did. I thought about what he must have seen. The urgency and delirium, the laughter, and I knew I must have looked beautiful then.
We moved back into the main hall. The room was hot and humid, thick with bodies. I was wearing long johns under my jeans and felt warm, heavy, content. Gabe moved around me – a hand playing with the fabric against my thigh or the hair behind my ear, then he was gone, somewhere in the room, then back again. People played music for hours – switching off when they got thirsty, tired, or wanted a smoke. I had a glass in my hand that was refilled throughout the night. Cigarettes and joints were passed from mouth to hand to mouth. At times, I was unable to determine whether what I was saying was coherent. Other times, I could ease into the feeling, lean back and experience the solidity of the wall and the certainty of the words. I was leaning, shoulder to beam, watching people dance, When Gabe came up to me, holding my coat in front of him. “Want to go outside, get some air?” he asked.
“Sure, why not,” I answered. “I’ll have to get a hat and scarf, though – as much as you alone should warm me up.” I smiled as I turned to the pantry.
As soon as we got outside, Gabe offered, “Smoke?” Even though I’d already taken in a few drinks and tokes, the reality of sitting outside with Gabe made me nervous and this sobered me up. I took the cigarette hoping for a buzz. Snow was falling but it wasn’t skin-numbing cold. We sat on the back steps of the building, inhaling deeply, both watching the snow fall like it could tell us something.
“Hey, I probably need to go home soon – do you know what time it is? I should find Krista.” I said all this quickly, remained immobile on the steps. Gabe turned and grinned at me but didn’t answer. When I had sucked everything I could out of it, I ground the cigarette into a large can filled with sand. “I can’t go home smelling like smoke. Do you have any gum?”
“Fresh air.”
“What?”
“Fresh air will get rid of the smell.”
“Yeah, but that takes time and as much as I’d love to, we can’t sit out here for hours getting fresh. I really need to go soon.”
“We can run through it, get the full effects more quickly. I’ll start the truck, you get ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To run. I’ll help you find Krista later.” He paused. “Soon.”
While Gabe started the truck and warmed it up, I did jumping jacks in the beams of the headlights. He flashed them and the shadow of my limbs strobing against the snow struck me as very funny. His foot was on and off the gas pedal until the engine caught and was running on its own. He then blew the horn and I yelped. “You ready?” he called as he slammed the door of the truck.
“Yes!” I yelled back.
“Then go!”
I ran past Gabe toward the field. I heard him running behind me and felt a dull knife of something like fear and excitement between my ribs, prodding my stomach. When I got to the fence, I didn’t know where the gate was. Gabe was right behind me, his breath creating fog in the cold air.
“Jump over it,” he said.
The fence was barbed wire. I watched while Gabe quickly found the right place to put his hands so that the wire was taut and still for a moment while he launched himself over it like a gymnast. I knew, even though the packed snow lessened the height of the fence, I wouldn’t be able to do the same thing. My arms weren’t strong enough, the wire would buckle and bring me down on its points. Gabe was already running straight into the field. I found a place where the ground dipped. I dropped and rolled once, quickly, feeling my coat catch on the wire and release, then I was up and after Gabe, who was almost out of sight, his figure against the snow being swallowed by the dark. I wouldn’t call out; I would depend on my legs to take me to him.
I was wearing jeans, long johns, two pairs of socks
, a pair of boots, the laces cinched tight. A sweater, coat, scarf and hat were all hindrances as I ran. I couldn’t hear Gabe’s steps, only my own breath. As Iran deeper into the field, I sank into the snow to my calf, felt the weight of it when I lifted my heel for the next step. Momentum loosened the snow and to keep myself going I imagined pushing through strata of clouds. The breath I expelled became moisture, coated my skin along with the snow that melted on contact and the mucus that ran from my nose. I tried to wipe at my face as I ran, never able to dry it.
When I saw the bank, I could think of nothing else but sliding down. At the bottom, I stopped, couldn’t hear anything above the rasp of my breath. I watched it explode into steam then fall back against my face until I felt the moisture form crystals on my lashes, around my nostrils. As I sat still, the snow stuck to my lashes. There was no wind, nothing but the barely discernible hum of falling flakes and a sound that might have been water running under ice, somewhere, not near. No sound of Gabe’s boots in the snow, no sound of Gabe. I looked back up the bank to where I could see the glow from the farm. I told myself that I had nothing to be afraid of, then yelled, “Gabe!”
Nothing.
“Gaa-aabe!” The thought of walking – essentially crawling – back up the hill exhausted me. “Gabriel! You asshole! Come find me and carry me back!” I heard a laugh, somewhere near me. I turned and tried to orient myself. “Gabe, I heard you!”
The Sudden Weight of Snow Page 13