Melt

by Heidi Wicks

  Cait snorts out more coffee. She coughs and wipes her mouth on her sleeve. “Of course you did,” she pulls a tissue from her pocket and wipes her nose and mouth. “You’re a puker. Did you barf on Matt?”

  “No!” Jess laughs at Cait’s coffee snorts and leans against her, their shoulders touching. “Not on him. On the ground, next to the swing I think. It was fucking disgusting. He gave me Chiclets.”

  “Oh, well how sweet of him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And so then, how did you leave it?”

  “Well, I hugged him, and then I left him there crying on the swing. He started swinging all high up in the air, and skidding his feet on the ground, kind of throwing a temper tantrum, actually. And I just left.”

  “Well holy shit, Jess. Am I ever proud of you.” There was a resolve there that Cait hadn’t seen from her friend before. She was sturdy. Unwavering.

  Jess’s chest swells. All these years of idolizing Cait. All these years of loving her. As a friend, as family, all of the complicated feelings and she just wanted to be loved by Cait. “Thanks.”

  “And you haven’t heard from him since?”

  Jess shakes her head. “Nope.” She sips her coffee. “You know,” she stares at the sea, “there’s something I don’t think you know about my childhood.”

  “That’s amazing. Seriously.” She side-hugs her friend.

  “You know,” Jess sips her coffee. Stares at the sea, “there’s something I don’t think you know about my childhood.”

  Cait is shocked. “What? I know everything about you, what’re you talking about?”

  “My dad had an affair when I was a kid.”

  Cait coughs. “What?”

  “Yeah. Do you remember my parents’ friend, Mellie?”

  “Smellie Mellie. Of course. Not—”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Her?”

  “Her.”

  “Well holy fucking shit. How do you—”

  “I saw them kiss once. During one of my parents’ disco parties.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “It’s true. I sneaked downstairs, like I always did, the boys and I used to do it except they were konked out that night. They were all dancing, and I saw them kiss.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  Jess shrugs. “I was ashamed, I think. I looked up to you, and I didn’t want you to think my family was bad.”

  “Oh my god, Jess. You know I’d never judge you. I mean, I know I’m tough sometimes…but I love you, you know that.”

  “The night it happened, I puked then, too.”

  “I don’t blame you. I’m so sorry, Jess.”

  “I tried to clean it up, but Mom still found some the next day. She asked me about it and I lied. I said I wasn’t feeling well and went down to tell her, but didn’t make it the whole way and was too embarrassed then.”

  “Do you know how long it went on for? Did you ever think about telling your mom?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think it was long. Maybe just that one time. I think Mom knew.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s just a feeling. And then, here I am, I did the same thing. I felt so horrible for Mom growing up. I always held something against Dad for doing that. And I always felt conflicted for not telling Mom.”

  “Ah, I think you should give yourself a break. Being an adult is fucked up.”

  “You’re right. It’s so different from what we think it’ll be when we’re kids. Completely fucked up.”

  “We’re all just trying to do our best. We all fuck up sometimes. We can only try to learn from our mistakes, and try to do better.”

  “That’s really true.” Jess leans into her friend. “I forgive Dad.”

  “Does your dad know you know?”

  “Yeah. We’re good. It’s in the past.” Jess faces Cait. “So what about you? What’s your news? Besides being ripped.” She pinches Cait’s shoulder again.

  “Well… I’ve been seeing someone, actually. I met him on set.”

  “On set?”

  “Yeah. Been working on a documentary. Do you remember Melody Angel?”

  Jess remembers how supremely jealous of Melody Angel she was in university. She thought she was trying to take her best friend away. The old feeling surfaces. She takes note, then moves past it. “Yeah, sure I remember her.”

  “Well I bumped into her in Bannerman Park a while back, we got to chatting, and she put this opportunity out there and it’s been fantastic.”

  “That’s great, Cait. I’m so glad for you. And so…there’s a guy? What’s his deal? Who is it?”

  “Oh,” Cait’s eyes crinkle in the corners.

  “Oh, see, there go your eyes. You always smile with your eyes when there’s a secret.”

  “It’s Scott—”

  “Oh my God! That reporter! I swear to Jesus, I always thought you two would be a good match. Swear to God.”

  “Ha. Well, we’re giving it a go. Kind of.”

  “And it’s good by the looks of it! Do you think it’s serious?”

  “Oh Jesus, no. I’m not in that headspace right now, not one bit. I’m just rediscovering myself, you know? It’s fun. Dating again, that freshness, that possibility, wondering where it might or might not go, how long will it last...”

  “That’s really cool, Cait. In a way, you’re lucky to be experiencing that. A lot of us old married folk won’t get to do that again.”

  “Yes, I suppose the universe is full of infinite possibilities and trajectories, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m on Tinder, too.”

  Jess raises her eyebrows. “Let me see what it looks like.”

  Cait takes out her phone and opens the app and starts flipping through guys.

  “Oh, not him.” Jess salivates over Cait’s shoulder at the screen. “Yes! Him! Oh man, he’s hot.”

  “It’s kind of fun, right? I mean, completely judgmental.”

  “Yeah, really.”

  “I try not to be, but if someone has typos in their bio, I’m immediately grossed out. Or the gym selfies, or the pic of their dick area, and those muscles that lead down to their penis.” Cait continues to flip through the profiles.

  “Jeez, there’s a lot of skidoos on there, isn’t there?”

  “Yes, yes there are.”

  “And the ones who have sun glasses on in all the photos seem sketchy.”

  “Some of them have funny bios and a nice mix of handsome and fun pics…I tend to go for those. I don’t like when there’s nothing written about the person. Anyway—it’s a weird world.”

  They sit there, looking at the ocean, and the fog is starting to lift and it might be a clear day after all.

  Jess breaks the silence, “I’ve decided it’s a goal of mine to be less critical and more understanding of Dan. In therapy we talked about how Dan felt like he had to be the strong one when Mom died,” Jess wells up. She still wells up at any mention or thought of her mother. It will take a while. Maybe the rest of her life. “He had to stay strong, because he’s the man and that’s what men do, but in that focus he sort of forgot about me a bit, maybe even resented me, because he loved Mom too. That’s where we drifted, I think.”

  “I think the relationships that are meant to last a long time, like a really long time, that both people get more patient and forgiving of each other as time goes on. Which is the opposite of what happened with Jake and I.” She drifts off for a minute, but returns to the moment, letting the recollection of the past float away with the breeze. “I know how much Matt meant to you, in your own life trajectory, and how important he was and is. It must’ve been excruciating to cut him out.”

  “I just…I had to cut him off completely. He was just that person for me. We all have one.”

  Cait doesn’t have a person like that from her past. Even with Jake, the physical attraction has faded. The aff
ection towards him feels more like what she feels towards a sibling. “I guess he’s rooted down pretty deeply in you.”

  “He is, and any form of contact at all just makes it worse, brings it back to life. I guess we’ll always care about each other. First love, all that bullshit. Although it does feel different now, like I said earlier. I see him differently now. I do see him more as smarmy.”

  Cait wonders, if she had the luxury of not seeing Jake anymore, would there still be residual feelings, as if a point of her life is sealed in time, frozen, stuck in a cluster of years? If she didn’t see Jake all the time, would the distance and nostalgia create a romanticized version of him? And then, if she were to step in a time machine and see him again after so many years apart, would the feelings still be there?

  “That night, when I walked home, all snotty and gross, I got a shower, went to bed. I knew I was done. Something shifted in my gut, you know?” Jess lays her hand on her stomach.

  “I do know,” she hugs Jess, “I felt the same kind of shift when I realized I was over Jake. And that had nothing to do with Scott. It happened when the documentary possibility came up. I felt like it was a new chapter, or my next phase or something. I think as we age we just trust our guts more. I remember getting those feelings when I was younger, and just kind of discounting them, or not taking them seriously, or telling myself I was being silly. How’s your ol’ finger now, anyway?”

  “Oh, you know—it’s permanently fucked and disfigured—it still smarts, to be honest. But it’s obviously much better.” She holds out her hand and closes it into a fist and re-opens it. Her pinky is gnarly and misshapen.

  Cait tries not to look disgusted because she knows Jess will get sensitive. “It’s not that bad,” she lies.

  “Well,” Jess says, looking at the sea, “I’m excited for this new dude. Maybe he’ll turn out to be the true love of your life.”

  “Maybe. I s’pose it’s possible. But my perspective on relationships has changed. I’m training myself to just live in the moment, and not think too much about the future.”

  “Uh, newsflash: you’ve always been that way.”

  “Ha. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s just that my priorities have changed, you know? I don’t have the same desire to find a partner and settle down. I’m already independent on my own. I have my own projects happening. I have Maisie—and she’s the real love of my life.”

  Jess’s eyebrows rise, like she’s never thought of it that way before.

  “And Maisie, lately, I look at her now and she has become so much more mature. Going to kindergarten, I can’t believe it. She’s really not a little baby anymore. And we’re friends! We’re really and seriously in love with each other!” Cait wells up over the bursting love she feels for the little rainbow that is her daughter. “It’s just that…I feel like maybe I’ll be okay with not having one man for the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll have a series of relationships that will each be meaningful in their own way. Just like chapters.”

  “Oh my God, you’re gonna be like Simone de Beauvoir.”

  “Hmmm…maybe!”

  They sit there, on Ladies’ Lookout, in comfortable silence.

  “Well,” Jess finally says, “please fill me in on whatever orgy gang-bang polyamorous situation you find yourself in, as I continue to lead the boring life of a mother in a conventional nuclear family.”

  “But the boys are getting bigger, it’ll give you more independence, right? Maybe you and Dan will become swingers! I heard there’s a cul-de-sac in one particular subdivision and they’re all swingers. They have secret codes for street parties, like if the garage is open a bit, that means it’s a free-for-all. Orgy time.”

  “Well actually…,” Jess leans back on her hands. Pats her tummy with one hand. “You know how I said life can toss you a one-eighty at any time?”

  Cait coughs and spits her drink and has to yank napkins out of her bag to wipe herself off. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re pregnant? Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck! That is amazing, Jess, I am so happy for you!”

  “It’s pretty wild. A baby at forty. I’m scared shitless, of course. Forty. A lot more things can go wrong. I’m going to be exhausted for the rest of my life.”

  “Wait—it is Dan’s, right?” Jess punches Cait in the shoulder and it smarts. “Ow Jesus, I was kidding. You always do that thing where you put your middle knuckle out more and it fucking hurts.” “Sorry, but you can take it. Especially now that you’re ripped. You know it’s Dan’s, asshole.”

  “Nothing is going to go wrong, I feel it. This little girl is going to be incredible. She’ll have you in her. And your mom. It’s going to be a girl, I know it.”

  Jess beams at that. She loves her boys more than life itself but there has always been a little ache for a daughter.

  “I think it’s all so beautiful,” Cait links her arm with Jess’s. “This past year. Could you ever imagine things would be like this when we were growing up?”

  “Never.”

  “You just never know.”

  “You don’t. You don’t ever, ever know. We’re given ideals to strive for, and no one ever tells you how bullshit they are.”

  melt

  1997

  Twenty teens slink into cabs from the hotel room at the Holiday Inn, spiraling upwards to Signal Hill.

  Waiting for the cab to arrive, Ashley Cody pukes outside the hallway, on her way outside to the cab. The puke is bright red from her wild-berry vodka cooler. Ashley tried to beat the crap out of Jess at a hockey game earlier that winter. Serves her right.

  “Heather!” Jason Lester barks at Heather Jenkins from across the room, rubbing the neck of his beer bottle like he’s giving it a hand job. “Wanna go outside, or wha?”

  “Fuck off, Jason.” Heather is cool as fuck. She tips her own bottle back, her eyebrows raised, the beer sliding down her throat.

  “Come on. You know you want to.” Jason holds his fist next to his mouth, tongue poking in his cheek, now suggesting a blow job.

  Cait knows Heather is going to end up giving Jason a blow job. At the last house party, a couple months before, she and her boyfriend had been snake draining each other’s throats with their tongues, in front of everyone, probably for an hour straight. Then they broke up and Heather got a slanty, edgy, brazen bob haircut.

  Jess falls asleep on one of the hotel beds, her beer bottle still in her hand, spilling it on her palazzo pants and body suit. She jolts awake and Matt takes her bottle, lays it on the nightstand.

  “Jeez, b’y, watch it will ya?” Some of the beer went on Jason.

  “Jiffacaaaaahhhbs,” the taxi dispatch drawls on the phone.

  “Yeah, four cabs to the Holiday Inn, please.” Cait makes the call.

  Valerie Smith is slumped on the floor against the wall in the tiny hall inside the hotel-room door. “Cait, I got one of your shoes and one of my shoes!”

  “Well can I have mine back?”

  “I dunno where mine is!”

  In the cabs, the crowd tries to sneak in six of them even though there’s only four seatbelts.

  “She’ll get in the trunk, sure.” Jason smirks, jabs his thumb in Heather’s direction.

  “Fuck you, Jason, you get in the fucking trunk.” She brushes past Jason and claims her seat in the back. The cab screeches away. Heather looks out the back window and Jason hawks and spits on the ground and Heather loves it. She’s got him in the palm of her hand.

  Cait converses with the cabbie—it’s part of the obligation of the shotgun rider. “Cabot Tower parking lot, please.”

  The night is wind-free. The streets are barren with that special, dreamlike feeling of a 5:30 a.m. glide up Signal Hill.

  A couple of girls, Jess and Cait included, are on Ladies’ Lookout, their drawers dropped, their arses pointed in the direction of the sea. Jess loses her balance and bounces on the ground. Cait laughs and pulls a tissue from her denim-jacket pocket.

  “I’m glad you’re my best friend,” Jess
takes the tissue. “You even help me when I pee on myself.”

  The boys join the girls and they’re all sitting there, peering towards the black mystery, the death, the life, within the Atlantic. They wait. They wait. The sun peeks over the horizon, tickling the dark, at first timid and unsure. It notices people are watching. There’s pressure. But people are counting on its appearance. It gains guts then. Brawn. In an instant, it stretches its way across the sky, reaching its arms wide, sprawling across its mighty canvas. A brash, thermonuclear blast of orange energy, with splashes of pink and streaks of blue, powering the sky.

  Awash with orange and pink tones, the students pulse. Hope. Anxiety. Fear. Power. Will I get a job, will I get a wife, a husband, a family? Will my parents be proud of me? What happens in ten years, twenty years, fifty years?

  None of them know. No one knows.

  Pulse.

  Move.

  Wave.

  Crash.

  Soar.

  Freeze.

  Melt.

  acknowledgments

  Elise—though miniature in stature, you are robust in spirit, gargantuan with love, fierce with pride, you are profoundly empathetic, astoundingly creative yet logical. You are the embodiment of what every woman strives to be, including the women in this book. You are my heart.

  Lisa Moore—for your energy, enthusiasm, patience, guidance and generosity of spirit throughout the creation of this book, I am forever grateful. Much adoration.

  Rene and Rhonda Wicks—your support in helping me parent, and in everything in life I succeed in and screw up in, makes my heart swell. Much love.

  Early manuscript readers: Mandy Cook, Stephanie King, James Langer, Jennifer Lokash, Stephanie Porter, Sara Tilley. Much gratitude.

  The Naked Parade Writing Group: Bridget Canning, Diane Carley, Amy Donovan, Terry Doyle, Penny Hansen, Matthew Hollett, Jim McEwan, Jen McVeigh, Kelley Power. Workshopping goddesses and gods.

  Breakwater Books—thank you for making a dream come true.

  St. John’s, Newfoundland—your fickle, crashing climate, your handsome terrain, your symphony of minds: so musical, artful, introspective, hysterical, splashing with colour, with which I’ve interacted at varying points on the intimacy spectrum, many of which I’ve only observed—you are the ultimate inspiration. Warts and all, I love leaving you, but I love returning even more.