by Ali Bryan
The restaurant, like the hotel, is in the neighbourhood of the airport; it’s industrial fine dining. Dark wood, club chairs on wheels, wine glasses the size of fish bowls. Paintings of cowboys and steer are framed in gold and lit from above. We order filet mignons. His constant eye contact is giving me heart palpitations.
“So, do you have any children?” he asks.
“Three,” I reply. I don’t know why I say this but I can’t take it back.
“Girls? Boys?”
“Two girls and a boy.”
“Nice.” He straightens his silverware. “I have a six-year-old. His name is Cooper.”
“My son, Wes, is almost five and my daughter Joan just turned three.”
“And your other daughter?”
“She’s sixteen. Her name is Shammy.”
“Shammy?”
“It’s a nickname.”
The server arrives with a bottle of red that he has me test. My face is so hot I want to splash it in my face.
“Good,” I say, nodding. The server tops off my glass and pours one for Carl.
“What’s it short for?”
“Shammy? Oh nothing.” It’s short for asshole.
Another server arrives with our dinner. I eat an asparagus spear without cutting it and gag. I move on to the steak. If I eat, I won’t talk. I think of Glen and wonder how he became Sophisticated Bachelor Glen and I became Teen Mom.
“How’s the steak?” Carl asks, hopeful.
“The steak is nice.” I reply. “It’s very tender.”
“Best beef in the country. How long have you worked for Loblaws?”
“Since I was seventeen. I started on cash when I was in high school.” When Shammy was born? “You?”
“I’m new to the grocery business. Spent ten years at Ford before I was headhunted. I like it though. This industry is a little more predictable.” He spreads béchamel sauce across his steak with the back of his fork.
“What do you do in your spare time?”
“I was training for a triathlon but I hurt my knee demonstrating something in one of Cooper’s soccer practices.” He chuckles. “I’m waiting for an MRI.”
I carefully bisect an asparagus spear with my knife. “That’s too bad.”
“You know what I love though?” He points at me with his fork. “Taking pictures of icicles.”
I’m unsure I’ve heard him correctly. “Say that again?”
“Taking pictures of icicles. Love it.”
“Cool.”
“You mean cold,” he jokes.
I smile.
Carl pulls out his iPhone and begins scrolling across his screen with his clunky thumb. He stops on an image and holds the phone across the table for me to view. Four icicles hanging off a deck board like prehistoric glassy teeth. He looks at his phone, finds another, and holds it out again.
“I took this one in Kananaskis.”
This one is a single icicle hanging off a branch. It looks like a railway spike.
“Nice.”
“And what about you, Claudia? What do you like to do?” He slides his iPhone back in his pocket.
I don’t like it when people use my name. It’s too personal. And I don’t know what I like to do. Why is this question so hard? Why can’t he just ask something answerable like how old were you when you were ten? I’m used to answering questions from people under the age of five.
“I like to do stuff.” I panic. “Parkour.”
“Is parkour street gymnastics?”
“Sort of,” I say. “I just started.”
The server comes to the table and removes our plates. He asks if we want to see a dessert menu.
“No thanks,” we say in unison.
“I’ll just finish my wine,” I add.
I pick up my glass and let the last of my Merlot trickle down my throat. “What time is tomorrow’s session?”
“8:30 a.m.”
I feel jet-legged and have the sudden urge to lay my head on the table and take a nap like my father at Christmas. Carl seems to understand this.
“Should we head back?”
“Yes. The time difference is starting to catch up with me.”
The server returns with the bill.
“I got it,” Carl says. “I can expense it.”
I shrug. “Okay.”
We head back to the hotel and I stop by the front desk to see if my luggage has been returned. Carl waits beside me. He neither says nor does anything suggestive. I find this disappointing. Was it the parkour? I need more time.
“Want to watch a movie?” I ask, but immediately regret it. I really just want to lie in bed and pick my mascara off.
“No, thanks. I think I’m going to go read.”
I should be relieved. “What do you mean, you’re going to go read?”
“The Hunger Games.” He smiles.
I stand there baffled as the clerk brings my suitcase out of the back room. I am losing to a book.
“Katniss and Peeta both win,” I say.
Carl’s mouth drops open.
“Yeah. And Peeta gets a prosthetic leg.”
Carl throws his hands up. I take my suitcase and struggle to open the pull handle. After three attempts I pick it up and proceed to the elevator.
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll watch a movie.”
“I think I might just go to bed.” I’m nuts. Or maybe Mallory’s nuts, and I’ve channeled her craziness by stealing her luggage. I’ve assumed her wardrobe and her neuroses.
The elevator closes with Carl and me both inside. It shakes as it ascends to the fourth floor.
“So now you’re just going to bed?” he asks.
“I might watch a movie.”
We get out on the fourth floor. I turn left down the hall, drag my suitcase behind me, and stop in front of my room. “Are you coming?”
And he begins to walk towards me, albeit in a total state of confusion.
39
Inside my room the red message light is flashing. Who is it and why didn’t they just call my cell? Carl stands in front of the TV with the remote. I have to call the front desk to figure out how to listen to the message. It’s from my dad asking if I know where Mom kept the sewing kit. I can’t imagine what he would be sewing or why he would need it. I call him back from the bathroom.
When he picks up, I immediately say, “Dad. Go to bed.”
“Claudia?”
I quickly hang up. Carl’s checking the movies on the TV. “Comedy? Drama?”
“What’s playing?”
“The Vow, The Help, We Bought a Zoo.”
“We Bought a Zoo.”
He purchases the movie and sits in the chair by the desk. His argyle socks are in shades of blue. The room falls silent as the movie begins and I start to lose my second wind. I forget about competing with The Hunger Games. I miss my kids now and feel guilty for not calling them to say good night. But if Glen can be composed and attractive, then so can I. And I already have him in my room. I am thinking like a serial killer.
“This is boring,” Carl says.
I agree. “Maybe we should just call it a night?”
“Yes,” he says, standing up from his chair.
No! I think.
I swing my legs off the bed to walk him to the door. The bird dress is heavier than before. I’m beginning to unravel.
“Thanks for dinner,” I say. “It was really nice to get out of the hotel.”
“No worries,” he replies, slipping on his McDonald’s shoes.
“And sorry for blowing The Hunger Games.”
He forces a smile and goes for the door. Then, out of nowhere, Mallory returns, or perhaps it’s Teen Mom, and I spank him on the behind. He jumps slightly and spins back towards me. My eyes widen and blood starts flowing through my body. I am in control.
Carl grabs my hips and pulls me towards him. His grip is strong. The way one might hold a jigsaw or a jackhammer. I cup the back of his head where his hair slightly curls and pull him
towards my face. We kiss and neither of us closes our eyes. It is raw. Perfect for an airport hotel surrounded by construction and gas stops with big flags and unlimited pancakes. I push him against the wall between two bolted pictures of horses. He attempts to pull off my dress but I’ve tied the chiffon belt so tight it gets caught going over my face. I finish pulling it off and toss it down. It falls heavy, all that extra material designed to support a pair of humans in cahoots for their last trimester. I go for his pants. His bulging erection pokes through his pleats like a theatre performer peeking through the curtains. He takes off his shirt. Our top halves press together bare. Lips and cheekbones and chests. Coming together and pulling away. Grazing one moment, smothering the next until our bodies get hot and he slips off his underwear and I go down on him.
He pulls me up and finishes on my hip then rests his head against the wall and exhales. Operational excellence. I think it’s over but he rights himself, pushing off the wall with his upper back, his penis now semi-hard and pointing to the bed like a sloppy directional arrow. He picks me up, half tosses, half places me on the bed. He grunts something about parkour and takes off my underwear. I want it and don’t want it. It’s too personal but it’s also been too long. Carl dives in like he’s hunting for Easter eggs. I come quickly. Like I’m pregnant. He sits up and back on his ankles. His penis, now drooping down like an icicle, drips.
A room service cart passes outside the door. Stainless steel dinnerware clinks, shoes shuffle on the short carpet. Carl dresses and kisses me again. A finish kiss. The loot bag. He makes a quiet exit and when he disappears from the room I feel intense and bold and exhausted. Like I just cut a seven-layer rainbow cake with a guillotine. Like I just bought a fucking zoo.
40
The next day I wear my own black cigarette pants, heels, and turtleneck sweater and go back to eating for one. Toast and grapefruit for breakfast. Green tea. Carl’s not in the restaurant. I don’t see him until I arrive in the conference room and see him setting up his laptop at the front of the room. He smiles as I take a seat near the back. He speaks to the man from yesterday in the navy suit who today is wearing tan. Carl is today’s presenter. I feel like the kid on Degrassi who hooked up with the teacher.
Carl opens with an analogy about The Hunger Games while I begin focusing my mental energy on what to do with Mallory’s suitcase. I contemplate abandoning it in the hotel somewhere but suspect I won’t be able to follow through. I wish there was someone to bounce ideas off of. I text Cathy but I forgot to charge my phone overnight and it dies before she can reply. I consider my other options: Dan, Glen, Dad. Dan will judge. Glen will lecture. Dad will look for my mother. I wait anxiously for the first break.
After a hideous group activity and the arrival of a baked goods trolley, Carl calls a break.
I go to my room to call Allison-Jean. When I sit on the bed to pick up the room phone, I notice a pair of glasses on the floor beside the bed, like they were knocked off during a fight. They must be Carl’s.
“Is something wrong?” she asks. “Good job Liam! Keep your fingers relaxed.” Piano playing clunks in the background. “Did you need Dan? Because he’s out right now.”
“No, actually I needed to talk to you. I need your help.”
She pauses. “Sure … what’s up?”
“I need you to call all of the hospitals with maternity wards close to the airport in Toronto looking for a Mallory Pepper.”
“There are hundreds of hospitals in Toronto.”
“Just call the ones close to the airport.”
“And what if I find her?”
“Just hang up.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Then tell her you’re a florist and you’re sending her flowers.”
“But then she’ll be expecting flowers.”
“Then send her some and I’ll pay you back.”
“Well, who is she? Am I to say the flowers are from you or from me?”
“Why would you send her flowers? You don’t even know her.”
“You just said to send her flowers.”
This is turning out to be more difficult than I thought.
She asks, “How do you know her then?”
“I don’t really. But I wore her pants yesterday.”
“You don’t know her? You wore her pants? Why am I sending flowers to a stranger?”
“Sometimes people kiss strangers. And it’s perfectly okay.”
“You’re losing me, Claudia.”
“Jet lag. I’ll explain it all later. Can you just see if you can find her and if you do, call me here at the hotel. Room 437, and leave a message. I’ll be back at the meeting. Please?”
“Okay.” She sighs. I can hear her pencil as she takes down my instructions. “What’s the hotel?”
“The Sheraton Cavalier. And don’t tell Dan.”
“And don’t tell Dan,” she repeats.
“Don’t write that part down.”
“I didn’t.”
“Okay. Thanks Allison-Jean. I owe you. Maybe I can lobby my brother into getting you something. What do you need?”
“I’d like a double oven.”
“Fine. I’ll work on the double oven.”
“I’m holding you to it, Claudia.”
“Then find me Mallory Pepper,” I say.
“Consider it done.”
I finish playing Nancy Drew, plug my phone in to charge, and rush back to the conference room. Operational Excellence resumes and I change my focus to what I will do if Mallory is located. If her birth was vaginal then she’ll be on the verge of getting discharged. If there were complications, a c-section perhaps, then she should be still in the hospital. I cross my fingers that there were complications. I’m going to hell. Then it occurs to me that if she was flying, she must have gone into labour early and she and her baby would likely be in the NICU. That is the less favourable scenario of the two because sometimes they will discharge the mother and not the infant and I can’t exactly call the hospital and ask for Baby Pepper.
A man in a tan suit is presenter of the moment. Carl takes a seat up front. He periodically opens his briefcase and digs around inside. I assume he is looking for his glasses, which obviously fell off his face while we wall-slammed. He goes for the briefcase again. Checks the same side pocket he’s searched twice already. I reach into my purse and pull out his glasses. Polish the lenses with my shirt and put them on. I instantly go cross-eyed. I take them off and blink ten times before my pupils recover. Masochism.
After the session finishes for the morning, we are given a little over an hour for lunch. Carl makes his way to the back of the room and walks into a chair sending it toppling to the ground.
“Sorry,” Carl mutters to the woman it crashes down beside. He turns the chair upright. When he reaches my table he is sweating.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I can’t see,” he says, “did you happen to find my glasses?”
“These ones?”
“Ahh … thank God,” he says with relief, “these are my prescription glasses.”
“You think? How do you see out of those?”
He puts them on. “You mean how do I see without them.”
Silence follows. There is too little to discuss.
“I hope last night wasn’t too awkward,” he says discreetly.
“It wasn’t,” I reply.
“Maybe we can have dinner again. Tonight?”
“Tonight? I don’t know. I have an early flight tomorrow.”
“Oh.” He looks at me intently. “Can I bring you dinner?”
“Like room service?”
“Yeah. Like room service.”
I nod. “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”
“Around six?”
“Six works.”
“Okay then.” Carl smiles confidently.
I race upstairs. There’s no message from Allison-Jean, but my phone is almost charged. I want to call the kids. It’s almost 12:30 p.m., middle of the
afternoon at home and it feels like weeks since I’ve talked to them, but the hotel phone rings and startles me.
I answer on the first ring. It’s Allison-Jean.
“Did you find her?”
“Yes, but she has no idea who you are.”
“What do you mean? You weren’t supposed to talk about me! I told you to hang up or say you were a florist or something.”
“I did say I was a florist.”
“You spoke to her directly?”
“Yes, and she wanted to know who was sending her flowers.”
“Couldn’t she have waited until they arrived and read the little card?”
“She’s allergic to flowers. She wanted to know what idiot was sending her flowers.”
“Who’s allergic to flowers? It’s not like I was going to send her ragweed.”
“Well she’s allergic to flowers.”
“Why didn’t you tell her they were a surprise?”
“Like from a secret admirer you mean?”
“Sure.”
“Because secret admirers don’t send flowers when you have a baby.”
“But they could. So who did you say they were from?”
“I said they were from you but she said she didn’t know a Claudia.”
“Uhhh,” I groan. “Allison-Jean, why did you do that?”
“Look, you’re the one who made me phone her in the first place. What was I supposed to say? Anyway, the good news is she has no idea who you are. I even tried to remind her that you borrowed her pants.”
“No, you didn’t say that!”
“Yeah, I did. That’s what you told me. Remember?”
“So how did it end?”
“I gave her your cellphone number.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. Listen, I’m not sure about the wall oven. We talked about expanding the nook and if we do that we’re going to replace the windows and Dan wants to get these remote control blinds and I was thinking some nice built-in seating under the windows would be nice so I need you to lobby him for that instead.”
“Fine.”
“Have a safe flight home. Oh, and Dan said he’d pick you up at the airport. And the exterminator is going to your dad’s tomorrow for the bedbugs.”