Winter Thirst

by Ilia Bera

Andrew hurried to keep up with the angry young dark-skinned girl. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is everything okay between you and Kane?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it, Andrew.”

  “Okay—Okay. But if you ever want to get anything off of your chest—I’m all ears. I’ve been told that I could be a therapist.”

  Brittany kept walking across the campus, with Andrew sticking next to her.

  “In high school—everyone always came to me with their relationship issues—not that you and Kane are in a relationship—or were—or—you know what I mean. It’s cool if you are. He seems cool.”

  Brittany stopped and sighed. “Andrew—I like you. I want you to know that.”

  “You do? Like—What do you mean?” Andrew asked.

  “I mean, you seem like a nice person, and that’s refreshing. But I feel like right now isn’t the best time to talk to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just kind of worked up. When I’m worked up, I sometimes say things that I don’t really mean, and I scare people away.”

  “I can take it—really. I handle criticism very well.”

  “I don’t mean about you, Andrew.”

  “Then what do you mean?” Andrew asked. “Just get it off of your chest—You’ll feel better.” More than anything in world, Andrew wanted to hear some confirmation that Brittany and Kane weren’t an item.

  Brittany sighed. “I just wish that fat bastard was dead,” Brittany said, surrendering to the temptation to let her emotions out.

  “Mr. Fenner?”

  “He’s such a lousy prick. I wish a fucking meteor would just smash through his pathetic skull.”

  “That’s—That’s something…”

  “I’m tired of being treated like some spoiled little twat. I’m sick of people thinking that the world’s been handed to me on a silver platter because of who my parents are—because of the way that I look. I’m just tired of it.”

  “The way you look?” Andrew asked.

  “They say, ‘Look at that girl, getting her hair done every week, and spending hours on her makeup! It must be nice to have no problems in life like that.’ I’m sick of it—I haven’t gotten my hair done in ten years. I’ve been doing it myself since I was eleven. And so what—I spend a lot of time trying to look good. When I don’t, people walk into me on the God damned street; I’m so invisible.

  “And then the moment I don’t do my hair, or my makeup, everyone thinks that I’ve just given up on life. They look at me like I have cancer or something. Why won’t someone just tell me—is it better to look like some stripper-diva, or should I walk around looking like some zombie-ghost?”

  “Zombie-ghost?” Andrew asked, confused.

  “Look at me.”

  “I’m confused,” Andrew said.

  “About what, Andrew?” Brittany said, frustrated.

  “I don’t get what you mean by ‘zombie-ghost’.”

  “Let’s just say that I’m less than desirable without all of my makeup and my hair products.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? You’re beautiful.”

  Brittany looked up at Andrew. “Andrew, c’mon...”

  “You’re gorgeous. You don’t need any makeup or any hair whatevers.”

  Brittany stared into Andrew’s eyes for a moment. She sighed. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Andrew. It’s sweet. But I can live with being below average. I can’t live with pity.”

  “Pity? I’m not trying to boost your ego here, Brittany. You’re a beautiful girl.”

  “Drop it, already.”

  “No. I won’t, okay? Whatever happened in your life that made you think that you were inadequate is unfortunate. I don’t know how that notion got into your head. You’re drop-dead gorgeous, and I’m not going to argue it anymore.”

  Brittany blushed. Andrew spoke with conviction—Brittany was actually starting to believe what he was saying was true. “Don’t you have some party to get to?” Brittany asked.

  “Yeah—I thought I’d wait for everyone else before I went.”

  “Where are they?” Brittany asked.

  “Everyone had other plans, I guess.”

  Brittany looked into Andrew’s eyes for a moment.

  “Did you still want to go?” Andrew asked.

  The university door opened, and Wade emerged from inside. Without noticing Brittany and Andrew, he began his journey home. Brittany watched him over Andrew’s shoulder.

  Wade lit a cigarette and began to smoke—something he only did when he was especially stressed out.

  “I heard they got a couple of kegs,” Andrew said.

  “Sorry—I just think I’m going to call it a night,” Brittany said as she watched Wade walking away.

  “Can I walk you home?” Andrew asked.

  “I actually need to run a few errands first,” Brittany lied.

  “Oh—All right. Just stay safe—okay?”

  “Okay, Andrew. Thanks for the pep talk,” Brittany said with a smile, keeping Wade in her peripheral vision.

  “And if you feel like venting—getting anything else off of your chest, just give me a ring.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Can I put my number in your phone, so you have it?” Andrew asked.

  Brittany felt around for her phone. “I don’t have it on me. Give me yours.”

  Andrew handed Brittany his phone. She began to put in her number.

  “Just text me, and I’ll have your number.”

  Andrew smiled. He meant every word he said to Brittany—she truly was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and he’d seen a lot of girls in a lot of different countries.

  “Have fun at your party,” Brittany said. She started to walk away, following Wade’s tracks.

  “See you later,” Andrew said.

  Andrew watched with a blushing smile on his face as his crush walked into the distance. He stuffed his cold hands into his pockets.

  TWELVE

  bad blood

  As every second ticked by, the air became noticeably colder.

  “You shouldn’t stand out here for too long. You’ll get sick,” a familiar voice called out from behind Andrew.

  Andrew turned around.

  Tarun was standing with his hands buried in his coat pockets about twenty feet away from Andrew.

  It wasn’t the first time they’d ran into one another since they met in India. There had been a number of run-ins, all of which ended on a sour note.

  When Andrew’s parents made their property trade with Vish, they weren’t totally honest about their end of the bargain. Sure—they pulled some strings to get them Landing Papers, and they didn’t technically do anything illegal—but they did knowingly take advantage of the poor Indian family.

  Vish wanted to take his son to a big city, where there was a good university, and they could live out the “American Dream”. Andrew’s parents told him that Snowbrooke was “a relatively big place” and had “a relatively great university”. Snowbrooke was a relatively big place—relative to a shoebox. And the university was great, relative to the other universities that were within four hundred miles.

  Many generations of the Mumbar family history was in Vish’s hotel. It was a massive sacrifice to let it go—but he felt it was the right choice for his son, and the future of his family. He was leaving under the impression that he was going to a beautiful new building in a beautiful new city. Andrew’s father showed Vish pictures of Snowbrooke in the summertime—a season that was shorter than a month. He showed Vish pictures of the building’s original listing—from 1972. Vish didn’t realize that he was agreeing to that property, plus forty years of neglect and decay.

  So naturally, after their first Snowbrooke winter, with broken windows, faulty plumbing, mould-covered walls and a sporadic heating system, Vish and Tarun were resentful. They’d been swindled. They gave up their priceless family history and their beautiful hotel for a rotting shack th
at wasn’t worth a dime.

  Tarun could forgive ignorance, but he couldn’t forgive narcissism. As far as he was concerned, Andrew belonged to a family of sociopaths—the kind of people who tore down communities to build shopping centres—the kind of people who set up factories in third world countries to take advantage of legalized slavery—the kind of people who silently bombed small villages in Africa and swept the evidence under the rug, because it made a good place to set up diamond mines.

  “What?” Andrew asked.

  “You’re just standing there. You should keep moving, or your joints will freeze.”

  “Right,” Andrew said.

  “You know—In the two years I’ve lived here, I’ve never really walked around this campus before. Hopefully I’ll get to come here one day,” Tarun said, looking around the dark, snowy campus.

  “Hopefully,” Andrew said.

  “I hear the physics program isn’t half bad, either.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Andrew said.

  “It’s not the best in the country or anything, but they’ve had a number of successful students.”

  “Okay. I should be getting home,” Andrew said, turning away from Tarun.

  “How’s our hotel?” Tarun asked, walking over to Andrew.

  Andrew stopped and turned around. “What hotel?”

  Tarun laughed. “What do you mean, ‘What hotel?’ You know what hotel.”

  “Sorry—It’s just that you said it was your hotel, but it’s not your hotel. You sold it.”

  “We didn’t sell it—we traded it.”

  “In that case, how’s our citizenship?”

  Tarun looked unimpressed.

  “What did I do to you?” Andrew asked.

  “Your family cheated my me... My father—my family.”

  “Look—I’m sorry that you don’t like the home that my dad gave to you. But I had nothing to do with it then, and I have nothing to do with it now. I haven’t been back to your hotel since the last time you were there.”

  “Home? You call it a home? It’s four walls and a leaking roof. That’s no home. What your family took from us was a home.”

  “Okay—Fine. You know what? I agree with you. I agree that my father is a slimy businessman. I agree that the hotel in India was beautiful, and that your place now is a dump. When my dad told you about the place, I would have said something if I knew it was a crap shack. But I didn’t know—It’s not like I was in on it.”

  “But you know now, and you don’t even pretend to care.”

  “Because there’s nothing I can do! I’ve told my dad about it—he doesn’t care. I’m sorry. On behalf of my family, I am sorry.”

  “You can’t apologize on behalf of someone who isn’t sorry.”

  “Okay then—I’m sorry on behalf of the fact I can’t do anything to help you.”

  Tarun stared at Andrew. He knew that Andrew was telling the truth. He knew that he didn’t really have any reason to be angry with him. But he couldn’t help himself knowing that Andrew was about to go home to his beautiful house, with his platinum credit card, his stocked refrigerator, and his state of the art heating system.

  Tarun took a breath, composing himself. “Well—How is it?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “The hotel—in India.”

  “The last I heard, they were doing some updates,” Andrew said.

  “Updates?” Tarun asked.

  “Renovating. I didn’t ask them about it—but they wanted to open it up to more light. At least that’s what my mom said.”

  “Open it up?”

  “Like, open-concept. Make all of the rooms into one big room. It’s what people like these days.”

  “Maybe here, but not in India, they don’t.”

  “Well—They’re from here, and not from India, unfortunately.”

  Tarun wanted to cry. Both his childhood home and his ancestral history were being crushed and demolished, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

  “No Indian will want to stay in an ‘open-concept’ hotel,” Tarun said.

  “I’ll be sure to let them know,” Andrew said, turning around to leave.

  Tarun grabbed Andrew by the arm to stop him from leaving. Andrew pushed away the arm.

  “Don’t touch me!” Andrew said swiftly, shoving Tarun back with a sudden shove to the chest.

  Tarun grabbed onto Andrew’s collar and pulled him in close. “You say that you can’t do anything about it, but you can. You just don’t want to be bothered. You’re walking around like a blind giant—totally unaware of the lives you’re trampling beneath your feet,” Tarun said passionately.

  “Let go of me,” Andrew demanded, his hand curling into a fist.

  “For someone who’s been to India, and seen the way people live—how can you be so unsympathetic?”

  “I’m not unsympathetic. There’s just nothing I can do.”

  “Then you’re just an ignorant waste of life,” Tarun said, dropping Andrew down.

  Angry, Andrew swung at Tarun’s side with his fist—making hard contact with his rib. The handsome Indian boy winced in pain for a moment.

  “I’m ignorant?” Andrew shouted. “I was on your side! I told my dad not to sell you a place in Snowbrooke. I told him he was being a villain! He didn’t care. You think that I just let him take advantage of you?

  “We got in a fight. I told him everything that you wish you could tell him—That he was nothing but a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of his own ignorant self-importance. Do you know what he did? He told me to get out of his face, and to never talk to him again. I have to talk to my mother in secret, or the fat bastard will beat her half to death.”Andrew turned around and started to walk away.

  “She’s got a boyfriend, so don’t bother,” Tarun said.

  “Don’t bother? Don’t bother with what?”

  “You were clearly hitting on her.” Tarun laughed, still hunched over in pain.

  “Hitting on who?”

  “That little black girl in your class.”

  “No, I wasn’t. We’re just friends.”

  “You’re drop-dead gorgeous and I’m not going to argue it anymore,” Tarun said, impersonating Andrew’s speech from before.

  “What—Were you eavesdropping on us? Is that why you’re here?”

  “Never mind,” Tarun said.

  “No—Not ‘never mind’. What are you actually doing here, and how do you know she has a boyfriend—how do you even know who she is?”

  “Forgive me for trying to be nice,” Tarun said.

  “Are you stalking her?”

  “No—Of course not.”

  “Of course not? You just happen to be eavesdropping on her conversations in the middle of the night, across town from your house? And apparently you know everything about her personal life?”

  Tarun shook his head, cold and tired of arguing. “Enjoy sleeping in your king sized bed, while you watch your big screen TV,” Tarun said as he began to walk away.

  “If you lay a finger on her, I’ll have you and your father thrown out of the country.”

  Tarun made no reply as he walked away.

  THIRTEEN

  the fenner family

  Wade found himself sitting in his car outside of his house, staring out into oblivion as his brain mulled over the things Brittany said to him. All of the lights were on inside of his home, and he could see his wife walking around the kitchen, preparing dinner.

  Upstairs, through Michael’s bedroom window, Wade could see Michael practicing his wrist shot, shooting pucks into his upright mattress. Michael was shirtless, dripping with sweat from hours of hard practicing.

  Not only had Wade been letting down countless struggling students, but also he’d been letting down his son. Wade was Michael’s idol—his coach, his father and his mentor.

  Had Wade not been such a know-it-all, who knows what kind of heights Michael could have reached?

  Wade always had to be right, and when Michael did somethi
ng different, Wade told him that it was wrong.

  Because of Wade, Michael became an enforcer. It was the way Wade taught him to play. Because of Wade, Michael was no longer a professional hockey player.

  What gave Wade the right to tell his son how to play? Wade was good in his day, but he wasn’t the best. Who was Wade to tell his son to respect him? Guy never muttered the word respect to Wade. Never once in Guy’s life did he mutter the words “respect me.”

  As the icy cold air began to penetrate the car door, Wade decided it was time to head inside. He slowly walked towards the house—Brittany’s voice still ringing through his head. He opened up the front door and walked inside.

  “There you are! I was worried sick about you!” Laura said as she stepped out of the kitchen.

  “Sorry—I got caught up at work,” Wade said.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You look like a ghost.”

  “Oh—I’m just tired.”

  Laura turned back to the kitchen to continue preparing dinner. “Tired of dealing with those disrespectful little brats all day?” she said, impersonating her husband. She laughed.

  “What did you say?” Wade said.

  “Huh?”

  “What did you just say?”

  “I asked if you’re tired of dealing with the kids.”

  “No—What did you say—Exactly?”

  Laura stared at her husband. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I just want to make sure I heard you right.”

  “Maybe you should lay down.”

  “Did you call them disrespectful little brats?” Wade asked.

  “Yeah—It was a joke, Wade. I was kidding.”

  “Oh,” Wade said. “Right...”

  “It was supposed to be a funny impression. I guess I should stick to housekeeping.”

  “An impression of who?” Wade asked.

  “It was that bad, huh?”

  “Of me?”

  “Yes—but it was a joke, dear. Here, let me get you a Tylenol. Go sit down.”

  Wade turned around and walked over to the couch. Laura walked over moments later with a glass of water and two Tylenol pills. “Take these,” she said.

  Wade stared at his wife in silence for a moment.