Lost Between Houses

by David Gilmour

  “Great view,” I said, standing in front of the window. “You must never feel like you’re missing anything. Nothing going on out there without your permission.”

  “God you talk a lot.”

  “Is it too much?”

  “What?”

  “The talking.”

  “No, I like it.”

  “Can I borrow a toothbrush?”

  “Use mine, it’s the one with the blue handle.”

  “I’ll wash it off with soap when I’m done.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll survive.”

  I went into the bathroom. I found the brush in a plastic glass with a few others. I ran my thumb along the bristles. I could feel a small spray of water; I didn’t rinse it off; call me a pervert, whatever, I just liked the idea of putting it in my mouth when it was still wet from hers.

  I came out of the bathroom, brush in my mouth, lather all over the place, scrubbing away like mad. I started to say something.

  “I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I can’t make out what you’re saying.”

  I pulled the brush out of my mouth. I sounded like those deaf guys you see in the subway, flapping their hands about and making funny noises.

  “I was saying that I have a clock in my head. It’s the strangest thing. Day or night, I know exactly what time it is. Like not sort of, or approximately. I mean right on the buzzer.”

  “What time is it now?”

  “Well, I can’t do it when I’m self-conscious. I’ve got to sort of sneak up on it. I’ll tell you later. When I’m not trying.”

  She made me a piece of toast and buttered it. I don’t generally eat around girls. Too many opportunities to be unattractive. Scarlet, I noticed, ate with her mouth open, just a bit, not gross,but you’d have thought her parents would have jumped on that one. I can’t even say “anyways” without my mother making a fuss. It may seem mean but it sort of relaxed me seeing Scarlet do stuff wrong.

  “Start,” she said, pointing to the toast.

  “I can also tell the future,” I said.

  “Like, for example, what?”

  “Well, for example, sometimes I know the phone’s going to ring. So I pick it up. I even know who it is. I inherited it from my mother, she’s psychic. I called her once from Vancouver. She picked up the phone and said, ‘Hello, Simon,’ just like that. She hadn’t seen me for three weeks.”

  “So do you know what’s going to happen to you and me?”

  “No. But I knew you’d call.”

  “Liar.”

  “I did.”

  “I didn’t even know.”

  “Well, I did. I wasn’t surprised at all. Couldn’t you hear that, me not being surprised?”

  “You sounded pretty excited.”

  “Well, I’m always like that. But that’s not the same as surprised.”

  “So when you know what’s going to happen to you and me, will you tell me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Even if it’s bad?”

  “Especially if it’s bad.”

  I figured it was time to quit while I was ahead and stop talking. So I did. And ate my toast.

  “I don’t usually eat in the morning,” I said, which was a king-size whopper, I eat like a wolf all the time. Even more than my brother, which makes my skinniness something of a mystery.

  Scarlet lit a cigarette. You could see by the way she held it, hardly noticing, that she’d had a cigarette before in the morning. The smoke floated across the room to me. I liked the way it smelt. This is a different league, I thought. People smoking in their house like it’s no big deal.

  “Do your parents let you smoke in the house?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what kind of mood they’re in.”

  “My mother gets me to light her cigarettes for her when she’s driving.”

  “Do you want one?”

  “Sure.”

  She watched me light up.

  She sort of grinned and looked out the window.

  “What?” I said.

  “You look like you don’t smoke. The way you hold it.”

  “How does it look?”

  “Sort of feminine.”

  “Really?”

  A bit later, I called my brother.

  “Hey, Harper,” I said, “it’s me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Scarlet’s.”

  “Fuck man, you got to get back here. The old lady called this morning. She wanted to fucking talk to you.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “I said you were down at the dock. But she’s coming home tomorrow. So you better get back here.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “For sure?”

  “For sure.”

  There was a pause and I heard him take a bite of apple.

  “So you guys up all night?”

  “I got a bit of sleep.”

  “Her parents still away?”

  “Yep.”

  “She there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Like right beside you?”

  “Yep.”

  He hung it there for a moment, then he changed gears.

  “Cool. But don’t fuck me on this one.”

  “No sweat,” I said.

  I was feeling a whole lot better, relieved really, when I put down the phone. I don’t like people being pissed off with me, even if I’m in the right. It nags at me. Anyway. We set out for downtown. It was pretty lively outside. Warm breeze, people walking around. Saturday is always a great day in the city. A subway train roared by above ground, I looked over, and I had one of those funny feelings that I was going to remember that moment for the rest of my life. Weird, those times, they just stick in your bean like a photograph, not the moment before, just that one, and not always because something’s going on. Sometimes it’s nothing at all, like a train roaring by, and Scarlet just standing there, her hair not quite touching her shirt collar.

  We walked along Eglinton Avenue, past the bike shop where the old man bought me my first gear bike. Me talking away, I mean just incapable of shutting the fuck up. On the other side of the street, just down a bit, was the Apple Paradise. I used to go there with my neighbour Kenny Withers on a Saturday night and get a great big gooey dessert, one of those apple monsters with maple syrup and whipped cream, the kind of shit kids like. Funny to think we were happy doing nothing more than going out and getting a fancy apple and then going home and watching the hockey game. Hard to imagine something like that could make anybody happy. No girls, nothing. Just an apple.

  I pointed out a couple of these historical landmarks to Scarlet, like they were famous battlefields or something. Even the giant rock in the little parkette where Daphne Gunn dumped me. I told her about how she took me out there one night right after dinner—instead of inviting me into her house, always a bad sign—sat me down on this big rock, and gave me the old axeroo. I walked home like a zombie, it was like I was marching to my death, up the street, in the door, up the stairs, into my bedroom, flopped onto my bed, eyes staring at the ceiling, waiting for something to happen. For it all to end I suppose. Like one of those deer shot in the heart that keeps running, doesn’t know it’s dead yet. Yikes. Not a place I’m keen on returning to. But the funny thing was that if I’d only known that down the road things’d turn out all right, you know, me here with a beautiful girl, all that back there, so far back it was fun to think about, even the grisliest part, well if I’d only known all that, I wouldn’t have been so upset. Man, that sure would have blown Daphne’s mind, her giving me the axe and me popping up like a piece of fresh toast, saying sure, I understand, you’re right, and wandering off home, hands in my pockets, even whistling a tune. Boy, that would have surprised her. But I didn’t know enough. I just walked on home with my head in my hands like a basketba
ll and cringed for the next three months every timesomebody brought up her name. Yeah, I sure handled that one. Next time, I thought to myself, I’ll know better, I’ll just remember today, how everything worked out in the end and I won’t have to go through that bullshit again.

  “Do you think I’m beautiful?” Scarlet said all of a sudden.

  “What? Are you kidding?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you sure are. You make guys nervous. I mean I didn’t even want to think about talking to you at my party.”

  “What’d you think I’d do?”

  “Tell me to buzz off or something. Wouldn’t have surprised me a bit. Some girls, when they’re really pretty, it’s the weirdest thing. They make me feel like I’m shorter than they are. You were scary, man.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And I’m not just saying that.”

  “Am I less scary now?”

  I could see we were headed for possible trouble here.

  “Well it’s not like I got you or anything. If that’s what you mean.”

  “No, I knew I liked you right away. The second I saw you. You sort of reminded me of myself.”

  “I remind you of yourself? Jesus, this I got to hear.”

  “I’d probably be like you if I was a boy.”

  “Gee, I don’t think so, Scarlet. I think you’d be like one of those guys in the hallways, you know, in the coolest clothes, button-down shirts and continental pants. There’s a whole cluster of them hang out in front of prayers every morning.”

  “No, I’m not like that at all. You don’t know me very well.”

  She stopped in front of an ice cream store and peeked in the window.

  “Do you want an ice cream cone?” I said.

  “My mother thinks my nose is too blunt.”

  “Your mother told you that? That’s a weird thing for a mother to do. They’re only supposed to tell you the good stuff.”

  “What does your mother tell you?”

  “My mother tells me I have a sensuous mouth.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “That I will be an excellent kisser.”

  “Really,” she said. And then she turned her head to the side and said something that I didn’t quite catch.

  “What?” I said, but she didn’t answer and I knew not to push it. I was just about bursting with pleasure though. Funny thing about that expression, “seeing red”: it’s supposed to be when you’re pissed off. It’s just the opposite with me. When I’m happy things go kind of strawberry.

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what?” I said.

  “Think my nose is too blunt?”

  “No.”

  “Look at it.”

  “I think you look like a movie star. I don’t know what I’d do if I was as good-looking as you. I don’t think I could stand it. I’d be going over to the mirror every fifteen minutes. I mean I do that anyway, I keep hoping something will change between trips.”

  “If I saw you on the street, I’d think, that’s a nice-looking person.”

  “Yeah?”

  “A friend of mine said you were going to be a real doll when you grew up,” she said.

  “Who was that?”

  “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “But really, she said that?”

  “Yep. But don’t let it go to your head.”

  “I won’t.

  I waited a moment.

  “You’re sure she meant me?”

  “Sure I’m sure. She named you by name.”

  It’s true what they say; you never notice fuck-all until you’re doing it yourself; you get a puppy, suddenly you see all the dogs in the world; it’s the same for couples, suddenly, they’re everywhere. Like all over the place, even the Chinese, everybody just doing it. Like it’s the only game in town. Which come to think of it, it is. But I’m telling you, it was like waking up in a totally new country.

  “Let’s steal something,” Scarlet said.

  “Forget it.”

  “Why not?” she said, sort of peeved.

  “Because I don’t want to get caught. Because I don’t want to get wheeled down the driveway of my summer cottage in the back of a squad car in handcuffs.”

  “You remember in that movie, when they go in and steal something?” she said.

  “I didn’t see that movie.”

  “Well you should have. It was a really good movie.”

  “What do they steal?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s just something they do together because they’re in love.”

  “Maybe you got more guts than me,” I said, sucking up a bit. “I’m scared of getting caught. Aren’t you scared of getting caught?”

  “I’ve been caught before,” she said. “My father thought it was a big fat joke.”

  “My father’d slug me.”

  “If my father ever laid a hand on me, I’d stick a knife through him like a bug.”

  I sort of looked at her twice when she said that. I wanted to tell her to simmer down, there was nobody in our immediate vicinity who deserved to die for fucking around with her, not so far today anyway, but I figured that’d piss her off even more. Whatever it was, it changed the climate just like that, on a dime, and for some reason my heart started beating fast like I was in trouble or something.

  We passed by a pet store. There was a little bowl of goldfish swimming in the window.

  “What’s your father in the loony bin for?” she asked.

  “For being an asshole. They’ve got a special wing for those people. My family are charter members.”

  Funny thing is, as I said it, I felt a sort of spear go through me, shame or something, as if, like in those cartoons, right up at the corner, I could see my old man listening to me talking about him like that. It actually made me wince. I mean, sure, he was an asshole (a bully mostly), but he was more than just an asshole. But you wouldn’t have known that from listening to me. Sometimes I think I’ll say anything about anybody just to get a laugh. It’s pretty disgusting.

  “You should come up to our summer cottage,” she said.

  “I didn’t know you guys had a cottage.”

  “My father rents it. It’s up in Georgian Bay. He goes there with his show-business buddies and they all get pissed for a week.”

  “So what do you do?”

  “Nothing. Wander around the rocks. Look at the water. Go down to the dock. Scratch mosquito bites. We don’t even have a TV.”

  “Maybe you should take up drinking.”

  “I already do that. Drinking and masturbating.”

  “Jesus, Scarlet.”

  “Well really,” she said, laughing, “there’s nothing else to do up there.”

  “Don’t you know anybody up there?”

  “Look who’s changing the subject. And look whose face is turning red, Mr Beetman. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? That’s got to be a first. How do you spend your time up at your cottage? Fishing and water-skiing and all that cottage crap?”

  “Well I don’t spend it doing that.”

  “Not at all?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

  We walked on for a little while.

  “Sometimes I do it in front of the mirror,” she said.

  “Jesus Christ, Scarlet,” I said, “will you cool it?”

  But you could see she was real pleased to have got that in.

  Just to get her off the subject, I went into one of those discount clothing stores. It was nice and cool in there, old ladies shopping for lingerie or pants for their retarded sons, I don’t know, but we just drifted along from aisle to aisle, picking stuff up and putting it back until we got a house detective standing so close to us that we scooted out the other side and back into the sunshine. By now I was pretty hungry so we went into Fran’s on St Clair. I must have been getting pretty easy with Scarlet because this time I didn’t mind eating in front
of her. Even a big messy cheeseburger with the cheese dripping down the side, her sitting on the other side of the booth, her feet up, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette.

  “I got to go back to school in five weeks,” she said. “Fuck.”

  The waitress came over and asked her to put her feet down.

  “Sorry,” she said. When the waitress went away, she put them right back up.

  “Do you think I have nice legs?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “I’m not so sure. I think they’re too thick at the bottoms.” She took a puff on her cigarette.

  “How come you’re not with Daphne Gunn any more?”

  “We broke up.”

  “Do you still like her?”

  “No.”

  “It’s all right if you do you know. Like I don’t own you. Everybody’s got something to hide.”

  “Well it’s certainly not Daphne Gunn. She looks like a fucking potato. Like I’m not going to stagger through life all scarred up just because Daphne Gunn dumped me.”

  “So she dumped you?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I bet you’d like to get her back.”

  “I never think about it.”

  “Yes you do. Too bad we couldn’t run into her right now, make her real jealous. That’d be fun wouldn’t it?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Admit it,” she said. “It’d be fun.”

  “All right, it’d be fun.”

  “Next time she’s at a party, tell me. I’ll make a big fuss over you right in front of her.”

  She took a puff on her cigarette. “I love getting even with people. That’s the thing about me. I’m very patient you know. Like I’ll wait years if I have to. But then, just when they think they’re safe, I pounce. Like that.”

  “Sounds a little mental to me.”

  “I’m just more honest than most people.”

  She watched the waitress walk by the table.

  “I got a bad temper,” she said. “You don’t want to cross me.”

  Sometimes there’s stuff people like about themselves that’s supposed to be bad; but you can tell by the way they talk about it that they think it’s neat. I could tell somebody must have told her once she had a bad temper and she liked how it made her sound.

  I finished my burger. Suddenly, all the food hitting my stomach made me go kind of glassy-eyed.