She shrugs. “… romantic the idea … womb … child … don’t think … time …” Her body sags—she’s admitting this to herself for the first time.
Gavin tucks his hair behind his ears. SORRY. NOT MEAN UPSET. WORRIED.
Liam is here. Marla’s shoulders go back before she stands. Warm beautiful easy smile for him. Wants it to work. Gavin flips the page over to start fresh, then stands to shake hands.
Liam is thirty or so, tall, masculine even in fitted clothes, but with a longness to him that makes him seem fine-boned. He has the curly brown hair of models and musicians.
As Gavin takes his hand, Liam pulls him in for a hug/handshake combo. Interesting. Up close, Gavin smells expensive cologne and notices that Liam wears cufflinks and a crystal watch. His jaw is angular, and he has high cheekbones. Thin lips, but commanding green eyes. He has a ring on his middle finger, a brassy number that catches the light.
Gavin steps back as Liam embraces Marla and helps her into her chair. Seated, Liam has beautiful posture, not that horrible ramrod straight back that causes people to look constipated, but a shoulders thrown back, tall way of sitting like he’s used to being in charge. Liam checks his phone, types on it and places it face-up on the table. Comfortable, but in control. Gavin respects him immediately.
Gavin doesn’t want Marla to have to say it, so he writes. I AM DEAF BUT I CAN READ LIPS. PLEASE FACE ME WITHOUT COVERING YOUR MOUTH WHEN YOU SPEAK. More personal than the card.
Liam smiles, disarmed. “… course. Pleased to meet you.”
Seems all right, how he is cultured. Natty. Gavin feels good, like he’s a normal person out with his family. Behind Liam goldfish pace their tank, their filmy fins moving so slightly as to be beautiful, stoic in their role as decoration.
When he looks back, Marla has blushed some colour into her face, and made her lips fuller somehow, something to do with her teeth. She is stroking Liam’s arm, her hands in his to help him unfold his napkin. Saying something just to him with her mouth pointed away from Gavin. Enchanted.
Noticing him staring, Marla talks about Gavin non-stop, obviously excited. “Gavin is fixing … Gavin … works with … Gavin has always …” Liam’s head bobs politely.
Gavin asks, WHAT DO YOU DO?
Liam turns his body to Gavin, careful. Speaks slower. “I teach music … and … cook.”
CLASSROOM?
“No, private music lessons. I gave up classroom teaching with all the band program cuts.”
She grabs Gavin’s shoulder. “… audition … because … like amazingly … university … he’s very good.” She mimes playing a stringed instrument, grinning at him, teeth mouth.
Neat. Gavin catches Marla legs tangling with Liam legs. Notices how he looks at her, like if he doesn’t subdue all her energy she might slip away from him. He needs her soft sweetness like skin.
The waitress comes around. Marla knows better, and lets Gavin order by himself. He uses the back of one of his cards to ask the waitress for steamed vegetables and rice, no sauce. Marla and Liam start apologizing in chorus for bringing him here, but he waves it off, wanting to make sure the waitress gets it right. When it is her turn, Marla points to several different pictures because the menu’s in Chinese. Liam orders without pointing. Clever guy.
He says, “Gavin, tell me … Belleville.” Lush hair barely moves.
Write: KNOW LOT DEAF KID.
“How cruel … separated from your family … must have suffered tremendously.”
Liam doesn’t baby Gavin with two-syllable words. He likes that. Write: MISSED MARLA. WORK WITH DISABLED. He thinks about someone else feeding Stephen and feels guilty for a second. But Stephen’s right.
Liam still has his ears pulled back like he’s thinking, but his mouth stays still. Marla was right. With Liam, one has to wait.
Gavin watches their bodies, ignores mouths. She crosses and uncrosses her legs, laughs with a lilt of her head. Liam keeps his hands folded on the table. Rarely shows his teeth.
A crowd of waitresses bustle up with dinner. The food smells amazing: duck, frog, fish, vegetables, rice. Gavin sniffs his bowl. No soy sauce. Liam puts several pieces of tofu on top. “Try this,” he says. “Incredibly flavourful.”
Gavin takes a tentative bite to be polite, although who knows what spices are on it? Marla eats slowly, putting her frog bones in her napkin. Is that what one does? Gavin checks. Liam’s bones are beside his bowl. Gavin winks at Marla, puts his tofu in his napkin too.
Liam touches Gavin’s shoulder. “Gavin, when did you … here …?”
Gavin holds up two fingers.
“Two days ago?”
Nod. Smile. He asks Liam, HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN MARLA?”
Liam holds up nine fingers. Ever clever.
MONTHS?
Marla nodding. “… at the diner.” She lays her hand on Liam’s thigh, as if feeling the wool of his pants for the first time.
Liam doesn’t seem to notice. “How long … staying?”
Gavin doesn’t really know. He’s been texting back and forth with staff to get shifts covered, ignoring the university’s emails. “FEW WEEKS.” Catch them looking at each other as he finishes writing—missed something. Marla has jiggle legs.
Liam digs his phone out of his pocket. “Excuse me.” He answers walking out the door.
Marla pulls Gavin closer. “What … you think …”
LIAM?
“Yeah … he great?”
Careful. THINK SO. SMART. HOT. Gavin whistles. Must be noisy in here, because no one stares.
Marla laughs. “I’m … you … could … hear.” No: here. Glad Gavin’s here.
Smile. Liam’s coming back.
“Sorry … student … Christmas wishes …”
Gavin waves his hand. NO WORRIES.
Marla is saying something to Liam, very close without touching, like a hummingbird, and Gavin feels his muscles tighten. He waits, catches her attention. Nods.
“Liam, Gavin: I … announcement …” Her face is hopeful, but she’s looking at Gavin, not Liam.
Liam turns his whole upper body. Alert. “What is it?” Gavin rests his forearm on the table beside Liam. Just in case.
Marla wants Liam to want this. More, she wants to remember this moment, this boisterous and un-Christmassy moment when she gives the best gift ever. She taps her feet, excited. For all her casualness, Marla knows what she says will change everything. “I’m pregnant!”
Liam sits even straighter and folds his lips against his teeth. He moves his jaw around in a weird way like he’s trying to keep himself together. Then he pushes his chair out and signals for the waitress. Marla covers her mouth as if she could take it back. She shouldn’t have done it this way, put him on the spot. He hates not knowing what to do.
She sees Gavin’s pad open on the table, waiting: CONGRATS YOU 2. Gavin beckons her closer, writing under a cupped hand. HE EVER HIT YOU?
Oh, Gavin. She shakes her head. Marla has a blip of her brother being pushed down the stairs as a little boy. Their mom used to get so angry when he couldn’t understand, even after she found out he was deaf. Maybe especially then.
Liam leaves his chair where it was, pushed away. An island, then. She will row to him. “Liam, I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
“Indeed.” Liam gathers himself up and sits tense, eyeing Gavin. “This is neither the time or the place.” The end. Marla feels like an afterthought, a goose that waited too long to fly south.
He probably just needs facts. “I’m twelve weeks along. The baby will come in July.”
Liam grinds his teeth, but he says nothing. Marla holds his hand, wishing he would lean back and slouch a bit, but his body is made of rebar. She feels a surging momentum, something huge and inevitable, and a sudden hatred for the baby.
TELL MORE, Gavin writes. He pl
aces the pad so Liam can read it too. People at the next table rise to make a toast.
Marla rattles on. “I go for a check-up every month. There will be another ultrasound soon, and if we go together you can see the baby.” Gavin is nodding at her, encouraging her to get through it. Marla grasps. “We’ll be able to hear the heartbeat.” Liam sniffs and folds his arms and pretends not to notice the tears in her voice.
She can’t do this, not this level of indifference. It hurts more than plain anger, and he knows it. Marla breaks away, sinking lower with each step to the bathroom, feeling rejected and yet wanting to fight for him. Marla tells herself they have something, but perhaps all they have is her silly little girl desire for fairy-tale love. She sees Liam’s back reflected in the bathroom mirror before the door closes, and she crumples.
She knows Liam is so much more than what he is out loud.
Gavin’s nephew-father can eye spell. There are words all over his face, big ones. Betrayal in block capitals.
NOT SO BAD, Gavin offers. Give him a way out.
Liam’s not taking it. Narrow eyes read scorn. Arms crossed on chest. “Saying nothing … typical Marla,” he says. That’s what he says to Gavin. His voice is a snake, and Gavin hates it. He feels it crawling all over him.
Watch his jaw tighten. Liam wants to blame and Gavin suddenly hates this bastard. He can feel himself winding up, tickticktickticktick like a toy, getting tighter. SHE GOOD TO YOU. Gavin makes the period visible from across the table.
Oh shit. Gavin’s up, hands ready, his chest heaving because Liam’s standing, leaning over the table. “… knew it … when … she … you …” In Liam is a fear that Gavin recognizes. He edges around the table, getting close enough. Gavin probably won’t hit Liam here, but it would feel good.
One word now, Liam’s saying. “When … when … when?”
Behind him is a crowd of Chinese on the edge of their seats, and the waitress is talking to a man who looks like the manager. Play it safe. Don’t give anything away to a guy who gets messed up over his sister. Gavin drops his hands, pushes pad over and pen. Point, WRITE.
He knows what Liam’s going to say before he writes it, but he waits just the same: “When did you know about this?”
Gavin can’t keep the answer off his face, the answer Liam doesn’t want. Why didn’t she tell him? Liam makes for the ladies’ bathroom, and Gavin moves, one step behind, sure now, because no one is ever going to hulk after his crying sister. A bunch of guys roll their shirt sleeves up, but Gavin gets a hand on Liam’s shoulder, turning him before it’s too crowded, grabbing him by the collar to pull him in and then other men are putting their bodies between Gavin and Liam, putting their hands on him. He wants to tell them it’s fine, but his pad’s back on the table and he’s shaking. Everyone’s staring at him.
Gavin tries to catch his breath, reminds himself not to make deaf sounds. Liam says something, his hands palms up, then lowering to the floor, and the guys with the rolled-up sleeves loosen their grip. Gavin can’t help trying to shoulder the other men away. Then he softens.
Behind Liam is Marla. She’s come out of the bathroom with her arms outstretched to see Gavin held behind a line of men. She is weeping.
“Marla … sorry … handled that all wrong,” Liam says, and the men relax a bit. Everyone yielding at the sight of a woman’s grief.
Gavin can tell from their embrace that she’s not going to leave him. He eye spells, OKAY?
Marla releases Liam, her fingers trailing along his sleeve, and hugs Gavin: in the feel of her arms around him, Gavin disappears back into every one of those moments Marla took on the world for him. She knows how to take care of people.
Gavin just wants to know she can take care of herself.
Marla watches Liam dust Gavin’s shoulders off, nod to him, and put his forehead on her brother’s. They talk. Liam must know what to say, because Gavin lets go of the tension in his body. Always a fighter. They get into the car, but she doesn’t. She licks her lips. It’s much colder now, and she hides her face in her scarf. His hazard lights are on: blink-blink, blink-blink. She can see Liam looking in the rear-view mirror, searching for her eyes. She doesn’t know what to do.
Marla needs just a minute to think, to figure all of this out and know exactly what the plan should be. She didn’t expect him to be upset. He probably thinks she can’t look after herself like everyone else. She knows people see her as immature and she looks younger than she is, so she makes an effort to be perceived as a woman. This didn’t help. Liam’s building a massage studio for me, she tells herself. He has a running car. He’s waiting. Marla meets his eyes in the mirror, sees his dry-cleaning hanging in the passenger window and turns away.
She hears the car door open, the ding-ding of the interior bell. “Marla, come home with me.”
Marla wants to; nothing would be better than eating homemade tortellini on the couch and watching cheesy Christmas movies together. She closes her eyes and hears him yelling at Gavin like he was the enemy. But Marla’s the enemy who made him angry and afraid. Marla and the baby. She turns, resolved.
“Just tell me if you want to have this baby with me.”
Liam huddles close to his car, wrapping the open door around him so that other vehicles can pass. He glances at an older couple walking arm in arm on the sidewalk. “Please get in the car.”
She can’t because she has no grip on where any of this is going. It was a mistake, yes, maybe, and hiding it was bad, but Liam looks more embarrassed than angry or confused. Part of her feels like he should be an adult too: it’s not just her baby. “I need to know.”
Liam sidesteps the snowdrift at the curb and approaches Marla, puts his arm around her. “I understand. Let me drive you.”
She stands there with him, looking for the future. She hates herself for not paying better attention, for complicating things just when they were working. It’s often this way. “I’m sorry, Liam.”
“Don’t be sorry. It can happen to anybody. We can get this taken care of, if that’s what you want.” He smiles, tentative, trying to pull her in to his warm body.
So, he doesn’t think she’s an idiot. She should have told him sooner, because he does like her. Marla edges Liam in front of her so Gavin can’t read her lips from the car. “An abortion would be scary. And I’d have to get it done soon.” It’s probably the right thing.
“I’m there for you. This is a big surprise, that’s all.”
Marla tucks that away and holds onto the feeling of Liam, the way he’s looking at her, holding her. That’s what she can’t afford to lose.
They drive along the river in Bowness on the way to Marla’s because the sidewalks are lit with candles in paper bags that no one kicks over. Each one flickers, illuminating families walking around snowplow heaps and an old man smoking. Gavin feels an affinity for this neighbourhood, like it’s still its own town separate from Calgary, sunken lower and nestled in the curve of the river. Perhaps it is the scale that makes it feel normal, or the fact that downtown is so far. People understand the difference between aspect and prospect here—looking at and seeing from— the kind of people who have gratitude along with their desires.
Liam has apologized to Gavin, hugged him, and called him brother by the time they get to Dani’s birthday party. He has also told Marla he loves her and agreed to stay for a drink. Gavin takes a deep breath, thankful he didn’t hit this man tonight. He watches Liam loosen the knot in his tie and wishes he were wearing one so he could do the same.
Gavin hasn’t been in the basement. He’s surprised by how much cleaner it is than Marla’s rooms on the main floor, and he admires Dani’s carefully labelled crates of records and how the non-perishables are lined up on the counter. For the party, Dani has decked out her place in cheap department store decorations from twenty years ago: plastic hockey puck Christmas lights around the tiny window, a silver tinsel tree
on the counter, and bright blue glittering balls hung on paperclips punched into the stippled ceiling. Her puppy wags its tail manically, jumping on everyone. Liam and Dani stand far apart and do not hug when he wishes her happy birthday. Gavin looks for a place to sit, but there is only the one chair, and it has Dani’s tall boots leaning on it.
She has hats for everybody: an elf for Marla, Rudolph for Gavin, Santa for herself, and a green monster for Liam. He wears it, and sings something they are all terribly familiar with, making gestures Gavin doesn’t understand. Then Dani sings too, her posture magnificent and her body lithe. He can tell that her voice must be very good by how Liam and Marla look at her when she’s done. They all talk at each other, and with the hats hanging in their faces he can’t make out a single word.
Gavin’s going upstairs to get some tea when Dani takes him by the arm.
“… not leaving, right?”
He shakes his head.
Dani pulls him close. “Is Marla okay?”
Gavin nods. Rounds his hands over his stomach and nods to Liam.
“She told him! Good. He took it okay, then?”
Gavin shrugs, and she gets it.
“It’s you that needs the drink. I thought so.”
She leads him back, dancing with him to music he can’t hear, dancing him right over to her rather elaborate bar area to hand him a drink. It looks okay, a shot of some kind. Something dark. Her hands on his feel warm and it’s almost her birthday and for a moment Gavin feels okay. Comfortable, even. He tips his head back to drink and Dani smiles. Whiskey. She pours three more shots, and then Marla’s hand is on hers.
“Make it four.”
Gavin shakes his head, and Liam and Marla exchange a look. Gavin’s missed something.
“… fine … talked … not keeping … baby.” She looks decided, but Gavin can tell she hasn’t thought it through yet. Her smile is empty.
He blocks her from reaching the shot glass, and it spills on the floor. Marla scowls at him, about to say some things.
Dani picks it up and refills it, keeping the puppy away from the puddle with her foot. “Calm down. There’s lots.” She holds Marla with her eyes. “Only one for you, Mama.”
A Handbook for Beautiful People Page 7