The Perils of Pauline

by Collette Yvonne

  Donald takes my hand and leads me around the deck so I can view the entire skyline. Stepping gingerly onto the glass catwalk, I’m mesmerized by the feeling of being suspended in mid-air.

  It’s magical. The sky is clear and I can see mountains and prairies and the whole city of Calgary twinkling like a brilliant diamond at my feet. Even from high above the ground I can feel the surging pulse of the place. Everywhere you go here, there are energetic people filled with purpose. They’re busy making deals, going places and making their way in a new frontier. This city is so youthful and exciting; it makes me want to take over a conglomerate or file an injunction or at least go shopping at Aritzia.

  Donald wraps his arms around me from behind. His kilt is bulging. He leans his head forward and breathes into my ear while running his hands up to my breasts and squeezing them greedily: “How would you like to join the Calgary Tower Club?”

  Oh. That’s why he wore his kilt tonight.

  “What? Here? No. No! You’re nuts. What’s with you men and the whole let’s get frisky in public places thing?”

  I look down below my feet to the traffic far below us. “The whole city could be watching.”

  “The city will be jealous. C’mon, you know you want to.” Donald has his hand under my skirt and is tugging my panties down. He has a point here. I’m wearing a skirt. And high heels. Isn’t that the whole notion behind skirts and high heels?

  Silently, I step out of my panties and drop them on the catwalk.

  My CT club card is issued in about a minute and a half. Sometimes fast is good. My butt cheeks nearly froze off while he had his fun. I smooth my skirt back down and rub my buttocks to get some circulation going again while Donald leans on the window sill, huffing—the air is thin up here. He could be getting too old to play mile-high games.

  This public places thing could spark revitalization for Donald and me. If I were game for the club plan, he’d follow me to the ends of the earth. I’m thinking Burj Dubai. I’m thinking Space Needle. The Golden Gate Bridge. Oooh—The Kremlin! I’m thinking my red leather skirt teamed with a black leather jacket would be perfect for Lenin’s Mausoleum.

  Donald leans in closer to kiss me on the lips and stare into my eyes with a limpid gaze of gratitude. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Moscow. Now that’s a city. We should go there some time. Or San Francisco.”

  “What about Calgary? How do you like Calgary?”

  “I love the energy here. It’s crazy, all the building and development and activity going on everywhere, there’s so much potential.”

  “Do you think you’d ever like to live here?”

  “Live here? In Calgary?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.” A fissure of suspicion opens and my stomach sinks as if the glass floor dropped out from under me. “Why do you ask?”

  Donald squints his eyes and scratches the back of his neck. “I’ve been offered a directorship here.”

  “What about the deal where they promised you a directorship at home, after you finished up with things here?”

  “That was never a firm deal. We were tossing around the ideas. They’re offering me Calgary.”

  “You didn’t tell me it wasn’t a firm deal.”

  “Didn’t I?”

  I can feel my face growing hot. Donald is a big fat liar. “No you didn’t. You said Calgary was a temporary position. And now you tell me all this time you’ve been thinking about staying in Canada permanently?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, yes, but if you don’t want to come out here, I’m prepared to come back. But I’d have to go back to my old job, at least until something opens up in the New England region.”

  By the look on his face, I can tell Donald would rather dig his eyeballs out with a fork and eat them with ketchup than go back to his old job. I don’t like this game. It’s a standoff where one of us has to give up a sizable chunk of territory. My territory includes our children, our home, the bookstore, my Mom, my friends, and New England: everything I’m familiar with. His territory means he gets to pursue his career. It always boils down to this in the end: his career. It’s more important than me, the kids or anything else in Donald’s life.

  “I don’t think you’re prepared to come home at all. I think you want to stay out here in the worst way.”

  Donald turns his head away from me and stares out toward the Saddledome. No man can do that without a look of utter pathos and longing. I look down at the traffic crawling through the city center under my feet. I can hear horns honking way up here above the ground. Calgary is nothing but men in silly black hats racing around in sports cars, clawing and scratching at each other’s throats to get the biggest deal. I don’t like being asked to make this choice. If I say no, he gets to pout forever. If I say yes, I get cowpats, tumbleweeds, and cold beer signs on every corner.

  “So what about Lindsay? What are they doing with her?”

  “I don’t know. Lindsay is still looking after things out here. She’s spending most of her time running the international development portfolio these days. They could still offer her the New England directorship.”

  “I thought you said she wasn’t interested.”

  “She hasn’t decided yet.”

  For a long moment I stand there, thinking. My first thought is that it is terribly ironic that my marriage is resting in Lindsay’s hands. Then I realize it is in Donald’s hands, far more than Lindsay’s. He doesn’t have to wait for Lindsay to decide what she wants. If he wants to come home, he will. But he wants the promotion. He wants me to drop my whole life and move to Canada. But what about Serenity, Jack, and Olympia? And Mom? And Shae and Jude? And Bibienne and Bernie and Mackie and Furious Ferris and, what the hell, Wendy, Yard, Johnny Rotten, and Ghostly Garth?

  What am I saying? My marriage is in my own hands. I want to open my palms and turn them upside down.

  “No.” I take a deep breath. “You don’t have the right to hold this job offer over my head. You say you’re prepared to come home? You make it sound like you’re prepared to serve out your sentence. If that’s the case, forget it. You have to decide what you want. But you don’t get to come back and make me feel miserable because you don’t want to be there. If you come home, come home because you want to be with me, and the kids. If you decide to stay, you’re on your own. Because I will never, ever live here.”

  Donald’s jaw tightens and his eyes point straight at me like pistols at high noon. Calgary is truly the new frontier for both of us.

  Donald drops me at the airport first thing in the morning. We are barely speaking. The jetlag kicks in before I even step on the plane so I’m grateful for the wheelchair. I wonder how long a bogus heart condition can lurk on a person’s profile? That detail coupled with the Porta-Potty incident means I’ll probably never be able to leave the country again.

  I’m also wondering if my luggage will make it back east? I bet some baggage handler in Los Angeles is loading my stuff onto a transcontinental jumbo jet right this minute. One little white lie and the bad karma flings my luggage into the wild blue for eternity.

  Mom is standing at the gate as I come swinging through. “Where are your bags? Didn’t you have two nice red ones?”

  “They’re probably in Hong Kong.”

  I follow her to the car, sling my carry-on into the back seat, and take over the wheel. “How did everything go?”

  “Very well. Serenity and Shae were a big help. You look tired.”

  “I am.”

  “So what exactly is going on between you and Donald?”

  They need to put my mother in charge of locating my luggage. This woman is the find-all, see-all, know-all sage of the whole freaking universe.

  “What makes you think there’s something going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You snooped around didn’t you? You found something?”

  “Now what would there be to find?” Her eyes narro
w and she spins her head around to pin me. Fail. I’ve tipped her off. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “Is there someone else, Pauline?”

  Boy, is she cagey. Did she find a stray note tucked in a book or did I just give myself away? I never could outshuffle her in this dance as a teenager and I guess I never will.

  “Donald and I had a major disconnect last night. He wants us to relocate to Calgary. I said no.”

  “I’m sorry, honey.” She falls silent and looks out the window. “You can’t blame him. Canada was his first home, after all.”

  “But Massachusetts is our home now. Aren’t we his family? Besides, I don’t think that’s the reason. He wants a promotion. He’d go anywhere to get one.”

  She looks back at me. “Is that it? Or is there more to the story?”

  “We haven’t been good for a long time. I think he was unfaithful to me. He’s never admitted it but the signs are all there.”

  “And what about you? And that friend of yours at the university? How serious is that?”

  I heave a sigh.

  “Don’t give up on Donald. He’s a good man.”

  The traffic light ahead turns red. I stop, and stare at the rear bumper of the car in front of us. Mom is Donald’s biggest fan. I’ve always suspected that she set me up to meet him when Serenity was only 5 years old. I had moved in with my parents for a few months, to get back on my feet after the divorce. One Friday afternoon after work, I strolled into the house to see Donald, wedged tightly between Mom, Dad and Serenity at the dining room table. His crisp white shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows, revealing a pair of nicely-shaped forearms. All of the tips of his fingers were capped with Serenity’s finger puppets. His face serious and intent, he pointed the orange giraffe at a brochure on the table. While my father leaned in the scan the brochure, Donald paused, and turned with a smile to nod the lion puppet at Serenity with the index finger on his other hand. “Roar,” he said, gently.

  “Roar,” I said to announce my presence.

  Donald looked up, startled. “I better get going,” he said, glancing at his watch.

  “No, I want you to stay,” shrieked Serenity.

  Mom set a tray on the table. “You can’t go yet, I just made you a sandwich. Bill, why don’t you pour Donald a beer?” She turned to face me. “Pauline, this is Donald Daley, our financial advisor.”

  Serenity ran over to me, grabbed my hand in her small chubby one, and determinedly dragged me across the kitchen. “Mommy, you and Donald have to hold hands,” she said, trying to force my hand into his.

  Without removing the puppets, Donald shook my hand with a firm grip. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” By the time he let go of my hand, I could feel my cheeks flushing.

  A horn honks behind me, breaking my reverie. The traffic light has turned green.

  Mom speaks up again: “Young people these days won’t shoulder through. They give up so easily. In my time, men and women had affairs too, you know. We knew better than to throw away our marriages for a fling.”

  I glance over at her. She’s looking down at her lap.

  “Your father was away on temporary duty a lot.”

  “You had an affair?”

  She ignores me and smiles. Then she laughs out loud. “I sure knew a lot of gals who did. There were always these jokes going around. That propping up the red Tide box in the basement window is a sign your man is away on deployment and the coast is clear.”

  “I use liquid detergent.”

  “Don’t be flip. I loved your father very much. But we had our ups and downs. He wasn’t exactly an angel on all those deployments you know.”

  “So what happened to your girlfriends? The ones with the Tide boxes?”

  “Some of them got divorces. Some stuck it out.”

  She looks out the window again and we drive along in silence. “You need to take that dog of yours to the vet. I saw his, you know, poo; it has all these grainy bits in it. He has worms. Worms are easily transmitted, especially among children who don’t know how to wash their hands properly. I showed Jack and Olympia the right way while you were away.”

  A few minutes after I get home, the phone rings. It’s Donald.

  “Your bags turned up here this morning, after we left for the airport. The courier dropped them off with the concierge. He just brought them up.”

  “Your concierge brought them up? My bags are in your apartment? Right now?”

  No, this can’t be happening. Donald is now in witless possession of every x-rated love note Michael ever wrote to me. Not to mention the photo albums. I sag against the kitchen counter, heart thrashing around in my chest. If I didn’t have a heart condition before this trip, I surely do now. I can feel my brain emptying as the blood backwashes out of my head and pools in my legs. With no blood left to float thoughts around my cranium, I can’t think. So I start babbling: “But, but … I don’t understand. I called the luggage guy yesterday and told him to redirect my bags back here.”

  “Obviously they made a mistake. But don’t worry, I already called the airline and they’re going to send the courier back to pick them up. So you should have your stuff in a couple of days. It’s just as well. You left a jacket and a scarf in the hall closet. I’ll stick them in one of your bags.”

  Oh no. No. No, no, no, no, no. Holy suitcases packed with doom, Batgirl. What on earth will I do? I can’t tell him to keep his snout out of my bags or he will for sure wonder why, and look in both, out of curiosity. I can feel my intestines looping themselves into a noose formation, just in time for the hangman who is riding toward me at a full gallop. All I can say is a weak, “Thanks Donald.” I have a 50/50 chance that he’ll open the wrong suitcase, a 50/50 chance that I’m going to turn into a pillar of salt before the end of the day. In fact, now that my blood has stopped in its tracks, I can feel my veins crusting over already.

  For the rest of the day, every time the phone rings, my intestines form another clove hitch. I have so many knots in my bowels, I’ll be lucky if one grain of the single bite of fried rice I managed to swallow at dinner makes it past the first bend. As for me, by the first light of dawn, after thrashing about under the covers in sleepless turmoil all night, I’ve officially gone beyond the bend. Robotically, I get up, shower, and dress for work. If he doesn’t call soon, I better brace myself for a communication from his lawyer before the end of the week.

  Three more days crawl by and finally Donald surfaces. His voice is unfriendly, and he only wants to talk to the kids. I can’t tell if his frosty tone is due to the cold war stance we’ve adopted since the Battle of Calgary Tower or if his curtness represents the first shot over the bow in an all out declaration of war. Before I hand the receiver over to Jack, I tell Donald that the suitcases arrived this morning. I didn’t describe how I felt as I opened the innocent bag first to find, while gasping air into my lungs for what felt like the first time in a week, the jacket and scarf neatly folded and set atop my sweaters, jeans, and brand new just-in-case silk teddy.

  CHAPTER 27

  Hardstand

  Hardstand: A paved or stabilized area where vehicles are parked.

  —Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

  Valentine’s Day is coming up. I wouldn’t have noticed except that Jude decided to recreate Amsterdam’s red light district in the storefront windows complete with scarlet lamp, velvet curtains and an empty chair. Our front book table is piled high with books on erotica and all things lusty. Meanwhile, my own boudoir is darkened and dusty.

  Everywhere there are lacy reminders of the day for lovers. I jerk my shopping cart past the card section at the grocery store, which is spammed thick with pink and red heart cards. No cards are coming for me this year. Tucked away in my bedside drawer is a collection of beautiful cards from Donald. Every birthday and Valentine’s Day, he always picked out the laciest, most syrupy sweet cards he could find.

  Donald and I haven’t spoken in weeks. I stare at the display wonde
ring if there are any appropriate valentine’s cards for absentee husbands? All the cards have honeyed messages. None say “You Can Be My Valentine, But Only If You Stop Being a Prick.”

  I can detect a river of lacy red bile rising in my chest. Who invented the cruelty of Valentine’s Day? There’s a young woman standing beside me perusing cards. I suppress the urge to warn her off by explaining the utter futility of the whole exercise. Instead I continue reading the verses in search of something friendly and benign. What do I want to say with my card? Why am I thinking of buying Donald a card in the first place? Because we’ve always exchanged cards? Because skipping the card feels so final?

  Where’s the card featuring a bouquet of red hearts with festering stab wounds? I haven’t heard from Michael either, but that’s no surprise. He said I had to decide. How do I decide? Do I even have a choice when it comes to Donald? Ever since New Year’s we have stood but one short stomp from Splittsville. All it will take is for one or the other of us to fling the first load of divorce papers on the other’s head. Who is going to make the first move?

  Bibienne calls me at work: She needs an Emergency Girl’s Night Out. “The Greek place. I need to have a look at some real men.”

  John the Greek God leads us to our favorite booth, we slip into our seats, and Bibienne clasps his hand in hers and says imploringly, “Red, please. A carafe.”

  “Who wants to go first?”

  “I do. Bernie is such an idiot. He insisted on climbing up onto the roof yesterday to try to shovel off some of the snow and get this: he slipped and managed to fall through the skylight onto our bed. A piece of the glass punctured the waterbed so now we need a new skylight and a new bed. Him and his hippie shit 70’s waterbed. He picked it up at a garage sale. True story. I’ve been sleeping in a garage sale bed for the past 15 years. Why do I put up with his crap? At least now we can finally buy a real mattress and box spring. I ordered one of those Swedish memory foam mattresses.” Her eyes go soft and dreamy.