Blind Spot

by Laurence Miall

  “Time for a smoke break?” she called out.

  “Always got time for a smoke break,” I said, already starting my descent.

  She was an English major. She had been studying at the university since 2001, had finished a BA, and was now working on her Master’s. She loved every minute of it. She would have been a professional student if she could. All the time she’d spent out of school, messing around, she had had no idea what she was missing. As a child, she had found the whole idea of university completely tedious. Her parents had drilled it into her that she must go — that you amounted to nothing if you didn’t go — and she rebelled against it. What did she need university for? She wanted to be an actor.

  She had a lot in common with me.

  That story got us through half an hour and two cigarettes. It couldn’t stop there — you just knew it.

  “Come for dinner tonight,” I said.

  I spent another two hours actually working, and the rest of the day I spent getting ready for Julianne’s arrival. I tidied up the living room, which had started to resemble an adolescent’s bedroom, with my clothes scattered about, and dirty dishes lying everywhere. Then I went to the IGA and purchased two chicken breasts, a pound of mushrooms, a lemon, onions, garlic, lettuce, cream, and flour. I roasted the chicken breasts and made a mushroom cream sauce and poured it on top. I served a salad on the side. She had promised to bring wine, and she made good on that promise. She arrived twenty minutes late. I knew exactly how late she was because I have a terrible habit of always being late for everything myself, but this time, out of anxiety, I had been punctual to the very second, and I was worried that, in the delay, everything would dry out and go bad. But it turned out fine.

  She said the food looked “good enough to eat.” I don’t know why — with her cheesy smile, as if she were quoting a commercial — I found that incredibly funny. I burst out laughing.

  “I sure hope it’s good enough to eat,” I said.

  When we sat down to the meal, there was an unexpected formality to the first few minutes. I poured the wine, we clinked glasses, she tried a mouthful, said it was delicious, and I thanked her for the kind words. All of this felt like the impersonation of people far older than we were. For an awkwardly long moment, it was utterly silent. I wracked my mind, searching for something to say, unable to believe that the conversation might be petering out.

  I wondered if she, too, was searching for words. Maybe I’d invited her over too quickly. It did seem a bit strange, the longer you thought about it: inviting over someone you’d just met.

  If nothing witty or clever came to mind, I would just have to resort to something banal.

  “It was a beautiful day for painting today,” I said.

  She nodded, and seemed a little relieved that I’d taken a crack at the silence.

  “It’s been a beautiful autumn.”

  “You walk to the university every day?” I asked.

  “I do,” she replied.

  At the very same moment, we both uttered the words, “Even in winter,” except my rendition was a question, hers was a statement. We both laughed. This only amplified the awkwardness of the conversation.

  “I’m bad at this,” she said, after another long silence.

  “What?” I said.

  “Pretending I don’t want to—”

  Suddenly she leaned out of her chair, brought her head towards mine, and I — didn’t think about it — I accepted her kiss. She sank down afterwards, returned her fork to her plate, and sighed.

  “Is that okay?” she said. “Is it okay I kissed you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I turned away from her, only now remembering how very not okay it was, and feeling the tension tighten my throat, and wondering if I could just get over this moment like it was just a glitch — a temporary malfunction. But the second I pictured Stephie, and having to behave for her sake, I felt angry. I didn’t want to stop what was happening — not for her sake.

  “Oh no,” Julianne said. She wasn’t stupid. I’d let another awkward silence linger, not touched my food.

  “It wasn’t okay, was it,” she said.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “No, it’s not complicated… You’re with somebody.”

  “Yes. I’m with somebody.”

  “She’s in Vancouver,” she said.

  She started eating. Her face had adopted a sullen look.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay, Luke. I’m pissed off with me, not you. I ran right into that.”

  “I could’ve said something earlier,” I said.

  “And I could’ve asked.”

  “It was just harmless flirting to this point.”

  She looked at me again, at last.

  “Is your girlfriend — is she a jealous type?”

  I nodded.

  “You better believe it.”

  “In that case, we won’t make that mistake again,” she concluded.

  “No, we won’t,” I agreed, with everything inside me saying the opposite.

  12

  It was dangerous to stay in the house. There was the act that we both wanted to commit, but neither one of us was prepared to commit it. A perfect excuse to get out of harm’s way presented itself. We had no dessert, and we wanted some. And we were out of wine, and we wanted some of that, too. So we bundled ourselves up in warm clothes — she in a turtleneck sweater and pea coat, and me in a big fleece hoodie — and we walked down to Whyte Avenue. I had not really thought about it, but it was Friday night, so the avenue was bound to be in full swing. When we arrived, there was an ambulance outside the Commercial Hotel and the victim of a fight being hauled onto a stretcher. The crowd was so jaded by that kind of thing that they barely paid attention. We barely paid attention either, but for different reasons. The young out for blood or for a fuck — they were part of the nightly grind that we didn’t want to deal with. We swerved by the line up outside Bar Wild, were nearly hit by an errant bead of phlegm from a frat boy, were deafened briefly by a truck honking at something, then we crossed to the same side of the road as Chapters. It was eleven o’clock.

  “It’s not a good night to be down here,” she said.

  “No.”

  We kept going. It was becoming an ordeal, but in a way, it was bringing us closer.

  “We could go into Mosaics,” she said. “They have some good desserts.”

  But when we got to Mosaics, it was closed. We were now almost at 109th Street. The bedlam was thankfully behind us, but where were we going to go now?

  To this point, we hadn’t discussed Stephie. We had discussed music, books, films, and a little bit about growing up, going to school, and I remember mentioning Joel, and a few of our adventures — including the story about stealing from the rich suckers of Riverbend — and that made her laugh. But things now felt like they’d taken a somber turn.

  “This is very hard, just finding somewhere to eat.”

  I nodded.

  “Is it worth it?” she continued. “I mean, what exactly are we doing?”

  “Are you abandoning the mission? Mission Find Dessert?”

  She didn’t laugh.

  “You have a girlfriend,” she said.

  “We’re going to go for dessert as friends,” I replied.

  “Friends?”

  “Friends and neighbours.”

  The staff of the Sugarbowl Café had set out candles on the tables for the dinner and dessert crowd. Julianne and I hesitated to sit down. This seemed like a date. By this point — I know — we had already gone too far. But that’s the thing: you only know you’ve gone too far when you arrive there.

  I waited for her to take a seat first.

  The conversation changed tone. It became a psychoanalysis. I didn’t mind, because just talking to her was a thrill.

  “Tell me about them,” she said. “How you remember them. Everything you mention about childhood seems to avoid them. Is it difficult to talk about the
m?”

  “Yes, but...”

  What could I tell her about my parents?

  “Were you close?”

  “I was not a good kid,” I said, with a sudden need to make some kind of confession. “I didn’t want to associate with my parents. I avoided them as much as possible. My friends were more important. When I talk about all the shit I did — like with Joel — that’s most of my childhood, that’s who I was. My friends influenced me far more than my parents did.”

  She shook her head.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “What do you mean, that’s not possible?”

  “Your parents must be more important than that. Everyone’s parents are important to them. Even if they aren’t important — that in itself is important. Don’t you think?”

  “I feel like I should be on a couch, paying you a hundred an hour for this.”

  “You joker,” she smiled. She flicked the balled-up doily from her dessert at me. “You come off like you were trying to be a rebel all your childhood, but it isn’t clear what exactly you were rebelling against.”

  “I was rebelling against the very idea of parents. That’s what I was doing. Has it never seemed utterly random, the parents that are assigned to you? Haven’t you asked yourself, ‘Why are these two people my parents, and not somebody else?’”

  “Parents being assigned to you? That doesn’t happen, Luke. They are you. The same flesh and blood.”

  “But I don’t entirely believe that flesh and blood shit. It’s true for some people, but not for everybody. What about the kids who went on the killing spree in Columbine? Surely, after the fact, their parents thought, ‘How did those children come from us?’ I mean, you wouldn’t have thought it was possible. You give birth to a baby who grows up to be a cold-hearted killer. And it works the other way around, too. You see your parents acting a certain way and you ask, ‘How the hell can I be related to them?’”

  “But it doesn’t mean you don’t share a lot of the same traits.”

  “No, you might not share any of the same traits.”

  “Is that how you feel about your parents?”

  There was a short pause in conversation as the waitress came to the table to ask us if we wanted anything more to drink. We said we wanted more wine. Then we were left in peace again.

  “To answer your question, I don’t know.”

  “Well, think about it. What were your parents like?”

  “What?”

  “I’m asking you, Luke. What were they like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re weird about this. Is it because we only met yesterday? Tell me if I’m being too nosy. We can talk about acting or my thesis or your job or something else.”

  “Okay, look.” I reached into my back pocket. I knew that the photo would be there. I had changed from my work jeans earlier — throwing them into the washing machine, but deliberately removing the photo first and putting it into the pocket of the fresh pair of pants.

  “What’s this?” said Julianne, as she took the photo from me.

  “I don’t want you to tell anyone about this,” I said.

  “Who would I tell?” she asked. “We don’t know any of the same people.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Wait, wait,” she said. “Before you tell me. Can I guess?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “This is your gay lover.”

  She cracked a grin, but the joke didn’t go any further than that.

  I didn’t find it funny at all.

  “Christ…”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “If I were gay, that would be the last—”

  “I’m sorry. It just seemed kind of funny. You having a half-naked photo of some old guy in your back pocket.”

  “Okay, I guess it does seem odd.”

  The waitress approached again. She left us with two full glasses of red wine, which were like enormous red jewels sparkling in the candlelight.

  “I’ll shut up now and let you do the talking.”

  “I haven’t told anybody this. Not even— I haven’t even told my girlfriend. That man is Jacob Brookfield. That photo was taken on my parents’ bed. I am pretty sure that my mother was sleeping with him.”

  She looked at the picture more closely.

  “Not my type,” she said.

  “No kidding. He’s disgusting. I found this picture in my mother’s room.”

  “Her room? Did she sleep in a different room from your dad?”

  “No, no. She had a hobby room, a workroom. She ran her own business.”

  “I see.”

  “And I found that underneath her sewing machine. It was like she was hiding it. I think she took that picture. I don’t know what other explanation would account for it.”

  “You think she was sleeping with this guy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Based just on this picture?”

  “Not just the picture. That’s what is driving me a little crazy. I’ve known Jacob and his wife my whole life. We used to see them at least once a month. I think I always had a suspicion — a sixth sense — about something going on. But I was only a kid. What did I know?”

  Julianne sipped her wine. She kept staring at the picture. That was enough. I couldn’t handle it being out in public anymore. I grabbed for it.

  “Sorry. I don’t want to keep looking at it.”

  I pocketed it again.

  “Your father didn’t know?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “I find it hard to believe he would’ve known. Jacob Brookfield was his colleague. It just… It seems too weird to contemplate.”

  “You are contemplating it.”

  I said nothing.

  “That’s quite a discovery to make, Luke, after they’ve passed away, too.”

  “I sometimes think that I would have rather not have found it. Some things, you don’t want to know.”

  “But you do know. Don’t you want to find out everything?”

  “No. I don’t think I do.”

  13

  A shadow fell across our table. We looked up. It wasn’t the waitress. It was a tall, skinny man, his hair dyed jet black, wearing a vest over a white shirt, immaculately pressed black pants, and red shoes. He looked like a dandy, or like somebody out of A Clockwork Orange. The skin on his face was taut, with heavily creased smile lines. He was over thirty — possibly even closer to forty — and trying desperately, it seemed, to defy his age.

  “Hi, Julianne,” he gushed. He leaned in and very theatrically kissed her, first on the cheeks, then on the lips. You could tell it flustered her. “Who is this?” he said, looking at me with unblinking eyes, lizard-like.

  “This is Luke,” said Julianne.

  “Hi, Luke, I’m Mike,” he said, offering me a rather limp hand to shake. “Luke, you’re cute.”

  Now he had me flustered. I immediately resented him for it.

  “Luke used to be an actor,” said Julianne. “You might remember him from his Manspray commercials.”

  Did she have to bring that up? Mike scratched his chin, studying me. His eyes narrowed to slits.

  “Yes, now I can see it. Yes.” He raised his hands and made them into a viewfinder. He adopted a German accent. “Zis man smell like a real man,” he said. “You had terrific abs in those commercials.”

  “Sure,” I said, knowing that I wasn’t being taken seriously.

  “What are you doing here?” Julianne asked him.

  “I am loitering,” he said. “I am doing nothing. But nothing will come of nothing. So I have decided to go home instead. I might make a start on my conference presentation if I hermit myself. There are too many beautiful people here.”

  He looked again at me.

  “She is the most delightful woman in all of Edmonton,” he said. “I give you my permission to seduce her.”

  And with another dramatic kiss for Julianne, he was gone.

  Mike’s very reason
for being, from my first impression, was to make people uncomfortable. He certainly succeeded where I was concerned.

  “Why is he like that? Is it an act?” I asked.

  We were walking back to the Mill Creek Ravine.

  “You might think it’s an act, but he really is like that. He’s a drama queen. He’s hilarious. He’s one of my best friends in the English Department.”

  “I see.”

  “He unnerved you?”

  “I didn’t like the theatricality.”

  “Surely you’ve been surrounded by theatrical types who behave like that all the time. I wouldn’t have thought it bothered you.”

  “Actually, it was one of the things about acting that did bother me. Those types that think they’re on the stage 24/7.”

  “All the world’s a stage,” she said, then laughed at herself. “I guess he takes some getting used to.”

  There was a brief, dissatisfied lull in conversation. We walked along Saskatchewan Drive. Across the river, downtown Edmonton glistered coldly in blue and yellow and white. You could hear the rush of the train over the bridge, then it was gone. There remained the whisper of traffic in the city’s distant arteries, and every now and then, shouts from somewhere — probably Whyte Avenue. It was approaching one in the morning and only the occasional car passed us. At this hour, most of them were probably driven by clubbers and pub-crawlers, a good number, no doubt, intoxicated. Suddenly, the night seemed to tighten its cold grasp. I sensed that neither of us was completely prepared for this chill, and I wanted to pull Julianne close to me.

  Even from here, from the heart of the city, you could see the lights on the metal landscape of Refinery Row to the east. You could see plumes of smoke, the vague darkness of trees, the luminescent sky, and it looked otherworldly. There was a flashing red light — probably a signal to planes to stop them crashing into Esso’s precious resources — and its regularity was like a heartbeat.

  The city seemed so vulnerable to me then — so open to the sky, so sparsely guarded with actual people — and I wondered why it was that I wanted to stay. Because with the truth serum of wine in my veins, I had completely conceded that this was what I wanted. I was trying to gauge how much this had to do with Julianne. It seemed that we were now in the midst of a very slight disagreement — provoked by Mike — but if anything, to have so quickly reached this stage made her sudden arrival in my life seem more concrete. Edmonton and Julianne were inseparable in my mind. When I thought of returning to Vancouver, I felt an anxious lurch in my gut. It was the fear of being alone — even though Stephie would be there — and the loneliness of not being able to express what I was going through. There was something of fate’s hand, I thought, in the way that I had divulged my family’s secrets to Julianne first — the girl from “next door.”