“Sorry, Chuck, could you say that again, you’re breaking up, hello?” Frédérique lifted the phone and hurled it with all her strength into the Pacific. A brand new phone. Only one person had been given that number and it was not Charles Blackmore, whose birthday had been in the winter, which she remembered because of a colleague ribbing him about his age. Frédérique started to run back to her car, fumbling for her keys as she stumbled on the shale. As she reached the parking lot a large figure in a black hoodie burst out from behind two cars and she screamed.
Kyle often comes home with all the ends of his sentences ratcheted up like questions. Today he’s wearing his black choir sweatshirt with the hood up. She can hardly see his face. He looks like a very short monk.
This morning? At school?We had to pick names for our teams for gym? So we had to like write them down, on pieces of paper? And Mr. Sheppard put them all in the bag and pulled them out one at a time and we all got to like raise our hands and vote? And guess what someone wanted our team to be called? Barf!! Kyle nearly chokes with glee at the badness of it.
Gail and Maxine step out onto the back deck. Maxine wears a black one-piece designed for coverage and Gail a fancy yellow bikini Cindy had given her. Gail makes an aaah of surprise when her bare toes touch the snow. She shoves the cover up off one side of the tub and the two of them slide in, find the seat-shelves and position their bums on them, sink down until just their heads stay above the water, strings of bubbles climbing up around them.
Oh my god, says Maxine, oh, Gail, wow.
When Maxine leaves her apartment at 5:05, Dave and Kyle are pulling out of the driveway. Dave nods; Kyle smiles and waves. Barb is opening the door as Maxine climbs the stairs. Maxine follows Barb into the kitchen. Barb takes a large bottle of white wine from the fridge and pours two substantial glasses. The living room is tidy and light. The large front window faces south. On the coffee table there is a plate of crackers with artichoke dip from the bakery.
So, says Barb sliding into a black leather loveseat. When are you going to Paris?
Paris? Oh wow is that the artichoke one? I love that.
Kyle said you’re going for some literary event.
Oh, the contest. Maxine helps herself to a cracker. Barb, that’s if I win the contest. I’m not going to Paris.
Still, you never know. When would you be going? Just supposing. Barb looks stiff; she sits straight up on the edge of the couch. She watches Maxine carefully.
Oh, well I think they give out the awards the first week of September, but really—
Mid-September—
No, early.
No, mid-September is when Dave and I need to go to Alberta. I can’t believe how slow it is but the key people aren’t available for most of the summer and they travel a lot and they can’t all seem to get together before that.
Oh, says Maxine. How long?
I think it would be a week. Barb puts her glass down and studies Maxine’s face.
And Kyle would come to me, right, I remember. You know, says Maxine, it’s fine. She feels an uncommon nonchalance. She starts to reach for another cracker but changes her mind under Barb’s scrutiny: I was nervous at first but I’m kind of used to it now. I’m not sure about all the school stuff. The lunches and what goes in the bookbag and all that. But I think it would be OK.
Barb leans forward and pierces her with a look.
You do? Are you sure?
No, says Maxine. I mean, yes, yes, I think it would be fine. For a week. Why, do you think there would be a problem?
Barb flops back into the loveseat. She takes a large gulp of wine.
Thank God, Barb said. I’ve been racking my brains, I just didn’t know what else to do with him if you said no. I mean, I could have pressed you, she says, as if she’d forgotten Maxine was there.
No doubt.
Pardon? I thought about taking him but I don’t want him to fly at the moment, with all these airline warnings and things. Did you hear Libya has accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing? I mean, a whole country, saying Yeah, we did this thing that is evil. Imagine. And if he came, what would I do with him when we got there? Dave’s parents are gone. Mine are in a home. I don’t have anyone to look after him. If anything happened. I lie awake at three in the morning, Maxine, worrying about that. I don’t have backup. I need a plan B.
Really, Barb, it’s OK. And if you want to have a little vacation with Dave or whatever at some point, we’ll see how this time goes but, you know, it’s a possibility. Are you saving this for anything?
For real company?—Barb looks baffled.
The dip.
No, no, go ahead.
Excellent.
From Gail and Ted’s place on Gower you can look out the kitchen window up to the dark hulking mass of Signal Hill, with car lights weaving up to the top parking lot. From there you can walk along the cliffs to Cuckold’s Cove, where they had stood and watched Cindy’s ashes being blown around. Cindy had been very smart and equally determined, on her way to a big academic career. Maxine had made a package for each of the eight chemo treatments, wrapping a dozen little gifts carefully with ribbon. Soap, nail polish, magazines, silly little gadgets from the dollar store, anything that might be funny or indulgent, fruity candies to take away the taste. Maxine and Gail go to Cuckold’s Cove once a year and leave flowers; the rest of the time Maxine stays away. She learned the lesson, though. Do it now. If it weren’t for Cindy, Maxine would never in a million years have left a reliable job for anything so frivolous. But here she is, and Gail’s kitchen is warm, and she looks away from the window, at Gail’s English houseguest.
Martin is a journalist, the son of someone Gail’s father knew in Germany, doing a story on places where there used to be fish. When Martin describes his walk down by the harbour, he calls it the docks. He went for a walk, he says—they are sitting at Gail and Ted’s kitchen table, a long slab of battered dark brown wood. He wanted a walk to see the docks. Only, because no one in these parts ever says docks when they mean the harbour, and because she saw a bunch on her run that morning, Maxine hears ducks. They each have a glass of red wine and so does Gail, but she’s engrossed in cooking things.
I often get a feeling from docks, Martin is saying reflectively. A kind of malevolence.
You do? says Maxine. It sounds a bit odd but her mind zooms in on the ones she saw that morning at the lake, their heads, their bills, and with some effort she can almost picture it, a slightly evil look in the small eyes. Yeah, says Maxine uncertainly, Yeah, I think I know what you mean.
All that coming and going, Martin continues. If you took a wrong turn, they might just truss you up and carry you off somewhere.
Paranoia, Maxine thinks. I think they’d have a lot of trouble doing that, she says. Logistically.
Well yes of course. I don’t think it’s very likely.
Me neither. Maxine’s tone is clipped. Need any help, Gay?
No thanks. But you can both look at this for me, please—Gail drops a couple of her business cards on the table. I’m thinking about having them re-done. Do you think the font is messy?
Martin and Maxine scrutinize the card.
No, says Martin, not exactly messy.
Who said it was messy?
Kristina. She said I need a cleaner look, more modern. Maybe lower-case. I shouldn’t have gone to Steve—he was at school with us, Max, remember, at lunchtime he used to sit on top of the garbage can, on that bridge part over the opening, with his legs spread, so when you finished lunch you had to go and toss your crumpled-up paper bag right under his crotch.
And so you thought he’d be the best graphic designer around, says Martin.
He gave me a deal.
Who’s Kristina?
A client. I’ve done a few things for her. She has a good eye.
In the parking lot of the supermarket on Merrymeeting, right next to the cart corral whose beige plastic roof blew off in a windstorm and splintered all over the car right next to Kare
n, who was fine— in that parking lot with a string bag of oranges and a half-litre of 1 percent, Maxine suddenly thinks, docks. He must have said docks. She pictures Martin, trussed and dangling below forty malevolent mallards winging him off who knows where for nefarious purposes. But now it all makes sense and she laughs out loud and although the man walking past her doesn’t notice, the child sitting on his shoulders does, quite a small one with the kind of knitted hat that has two little ear-doinks up on top where no child has ever had ears. And the child gazes down at Maxine, who has laughed.
Ducks, Maxine explains.
Duh, says the child.
You look so thoughtful, Gail says. What is it?
Nothing.
Come on, Max.
No.
Out with it.
I was having a brief reflective moment, that’s all.
Friends share.
...It’s, um, Abba. I was thinking, you know, they weren’t as bad as all that.
Jerome whipped his hood off. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said. “My ears were cold.” Frédérique saw that his sweatshirt had Sing for the Cure stitched on the arm.
“Mon Dieu, Jerome, what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be with me. It’s not safe.” Ducks, or gulls, shrieked menacingly in the distance.
“I know you’re not safe. That’s why I’ve been following you.” Frédérique looked over her shoulder. “Quick, let’s get away from here. Don’t say anything in the car.”
“Frédérique, I think you need to start telling me what’s going on.”
“Yes darling, you’re right. But first let’s go somewhere safe.” Frédérique slipped two fingers into the tailpipe. She lay on her back on the cold asphalt and peered at the undercarriage. Jerome took off his gloves and slid them under her head. He stamped his feet to keep warm as he watched the road. At last Frédérique stood. She gestured him away from the car. They both backed up a dozen paces and took cover on the other side of the ornamental rock wall. Frédérique raised the key fob high, pointed it at the car, and pressed the unlock button. There was a clunking noise of the unlocking mechanism, and then nothing. They stood up and got in the car. The engine started, you could hear the radio came on, “Take A Chance on Me.” Frédérique whipped the car out of the lot and they vanished into the distance.
11
april 2003
maxine ibuprofen. leans on the counter and hands over the prescription. She has made a neat pile of tissues, cough drops, and
That’ll be a couple of minutes my love.
Thanks. She shuffles over to one of the two chairs and sits, hunched protectively forward. A woman and her teenage son approach the counter, their arms full of sale items. The last dregs of the Christmas decorations, chocolates, household doodads. Maxine now notices the giant SALE signs everywhere. The boy is holding an enormous box with a photo of a black metal contraption that appears to be a holder for two candles. He eases it to the floor. It’s higher than his waist.
Under normal circumstances Maxine would be leaning in for a better look at the candleholder but she is now slumping back, shivering, trying to make herself small in her down coat, to withdraw into it completely and keep the amount of exposed skin to a minimum. Two or three colds in a row, the second turning into a sinus infection, that’s what the doctor thinks. It’s been weeks of exhaustion, tissues, aches, not being able to get warm. At four-thirty one morning Maxine was ordering slippers from Land’s End, having first scoured a dozen sites and determined that these were the only slippers in the world that looked as if they might keep her feet warm. Before that she’d been lying in bed with the heat cranked up to sub-Saharan and a hot water bottle, and her wool socks on, and couldn’t bear it. She was frozen. The photo on the web page looked so promising. It seemed to say, These slippers will work. We will ship them to you immediately, and warmth will be yours. Of course, the doctor could be wrong. Maybe Maxine has some underlying and soon-to-be diagnosed sinister Something that explains why she hasn’t had just one cold like a normal person. Maybe this is all part of the dark and greasy slope. Andromeda, thinks Maxine quickly, M33.
Well yeah, Gail had said when Maxine confided this fear that raked over her mind like a finger on the cheese grater. We’re all dying, Max. Maxine had not found this reassuring. She leans forward now to rest her elbows on her knees and gazes vacantly ahead at the row of pamphlets. Each features one condition or disease, with a photo of a happy-looking person on the front. Diabetes, one announces, as a woman and a young girl beam out at Maxine from a sunny park. Fibromyalgia: an older woman in a smart suit leaning eagerly over her desk, a little pale but smiling to beat the band. Prostate cancer: the chipper-looking grandpa in his woodworking grotto. Maybe the sinister Something wouldn’t be so bad after all. Apparently, these people are having the time of their lives.
A thaw, and much of the snow has gone. It feels like fall, hurricane weather, warm, wet, and windy. Maxine looks out to see how the sky appears, and sees someone coming around from the back of the Larsens’ place, and it shouldn’t be Dave, who should be at work, but it is. Dave is walking along the narrow passageway between his house and the one next door, so Maxine is the only person who can see him. He’s wearing his work clothes and advancing slowly. He stops and runs his hands all over his face and head; he folds his arms and leans them against the white siding of his house, and rests his head on them. He remains there, propped up by the wall. His long black raglan is undone and the wind jerks and flaps the sides of it so that Dave looks like a man being attacked by a huge black bird and for some time he just stands there being buffeted, until finally he drags himself up and walks to the car. He opens the door and the wind catches it and seems to smash it into a part of him because he steps back and buckles a little, but he recovers, grabs the door, and climbs in.
Sorry to ring your bell so late—I’ve got Kyle’s geography book.
Barb stares at her without seeming to understand.
He left it. He’ll probably need it tomorrow. I didn’t see it until just now.
Barb’s nose is pink. She leans against the doorframe, sets a wineglass very carefully on the floor and reaches for the book. Maxine hesitates.
Are you OK, Barb?… Was the parent-teacher meeting OK?
That teacher, Barb says. Maxine is slowly realizing that Barb could be drunk. She’s never seen Barb drunk. It wouldn’t surprise her to learn that Barb has never been drunk until this moment. She remembers now that Barb had complained to the teacher about something.
I was trying. To be helpful. In other jobs. People have, you know. Comment boxes. Feeb. Feedback. I get evaluated. All the time. Makes you better.
Barb, um, Dave’s not home, is he?
Wasn’t going to bitch. Behind her back. Like the rest of them.
Right. Of course not. Everything’s fine with Kyle, is it?
She shoved, Barb says. Her finger out at me. She got up in my face. Barb raises a palm inches from her own nose to demonstrate. Barb is looking a tiny bit crazy, in the manner of someone who is tired and whose frustration has reached unbearable levels. She stuck, Barb says, her big grumpy face in mine. She said Youuuuuu better get used to iiiit, ’cause it’s only gonna get WOOOOOOORSE12! And he took notes. That vice-principal guy.
Barb leans against the doorframe with a bit of a thump.
What’s going to get worse? Is Kyle doing fine?
Oh yah. It was about her, not him.
Barb, why don’t I make you a cup of tea?
A car turns onto the street and it’s a little black car.
’S Dave.
Yes, excellent, OK then, have a good night, Barb, bye.
Maxine turns around to make sure Kyle has his piano book but he’s already undoing his seatbelt and cramming it under his jacket.
Have a good lesson.
OK. He hops out and sprints through drizzle along the paving stones to the front door. It swings open and he vanishes. Maxine pulls away from the curb, laps the cul-de-sac, parks ac
ross the road from the piano teacher’s house. The bay window at the front has a vertical blind and through it she can barely make out the curve of Kyle’s head and shoulders, broken up by the slats of the blind, as if he were a character in a flip book or someone trying to materialize in a sci-fi show and not quite able to appear because the Teleport has been sabotaged or the enemy has got to him at the other end. A large mass beside him must be the piano. Maxine slumps back in the seat. She doesn’t know this part of town very well and the lesson is only half an hour long. Barb usually does piano but she’s coming down with something bronchial, Dave’s been working late, and Maxine is starting to feel the positive effects of antibiotics. Maxine adores antibiotics. Everyone she knows says how awful they are, they destroy the good and the bad indiscriminately, take too many and you’re begging for Superbug to wipe you out just like that, you have to eat buckets of the right kind of yoghurt to be halfway normal, etcetera, but in Maxine’s experience a few days on antibiotics can make you smile for the first time in a week, can make you start to feel like someone who will climb a flight of stairs without having a rest at the top, who will not, fifty times in the run of a day, think, When I’ve finished this I’ll just sit down for a minute. Sometimes she gives the plastic childproof cap on the pill bottle an affectionate tap to let it know she’s appreciative.
It would take ten minutes to drive to a coffee shop and another ten minutes back. She might as well sit here. You can sit in the dark and look at lights shining in people’s rooms and wonder what the inhabitants are doing. Several of the large, ranch-style houses here have outside lights on, and many have small lamp posts or walkway lights tucked into their lawns and hedges. There’s no sign of inhabitants, though, no evidence whatsoever of any indoor human other than Kyle. Not a chickadee. What are the inhabitants doing? Where are the bloody inhabitants? Kyle’s been plopped on a piano bench in the middle of a desert of high-end ’70s architecture, and it’s looking as if he and Maxine would be the only life forms to show up on a scanner. The drizzle has turned to rain and now that the wipers are off, droplets stick to the windshield. Soon it’s covered with them, jagged little sequins—it looks solid, as if the entire glass surface were textured, coated with bumpy ice after a storm. It’s hardly been five minutes. How would Frédérique use this time? Sprays of rain rush at the roof of the car, sounding like waves of applause—thank you, thinks Maxine, thank you very much, yeah.
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