Prerequisites for Sleep

by Jennifer L. Stone

  You both order orange-almond salads and seafood crêpes. “I’m moving to Vancouver,” she says, nibbling a breadstick. “Did I mention how much I still miss you?” Then she hesitates and lowers her voice. “Us. I miss us…what we had.”

  The conversation is mostly memories. Afterwards, she invites you back to the old apartment one last time.

  Sex with this woman is as good as it always was, as good as with the man. You are empowered by your body, believe that it is you who is in control, not her or him, you and your attitude. You think you are freer than you have ever felt in your life. At home that night, you try things with the man you have never done with anyone before.

  For his birthday, you go online and order toys — mischievous things (nothing too deviant) — that arrive by mail in discreet packages. “Want to play?” you say, raising your eyebrows, when he opens the gift.

  “Pick a room,” he replies.

  Later you are surprised by the familiar skill with which he handles these things. He tells you it’s been several years since he has enjoyed a woman like this, since sometime before his daughter was born.

  “Well, then, it’s been way too long,” you say. “Happy birthday.”

  This man decides to write a book, a historical novel requiring passion and time-consuming research. You fall asleep to the sound of his fingers tapping the computer keyboard. You listen as he reads you his latest draft. His writing is good. Very good. When it is published, the launch party is held in the faculty lounge of the university. The room has the tallest windows you have ever seen in your life. Indeterminable yards of plush fabric hang in the guise of heavy draperies.

  The man has many friends. They pull him in all directions, so you amble slowly around the room, admiring the pictures and the food. Somewhere between the canapés and the fruit tray, you are approached by one of his colleagues.

  “Kathleen,” he says, leaning forward and kissing your cheek, “so nice to see you again.”

  He smells like breath mints and aftershave. “Not Kathleen,” you say, “Joan.”

  For a moment, he looks horrified, then regains his composure and offers a toothy smile. “My apologies,” he says. “For such a crass error, I should at least get you another drink.”

  “Why not?” you say, handing him your empty glass.

  While he makes his way to the bar, you seek out the man with your eyes, find him in a circle of people standing next to a table of books. He sees you and waves. The eyes of the circle turn to take you in and you smile and wave back.

  “How long?” the colleague asks, arriving with a refill of red wine.

  “At least four years,” you reply.

  “Sorry,” he says again. “I honestly didn’t know.”

  When she is fifteen, his daughter runs away from home and shows up at her father’s (and your) place. He tells her she can stay, and calls her mother. During her first week, she skips school and misses dinner three days out of five. The man refuses to discuss the matter, afraid to scold her for fear she will run away again. It happens several more times before you take it upon yourself to rectify the situation. You offer her a job as your assistant after school and on weekends and to pay her for her time. It’s conditional, you say, on her attendance in school, but you could really use the help.

  While this man works on his second novel, you convince his daughter to continue her swimming and arrange for coaches. You spend time driving her to and from practice and to and from friends’ houses, getting to know other parents on a first-name basis. Some of them become friends that you organize carpools with and meet for lunch.

  You take pictures of them, this man and his daughter, tonal black and whites that you hang, in pewter frames with charcoal mats, on the walls of the upstairs hall. One of these will appear on the man’s website and grace the dust jacket of his future novel. Sometimes, when he is typing at night, you let your hands roam down between your legs, arch your back, curl your toes, and hold your moans and sighs behind closed lips.

  One afternoon, you arrive home to find the daughter crying. Her pillows and bedspread are drenched. Tissues are tossed about like carnations after a storm. She confides in you, tells you that she has missed her period. “Don’t tell Daddy,” she begs.

  So you hold her and insist that everything will be fine. “Don’t worry,” you say. “We can manage this.”

  You make some phone calls, book a flight, plan a short trip. “Shopping” you tell the man, “a girls’ vacation.” Yes, it’s okay if she misses school.

  You fly in the day before to make mandatory purchases, high-end fashions at obscure boutiques. Some props for show and tell. The next morning, at the hospital, you tell them you’re the girl’s mother but kept your own name. After signing forms and producing valid ID, you follow her as far as allowed, then sit and worry. The waiting room is green, the only shade of green people find depressing. You flip through magazines that are three years old, trying to find something worth reading, then root through your purse for your cell phone and look through your contacts. You keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through the names, releasing bleeps with every touch of the button, until the nurse informs you that cell phones are not allowed in the hospital. When it’s over, his daughter wakes, groggy and pale, and asks how soon she can return to swimming. At home, you explain to the man that she has the flu and must miss a couple more days.

  Crossing the harbour on the ferry, you see the man’s ex-wife with another woman. They are standing at the side rail. You watch, unable to look away, from the corner of your eye like everyone else, as the two women hold hands and exchange kisses. When they disembark, you want to follow, perhaps rake the ex over the coals, accuse her of being an irresponsible parent. Maybe. Or is it to get a better glimpse of the other woman? A fluttering sensation travels between your navel and your thighs. Your body feels like it is naked in a round room constructed of feathers and breezes that blow inward and tease your skin. Turning towards the parking lot, you hit the remote to locate your car while they disappear down a side street before you have a chance to notice which one. That evening, you suggest to the man that the three of you go out to dinner. “My treat,” you say.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” he asks.

  “Cook,” you reply.

  After his daughter leaves for university, you and this man fall into the habits of a comfortable middle-aged couple. He writes, while you read until you fall asleep most weeknights. The two of you have dinner with friends on Fridays and take walks in the park on Sunday afternoons, have sex, once, maybe twice, a month. The very life people would attribute to such a nineteenth-century residence, the tasteful home of a photographer and a successful author. Circumstances you would never have imagined settling into when you were younger but now can’t imagine being without.

  When the daughter announces her engagement to an English playwright, you help her plan her wedding, including offering caterers from your list of clients. You pick up invitations and stick countless stamps on envelopes. The man walks her down the aisle and you admire the two of them. He is still handsome and charming but now radiates something else. Self-fulfillment, you think. She is a beautiful, happy woman with noteworthy accomplishments and future goals, a testament to your diligence.

  At the reception, you are talking to the playwright about his latest work, commenting on his witty dialogue. “Your characters poke fun at their own foibles without knowing they are doing so,” you say. “In any other circumstances, such naivety would give rise to pity.”

  “Yes,“ he agrees. “How perceptive of you to notice. It’s amazing how many people don’t.”

  You find him charming and think the daughter has married a man much like her father.

  “Do you happen to cook?” you ask.

  “We both do,” he replies.

  Across the room, you notice this man and his daughter sharing a laugh with hi
s ex-wife, her mother. The woman has a presence. People hover around her like electrons. Someone wants a picture and the three arrange themselves for the camera. You look at the composition, the father on the right, the daughter on the left, both with their arms around the free-spirited-mother-ex-wife-artist in the middle. That’s when it begins, the feeling of being faded, overexposed, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to shake it.

  Autumn Trip East

  Diane tilted her head downwards and glanced over her sunglasses to check whether they were exaggerating the autumn colours. She did the same thing every time she saw a tree that looked bright red or neon orange, or a cluster of hues so intense that she thought they couldn’t be real. She had forgotten how beautiful fall was out east. The quantity and variety of trees made the difference, and the lack of industry and dust. The drive through Ontario and a large part of Quebec had been uninspiring. It wasn’t until east of Quebec City, nearing Rivière-du-Loup, where nature began to hug the edges of the highway, that the season surrounded her, providing a spectacular show before the day turned dark, offering her something to look forward to in the morning.

  Yesterday she had left Toronto and driven to Edmundston, stopping only to grab a bite at a cafe in Drummondville. It was possible to complete the trip non-stop if she drove all night, especially with the newly widened highways through New Brunswick. But Diane was not in a hurry, and Edmundston had always been the halfway point whenever she drove down with Blaine, or with him and the boys. This was the first time she’d travelled east on her own in over twenty years. Twenty-four, to be exact, she reminded herself. The divorce papers confirmed the fact. The last time she’d driven east was two years ago, right after she and Blaine had separated. The boys were with her. She and Liam had made plans to take the trip before Liam headed to university in the fall. Then Sheldon showed up, out of the blue, which was always his way, and they begged him to join them. They were surprised when he said yes. They had made the drive into a real vacation, taking several days and detouring to stop at all the tourist destinations that they usually skipped, staying only two days with her parents, then driving back through the States to do more sightseeing. Although Sheldon was quiet for most of the time, both she and Liam were glad he was there. It was the last time that the three of them had been together. Sheldon left again the day after they arrived home.

  The border was ahead, easily identified by the hydro and radio towers that skirted the marsh between the ocean and the highway on the isthmus that tacked Nova Scotia to the rest of the country. The place where the map ended in her grade-four drawings, the ones that always had Cape Breton looking like a lobster claw on one side. She pushed the power button on the radio and was greeted with static, then hit the seek arrow in search of a local station. Rap, heavy and disquieting, filled the car. She touched the button again and heard The Eagles singing “Take It Easy,” like a piece of sound advice from the past. It was easy to get seduced by the classic rock, which to most people her age represented some sort of idyllic youth, somewhere between angst and responsibility. Diane didn’t want memories to sing along with, or lyrics to get stuck in her head for days. She just wanted a presence. She pushed the button once more and landed on a call-in show, advice for genealogy buffs on the CBC. She let it stay as she cruised by the Welcome to Nova Scotia sign.

  Several kilometres past the border, she encountered a row of pylons. A flashing amber arrow directed vehicles into a single lane, and Diane geared down. After the traffic merged, she found herself inching along between two tractor-trailers that roared and groaned and smoked like dragons being pressed into service against their will. For twenty minutes she moved in this fashion, her feet, adept from years of Toronto congestion, automatically finding the perfect balance between stop and go.

  She wondered about Sheldon. Was he hitchhiking or hopping trains? She knew he had done both in the past. Thoughts of Sheldon were never far from her mind, always lying in wait just below the surface of everything else. He had been gone seven months this time. She still scrolled through the history on her cell phone every couple of days, thinking that perhaps she had missed an incoming call that could have been her son. It was a habit that both she and Liam had acquired over the last few years. Not that Sheldon owned a phone, but every time he came home, Diane made a point of writing their numbers down for him. Afterwards, she would watch him fold the piece of paper in half and in half again and tuck it into the pocket of his jeans. Now that Liam was in university, Diane called him whenever Sheldon arrived, then left the room while he talked to his younger brother. Where Sheldon was concerned, Diane and Liam had a similar approach. When he came home, they were relieved and happy to see him. They tried to show him how much they loved him, hoping that it would make him stay. Blaine, on the other hand, was always frustrated. He wanted answers to questions that he was afraid to ask. He wanted everything to be fixed, to be their old definition of normal. Even when Sheldon wasn’t there, Blaine could no longer move about the house without slamming and banging things.

  The highway opened up again, and Diane signalled and pulled out around the rig in front of her. The truck let out a disgruntled snort as she accelerated past, and she held her breath against the odour of spent diesel fuel while glancing up to watch the vehicle shrink in her rear-view mirror. From here, she was pulled along by the familiar and before long was exiting the highway, preparing to merge onto Main Street. This was a part of Dartmouth that was seedy and resisted change. Diane took in the pavement in need of repair. The strip club, located just a couple of buildings away from the music store and conservatory where countless numbers of children were deposited daily for lessons. The tavern with another new name. McDonald’s and the Dairy Queen. The empty lot with a truck selling mackerel. The lot had been vacant since Diane was a child. Vacant yet not, because there was always someone parked there selling something.

  When she heard the siren, Diane glanced down to see that she had been doing sixty-eight in a fifty-kilometre zone. She pulled over across from an old church that was now a karate studio and watched in the side mirror as the police officer parked and got out of his car. Vehicles slowed and detoured around them; drivers checked her Ontario licence plates then offered a serves-you-right look. Diane turned off the radio and put down the window.

  “Licence and registration please, ma’am.”

  Ma’am. The word made her cringe. “Right,” she said, retrieving her licence from her wallet and her registration from the glove compartment. She handed them out the window and scrutinized the officer for the first time.

  His face took her back. It was almost the same as it had been when she’d last seen him, but filled out enough to erase the scrawny features of a teenager. Contrasting with his ruddy tan, the few wrinkles visible on his forehead and around his eyes looked like fine lines drawn in chalk. They reminded her of how he used to squint whenever he was concentrating hard on something. Ethan had aged well. He didn’t appear to recognize her, but then why would he? Her hair was now blonde and she wore contacts and had gained about thirty pounds. She had also changed her name when she married. There was absolutely nothing left to tie her to the kid who’d sat across the aisle from him in grade twelve English. She wrestled with the idea of saying hello and identifying herself, perhaps arranging to meet him later.

  When he took her papers, she noticed his wedding ring. A plain gold band, scratched and worn and looking as if he had never taken it off. Well, at least he’s not alone, she thought, not single for life as she had imagined him being so many times. No use stirring up lumps in old porridge. Her grandmother’s saying. Diane could almost hear the old woman’s voice dispensing words of wisdom between sips of brandy-laced coffee.

  “So what brings ya to this part of the country?” Ethan was studying her licence. Along with a slight twang, there was an air of confidence in his voice that hadn’t been there in his youth.

  “Just visiting,” Diane said, relieved that she had
picked up a different dialect over the years.

  “How long are ya planning on staying?”

  He stared at her with a look that she couldn’t decipher. She shifted in her seat and pressed her back into the lumbar support. “A week, maybe a little more.”

  “Enjoy your visit,” he said, handing back her papers, “and do me a favour, slow down.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that! Not enjoy the visit. Well, yes, I’ll try to enjoy the visit too, but I meant I’ll slow down.” God, she thought, I sound like an idiot. “What I’m trying to say is that I really appreciate this, and I’ll be more careful.”

  “That’s all I ask,” he said, then turned and walked back to his cruiser.

  Pulling into traffic, Diane considered what would have happened if, instead of babbling, she had let Ethan casually fall into place after thanks. Thanks, Ethan.

  Diane parked on her parents’ street and sat studying the details of everything in view. The houses were mostly small bungalows. One had been renovated to add a sunroom and larger kitchen. Another had ventured upwards to create an entire new floor, but most had remained the same for forty years, with the exception of new windows or siding to cover the original cedar shakes. After several minutes she reached for the keys and her purse and opened the car door. Traffic noise from Main Street filtered through the yards. Starlings jostled and bickered on the hedge. Somewhere there were wind chimes, the kind made of various lengths of pipe. The kind that clanged instead of tinkling.