Catch My Drift

by Genevieve Scott

  Lorna thanked Bruce again and got out. When she pulled open the door at Ballantyne’s and looked back, the car was still there. Warm and humming.

  Ballantyne’s was crowded, though most people were bunched into the back where a young man was setting up equipment for some kind of performance. Lorna found two stools at the bar. Fifteen minutes until Alex was due. She looked at Bruce’s card: Bruce Lawson, Partner, Audit and Assurance, CFA, CA. She didn’t recognize the name of the firm.

  Lorna looked up for someone to serve her. A blond, ponytailed bartender, not much older than Cara, was wiping the daily specials off the chalkboard behind the bar. “Friday” vanished into a left-tilting smear. Lorna wondered if the ritual of erasing days became depressing.

  “What can I get you?” the girl asked, over her shoulder.

  “Rum and Coke, please.”

  “Pepsi OK?”

  “Yes, fine. Someone else is joining me in a minute.” Not generally the type to drink alone in a bar, Lorna was self-conscious and wondered what the bartender thought of her. Lorna often felt sorry for people alone at bars and restaurants, especially old people. She was sure she wasn’t that old, but certainly there’d been a point in her life — this girl’s age, likely — when she’d have considered thirty-nine to be older. The sound of the number could still take Lorna’s breath away. She’d read somewhere that a North American woman’s life expectancy was seventy-eight. Thirty-nine was halfway there.

  The bartender had a small tattoo of a butterfly at the top of her spine. Jed had gotten a tattoo — the cursive words Carpe Diem, of all things — right on his neck. When he asked what she thought, she said she always figured that the sort of people who got neck tattoos didn’t know they had a future.

  As Lorna sipped her drink, she started to play the little game that now preoccupied her whenever she had a minute or two of downtime on the streetcar or at the doctor’s office. She let her life flash before her eyes.

  The first time Lorna tried this, it was a little like putting a quarter in a jukebox. She shuffled through years of images, but she couldn’t quite find where she wanted to stop and linger. The expected bits of nostalgia — the kids’ bowling parties, nativity plays, Easter egg hunts — didn’t make the meat below her ribs ache in that strange, sudden way that a whiff of Swedish tanning oil on the escalator could, taking her back to hot concrete pool decks and to Debbie. Maybe it was morbid, but when Lorna’s final minutes came, she didn’t want to flounder. She wanted a reel of her life’s greatest hits. More memories like the skating party.

  The music paused and the doors chimed. Lorna turned, but it was just a couple leaving the bar. Still, she began to feel nervous. Alex would be here any minute and she wasn’t ready. She hadn’t thought of a way to begin the conversation. He had a new life now; her sickness was the last thing he needed. He’d want to know, but wouldn’t ask, what would happen if. She knew nothing of the arrangements that had to be made. All the deaths in her life had been quick: her mother after a weekend of postpartum septicaemia, her father of a stroke, Debbie at the side of the road. Lorna had never imagined her own death as a process, one with catheters and visitors and foil-topped cups of apple juice. Death, when it came, would come suddenly to an older, wiser Lorna, a woman who found the time to go for walks and knew the names of birds, a woman who could speak a second language or properly load wine glasses into the dishwasher. She had never really imagined the when or the how of death. She never imagined anything but time. Lorna’s hands were shaking and she put down her glass.

  Across the bar, the young guitar player was introducing his set. Lorna flipped Bruce’s card over on the counter. She wondered how long he would wait for her to call. She hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed with her, or worse, with himself, if she didn’t. But perhaps he’d never notice. Maybe he gave out a thousand business cards every night of the week. He was a friendly, square-jawed man with a lot of initials after his name. What could she do for him?

  The young man up front was singing something about sandstorms and hard times. Couples swayed with their arms around each other, eyes half-closed, like there was nothing more romantic than hard times. Lorna glanced over her shoulder at the door. The street outside looked empty and boring, but you could see in the trees that the wind was stronger. A thin film of snow swept across the dark road like a tide rolling in. No sign of Alex. Relieved, Lorna took a large swallow of her drink. What she would do is tell Alex exactly what Dr. Kim said: that there was no reason not to be optimistic about surgery. And, if they couldn’t “nab it all,” patients usually did well with chemotherapy. Lorna understood that “do well” didn’t mean “get cured,” but it didn’t not mean that. It was an easy thing to say. No one had a problem with doing well.

  “Would you like another?”

  Lorna looked down at her nearly empty glass. Why not get a little tipsy? It had already been a strange evening. “All right.”

  When the door chimed again, Lorna found herself thinking, It’s Bruce. The hope was so strong that she couldn’t bring herself to look away from the guitar player. It wasn’t such a crazy idea. He could easily pull over, tell Christopher to hang on a minute, walk into Ballantyne’s with snowflakes in his eyebrows. But it was a group of young men crowding through the door. They huddled up at the bar, all cold leather and cigarettes. One of them knocked Lorna’s chair and said sorry. She turned and smiled, “I’ve been through worse.” Then she saw Alex coming up behind the boys, his face red from the wind.

  Alex hugged Lorna’s shoulders. “How are you, Loo?” The old nickname felt like warm hands on her face, and it made her throat tighten. She hadn’t cried once since December — only almost, very unexpectedly, when the dentist asked if she wanted to book her next cleaning, because six months out was a long time, and who knew where she’d be then.

  Alex slapped his toque down on the counter. His hair was cropped very short.

  “You cut your hair!”

  Alex ran a hand over his head. “Yeah, well. I had to face certain realities.”

  “It looks good.”

  He settled into the stool next to her and Lorna waited while he ordered a gin and tonic. With Cara able to drive out to her father’s on her own now, Lorna rarely saw Alex in person. He looked handsome: cheeks ruddy, eyes glossy from the cold. Had he always been handsome like this? Had she forgotten?

  “So you’re acting!” Her voice sounded loud and false in her ears. She didn’t mean it that way.

  Alex knocked the wedge of lemon into his drink and pushed it down with his straw. “It was Shari’s idea. She says I miss it. Maybe I do.”

  “What’s the show?”

  “I don’t know what you’d call it. Sort of a college drama? I’ve got a couple scenes as a professor. Kind of funny, when you think about it.”

  She picked up her glass. “I think you’d make a great professor.”

  He smiled. “If only I’d done what you said, Loo. Finished To the Bleak House.”

  “Lighthouse.”

  “I know.”

  Lorna tried to make her voice casual. “Speaking of not finishing things, have you heard from our son?”

  “Nothing in a while.” In November, Alex got a postcard from Jed that said: Guy in Lincoln selling that Wrangler you want. $1000 US. Runs good. There was a number, but no answer from the guy with the Wrangler. Lorna tried at least ten times.

  “When I got back from Renata’s brunch on the twenty-sixth, there was one of those long hang ups on the machine,” Lorna said.

  Alex clicked his tongue. “I’ll bet you that was him.”

  Lorna looked at Alex. She could tell he was humouring her by the way he avoided eye contact, shifting on his stool to stare at the band. Jed’s whereabouts weren’t a good topic. They didn’t feel the same way about it. Alex acted like he had some kind of encoded male understanding of Jed’s choices, and Lorna was tired of his admiration for Jed’s restless spirit. When she’d expressed hurt and disappointment back in September, Alex w
as quick to tell her not to take it personally, that Jed would be back to real life in no time. Lorna thought she knew Jed better: he wasn’t the same as Alex had been at that age. Jed was much more intense, uncompromising. Sure, Lorna had wanted university for Jed, but what upset her now was that Jed hadn’t told her what he wanted. To Lorna, it felt like Jed had run away from her and may never come back.

  Alex stretched his arms out on the table and then turned to Lorna with a shy sort of grin. “Actually, I have other news.”

  “You do?” Lorna put down her glass. “I suppose I do, too. But you go first.”

  “Well.” Alex rubbed his palm across his shorn head again. The bar was silent between songs. “Shari and I are getting married. I’m going to marry Shari.”

  Part of her was expecting this when he said he had news, and although Lorna felt fine about it, she was at a loss over how to respond. Alex seemed to detect this and carried on. “I just figured, what the hell, you know? What do we have to lose?”

  Lorna made a low whistling sound. “I hope you said something more romantic to her.”

  “Nah. She knows what she’s getting into.”

  Lorna held up her glass. “Well. Congratulations, Alex.”

  Lorna had met Shari just a few times. She was a children’s librarian with a side business selling crystals and numerology readings. Lorna hoped Shari did know what she was getting into, but where Alex was concerned, she could no longer define what that was.

  He looked down at his hands. “We’re excited. The girls are over the moon.”

  “Her girls, yes? You haven’t told Cara?”

  “God, no.” Alex took a loud sip. “I wanted to ask you about that. You think she’ll take it OK?”

  Good luck, Lorna thought, but she nodded her head from side to side as though there were many ways this could go. “Don’t let her spoil any of it for you.”

  Alex bobbed the lemon a few more times, chasing it around the glass. “Yeah. I probably deserve a little flak. Anyway, I don’t deserve to be this happy. The universe likes to balance things out.”

  “Maybe.”

  “How is our discontented daughter?” He did an exaggerated duck, wincing slightly in anticipation.

  Lorna felt a defensive shudder down her spine. “She’s not so unhappy.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “She’s a teenager — ”

  “Yep.”

  Lorna forced a smile. “She probably didn’t tell you, but her French teacher suggested an exchange program in Montreal next year. Apparently Cara understands enough to do something like that.” This was all true, but there was no way that Cara would go, no matter how good at French she was. Her grade twelve year with Ash and that other girl was too precious.

  “Huh.” Alex wiped the bottom of his glass.

  “I think she might turn out fine,” Lorna said.

  “Better than fine, I hope,” Alex said.

  “Right.” Lorna could tell he was about to turn the conversation back to her. It was too soon, though. “So,” she rushed in. “When are you thinking of having the wedding?”

  Alex steepled his fingers. “Well, that’s the thing. Maybe soon. City hall has an opening in two Saturdays.”

  Lorna sucked in her breath. “It doesn’t give Cara a lot of time to get used to the idea.”

  Alex dipped his straw back in the glass, but the lemon had given up and sunk to the bottom. He put the end of the straw in his mouth. “I thought about that, but how’s the wait going to make it better? It’s not like Shari and I don’t already live together. She’s used to us.”

  “What about Jed. Best man?”

  “At one time I might have hoped that, but fuck it!” Alex slapped his hands down on the bar. Bruce’s business card blew off the table. Lorna watched it land and stick on the wet floor underneath Alex’s stool. “We don’t want to wait. It’s not a crime.”

  Lorna tried to smile again but was distracted by the card on the floor, getting stained.

  Alex leaned into her. “So what do you think, Loo?”

  “I — ”

  “I know. It’s sudden. I know.” Alex chuckled. “I should let you digest.”

  Lorna slid off her seat. “It’s . . . no. Just give me a sec.”

  “You OK?”

  “Yeah, I just need to . . . ” Lorna bent down to pick up the card. There was no heartburn this time. She wiped brown grit off the back. When she sat back down, a little breathless, it seemed like Alex’s smile had grown even bigger. “Sorry about that,” she said. She brushed the hair away from her face.

  “Anyway,” Alex rolled his hand toward her. “You said you had news, too.”

  Lorna shook her head, her thumb and forefinger clamped hard on Bruce’s card under the bar. “It wasn’t anything, really.” Lorna tucked the card in her boot, pretending to wipe at a salt stain on the leather. The moment she’d had with Bruce tonight did not give her the same floaty feeling as her first kiss with Kenneth at the Christmas athletic banquet. It didn’t bring the same pride she’d felt watching her children care for a tiny, red-eared turtle. Bruce’s touch didn’t make her heart leap the way her daughter had earlier that year, grasping Lorna’s hand so naturally in the climax of Jurassic Park. Tonight’s meeting with Bruce might not be anything, really, but Lorna wanted it. For the reel. Just for this moment.

  “Come on, Loo.”

  Lorna took a sip of her drink. “Everything’s fine.” She patted her bangs into place and smiled at Alex. “I’ve met someone, too.”

  Freedom

  Fall, 1995

  You would think St. Bart’s would be off in a meadow somewhere with chirping robins and rolling streams, but nope: it’s a concrete box, webbed with scaffolding, at the corner of two busy streets. Not happy busy, but sad busy: whizzing rush hour cars, a parking garage on one side, a construction pit on the other, and no shops except a first floor “deli” that sells pale sandwiches in plastic wrap. St. Barf’s. All you can hear inside is Jeopardy on TV combined with Coughing’s Greatest Hits: Volumes Wet and Dry. It’s like the place was especially conceived to make life look grey and miserable, which I guess is considerate: everyone here is on their way out.

  Mom moved here in July. Cancer in the lymph nodes and spleen now, so no point in being anywhere but St. Barf’s. She didn’t tell me she was going until the last minute, but she made a big fuss over my birthday party in the last week of school. I told her I didn’t want to do a whole big thing, but she invited Ash and Lacey anyway and made lasagne and chocolate cake. Her hands shook when she lit the candles. Seventeen of them: it just went on and on. Ash and Lacey stared at the edge of the table until it was done. After that major awkwardness, we went to my bedroom and they gave me a Zippo lighter with my initials and a hash pipe in the shape of a mushroom. Later we went to Goody’s.

  I typically won’t go into St. Barf’s until someone with dark hair comes out first. It’s this thing that I started for luck, for Mom, and I don’t want to risk not doing it. It normally doesn’t take too long to spot someone, but because it’s raining today and I’m later than usual, I let a dude wearing a Blackhawks cap be enough.

  I’m supposed to sign-in at the front desk, but the receptionist never calls me on it; she just pity smiles at me as I head to the elevators. The elevators are old and creepy with buttons set so deep in the wall that pressing them feels almost private, like sticking your finger into a stranger’s bellybutton.

  Mom’s bed isn’t in her room when I get there. Someone probably just wheeled her out for tests or something, but I’m worried anyway that I should have waited for actual dark hair. No more slacking off. I promise myself that next time — please let there be one, please let there be one, please let there be one, please let there be one, please let there be one, please let there be one, please let there be one — I’ll wait for seven dark-haired people. Mom’s name is still outside the door: Lorna Kedzie. The disposable paper name card is terrible looking. No one is even pretending that patients will be
here for long. The paper says: this is a name that will expire.

  I sit in the chair by the window, resting against a heart-shaped pillow that someone from Mom’s swim team gave her, someone who obviously doesn’t know that Mom hates cheap crap.

  If Mom were dead already, probably someone would have called the school, but you really never know with these nurses. They miss stuff. For example, sometimes they forget to take the foil off Mom’s apple juice cups and she basically has to wait for me to arrive before drinking anything. If I didn’t show up, would they just take the juice away while she’s asleep? Let her get dehydrated? They also speak to Mom like she’s five years old. When I visit, they’re always like, “Oh, Lorna! Look who’s here! Aren’t we lucky?” It’s embarrassing. Sometimes they show me her arts and crafts projects — like this church she made out of sugar cubes — and talk like it’s the greatest thing she’s ever accomplished, but it’s totally depressing because Mom doesn’t like arts and crafts. Do they even know she was practically an Olympian?

  On Mom’s bedside table, next to a family photo from a very long ago Halloween, is an open roll of wine gums. I count nine grooves in the foil and eat two to bring the number down to seven. When Mom got cancer, she switched from Nicorette to wine gums, and packs of the gummies were everywhere: the kitchen drawers, the bathroom, and every purse. Once I ate her last one in the car without realizing, and she lost her shit. I told her they tasted like sour leather and she shouldn’t be so obsessed. She said they only tasted that way to a thief. I felt bad for stealing her candy but actually worse for ruining her whole concept of a treat when she’s dying.

  The expiry date on the wrapper is January 1997. It’s fucked up that this stuff will outlast Mom. A week ago, the doctor on the floor told Dad and me that Mom had about three months. Then he said, “But these estimates can mean anything.” I rip the dated part of the wine-gum wrapper so she’ll never have to think about dates.

  After a while of sitting in silence, I finally hear the thrum of wheels on the hospital tile. A blond nurse brings Mom’s bed through the open door. She holds a finger to her lips, and I let go of the breath that I didn’t know I was holding. Mom is propped up on the bed, but she is sound asleep. Her wrists dangle over the sides, and her hands are bluish pink, the exact colour of frozen turkey. Her mouth is hanging open, and I think of that old kids’ song about an old lady who swallowed a fly. No one knows why she swallowed the fly, but perhaps she’ll die.