He leaned back, surveying the line-up of plants awaiting disposal, and gave a sigh. “She’d have to like gardening.”
“Probably.”
“But also not be fond of sunlight.”
Vampiric gardeners. They had to exist. Nothing surprised me anymore. “Houseplants. She could be someone who enjoys raising houseplants. Probably also cats.”
“Can’t stand cats, allergic,” he replied, taking a swig of his beer, legs splayed in comfort. He sighed again and rested the bottle of Molson Canadian on the arm of his Muskoka chair. He shifted, then took another swig. “Is that how you met Dylan?”
“No, I met him the old-fashioned way, friend of a friend at a party.”
He harrumphed. “Then why are you giving me advice?”
“People tell me stories, I share those experiences, everyone wins.” I spread my hands. “Information sets us free.”
He harrumphed again. “And this neighbour of yours? Think she’s sharing in any experiences?”
I froze. How did he know about Camila? I hadn’t told anyone about that.
“Yeah,” he continued, smirking. “I thought so.”
“It’s not like that, I trust Dylan. He’s a great boyfriend.”
“He’d be a great boyfriend to someone else if you weren’t there.”
I bristled. “It’s not like that!”
He shrugged. “Sure it is. Always has been; always will be. No one is 100% trustable.”
The words flew to the tip of my tongue but I bit them back and swallowed them, and maybe that’s why you’re alone rumbled around where my stomach ought to be. “Dylan made me a special dinner,” I said instead, as if that was proof of trustworthiness.
“Which you failed to show up for,” he pointed out, gesturing towards me with the beer bottle.
“Extenuating circumstances.”
“May well be, but that’s not going to make any difference. People feel how they feel and facts don’t necessarily make a dent in that.”
I would have liked to grit my teeth, if I had teeth to grit.
He put the empty down beside his chair and laced his hands behind his head. “Someone who likes houseplants but doesn’t like cats.”
And who tolerates complete assholes, I silently added.
He looked over at me. “Think that has a chance of working? Honestly?”
“Sure. There’s someone for everyone. Lots of potential someones! You just have to be open-minded to opportunities.” I sounded like my mother. “Sometimes, we have to make our own opportunities.” So much like my mother.
“Now you sound like a poster with a dolphin on it.”
“I work in sales.”
“Aha.”
“I’m very good at it.”
“Sure.” He smirked. “So who did you piss off?”
“Pardon?”
His smirk deepened. “You had to have pissed off someone high-up. So what did you do?”
“Nothing?”
He leaned back, smiling out at his rows and rows of plants. “No one ever does, do they?” He pulled out a small cooler from underneath his Muskoka chair. “Well, toots, time to get you moving along again.” He opened up the cooler and pulled out a couple of joints. “These might help you remember.”
“Uh.” Wasn’t there a warning about not consuming things—
“It’s fine.” He knew what I was thinking and urged them at me. “Don’t smoke in here, it aggravates my asthma. Take them with you, and when you need it, they’ll help shed light on the subject.”
I took them carefully. “Are you sure?”
“Call it payment for helping me lift the plants.” He snapped the lid closed and slid it back under the chair. “Now you should probably get going. Longer you’re here, the colder Dylan’s lovely surprise dinner gets.”
* * *
The elevator doors opened and I stepped out into a lobby covered in the same smooth gray tiles from earlier. As the doors slid shut behind me, cutting off the tinny muzak rendition of Hotel California, I faced a plexiglass-and-steel door on the opposite side of the room. I put my shoes back on. My heels were silent across the tiles.
I pushed open the doors to find myself at a set of steps leading downwards. Not industrial stairs, but narrow ones, covered in brown carpet, the kind that cheaper landlords favour. One side of the narrow staircase was ordinary drywall; the other old, crumbling red brick. Little niches were formed by missing chunks, with small items in each. I found tiny Kinder egg toys, plastic flowers, lumps of nearly spent candles. A crayon. Some pennies.
And then a lighter. I scooped it up, leaving a dime in its place.
A heaviness settled over me with each step downward, like weights tied to my arms and legs. I felt myself inflating, as if I was a pool toy being blown up, fingers popping into substantiality, toes uncurling in my shoes. I gained mass and nerve endings and aches and pains and by the time I reached the last step I was whole again. Real, exhausted, and sore.
Wearily pushing open the squeaking metal door, I stepped out into a late summer’s night across from the Bloor Cinema. Cars drove past, people on bikes wove carefully around obstacles, couples strolled along the sidewalk arm in arm. The windows in the buildings lining Bloor street were all dark, as was Honest Ed’s one block west at Bathurst. The real Honest Ed’s.
The city was still blacked out, but I was back in my Toronto.
And I really needed to pee.
11.
Dylan
You pause, knife in hand, but then give a shake of your head and slide the utensil along the edge of the lamb roast where it’s sticking to the pan. This isn’t what you wanted; you wanted to make your girlfriend a special dinner. She knew that. And yet she hadn’t shown up. Hadn’t even bothered to call.
Most of the neighbours, especially the older ones, and the ones with kids, have gone home already, taking their empty food bowls with them, leaving many of the candles behind. They’re stumps now, the candles, sagging into the wood of the patio railing or the picnic table, guttering and smoking, but still light.
Not everyone has gone. Glasses are still being clinked, drained, refilled. There’s laughter and goodwill and a sense of community that you hadn’t realized you’d missed since you’d left school. You have friends, good ones, but as each of you partner up, marry, have kids, the wedge grows wider and the times when you’re all in one room grow farther and farther apart.
Such is life. You knew this would happen. Just like you knew the roast would dry out being in the oven for so long. But part of you hoped for a touch of the miraculous.
You slice the lamb roast. It’s dry as leather now, like old boot, but you don’t like lamb much anyway so the texture hardly matters. When it was obvious that the power wasn’t coming back on in a timely fashion, you took everything out of the fridge for the neighbours, and wrapped an icepack or two around the tzatziki. Still hoping.
But it’s not dusk anymore, it’s night, and there’s still no word from Mallory. Even if she’d walked from Scarborough she’d be here by now. So you can only conclude she’s staying somewhere. Maybe with her friend Aggie or maybe the whole team is still having drinks and dinner somewhere, waiting for the subway’s return.
The last cut. You would have been okay if that’s what she’d chosen to do, but she hadn’t called. And she knew you’d been cooking all day.
You spoon the tzatziki onto the plate out of the container; presentation is still important, even if it is just cold cuts out on the patio. The rich smell of garlic and yogourt and cucumber and mint fills your nose and dampens the lamb. Suzy down in the health food store was right; it’s the best sauce to cover up the taste of the meat.
Part of you wants to stop and put the platter back in the fridge, keeping it for when Mallory gets home, but another part of you doubts that will even be tonight. And besides, there are people here, now. Hungry people.
You carry the platter out onto the picnic table to oohs and ahhs.
“This smells amazing,” calls out H
eather, in that annoying sing-song voice that she has, but she doesn’t sound like she’s lying.
“Dylan’s a great cook,” Jeff tells her, pulling a piece of lamb onto his paper plate. “The smells that come out of the apartment just when I am getting home, man, it’s torture. Why do you do that to me?” But he’s teasing, grinning even as he licks a splot of tzatziki from his thumb.
You laugh, enjoying watching people dig in. “I like cooking. It’s relaxing, even after a long day.”
“See?” Heather digs an elbow into Jeff, as though you’ve proved a point for her, but you don’t know what.
“What do you do?” Jeff’s friend Trevor asks, taking a swig of beer. “Besides cook?”
“What else does he need to do?” Heather teases. “God, I love a man who can cook. And you too, I guess, Jeff.”
“Thanks.”
“I work in banking,” you tell Trevor. “It’s really boring. Cubicle farm and all that.”
“I thought banking was all hot-shot suits and long hours?” You’re not sure how many beers he’s had; he’s developed the troubled-focusing of someone who’s been pounding them back.
“Not the kind of work I do.” You’d rather not talk about it with him, sensing he’s looking for an argument. “I’m out the door on the dot every day at five. Home by 5:30. Gives me time to relax in the evening, and I relax with food.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Heather teases. She’s awfully teasy tonight, but she’s also draped around Jeff like a wet towel.
And then there’s Camila. She’s still here, still happy to sit with everyone, rarely talking, answering in measured sentences, taking sips from her beer. “Food is important,” she says, finally taking a slice of meat. “Food is family. Back home, food is everything. Here, food is fuel. You eat because you’re hungry, like a robot.”
This pronouncement grinds the conversation to a halt. They’re unsure of what to say, whether to correct her or agree or let it slide. She doesn’t care; she’s moved on, eating the lamb with careful bites and watching you under her eyelashes.
“Who wants more drinks!” you say, getting up, falsely bright and acutely uncomfortable.
There’s a chorus of “me pleases!” from around the table, beer-drinkers and water-onlies alike. You scoot out of the picnic table and head back inside, feeling a little dizzy.
Truth is, Camila’s right, and it’s something that bothers you about Mallory; how she eats like, yes, a car gassing up. Open hatch, insert fuel until tank is full. Keep going. It’s not that Mallory isn’t appreciative, because you know she is, but she’s not appreciative about the food, she’s appreciative about the work because it means she doesn’t have to cook unless she feels like it, which is rare. And there’s a difference and you’ve never put it into words.
But Camila did.
There’s a few beers left. You sweep them into a convenient box and fill up a pitcher with cold water from the tap. Thank god you’ve still got water pressure, but then you’re only on the second floor. Imagine dealing with this long a blackout without water. Or toilets!
A smell wafts across your nose, heady and musky and herbal. You leave the refilling pitcher to stick your head outside. “Trevor? No thanks, man. I don’t want the smell in my apartment.”
Trevor stops, confused, pulling the joint away from his lips and examining it, as if the idea of people objecting to the smell of weed was something that had never occurred to him. “It’s just a joint.”
“Come on.” Jeff takes it from him and stubs it out on the picnic table, adding to the wood’s collection of scars. “Don’t be like that.”
“Hey! Don’t be like what? What’s the harm?”
“It’s not your house. Don’t be uncool.”
“I’m not the one being uncool—”
You go back to the sink, hating the tension in your jaw, that familiar clench of teeth. Trevor’s going to push back, you know he is, and then you’re going to end up asking him to leave, and the mood of the party will be ruined. You turn off the tap. Maybe it’s already ruined; it’s late anyway. But it’s your place, not theirs, and your rules.
The smell drifts by your nose again, this time woven with something floral, almost like a familiar perfume but more natural. You stomp back to the doorway, ready to do battle, but everyone looks up, surprised at your heavy-footed arrival. No one is smoking anything; the joint remains stubbed and charred and Trevor is empty-handed.
But you can still smell it.
You lean over the railing, trying to figure out where it’s coming from, but it could be anywhere. Candles don’t throw light very far and the buildings block the moon and starlight. Off the patio could be nothing. You’re on an island, separate from everything else, marooned with people you didn’t invite, without the one person you wanted to spend the evening with, and suddenly you’re very tired.
“Maybe it’s time we get going,” Heather says, stretching.
“No, no,” you insist, turning back to them. “There’s still lamb left and I found a few beers. The evening’s still young.”
Heather smiles at you and snuggles up to Jeff, who puts an arm around her. “It is nice out here.”
“Almost makes you wish we had power-outs more often,” someone else jokes. You forget their name, another friend of Heather and Jeff’s.
You go inside to get the drinks. The smell is gone and you can’t even remember what it reminded you of.
12.
Between Banjos and a Hard Place
The last I remember clearly, it was late afternoon while I walked along Barton. After that, my thoughts became hazy and indistinct. At the time I had assumed mild heat stroke; now with the experience of not-having-a-body, I could recognize the experience for what it was, a shifting of boundaries.
As I gazed around a bustling Bloor and Bathurst—cars, bikes, pedestrians, street musicians, dogs, students, was that a rat—I wondered how long I’d been away. The sun was completely gone, and the night air cooler than the furnace of the afternoon, but still warm and humid. It tasted stale.
Even without power, the Annex continued to be lively. The shops were all dark, many of them closed and locked. Windows hung open in the apartments above storefronts, some with candles, some with people leaning on the sill, hanging out for a hope of breeze. At the end of the block, one of the bars had a full patio still pulling in customers.
They’d probably have a bathroom I could use.
The patio tables were covered in assorted candles—maybe people were bringing their own?—and customers clustered around them, drinking warm beer, wine, ice-cube-less juice and water. Some poor soul dodged around both drunk people and open flames, taking orders and bearing plates of burgers. How were burgers still being cooked?
I tried to catch her attention.
“Just sit anywhere,” she said hurriedly without looking at me. “It’s not exactly service as usual tonight—”
“Actually, I just need to use the washroom,” I clarified, putting on a hopeful face (and trying not to tap dance).
“Oh.” She stopped, apologetic, readjusting her tray. “Sorry, hun, no washroom tonight.”
“What?” I blinked. “Why would the toilet need power?”
“Oh, no, it’s not that. The bathroom’s down, like, a narrow flight of stairs and a long hallway in the basement, right? I just cracked my forehead a few minutes ago and I’ve been down that staircase a million times. It’s just too dangerous in the dark.” She did indeed have a long, thin bruise developing over her eyebrows, which possibly also accounted for her dazed demeanour.
Or it could be the waitressing in the dark.
Someone overheard us. “No bathroom? Isn’t that, like, a health code violation or something?”
Their partner across the table laughed. “You’re drinking warm beer and eating unrefrigerated meats and you’re only caring about the health code now?”
“Yeah, but beer can’t go off. I mean, it’s gone off already. Hasn’t it?”
&n
bsp; “What’s this about the burgers?”
“The burgers are fine.”
“How are they even cooking them?”
“It’s a gas stove, guys.”
A gas stove. That made sense—mechanical, right? I had whispers of a memory of Dylan explaining about his gas stove, a cranky monstrosity lurking in the corner of the kitchen. I was forever cranking the heat too high and causing shouts that I’d burn the house down. (To be fair to myself, my heart has never been in cooking. If it was up to me, I’d eat cereal three times a day. It’s much more satisfying to watch Dylan cook anyway.)
The conversation continued around me, with each eavesdropping patron offering their own two cents on the pros and cons of having a restaurant open during a blackout, all while the harried waitress tried to bus tables.
Eventually she bustled back into my general vicinity and rolled her eyes at the philosophical discussion, gesturing northwest with her chin. “Try the subway, hun, they might still have their bathrooms open. Most of the bars closed early today. We’re only open because my boss is a complete—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “Anyway, don’t tempt fate and all that. You’re not ordering or anything?”
“No thanks.” I tried to smile, but she was already carrying the full tray away. How were they washing dishes? In the dark? That disgusted me more than the potentially undercooked burgers. I don’t think I was alone in that concern, since mostly people were drinking out of bottles. It reminded me of the storekeeper giving away perishables and waters. But the people here were still being charged.
Capitalism, I guess. I wondered if the meat was discounted.
“Hey.” Someone nudged me. No one I knew; he had a beer in one hand, too much aftershave, and that particular and unwelcome look in his eye. “If you need a washroom, you can come back to my place and use it, babe.”
I forced away the urge to make a gagging face. “That’s okay, thanks.” He stepped closer and I had to back up, smacking into one of the small tables. The occupants, startled, braced it before candles could fall over. “Sorry.” I tried to step past him but he stepped in sync, leaning over me.
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