Back On Top, Soon, Part II

Yeah, no, thanks. Thanks for asking. It was a lot of fun, I guess. Actually it was a lot of sitting around.

I don’t know why we were there for so many days. The producer, Eric, I think he, well, I think he’s kind of a nervous guy and he wanted to have the, sort of, I guess, the most opportunities to get the footage they wanted.

Eric and me and a camera guy, Matt. I really liked the camera guy, actually.

I don’t know why.

He was married, so.

Obviously. I understand.

Thanks for saying I’m beautiful. Even people always being told how beautiful they are don’t always feel beautiful.

I’m not being sarcastic. When’s the last time your guts were all puffed up with gas and bloating and period and you thought, Yes, thank you, I am beautiful? And beauty, I don’t know. Isn’t there something about the unfamiliar in beauty? Like, my point, I guess, is that it’s always you across from you in the mirror so it’s hard to be all, Oh, wow. Beautiful. Though, let me say, when I saw the footage Matt got of me, I mean, even those little blond hairs I’ve only kept around because I’m afraid if I start going to war with them they will come back darker and coarser, in the footage Matt got even those seem kind a lovely. I mean, not like they are mine so. So I could step back and say, Objectively, those hairs look soft and beautiful and sexy and perfectly acceptable.

We were barely in the air before Matt and I had covered all that getting to know you shit. Like, No, Silva is actually a Portuguese name. Yes, I am a model, but I’m actually a musician, I’m trying to make it as a musician. Actually, Matt even joked like you joke. He actually said, Should be a winning combo.

No, I’m not shitting you.

Yeah, maybe that is why I took a liking to him, he’s a genius like my sista. Get this. He’s a music video director, too. He said maybe he could make me—

I told you he’s married.

No, I won’t stop saying that.

I hadn’t seen any of the videos he’s made, but we watched a bunch of them.

What do you mean where? On his computer.

Yes in his room. Was he supposed to bring his computer to the beach? Come on.

He left the door open and he sat in a chair.

Yes, okay. I lay on the bed. It doesn’t mean anything.

Are you going to let me tell you about my trip?

Right, so I was lying on the bed watching videos and I got really excited about his work so I went and grabbed my iPod from my room and we listened to “Home Wrecker” and “Just One Weekend.”

What do you mean, Of course you did? Of course we did because those are my only finished tracks.

No, not whatever. It’s true.

He wants to do a video for “Just One Weekend.” I’ve got to save up some money or talk to the label.

I can’t— I’m not talking to you anymore.

Yes. He did offer to do it for free, but he was just being nice.

Why are you asking if he had speakers in his room? No, he didn’t have speakers in his room.

No. No. No. We didn’t sit there with one ear bud in each of our ears our thighs lightly touching. He took the iPod over to his chair and I watched him listen. His phone buzzed a few times while he had the headphones on, but he didn’t hear it. He liked the songs and I was really happy he liked them. I don’t know what he was expecting. He even said, “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t Alt Country.” We sat there for a sec, then I told him about his phone. After he checked it, I asked if it was Eric and he said, “No. It’s my wife. Facebook memory. I guess a year ago, one of my kids, my youngest kid was sick. Threw her milk up all over my wife.” He showed me the picture she sent. There was Milk puke, all white and chunky, sprayed on her gut and in her belly button. “Bull’s eye,” I said. He smiled like the joke wasn’t funny. We made eye contact. He said, “Sorry, that was a good one. I was just thinking about something else.”

Look, stop it. That is not what he was thinking about.

No, not of course. That is not of course what he was thinking about.

Why would you ask about what her belly looked like? His wife’s belly?

A person is more than her belly. I am more than my belly. She is more than her belly. It did look pretty good, though. For someone who’s had two kids.

The kids are super-cute. He showed me on the plane. I mean, I saw pictures a few different times. We were just sitting around so much, so what else are you going to do? But on the plane, he was talking to this guy across the aisle whose wife was pregnant. He had his phone out to show that guy pictures. It was really sweet. The guy was really into it, too. I mean, I would never just start a conversation with somebody like that.

I think, well, the woman was pregnant. Not super-pregnant, but one of those people, those women, who look like they’ve tucked a ball under their shirt. Something about their body type. Skinny ladies. Anyway, I guess it was unambiguous. Still I thought it was bold when Matt was like, “When are you due?”

No, totally. You wouldn’t— I mean on a bus or a streetcar or whatever, you wouldn’t automatically get up for this chick, ’cause, like, you might wonder about it—she’d have a coat on I guess, she didn’t have a coat on on the plane, I don’t think—but with a coat on, you would really not be sure. She wasn’t, like, holding her lower back or anything.

Okay, so, Matt asks, “When are you due?” and the husband jumps in, all super-sweet and proud. The wife, she looked relieved to not have to talk about it. She just put headphones in and pulled out a magazine.

So in between Matt and me getting to know each other, and Eric just sitting all tense by the window and occasionally interrupting to ask Matt if he remembered to bring this thing or that thing, Matt and this dad, the future dad, across the aisle are having these cute conversations. Like Future Dad would be like, How’s the sleeping thing? and Matt would give some answer like, Well, it sucks for a while and while it sucks you feel like the shitty times will never end, but then it doesn’t suck anymore and you can’t even remember what it was like when it sucked or how long it sucked for.

It wasn’t exactly that, I don’t think, but something like that. The part that was so interesting to me, though, was when the pregnant wife got up to go to the bathroom. He said. Well, what he said, that was something, but before he says it he looks me in the eyes then he sort of changes his focus a bit to take in all of me. Not in some sleazebag way. Still, it was hot, somehow, and I got this like rush of—feeling.

Yes, I did get— Yes. I was turned on.

I’m not being demure. Anyway, Matt’s look was like there was some calculating going on. Does that make sense? Like he was doing the old emotional math. Then he turns to the guy and tells him, essentially, to have as much sex now as he can because after the baby is born that’s it for a long time. It was amazing the way his words started piling up. He was talking fast, almost interrupting himself. Or like, it was like he’d had this five minute speech ready and rehearsed, but he’d only been given two minutes to speak.

I wish I’d been able to pay more attention, but Eric taps me from the other side and points to something out the window and asks me if I’ve ever been to Cuba. So I’m making small talk with him. When Matt finishes. I can see out of the corner of my eye that he’s sitting there awkwardly, his hands on his lap. Eventually he pulled out a book and started reading while I was listening to Eric talk about some Cuban metal band he saw at a festival on his three week road trip to see “the real Cuba.” It, actually, now that I’m talking about it, what Eric was saying was pretty interesting. Super interesting. But—

Matt did not want to fuck me.

Okay, sure, we were hitting it off. If he wanted to fuck me, he would have . . . I mean he would have done something to— To— Well, to do it. You know?

How could I miss it?

Think about it. Listen to you.

Shh. Okay okay. I am thinking about it.

Shh.

What do you mean, Just tell me what you are thinking about?

Okay, fine. It’s actually like a montage. Do you ever wonder if we think like we think because of, whatever, TV and movies and such? Or if we—I don’t mean you and me, obviously, but like people. Mankind. Humankind— If we create things like montages because we have the technology now, but we’ve always had that way of thinking?

Fine. I’ll start describing the montage. Roll the film.

I have to close my eyes.

On the beach, he would never actually look at me, except really quickly. Or he might stare at a foot or something.

When I first walked out of my room with my bikini, that one—that hot pink one—he looked down at his feet and held his towel over his crotch.

On the beach, too, I could sometimes see his little man raise its head and flop over to the side as he tried to, you know. As he cleared his throat and shook his head at his open book.

No. See, I told you. There’s more— Actually, well. Although, that stuff’s sort of cute.  

Then Matt had to shoot me for the commercial. Or Public Service Announcement or whatever. Eric had three bikinis for me to try on and I’m getting changed in Eric’s bathroom and I notice he’s got condoms in his open . . . his . . . those little, like, sometimes leather—

—yeah, toiletries bag. His open toiletries bag.

I go out in the first bikini and Eric and Matt scrutinize me and Eric is all asking questions like, “Don’t you think her breasts look too flat in that top?” and Matt’s like, “I see what you mean. Sure.” Then Eric would have me lie down on the bed, which made sense because I had to lie down in the video. He’d stand up on the bed, he’d get down on his hands and knees and look at my breast and my crotch. I flinched when he pointed between my legs and asked me to adjust my suit. Then he’d have me flip over and look at my ass. Each time he’d put hands on either side of me on the bed. I could feel him breathing on the back of my thighs.

Ew is right. With the first bikini he tried to get Matt to come over, but Matt said, “I can see from here.” Eric shook his head and snorted and, like, hot air and maybe some snot sprayed all over me. I actually used his hand towel to wipe it off before I put on the next suit.

As Eric was getting on the bed to check out the second suit, Matt’s phone starts ringing and he picks up.

You’re right. This totally isn’t a montage anymore.

Yep. A full-blown scene. Only I forget the dialogue, exactly, but I know that from what Matt said into his phone that Matt’s wife was missing work because one of the girls had a fever and that there was some other trouble. Matt went outside to finish the conversation and Eric was pissed about it, snorting like some bull or pig. Getting very barnyard. I told him, “I’ve gotta pee,” just so I could get out of there, out of that room with just Eric, and get myself behind a locked door. He wasn’t happy about it, but he lifted his arm and let me free. In the bathroom, I stole two of his condoms.

You’re right, Eric does sound like a creep, but—

No, I don’t carry condoms with me.

I just don’t. You think I have sex with people all the time?

You know I don’t. It’s not my style.

Ha-huh. . . . I— Uh. Yeah. Yeah. You got me. I was going to say that there were beautiful waiters and there were. Bartenders. Guys paid to dance with guests. But no, it was Matt. I was obviously thinking about the possibility.

Exposed. Exposed.

We picked a bikini and we drove to a section of beach that Eric had found. Matt spent more time looking at the scenery than he spent looking at me when I was on that bed. Eric watched—

What?

Nah it didn’t hurt my feelings.

I swear it didn’t.

You’re right, I noticed. Obviously, I noticed. I’m telling you about it. But it felt— I knew he’s trying to be respectful, right?  I made sure he was watching when I stripped down to that bathing suit.

Yeah I did, for sure, and wiggled my hips into the bargain. As sexy as I got in me. Tried to channel my inner stripper.

Why thank you. I hope I did a great job.

That’s right. He got that shot of the little blond hairs. With the camera in his hand now, Matt’s crawling all over me, too. Straddling. So different, though. He apologized anytime his jeans brushed against me or this one time his elbow bumped into my thigh. Even apologized when he breathed on me.

Sure thing. You can take the Canadian out of Canada, but, no, can’t get that Canada out. Eric’s Canadian too, though. As far as I know, so. 

’Kay, but there’s this other shot Matt got. It’s like, it’s not a zoom but the camera is moving up my legs, up between my thighs. A tracking shot? Anyway, my ass cheeks look like a pair of the Rocky Mountains.

In the best possible way.

Like I got booty.

Like that British guy, that British narrator, um—

Yeah, David Attenborough. Like David Attenborough’s gonna talk about the, what is it? Rain shadow? I think that’s it. The rain shadow of my ass.

Eric said, “Damn,” or something equally predatory and appreciative.

No man, I make him sound dangerous. I could take him.

Okay, last story.

Sorry. You have work to do. You’re trying to get a degree or something.

Happy to help you procrastinate, sis.

Alright. So, we are having dinner and Eric gets up to take a call from his partner—business partner—and Matt says, Let’s get the fuck out of here. We get out on the beach and there are all these other people walking up and down and it’s dusk and I actually fully forget myself and I wrap my arm around his arm.

I did forget myself. It was a mistake.

I’m not saying I wasn’t all for what it meant. Like, it was an action I could stand behind, an action that I meant, but not what I intended. It was too late, though, obviously.

Well, he squeezed his arm in towards his body and put his hand on mine. I looked up at his face, not sure I should take it to mean anything and he smiled and laughed and turned red. We sat down on the beach because, he said, “It’s hard to walk with an erection.”

Don’t tell me what he didn’t say.

I told you we didn’t have sex. Sleep together. Fuck. Didn’t I say that?

Sure, I had my hand on the inside of his thigh on a beach as the sun went down. I had my head on his shoulder. I laughed at his jokes. He’s talking about hard-ons and his hand is exploring by back and my side, even brushing the side of my breast as he plays his shaking fingers up my rib cage. It seemed bound to happen. He was shivering. I asked him if he wanted to go inside. “I’m not cold,” he said. “Let’s go inside,” I said.

We were walking back to the hotel hand in hand when he stopped. I was like what’s wrong and he went, “Agh.” We were like almost back to the hotel when he let go of my hand and said, “Sorry. Someone is texting me like crazy.” I stood ahead of him a few steps. He looked strange in the blue light from his phone. I saw him shaking his head. I didn’t want to ask what the texts were all about, who they were from. Mood is a thing. For him, but also for me. I’m not some home wrecker. I’m not the girl from my song.

No, I’m not. I’m just a free person trying to get with another free person.

What do you mean, Nobody’s free? That’s a bit philosophical for you, isn’t it?

That’s a point. Obviously that’s the issue, right?

You don’t need me to tell you that it was his wife. Texting. She was really sick and his girls were sick, too. “I told her to call my mom,” he said, irritated. “She’s asking if there’s any way I can come home sooner.”

I nodded.

He couldn’t look at me. His eyes would find me for a minute—for a millisecond—then he’d look out at the ocean or up at the sky. He might have been crying. He told me he was sorry, he wasn’t feeling well. He repeated that he was sorry, squeezed my shoulder and walked off towards his room.

Ha ha. Um. Yeah. No I didn’t come home with the condoms.

I told you that I didn’t sleep with Matt.

Not some hot Cuban, either.

Eric, obviously. I don’t know why. It wasn’t very good.

He wasn’t, he’s not, dangerous.

I think I’d just prepared myself to sleep with someone.

Don’t call me that. You should know better.

Sure. I’m sure you could guess. He came too soon. Not that I think I was going to come. I wasn’t that comfortable with him, that’s what I’ll say. I’ve got to be comfortable with a person, feel like they aren’t judging me if I’m going to come.

I think Matt had the same flu his family got. He stayed in his room our last day. And Eric got kinda possessive. The flight home was way less fun. We all took a cab together.

Eric was trying to convince Matt to come in the cab and he kept saying no, no, no. Then Eric went to the bathroom and Matt started saying goodbye to me. I asked him to come with us. He didn’t say anything, just nodded. Eric got back from the bathroom and said, “Okay then, Matty. I’ll call you later.” Matt said he was coming in the taxi and Eric acted all surprised.

I know you gotta go. I just. Let me finish. We dropped Eric off at his office. So, Matt lives sort a around the corner from me. The cab went to his house next. I told him, Well it was nice to meet you. He nodded. Said the same thing back. He wasn’t looking at me at all. We stopped in front of his house. “Guess, I’ll see you,” he said. I told him where I lived. “Maybe I’ll see you,” he said. He squeezed my hand, opened the door, then got out. Before he closed the door, he pointed to my hand and said, “You should probably wash that.”

Maybe it was because he was sick. Maybe.

Toronto, Feb. 2016

Emoji sequence: writer, director and music video maker Scott Cudmore

Story: Lee Sheppard

Thomas Martin Love

When Thomas Martin Love was ten and three-quarters years old, his family moved to a place in the country. There was a big cornfield behind their house and because Thomas had seen Field of Dreams and he loved baseball he was hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone would make him a diamond. Thomas would sit on the stairs above the hallway desk where his father did bills or stand beside the doorway to the tiny back kitchen where his mother and Grannie prepared meals and whisper in his loudest whispering voice, “If you build it, he will come,” until one day Dad sat Thomas down on the couch in the front room, which was crowded with boxes of things from their old house and from Grannie and Papa’s place, and explained that, Yes, the field belonged to the Martin and Love families, but that the corn belonged to farmers that the previous owners had rented the field to and that they now rented the field to and that, besides, there were two whole acres for Dad and Thomas to play catch on anyway, more than enough space, right buddy?

Papa’s sport had been hockey. There was a school yearbook on the shelf just outside the door of the room where Papa’s special hospital-style bed was. Sometimes Thomas would take the yearbook into his room across the hall and sit on his bed flipping through, looking for pictures of Papa as a boy. The picture where Papa was smiling from the right side of the back row of “Award Winners!” was Thomas’s favourite. “Gordon Martin, Athlete of the Year: Hockey.” Thomas wished, though, that there was a picture of Papa playing.

Going to sleep, Thomas missed the noise of his old house where he’d slept above the kitchen and often drifted off listening to his parents cleaning up and talking to each other, their words muted and unrecognizable. Here, the machines in Papa’s room droned Thomas to sleep and hummed him awake in the morning.

One night, Papa woke shouting, “Free! Free! Let me free!”

The next afternoon, Thomas was sitting on the back porch when he heard Grannie and Mom talking about Papa. They couldn’t decide whether they were keeping him alive or keeping him comfortable. There was a noise like choking then a voice moaning. Thomas knew that it was Grannie. He heard a utensil drop. Shuffling. When Thomas looked through the window, Mom was hugging Grannie. Mom saw Thomas kneeling on the bench and looking in. She moved her lips like she was trying to smile, but the muscles at the corners of her mouth had other ideas. Then she winked and made a kissing mouth at Thomas before she turned and nuzzled Grannie’s neck.

Thomas slid off the bench and launched from the porch down onto the lawn. The grass was a bit longer than normal. Before leaving for work, Dad had promised Mom he’d cut it when he got home.

Thomas had been in the barn before. There was always dust dancing in the air as if to tease the old flat broom that leaned in one corner of the main floor. You had to watch where you stepped because some of the floorboards were split and opened onto the basement where the stalls were. There were no animals there now, just some old junk. Thomas remembered the big tube that looked like a jet’s fuselage, so he went down the wooden stairs, holding loosely to the thin, splintery banister. It was in the third stall he checked. He wanted to bring it up to the main floor of the barn, but it was made of thick cardboard and it was very heavy. After checking the floor for bugs and sharp things then sweeping it with his sneakers for insurance, Thomas got down on all fours. The tube had a thick tangle of spider webbing though the middle of it and its bottom was littered with empty potato bug exoskeletons. Besides, Thomas saw that it was only just wide enough for his shoulders. It wouldn’t make a very good rocket if he couldn’t move around inside it.

He climbed to the hayloft. It took a while to warm up to the game, but soon he was stomping around up there pretending it was the bridge of the Enterprise. He was shouting instructions to Spock and Sulu, Riker and Worf, Grannie and Papa and Mom and Dad and his friend Ingmar who lived down the street from his old house, when he heard the lawnmower start up. He went down the hayloft ladder thinking that it was Dad, but when he came out of the barn it was Mom there wearing Thomas’s Blue Jays hat and neon pink shorts. Grannie was sitting on the front porch and started waving at Thomas.

His eyes got teary and he half turned to go back to the barn, but he felt like there was a tractor beam holding him in Grannie’s line of vision then pulling him across the lawn towards her.

He sat down on the bench without smiling. Grannie wrapped her arm around him and gave him a squeeze. He tilted his head away from her. “Grannie’s okay now, Thomas.”

Thomas grunted.

“Would you like to play catch?”

“Mum’s cutting the grass.”

“She’s finished by the house here.” Grannie stood up. “Where’s your glove?”

Thomas turned away from her.

“I think I know where it is,” Grannie said.

“It’s okay, I don’t want to play.”

“Is it still by the front door?”

Thomas nodded.

Mom waved as she drove by. The sound of the lawn mower made Thomas feel sleepy.

“You’ll have to go easy on me,” Grannie said when she came back with a worn Dodger’s cap and two gloves, Thomas’s and Dad’s. “I haven’t played catch in years.”

Grannie was patient when Thomas threw wild. And she was good. Her throws popped satisfyingly into Thomas’s glove and before long he was smiling.

When Mom finished up, Grannie said she was tired. Mom took over for her. Grannie disappeared into the house and came back in a minute with three glasses of pink lemonade. Mom convinced Thomas to join her and Grannie on the porch.

“Have I ever told you about my ring?” Grannie held her hand out and twisted her engagement ring around until it sat the way she liked it. “Your Papa’s sister was engaged to a man. A boy seems more accurate, from where I’m sitting now.”

“Aunt Marge?” Mom asked.

“That’s right.” To Thomas, Grannie said, “your Mom’s Aunt Margaret. The boy’s name was Matthew, I think. Or maybe Mark. Isn’t that a shame? I can picture him, but I can’t remember which evangelist he was named for, except that it wasn’t Luke or John. Well, Margaret and this Matthew or Mark, they were quite the couple. You’d see them around town holding hands, laughing. Always seeming like they had some sort of private joke going. Not in some sort of mischievous way, just like you wanted to know what was so funny. Well, this Matthew or Mark—I think it was Mark—when England joined the Second World War and Canada joined right along with them, he was one of the first to sign up. Before he left for training, he asked for Marge’s hand and she said yes, of course.

“Your grandfather and I were already an item. He probably could have afforded a ring, but the war made everyone different about money. Or maybe it was that things like marriage seemed frivolous. He might just not have thought of it, knowing your father,” Grannie said, turning to Mom. “Anyway, one day Mark’s parents, they come up the door to your Papa’s house and ask to see Marge. They tell her that Mark’s been killed.”

“How?” Thomas asked.

“In the war,” Grannie said.

“I think he means, ‘In what way,’” Mom said.

“I don’t know,” Grannie said. “Isn’t that a shame?”

“That’s okay, Grannie,” Thomas said.

“Thank you, Thomas. The thing is, Marge gave Papa her engagement ring. It was some agreement she and Mark had, that if anything happened to Mark she should give the ring to Papa.”

“Then you married him,” Thomas said.

“Well, then he asked. I had to think about it, first.”

“For how long?” Mom asked.

“Not long. A day, I think. We hadn’t talked about it at all, not at any point.”

“But you said, Yes,” Thomas said.

“Of course. Or there would be no you.” Grannie squeezed him again. “And I’m glad there’s a you.”

“You must wonder what your journey would be like if you hadn’t said yes,” Mom said.

“What my life would have been like? I suppose. Doesn’t everybody?”

Thomas was eleven and a third when Papa died. The person who dressed his corpse and did the makeup, they did their best to turn the body Papa had become into someone that, with the lid of the casket open, resembled the man Papa had been a year earlier, the man in the photos that Mom and Grannie had given them to work from. Thomas couldn’t remember ever crying so hard as when they lowered the closed coffin into the ground.

Dad had built a little ice rink on a more or less flat part of their yard. Thomas started spending all of the time that he wasn’t at school on the rink. At night, the light from the porch wasn’t really strong enough to light the ice and was at such an angle that even the puck cast a long shadow. Dad ran an extension cord and put up a utility light with a tripod stand. Sometimes Dad would skate with Thomas and after a few circuits around the rink’s perimeter the two would pass a puck back and forth. Mom and Grannie would come out too. They were both very good on skates and with the puck. They laughed as they played.

One evening at dinner, Mom asked if they should have signed Thomas up for hockey that winter. He shook his head, No. “’Cause when I asked, you said you didn’t want to play, right?’” Thomas nodded, Yes.

Have you seen Field of Dreams? Mom had seen the movie and Dad had even read the book, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella. In Field of Dreams, a man builds a ball diamond in the middle of a cornfield because a voice tells him, “If you build it,” meaning the baseball diamond, “he will come.” So, when Shoeless Joe Jackson arrives, you think that’s the “he” the voice is talking about, but it isn’t. The father of the man who builds the diamond played minor league baseball and it is the man’s father who eventually comes, the man’s dead father is the “he” the voice is talking about. 

Thomas knew that if he said something about Field of Dreams sitting there at the dinner table that he would start to cry. Then he started crying anyway and Mom got up and pulled her chair over next to him so she could put her arm around him and Dad and Grannie looked at him with sympathy and concern and love and Thomas felt like a little baby and wished he could disappear or could be beamed up to his room or back out on the ice rink where the tears would sting his freezing cheeks.

Toronto, December 2015

Emoji Sequence: Dave Buschemeyer of Formless Form and formerly of New Day Rising.

Story: Lee Sheppard

Hand Me Down

You remember Deborah?

Well, I saw her last week.

She had me over for breakfast. Nothing too fancy, just some fried eggs, toast, and these delicious roast potatoes.

We found each other on Facebook. Someone from high school—what was that skinhead’s name? You know, that guy who works at the Mitsubishi dealership now.

Yeah, him. He posted some throwback picture from a party and Deborah was in the dim background of it, her face fading into the dark room. So, Kelly Christianson noticed it and tagged her.

I was happy when she accepted my request. Relieved. You never know what people remember. Stuff you don’t even recall doing, just that you can imagine it, you know. That you’d do it. Like, it sounds like you.

No, there was nothing. Nothing I remember.

Anyway, we’re eating and catching up or whatever, and this beautiful music starts up. The house is big enough that it was far away, but you know when you can tell a sound is there? Present. Like, not on a stereo or something. It’s this violin and even coming through the ceiling or down the stairs or whatever, the sounds were somehow richer than you’d get through, I don’t know, a Bose or something. What’s really good, these days?

So, turns out Deborah’s kid is upstairs and she’s some hotshot violin player, like symphony quality, you know? And she practices some huge amount—four or six hours a day. Maybe that’s not a lot, but to me? I used to play the piano and my parents were always threatening to take away this or that if I didn’t practice, right? It was some, like, big fight every time.

Well, Deborah’s daughter’s autistic, I think. I Google searched about autism and it sort of explains all that dedication. Deborah called her down so she could eat and Deborah’s daughter shouts back, “I’m not hungry.” But Deborah is like, “Marie, you’ve got to eat. Everybody needs to eat.” The girl is super obstinate about it, but eventually she comes down and gives me just the shittiest look, but Deborah says, “Marie!” and Marie says, “What!?” and they exchange some kind of look. Marie pulls out a chair and sits down like she’s trying to break it. Her hair’s all everywhere, like this wild I don’t know what. It’s clean, you can see that. Maybe even brushed at some point, but she smelled, too. Not terrible, but like sweaty armpits—teenagery, really—and this other hint of something sour and warm. I guess a smell can’t be warm, but—

It’s true. The anti-Deborah.

What did we talk about? Well, when Marie was there pushing food around her plate, Deborah was asking about my car—was it good on fuel, was it comfortable, would I recommend it? Not the most riveting stuff. I said the back seat wasn’t good for much, not big enough for anything fun, you know, and I winked. I’m still not sure she got it. ’Cause, I mean, can you imagine Deb ever fucking in the back seat of a car, let alone now, what with her life all locked in and stuff. Commitments.

Good question. Well, Marie is thirteen or fouteen I think, so Deborah must have had her when she was, like 24.

I don’t think she skipped a year in school or anything, but maybe, so maybe she’s a year younger than us.

Anyway, the conversation about the car dries up then Marie turns to me and says, “I love your dress.” It was the grey one, you know.

Why wouldn’t I wear it?

I was not trying to make Deborah feel anything. Don’t you ever wear something nice just to feel good?

Well, Marie liked it. She got up from her seat and came and sat beside me and started to touch the dress. She touched the hem first, so I didn’t think much about it, but then she just kept going. It got weird, like she was touching it like I wasn’t in it and that can have some strange consequences, you know, so suddenly your high school friend’s retarded daughter is running her hand up your thigh.

She was my friend.

Oh, that? Isn’t Marie retarded? I’m being serious.

Doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue, but fine, Autism Spectrum Disorder. So Deborah’s daughter with Autism Spectrum Disorder, wild Marie there, is running her hands along my body and Deborah says, “Marie, it makes people uncomfortable when you touch their clothes, especially when they are still wearing them.”

Then Marie looks me in the eyes for, like, the first time really, the first time since she came down anyway, and she says, “This doesn’t bother you does it?”

Deb says, “Marie, you need to eat more of your food before you can go back and practice.”

Marie makes this exasperated grunt sound, sort of like a scream with your mouth closed. It was crazy because it was like this textbook teenager sound, like Marie learned it from some sort of “Teach Yourself Teenager” CD, or whatever. More likely from some teen movie, I guess. Then she stood up so fast the chair fell over and she just completely ignored it, walked around it with her fists at her sides and sat down at her plate of eggs and started shoveling the food into her mouth.

Deb just was super calm about it, but she must have repeated herself fifty times. Finally, she got Marie to pick up the chair. I wouldn’t have had the patience. I mean, I nearly picked it up at one point, just so the conversation could move on, but I knew better than to interfere.

So on Deborah’s Facebook, for a while there’s this husband. Then there just isn’t. So once Marie is back upstairs, back on the violin, I ask about it. Deb’s surprised at first, and I assume it’s because I’m mentioning Facebook. Some people get so upset that you actually pay attention to their profiles. Deborah says, “Well, David and I have been separated for almost two years now, but it’s funny you should ask because we just signed the divorce papers yesterday.”

They went to a special court downtown just for divorces. She said there were all these couples there doing the same thing, their credit cards in one hand, the other hand filling out forms, clipboards balanced on their knees. Divorce lawyers there, too, preying on people. I can picture everything, but I have trouble imagining the expressions on people’s faces.

They wouldn’t be all the same, true. At first I pictured all sad faces. All covered in tears.

Pfft. Of course. You’d totally be happy in some cases, but wouldn’t you have to hide it?

Right. And I’d guess, like, some people would just be over it and signing the papers would be like a check up after a surgery, you know? One final visit to say, Yep, all done.

Deborah? I don’t know how Deborah felt about it. Feels about it. I think one of the reasons she and I were never great friends is that with me, I like to think anyway, that there’s lots on the surface, right? I’m not holding things back. It’s maybe not so good or not great or whatever. But with her, you’ve got all these layers of things tucked away somewhere, sort of like she’s hiding them.

It’s gotta be tough for her. With Marie, like, it’s got to be a lot of work.

Sure, I think David must be involved, but I didn’t ask, no. I also wonder, I mean I’ve never met David, but I imagine that Marie put a real strain on their relationship.

Okay, but do you have a few more minutes? I have to tell you this.

So, I’m getting ready to go, right, and Deborah walks me to the door. My purse is open and all the shit in it is, like, disorganized. Well, let me be honest. It’s always disorganized, but it was differently disorganized. I don’t even say anything about it and Deborah is like, “Check for your credit card.” It isn’t there, and, again, before I can say anything Deborah says, “It’s gone, right?” then nods and starts upstairs. I follow her.

Marie is working away at the violin. Deborah opens the door and there is a gust of damp, sour air. Marie is standing in the center of the room, her hair still all chaos, but now she’s wearing this lovely red dress. She turns and gives us a startled, angry look, but then she makes eye contact with me and her expression changes to something obviously self-satisfied. There’s a squeaking off in the corner. In a big fish tank, a white rat with a beige head is running in a metal wheel. Deborah takes a clipboard off the tank lid and tosses it onto Marie’s unmade bed before she opens the tank.

Holding her violin and bow in one hand, Marie faces me and subtly bends first one knee, then the other. Then she takes her hand and spreads part of the dress out. She’s posing. And her head is down at this, like, intentionally demure angle but she keeps taking these quick glances at me, so I’m like, “What a lovely dress.”

Marie says, “It used to be Mum’s.”

I open my mouth, but I don’t say anything because I’m actually choked up. Actually. Sure, now I’m like, Okay, she’s probably got other pretty dresses, or whatever, I mean I don’t know what it means, right? But at that moment I felt sure that Deborah had just given up and handed all her pretty dresses down to Marie.

Anyway, Deborah is running her hand through the shredded paper at the bottom of the rat tank and you can tell she’s getting frustrated. And the smell in the room is getting worse. Marie turns and says, “Mum, you’re upsetting Rattata.”

Deborah says, “Where is it, Marie?”

Marie picks up the rat and holds him out towards me. “Do you want to hold him?” The poor thing is dangling there, but, no, I don’t want to hold him, thank you very much. Marie puts him on her shoulder and he perches there.

“Marie,” Deborah says.

“What?” Marie turns and I can see the rat’s tail brushing Marie’s shoulder blade.

“Where is Lisa’s credit card?”

“Why do you think I have it?”

“You have to stop taking people’s things.”

“You lose your credit card all the time.”

Deborah lifts the rat’s wheel.

“Mum. Stop, Rattata likes that there.”

Of course, my card’s under the wheel. Deborah is holding my Visa between her fingers and shaking her head.

Marie gives this big, exasperated huff. “It’s okay, Rattata,” she says, lifing him down from her shoulder.

“You need to clean that tank. Today.” Deborah leads me out of the room and closes the door. When I try to take my card from her, she says, “Let me wash it for you.”

While she’s doing that, I go through my purse just to make sure that nothing else is missing, you know?

Everything was there.

So, at the door Deborah says to me the normal stuff, you know, it was nice to see you and all that, but then she says, I hope you’ll still think about coming back.

I say, sure, yes, of course, but next time it’s my turn to host. Honestly, though, I don’t know if I could.

I mean, she didn’t seem sad. She looked really good and, yeah, was totally happy, or pretty happy seeming anyway. It’s just that I find it, or, well, it just all makes me feel so sad.

Toronto, December 2105

Emoji Sequence: Laura Wills, artist, illustrator and contributor to Swimming Holes We Have Known

Story: Lee Sheppard

Welcome

At the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Moose Jaw, Lucy had planned to get a pair of shorts, but she couldn’t resist the fox mask she found sitting on top of a bin of costumes. The woman at the cash, a dead ringer for her Nona, asked, “Will that be all today?”

“I think so,” she said.

Lucy had packed just a week’s worth of underwear and T-shirts, plus two sweaters, her bathing suit and wet suit. She was wearing her one pair of jeans.

She drove down the 37 and crossed the border at Climax. The customs officer stared at the surfboard strapped to the roof of her 1983 Civic. “Heading to California?”

“Yes sir.” Lucy smiled.

The wind picked up and the flapping Stars and Stripes drowned out the customs officer’s voice.

“Pardon me?”

“Length of stay?”

“Uh, two weeks.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“Just two weeks,” she said, nodding.

“Traveling alone?”

“Yes sir.”

“A pretty girl like you?”

“You know,” she said. She knew how conversations like this could end.

He handed her back her passport. “Drive safely,” he said. His smile was kind. Completely.

By Great Falls, the heat was making Lucy’s thighs burn beneath her black jeans. She got off the highway and drove east on Central Avenue. There was a big, St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store. She went in and looked at shorts and skirts and dresses and there was some great stuff, but she only had a few hundred bucks to her name and she was hungry and needed weed and needed to get to California and back, so instead she walked up to the front and asked them if they had scissors. “What for, dear?”

“My pants.”

“Why don’t you leave them be and get yourself a pair of shorts?”

Lucy spotted heavy fabric scissors in a metal mesh penholder beside the cash register. “Can I see those?”

“If money’s an issue—”

“Would you mind?” Lucy didn’t appreciate having her decisions question.

“Come nighttime, you may wish you had them pants.” The woman handed her the scissors.

Lucy undressed behind a musty curtain, cut the legs off a few inches below the crotch, put the now-shorts back on and walked back to the cash, the severed legs draped over her arm.

When she gave the woman her scissors back, the woman held her hand out and said, “Let me put those in a bag for you.”

“I was gonna ask you to throw them out.”

She paused and smiled. “Either way’s no trouble.”

Lucy looked at the limp denim. “Yeah, sure. That would be great.”

The woman took the legs behind the counter, stuffed them in a bag then handed the bag to Lucy.

“Thanks, eh.”

“Welcome to America.”

After a burger and milkshake at a place called Ford’s, Lucy got back on the highway.

Three hours later, Lucy was in Butte. Her sister had a friend there whose name she’d forgotten, but who she said could get Lucy weed. She pulled off the highway and gave him a call. He asked her to pick him up. Lucy followed his directions to a grey bungalow with a steep roof deep in some old suburb.

“Hi, Lucy. I’m Rich.”

Lucy looked at his house. It seemed fine, but—

“Richard. My name.”

“Oh.” She laughed.

“Can I get in?”

“Of course,” Lucy told him.

He threw his sweater into the back seat.

“My connection’s out of town a bit.”

“Whatever.”

“That’s cool?”

“Sure.”

He nodded. “Your sister’s right, man. You are pretty.”

“Thanks.” He was alright looking, but not winning points for brains yet. “Where’re we going?”

He directed her out of the city. As they drove through sandy hills covered with scrub and stone, Rich scanned the radio. “It’s mostly shit, isn’t it?”

“You don’t listen to the radio,” Lucy asked him.

“Does anybody?”

“I guess I didn’t before I had this car.”

“Right, of course. The car.”

“You drive?”

“No. I mean, I can, but I don’t. Don’t own a car. Wish I did.”

“No job?”

“I guess I just haven’t bothered.”

“With a job?”

“With a car. I wash dishes at an old folks home.”

The dealer lived in an apartment in the stable at his father and step-mom’s ranch. “Is that the Dick Man?” he shouted when Rich knocked.

“Hey Leslie.”

“Come in.” Leslie got up when he saw Lucy. “Wow. Anybody ever tell you how pretty you are?”

“You’re the first,” Lucy said.

Leslie was confused. “Wait. You’re lying, right? Right, Dickie?”

Rich looked at his feet. “I did it, actually. When I got in her car.”

“Oh,” Leslie said.

“Where’s the shit?” Lucy asked.

“Business,” Leslie said. “I like that. I like that.”

As soon as she had her weed, Lucy was ready to go. “Kay,” she said.

“You like horses?” Leslie asked.

Lucy shook her head.

“Or we could go for a walk,” Rich said. “It’s, like, beautiful out here.”

“I got a long drive,” Lucy said.

It nearly made her laugh how disappointed the guys looked.

“If you’ve got some food, though,” she said.

“Of course,” Leslie said. “I was about to make dinner.”

“Cool,” Lucy said. “I mean, is that cool?”

“Totally. Yeah,” Leslie said.

He threw some ground beef into a skillet. Rich showed Lucy around. There were five horses way off in a dusty field. Rich said he thought the ranch was just for fun, that Leslie’s folks had other work. Lucy and Rich walked down a path, dodging mounds of horseshit at various stages of decomposition, a process that to Lucy always just seemed like flies gradually clearing all the feces off of undigested straw. A cold wind came up. Lucy toughed it out for a few more bends in the path, but they eventually turned back.

Leslie’s apartment smelled like burnt garlic and pasta sauce. The bun he used for Lucy’s sloppy joe for sure had some mold on it, but she ate it anyway and was grateful. She had a bottle of Bud to wash it down, too, so that helped, except it also made her hands cold, which made her feel cold all over. Leslie offered to smoke them up, but Lucy said, No, she had to drive. Then Leslie offered to do Tarot readings for them. Lucy wasn’t sure if Rich was into the idea because it meant Lucy sticking around or because he had a thing for cartomancy. Either way, Rich had grown on her and she knew that after tonight she probably wouldn’t see him again, maybe ever, so what the fuck? “Just let me go grab a sweater or something.”

“Me, too,” Rich said.

“I’ll grab yours,” she said.

Rich understood that she wanted to be alone. On the way to the car Lucy decided that she would throw on a sweater, sure, but that she’d also just use the cut legs of her pants like legwarmers and tell the guys that that was kind of her thing.

When she opened up the bag, though, there was this extra pair of pants. She pulled them out expecting them to suck, but they were baggy and high-waisted and made of this amazing floral material. She actually teared up, she was so grateful to that woman back in Great Falls.

What sucked, though, was that she was like allergic to tears. Under her eyes got so puffed up when she cried even the littlest bit. Then Lucy saw the fox mask lying crumpled on the back seat. She walked back into Leslie’s apartment wearing the mask. The guys liked that. They laughed. “You wear it while you do our readings,” Lucy said to Leslie.

“Sure.”

She took off the mask.

Rich looked at her. Lucy thought it was because she’d been crying. Then he stood up and she remembered. “Oh, sorry. I forgot your sweater.”

He smiled and told her it was no problem and she knew he meant it.

She went to the bathroom and put on her new pants. They fit right. Really well, actually. Maybe on her way back she’d stop in at that place again to thank that woman. Maybe make her a card or something. Yeah, that would be nice. That was what she’d do.

Toronto, ON, August 2015

Emoji sequence: writer and artist Juliana Carlevaris, contributor to The West Enders, Vol. 1, Issues 1 and 2

Story: Lee Sheppard