Sadie

Besides the fact, or maybe in addition to the fact, that we’d broken up nine or ten days earlier, Andrew doesn’t like to dance. So, while I was laughing and spinning and jumping and putting my hands up up to “Single Ladies” or shouting “It’s fun to stay at the,” then closing my eyes, bouncing on my toes and forming a giant Y, a giant M, a giant C and a giant A with my arms, Andrew was lying on the rich grass on a little slope that someone told us later was the edge of the septic bed, not that that was such a big deal, only that it explained the remarkably lush cushion of green. Probably to say good-bye without saying good-bye—my family had always liked Andrew—people were stopping by: my dad to chat between heaving breaths, to sip bottled water and to smoke in anticipation of another spin on the plywood floor; my sister Stephanie to say how much she likes him and how she hopes she’ll see him again then to hand Andrew a baby monitor and ask him to listen for her daughter, Marcie, while she went for a “little walk” with her latest boyfriend, Philip; my cousin, Alicia, and her fiancée, Max, to talk and to strip down to their sports bra and undershirt, respectively, and lay their (matching) dress shirts out on the dense grass to dry. It was Alicia and Max who lay on that same cushion of septic-fed grass and looked up at the sky and noticed the clouds closing in.

When Andrew raced over to me, my heart was in the “Safety Dance” and the sway of my thrifted red dress. I couldn’t understand how weather could inspire such urgency. By that point people were starting to hurry towards cars or towards the hosts’ house or towards our tents in the neighbouring field. The DJ was undeterred, so I was tempted to stay, but “Okay, okay,” I let Andrew hold my arm as he led me out from under the party tent.

A crackling flash illuminated the clouds’ rumbling black bellies as they stormed from the ocean towards the still eerily moonlit Mt. Sadie. As we dashed towards our tent, the wind blew us from the right so that to stay on course we had to walk almost diagonally. When the rain started, it felt like it was coming up out of the ground, so powerfully was the wind whipping the clouds towards Sadie. The tent was bucking against its ropes. Entering the tent gave me two powerful, conflicting feelings. The first was that at any point the wind might lift us in the nylon shelter and sail us over the hedge, the road, the narrow valley and into the side of the mountain. The second was that despite the possible risks, it was imperative that we be in the tent, borrowed from Andrew’s father, who I had, after two years of dating Andrew, still not met. Who I figured I would never meet.

We zipped up the tent. I turned on a flashlight we’d hung from the low center of the ceiling and, kneeling, without thinking, started peeling off my dress, which was soaked on my right side and on my back, but surprisingly dry from my left shoulder to at least my waist.

“I’m sorry,” Andrew said.

“What?” I turned my head.

Andrew was crouched near the tent door, his knees angled to one side, his face averted. “I could wait outside.”

“Oh my God, it’s crazy out there.”

“I’m already soaked.”

“You’re being silly.” I felt badly, but it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. Then, despite the crackling spray of the rain on the tent skin, I heard voices. “What is that?”

“It’s just people in another tent.”

I turned my head left and right to try and focus my hearing, my dress top hanging from my waist. “It’s coming from your pocket.”

He put his hand down and felt the baby monitor there. When he pulled the monitor out, the noise was clearer, like background chatter from a radio play party scene. He looked up at me for a moment and smiled before noticing my breasts, framed by my finest bra, which he told me later was his favourite. “Sorry,” he said, looking down.

“Oh, who cares,” I said.

He nodded without raising his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Whose is that?” I pointed to the monitor.

“Steph’s.”

“Why do you have it?”

“She and Philip went for a walk.”

“In this shit?”

Andrew took a deep breath before exhaling a, “Right,” then repeating himself.

I slid the bra straps over my shoulders and uncupped—or maybe I should say de-laced—my breasts.

“I guess I should go find her. Find Stephanie.”

I twisted the bra around and down so the clasp was above my belly button.

The wind whined, the rain drummed harder against the nylon and the tent leaned against Andrew. He pressed back against our shelter, reached for the zipper. “Okay, I guess I’ll— Oh my God,” he said when he saw my breasts. “Please.”

“I think you should fuck me,” I said.

He opened his mouth like he was about to speak, then closed it. He looked past me. He held the monitor up and opened his mouth again, closed it again.

I pulled my dress over my hips, sat down and slipped it the rest of the way off, the sleeping bag whispering beneath me. 

Andrew watched. Andrew dropped his knees down so he was no longer squatting there. Andrew dropped his knees down between my spread feet.

I held my arms out to him.

He bit the right side of his upper lip.

I reached between my legs and grabbed his belt, black and unfamiliar. He’d borrowed it, too, from his father. The buckle came away easily in my hands.

At that point, I was not imagining that we would get back together. In the maybe three weeks since we’d broken up, my roommate’s boyfriend had set me up with some handsome single friend of his, Luke, and I had slept with an ex-girlfriend, Beth. Both encounters were pleasurable in their own way, but mannered and, well, awkwardly new. Even with Beth. That afternoon, when Andrew had arrived early at my apartment, wearing Old Spice and a suit he later told me his mother had purchased for him before his high school formal, despite the strangeness of his dress and the masking of his scent, it was as if his smell set all the other smells in my place right, the smell of my roommate’s piss and fruity Body Shop soap, my plants’ damp potting soil in my sun-warmed back window. Plus, my grandfather had worn Old Spice. I offered Andrew coffee and he offered to make it and even that, even the coffee made with the same beans in the same grinder and the same French press, suddenly smelled right again, smelled like the coffee I drink.

He asked then, sipping hot coffee in the mid-afternoon light of my apartment, if I was sure that we wanted just the one tent, that his dad had more. I told him again that I wasn’t sure how big the field was or how many people were pitching tents there and that I thought one tent was better, but if he’d feel more comfortable, then whatever we could make it work.

Even with all that warmth he’d made me feel when he was at my place, I experienced that as sadness, or disappointment at least. I did not experience it as desire. Even when he told me, “You look great,” and smiled to break your heart, I didn’t anticipate that there we’d be, together in his dad’s tent in the chaos of a storm, listening for my sleeping niece and having the best sex we’d ever had or maybe making the finest love we’d ever made. Whatever you want to call it, it was thoughtful, it was sensual, it was confidant. It was hot.

We were lying there in the bare brightness of the flashlight looking at each other, Andrew’s hand resting between my thighs, I running my knuckles gently along his cheekbone and jaw line, when we heard Steph saying, “Andrew. DeeDee? Andrew? Deanna!” in an urgent whisper, so desperate to be respectful of people sleeping, but also determined to be heard over the storm.

“Oh, shit,” Andrew said. He sat up and started looking for the monitor, looking for his pants.

“Here,” I said to him, “I’ll tell Steph we’re here.”

“Right. Sure. Right.”

I unzipped the tent and called my sister. She was soaked. “Are you naked?” she asked. Before I could answer, she said, “Is Andrew with you?”

“He’s got your monitor right here.”

“Well, well,” Stephanie said. “Hi Andrew.”

“Hi Steph. How is it out there?”

“Like I went swimming. Like I’m still swimming.”

“Yeah,” Andrew said. He handed me the monitor.

“Deanna looked good tonight, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Andrew said.

“Probably still looks good. Did Marcie make any noise?” Steph asked.

“I don’t think so,” Andrew said.

“No,” I said. I handed my sister her device.

“Not that you guys heard anyway.”

“She was fine,” I said.

“I was joking,” Stephanie said. “See you two in the morning.”

“I guess so,” I said.

I was hoping to leave early, though. I had plans to meet someone, a date, but in truth I was already planning to skip it.

With one sleeping bag as a mattress or maybe a top sheet and one as a comforter, we pressed together and fell asleep to the sounds of the quieting storm. The first time I woke up, my skin where it touched Andrew’s was soaking wet and hot like I couldn’t imagine skin being hot. I moved as far from him as the tent and the shared sleeping bags would allow. The rain had stopped, but everything was dripping. The second time I woke, Andrew was mumbling and shouting wordlessly in his sleep. I said his name and shook him awake because I was worried he would wake the other campers. Without opening his eyes, Andrew told me that something had happened to Marcie, that he didn’t know where Steph was and something had happened to Marcie. He threw the top sleeping bag off and said, “I have to go find her.” I told him that he’d been dreaming, told him to go back to sleep. I put my hand on his bicep and its heat was startling in the early morning chill. The third time I woke, it was dawn and no matter what I tried I couldn’t get back to sleep. And not because of the radiant heat of Andrew’s body, though I was deeply aware of it.

I got dressed and stood outside the tent for a while. Mt. Sadie was surrounded by clouds, though these clouds could easily be called mist so gently indistinct were their borders compared to the full-bellied storm clouds that charged her last night. I waited for the wind to blow a break in them so I could see Sadie’s peak. It didn’t come quickly enough for me and I walked back towards the party tent and the house.

As I had hoped, the desert table had been left out and there was still coffee in the large thermos. I had a cup went back to the tent.

I unzipped the door and squatted just outside the opening. Andrew was awake and lying on his back with his forearm over his face. He moved his head so he could see me with one eye, then he covered his eye back up.

“Good morning,” I said.

“I had the worst sleep,” he said.

“There’s still coffee out. It’s cold, but . . . ”

“No,” he said. “I feel— I don’t feel right.”

I touched his foot. “You’re really hot. You were really hot through the night, too.”

“I had the weirdest dreams. Or not weird, but frustrating. There was something wrong with Marcie, but I couldn’t figure out how to get into her room. I swear, it was, like, hours of dreaming about how to get into her room.”

“You want me to get you some water?”

“I think we should just go. You’ve got that thing, right? We should just go.”

“I’ll cancel, if you want to stay.”

“It’s okay.”

“No. I’m going to cancel it.”

Andrew got dressed. I put my things into a duffel bag, he put his things into his back pack. We took down the tent. Anything Andrew could do sitting down, he did sitting down. By the time we had the car packed, Steph and Marcie were up. Andrew sat in the driver’s seat while Steph asked us why we weren’t staying around to help clean up.

“Andrew isn’t feeling well.”

“Too much to drink?”

“He has a fever. Maybe the flu or something.”

“Aunt Tanya’s making breakfast.”

“We should go.”

“We, eh?”

“Do you have any Tylenol? That’s good for fevers, right?”

“You want Baby Tylenol?”

“Thanks anyway.”

“Alright. Marcie, say good bye to your Aunty DeeDee.” Marcie just buried her face in her mother’s shoulder.

I grabbed my niece’s foot and gave it a shake. “Bye, sweetheart.”

“Will you say good-bye to Andrew?”

Marcie looked at him and waved.

Andrew lifted his hand and smiled. When I got to the car, he asked if I’d mind driving. “Not at all,” I told him.

We were a few stoplights from the field where we’d slept, from the house where we’d celebrated, when Andrew said something quietly.

“What’s that?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. I took my eyes off the road for a second to glance at him. He had his thumb over one eye, his fingers over the other. “I don’t mean to ruin the party.”

I told him I’d had a great time and the pleasures of last night and the rain and the dancing all flooded my body again and filled me up. I put my hand on his knee.

Andrew put his hand on top of mine. “You’re probably going to get sick, too.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’ll help you if you need it,” he said. “If you want,” he said.

“Yeah,” I managed to say. “I do want.” I don’t think he noticed I was crying.

Toronto, April 2016

Emoji Sequence: Diane Dechief, whose sequence is inspired by a true story, which she promised to share once Lee was finished his fiction

Story: Lee Sheppard

Do We Eat Here? Do We Shit?

We, Max Load and Alex Oliver of Midnight Ryders Productions, loaded up our bags, a camera, a laptop, a box of condoms and a c-light and headed to a Best Western two hours north of the city.

Max’s cousin’s wedding started with a long ceremony in a hot church lead by a preacher or minister or priest or whatever who mumbled into his chest for much much much too long.

The whole service, Max was trying to make eye contact with some other cousin, his favourite cousin, the cousin he’d told Alex about on the way to the hotel, the cousin who Max described as probably the hottest person he’d ever known. Alex thought, No way she’s that hot, thinking, we work with hot women almost daily, actually said, “No way she’s that hot,” but Max pointed her out and, yes, she was remarkably sexy, definitely someone that Alex could work with, but it was only really specific women who we approached to work with him, to work with us—Max did camera and sometimes P.O.V. videos—women with an often messy combination of self-hate and a desperate need for approval or validation or confirmation sometimes masquerading as who-gives-a-fuck confidence. And this cousin, Morgan, she had a different type confidence, something much closer to grace, but grace without the high-religious chasteness that word might imply to you. Grace on a human scale, as Max might have said when he was studying art and filmmaking, as Max might have said if he was in a mood to be mocked. Dirty grace, is the type of phrase Alex would have preferred Max use, but dirty didn’t describe Morgan properly at all.

At the reception, we were seated at the back table, the table for singles and childless individuals. We got our food last and we had to strain to hear the speeches, one of which included a warning to Max’s now married cousin and her husband that they should enjoy themselves in the bedroom now because maybe someone has told them, but probably not— as soon as the kids arrive their sex lives are through. Alex worked his charm on some modestly pretty maybe twenty-year-old relative of the groom’s who as soon as she sat down was giggling over the attention that he paid her. Max watched Morgan and her husband and saw the way that they avoided each other’s eyes, the way that he kept his elbows in like he was afraid of bumping against her.

During the dancing, we really saw what Morgan might mean for our modest website. When the DJ started playing “Like a Prayer,” all Max’s girl cousins let out this excited, sustained, “Oh,” and threw their hands up. One of the girl cousins, smiling and off-balance because of her shining new heels, scurried over to one of the speakers and pulled from behind it, like, twenty hula-hoops and gave them all out.

You’ve never seen anything like Morgan hula-hooping. We’ve talked about it and for each of us our favourite thing is when a leading lady rides cowgirl and grinds her hips like she’s possessed or she’s dancing. Before the work made us sadly desensitized to these simple pleasures, such moments could produce, in either of us, an instant effect. Morgan’s hips have a range and nuance of movement, a language of wiggle that could make her an instant adult film star. Alex thought, “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” and Max thought, “I must have seen Morgan do that before,” but we were too entranced to even turn and share a look that might have conveyed our thoughts to each other.

Somebody was whispering in Max’s ear. Annoyed, he turned and nearly collided with a beefy bicep. The arm moved, wrapped itself around Max’s shoulders. “What?” Max asked.

Alex turned then. The large, veinous hand and forearm reminded him of an engorged cock. He backed away instinctively, then turned back to watch Morgan keeping the hula-hoop up.

The owner of the beefy arm said, “Erin wants us to go over to the fairgrounds.”

Behind the now slender, jaw- and cheekbone-defined face, somewhere in the tilt of the smile or in the light behind the eyes, Max thought he recognized the bride’s little brother. “Fat Phil?”

“I haven’t heard that name in too long.”

“You liked it?”

“No, I didn’t.” He gave Max a squeeze. A very tight squeeze.

“You look great.”

“Thanks. The exercise is better than the anti-depressants I was on back when I was— Back when I had that nickname.”

“Uh,” Max said. Needing an out, maybe, or trying to be polite as some sort of act of apology—hard to say—Max introduced Alex. “Phil, this is my business partner.”

Phil stood and extended his powerful right arm. “You’re the ‘talent’?”

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

Max started burning. How did Phil know what we did?

Phil repeated himself, louder now so he could be heard over the church choir singing, just like a prayer, I’ll take you there. “You are the talent? In Max’s movies.”

“You a fan?” Max’s smile was just weaker than hopeful.

“Before she passed, your mom told my mom what you do.”

Alex went back to watching Morgan, but Max wilted in the heat of his understanding. The internet, so public. Pornography, so hated, so automatically scorned. His family, so? So? So what? Wholesome. Righteous. Ugly.

“Like a Prayer” ended and we went to the bathroom.
Alex unzipped his pants and started pissing into the urinal. “So? Everybody knows.” 

Max stood there with his dick out, but he couldn’t pee. “Keep your voice down.”

“We’re the only people in here.”

Max closed his eyes, took a deep breath and tried to imagine that he was standing over his own toilet in his own bathroom in his anonymous studio apartment in one of now six nearly identical buildings clustered near the train tracks and the bread factory, but his meditation failed because two men came laughing into the bathroom. They stopped when they saw us. What did that mean that they stopped? Max zipped up, made quick eye contact and nodded his head to try and gauge their reactions. Alex washed his hands.

As we gathered at the margins of the big group waiting to walk to the fair grounds, as grandmas in high heels fretted at the change in plans and tried to arrange cabs for them and their grandchildren, as people made their excuses and left for their hotels, Max was scanning the crowd, concentration making his brow crash angrily down on his eyes and fear forcing his head to jerk this way, that way and back again. “You look crazy,” Alex said.

“I’m just trying to figure out how many people know,” Max said.

“Should we do a survey?” Alex suggested.

“You can survey me,” said the girl, the young woman, the vulnerable female relative of the groom’s that Alex had been working.

“Hi Deborah,” Alex said.

“Debbie, please,” Debbie said.

“Easy. Hi Debbie.”

She touched Max on the arm and he flinched and turned. “Hey.”

“Is something wrong?” Debbie asked Max. When he didn’t reply, she turned to Alex. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Alex said. He saw a man turn towards them and look Alex up and down, appraising him. Alex nodded an acknowledgment, then asked Debbie, “Who’s that guy?”

“My dad.”

“Hunh.” Alex started to feel the weight that Max was carrying, the suspicion.

“He hasn’t talked to me in years.”

“Years? How old are you?”

“Twenty-one. When I was seventeen I had some trouble with drugs and with boys. Somebody found a video on my phone and it got back to Dad.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. He called me a slut and kicked me out and that’s that.”

Alex nodded. “You haven’t heard from him since?”

“Every once in a while he’ll get a bit drunk and show up at my house to bang on the door and shout things.”

“Who’s this?” Max asked, suddenly aware of the conversation.

“My dad,” Debbie said. “We don’t really get along.”

“Sounds like it.”

Debbie wrapped her arm around Alex’s and put her face against his bicep. He moved back a step, recognizing Debbie for the storm she was. She definitely would go back to the hotel with them and she would probably be a little crazy, too. Which was good, for the videos anyway.

Debbie’s dad looked at them again, only this time the big brush-cut kid with him, a younger double of the old man, turned too, menace on a rolling boil behind his eyes and under his broad shoulders. Debbie grabbed Alex’s hand, squeezed it and smiled up at him.

Alex knew he was being used.

Max realized he hadn’t seen Morgan in a while. Had she gone home? Maybe she’d been in some advance party to the fair. Was cousin Matthew giving Max some critical side-eye? Wasn’t Matthew the one who always left crying from the woods behind grandma’s house? There was Morgan, sitting on a leather loveseat behind the table of photographs of the bride and groom and all their dead relatives. She was rubbing her feet, a pair of sneakers on the cushion beside her. She smiled at Max and held out her arm, reaching for him. As Max walked towards her, some kid ran into him, knocking him sideway. “Sorry,” the kid said breathlessly. Max looked around to see what grownup was responsible for this child and would therefore be also looking to scorn Max. Morgan called his name before Max could find a head turned towards him. The kid had been swallowed up by the crowd.

“How are you, Cuz?”

“Hi, Morgan.”

“Please, Maxy, you’ve never called me that.”

“How are you, Mo?”

“It’s a decent party, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t seen any of you in years.”

“That’s right, you weren’t at Sarah’s wedding.”

“I think I was in Vegas.”

“Vegas? What for?”

“Work.”

“There’s a porn awards thing there, isn’t there?”

Max looked at his shoes, thought maybe he’d throw up all over them. Morgan touched his knee, her fingers long and gentle. Max wanted to tell her to wash her hands. What was wrong with him that he ever imagined involving Morgan in his nasty work? He loved her. Which explained something, he supposed.

“What’s wrong, Maxy?”

“Does everybody know?”

“It’s exciting,” Morgan said. “That’s the wrong word. It’s something to talk about.”

“Right.” Max looked over at Alex, Deborah standing so close to him, talking to him about whatever.

“Is that they guy? The actor?”

“Alex? Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve never watched anything you’ve done.”

“It’s probably better.”

“It’s not really my thing.”

“No.”

“Maxy. I’m— I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You are one of my favourites.” Max made sure to look at her.

“Oh, Max. You too. You too.”

She hugged him. He tried not to picture what her body, the parts he could feel through his chest and chin and hand, would look like naked. “I hate these family things, Mo.”

“I hear you.” People were starting to leave the hall for the street. “Looks like it’s time to go.”

Max stood. He made eye contact with Alex. He flicked his head in the direction of the hotel. Alex shrugged, grimaced a bit, looked at Deborah. Max nodded, thinking he understood.

To Morgan, Max said, “I think I’m going to cut.”

“What?” Morgan asked.

“Leave.”

“There’s so much more party left.”

“I know.”

“It’s really great to see you.” She hugged him again. “Are you on Facebook?”

“Uh. Yeah. I don’t check it much, but.”

“I’m going to find you. Okay?”

“I’ll watch for that.”

“Great. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Max walked out the door with Alex and Debbie. “I’m done,” Max said. “You coming with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I join you guys?” She lay her hand across the front of Alex’s belt.

“I gotta talk to Max.” Alex lifted her hand.

“Okay, whatever.” Debbie turned towards Alex, grabbed his wrist and forced his hand against her breast, her mouth open.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” Alex said. “Real nice. But not tonight.”

“Fine.” She nodded to Max then jogged to catch up with the long trail of people making their way along the sidewalk to the nearby fair.

We didn’t talk all the way back to our room. Alex opened two cans of Budweiser from our cooler and we sat in deck chairs on this small patch of flagstones level with the black asphalt driveway to the back parking lot. We could see the Ferris wheel’s light through a thin stand of trees.

“That girl Debbie was trouble,” Alex said.

“In the good way?”

“I think she wanted her dad to fuck me up. And did you see her brother?”

“No.”

“Carbon copy of the dad, man. And mean looking.”

Max nodded.

“Saw you talking to Morgan.”

“Yeah.”

“What she have to say?”

“You know, I think I love her Alex?”

“Your cousin? That’s some kinky shit.” 

“Ah.”

“I see it, though. She’s super hot.”

Max could feel something open up in himself, something parting.

We didn’t hear Debbie coming because she’d taken off her shoes. She was crying. She wiped her face when she spotted us, then tried to hurry past.

“Hey, hey,” Alex said. “You look like you need a drink.”

He stood up and went inside. Debbie sat down in Alex’s deck chair and stared silently ahead. “I’m staying here, too,” Debbie said.

“I figured.” Max sipped his beer.

“We’ve only got Bud,” Alex said, holding a can out for her. “Sorry.”

She took it from him. “That’s fine.”

Max stood. “I’ll leave you two.”

Max smiled at Alex. Patted him on the shoulder.

Alex sat down beside Debbie. Max listened to the two of them talking, the words obscured by the sliding glass door, until he fell asleep. 

Toronto, Jan. 2016

Emoji sequence: Writer and educator, Nadia Pecaric

Story: Lee Sheppard

Like the Universe Cares

It was bad enough that they’d crashed our wedding.

Well, not exactly our wedding. They were invited to that.

Right. It was the two days before, all the preparations at my parents’ place. That’s what they crashed.

Mike said there weren’t any rooms available at the hotel.

Which, if it was even true, meant that they had tried to book, like, that day.

No one visits that corner of the world unless they have family there. Even with the sixty people—

Sixty-four.

Sixty-four people coming to the wedding from out of town, that would leave, like, three quarters of the hotel empty.

What you have to understand is my mom is really sensitive about things going off plan—

Like, really sensitive.

Super super sensitive.

But Mike and Lisa just drove up with all their stuff and parked on the grass right where the tent was going to go.

Where later that day the people put the tent.

It had rained and so their shitty little Civic left these two deep ruts in the lawn.

Which you probably remember because the flower girl stumbled on them during the ceremony.

Which sent rose petals everywhere and totally cracked Mike up.

Glad somebody thought it was funny. But here’s the thing. Mike and Lisa were pretty good bridge players and we would play bridge with them every week or so back in Toronto. They knew that my mom and dad played, right, because when I taught them to play, I talked about how that’s where I learned and that’s where the way we bid came from and all that. So, like, while my mom was worried about how to ask them to move the car and where they were going to sleep, Mike was already, in that big voice of his, like, “Bridge tonight?”

So the other thing you need to know is that my mother-in-law is, like, really into coincidence and the universe as this magical place that engineers random events—good or bad—to tell her, to tell people, things.

Have you seen that Amy Schumer skit with Bill Nye? It’s just like that.

If you haven’t seen it, you should. Hilarious.

OK. My dad hates cell phones—

Even though he has one—

For when he’s on call.

Still.

Yeah. So, like two years ago—before the wedding and Mike and Lisa crashing the family home—

—the last time we played bridge with your parents—

—we were playing and Dad has this rule about not picking up the phone when you are, like, playing bridge or eating dinner. Stuff like that. But my cell phone kept ringing. Then their home phone was ringing. Eventually, my mom decided to pick it up.

While your dad was trying a small-slam.

Yeah, like a six spades.

Hearts, wasn’t it?

Spades, I think. A hard contract.

Like, one of the hardest.

But my brother was in trouble.

He’s dead.

Well, not actually. But on the phone they say he’s dead. He’s found some chef who, like, smuggled in some fugu.

Blowfish.

Fugu is the Japanese for blowfish.

Have you read The Serpent and The Rainbow by Wade Davis?

You should. It’s really interesting.

Like, John Carpenter made it into a movie.

Wes Craven. The point is, you get paralyzed, but your brain is active. This is with fugu poisoning. The book and the movie are about zombies in Haiti.

But it’s related.

Yeah. So, the way people die from blowfish poisoning is that they suffocate because they stop being able to breathe.

Like the muscles that make you breathe, they stop working. You can survive, though. But you look dead.

OK, so we drove down to Toronto, to the hospital.

Without finishing the hand.

Obviously. The doctor there—at the hospital—knows my dad from med school. My brother’s boyfriend is there.

He’s the one who explained about the fugu.

He wouldn’t say where they got it, though.

Like who served him.

Right. But we’ve both read that Wade Davis book and we’re like, He might still be alive. He might survive it.

He did.

Real heroic, right? But, we didn’t tell this to Mike and Lisa, about my brother surviving.

We did explain, though, how we hadn’t played bridge since that night.

Which was because my mom thought that the universe, by killing my brother—

—for about a day—

—was trying to say not to play bridge.

Like the universe cares.

Right.

Why didn’t we explain to Mike and Lisa about your brother being still alive?

I guess I thought it was evident, maybe.

Yeah. Like they would have heard if your brother had died.

I don’t know. How did they even react?

Oh, Mike was going like, Man, and, Oh my God, and swiping his hand down his face.

How did we not figure it out?

I feel like I sort of knew he didn’t get it.

No way.

Maybe I thought it was funny.

You’re bad.

I don’t remember.

Anyway, we wait for my mom and dad to go to bed and we get out the bridge decks. We deal out our first hands.

And you’ve got a great hand.

So great. Mike and I are partners.

And you call a six heart.

Spade, but whatever. The point is that my phone—

Which is behind Mike—

It starts ringing and I’m playing this hand so I ignore it at first. But it keeps ringing and I’m like, Mike, can you pick that up? Tell them I’ll call them back.

So Mike says, Hello? then turns this shade of grey that is, like, scary.

I thought we were going to have to take him to the hospital.

Seriously.

It’s my brother on the phone, calling to say that his bus has just arrived in town, could someone please pick him up. And by the way, what’s wrong with Mike?

We didn’t expect him—

—my brother—

—until the next day.

But Mike thought he was dead, so that’s what was wrong with Mike.

We didn’t play bridge the rest of their visit, though.

Well, we were doing wedding stuff.

But Mike and Lisa didn’t even ask.

No. I did finish that hand though. I made it.

Yeah? I don’t remember that, but sure.

I did make it. Come on.

That’s not the point of the story.

No. True.

Toronto, May-June 2015

Emoji sequence: Emma Sheppard

Story: Lee Sheppard