Blood Sports (26 page)

It’s not fair, she’d say. He shouldn’t get away with it. You’re letting him get away with it.

He went back in the room, shut the lights off one by one, ignoring a growing sense of urgency. He left the hallway light on. He pulled his covers back, and shoved the extra pillows into position so that it looked like someone was sleeping in his bed. He heard voices outside in the parking lot, a woman’s pealing laughter, a man’s grumbling chuckle. He had frozen without realizing what he was doing. He took the cushions from the grungy plaid
loveseat and made a bed in the hallway closet. He lay down. He carefully pulled the closet door shut.

His breathing sounded loud to him. If he fell asleep and someone came in, they would be able to hear him breathing. One part of his brain was saying, this is stupid. Go sleep on the nice bed. Another part of his brain was saying, go get a knife. Put it under your pillow.

They’d come a long way down from the condo. In the bathroom, he watched a line of ants trooping back and forth from under the sink to a crack in the flowered shower tiles. Tom splashed water on his face, trying to get into a semi-normal headspace. He heard a tentative knock on a door.

“It’s okay,” Tom said. “I’m decent.”

After a long pause, the knocking came again, a little louder, more urgent. She’d probably forgotten or lost her keys. Tom wiped his face. He hoped she was going to talk to him tonight. He loathed her silent treatments, her offended sulks. Sobriety had made her unexpectedly judgmental, and she made it clear she found him unworthy.

“Hi,” Paulina said, cramming her hands into her pockets.

The world was suddenly soundless. Traffic streaked behind her, tracers of light reflected off the wet pavement. Rain, backlit by the streetlights, sparks falling. Paulie’s hair frayed loose from her bun, a wispy crown around her solemn face. Her eyes black in the dim light of the covered walkway.

“Hi,” Tom said.

2. Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.

The pedestal fan by the window blew in the dusty smell of car exhaust from the traffic clogging the street in front of Paulie’s house. The heat coming through the ceiling from the roof made the air sticky. Tom and Paulie had lazy morning sex, with long pauses when they stopped to go to the bathroom or eat the wrinkled oranges they scavenged from the bottom of Paulie’s cocktail fridge. Afterward, they lay on their sides, resting their foreheads together.

The woman next door talked on the phone, complaining about her haircut, the parking-lot attendant who made her late for work, the shiftless co-workers who dropped their work on her desk before they took off early for the long weekend. The sprawling house had been divided into seven bachelor suites and everyone seemed to be home today.
TV
s and stereos played different shows and music and the sounds garbled. Outside, someone mowed
their lawn. In the distance, fire trucks honked, blaring their sirens.

Paulie raised her head, propped it up with her hand and stared at him, letting her fingers wander around his face, tracing his eyebrows, his nose, his cheek. She tilted her head back and squinted. “Fuck. That can’t be the right time.”

She scrambled out of bed and tore open a drawer. She jumped into a pair of underwear and then pulled on a bra.

“What’s up?” Tom said.

“I’m late for anger management,” Paulie said.

“Oh,” Tom said. He pushed himself up, yawning.

“Relax, hang out,” Paulie said, flapping open a folded pair of jeans. “I’ll drive you back to the motel after.”

“No rush,” Tom said.

“You should phone her before she calls in the army.”

“We’re barely talking. She’s probably relieved.”

“So you’re going to stay the night again?”

Tom shrugged. “I can stay or go.”

“I need to get out tonight. The walls are closing in.”

“There’s fireworks,” Tom said.

“Fireworks? Jesus fucking Christ, Tom, I’m not four. I need grown-up fun.”

“Give fireworks a chance.”

Paulie gave him a quick peck before she was out the door.

He put an arm over his eyes to block out the light. If his mom wasn’t going to tell him where she was spending her nights, he didn’t see why he should. Let her wonder. The guilt crept in. That logic ranked right up there with sticking out his tongue and going nyah-nyah, especially after his disappearing act last year. He listened to the background noise for a few minutes longer, and then he pushed himself out of bed and hunted through his pants for the phone number of the motel.

“Kingsway Motor Inn,” the clerk said.

“220, please,” Tom said, feeling his shoulders tighten in anticipation of a fight.

“Just a sec,” the clerk said.

Tom could hear a voice in the background complaining about the quality of the
TV
reception. The phone clicked and then rang again.

“What?” a guy said.

Great. She’d brought a date back. “Hi. Is my mom there?”

“Who the fuck is this?”

“Tom Bauer. Christa’s son.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Chrissy. Chris. Look, tell her if she doesn’t want to talk to me, that’s fine.”

“You got the wrong room.”

Tom listened to the dial tone, wondering if his mom had told the guy not to tell him she was there. Tom had run blocking duty for her too many times not to know that trick. He phoned the motel again.

“Kingsway –”

“Christa Bauer, please,” Tom said.

“Give me a minute,” the clerk said. Tom could hear the slow click of hunt-and-peck typing and then a long pause. “She checked out last night.”

“That can’t be right,” Tom said. “I’m staying with her.”

“I’ve got her signature on the credit-card receipt. She checked out.”

“Did she leave any messages? I’m her son. Tom Bauer.”

“Nope. Nothing.”

“Are you sure? Can you check again? Try Tommy Bauer. Or Thomas.”

“Uh … I’m sure. She didn’t leave anything. Sorry, man.”

She checked out. She hadn’t left a phone number. Instead of wondering and worrying about where he was, she’d taken the opportunity to sneak off. Like all her dumped boyfriends, Tom hadn’t seen it coming. She was saying, you think you’re leaving me? Ha. Not if I leave you first.

The lobby had vaulted ceilings like a church. Two room-sized tapestries faced each other on the taupe walls. A uniformed man looked up from the concierge’s desk and offered them a warm smile. Tom’s mother squeezed his hand, biting her lip.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Rieger,” the concierge said.

“Good afternoon, Bert,” Jeremy said.

The elevator doors chimed pleasantly and opened to a hushed hallway with two doors made of burled wood. Theirs was on the left. Jeremy put the card in the lock and flung the door open with a flourish.

“Ta-da!” he said. “Welcome to your new digs.”

Stark and storm grey from the lofty ceilings to the buffed streaked-marble floor, the entranceway opened to a living room as wide as their old apartment. A wall of glass on one side had a view of Stanley Park and the harbour between the office buildings. A large-screen
TV
and its speakers took up the other wall. On the other side, twin gunmetal staircases led up to two loft rooms that looked down on the living room like it was a courtyard.

“What do you think, Aunt Chrissy?” Jeremy said to Tom’s mother.

“It’s like a dream,” she said. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

His mom couldn’t relax in the condo. She put a blanket down before she would sit on the sofa, ate over the sink, and wiped her fingerprints off the many glass surfaces. She agonized over whether or not to tip the man who delivered their groceries, sometimes giving him too much, sometimes not giving him anything. She wasn’t sure how to treat the concierge, and would rush by him, avoiding eye contact. She washed her underwear in the bathroom sink rather than give them to complete strangers at the laundry service that picked their clothes up every Monday and Thursday.

“It’s so quiet here,” she said one night, curled into the corner of the sofa. “It’s like we’re the only people on Earth.”

“It’s soundproofed,” Jeremy said. “You’re not supposed to hear anything.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining. You get used to hearing people in other apartments. I kind of miss it. Do you remember the Baker twins? Oh, my, were they a handful. All that guitar playing and drumming and screaming.”

“You miss your noisy neighbours,” Jeremy said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“No, no, not at all. But you get used to people sounds.”

“People sounds.”

“Arguing, laughing, babies crying, people vacuuming,
TV
s blaring. Ordinary sounds. Oh, listen to me. I do sound like I’m complaining, don’t I?”

Tom woke the next morning and his mother was gone. She’d left a Post-it note on the
TV
, “Mommy’s night out! See you at breakfast! Don’t wait up! Hugs! I love you, Tommy!”

Two days later, when she still wasn’t back, he went looking for her. She liked to end an evening dancing at The Balmoral. She told him it always gave her a kick to think she was in the same hotel that the Queen herself had once been in. Tom was pretty
sure Queen Vic wouldn’t be sitting around getting wasted with her drinking buddies.

“Tommy!” she said. “Honey bunny, come sit beside me.”

“Mom, I think we should go home. It’s not safe down here. You’re going to get –”

“Oh, don’t be a fusspot. My friends will take care of me, right?”

A chorus of agreement from the people around the table.

“Another round for my friends!” she shouted at the waitress.

Six rounds later, he tried to pull her up.

Her friends pulled him off, told him to go home, stop trying to spoil the party.

Tom sat with them into the evening, listening to his mother getting drunker. Her drinking buddies nodded their heads to agree with her as she rambled. The bar filled, and she was surrounded by people bumming drinks. She used to be the one looking for free booze, but now she sat tall, smiled at him whenever she decided someone was worthy of her generosity.

Tom started home after the bars closed. His mom was going to a boozecan. She’d invited him along, but he was tired of watching her play queen bee. She’d come home when she ran out of money, which might be a few days because Jeremy was giving her a monthly allowance larger than anything she’d ever earned at a job.