Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
“Just give me a
chance to talk to my new boss first, okay?” I say. “I’ll definitely come but
I’m not sure how much time I’ll be able to take off.” I haven’t even started
yet and this new job is already proving useful. Not that I don’t want to see my
parents, but I know the way they think: they’ll see a Christmas visit as an
opportunity to wear me down with arguments about how I’d be so much better off
in Burnaby. The job will give me a solid reason to be back in Oakville on a
specific date.
It turns out my
father’s out at a work dinner with some friends, which is good news for me
because it means I only have to field questions about when I’m coming home once
today. After I get off the phone with my mother I go next door to talk to
Marta. Deirdre answers the door but leaves me and Marta alone in the living
room to discuss business. Inside the narrow living room a Victorian couch and
chair set, which looks like the real thing although it must have been
reupholstered, faces a brick fireplace. I opt for the chair next to a small
circular wooden table. I glance at the table as I sit, digesting the contents
of the picture frame balanced atop it: Marta and Deirdre tenderly holding hands
as they face each other in front of an elegantly decorated wedding arch. My
eyes flick immediately to the photograph beside it, the happy couple posed with
their heads leaning together (Marta’s hair up and Deirdre’s down), their bodies
flanked by family and friends.
I instantly feel
like an idiot—Marta and Deirdre are indeed related, but not in the way I’d
originally guessed. Thankfully I never outright said anything about them being
mother and daughter and have avoided the need for an awkward apology; we’re
free to concentrate on business.
The O’Keefe’s
wages aren’t impressive, but I wasn’t expecting them to be so that doesn’t
change my mind. Marta says she’s ever so glad I’m taking the job and that I can
start on Saturday or Sunday if I like. I almost choose Sunday, just because
it’s a day further away, but remind myself that I need the money.
So Saturday it
is. I wake up at eleven-thirty on my first day at work and eat some yogurt
while rereading
Johnny Yang
. At this point it’s quite possible that I
might have read it more times than Bastien himself. I should probably photocopy
it so I don’t destroy the original pages thumbing through them so often.
One of the
things that I really love about it, aside from the bizarre concept, is that
Bastien’s sense of humor shines through on every page. Even as fifteen-year-old
Johnny’s angsting about his tail and the mutation of his genitals (one of
Bastien’s full-page sketches of Johnny show how he resembles a dolphin from the
waist down while in his merman state. Bastien made a starred notation next to
the drawing—which I believe was just meant for him and not for publication—that
a male dolphin’s genitals are hidden away inside a long slit when they’re not
in use) he’s cracking jokes about his plummeting level of coolness.
In one panel
that Bastien already completed you see Johnny think to himself: “I mean it’s
not like I was cool before, but you never see dudes with dorsal fins looking
badass in rap videos. Even Aquaman doesn’t have a tail. It’s totally
demoralizing swishing around like a frigging tuna. The only positive in my
situation is that I live near a lake rather than the sea, otherwise some
commercial fishing boat would probably scoop me up and try to sell my carcass
as a delicacy.”
I know for a
fact that Bastien wasn’t sure where he was going with the story. He just wanted
to let it evolve on the page. But lately when I leaf through Bastien’s sketches
and dialogue I keep thinking about romance finding Johnny Yang, either via a
mermaid or an understanding human girl. Bastien would hate for me to turn
Johnny
Yang
into something cheesy, but there has to be a way to give Johnny a love
interest without melting the story into mush. And the story needs some other
element too—a murder or some other intrigue—because right now it’s in danger of
being episodic. Johnny needs to do more than struggle to keep his merman
identity a secret.
I need to think
on it further but right now I have to get myself ready for work. I peek in at a
dozing Armstrong and then change into freshly ironed striped pants and a long
sleeve gingham shirt. My antibiotics and painkillers and copy of
The
Handmaid’s Tale
travel with me as I walk down to Lakeshore Road imagining
what Bastien would say about my new job. He’d approve, I think, for the same
reasons anyone who knows me would approve. Being employed, even part-time,
makes it look like I’m getting better. Less sad.
I argue with him
in my head: “I’m not better. I’m dysfunctional. I miss you so much that I can’t
think clearly most of the time.”
Bastien: “I miss
you too. But I still think the job’s going to be a good thing. Don’t sweat it
too much. It’s all going to work out just fine. Your boss seems like a nice
lady and it’s not rocket science, right?”
“I know.”
Bastien (and
this next part he’d say with a teasing smile): “Lot of chocolate and candy in
that place. You might get some of your booty back.” Bastien preferred girls
with curves. He never said as much but I could tell by the kind of girl he
checked out when he thought I wasn’t looking. I was on the skinny side for him,
even before I lost weight.
Before I had a
chance to react he’d throw a sympathetic arm around me and cuddle me to him.
“But damn, Leah, what’s this about a root canal?” Bastien isn’t a fan of
doctors or dentists. He’d be more afraid for me than I’d be for myself and
would baby me afterwards, slide
Moulin Rouge
into the DVD player for me,
make me lie on the couch, and bring me my fluids.
If Bastien were
still alive that’s how this surgery would go for me. The root canal would have
a positive side, offering moments of intimacy. It’s strange that such a minor
event like an infected tooth is an inevitability that would’ve occurred whether
Bastien was alive or dead, while the accident that ended his life could’ve just
as easily been avoided had events played out ever so slightly differently than
they had on the evening of January eleventh. If Bastien had left Etienne’s house
thirty seconds earlier…If he’d walked with a slower gait…If he’d forgotten
something and had to go back…If Etienne had canceled…If the woman who’d smashed
into Bastien had driven marginally faster and made it past the crosswalk before
he’d ventured into the street…The variations were infinite and any one of them
would have resulted in a different reality than the one I’m currently living
without Bastien. Everything would be different, except my need for a root
canal.
But I shouldn’t
think about what-ifs on my way to work. They’re like a poison; they’ll only
make me worse. Bastien repeats that message for me, with added emphasis: “Get
your head in the game, Leah. You’re supposed to be concentrating on getting
your boobs back here.”
“I thought it
was my booty?”
“Well, you know,
you can aim for both.” Bastien smiles his boyish smile inside my mind. God, I
miss that smile. Miss his sleepy half-awake kisses and bad morning breath. We
could banter in my head all day and nothing real-life would compare.
There’s no cure
for that kind of missing, but I keep walking, getting my head in the game like
he might advise if I didn’t have to make up his side of the dialogue. Right now
this job is something that will help keep him close. That’s reason enough to do
it.
Over the weekend I work with
Marta and her fifteen-year-old nephew Kevin. He’s red-haired and freckly and
initially talks compulsively about things I know nothing about—videogames,
skateboarding and ancient acid rock bands. His left arm’s bandaged because he
snapped his wrist skateboarding down a playground slide and he keeps dipping
his fingers into the bandage to scratch, but once he figures out we have
absolutely nothing in common he nixes the other topics and sticks to passing on
his knowledge of British and Irish biscuits, sauces, soups, jams, beverages,
beans, potato chips, chocolates and the various meat pies and bakery items that
we sell frozen.
Because of his
presence, Marta herself doesn’t have to explain much. Kevin even teaches me how
to use the cash register. Bastien was right about the job not being rocket
science, but the constant smiling at/making small talk with customers is
draining. By the end of the weekend I’m ready to fall into a coma sleep.
Monday I stay in
bed until one o’clock and don’t leave the house all day. In the late afternoon
the dentist’s office calls and says the endodontist, Doctor Garmash, has had a
cancelation and can squeeze me in for a consultation on Wednesday afternoon if
I can make it. Since his office is in Mississauga I have to take two buses to
get there and when I do the news is similar to the dentist’s. I not only
require a root canal (which they schedule for two weeks’ time), I’ll have to go
back to the dentist for a crown because, as Doctor Garmash explains it,
afterwards the treated tooth will become brittle and prone to break. Together
the root canal and crown will set my parents back approximately sixteen hundred
dollars, which is four thousand less than they would’ve paid in tuition if I’d
gone back to school this fall, but still no small sum for them. Unlike
Bastien’s parents, they’ve never vacationed in Europe and their mortgage won’t
be paid up for years. Neither of them has a university degree but they’ve
diligently put what savings they could aside for my education.
These days my
father, in particular, is worried that I’ll never finish school—that I’ve been
permanently derailed—and I can’t tell him that I’m A-Okay or point to a
specific date when I will be, but one of the things that I can do, as a small
badge of stability, is keep my new job at O’Keefe’s and not ask him or my
mother for any more money.
I can’t afford
to do nothing anymore; I never really could. Gratitude for all Abigail has done
for me washes over me as I make the long bus journey back to Oakville. I’d
probably be on my way back to my parents’ house any day now if it weren’t for
Bastien’s aunt. Returning to B.C. was the last thing I wanted to do and at
first I would’ve continued to resist, running through the rest of my savings
and then probably sleeping on Yunhee’s uncomfortable orange IKEA couch until I
either had a complete breakdown or Yunhee’s roommate, Vishaya, got fed up with
me and forced Yunhee to offer some reluctant kind of ultimatum. Possibly Katie
or even Etienne would’ve let me stay with them awhile too, but I wouldn’t have
been able to couch surf forever. And even if I’d somehow managed to stay in
Toronto this long, the root canal would be the final straw—a financial disaster
that I’d have no hope of resolving without the space and calm that surround me
at Abigail’s.
Since January
I’ve been both surprisingly fortunate and tragically unlucky. I would like to
believe the lucky parts have had as much to do with Bastien as the unlucky
part. In a way that’s obvious—Abigail is his aunt, after all—but what I mean is
that I like to think of him pulling strings on the other side, trying to help
me along when he can.
I can’t convince
myself—I’m skeptical—but I’d like to.
I try.
And I focus on Bastien,
remind myself what his living presence felt like, as I open his copy of
The
Handmaid’s Tale
to an indiscriminate page and read, “I know where I am.
I’ve been here before.”
It doesn’t
necessarily mean anything to me but somehow it’s comforting all the same.
Sometime I should start from the beginning and read the book how it was meant
to be read.
Sometime
. I’m not up to it now. My mind tends to wander
after a few pages. Still, between the random pages and phrases I’ve digested,
I’ve worked out the main characters’ motivations and general outlook, the
multiple horrors of a fascist society. If I was in an old Leah frame of mind
the novel would frighten me; I would read as quickly as possible to assure
myself that Offred triumphs and be distraught if she doesn’t.
I would care.
Instead I set the
book in my lap after four pages and stare out the window the same way I stare
at the television or the birds down at the lake. When I arrive home, sleepy
from the motion of the bus, the telephone’s ringing. I see Yunhee’s number on
the display and snap up the cordless, wishing I could cancel on her, although I
promised myself I wouldn’t.
“Guess what?” I
grumble. “I need a root canal. Just got back from the dentist.” I hastily
correct myself: “Not the dentist—an endodontist—and one of my teeth is infected.”
“Nooooo!” Yunhee
cries. “Aren’t root canals supposed to be a complete nightmare?”
“Thanks,” I tell
her. “That’s really comforting. It’s a good thing you decided not to become a
doctor like your parents wanted.”
“Oh, I know. Can
you imagine? I’d constantly be grimacing at people and saying the wrong thing,
like, ‘I hope that’s not as bad as it looks.’”
I can imagine
her saying that. Her automatic reaction to most medical info is a scrunched up
face and recoiling posture.
“Listen,” she
continues, “Katie called me earlier to reschedule. Some psych assignment she
forgot about is due tomorrow and her cousin offered her tickets to The Vintage
Savages at Massey Hall next Tuesday, so she thought it would be cool if the
three of us went.” The Vintage Savages are the latest grunge revival band (or
maybe there’s been another one since I stopped paying attention) to hit it big.
Katie’s cousin is a concert promoter and is always coming up with free tickets
for her. “I know we said we’d get together tomorrow—and you and I can still do
that if you want—but Katie made me promise that I’d try to talk you into coming
to the concert with us.”