Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
I want to howl
when I remember how we were. I want to bite my hand in frustration and pace the
streets looking for him, because after all these months, I still don’t
understand how he can be gone. Wanting someone this much should raise him from
the dead.
“I’m not gone,”
Bastien assures me. “You know I’m not.”
“I pretend
you’re not,” I tell him. I knew him so well that I can be a convincing mimic. It
comforts me to think about how he’d react to different situations; it keeps him
near. But that’s more difficult to do when I’m around other people and I stop
the patter in my head as I near Yunhee’s apartment.
The day’s turned
gray and drizzly and I didn’t bring an umbrella, so my hair’s damp when I
arrive. Yunhee and Katie hug me and Yunhee sends me to the bathroom to use her
hairdryer. When I emerge they’re lounging on Yunhee’s orange couch (most of the
furniture in the apartment is her roommate Vishaya’s, but I was with Yunhee the
day she picked out the deeply discounted couch at IKEA) and Katie wants to know
all about Oakville and what I’m doing with myself there. Yunhee shoots her a
weary look as if to say,
I told you not to do this.
“What?” Katie asks
loudly in response. “I haven’t seen her in six months. I’m not supposed to ask
how she’s doing?”
“Actually, I got
a job,” I announce. “Just a part-time thing, but the owner of the store I’m
working in, she’s really nice. She’s actually Abigail’s neighbor.” I assume
Yunhee has already informed Katie about my arrangement with Abigail. “And
actually, Oakville is really nice.”
I cringe at the
number of times I’ve just used the word
actually
. Katie’s my friend. Why
do I feel like I have something to prove?
“I didn’t know
you had a new job,” Yunhee says. “That’s great.”
Great’s an
overstatement, but I appreciate the encouragement and smile at her for it. “I
think I was too caught up in talking about the root canal the last time we
spoke to mention the job, but yeah, it’s not bad. It’s pretty relaxed. Like I
said, it’s my neighbor Marta’s store and it sells imported grocery and corner
shop type items from the U.K. and Ireland. Tons of chocolate and cookies, but
other things too.”
“You always hear
people say British chocolate is better,” Katie comments.
Chastened by
Yunhee, Katie drops any further questions about Oakville, which leaves them
discussing their busy school schedules and how hard third year is while I
listen in and groan along with them. “And what about that old philosophy TA
that you were hooking up with?” Katie wants to know. “Chas? Chad?”
“Chas,” Yunhee
confirms, glancing my way. “She doesn’t mean
old
old. Just that he was
my TA last year. You and I ran into him in the library together that time last
fall. Do you remember? He was talking about having to get his dog put down.”
“The guy with
the sideburns?” I ask. He didn’t seem like Yunhee’s type—too intellectual and
pretentious, especially the sideburns. I bet he doesn’t even own a drill.
Jealousy pinches at my neck: Katie knew about Chas before I did.
“He shaved them
off,” Yunhee says, “but yeah, that’s him.” She yawns like the topic is really
boring and unimportant. “You know how it is; there’s just no decent boyfriend
material around. The good guys, like Bastien, are never single for more than
two seconds and I was seriously starting to climb the walls with sexual
frustration.” She slouches down on the couch and kicks her feet up onto the
coffee table. “Chas can be a really self-absorbed ass sometimes, but we
promised each other we’d hook up exclusively and so far I think we’re both
sticking to it. You know, it’s good just to be able to have someone to call at
those times when you really need to get laid.”
Katie shakes her
head, a high-pitched laugh escaping from her lips. “I wish I could be like
that. I get too emotionally involved. It’s like the minute I start sleeping
with someone I want him to
be there for me
, not just as a physical
thing.”
“Yeah, well,
that would be ideal,” Yunhee says, shifting her feet on the coffee table. “But
personally I begin to go slowly insane waiting for that.”
Yunhee dated a
guy named Keyon for a few months at the end of first year. He seemed really
nice and down to earth, and when things didn’t work out Yunhee looked teary at
the mention of his name for weeks, but would only say that that his life was
complicated in a way that it wouldn’t be fair to discuss with anyone else. When
she felt better again Yunhee told me she was swearing off guys for the
foreseeable future because the bad ones weren’t worth the emotional turmoil and
she wasn’t even sure if the good ones were. I’m remembering all that when
Yunhee adds, “It was almost a year since Keyon. At least now I know the sexual
part of my life is taken care of. Otherwise it’s sort of like
wondering—obviously on a much lesser scale—where your next meal is coming from.
It’s distracting.”
“A vibrator
would’ve taken care of that too, you know,” I say, half-joking.
But Yunhee can hear
the other half in my voice. “Pfft.” She folds one of her legs over the other,
her top foot restlessly pumping the air. “It’s not the same. It’s not just
about sticking something inside you. It’s everything else too. Mouths and skin
and just—”
“Sharing
yourself with another person,” Katie interrupts.
I know that.
I
know that.
Maybe I wouldn’t have disapproved of Yunhee hooking up with some
guy she merely tolerates before Bastien died, but everything she and Katie have
just said only stresses that there should be more to sex than slotting A into
B. If you don’t care about the person you might as well be switching on a
machine and taking care of yourself that way. Sharing yourself with somebody
that doesn’t really care—the thought of that makes me feel so lonely for
Bastien that my lip has begun to quiver. I bite down to stop it as Katie and
Yunhee trade stricken looks.
“I’m sorry,”
Yunhee murmurs. “I should just shut up. I know it’s not a good situation—Chas
and I—and it makes an even worse topic of conversation.”
“It’s okay,” I
lie. This time I’ve stopped the tears from starting, but Yunhee and Katie have
sensed I’m upset anyway. “Everything just makes me think of Bastien. It doesn’t
help to think about how I was lucky now that he’s gone.”
Katie stares at the
knees of her jeans.
“I want to know
what’s going on with both you guys, though,” I continue, keeping my voice
straight as a ruler. “I do. I want to know about Chas and whatever else there
is.”
Katie looks me
in the eye. “I don’t have a Chas.” She cracks an impish smile. “But for the
record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with owning a vibrator.”
Yunhee’s
eyebrows jump. “Do you have one?”
Katie does, it
turns out, and that makes for a more entertaining, and less tear-inducing,
topic of conversation. But soon Katie and I are craving caffeine and the three
of us have to stroll out to the local Second Cup in the rain for proper coffee
(Yunhee only has instant). Afterwards we go to the supermarket to buy pizza
dough because Yunhee wants to bake pizza but can’t cook any better than I can.
We start with the store-bought dough, spooning on canned tomato sauce,
mozzarella and the asparagus, shrimp and mushroom leftovers Yunhee has in her
fridge. I grate some Gouda and toss that on too. Katie decides bacon should be
the final touch and fries a couple of slices, chops them into pieces and throws
them on to complete our semi-homemade pizza.
At first it
tastes like a discordant mix of flavors, but I keep chewing and by the second
slice I’ve decided it’s not disastrously bad. We clean up slowly and once we’re
done it’s time to walk up to Massey Hall for the concert. Aside from the odd
drop or two, the rain’s stopped and I realize I’ve genuinely been enjoying my
time with Yunhee and Katie.
“You see,”
Bastien would say as we stroll up Yonge Street, “it’s good to hang out with
your friends.”
But when I look
over at Katie and Yunhee to tell them I’m having a good time, Yunhee’s hands
are clutching her abdomen like she’s forty weeks pregnant and her water just
broke. She rushes desperately over to the Flight Center travel agency and loses
her pizza on the ground directly underneath the window where they have
Caribbean seat sales posted. Katie and I follow as she continues to heave. I
grab Yunhee’s hair and pull it back out of her way, and once her stomach’s
empty I rummage around in my purse and pull out a wad of tissues for her.
“Here.” I take one of the tissues and wipe a speck of yellow from her hair.
“Fuck,” Yunhee
mutters as we step away from the vomit puddle. She runs one of the offered
tissues around her lips and slides the rest into her back pocket.
“Are you okay?”
Katie asks.
“Not really,
no,” Yunhee replies, her eyes shimmering and her face gray and waxy. “I need to
go back to the apartment.”
“We’ll come with
you,” I offer, grabbing her elbow to direct her.
Katie frowns but
turns with us. We’ve only taken six or seven steps when Yunhee stops and says,
“I can make it okay. It’s only a few blocks. You guys should go to the
concert.”
“You’re sick,” I
point out. “We’re not just going to leave you here. We can walk you back to
your place and still get up to Massey Hall in time for The Vintage Savages.
We’ll only miss a bit of the opening act.”
When we reach
Yunhee’s Front Street apartment I’m tempted to stay and take care of her, more
because I don’t want to go the concert without her than out of worry, but I
know neither Yunhee nor Katie will stand for that. I said I’d go to the concert
and there’s no turning back. Katie rubs Yunhee’s shoulder as we say goodbye on
her doorstep, and while the two of us are heading back to Yonge Street, Katie
mutters, “I hope that’s not food poisoning from the shrimp we put on the
pizza.”
Me too. I don’t
need a case of food poisoning on top of my root canal, although it would be the
perfect excuse not to go to the concert. Maybe I should’ve eaten more shrimp.
Outside Massey
Hall a few minutes later, we squeeze into the deluge of people filtering into
the venue. For a multicultural city, the crowd is incredibly white, most of the
ticket holders fitting comfortably in the eighteen to thirty age bracket.
Because the opening band’s still on we head down to the bar in the basement and
buy beer before sliding into our fifth row center seats. You have to hand it to
Katie’s cousin—he never fails to produce good seats. I sit next to Yunhee’s
empty chair. A couple with their hands glued together are on Katie’s other
side, and for The Vintage Savage’s first three or four songs Katie is fairly
restrained. Then the band launch into their second major radio hit “Never,
Ever, Not
”
and she whips up out of her seat and tries to yank me up with
her.
It’s not really
a song you can dance to but Katie achieves that regardless, her fist pumping
the air as the band shouts out the lyrics:
Never.
Ever.
Not.
The girls behind
us begin to get annoyed when Katie stays on her feet for the next number too,
and I begin to dread the arrival of—and subsequent debate with—security. I can
see the nearest security guy, with beefy arms and a soul patch, eyeing us from
his position near the front of the stage. He waits until the next song, a
so
melancholy you could slit your wrists
number, has begun before trooping
over to us. Then he steps in front of me, leaning over to whisper into Katie’s
ear. She swivels to survey the sixth row girls, who have been getting an eyeful
of her ass and not much else for the past ten minutes, and then cups her hand
around the security guy’s ear and whispers back, pointing to the area in front
of the stage. He shakes his head no. Katie continues talking, pointing and
shrugging her shoulders as though everything she’s suggesting is completely
within the realm of acceptable concert audience behavior.
The security guy
doesn’t buy it, is getting tired of arguing with her. Finally Katie rolls her
eyes and takes her seat. Luckily it’s not long before lead singer Vince Burnett
is urging fans to, “Come down to the front of the stage and kick things up a
notch!” I don’t resist when Katie drags me along with her because it was
inevitable, as inevitable as the skinny blond guy she starts making eyes at as
she presses up against the stage. The guy’s more attractive than her other
concert finds, but he looks young and will probably turn out to either be
underage, already have a girlfriend (in which case he shouldn’t be flirting
back the way he is) or be the type who will want to film Katie giving him a
blow job with his cell phone and then forward the clip to his friends.
It bothers me
that my kneejerk reaction to my friends’ involvement these days is matronly
criticism.
Maybe he’s a great guy
, I lecture.
Maybe he’s Katie’s next
long term boyfriend or the future father of her children.
Even if he’s not,
is everyone supposed to be alone because I am? Is anything less than what
Bastien and I had not worth possessing? That’s the way I think, obviously, but
I shouldn’t be foisting that viewpoint onto my friends, and it’s because I feel
guilty about my shortcomings in that area that I try to be nice to the skinny
blond guy and his friend when Katie and I loiter around outside Massey Hall at
the end of the show talking to them.
They’re from
Brampton and both nineteen, so technically only a year younger than us, but I
feel much older than twenty now; I feel like a sour old widow with a shawl and
corns on her feet. People get confused by my appearance, but that’s the true
Leah. She tires easily, has bad teeth and no appetite and doesn’t want the door
or phone to ring because she doesn’t want to have to get up to answer them.