Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
From his place
in the kitchen, Liam calls after me, “I can give you a lift if you wait until I
finish my tea.” His tone has taken a turn towards indifference. Maybe I’ve worn
him out by acting so erratically.
“That’s okay,” I
say over my shoulder. “But thanks.” I repeat myself as I turn the doorknob:
“Thanks.”
Liam doesn’t try
to stop me or follow me, and I guess I’m glad. Things already feel too
complicated between us. There’s too much to explain and excuse and I can’t do
either.
I walk home
alone in the dark, my panties in Liam’s wastebasket and my mind flicking back
and forth between an entire relationship’s worth of images and tonight’s
unexpected experiences with Liam. One shouldn’t affect the other
retrospectively. I was never unfaithful to Bastien and tonight doesn’t change
that. This is what I tell myself as I trek home in the dark, but I feel hollow,
small and useless by the time I get there.
This wasn’t the
way things were supposed to happen. If there was going to be someone else it
shouldn’t have been for a long time yet, and then it should have been a
full-fledged relationship, not a record speed hook-up. My head’s begun to throb
around the temples and I want to crawl into bed, shut the world out and stay
there forever, but first I need to shower. It wouldn’t seem right to get under
the sheets with the feel of Liam still on me. So I climb into the shower and
lather up. Staring at my own naked body under the stream of water makes me
think about Liam again—not like I ever really stopped—and when I do lie down
the pressure’s so intense that I’m surprised my head hasn’t sprung a leak.
I sleep fitfully.
Each time I wake and check the clock it’s to find that not more than an hour
has passed. When light begins filtering through my curtains, I stumble into the
bathroom, head still throbbing, reach for a bottle of ibuprofen and am about to
twist the lid off when I remember that I need to go to the pharmacy for
emergency contraception pills. I don’t know if the ibuprofen could interfere
with them—I can’t risk that.
The closest
pharmacies are in downtown Oakville, but I don’t want to take the chance that
I’ll run into Liam, so I decide to head in the opposite direction, to the
Shoppers Drug Mart on Cornwall Road. I log on to my seldom used laptop to try
to check their hours but every wireless network within range is
security-enabled, rendering my Wi-Fi connection useless. When I look up the
their phone number in the yellow pages and call Shoppers Drug Mart the message
on their machine says they open at eight o’clock. It’s almost that now so I
change into sweat pants and a flannel shirt, the pain of the headache keeping
me company as I throw my jacket on and step outside.
The kind of
shaky I am now is entirely different from last night’s: sleep-deprived and
faintly nauseous from the pounding in my skull. I have to stop thinking about
last night. Forget about it. Swallow the pill and then put it behind me.
Nothing else
makes any sense. There’s no way I can undo what happened on the pier, but maybe
I’ve been allowing it a significance it shouldn’t have. The act itself doesn’t
mean that I’m a bad person or that I don’t miss Bastien. Maybe missing him so
much is part of what made me do it. Whatever the case, I can’t let it drag me
down like this. It’s as though after all I’ve been through some kind of
survival mechanism is kicking in.
I can’t rake
myself over the coals for this. I won’t. I’ll bury it. Let it disappear.
Having decided
that I feel marginally better, but my palms are clammy when I stride through
Shoppers Drug Marts’ automatic doors. The pharmacies are always at the back of
the stores and I march determinedly down the vitamin aisle and towards the
prescription counter.
A dark-haired
woman in her forties is on the phone. She acknowledges me with her eyes and
raises one of her fingers to indicate that she’ll be with me in a minute. I nod
and pretend to look at the display of cold remedies in front of the counter.
“Hello,” she
greets as she hangs up the phone and looks in my direction. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so.” I
drop my voice so the stock guy unloading boxes a couple of aisles away won’t
overhear. “I need the morning after pill.”
“Would you like
to step into the private consultation room with me for a moment?” the woman
asks, motioning over her shoulder. I glance at the area behind the counter,
spying an open doorway off to the left.
The woman raises
the counter flap and ushers me back behind the divide. I follow her into a
consultation room the size of a small walk-in closet and sit in the padded
chair across from hers, the two of us separated by an undersized modular desk.
“I just have a
couple of brief questions,” she says. “When was the unprotected incident?”
“Just…” I do the
math in my head. “Just about nine hours ago.”
“And you’re not
using any other method of birth control?” Her voice isn’t the slightest bit
judgmental, but the question makes me feel like a fool.
“No. I used to
be on the pill but…” But I’ve been stupid. I cringe as I remember how I
sprinted out of Liam’s place last night. I should’ve waited until he finished
his tea and let him drive me home. Panicking like that will just make it harder
to regain some kind of normalcy with him if I ever see him again.
“But not now?”
the pharmacist suggests.
“No. Not now.”
“And are you
currently taking any medications?”
“No.” It’s been
weeks since I had to take the pain pills and antibiotics for my tooth. “I
didn’t even take anything for my headache this morning.”
The woman smiles
briefly. “You can take some acetaminophen
or
ibuprofen. It shouldn’t be a problem. Just one more thing: do you have any
medical conditions or any allergies?”
“No. Nothing.”
“All right,
well, the pill is approximately ninety-five percent effective at preventing
pregnancy when taken within twenty-four hours, like you’ll be doing, but
doesn’t protect against STDs.” I manage a curt nod. “It’ll just be a couple of
minutes’ wait,” she adds, rising to show me out.
I wander around
the store, staring at cosmetics and magazines that I don’t bother to pick up.
The shelves are filled with Halloween decorations—witches, ghouls, cobwebs and
gravestones—and bags of miniature chocolate bars, temporarily reminding that
the upcoming holiday is less than two weeks away. The stock guy’s whistling in
the hair care aisle. Obviously his day is off to a better start than mine. I
return to the counter shortly. The pharmacist sets a paper bag on the counter
and explains there are some potential side effects. “You can read more details
on the info sheet inside. Your next period may be a little different than
usual.”
“Thank you,” I
say gratefully. I can’t wait to get this over with and wipe yesterday from my
memory. Thank God for modern medicine.
“Take it with
food,” she advises as she rings up the sale for me.
The single pill
costs about the same as last night’s dinner at The Rose and Crown. Mistakes are
expensive.
After I’ve paid,
I walk across the parking lot to Whole Foods and buy apples, carrots and cheese
for me and Armstrong. Then I wash my pill down with strong Whole Foods coffee
and munch on a blueberry muffin. As stupid as I feel about my mistake, it feels
good to be taking care of it, like I’m getting back on track.
With the hardest
part of the day behind me, I go home to Abigail’s couch and fall asleep in the
sunlight to the innocent sound of children’s morning television.
Later I feel a little nauseous,
but I don’t throw up. I catch up on my laundry, watch a slew of police/mystery
shows back to back, have a bowl of cereal and then read more about Offred. Her
story has become a welcome distraction to my own. At one time, the horror of
not having any choice would have made it a more difficult read for me, but now
I find Offred’s inner courage irresistible.
The book doesn’t
send me direct messages anymore, but it’s a kind of inspiration. If Offred, who
is a normal woman and not some glamorous superhero who obliterates villains
while wearing stilettos, can be that strong in the face of adversity, why can’t
I?
I read late into
the night and continue on Tuesday, finishing in mid-afternoon. I cry a little
when I finish because I don’t want to let Offred go. She feels like a friend
I’ve just never happened to meet in person.
On Wednesday I
bring her with me on the bus ride to the endodontist and reread several
sections of the book. The ride there and back takes much longer than the actual
root canal procedure, which is finished in just over an hour. The endodontist
is pleased with the outcome and says he doesn’t feel I need any antibiotics,
but that I’ll want to take some ibuprofen for the pain once the freezing begins
to come out. “You can go ahead and book an appointment with your dentist for
the crown in a couple of weeks’ time,” he advises. “You’ll want to eat very
soft foods for the next couple of days while things are settling down. And
continue to avoid hard and crunchy foods until you get the crown put on. It’d be
a good idea to rinse with warm salt water for the next couple of days too.” He
writes me out a prescription for a pain killer in case the ibuprofen doesn’t do
the trick and says to call the office if I have any problems.
Because my
parents have already forwarded a check to Doctor Garmash, there’s nothing left
for me to worry about, except making that appointment for the crown later. Due
to the lengthy bus ride, the area of my mouth Doctor Garmash was working on
begins to throb before I make it home. I go directly to the same Shoppers Drug
Mart I purchased the Plan B pill from two days ago and buy more ibuprofen (I
don’t want to get the prescription for the stronger stuff filled unless I
really need it) as well as soup, ice cream, microwaveable macaroni and cheese
and several packages of Halloween chocolates. While I’m there I notice there’s
a different pharmacist on duty, a black man in his late forties whose faded
Caribbean accent and clipped graying beard remind me of Bastien’s father. I’m
glad he wasn’t the one I had to face the other morning; I might have had to try
a different drugstore.
Finally, I
arrive back at Abigail’s, feeling a bit sorry for myself because of the pain.
Like always, my brain wants to drift towards Bastien, pull him into the present
with me. But now no matter how hard I try, the memory of what Liam and I did
attaches itself to what I had with Bastien. It doesn’t compare and it shouldn’t
change the past, yet I can’t completely purge the night from my mind.
I wonder what
Yunhee would say to me if she knew about Liam, but I’ll never tell a soul.
Telling would make what happened more real, make forgetting harder.
The freezing
hasn’t faded enough for me to eat yet. I stick a straw into a juice box,
swallow apple juice and lie on the couch with two pillows propped under my
head. I’m halfway to dreamland when the doorbell rings, wrenching me back to
reality. The ibuprofen’s begun to work but the front door feels far away and
not worth the effort. Then, in a sleepy haze, I wonder if it could be my mother
fresh off a flight from Vancouver wanting to check on me after the root canal.
That gets me up and ambling towards the door.
I inch it open
and peek around the edge to find Deirdre staring back at me. She’s wearing a
cardigan composed of swirling fall colors and humungous pockets. It reminds me
of the disastrous skirt I made in home economics class in seventh grade. “Hi,
Leah,” she says cheerfully. “Marta told me you were having your root canal
today and I thought I’d just pop by and see how you were doing.”
I pull the door
open wide. “Oh, thanks.” My voice is fuzzy with sleep.
“Did I wake
you?”
“I was just
taking it easy, not sleeping.”
Behind Deirdre
the remaining autumn leaves rustle. The sound is lonely and cold. “Well, I just
wanted to see if you needed anything.” She fishes her keys out of her pocket
and shakes them so they make a jangling noise. “I can run to the store if you
need anything. I had a root canal myself about ten years ago and I remember
eating nothing but pudding and apple sauce for the first day or so.”
“It’s really
nice of you to offer.” I feel touched like when Liam bought me the cookies.
“But I bought some soup and things on the way home from the appointment.”
Deirdre smiles.
“Ah, so you’re all set then.”
I nod. “I’m
good.”
“Do let me know
if you happen to need anything tomorrow. It’s no trouble for me to nip out and
get a few things. Actually”—she tilts her head and slides a hand under
chin—“would you like to come for dinner tomorrow night if you’re feeling up to
it? I could make some really well cooked pasta—or eggs, mashed potatoes,
something mushy.”
At the moment I
can’t imagine eating anything, but the offer is so thoughtful that I can’t turn
it down. “That would be great.” I flash a smile. “Is there anything I can
bring?”
Deirdre pats my
forearm. “You just bring yourself if you’re feeling well enough—shall we say
around six-thirty?”
When I first met
Deirdre and Marta I worried that they might be intrusive—not that they gave me
any cause to think so—but up to now they’ve always given me space. Marta, who I
spend more time with since she’s now my boss, has never even directly asked
about Bastien. At one time I may have taken their dinner invitation as a bad
omen, but now I feel glad for the company. Marta and Deirdre are like two cool
aunts who instinctively respect my boundaries.
Abigail too. She
phones an hour later to see how I’m doing and we talk for about fifteen
minutes. Then my parents call, and finally Yunhee, who is in a bad mood because
of something Chas did but that she insists she doesn’t want to talk about.