Authors: Anthony Bidulka
I realized I wanted nothing more than to be in this
warm, cozy kitchen, watching my mom cook, eat-
ing fried stuff and drinking lots of coffee. What I
didn’t want was involvement with the outside
world. I hadn’t had time to chew on what had
happened the night before at Diva’s but I knew
the experience had left a bad taste in my mouth.
The dreams I’d had were actually nightmares and
although I couldn’t quite remember them, I
remembered how they made me feel. And it was-
n’t good. I needed eggs and sausage and toast
with butter and jam and maybe some of my
mom’s homemade hash browns.
I got up to let the dogs in. I saw that their food
and water dishes were already full so I went back
to my spot where my mother had served up a
heaping plate of artery-clogging material. Yum!
I reminded my mother that I had invited a few
friends over to decorate the Christmas tree that
evening. She asked about the tree. I wanted to tell
her that the only people I knew with trucks were
lesbians, so Errall and Kelly were picking it up, but
instead, I just told her it was being delivered. My
mother stood to learn a lot that Christmas season.
Anthony Bidulka — 229
I busied myself all day with housecleaning and
laundry, sweeping off the walk, retrieving fire-
wood and tree decorations from the garage and
selecting season-appropriate music. And, despite
promises to myself to the contrary, I also spent a
fair bit of time fretting over my case, over what
likely happened between Anthony and Jared after
I left Diva’s, over the state of Kelly’s health and
her relationship with Errall and over what plans
were brewing in my mother’s head. By the time
my mother and I sat down for supper/dinner, I
was in a bit of a state. I comforted myself with the
ultimate in Ukrainian comfort food—perogies
lightly fried in butter, garlic and onion and
drowned in a rich, creamy sauce of mushrooms
and dill.
The first to arrive was Sereena and so far my pre-
diction was proving accurate. It was nothing obvi-
ous. There were no fisticuffs or exchange of vitri-
olic barbs, but after I introduced the aproned,
home-permed and shrill Kay Quant to the
DKNYed, salon-coiffed and shrill Sereena Orion
Smith, they each made a hasty retreat to their
favourite corners, my mother to the kitchen and
Sereena to the bar. Barbra and Brutus wisely chose
to stay near the baked goods in the kitchen on the
off chance some might land in their mouths.
I slipped behind the bar and Sereena placed
her delicate self onto a padded stool. We both
needed a Red Apple martini—the non-sissy ver-
sion.
230 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
“There are doilies in here,” she said, her voice
drier than the martini.
I looked down at the counter top in horror. My
granite coasters had been replaced by dainty off-
white squares individually crocheted by my
mother. When had she made the switch? My face
contorted and I croaked, “Help me.”
Sereena nodded, allowing a few dark tendrils
to escape from behind her diamond mine right
ear. “How long?” she asked after an appreciative
sip of her cocktail.
“Until the twenty-seventh,” I told her, deciding
not even to bring up the possibility of a much
longer (as in, forever) stay. “Unless the weather is
bad. Then she’ll stay until the roads are safe.”
Sereena frowned. “Roads? Where does she
come from anyway?”
“Howell.”
“Is that…a home or something?”
“Howell, Saskatchewan. It’s a town. About an
hour away from here. She lives on a farm just out-
side of town.”
“Really? Have you ever been?”
I arched an eyebrow at her as high as it would
go. “I grew up there, Sereena.”
“On a farm?”
I helped myself to a gulp of my drink and
scowled at her. The look on her face was one of
concern mixed with astonishment. “You know
this story,” I admonished her.
“Yes, I do,” she relented. “I was simply checking
if you still admitted to it.”
Saved by the doorbell. I left Sereena to join
Anthony Bidulka — 231
Barbra and Brutus at the door where Anthony and
Jared were waiting to be let in. After what hap-
pened the previous night I hadn’t expected them
to show up. But there they were, their faces reveal-
ing nothing.
I hugged and kissed them both, accepted the
proffered bottle of wine and did away with their
coats while they found Sereena at the bar, like
heat-seeking missiles drawn to a flame.
“Will she remember me?” Anthony stage-whis-
pered when I rejoined them, his thumb poking in
the direction of the kitchen and my mother.
Someone had prepared more drinks. The eggnog
remained untouched.
I rolled my eyes. I’d forgotten; yet another
possible source of friction at my happy-go-lucky
Christmas soirée. “Who knows?” I said. “How
many times did you meet her while you and
Uncle Lawrence were together?”
He clicked his tongue as he thought. “Handful,
perhaps. As you know, puppy, Lawrence and Kay
never got along well.”
“Why was that?” Jared asked. “Was it because
he was gay?”
Anthony shrugged and wiped away a piece of
imagined fluff from the collar of his pricey Cavelli
shirt. “I don’t really know. Sometimes I wonder if
it wasn’t just because they lived such vastly differ-
ent lives that they simply didn’t know how to talk
to one another. They may as well have been from
two different species.”
I nodded absentmindedly, paying more atten-
tion to the interaction between the two men than
232 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
the words coming from their mouths. Where was
the damage that follows any accident—in this case
the accidental revelation that Anthony had fooled
around on Jared? I felt a need to say something.
But to which one? Certainly Anthony and I had
known each other the longest and were closer. But
Jared was the obviously wronged party here.
Again saved by another bell. I excused myself
and dashed for the phone.
“Russell? It’s me, Daniel Guest. I’m sorry to
bother you at home.”
Oddly I was relieved to switch my brain to
thinking about work rather than my friend’s
dilemma. “No problem, Daniel. Has something
happened?”
“Not yet,” he said. “But there’s something I
want to talk to you about. Not tonight, but I was
wondering if you could meet me in my office
tomorrow morning?”
I cringed. Was this going to be another dawn
meeting?
“Say about nine-ish?” he suggested.
That’s better. “Sure, no problem. Is everything
okay, Daniel?”
“I’ve got to run. Nine o’clock.” And he hung
up.
I heard a knock and the front door opening and
then over the strains of Bing’s “White Christmas”
came that good, old traditional yuletide greeting:
“Hey, I need one of you twinks to help me with
this tree!”
Apparently Errall had forgotten that my moth-
er was visiting.
Anthony Bidulka — 233
I replaced the phone receiver. Jared and I met
her at the door and I doled out coats and gloves
from the closet. Errall’s hair was tied back with a
ribbon and two powder-blue muffs were where
her ears should have been. She wore a down vest
over a thick, patterned turtleneck sweater and
tight, black stretchy pants. Her pale face was
flushed pink with cold and delicate snowflakes
decorated the crown of her head and eyelashes.
“I let Barbra and Brutus out front,” she
informed me. “They’re having a ball in the fresh
snow.”
“Where’s Kelly?” Jared asked as he slipped on
his boots. They were black things that looked
warm, but about a million years old. It’s another
one of those things I like about Jared, away from
the runway he never plays “model.”
“At home,” she answered, her voice tight.
“She’s not feeling well.”
Crap. She had all but promised me she would
get off her ass and come tonight. Where in the
world was our old Kelly?
We followed Errall out to the street where
she’d parked Kelly’s Dodge Ram truck. In the
back was a healthy-looking six-and-a-half-footer.
“The guy at the place helped me get it on here,”
she said through lips puckered around a freshly lit
cigarette. “He just gave it a fresh cut so we can put
it right in water.”
“Mayfair Hardware on 33rd?” Jared asked in
between catching snowflakes on his tongue.
Mayfair Hardware is a bizarre little store, circa
small-town 1930. You can easily spend an afternoon
234 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
in its cluttered aisles rifling through overflowing
bins and dusty shelves collecting the coolest stuff
you must have and will never use. And each
December, stuffed into a crowded back lot, they
have the best and cheapest Christmas trees in the
city.
“Yup,” she answered as she lowered the end-
gate and hoisted herself up into the truck’s bed.
Jared and I took positions on either side and
pulled while Errall pushed. Feeling as butch as
that guy with the blue ox—Paul something?—we
delivered our trophy to the living room, deposit-
ing it directly into a heavy metal tree stand I’d
placed in the perfect spot ahead of time. While
Jared and I battled to position the slightly bowed
tree trunk to make it appear straight, I couldn’t
help noticing my mother and Anthony having a
tête-à-tête near the kitchen. I would have given up
the chocolates I was bound to eat that evening to
hear what they were saying. I could tell nothing
from the look on their faces or body language, my
mother with a plate of cookies in her hand,
Anthony a snifter of brandy in his.
“We’ll have to let it sit for about half an hour to
forty-five minutes,” Errall instructed. “So that all
the branches settle to their normal position.”
And then it happened. We stood there, staring
at one another. Between what had happened at
Diva’s the night before, Kelly’s absence, my moth-
er’s strained history with Anthony and all those
blasted doilies, there was not only a giant pink ele-
phant in the room we were all pretending not to
see, but a spotted giraffe and flying zebra as well.
Anthony Bidulka — 235
Surprisingly it was my mother who saved the
day.
“Den we haf time to eat and mebbe some
Kaiser.” She’d left Anthony behind and was
already laying out cards and food platters on my
dining room table covered by a lacey tablecloth I’d
never seen before. We followed her like calves to a
water trough. “You and Carol play da vinners.”
She was referring to Errall and me. The other
three took seats at the table looking pleadingly to
me for help. My mother sat at the head of the table
and began to shuffle the cards like a Las Vegas
shark. If I didn’t know better I’d have sworn that
her spectacles were fogging up from the intensity
of her concentration.
“You feex everyone dreenks,” she ordered us
as cards whizzed from her hand, landing in per-
fect piles in front of Sereena, Anthony and Jared. I
know enough about Kaiser to know you do not
play the game with a full deck (I’ll regretfully
deny myself the obvious joke here). My mother
must have either brought the deck along with the
doilies and tablecloth and entire contents of her
farmhouse pantry, or she’d planned this ahead of
time and doctored one of mine.
Errall and I took and filled drink orders and
made sure the serviettes in front of each player
were heaped with cold cuts, cheese and gherkins.
Once done with that, we recognized the huge
entertainment value of my Ukrainian mother
teaching a fashion model, an ex-jet-setter and a
clothing-store magnate the finer points of trump
and no trump, the joy of the five of hearts and the
236 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
evil of the three of spades and pulled up two
stools to watch.
“Wow, I can really smell the pine needles now,”
I said after about half an hour, taking a deep whiff.
But no one was listening to me. They were all too