Authors: Carol Mason
‘Good God, it gets worse.’
‘No! I went out with him on a proper date—you know—the night I came to meet you at the airport. When I told him I was a cotton trader he looked at me like I was very glamorous. That is, until I said I travel about eighty percent of the year. That kinda killed it for him. I gotta stop using that line Angie. I gotta invent some other career. I think I’m gonna start saying I’m a nurse.’ She draws breath. ‘Everybody loves nurses, because there’s something both kinky and caring about them. And kinky and caring is a real edgy combination. They start thinking you’re gonna whip them then wipe up their blood. Anyway, I’ve set you up for Wednesday night. You’re gonna meet at Artigiano’s. So you won’t feel out of your depth. It’s just coffee. It’s just Wednesday night.’
I’ve forgotten which bag is which now, and have to think where to stuff a decrepit pink sweatshirt that got bleach on it.
‘Earth to Angie. Is there anybody out there?’
‘Oh sorry… Erm…. Well, if I go—and it’s a big if at this juncture– how will I recognise him?’ Anything to shut her up.
‘You will. And he’ll spot you. I’ve told him all about you.’
‘Thanks. That’s sure to mean he’ll show up. I’m such a great catch.’
When we hang up, I realise that the next box I have to unpack is one whose contents I’m all too familiar with: the only one I bothered marking Private.
Stuffed beside his blue shirt, is Jonathan’s well worn sandals with the toe prints on the leather sole. On top of the shirt is a little brown envelope containing Jonathan’s wedding ring and his Tag watch—both of which were taken from his body after the accident. The watch miraculously hasn’t a scratch on it. Its pointers are frozen at eight o’clock. I often wonder if that was the exact moment when his life ended.
I make a nest of my hand and place the jewellery in it. It’s still a weird feeling holding something that was removed from his dead body. With each subtle movement of my hand, the watch shifts about, jingling against the ring. I was with him when he bought it. He’d coveted a Tag for ages. I’d catch him lost in gazing at it and would think
you love that watch almost as much as you love me!
But he’d worked hard enough for it. Soon after he died, I found it and held it to my cheek. I was convinced the stainless steel was warm, as though he’d just taken it off.
I put it to my face now.
Of course. I didn’t expect it would be.
What was I ever thinking shoving them in an envelope? What I’m going to do is buy a little velvet jewellery bag and store them in there, so I can keep them safe. I put them back in the envelope and put the envelope on the floor for now.
The sandals and T-shirt though, I’m not sure what to do with. The shirt doesn’t smell of him any more. It really only reminds me of the last time he was alive because he wore it to run in that morning. The sandals are different. They’ve got sweat marks on them, outlining his foot, identifying him and proving he lived. They feel very precious. I run my fingers over the rounded indentations where his toes were, put it to my nose. It smells of leather more than sweaty feet. There’s no point in giving them to the charity shop. I can’t see anybody wanting to wear somebody else’s old shoes. Besides, I’d feel I was passing on bad karma.
Chuck them
,
Angie!
I can almost hear him saying.
So on an impulse I put them in the bag that’s for the bin.
~ * * * ~
I get the call on Tuesday, asking me if I can come in for an interview Friday at four p.m.. That was fast. What a time though! Hard to feel the interviewer is taking you seriously when you know he’s sat there thinking what he’s going to do with his weekend.
It quickly dawns on me that I’ve nothing to wear for it. All my old work clothes are about two sizes too big, and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be in fashion, and that just wouldn’t do, not for a power job with a top agency. The good thing is, though, I go for a latte to Artigiano’s and while I’m sat there devouring back copies of
Marketing
magazine, to try to educate myself on what’s happened in the ad world since I left it, I see inspiration on legs. A girl a bit like me. She’s wearing a charcoal business suit, a light enough material for a warm day like this, but interesting in the quite un-summery colour choice. It’s lean-fitting and plain, almost masculine. And she’s teamed it with a simple pink and white shirt, wide open at the neck. But it’s all set off by about the sexiest pair of black shoes I’ve ever seen: probably three inches high, with a thick, triangular heel, and a cheeky peep toe showing her French pedicure. I throw back my coffee, roll up my mags, and hurry like a man on a mission to the mall.
~ * * * ~
‘Have you been to the doctor’s yet?’ I put my mother on speaker-phone as I sit on the toilet lid looking in my magnifying mirror, applying a mid-grey shadow to my upper lash line. I can’t believe I’m going on a blind date to make Sherrie happy, instead of myself.
‘Why did that have to be the first question out of your mouth?’
‘So I take it you haven’t?’
‘I’ve really only just got home!’
‘Have you had any more fainting spells?’
‘Only one.’
‘You never told me!’
‘I’m telling you now.’
‘I was a bit annoyed you decided to stay longer, and not even tell me… If you don’t go to the doctor’s they’ll never find out what’s wrong with you and you’ll never get treatment and who knows what might happen then.’
‘That’s intelligent, Angela. Answer me one question, because you seem to have all the answers. If I ate your brain, would I get your knowledge?’
‘Oh, ha ha. Isn’t sarcasm the lowest form of a nit?’ I remind her of one of her famous expressions.
‘You’re the only nit round here. Anyway, I only stayed a few days longer. Don’t tell me off. Don’t spoil what might be my one last chance for happiness.’
I feel like the evil stepsister, or the jealous spinster friend who can’t be happy for you. ‘I’m sorry. Did you have a good time?’ I’m dying to get the skinny on Georgios.
‘I had a lovely time.’
‘And?’
‘And it was lovely.’
‘AND?’
‘Stop sniffing around my bottom Angela.’
‘I’d never want to sniff around your bottom. I’ll leave that to Georgios.’
I hear her titter.
‘So you’re not going to tell me, then?’
If he rogered you and you enjoyed it.
‘Some people… I don’t know… I have to repeat myself so many times I start to wonder if they’re a little bit simple in the head.’
I grin. ‘Please just tell me one thing…’
‘What?’ she says, tiresomely. ‘If you’re going to put that record back on and tell me to promise I’m going to the doctor’s… just don’t bother saying anything!’
There’s a silence. ‘Hello?’ she enquires, after moments.
‘I’m not bothering saying anything.’
~ * * * ~
On my way out to see my ‘date,’ I make a trip down to the garbage chute with the bag of clothes I was busy filling and all the crap that lay abandoned in the middle of the floor. Things are looking up. As I float along with the crowd, I realise I feel good about myself. I’ve just got back from Greece. In two days time I have an interview for a great, well-paying job. Now when I wake up each morning I give myself an exercise in positive thinking. I don’t believe people can change in fundamental ways, but they can change their outlook. So every day I tell myself that with each day I’m somehow going to improve myself, and so far, well, I think it might be working.
~ * * * ~
‘Holy Mackerel!’ I’ve just got Sherrie on speed-dial. I peer into Artigiano’s window.
‘There are two men sitting on their own, Sherrie, and one of them looks like Robin Williams with a toupé on his top lip, and the other’s old and orange and he’s wearing a shirt the colour of Thai Green Curry.’ I gasp. ‘Which one is he then?’
Of course I’m waiting for her to say, ‘Oh neither of those two, stupid!’ but instead she says, ‘He’s tanned and weathered looking because he’s a runner, Angie. Duh! Runners have outdoorsy complexions, they’re not pale freaks like you and me.’
She clears her throat. ‘A-hem! Two more features that the brochure fails to mention… He’s got a rockin’ body on him. And an enormous dick.’
‘A what?’ I zip away from the window in case I’m seen by the orange man before I have a chance to flee for the safety of my own celibacy. ‘How the hell would you know about his, his, his, penis?’
‘How? How do you think?’
I have to take a moment. ‘Oh no. You slept with him? You slept with the man you’re setting me up with!’ A couple of latte-drinkers on the patio look up at me in surprise.
‘I went on a date with him. What else was I supposed to do?’
She sounds pissed off at my pissed-offness. ‘I thought you’d consider it a bonus that I could give him such a good report. How many people do you know have their good friends test the merchandise for them? And if I can call it a whopper, trust me, I’ve seen plenty to know. You got it comin girl.’
‘I got it going, more like.’ I trot away from Artigiano’s as fast as my legs can carry me. I’m trying to picture an orange man with a huge one coming at me, and it’s enough to put me off sex for life.
‘Take a maturity pill! You can’t stand him up! You’ve got to at least have a coffee with him! He’s a great guy.’
‘Yeah, once you get over the fact that he looks like he’s been dipped in iodine.’
‘You’re looks-ist, Angela Chapman. I’ve noticed that about you for a long long time. And it’s not a good quality in someone your age. You know that song? Something about you might be young and beautiful now, but one day your looks will be bye-bye? Well that’s gonna be you, hun… You’re problem is you’re going around measuring everybody against Jonathan. Whereas what you should do is find somebody really ugly and gross and measure other guys against him. It’s called the glass is half full. But with you, if he’s not hot or cute, you’re not gonna give him a chance, are you?’
‘That’s not true!’ I flee across the grass in front of the art gallery, quickly summoning up the men I’ve most recently seen myself with on some level, just to disprove her point. But the faces that leap to mind are gorgeous Georgios, gorgeous Sean, and Roger the City Planner, who wasn’t gorgeous in the same way, but still his face lives in my memory.
‘Okay, just because he’s not great looking… Just because he’s quiet, and maybe not the most confident guy in the world… That’s not a reason to blow him off. Maybe, you know, some people have serious self-esteem issues. There are a lot of lonely single people who suffer from some sort of mental illness—’
‘Oh! Mental illness?’ I fling my free hand in the air, in exasperation. ‘That’s not a problem for me! I love a little dose of mental illness. It’s actually high up on my wish list for a man. Let’s think… there’s knockers first—I love a man boobs, particularly when they’re bigger than my own. Then there’s hairy hands. Got to love those as a close second…. Mental illness? Yeah, definitely third.’
‘Well you might think that’s funny now, but take it from me Ange, you’ve been out of the dating market for quite some time now, Vancouver’s a hard city for a single woman to find a man in. You better hope Jonathan’s gonna send you somebody because you’re gonna need all the help you can get. Everybody’s married in this city, because other than mountains and ocean for long romantic walks, there’s not that much else to do, so you only come here or settle here if you’ve got somebody to bonk and walk with for the rest of your life. If they’re single they’re usually gay or twenty-two. If they’re fifty, they’re usually divorced, and looking for somebody twenty-two—straight or gay. So it’s slim pickins… And even in general, if you’re young and perfect—which you’re neither—it’s hard finding a man. You got lucky the first time. But you met him in Toronto: totally different scene. But you need to remember an important thing Angela my friend: women rarely get the man they really want; they end up having to want what they can get.’
I cross at the lights at the corner of Georgia and Howe streets, not even heading in the direction of home, just sort of running off at the legs. And the mouth. ‘Well maybe you think like that, Sherrie, but I’ve never thought like that. That’s so lame. Not all of us settle. And some of us never will. If I never meet anybody else, I won’t just be with someone because he’ll do.’