How to Get Along with Women (9 page)

What about Ryerson? I asked.

There's a juried art show in the fall, Jamie said. I'm putting your Bernardo picture in.

Jamie was going to be a photojournalist. He'd had to submit a portfolio and everything. Some of the pictures in the portfolio were of me, because he was always hauling his camera around with us. In one of the pictures I'm standing in an art gallery. Behind me on the wall are artful photographs of murderer's houses, including the one where Paul Bernardo lived with his wife Karla, down in St. Catherines. I'm laughing and looking really natural because Jamie had lied and said he was just testing his light meter.

If I had known there were to be photographs, I said, I would never have worn my glasses. I was wearing my glasses, for crying out loud. I would have put them in my pocket.

I said, You're a fucking traitor.

That made Jamie really happy, like there wasn't a better compliment. He went around eating his french fries out of a carton in a really light-hearted way after I said that.

The day before I left for school I took Del out to Cherry Beach. I picked him up in my mother's car. On the way down the stairs, I held his elbow. He was moving pretty slow, and I wanted to make sure he didn't fall. The elbow seemed like a good, non-patronizing body part to hold. I had an old cough drop tin with a couple of pinners in it that Jamie had made for me. Del stopped feeling so nauseous when he was high. It was raining and I suggested that we just sit and hotbox the car but Del wanted to walk down to the water. I gathered up the change that I had sitting in the cup holder and stuffed it into my pockets. I always keep a bunch of loonies in there for parking meters, but my father has this thing about crackheads breaking into the car if they see any money lying around. The crackheads are going to steal my loonies.

Hey baby, want to steal my loonies?

See? You can make anything sound dirty. That was the kind of joke Del used to like, but I didn't have time to tell it. He was already out of the car. The beach was all pebbles instead of sand: pebbles and used condoms and old needles. There was something about the way Del moved that reminded me of a bird. Not a graceful bird, like a heron or an eagle. The kind of bird that can't fly and has to negotiate its legs around everything. His knees were really high up and he was taking all his steps sideways. He had a giant umbrella and looked like a mushroom. I ran after him in my rainboots and we smoked the joints sitting on a big wet rock.

Just a few weeks to go, Del said.

No way! I said. It'll get better again, you'll see. I dug around in my pockets. I said, I'll bet you everything I've got on me that you go to respite and come out again just fine.

I had six dollars and Del thought that was really funny. His cheekbones were like coat hangers. It was the best bet I could make. I threw the money into my cough drop tin and closed it up and stuck it in his pocket. His jacket was hanging loose and he clinked and clanked all the way back to the car, the tin bumping against his hip.

In the car he put his hand over mine. I had already started the engine and was about to throw it into reverse. He was looking out the window, away from me and I knew I should take the hand. In the last few months Del had developed a rash that wouldn't go away. The back of his hand looked like it was covered with mosquito bites that were scabbing over. I tried to remember if I'd cut my own hand recently. It was the first time I'd ever been afraid of him. I didn't say anything or do anything nice, I just drove. I figured letting him hold onto my hand with me not holding his back was the best I could do.

When I walked him back up the stairs to his loft, I cradled one arm around his whole body so he wouldn't lose his balance. He felt like a bag of things you donate to the food bank, like everything he was made of was heavy, but loose. Like the inside parts of him were rolling around and if he fell, they might tip out. There was something about this that made me feel like a little kid. I wanted things to be opposite: I wanted him to hold me up, instead. Thinking like that made me so guilty and ashamed that I hurried him up the stairs even faster. I couldn't wait to shut the door. I wanted Del and his six-loonie tin on one side, and me on the other.

I meant to drive straight home. I was leaving in the morning and still had packing to do. But what I did was drive to Jamie's house. I rapped on his basement window and tracked mud all over the carpet down into his room. I couldn't even cry. He pulled off my clothes, one piece at a time, with his good, clean hands.

I thought everything at home would stay frozen if I didn't go looking for news. When I came home for my birthday and Thanksgiving, I only stayed two nights. I didn't want to be there for any more than the minimum necessary time. Then it was December. I hadn't heard from Del in three months.

The billboards on Yonge Street hadn't even changed. I was almost surprised the weather was so cold. The day after Christmas I went out drinking with Larissa and some other people I knew. I rode home on Brett Furnival's shoulders. We passed the bookstore and I pointed. I used to work there, I said. I worked there for a long time. It was about two in the morning. All the lights were down in every store window on the street. Something flashed at me from the bookstore: the streetlamp was reflecting off a Christmas ornament hanging in the doorway. I had a sudden, terrible feeling. I realized for the first time how long I'd been gone. It felt as though my throat were being wrung out.

I climbed down off Brett's shoulders. I fell off. I was in a big hurry and didn't want too many questions. It wasn't snowing. The air was too cold to carry anything in it, even a tiny thing like a snowflake. I pressed my face against the smooth glass of the window. I thought if I did that, the lights inside would go on and everything would be there, laid out like a feast. I thought I would see myself on the top of a rolling ladder, counting overstock.

The cold in the glass made my cheekbone ache. A few cars drove by. Their headlights flashed and then the store was black inside. You couldn't even see the shadows of things.

One good thing about a city is that there are always so many other people around, distracting you with their noise and their craziness, singing and begging and fighting, that you never really have a quiet moment to stop and think. I didn't think at all about where I was going. I just went. It was warmer in the subway. I got off at Dundas West and walked down Roncesvalles. There was a Chinese woman standing on her porch, smoking a cigarette. It was the middle of the night. She was the only person I'd seen for three blocks.

Good! Good! she shouted. Only good things for you! She said my aura looked really orange.

In Jamie's driveway I knelt down and rapped on the basement window. I wasn't sure he'd be awake and I lay down on the concrete. It had been shovelled dry, but there was some built-up ice along the edges. The ice had a sharp look, as though someone had tried chipping away at it with a heavy implement. I closed my eyes and decided it would be okay to go to sleep there until Jamie came out to get me. There were bits of gravel or road salt digging into my scalp and my wrist where it stuck out of my coat sleeve. It was a small, irritating kind of pain and I found it comforting. The screen door made a noise.

I could see Jamie's bare feet. He was wearing a pair of old jeans and no shirt. His hair looked ragged, but only on one side. He didn't look like he'd been sleeping; he looked wrinkled, like he'd been rolled up and stretched out again. I sat up. The lights in the basement were all on.

Why are you on the ground? he said.

I need to come in for a while.

I thought you fell. Are you okay?

I was resting.

Now's not a really good time.

I said, I never heard from Del. I lifted one arm in the air and waited for Jamie to help pull me up. He rubbed his hands against his jeans and looked over his shoulder.

I pushed against the wall and stood up on my feet.

You can't come in right now, he said.

Did you hear what I said?

I just can't.

Jamie. I took a step toward him and put my hand on his waist. All the fine hairs on his stomach were standing up in the cold. Please, I said.

What do you think, he said. Look. Del died, like, a month ago. You weren't around.

I left you messages, he said. You wouldn't even call me back. Fuck it's cold out here.

I took my hand off him and started walking down the drive. He was standing there holding the screen door open and then he let it close behind him.

I'm sorry about Del, he shouted after me. I really am. I'm really sorry.

Fuck you, I called out. I didn't turn around. I made sure my voice was full of sunshine.

The houses in that neighbourhood are brick and red or yellow or white, with tall stairs. Some people had left their Christmas lights on and the places where the bulbs had gone out were like icing that's been licked away. I stood out on the corner next to the traffic light.

I thought of sitting in the playground with just the dark and the stars until the sun came up. I thought of walking down to where the pond is and sliding out until the ice got chunky and soft, where the reeds are. Jamie and I used to walk home through the park at night because his mother told us not to. There was some change in my pocket and I counted it out and looked to see if any of the dimes were subway tokens.

The Chinese lady was still out on her porch. A ledge ran along the sidewalk. It reminded me of a balance beam, but it was covered in ice. The frost was shiny. It looked like something you want to eat. I thought about my orange aura, how good that must be.

Ajaccio Belonged to the Genoese

When they met he followed her up the street on his knees, screaming in English, Hello, I Love You. Hands knitted together. The cuffs of his pants ragged. Carla's fingers against the hem of her skirt, holding it still as she walked ahead of him. The skirt too short now that she had a man crawling after her. Nico paid her way onto the metro, followed her all the way to Joliette. At the end of her street Carla turned to him and said finally Go home, go home. Please. I'm not allowed to go out with foreigners and he slapped his hands to his sides: What are you talking about? I am French and we are in France!

Her mother calling out to her from the open window. Nico said, In Marseille thirty percent claim Italian heritage! I am probably Italian, too! and Carla slipped inside to hang up her coat, then went into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet, sweating.

He bought her langoustes. Fat ones, claws snapping, and when she said What will I do with these? Carry them in my purse? he took her home to his house and set them free on the kitchen counter, watched to see if they would fight. I can't bear to cook them, Carla said. Imagine being boiled alive. Their tails skittering against the slick countertop. We could make them race? Nico said and Carla shook her head very fast. They filled the soup pot with cold water, added salt, and let the langoustes swim. Sitting out in the courtyard smoking cigarettes with the pot between them on the ground until the neighbour came by and shouted at them that These are not pets! Floating a little parsley in the water to be the seaweed.

They bought a disposable camera from a street vendor and took all the pictures in twenty minutes, Nico pulling her against him, one arm stretched out to click the shutter. Strangers in the background. Just Carla, lying in the walkway, shoes and feet all around her. Just Nico, but the camera shifted. His ear, his left ear and shoulder. His striped shirt.

Sleeping in his parents' bed when they were away for the weekend in Antibes or Carcassonne, sunlight entering the room so early through thin white curtains. Old people like to get up in the morning, Nico said. Carla filled the bathtub and lay back with the door locked.

I can see you through the crack! Nico on the other side. The keyhole.

She had once peered through the little hole in the door herself and watched his mother remove a tampon, one hand groping between her legs, so she knew he was telling her the truth. She blew soap bubbles from her fist and they came to rest on the side of the tub like the bulbous heads of jellyfish, pink and trembling.

All that time her father was in the hospital. The grandmother came from Bolzano to help, driving herself across the border and through Monaco in a blue Citroën, arriving with boxes of tomatoes in jars and two suitcases of straight dresses and kerchiefs to wear over her hair, to hide the thin patches. She moved into Carla's room and slept in Carla's bed. Carla was given a new mattress on the floor. The grandmother snored and kept her things all over the room: night cream, her teeth in a glass on the dresser. Nico wanted to come to La Joliette, to meet the grandmother and the mother, but Carla said No. Because I'm not Italian? he said and Carla bit her lip.

Nobody would really care. The grandmother herself from Südtirol. Carla couldn't explain. It was just a feeling she had. Nico belonged in the Panier, in the Vieux Port, in Noailles; Carla squirmed in her seat on the metro, on her way to see him. She laughed so that her lower lip wouldn't shake. How could she manage with him sitting at her mother's long wooden table, eating cookies at Christmastime?

Her father had fallen off some scaffolding when he was working. Now he was learning to walk in a clinique in Vitrolles. It will not be easy, the doctor said. It will not go fast. The doctor's name was Armand Gainsbourg. (Probably a Jew, said Carla's mother, when he was out of the room. They like to do that, change their name and make it French. His name is Ginsburg. She unwrapped a candy and popped it into her mouth, crunching loudly.) This learning to walk will take months, said Armand Gainsbourg. The muscles are in atrophy. New connections must be forged between the legs and the brain. The grandmother stayed on. More boxes of her things arrived by post, sent by a sister in Italy. There was almost no room for all these things in the little house. Carla could barely see the floor tiles around her mattress.