The Miracles of Ordinary Men (3 page)

“Sam,” he said, when he pulled away, “I thought that was it.”

“What?”

“I thought you'd lost it. All this stuff with Julie — I thought it had pushed you over the edge.” His hair was in matted brown disarray and there were bags under his eyes.

Sam took one breath and then another. “I called because of — these.” He gestured wildly behind his back. The wings fluttered, up and down. “See?”

Bryan's broad face was puzzled. “What?”

“Can't you — ” waving madly “ —
see
them?”

Now he looked nervous. “See what, buddy?”

Sam blinked, unsure — was he still dreaming? — and then looked back over his shoulder. There they were, the feathers limp against his spine. “You don't see anything? Anything out of the ordinary?”

Bryan snorted. “Aside from you and one hell of a hangover? No.”

He felt dizzy, and slumped against the wall. “Oh. Okay.” The wings bent against the wall with a sound like crumpling tissue, but Bryan didn't appear to hear it. Sam closed his eyes.

“Dude. You need to forget about this chick. Look at what it's doing to you.”

That almost made him laugh. “She's not just ‘some chick,'
Bryan.”

Bryan ignored him and padded down the hall into the kitchen. Sam listened as he opened the cupboards — out of coffee again, most likely. Then he shuffled back to the door. When Sam opened his eyes, Bryan was readjusting his slippers, coffee in hand.

“I'm telling you, Sam. It's over. She's granite. You're humping a fucking rock.”

“I think,” he said, “that the expression is ‘beating a dead horse.'”

“Whatever. A rock is a rock is a rock, Sam — time to move on. We should go out more, introduce you to some people.”

“Since when do you know people?” Sam asked. Each word felt forced, too big for his mouth.

“This might surprise you, but the whole world hasn't gone into mourning.”

“I haven't gone into mourning.”

Bryan snorted. “Sure,” he said. “You've practically disappeared and now you're hallucinating after one night out on the town.”

“I'm not — ”

“Sam.”

He blinked and then remembered. Pressed his hand against the wall and felt feathers, just waiting. “I'm just — old. Too old for nights like that.”

“Speak for yourself, friend. What you need are
more
nights out. We should do this again soon. To hell with Julie and the accountant.”

“Professor,” he said. And, “Maybe.” He couldn't think about Julie right now. He needed to get Bryan out of the house.

“Want me to make coffee?”

Sam shook his head. “No. Must be tired — should just go back to bed.”

“Suit yourself,” and Bryan clapped him on the shoulder, narrowly missing one wing. Sam bit his lip and fought to keep from crying out. “See you later in the week?”

“Sure.” He closed the door as soon as it was polite, then stumbled to the bathroom and stretched out on the floor, the wings a feathery mass between his back and the tile. It hurt to breathe, and still the air pushed onward, through his lungs.

After a long moment, he dragged himself to sitting and blinked at Chickenhead, who hadn't moved from her perch on the toilet.

“I think I'm going crazy,” he said. Something in his voice moved her, because she jumped down and crawled into his lap. Her purr was robust and warm against his stomach. He ran his hands through her fur and stopped just short of praying. Here he was, with his wings and his cat. Her eyes were amber slits in the soft light of the bathroom. If she could talk, give him some of her nine lives' wisdom, she might have said: this is just the beginning.

X

It's a cold night in February
2001
, and Lilah is very drunk. A party, a boy who kissed her in the bathroom, and Lilah, waking up outside. She stumbled home and now she's trying to sneak in through the back door. But it's locked. When she checks for the spare key, it isn't there.

Timothy opens the door instead. “I heard you outside,” he says.

“Thanks.” She whispers from the porch — even here, the word feels too loud.

“Mom's asleep,” and now he's whispering as she steps past him, into the house.

“I know.” She stumbles again and the world tilts for one crazy moment. Then she's at the kitchen counter, heaving into the sink.

“Do you want some hot chocolate?” he asks from behind her.

Hot chocolate is the last thing on her mind. “Sure,” she gasps.

Timothy pads to the cupboard and takes out two mugs, then pulls the spoons from the drawer. He is trying to be quiet — the cutlery is muffled, the mugs placed so delicately on the counter it's a wonder that she can know he's done anything at all. But he has, and she knows. She always knows with Timothy. She rests her forehead against the edge of the sink and breathes in deeply. The counter is smooth beneath her hands.

“Mom waited for you,” he says. “And then she got mad and locked the door.”

“I noticed.” She speaks the words down into the floor.

“I waited for you,” he says. “I didn't want you to sleep outside. It's cold.”

“Thanks, Timmy.”

“That's okay.” The kettle hisses. When she turns around, finally, Timothy is holding the two mugs carefully in his outstretched hands.

“I made this one with milk,” he says. “Just for you.”

Their mother will not do this, because milk in hot chocolate is
wasteful
and
unnecessary.
But since Lilah was small, she's been sneaking milk into her cup when Roberta isn't looking. Timothy has learned all of these habits from her. He hands over her mug. He is so young, so solemn. She places her palms around the mug and lets the heat burn her hands until they hurt.

“You look sick,” he says. “Are you okay?”

She can't remember the name of the boy she kissed. She woke up with dirt in her mouth, and black spots in her memory. Whole hours she doesn't remember. “I'm fine.”

“Mom says you're going to get in trouble.” He sits on the bar stool and stares at her. He is pale, as always, and too small for a ten-year-old child. His toes dangle far from the ground.

“Mom says lots of things.”

“I don't want you to get in trouble, Lilah.”

“I'll be fine, Timmy.”

He sips his own hot chocolate. Foam clings to his lip. “Mom also says you're going to leave.”

He says this every day. “I'm going to leave sometime. Yeah.”

“But not right now.”

“No, not right now.”

“If you go,” he says, “no one will talk to me anymore.”

“Don't be silly.”

“It's not silly. Mrs. Graham said it to Mom when she came over. When they thought I was in my room. She said,
He's such a strange little boy.
”

“Mrs. Graham is a fat, smelly pig.”

He giggles. But he is serious again so quickly, so young, so small. “I don't want you to go.”

“I'll die if I stay here, Timmy.” Because this is honestly what she thinks — she'll die, or she'll marry that nameless boy she met at the party, and one day she'll become Roberta, which is to say worse than dead. She is twenty years old, invincible and furious, selfish in the way that only the young can be. She doesn't realize what she'll be breaking, what she'll be leaving behind. All she wants to do is disappear.

—

Now, these years later, she walks through the city and sees Timothy's face everywhere — on the posters, in the grocery line, in every other ragged heap rocking on the street. He drifts through Vancouver like fog that lies close to the ground.

She is like a detective, or an exotic birdwatcher — stalking the streets, looking for the flash of his pale skin, the hooked nose they both share with Roberta. Some days, she wanders the streets alone. But usually she finds him. She brings him food and clothing: a hat, a jacket for the rain. Maltesers,
because they are his favourite. A toothbrush from Roberta, who lies awake at night in Victoria wracked with thoughts of gum disease.

He likes Stanley Park, and the streets that line the sand of English Bay. He haunts the bakeries scattered around the West End, because the bakery women feed him leftover cupcakes and sometimes the grates pump hot, flour-filled air into the cold stretch of early morning.

“How can you see anything?” she asks him one morning at five. The air is thick with flour. Timothy, hunched up against the side of the bakery, looks like a snow-dusted child. “This can't possibly be good for you.”

“It's just flour,” he says. As always, she is frightened by how small his voice is, by how much he is now the one disappearing. “I think it's nice.”

“Nice,” Lilah echoes. She fingers the red fringes of her scarf and stares down at him. “This isn't what I would call ‘nice,'
Timmy.”

He doesn't look at her. “That's not my name.”

“Of course it is. For God's sake, Tim. Grow up.”

He ignores her. He is good at ignoring her now. She makes a deep irritated sound in her throat, an impatient
hmph
, and then stops when she realizes that she sounds exactly like Roberta. “Mom's worried about you,” she says. “We're all
worried about you.”

“Worrying will only take you so far,” he says, in one of his hard, unyielding flashes of clarity. “You can't spend your life thinking about me.”

“But I can,” she shoots back. “I do
.
”

“Even in Europe,” he says, his voice dull. “Even when you were travelling in Thailand, when all you ever did was yell at Mom and hang up the phone.”

“Yes,” she says, simply. “Why do you think I came back?”

“You were meant for better things,” Timothy says. He is eighteen years old now, but the sound that comes out of him belongs to a little boy. He clenches his hand into a fist and then lets his fingers unfurl. He is thin and bedraggled, so dirty. So pale.

“And you?” she asks, her voice bitter. In three hours she'll be trapped behind her computer. It is five o' clock in the morning, and the grey expanse of pavement stretches out before them both. “What were you meant for?”

“I don't know.” His voice shrinks even further. The silence that sits between them is dark and practised, like a game. “That's what I'm trying to find out.”

—

Lilah works in an office on West Georgia, typing notes and taking calls. The other receptionist, Debbie, takes the front desk, the one closest to the door. Debbie has purple hair and wears black shirts with skulls on the collar. She gets away with the skulls because of her minute-taking skills, and because her smile is brighter than one might expect from someone who listens to so much heavy metal. Penny, the office manager, likes to have her facing the front, a fresh face to greet those who might come in. Lilah does not smile as much, so her desk faces inwards toward Israel's door. Debbie has a lover and a dog and climbs mountains in her spare time. She is the only person in the office who gets Lilah's sense of humour.

Apart from the flour-dusted welcome of the morning, today is a day like any other. Lilah takes calls and schedules meetings, drafts spreadsheets, makes coffee. During lunch, she sits at her computer and looks at vacation spots. Bermuda. The Bahamas. Tenerife. This despite the fact that she is administrative sludge and can't afford bus fare, never mind a plane ticket.

Halfway through lunch, Penny catches her ogling a yoga holiday.
Namaste in Dahab
,
Egypt.
Beaches, Bedouins, and meditation twice a day.

“Are you on your break?”

“Lunch,” Lilah says. “Actually.”

Penny sniffs. Sniffing is a peculiar art, one that Penny has mastered well. She nods to the screen. “Dahab. That was lovely.”

“Was it,” and Lilah is already losing interest. “I'm still deciding.”

Penny nods. “Good beaches.” Penny dyes her hair black and is paler than the moon outside the window. Her mouth slants down to the left, and her words follow the same curve.
Penny
would speak
only in italics
,
if she could.

“Hmm,” Lilah says. As though it is actually something to consider. “I'll keep that in mind.”

“Of course,” and just the tilt of her head makes Lilah hate her, “if you
really
want a beach, Delilah, you should book a holiday in Greece.” Sniff. “More expensive, yes, but
completely
worth it.”

“Yes. I expect so.” Lilah closes down the holiday page and opens her data sheets. She's already been to Greece — she's already been to a lot of places, not that Penny would know. But a friend's floor on Naxos is no doubt not quite what Penny has in mind.

“I'll need you to go get more coffee,” Penny says. “We've run out.”

“Regular?” Lilah reaches for her pen. Dictation, all types. It's the best kind of skill.

Penny frowns. “No.”

Lilah pauses, pen in mid-air.
Kopi Luwak.
“Really? But I just bought — ”

Penny tosses her hands out. “I
know.
Colin tells me the man drinks at least eight cups a day. Honestly, I don't know how he can sleep at night.” She shrugs. “But he's
the boss.
So everything else can wait. You'll need to be back before two. Debbie has to take minutes, so you'll need to work the front desk.”

“Of course,” she says. Then, because Penny isn't moving, Lilah switches off her computer and pulls her coat from the chair. “Do you want me to get anything else?”

“No.” Penny grimaces. It hurts her, this coffee excursion. All this money, all this manpower, and all for coffee beans that are shat out by South American cats. Not cats, though, because Lilah looked that one up. Palm civets. The things they must do for the boss. “Just get it and come back.”

“Sure,” and she hides her sudden rush of cheer. Coffee girl, yes, but coffee girl on the company dime. Things could be worse. She leaves the office without smiling, but as soon as she's out of the front door she can't help it — she opens her arms and breathes it in, that salty brine whiff of the world.

Inevitably, though, time spent weaving through the streets of downtown Vancouver is time spent looking for her brother. She can't help it. Timothy will disappear again now, and maybe one of her friends will be the next to see him. Like The Actor, who saw Timothy a week or so back and bought him lunch, then called Lilah to tell her about it.

“He looks good,” The Actor told her with his typical sensitivity. “I mean, considering.”

“Considering
what
?”

“Well, you know.” Pause. “At least he's not starving, Lilah.”

“You could have brought him home,” she said, nearly shouting into the phone. “What good is one Happy Meal going to do?”

“You can't assume he's in trouble just because he's on the streets,” he said. “For all you know, this is the life that he wants.”

“Right. Begging and sleeping in doorways. Some life.”

“He didn't beg,
Lilah. I offered.”
The Actor. Conversations like this are the reason why they stopped fucking, why they don't talk anymore.

She said something in response to this that she doesn't remember, something that was mean enough to make her call later on and apologize. The Actor was out — she left a rambling message. The machine cut her off at the end.

Today, on the coffee run, Timothy is nowhere to be found. This is not surprising, not least of all because the homeless do not frequent Yaletown. Normal people can't afford the coffee they sell here. On this opposite end of Davie Street there is nothing but ocean, condos, and grocery stores that sell square watermelons and imported French baguettes. And coffee merchants who sell the longed-for Kopi Luwak,
at three hundred dollars a pound.

Timothy would not show his face here. Partly because he's always hated Yaletown. And partly because he does not want to show his face anywhere — she didn't say it to The Actor, those few days ago on the phone, but Lilah knows at least this much. He is the Loch Ness Monster now, Bigfoot, Ogopogo. Disappearing into the world and leaving nothing but stories.

—

The new man in the office —
the boss
,
yes, although Penny speaks of him as though he is temporary, a passing storm — is Mexican, but his name is Israel, like the favoured son of long ago. He has a high forehead, and dark hair that thins at the top. He may hold baldness back through force of will or he may embrace it. Either way, he is a man who makes decisions forcefully, the kind of man Roberta would be afraid to know. He likes expensive coffee, black. Penny has given grudging permission for Lilah to take this out of the stationery budget, because everyone wants to keep him happy.

But keeping him happy is not the same thing as being
happy that he's around
.
Some of her colleagues have begun to call him the Hass Avocado. The imported boss.
Twice the price and half as nice
,
just to have him in season.
Penny grumbles about the budget, about the extravagantly expensive fountain pens he keeps in his lapel. But even Penny can see that things are changing. Two months ago the walls in the office trembled with talk of redundancies. Then Israel came, his hands full of promises that had less to do with milk and honey and more to do with profit, hours, and
people retention.
And milk and honey came anyway. Jobs that stayed and bonuses for everyone but her.

Instead, Lilah has been assigned to Israel, like a servant, and so when there are meetings, she is the one left to sort through his mail. He doesn't require much more than the coffee — a clean desk in the morning, someone to field his calls.
Mr. Riviera is in a meeting. I'm sorry
,
but Mr. Riviera is out for the day. Mr. Riviera has left the office — can I take a message?
Occasionally he asks for someone to go through his papers and re-organize his desk. Not much. Not hard. Lilah is careful and ordered, efficient, and so polite that Roberta wouldn't recognize her. Sometimes Lilah can't recognize herself. She has travelled to more countries than her mother can name, and slept with scores of men. Now she works as a secretary, and Timothy lives in the alleys of her city, and every day she waits to find his body in the street.