Coq, page 11
I imagine a new job, a new office. Staff I can handpick and develop. New conferences to attend in Riyadh and Ghent. I imagine coming home and discussing the takeaways with Felix over lentils and strawberries. He can take me to Sable Island, fold me tiny origami sharks, brand me with his hands, his virility. I then imagine coming home and discussing the takeaways with Glen over permission slips and pho. He can take me back in time, fold me tiny love notes, brand me with his mouth, his regret.
I down the remainder of my wine, click on Felix’s message. I can’t stop thinking about you either. Then I go to my cell phone and type the same thing to Glen. This is not what Cathy would do and it’s certainly not what she would advise. But Georgia would. Georgia would send all the messages, open all the doors. Love, she once texted me from a beach in Phuket, is not a two-player game. The accompanying photo was of her lying on the beach with half a rugby team.
A new message displays in my LinkedIn inbox from the recruiter. He’s persistent. The kind of person you want in your career corner. I should replace our current employment agency with this guy. He gets it. I open his message with anticipation. Perhaps there’s more information about the position and the mysterious CEO who wants me on her team.
No. He’s just sent punctuation. A question mark.
I’ve told the recruiter that I couldn’t stop thinking about him. From the bowels of my purse the origami horse neighs.
twenty
We’re in the catacombs underneath Paris. I’m hungover and tired, my mouth dry as the skull jutting from the wall behind me. Dan looks like Frankenstein’s monster and Dad has twice mistaken the yellow thread keeping Dan’s lip from falling off his face as egg yolk from his over-easy and otherwise gruelling breakfast.
Emma is repulsed by the bones and even more repulsed by her family for dragging her under the city. She’s twice threatened Dan that she’s going to tell her mom, as if we’ve taken her to a Trump rally or a shisha bar. Liam tells her to quit acting like a baby and she responds with a catlike attack, scratching his arms and face with her partially painted box-cutter nails. Liam’s reaction to laugh only makes Emma crazier. She balls up her fists, stomps her tidy pink sneakers and calls her brother a little bitch.
It’s Mona who steps between them, admonishing Emma for her violence and language, before pulling her into a fleshy, grandma hug — or restraint. Dan, unable to parent, stares open-mouthed at the wall of femurs as if their ancient marrow contains the secret to un-gaying his wife.
I make eyes at Liam, mouth for him to behave, and nudge Wes to keep walking. He’s been pausing every ten bodies to text Célestine, and by text I mean sending her hearts: pink hearts, red hearts, double hearts, pulsing hearts, hearts wrapped in bows, hearts wrapped in hearts.
“Wes, Bud, you gotta keep moving. We paid a lot of money for this tour.”
“But, it’s all the same,” he says, sweeping his arm from one side of the path to the other. “Bones.”
“Not entirely,” I reply. “There’s a cross over there, and look,” I point to a skull. “This guy looks like he might have had a run in with an axe.” I show him a beautifully assembled section of pelvic bones, but his gaze is fixed back on his phone, as an explosion of hearts blows up his screen.
I give up on Wes and join Joan and Dad at the front of the group. The ground is uneven and Joan is quick to steady my dad when he stumbles. It’s damp and earthy. I shiver and wish I’d brought a jacket. When we reach the end of the current tunnel, before the path curves to the right, Dad stops and waits for the rest of the family to catch up. No one’s bothered to notice that Mona’s limping and having a hard time navigating in the dim light. I go back for her, hook my arm in hers, and guide her to my father. She squeezes my hand.
Dad clears his throat. “This would be a good place to stop and say a few words about Janice.”
I study the display of bones around us and wonder why Dad’s chosen this particular spot as a good place to stop. Does one of these skulls remind him of my mother? Her strong cheekbones and meager forehead? Is it the large stone cross, blank and bleached and unclaimed on the wall? The compact stack of feminine bones behind his left shoulder? Or does my dad just need a rest, the spiral staircase we used to get down here having nearly done him in?
Wes looks up from his phone. “I remember the Halloween Mom was sick and Grandma had to take us trick-or-treating instead, and she didn’t have time to make a costume, so she borrowed Dad’s skeleton mask.”
Dad smiles. “And she wore my black snowmobile suit,” he says. “I helped her pin up the pants because they were too long.”
I remember that Halloween. I’d eaten salmon I knew was probably off, but didn’t want to throw out. We were on a budget and it was one of the rare times I bought salmon fresh instead of from a can. I didn’t know the skull mask was Glen’s. How had my mother known to call him?
“I remember when I broke my collarbone and Grandma came to the hospital and Mom said I couldn’t have any sugar because my body needed to heal, but Grandma smuggled in a pint of ice cream and spoon-fed it to me every time my mom got up to speak to the nurse or check the clock in the hall.”
Liam’s told this entire story with his hand resting gently on his collarbone.
“This is no fair,” Emma blurts. “I was just a baby. I have no memories.”
Dan crouches in front of his daughter. “No,” he says, tenderly. “You don’t. But when your mom found out she was pregnant with you, the first person she told was Grandma and it was your grandma who took your mom to her first ultrasound appointment because I had a meeting I couldn’t get out of.”
“How little was I?”
“Eighteen weeks. The size of a grapefruit. And you know what a baby can do at eighteen weeks inside her mom’s belly?”
Emma shakes her head. The catacombs are quiet.
“She can hear.”
Emma’s eyes widen.
“Which means, though you never met your grandma, you heard her, and that’s incredibly special because your grandma had the most beautiful voice in the whole wide world.”
Tears, smelling like last night, spill down my face. Mona dabs her eyes. Liam and Wes fidget. Joan smiles. My dad stands with his mouth open looking like he’s seen a ghost, and then to everyone’s surprise he breaks into song, Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” Mom’s favourite lullaby.
Dad’s voice is raspy, achy and pure. The catacombs fill with colour, the bones blurring into a mosaic of beautiful things: feathers, blankets, memories. Then comes the grief. It rises from my chest and explodes out of me in a silent cry, so excruciating I double-over, catching myself on my knees.
“I miss her,” I choke and then my children’s hands are on me. One each on my collapsed spine, and I feel her, my mother. Her love whistles through the gaps in the bones, and settles gently on the back of my neck.
When I finally return to standing, I’m surrounded by my entire family: Wes, Joan. Emma, Liam and Dan. Dad. Mona. I wipe my tears, follow the path toward the exit, climb the stairs to the land of the living.
From my purse I hear galloping hooves. I step into the light, the sun so intense I desperately pull my sunglasses over my face, and Glen is there with exactly what I need: a coffee and silence.
twenty-one
The kids want to go shopping. After a quick stop for baguettes, we take the Metro to the Champs-Élysées where they won’t be able to afford anything. Dad and Mona are too tired to do any more walking, so they plant themselves at the edge of a café to slurp cappuccinos and watch people.
The boys want to split up and go on their own. I give Wes a hundred euro and tell him to spend it wisely. Joan wants a break from Emma. I want a break from Emma. I also want a break from Dan. I suggest he make it a father-daughter-day, buy her some lip gloss or a hip little French outfit, hair accessories, ice cream, a muzzle. She’s been whining all morning, a low battery smoke detector.
That leaves Glen and me and Joan. She wants new soccer cleats, so we take her to Paris’s flagship Adidas store, designed to look like the entrance of a stadium. We climb the indoor concrete steps. The shoes are showcased under blue lights and the mannequins are sleek and headless. Some have skipped leg day.
We watch our daughter examine a wall of cleats. Occasionally she’ll pick one up, test the leather, study the toe box, run her hand along the studs.
“I’m pretty sure those are same ones we looked at at Sport Chek,” Glen says, as she flips over a neon yellow shoe.
We find a bench while she uses hand gestures to ask a handsome sales associate in a puffy vest for sizes. He returns a few minutes later with a comical stack, seven boxes high. Joan gets to work, trying on each pair, planting and pushing off her toe, revering her profile in an angled ground-level mirror.
“Coach said he’s moving her to midfield for indoor,” Glen says.
“Since when? She’s terrible at mid. She needs to be up front.” How does Glen know this?
“We talked about it after her last practice. I think it’s the right decision.”
“She hates mid,” I say.
“No, she doesn’t.”
Joan is tying on a pair of cleats that look spray-painted.
“You talked to the coach?”
“Is that a problem?”
“I talk to the coaches. That’s my job. I am Coach-Talker.”
Glen crosses his arms, gives me a look as though I’m being unreasonable. “I can talk to our kid’s coach,” he says.
“She shouldn’t be playing midfield.”
“Did you see her last exhibition game?”
“I’ve watched almost every one of her games since she started playing. How many of those have you watched? Because if you’d seen even half of them, you’d know she’s a striker. That’s her position.”
The sales associate with the puffy vest glances over at us, his crystal earrings sparking in a beam of sunlight. He hands Joan another boot, this one glossy.
“She scored three times.”
“That was one game.”
Joan looks up mid-tie. “Are you guys serious?” she says, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment, rage. “You’re going to sit here and fight about this?” She resumes tying her shoe, aggressively yanking the laces. “What are you guys even doing?”
Glen and I sit in silence, like a pair of scolded children. Joan tests the cleats, exchanges a few words with the sales associate, and eventually returns them to the box. He nods and collects the rejected pairs.
“It was me,” she says when he’s gone. Is she crying? “I asked to be moved to mid. I play better there. He agreed.” She stuffs the box under her arm and starts texting. “Can we just go now?”
I look for the checkout. Glen goes to Joan. “I’ll get them,” he says, taking out his wallet. The sales associate is back and he gestures toward a minimalist counter with futuristic payment terminals. Glen taps his card. When we get back outside, Joan rushes ahead.
“Wait,” I say, not wanting to be stuck with Glen.
“I’m meeting up with Wes.”
“Let us walk you.” Glen says.
She stops, turns around. “I don’t want to be anywhere near either of you. You’re separate. That’s the way it is. You’re my mom,” she says, squaring her hips to face me. “And you’re my dad. You’re not my mom-and-dad.”
Glen and I exchange glances. Neither of us speaks.
“Like, no offense, Dad, but I don’t even know why you’re here.” She checks her phone, turns and crosses the busy street, dodging an array of attractive people and a less attractive poodle. We follow. A red Bugatti idles in an alleyway. When we catch up on the other side, Joan stops again. “You left when I was in preschool,” she says to Glen. “Preschool.” Then quieter. “Mom doesn’t want you.”
I open my mouth to speak. I find myself wanting to defend him because her words are a mace, bludgeoning and cruel and true and false. I want, I don’t want. Last night, I wanted more.
“Mom met a guy on the plane and they held hands.”
Glen looks at me, hurt. It’s in his eyes. I can barely stomach it.
“You held hands?” he asks.
“Does it matter?”
“You bet it does,” he says. “You love me.”
Is he serious right now?
A table at a nearby café breaks into applause. I am starring in a terrible American film. I look for the cameras. I hear the horse thumping in my purse, pounding against the zipper, trying to get out. And a few feet away, Joan has been replaced with a mime. A real one with suspenders and a striped shirt and a chalk-white face. He’s turning us into his act, pretending to eavesdrop, nodding, crying real tears.
A crowd gathers and the mime pulls out a pair of handcuffs, motions that he’d like to cuff us together. I shake my head but Glen offers his wrist like some kind of sister wife or Manson girl.
“What are you doing?” I say, as the mime snaps the cuff onto Glen’s wrist.
“It’s just an act,” he says, nodding at my arm. “Just play along.”
I don’t want to play along. I’ve been chained to Glen for a decade, as single mothers are to the fathers of their children. The mime is winking, begging with his ugly bowtie pout for me to cooperate. When I don’t flinch, he pulls out a gold badge and a small book. He’s writing us a ticket. The audience, which seems comprised mostly of round and enthusiastic Americans, laughs. It starts to rain.
From the corner of my eye, I see Joan. She’s met up with her brother and Liam, who sip drinks from McDonald’s cups. They take cover under an awning. Wes gapes. Distracted by my kids, I’ve missed whatever the mime was miming, but the crowd is clapping. I could walk away. Excuse myself from this ridiculous Parisian horror. The mime can give Glen a ticket. All the tickets. One for each offense: leaving, coming, talking to the coach.
The rain is falling harder now, fat, steady drops, and the audience is chanting. A bald man in a Duck Dynasty T-shirt and Wranglers is yelling Lock her up! And that’s exactly what Glen does. He swings the free end of the handcuffs, catches it, and clamps it around my wrist. The ratchet teeth sound like farm equipment. A prison door locking. Glen bows, the mime bows, and a roar of delight rises from the crowd. He’s cuffed my right hand.
The show’s over. Umbrellas go off like airbags and tourists flee for cover inside shops and restaurants. The underground. I fumble for my phone, check the time. We are meeting at the Arc de Triomphe at four. It’s now five to.
I storm toward the monument like an occupying soldier, dragging Glen behind me. The handcuffs are in fact plastic, not metal, but they work.
“Where’s the key?” I murmur, dodging a bus tour.
“Here,” Glen says, pinching the end of it.
I see the Arc in the middle of a roundabout. Is it even accessible? It must be. A solemn row of tourists in ponchos stands atop it, umbrellas and disappointment activated. We’re almost there.
“Claudia, wait!” Glen shouts. “My shoe!”
His shoe has fallen off. It’s landed six feet back in a puddle upside down like it’s been blown off his foot in a terrorist attack. He hops hopelessly on one leg, the sock so blue and pitiful, shin so vulnerable, I want to run from him.
Instead, he pulls me into a tree branch, poking my eye. Searing pain. I press my palm into my face, squinting through my good eye while the rain drips down my back. When we reach the puddle, the shoe is gone. A stranger has picked it up. The horse in my purse bucks.
“Claudia?”
Felix looks deep into my eyes, into my rattled soul, my refurbished heart. He stares at the handcuffs, and passes Glen his shoe.
twenty-two
Wait. The word forms, but it stays in my mouth. Felix takes a few staggering steps back as if he needs to reassess the situation in full screen. I will him to see something different. Just me, and no Glen. Like Joan said: separate. I will Glen to dissolve, evaporate, but he stands tall, doesn’t even put his shoe back on. He just stares at me watching Felix because it’s something to see. Our connection is real. You can feel it in the air like an impending weather event, spectacular and a touch threatening. You can almost hear the buzz and crackle. The coupling.
“You know him.” Glen says, a statement not a question.
I nod, my gaze still fixed on Felix. He’s wearing the same shirt from the plane, but it’s partially concealed by a rain coat, fisherman’s yellow. His face is stubbled, his eyes recessed and dark, as if he’s stayed up all night trying to solve for “x.” Ex.
“Alright then,” Felix says, swallows. “Carry on.” He smiles in that proper ministerial way and continues down the Champs, away from Glen and me, away from the Arc de Defeat. Felix, leaving.
“The guy from the plane,” Glen says, like it’s not obvious. “The one who wrote his number on your arm.”
He says it in a way that implies wrongness over romance. I stare at my arm. Where there was a seven, there’s now a cuff. Glen hastily slips his foot back inside his shoe and yells, “Wait!”
“What are you doing?” I say, my eye still stinging. I push the branch away from my face. Glen starts chasing Felix. I dig my heels into the sidewalk to stop him. “The frig are you doing?”
“I wanna ask him something.”
“He has nothing to do with you.”
“It’ll only take a second.”
“Have you lost your mind? Give me the key.”
“Please, Claudia. I have to do this.”
I tug him toward the Arc. He pulls me toward Felix. Felix, who’s now two stores and an Italian restaurant ahead. The handcuff key drops to the ground. We both dive to get it, clashing heads. We nearly topple. Glen grabs the key, and I try to wrestle it from his fingers.
“Give it to me,” I say. We’re too close to the curb. Too close to the swirly manhole cover.
“I need to ask him something,” Glen insists, scrambling back to his feet.
