Coq, page 4
“Um,” the sales girl starts, “only one person is allowed in the dressing room at a time.”
“It’s okay, I’m her brother,” Dan says.
I hit him in the arm. “That sounds creepy.”
“Sorry,” I explain. “I’m shopping for a dress for our mother’s memorial service. I want to make sure I choose the right one.”
“Uh,” she hesitates, “okay.”
“Terrible choice,” Dan says, shaking his head. “Looks like those weird baby doll dresses girls wore in the nineties.”
“You’ve got a pedophile moustache.”
He runs his thumb across his upper lip. “You’ve got dad’s nose.”
“Okay, that’s just mean.”
“Meaner than being called a pedophile?”
“How’s it going in there?” Annabelle Olivia Rose asks.
“Great,” I shout and then whisper to Dan, “Help me get it off.”
“Are you wearing a bra?” he asks.
“Never say that again,” I reply, knocking over my purse. “Just pull it over my head.”
He gives a hearty tug. “It’s stuck on your boobs.”
“Pull them.”
What happens next will never be spoken of again. When we emerge from the dressing room, I don’t take the time to confirm whether I’ve ripped the dress. I buy it, and leave.
Dan stops at every hand sanitizing station we pass on the way to the car. We don’t speak or make eye contact the whole ride home. Only when I pull into the driveway does he say, “I need a new Group to . . . uh . . . deal with what just happened.” As if he has PTSD.
There’s drizzle on the windshield. I flip on the wipers. “We need a Group too.”
seven
Monday morning, I text Dan from the boardroom and ask him to follow up with the church and restaurant for Mom’s ring. He says to remind me later because he’s driving Emma to a wilderness camp outside the city.
An office temp sets a fruit tray on the table while an IT intern fiddles with the projector screen. The CFO eventually appears in his oval home office. We’re discussing the acquisition of an organic supermarket chain that started in British Columbia and that has expanded across the prairies. Modelled after Okanagan fruit stands and the sidewalk markets in Europe and Queens, Fresh Life’s market share is rapidly growing alongside its patented vertical hydroponic greenhouses.
No one agrees with the company’s valuation. Our Chief Operating Officer calls the acquisition price outrageous. The CFO vehemently disagrees. He’s tasted the company’s arugula, and claims the arugula alone is worth the six-million-dollar purchase price.
“Six million? Their setup reminds me of something you’d find at a NASCAR race or a protest camp. For that price we could just buy a few shipping containers and a bunch of tents from Canadian Tire.”
“Low carbon footprint,” I offer, stabbing a piece of cantaloupe with a toothpick.
“And their greenhouses are covered in graffiti.”
“The company’s founder would call that art.” The cantaloupe has a touch of slime. “They commission locals to paint murals reflecting each community’s relationship with food.”
The CFO pushes a muffin off camera.
“Has anyone seen the Beyond Van Gogh exhibit?”
No one answers.
A colleague turns his laptop screen toward me and shows me a live stream of his dogs fighting over a toy at daycare. He beams.
I didn’t even check to see if Wes and Joan were alive this morning.
I skim over Fresh Life’s financials.
“You know this hydroponic-market thing started in France. A little start-up called Petit Vert.”
I glance up at our business development manager. “In a Paris suburb,” he says.
“I’ll go,” I say.
“To Paris?” the CFO asks. His wife appears in the background of his screen, setting a bag of McDonald’s on his credenza. He doesn’t turn around.
“Look at the numbers.” I point to a column on the spreadsheet. “When’s the last time you saw growth like that?”
The CEO makes a face like he’s never seen growth like that.
“I have to go anyway,” I say. “To Paris. We’re doing this family trip.”
“When?”
“Soon.” Soon?
The executive team shrugs and we move on to Health and Safety. By the time I get out of the boardroom I have a thousand unread texts.
Wes: can i eat the last cheese bun?
Dan: ring not at the church
Joan: where’s my flat iron?
Dad: send this to ten friends . . .
Glen: there’s a flat iron in my trunk
Dan: ring not at the restaurant
Wes: can we order Skip?
Mallory: have u seen this?
Mallory Pepper, whose luggage I stole and whose maternity pants are still hanging in the back of my closet. I remember teaching her how to breastfeed from a Calgary hotel room. And I must’ve done a good job because her son, Arthur, is now ten and a dozen cheeseburgers taller than his classmates. He’s on my fridge in the form of a hockey card.
Mallory’s my travel agent. I click on the link, hoping she’s sent me a flash seat sale to Paris or a hot deal on an all-inclusive, but the link takes me to a blog: A Journey to Self. The hell is this? I scroll through broken landscapes and National Geographic-style street scenes, including one image of a fruit stand that seems to stretch an entire city block. Does Mallory know about Fresh Life?
When I click on the ABOUT tab, a picture of Glen pops up. He looks thin and gay. Probably taken in France. Did he even travel through France? How does one get from Rotterdam to Singapore via bicycle? And since when does Glen have a website?
Last year, I took a sabbatical from my medical sales job in Canada and cycled 16,000 km from Singapore to Rotterdam. What started as a freewheeling adventure to inject more impulse and immediacy into my life evolved into a spiritual awakening. One of awareness and healing. Reconciliation and peace. I went to see the world, but what I saw was myself.
What the actual fuck. Impulse? What is impulse if not leaving your partner and two small kids to then go play house with another woman? What is immediacy if it’s not waking up to a kid barfing in her bed, or getting a text from your dad that he’s having a panic attack at Canadian Tire, or an email from your son’s teacher that your kid probably has lice. It’s a stroke on a plane.
“Claudia?” Marcus from Business Development raps on my door.
I wave him in.
“Check it out.” He shows me an image of a Petit Vert in a Northern Paris suburb. In addition to greens, it includes a community fridge, a cheese cooler and a small-batch baguette oven. Mismatched chandeliers dangle from a painted ceiling. The staff wear green-striped aviation-style coveralls. “Cool, right?”
I nod. If Petit Vert’s uniforms reflect current fashion trends, I can skip shopping and wear Dad’s pajamas to Paris.
“See this?” Marcus points to a row of five vintage yellow seats, inside the entry of Petit Vert’s. A sign in front of them invites Parisians to sit and reflect about a time they had to wait.
So much for immediacy. Marcus flips his laptop shut, and stands. “I’ll send you some stats,” he says taking an apple from my fruit bowl. “The graphics will blow your mind.” He mimes an explosion with his hand.
I go back to Glen’s website and study the pictures. He has an eye. His subjects seem to have enjoyed being photographed by him. The people smile, the trees perform, the pigeons are proud. Even the inanimate seems alive. Waving Jeeps, frowning concrete, buildings that hum.
A one word reply to Mallory: weird.
This is a Glen I don’t recognize. A Glen who supersedes co-parenting arrangements, complicated surnames, and shared Christmases. And yet the images also show a side of him I remember from before we had kids. A Glen who explored abandoned buildings, invited strangers for dinner, and jumped from planes.
I used to explore abandoned buildings, invite strangers for dinner, and jump from planes.
Mallory texts: go to the events tab.
Glen has a arranged a speaking gig at the library, this Friday. The talk’s title is ripped from his bio: I went to see the world, but what I saw was myself— an evening with Glen Hopper.
Mallory: Read the last line.
I skim through the lengthy blurb . . . capuchin . . . flat tire . . . yak butter . . . lost wallet . . . temple . . . Claudia. I stop at my name and read the line aloud: Leaving Claudia was a mistake.
My chest heaves and dips.
This is what I’d think about at the Petit Vert in north Paris. How I’ve waited a decade, pinned to a seat, for Glen to admit any type of regret. I feel a mix of vindication and shame. A touch of rage. Vindication for being regretted, shame that it matters. Rage that it doesn’t.
I remember Wes coming home from school in grade one, and asking if it was true that he came from a broken home, and all I could do to keep my legs from buckling was to agree because luckily, the fridge wasn’t working at the time. I’d spent the night trying to fix it. This was before YouTube had really taken off, and I could only find one video and it was three and a half hours long, and I cried through every twist of the screwdriver. When Wes got up the next morning, I showed him my handiwork. I made him stick his hand inside the crisper so he could feel how cold it was. I assured him his home was no longer broken, even if I was cracked in half.
I hoist myself up from my chair and gaze at a picture of Cathy and me taken at a Spartan race a few years after Mom died. We’re both covered in mud, both laughing; me keeled over, heaving, her upright and bent skyward, clutching her chest. God, it was a terrible race. She was so elated to finish. I don’t remember what was so funny but it’s my favourite picture of her. It was on our way home from the race in a Dairy Queen drive-thru she told me she had cancer. I still have the red plastic spoon on my desk.
I touch her face, imagine she’s laughing at Glen’s bio, which is — admittedly — a bit Pinterest for my tastes. She would balk at the thought of me getting back together with him and understandably so. It was her who stepped in to replace him during those middle years when the kids always seemed to have overlapping schedules. She’d pick up Wes from swimming lessons, drive Joan to soccer, come with me to hockey games and movie nights and school concerts. Deliver a forgotten lunch kit to the school. Once she even attended Wes’s Cub Scouts BBQ. On Father’s Day. And for a woman who was frequently misgendered and anxious about her tremendous height, it was the ultimate act of friendship. The ultimate act of love. She died too soon.
eight
Mona and Dad are playing Boggle at my kitchen table when I get home from work. This is not what I imagined when I told Dad to keep his key and drop in anytime. Mona’s using one of my office notepads to keep score. Wes and Joan are plugged in front of the TV, watching a murder show and slurping takeout Pho.
“Check it out,” Dad says. “I spelled SURPRISE. That’s worth eleven. Most points I ever got.”
Surprises should be worth zero points, I think, sizing up the garbage bag in the kitchen. Why is the oven on?
“What’s in the bag?”
“The old comforter,” Dad says, flipping the sand timer.
Not my, not our. The old comforter. Such an impersonal article for such a personal article. As though that comforter didn’t shroud my parents, their marriage, in warmth.
“We thought you might want it. I know there wasn’t much left after . . .” Mona’s voice trails and Dad immediately disassociates, because this is what he does. He’s physically still here staring at the Boggle tiles but his mind is elsewhere. The seventh hole, the seventh planet, drowning in the seventh sea.
I finish the sentence. Not much left after the hoarding. Mona’s right. Not much survived my father’s stint of grief-induced garbage collecting. But I’m not sure I want the comforter. It’s too intimate, never mind too floral. And yet I understand how it would be weird for Mona to lie in bed with the ghost of my mother on top of her.
Wes and Joan have both pushed their takeout containers aside.
“Did you guys not get me anything?”
“Dad paid for it because there was no food.”
I open the fridge. “There’s tons of food. I went grocery shopping yesterday.”
“Joan was craving pho,” Wes says. “And you didn’t answer your text.”
“Dad always lets me use his account,” Joan adds.
“What do you mean by always?” There’s half a pound of luncheon meat in the drawer, yogurt, cheese. A whole goddamned Petit Vert on the bottom shelf.
“She orders Starbucks all the time,” Wes says.
“Coffee?” I ask.
Joan spins a chopstick between her fingers. “Non-fat soy Frappuccino, double whip, caramel drizzle.”
“It’d be weird if we got you something on Dad’s account.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to pay for it from his account. Joan, don’t drink coffee. You’re too young to get addicted to caffeine.” I turn back to my dad and Mona. “Did you guys eat?”
“We went to Denny’s,” Mona replies, furiously scratching words on the notepad.
Dan charges through the door, wipes his feet on the mat. It must be raining because his hair’s sopping and his pants are spotted.
“Is that Edo?”
“Starving,” Dan replies. “That wilderness camp is nearly an hour’s drive.”
“So, everyone’s eaten?”
“I can make you something?” Mona offers, flipping the sand timer on its side to pause the game. She lumbers to the fridge, takes a quick scan, touches a few things. “Not much in here,” she says, frowning.
Dan sets his Edo on the table beside Dad. “Claudia, pass me a fork.”
“Can you get your own fork?”
“I had a hard day.” He shakes a tiny container of sesame seeds over his bowl of noodles. “When are we doing this trip to Paris? Because I gotta talk to Allison-Jean.”
“Paris?” Joan squeals. She jumps from the couch and races to the kitchen. All I see are legs. “We’re going to Paris?”
Dad’s face turns red. He hasn’t told Mona. Dan dumps hot sauce on his noodles.
“Paris?” Mona shrieks, pushing away from the table. “Gerald, was this the surprise?”
Dad looks at me, mouth open.
“Do I have to go?” Wes asks.
Mona is still waiting for Dad to reply. Her fingers are braced against the table’s edge, and turning white. Oblivious Dan shovels noodles into his mouth with game show desperation. Dad leans away. “Daniel, slow down. You’re eating like a starved horse.”
Mona cannot come to Paris. It’s a memorial trip, not a honeymoon.
“France sucks,” Wes says. “Can’t we go somewhere cool? Like the Maldives?”
“Do you know expensive the Maldives are?” I know because Glen once sent me a postcard from there. A university friend’s wedding. Mallory said he would have paid a thousand bucks a night for the resort he stayed in.
“Gerald?” Mona says, her voice cracked and quiet.
“No,” he finally replies. “The surprise was that I got us tickets to see the Van Gogh exhibit.”
Disappointment ripples through her jangly cheeks until she can close her mouth and clench her jaw.
“I heard it’s lovely.” I stare at Dan, imploring him to say something.
“Romantic,” he adds, wiping his chin with his sleeve.
“Van Gogh killed himself,” Joan says.
“Yeah, shot himself in the chest. I saw it in a meme.” Wes turns off the TV. “His last words were ‘The sadness will last forever.’”
Mona swallows. “And this was what you had planned for our honeymoon?”
Dad shakes the Boggle case. “Not our honeymoon per se, just a post-wedding date night.”
“So, Paris is still a thing?”
“Look, Mona,” I say. “Dad probably didn’t tell you because we only discussed it yesterday but we were thinking of going to Paris — as a family — to commemorate the tenth anniversary of my mom’s death.”
Silence. No one says anything because everyone is trying to discern what I mean by family. We hadn’t even discussed bringing the kids. Allison-Jean would probably say no. Glen would probably say yes and then have a conflict in his schedule that would prevent him from “babysitting” his children. And Mona and Dad have only known each other a few months. A few months gets you Van Gogh. Not Paris.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Paris,” Mona says.
“So did my mom,” I quietly reply.
Mona pries the lid from the Boggle case, plucks the letters off one-by-one and drops them into the sack. I think of the floral pouch, Mom’s missing ring. Wes throws his takeout container in the trash and leaves for a friend’s house. Joan hands Mona an Edo napkin. Dad reaches for Mona’s hand. Her ring is sapphire, cut like a second helping.
“Sorry, Mona. It was something we should’ve done ages ago. Life just kind of kept happening. Kept getting in the way. We figured this would be a way to get some closure. To say good-bye.”
“I understand,” Mona replies. She tears the scoresheet from my legal pad and throws it in the garbage. “Gerald,” she says,
“I’d like to go.”
“To Paris?” he replies, standing.
“Home.”
Home. Family.
Dad gathers game parts to put away. He’s frazzled and can’t fit everything inside the box. He does the best he can, but the timer rolls onto the floor and he throws everything into Dan’s empty plastic takeout bag.
Mona slips into her sneakers. She struggles to pull the heels up over the backs of her ankles. I hand her a shoehorn. Without wedding makeup, her skin looks like time and worry. My mom’s face didn’t reach this hallmark and I’m both sad and relieved by this. Mona sits down on the padded hall bench, passes the shoehorn to Dad. It takes him three and a half minutes to put on one shoe, untied. Mona gets down on her knees, on the hardwood no less, to tie his laces. I imagine her tying the laces of each of her five boys. Boys who would grow up and get dispatched to Bosnia and Eritrea, blown up in Afghanistan. No wonder her wrinkles are trenches. No wonder she wants to go to Paris.
