Chapter 2 #6
just past midnight, alice ran out of a taxi and through the rain, her high-heeled booties wobbly on the cobblestones.
Under an awning, she used her hands to brush the drops of water off her white motorcycle jacket and shook out her long straight hair.
Her mother would often say that her hair was the prettiest thing about her, while her eyes travelled over the rest of Alice’s body.
Judy could be mean, but she wasn’t wrong.
Alice was keenly aware that her jeans were designed to make her legs appear leaner and longer, that her bra propped up her breasts like second-hand paperback books on a shelf.
There was smoothing primer under her foundation, plumping gloss on her lips.
But her hair. Her black, black hair fell shiny and straight down her back, absorbing light and then radiating it out again, even on a shitty rainy night.
Around her, groups of twenty-somethings rushed past, a little bit drunk, a little unsteady on the uneven Gastown sidewalks. She was old enough to have birthed all of them, but in this midnight dark, no one would ever guess. Or so she hoped.
She opened the glass door and stepped inside the small bar.
It was narrow, running back toward the alley like a hallway.
The walls were brick and hung with Value Village art—plates with dogs painted on them, portraits of children long since dead, mottos in cross-stitch.
It was full, every candlelit table cluttered with glasses and purses and phones and baskets of fries.
In the back, at the bar, Alice saw a lone empty stool.
When she sat, she shrugged off her jacket and looked up at the chalkboard, scrawled over with daily specials. The bartender, broad and smiling, set down a glass he was polishing. “What can I get you, pretty lady?”
Alice could feel the blood rising through her chest and neck. Her cheeks prickled with burn. “Could you make me a boulevardier?”
“Classic. But also not on our menu.”
“Is it too much trouble?”
“Not for you.” He leaned over the bar and kissed Alice on the lips. She had waited for him all week.
Alice had first met Jas seven months ago, when she came to his bar with a group of mom friends, women from the neighbourhood who had very little in common, but who all had children they needed to get away from and a need to drink when they had the chance.
It had been easy to fall into this social group, something that Alice had never really had.
On the night she met Jas, she was out with this circle of women, flinging their heads back with laughter every time one of them told a dirty joke.
They had been loud, singing indistinctly to every song the bar played, spilling drinks on the table, ordering plates of nachos they barely ate.
Alice was sure all the twenty-seven-year-olds in their utility jumpsuits and bulky white sneakers were judging the suburban cougars and the ’90s hip hop they kept requesting, but she didn’t even care.
After last call, Jas sat down with them, the only table left, and poured them a round of tequila shots.
When he started talking quietly to Alice, all the other moms noticed and smirked while shouting about which Backstreet Boy was still hot.
“Kevin forever. Obviously.”
“Does anyone else feel sorry for Howie? The boy everyone forgets.”
“Nick has a full dad bod now. I kind of like it.”
“If I was turned on by dad bods, I would still be married,” Alice shouted, and all the women erupted in laughter.
Jas turned to her and smiled. “Oh, a drunk single mom. Such a cliché.”
“What kind of cliché? Enlighten me.”
“You know, the frustrated cougar who wears tight jeans and wants to bone every handsome man she meets so she can get back at her douchey ex-husband.”
Alice frowned. “I don’t think that’s fair at all.”
“Is your ex not a douche?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said quietly.
“Shit, I hurt your feelings.”
She laughed. “Maybe a little.”
“You can insult me any way you want. I deserve it.” He sat up straight and puffed out his chest, his ever-present smile spreading wider.
“I can’t! At least, not to your face.”
“Nothing bothers me anymore. I used to wrestle as a kid while wearing a turban. Trust me, I’ve heard it all.”
“Just because you’re tough doesn’t mean I should ever take advantage of that. Who could be mean to that face?” And Alice fit the palm of her hand against his bearded jaw, just for a second, as gently as she could, her arms heavy with gin.
From that night, Jas became a recurring event in Alice’s life.
On the weekends, she would meet him at his bar, stay until closing, and they would return to her house where they fucked and snacked and dozed until morning.
Alice had had boyfriends her whole life, but it was Jas who tucked her body into his, his long hair falling over her shoulders like a caress, his eyes open when he kissed her, as if he needed to see her, all of her, all the time.
She felt loose when he was with her, arms and legs devoid of their angles, only semicircles and the soft give of muscles gone lax.
Once, she looked over his shoulder as he sat up in bed, and she saw that he was checking the Instagram profile of a television interior designer, thumb hovering over the heart on a post about barn house chic.
She tried not to laugh, but he heard her anyway.
“Now you know my best kept secret: I’m a decor nerd. I’m the biggest Property Brothers fan. Hey, did you know they’re from Maple Ridge, just down the highway?”
She never allowed herself to think that she loved him. She knew she probably did.
On weeknights, after Luna and Luca had gone to bed, he sometimes snuck into her house through the basement entrance, where she would meet him and lead him to her bedroom, shutting the door with her hand on the frame with the quietest of clicks.
When she turned around, he was always already in bed, happy to watch as she walked toward him slowly, peeling off the clothes that marked her as a middle-aged mom.
Grey T-shirt. Black leggings. Nude bra. She never dared to dress differently during those nights, afraid her kids would wake up and catch her in a silk robe and mascara and ask her questions she didn’t want to answer.
She wore only the smallest dab of perfume.
Jas always left just before dawn. The children had never met him and were unaware of his existence. He had never asked to spend time with them, and she had never offered.
Her house was a mess. Her business leaked into the rest of her life.
And the children, always the children. Ever since she let Pinky go to save money, each day was stuffed full, and she thought she might burst from the surplus of responsibility.
She knew that she appeared to be more than just fine.
From the outside, she was beautiful and successful, her children smart and polite.
She had to maintain this veneer of perfection for her business, for the other moms at the school who whispered about her divorce, and for herself, so that she wouldn’t look in the mirror and loathe everything she saw.
She was so scared of losing her grip on even a single thing, scared of the avalanche of failures she might further unleash that would end with her going back to a bad marriage to an intolerable man.
Already Luna only looked at her with scorn.
What catastrophe would be next? This fear was exhausting.
And so, Alice didn’t want to consider if she wanted more from Jas, because she was certain there wasn’t any room for more.
Just after two in the morning, after Alice had had three boulevardiers and one glass of prosecco, Jas locked up the safe, turned off the lights, and led Alice out into the alley, where his tiny electric car was parked.
As they drove through the wet, dim streets, Alice felt the hangover headache starting behind her left eye.
“I might be very drunk,” she whispered.
Jas turned left onto First Avenue. “I know what will sober you up.”
“Pervert,” she said, swiping at him with her hand.
“I’ll take care of you, baby. Don’t I always?”
But he didn’t dare and she knew it. She had always told him that she didn’t have time for a committed relationship and he had never asked her for one, but she knew—in the way that he held her and watched as her eyelids slowly dropped, or the way he checked to see if her photo frames were hung properly—that the late nights, the sneaking in and out, none of it was enough.
Sitting in his car, watching his profile against the windows lit by street lamps, Alice squashed the thought that he might want to be a husband or, worse, a stepfather one day.
That was a future worry, to be dealt with when she was sober and clear and reasonable.
And anyway, since when did worry ever help anyone have a good time?