Chapter Twelve
I didn’t feel free. My name would still be in the credits. What if it had gotten worse? What if it ends up on those mocking
“worst of Netflix” lists? I sat up, soothing myself with the fact of the whopping production fee from A Crush for Christmas that would soon hit my chequing account, allowing me to spend the summer unemployed. I’d worked hard. I deserved it. But
it also felt like a parting gift.
There was no text from Ben, but I tried not to dwell. Sarah would admonish me to be in the present. I looked up. The sky was
clear. Robins and blackbirds sang their little morning ditties from the branches of the swooping sugar maple. Somehow the
greens on the trees, the cherry blossoms that were about to fall, all sparkled brighter against the cloudless blue. There
were no smog alerts on my phone. My feet didn’t ache from standing all day. If I was still keeping the gratitude list I’d
started on the first week of January, these things would make the list.
Dave’s sleeping bag was rolled up and put away on top of his dresser.
I’d slept so poorly; the last time I’d checked the time before I fell asleep it had been 4 a.m. I got back under the covers, exhausted.
Ben posted a photo on the grid, a sunrise over the Don Valley with the tagline Run before my call time, forgot the city could be beautiful.
Our date was beginning to feel definitely fake, our kiss an utter accident, my enthusiasm overblown. Did he just charm me
because he needed a writing teacher and I happened to be in front of him? It wasn’t fair of me to be mad at him for not texting
me back. I left people on read all the time because of my work hours and general sense of grumpiness once I got home. My tendency
to be a texting airhead had actually cost me an entire friendship with a makeup artist I really loved catching movies with
on my days off. She said, “I’m sorry but I’m not into one-sided friendships.” Fair enough. I was no one to judge.
I sat up again, grateful for Dave’s absence. But I did wonder if he woke up and literally ran from the suffocation feelings
of having me in his cabin. And if he was so single, enough to be actively looking on Tinder in a way that suggested he wanted
a girlfriend, not just a hookup, why didn’t he seem interested in us? Was the heat I’d felt one-sided? I thought about how
I’d been literally paralyzed by feelings of attraction, embarrassment, nostalgia, and a kind of forced stoicism, while he’d
been drifting off to sleep without a care in the world. This might be the summer of a thousand humiliations. To emphasize that shame, I leaned over and inhaled Dave’s pillow. A piney kind of hair product, and then some essential him-ness
that I remembered from years ago. When I realized what I’d done, I shot up and bolted to the bathroom.
I looked haggard, a pillow crease across my face like I’d been trying to cross myself out. I stuck my whole head under the
cold tap water and ran my hands through my hair, shaking my arms and legs like a gazelle that just escaped a predator.
I took in the cabin, brighter in the gauzy morning light.
Without the cupboard doors, I could see a box of Cheerios, bulk packs of ramen noodles, a giant silver tub of protein powder, grocery store brand coffee.
The fridge was pretty bare—some sauerkraut, mustard, unopened package of ham, potatoes that had seen better days, a bag of Red Delicious apples.
His recycling box was filled with energy drink cans.
He owned three of each type of kitchen utensil, the lightweight kind.
Two plastic cups you’d take to the beach, two coffee mugs with Dunkin’ Donuts logos.
It was the house of someone in between homes, who wanted to be able to pack up in a moment’s notice.
Would I even want to be with someone so unmoored?
I stopped snooping and looked out the window.
His truck was gone. The feeling of waking up a bit confused and him being gone sent me right back. I felt grimy and listless.
The grass was still dewy on my trek between the cabins. Okanagan stalked a mouse in the front garden, paws flattening the
tiny oregano bush, tail straight up and still. He gave me a curious meow hello as I walked past. Dave had already cleaned
up so much more of the water while I was sleeping. He’d also turned the power back on. I made coffee using bottled water.
With no hot water, very few clothing options, and drinking black coffee, it felt clear that I had to go back to the city and
get my things together. Looking around, I realized my cabin was just as spare and lonely looking as Dave’s, only the bougie
girl version, with my organic coffee beans and bottles of rosehip kombucha from the Foodland, the plastic sandals I’d bought
at Giant Tiger in Picton so that I’d never have to touch the mucky swamp by the lake with my actual skin. I’d planned to go
back to the city on Friday, but a positive side of having no schedule, no boss, was being able to change your plans on the
fly when you needed to. I could go now and gather my writing craft books to would help with planning lessons for camp and
have more to wear than a few sundresses and a pair of cut-offs. There would also be time to clean the apartment in case I
could find a subletter. I refilled Okanagan’s food and water bowls to the brim, despite knowing he was a vagabond who could
take care of himself. If I couldn’t woo a human man, I’d settle for a loyal pet.
I left Dave a note: Thanks for the place to stay and for cleaning up the cabin.
I’m heading to the city for the night to get more things.
I’ll be back tomorrow if you still want help with the horses.
I wrote down my number. I booked a train ticket online and called the local taxi service to take me to Belleville, a small
city with the closest train station.
By early afternoon, I was standing outside my Queen Street apartment, filling in a dishonest five stars on my three-star Uber
driver’s rating page, trying to quell my carsickness with the ancient ginger candy I’d found at the bottom of my purse. Because
I’d been away, I took notice of the soundtrack: streetcar clicks and the decade’s best R & B slow jams emerging from the corner
store. That meant my favourite cashier, Robby, would be half-lidded and grinning, leaning over the lottery tickets encased
in plastic, cracking jokes with whoever wandered in. Robby, unlike his mother, never gave me a scolding look for any late-night
purchases of Cheetos or ice cream, or acquisitions of Gatorade and Advil at 7 a.m. His mother, Kaya, was always on me to find
a husband. You’re not going to find a man in those jogging pants.
That kind of thing. After I finally snapped at her, we’d settled on a routine of polite nods.
I waved at Robby through the glass. I unlocked the downstairs apartment door, glanced into the wedding shop to my right, watching the face of a salesgirl looking miserable as she spoke to a bride-to-be.
I pushed aside a truly phenomenal amount of mail addressed to the third-floor tenant I was always worried was dead.
On the first-floor landing, Marlon and Kris’s door faced mine.
They had a well-organized and always clean boot mat, a newly painted gold number 1 and a matching handle on a black door.
My extra shoes were askew beside my door, which hadn’t seen a paintbrush since the nineties and was still three shades of white, landlord-special style.
I pushed the key in the lock, prepared to jimmy it intensely in the secret way that unlocked it, only it met no resistance.
Had I been so baked I’d forgotten to lock up?
Sure, I had my bimbo moments, but I was an always-locker, never-trust-anyone kind of city lady.
But when I pushed the door open, it was definitely unlocked.
I came face to face with my worst nightmare, even worse than finding someone stealing my meager belongings: my own mother.
I screamed like she was an actual robber.
“Holy shit, you scared me!” I yelled, taking in the scene. My living room was messier than on even my most hungover days,
and mother was pouring wine into a glass at the kitchen island. It wasn’t even 3 p.m. She was wearing one of my sweatshirts.
“You scared me,” she slurred. “You didn’t even knock.”
“This is my house. And you weren’t invited. I had no idea you were here. How did you get in?”
“Marlon gave me his key,” she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world and I was stupid for even asking.
She wandered into the galley kitchen and ran a sponge under the water. She wiped it along the kitchen counter, though it was
clear she hadn’t been cleaning.
“I didn’t tell him it was OK to do that.”
“You’re going to turn away your own mother?”
“You have a beautiful home in Richmond Hill. It has plenty of bedrooms. What happened?”
“It’s a long story. I just needed a little break. A little me time.”
“Why not get a hotel, or go to the condo in Florida?”
“In summer? It’s a winter place, Elise. You know that. And hotels have bedbugs these days. I saw an awful expose on W5.”
“Why didn’t you ask me if you could stay here while I was away?”
“I tried calling you.”
I looked at my phone, scanning the missed calls. Nothing.
“No, you didn’t. In fact, you didn’t reply to my texts.” I handed her my phone as if I were a detective making a case.
“I got a new phone. See that number? That’s me.”
“Well you could’ve texted me or left a voicemail to let me know that. You know how many scam calls I get in a day? I never answer an unknown number.”
“Oh, you’re so important you don’t answer the phone.”
Now my mom was usually a bitch at some point in any visit. But she usually wasn’t as much of a bitch this fast. It was usually
passive and hard to catch if you weren’t paying attention.
“What is going on? This is very unusual behaviour for you.”