Chapter Eighteen #2
“Didn’t you used to call me little Chrissy whenever I ate candy?”
“I did, I did.” His face broke in a wide grin. He did an impression of the character, a little girl with a zombie face.
“What time does the first movie start?”
“Nine?”
“OK, well at the rate my mom is drinking, she should be sleepy by then. And we’re probably going to be ready to eat in about
twenty minutes. Come on by. It’s nice enough to eat outside.”
“Sounds great. Thanks.”
I can do this, I can be casual and friendly with the person who broke my heart and made me insane with grief for several pivotal
years of my early adulthood. I’m resilient, surely, aren’t I? These were the thoughts in my head as I prepared the chicken, swirling with more excitement than made sense for a casual outdoor
dinner on a splintery picnic table that included my mother.
The only thing more awkward than eating with my mother was eating with my mother and Dave. I discussed: the pretty sky, which
birds have what songs, the catbird who learned to meow and is native to Ontario, general summer plans, my writing students.
Dave tried his best to keep the conversation going, but my mom kept refusing the play ball. Ironically I could’ve used Ben
there to charm everyone into soothing comfortability. Dave started talking about all the projects he was planning on getting
done that summer—the new dock, planting new trees, finishing the siding and the roof on his cabin. He asked my mother polite
getting-to-know-you questions, which she didn’t politely return. She was a disaster of incuriosity. I felt embarrassed. Had
she never been taught how to have a conversation? I tried to step in.
“Dave and I met years ago, the summer after first year university when I taught at that camp up north?”
“You taught at a camp?”
“Yes,” I said, so annoyed that she rarely recalled any details of my life. “Anyway, it was a real surprise to see him here, next door, all these years later.”
My mother smiled, but in a way that I knew meant she was just not interested in the conversation.
“We dated back then. Dave was my first, uh, real relationship.” I offered. This is what made people closer, right? Opening
up, sharing, being real? My mother was allergic to that kind of talking, it seemed.
“Why isn’t your boyfriend joining us tonight? Ben. Ben, right? The actor? He is so handsome, that Ben. And charming.”
Dave’s face went completely white.
“He’s in the city,” I said. “Does anyone want more salad?”
I didn’t know how to handle this. I didn’t want the jig to be up because it was a very useful way to get her off my back,
and also because I would have to explain why we’d lied in the first place. Can of major worms. Also, why would Dave care?
Whenever I’d shown any interest, he hadn’t returned it, except in my head when I hallucinated that he also wanted to kiss
me. So I changed the subject.
“More wine?” I offered Dave. He shook his head, staring off into the trees behind us. A part of me hoped he was sad to hear
I was dating someone he hated, but it was probably just the dissociative state that happens to a lot of people after twenty
minutes of trying to interact with my mom.
By nine, my mother was in bed reading. I pulled out the couch bed and said I was going to chat with Dave a bit. She raised
her eyebrows but didn’t ask anything else.
I stood outside for a few minutes texting Kate. If Mom is really broke why is she taking me for a pedicure and buying expensive wine? The mom I know would be booking at a hotel instead of this—and I cannot stress this enough—TINY cabin.
Sarah’s theory is that she doesn’t want to be alone, Kate answered.
But Mom is so independent.
But she’s right, you know, has she ever lived without a partner? She went right from her parents’ house to Dad to Charles.
Did Charles ever get back to you? I asked.
He sent one text that read: It’s complicated. Ask your mother.
Mystery! I think maybe he stole her money?
Gambled it away? she offered. How are you handling being with her?
The debate. Do I lie, to appease Sarah? No, Kate is too smart for that.
I am trying my best.
Measured. But honest.
Thanks sissy, I appreciate it so much. Sarah and I needed this calm time before the wedding. I’m working so many doubles.
No worries! OK, that last text was a lie, but more of a daily, social convention lie.
I knocked on Dave’s door. Baby greeted me like I was his long-lost best friend. He was the exact right height while standing
like a human to dance around with, his paws on my shoulder.
“I’m ready for John Waters magic!” I said, perhaps a little too cheerfully.
“I’ll pop some corn,” he said.
I sat down on the couch. “Sorry if my mother is literally the most awkward person on earth.”
“She just seemed shy. No worries.”
“You’re too kind. To me, she is pathologically incurious about other people.”
“Other people’s families always look better to me.”
“Same.”
“Like, it would’ve been cool if my mother had been ambitious like your mother. She was always buying lottery tickets and then got involved with that office fraud she took the rap for. I was always worried about money, even when I barely understood what money was.”
“Oh, that’s so hard.”
“You guys do talk to each other like strangers, or like, polite neighbours.”
My face burned. I didn’t want to know what we seemed like to others.
“We had a falling out for a long time. We haven’t spent this much time together in years.”
“I get it. I see my mom maybe once a year, and she only lives in Ottawa. It’s so odd every year to spend an awkward Christmas
day together when all the rhetoric about holidays is that you spend it with the most important people in your life. But how
can family be that important if you only small talk on holidays?”
“I know what you mean.”
The microwave beeped. “Butter and salt?”
“Is there any other way?”
“I was always really jealous of watching other kids with their moms when I was growing up,” he continued.
“Me too.”
It was so retro to be getting ready to watch a movie that was simply playing on a TV channel. He poured the popcorn into a
blue plastic salad bowl, salted it generously, and placed it on the coffee table next to two ice-cold cans of Diet Coke.
“Is this still your poison?”
I nodded and cracked my can. “Nectar of the gods.”
He handed me a multicoloured crocheted Afghan, and I settled into one side of the couch. I felt the space between us, both
of us hugging either end of the couch under separate blankets. Five minutes to the start of the movie.
“So, you are dating Ben. I’d been wondering.”
“Oh, Ben and I are just fake dating.”
I thought Dave’s face changed, but he turned away too quickly for me to really know.
“It’s a long story,” I went on, “but he was around when my mother was on my case about not having a date to my sister’s wedding,
and he just kind of swooped in and saved the day.” I said it directly because I felt like it was true, but then I flashed
on Ben and I in the truck. I didn’t want to finally get Dave back in my life and then lie to him. Panic. Panic. Panic.
“Oh, that is very much the plot to, like, a Parent Trap–era movie.”
“Well, sometimes he flirts for real or it’s a bit blurry.” Blurry like steaming up the car windows kind of blurry.
“Ugh, Ben is the worst.”
“Oh no. It’s not his fault. But regardless, we are not officially dating. I don’t even know what I feel or—”
“It’s OK, you don’t have to explain anything to me about your love life,” he said. He was being utterly sincere. I’d been
reading into all of his signals.
“Oh, I don’t have a love life, ha ha.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Got it. You know, I saw you on Tinder.”
He put his hands in front of his face. “Ugh, that’s embarrassing. But I saw you on there, too.”
“It’s weird out there.”
“For sure.”
We stared into each other’s eyes until I couldn’t bear it. I put my fingers through the holes in the granny-square patterns
of the blanket.
“I thought you were going to tell me not to date Ben. You know, you told me what happened with your brother, but didn’t explain
why you don’t like Ben.”
“I like Ben fine but I don’t trust him,” he said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, really. It’s old feelings, I guess. He was Damon’s best friend. I was calling and checking in on him almost every day.”
“I remember you calling him from the pay phones after lunch every day.”
“The last conversation Damon and I had, he asked if it was cool that he go to this party in South Bay, which was a little
far for my comfort levels. I knew kids drove drunk all the time and it was so senseless, you know? I said he shouldn’t, but
I knew he might, no matter what I said. So I told him not to drink, to be careful. And then I made him put Ben on the phone,
and I told Ben that he had to go with Damon and to watch him, make sure he didn’t drink, to check his sugars and stuff. And
Ben promised me that he would. He promised me that he wouldn’t let Damon go alone. He talked a good game. So I felt nervous,
but I knew at least Ben would be there for him. Damon was a smart, sweet kid, but he was like, well nowadays he’d be on ADHD
meds, for sure. He wasn’t great at details. And then the day before the party, Ben got an audition and went to the city and
left Damon by himself. Ben was supposed to call me if anything changed, you know? The only person Damon would listen to was
me. If I told him not to go to the party, he’d be pissed, but he would’ve listened. But he went by himself. There were kids
he knew there, but he wasn’t that popular, you know? Ben was his only ally, really. And he just chose to leave him alone.”
“That’s awful, but Ben was also just a kid.”
“I know, I know. But I blamed him. I think because when I was that age, I was having to act like an adult, you know? So I
didn’t get it. And I can’t shake it, that resentment.”
“Yeah, I get that. I had to act like an adult to take care of my sister when I was fourteen. Other kids really don’t get it.”