53 Letters For My Lover (13 page)

“Me, me, me!” cried Jayne, the next time the two of them came around.

“Ah, we have company!” Greta let him go, still laughing, and started clapping to the beat.

Troy carried Jayne away, her head disappearing behind the stark white shelving. For a while it looked like he’d gone completely haywire, turning and bobbing through an empty store by himself. I heard her whoop of delight as he twirled her around, and then he was coming back our way again.

Jayne grabbed me while Troy pulled Greta in, and we ended up in a conga line, threading our way up and down the aisles, the three of us following his lead. Three shuffles, a crazy kick and a toss of our heads. And repeat.

Then he stole me away and we waltzed past the cooler with the milk and little cartons of half-melted ice-cream. I shrieked as he led me into a series of dizzy spins, one after the other, before drawing me back to him. I could smell the clean, spicy scent of his freshly showered skin as we returned to where Jayne and Greta were standing, doing their own versions of the twist. He joined them, competing for the most ridiculously exaggerated poses. Just before the song ended, he lowered Greta into a dip and planted the biggest smooch on her lips. She tottered unsteadily as she came up for air, her face split with the widest, brightest smile.

“Thank you, Greta.” He picked up the car keys from the counter.

“Lordy.” She laughed.

“You behave now.” He wagged a finger at her as we left the gas station.

She waved, beaming at us through the smudged square of her window.

“Let’s go, girls.” Troy opened the car door.

Inside, Ryan and Ellen were lip-locked, legs and arms entwined in the back seat.

“Alrighty then.” He shut the door and walked around to the other side.

“You go,” I whispered in Jayne’s ear. I wasn’t getting anywhere near all that action.

“Hey!” Jayne elbowed Ryan. “Break it up. You’re making us uncomfortable.”

And by ‘us’, she meant me. Jayne was obviously amused and Troy was thoroughly enjoying my discomfort. The passionate duo pulled away reluctantly.

“Where to?” asked Troy when I got in the front with him. The sleeves of his t-shirt strained against his biceps as he put his seat belt on.

I gave him the address, feeling like the back seat might have been a better option after all.

“You’re the furthest,” he said. “We’ll do Ellen, then Ryan and Jayne, and then you.”

“Or you could just drop me off first, and them on the way back.” The prospect of being alone with him made my stomach clench into a tight little ball.

“Us first!” declared Jayne. “Mum’s going to be up waiting and I don’t want to screw it up for next time.”

“Right,” replied Troy, turning on the ignition. “Anyone waiting for you, Shayda?”

I looked away, wondering where Hafez had spent Canada Day. Maybe he was at the wheel, eating up the miles to make his deadline, or maybe he had pulled into a truck stop to stretch out his legs.

When we got to Ellen’s, Ryan walked her to the door. They disappeared in the shadows while we waited in the car.

“You’re done for, mate,” said Troy when he got back. “Whipped. Finished. Over and out.”

“Just drive, will ya?” Ryan grinned. “Wait until it happens to you.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Jayne. “Bet he’s the first one dragged down the aisle.”

“Oh yeah? Bet he’s the last man standing.”

Troy let them speculate, keeping his eyes on the road, but I felt his gaze on me every now and then.

The silence grew thick
after we dropped Jayne and Ryan off. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of the way Troy’s arms moved when he shifted gears, the way his legs controlled the pedals, the way the car purred under his command.

“You mind?” he asked, rolling down his window.

“No.” I fished out a scrunchie from my bag and tied my hair back. It was still hot, but the night air cooled my fevered skin.

“Hey, Shayda?”

“What?”

He slid the scrunchie out of my hair and tossed it out the window. My carefully tamed mane sprung back into a mass of curls. I opened my mouth, shut it, opened it again, and swallowed the words. Then I unrolled my side of the window and shot him a sideways glance.

We started laughing at the same time, both of us looking equally ridiculous, our hair flapping in the wind as if we were free-falling into the night.

“Here we are.” He turned into my apartment.

“I’ll be fine,” I said as he reached for his door. “You don’t have to come up.”

“I want to.” He smoothed my hair behind my ear.

“Don’t.” I gripped his hand, holding it away.

The air throbbed as our eyes locked.

“Is it just me or do you keep everyone at arm’s length?” he asked.

I let go of his hand, feeling foolish for reading more into the gesture.

Outside, a Canada Day party was going strong. David Bowie was rocking out the words to ‘Let’s Dance’ with jittery breathlessness.

“Now if I were to do this...” He tugged me closer so our lips were almost touching.

My stomach flip-flopped. My eyes widened in alarm and I clamped my hand over my mouth. Then I was running out the door, fumbling blindly with the keys before racing through the lobby and jabbing the elevator button.

“Shayda!” I could vaguely hear Troy coming after me.

I ran for the stairs, taking two at a time as his footsteps echoed after mine through the drab, grey stairwell. I flung open the door to the third floor and made a run for the apartment, barely making it to the kitchen sink before throwing up all over it.

Troy rubbed my back as I retched and retched until there was nothing left.

“Can’t say I’ve ever elicited that kind of a reaction before.” He attempted some humor as I cleaned up. “And I’ve never met anyone who could hold it through six flights of stairs until it was good and proper to let loose.”

My throat felt tight and exhausted. I rinsed the sink and splashed some water on my face, appalled that he had to witness that.

“Here.” He led me to the couch and sat me down. “May I?” he asked, before kneeling to wipe the plastered hair off my forehead. “No one’s home?” He glanced around the sparsely furnished space.

I shook my head.

“Stay right there.” He walked into the kitchen.

I heard him moving things in the refrigerator. He returned with a glass of ginger ale.

“Here.” He handed it to me. “Drink.”

I took a few small sips, grateful for the cool bubbles that soothed my throat. This was the third time in as many weeks that I’d thrown up. My brows furrowed.

“You okay?” he asked.

I looked at him, flipping a calendar in my head.

“I think...I think I’m pregnant,” I replied.

The night Ma died. My first time with Hafez. I had long run out of the birth control pills Dr. Gorman had given me.

“Wow.” Troy slumped into the chair, looking pale, as if he were about to hurl too.

“Don’t worry, it’s not yours.” My turn to attempt some humor, even though it felt like the rug had just been pulled out from under me.

“Shouldn’t your...shouldn’t your husband be here?”

“He’s back tomorrow.”

“You want to call him?”

“He’s on the road. It can wait.”

Troy got up and started pacing the living room.

“You should go,” I said. “I’m fine. Really.”

He went very quiet, like he could see just how hard I was shaking inside.

“I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Mrs....?” he said as I let him out.

“Hijazi. Shayda Hijazi.”

“Well, Mrs. Hijazi.” He gave me the kind of smile that begs a ribbon, the kind you want to wrap up and store away. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“Sorry I—,” I started, but he shushed me with a finger on my mouth.

“You rest now.”

I nodded, trying to get over the knot in my throat as I watched him walk to the elevator.

“I hope it’s a girl,” he said before stepping in. “With sunset red in her hair, like her mother.”

“I don’t have red in my hair.”

“You do,” he replied. “When the light hits it a certain way, like that morning I ran into you. Beautiful, fiery shades of red.”

I shook my head and smiled. A charmer to the end.

“Goodbye, Shayda Hijazi,” he said before the elevator closed on him.

“Goodbye, Troy Heathgate.”

I shut the door, not knowing it would be twelve years before I saw him again.

November 11th, 1995 (2)

A cold wind sweeps
grey leaves around my feet. I get up, hoping it will pick up my memories of Troy and take them wherever grey leaves go to die. I stop by the pond, with my hands in my pockets, and see a flash of color on the ground. I kneel and pick up a dead butterfly. Its wings cling stubbornly to their color, beautiful even though large sections of the scales are missing.

When the revolution started in Iran, Baba had thought we would be safer out of the city. Months later, when they came to our summer home, with torches blazing, Maamaan, Hossein and I fled to the hills. When it was quiet, and the black spires of smoke had lifted, we made our way down and waited for Baba in the barn. He returned at dawn, smelling of perfume and wine. I had seen a butterfly that day, in the ashes of scorched lemon trees, much like the one I’m holding, except I had trampled it in our rush to get to the barn. I watch the lifeless form in my hands now through a haze of tears.

A lone runner passes by, stops and tracks back.

“Shayda?”

I don’t need to look up. Only one person says my name like that.

He kneels beside me as I nurse the butterfly.

“Look.” I hold it out.

“It’s not your butterfly,” he says.

“I know. But it’s dead, Troy. It died.”

“Don’t cry.” He lifts my chin. “I can’t stand it when you cry.”

We’re back on that sidewalk again, our eyes locked, except it’s a different time, a different season.

He cups his palm over mine as a gust of wind threatens to sweep the butterfly away.

We stand up slowly, holding the Monarch between us, and walk to the edge of the pond. We lower our hands into the water and let it float away. We watch, reluctant to move even after it disappears, because we both know what happens next.

Don’t go, I want to say.

“See you around, Shayda.” He pushes the flyaway curls out of my face, but they don’t stay. His smile is bittersweet as he plugs the headphones back in his ears.

I watch the back of his head, covered by a hoodie, as he takes off.

I make it half way to the parking lot. My throat is clenched so tight it’s hard to breathe. I feel like I’ve left some part of me behind to die, to float away on some cold, glassy surface that will turn to ice.

No.

I turn and start running towards Troy.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

My words carry to him. Somehow. Because he stops and turns around.

I halt, a few feet away from him, my chest heaving. For a few seconds, we stand on opposite sides of an invisible fence. Then he tears through it, closing the distance, and I’m in his arms. He’s lifting me up. And spinning me round. I’m laughing. Crying. Deliriously happy. Scared senseless.

When I come down, he’s holding me, his forehead resting on mine.

“Your hands are so cold,” he says.

We sit on the bench and he rubs them briskly. When he’s warmed them up, he trails his fingers over my palms, up and down, before entwining them with mine.

“Here we are,” he says.

“Here we are.” I rest my head on his shoulder.

November 22nd, 1995

I can’t remember getting
out of the car or walking through the reception area. I don’t recall what the hallway looked like or what room number he said. I sit at the edge of the mattress, the side closest to the door, and let my eyes follow the vibrant swirls on the carpet—wandering, drifting, straying. I can’t bear to look at the bed, the chocolate headboard, the lamp on the night stand.
Him
.

He kneels on the floor and slides my boots off. First one, then the other.

“You okay?” He rubs my feet.

Am I okay?

I start laughing, a little hysterically. I don’t think he has the slightest idea what it’s taken for me to get here. I’ve crossed oceans and countries and continents. That was the easy part. But sitting here before Troy Heathgate now, I’m teetering on a knife’s edge between honor and disgrace.