A Year Less a Day (7 page)

“It's gotta be worth a try,” she is telling Ruth when Cindy breaks through on the intercom.

“Trina. There's a very funny smell out here.”

“Oh shit! ... Colostomy bag,” exclaims Trina and takes off at a run.

By the time Trina arrives the following morning, the café has turned upside down and, according to Cindy, Ruth has lost her mind. “Look at this,” she complains to Trina, stabbing angrily at the cooler filled with salads. “It looks like a cow has thrown up in there. Where's all the cakes?”

“Where's Ruth?” asks Trina, and Cindy nods toward the kitchen.

“I've been up all night,” gushes Ruth as Trina dashes in. “Look,” she adds, sweeping her hand across the opened book and around the bare shelves.

“Trans fats, saturated fats, and hydrogenated oils—all gone,” she says, ticking off her checklist as she points to a packed garbage bin, then she turns to the next bin and plucks at bottles, cans, and packages as she sings out: “White flour, refined sugar, nitrates, sodium, modified starch, unpronounceable something-or-other, more unpronounceable stuff, chemicals, chemicals ... more chemicals.”

Ruth stops to jab at Marcie's book and recites, “‘Golden rule number one,' Trina: ‘Never eat anything you can't pronounce.'”

“You can't throw all that away ...” starts Trina, but Ruth's on a roll as she turns to the third bin. “Burgers, bacon, wieners ...”

“But I could take it to the women's shelter,” says Trina starting to haul out the still packaged food.

“No you don't,” says Ruth, ripping it from Trina's hands and dropping it back in the bin. “Those
poor devils have enough problems without you poisoning them.”

“Poison?”

“Yes. It's a wonder no one ever sued us for making them fat.”

“They couldn't ...”

“They can in the States,” says Ruth, flipping through the book. “And I haven't even started yet. Here it says, ‘broccoli and garlic,'” Ruth pauses to look up, sensing a certain lack of enthusiasm from Trina. “Thanks, Trina. You've no idea what a difference this will make.”

“Ruth. You've got to be sensible.”

“I am. That's exactly what I'm doing from now on.”

“What I mean is, you've got to be realistic. There's a lot we don't know about cancer. How is Jordan doing anyway?”

Ruth's fervour wanes at the thought of her husband. “He doesn't say much. He's on the Internet quite a bit.”

“That's good. He might come across some coping strategies, maybe even some new therapeutic procedures.”

Ruth doesn't answer. If Jordan has found coping strategies online they are not medically related.

The intercom buzzes to life. “Tom's usual please, Ruth,” calls Cindy. “Two eggs, sunny-side up, bacon, and sausage.”

Ruth gives a sly smile as she puts her finger on the button. “Check the new breakfast menu please, Cindy.”

“Shit,” mutters the waitress after a few seconds and races to the kitchen.

“What's happening, Ruth? What about breakfast?”

Ruth shrugs. “Nothing fried, Cindy—no bacon, burgers, or hash browns. I mean, look at those people out there. Look what they're doing to themselves.”

“But that's the point, Ruth—they're doing it, not you.”

“Aiding and abetting, Cindy. We're aiding and abetting, and we're not going to do it anymore.”

“But we'll lose all our customers.”

“Better than poisoning them.”

“This is ridiculous, Ruth. That's why they come here: to get a fat fix.”

“OK. So what are you saying? If we sold guns and a guy comes in and says he wants to blow his brains out, we'd sell him one?”

“No, of course not.”

“Right,” she says, walking away. “We've sold our last gun, and if they don't like it they can try McBurgers'. I am not helping anyone else to kill themselves.”

“Ruth,” yells Cindy, “they're not stupid. They know they shouldn't be eating this stuff—that's why they do it. People eat properly at home, they come here for everything else. We can't afford to lose them.”

Cindy is right. They can't afford to lose customers; in fact, if it hadn't been for Tom, the padlocks would already have been on. Tom has been terrific; cheerfully keeping Ruth afloat for weeks after the phone guy and the frozen food guy had followed the coffee guy, then Jordan's mother had turned up on schedule with her hand out. She'd arrived on one of Jordan's treatment days and the temptation for Ruth to inform her of her son's affliction was almost overwhelming. But the old woman's mind was so focussed on her money that she hadn't asked about her son until she was preparing to leave.

“Getting his hair done,” replied Ruth curtly, then stopped and smiled thankfully at the realization that, despite several weeks of treatment, Jordan had lost relatively little hair.

Ruth had never tallied her borrowings from Tom—if he didn't worry, why should she? Jordan was the only importance in her life, and if Jordan needed money for medicines and extras, she could rely on Tom. Neither did she begrudge Jordan a bottle or two of liquor; indeed, according to some of her research, alcohol could actually be beneficial. It was certainly a view that Jordan held.

The marijuana was a different matter and had initially been a source of serious discord. Jordan had the evidence on his side: numerous reports gleaned from the Net that exalted the modest weed to the level of a super-drug, a modern day penicillin or insulin.

“It's medicinal marijuana, Ruth,” he'd insisted the first evening she'd been hit by a toxic cloud as she walked into his room. “It's government approved.”

“I know what it is,” she'd spat, ready to fly at him. “My mom was a hippie, for chrissake.” Then she'd stopped and scuttled out of the apartment, driven by childhood ghosts.

Ruth had walked the labyrinth of neighbourhood streets that night with her eyes on the sidewalk like a rat in a maze, blindly taking turn after turn without any hope of finding the way out—other than by luck. And as she walked, her young self walked by her side, reminding her of the times her mother had dragged her from street to street, with their possessions in a supermarket cart, and of the ignominy of being turned away by relatives and past friends despite the tears of her young daughter. “Cry harder next time,” her mother had shouted, slapping her around the head until her ears sang. She'd cried, but often to no avail, and they had frequently ended up sleeping in a car, or couch surfing in mildewed mobile homes; traipsing from the welfare office to shelters, falling lower and
lower, yet never quite hitting the street. Sometimes there would be an “uncle” willing to take them in for awhile, until her mother started pawning the furniture for her dope, then they'd be back pounding the streets again. But, all the time, Ruth had clung to her roll of posters, together with the beaded purse her mother had stolen for her for Christmas 1977, and dreamt of the day her father would rescue her. In the purse was Ruth's most prized possession—her birth certificate; incontrovertible proof of her heredity. It wasn't the fictitious name on the document that gave her hope. “I just said John Kennedy for a lark,” her mother had told her, but the date of her birth could not be fudged so lightly: the twenty-second of May, 1965. Nine calendar months to the day after the Beatles' sold-out concert at Vancouver's Empire Stadium.

With a degree of arm-twisting from the authorities, Ruth's aunt and uncle had finally taken her in following her mother's disappearance. Her mother's elder sister had some compassion for the young girl who spent most of her time hiding in her room, morosely staring at a wall of Harrison posters with a mirror in her hand as she tried to spot a likeness. With George crooning “I Need You” and “Love You To” on a garage sale record player, Ruth had attempted to pull her flabby face into the hungry features of the man, but a terrible hollowness grew inside her as the probable truth slowly sank in. But if George Harrison wasn't her father, who was?

England holds the key to her heritage, and she planned the search for her father from the moment of her mother's confession. She even wrote to Paul McCartney, before his knighthood, although, even then he had seemingly been too aloof to respond—just a
standard thank you letter, inviting her to join his fan club—for a fee. She would have written to George himself, but the fear of rejection held her back and drove her to eat. But without parents to reassure and comfort her, everything drove her eat.

Now, twenty years later, the prospect of ever reaching England dwindles daily, but so does Ruth. Under the crushing weight of Jordan's illness, the responsibility of running the café without him, and the mushrooming debts, a lesser woman might have shrivelled away entirely, but Ruth glosses over the cracks and stumbles on. However, Cindy sees beneath the surface and pauses at the door as she leaves one day.

“Are you all right, Ruth? You've lost a ton of weight recently.”

“You're supposed to say congratulations.”

“Oh. I didn't mean ...”

“It's all right, Cindy. Thanks for noticing, but I'm fine.”

“Only, Jordan's been sick for weeks. I'm just worried you're gonna catch the same bug.”

It has been months, not weeks, but if Jordan's bug has caused him to lose any weight it isn't evident. If anything he's a little bloated.

“It's the cancer growing inside me,” he explains sourly when Ruth rags him about his expanding gut one evening, and she throws herself at his feet in remorse.

“I'm so sorry, Jordan. Forgive me please,” she begs, wondering how she could be so insensitive.

“Anger,” suggested Trina in the café the following morning, “and it's perfectly natural, Ruth. You're angry that this is happening, and subconsciously you see him as being responsible.”

“But it's not his fault.”

“I know what you need,” says Trina, already heading for the door, and she's back twenty minutes later with a loaded sports bag.

“Kick boxing?” questions Ruth, digging through the bag.

Trina leaps around the café flinging out her legs at the studious crossword gang and punching air. “Yeah. You gotta work off the anger, Ruth.”

“Oh, Trina!” yells Maureen. “We're trying to concentrate ...”

“Sorry,” she whoops, and flings herself back to Ruth. “Marcie and I started lessons together, but she quit,” she says as she continues limbering up.

Marcie had ordered the custom designed lime-green Lycra ensemble, with matching boots and gloves, from a celebrity sportswear outfitter on the Internet, while Trina had picked up a second-hand kit for fifty bucks at Cash Converters.

The instructor had been late for their first lesson at the gym, and Trina's impatience had quickly gotten the better of her.

“Come on, Marcie. Kick me,” she had cajoled, as she'd ducked and weaved in front of her friend, and Marcie had eventually made a half-hearted stab.

“No. Like this,” enthused Trina, and Marcie had burst into tears and rushed to the change room, ripping off her pricey gear.

“What's the matter?” asked Trina in her wake.

Marcie had slumped to the bench, crying, “You never said people were going to kick back.”

“I've booked us for a class this evening,” Trina tells Ruth, but Ruth's face clouds.

“I can't leave Jordan tonight.”

“Why not?” says Trina. “He doesn't know you're there half the time.”

It is true, though Ruth is generally careful to avoid the admission; unwilling to acknowledge, even to herself, that Jordan has become addicted to the Internet; addicted to sites that she doesn't even want to think about.

“I'll ask him,” says Ruth, noncommittally.

Since his return from England, DS Phillips is becoming a regular at the Corner Coffee Shoppe, and Cindy begins making his caffé americano without asking as he seeks a seat near the back of the café.

Tom, near the door, is poring over a new yachting magazine with Matt, and is seriously debating whether or not to upgrade to a sixty-footer when he spots the officer. “I'd better give my people in New York a call to sort out the financing,” says Tom as he quickly folds the publication and sneaks out.

“You're new around here, aren't you?” Ruth says to Phillips as she delivers his drink.

“Couple of months,” he nods. “RCMP. On secondment from Ontario.”

Attempting to bust the biker gangs, though he does-n't admit it.

“Oh. You're a cop?”

Phillips sweeps his hand over the unoccupied adjoining chairs. “I assumed everyone knew. One little guy scoots out every time I come in. God knows what he thinks he's done; early sixties—needs new shoes.”

“Tom?” queries Ruth, looking around. “I wanted to speak to him.”

“I hope I'm not driving customers away.”

“No. Please keep coming. It's reassuring to have you here.”

Trina has her head in the sports bag, pretending to check out the equipment, but she looks up as Ruth passes and says cheekily. “I saw that.”

“What?”

“The way you were looking at him over there.”

“How could you?” snaps Ruth, and stomps back to the kitchen close to tears.

It's the end of November, more than two months since Jordan's bombshell. Raven still hasn't returned, and word around the coffee counter is that Serethusa had channelled her the winning lottery numbers. Ruth has too much on her mind to be concerned. “She paid three months in advance,” she shrugs one day when Cindy wonders aloud if the statuesque woman will ever come back.

The Corner Coffee Shoppe has never been more popular. The original clientele has largely remained loyal, though many have started losing weight, and the spreading word has drawn fat-fighters from around the neigh-bourhood. But Jordan's face falls unexpectedly as Ruth tallies the books at the end of the month and declares in delight, “We made nearly two thousand.”