Fire in the Firefly

This book is dedicated with love to my wife, Rennie Renelt, without whom, in so many ways, it would never have been possible.

December 2010

I
t's snowing, and he's tired. It has been coming down like this for days. Cursing drivers rock their chassis deeper into drifts; spinning tires drone like brumal cicadas even through the walls of this café. There seems to be a business meeting underway two tables over—young men in goatees and horn-rims, who rammed to the door a few minutes ago in a tangerine Hummer. The management has strung up decorations, strings of winking bulbs, which only reinforce that jolly, festive atmosphere that happens every time the snow dumps down like this. Tiny lights sparkle and dance in the room. The guys with the show truck might as well have swapped their lattés for shots of tequila. They could be quieter.

He himself is not festive. His feet are soaked and frozen. He should have worn boots. He is an idiot for not having worn boots. But standing at the podium in snow boots would have looked even more ridiculous, apparently, than he sounded. Though no fault of his, half the audience stayed home. He should be grateful, realistically, that as many as did showed up. Even baby
biz-heads
love a snow day.

He is wondering if he should have hailed a cab. But of course the taxis today are buried like everyone else. Besides which, he can use the exercise.

On the way back from the counter, one of the young bucks leans back in his chair, the better to display whatever's dancing on his tablet, and nearly upends his cup. They have not even registered his passing.

He was expecting this. Fully. But even so, the change has rocked him. Monday night he nodded off again. No. Tuesday. Tuesday is taekwondo, so it had to be Tuesday. Story time, that much he remembers. And of course the reprimand. They haven't talked about it, naturally—any of it—and in the way of things he is fairly sure they never will. It works. It works for him, and it works for them, and with a little luck, it all will keep on working. Children grow older, timelines get shorter. Snow falls and smoothes away irregularities.

March–April 2008

Although mate choice in many animals favors the most conspicuous visual, acoustic, or olfactory signals, such signals may also attract attention from illegitimate eavesdropping predators.

Sara M. Lewis and Christopher K. Crastley,

“Flash Signal Evolution, Mate Choice, and Predation in Fireflies,”

The Annual Review of Entomology

Novelty is the ultimate cliché.

The Collected Sayings of Julius Roebuck

I
t
'
s approaching midnight, and Roebuck is in his bedroom.

He'd been puttering in the kitchen earlier, getting started on tomorrow's lunches. But now he's done all that he can do in that regard.

The ritual of
lunch-making
is to Roebuck what yoga seems to be for Anne, at least according to his understanding—endless repetition of meaningless actions conceived to obliterate reason. Every morning he packs them and every evening they return to him, mostly uneaten. He'd be a rock star, he knows, if he sent his kids off with cookies and a can of Coke. But here at least Roebuck is old school, clinging to the antique notion that children's food is meant to be nutritious. Tomorrow it's chicken salad with chopped shallots and rosemary, sealed in the refrigerator overnight so the flavours will blend. Chicken is often acceptable to Morgan and sometimes to Zach, but will almost certainly go untouched by Kate, his eldest. He has made enough for Anne as well, if she decides she wants some. Anne at least has the courtesy to pretend she's eaten hers.

Roebuck is also aware that his views on this topic are sometimes dangerously out of keeping with the professional side of his responsibilities. Just last month, he pitched a product that he would never, ever have fed to his own family. Participants in every focus group engulfed it like a pod of whales baleening plankton. So did their parents and so would
his
kids, for that matter, if he let them get their hands on the stuff.

Irresistibility.
Is that a word? By design?

Stop that.

Most nights Roebuck will read for an hour before powering down, but tonight he thinks he'll attempt a frontal attack straight into sleep. He has opened up his laptop to check his email one last time.

“Oh,” he says. “I didn't hear you coming in.” Anne's room is on the other side of the adjoining bath. “How was dinner?”

But his wife first wants the fundamentals. “Kids in bed?” She is standing by the door, dug in.

Roebuck has tiptoed into each room on his way to the top floor. “Sound asleep, all three. Lunches in the fridge; chicken salad if you're interested.” He tries again. “How was dinner?”

Anne has been out with Yasmin. He knows that after evenings like this, she likes to sit on his bed and debrief. Roebuck has put aside his laptop so as not to give the impression he is anything less than wholly attentive.

“She's
so
miserable.”

“Ah.”

He also knows that very little in the way of input will be required of him. A natural talker, Julius Roebuck is a formidable listener, too.

Anne removes her earrings and bracelet, returns to the bathroom where the two rooms meet. The renovation that permitted this arrangement was by far the most daunting to date. Brazilian cumaru floors, Afghan silk matting, Japanese soaker tub, Tuscan marble; the entire upper story ripped out and refitted. Most of that summer, Roebuck lived out of a hotel while Anne kept the kids at the cottage. But now that it's done, she loves the look. Anne sets her earrings on the vanity and walks back toward his bed, unbuttoning her blouse. “I think she's getting seriously depressed.”

Anne and Yasmin operate an interior design studio that caters to
up-market
neighbourhoods like theirs. Several houses on this street, in fact, inhabit their portfolio. Anne drafts the architectural plans; Yasmin's talent is for sourcing the rare and exotic materials that concentrate their fees. It was Anne and Yasmin who planned and executed the most recent renovations to this house. Roebuck remembers it as a time of paint chips and fabric swatches held up against an endless stream of brushed metal light fixtures.

“How's Chalmers Crescent coming along?”

“Oh, you had to ask! The tile guy used
quarter-inch
spacers instead of
eighth-inch
and now the owner wants the whole wall replaced, so she's blaming herself for that too! She's in
such
a bad place.”

Yasmin is that variety of woman that even Roebuck, whose profession is women, admits he can't decipher. She is beautiful. More than beautiful. The phrase
smoking hot
could have been coined with her in mind. As far as he can understand it, Yasmin's problem is that she's single. How a woman with her looks—one of their carpenters shot a nail through his hand when her blouse gaped over the blueprints—could fail to find a man remains beyond Roebuck's scope of understanding. Anne reminds him that the problem isn't that Yasmin can't find a man. It's that she can't find the
right
man. “You know, she's thinking about it more and more seriously.”

“Thinking about what, more and more seriously?”

“Going it alone.”

“Going what alone?”

Anne steps out of her skirt and regards him coolly. “We've talked about this before.”

“I'm sorry.” Roebuck should not have been joking. They have indeed talked about this before. It's just that he finds the subject too absurd to take seriously.

“She can't stop thinking about having a baby.” Anne has tossed her skirt into a hamper in the bathroom, followed by her bra and panties. “She thinks that if she waits any longer, it will be too late.”

“How old is she? She can't be old enough to worry.”

“She's turning
thirty-five
.”

“Oh, well. That's not old.” His wife has disappeared into her room.

She returns doing up her dressing gown. “If you remember, I had both Katie and Morgan before I was that age, and the doctor was worried about
me
while I was carrying Zach. All those ultrasounds? Remember?”

“Yes, but …”

“But what?”

Roebuck has realized, later than he should have, that his thoughts should remain unspoken on this subject too.

“Why don't we have her over for dinner?” he says. “She hasn't been here in ages. I'll make paella. That cheers everyone up.”

“You just say that because
you
like paella.”

“True. But so does everyone else.”

“You make too much sangria whenever you cook Spanish. When people say they like it, it's the alcohol talking. But you're right. We haven't had her over for a while. I'll ask tomorrow.” Roebuck wonders for a moment if she's about to kiss him, but she turns toward the door.

“Hey,” he says. “Question?”

Anne stops and folds her arms. “What?”

“We're pitching tomorrow. I was wondering if I could, just … run it by you. Briefly.”

Anne sighs.

“This one's kind of fun.” Roebuck is aware that possibly he's blushing. “Though we're up against some pretty big agencies.”

His wife examines the ceiling. Taps a toe.

“What makes this one interesting is that they know already exactly who they're going after. That's why we're on the list, of course, but …”

“So let me guess.” She holds up a hand. “You're rolling out your usual—”

“Well, okay. But with
this
client …”

“Know what I think?”

Roebuck has the feeling he wishes he didn't. “Please,” he says politely. “Tell.”

“I think that's just so
you
.”

It takes him a minute to realize that's it.

“Good night,” Anne says, closing the door behind her.