Five Roses (24 page)

“You sound like you know about it.”

“Where I worked in Toronto, the baker before me left the restaurant and went into business for herself.”

“Did it work?”

“Yeah, but that's Toronto. This is Montreal.”

“I beg your pardon? You've been working in a patisserie for almost a year and you aren't aware that people here have a serious sweet tooth?”

“What about the van and the equipment? And a kitchen. I'd need a kitchen.”

“Here.” Maddy swept an arm at her stove and counters. “That room, too.” She tossed in the large double front room off the kitchen. “You want a bigger stove? More counters? I've got a whole
house
, Yushi! And I'm living here by myself. I can do what I want.”

Yushi considered the length of the room.

“We can rent a van to start. A refuelled van — I mean, refrigerated.” Maddy's words tumbled in her excitement. “I'll talk to my hotshot brother. He knows how to start a business. He'll help us out. He'll invest.” Maddy wasn't sure about that, but it sounded good. If he wouldn't invest, he would tell her how to borrow.

“I can't drive.”

“Why would you drive?
You're
the pastry chef. You bake. I'll drive.”

Yushi was listening — not believing her yet, but she was listening. Maddy would show her this could work. Because it
could
!

Rose folded the blanket over the sleeping bag, stuffed the pillows over the blanket, and closed the lid of the chest. Then she propped the sponge mat against the wall. Tidying away the bedding reminded her of life in the cabin — how she'd stripped the sofa of the sheets and her blanket every morning, turning her bed into a sofa again.

She and Leo had bought a chest at the furniture store where she'd bought the chair for sitting at her loom and the dresser for her shuttles and spools of thread. When the man in the store met Leo, his always warm intonation grew even more rich and relaxed. Leo's voice changed, too. The man said he was from Jamaica, Leo that his grandparents lived in Barbados. Rose had never seen Leo act so boyish, cocking his head and looking aslant at the man as if he were much shorter, peering up at him, slapping his leg and laughing.

Later, after they'd carried the chest to her studio and were sitting on the sponge mat drinking tea, he told her about his grandparents, whom he'd visited when he was four and eleven. He talked about flying fish and the sea. Running between the men, who drank rum in the shade of the palm trees, and the women, who sat in groups scraping vegetables they cooked in huge cauldrons. He started to say, Once when my ma … But his face grew still and he stopped. Rose wasn't sure what his expression meant. He'd never before spoken of his mother — or his father. And though she felt shy about prodding, she wanted to know. What about your mother? she asked gently. Leo closed his eyes. Is she … Rose decided she could say it because her own mother was dead. Is she dead? No, he said dully. But she doesn't want me around. She made it damn clear. Rose waited, but he didn't say more. She sat closer and touched his face to stroke the hurt away.

The bedding packed out of sight, Rose surveyed the studio. Leo had cautioned her against anyone discovering that they slept here. It probably wasn't legal — though, as she pointed out, they were more equipped here than she and Maman had ever been in the cabin. They had a sink for water and washing, and the toilet in the hallway on the second floor. They were only missing the wood stove.

Not every night, then, but some nights she and Leo slept here. With the canvas drawn across the window, no one knew they were there. In the morning he made them tea before he left for the garage. She washed at the sink. Her hair had grown long enough that she could scrape it into the stub of a ponytail. She worked at her weaving until it was time to go to the hospital.

Rose wished they could stay here always. She had to stop herself from buying a table and two chairs and a hot plate. She'd wanted to make a key for Leo and had gone to four hardware stores. Each place said they could make a copy of the key to her studio, but not the main door. That key had a security code. Rose hadn't asked further, not wanting to excite suspicion. Leo couldn't always return during the day to get into the warehouse while the main door was still unlocked. When she worked, she couldn't be here before the evening. They were both conscious of being seen sneaking in and out at night. She didn't want to lose her studio. What if Kenny's uncle's friend decided she was a squatter?

Leo, too, held to his tower aerie. The same man who slept pressed against her still felt most at home in an abandoned factory, high up over the city where no one could get to him once he'd pulled the ladder up after himself. She didn't understand, but she accepted it was what he needed in the same way she'd needed to flee the woods and her cabin and come to the city.

Rose glanced at the dollar-store clock on the dresser. Outside the window, a pod of cyclists in yellow-and-black Lycra — wasps churning their legs — streamed past. On the floor she had balls of purple, blue, and red wool she was feeding onto her warping reel. She was going to make cushions for the studio — to toss on the sponge mat, for leaning against the wall.

Rose looked up from the sidewalk as she approached the duplex. There was a light on in the front window. She hadn't been home for the last two nights. Yesterday she'd called before Yushi got home and left a message on the answering machine. She unlocked the door as softly as she could and slipped off her shoes. She heard no music, no TV, no slide of pots from the kitchen. Light spilled from the front room into the hallway.

Yushi sat cross-legged on a chair at the large table, head bent, writing. Loose-leaf pages were scattered almost halfway across the length of the table. On the chair next to Yushi was a ripped plastic package of paper. Yushi snagged another few pages and kept writing. Lists, it looked like. Some pages with no more than headings across the top. Here a line, there a line.

She looked so absorbed, Rose didn't want to interrupt, but it didn't feel right to keep watching. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Yushi kept writing. Then, “Did you eat?”

“At the hospital.”

Yushi sucked her teeth. Even intent on whatever had her so engrossed, she was present enough to scoff at hospital food. She grabbed a fresh page, wrote another word at the top, then reached across the table to push all the pages together. She straightened the stack and dropped it on the package of paper. “I didn't eat yet. How about I make us an omelette?”

Rose loved Yushi's fluffy omelettes, with their creamy ooze of melted cheese and herbs. In the studio she and Leo ate bread and cheese and vegetables, or ramen noodles that only needed boiling water. She was happy because they were together, but she wished she could cook Leo a real meal. She'd invited him to the apartment, but he wouldn't come. He didn't explain, except to say he felt safe in St-Henri and along the canal.

Rose washed her hands and joined Yushi in the kitchen. Yushi had set the skillet on the stove and was cracking eggs against the edge of a bowl. “You want to slice those tomatoes? And there's basil in the fridge.”

Rose slid the cutting board out from beside the canisters and took a plate from the cupboard.

“I've got to thank you, Rose.”

Was Yushi teasing her?

“I'm impressed with how committed you are to what you're good at — to weaving. You
are
really good at it, too.”

Rose looked at Yushi sidelong. Yushi had said she liked the bolster but she wasn't usually so insistent with her compliments.

“You showed me,” Yushi said.

She'd shown Yushi the inside of the bolster before she'd stuffed it, but that couldn't be what Yushi meant.

The melted butter bubbled as Yushi poured beaten egg into the skillet. “Maddy wants to help me start a dessert business. I'd make cakes to sell to restaurants. I've been” — she lifted her chin at the hallway — “thinking of recipes and ingredients. Things we'll need.”

Rose stopped slicing tomatoes to look at Yushi. She didn't for an instant doubt that Yushi could make exquisite desserts, which could — and should — feature on restaurant menus. “That's wonderful.”

“Yeah.” Yushi sounded calm but then gave a nervous shiver.

Suddenly Rose felt bad that Yushi had told her this great good news while she'd been keeping secrets. “I've met someone,” she blurted.

Yushi stopped running the spatula around the edge of the omelette. “Are you serious?” She ogled Rose then grinned broadly. “Do tell.”

Rose raised her arms high over her head and laced her fingers in a peak. She had to remember to stretch now and then while she stood bent over the loom with her hook.

The raspy caw of a crow made her glance at the window, but it was a real crow settling itself on the post of the fence. What was she thinking? Leo didn't have to pretend to be a crow when he wanted to see her. They weren't trying to fool anyone — like Armand calling from the woods with a mourning dove's long, yearning coo. As himself, as a man, he'd never sounded so tender. She tightened her lips and bent again to the reed. All these years she'd hoarded memories of Armand, reliving and refurbishing them, believing they were wondrous in the way that a person assured herself a mirror made a room larger, ignoring the hard, flat wall it hid.

She heard shouting close by outside, but it wasn't at her window. She pulled the lamp closer, having to pay attention to her sequence of blue thread, red thread, purple, then red again.

Now someone was shouting at her window. “Hey, Rose!”

She was surprised to see Kenny and circled her arm in the air to show him to come around to the door.

“I didn't remember which was your window!” he yelled.

She pointed at the door again.

“I banged on your neighbour's window! Do you know she makes jewellery?”

Rose had finally met the woman in the studio beside hers. She had white hair, cut short like a boy's, and wore a cook's apron over a long, loose shirt. She worked with silver she twisted around chunky stones. To Rose's eye, the necklaces and earrings she fashioned were so heavy and large they no longer looked like jewellery. The woman said, Don't worry, dear, it's an age thing. These aren't supposed to be sweet. They're armour. On her breastbone rested an amulet the size and colour of a robin's egg.

Rose hadn't known Kenny was coming, but she expected Leo. She'd told Leo about Kenny having found the studio for her and helping her get her loom, but she'd never told Kenny about Leo. Nor that she sometimes slept here. Quickly, she surveyed the room. The sponge mat was propped against the wall. The chest with the bedding could be just another place where she stored yarn.

Kenny rapped on the door, then opened it. “I had some stuff to do thisaway and thought I'd come see your weaving. What are you making?” He peered at the thick chain of threads hanging down the breast beam.

“Cloth to make cushions — a few of them. But I'll attach the treadles a different way for each one.” She pointed at the treadles, which he'd called “pedals” when they'd taken the loom apart. “So, it'll be the same yarn for each pillow but a new pattern.”

“Neat.” He stepped away and gazed around the studio. She held her breath, hoping he wouldn't ask about the sponge mat. “You're really set up here. You've got a kettle, a table, chairs …”

“Most important is my loom.”

“Your loom.” He nodded, crossing to the window and looking out. “Did I tell you I'm not renting a car anymore when I head up to the cabin? I take the bus and Jerome picks me up. We go to the IGA and buy groceries and we're all set for a couple of days.”

She couldn't picture Kenny and Jerome with a shopping cart in the IGA. Even if it was only partly true — another of Kenny's exaggerated stories — it would be enough to trigger the gossips to brew a pot of coffee and get on the phone.

“Yeah …” He turned around and leaned against the window ledge. “That's what we were wondering about. It's … um … getting cold and up till now we've been collecting old wood. You know, dead branches and stuff like that to burn. Is that all right?” He peeked at her.

“You're cleaning up. That's good.” Though decayed branches wouldn't make a very satisfying fire, especially as it kept getting colder.

“Jerome was saying you've got some spots where the trees grow really thick and he could get his dad's chainsaw and cut down a few.”

Maman had asked Armand about that a few years ago, but he'd never come with his chainsaw.

“The wood won't be dry for this winter,” she said. “You'll need to buy some.”

“But you'd be all right with that?”

“Go ahead.” She wondered what Armand — and the people of Rivière-des-Pins — made of Jerome spending whole weekends, from the sound of it, in Rose's old cabin.

Behind Kenny, through the window, she saw Leo, pulling an exaggerated funny face — jaw dropped, eyes wide — at the presence of a
man
in her studio. She waved him to come in.

Kenny looked to see why she had waved.

“That's my boyfriend.” Rose felt herself blushing. Last night, when she was talking to Yushi, was the first time she'd said the word out loud.

Kenny appraised her head to toe with a pleased smile. “Didn't I say you'd be hobnobbing with all kinds of
artistes
and interesting people down here?”

She felt an impulse to hug him for being so ready to accept Leo before he'd even met him. The sensation was so new that her blush deepened, and she lowered her face to hide the strange fluster of emotion.

She slid off her bench to fill the kettle at the sink, because here was another first: using all three mugs at once.

It was too cold to undress in Leo's tower. They lay snug in his sleeping bag, his arm around her waist, his hand under her sweater, cupping her breast.

Rose loved to listen to how alone with each other they were up here. It wasn't like being alone with Maman in the woods with only the chirp of birds and shush of wind in the branches — theirs the only human voices for many acres all around. Here, above the city, she never lost the sense of human presence. The susurration of traffic was audible like a motor that kept the city running. There were always punctuated thumps from the rail yards or a factory. But no one knew where they were, or could have followed them had they known, with the ladder pulled up after them. Up here, they were above and beyond the city, cushioned by the quiet of distance and willed isolation.

Here was where Leo had found refuge when he'd fled the foster homes where he'd been placed because of his mother's rages. He'd run away and run away again, until he was too old for the social workers to make him stay. It wasn't family or friends who had helped him, but strangers who'd shared what little they had. An elderly man with cracked glasses patched with hockey tape had brought him to the food kitchen. A girl in a pleated skirt gave him her scarf. The woman in the food kitchen snuck him into the church basement at night so he had somewhere to sleep. Her husband ran the garage where Leo was learning how to repair cars. Rose too, he said. She was the kindest of all. She had trusted him and let him love her.