Juliet Was a Surprise (12 page)

The evening began well, despite a new and suspicious ache between her shoulder blades, one that seemed to grab when she swallowed. Hard to ignore, but the bustle of hosting helped. As did
Greatest Hits
, both 1 and 2. Lise presented her with the three tickets wrapped in red ribbon with an oversized bow. Sitting gangly and stooped in her best chair, like he always did,
though maybe of late looking more vulture-like, Mac kept his sarcasm to a minimum. He asked in apparent seriousness if it was wise to listen to Cohen's well-produced studio work just hours before “hearing him old and live and rough” in the bad acoustics of the Memorial Centre. Lise, sometimes very much her father's daughter, said, “You're old and live and rough, and you sound okay.”

Then, just when the timer buzzed to tell her the lamb needed to go under the broiler, Vera caught Mac smiling at her, mockery in his eyes. He held a dill in one hand and a bagel chip in the other, and he waggled both. He knew her that well.

She left for the kitchen without reaction. Basically, there was something she needed to know about Mac: How much was he on her side, really? How much had he ever been on her side?

She shook her head, almost a spasm, and concentrated on dinner, on tonight, her rushing raft making it almost hard to see. The lamb had bleached pale from the lime and looked so tender and superb it beckoned any good bohemian carnivore to eat it raw. With his lips—Vera mused—he will take it raw from your palm, in the dim hallway, under a crucifix, on your way to the bedroom.

She reset the timer and returned to the living room. It was like he'd been on his best behaviour until now. Maybe it was the two glasses of wine, Mac kicking out the stops before a rock concert.

“Did you hear,” he asked of the sunset-lit window between Vera and Lise, “how he got ripped off by his manager, lost his
whole pile, and this tour is a scramble to get some cash back? And resume the lifestyle to which he is tra-la-la?”

“I thought he was a Buddhist,” said Lise. “Living simply and all that.” Then she nodded for her father. “But I do remember reading something like that. Big embezzlement thing.”

“He's quit the Buddhism,” Mac added. “Came down off that particular mountain.”

“No, he hasn't,” Vera put in, too loudly. She settled back into the couch and cleared her throat before continuing. “Did you read what he said about religion in general? He was asked about his years on Mt. Baldy, his retreat there, and he said it's all the same, religions are all the same, and that everyone should follow the religion of their ancestry. Their culture.”

“Their childhood,” offered Lise, her eyes oddly bright. She'd never gone to church of any kind.

“Exactly,” said Vera.

“That,” said Mac, actually pointing a finger at her, “is such a Zen thing to say. Go ask every Zen master on the block if you should study Zen, every one'll say, ‘No!' Actually, they'd say, ‘
God
no!'”

Vera eventually got them seated. They ate, her cooking was praised, and she managed to keep the subject on other things.

Then Mac shot Vera the briefest glance before announcing to Lise, “You know, I saw Lenny way back when.”

“Did you!” Lise looked genuinely excited by this.

Lenny. Belittling a great man through his name. He sometimes called Obama “The Story of O.”

“Actually, maybe twice. Once in Europe, for sure. Amsterdam.” He paused, looking at Lise. “I was paid to go.”
He didn't smile saying this, but his deadpan was like one big wink.

“Dad, we're not making you go.”

“No, I'm comin', I'm comin',” he chirped.

“Good”—Lise consulted her watch—“because we're leaving in ten minutes. Gulp your wine. Finish your ice cream.”

Vera dutifully scraped up the several pistachios she'd left to soak in the melted ice cream in the bottom of her bowl.

“It'll be this,” Mac announced. “The lights go down and he goes all deep and croony and these emotions big as big wet sponges all over us paid-to-go guys, it'll be this huge grope fest. For old girls. Lenny's geriatric arena grope.”

From the way he lurched forward to grab another bagel chip, Vera saw how proud he was of that one.

“I don't want you to come.” Vera didn't look at him. She didn't want him even that close to her. “I mean it. I'm serious.” She closed her eyes, nodded.

When Lise saw that Vera wasn't retracting, she said, “C'mon, Mom.”

Mac was predictably silent. One eyebrow up, he stared through the table.

“You try to fuck everything in sight.” She added, more quietly, “And you can't quite do it.”

“Jesus, Mom,” Lise whispered, shaking her head almost invisibly.

“I'm serious, Mac. You'll ruin it for me.” She glared at him and he met her eye.
Lenny's geriatric arena grope—
he'd already ruined it. She would carry this with her into the concert and it would colour the whole event. His words still worked too well
on her. She needed to be free of him. She should move from this city.

Mac gazed at the floor now, his eyebrow back up.

To Lise she said simply, “We're dropping him off.”

MAC DIDN'T BEG
, and they drove a severely quiet eight hundred steps back to his building. On the way downtown Lise spoke only when spoken to, angry but hiding it, pretending that driving took a certain concentration. Vera knew her daughter wouldn't befoul tickets she'd spent so much on, nor would she ruin a birthday. In the silence (they'd decided against playing Leonard in the car) Vera considered revealing her news, which would mean instant forgiveness, but she didn't like her new motivation, so she resisted. And Vera figured she already sucked her daughter like a vampire. In any case, she wanted to keep it inside awhile longer. To release it would feel like contagion, in the car, into the night. Held inside, it stayed smaller.

They parked with difficulty and it was almost late, so they had to hurry. Vera still rode the rushing river of no sleep and her raft was tipping. She could hardly wait for that voice. She hoped it didn't put her to sleep, his voice also being the warmest bath; it would be embarrassing, and a shame to miss a minute. She had the badly startling notion that her new swallowing ache wouldn't let her sleep, not in the concert and not later.

They approached the arena in a mist blown into their faces by a wind growing nastier. Downtown smelled like downtown, of exhaust and faint piss, like old Montreal, like the haunch of poetry, Victoria did have some charm. Vera clutched the
three tickets in her coat pocket, still bound by the crimson ribbon and bow. The arena's wide-open doors accepted mostly hustling stragglers now.

Vera heard the man's voice just as she reached the door, a forlorn voice, almost a mumble, about tickets, did anyone maybe have a ticket to sell? She didn't hesitate, but ripped one from the ribbon and marched it over to him. He was unshaven, skinny, maybe thirty, an impoverished gradstudent look. Fairly handsome behind the bulky glasses, which he seemed to wear as a foil to his good looks. She turned away saying, “A gift,” and she was already at the door when he called his thanks.

They hurried to find their tunnel, Vera warbling to herself, “Oooo, this'll be great,” and “I can hardly wait,” Lise dutifully agreeing. They climbed to their row. They side-stepped past knees then sat and flung off scarves and flapped their arms out of coats just as the lights fell to an instant surprising roar. In that last light she had noticed the empty seat to her left. Legs passed clumsily in front of her, bumping her knees—only now did she understand that of course the young man with her ticket would be sitting here right beside her.

Stage spots came up, and there was his band and his girl backup singers. To another roar out came Leonard, wearing his fedora and looking decades out of place and wise for it. Here he was, somehow still elegant, a bit mantis-like but spry. His walk was disarming, it betrayed some shyness. He arrived at the mic and noise fell at this simple promise. Smiling, Leonard looked around to see all the loving faces, as though harsh light was no obstacle to this.

“Please,” Vera said into Lise's ear as she took her daughter's hand, “just for one song.” Vera turned to the young man at her left, got him to look at her and asked, smiling, horrified at herself, “Can I please hold your hand for just one song?” He smirked, but with a dog's distrust in his eyes as Vera took his hand out of his lap. And so she sat, holding two hands— one mechanical, the other fearful. She raised them both and stretched her arms out to either side of her, which opened her breastbone, and she imagined her whole life blooming out of her. She closed her eyes and felt all the shadows, so many of them, some turning at her to knuckle her heart or bite it toothlessly. She released a long, an endlessly long breath, felt herself relax in a way that might be hazardous. The singing started.

She bucked with instant crying, her smile wide open and sloppy. It felt strange not to bring her hands to her face. Tears fell cold and fresh down her cheeks. Poor Mac. Who only tried, his best, to be free. He should be here. He should be here.

The voice took her from the front. Black like blood, it entered on elegance, and brought heat. Kneeling at every cell of her body, her soles and her scalp, it asked its one question. She was a responsive lover. Over the music, she felt but couldn't hear herself wailing her answer.

To Mexico

T
he first night, Dale was standing by himself on the balcony, in the early dark. Somehow he relaxed enough to notice the sky. “Relaxed” wasn't the word, it was more that he was worn down, not just by a day's airport grind but by the months at home that came before. On the balcony, gently mouth breathing, Dale was tiredly alert, and here was the moon, the famous curled white sliver, but instead of vertical it lay flat. Like a tiny coy smile. A tiny smile in a black face the size of eons. The size of the face and the size of the smile could hardly be comprehended together. He saw more: one pale star up in a far left corner of sky, and then up in the right corner, another. Two tiny eyes for the tiny smile. He had to pivot his head to see the whole face, which gave off wall-eyed irony the size of the universe. He tried to relax and feel amused by it. He knew a nose would appear if he looked for one.

He heard Anna emerge from the bathroom. When she clunked a glass down, loud on purpose, Dale turned from the comical sky to his worst nightmare, who wasn't looking at him from in there on the couch.

“Want some?” Anna waggled her empty glass in his direction.

“Sure,” he said. “You should see this sky.”

“It's completely dark out there.”

“No, it's not,” he said, regretting it right away, not wanting to show her the impossible face. She wouldn't get it. That is, she'd get it but wouldn't let herself enjoy it, the magical distortion, the brain stretch—because it was his idea. It had come to this. At one time she would have joined him and they'd have laughed together, excited by the size of space. She would have found the nose.

Anna brought Dale a tequila and sat in one of the balcony's wrought-iron chairs. She had refilled her glass; he'd see how that went. Back when they were planning this trip, she'd asked him, straight-faced, “You think I'll do a Lowry down there?” Though a binge could happen anywhere, her joke haunted him. Tequila was a favourite poison, and here it was almost free. Her hangovers were when they usually almost ended it.

The chairs were heavy and ornate and Anna was surprised how comfortable hers was. Normally he didn't care for heights, and they were perched way up a hill, their balcony hanging cliff-like over Puerto Vallarta's southern outskirts and the sea. Maybe because it was dark and he couldn't properly see the danger, it couldn't grab his gut. Or maybe he was too drained to be afraid. Of anything. Chances were—he mused as he touched tequila to his lips—if things got ugly between them tonight, if they started coming apart, he just wouldn't care.

“It's beautiful here,” she said to the darkness. It sounded like a peace offering.

“I knew I'd love it,” Dale agreed. He added stupidly, “I really want to see an iguana.”

“Hey. To Mexico. We did it.” She held out her glass and they clinked. She tossed her whole drink back, so he did too.

That night there were no eruptions and no plummets off the cliff. Anna was tired too and there on the balcony they barely managed some mumbling about tomorrow's plans. She wanted to check out silver shops, he wanted to hire one of those boats to go snorkelling. They both wanted to eat authentic Mexican, and she asked him, still friendly, if he was going to challenge himself with hot sauces. They had one more tequila each, then yawned and stared dumbly into the dark. When they went in and she was in the bathroom, he scanned the TV channels to see if there'd be any point ever watching it, and when he came to bed Anna was asleep, her back to him.

Which was fine, which was as usual. And it would make things easier. They were intending to split up here. Nothing had been discussed or announced, but Dale was almost sure that this was her plan.

HE HIRED A BOAT
for not very much money, making the arrangements at the public dock with a tall and handsome man, Vasiliev. Why the man had a Russian name, Dale never did learn. He announced the deal to Anna somewhat proudly because it included all snorkelling gear, which she'd thought they might have to buy. Now, chugging off toward Los Arcos, a trip that at this speed would take an hour, he wasn't pleased to be crammed on board with another couple and their two kids. They didn't look pleased either. His assumption had been that fifty bucks got them their own boat, an assumption that
seemed to be shared by the dad, a guy older than him, maybe pushing forty. The boat had one seat too few and the dad was standing. At one point Dale shrugged at him but he didn't shrug back. His kids, a boy and a girl, looked about ten, and his wife never stopped rifling through her day pack for treats, lotions, water. The motor roared too loud to talk over. Vasiliev, apparently just the fixer, was back on the dock. Their captain was a Mexican with an eternal smile, caricature of a Mexican moustache and not much English.