Lost Between Houses (16 page)

“Come on,” I said, “let’s get on a ride.” And I walked on ahead like I was taking charge of the situation but when I got to
the ferris wheel, I turned around and they were gone. For a second I wondered if they’d given me the slip. But then they came through the crowd, talking away, quite close to each other, physically I mean, Scarlet not at all afraid of him any more. And Mitch showing no signs of having anything else to do or any intention of going anywhere.

“Come on, Scarlet,” I said, “Let’s go.”

“I can’t,” she said, “I’m afraid of heights.”

“Come on Mitch then,” I said and as I said it I had the distinct feeling that I sounded like a loser, like I was asking for a favour, like I knew he’d say no before I even asked, the way a loser does.

“No way, man,” he said.

I was starting to look very bad and it made me angry, like a hot red flash, Scarlet letting this all happen, so I sort of spun around and went over and bought a ticket and got on the ride, like I was all alone. And for sure I expected Scarlet to break away and come over and ask me what was wrong or say, hang on, I’ll come, I’ll come. But she didn’t. It was incredible. Just fucking incredible. She sort of stood there, beside him, the two of them looking like a couple, like she was with him, and watched me sitting on the ride. I even thought they might be talking about me, like, Jesus, what’s wrong with him? You know, like I was the problem, like they
were joined
by it or something.

So the attendant comes over; clicks down the safety bar and suddenly I have this feeling, like I’ve made a bad mistake, that I can’t leave the two of them alone together, like that’s what they want and I’ve just handed it to them on a fucking twenty-four-carat platter.

And then I see them walking over this way, they buy tickets, she gives me a big smile and then they get on the chair below me. I think, thank God that’s over with. At least they’re close
by. Nothing can happen with me this close. The ride bumps up a notch and I rise up, the chair swinging back and forth. I turn around in my seat and say something, like, “I forgot I’m afraid of heights,” which they both laugh at. Scarlet makes a face, like she’s scared too, but she makes it at
him,
and it’s back, the feeling that there’s something between them, some kind of invisible language they’ve got. Like she’s looking to him to be nervous with. And then we got up another notch and another couple gets on; and then another and another and I’m going up higher each time, looking down, my stomach not feeling too good at all. All the fun gone from the booze now. My hands holding onto the bar real tight because, in fact, I really
am
scared of heights. I’d never’ve taken this ride on my own. And all the while, I’m craning around in my seat to shout at them feeling awkward and not as funny as I was before. Sort of reaching, if you know what I mean. And then we start up, up, up we go, getting to the crest, my hands holding on like claws, really scared now, letting out a whoop, too scared to turn around in my seat, the whole city reeling out in front of me, lights and people way, way down there, hands sweating like crazy. And then down, we’re plunging down, I steal a quick look over my shoulder and Scarlet’s staring at her knuckles, being really scared with him, like he’s looking after her and I’m over here, just as far away as the man on the moon.

Around and around and around we go, up and down we go, city lights rising and falling, rushing toward, then racing way, it goes on for an eternity, this ride, just for fucking ever. And when we finally slow down, I stop right at the top of the city, I’m rocking there, I can see all the way to Upper Canada, its big tower, the yellow clock face, it’s sometime after midnight, that gets burnt into my brain.

“Whoa!” I shout and turn around very carefully in my seat. I’m not drunk now, I just feel ill and I can smell myself. But they’re not with me, they’re not paying attention, they’re talking to each other, Scarlet holding onto the bar, her head turned toward him, Mitch listening, that hair flopped over his brow.

“Hey, you guys.”

Scarlet looks up. “Hey, you,” she shouts, then looks back down, like she’s taken care of me, now she can get back to it. But what’s
it?
We hang there a moment longer, then we click down. People are getting off below me, it’s taking forever. Finally I get out of the chair and go over and pretend to talk to some old couple, like I’m a real character or something, but really I’m killing time till Mitch and Scarlet get the hell off that thing and when they do I kind of stagger over to where they are. Except no one laughs. Everyone is looking a little too serious. Like they’re working up to something.

“I think that’s enough for me tonight,” I say, by which I mean, Mitch, go away. I want to be alone with my girlfriend now. But it’s not like talking to her, it’s like talking to them. Like they’re sharing a brain, like they’ve undergone some mysterious transformation and they’re the same person now.

“Yeah,” she says, “well, I don’t know.”

And she looks over at Mitch to take her cue from him. He wanders away a few steps, and suddenly I know I’m in real danger.

“What’s up?” I said, the smile on my face like cardboard coming unstuck.

“I want to be with Mitch now.”

I turned slowly on my heel and walked away. I walked about a hundred yards into the midway, seeing nothing. The farther I walked the crazier I felt. It was like peeking inside a furnace. I
turned around. I couldn’t even see them, I stood on my tippy toes, looking here, looking there, but nothing. Then I started to make my way back through the crowd, slowly first, in a sort of thoughtful way, in case they were watching me but then faster and faster until I arrived back at the ferris wheel at a full gallop. But they were gone. I dove back into the crowd again, running from game to game, down one aisle, up the next, back to the ferris wheel, in case they were looking for me there, my heart going a zillion miles an hour, like I was in a total complete panic. But they were nowhere. Gone into thin air.

I blasted over to the streetcar stop and hopped onto one that was just shutting its doors. I sat up beside the driver. I figured if I sat there, I could hurry him up, he wouldn’t dawdle if he saw me looking at my watch and throwing myself back in my seat every time we hit a red light.

Finally I got uptown. I darted off the streetcar and ran along a quiet, dark street, then another, went up a small hill, blasted along another. I was getting a stitch in my side, it was really killing me, I was running along holding my side like I’d been shot. I ran by a group of kids, they stopped talking to look at me, I kept going until I got to her place. I went into the lobby. I rang the buzzer. I didn’t give a shit who I got up. Finally I heard a voice. It was her father.

“Is Scarlet there?” I said.

“No. I thought she was with you.”

“Yeah, well I lost her on the way home.”

“That wasn’t very clever.”

“But she’s not there with you?”

“I already told you that.”

“You’re sure?”

“Have you no timepiece, Simon?”

“A what?”

“It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

I walked away from the speaker, back outside, my hands on my hips, breathing hard, sweat pouring down my chest, a bad taste in my mouth, it was like blood or bits of lung. Timepiece? What kind of fucked up bullshit is that? You mean like a watch?

I looked up and down Chaplin Crescent. Nothing. I went across the street and sat down in a clump of grass but I couldn’t sit still. I was just too agitated and I walked over to Eglinton and then back; and then I went a bit down the street and turned around and came back and just when I got opposite her apartment building I saw the two of them come walking along the sidewalk.

I ran up to them.

“Do you mind if I speak to Scarlet for a second?” I said.

“No,” Mitch said. He put his hands in the top pockets of his jeans, just like a cowboy and shuffled off down the sidewalk. I waited till he was gone and then I took a deep breath.

“I’m feeling quite weird,” I said and laughed, sort of.

“Me too,” she said.

“Sort of like a nightmare.”

“Yeah.”

“I was looking for you guys down at the Ex.”

“We went back to the Food Building. I forgot something.”

“Oh yeah. What?”

“Just a thing.”

“Right. Did you find it?”

“Yeah, it was in the make-up room.”

I shifted my balance and then slipped my hands in my pockets.

“This is pretty weird.”

“Yeah.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think it’s sort of kaput.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure about this? I mean if you are that’s fine, I just want to be sure.”

“I think I am.”

“Well, wha …, what happened?” Like I never stutter but I just couldn’t seem to wrap my tongue around the whole word. I almost expected her to burst out laughing, might have been better if she had, really, would have meant at least she wasn’t talking to me like I had two heads and came from another planet.

“I guess it was just supposed to happen.”

“Can I just ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Like what would’ve happened if we hadn’t run into Mitch?”

“I would have called him, I guess. Sooner or later.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That makes me feel a little better.”

“Really?” she said in a way that dropped me right down the black hole again. Like she wasn’t worried about losing me at all, just that I might be all fucked up and her responsible.

“Just seems like a funny time for this to happen,” I said, talking about what happened at my aunt’s.

“Yeah,” she said, sort of making a face, like she didn’t want to think about it.

“Did you tell Mitch?”

“No.”

“That’s good,” I said, meaning we still had a secret, something that was just us.

“Was I really the first guy?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

She started crying. “I really don’t want to talk about this now.”

“What are you crying for?”

“Because it’s sad,” she burst out. “It’s sad, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well. You’ll get used to it.” I scuffed my foot across the sidewalk. “God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

She looked down the street. I waited, it was like for a death sentence.

“Well, it is,” she said and wiped her eyes and then gave me a sort of brave smile like this was something terrible happening to both of us.

“You sure about this?” I said and didn’t like the sound at all, like I knew I was cooked.

“Yes,” she said, surer now.

“Well, I guess that’s it.”

She didn’t answer.

“I guess I better start looking for a new girlfriend.”

“You’ll find one,” she said and of everything that got said, that was the worst.

“I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Why are you being so cold about this?” I said.

“I’m not. I just feel bad for Mitch.”

“He’ll keep.”

“I just don’t know anything more to say.”

“Well, that’s great. After what, two months?”

“I told you. I guess I’m just not over Mitch.”

“Yeah, well maybe you should have …,” I stopped myself. I suddenly realized it didn’t matter what I said. It wasn’t a school debate, you can’t talk somebody into liking you.

“I’m going,” I said.

“All right,” she said.

“Fine. So you’re going up with Mitch?”

“No, Mitch is going home. He was just about to leave. I was walking him to his car.”

“Did you kiss him?”

“Simon, please. Just go home.”

“You did like me, didn’t you, Scarlet? I mean I didn’t imagine all this, did I?”

“Of course I liked you,” she said and touched me on the arm, but I had the feeling she was doing it just to hurry things along.

Mitch ended up driving me back to my aunt’s house in his parents’ car. I talked the whole way, not about anything, just bullshit. It was like I had a black train coming up behind me and if I stopped talking, it was going to charge right over me.

Finally we got to Poplar Plains. I got out of the car.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said.

Weird thing is, he was too. You could see it. On top of everything else, the prick was a decent guy.

“That’s all right,” I said, “I’ve got another girlfriend anyway,” and bounced up the stairs and turned around to give him a wave. That way maybe he’d give her a good report.

But he’d already gone. He didn’t see fuck-all.

I stuck the key in the lock, my hand shaking so hard I could hardly find the keyhole. I opened the door. It smelt like a museum inside. I went up to my bedroom, I took off my clothes really fast like somebody was chasing me, I washed off my face and my chest in the sink, I brushed my teeth, I looked at myself in the mirror, and then I hurried across the room in my underpants, never feeling so skinny before, and got under the covers and pulled them up and closed my eyes, tight. Wow.

The next morning when I woke up, I had a fucking anaconda wrapped around my chest. I could barely breathe. I lay there for a second, just surfacing, trying to figure out what was wrong. Then it landed like a two-hundred-pound bag of cement right on my head. I groaned out loud. Oh Christ. I tried to go back to sleep, it was way too early, just a few birds and that sharp yellow sunlight.

I’ve been dumped before, so I know you can tell the difference between a girl who’s pissed off at you and a girl who’s dumping you. I mean what scared the shit out of me with Scarlet, why I felt like dropping through the centre of the earth, was the
absoluteness
of it. You could feel it, just the way she talked to me. No wondering. No, should I? shouldn’t I? Just hand me the axe and arrivederci Roma.

To make matters worse, the old man was coming by to take me clothes shopping for the new school year. One of those projects some wizard dreamed up at the loony bin, you know, get involved with stuff, and he had to pick this morning to do it.

At nine-thirty on the buzzer, honk, honk. I looked out my window and there he was. Sitting in his blue Morris, right in front of the house. Smoke putt-putting from the exhaust pipe.