Pulpy and Midge (23 page)

His head filled with an urgent beeping and a tremor shot through him.

‘What's that?' said Midge.

He fit his palm against her wide brow. ‘What's what?'

‘That beeping.' She sat still, listening, then pointed to his groin. ‘It's coming from your pants.'

His pocket was throbbing. He reached in and his hand closed around something small and rectangular, and then he started to sweat.

‘What is it?' she said.

The pager. ‘It's nothing.' He groped for the Off switch.

‘Let me see.' She was panting a little, her brown eyes fixed on him.

His wrist was going numb from the vibrations. ‘Just kiss me,' he said.

She started to slide Dan's belt out of the loops. ‘Show me what you've got first.'

‘Ha!' He tried crushing the pager against his thigh to silence it. ‘Ow!'

Midge's hands wilted on his waist. ‘What is it, Pulpy?' She moved away slightly.

He sighed, and pulled out the pager. It was still going off.

Her bottom lip sagged. ‘Well,' she said.

‘Midge, I tried to tell him not to page me here. I really tried to tell him.'

She stood up and tucked her blouse back in. ‘Answer it.'

‘Midge –'

She picked up their coats, which they had tossed on the floor in their rush to the loveseat.

He looked at the numbers on the pager's display. The small piece of plastic felt hot and far too heavy for its size. He heaved
himself into a standing position, walked slowly to the phone and dialled.

‘Why did you bring a mug home?' said Midge.

‘That's the receptionist's –' His eyes widened.

‘Hello there!' said Dan on the other line.

Midge was scowling at the cartoon duck, looking ready to smash it.

‘Hello?' said Dan.

‘You paged me,' said Pulpy, his eyes on his angry wife.

‘That's right, ten minutes ago. Where were you?'

‘Tell me why you brought this home!' Midge raised the mug over her head.

‘We need to work on your response time, Pulpy. Lucky for you this was just a test.'

‘Dan, I'm in the middle of something here. Can we talk about this tomorrow?' Then to Midge, ‘Please don't. Please let me explain.'

‘You're in the middle of something, eh?' Dan made a wet, squeaking sound.

Pulpy moved the phone away from his ear and mouthed, ‘I love you,' to Midge.

She lowered her arm and let the mug fall.

‘No!' he said.

Her face went white. The mug landed on the rug, rolled a little and then came to rest, intact. She made a move to kick it, but didn't. ‘Tell Dan I say hello,' she said, and darted across the living room, through the kitchen and down the hall to their bedroom.

‘What's going on over there?' said Dan. ‘Sounds like hijinks to me.'

Pulpy heard a door slam. ‘I can't talk now,' he said. ‘I'll talk to you tomorrow.'

‘Don't forget about the Frisbee teams. We're counting on you, Pulpy.'

‘Uh huh.'

‘Have a good night,' said Dan. ‘I'd tell you not to do anything I wouldn't do, but then you wouldn't be left with much, ho-ho!' His boss hung up.

Pulpy stood there listening to the dial tone and then his ear filled with the bleeps of numbers being pressed on the other phone. ‘Hello?' he said. ‘Midge? Who are you calling?'

‘Hang up, Pulpy!' she yelled.

He replaced the phone in its cradle and sat down on the rumpled loveseat.

A few minutes later Midge reappeared with the fishbowl in her arms. ‘Mr. Fins and I will be staying at Jean's tonight,' she said.

He stood up. ‘Midge, please, if this is about the mug –'

‘It's not about the
mug,
' she said. ‘You went out for drinks with her. And you gave her our fish!'

‘But I already told you, she was lonely. And Dan and Beatrice are being so hard on her. I just did those things to cheer her up.'

‘You're such a good person, Pulpy. Nice through and through.'

He looked at the duck mug on the floor. ‘She's going through a rough time.'

Her mouth crumpled. ‘Well, so am I.'

‘Midge,' he said, ‘don't think anything bad.'

‘I don't know what to think.' Her wide-set brown eyes were shiny. ‘I don't know what to think, I don't know what to think.'

‘Please don't think anything bad.'

‘I'm trying, Pulpy. But it's really hard.' A tear spilled over her bottom lashes and slid down her cheek to her chin, where it hung for a second before dripping into the fishbowl.

‘You're going to get Mr. Fins all salty,' he said.

A horn honked outside, and he jumped.

Midge swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I have to go.'

‘Please stay.' He reached for her but she moved out of his grasp. ‘Midge, really, there's nothing – there isn't anything.'

The horn honked again.

‘That's Jean.' She opened the front door. ‘I'm going.'

He looked at the fishbowl nestled in her arms, at Mr. Fins blowing angry bubbles at him. ‘What about clothes?' he said. ‘Did you pack an overnight bag?'

She stood there hugging the bowl, making little waves on the water's surface.

‘I'll get you something to wear. You can't wear dirty clothes around on your route tomorrow. That's how rumours get started.'

She lifted one foot off the floor and then put it down. ‘I –'

‘Stay right there.' Pulpy ran to the bedroom and yanked open her dresser. He stared for a second at her underwear, the shiny kind with the lacy elastic, and then shook his head and grabbed a pair and some pantyhose. He opened another drawer and found her skirt with the palm fronds on it, and went to the closet for her favourite blouse. Then he heard the front door close.

‘Midge!' He sprinted back to the living room and over to the door, her clothes held tight in his hands. He opened it to see her getting into Jean's car. ‘Midge!' He flailed his arms and the two women watched him, and he realized he was waving his wife's underwear like a flag.

The car sped away, and Pulpy stood there feeling the soft weight of Midge's empty clothes. And then she was gone.

‘Hold on, Midge,' said Pulpy.

‘I am holding on.'

‘Tighter. There you go. You're doing it!'

The first time Pulpy and Midge attended Couples Ice Dance Expression, they shuffled around the outside of the community-centre ice rink while the rest of the class learned and practised forward and backward crossovers in the middle with the instructor.

Midge was panting a little as she inched her skates along. Her ski pants made a
vvvrrtt
when they rubbed together. ‘Okay, that's enough.' She squeezed Pulpy's arm as they watched the twirling figures of their peers.

‘You just let me know when you're ready to get in there,' he said. ‘Whenever you're ready.'

‘I wish I had your confidence.' Midge dug in her toe pick. ‘I just want to jab in my pick and ruin all this beautiful ice, just hack at it in little kicks. But that would be a shame, or else it would take too long. Either way I wouldn't really do it.'

Pulpy leaned in to kiss her forehead. ‘We don't have to do this.'

‘Pulpy, this is one of my goals.'

He slid one of his blades forward and back. ‘I know.'

‘For a relationship to be fulfilling, both partners need to help each other achieve their goals. One of my goals is I want to skate. I want to be graceful.'

‘Here comes the dip!' shouted the instructor. ‘I hope you're all paying attention!'

‘Ohh, the dip,' said Midge.

‘You are graceful,' said Pulpy. ‘You're full of grace.'

‘No, I'm not,' she said. But she smiled.

Pulpy woke up on the loveseat with Dan's belt coiled around him and Midge's underwear tucked under one arm. His neck was sore and his knees ached from being bent all night. The loveseat wasn't meant for sleeping.

He turned his head sideways and looked across the empty room. There was a small puddle on the carpet runner, from Midge's boots or Mr. Fins' bowl. He eased himself off the cushions, walked over and soaked up the water with his socks.

Pulpy stood there with wet feet. He couldn't think of anything to do except get ready for work, so he showered and dressed like usual. Then he went to grab money for the food court but stopped, and headed to the kitchen instead. He needed a new routine. There was a loaf of bread on the counter and he put that in a bag. He opened the fridge and found the jar of Peach Delight and put that in the bag with the bread, squishing the first few slices.

Then he headed back to the living room. He put the bag of bread and jam on the loveseat and sat down next to it to
put on his boots. And then he noticed the black-and-white grin of their keyboard poking out from under the coffee table.

He leaned forward and pulled it out. Parts of it gleamed and other parts were smudged with Midge's fingerprints. A tiny light lit up when he turned on the power.

He went for the pre-programmed songs first. With the jab of a button he unleashed a Motown hit, a power ballad, the dirge Midge had played for him before. He played the dirge twice and then he laced his long fingers together and cracked his knuckles.

The receptionist's mug was still lying on its side on the rug next to him. He picked it up and righted it so the poor, stressed-out duck was facing him. That yellow beak, those crooked glasses. Those white wings.

‘Here goes nothing, duck,' he said, and started to play. After a few uncertain minutes his wrists relaxed into it, channelling the melodies he kept remembering. He swayed a little to the music he was making.

He was going to be late.

When Pulpy got in, the receptionist was packing her belongings into a cardboard box on her desk. ‘What are you doing?' he said.

She didn't look up. ‘What does it look like?'

He had her mug in his coat pocket and he fit a few knuckles into the smooth ceramic hollow it made. ‘Oh.'

She paused with her hole punch halfway into the box. ‘They said I disobeyed a direct order. They said that's cause for immediate dismissal.'

‘But that's not fair to you. You're good at your job. They shouldn't let you go over this.'

‘If it wasn't this it would've been something else. They don't want me here.' She continued her packing. ‘Anyway, Lester said he can pick up a couple of extra shifts at work until I get another job.'

‘Who's Lester?'

She made a face at him. ‘My boyfriend.'

‘Oh.' He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Les?'

‘What, you know him?'

‘No. I just wondered if you called him that. Les.'

‘Oh.' She gave her hole punch a quick polish on her blouse before putting it in the box. ‘No, I don't. I call him Lester.'

‘Right. So, are you on your way out, or –' He slid his fingers around the handle of her mug.

‘Well,
she's
not here, so he asked
me
to cover the desk. To cover my own desk! I should just walk out.' She sighed. ‘But I don't think I will.'

‘That's good. I mean, it's good you're not going right away.' He took his hand out of his pocket, leaving the mug in there for now. ‘Why did you just leave the registration stuff in the recycling bin like that?'

‘I didn't need it anymore.'

‘I guess that's reason enough.' He looked at her half-full box. There was some old tape stuck to one corner. ‘So how was the rest of the seminar?'

She held her eraser dish up to the fluorescents and examined its underside. ‘It wasn't really what I expected. I thought it would be more in-depth.' She dropped her arm and put the dish into the box. ‘But it was worth it.'

‘I'm glad.' He headed for the hallway.

‘Aren't you going to take off your coat?'

‘I will later.' He walked into the kitchen and put his sack of bread and jam in the fridge.

The empty fishbowl was sitting on the table, and he pressed his hand against the glass and craned his neck so he could
observe the pink smear of his palm from the other side. Then he returned to the welcome area, smiled at the receptionist and went upstairs.

When he reached the top he saw Dan standing near his desk, talking to Eduardo. The two of them watched him approach.

‘Pulpy!' said Dan. ‘I was just asking your cube-mate here if he'd seen my mug.'

‘What mug?' Pulpy hung his coat, with the mug still inside, over the back of his chair.

‘You know –' Dan raised his elbows and flapped them up and down.

Eduardo narrowed his eyes when he noticed the way one of Pulpy's coat pockets was hanging lower than the other.