Sundowner Ubunta (10 page)

3/15/2011 11:02 PM

they’d met. Ethan listened attentively, never interrupting with a question until the very end.

“Does the trouble he was in back then have something to do with why you’re looking for him now?”

“No,” I answered. “His father is dead and his mother wants to find him to…well, I think she wants to find a way to make amends.”

His head bobbed up and down solemnly, and I could see in his face that he was not the kind of man to judge anyone, least of all Matthew for lying to him or even Matthew’s parents for abandoning their son. I could also see a deep sadness. Ethan Ash had lost something tonight: an unblemished memory of a man he’d once loved. I’d taken it away from him, and I was sorry to have done it.

“Ethan, I need you to tell me everything you know about Matthew: when you broke up, where he went after that, the last time you saw him or heard from him or heard anything about him.” Even a rumour of his whereabouts would be better than nothing at this point.

Again he checked on Frank, Loretta, Edda and Hortense before returning his attention to me. Despite the turmoil he was going through, he was remembering to be vigilant and protective of the members of his household. Ethan Ash was good at what he did.

“Well,” Ethan began his story, “we had both finished university. I was taking over Ash House, sort of in training for when my dad would retire, and Matthew had gotten a job teaching a grade three/four split in Estevan. That’s near the North Dakota border, a five-hour drive away. We tried, but the relationship just couldn’t survive the distance. So we parted, as friends.”

“Did you see each other again?”

“A couple of times we talked on the phone, saw each other maybe once or twice over the years, but the last time, gosh, was probably five or six years ago. He was doing really well out there. As far as I know, Russell, he’s still in Estevan.”

We talked for several more minutes when Miss Bobo Tox, one of the joint’s more colourful servers delivered a note to Ethan. He gave me a questioning look, opened it up and started to chuckle.

“What’s it say?” I asked, wanting in on the joke.

He crumpled up the paper and slipped it into a pocket.

“Hey!” I protested.

“You don’t want to know,” Ethan said casting a teddy-bear-coloured eye toward the octogenarians we’d come with. “Apparently they think we should either get a hotel room or get off our butts and get them to the movie.”

I did something I rarely do. I blushed. I surveyed the table of elderly folks who were doing their ragged best to look wholly innocent and uninterested in what was going on at our table.

Frank even managed to look a little disgruntled by the whole thing (it may not have been an act).

“Listen,” Ethan said under his breath, his cheeks none too pale either. “We could keep talking after we drop them off…if you need anything else from me…I could buy you a drink or something…whatever…you know…or do you…I can just drop you off at your car…or….”

It was a lovely speech and I felt a strong temptation to accept his invitation for a drink, but I did have somewhere else to be, an important meeting at home, and so, I brought my evening with Ethan Ash to a close.

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3/15/2011 11:02 PM

I had just gotten the fire roaring in the grate of the living room fireplace when the doorbell rang. I opened the door and Barbra and Brutus greeted our guest with the customary love and licks they always have in reserve for Jared Lowe. Having the lovely quality of many dogs (but few humans), they paid no heed to the scarring Jared had suffered as a result of having acid tossed at his face by stalker-turned-murderer Jin Chau.

Jared, Anthony’s long-term partner, had been a world-renowned model, jetting from fashion shows in Monte Carlo to commercial shoots in Madrid to catwalk struts in New York City. He’d been at the end of that life, having turned the corner of thirty-five, and was just beginning to find a new kind of existence for himself when he was so horribly attacked. Over the months that followed, Anthony had spared no expense getting Jared the best treatment available in the world of facial reconstruction, but sadly, the damage had simply been too severe. Jared would never look the same. Jared would never look “normal.”

Many things worked in Jared’s favour in terms of what happened to him, the most important being that he survived. He did not lose his sight or any other senses. But there were things that worked against him too: the exposure time, the amount and type of acid used in the attack; the dark, olive tone of his once impeccable skin. Even the best doctors could only do so much. They could never make him whole, and now, many months later, he was the best he would ever be, given existing medical knowledge and technology.

Like my pups, all I ever see when I look at Jared is the man I’ve always known; the stunning cat eyes are still there behind the scar tissue, as is the high watt smile, the gentle manner, and a heart as big as the prairies. But I knew it wasn’t easy for him to look in the mirror each day at the multicoloured strips of skin that cover his face like permanent bandages; no, easy was not the word.

Early on in his recuperation period, in one emotion-fuelled outburst, Jared had rid his and Anthony’s penthouse apartment of every photograph, framed picture and magazine cover graced with his once beautiful face. He’d travelled through every stage of grief, and now he was left to pick up the pieces of a life as unrecognizable to him as his own face.

“I smell a fire,” Jared said with anticipation as he gave each dog a treat he’d smuggled from his coat pocket.

“Something to take the chill off,” I said, taking his jacket and scarf and hanging them in the foyer closet before leading him into the living room. “Why don’t you warm up by the fire and I’ll pour us a drink.

Wine? Something stronger?”

“Wine would be good, thanks.”

“Red? Amarone?” I offered.

“Perfect,” he murmured as he sank into one of the fireside leather couches.

I had opened a bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella earlier and left it to breathe. Now I brought it, along with a plate of ripe cheeses I’d prepared and two crystal wineglasses (the kind with nice, big bowls), over to the seating area and set everything down. I glanced out the large picture window that overlooks my front yard and saw dark branches beginning a lazy sway-the wind was picking up-and hoped the forecasters were wrong about an overnight skiff of snow. I was so over winter for the year.

We chit-chatted a bit, ate some cheese, sipped some wine, gossiped a bit-especially about Errall and her sudden turn from dedicated single girl to wanton-sleep-around (actually we used more colourful words than that), and her recent mysterious, late-night visitor. The wine was a lovely, dark garnet rather than purple- which meant it was a mature bottle-and tasted of licorice, tobacco, and fig.

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3/15/2011 11:02 PM

“We missed you at Sereena’s party over the weekend,” I ventured. “Alex was in town.”

“I’m sorry,” Jared answered with a sincere look. “I heard Alex was here, and I would have loved to see him, but, well, you know, domestic disturbance takes priority over fundraising dinner parties.”

A little bit of me froze over at the words “domestic disturbance.” Jared was telling me something, in no uncertain terms. There was trouble between him and Anthony. Over the months since Jared was attacked, I had sensed something was different between them, but I shrugged it off. Of course things would be different. Jared’s life had drastically changed and, as his spouse, Anthony’s had to. But had something more serious transpired between the two men while I wasn’t looking? I hadn’t seen much of them-certainly much less than usual-as they were so often out of town, consulting specialists and undergoing surgeries and treatments, medical and other, and I had been busy focussing on renewing my relationship with Sereena.

At the same time, I had also had my own, not inconsiderable, internal demons to battle. I had come close to being raped by the same maniac who’d disfigured Jared’s face. Thankfully, with a view to the grand scale of things and a healthy dose of the optimism that has always run amok in my blood, I was making good progress in putting that dreadful episode behind me. As horrible and debasing as it had been, there were people around me who had it worse. I was with one of them right now.

“Are you okay?” I asked Jared.

“Anthony doesn’t know I’m here.”

That was odd, and an odd thing to say. I could feel my stomach tighten.

“I want to ask for your help, Russell.”

I placed my wineglass on the coffee table in front of us and turned in my spot next to Jared on the couch. Along with my full and undivided attention, I gave him my unequivocal answer. “Anything.” I would do anything for a friend.

Or so I thought.

“I want you to help me leave Anthony.”

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3/15/2011 11:02 PM

I’m sure there were words appropriate to the situation that I could have uttered about then, but I was finding it difficult to form letters with my bottom lip so near my chest.

Sensing the sudden tension in the room, Barbra rose from her spot near (but not too near) the roaring fireplace and snuffled her cool, wet nose under my arm. She let out a soft whine that was her way of saying, “I’m feeling a little uncomfortable with things and need some reassurance.” I looked down into her dark eyes and gave her sweet head a pat. This seemed to suffice and she returned to her place after giving her less sensitive brother, Brutus, a quick shank sniff.

Jared was wearing a charcoal grey turtleneck, which he now pulled over his head, revealing a similarly coloured T and leaving his golden locks boyishly disheveled. “Getting warm in here,” he commented, folding the sweater carefully-no doubt an Anthony thing-and setting it across the back of the sofa.

“Can you repeat that?” I finally got out.

He complied with little telltale emotion. “I want you to help me leave Anthony.”

“B-b-but where are you going? What are you talking about?” I had the black sense that I already knew where this was going.

Jared raised his hands and placed one on each side of his jaw as if setting his face forward for display.

“Take a good look, Russell. This is it. It’s over. There is nothing else that can be done. What you see is what you get. I will always look like this
and
, before you start, I don’t want to hear any of the polite stuff you think you should say about my face and how it doesn’t matter and all the rest of that.”

He’d caught me. “But it’s true.”

“Maybe. For you. For Anthony. But most definitely
not
for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Russell, I am grotesque.”

Before I could say another word, like a drawn sword, up came a finger into the air between us to silence my retort. “In
my
eyes. Okay? I’m not placing this critique in your mouth or Anthony’s mouth or my mother’s mouth or anyone else’s mouth, but to me, I-Am-Grotesque. But you know what? I am also a strong man. I have a strong will. I want to live and have a decent future. I can live with this, Russell. I can.

I know I can.”

“Then why…?”

“I am not who I was when Anthony and I first met. I know our relationship went far beyond the physical. But it
was
a factor, there is no denying that. Anthony is a very handsome man. Do you know that most people refer t…
referred
to us as ‘that handsome couple’ or ‘the best looking men we know’? People were always defining us by how we looked together. My God, Russell, I had a career based on how I looked. But I don’t fit in that life anymore, not the career, and not the couple.”

“Anthony does not care about that and you know it,” I told him, my cheeks sizzling from the fire, from the wine, from the inflammatory words I was hearing.

“Anthony is too busy playing the role of martyr and caregiver t…”

“That is not fair!” I shouted. “You make it sound as if everything he’s done he’s done for himself!

That’s not the way it is. He’s done it for you, Jared!”

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3/15/2011 11:02 PM

“No, no, you’re right,” Jared quickly recanted. “I didn’t mean it that way. All I meant to say is that Anthony is too busy to realize that he is in a relationship with someone who no longer exists. All I am to him anymore, all I can ever be is this…” and again he grabbed at his scarred face with his hands “…this mask. I am wearing a mask I can never take off! Never!” He reached for his wine and downed a couple of ounces as if it were water.

Now both dogs-even Brutus-looked up at us, uneasy with the unfamiliar tones in our voices, knowing something was amiss and frustrated they did not know what to do about it.

“He’ll always be waiting for it to come off,” Jared continued, his voice settling to normal. “And he’ll feel guilty for wanting it to, and I’ll feel guilty that it can’t. I love him too much to put him through that.”

Now he’d really lost me. “How can you say that? I think what you’re doing, what you’re asking of me, of Anthony, is the most selfish thing I have ever heard from you.”

Jared looked at me as if I’d just struck him, his eyes flashing with the pain of it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just don’t know what’s going on here.”

“I want a new life,” Jared attempted an explanation. “And that life has to start with who I am now.

Looking like this, I may never find anyone to love me, to be with me, but at least that’s honest. Staying with Anthony is a charade. Can you understand that? I have to leave.”

“Leave? Leave!” I was suddenly incredulous and angry and sad and scared and so many other things I could not define. “So where are you going to go? Are you just going to run away and hide like Kelly!”

Kelly had been my best friend and Errall’s lover for several years. A few years earlier she’d gotten cancer, lost a breast and eventually decided to break off the long relationship with Errall and move to Toronto.

None of us had heard from her since. The similarity to what was happening now with Jared was eerie.

Jared was quiet, and both dogs continued to stare at us with anxious eyes. Brutus looked as if he might bark.