The Video Watcher (9 page)

“What's this one about?” she asked, pulling out a copy of
Sons and Lovers

“Um… it's about this guy with this really domineering mother and—“

“There's this one book,” she said, replacing
Sons and Lovers
, “Farid told me it has all this really dirty—”

“There's a lot of books like that.”

“But this one's really famous.”

“
Ulysses
?”

“It was something about cancer.”

“
Tropic of Cancer
?”

“Maybe.”

“You can get it at the library.”

“Doesn't it have all this sex and stuff?”

“Yeah. But you can still get it at the library.”

“Why are you reading this?” she asked, looking alarmed. She'd pulled out Durkheim's
Suicide
, an edition with a blank red cover with “suicide” written across it in bold white letters.

“What?” I laughed, thinking that she probably thought it was some kind of how-to guide, with diagrams on how to tie nooses and put them over your neck. “It's just a study on suicide. I had to read it for a Sociology class.”

“
Still
—it looks
really
weird,” she said, pushing it back on the shelf.

I began to think about the book and said, “It says there's four social reasons why people kill them themselves. If they don't connect with the people around them… if they—”

“You like books?”

“Sometimes. Do you?”

“No, not really,” she said.

She turned around and walked toward me. There was a strange expression on her face.

“Here, let's do something.”

She got down on her knees in front of me. She looked up at me. She unbuttoned my jeans and tried to yank them down.

“Get up.”

I had my hands on the bed behind me and I lifted my butt up. She pulled down my jeans, then my boxer shorts—it happened so fast I didn't have time to feel embarrassed.

“This would be better if I had the stud,” she said.

“What—what are you doing?”

She didn't seem to hear me.

“What are you doing?”

After another moment—my penis still flaccid—she stopped.

“What? Don't you want me to do this?”

“I don't know.”

Still on her knees, my penis still in her hand, she studied me.

She stood up, wiped her lips on her sleeve and sat beside me on the bed.

“Why? Don't you like me doing that?”

“I don't know.”

Another pause.

“You're not gay are you?”

“No.”

She smiled, looked away, then back “But you don't like me doing that?”

 

“So, how's their marriage?” Kris asked. We had been out looking at condos that morning and were now having brunch at Earl's. Somehow the subject of Alex had come up.

“Who? Alex's parents?”

I'd made the mistake of mentioning Alex's father's absences, and Kris had become fixated on the state of their marriage. Kris nodded.

“Is
that
important?”

“It is, if it's falling apart,” she said casually.

I felt a dropping feeling in my stomach.

She signalled the waiter to bring more coffee. “It never hurts to know when people are looking for new houses.”

“Don't you mean a
home
?” I said, referencing her advertising slogan:
When a house is a home.

Either she didn't get the dig, or chose to ignore it.

The waiter came with our main order. Kris's eyes stayed on him as he set her eggs Benedict in front of her. He was maybe two years younger than me, but was muscular and had a neatly chiselled haircut. After he left she said, “Is he sleeping with her?”

I thought she was talking about the waiter, then remembered the conversation was about Alex's parents.

“What do you mean?”

“Do they still
sleep
in the
same room
?”

“Should I hide in their closet?” I said, glancing at my bacon. Kris didn't respond, and when I looked up she was glaring.

“
Don't
be sarcastic with me,” she hissed. She tried her eggs, and dropped her fork loudly on the plate. “Every time I come here I have to go through the same shit,” she said, as if to herself. She looked toward the serving station. “If they're going to get divorced then the house might go on the market,” she said, trying to catch the server's eye. “Or they might be looking for separate apartments and townhouses. It never
hurts
to know these things—for heaven's sake Trace. Fuck!
Grow up
! Do you think you're the only one
suffe
r
ing
here? Act like—”

“Is everything alright?” the waiter asked.

“Oh, it's delicious,” Kris said. “But.”

“Is something the matter?”

“Well—” She pointed at the eggs Benedict and began to hem and haw, as if she were too polite to complain.

“I'll talk to the kitchen.”

As he took back the order, Kris's eyes didn't lose him.

“You know they're going to spit on it,” I said.

“Maybe at the places
you
go to.”

The server was at the open kitchen, talking to a person who looked like an older version of himself in a chef's hat. I remembered what Sadie'd told me about working here—in order to talk to the cooks the servers had to ask permission.

The chef did not look happy, and I could picture him taking people's orders into the back and doing something disgusting to them. I laughed.

“I'm glad
you're
in such a good mood,” Kris said.

As we were leaving Earl's, a man called out, “Here's my number-one competitor.” Michael Daniels rose from one of the tables on the patio. He held out his hand, then seemed to change his mind, and hugged Kris instead. He was in his late forties and had what I guess people called rugged handsomeness.

“How are you?”

“Good,” Kris answered, sounding tense.

“Out for lunch?”

“That's a nice way of putting it,” she said under her breath.

“And is this?” He glanced back at Kris.

“Yes,” she said, “this is Jack's son.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I didn't know your father as a young man. But, boy, is there a resemblance.”

Michael began to talk to Kris about the real estate market; I enjoyed watching her squirm. She envied Michael and always claimed that it was from her that he had stolen his famous slogan,
When you're not just buying a house, but a Home.

 

The answering machine was flashing. I pressed play. The message from Cam asked me to call him. I dialled the number, thinking that it was futile. But Cam answered.

“Trace—” he shouted.

“Hi. You called?”

“Yeah. How's it going?” he said, sounding like he was pretending to be relaxed.

“Not bad. I was just out to lunch. How about you?”

“Not bad, not bad. How are you?”

I was still annoyed by how he'd deserted me at the beach. But his jovial tone made me decide to drop the issue. “Pretty good,” I said.

There was long pause before he spoke again. “Do you know where I can get coke from?”

“What?”

“Do you know where I can get coke from?” he said more slowly.

“I assume you don't mean the kind that comes in a bright red bottle.”

“Don't be fucking stupid.”

I thought about it. I could probably get it off a girl I knew at university, but I didn't want to get involved. “I don't think so.”

“Come on!” said Cam. “You must know someone. How about that girl that liked you last year?”

“Tiffany? I haven't talked to her in, like, a long time.”

“Can't you call her?”

“She's—not here. She's in Montreal or Toronto, I think.”

“So you don't know anyone?”

“I don't know anyone.”

There was a pause, and I sat in the desk chair.

“The girl, the Brazilian, she's having this party and her friends like to do a bit but they don't know anyone they can trust—what's the fucking problem?”

“Is there one?”

A long exasperated sigh came over the line. When he spoke again though, he was amicable. “Anyway, things are good?”

“Can't complain. You sure you're alright?”

“Great,” he said.

“So—what happened at the beach?”

“Oh yeah. Sorry. The Brazilian girl came. Her friends were going to this movie so we had to go. Sorr—how about the guy you used to hang out with in Surrey?”

 

Cam stopped at the house at about ten the next night. I could tell when he came in the door that he was upset about something.

As we played Nine-ball on the pool table in the basement, he told me that he was now certain that the Brazilian girl's homestay father was going to try to fuck her, that “the bastard” was going to use drugs to do it.

“Why don't you fuck him up?” I said as a joke.

Cam looked at me seriousl
y
: “You mean beat him up in front of the Brazilian girl?”

“You boys still up?” Kris said, coming into the room. I guess with the loudness of Cam's voice and the Oasis we were listening to, I hadn't heard her come home. She was wearing a blue kimono and carried a large glass of white wine.

“Why? Why don't you think it's a good idea?” Cam said, seemingly oblivious to my aunt's presence.

“Hello, Cameron,” she said.

“Oh—sorry Mrs. Patterson.” He really mustn't have noticed her, because he was startled.

Kris brushed off a chair and sat down in it. “That's okay. How are you?'

“Good,” he said—his tone for the first time that evening sounding amiable.

“I suppose I should apologize for my attire.” She took from the pocket of the housecoat a fresh package of Matinée and began to peal the plastic wrapper off. “But I didn't think Trace had company.”

“Should I leave?” he said and glanced from her to me.

“No, no, it's fine,” she said. “It's actually nice to have company. Steve went to bed. You don't mind if I smoke, do you?”

Neither Cam nor I answered the question.

I'd finished racking the balls and said, “It's your turn.”

“So Cameron, Trace tells me that you've been travelling all over the world.”

“Um, no, just Mexico,” Cam said and leaned down. He took the shot and scratched. “Fuck!” he said, then looking embarrassed, turned to Kris. “Sorry Mrs. Patterson.”

“Oh, don't worry about it. You can't be married to four different men and not hear a bit of swearing,” she said as if it were a joke.

“Try again,” I said to Cam.

Cameron rolled the cue ball behind the line. His second attempt was successful, the diamond of balls shattering, and the two ball falling in the right centre pocket. He attempted to put the one ball in the left corner pocket; but the angle was wrong, and the ball hit the bumper left of the pocket and rolled to a stop in the centre of the table.

“Where in Mexico did you go?”

“This small resort town south of Mexico City, Cuernavaca. I don't know if you heard of it.”

I approached the table and tried for the one ball.

“I remember when I used to go cruising, and we went to Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta. Those places were so beautiful.”

“Okay. Your turn.” I'd left the two ball snookered behind the five.

“Yeah. I hear those places are nice.”

Cam tried to bank the ball off the end bumper to hit the two, but missed.

I picked up the cue ball and placed it behind the three ball, tried with a combo shot to sink the nine.

“So did you meet any attractive se
ñ
oritas?” Kris asked.

I looked to Cam's face for the reaction.

A wan smile. “No, not really” he said.