The Waterproof Bible (3 page)

Stewart opened the tailgate. Margaret adjusted her scarf and they each picked up a side of the sail.

“It’s heavy,” she said.

Stewart nodded his agreement, rendered speechless by the weight. Taking tiny steps, they moved towards the back of the truck.

“One, two, three,” Margaret said. On three they heaved it into the bed. The truck rocked on its springs, and a thin layer of dirt was knocked to the ground. Stewart closed the tailgate.

“Should we tie it down?” Margaret asked.

“It’s not going anywhere,” Stewart said, but he drove slowly. They had made it past the town’s population sign when his cellphone rang. Stewart looked down at his phone. Margaret studied his face.

“It’s her. I can tell,” she said.

“What if it is?”

“Then you just don’t answer it,” Margaret said, trying to pull the phone out of his hand.

“She’s just lost her sister!” Stewart said, holding the ringing phone as far away from Margaret as possible.

“That’s true,” Margaret said. Her hands fell to her lap. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Answer it, then.”

Stewart nodded. He swerved onto the shoulder and stopped.

“Rebecca?” he said to his wife, a woman he had not seen in three years, six months and one day.

Stewart had met his wife not by accident but because of one. Pushing an overly burdened grocery cart across an icy parking lot, he’d slipped. The cart got away from him and rolled towards a row of parked cars, picking up speed on the ice. Lying prone, he predicted that it would hit either the rusted Ford Tempo or the cherry red Karmann Ghia.

To his surprise, Stewart hoped it would be the Karmann Ghia, although he wasn’t sure why. If it hit the Tempo, the bumper would absorb the impact, whereas a collision with the Karmann Ghia would destroy the right tail light. Stewart watched as the cart, seemingly of its own will, veered slightly left and struck the Karmann Ghia. As predicted, it shattered the tail light.

Stewart got up and retrieved his cart. He was squatting to survey the damage when a shadow crossed his face. Looking up, he found Rebecca looking down.

“Had a bit of an accident,” he said, words he would later conclude to be the worst opening line in the history of love.

“I can see that.”

“I can fix it.” He raised his head and looked her in the eye. Somehow he could feel her doubt. Not just by inferring, or assuming, or being empathetic—he literally felt it. “Honest, I’m good with my hands,” Stewart said and, as if to demonstrate, he produced a business card.

“General Repairs,” she said, studying his card. “Impressive.”

Her voice was icy, but Lewis knew—again, he could
feel
—that she was actually quite attracted to him. He had always had trouble reading women, but this one seemed
unable to hide her true feelings, which made her very appealing. Plus, she had long, shapely legs that even in the dead of winter were covered not by pants, a long skirt or a parka, but just by black tights and shapely boots.

“I’ll need your phone number,” Stewart said. He realized that she was only feigning impatience as she asked for another card and wrote down her contact information on the back.

The replacement tail light was more expensive than he’d hoped, but three days later Stewart phoned ahead and went to her house, tools in hand. Finding the car parked on the street, Stewart began work and was crouched beside the rear bumper when he felt her shadow on him.

“Good morning,” Stewart said.

“Hello. Make sure you do it right.”

“I will.”

“Just remember, I don’t trust you at all,” she said. Stewart felt that the opposite was true.

He did not question being able to feel this woman’s emotions. Stewart rarely thought anything was strange. This was one of his gifts. Another was his innate ability to build or fix anything. It was as if he could hear how the pieces wanted to fit together. They were not exactly speaking to him, not with words, but they let him know what needed to be done. The proof was irrefutable in the cars he’d rebuilt, the houses he’d rewired and the lifespan of household appliances he’d greatly extended, so Stewart just didn’t question it.

He’d finished the job before his hands were cold. Rebecca had stayed with him, watching over his shoulder.

“Do you want to pop the hood?” he asked her.

“Why?”

“I just thought I’d give it a look over.”

“The engine’s in the trunk.”

“Right.”

He looked at Rebecca. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, and her face held a sour expression—yet he could feel how much she liked him. With this in mind, he opened the trunk, bent over the motor and over-tightened the butterfly valve, ensuring that the car would have problems as soon as the temperature dropped below −10°C.

“Listen, if you have any more problems, just call me,” he said.

“I have your card.”

“Don’t hesitate to call.”

Three weeks later, there was a cold snap. But it wasn’t until he’d rescued her for the third time that Stewart finally found the courage to ask her out.

“Rebecca? Why aren’t you at the funeral?”

“I am. Stewart, listen to me. Something horrible has happened. I’ve lost my love for Lisa.”

“What?”

“Or at least, I’m losing it. It’s not all gone. But some of it is.”

“You’ve lost what?”

“You’re not listening!”

Stewart felt how scared she was. One of the strangest things, of the many strange things, about his relationship with Rebecca was that Stewart could feel her emotions through the telephone. This did not happen
when Rebecca talked on the phone with anyone else. Stewart was the only one.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca, I’m just not getting it. What’s happened?”

“It’s all about when she moved out …”

“That’s the story you’re telling at the funeral?”

“Yes, but just listen. I can remember everything about it. All the facts. The rain. What the van looked like. What Lisa was wearing. That’s not the problem.”

“What is it?”

“Just listen. Please. The problem is that it doesn’t make me feel anything. Not happy, or sad, or how I loved her more than ever when she came back. All those emotions are gone. They’ve vanished. They’re just gone!”

“That’s, that’s …” Stewart said. “Hold on for a second.”

Making a worried face to Margaret, Stewart got out of the truck and walked into the wheat field he’d parked beside. The stalks grew higher the deeper into the field he went. He continued walking. The stalks were slightly taller than his waist, but he still didn’t know what to say.

Rebecca sat on a child-sized chair in the basement of the church. Having hastily excused herself to go to the washroom, Rebecca had come down here instead. She assumed that someone was already looking for her, and knew that it wouldn’t be long before they’d find her. She had not turned on the overhead fluorescents, leaving the glow of her cellphone as her only source of light. Feeling disproportionately gigantic, she moved her phone from her right hand to her left, pressing it firmly against her ear as she eagerly waited to hear her estranged husband’s advice.

“For the time being, let’s forget about why it’s happened,” Stewart finally said. “It’s just happened. You know? Who knows why? These things just happen. Okay?”

This perspective was precisely what she needed to hear. The fact that Stewart never questioned the strange things that commonly happened to Rebecca was the main reason that she’d fallen in love with him. It was certainly why she loved him still. Stewart never doubted her, or made her feel weird. He just listened, then immediately began constructing a way for her to cope.

“So, are all your memories affected?” he asked.

“No. Just that one. Well, no others that I know of.”

“But it’s the one you’re using for the eulogy?”

“Yes,” Rebecca said.

“Why can’t you use it?”

“Because it doesn’t make me feel anything. I’d feel false and phoney, and people would feel it.”

“So just use another one, then. You’ve got tons of them.”

“But that was the perfect one.”

“What about the party?”

“What party?”

“The one that went wrong. The Derrick Miller party.”

“I don’t think …”

“Try it. I’ll wait.”

“Okay,” Rebecca said.

Setting her phone in her lap, she leaned forward and looked at her shiny black shoes. She closed her eyes. She saw her fifteen-year-old face reflected in the front hall mirror of her parents’ house. Her parents had gone away for the weekend, leaving Rebecca and Lisa alone, which was something that had never happened before. In her right hand was a telephone and on the other end of the line was Derrick Miller.

“I’m thinking of maybe having a party,” Rebecca said, studying her pores in the mirror.

“When?” Derrick asked.

“Tonight.”

“Do it!”

“I don’t know, though.”

“No, do it. Completely.”

“You think?”

“Definitely.”

“Who should I invite?”

“Everybody!”

“You think?” Rebecca asked. This was more ambitious than her original plan.

“For sure!” Derrick said.

“All right. I’m doing it.”

Rebecca began making calls. Derrick Miller made many more. The first guests arrived at 7:30 p.m., and although Rebecca recognized their faces, she didn’t know their names. They entered her home without taking off their shoes. They opened the refrigerator and moved condiments to the kitchen floor to make room for beer. Sitting on the kitchen counter, they talked amongst themselves. Bottles were opened, caps fell to the linoleum, and Rebecca attempted to laugh in all the right places.

By 9:00 p.m. the party was already a success. Teenagers stood shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen. Music Rebecca had never heard before played on her family’s stereo. No one was using coasters. With a roll of paper towels under her arm, Rebecca travelled from room to room, sopping up spills. The first glass was broken just before ten. Around eleven a painting was knocked off the wall in the living room. Just after midnight people started smoking in the house and a couple disappeared upstairs.

At 1:00 a.m. Rebecca noticed a bottle of peach schnapps on the kitchen counter. Her arms full of empties, she stopped. Derrick Miller was down on all fours, his head completely inside the liquor cabinet.

“What are you doing?” Rebecca asked, her voice high and squeaky.

The beer bottles in her left hand were slipping. Derrick pulled his head out of the liquor cabinet.

“Just don’t,” Rebecca said. Putting her index finger in her mouth, Rebecca began biting her fingernails. She was filled with anxiety. She felt like the party was now beyond her control. These feelings went into the heads of everyone in the kitchen. They went into the head of Derrick Miller, who reached into the liquor cabinet, pulled out a bottle of vodka, then released a short, disdainful laugh. Derrick twisted off the lid. The cap fell to the linoleum and spun. Derrick raised the bottle and saluted her. Lifting it to his mouth, he drank. The guests in the kitchen cheered, and Rebecca’s anxiety increased.

The more distress she felt, the more emboldened her houseguests became. She began biting her right thumbnail as they began laughing louder. Derrick Miller coughed, wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and passed the vodka to his right. The partiers cheered. The bottle was passed through the hands of three people, and then it stopped. All laughter ceased. Derrick looked to his right and up. Following his eyes, Rebecca discovered her little sister standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

Twelve-year-old Lisa was supposed to be attending a sleepover at Ruth Montgomery’s house. She’d thought it was going to be just her and Ruth, but when she arrived six other girls were there. Suspecting that the worst aspects of prepubescent girls were about to be displayed, Lisa endured the gossip about older boys and girls not in attendance. But minutes after midnight, fuelled by sugar, overtiredness and the need for approval, the other girls started ganging up on Lisa. They teased her because her nightgown was made of flannel and her hair was
messy, whereas theirs looked like it had been ironed. They excluded her, forming a clique in the process, and Lisa suspected that this was the reason she’d been invited in the first place.

Lisa had really wanted to be friends with Ruth, but she’d found Ruth’s friends boring and stupid. Her feelings were hurt but not broken. While they were busy trying to catch glimpses of a scrambled movie on upper cable, Lisa changed into her clothes, packed her things and walked home. Leaving felt like victory, but when she arrived, Lisa was surprised to find her house filled with teenagers. Standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, she pointed her index finger directly at Derrick Miller, a boy she knew to be no good.

“What are you doing in my house?” she said and then, taking a step into the kitchen, she saw her sister. Rebecca looked at the kitchen floor, and Lisa instantly felt her shame. Without looking at anyone in the room, Lisa walked through the kitchen.

Rebecca listened to the basement door open and close. She heard Lisa walk down the steps. The guests laughed. Derrick Miller continued laughing after everyone else had stopped. As the bottle of vodka was passed back to him, every light in the house went out, the stereo slurring to a stop.