This Cake is for the Party (14 page)

Isn't this just blissful? asked Juicy. Isn't it like we're eating dinner in the middle of an enchanted forest?

We heard wolves howling the night of the party, said Sonia.

There aren't any wolves here, said Juicy.

How do you know that? said Sonia.

Families live here. It's not a real forest, there aren't any wolves.

Maybe they were just dogs pretending, said Christine.

Late Saturday night, after they went to bed, Sonia lined up five shot glasses in a row, filled them with Goldschläger, and told Christine she wasn't going to let her go to sleep until she drank every one of them. It was always hard to leave Sonia. On Sunday afternoon, at the bus station, Sonia gave Christine a mixed CD without a case. She pulled a Sharpie out of her jacket and wrote directly on the disc:
Christine Christine Christine
. The words formed a circle. Everything made her dizzy.

Don't listen to this till the bus leaves, she said.

Christine pressed the CD into her Discman. Her father wouldn't let her have an iPod because he said she was too young for technology that expensive. He was a relic from another age.

Suck on these peppermints, Sonia told her. They'll help your stomach.

Juicy hugged her tight around the waist and Christine felt a lump in her throat.

He won't let me—he won't—Christine said.

I'll do what I can, Juicy said.

Christine handed Sonia a folded note. Don't open this till the bus is gone, she said. The note said:
YOU
BETTER COME TO THE BIG NICKEL ASAP!

Thanks babe, Sonia said, and held the note between two fingers like a cigarette.

On the bus, Christine tucked herself in with her knees crunched up against the seat ahead of her. The bus upholstery was the colour of a brown bread sandwich. She had both seats to herself until the last person got on the bus. He had blond hair that fanned out from his head like it had been charged with static at Science North. Black jeans and a leather jacket, tight at the waist and zipped up halfway. He leaned over to push a red nylon duffle bag into the overhead shelf above Christine. He rocked his pelvis as the bag fit into place, which was somehow both repulsive and alluring.

He sat down next to her, leaned back and exhaled. He was skinny, but his weight was enough to make the seat creak. There was a smokiness about him, Vantage menthols and creosote-soaked railroad ties, that reminded Christine of her father.

From Toronto to Parry Sound, he sat beside her without saying a word. Christine edged her elbow away from the armrest between them and held her hands in her lap. She listened to Sonia's CD on her Discman: a mix of the Ramones, the Doors and the Who. The pine trees outside flew by the window all in rows. Christine focused on the spaces between the trees as they passed. She watched for moose until it got too dark to see anything at all. The man must have fallen asleep beside her; he hadn't moved for three hours.

The bus stopped at the McDonald's in Parry Sound. They pulled into the parking lot and the driver said, Fifteen minutes. If you need a smoke, please do so outside the coach. The bus made a hissing sound and the door opened like it was gasping for air. Christine wanted to get something to eat, but the man was still asleep right next to her. The other passengers started to stretch and stand. They moved stiffly, like newly hatched reptiles.

Excuse me, Christine said.

The man opened his eyes and turned and looked right at her. His irises were the yellow of canned pineapple. The pull of his jacket made the stretched sound of twisting balloons.

Let's go get a hot apple pie, he said, like they were old friends.

I want a cherry one, Christine told him.

We'll get you a hot cherry pie, then. Come on.

He bought the cherry pie for her even though she offered to pay for it herself. The cashier folded the top of the paper bag twice, flashing bright pink fake nails. Christine reached for the bag on the counter and her eyes met the cashier's, so she smiled and said thank you and walked out. She could feel the man following her. She got on the bus and led the way to their seats. They ate together as the bus pulled out of the parking lot. Christine blew on the cherries before each bite to cool them off.

When they were finished, he said, That hit the spot, didn't it? His Adam's apple quivered under bristly skin when he spoke. He hardly had lips at all. And yet, even though he was ugly, there was something sexy about him.

Yeah, Christine said. Thanks.

I just love the apple, he said. But you think the cherry's better, don't you?

Christine looked at him. I like apple too, she said.

What I mean is, I'm interested in your opinion. The tastes of young women—especially the Northern type. See, I'm opening a restaurant myself.

Really, Christine said. She remembered Sonia's peppermints in her pocket, felt for one, and popped it in her mouth. Sweet mint cut through sweet cherry.

In Thunder Bay, he said. A bagel place. And it's all about the market research, I'll tell you.

You going to sell apple pies? she asked.

Well, no, I'm going to be selling bagels. But—he paused and watched Christine transfer the peppermint to her other cheek with her tongue—but I was thinking that I could sell cherry-flavoured bagels. What do you think of that?

Christine rolled the candy back across her tongue, making a wet knocking sound on her teeth. She curled her lips into a little pocket. I think it's disgusting, she said.

It wasn't until they were an hour outside of Sudbury that he asked for her name. The inside of the bus was dark, with scattered beams of light aimed at opened magazines and paperbacks on passengers' laps. The smell of greasy burger wrappers lingered in the air.

I'm Sonia, Christine said.

Pleased to know you, Sonia, said Bruce Corbiere.

They kissed for almost an hour. Her lips were wet and rubbery, but her limbs were all fuses and wires. Outside, the lights looked sharp and clear. She considered staying on the bus.

How old are you? Bruce asked.

How old do you think I am?

He looked at her. Seventeen?

A warm pulse in her chest from this: he thought she was even older than Sonia.

When she didn't respond, he looked uneasy.

Sixteen?

She grinned. Don't worry, she said. It's not like I'm going to call my mommy or anything. She pushed back her sleeve, looked at her bare wrist. What time is it? she asked him.

It is the time for us to part, he said. Farewell, Sweet Sonia.

Good luck with your bagels, Christine said. She wrestled with her backpack, trying to find what was catching the strap.

Wait, he said. Let me help. With one move, he released the strap from the footrest. Then he said, Sonia. I'm going to need your phone number. For more market research.

Christine wrote it on the palm of his hand with a black felt-tip marker, and as she pressed the ink into his skin, she made a silent wish: Please make something happen. It was a wimpy, ambiguous wish and she didn't even know what it meant. The bus pulled into the station. Her father would be outside, waiting for her. She held Bruce Corbiere's hand where she'd written her phone number. She pushed his fingers until they curled inward and made a fist.

Call in the evening, she told him. Okay? Like after five.

You have someone picking you up? he asked her.

Yeah, Christine said. She didn't say: My father.

Well, you take care of yourself, then. It was a pleasure.

She thought he might try to kiss her again. But he didn't. He just waved goodbye to her with one hand, and he kept her phone number closed in his fist.

When Christine was standing in the aisle with everyone waiting to get off the bus, she noticed a tall woman wearing a white woven scarf. The woman stepped off the bus and scanned the cars outside the station. Christine followed, watching her. The woman bent down next to the belly of the bus and picked up an old red suitcase with a crinkled paper tag hanging from the handle. The mangled voice on the loudspeaker called out: For passengers travelling to Thunder Bay, your coach is located on platform three, preparing to depart.

The woman in the scarf bit her lip in a worried way. She was looking for someone. Then she found him. He was wearing a green and black plaid jacket with leather patches on the elbows. He appeared to rise out of a big wood-panelled station wagon. The man took the red suitcase out of her hand and said something to her. She laughed. They kissed each other. They looked strange and out of date, like they had just rolled out of a vintage shop in Kensington Market.

There was no sign of Christine's father's pickup truck.

Years later, when Christine tells this story, she'll say that she waited for her father for half an hour before she started to worry. When she watched the bus leave the lot, on its way north to Thunder Bay, Bruce Corbiere looked out the window at her and pressed his fingertips against the window to say goodbye. She felt in her jacket pocket for her Discman and couldn't find it, realized she'd forgotten it on the Greyhound, and then wondered if Bruce Corbiere had stolen it. She'll say that after all of the other people had been picked up and driven away in cars and taxis, when she was left alone in the station with the blips of the arcade game flashing in the empty room behind her, when she felt in her pocket for quarters and headed to the pay phone to call her father, before she dialed and listened to the phone ring and ring and ring at the other end, before she called a taxi to come and get her, before she put her key into the lock and stepped into her dark house, turned on the hall light and saw the folded piece of paper on the table, before she read her father's last note, before calling Juicy and telling her what happened and then lying down in front of the television just to listen to the people talking while she waited four hours for her aunt to drive all the way up to Sudbury in the middle of the night, before the funeral and the packing of boxes and moving down to live with Sonia, just like she wanted— before any of that happened, Christine will say that she'd seen the ghosts of her parents at the bus station that night, but that she just didn't recognize them at first, because they looked so young and happy.

Prognosis

Dear Mrs. B——,

Twenty years have passed since we have spoken. I know you haven't always agreed with our lifestyle, but I was surprised when your letters stopped entirely. It's been almost a decade. Your unwillingness to argue about our life decisions in recent years led me to believe that you were either resting comfortably in a divot of calcified judgment or that you had finally made peace with our choices. I had hoped it was the latter, but I just discovered that your silence was more menacing than I had feared. Your resentment is palpable and extraordinary, and it has tested the architecture of my marriage. I don't know what has been more distressing—having to justify our
modus vivendi
every time I was in contact with you, sensing your disapproval from a distance during these years of silence, or learning that you have actually been in contact with my husband all this time.

Gabe has told me about your diagnosis. He said that you might not even live to see next summer. You know that I have little faith in the trappings of organized religions, so I will not say that I am praying for you. Instead, I will say that you are in my thoughts, and that I am writing you this letter because I have also been silent for too long.

I wish you had given this place another chance, come for a second visit. We were so young back then—just married, barely making enough money to pay for the wood we needed to build this house. We were inexperienced landowners and we weren't ready for you. I'm sorry you had such a hard time of it, especially your nausea from the boat and your constant chill (even when the wood stove was raging with fire, you managed to find corners and pockets of cold in our house). Our outdoor shower frightened you even more than the dark forest behind the property. But I never thought that you would take these things personally—as though we had created an unlivable environment so you would never come back.

Many things have changed since your visit so long ago. We've had solar panels installed, and even though we've kept the outhouse, we've landscaped the path to it, and the walls are insulated—it's all much more substantial than when you were here. But you probably know these things already, don't you?

Here is something you might not know.

I have always been slightly afraid of you. I know that you looked at Gabe as your finest creative success, that you had the highest expectations for his future. But I could never be sure what you thought of me. I could read disapproval everywhere: in your gestures, your vocal intonations, in the very syntax in your letters. Although I sensed that you always wished for a more studious wife for your son—someone who managed to finish her doctorate, at least—I shouldn't have built that feeling into a stone citadel.

Instead of putting energy into our broken relationship over these years, I've been studying your work and writing. Your extensive research on the relationship between faith and reason is very compelling. I've read your work on the epistemological diversity of current Catholic theologists and your essays on rationalism and anti-rationalism and how it affects political and cultural oppression within Catholic universities. Your knowledge is substantial and intimidating. I was especially intrigued by your latest book,
I See Holy: Religious Simulacra and Pareidolia.
It relates to an issue that has perplexed me for most of my life.

As I sat alone on the porch this morning, apprehensive and hurt by the news of these years of secret letters and phone calls, I wondered why I had never asked you about this issue before now. I studied the shoreline and contemplated the creatures hidden under the sand. I questioned my own motivations for making a home on this island. I calculated the degree of damage done to my relationship, a marriage built on honesty and trust.