This Cake is for the Party (3 page)

I'm visual. I know I'm visual, Janine said.

Shona said, We learn in all three ways, but we lean one way most of the time.

I went over it in my head: It's hot, Sanderson had said. He didn't say to her, You're hot. But that's what I heard. I had just come off the pill at that point. My hormones were still stabilizing.

I walked to the back window. There was a good view of the Gardiner Expressway. A string of red tail lights curved away from me, and the cars made small movements as they braked and accelerated. From this distance they looked like I imagined blood cells would look, moving through a capillary.

Flip came up behind me and said in my ear: Hello, I'm kinesthetic. What are you?

Sanderson was at the bar looking for a shot glass. Janine had filled the martini shaker with ice cubes. The bottom half of the shaker was already cold grey, frosting from the inside out. Her sequined cape, the martini shaker, the bar stools, Sanderson's hair: I turned around and saw everything in silver.

Janine said, You're visual too, Sandy. She flickered her fingers on his chest to illustrate her point. He wore a white T-shirt with a silk-screened drawing of a swing set on it.

I think I'm all three of them, I said. I can't just pick one.

Now Flip, he's auditory, Sanderson said.

And how would you know? Flip asked from across the room.

Because you talk so much.

Fuck you, said Flip.

Then, in a soft voice, Flip said to me, How are you doing.

I leaned into him. Ooh, I said. Is that velour?

Touch it, he said. I petted his sleeve like it was a puppy. His arm felt warm through the plush. I stopped at his wrist and held it with both of my hands.

Don't be mad at Sanderson, I said. He's just wired that way.

With the girls, you mean.

It's not serious with Brianna.

Well, good. As long as it's not serious.

I looked at him. We're human beings, I said. It's normal to flirt. We can't help being attracted.

Flip took his arm out of my hands. You don't have to explain it to me, he said.

I just love Weimaraners, I know, Janine was saying. She had brought a dog book out to the bar. She pressed the spine open with the palm of her hand. But my space is so small, she said. What do you guys think about this one? Is he too cute? Would you laugh at me if I got a terrier?

We'll always laugh at you, darling, said Shona.

What kind of terrier? Flip asked.

It's called a Cairn terrier. And it's oh-my-god cute. But then I would be one of those women, wouldn't I? Janine made a face. She held a fresh Tanqueray martini. The glass caught the light from the halogens overhead. It glimmered in her hand. There were three olives speared on a silver pick.

Shona said, Janine, you're already one of those women. Don't fight it.

If you see me with a Burberry dog coat, okay? You have permission to smack me.

Can you make me one of those, I asked Sanderson. With onions if she's got them.

On the fridge door, middle shelf, Janine said. She smiled at me. Virgin.

You want one too, Flip? Sanderson said. I'm pouring.

Flip looked at him. I'm kinesthetic, he said. Read my body language.

That night in the cottage I dream about a blizzard. Janine and her dog Winnie are trying to dig something out of a snowdrift. When I wake up, it's still dark out, and Sanderson has stolen all of the covers. I'm freezing. I lean over, grab the pile of comforters and blankets on the floor beside him, and pull them over the bed evenly again. He's wearing the blue boxers I gave him for his birthday last year. He sleeps on his side, one arm under the pillow, the other stretched out in a straight line away from me, his hand almost touching the night table. His hand is curled as though it could be holding something very small, like a pinch of salt.

I flatten myself against him, wrap my body around his lower half. I lift up my T-shirt and press my breasts into his skin. Tease my hand over the front of his boxers. The skin on Sanderson's neck is damp and bristly against my lips. I promise God, the Universe, the baby itself: Please let me have you. I will love you like nothing else has been loved before. Sanderson exhales a sour cloud of undigested wine.

There's a sound downstairs. Outside, on the deck: soft thumps, like falling potatoes. I stop the prayer and hold myself perfectly still. A rustling against the glass, a bump against the kitchen doors. It sounds like someone is trying to break in.

I whisper Sanderson's name, grip his hip and shake it so that his whole body rocks the mattress. He makes a noise like he's slurping something through his mouth.

I wrap a fleece blanket around my shoulders and shuffle across the hallway and peek into Flip and Shona's doorway. Flip is sleeping on his stomach, face pushed into the pillow, facing Shona. Shona is splayed on her side like a pressed flower, arms and legs draped over Flip's body in the effortlessness of sleep. Now that I am fully awake, I can hear the thumping sound for what it is: paws, jumping on the wood of the deck.

I go down the stairs slowly, starting on tiptoe and rolling to my heels so I won't scare them away. A family of raccoons. Three small ones rolling like bear cubs on top of one another. Close to the glass doors, a large raccoon— the mother, naturally I think it's the mother— sorts through the remains of the plastic Dominion bag that we used for garbage. The leftover spaghetti noodles seem to emit moonlight, making an elaborate pattern of loops and curls. I fold myself into the armchair and watch the little family make a huge mess. I look for letters in the patterns of noodles, try to spell out the letters in my name.

When Flip comes down, he sees me bent over in the chair with my face in my hands staring out the window.

Anne, he says. What's wrong? What's happening?

I look up at him. He has a T-shirt on, boxer shorts. His hair like a pile of twigs.

The raccoons got into our garbage.

He follows my gaze to the window. Shit, he says.

It's our own fault. We should have thought.

Flip rubs his head. You couldn't sleep either?

I just saw you. You were sound asleep.

I need a snack, he says, and goes into the kitchen.

The mother raccoon stops what she's doing for a moment and stands on her hind legs, her paws held in front of her. It looks like she's watching me. But I haven't turned any lights on. It's perfectly dark, we're concealed in here.

Flip comes out with a plastic honey bear and a spoon. Scootch over, he says, and sits next to me, half on the seat cushion, half on the arm of the chair. He squeezes the honey bear over the spoon. There is a shine in the dark when the honey flows out. He slips the spoon into his mouth and closes his eyes.

Flip.

Mm?

Do you know something.

What.

No, I mean, do you know something that I don't know.

Have some, he says.

He fills the spoon again and brings it to my lips. He doesn't let go, even as I work my tongue over the spoon, licking all of the sweetness off it. Then he slides it out of my mouth.

There, he says. Is that better?

His bare leg touching mine on the chair. It could happen so easily.

You can tell me, I say. Janine and Sanderson. Am I right?

Oh, Anne, Flip says.

I won't tell him you said anything. I figured it out on my own. I just want to know for sure.

There's nothing between Janine and Sanderson.

If there's nothing, then why isn't she here this weekend?

Anne. She wanted to be here. It really was a family thing.

I stop talking. Flip is resting the honey bear on his knee. He plays with the pointy cone on top of its head with his index finger. Circles it first one way and then the other. When his finger gets too sticky, he puts it in his mouth. Looking at me as he does this. I feel my nipples tighten into hard French knots under my T-shirt. He leans over and drapes his arm around my shoulder. His face is very close to my face. I can breathe him. He smells like toasted bread and Ivory soap.

I let my head fall back so he can kiss me. I notice differences: the softness of his lower lip, the way he cups the side of my face in his hand. That his face is smooth, even at this time of night. It is the first time in nine years that I have kissed anyone but Sanderson.

There, he says, and pulls away from me. That's what I know.

My eyes have adjusted to the dark, but they take shortcuts, turn shadows into shapes. It's too dark to see anything clearly. The shapes adjust when I think about what I'm looking at differently. When I stare at Flip's shoulder, the darkness clusters in front of my eyes and I can turn it into a perfect sphere. It crawls with darkness and I think about what Flip's shoulder should look like and then it morphs into a shoulder again. I remember an old drawing lesson, something Sanderson told me years ago. When you're drawing an object, you need to stick to one viewpoint. Set the object down and sit so you can see it without moving your head very much. You always want to have your head in the same place whenever you look at the object. A small movement can make a surprisingly big difference once you start drawing the details.

You should go to bed now, I say slowly.

Is that really what you want me to do?

Yes.

Fine, he says, and he pulls me off the chair and I go with him to the couch and we make love there. We move quietly and quickly. He says my name as he inhales. It sounds like and, and, and. When we're finished, we don't say anything. We lie on the couch together breathing honey. My arm is stuck in a crevice between the couch pillows. I feel something gritty rubbing against my elbow. Flip moves first. He slides his hands down along my hips and rests his head on my chest before he stands up. Then he goes upstairs and I can hear the water running for a minute.

I find my way into the kitchen and, without turning any lights on, I feel for a plastic bag in the drawer. I bring it outside onto the deck. The raccoons have pulled everything out and thrown it into piles. I crouch and scrape up the noodles with my hands. The wood looks stained even when the garbage is gone. I'm still in my bare feet. I know I should be cold, but I can't feel it.

Watching
Atlas

I can hear it coming down Water Street, three blocks away. The siren yowls and moans and then dissolves into a stuttering Doppler. It's probably on the way to another quiet trauma—stroke, aneurysm, heart attack.

There have only been two memorable emergencies in the neighbourhood so far this summer. Last month there was a robbery at Sam's Milk Bread & Pop. Someone with a butterfly knife stabbed the cashier for Player's Lights and the acrylic box of pennies that went towards the spaying and neutering of stray cats. The
Examiner
said that the Peterborough Feral Cat Agency got their money back (four dollars and thirty-eight cents), but the cashier had to be hospitalized for the knife wound—a slit that ran deep under her clavicle, nearly puncturing her lung. Then, one week later, there was the woman who put enough Canadian Club into her bloodstream to mistake an iron guardrail for the horizon. She fell off her balcony and planted her skull in her own flower bed, crushing two vertebrae and a patch of pink and white impatiens. The woman was named Sylvia. Lise and I knew her. Well, we met her at a house party once. She'd been drunk that night too. Stuck in a string hammock in the backyard, laughing, fighting with her arms and legs, arching her back and straining to get out, like a moth in a cocoon.

Lise and I hear sirens all the time in Peterborough. But we interpret them differently. I like to think of myself as a rational guy, but when I hear a siren, I freak out slightly. I prepare for an emergency. My pulse beats like a strobe light in my throat. A siren sounds like a mechanical scream, which is even worse than a human one. But Lise says that she likes to hear the sirens, especially late at night when she's cozy in bed. She says it's like hearing a train in the distance. It calms her down. Reminds her that someone is out there, taking care of things, so she can sleep.

It's a Saturday, and I have the day off. The humidex reads ninety; the UV index is high. Peterborough doesn't have the toxic smog of a big city, but it's still hazy outside, so everyone calls it smog anyway. The humidity is so thick, it emits a low droning noise. Occasionally someone locks or unlocks a car door and a sharp bleating sound punctures our quiet subdivision. In the front yard of our rented bungalow, on a pink hibiscus-print beach towel thrown across a patch of brown grass, Lise paints her toenails half-and-half. The first side is silver. She uses a strip of masking tape to keep the lines clean between the colours on each nail.

I haven't seen Lise do the trick with the masking tape since last summer. She looks peaceful and studious. Krystal is supposed to drop her kid off here today again. Lise babysits for free because Krystal is an old friend. It's not a secret that I can't stand Krystal. She's a liar, is why.

“Why don't you tell Krystal you have a life?” I ask Lise.

“Because,” she says, setting the word down carefully like a Scrabble tile. “I don't mind taking Atlas this afternoon.”

She's talking to her toes. She's not even looking at me when she says it.

“I like being with Atlas,” Lise reminds me. “And Krystal has a job interview.”

“You mean she
says
she has a job interview.”

“She sounded fine on the phone. She hasn't been drinking.”

“Maybe not then. Maybe she wasn't drinking
yet
.”

Lise doesn't respond to that. We've said all of this before. Perversely, I feel the need to clarify my argument. “You know you're just making it worse,” I say. “You know that, right?”

Lise starts to bang the bottle of nail polish on her thigh so it clicks, the two silver balls stirring the lacquer.

“It's not like you've ever done anything to help,” she mutters.