This Cake is for the Party (6 page)

With one end stuck inside his nostril, Atlas chews on a ropy strand of raw dough, the whole piece hanging into his mouth like a piece of snot.

“Atlas, Greg got you a movie,” Lise says. “Do you want to see
Finding Nemo
?”

“No,” Atlas says, and flings the worm of dough at Lise. Half of the strand, the wet part that was in Atlas's mouth, sticks to her shoulder.

“Ew!” Lise flinches, her hands up, instinctively protecting her face. The dough pulls away and drops to the floor. “Atlas, please don't throw,” she says.

I stare at the slimy snake of pizza dough curled on the tiles. It lies there like a bloated and misshapen valentine. Lise sprinkles a handful of black olive slices over the pizza and flicks the rubbery bits from her fingers to get them all off before she slides the tray into the oven. Atlas gets down on the kitchen floor in front of me. He presses a zigzag pattern into the circle of dough with the toe of his sneaker. I think about what this house will feel like when it's just me and Lise again.

“Call me when the pizza is ready,” I say.

The light outside is settling into a deep Tuscan orange, and the house across the street has turned on the sprinkler. It sounds like a rattlesnake. I go into the bedroom and power up my laptop on Lise's side of the bed, in the one spot in the corner where we can pick up the neighbours' wireless. I find the website easily. The number is right there in large blue sans serif at the top of the page.
If
you have a concern, please call
1-705-924-4646
.

I jot the number down on one of the old pages from the
Far Side
one-a-day cartoon calendar on the night table (when did we stop reading the cartoons? Because we haven't looked at them, not for a long time) and I flip open my cellphone and I dial the number. It rings twice before someone says hello. My stomach swings up to my throat as I start to speak. One day—probably not this summer, because I know it could take time to understand what I'm doing and what it means, it could be years from now— but maybe, if everyone is careful and lucky and if we pay attention, maybe we will all remember this day as though it was the beginning of everything instead of the end.

How Healthy
Are You?

On Saturday morning, Carolyn gets Bruno to do the quiz. It's a multiple-choice questionnaire in
Business Weekly
, the free magazine that comes in the newspaper every Wednesday. The questionnaire asks a series of health-related questions and then you can graph yourself on a chart to see if you are in the high-risk quadrant.

Bruno is doing his online banking with his laptop at the kitchen table. Carolyn sits beside him on the bar stool, so she can see what he's doing. There are all of these emails—emails from work, emails from Rob with links to funny videos. He keeps opening the emails to avoid their Visa bill.

Do you have sore or stiff muscles? Carolyn asks.

Sure I do, Bruno says.

Mild, moderate or severe?

Bruno finally clicks on
Transfer Funds
. Mild, he says. No, moderate.

Carolyn looks at him. Really? she says.

No, mild.

One point, she tells him.

They've already eaten breakfast—croissants with butter and apricot jam. They ate everything quickly. Carolyn wants to have breakfast again. It's not that she's still hungry— she just wishes that she paid more attention when she ate the croissants the first time. If she were given a second chance, she would eat them more slowly. She can't even remember the way the flakes fell off when she tore the pastry apart, or if they fell off at all. And they used the same knife for the butter dish and the jar of jam. She regrets that.

We've spent five hundred dollars on pizza this month, Bruno says. He scribbles this number down with a stub of a pencil on the back of an envelope.

Bruno wears jeans and a grey T-shirt. His hair is soft and babyish on weekend mornings, before he puts in his moulding paste. He usually likes to wear it in short spikes. On Saturdays he lets it go. Seeing him with his hair down makes Carolyn think he looks slightly pissed off, like a cat with its ears flattened back.

I refuse to skimp on our food, Carolyn says. Do your eyes itch, burn or express discharge?

It's too much. Maybe we should stop ordering from Magic Gourmet, Bruno says. My eyes sometimes burn, from the computer.

One point. But they're antioxidant pizzas. Otherwise it would just be junk food.

But they're fifty dollars.

Only forty. They use spelt flour and flax oil and Himalayan salt crystals. All of the vegetables are locally grown at organic farms.

But with the taxes and the tip and everything.

The envelope still has his parents' Christmas card inside. Bruno and Carolyn have a ribbon for the cards— it's hanging over the fireplace, they clip the cards on with clothespins as they arrive—but this one hasn't made it up yet for some reason. Bruno pulls it out.
Joyeux Noël
, the card says inside, in red print. His mother has signed for his father as well as herself.

Are Rob and Linda going to be there tonight? Bruno asks.

I don't think so, Carolyn says. Rob works in government. They don't pay for things like this—they have the United Way. Do you have trouble sleeping? Trouble staying awake?

Are you keeping track of my score?

In my head, she says.

Both, he says.

Mild, moderate or severe?

It depends, Bruno says. Sometimes I get to sleep after I lie awake for a bit. But last night I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I was up most of the night.

I'm going to say moderate, Carolyn says. Four points.

Did you notice I was gone? Bruno asks.

Carolyn looks up at him. No, she says. You must have been really quiet. Thank you for not waking me.

Bruno slips the card back in the envelope. It was my pleasure, he says.

Carolyn has a funny feeling on her upper lip. It feels like it could be a cold sore. She doesn't get cold sores, but she's heard the feeling of one described as a little bug crawling under your skin. It feels like this now—a strange tingling sensation just under the skin.

Only a few more questions, Carolyn says.

Would you like more coffee? I could start another pot.

I think we should stop drinking coffee, she says. It's starting to disturb your sleep patterns, obviously.

Bruno nods at the computer screen.

And I think it might be giving me cold sores, Carolyn says.

You don't get cold sores, Bruno says. Stop worrying about coffee.

Carolyn concentrates on her upper lip to see if she can still feel the tingle. She closes her eyes and she just focuses on that part of the skin. There it is. It's got to be something.

I don't know how you do it, she says to Bruno. You just go through life completely unaware. You don't think about anything.

Bruno clicks on a link from one of his emails and a video opens in a new screen. It's a hidden camera in a hotel room. The video shows a housekeeper spraying the drinking glasses with blue liquid that comes in a bottle labelled
Do Not Drink
. She's wearing rubber gloves. Then she rinses them off under the tap and puts them next to the sink. The housekeeper lifts an old washcloth to her nose, sniffs it, and uses it to wipe the glasses dry.

That's disgusting, Carolyn says.

I'm sorry you had to see that, says Bruno.

We are never staying in a hotel again, says Carolyn.

Bruno bought the tickets for the library fundraiser from the communications director at his office. Everyone sits around a big table and gets to meet and chat with a real Canadian author. The money raised goes to the Toronto Public Library. The tablecloths are emerald green, and they drape down to the floor. The bright red napkins are folded in a fleur-de-lys pattern and stuffed into wineglasses. It's the middle of December, and the third floor of the Royal York—Convention Hall, Level C—is full of people.

The author at their table is tall and attractive, with olive skin and salt-and-pepper hair combed in a sleek wave over his forehead, so shiny it could have been set with shoe polish. The style looks intentionally outdated. He wears a rented tuxedo. Carolyn sees a rib of elastic around his neck where the bow tie connects. The sleeves are a little short on his wrists and the cufflinks are small black plastic plugs, the kind that come with a rental. Carolyn feels sorry for the author, all alone at this table full of computer programmers. Nobody here has heard of his book. It's called
The Slipped Knot
, a multi-generational historical novel, and on the cover is a photograph of a Victorian woman with a strong nose and a high collar. Her thoughtful gaze points to the spine of the book. There is nothing to say about it.

The centrepiece, a large glass tube full of curly willow branches and fuchsia orchids the colour of an infected throat, towers above the table. It's the height of a six-year-old. Carolyn is happy for the camouflage. She elbows Bruno.

Look, she says. Does the emcee look familiar to you?

Kind of, says Bruno. Did he play volleyball for Carleton?

I thought familiar as in a television show, says Carolyn.

Oh, says Bruno. Then no. Not to me.

The table next to theirs is sponsored by St. Michael's Hospital. They have a recognizable author: it is the young woman who wrote
Everything Can Be Bright
, a postmodern fictional memoir about growing up adopted in Montreal and discovering at age fifteen that her biological mother is actually Celine Dion. It's been optioned for a film. She's wearing a grey felt hat with a peacock feather fastened to the front of it. A swarm of servers dressed in black and white come out of nowhere. They circle the table all at once and deposit plates in front of each guest.

The fish looks weird, says Bruno. Doesn't it look— orange?

It's tandoori, Carolyn says.

It's supposed to be mysterious, the author at their table is saying. Because what I'm doing is, I'm playing with the form of historical fiction.

What's that, then? asks Bruno. A server holds a plate with a dark brown puck teetering on top of a pillar of green and orange bands. He sets it down in front of the woman with the feather hat. As she receives it, she clasps her hands and makes her eyes go wide.

It's a vegetable tower, says Carolyn.

Ah, says Bruno.

Well, the author says to a woman sitting next to him, you're right about that. But let's not talk about marketing before we eat, shall we? It can cause indigestion.

The women on either side of the author laugh, shaking their heads. Their husbands—Brian and Dan, Carolyn knows both of them from Bruno's department—smile and fondle their copies of the author's book. They flip through the pages as though thinking if only they saw enough of the words inside his book, they would be able to think of a clever question.

Carolyn sees that Bruno's pant cuff is caught in the top edge of his sock—it must have lodged itself there getting out of the cab—so she bends down to pull it out and straighten it.

Thanks, says Bruno.

Carolyn? a woman's voice asks. Carolyn looks up. The left shoulder strap of her cocktail dress slips off her shoulder, revealing the top of her bra. She quickly pulls it back up again. She should have worn her strapless.

She looks up and sees Larissa Levinson, dressed in electric blue chiffon.

It
is
you! Larissa squeals.

Oh my God, says Carolyn.

I'm right over there, Larissa says, pointing to the table sponsored by the Royal Bank. I just saw you and I had to come over right away!

Bruno, says Carolyn, this is Larissa Levinson. We knew each other in Ottawa.

We worked together, says Larissa. Carolyn was such a great part of our team. Are you still taking pictures? Her eyelashes work themselves up and down hydraulically.

Oh, says Carolyn. Not really. I mean, not professionally. Our author didn't show up! Larissa says. Can you believe it? Who's going to read his book now?

Across the table, the author in the ill-fitting tuxedo perks up when he hears this. He pauses in his conversation with the women beside him and turns his head in the direction of Larissa's table.

Bummer, says Bruno. I guess you can't really ask for your money back.

Larissa rolls her eyes. It
is
a charity ball, she says. But I knew I was invited for a reason. It was so I could find you! Carolyn, you look great. Now, I want to know everything about everything. How are you?

When an opossum feels threatened, it will go limp, rotate its eyes back in its head, and look as close to decomposed as it possibly can in order to avoid attack. Carolyn has seen this only once. Coming home on a summer evening, she saw what she thought was a white cat lying in a sewer grate in front of their house. When she bent down to look at it, she saw the opossum's bald, dead-looking face.

I'm living in New York, Larissa continues. I'm just here for a couple of weeks. I didn't know you were living here! This is crazy, finding you!

Carolyn's upper lip starts to tingle again. Well, it's for a good cause, she says.

What do you do in New York? asks Bruno.

Larissa holds her wineglass with both hands. When she drinks, she looks like a child with a sippy cup. I'm involved in marketing, she says.

I'm in marketing myself, says Bruno. What company do you work for?

Oh, I'm freelance, she says. She smiles at Carolyn.

Carolyn flushes, jungle-hot. I'm a teacher, Carolyn says.

Larissa goes back to her table once the speeches and presentations begin. Her blue dress has a short train that puckers on the carpet as she walks. Bruno and Carolyn are the only two people at their table who ordered the fish. The author has a vegetarian meal. All of Bruno's work colleagues (and their spouses) ordered the filet mignon. Carolyn watches the author through the orchid vase. He goes to his plate hungrily, slicing his vegetable tower into quarters and eating the entire thing in four bites. He reaches for his glass, but there is no more wine. He tries to catch a server's attention by putting up his hand, like he has a question.