Westlake Soul (23 page)

To a hostage in Kabul staring down the barrel of an M16. A one-year-old girl in Auckland overwhelmed by all the boxes and ribbons on her birthday. A doctor in Chennai performing surgery to save a child’s sight. In Munich, a teenage boy’s first kiss. And closer to home, at a cemetery in Toronto, an old man placing flowers on his wife’s grave.

The sky was not big enough. I covered all of it and wanted more. I went so high that the earth appeared as small as an apple (a healthy,
ripe
apple), and I cupped it in my palm and squeezed—imagined the juices breaking through the skin and oozing between my fingers.

I went to Mathias and found Fat Annie nursing her elderly mother, wiping her forehead with a cool cloth, holding her hand. She was talking to her, the same way she used to talk to me. In a level tone, without patronizing. I wrapped myself around her and she nursed me again. Compassion. Patience. Understanding. I took it all, just as I had taken her care, then reached deep and gave
her a handful of love and gratitude—let it resonate with her aura. She suddenly stopped wiping her mother’s brow and turned to where I was floating, as if she could see me. Her eyes misted with tears and the most beautiful smile flowered on her face.

Thank you, Georgina
, I said.

And flew away.

To a hospital in West Virginia, where emotion was stacked in crates. A woman opening her eyes for the first time—just as I had—after a crippling accident. I collected measures of her dread and consternation. Grabbed a pocketful of fear. And although I didn’t have much hope to spare, I gave her some anyway. As I did with a seven-year-old girl who needed a new kidney, and a frail, frightened child with leukemia. I gave them the last of my hope—exchanged it for innocence—and felt their biofields flare. From there I went to the maternity ward and watched a newborn draw her first breath. The promise came in a thousand colours. I filled my palette and moved on.

A soldier awarded for her bravery. A scared teenager injecting heroin into his groin.

Locking those bricks together.

Higher . . .
higher
.

A helping hand offered to a stranger. A bride walking down the aisle.

It was incredible . . . inspiring. I wasn’t sure if I could rebuild my wall high enough, strong enough, but this life was, ironically, taking my breath away.

To a rundown townhouse in Hallow Falls, a green Camaro parked outside. Darryl’s parents were fighting in the kitchen. As they usually were. I helped myself to a shot of their angst before floating to Darryl, who was in his bedroom clicking through photos on his Facebook page. He came to one of me and him, taken at a stag and doe four years ago. Our arms around each other. Nineteen years old and still eternal. Darryl stared at that picture for a long time, then touched the screen and said, “I could have been a better friend. All I gave you was that lousy guitar pick. I’m so sorry.” Regret and sadness reverberated from him. I took a fistful of each and gave him a whisper of understanding in return. Like Fat Annie, he smiled out of nowhere, then tagged the photo and wrote in the comments section beneath:
Me and my best friend Westlake. Coolest frickin’ dude EVAH!! Love you buddy!!!

I left him smiling. Took to the skies again.

And yeah, I absorbed all the natural beauty I encountered on my journey. What better way to strengthen the wall? Time was running out, but I still circled the cones of Kilimanjaro, ran with the wildebeest across the Maasai Mara, and swam with great whites in the depths of the Indian Ocean. Nothing was taken for granted, be it a mountainside loaded with flowers or an old tree standing alone in a meadow. We are, at all times, surrounded by wonder, and I collected towering drifts of it—packed it into my wall.

My legs started to tremble. Too faintly for anyone to notice.

Something
was happening. Life or death, I couldn’t be sure.

I flew faster. Built stronger.

Young love in San Francisco, where—a honeybee—I drew passion from the nectar on their bodies.

Wrath at a drunken knife fight in Tijuana. Serenity in the mountains of Peru.

I heard my mother’s voice. She had placed her hand on my leg and felt it trembling through the thin material of my pyjama bottoms.

“It’s happening,” she said, and I caught a glimpse of Niki’s distraught face before pulling away.

To a clinic in Toronto, where Wayne sat with a counsellor and worked to uncover the origins of his anger. His face was pale and I saw the shadow of hurt in his eyes. “I’m afraid of being hurt,” he said. “So I do the hurting. I guess it’s what you call a defence mechanism, right?” I aligned with his biofield, as I had so many times before, and pulled from it not hate and anger, but insecurity and remorse. And just like that night in the alleyway, I gave something back: a glimmer of self-belief from the abundance I had collected on my journey. Enough to get him started. “I want things to be better,” he said, and his broad chest expanded as he inhaled.

Running out of time. I felt my heart roaring. Gasping breaths.

My mother’s hand looped around mine.

Quickly . . .

Across town, to a beautiful neo-Georgian home in Rosedale. And this didn’t help my pounding heart. Not at all. But I
had
to do it.

She had grown her hair long again, and looked every bit as amazing as she had on that memorable morning—the one I go back to more often than any other, when my life branched in a cataclysmic direction, and the sunshine had been pink. This was the first time I had seen her since she walked out of my hospital room. That final glance over her shoulder, then gone forever. More than two years had passed, and though it had been tempting to ghost into her everyday life, I never had.

Until now.

Hello, Nadia
, I said.

The thing with Bond girls—the ones that don’t die—is that they usually end up helping Bond in some way or other. And although she would never know it, Nadia was going to help me. She didn’t have to shoot any henchmen or pilot a plane away from an exploding island. All she had to do was
feel
, and I knew from personal experience that she was more than capable of doing that.

She was having a lazy day, by the look of it. Dressed—like me—in her pyjamas, snacking on a bowl of chips, watching
MTV Cribs
on a TV the size of some of the homes I’d visited in South America. I floated beside her, wondering what her life had been like in the last two years, and it was only when I swirled my hands through her aura that I realized she was pregnant. I drew back, a little surprised, but happy for her, even though I couldn’t see a ring on her finger. That didn’t matter, of course, but I thought it probably mattered to Nadia.
I want to be your Soul
, she had said to me, and I remembered the dream she had picked out for us: Marvel and Calypso, and our garden made of sand.

Nadia wanted it all. She always had.

I flowed through her and found shades of anxiety and excitement. I took a small portion of each for my wall—I had to have Nadia in my wall; she was such a big part of my life—and gave her a generous cut of assurance. Forgiveness, too, and no small amount of love. She sat upright on the sofa, the chips spilling from her lap, one hand clutching her breast. I imagined the memories crashing through her mind. The same ones that had crashed through mine, over and over again.

I can’t tell the future
, I said to her.
Not one of my amazing superhero abilities. But I have a feeling you’re going to be just fine. Both of you.

Time . . . ticking surely away, but I couldn’t resist a curious ex-boyfriend moment. I drifted up to her bedroom and looked for evidence of the father—the man who may yet put a ring on her finger. Maybe a photo on the nightstand. Nadia cheek-to-cheek with some dude who looked like Matthew McConaughey. Or even, if I was lucky, her Facebook open—soppy messages and countless emoticons decorating her wall (a different kind of wall, but still a symbol of her life), along with pictures of the blissful couple at family gatherings or on some trendy rooftop bar. Yeah, I was curious, you’re damn right. And maybe hurting a little, if I’m being honest. But I mainly wanted to make sure that the dude checked out . . . that he looked cool.

I found nothing, though. Her bedroom looked hauntingly similar to how it had when I’d been dating her. Same pale green walls. Same furniture.

Are you alone, Nadia?

If she was now, I knew she wouldn’t be for long. The men might come and go, but in about six months she’d have someone she could love forever, and spend the rest of her life with.

And she would be their soul.

An open notebook on her desk caught my attention. I ghosted over to it and saw that Nadia had half-filled one of the pages with her loveable, looping script. She’d written BABY NAMES along the top, underlined with three wavy lines. Beneath this: GIRL on the left side, BOY on the right. The list of girls’ names stretched to the bottom of the page. Madelyn, Zoey, Amy, Chiara . . . But there was only one name in the running for a boy:

Westlake.

I smiled . . . started to drift away.
Hey
, I thought.
Maybe he’ll grow up to be one of Gladys Knight’s Pips.
And I was just about to move on—I had one last thing to do—when I was stopped solid by a sound from downstairs. Instantly chilling, yet undeniably beautiful. I thought my ethereal presence would turn to ice, fall heavily from the air, and shatter into so many pieces.

She was playing it again . . . Beethoven’s
Sonata pathétique
.

Our song.

I went from being able to span the world in half a second, to having no control whatsoever. I was lifted, twirled around, swept downward, turned upside down. Like that feather at the beginning of
Forrest Gump
. Before I knew it, I was swaying into the music room, with its funky artwork and rich lavender smell. Nadia sat at the Steinway in her Hello Kitty pyjamas, her fingers barely touching the keys, yet evoking such inspiriting sound. A blend of subtlety and power that filled the room with life. I drifted above the raised lid and looked at her. Delicate and composed. Elegance soaring from her. And again, the music overwhelmed me. The creation of heat. Nuclear fusion. It had formed a miniature sun before, but now it was helping to form my wall.

I took every note—every beat of passion—and gave back a wave of good feeling.

The ultimate SuperPoke.

Her breast and shoulders trembled, but her fingers didn’t falter. She turned her wet eyes to where I floated above the piano, and I saw her smile for the first time since that morning in Tofino.

I reached for her—my fingers, so lightly, outlining her body, but still not as lightly as she touched those keys.

Thank you
, I said. Not exactly a Bond-style one-liner, but it was all I had. All I needed. Nadia responded by playing the final note, and before it had faded from the lavender-scented air, I was gone.

Back home, my family had brushed the leaves from my hair and shoulders and moved me back into the groovy room. They were gathered around my bed, even Hub, who looked on anxiously. My eyes were closed and my chest heaved as I laboured for each breath. Niki was hugging Dad, both of them in tears. Mom held my hand and waited.

“Okay, baby,” she said. “We love you so much. It’s okay.”

“Look at him shaking,” Niki said. “It was supposed to be peaceful. You said he wouldn’t feel anything.”

Dad held her and said nothing. Mom squeezed my hand harder.

“Okay, baby . . . okay.”

I left their grief and pain behind and went searching for the final piece of my wall—the one thing I had refused to embrace, and an essential part of all life.

It was easy to find. I knew it would be.

He had been waiting for me all along.

I’m here
, I said, feeling the sand between my toes, the stale air rushing over my naked skin.
I’m not running anymore.

He comes in all forms. I have seen him as small as a spider, and as large as a mountain. With wings, and without. Breathing fire, and wrapped in ice. Sometimes he is seductive, and sometimes cruel.

But now, for the first time, I was looking at his true face.

And it was perfect.

Hello, old friend
, Dr. Quietus roared. His mouth crashed and foamed.

I pulled my shoulders square, grabbed my board, and stepped toward the ocean.

I remember the first time I went surfing. Fourteen years old. Cocoa Beach, Florida. We’d been on vacation, had spent some time at Grandma Soul’s commune before taking a week at the beach. Being fourteen, I was given something of a free rein (provided I stayed within sight of our apartment), so figured I’d go down to the beach and check out the honeys—their tanned bodies peppered with sand, bikinis riding up the cracks of their asses. I spent more time watching the surfers, though. Bringing the waves in, landing aerials. Then jamming the tails of their boards in the sand and hanging in packs on the beach, chilling out and swapping stories. I loved the image, too. Sun-bleached hair and toned bodies, rope necklaces, baggy shorts, or wetsuits that they’d roll down to their waists when they weren’t in the breaks.

I decided . . . that was the life for me.

I persuaded Dad to buy me a board. “Where the hell are you going to surf back in Canada?” he asked. A reasonable argument, but I would not be swayed. He got me a 6’6” thruster from Ron Jon’s. Not much, but I loved that board, man—think I rode more waves on that than any other. Wiped out on more, too. I used my allowance to buy the essential accessories: a decent leash, a shoulder bag, a block of Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax, and a rope necklace, of course. I went down to the beach—shaking off Dad’s offer to come with—but I was too afraid to go in the water. I thrust the tail of my board in the sand and sat in the wedge of its shadow, watching everybody else. That was as close as I got to being a surfer that day.

The following day, though, I moved a little closer to the action, and eventually got talking to an older surfer named Vix. A real cool dude—looked like Jeff Bridges in
The Big Lebowski
. He looked at my board and asked why I wasn’t getting it wet, and I told him that I didn’t know where to begin. Dude gave me a few pointers from the safety of dry land: how to wax my board, popping up techniques, where to place my feet. Then I took to the water for the first time. I managed to body-surf several waves and—kook that I was—break a few rules of surfing etiquette, but try as I might, I couldn’t pop up. Couldn’t spring to my feet and stay there. I’d get to one knee and—
whoosh
—wipeout, baby. It got later. The sun painted a tangerine stripe across the western sky. The tide rolled in. Most of the surfers had packed up, went off to shower and eat and party. But I kept trying . . . trying. Eventually, with a rash on my chest and my whole body aching, I gave up. Slumped out of the water with my head low and threw my board into the sand.