Bow Grip (9 page)

“Don’t worry. I’m not much of a conversationalist at the best of times.”

When I dropped them off, Kelly held up one of Raylene’s hands and waved it at me.

“Thank you,” she mouthed at me through the windshield. I tapped the horn and pulled back out into traffic. I was going to try the cowboy’s ex-wife’s place first, in Mount Royal, then I’d try calling Allyson. I’d been thinking maybe Ally could help me find a cello teacher, maybe she could put up an ad for me at the art school she was going to.

I drove around for a while, even had to pull out the map to find Cecelia Carson’s house. It was an old, two-storey place, with a closed-in sunroom for a porch. An unruly holly hedge caught at my coat as I walked up to the front door. A “Beware of Dog” sign hung in the window, and a “Please, No Flyers” sign above that. I could hear a small dog barking furiously from inside, but I couldn’t bring myself to beware of it.

I knocked and waited for a minute, then knocked again, the dog inside working itself into a fluffy-sounding frenzy on the other side of the door. No one answered, so I turned to leave. On the top step, next to a withered pot of Black-Eyed Susans, was a magazine, rolled up and wrapped in a plastic bag. Too big for the mail-slot in the door. It was a copy of a ceramic arts magazine, and it was addressed to Ms Cecelia Carson.

So maybe Jim Carson’s wife was really an ex. She called herself Ms, and was apparently into pottery.

I jumped back into my truck, glancing at my watch, a Christmas gift from Allyson. The stainless-steel band always got caught in the hair on my arms, but I never told her, and wore it everyday anyway. It was only a quarter to nine; too early to go by Ally’s yet. I would stop somewhere for breakfast and call her beforehand. Then I’d come back
here to try and talk to Ms Carson tonight, after the supper hour was over.

I got stuck trying not to go the wrong way up a one-way street and couldn’t find the little joint with the chicken salad from the day before. I ended up parking outside a diner that said it had a $3.99 breakfast special. It smelled like bacon and drip coffee, just like home.

The waitress called me sweetheart, let me take a booth in the window all to myself, and brought me the
Herald
to read. She delivered me my food almost right away, left me a carafe of coffee, and told me she’d be in the back booth having a smoke when I was ready to pay.

“Got to get off the old dogs for a minute before we get the lunch rush in. You’re the calm before the storm,” she said, one hand massaging her lower back.

I took my time eating, listening to Neil Diamond from the tinny speakers bolted to the wood paneling above my head. I ate everything on my plate, then found the waitress in the back and asked if I could borrow her phone. She heaved herself up from her crossword and dragged the receiver on a long cord across the counter, then dialed the number for me. It went straight to Ally and Kathleen’s voice mail, meaning they were home, and on the phone. I hung up without leaving a message.

I paid with a ten, told the waitress to keep the change.

“Well, sweetheart, why don’t you come back here tomorrow when the breakfast rush is here, and show that lot what a real tip looks like.”

“I’ll be sure and do that,” I smiled at her. She should be retired by now, I thought, not worrying about resting up her dogs for the lunch rush. That was something I noticed in the last ten years or so, older women working in Tim
Horton’s or at the drive-through, stuff you used to only see teenagers doing.

Ally and Kathleen lived in one of those artist’s loft type deals in a part of Calgary the map called Kensington. Mostly antique stores, coffee shops. I could see how Ally would like living in a part of the city like this. Kathleen, I realized, I knew next to nothing about, except that she used to teach kindergarten in Drumheller. I started having second thoughts, imagining the three of us sitting around a table, them still in their bathrobes, shiny in their love bubble, and me in my good grey pants. Ally would know I had dressed up for the occasion.

Maybe I should find a phone and try calling again, just meet her somewhere neutral-like. I was standing in front of their intercom, my forefinger dangling in indecision, when I heard a voice from behind and above me.

“Joey? Is that you?” It was Kathleen, from a second-storey window on the other side of the courtyard. “Here, I’ll buzz you in.”

The hallway had at least fourteen-foot ceilings and was tiled with red and white octagons. There were three or four mountain bikes locked to the oak banister that curled up towards the second and third floors. Six brass mailboxes in a row right inside the door, and a recycling box. I could smell fresh coffee, and the lazy tang of marijuana. A cork message board announced a board meeting and a clothing swap.

Kathleen met me as I reached the top of the stairs. She looked pretty much the same as the last time I saw her, when she was sitting in the driver’s seat of Mitch Sawyer’s new truck in my driveway. Staring anywhere but at me
while Ally loaded her stuff into the canopy. I didn’t help her with her bags.

Buck Buck had whined and followed Ally back and forth from the truck to the garage door, thinking maybe we were going camping, then sat down at my feet in the front yard and pressed his body up against my leg. Suddenly, I missed my dog.

“Joseph, you look good. Come on in. Ally just went to get bagels. She’ll be back in a minute.”

Fuck me, I thought. Ally was never back from anywhere in just a minute. I was going to have to sit and think of things to say to Kathleen. What did we have to talk about? How’s my wife, Kathleen? I mean, how is she? All the coffee I drank at breakfast was rolling inside my belly, threatening to make an appearance again. My mouth started to sour with jealousy, something I hadn’t much allowed myself to indulge in since this whole thing had gone down. Mostly all I had felt until that moment was plain old sad.

But I followed Kathleen towards their propped-open front door, making small talk about how the roads were and whatever. Then I remembered Ally’s boxes in my truck.

“Hey Kathleen, how about I go grab Ally’s stuff right now, and bring it up. I’ll be right back.”

I turned around to leave, but Kathleen put her hand on my arm.

“Actually, Joey, I’d like it if just you and I could have a word alone before she gets back. The stuff can wait. You’re not in a rush, are you? Your mom says you’re staying until Friday, right?”

I took a deep breath and bent down to untie my boots.

I followed her into their apartment. Hardwood floors,
brick walls, one big open main floor with a half-loft upstairs. An easel in the bay window. A large island counter in the centre of the corner kitchen, with tall oak stools tucked around it. A stainless steel fridge and stove. I seriously thought for a second a vein was going to pop right out of my forehead.

“Can I use your washroom?” I asked.

“Upstairs, the door on your left.”

I splashed cold water on my face, then dried off on a towel that smelled like Ally. Felt like I had a giant elastic band wrapped around my chest, squeezing. I kept looking at my watch like it could tell me something other than the time. I stayed in the bathroom, leaned up against the counter, until it started to feel like I was hiding, then padded back down the stairs in my sock feet.

Kathleen was perched on a stool in the kitchen and motioned me to sit down. She had poured two cups of tea, the loose kind that you steep in a silver ball. Peppermint. I wondered if it was the same batch Ally had harvested the year before from our garden. It had disappeared when Ally did, from the cupboard beside the stove. Or maybe they drank all that together already and this stuff came from their own little garden, or maybe they had gone shopping together, to one of the hippie places Ally liked to go to, where you had to scoop the tea or popcorn or whatever out of a big bin yourself and write down the number on a little tag. One of the places my mom refused to buy anything in, claiming it was unsanitary.

“What I wanted mostly to tell you, Joey, was thank you.” Kathleen’s eyes were trying to find mine, her face wide and open.

“For bringing the boxes? It was nothing, really, I had to
come to the city anyways for a couple of errands and.…”

“Not for the boxes. For being so cool about all of this. We both really appreciate it.”

I didn’t say anything, so she continued.

“I mean, Mitch has been such an asshole about all of this, I can’t even tell you how hard it’s been. Calling here and saying unspeakable things to Ally, charging up my credit card, and screwing around with me seeing the kids. I mean, the kids are Mitch and Sheila’s but still, I lived with them on weekends for seven years, and I love them too, and they want to come visit me, but Mitch told Sheila about Ally and me, and now it’s all … weird, because Sheila’s family are born-agains, and well, you probably don’t want to hear all this shit about your friend and all, but what I’m saying is that I really want to thank you for not pulling any of that. For being so stand up about all of this.”

“Mitch is not my buddy, Kathleen. I know he’s been a bit of a fuck-wit, I mean, even the shit with the canoe and all was a bit out of order if you ask me, and I’m sorry all that happened to you. Tell you the truth, I never liked the guy. Even if he is a fine defenseman, I always thought he was a bit of an idiot. No offense.”

Kathleen smiled. “None taken. I’ve never had much luck with men.”

I sipped my tea. Didn’t know what to say to that, because all the obvious things were unspeakable.

“But you’re a really nice guy, Joey, and I want to say that I’m sorry for how things happened.”

Just then Allyson burst through the door, with bagels and flowers and library books.

“Joey, oh my God, look at you. You’re wearing your good pants. How are you?”

She had cut off most of her black hair. I didn’t recognize any of the clothes she was wearing. She looked a bit tanned, especially for November. She looked beautiful. When she leaned over her and hugged me, I could smell the outside on her. She felt leaner, maybe even buff.

“Any more tea?” she asked Kathleen.

Suddenly I could feel a tight wad catch somewhere between my tongue and my chest, squeezing the tea I was trying to swallow. I didn’t think I could keep sitting like this, with the two of them, being so … normal.

I felt my nails get sharp and stick into my palms, and that elastic band around my chest again. Then all of a sudden I sort of lost focus on the things in the corners of my eyes, and everything on the counter in front of me seemed overly detailed and really big, but somehow far away.

I heard a tinkling noise, like a spoon being dropped in a sink, and then I remember thinking white knotty pine paneling, new black boots. Feeling something cool up against my cheek. Something warm in my hair. Something wet.

A
ccording to what Kathleen and Ally told me later, I was only out for a minute or so, maybe less, but I have no real memory about any of it until I was slumped in their door-memory about any of it until I was slumped in their doorway, Kathleen holding a tea towel full of ice cubes against the top of my head, and Ally on her knees in front of me, trying to stuff my feet into my boots. They limped me down the hall and into the elevator.

“Nice wrought iron work in here,” I said. They both looked at me, then at each other.

“How you feeling, Joey?” Ally asked. “You passed right out, cracked your head on the counter. We’re going to take you to the emergency. Can you breathe okay?” All the blood seemed gone from her face, leaving a sort of green tinge in her olive skin.

“I … I think I’m fine.” Actually, I wasn’t sure. My mouth felt so dry I could barely pull my lips apart enough to speak, and there was a dull drumming inside my skull. Copper-pipe smell of my own blood in my nostrils, my own heartbeat whooshing past my eardrums.

But I knew what she was really asking me.

“Just my fucking head. We can take Mitch’s ... your truck. Maybe I shouldn’t be driving.”

Kathleen drove. There was blood on her shirtsleeve. Ally sat on the bench seat between us. I watched the new flatbed and their red brick building get smaller in the side view mirror. Within three minutes, we were in front of the emergency room doors, and Ally jumped out, reaching one
hand up to grab mine and help me out of the truck. It was the first time she had touched my hand in over a year, and her fingers felt cold.

A nurse with a plastic pen on a string around her neck ushered me alone into an examination room right away. Ally stayed behind at the admitting desk to fill out the papers.

“Took a bit of a tumble, did we?” The nurse clucked her tongue and pulled a fresh paper sheet onto the examination bed and motioned for me to lie down. “The doctor will be with you in just a minute. Keep the pressure on. Shall I send your wife in when she’s finished?”

The doctor showed up in the doorway just in time to prevent me having to answer. I told her I thought I had maybe fainted, wasn’t sure, but that I felt pretty normal now except for the gash in my head. No pain in my chest, no tingling in my extremities.

She pried the towel away and swabbed at my hair, and pulled a rolling tray up to the bed.

“A nasty gash you’ve got here, for sure. I’m going to give you a local anesthetic and seven or eight stitches.”

She opened a drawer, taking out a fresh syringe and a bottle. Unrolled a stretch of stainless steel instruments.

“Have you been under a lot of stress lately, Joseph?” The doctor loaded up the needle. “This might sting a little.”

I felt a big sting, and grasped at the paper sheet on the bed, trying to stay motionless. “A lot of stress? I guess that’s all relative. I’m going through a bit of a divorce.”

“I’ve never heard of a bit of a divorce.” She smiled and reached for a half-moon of a needle. “Is that like being a little bit pregnant?”