Read the stories of the Winners and Honorable Mentions

Three. PRACTICALLY NEIGHBOURS B Y R E E M A PAT E L

NADINES B Y M O N I C A PA C H E C O

THE ORGAN GRINDER B Y S U S A N R E D M AY N E

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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO SCHOOL OF CONTINUING STUDIES

Three. THE 2013 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE CANADA STUDENT AWARD FOR FICTION


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Copyright © 2013 Reema Patel Copyright © 2013 Monica Pacheco Copyright © 2013 Susan Redmayne All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the authors, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2013 by the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. Three is the eleventh volume in a series of chapbooks, previously named Two Stories ISBN 978-0-7727-7663-1 All pieces in Three are works of fiction. Most names, places, characters, and events are the product of the authors’ imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. In those few instances when the authors mention real persons and reported events, it is within a similarly fictionalized context and should not be construed as fact. Editor: Lee Gowan Jacket design: Erin Cooper Text design: Erin Cooper University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies 158 St. George Street Toronto, Ontario M5S 2V8 Canada Phone: 416-978-2400 Website: learn.utoronto.ca Printed and bound in Canada


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Introduction This is the 11th edition of our Penguin Random House Canada Student Award for Fiction chapbook, and this year we will have more than 2,000 registrations for Creative Writing courses in our program. That’s four times as many as a decade ago, when the contest began. Every one of those students is eligible to make a submission to this contest and the ever larger pool of entries has made the contest increasingly competitive. You’ll see that reflected in the quality of the three pieces you’ll read in these pages. Our collaboration with Penguin Random House Canada has been a key to the success of this program. I’m particularly proud of the fact that this year the final project of one of our certificate students, Sabrina Ramnanan, was accepted for publication by Lynn Henry of Doubleday Canada, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada. Don’t be surprised if some of the writers you read in these pages are published by Penguin Random House Canada in the years to come. Congratulations to Reema Patel, this year’s winner, and congratulations as well to Monica Pacheco, Susan Redmayne, and all of the other finalists. Thank you to our jurors Jared Bland, Kiara Kent, and Ania Szado. And thank you once again to Penguin Random House Canada for their generosity and commitment to emerging writers in Canada. Lee Gowan Program Head, Creative Writing School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto


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On behalf of the entire University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies community, I offer sincere congratulations to the authors published in this year’s edition of Three: Reema Patel, Monica Pacheco, and Susan Redmayne. Their stories are testament not only to each woman’s artistry, but also to their commitment to lifelong learning. I am so proud that they chose to pursue their literary goals with the School. I am also very proud of the fact that this edition of Three marks the 11th year of the School’s partnership with Penguin Random House Canada, the visionary sponsors of the Penguin Random House Canada Student Award For Fiction. The firm’s dedication to nurturing new creative talent was notably demonstrated in 2012 with the doubling of the award’s endowment. I sincerely thank everyone at Penguin Random House Canada—especially, Anne Collins and Tracey Turriff—for this major investment in the School’s Creative Writing students. I also want to acknowledge the commitment of our Creative Writing Program instructors. Like their colleagues across all of the School’s program areas, their dedication to engaging and inspiring students—by sharing their knowledge and experience—is an essential hallmark of the kind of relevant, high-quality lifelong learning we always aspire to deliver. I thank them all for furthering our students’ success. Now, I invite you to turn the page and enjoy this year’s collection of stories by three of Canada’s most dynamic new literary voices. Continue to learn! Marilynn Booth, Dean University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies


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On behalf of Penguin Random House Canada, I am very pleased to congratulate Reema Patel, the winner of this year’s award, along with Monica Pacheco and Susan Redmayne, whose stories all appear in this edition of Three. As we move into the second decade of this award, with its focus now solely on fiction, it is exciting to see the expansion of the Creative Writing program. As Canadian publishers, our commitment to the development of creative writing in Canada remains as strong as ever, and so we thank, and want to encourage, everyone that submitted to this award. Penguin Random House Canada’s partnership with the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing Program and the Student Award for Fiction is an important example of this commitment, and we value and appreciate all the great work everyone at U of T’s School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing Program does for emerging writers. I would like to specifically thank our jurors for this year’s prize, Jared Bland, Kiara Kent and Ania Szado; Monique Mongeon for helping to make this chapbook possible; and Marilyn Booth, Lee Gowan and Nory Siberry for all they do, and their careful management of this award. It is always exciting to discover new voices, and I encourage you to do so with the three stories showcased here. Enjoy! Tracey Turriff Senior Vice President Director, Corporate Communications Penguin Random House Canada


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Winners of the Penguin Random House Canada Student Award in Writing 2013 NAME OF STUDENT

TITLE OF ENTRY

NAME OF INSTRUCTOR(S)

Practically Neighbours

Alexandra Leggat

WINNER:

Reema Patel

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Monica Pacheco

Nadines

John Bemrose

Susan Redmayne

The Organ Grinder

Michel Basilieres Allyson Latta Alissa York Zoe Whittall

OTHER FINALISTS:

Leslie Carlin

The Call of the Cassowary Michael Winter

Chloe Catan

Borderland

Catherine Graham David Layton Alexandra Leggat Shyam Selvadurai Michael Winter

Pamela Dillon

We Come and We Go

Christy Ann Conlin Alissa York

Adam Giles

The Priorities Talk

Pasha Malla

Nina Levitt

Ciphers

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer

Bianca Marais

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words

Michel Basilieres Dennis Bock Susan Glickman Rabindranath Maharaj Glenda MacFarlane/ Mark Brownell

Margaret Nowaczyk

Your Father’s Heart

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer Alissa York


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PRACTICALLY NEIGHBOURS R E E M A PAT E L

REEMA PATEL

has lived in Toronto, Montreal, and most notably, Mumbai, where she worked in child rights and social justice advocacy. Trained as a lawyer, she now investigates complaints about city government. Reema is currently working on her first novel, from which Practically Neighbours has been excerpted.


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“Rakhi!” Gauri Ma’am’s husky voice booms from across the office. “Clean up that corner workspace for the new intern!” “Ji, Ma’am.” Already there, I wipe black dirt off a beige computer mouse. She calls out to me again. “What’s his—“ “Adam, Ma’am.” She’ll forget his name in two minutes, anyway. “He’s already here,” I inform her, “Waiting at the front.” Gauri Ma’am grunts something about Americans always being on time. The corner desk has only been empty for a couple months, but Bombay grit gets everywhere. It sneaks through the windows, cakes on the computer, hides under your fingernails. I wring the damp blue towel. Its musty scent unfurls into the morning light. I used it last Monday when one of the foreign interns, Saskia, had arrived at her desk to find five brand new baby kittens nestled underneath. She sang loud, colourful cursewords about everything that was wrong with India. When she started swearing in Dutch I scooped the kittens in the towel and placed them outside on a piece of cardboard behind a parked bicycle, hoping their mother would find them before the rats could. I work the towel over the computer monitor and notice Adam, ten feet from me, slowly spinning around in an off-balance office chair. Hadn’t I asked him to stay in the waiting area by the front door? From the computer reflection, he seems to be watching me. I keep my back turned, pretending not to have seen him. Adam’s voice cuts through the thick silence between us. “Hey, Rakhi . . . ?” I turn around and he grins, swiveling side to side in the chair.


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4

Reema Patel

“How many other interns work here?” “Two Dutch girls,” I reply, quietly. He stops spinning. “Are they coming in, today?” “Maybe yes, maybe no, don’t know.” Lately, Merel and Saskia have been showing up three days a week, only. Gauri Ma’am would have cared a year ago, but these days, she has more to worry about than a couple of foreigners playing hooky from their unpaid internships. A few months ago I overheard Gauri Ma’am on her phone, after everyone had left for the evening. “Yes, Mr. Birla, I understand you want us to adjust,” her voice straining, “But the need for our work is critical—I simply cannot scale back.” The conversation ended soon after, and Ma’am stayed at her desk for the next hour, rubbing her temples. The next morning she fired three of the junior lawyers and lectured everyone else about “efficiency”. I didn’t bother asking what that meant. Adam runs his hands through his dark brown hair, looking puzzled that the other interns are allowed to turn up at leisure. In his starched white shirt and shiny black leather shoes, he looks like he should be working at a bank, not a human rights law office. I turn the keyboard over and thump its backside, setting free months of crumbs and dust. Adam starts to say something. I sense his confusion mushrooming into more questions. The English lessons Gauri Ma’am made me take weren’t good for prolonged conversation. I excuse myself to see if Gauri Ma’am is ready to meet with him. Ma’am’s office door is still shut. Feeling guilty for abandoning Adam on his first day, I make my way back to his desk, and find Saskia and Merel there. Saskia twirls her blonde hair around her fingers and Merel leans in towards him. “. . . I’m staying with my aunt and uncle in Pali Hill,” he informs them. “You have family here?” “My mom’s Indian,” he says. “Ohhhhhhh,” they say, in unison. His light brown skin, English name, and Bombay relatives make sense to everyone, now. Including myself. Adam sees me hovering nearby and motions towards me. “Rakhi, look! The other interns showed up!” he announces. Saskia narrows her


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5

eyes in my direction, then resumes drilling Adam about where he’s from (Los Angeles), how long he’s been in India (Three days), if he speaks Hindi (Not at all) and what he likes to do in his spare time (Lots of stuff . . . You girls party?) “So, where’s Pali Hill?” Merel asks. “In Bandra West. It’s a suburb. Close to the sea.” “What an amazing location,” Saskia purrs. Merel turns to me, “Don’t you also live in Bandra, Rakhi? You’re practically Adam’s neighbour, no?” “Neighbours” isn’t quite accurate. Pali Hill and Behrampada are worlds apart, but I give her a polite side nod. Only once had I been to Pali Hill, to help my neighbour Tazim clean Persian rugs for her boss, Mrs. Motiani. Every weekday morning, Tazim cleans the Motiani flat, but this was a Saturday job, and she had been instructed to bring along “someone trustworthy”. A tiny white dog in a purple sequined collar yapped at us when we rang the doorbell. “O-ho, Billy, that’s enough!” Mrs. Motiani groaned. I had to swallow a laugh; what fool would name their dog “cat” in Hindi? The flat was filled with naked sculptures, crystal vases and large paintings the size of my entire one-room hut. Tazim warned me not to stare too much at Mrs. Motiani’s things. Outside, soft, gold light peeked through the tall, coiffed trees. A fountain featuring a female holding a pot spilled non-stop water all day. We shampooed those rugs in the courtyard all day, brushing them in linear motions, rinsing them clean, squeezing the excess water, laying them flat to dry. Each time a chauffeur pulled in and out from the gates, we would pull our huge messy operation aside. I had never returned to Pali Hill after that, but Tazim comes by my hut once in a while to divulge the real-life masala stories she hears from the other servants. Bored wives sleeping with the delivery boy, their bored husbands sleeping with the same delivery boy, that kind of thing. Adam interrupts my carpet cleaning memories. “That’s strange,” he says. “I’ve been visiting my aunt and uncle here since I was a kid but I’ve never been to Bandra East. What’s there?” “Highways . . . flyovers . . . markets . . . some flats . . . some slums . . .” I reply, not sure what else to include. Big cowsheds? Tiny temples? Rows


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6

Reema Patel

and rows of political signboards still wishing everyone a joyous Navratri, eight months later? “Where’s your flat, exactly?” he asks. “She lives in the slum by the train station,” Saskia blurts out, clearly bored of the conversation. Adam wrinkles his brow. “What? Really?” The surprise in his voice makes my ears burn. I don’t reply, but he presses on. “Have you always lived there?” “Few years,” I say. “How did you end up in a slum?” He fixes his large hazel eyes on me. I stare back at him. What does that mean? I feel my nostrils flare, they way they do when my landlord, Munna, makes sideways remarks about my ass. The three interns wait for me to respond. A few moments pass. An uncomfortable silence swells between us. “Bas—” I snap. “Enough—That’s where I live. End of story.” Adam’s face softens. Saskia and Merel trade looks. Without warning, Gauri Ma’am appears behind all of us, clearing her throat. She throws her white dupatta over her shoulder and narrows her eyes behind her metal frames. The girls spin around to their computers and flip open dusty notebooks. I jump to my feet, giving the table a final, unnecessary wipe. “Adam, I’m Gauri Verma,” Ma’am says, shaking his hand. “I’m pleased to have you here. Come, let’s have a chat.” She gives him a tired halfsmile, even though it is barely ten thirty in the morning. Adam follows closely behind her. The foreign interns are always eager, when they first start here. Before slamming her door shut, Ma’am calls out for me to make mid-morning tea. In the tiny kitchen at the back of the office, I rinse the large steel pot, filling it with equal parts milk and water. I tuck an escaped curl behind my ear, and grip the steel can of tea leaves sitting on the counter. I stand at attention at the gas stove, scanning the watery milk for signs of a boil. It sits flat, barely warm yet. I think back to what Adam asked and feel a touch of anger while I wait for the milk to come alive.


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7

I have never snapped at anyone in the office. In three years. I know my place. But why had Adam looked at me like that? And what business did he have asking why I live in a slum? Why did this starched shirt-wearing, Pali Hill-dwelling rich boy from overseas need an explanation? All the office people know the basic elements of my story. They know how I spent my childhood on the streets, and then was taken in at the Asha Home for Girls, where Gauri Ma’am was a trustee. Only Ma’am knows the complete version though, with the missed train in Calcutta, the begging, the stealing, the beatings, the paanwallah, Magistrate Kapure, and Babloo. Hot milk seethes onto the stove with a loud hiss. Startled, I turn off the gas. Vivek, one of the senior lawyers, pops his pudgy face into the kitchen. “Head in the clouds, Rakhi?” He chuckles, eyeing the milk dribbling down the side of the counter. “Make mine without sugar, okay?” “Of course, sir.” I start the tea over again, this time watching it more carefully. The milk reaches a violent boil and I bring it down to a simmer. The tea buds release inky beige clouds into the burbling pot. Once I had tried to count how many pots of tea I had ever made at the office. Twice a day, two hundred and sixty days a year, for three years and four months. I thought I should subtract at least ten days for Independence Day, Republic Day, Gandhiji’s birthday, about four or so Hindu festivals, both Eids, and that Christian holiday. Then I remembered to subtract more days for periodical political riots, that time the terrorists shot up the Taj Hotel, and all the other times Gauri Ma’am had instructed us to stay home. Not that she ever took time off, herself. She was unmoved by the constant fataaaak of fireworks at Diwali, or the human traffic jams of Ganesh Chaturthi, or fear-mongering from Shiv Sena goondas. I distribute tea to the lawyers and interns, then slip inside Ma’am’s office with the last two cups. She and Adam are deep in discussion. “It’s not like in the United States,” she tells him. “When you go searching for justice in India, you have to work twice as hard.” Adam hangs on her words, nodding vigorously. On my way out I catch him glance my way. ——


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8

Reema Patel

The rest of the day passes unremarkably. Some tribals in Nagpur were killed by their zamindar, and the lawyers buzz around, swapping strategies to present to Gauri Ma’am. I put on afternoon tea, and forget to make Vivek’s without sugar, but he slurps it back, smacking his happy lips. Merel and Saskia vanish by two o’clock, so I finish their share. Feeling blurry and mellow, with a coated tongue, I sink into an afternoon daze while rearranging the office library. I run my fingers over the embossed titles on the books, which feel heavier than usual. The ceiling fans hum, churning the steamy monsoon air around the office. I pull my thick, curly hair into a knot, but my neck stays hot and sticky. Gauri Ma’am only turns on the air conditioner when it’s over thirty-five degrees outside. “It’s a waste of money . . . Money we don’t have,” she once barked at a sweaty, sluggish Vivek. I create a separate pile of damp books covered in black spots to show to Ma’am. I trudge to the kitchen with the empty teacups. They clink and clatter as I plunk them into the sink. I turn the water on, and it cascades over the cups. Water-borne diseases peak in monsoon season, but I cup my hands under the tap, gulping it down. It is cool and delicious and I have to take a break so I can breathe. I can’t be bothered to switch on the wall-mounted purifier, waiting a couple minutes for it to de-bug and sputter out a dribble of clean water. Most people who grew up on the streets of Bombay have iron stomachs. Those who live past their teenage years, that is. By the time I wash the cups and tidy the kitchen, everyone has trickled out of the office for the day. Gauri Ma’am is at her desk, tapping her pen on a pad of paper. I go in to show her one of the rotting library books. We hear the front door swing open, and then the tip-tip of shoes approaching us. Adam stands in the doorframe, breathless, clutching a silver mobile phone. I thought he had gone home already. “Ms. Verma?” He seems hurried. “I don’t mean to disturb you, but my aunt’s driver isn’t answering his phone.” He scans Gauri Ma’am’s face. She blinks her eyes and raises her thick, graying eyebrows. “So, basically,” he declares, “I’ve got to take a taxi home.” Ma’am presses her lips together, saying nothing.


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9

“What should I say to the cab driver? In Hindi. What do I tell him?” She puts down her pen, sets her metal frames on the rotting book and rubs her eyes. “You tell him ‘Pali Hill, Bandra’.” Adam persists. “But, where? I know the name of the building, but there are no numbers, and I’ve never had to use a map here, so I can’t really navigate, and then with the language barrier—” Ma’am raises her hand to silence him. She turns to me and switches to Hindi. “Take this boy home in the taxi tonight. He’s in Pali Hill, shouldn’t be too far for you.” “Yes, Ma’am,” I say, uncomfortable with the idea of sitting in traffic with Adam for forty-five minutes. “And make sure he knows we’re not paying his taxi fare,” she says. I nod. She switches back to English. “Rakhi will accompany you.” She puts her glasses back on, picks up her pen, and shuffles through the stack of papers on her desk as a cue for us to leave her alone. Outside, the sky is a dusty pink, like the tissue we keep in the latrine for foreigners. Adam trails behind me on the way to the taxi stand. “I usually don’t need a woman to escort me home, you know,” he jokes. Instead of replying, I keep walking. I don’t want him to resurrect our previous conversation. “No, really,” he continues, “I only needed some Hindi lingo . . . Not a babysitter.” I lead him under an enormous banyan tree, its ancient roots snaking down toward the ground. I hear him walk into the branches but I don’t slow down. “I didn’t even want to use my aunt’s driver . . . My uncle said I’d get kidnapped or robbed if I went alone.” I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of what he just said. “Why did your uncle say that?” I ask. Elated that I finally responded, Adam laughs, too. “Who knows? My aunt and uncle have lived in Bombay their whole lives, but they’ve never taken the local train. Can you imagine? They get chauffeured everywhere.


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10

Reema Patel

They’re always talking about gang warfare and small-time criminals.” Maybe Adam’s aunt and uncle are right. One of the first things Babloo taught me on the street was how to choose your pickpocketing target. After white-skinned people with cameras, it was rich ladies with small purses, but only if you were ready to run like hell. At the taxi stand, I wave over a driver and get in. Adam stands outside, peering up the road. “Where’s the train station?” he asks. “Close by,” I say, sliding down the faded orange and black seatcovers. Adam’s eyes light up and he leans down to face me. “Let’s do it!” “No. Ma’am said to take you in the taxi.” “Come on!” He hops up and down. Ma’am will turn me into lime pickle and eat me with her morning poori if Adam doesn’t get home safely today. I try to diffuse his excitement. I tell him it’s too crowded, and he will get hurt. We carry on back and forth, until the impatient taxiwallah tells me to get out and stop wasting his time. “Millions of people take the train everyday. How hard can it be?” Adam asks, as the taxi zooms off. I give in, finally, and take him to Victoria Terminus. At the ticket counter I try to convince him to buy a First Class ticket, but he rejects the idea in the hopes of traveling in the general compartment “like the hardcore locals do”. We argue back and forth until I give, yet again. Ma’am really will butcher me. The train rolls into the station and I pull Adam back from the dense crush of men fighting to get into the compartment. When the other passengers have shoved in, Adam and I board the crammed train, wedging ourselves past hot bodies. I am the only female in here. My nose is two centimeters away from the yellowing armpit stain of a large, older man. He gives me a harsh look and tells me I should be in the ladies’ compartment. “Chintaa mat karo, chacha,” I tell him. Never you mind, uncle. The man begins to protest but I tell him I’m accompanying the gora behind me. He rolls his eyes, muttering something under his breath, but makes some space for me.


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11

Adam leans down to me and whispers, “Don’t worry, Rakhi, I’ll protect you from this guy.” I raise my eyebrows. He laughs and shrugs. “You never know.” The last time anyone offered to protect me, I was twelve, and Babloo was spinning a false story at the Juvenile Justice Board. Magistrate Kapure twisted his thick black mustache, nodding. He ate up Babloo’s story, even after I cried out that I was the one who masterminded the terrible event. I watched the police twist Babloo’s skinny arms behind his back, and drag him off to the remand home. I wailed all the way to the Asha Home, sick with guilt. Our train climbs north, up the Harbour Line. It passes slowly by people’s shacks, some of them less than a metre away. Adam stands on his toes, watching the landscape unfold. I turn to face him; he doesn’t notice me. His crisp white shirt is now rumpled, sweaty, and untucked in the back. It clings to his body, revealing a lean stomach with a bit of flab on his lower back. Sweat collects on his collarbone. His chest hair is wispy, copper, sparse. Not like my landlord Munna’s curly black thicket. Not like the filmi heroes, glistening and bare. We roll into Bandra station and I push Adam toward the door before we grind to a halt. In the mad crush of men barreling out of the train, Adam and I are lifted off, our feet barely touching the ground. It’s like we’re at Juhu Beach, being dragged by a current into the middle of the Arabian Sea. If you fight it, you sink. I keep one eye ahead of me, and the other on Adam to make sure he stays afloat. He whoops with delight as we stumble on the platform. I direct him to the snack vendor booth, while he catches his breath. He shakes his head, laughing. “That was amazing—like crowdsurfing.” He untucks the rest of his damp shirt and flaps it back and forth against his body. “Where do I drop you?” I ask, relieved we got off the train without incident. Ma’am won’t be murdering me, after all. “Um . . . The building is called Blossoming Heights. Not sure which road.” Blossoming Heights? Mrs. Motiani’s building? Where I scrubbed Persian rugs all day with Tazim?


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12

Reema Patel

“Is there a fountain in the front?” I ask. “Yea, some Greek statue. You know it?” I hail down an autorickshaw, and we slide onto the torn, blue vinyl foam seat. I instruct the driver, a tiny man with a mouth full of tobacco, to take us to St. Andrews Road.


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NADINES M O N I C A PA C H E C O

M O N I C A PAC H EC O

works at a literary agency in Toronto. She lives is the Annex with her husband and their dog Conan. Currently, she is working on a novel.


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Nadine1988 was identical to his Nadine, down to the heart cut diamond on her ring finger. Marc didn’t know if Nadine1988’s diamond was responsibly sourced but given all of the other similarities between them it wouldn’t have surprised him. Marc wasn’t into porn the way, say, his brother in-law Don was into porn. His sister’s second husband had amassed three decades’ worth of smut: movies, magazines and novelty items, organized by fetish and star. Marc was twenty-four. He had never bought a dirty magazine, rented a porno or even been to a strip club. In the tiny alcove he and Nadine called a den, Marc would look at whatever was most easily garnered from a few choice keywords—“nude,” “xxx,” “virgin,” “slut”— and deleted his browsing history and cookies immediately afterward. He never learned the girls’ names and he never watched the same video twice. “I don’t get it. Why go to the trouble of physically buying something, when you can get it online for free?” His fingertips grazed the spines of Playboys and Penthouses, stacked tightly from floor to ceiling like sedimentary rock. Don tugged at the folds of his double chin. “I never seem to find what I’m looking for online.” “That’s impossible.” “Not the way I want it, I mean. The medium is the message, right?” He picked up one of the newer DVDs still in the plastic wrap, the eighth in a series starring the same taut-lipped actress. “Kate can’t be happy about you keeping this shit down here.” He shrugged. “I’m not happy fiddling around on the computer. I don’t trust it—feels like I’m being watched.”


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16

Monica Pacheco

“They have software for that.” “I’ll stick with my movies and titty magazines, thanks—things I can actually touch.” Marc wiped his hands on his jeans. For his Nadine, their engagement was a given. It wasn’t “yes” or “no” it was, “why wouldn’t we?” Marc felt at once secure in the relationship and totally irrelevant. She alone held the blueprint to their lives—life insurance, mutual funds, income property, multi-purpose furniture and a colour scheme too nuanced even for her to master. Nadine didn’t like to eat or sleep without Marc. If he passed out on the couch watching TV, she would slip her icy hands beneath his shirt to wake him, and drag him off to bed. Ever since they moved in together he had been on tenterhooks about his bi-weekly porn habit. Evenings were too conspicuous and she was a light sleeper. He had to wait until she left for work at 8am and pretend he’d overslept. It only gave him five, ten minutes max but that was long enough. Until one morning, when Nadine forgot her lunch. Marc’s fear of being caught extended to the neighbours a thin strip of dry wall away, so he always used his headphones. He didn’t even hear her come in. He clicked on a video whose preview image showed a girl touching herself with a terror-stricken look, like her pussy was a foreign entity poised to attack. Nadine placed a hand on his shoulder. It was the closest Marc had ever come to throwing up from fear. He just sat there, exposing himself to her, the breathy cries from the sex-vid playing over her curious expression. She picked up her bagged lunch and left the apartment without a word. They had leftovers for dinner that night. Dividing potato salad evenly between two plates she said, “I hope you don’t think I care that you watch that stuff.” “I’m sorry,” he said without blinking. Nadine insisted, “I’m serious. I’m not one of those girls. You know, I’m not jealous of that. Guys do that. I get it.” “You get it.” “Of course. I’m not a prude, you know that.”


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Nadines

17

I do? Marc thought. “You can look at porn. It’s okay. I’m fine with it.” These were the words Marc had been longing to hear from a woman his whole life. He now had expressed permission to do what he had been doing in secret since he was twelve years old. His heart opened with unexpected tenderness toward his future wife. He wouldn’t have to beat off with a timer anymore or continuously wipe his hard drive with a paranoia reserved for white collar criminals. He could freely view sexvids whenever he wanted and maybe even coax her into watching them with him. But Nadine maintained her cool disinterest in Marc’s porn habits. Nothing seemed less interesting to her than his sexual attraction to other women, porn stars and amateur beauties alike. Testing the waters, Marc would casually mention that he was now seriously into henti, bondage, anal, anything to get a reaction out of her. He would leave porn open on their desktop, watch it right in front of her, but she was always “like, totally fine with it.” Or, she would display a frightening liberalism toward some of the more depraved content on the sites he visited. Things even he wouldn’t watch. “That fucksaw isn’t so creepy. I mean if you think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense. More bang for your buck than a dildo, that’s for sure.” It wasn’t long before Marc found himself missing his old routine. He couldn’t remember what he was watching exactly when he met the other Nadine. Those windows advertising “live sex chat,” “local girls,” must have popped up on every page, during each sex-vid, but when hers materialized—Nadine1988—he suddenly forgot why he was on the site in the first place. He shifted his weight on the cracked computer chair, his penis resting on the waistband of his sweatpants. Marc had always closed those windows that asked for his name and credit card information. The real-time screenshot of a woman sitting in a poorly lit room waiting for someone to want her had never appealed to him before now. After an agonizing two minutes of loading, he was at last put through to her live feed. An empty room with just a twin bed and birch nightstand appeared. Nadine1988 strolled into the shot wearing panties and white gym socks that bunched around her ankles. The resemblance was


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haunting. It wasn’t his Nadine, but it was—a faded copy that lacked his fiancée’s sense of purpose. “Hi,” he typed. She waved. He could both see and hear her via her webcam but she could only read what he typed in the chat box. The site’s interface, though it protected his privacy, was a maddening barrier between them. “I’m going to lie down.” She crawled onto the bed, her stringy underwear cutting into the softness of her hips. “Do you want me to touch myself? Strip? Dance? Role play?” She paused and drew an audible breath. “I have some toys in my nightstand.” There were too many choices. Marc didn’t know where to begin or how to ask. “I want you to talk,” he typed, finally. “Talk dirty?” “I don’t know.” He just wanted to hear this girl’s words tumbling out of those Nadine-like lips. Her voice sharpened. “How about I start and you tell me if I’m getting warm. Okay?” “I want you to tell me about your day.” “I’ve been here all day.” “Yesterday then.” Nadine1988 got up from the bed and sat at her desk in front of the computer. Up close Marc could fully appreciate the likeness to his Nadine—the heavy lidded gaze and expressive Eastern European mouth. “I bought groceries yesterday,” she said. “Then I went to Home Depot to pick up a new light fixture for my bathroom. I got in my car—stick shift . . .” Each word was spoken slowly and deliberately, as though she were undoing the buttons on his shirt one by one. “I came home, unpacked, mounted the fixture onto the wall.” “Your fiancé didn’t help?” “What? No, I’m not engaged.” “Sorry. I just assumed.” And in a separate message: “Because of your ring.” “Oh this,” she twirled the rock around her slender finger. “A guy gave this to me but it’s not an engagement ring.”


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“It’s big. If it’s not an engagement ring, he must care about you a lot.” Then he added. “It must be serious.” “Yeah, I guess it is. He calls it a promise ring.” She sighed. “But I’m a little old for promises.” “That’s all an engagement ring is anyway: a promise.” “I shouldn’t have said that.” “It’s okay. It’s not like I know him or anything.” “No, that I’m old.” Marc typed lengthy messages about life with his Nadine. He told her about their diabetic cat and Nadine’s crushes on dead soldiers—she preferred Marines but could go Navy if the death was tragic enough. She donned the yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbon like a teenager with a high school pin. Nadine1988 told him about her boy troubles, which sounded infinitely more complex than anything he’d ever experienced with the opposite sex. Her “beau” left a wife and a child for her. Once, he fought with Nadine1988 in a club and got arrested after punching a guy who tried to pull him off of her. Another time, when she threatened to leave him, he went into her closet and pissed on all her clothes. They made up and he gave her ten thousand dollars to replace her entire wardrobe. The cheque bounced. They were engaged to be engaged and “crazy in love.” Marc asked what her beau thought about her doing “this” and she said he thought it was sexy. “He’s not jealous?” Marc understood why a guy might not be, but her beau sounded like the I-better-not-catch-you-looking-at-her-or-else type. She shrugged. “This way he knows what I’m doing and where I’m at. That’s all that matters.” He considered all the things that mattered to him in his own relationship. Where Nadine was at was pretty low on the list. “What time is it?” she said, looking at the answer for herself on her own screen. “Oh my God. It’s two . . .” “Yes it is,” he typed, not taking his eyes off her. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this...” “Say it.” “You’ve spent a lot of money tonight.” “. . .”


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“$1.25. Per minute.” “Oh.” Marc was more embarrassed at being caught unaware than he was upset about the money. Nadine1988 hopped off her chair and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. “My livestream is up at sexposed but this is the only chat site I work for. My hours are noon to four and then from ten to three.” She drew her chestnut mane up into a messy bun. “Just scroll down on the side bar and look for the link to my feed.” “Is that your real name? Nadine?” “Of course.” She winked and reached for her mouse. “I’m not done, Nadine.” “Oh.” Marc leaned back in his chair, stroking himself with one hand and typing furiously with the other. “Take off your clothes.” Over breakfast, his Nadine asked him what he had been watching the night before and for the first time in weeks Marc lied. “Group sex.” Fingers braided over his coffee, fog slowly crawled across the face of his watch. “Gang bangs. Hardcore parties. That sort of thing.” Nadine jumped up to grab a bagel from the toaster. Marc was seven minutes late for work. He was always late, but never so late that his supervisor called him on it. He worked for a mid-size web analytics firm, only he didn’t analyze data or develop the software to analyze data. He installed software and serviced their main client, a feminine hygiene company called QueenBee. He assisted with the configuration of software, from initial setup to on-going implementation. But mostly Marc read from a script, answering the most basic questions and complaints that had nothing to do with the performance of the software but an individual user’s own ineptitude. He put on his headset, and began pumping his red stress ball—a stocking stuffer from Nadine. It looked like a beating heart in his hand. Marc pictured Nadine1988 waiting for him, half-naked in his open browser, her head appearing slightly larger than the rest of her body in the fisheye view of her webcam. His mouse slid over his preferred search engine like a planchette on a Ouiji Board—when he overheard


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his supervisor complaining loudly about having to attend a conference out of town. “Fuck my life, Steve’s on holiday until the seventeenth. Fuck me.” “I’ll go.” Marc stood up. “No, I need you here. You’re on QueenBee.” “We’re all on QueenBee. Someone can cover for me.” He wouldn’t admit it but just about every person there could do his job, including the seventeen-year-old intern they found on craigslist. His supervisor took a sip from a stainless steel travel mug the size of a small warhead, his elbows resting on the makeshift walls of Marc’s cubicle. “It’s not that kind of conference, Marc. There’s no cocktail party, no get-to-know-you games, no teambuilding or buffet. Okay, there might be a buffet, but it’s probably really shitty.” “I know.” “It’s web analytics for content planning. And there’s an itinerary.” He eyed the clock. “You have to stay at the Ramada. Overnight. Whoever goes needs to report back to QueenBee at our next marketing meeting, and you know what those cunts are like.” All Marc could hear was “Ramada” and “overnight.” He nodded. “You really want to do this?” “I do.” He and Nadine watched 24-hour news channels almost exclusively. They liked the networks’ continuous and repetitive programming and not knowing when one show ended and another began. When Marc got home, she was curled up on their ottoman watching coverage of a soldier’s death by friendly fire, a story she had been following with rapt attention for months. It was a Predator drone, an unmanned aerial vehicle that shot twenty-six year old Sergeant James Royce Pritchard. The drone’s infrared cameras picked up on Pritchard who had been separated from his platoon in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. In a tragic twist, it was later revealed that Air Force analysts suspected Pritchard was friendly but their assessment failed to make it in time to the drone’s operator based in Nevada. Nadine followed the details of the case like the plot of a telenovela.


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Marc told her about his trip. “But Hamilton’s only an hour away,” she said, not looking up. “It’s a two-day conference. I don’t want to drive back and forth.” “Commuters do it every day.” “The company’s paying.” “I’m not worried about the money.” “What are you worried about?” She pulled at his pant leg. “You’re not cheating on me, are you?” Nadine would ask him this every so often, but it was more of an inside joke, one that only she was in on. The hotel minibar was packed with everything he craved but reflexively felt too guilty to take, even if it was on the company’s dime. The first day of the conference had flown by in a barrage of handshakes, pen-clicks and the floating graphics of twelve back-to-back Power Point presentations. Marc arched his back before the full-length mirror in the bathroom. His body ached with the all-encompassing pain that comes from forcing oneself to sit still. Nadine1988 had been waiting for him. She and her beau had had another blow up, this time over some questionable text messages he’d glimpsed on her phone. She looked into the camera fully clothed in jeans and a tight top. This is how he liked it, when he could pretend she was just an ordinary girl—the chance of her turning him down as great as her doing anything he wanted. All day, through every presentation, he had imagined her joining him in his hotel room. However, he couldn’t quite conceive of a situation where it would actually happen, at least not the way he wanted it to. If he asked her to come and she said yes, he didn’t know if she would expect to be paid for her company, and if she did expect payment it would lead him to believe that she had done this before which in turn made him worry about disease, theft, violence—a string of indignities he would later have to confess to his Nadine. “Besides him, how was your day?” he typed. She shrugged and motioned to the unmade bed. “I’ve been working all afternoon.”


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“Me too. I’m at a conference.” He loosened his tie. “Where?” “A hotel.” “Let me see your room.” “What?!” He laughed as he typed this. “Turn on your webcam. Let’s Skype.” She quickly typed her username in the chat box. “You know I don’t do that.” “Don’t Skype?” “Share my identity online.” “With people like me, you mean.” “Take off your clothes.” “Turn on your camera.” He gripped his mouse. The site’s flashing ads seemed to egg him on, like a bull taunted by a matador’s cape. “You’re not supposed to see me,” he said, suddenly losing his nerve. “That’s not what this is about.” “It’s about us.” “No, you. Just you.” She rolled her eyes and slinked over to the bed. She did everything Marc usually asked for without his asking for it. He could see now, having his fantasies played back to him in this way, how embarrassingly adolescent they were. Was that really all he wanted? It didn’t look right. His cravings were huge but his imagination hideously small. He turned on his webcam. Soothed by Skype’s non-confrontational blue interface, he entered Nadine1988’s username. She immediately stopped touching herself and walked back to the computer to answer his call. They couldn’t look each other directly in the eye, only into their camera lenses, and then at the images of each other onscreen. She covered her mouth with her hand. “What?” he said. “It’s you.” “Yeah, it’s me.” “No, I mean, I know you.”


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Nervous laughter. Marc’s nervous laughter. “No, you don’t.” She held her monitor with both hands as though she were cupping his face. “Oh my God, it is you!” He slammed his laptop shut. Back in their apartment, Nadine was watching a memorial for the fallen soldier. July 8, 1986—February 14, 2012. A home movie played of Pritchard greeting his dog after his first tour. She ran circles around him, whining with excitement. Pritchard wrestled the beast into a headlock and cried: the perfect picture of tenderness and strength. Nadine clutched a balled up tissue and gave Marc a rundown on the latest. There would be no justice for her poor Sergeant. A 381-page report had been released, stating that “A lack of common situational awareness” was to blame for his death. It did not single out any individual as culpably negligent. Marc kissed her hair. The air was thick with the smell of her organic cooking. She made pasta. They always had Italian on Monday. He ate the leftover penne rosa over the kitchen sink. It was lukewarm but perfect in every other way. When he finished he filled the orange stained Tupperware with dish soap and hot water. “Do we know another Nadine?” he asked, a little too casually. “Another Nadine?” She tapped her lips with her index finger. “A cousin maybe.” “I do have a cousin named Nadine. But I haven’t seen her in ages. She lives in Buffalo.” “Does she look like you?” Nadine shrugged. “I mean, I guess we look a little alike, all the women on my mom’s side have similar features. Probably more so when she was younger.” “How old is she?” Nadine’s cheeks filled with air. “She’s gotta be, what, in her fifties now I guess.” Marc nodded. “Why?” “It’s nothing. Just a girl—woman—I met at the conference. Her name is Nadine and she said she recognized me.”


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“And you didn’t recognize her? What does she look like?” “You.” “Me.” Nadine went back to watching her program but appeared to be turning these facts over in her head. They made love that night in their usual way. Sex was always initiated by her. There may have been a time when he took the lead but if there was, it was like trying to remember what he did with himself before the Internet. Marc lay on the bed listening to the shower. Nadine was an early riser and only showered at night when she planned to have sex. He waited for her with a mixture of excitement and dread that had come to characterize most meaningful interactions between them. Nadine stalked around the bedroom in a towel, her hair dripping wet. Part of his anxiety came from never knowing when the act was going to happen. She set her alarm, towel dried her hair, checked her smartphone one last time. When she finally did come to him, it was more of a pounce, her actions quick and decisive. They rarely kissed. She dipped an anaemic, blue-veined breast into his mouth. Her skin’s natural odours masked by the sickly sweet perfume of her raspberry body wash. With the whole of her weight on him, she ground her hairless sex against his. Whenever he relayed the details of their sex life to friends they would react with either scepticism or jealousy. Their wives or partners had to be cajoled into the act and when they finally did give in, just lay there with unkempt landing strips. Marc couldn’t quite explain what was problematic about his and Nadine’s sex life, only that he didn’t feel like they were having sex. Rather, she was having sex and he just happened to be there. She was like an athlete in training, competing only against herself. When they were done, Nadine, breathing heavily, said, “She could be messing with you, this other Nadine.” Marc felt around for his boxers. “Why would she do that?” Nadine pinched his right love handle. “Maybe she likes you.” “Would that bother you?” he asked, hopeful. She yawned. The cat jumped up on the bed and sniffed the sheets, as though surveying the damage from their lovemaking.


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—— Nadine1988 called him the next morning. His Skype app was marked with an urgent red dot that commanded his attention in the most primal way. “I need you,” the message said. His supervisor approached his cubicle. He didn’t mention that Marc was late but looked at the clock on the wall and squinted. “You ready for the presentation Friday? We’re all really looking forward to your report.” Marc smiled weakly. Four lines of illegible scribbling stared up at him from his spiral notebook. “Yeah, yeah, of course. It’ll be . . . concise.” “You better not fuck me, Marc. I don’t want to look like an asshole at that meeting.” “I won’t fuck you.” “Because I really stuck my neck out—I don’t want to go into that meeting, introduce you and get fucked.” “You won’t get fucked.” “I’m not asking you to present the new iPhone for Christ’s sake. This is QueenBee we’re talking about. A monkey could do it. A drunk monkey.” “Okay.” “We on the same page, monkey boy?” “We are.” He handed Marc the agenda for the meeting, a color-coded folio nineteen pages long. As his supervisor power-walked back to his office, Marc stood up, unzipped his pants and pissed all over it. It was Tuesday. Soup night. Nadine stood over a bubbling pot of minestrone. She stirred the broth with a thick wooden spoon, her wrist moving evenly in figure-eights. Marc took the bowls down from the cupboard. He was about to set the table, when his phone rang. He shouldn’t have answered it in front of her but he did. “Hello?” “I’m here.” “Here where?” “Who’s here?” said Nadine.


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“Downtown. I’m staying at a friend’s place near St. Patrick’s. We could meet there.” “Sorry, I can’t. I have plans tonight, with my girlfriend.” “Fiancée,” said Nadine. “I still can’t believe we found each other.” “Marc, who is it?” “Me neither,” he said. “Marc, WHO IS IT?” “Look, it’s over between me and my beau. Long story. I need to see you.” “MARC!” “I can’t. Not tonight.” “What’s wrong? Is she there?” She wasn’t. Nadine had left the kitchen. She was in the dining room now setting the table even though it was his turn. They ate dinner in silence. Nadine went to bed early and he couldn’t think of anything to say to stop her. She slammed the bedroom door and locked it from the inside. It was only when he began to clear the table that he noticed her ring lying next to the salt. Marc fell asleep on the couch. He dreamt about work. For some reason his computer screen wouldn’t turn on, though he could hear the machine’s beeps and static breaths as he played with the function keys. His phone rang loudly in his right ear, the tactile ring of an old rotary phone whose sound hung in the air like a bad smell. He could make out a voice on the other end but couldn’t understand what they were saying. His supervisor stood over him and sang, “Live life! Bee free! QueenBee!” At 3am he was awake holding his ringing phone in a fist. “Yes,” he answered. “Let’s meet.” Marc ran a block to the subway and rode the train southbound to St. Patrick’s. Even though it had been her idea to meet, he was still surprised to see her. She had never looked more like his Nadine. They were alone on the platform and walked toward each other: lovers in a silent movie about to end. Marc hurried her into a hug. He couldn’t help but picture Nadine1988 bent over her sad twin bed awaiting further instruction. But when he moved in to give her his next directive, she backed away.


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“I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t be. This feels right.” “No. This is embarrassing.” She eyed the tunnel behind him. “I made a mistake.” “It’s not.” “I thought you were someone else,” she said, dragging the dull edge of feminine disappointment across his heart. “Look, the next train is almost here. No hard feelings, okay?” The ground trembled with the familiar rhythm of something mechanical set into motion. “Is your name really Nadine?” Her lips stretched into a flat, accommodating smile. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll always be Nadine to me.” “You’ll always be my best customer, SgtPritchard2012.”


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THE ORGAN GRINDER S U S A N R E D M AY N E

S U S A N R E D M AY N E

has enjoyed entertaining her close friends and family with her stories since childhood, but has only recently started to share her offbeat fiction with a wider audience. She studied English at Western University and is a proud alum of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law (Class of ’96). As a practicing commercial real estate lawyer, Susan was a partner at a leading national law firm and is now employed at a mortgage company as in-house counsel. She lives in Oakville, Ontario, with her muse—a red-sided eclectus parrot named Merlin. She is presently at work on a short story collection in which she explores diverse psychological responses to death and loss.


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My mother made a secret will only four days before she died. Four days before she sat with a grey-haired volunteer at a clinic in Switzerland to declare that it was her bona fide wish to end her life. Four days before she drank a lethal dose of sodium pentobarbital prescribed for her by that doctor whose name I can’t pronounce, then washed away the bitter taste of the drug with a few sips of strong tea and a piece of chocolate while she waited for the promised sleep. Four days before she smiled sweetly and uttered her final words to me. “I’m grateful to you now, Jocelyn, for bringing me here. I loved you, you know, in my way. Say you love me, one last time—can you do that?” “Mom, yes. Of course. It was sometimes complicated, but I loved you. Soon now, you’ll be with Daddy. Very soon. I’ll always remember both of you.” “How much longer?” She looked to the volunteer and back to me as her eyelids started to get heavy. “Just moments now? Oh my. Yes, yes. Everything is getting a bit foggy. I feel like I’m shrinking. My legs . . .” She slipped away, snoring at first, with her head lolling forward and her small, dry hand wrapped in mine. There was a speck of chocolate at the corner of her mouth that no one wiped away. It was voluntary death, without duress or undue influence—that is what I decided to tell people. It was dignified, I suppose, and it was all over with in less than twenty minutes. I knew I could report all of these basic facts to the authorities, if asked. It was a fine, swift ending, digitally recorded and legally documented. Our final moments together were reduced to an evidentiary collection, in case there were questions. Which there would be, I presumed. Aren’t there always questions?


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—— Lord knows hers was a quicker ending than my father’s had been. From a curbside vantage, my suburban childhood home seemed to possess a brick-and-siding two-storey similarity to that of every household in our middle-income neighborhood. And we appeared to be straightforward Caucasian carbon copies of all of the other families throughout the subdivision. We drove the same cars, wore the same clothes, ate the same food and ignored the same God every Sunday morning. But behind our creeping normalcy lurked an insidious familial secret. Parts of my dad were being taken away, one by one. I have never bothered to look at my father’s death certificate. It must be filed away somewhere among the boxes of family papers that have moved with me from town to town between marriages and divorces. I am ashamed of what natural-sounding cause of death that piece of paper might declare. Because his death was not natural. I distrust my memories of my father when he was still healthy—I must have been very young. I may only be remembering what I’ve seen of the vigorous man from our old family photo albums and carousels of slides. Perhaps he was already diminishing when I came into their lives. But how old was I when I started to take inventory of my father’s parts and began to see that pieces of him were going missing? It was the summer with the plastic toys from The Jungle Book that were tucked inside the specially-marked Shreddies cereal boxes— Mowgli, Baloo and all the others, each with S-shaped arms that hooked together. All the kids were collecting them and I wanted to be able to build the longest chain on the block. It was to be my triumph. I was the clumsy girl who couldn’t hula-hoop, roller skate, or double-dutch, but I could sure eat cereal. I devoted myself to its consumption—bowl after bowl. As soon as the last box was finished and a new box was opened, I dug around for my next link. That was the summer when my mother stepped up her sly assault on my father. She cleared her throat at the breakfast table one morning. “We’re going, George. Today.” Her words snapped like whips. I stopped eating and looked at my father across the kitchen, eyes wide. “I feel fine, Joan. In fact, better than fine! Fit as a fiddle!” He began


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slapping his fists against his chest, hooting and spinning around the kitchen—an animated King Louie from The Jungle Book, come to life. Another daughter, in another kitchen, might have broken into fits of laughter at the antics. But I dared no more than a few feeble snorts as my cereal got soggy. Mother glared at him. She didn’t have to say anything more. When she was in one of her moods, she always got her way. She shooed me off to the neighbor’s house and I watched as she drove away with dad in the passenger seat of the car—to see a new doctor or to visit a new emergency room, she said. To get to the bottom of it, whatever it was. Until it became too hard for him to twist around under the seatbelt, he always strained to look for me and saluted from the car window. I shielded my eyes against the sun and watched until they turned the corner and vanished from view. That summer was measured in the passage of moments, not in hours or days. In one moment, my friends and I were racing after the Dickie Dee man with our coins jingling in our pockets. Sticky from rocket pops and creamsicles, we’d rinse off under the sprinkler and ride to the park on our banana-seated bicycles to play on the domed monkey bars. When the big kids arrived to loiter on the playground, and the streetlights started to come on, we’d make our way back to our street—lingering, circling, delaying. In the next moment, something less than the whole of my father was brought back to our home. Our old burgundy Buick pulled onto the street and then into our driveway and my mother hopped out, her purse flung over her arm, her shoulders thrown back, her face determined and her eyes sharp with excitement. She hurried around the car to open the passenger door for my father. As she checked over her shoulder hoping to see some of the neighbors watching from their windows, she pretended to help him from the car. And he seemed smaller, stooped over and thinner as he grabbed at her for support. Later that same summer, Carly Simpson and I were lying on our beach towels on the deck beside her backyard pool, sun tanning and reading the dirty bits from a Jackie Collins book that she’d nicked from the drawer of


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her mother’s bedside table—it was about mobsters and prostitutes. We thought we were learning how to be grown-ups. Those were the days before parents insisted on sun block, sun hats and long-sleeved coverups—when the summer left our coconut-oiled pre-teen skin all golden brown and warm and our tan lines gave us bragging rights. I remember that day specifically because Carly said something out of the blue, something incongruous, that would stick with me for years. “Hey Joss. Imagine being strapped down while somebody ate your brains.” Carly rolled over and adjusted the straps on her bathing suit. I turned my head to make a face at her. “That’s gross, Carly, seriously.” “They do it with monkeys. I’m not making this up, I swear. My dad told me. He had to eat it to be polite. I think it was in China. Business trip.” “No way. I don’t believe that.” The image made my stomach turn and I sat up to squint at Carly, to see if her face might give away the story as a disgusting joke. “They have special tables in restaurants with a hole in the middle. They clamp the monkey’s body below the table with its head sticking up through the hole. The waiter cracks the skull open with a hammer and everyone sits around and scoops out the brains with their spoons. The trick is to eat fast before the monkey dies. Fresh is best.” The neighborhood kids all thought Carly was worldly because her family went on airplane trips instead of just car trips to a summer cottage. At the time, I had never been on a plane so I felt like a Neanderthal. There was one time, when my father was still well enough, when he and I drove over to a gravel road near the end of an airstrip. We lounged on the hood of the car eating ice creams and watching the planes take off over our heads. It was scary and thrilling all at once to watch the bellies of the big jets skim over our heads as they roared into the sky. By the time I was due to start back at school, I could no longer overlook the fact that my father was missing something. His left leg had vanished above the knee and he was limping around the house on his good leg with a wooden crutch to prop up his other side. His pant leg was rolled up and pinned to keep it from wagging beneath him like a long tail. It took me some time to build up the courage to speak about it.


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“So, Dad. Um. What happened to your leg?” He looked down and feigned cartoony surprise, like he hadn’t noticed anything was amiss. “Well, look at that! I have no idea, munchkin! No idea at all!” He winked at me, still joking, but his eyes grew distant as he lowered his voice. “Your mother and I went to the supermarket a few days ago. The leg must have dropped off along the way, I guess! I thought we might go back and look for it later, but your mother says we can’t. I was fond of that leg. Don’t mention to your mother that we spoke about it, please, Joss—she sacrifices so much for us, and we don’t want to seem ungrateful!” Of course I couldn’t let the matter drop like that. But when I confronted Mother about his missing leg, she only sighed and asked me not to bring it up again. She said it would only make him sad to have to talk about it. She used the tone so I knew the conversation was over before it had even begun. We were sitting on the porch at the time, with a pile of his folded pants beside us in a laundry hamper and her sewing basket open at her feet. She was cutting the left leg off each pair and sewing up the bottom to form a pocket for his stump. She was methodical and worked at the task for hours without a break—cutting and stitching, cutting and stitching. When the last of the daylight was about to disappear behind the trees, I turned on the overhead light for her as I headed in to bed. She stayed at it, ignoring the bugs that must have been buzzing about her ears, her needle and thread flying. She was humming, I remember. The sound of it rose from the porch to my open window above. I fell asleep naked on top of the covers on my bed, as I often did in the summer heat. My curtains swished in the slow, sticky breeze, and the echo of her humming filled the night air with a slow song I didn’t recognize. “You need to come home, Jocelyn dear. I need someone to take care of me.” My mother’s voice was softer but still as insistent as ever. The landline had rung out of the blue and startled me from my usual wine-infused weekend reverie. Given our geographic and emotional distance since I had left home for university, and her refusal to call me at work or on my


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mobile, we rarely spoke. And when we did, the conversations were usually terse and purposeful. An alumni newsletter had arrived for me—did I want her to forward it? Or some old neighbour I hardly remembered had fallen and broken an important bone. We’d exchange perfunctory holiday or birthday greetings via telephone as well, and each time I’d prepare another round of excuses why a trip home simply wasn’t possible due to my busy schedule of very important phantom commitments. But she never pressed me for more. My old bedroom had been long ago converted to a crafting area. She no longer cared or expected me to stay longer than an afternoon, if I came at all. And now there was cancer. Now, after all this time, she was issuing her bench warrant, ordering me to come home and fulfill the duties that I had been shirking for years. I found myself stifling a flash of hot annoyance. I had my own life to live now. My eyes darted around my spartan apartment and fell on the empty page of the wall calendar. My life was bare. We both knew it. “Yes,” I said. “Of course, Mom. I’ll come as soon as I can get away.” Two short days later, we were sitting on the porch, side by side, trying hard to fill the emptiness between us. “Your problem, Jocelyn, is that you expect your world to be a meritocracy. You got that from your father, I suppose. He was an idealist, too. Well, the world does not always work the way you’d like it to.” “Mom, I think I know how the world works. I’ve been married, cheated on and divorced, twice. I’ve seen colleagues leapfrog ahead with promotions that should have come to me. Shit happens. I’m really not unhappy. Honestly.” “‘Not unhappy’ is not the same thing as ‘happy’. Look at yourself. You should cut your hair short again. And colour those greys, honey. That style drags down your features. I liked that pixie cut you used to wear.” “I haven’t worn my hair in a pixie cut since I was a little girl, Mom.” “You should still want to look pretty, Jocelyn. Even when your father was too sick to stray, I still made an effort to look my best for him. You have to keep their focus. Men want to look at a pretty package, not a brown paper bag.”


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For all of the lies that were played out in our home when my father was dying, it was true that my mother always seemed to have the time to look put together. Her eyebrows were plucked in a way that accentuated her attempts at wide-eyed concern when she sat in the waiting room at a doctor’s office. Her coral-shaded lips would form a perfect ‘o’ with each of her weary sighs when she spoke with family friends. She never left the house without dabbing a bit of her heavy floral fragrance on her wrists and neck so that her presence was always larger than her petite stature might suggest at first. I’m not sure whether any of it was for my father’s benefit. She never looked better than when we were at our worst. The autumn when my father lost his other leg, she was busy having a fresh new winter wardrobe made up by the Polish seamstress that lived in the village. I remember the sharp, fitted dresses with tailored jackets and the silky blouses that had the collars trimmed in lace. She had a bi-weekly standing appointment at the salon, too. The medicine cabinet in the bathroom was expropriated for her carefully organized makeup jars, creams and countless shades of nail polish while my father’s pill bottles and prescriptions were relegated to a basket of jumbled disarray beside the bananas ripening in the pantry. Our home was not wheelchair friendly, either. There was no ramp out front and the doorways inside were too narrow for him to wheel himself around without constantly banging and scraping his fingers against the rough wood trim. When Mom brought him home after the second surgery, we had to ask Carly Simpson’s father to help us get him and his chair up the front steps and into the house. Coach Simpson’s proximity only served to accentuate Dad’s slight, pale figure in a way that made me feel ashamed. Those two men were like opposite ends of a spectrum of health. I didn’t want any outsiders in the house, so I was relieved when Coach Simpson refused my mother’s flirty offer of a cold lemonade on the porch after his work was done. He gave my father a friendly pat on the shoulder and mussed my hair with one of his giant hands before he mumbled the obligatory offer of future assistance if we ever required (just ask!). He made for the door in a hasty retreat. During the entire exchange, my legless father sat slumped over, quiet and pathetic-looking.


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“Posture, George! Posture!” My mother enunciated each ‘s’ so that she sounded like a snake. “Sit tall! Remember what the doctor said! Don’t slump. There’s a good man. Don’t use your sleeve to wipe your nose, George. It’s uncouth and I won’t have it. Let me get you a tissue.” He mumbled something, incoherent but indignant in tone. “What was that, George? You have to speak up! There’s nothing wrong with your tongue!” Visits from neighbours were becoming infrequent at that stage. We were starting to make people uncomfortable, I’m sure. I still had some friends on the street who would have me over to their homes, but I found I had to arm myself against the looks of pity I received from their parents and their polite enquiries about how we were managing. If you look around the house today, so many years after my father’s death, you can still see the scrapes and nicks in the wood paneling and doorframes. When he persisted in pinching his hands against toonarrow openings, he developed the habit of bending his fingers inward towards his palms to protect them. As he leaned forward over the remains of his body, his arms pumping in unified circles to control the chair, he gave the illusion of backward evolution, of using his knuckles to drag himself around. Not long before the end of his life, I remember waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of their voices raised against each other. It was unusual to hear shouting in our household. Our wars were more typically fought with quieter tactics. I crept to the top of the steps to listen. “Why, Joan, why?” My father’s voice rumbled through the empty spaces of our home, rattling the crystal in the china cabinet and shaking the frames from my school photos that were hung against the walls. “George, it was all so you would stay here, with us. We needed to keep you here, where you belong.” “Why this way? It’s killing me! It’s gone too far!” “You aren’t seeing things in the right light. You don’t see things like I see them. I’m doing this for you. I’m keeping the family whole.” “Whole? You’re kidding, right?” “Don’t you yell, George. You’re going to wake Jocelyn.”


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“I’m not yelling!” “You think this is easy for any of us? She’s been having headaches, George. That’s how it started with you. Headaches, remember?” “That’s not true.” “That poor child. She’s going to be just like you. This will be my lot in life—the pair of you, both sickly, and me! I’ll be a caregiver forever.” Even a child knows when they are a pawn in grown-up games. The mention of my name seemed to take the steam out of my father’s rebuttals. “You’re right, Joanie. I’ll try harder, for you and Joss. You’re right, as always. We both need to do whatever it takes.” “I’m putting us first, George. Please try to see that.” “I do, Joanie. I do, I do. Please let’s just go to bed and forget about this conversation. I’m feeling quite well!” The next morning, during the scramble before school, things had reverted to normalcy, with my father slouching in his wheelchair, creeping slowly down the hall, and my mother bustling around in the kitchen. She was in a mood still, I could tell. She had moved the table, just a few inches, so that his usual pathway to the breakfast bar had became blocked. He had to shuffle backwards to find another route around. The household was a constantly shifting maze. He sat up, smiled and saluted when he saw me. I winked in return, gathered my book bag and laced up my Cougar boots before heading out the door to catch the bus. Of course, I could not have known that was the last of his goofy salutes. He went missing for a few days, and the next time I saw him, he’d lost his hands, too. “That’s a strange looking mole, dear. You should have that looked at.” I almost couldn’t contain an exasperated sigh. She was a master at turning freckles into skin disease, abrasions into gangrene. “Mom, it’s time to talk about your cancer.” I had been there for days. I had just spent the morning weeding her garden for something to do while she sat on the porch popping fresh peas out of their pods for supper. There had been no mention of the purpose of my visit since our telephone conversation the previous week.


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“The doctors thought I’d need someone to drive me back and forth for some appointments, that’s all. It was nice of you to come. I hated to ask you. But I knew you weren’t busy!” The peas chimed against the side of the stainless steel bowl as her fingers worked. “How long?” “How long, what?” “Did the doctor say how long you have?” “Anxious to get rid of me, Jocelyn?” “Not at all. I’m just curious what the doctor said. Timing wise.” “Oh, who can say? You just have to let things run their course, don’t you, and pray for the best.” I stifled a bitter laugh. I selected my next words carefully. “Aren’t you afraid, Mom? Afraid of dying slowly? Being helpless, dependent?” “I don’t really think. . . .” “You’ll be weak, unable to care for yourself.” “My goodness! Hopefully not for a long time yet. Don’t be so grim, dear!” “You’ll have to give me a power of attorney, so I can make the decisions for you. We should call your lawyer.” “Decisions about what, exactly?” “You know, medical things. While you’re strapped to some hospital bed, enduring all those painful, pointless treatments, I’ll have to be making decisions for you. Deciding what’s best. For you. For us. I’ll have to manage the bank accounts, the house.” I paused to gauge her reaction to my words, to let it start to sink in. The ping, ping, ping sound of the shucked peas had stopped, but she didn’t immediately turn to meet my eyes. “You know, Mom, there are other ways. You can meet death on your own terms.” She let a long silence linger before she spoke. “My own terms, Jocelyn, or your terms?” She turned then, to look at me, her watery blue eyes cool and wide like frozen ponds, alert. I smiled. “Why delay the inevitable? There are organizations that help with the arrangements. Overseas. I have some brochures for you to read.


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I’ve already made a few enquiries. They say it’s very peaceful. You can be in control of it all.” She shook her head back and forth. “Where is all of this coming from, exactly? God help you, Jocelyn. You’re a little off in your thinking, sometimes.” “God help us both, Mom. We are both a little off, don’t you think? I just want you to look at some of the literature. Is that too much to ask?” “I’m just not certain we are at that stage, yet, dear. I’m doing okay. Lots of good days. Lots of life left in me, I think. We’ll get through this.” “I’d just hate to see you diminishing, Mom. Like Dad did, at the end. I’d hate to be the one making the kind of decisions you had to make for him. Not when there’s still a chance for you to make those decisions for yourself. Think about what I’m saying.” Later that afternoon, I took a stroll down to the cemetery where my father was buried. It was a pretty day for a walk, with the heckling prattle of starlings in the trees and a warm movement in the air that played with the hem of my sundress. I felt giddy. When I arrived, I found a small bouquet of supermarket roses still wrapped in their cellophane sleeve propped up in the heavy bronze vase near his headstone. Their heads were sagging for lack of water. In the fullness of the summer, with the tended gardens flourishing and the lush lawns neatly manicured in all directions, it was a pathetic offering that made the grave look somehow shabby and ignored. My father in his final days was only a fraction of his former self, scarred, a stub of a man. He was unable to care for himself and unable to communicate with us in any meaningful manner. In that final season, our days seemed consumed with spoon feedings and diaper changes. We wiped the stringy drool from his chin with the tea towel we kept on hand for that purpose. We took him for walks around the block, pushing his chair as he sat with his head lolling, swaying back and forth to the rhythm made by the cracks in the sidewalk under the wheels. At home, Mom would leave him in front of the TV for hours where the bright colours of shows like The Great Grape Ape seemed to hold his attention. To this day, any animated, exaggerated cheerfulness churns my stomach and seems suspicious.


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—— When I found the will tucked in among her paperwork and other belongings in her room at the clinic, I am pretty sure I laughed out loud in bitter amazement. I’m fairly certain it was inappropriate, thunderous laughter, shrill and sharp. “This is the last will and testament of me, Joan Anne Greene, presently of the Town of Norwash, in the Province of Ontario made this 1st day of October, 2011. I revoke all former wills, codicils and testamentary dispositions made by me at any time. I appoint my solicitor, Edwin McCormick, of the law firm of McCormick Dunn LLP in Norwash, Ontario, as my sole executor and trustee of this my last will and testament. I direct my executor to pay all of my just debts, taxes, funeral and other expenses as soon as it may be convenient after my death. I give, devise and bequeath all of the residue of my estate, both real and personal, to my executor upon the following trusts: (a) to sell and convert all of my property into cash at such time or times as he may, in his uncontrolled discretion, decide upon; (b) to distribute 100% of the residue of my estate as a bequest to the Twin Oaks Primate Sanctuary in Briarville County, Ontario. I specifically exclude my only living child, Jocelyn Elizabeth Greene, born August 21, 1971, from any inheritance. In testimony whereof, I have subscribed my name as of the day, month and year first above written. ‘Joan Anne Greene’” It was such a ludicrous choice of charity—a cause that was so meaningless to her as to be comical. But to contest the will now would require me to challenge the soundness of her mind and her capacity to make decisions at the end of her life. She knew that I could never seek to invalidate her wishes without raising the spectre of doubt over the entire manner of her voluntary death. She was still the organ grinder and I still danced to her tune. I think if any of the clinic volunteers had heard me laugh, they would have thought I’d lost my grip. I half expected one of them to offer me,


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in their soft accented English, some kind of pill to take the edge off my crazed sorrow. Was there such a pill? I imagined some kind-hearted uniformed stranger easing me into a chair, forcing me to collect myself, offering me some tea. I imagined that they see this kind of reaction from time to time. I imagined that those who deal in death become accustomed to all manners of grief.


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The Judges’ Comments “Practically Neighbours” shows you an unexpected world, but it does so in small, careful, and ultimately beautiful ways: the manner in which tea is prepared, the slack work ethic of entitled interns, the crush of a crowded train car. These things sound familiar, but in Reema Patel’s hands they become the hallmarks of a bustling Mumbai, and an entryway to a microcosmic realm of power struggles, ambition, disappointment, and hope. Patel’s characters are sharp, their dialogue crisp and true, and her story delicately charts the shifting balance between two people thrust together into an unlikely situation. It’s a story about fitting in, wanting more, and trying to find ways to step outside yourself, to be more encompassing, more empathetic. To be, quite simply, better. It is moving and subtle and alive with feeling and humanity. Jared Bland, Books Editor, The Globe and Mail

In “Nadines”, Monica Pacheco gives us an uncompromising exploration of sexuality and relationships in the twenty-first century. This brazen and provocative story delves deep into the world of online pornography and voyeurism and their concurrent dark sides with biting wit that is as stirring as the path Marc—her insecure and deeply unsatisfied narrator—embarks on when the life he has built for himself becomes monotonous. Monica’s characters teem with a vexing and defiant intimacy that


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challenges the boundaries of the readers, as all good fiction does. Richly textured, daring and original, “Nadines” is an exhilarating story by a very promising writer. Kiara Kent, Editorial Assistant, McClelland and Stewart Doubleday Canada Publishing Group

In “The Organ Grinder” by Susan P. Redmayne, an adult daughter shepherding her mother to her death metes out her response to the manipulations and injustices inflicted by her mother upon her late father. Confident and surprising, the story intrigues, disturbs, and impresses in equal measure. Redmayne clips through a mounting accumulation of remembered traumas to her father’s body and being, each development made all the more startling by its barebones description. While these discomfiting elements linger in the reader’s memory, the story’s impact lies in its understanding of power and hierarchy within “loving” relationships, and in its willingness to shift gears just when readers—and the daughter herself—think they know how all will play out. Ania Szado, author of national bestseller Studio Saint-Ex


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