a few little fractures. Nothing major surgery can’t fix.”
I opened my mouth to say something witty but could only come up with, “I’m sorry,” again.
He was smiling crazily.
A long embarrassed silence hung between us.
Now I’d gone and done it. I’d probably slammed into my future downfall. The guy was smiling because he was going to try to sue me. But what about when he found out that I didn’t have any significant money? He’d get his revenge by creeping around in my shadow waiting for me outside my door.
Although, as potential stalkers go, he wasn’t bad looking.
He stopped grinning and said in a disappointed tone, “You don’t remember me, do you, Miranda?”
There was a little flutter in my stomach. I stared at him, his bulky height, the length of his crow-black hair tied in a ponytail, his scruffy jeans with the rips in the knees (boho fashion or pure poverty?), his perfect oval face, amused smile and slightly mocking eyes.
In the file cabinet of my mind, I started ransacking the faces drawer. Nothing appeared except the blank chaos of my lousy memory for faces.
There it was. The performer’s curse. All those people who remember you because you had a little solo role, and they were there in the back row, but you couldn’t possibly have a hope of remembering them because you were too busy concentrating on your performance. This guy had probably been in some production with me, carrying a spear, singing bass, wearing a periwig. Who could know?
He said, almost shyly, “Winston Churchill Senior High. Cold Shanks.”
“You’re joking,” I said. He’d caught me completely off guard. I started to giggle. Cold Shanks to Cold Shanksians was one of those places that got instant tittering recognition from its citizens. Like Moose Jaw (euphemistically known as Moose Groin) or Biggar, Saskatchewan (with its sign that read, New York Is Big But This Is Biggar). We Cold Shanksians were a race apart.
“You really don’t remember me,” he said again. His disappointment was almost tangible.
“I’m sorry, I’m so bad with faces…”
“A few years have passed. I’m Patrick Tibeau.”
The sound of his name went through me like a childhood taboo, like a decade of old schoolyard chants. There was always that weird kid at school who everyone treated as a pariah because he didn’t have the same ideas as the rest of the herd, was content to eat lunch by himself in a far corner of the playing field, and stand up in class and expound endlessly on theories that only the teacher could appreciate. That was Patrick Tibeau. I really should have been more discreet but I blurted out, “Oh my God. I can’t believe it. You’re Patrick Tibeau? You’ve changed so much.”
“You used to sing at assemblies. I thought you had a really fine voice. You still singing, Miranda?”
“Just a minute. Just let me get a handle on this. The Patrick Tibeau? You’re a legend.”
He was laughing now.
“The same Patrick Tibeau that set Winnie Churchill High on fire?”
He nodded. He was still laughing.
“And got sent to reform school?” I said too enthusiastically.
He stopped laughing and sighed. “It wasn’t a reform school. Reform schools don’t exist anymore.” He seemed so instantly disillusioned with me. Sometimes, I just have the biggest, stupidest mouth in the world and can’t stop myself.
He no longer resembled the geeky, spidery, scruffy-haired, beetle-browed adolescent who I remembered. This was a full-grown, credible-looking man standing in front of me.
Then I had to ask. It was irresistible. I was going to be late for work but I did it anyway. “Can I buy you a coffee?” The chance to chin-wag about Cold Shanks with the Patrick Tibeau and get his side of the story was too good to be true. Tina, my best friend, also from Cold Shanks, would be emerald with envy.
“I’m in a bit of a hurry,” explained Patrick.
I was frantic. He was like a prize trout about to slip off the hook. I couldn’t let it happen. “Listen, Patrick.” I dug my hand into my purse and pulled out a pen and an old phone-bill envelope. “I’m having a dinner party tomorrow night. It would be really great if you could come…and bring your wife…or girlfriend…or boyfriend…or whatever.” I handed him the scrap of paper with my address scribbled on it.
He took it and smiled again. I noticed he had very white teeth. “We’d like that. What time?”
He was a We.
I said, “Seven. There’s going to be lots of food, but bring something if you feel like it. Extra never hurts. And some wine.”
“Wine. Right. See you then, Miranda. Tomorrow, Tuesday. Seven.”
As I finished pushing my cart around the supermarket, I had a flash of memory. Me and Patrick Tibeau, circa age fifteen, meeting up by accident outside the tin-roof movie theater after a showing of Cocteau’s La Belle et La Bête, walking home in the snow under a royal-blue sky full of stars and a bright disk of moon, and talking, talking, talking. Though, about what, I couldn’t even remember.
Still, I was elated to hook up with someone from Cold Shanks. I hated to admit that sometimes I got bouts of hometown nostalgia, but it was true, and Patrick had cheered me up. So I thought, to hell with Caroline, and bought every fruit I felt like buying.
Chapter 2
After the supermarket, I rushed back to my Bute Street apartment. Getting it had been a coup. In a street that was quickly giving way to modern monoliths, my classic building was an oasis in the futuristic desert. The place was a stately old redbrick three-story set among ornamental plums and evergreens. Ceramic tile, yellow with a black line of trim was featured in my kitchen, but in the bathroom stood the prize—the enormous, dangerously comfortable claw-foot bathtub.
I raced up the front steps and the other two flights, went in quietly so as not to wake Caroline, and put away my bags of fruit. Then I went into my bedroom to change my clothes, tossing off my old lounging-around jeans and pulling on my skinny black Levi’s bell-bottoms and a Calvin Klein men’s T-shirt I’d accidentally dyed coral but thought was nice. Miracle of miracles, the dye job had come out evenly. I shoved my feet back into my Adidas, and put my old Doc Martens into my black leather knapsack along with my rumpled work apron.
I ran out of the apartment and down the front steps. Patchy dubious sunlight had started to light up the dull morning. I hurried north to Robson. The neighborhood’s resident street people, who had shifted in their crannies as I jogged past earlier, had now gone, scared off by the working masses. I ran the whole length of Robson, past the restaurants and boutiques, right into Vancouver’s tall bright glassy business core, thinking I’d wait before telling everyone that I was leaving. Announce it when I’d paid off the whole ticket.
Mornings, I worked at Michelangelo’s. It was a spartan-chic coffee shop on Pender. Michelangelo or Mike—a big burly third-generation Italian—was always immaculate with a clean white shirt, polished shoes and a neat haircut.
