12

He took the night flight home and texted Eva when he arrived. She suggested they get together the next day. When she arrived, they kissed and touched their lovely places and had eager sex, which started on his couch but had to move to his bed, her back was acting up.

“You see?” she said, showing him the backside of her arm. The skin was rough and grey from the rash.

He frowned, studying it. “Still itchy?”

“Yes, and I think there might be another one starting on my leg.” She raised he left leg and ran her fingers over the hamstring.

He scooched down, she rolled over so he could have a look. “I don’t see anything.” She sighed. He kissed her hamstring, she giggled.
They had a light dinner of bean salad and cold chicken she had brought. He had a beer, she drank water. She got talking about family, clashes between her parents and Sandy, her sister. It seemed to be ever-present since Eva could remember, but escalated when Eva was ten, Sandy was fifteen, and their parents were trying to rein her in from partying. Sometimes she stayed out all night, and then her father would yell and yell, as Eva put it, and increasingly cuff her across the head. Their mother didn’t say much and looked helpless. Her voice wavering: “How can you watch someone hit your child and not do anything? I hate her for that.” Sandy had doubled down with literal fuck-you defiance to both of them. One day, he smashed a dish in the sink, which made everyone jump, and then kicked the front door so hard on his way out that he broke his toe and collapsed on the front lawn in pain. He limped back inside a few minutes later and gave an ultimatum: Live by our rules, or leave.

“I thought that was just a threat,” Eva said, recalling her shock when it came to pass. Sandy moved in with her boyfriend’s family, which only lasted a few months, then she lived in a group home. “At the time, I just wanted her to behave so he would stop getting angry.”

Eva saw her only once every few months and then even less during the years that followed. When they met, Sandy always had strong, angry opinions about everything and tried to press them on Eva and solicit her agreement. Sandy was easily frustrated with Eva, so Eva visited less.

He nodded solemnly. “That’s so hard.” He left space for her to go on.

“Sorry, I didn’t know I was going to get into that.” She took a long drink of water. “It’s good to have you back!”

“It’s fine, happy to hear anything you want to talk about. Okay?”

She nodded with gratitude, he was a good ear.

 

He walked her to the door and gave her a kiss and a hug, then watched her get into her car. The headlights came on with the engine. He was ready if she were to look up and wave, but she didn’t. He closed the door and felt slightly nauseous.

He turned out the bedside lamp and stared into the pitch darkness. He thought about the rash, the plate smashing in the sink, and Sandy being kicked out. Awful. Then the plane crash, the final harrowing seconds plummeting through the branches that folded up the wings roughly, then the punch to the ground. But there she was, she had risen and changed her life. An autoimmune disease didn’t put him off. On the contrary, it seemed to have rooted out what she needed to change. Regardless, he’d be there for her if things turned for the worse, she’d see that. Besides, she was coping, and she was a joy to be around. She had a deep passion for life and a desire for love. Everything was good.

She texted the next morning:

 

Good morning 😊☀️ I hope you slept as well as I did. Thanks for the lovely evening together. It was comfortable and exciting and meaningful. All those things.

 

Him: Good morning 🌅😊I felt the same. You are wonderful.

 

Later that morning, she texted him a photo of a cherry blossom tree in full bloom, the first definite sign of spring. There was no text with the image. He was deep into his work, buzzing with multiple tasks, but he didn’t want to text, ‘Wow, nice,’ because it was dismissive and lame. He felt a little put out at having to come up with an engaging or even a decent response. His heart thumped, his ears flushed hotly. “Who fucking cares?” he said out loud, not understanding his own question. A minute later texted:

 

Wow, I didn’t think it was warm enough for them already. Hooray for Spring!🌱

 

Upbeat, plus a show of deeper consideration, that they were blooming a little early, implying a woke awareness of climate change and attaching the appropriate emoji to show effort and gratitude and interest, interest in her. He put his phone aside and turned back to the enigmatic spreadsheet on his screen, but it may as well have been a brick wall. Was that text enough? She hadn’t replied, was she dissatisfied? The cherry blossom meant something he was supposed to understand. This had happened many times before in his romantic life. She would slam him for his insensitivity. Damn cherry blossom, what did it mean? Perhaps he should bluff and call right away with a soft empathetic tone, ‘Hey…’ as if he totally got it. He knew this game: If he figured out the riddle, he was the right man for her, and if he didn’t, a strike against him. Like the thorns protecting Sleeping Beauty, they are only overcome by the right man. He stared at the cherry blossom, hoping it would suddenly become clear, but all he could see was a lonely mass of delicate pink petals. Calling her felt deeply awkward.

Instead, he set about finding something for them to do, to show he was thinking of her and to shift her attention to the next thing, a positive thing. Nothing was playing at the cinematheque that looked interesting, but there was a Beethoven concert at the Orpheum, Piano Concerto No. 5, no less. Perfect! At noon, he texted her:

 

The symphony is playing the awesome Beethoven Piano Concerto 5! Are you into that?

 

Her: Yes! That’d be great 😊 Are you free tomorrow aft / eve. Maybe we can head out for a hike.

 

After staring at her response to make sure it was real, he put his phone down and let some unencumbered happiness run wild, like a toddler in an open field. And it was a double shot! She was not only happy for the concert invite, but she also invited him out.

Mid-afternoon the next day, she picked him up. It was grey and cool. “After we walk, I can show you my old neighbourhood,” she said. Sitting in the passenger seat, he had the feeling of being taken on a pilgrimage.

When they arrived at the Endowment Lands trail-head, the parking lot was strangely empty for a Saturday, the dreary weather, he supposed.

“They’re all at the mall,” he said, trying to sound humorous.

“Ha, yeah.”

“When was the last time you were here?”

“Mm, I guess the fall. Sometimes I visit people in the old neighbourhood. The Mom across the street still lives in the same house.”

A sign at the head of the trail warned of Giant Hogweed, which, it pointed out, can cause skin burns and blindness if it comes in contact with the eyes. The poisonous plant reminded him of a documentary he’d seen about Monarch butterflies. He decided to tell her about it, why birds don’t eat Monarchs – they are poisonous to birds because Monarchs eat Milkweed plants, otherwise, Spencer pointed out, the birds would feast on them.

“Creatures have such interesting ways to protect themselves,” he said.

“Mm, yeah.”

He felt an inch shorter and tried for something more dramatic. “Alas, there are many other creatures that eat them: wasps, ants, spiders. Something will get you.” She said nothing and kept her eyes on the trail, and suddenly it felt like hot ash thrown in his face. What a stupid thing to say to her.

“You cycle out here, right?”

He wanted to bow down and kiss her feet for saving him. “Yes, I love it, it’s special, the trees, the air, I love it so much.” His heart felt like it was flipping.

They wound their way below the towering cedar and Douglas Fir. Everything was damp like a rain forest, the opposite of comforting or romantic, but they were together, that was all he needed. He tiptoed through the conversation, following her cues and mood. If there was a lull, he asked her a question and then commented that her answer was interesting; if it wasn’t, he found something positive to say regardless. When the conversation related somehow to his life, he mentioned how it was so, but worried about taking up too much space and generally felt he was struggling to keep his head above water and wished he wasn’t so tense, even though he took pleasure in every moment walking by her side. They talked the whole time, but the tone was generally serious, neither laughed, and the only chuckle was awkward, to be polite.

She talked more about her family. Her father had no money to start out and worked hard to buy his first property, eventually becoming very wealthy by buying and selling real estate. Eva remembered family trips to Los Angeles in a private plane. She and her sister were told they could buy whatever they wanted. The oft-told story from her father, as if it were a joke, was how quickly they decided to get married, which he insisted was no more than a week. He would chuckle at how it was of little concern to him who he married, what was the difference? He said one girl from the church was like any other. It was an ill pairing, but the way Eva put it was: “Things were very fucked up.”

They had a family cottage on Cultus Lake, and Eva spent summers life-guarding, rubbing shoulders with the other well-off families.

“That’s where I met Martin.”

At first, this seemed perfectly natural to Spencer, but the years didn’t add up. Eva and Martin married when she was forty-four. And of course, June was from a previous marriage. “Oh, you’ve…I didn’t know.”

She explained it. Martin was her first real boyfriend. His family didn’t have a cottage there, but his cousins did. She described her and Martin as an obvious fit, but she had ended it after the first summer, it wasn’t right, was all she said. And then the next summer, they got back together. She liked his humour. He lived in Langley, a two-hour bus ride from her place in Kerrisdale.

“It was always me on the bus for two hours there, two hours back, so it didn’t last.” The next summer, he went to Los Angeles for acting school.

“Another actor,” Spencer said. “Sorry, I interrupted you.”

“Yeah, no, it’s okay. Anyway, the rest you can figure out. He got married and they had June, divorced, and we re-connected on Facebook.”

“How long had it been since you’d seen him?”

She sighed, and he wished he’d never asked, he didn’t want to talk about Martin.

“Well,” she said, thinking. “I saw him at his cousin’s wedding.”

“He was married then?”

Eva looked him seriously for a moment. “Yes.” There was clearly more to the story that she didn’t want to get into, but the broad strokes were plain to see. The connection reignited.

Spencer was glad to be back in the car and escape the creeping damp chill of late afternoon. They decided to get dinner in Kerrisdale. She drove circuitously through her old neighbourhood, pointing out her elementary school and the route she took on her bicycle. At a stop sign, she pointed to the left, “My house is down that street, around the corner.” She paused, weighing, then drove straight on without taking him to see it. Spencer thought it best to respect her decision with silence, like how one does when visiting a grave. Besides, to him it would just be a burb house like any other, much like the one he grew up in: two-stories, four bedrooms, garage, perennials, lawn, a tree or two in the front yard, a well-appointed front door and early 70’s trimmings. But to her, granted, something else entirely.

She turned onto Dunbar, “You like Thai?”

“Yes!”

“There’s a really good one up here.” At the next block, she scoped for a parking spot, and he looked around too, attempting to be helpful. She pulled onto a side street and quickly found a spot. He felt oddly distanced from her, the hangover from her reveal that she’d known Martin since forever and then her not driving by her house. A part of him just wanted to go home rather than work through the prospect of further difficult conversation.

On the street, she pointed out an office building and said she remembered when it was built and how fancy and modern it seemed at the time, but now how tired and out of style it was, with its kitschy trimmings and faded colour. “Here,” she said in front of the Thai restaurant. He held the restaurant door open for her with the ridiculous idea that it would remind her she was with a kind and considerate man, a man who wanted it to work and that he would do all those things she wanted and expected to make it so.

Aromas of sweet lime, lemongrass, and coconut welcomed them. The place was narrow with colliding green and white, but clean. Shiny black tables down each side with a bar at the back and a steaming kitchen beyond, nothing pretty, in line with his unsettled feelings. The place was empty. If it’s so good, why isn’t anyone here, he wanted to say. The short fortyish Thai hostess, probably an owner, rushed from the back. “Anywhere, anywhere, come, come.”

They took the only window table at the front. “Perfect,” he said, as they settled into their seats. Eva ordered a chicken and basil thing, going for the protein, and tea. He had pad thai with shrimp and a beer. They shared, but he was careful to leave her all the chicken, and she ate every bite and some of the shrimp, which he insisted he didn’t want, which wasn’t true. The food seemed to renew her spirits.

“What do you think of getting away for a weeked together?”

“That would be awesome!” Two whole nights and two whole days! He could hardly contain his excitement, and yet felt strangely surprised as if she had produced a surprise gift from behind her back. He wanted to ask why, but it was an absurd question, and he pretended mere enthusiasm as they brainstormed on where they might go. They would be free of roles of host and guest, inhabit the space as co-owners, their very own place. Nice walks in nature, explore the local attractions, eat good food and be naked at any time of day suited them. A fricken paradise, his heart skipped beats.

It was dark when they left, the mid-April air had a chill, and if it were to rain, it would be miserable. He tried to quicken their pace to her car, but she kept to an after-dinner stroll.
She asked: “Do you know that concept in relationships, ‘closing all the exits’?” He did know it. It was the next level-up from dating, where a couple tests out commitment. But rather than the implication of ‘forever’ that comes with declaring coupledom, you decide on a set and limited time. ‘Closing all the exits’ refers to their commitment to work through any issues during that time period. It’s often a year, or at least six months. At the end of the period, they can walk away or renew. It provides security, signals your intentions, and when the time is up, there’s less shame or sense of failure if they decide not to renew.

“Yeah.”

“I was wondering if you were interested in that?”

“Of course, what do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know, um, maybe we could just try till the end of May.”

Six weeks? On the one hand, he was happy she wanted to go to the next level, but six weeks was very cautious, and then he immediately revised that to ridiculous. It wasn’t even a test drive around the block. Like that day on the chilly beach, when she brought up ‘committed dating,’ he was surprised she felt insecure about his interest in her. At every turn, he’d expressed affection, and there hadn’t been a single desire or request he hadn’t enthusiastically supported. And today on the walk, he felt he’d been boring and asked too many questions. It would have made more sense if he were asking to close the exits. He would have easily agreed to a year. If she wanted to go down to City Hall tomorrow morning and get married, he probably would have done it. And she didn’t know! Should he tell her? He wanted to question her, ‘Six weeks?’ and even try to get her to laugh about how short it was.
“Sure, that sounds good,” he said. He rationalized that she wanted to take a step forward, and that was a very positive thing, and that he’d overthought it negatively. Still, it felt odd.

She parked and invited him up, but said she had to be up early and needed a good sleep, reminding him that staying the whole night wasn’t an option. They hydrated in the kitchen, their eyes met while gulping, then each used the bathroom, and met on her bed to pull each other’s clothes off, put their mouths on each other’s bodies, and feel the relief of naked torsos smooth against each other, feeling again, it had been far too long.

After, they cuddled, buzzing, her head on his chest, then quickly fell asleep. He startled awake as if an alarm had gone off. His clothes were strewn about, and he had fun discovering where they had ended up, there and under and such. He pulled them on deliberately, facing her, stretching his torso with the hope of enticing her with the last looks at his nakedness to ask him to stay. He felt like he was in that movie scene, the after-sex scene where they had their last comments and tender quips as he dressed while she lay there sultry and spent. With her burb manners, she pulled on her underwear and a white t-shirt and saw him to the door for a goodbye kiss and hug. Out, in the fresh air, a star or two visible through breaks in the clouds, it felt good to walk, better under the trees that shielded him from harsh street lamps. Some gardens had subtle night-lighting, well-attended shrubs, and flower bushes, something to come home to and be proud of before entering and seeing your beloved.

Broadway seemed dead for eleven o’clock. He sat on the bench at the deserted bus stop. What a day! he thought, at first focused on how it ended so passionately, but then reminded that he didn’t understand much of the rest, including how he was alone in the chill, waiting for a bus, and yet in a committed relationship. The bus arrived a moment later, which was a surpise, he was lucky. I am lucky. That’s what I have to get through my thick head. He tried as best he could to focus on that while riding the smelly bus heading west.