Линн Коуди - Best Canadian Stories 2020

“Montreal,” she said. “Though I did live in Toronto a couple years. And Vancouver before that.”

“I went with my parents to Montreal once,” he remarked. “In high school. For a fencing competition.”

“The fuck,” she said with a laugh. “A fencing competition?”

“I was on the fencing team in high school!” he said, grinning. “I did it all four years. I”—he paused with a sense of grandeur—“was internationally competitive.”

“Internationally competitive?”

“We went to Fargo once,” he said.

“Wow.”

“Montreal was better.”

“Yeah.”

“You still play hockey?” she said. (Chris was always into sports, Hazel tagging along to his games. What kind of fucking boy in grade school goes to watch his friend’s hockey games?) “No,” he said. “No, I haven’t played anything since high school.” He tugged at his hoodie. “I don’t mind.”

“No?”

“It gets—stupider as you get older,” he said, frowning. “Competition is more fun when you’re a kid. It’s literally the entire world but like it still gets to be pointless.”

He took a huge bite of his food. He ate by slowly gathering a large forkful on his plate, lowering his head, then quickly and decisively stabbing the food into his mouth, like domination. “It gets ridiculous when adults make it mean something,” he said. “You know?”

“I think so,” said Hazel.

“I go to Jets game with my dad sometimes.”

“I hate the Jets.”

“Aw, c’mon, really?” He bit into a piece of garlic bread and Hazel followed suit, sawing into it with her knife like an animal.

“I fucking hate hockey,” she said, scooping up butter.

“Nobody’s perfect,” he returned, unfazed. “How’s your mom doing?”

“Fine. I live with her. She’s fucking some guy who owns an art gallery.”

“Good for her,” he said. “She still—aw, shit. What does your mom do again? I can’t believe I don’t remember this.”

“Hospital tech. Sanitizes instruments. They ever cut you open at Health Sciences in the last five years, good chance my mom cleaned that scalpel.”

“Well, good for her, eh?”

“She does OK. And the guy has family money, so. What about your folks?”

“Um. My mom’s dead.”

“ What? ” Hazel said. Christopher’s parents had been very kind, and always seemed so in love. There’d been a short period, as a kid, where Hazel’d prayed seriously and nightly for her mother to have what they had.

Hazel reflected, in a nanosecond, that without realizing it she had always considered this a bulwark against death. As if there had been an x = x equation of happy straight marriages with long lives.

“Yeah,” Christopher said. “She killed herself, actually.”

“I’m so sorry.” She broke the last piece of bread. “When was this?”

“Like two years ago.”

Before she could stop herself, Hazel asked, “How’s your dad?”

“Never been the same.” Christopher delivered this information like he was in a meeting. It was calm as space outside, cars half-covered from vision by the snowdrifts. Hazel could make out antennas, the tops of SUVs.

“I’m sorry,” said Hazel. “I’ve lost a couple friends that way. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, showing the first signs of discomfort. “Not exactly nice dinner conversation, I guess.”

An old guy with a Michelin Man jacket walked in and shuffled over to a table.

“My mom’s here now,” Hazel said, offering this, knowing the difference between sympathy and self-concern. “In the city.”

“So you don’t have any connection to Pilot Mound anymore?” said Christopher. The guy in the Michelin jacket slowly lowered himself into a seat, putting his hands on the table and closing his eyes. The waiter sauntered over, now with a lazy smile.

“None. No reason to visit anymore. Ever.”

“Me either,” Christopher said, sounding scared and unsure. “Damn, I guess I really don’t. My dad moved here last year, too. Which is good. It’s good he’s near me.”

They ate in silence, then Hazel went to the bathroom, where an ad for a dating show stood next to the sink, a colourful list that said, “DOS AND DON’TS ON FIRST DATES.” Her eyes rested on a DO:

Offer to go Dutch.

(Welcome to the 21st Century.)

She straightened her ponytail, smoothed her skirt, and went back downstairs.

The old man had a half-carafe of wine and a basket of bread, staring ahead, inserting the food into his mouth. “So what were you doing in Montreal?” asked Christopher.

“Becoming a girl and a drunk. I came back to quit at least one of those. Got any advice?” She’d planned this line out, to say at some point during the night, to gauge his reaction—and it sounded so stupid coming out of her mouth, but Christopher laughed a true, un-self-conscious laugh, and Hazel started to like him for real.

When he kissed her, hours later, on her doorstep, after paying for both of their meals, Hazel started to cry. She went up into her mom’s bathroom but instead of peeing, she sat on the lid and cried. And then Hazel’s mom heard her crying. She entered without knocking and Hazel told her there was a boy. She said, You remember Christopher Penner, right? and her mom laughed a delirious, beautiful laugh, and got down on her knees and hugged Hazel where she was sitting . You two always did like each other so much . Hazel put her face in her mom’s coat and let her mother touch her as she sat there, the carpet of the toilet seat rustling against her skirt.

After they fucked for the first time, Hazel thought Christopher might cry. He had that look boys get after they come when the sex has really meant something to them. Something grateful unlocked from within his body, with Hazel’s legs wrapped around him like a spider. So many boys thought they were warriors after they had an orgasm. That, or they got sad. Or gave off waves of dissociation and then weeks later admitted they were girls. (This had happened to Hazel not once nor twice, but three times .) But Christopher didn’t cry—his eyes closed briefly, like he was with God, and it made Hazel feel beautiful.

Can I even begin to phrase how hard I began to re-believe in my life? How his bedroom is forever preserved in my memory as a centre of peace? Christopher had a big studio on Corydon with purple curtains and gentle traffic sounds and a neighbour who watched cable news that came through the walls as a burbling lull 24/7. For many months, when I stayed over at Christopher’s house, he would get up, make coffee, and kiss me, still sleeping in the bed, before he went to work. I lived between that apartment and my mother’s house, doing nothing. He didn’t seem to mind (something I would later realize I took for granted). It sounds chaste saying it now, though it wasn’t. We fucked against buildings, and I went with him to parties. God, he liked to drink, almost as much as I had in the old days, but that part wasn’t even hard. Once everybody knew I was sober and wasn’t trying to get me to drink, parties got fun! It was a kick to be around drunks and see so clearly now what was happening to them.

And sober sex. Do you know that had never happened before, either? It was in fucking Christopher that I felt my body flower and come back to me. I felt my skin as a real part of the world. It was weird. Sex became not something that I tolerated, or even assented to, but a thing I wanted and liked . It felt like the same restless and tingling part of me that stayed up late as a kid. A ghostly hand touching my insides, bringing something back to me about desire.