Théodora Armstrong - Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

Over the past few weeks, thoughts — random things like the dry cleaning, upcoming dinner parties, the wedding invitations — had been accumulating in my mind, teetering as I balanced them one by one, and once Carin popped into my head, I couldn’t rid myself of her. The thought of her was throwing the tower off kilter. I suppose I could have sent her an email or picked up the phone. But even if she was not actually sick, there was always something awry in Carin’s life, and so in that way the lie wasn’t really a lie at all.

And now, as I float beneath an unrelenting blue sky, I’m already reconsidering my decision to visit. Whenever I’m around my sister it feels as though someone has tightened a bunch of screws in my head. Carin is stretched out on an air mattress the size of a queen bed, looking sphinx-like, her long dark hair parted in the middle. I am in the inner tube, limbs jutting from the donut hole, floating like an upturned beetle down the channel.

“I never get sick of this,” Carin says, reaching for two coolers from the six-pack at her feet. She opens one, flicks the bottle cap onto her mattress, and takes a gulp before opening mine. “The last time we did this I was dating that guy with the Supra.” She snaps her fingers. “What was his name?”

“Something with a K . Kyle, Kurt — I don’t know,” I say, rubbing my temples.

“Man, I loved that car.” Carin passes me the bottle and thinks. “That was almost two years ago.”

“Has it been that long?” I sip at the fluorescent cooler and then hold up the bottle to squint at the label: Limelicious Hard Punch. “I think this stuff is giving me a headache.”

“Oh, just drink it,” Carin says, flexing her toes and adjusting her bikini. “You’re so picky.” She’s gained weight since I last saw her, the bathing suit bottom digging into the extra flesh around her waist. Pudge, Carin says. Something to hang onto.

“And the hubby?” She sends a kick of cold water at me and I splash her back, but her mattress is so large the water barely reaches her. “Anton’s fine,” I say. “He just started his residency at St. Paul’s, so he’s pretty busy.”

“I always knew you’d end up with someone like that,” Carin says, sitting up to dangle her legs in the water.

“Like what?”

“Lawyer, doctor, that type.”

As we pass under the first bridge, I sink further into the donut hole, my legs sticking up in the air, icy water over my midriff. The channel widens and deepens so that we’re barely moving and we float along lazily. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange?” Carin asks, slipping off her mat into the channel. “You dropping in like this.”

“Is it?”

“This is not exactly how I pictured my day going,” Carin treads water in front of me.

“I can’t visit my sister? See how things are coming along.”

“Coming along?” Carin raises her eyebrows and then disappears under the water. I brace myself, expecting to have my tube flipped, but instead she swims away from me, back toward the bridge, against the current. When she finally surfaces she’s several metres away. “How’s the planning going?” she shouts and starts a dog-paddle in my direction.

“Fine,” I shrug.

“A wedding seems like so much work.” Carin has reached my tube and is hanging off the side, breathing heavily. “You should just elope. I’ve never been to Mexico.”

“I have a wedding planner to help.” I close my eyes and try to relax my jaw muscles. Sue Clarkson, wedding planner, with her curlicue handwriting. She is in the habit of couriering samples, which could easily be sent by email, to the insurance office, stamping URGENT across the manila envelope. Sue has two stamps, the other being IMPORTANT. At some point, I began filing the envelopes, unopened, along with all the other mail. Pictures of towering fondant cakes and bouquets accented with sprigs of baby’s breath; sparkling cocktail recipes. The guest list is several pages long. Anton has invited his entire extended family of sixty-three people; I have Carin. “The girls at the office threw me a shower last week,” I say.

“No one told me.” Carin pushes away to climb back onto her mattress.

“You would have hated it.”

“How do you know that?”

“There were balloon penises.”

Clouds appear behind the hills, a breeze picking them up and stretching them across the sky. Carin opens another bottle. Her empty rolls off the air mattress and drops into the channel. I fish it out and plunk it into the half-empty pack. “Slow down,” I say.

“You have a maid of honour?” Carin asks, dipping her head back into the water as though she doesn’t really care what my answer is. I wait until she surfaces before answering no. I was hoping Carin wouldn’t ask, but I knew she would. I know so many other women, responsible women, punctual women, women who wash their hair more than twice a week. There are certain expectations. Carin doesn’t say anything. She smirks and looks down the length of the channel. Her expression reminds me of her younger self, the one who would stick out her chin stubbornly or kick you in the shins if she felt she wasn’t getting fair treatment. “Am I gonna get to meet him one day,” she says, after some time.

“Anton?” The tube has spun around so I’m looking at Carin’s feet. She is lying on her stomach now with her legs splayed open.

“Don’t I need to give my approval?”

“You’ll meet him at the wedding.”

“Oh, sure.”

We float in silence past a dinghy full of kids. One of them must have lost something, because they’re all quiet, staring intently at the water.

“I guess I should be helping,” Carin says.

“With what?” I can’t stop a laugh.

“I don’t know, pluck petals off roses or something,” she says, finishing her cooler. “Do you need a flower girl?”

I laugh a little harder and Carin joins in.

“Just show up.”

“We’re getting to the gross part,” Carin says and I lift my feet out of the water as we pass the underwater pipe. Thin, feathery weeds choke up the channel. Carin shivers, still haunted by her childhood phobia of waterweeds. I catch one on my toe and kick it at her. We laugh some more and when I float by her, I grab her hand and rest my heels on her air mattress. It does feel good to be with her again. When we’re apart I always forget I miss her. And then when I’m with her I’m suddenly hit with these horrible pangs of yearning for her company, even though at that moment she is right there in front of me. Usually I have to leave soon after that because something she’s said makes me want to strangle her. She’s always known how to push my buttons.

Carin lifts one of my heels. “You have claws.”

With my feet on display, I suddenly realize they have gone untouched for months, calloused and rough, the toenails curling over fleshy tips. How can someone forget their own feet? I am careful, always, with hygiene; I use grooming to assess a person’s competency. Carin, with the armpits, tends to rate very low on that scale. Instinctively, I dip my toes back into the water and then feel stupid for being so obviously self-conscious. “Aren’t we getting off soon?” I say, quickly finishing the rest of my cooler.

Up ahead I can see the end point, the concrete stairs leading out of the water and the big blue-and-red school bus waiting to take all the drifters back to the town. Above the gas station a large banner reads Relvis and Hot Dogs and a man in a white sequined Elvis outfit sings “In the Ghetto” on a makeshift platform in the parking lot. Carin hops out of the water and pulls her air mattress up the concrete stairs and over to the gravel driveway. I hoist the inner tube onto my shoulder and while we wait in line to get on the bus we push the air out of the mattress. Carin is distracted by a large group of raucous men standing in front of us, drinking beer. They board the bus and pay their fare and we follow them on. I hand the bus driver our money, but he waves it away and with a gesture toward the drunk men, says, “They took care of you.” I roll my eyes, but Carin struts over to thank them, grinning widely.