“Really?” A surfer. Of course.
“It was amazing. I could feel her energy out there, you know? All around. Big-time. There was a seagull flying around and around over my head.” He raises his index finger, making it spin. “A dolphin even came up out of the waves and sort of smiled.” Now his hand is a dolphin’s beak rising out of the imaginary waves. “And the waves were just… perfect.” He drops his hand and sips his beer. “Pretty sure that was all your mom saying hey.”
“You think so?”
“Oh yeah. I could feel it. Right here.” He pumps a fist gently against his left pec and I immediately drop my eyes to the shattered pot at my feet.
“That’s nice,” I murmur. When I look back up, I see he’s now seated on my mother’s red velvet sofa. Reclined. At ease. His feet on the glass table. One foot jittering like it’s on speed.
“Sorry, do you mind?” he says. “I’m just a bit wiped out from all the landscaping.” He pats his taut, bare stomach. Anjelica, Mother’s very white cat, immediately leaps into his lap and settles herself on his crotch. “It was a hot one today. I’ll finish this and be on my way, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. I’m just standing there staring at him, at Anjelica purring on his crotch. She looks fiercely content. Her blue eyes, just like Mother’s, half closing with ecstasy.
“I’ll just roll this here and smoke it outside.” I watch him pull a tin of tobacco from his pocket, careful not to disturb Anjelica. Clearly they’ve done this dance before.
“So what’s your plan, anyway?” he asks me.
“My plan?” I watch his tongue lick the white rolling paper. So tenderly.
“For the place. Are you selling? Are you staying, you think? Going back to Canadia?”
“Canada,” I correct.
He smiles. He knows it’s Canada, he just made a little joke, see? Lighten the mood a bit. How old is Tad? I wonder. He looks a little younger than me, but definitely in his thirties too. Very Jesus-y.
“I’m selling,” I tell Tad.
“Why sell? If it were mine, I’d hang on to it.” He grins at me.
“Because my mother spent all her money on bullshit,” I say. I look right at Tad when I say this. “I have to sell the place if I want to crawl out of the black hole she dug for herself.”
Tad looks unfazed. He nods philosophically. “You could also Airbnb it. That’s what a lot of people in Eden are doing these days.”
“Eden?”
“That’s the name of this complex—you didn’t know? I guess your mom bought it after you left. Yeah, Eden. Not a lot of people live here anymore. They rent out their places. It’s an old building, you know? Run-down. Shitty pipes and appliances and fixtures. Things not really working the way they used to. But.” He gives me another sly grin. “The view’s spectacular. That’s the thing.”
Then he looks out the windows. Freshly wiped down by him, by Tad. He’s inviting me with his glance to look at his handiwork. Window renovation, I remember Chaz said.
I don’t look out the window. I just keep staring at him manspreading on Mother’s couch, her cat rubbing whorishly against his crotch. He’s slung an arm around the cushion like he’s holding her ghost.
“If you fixed it up a bit,” he says, “you could really cash in. You have to fix it up anyway, right? To sell it, I mean.”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty big job to fix it up. You have any help? I’d be happy to—”
“I don’t need help,” I blurt out. “I mean, I appreciate it. Thank you, Tad.” Even his name on my tongue sounds like it’s mocking me. “But I can manage.” I hate the way I sound. Prim as my borrowed sack dress. A theme park princess talking to a troublesome guest. A shopgirl dealing with the FedEx guy. There’s a little curtsy in my voice. A clicking shut of a door. A drawing down of a shade over my life, my soul.
He smiles at me slowly.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just that you look like her. In some ways. In a lot of ways, actually. I didn’t really see it at first.” I can picture Mother smiling at this. She’s more exotic-looking, of course. That dark hair. That golden skin, so jealous. But we have the same bones, don’t we, Belle? And she’d pat my shoulder, squeeze my chin between her fingers. And whoever we were with, usually a man, would be forced to agree. The same bones. Oh yes. I see it.
Tad sees it. He’s grinning widely. What does he see exactly?
“We’re very different,” I say to Tad.
His placid gaze offers no response. He finishes the rest of his beer, sets it on the table. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He rises from the couch to the great consternation of Anjelica, who jumps away from his lap with a screech.
“If you change your mind about needing help.” He pulls a card from his pocket and hands it to me. Tad Olsen. Landscaper. Window Washer. General Handyman. In the corner of the card, there’s a little illustration of a smiling merman. He’s holding a squeegee in one hand and a pair of gardening shears in another. The merman has chin-length hair like Tad.
I watch him walk to the front door. Suddenly, I feel afraid. I don’t want to be alone in Mother’s place. “Tad?” I say. And again, I hate the way my voice sounds. This time like a hand reaching out. Grasping for something solid in the dark.
“Yeah?” He stands at the door and looks at me questioningly. Waiting.
Ridiculous to ask him to stay. This man I don’t even know. But something about his eyes, the way he’s looking at me. It takes me back to my nine-year-old body. Standing in the dark hallway of our old Montreal apartment. Watching from the shadows as Mother entertained whatever man in the living room. Men who looked like Tad. Sometimes they’d notice me standing there in the hall. Their eyes would meet mine and my body would freeze, I’d catch fire. Usually they’d turn right back to Mother after that. But sometimes they’d keep looking at me curiously, even kindly. Some might even wave. That your daughter? they’d ask Mother. And Mother would frown. Belle, go back to bed.
Don’t be silly, the man might say. Let her come out and say hello. And he’d smile at me standing there in the dark. Hi.
And I’d fill with warmth. My heart would open stupidly, only to be broken later. Hi.
Tad will be one of those. He’ll be a waver. He’ll be a smiler. He’s smiling at me now. “Yes, Belle?”
Then I notice the mirror behind Tad, on the wall above Mother’s couch. A crack right down the middle. Just like the one in the bathroom. Just like the one down the hall. And in this mirror above the couch, I see the wall of them behind me. Each one with a crack in its face.
“What’s up with the mirrors?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“The cracks? The cracks all down the middle?” And for a second, I feel crazy. Like maybe I’m the only one who sees them.
“Oh, those,” Tad says. “Yeah, I kept trying to replace them. But your mother said it was no use. I still tried one time when she was away. But the crack was back the next time I came. Like I hadn’t done anything. Weird. Something to do with the air? The building settling, maybe?”
“The building settling?”
“Sure. All buildings have energies, you know. This one has some energy, let me tell you. In fact, I think it was having a bit of an effect on her. Your mother.”
My heart skips. “An effect on her? What do you mean?”
“It’s hard to verbalize it. Language feels so meager, you know? In the face of certain things?”
For a moment, I picture him gripping a tambourine. “Can you try?”
He shakes his head. “Oh man, listen to me talking my shit. Energy. What do I know, right? About life or death? About anything, really?” He tucks the rolled cigarette behind his ear and smiles. “I’ll get out of your hair now.” And in spite of myself, I picture Tad’s fingers combing through Mother’s dark red hair.
“Oh hey,” he says in the open front doorway, “thought you were moving out?”
“I am.”
He points to the box outside. I forgot about it when I heard the noise, which I thought was an intruder. Which turned out to be Tad. Grinning at me now.
“Looks like you’re moving in.”
6