I listened to the message that Gavin had left on my cell phone. At the time, almost no one called me on it. My parents had bought it for me “in case of an emergency.” I viewed it more as a rescue flare than a phone. Gavin said he had gone ahead and gotten a pair of tickets to the magic show in Montreal, and that he hoped he wasn’t going to be giving them to his mother and father to use. I had been gazing at my small bag of weed on one of the slate kitchen counters, tempting myself really, trying to decide whether I wanted to flush it all down the toilet or pick out the sticks and stems and pack a bowl. It was lunchtime and I was all alone in the house. I had unpacked the groceries and vacuumed the first floor. The midday sun was cascading in through the windows, and I guessed another day this would have cheered me, but at the moment all it did was illuminate the grime on the screens and the streaks on the glass panes.
I didn’t feel like calling Gavin back, because at the moment his name alone evoked the words emotional infidelity. And yet my pulse raced a little faster when I thought of him. When I thought of his lips on my cheek. Marilyn seemed confident that my mother’s relationship with the detective hadn’t been physical, but how could she be so sure? And even if my mother hadn’t strayed from my father, she had had a relationship with this other man that was meaningful and complex.
I decided not to flush the dope into the septic tank. But I didn’t light up either, which meant that I wouldn’t light up that afternoon. In a few hours, I had to pick up Paige after school and bring her to the college to swim. I tried not to drive when I was stoned, and I didn’t want my sister to smell marijuana on me anymore. So, this really had been my only window. I made sure that the baggie was sealed and brought it upstairs to my bedroom.
When I returned to the kitchen, I picked up my phone once again. My mother had always taught me that it was best to get the difficult or unpleasant chores out of the way first. Just do them, she urged, because they don’t go away. And why stew over them? She had offered this lesson in the context of a particularly vexing and disagreeable client; she said she used to call him first thing in the morning, so neither anger nor anxiety would scar the rest of her day. I recalled that advice when I thought about Gavin’s message and the sound of his voice: a low thrum with irony always at the edges. I relaxed ever so slightly. I sat down on the barstool and listened to the message once more. I reminded myself that I had known even prior to my conversation with Marilyn at the grocery store that my mother’s relationship with the detective was meaningful and, on some level, inappropriate. But I myself had met him now, and I liked being with him. I had liked the way my blood had leapt when I had stood before him in a midriff as Lianna the Enchantress.
In the end, I called Gavin back simply because I was incapable of not calling him back.
“You went off radar,” he began. “I was getting worried.”
“Oh, there’s really no place for me to go, trust me.”
“Of course there is. Montreal. You got my message with the details, right? I’m hoping we’re still on.”
“What time is the show?”
“Seven.”
“Seven?”
“Well, there is a ten p.m., too, but then I’d have you back in Bartlett around three in the morning. And I’m working on Sunday.”
I thought about this. I thought of my assumptions about what he had in mind—the way I had imagined a hotel and how I would have to decide whether I wanted to spend the night with him.
“So, it would mean an early-bird supper,” he went on, “and that means you will be the youngest person in the restaurant by far. But the place I was thinking of has spectacular risotto and a chocolate mousse that will make that slice of cake you had the other day in Burlington seem like a Devil Dog.”
“Hey, now. I like Devil Dogs.”
“Just saying. I can make our dinner reservation for five. The wait staff will be condescending and self-important because they don’t approve of people dining that early. But they’ll also give us an excellent table because they’ll want to show you off: A young person is here! We’re not really an assisted living facility!”
“You make it all sound so appealing, how could I resist? Sure, I’m in,” I said, and I walked with my phone to a spot by the living room window where the sun was streaming in like a spotlight and stood there, pretending the illuminated dust was a nimbus.
“Excellent. Why don’t I pick you up a little before two?”
A thought came to me. “No. I have some errands in Burlington,” I lied. “Why don’t we meet in the parking lot of the mall by the interstate—exit 14. We could meet by the Sears. This way you don’t have to come all the way south to Bartlett. It’ll save you a boatload of driving in the afternoon and the middle of the night.”