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splinterswerve
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
splinterswerve.hotmail.com
by Kimberlee Feick Lowry
Rain streamed down Jane’s face and blurred her vision as she splashed the seven steps it took to cross Princess Street. She stumbled over the curb, tripped up the stairs and burst through the open door into the bar. Clutching at the doorframe, soaked to the skin, she managed to stop herself from pitching headlong onto the floor.
Five women sitting in a semi-circle at the nearest table raised their heads. They stared for a moment through the vase of fuchsia orchids in the center of the table, their eyes glinting in the candlelight. She saw two of them look down at her pointed red leather shoes. Then they leaned their long necks back towards one another, flipping their hair, raising martini glasses to their lips, talking in one another’s ears while pretending not to see her.
Under normal circumstances she would be one of them, dry, relaxed, discussing her wedding plans, comparing ring sizes and mother-in-laws. But tonight she had no place at their table.
Jane straightened to her full height. She was tall, and unused to slouching. She clawed tendrils of sopping hair out of her eyes and nostrils, where it had flung itself like seaweed during her fall. She’d left the house without so much as a jacket.
The air in the bar was chilly; her shirt clung leech-like to her skin. She took a breath, took a step, stopped.
Aaron had to be here. There was nowhere else he’d be on a Thursday night, as she was supposed to have been busy in Vancouver for the week. Her client’s photo shoot and press release had wrapped two days ahead of schedule and she’d flown home without having called, savouring the idea of surprising him. He loved it when she crept into their bedroom after a late engagement and woke him in that special way she had.
But the condo had been empty when she arrived. The bed looked as neatly made as the day she’d left. Jane squinted for a moment, confused. Then she relaxed; all the travelling she’d been doing lately had skewed her sense of time. This was Thursday. Aaron was always at the club on Thursdays. She’d surprise him there instead. God knew she could use a drink after that lurching stomach twist of a flight. It had taken every ounce of her willpower not to throw her laptop at the grinning Westjet flight attendant who kept making cute jokes about turbulence.
Thursdays were Aaron’s night to socialize with the artsy crowd. His fascination with success had become his beacon. With every artistic achievement, every contract signed or show planned, Jane saw his confidence increase, his social network expand. It made her smile to see him in animated discussions with gallery owners and their ilk.
She spent her days promoting people’s careers, and it seemed the natural thing to do the same for Aaron’s. With her blessing, he had shoved aside a promising career as a graphic designer to throw himself into painting full time. He had talent, and Jane had always been a sucker for gifted artists. She thought she’d sworn off dating men who had any involvement in the arts, having recognized her tendency to become attracted to dramatic, tortured types who always ended up disappointing her with their dependencies.
But Aaron seemed genuine, un-tortured. She’d been initially taken with his blond curls and radiant smile, his good skin and strong hands, during their first conversation, eighteen months ago at the Club. Liam, a guy she knew vaguely from the office, had introduced them.
In the time it took for them to drink their way through a pitcher of sangria, Jane had discovered that Aaron had graduated from Queen’s, worked in Germany for a year, dallied for a winter in Banff as a ski instructor, then settled down to pursue graphic design. He had a big laugh and moved with an easy grace that reminded her of a large, muscular cat. She was surprised at how her stomach jumped when he’d put his hand over hers after she’d made a joke, how her face had flushed when his eyes had locked on hers as they said good night.
He had called her the next afternoon, offering to make her dinner. She loved men who knew how to cook. They hadn’t made it past the goat cheese salad, and had been together ever since.
It was Aaron’s paintings that had opened her eyes to the fact that she’d fallen in love. He hadn’t told her he painted until they’d been together a few months. Seeing his art for the first time in his cramped studio made her realize there was more to him than an attractive personality, that he was more than simply a good catch. His paintings seemed to leap off the canvas at her: the orange and indigo saxophone player, crumpled over his instrument like he was having a heart attack; the ochre and red nude, breasts pointed at the sky as she threw herself into a frenzied spin; the deep purple hues that swirled like spirits around the thin man holding a rose. Aaron’s paintings assaulted Jane’s senses and pricked her heart. She had known, then, that this was a man she could love. And she knew she had the power to help him succeed. And though he had never once asked her for help, he needed her without knowing he did.
Yet somewhere in her heart, she had a vague sensation that her admiration of Aaron’s gift was closer to covetousness than esteem. So far, she had managed to swat the thought away each time it hovered in the periphery of her brain, but it fluttered there sometimes like a watchful moth.
She had swooped her keys off the counter and strode to within an arm’s length from the front door before she was lured back to the kitchen by the blinking red eye of the answering machine. She’d bought it at a flea market, ignoring Aaron’s exaggerated eye rolls. He preferred up-to-date technology, the shinier the better. But Jane liked the gadget’s kitschy black buttons, and delighted in the way it made every message sound like it had just been unearthed from an archived 1950s recording. Its beep was more like a shriek and it tended to keep recording conversations even after someone had picked up the phone. Aaron hated the thing, especially since these days he had nearly as many messages to listen to as Jane did.
She’d pressed a manicured finger on the playback button, smiling at its screech. A message from the caterer (he was begging her to just try the rosemary chicken, she’d be pleasantly surprised and rosemary really was making a comeback in culinary circles), which she erased; another from Aaron’s mother, which Jane skipped with a snort. Then, her back stiffened as the third message flooded her ears with a coaxing, intimate purr. She played it again, then again, then pressed erase when what she really wanted to do was rip the thing out of the wall and dash it against the stove, spatter its mechanical innards into every corner of the kitchen.
It seemed impossible that she could fall victim to betrayal. This happened to other women, to her cousin, her friends, business associates, clients. Jane thought she understood people too well for that to happen to her. And Aaron was not a complex man. But it was the second time this month she’d heard that voice. And it was the first time she’d heard Aaron’s response, recorded when her pet machine failed to click off as he picked up the receiver.
So Jane, dripping on the threshold of the club, thought she knew what she would find on her sixth or seventh step inside; she just didn’t know what she was going to do when she found it.
She moved towards the bar, ears throbbing with the music that Karim, hunched over his turntables in the cramped DJ corner, inflicted on the patrons.
Moving past the group of women, she allowed her eyes to adjust to the candlelit gloom and glanced up at the walls. Aaron’s art hung at rakish angles, muscular figures with hollow, haunted faces that danced in the glow of tea lights. The exhibition had opened last week and he’d already sold six pieces. He and Jane had celebrated with apple martinis at the corner table before she’d left for Vancouver. She remembered how Aaron’s smile had curved around the rim of his glass when she’d run her bare toes up the cuff of his shorts under the table. He’d said “Skol,” drained his drink and leaned across the table to kiss her, his lips tasting of sour apple.
She swallowed hard and closed her eyes.
“Jane! My God, look at you, you’re soaking wet.” Danielle, the owner, came up behind Jane and rubbed her clammy shoulders. At the same time, she leaned behind Jane’s head to call into the kitchen. “Peter, bring me a towel from the back bathroom.”
She plucked a strand of hair out of Jane’s mouth. "What’re you doing, walking around in this shitty weather? Aren’t you freezing? Hey, I thought you were away this week?”
Danielle’s head barely reached Jane’s shoulder. She wore her dark hair short as a boy’s and had widely spaced brown eyes with pointed eyebrows that gave her a perpetually surprised look. Sometimes Jane forgot she was almost ten years older than Danielle.
Jane opened her mouth to find she couldn’t speak. She shrugged, shuddered despite the warmth of the strong arm around her waist.
Danielle tightened her grip. “We’ll get you warmed up, honey, don’t worry.” She hollered into the kitchen again, making Jane wince. “Peter! Towel, Goddammit!”
A disembodied hand thrust a small white towel through the kitchen doorway. Danielle snatched it, wrapped it around Jane’s shoulders and dabbed a corner over Jane’s face and eyes as though she were a newborn puppy. Down-tempo music pulsed from above, giving the murmurs of conversation around them a heartbeat of their own.
“Hey, Aaron’s stuff is selling like crazy,” Danielle said, giving Jane’s cheek one last dab before guiding her into the protective shelter behind the bar. “I’m red-stickering everything.”
“That’s good,” said Jane mechanically. Her lips were numb. She stared over Danielle’s head. She hadn’t been on the staff side of the bar in a long time and had forgotten what a bird’s eye view it afforded.
The club was an intimate place, easy to sweep with a glance. There were maybe ten tables in total, two near the entrance, the rest nestled here in the back. It was a good place for chronic eavesdroppers, a bad place for secrets.
“Yeah, well, he has you to thank. All that PR you did really paid off. And the opening, my God, it was like something off the E! channel. I hope he knows how lucky he is to have you in charge.”
Jane’s eyes darted from table to table, from person to person, but still no sign of Aaron. She saw only a cavern of flickering light, bare shoulders, fresh flowers and damp stone walls.
She grabbed the side of the bar and edged her way around. Feeling a stool behind her, she pulled it under her legs and sank down next to a laughing couple. When she opened her eyes, Danielle was watching her and biting her lip.
“Honey, are you okay?”
“Was he here tonight, Danni?”
Jane thought she detected the briefest of hesitations, the tiniest flicker of unease skitter across Danielle’s face.
“I didn’t see him, why? Doesn’t he know you’re home?”
Jane closed her eyes again. She felt Danielle’s hand, cool and dry against her damp forehead. Maybe she’d been mistaken. Maybe the message –
She opened her eyes.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Can I have a drink?”
“Yeah, of course. What can I get you? Ginger ale?”
“Stoli, straight up with a twist.”
Danielle’s hand paused above the soda counter. She tilted her head, changed direction, grabbed a small tumbler and upended it into the ice bucket.
Jane sat and fingered the rough edge of the towel, listening to Danielle drag the big bottle of Stolichnaya out of the Westinghouse freezer, crash the glass through the ice to cool it, tip the bottle and pour three healthy glugs. She sensed rather than saw Danielle rub a lemon peel around the rim of the glass, twist it and let it fall into the vodka.
“Here you go, honey.”
Jane held the glass for a moment. Saliva pooled under her tongue. She tossed her hair out of her eyes, raised the glass to her friend, said, “Skol,” and drained the vodka in two mouthfuls. The message had meant nothing. She was just tired, paranoid after being around so many shallow souls all week, people who would do anything for fame.
She tried a weak smile and said, “If that doesn’t warm me up, nothing will, huh?”
“Why don’t you go home, take a hot shower,” said Danielle, leaning over the counter and taking the glass from Jane. “Get out of here and relax a little. If I see Aaron, I’ll tell him you’re home.”
Jane pressed her lips together, nodded her head. “That sounds like a good idea. Thanks Danni.”
As Danielle turned to dump the glass in the sink, Jane heard the patio door whoosh open. She’d forgotten about the patio.
Danielle turned back to Jane, glanced at the patio door and opened her mouth to speak but Jane cut her off.
“I changed my mind. I think I’m going to go out back for some fresh air, then call a cab. Can you pour me another?”
“Are you nuts? It’s miserable out there – look at it. We almost had to close the patio, that useless tarp is leaking again. Spilled a shitload of water all over some fancy young thing and her cigarette.”
“I’ll just be a minute. Don’t worry.” Jane leaned over the bar and took Danielle’s hand, forced a smile. “I’ll stay dry.”
Danielle squeezed the tips of Jane’s fingers and smiled back, her expression offset by a deep vertical line between her eyebrows. She turned slowly to fill a fresh glass with ice.
Jane stood and let the towel slip from her shoulders. She pressed her hair flat against the nape of her neck and took a short swallow of the fresh drink. The vodka burned in her throat and belly, spread warmth through her limbs as she threaded her way through the cluster of tables toward the back door. She squinted through the window, saw a curtain of rain course down. She opened the door and breathed in a gust of warm damp air, tasted cigarette smoke. She felt a sprinkle of mist on her face.
Rain pattered on the tin roof and dripped in uneven splashes from the sagging tarp in the far right corner. Jane moved to stand beside the bamboo water fountain, its patient plonk and trickle mingling with the sound of rainfall. She drained her drink and rested the empty glass on the low wall behind the fountain.
There were only six or seven small tables on the patio, coveted seats usually occupied by smokers. Aaron didn’t smoke; he claimed it was disgusting, and Jane had tried to quit. But as she breathed in the distinct aroma of Marlboro and watched the patio people inhale with their eyes half shut, she licked her lips.
Very few heads turned her way as the door chunked shut. Patio people didn’t care about seeing or being seen.
Jane stood still and listened to the fountain before turning to scan the occupants of the table nearest to her. She studied each table in turn from one side of the patio to the other. She recognized some faces from the opening, others from local galleries, but she acknowledged no one. Being frosty to potential clients wasn’t good for business, but she was beyond caring. Her eyes flicked from table to table one more time.
He wasn’t there.
Suddenly she wanted to cry, to smoke, to have another drink. She sat down on the wall beside her empty glass and put her head in her hands. The liquid sounds washed over her; she forced herself to breathe until her heart regained a steadier pace. Her shoulders began to release. He wasn’t there. She had been wrong; the message had been nothing more than friendly banter. That was all.
And then she heard it. That laugh, unmistakable in its volume and pitch. She raised her head and waited. The laugh came again, a quick, high bark. She saw a stream of smoke float into the air around the far corner of the patio, behind the potted palm where the patio railing opened into a makeshift doorway.
Jane’s vision blurred, then cleared. She rose and picked up her glass, thankful for its heavy coolness. She brushed through the tight matrix of tables, felt her skin connect with a bare arm, a knee. She watched her hand push the palm fronds aside. Her mouth was dry but her legs were steady as she stepped through the gap in the railing into the rain.
They stood with their heads and hips close together, sheltered from the deluge by a narrow ledge above them. Aaron’s back was pressed against the building, one knee bent like a horse at rest. Against the wall beside Aaron’s head leaned a tanned man, his mouth crushed to Aaron’s. When he lifted his head, he turned aside to exhale the remains of a mouthful of cigarette smoke, his brown hair brushing Aaron’s forehead. It was Liam. She recognized his carefully twisted hairstyle when he squinted out through the rain in her direction.
Jane stood still, watching them as the rain pelted her with the force of small pebbles. She loosened her grip but caught the vodka glass before it dropped on the pavement. She hadn’t thrown darts since university, but her arm twisted back and propelled the tumbler at Liam’s head with dangerous aim.
Liam jerked himself out of the way with a shout. The glass clanged off the aluminum siding of the building a few inches from Aaron’s head and shattered on the pavement.
“Jesus!” Aaron brought his hands down from where he’d flung them over his head to shield himself. When he saw Jane, his face twisted. It was the same grimace she’d seen when he’d broken his ankle last winter on Grouse. She had a brief urge to go to him, to help ease the pain like she had that day on the mountain.
The rain slowed for a moment in that uncertain way it does sometimes during a heavy downpour. In the space of the rain’s pause, Jane saw Aaron clearly: his empty good looks, the weak chin, the too-full lips. She saw that she had been a pleasant means to an end. She decided that, like most of the times she’d witnessed his pain, Aaron had brought this on himself.
“Jane,” he called, and took a step towards her before Liam put a hand on his shoulder, bent to mouth something in his ear. Aaron’s next step faltered. “Janie,” he said. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Jane almost laughed. The sky sighed above them and rain began to hiss down again. She turned and walked back to the shelter of the patio, out of the wet and the storm.