The Big Dream Read online

  “Metal in the microwave equals death, Clint! You might be willing to sacrifice yourself, but the whole building radioactive for ten thousand years for warm noodles? No! No, I say.”

  Clint sat slowly, clutching the tin. “Cen’t believe I forgot that.”

  Luddock flapped his hands. “It is tiresome, feeding oneself.”

  “That food-court fantasy gets fonder every day.” Anna was eating a jam sandwich. It wasn’t a real sandwich, just bread with red. “Oh, for a Cultures right now.”

  Clint took a forkful of Os. Warm, they could be mushed with the tongue, but otherwise they congealed almost solid. He sucked hard.

  “The best is KFC on Toonie Tuesdays,” said Luddock. “Sometimes, if you’re charming, they’ll give you two thighs instead of the thigh and drumstick classic.”

  Clint liked the Italian place, Mrs. Something, where you could get pizza with a side of lasagna. But noodles weren’t dissolving, so he just nodded. KFC wasn’t bad.

  “The food court is democracy in action.” Luddock flapped his arms. “Everything is an option.”

  Anna mentioned Mmmuffins, Kernels, the soup place. Luddock parried Manchu Wok, Teriyaki Experience, Mr. Greek Junior. It was a dreamy hour.

  If there had been windows, they would have gone dark by the time the VP came down to declare the building empty enough that they could work. “I appreciate this, team. I really do.” She clasped the nearest shoulder, Luddock’s, who flinched.

  In the fluorescent-lit night, the building was dead silent except the shriek of adhesive pulling free, the rustle of file-drawers searched for candy, control-top pantyhose, condoms. (“They’re going to say we did anyway – why not learn something?”)

  Clint had dense regrets about the few Spaghetti-Os he’d managed to swallow. Crawling was not a fast or jerky enough activity to be nauseating, one would think, yet he could feel the sweet red sauce creeping up his throat as he hunched low, taped, shuffled backwards. He kept tonguing his gum-lump, though he knew he did not want to release the energy pent up there. Violent energy, the thrum of his heart in his gum line.

  “The thing about Freshii,” Luddock yelled from behind a rolling chair, “is that the basic salad costs six bucks, and then more for every little freaking walnut.”

  Clint began the labourious crawl across the aisle.

  Behind him, Anna was crawling in the opposite direction. “Freshii is for the food courts of the upwardly mobile. They care not for the cost of nuts. They have spent $17 in gas driving their $45,000 cars to the mall anyway.”

  Forty-five thousand was slightly less than what Clint owed OSAP.

  Luddock stood and started towards a foursome cube. While he was stepping over Anna’s pink-bloused back, he said, “That’ll be you, Anna-cat. Soon you’ll be mobilizing upward, Tech supervisor, eatin’ walnuts.” He walked into the quad.

  Anna sat back on her haunches. “What?”

  “You’ve always run this joint, now you’ll get the paper door to prove it.”

  Clint couldn’t stand being on all fours any longer, face hanging down, the slosh of pus above his jawbone. He collapsed onto his right hip and then flopped back to stare at the ceiling. He wondered if Mai-Nam had much student debt, a boyfriend, a life.

  “You think I’m gonna be Tech sup?”

  “You’re smart, nice, you don’t cry in public.” A shriek of tape. “Gotta be you.”

  Clint stared at a white tube of fluorescence. His vision was beginning to spot.

  “Could be you. You’re smart and unteary. Not so nice, but you can reach high shelves.”

  “Ah, but you’re the chick. Tech sup’s gotta be a chick.”

  “Really?”

  “How else would you explain Mai-Nam? This time it so happens that the best man for the job is a woman, but that’s just a bonus.”

  “The facts that I deserve the job and will get it are unrelated?”

  “I think this is correct.”

  “I think this is the twenty-first century and you are incorrect.”

  A sigh, then Luddock’s voice: “You with us, Clinty?”

  “Umnaha.”

  “Yeah, well, the important thing, Anna-cat, is that one of us gets promoted soon, so that the full-time spot can slide over to our man on his back here before we lose him.”

  Clint was tonguing it again. He couldn’t help it. It was like a sun radiating warmth all over his face. He realized suddenly he’d been supposed to meet Virgie at the movies.

  “We go to the ER after this, yeah?” Anna again. “They’ll have to treat him at least a little, right? Must’ve gone septic by now, and that’s medical not dental.”

  “Hope so. We’ll have to MapQuest the Mississauga hospital, I don’t know it.”

  “It’s gotta be on transit, it’s a hospital. How many more rows?”

  Clint was wondering if Virgie would’ve packed his few things yet, if she would’ve washed his socks and underwear or just packed them dirty.

  “Four more rows. Canya hang on another hour, Clint?”

  “Uma. Sure.”

  “Great. And it doesn’t gotta be on transit, Luddock – Mississauga’s fucked. But for Clint, we can get the cab.”

  “Hey, one of us is management now, of course we can.” A breeze brushed his closed eyes, then another: they were walking over him. “Another hour until the hospital, Clinty. And in a few weeks, we’ll get you all the insurance you need to get the thing just yanked right out of your skull. Hang in there.”

  Her words were as soft as the kicked-up air over his face, as melodious as a lullaby. Clint didn’t mind the pain, or his underground apartment with no Virigie to visit. He didn’t hear the hum of the fluorescent lights, the rush of traffic, the rustle of mice in the wall. Clint felt only the relief of fluid bursting against the roof of his mouth.

  WAITING FOR WOMEN

  WHEN NEITHER WOMAN had arrived by 6:12, Theo took the kids outside to wait. Jake put on his Transformers hat, scrambled off the porch and hurled his small denim body into the hedge, the glossy leaves closing behind him. Theo didn’t know what was of interest in the hedge, nor why the boy wore the Decepticons toque all summer, but he let it go.

  Easier to get distracted by Marley, who was sitting in his lap, crumbling Saltines onto her belly. Eventually, Jake re-emerged, leaf-sprinkled, clutching Theo’s old skateboard. Theo looked at the peeling Nirvana stickers and dirty orange wheels and wondered whether he had really ever said the kid could play with it. He suspected that Jake had simply taken it from the basement without asking, but after a moment, he let that slide too.

  Jake sat down on the board, then lay down on his back and propelled himself along with his feet. Hanging around with his kids made Theo feel delightfully grown-up. Maybe it was sad that he was only smug in his maturity over a six-year-old scooting backwards across the cement, and a cracker-and-saliva-smeared blind infant. Maybe real grown-ups didn’t even use the word grown-up.

  Marley held a largely intact cracker in both hands, waving it, occasionally sucking on it. She squirmed to put her feet on the step she couldn’t see, and couldn’t yet stand on unsupported. But she was desperate to walk, constantly pulling herself up on anything she could grasp. Theo had been surprised that she wanted to go places, since how could she know there was anywhere else to go? But Marley had intuited, somehow, the rest of the world, and had started inch-worming towards it, just like on the development charts.

  Theo wondered who would turn up first. Rae’s workday could spill well past five, or so she said. On the other hand, Colleen, for all her other insanities, was punctual. Or close enough. At 6:19, it was indeed Colleen striding from the bus stop at the corner, which was also at the corner of their overgrown, oversized yard. Her pelt of ginger hair bounced against her back as she walked.

  Jake skate-scooted past the bottom of the stairs, close enough for Theo to reach out his socked foot to tap the boy’s horizontal stomach. “Look who it is, Jakey.”

  Marley squawked. Theo wond
ered if it was the word look.

  Jake sat up and squawked too. “Dolly. Dolly!” And then he was running down the drive to the sidewalk.

  Colleen made no eye contact as she stomped along in her short grey school tunic, but when Jake reached her and hugged her waist, she crouched, and said a few words that made him jump and clutch at her flannel shoulders. She tolerated this, but as soon as he let go she straightened. Jake adored Colleen, though no one had ever seen her encourage him, or even answer to the nickname he had given her. She stomped on up the walk, Jake trotting in her tall slender shadow, past the wizened herb garden and bald-headed poppies. She stopped about six feet from Theo and the baby.

  “You shouldn’t let him run near the road.”

  Jake plopped down on the board. “I know not to run on. I know.”

  “He does, actually. We taught him from The Book of Horrible Accidents.”

  Jake glared. “No. That’s not a real book. Mrs. Silver at school just taught us the rules of the road, is all.” He picked up an ant and placed it on his palm, watched it crawl.

  Colleen’s eyes were a flat silver-green, and her gaze rested on Theo as if he were a tree stump or a fire hydrant. “My dad said he’d promised I’d sit for you.” She whirled and sat one step lower than Theo, her biceps brushing his knee.

  “He was only supposed to ask if you were free – I just mentioned it to him at tennis. You could’ve said no if you had plans.”

  She didn’t answer and without her looking at him, Theo couldn’t gauge if she was listening. “But thanks. It’s only dinner, a couple hours. Rae wanted to go. For dinner.”

  “So go.”

  The baby squirmed towards Colleen’s voice, flailing her now-limp cracker. Theo flipped the baby against his chest. “Rae’s not here yet.”

  “Did she say when she’ll be?”

  “Just working late, I think.” He could feel wet over his left nipple, but Marley’s face was pressed too tight to see if it was drool or sick. “She might’ve called, I guess. The machine’s getting a little shaky. But I don’t think it’s been eating messages yet.”

  They watched the traffic easing off rush hour. A motorcycle drowned out something Colleen said. At least, he thought he’d heard her voice. He leaned forward, Marley against him. “Sorry, what?”

  She turned, gave him the glint of her eyes. “What?”

  Joe had mentioned that Colleen had been consistently furious lately. Theo couldn’t think of a safe thing to say. “I didn’t . . . hear you.”

  She seemed to consider this. Finally: “It’s good you two are going on a date.”

  Jake, somewhere unseen, was singing. Theo hadn’t realized that Colleen knew about the separation. “Well . . . We’re going for Vietnamese, this restaurant we love.”

  “Good for you.”

  Jake scootched back into view, his voice a high soprano bleat: “Faa-laa-laa-laa-laa, la-la-la-la!”

  “Jake, it’s summer,” Colleen snapped.

  “I’m playing pretend.”

  Marley turned towards the sound of her brother’s voice. Often both children seemed unaware that each was not an only child, but occasionally they noticed one other.

  “Hey, Marley, hey hey!” Jake danced on the spot, with jazz hands, badly, all the fingers scrunching closed at the same time. The baby waved her own hands, mirror-like enough to be spooky.

  “Hey, Dad? I bet Marley would like to ride on your skateboard, eh? I’ve got a rope an’ she could hold onto the rope an’ I could pull her around an’ – ”

  “Babies aren’t too good at holding on, Jakey. And where did you get a rope?”

  “But it’s – it’s not fair. She never gets to skateboard and I always do. Marley should get a turn.”

  Colleen muttered, “I dunno about this generosity. The last time I babysat, he grabbed a cinnamon heart out of her mouth.”

  Marley beamed at the porch rail.

  Jake stamped his foot. “When’s Mommy getting here?”

  Colleen sighed. “We don’t know. Phone systems are down.”

  “No, no, the phone’s probably fine, she’s just late. Jake, you take Marley for a ride in her stroller, ok? Promise you won’t undo the straps?”

  “That’s not as fun.”

  “Promise?” Theo knelt awkwardly in front of the stroller and shoved the baby in. It was while he was fumbling with the harness that Theo suddenly realized, “The baby’s not supposed to have hard candy! She could choke.”

  No one answered. The baby kicked him in the face. Not hard, but it took him a moment to recover. “Guys?” He could feel a welt rising hot on his cheekbone. “Where would Marley get a cinnamon heart?”

  “We got a whole bucket at the drugstore for two bucks.” Jake was already jiggling the stroller, making it nearly impossible to fasten the clasps. The boy had to reach above his own head to reach the handles. This was starting to seem like a bad idea.

  “But who gave it to her?”

  Colleen answered, “Dunno. She’d had it for a while, though – the red was all worn off. Jakey grabbed anyway and put it right in his mouth, dintya, Jakey?”

  “Dunno. Can we go now, Daddy?”

  The clasp slid into place. “No, you cannot push your sister down the stairs.” Theo picked up the stroller with both hands, above Jake’s head, making Marley screeeee with wonder. Once the wheels were on driveway, Jake was zooming off.

  “Be careful,” Theo wailed.

  The weedy lawn slowed them down enough that Theo’s heart calmed somewhat. Jake only went a little farther before losing interest in locomotion entirely and flopping down on the grass beside the stroller, apparently talking to Marley.

  As Theo sat back down beside Colleen, his bare knee brushed hers. Her skin was cooler than his and he jerked away. “I don’t think she’ll be long. But I’ll pay you for whatever hours you’re here, obviously. And the bus fare.”

  “Good. Are you sure she’s coming?”

  “Yes. You know not to give a baby hard candy, right? Despite the expression?”

  “Yes. Was the date really her idea?”

  “Yes. But is it still a date if it’s with your own wife?”

  “Is she still your wife if you’re separated?”

  This “Yes! ” was rather sharp but she didn’t react. The children were no longer visible, but the hedge was shaking. “She’s still my wife.”

  “But the separation is what makes it a date, anyway. You don’t date your wife. You date someone who isn’t a sure thing.”

  “I heard you threw a shoe at your father.”

  “Not hard. It didn’t even bruise. Much.”

  Theo touched the baby-kick bruise on his own cheek; Joe hadn’t mentioned that the shoe had struck flesh. There had been just a tiny rough edge to Joe’s voice, the pub was too dim to see a not-much bruise, and Theo was immersed in his own troubles. He asked his babysitter what he’d forgotten to ask his friend: “Why?”

  Colleen shrugged. “He was being a dick.”

  “That takes in a lot of territory. Specific dickness?” He was pleased with that.

  “He was on me because I stayed out all night. I was only at Andy’s – where does he think I was? And what business is it of his, anyways?”

  “Indeed. Indeed.” He couldn’t think why she was offering this now when the week before she’d refused to tell what was playing on her iPod. Was it a cry for help, a confidence, a compliment to his powers of empathy? Or a challenge? He fished for something to say that wouldn’t get a shoe thrown. He tried what he in fact felt, blunt curiosity, hoping it was somehow also the responsible, grown-up thing. He could always report what she said to Joe. “So what did you do?”

  “Do?”

  “Well, you know, all night . . .” He tried to sound knowing but not too knowing – as if teenage sex amused him slightly. But as soon as he said it, Theo was terrified of what she might reveal, what news he might have to break to her father over beers, Joe’s quivering mouth only half-obscured by the top
of his glass.

  “You want to know if I’m still a virgin?”

  Now he didn’t want to know at all. But he’d started it. “You don’t want to discuss it with me?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Then why tell me where you were? It’s not my business if it’s not your father’s.”

  “You’re not my father.” She tipped back on her elbows, looking up at him.

  Theo pushed his mouth into a grin. “Nope. Pretty sure not. So, you’ll tell me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But will you? It’s easy – I’ll ask, you answer.”

  “That’s too easy.”

  “Ok. What would be harder? Do you want to embed your sexual status in a crossword clue and have me work it out?”

  Her smirk went blank. “No.”

  Was the joke too complex? Theo was trying to think of a suave explanation when he heard a shriek. He stood abruptly, knees crackling, as the stroller emerged from the bush, leaves in the spokes and through the front bar. The children were both screaming, but with faces neutral, as if the noise were only an assigned task. Jake, now hatless, shoved the thing through the yard, onto the driveway, then out of sight towards the backyard. Theo took a step after them.

  Colleen said, “He does that all the time when I sit. He’s a good stroller-pusher.”

  Theo sat back down on his step. He really hadn’t wanted to pursue or punish.

  Colleen said, “It’s six twenty-nine.”

  “She’ll come. She’s coming.”

  “Wouldn’t she have called if she was running late? She’s a half-hour late.”

  “She didn’t . . .” Colleen didn’t interrupt, so Theo was forced to finish the sentence. “. . . didn’t say six exactly. She said after work.”

  She rolled her eyes, but not in a teenaged who-cares way. This was an adult, pitying eye-roll, such as any of his tougher friends would have given such banal manipulation. Joe was not one of his tougher friends.

  “So, really, she could show up anytime. And I rushed for nothing.”

  “She usually gets home around six, anyway.”

  “How do you know her usually if you haven’t lived with her for six months?”