It’s true Jen had been maudlin the night she tried to kill herself. She still flushes when she remembers the Russian poem by Blok that rippled through her mind that night years ago when the dark waves of the river shimmered before her, sliced with strikes of lights. She’d tried to speak through the poem to her therapist, later, in 3 East. All he’d said was that literature students had the highest suicide rate.
But that night she could hear it – hear Blok in her head – his dystopian Russian musings on failed ideals like a child’s cautionary nursery rhyme:
Night, a streetlight, a street, a chemist’s,
All in a dim and useless light.
In the next twenty-five years
They’ll still prevail, against one’s plight.
And you may die but then, returning,
You’ll see again the same old night,
The icy canal waters running,
The street, the chemist’s, the streetlight.
At the time, Jen was certain she understood what he meant. No solace in death. No escape. That’s exactly how she felt, sitting on the rocky bank of the river, too stuck to move forward, too far gone to go back.
Today, she sits in her sunroom, watching that same river flow by, and decides to remember. Decides to take a closer look at that young woman on the shore, at her pain and and her sorrow. She wants to connect with her. To bring her back into the fold.
In hindsight, maybe it was the shock of the accident, the shame of betraying Saint, or maybe deep down she knew she was pregnant and not fit to be a mother. Maybe it was simply a great wave of pity, a tsunami of grief for the future that had somehow slipped through her fingers, the friendships and true loves that had somehow drifted away.
When she closes her eyes now she can return to her—that girl on the shore — she can hear the circuitous pattern of half-thought amongst the internal wailing. She can see the moment she decided – the moment from which she could not turn back.
There she was, watching the hypnotic rhythm of the black waves on the river. The bridge traffic roared overhead, the thunk of tires keeping time on the span connectors. She sees herself pull the identification from her wallet and begin to slice it to ribbons. It is an awkward task and before long she is cut and bleeding. The slivers fluttered down the rocks to the lapping waves. Next, she tears up the night deposit. Then she hurls her license plate, as if skipping a stone. She leaps up and throws her briefcase overhand, watching its contents catch and swirl in the wind before settling into the water where the saturated leather is slowly submerging. She removes the ring she was given as a child. It is still not enough erasure for her. Slowly, she razors her long locks of hair with the utility knife, until she looks like the crazy clockwork doll from Blade Runner. It is still not enough. She is working without a net, and she is falling.
Jen tries in her mind to go back and sit beside that girl, to hold her hand. To tell her she’s not really alone, that there are a thousand future Jens calling out to her. Then she starts to wonder if there are still more future Jens calling out to the Jen-of-now. Who’s going to hold her hand, she wonders. Who will come and sit beside her now?
The phone rings, and jolts Jen from her lurid thoughts. It’s Jace with another excuse, another working-late-grabbing-a-bite-in-town story. It’s like that journal is her ambrosia, nursing her back to health—or at least to memory—but somehow for him it’s a bitter pill. She thinks maybe he senses the ghosts: the ghost of Saint, of Marty, of Robert; the ghost of herself.
Jen reminds Jace that she is supposed to go to Alby’s after dinner for drinks and to make the centerpieces. Take Chris, take a cab, he tells her. She doesn’t have the energy to argue with him. She realizes this is not a good thing. She realizes that in the last few months their marriage has wound down like a mechanical toy. She hangs up and calls Sherry, the babysitter, praying she’s free.
A few hours later, after they’ve eaten and Jen has given Chris a bath, Alby calls to see where the hell Jen’s gotten to.
“I’ll be out on the scooter after Sherry gets here because Jace is working late again,” Jen says.
“I think the scooter is a bad plan, Jen. We intend to drink. Those wheels are too small for these gravel roads out here,” Alby says.
“Don’t worry,” Jen assures her. “I’ll be fine. I’ll take the 40 and I’ll only have a few drinks.”
Drinks don’t turn out to be the problem, though. Halfway down Alby’s concession, lightning rips open the twilight and the rain starts coming down in sheets. At first it’s kind of exhilarating – Jen loves the energy of a late summer storm. But then it gets scary, when the scooter starts to slide left and right in the muddy patches on the dirt road. The rain is so heavy Jen can barely see through her visor, and the wind feels like it could just push her over sideways. She keeps dropping speed, but still she finds it hard to keep the bike upright. The unpredictable crosswinds make her stomach lurch every time she loses control. She almost misses Alby’s long laneway in the blinding rain, and as a result, brakes too hard and too fast. She topples over on the right side and the bike slides out from under her to the left and slams into a fencepost.
Her arm from wrist to her elbow and outer thigh sting from road burn, but it’s more Jen’s pride that’s hurt. It suddenly occurs to her that she needs grown up wheels of her own. Meaning a car. And a job. And maybe a life.
She limps up the long lane to Alby’s historic two-story Arts & Crafts home, walking the bike. The tungsten light from the windows casts a warm yellow glow against the black swirling storm. The glow of the house, with its detailed dormers and neat contrasting teal and cream paint makes the scene look like something from Architectural Digest. Jen hears the voices and music wafting from the screened-in back room that juts out 20 feet from the original home and must have started out in life as a back porch. There’s a low, rumbling male voice she doesn’t recognize; it makes her think ‘East Coast.’ She puts the bike on its stand and walks over to the slider door.
“Oh my God Jen!” Alby gasps, the first to see her. Jen looks down at herself and realizes she is covered in mud and blood.
“I knew it. I knew you shouldn’t ride that thing tonight! God, come in, let me see you! Rosemary, grab some towels.”
Sheepishly, Jen enters the room, pulling the slider closed behind her. She stands on the entry matt because she realizes she’s dripping everywhere. Worse, there is a beautiful man sitting on the rattan loveseat in front of her. And here she stands, dripping sad muddy bloody sack of aging woman. No fair, she wants to wail.
Once Alby discerns that her wounds are not fatal, she giggles a bit and turns to the man.
“Mikolaj, this is my friend, Jen Jones. Jen, this is Mikolaj, my new neighbor. He’s a fan of yours,” she grins.
Rosemary appears with a stack of towels while Jen babbles about her travails like the idiot species to which she presently belongs. Alby peels off Jen’s torn cotton jacket to reveal the bloody scrape that runs from her wrist to her elbow. Rosemary wraps another towel around her shoulders like a cape, realizing Jen is now unwittingly doing the wet-t-shirt-contest thing. Jen is trembling from either the post-crash adrenalin or the fact that beautiful Mikolaj is like a genetically-modified version of Marty, smoldering but kind and wise brown eyes that make you think of the thrill of Belgian chocolate. Creamy, subtle, and highly addictive.
His hair is thick and shiny black, pulled back in a soft ponytail like a medicine man or a native warrior. His feet are beautiful too, elegant, balanced, tanned just enough to look commanding in his worn Naot sandals. He bears the markings of a hip, well-traveled guy: unusual wrist bands, a Kokopelle ring, a subtle ear stud, the hint of a necklace showing from beneath the collar of his designer-distressed t-shirt and khaki traveler vest. And good god, he’s wearing Perry Ellis, a scent that always makes Jen swoon.
He stands up slowly, deliberately, like a careful, friendly bear, and crosses the room. He takes Jen’s arm while saying “Do you mind if I take a look?”
His fingernails are glossy with health, neatly trimmed and perfectly formed. His hands are broad and long at the same time, and look somehow capable. Of what, Jen is not sure, but the thought causes her to flush.
“Go ahead,” say Alby. “I’ll go get some cotton and bactine.”
“Can you get me some tweezers and a cloth and a bowl of warm water too,” he asks. He looks down at Jen’s dripping face and smiles, nodding toward her arm in his hand, which he now has slightly raised to better see it in the light.
“You have bits of gravel in your scrape. I can clean it up, but you’ll really want to watch for infection.”
“Are you a doctor?” Jen asks.
“No,” he laughs. “I just take a lot of spills.”
“Yeah, but I am betting it’s not because your wheels are too small. I bet it’s because you ride too fast,” she ventures.
“Very true. But not the way you think. I rode motocross as a kid – still do now and then. But I’m pretty tame on a street bike.”
“No choice, right, if you want to live,” Jen says.
“Oh, there’s always a choice. About living.”
Suddenly, the distance between them feels no more than a millimeter wide. It’s like the way ozone raises the hair on your arm right before a thunderstorm. Jen can feel the quivering force field of his energy touching her skin. Everything hangs in the air in stop motion. The unbearable silence even stymies Rosemary, who begins to fluster about getting them drinks. Ably returns and sets the bowl on the end table, while Mikolaj leads Jen to the loveseat to get to work. But she doesn’t want to sit on the couch and ruin it.
“My jeans are soaked,” she says.
“Why don’t you go grab a robe from upstairs and I’ll put your clothes in the dryer,” says Alby.
“I’ll get blood all over your robe,” she says. “My thigh is scraped up too.”
“Just wrap a towel around your waist underneath,” Alby says, leading her out of the porch, through the kitchen and up her stairs.
In her room, Alby finds Jen a pair of stretchy short shorts that she swears she doesn’t care about. She brings more towels to dry off with and they are warm and scented against Jen’s goose pimpled flesh. She produces a terry robe with kimono-style sleeves. Jen slides her arm in, trying not to touch the fabric. Alby rolls up the sleeve and pins it to the shoulder with a safety pin.
“That’s some neighbor you have,” Jen says while Alby fusses.
“Isn’t he a doll? He’s going to rebuild my outbuilding for me. You know what that means, right?”
“That you’ll watch him all day from your window and never want to leave the house?”
She laughs. “No silly. He’ll only be doing it on the weekends and during his vacation. It means you’ll have a place to sculpt and pot again when he’s done. I’ve got it all worked out. You’ll bring Chris over to play with my baby and I’ll put you to work in the barn. Then you can make me some money again while I look after the kids! Is your kiln still at your mom’s?”
Jen feels tears stinging her eyes. Alby’s five months pregnant, planning an unlikely wedding, running a business all day while Jen sits around and watches the river go by with nothing but time on her hands. Yet Alby seems more able to plan Jen’s comeback than she herself.
“That’s so sweet of you,” Jen chokes out.
Alby wraps her arms around Jen and hugs her.
“It’s entirely self-serving of me. I’m exploiting you for fun and profit,” she teases. “But seriously, I think it would be good for you.”
Jen thinks Alby has no idea how right she is.
“What does George think of this plan?” Jen asks.
“It’s not any of George’s business,” she says.
The way she says it tells Jen to drop it, so she does. They go back down the gleaming wood stairs with the intricately carved banister. Alby’s house is one of the most beautiful restorations Jen has seen. From the wainscoting to the heritage paint, every detail is like a museum exhibit of the perfect Arts and Crafts period country estate. Jen is having a hard time picturing George, with his pipe-fitter tools and greasy clothes or his drunken Jim Morrison act blending in. She’s never been able to get George.
Jen follows Alby into the back room.
“The patient is ready,” she says.
“Don’t you clean up well,” says Mikolaj.
Jen flushes. She had pulled her soaking hair into a chignon and wiped the mud off her face. That was about the extent of her work. She sits down slowly on the couch with her right arm closest to him, and he twists the table lamp to cast light on her arm. He takes her hand and bends her elbow gently. He presses a warm, wet towel against the scrape, blotting off whatever dirt will come. He rinses it out and does it again. Soon, Jen can see more skin and scrape than mud, but he’s right, there are tiny bits of gravel ground in. Gently, he begins to pluck them out.
Jen can feel his heat every time he exhales, brushing her arms like a hot Chinook wind. It makes the pain bearable. Rosemary and Alby sit on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, drinking their wine and watching Mikolaj concentrate.
“Should she go to the hospital?” Rosemary asks.
“Naw, she’ll be fine once we get it cleaned up and dressed.”
Jen reaches for the wine Rosemary has poured for her and lets the heat warm her core. It is empty before long. Rosemary is quick to pour her another.
“Okay, so let me show you guys the centerpiece containers,” Alby says, getting up to walk over to a large stack of boxes on the far side of the room.
She pulls a beautiful clear glass blown half-bowl from its wrapping. Rosemary reaches for it.
“Oh, that’s gorgeous,” she says.
And it is, Jen thinks. Mikolaj looks up and smiles.
“My friend in Toronto made them for Alby. She has a glass studio on the Quay,” he says.
A sudden pang hits Jen. She. Who’s she? Jen wonders. Even as she realizes how insane it is, she feels a pang of jealousy and disappointment. But it only heightens the electrical charge she feels pulsing through Mikolaj’s hand like some kind of reanimating force.
“She did an awesome job,” Alby says. “I can sell her stuff all day long at the gallery. I can’t wait to get it in!”
Alby’s plan was to give her wedding guests a thank you gift to take home instead of spending thousands on a florist. Tonight they were to assemble the sand, candles, glass beads and pebbles to create miniature Zen gardens. In true Alby style, glass bowls from Wal-Mart just wouldn’t do. They had to be art. The girls went to work assembling them.
“Is this how you want them,” Rosemary asks. Her creation is lovely: three staggered candles in the center of a bed of white sand, small smooth pebbles and glass stones scattered artfully in designs around the edge, and a miniature wooden rake.
“Perfect. Each one can be however we make it,” Alby says.
Jen drinks in the scent of rose and lavender as she sprinkles her candle tops with essential oil. Suddenly, the room feels like a salon and together with Mikolaj’s gentle ministrations she feels the pre-massage excitement that has her hooked on pampering.
“Can I see one of the candles?” Jen asks. Alby hands her one. It’s squat rolled beeswax that’s been dyed. She holds it up to her nose to inhale it. She loves the smell and texture of beeswax.
Mikolaj pulls back and takes a drink of his wine. He looks at Jen for a minute.
“I take it you need a break,” he says.
“Sorry,” Jen flushes, realizing her movement messed him up. “Maybe for a minute,” she says.
Now that he’s not touching her, she realizes her arm is burning and tender. It also dawns on her that she will have a huge ugly scab for the wedding.
“Alby, do you think I could get Marita to make me a long-sleeve shrug of some kind? You know, something gauzy. I mean, would you mind if my dress is different from Rosemary’s?” Jen asks.
“No, I don’t mind, but why? It will likely be hot and humid – why do you want a shrug?”
Jen raises the bloody mess that is her arm for Alby to see.
“Oh, God, right. Well, we still have three weeks. Maybe it will be better by then.”
Mikolaj chews his lip and shakes his head slowly. Not better enough, he must be thinking.
“She already has to remake the bodice anyway. There’s no way she’d have left enough seam to let it out enough for my newfound fat,” Jen says.
“Aw, Jen, you’re having such a shitty day,” Alby says. “I’m sorry. Don’t worry about the dress. It’s no big deal.”
“You’re not fat,” Mikolaj says, turning to her. “You’re just right.”
“Thank you,” Jen says, “But the dress doesn’t lie.”
The girls laugh.
“So what else is making your day shitty?” he asks, training those wise brown eyes on hers.
She can see he means it. He actually wants to know. It feels a little foreign to her: man plus listening to her as something other than a sexual device. As hot as Jen finds him, he also has that feel that Marty did, like he could be a best girlfriend too. The most dangerous friend ever.