limited.
“I’m out of my depth here,” I said. “I was the only girl in my dorm who didn’t understand Last Year at Marienbad.”
Gabe put down his tea and looked at me curiously. “That’s an interesting connection.”
“Especially since I haven’t thought about that movie in twenty-five years. But just now, when we watched the ending of Black Spikes, I felt the same sense of manipulation – as if the filmmaker deliberately made me lose my bearings.”
“ ‘Always walls, always corridors, always doors – and on the other side, still more walls.’ ” Gabe’s voice was a murmur. Seeing the concern in my eyes, he shook off his reverie and reached out and took my hand. “So what’s been going on in your life since Last Year at Marienbad?”
The grandmother clock in the dining room had just struck eleven when we said goodnight. Neither of us wanted the evening to end. Admitting that my relationship with my former lover, Alex Kequahtooway, was over was proving so painful that I’d pretty well decided there were worse options than going it alone. But Gabe and I had connected with the kind of pizza and Chianti intimacy I hadn’t experienced since college. We had leapt over the mundane to attack the big topics: love, loss, and – the inevitable for anyone in their fifties – death. Gabe read widely and thought deeply. His conversation was shot through with allusions, but when he spoke about death his words were simple. “I don’t fear it, but I hate the idea that everything I’ve ever been will be over. You were smart to have kids.”
“Continuance,” I said.
“An appealing thought,” he said. “Especially for a man without a family.” He put his arm around me and we walked to the door. To an outsider, we would have been nothing extraordinary: two people in late middle age, sagging after a long day. But Gabe and I felt the possibilities, and as we watched his taxi crawl through the ruts towards my house, he turned to me. “So what do you think of our chances?”
“I’d say that so far we’re doing fine,” I said.
“Dashiell Hammett would say that fine is too big a word. We’re just doing better than most people.”
The kiss he gave me was deep and passionate.
“The wedding isn’t till three,” I said. “We could take a walk in the snow.”
“I’ll need your number,” Gabe said. He fumbled in his pockets. “No pen,” he said.
I found pencil and paper in the drawer of the hall table and wrote down my cell and home numbers. Gabe took the paper, slid it into his inside breast pocket, and patted it. “Tomorrow, we get to work on ‘fine,’ ” he said. “Wouldn’t it be ironic if this wedding was the start of a real love affair?” Then he kissed me again.
The day had been jam-packed, but I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. When Jill touched my shoulder and called my name, I had to swim up from the depths.
Her face was close to mine. “Can I borrow your car?” she said. “I tried to get a cab, but the snow’s really coming down, and the dispatcher said she couldn’t promise anything for at least an hour.”
“Of course you can borrow the car,” I said. I squinted at the clock. “Jill, it’s 1:30. Can’t it wait?”
“No,” she said. “It can’t.”
“The keys are over there in my bag,” I said. “Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t. It probably won’t amount to anything, and there’s no need for both of us to lose sleep.”
I watched at the window till Jill pulled out of the driveway. Angus’s magnificent torches had been reduced to scorched stumps. Their pagan protection was gone, and as the Volvo disappeared down the deserted street, I felt a stab of anxiety that was as intense as it was irrational. Jill was an adult. If she needed me, all she had to do was pick up the cellphone. I went back upstairs, checked on the kids, reassured Willie that all was well, plumped my pillows, and crawled back between the sheets. After half an hour, I knew it was hopeless. The sandman wasn’t coming back to my house. I rearranged the pillows and picked up the remote control.
On “All in the Family,” Gloria and Mike were getting married. Weddings all around. I had seen the episode at least five times, and the familiarity lulled me. I woke to a staticky screen and the heart-pounding sense of disorientation that comes in the small hours. Remembering the immediate cause of my insomnia, I walked down the hall to the guest room. Jill was sitting on the edge of the bed. She was wearing a pair of panties and Angus’s Mr. Bill sweatshirt.
“Is that part of your trousseau?” I asked.
“No, but at the moment, it’s the perfect choice,” Jill grimaced. “Like Mr. Bill, I am Dismembered, Squashed, and Melted Down.”
“I take it this has something to do with your quixotic midnight ride.”
Jill ran her fingers through her hair. “Quixotic is good,” she said. “Moronic would be even better. After you went to bed, Gabe called and said he’d just found out something I should know before the wedding. He didn’t want to talk about it on the phone, so I went charging off into the night. The roads were a mess and on the way downtown I hit a patch of ice and ended up in a snowbank. Of course, at that hour, Good Samaritans were in even shorter supply than usual, so I had to dig myself out. The Volvo is fine, incidentally, but by the time I got to the hotel I must have looked like something Willie dragged in. The prim little gent behind the reception desk was so horrified, I almost had to body slam him before he’d even ring Gabe’s room for me. Big surprise – there was no answer. Gabe had obviously given up on me and gone to bed.”
“And you have no idea what he wanted to talk about?”
“No, and you know what, Jo? I should have realized it was a fool’s errand. There’s nothing about Evan’s life that I don’t already know. That particular Pandora’s box has been open for a long time. By now, everything has flown out but Hope, and that’s what I’m hanging on to.”
I put my arms around her. “You deserve better than this.”
“Maybe so, but I’m forty-five years old, and I’m tired of waiting.” Jill’s smile was weary. “Is there a fairy tale about a girl who has to sleep with every loser on the planet before she finally gets her happily ever after?”
“Maybe an X-rated one,” I said, smoothing her hair.
“Not much fun being stuck in an X-rated fairy tale when everybody else is falling into these great love stories,” she said. “This is as close as I’m going to come, Jo, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it work.”
CHAPTER
3
It was still dark the next morning when Taylor crawled in beside me, and Willie lumbered up after her.
“I couldn’t sleep,” my daughter said. “I’m too excited.”
“What time is it?”
“Time to get up. Besides Willie wants out.”
“Willie always wants out.” I drew Taylor close, loving the gust of girl warmth as she snuggled in. “But he’s a reasonable dog. He’ll give us a break this morning.” Ever obliging, Willie inched up the bed, closer to the centre of power. “So what’s on our agenda?” I said.
Taylor propped herself up on her elbow. “First we eat breakfast and have a bath so Rapti can do our hair before she goes to work, then we go to the mall to get that garter.”
My daughter scratched Willie’s head absently. “Why does Jill need a blue garter?”
“To bring her luck,” I said. “Brides are always supposed to have something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.”
“Does Jill know she’s supposed to have all that stuff?”
“I’m sure she’s heard rumours,” I said.
“Good,” Taylor said. “Anyway, after we come back from the mall, we eat lunch and put on our dresses so the photographer can take our pictures.” She stretched luxuriously. “My hair is going to be soooo good.”
“Still committed to the ringlets?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be? The flower girl in that bride’s magazine looked so neat.” She cocked her head. “Didn’t
