He felt something brush against his ankle. It took him a moment to conclude that it had been her foot.
— Well, I think I’m in over my head. This is a nice place. But I don’t know what the hell any of this stuff is.
She laughed loudly. She leaned over the tablecloth and touched his hand and said: You’re an interesting one, Lee.
When the waiter came, Lee figured he’d follow Helen’s lead. She opted for the prix fixe-a salad to start, a baked pasta with bacon and mushrooms for the main course, a slice of chocolate cake for dessert. The sequence seemed elaborate. Lee couldn’t predict what would happen if he asked for a cheeseburger or a fried steak. Helen looked across at him and told him he might like the ravioli. He told the waiter he’d have the ravioli.
— Everybody likes ravioli.
— I was twenty-five the first time I ever ate spaghetti, said Lee.
They had some cigarettes. She finished her drink and was moving the ice in the glass.
— Tell me about you, Brown Eyes. What do you do after I see you for breakie every morning?
— I’m a tradesman. Carpentry. Windows, doors. Cabinets. Joining. You name it.
— But you haven’t been doing that real long, have you? At least not here in town.
— What makes you say that?
— You’ve got a certain aura around you, said Helen. I’m good at sensing these things. I’m real spiritual. It’s what you get with a Pisces like me.
— Well, okay. But what about you? You got a story outside the cafe?
— Oh my. I’m just an old soul, Brown Eyes. I just keep on keeping on.
She laughed again.
Her salad came and she ordered another drink. Lee went to the washroom. It occurred to him that she might be gone by the time he returned, that certain truths were evident no matter what, and that she need only to wait for an opportunity to slip out undetected. But she was still there when he came back, and he started to feel good.
They were into their suppers. He liked the ravioli and he liked the way she was smiling. She talked in a rambling fashion and came round eventually to where she’d started out, which was a mid-sized town in the south part of the province. She’d done a year or two of college, had quit to travel with some Hare Krishnas, and had at last ended up back in the big city. Where the action was, the city.
— The city, said Lee. Yeah. I lived there for awhile too. Right up till the end of the summer. That’s a hell of a place. All kinds of action. Sirens all night long. I never thought of myself as ending up there, but I guess it’s funny how it goes. Where you end up. Anyhow, if you were down there, how’d you end up here?
— Oh, the way karma plans things for you, you know.
She’d had four drinks by the time the dessert arrived. Her face was flushed. She carved a piece of cake and offered it to him on her fork. The waiter brought the bill and it ate up all the money Peter had loaned Lee and five dollars from his wallet besides.
— Where to now, Brown-Eyed Lee?
— I don’t know. We could get a cup of coffee.
— Or you could show me where you live.
— Sure.
— You don’t sound sure.
— I am sure, said Lee.
— I know. But you don’t have a car.
— No …
She stood up from the table, weaving a little, and told the waiter to call them a taxi. Then she took Lee’s arm and led him out of the restaurant. The sidewalk outside was quiet. She put a cigarette in her mouth and Lee lit it for her.
— You were in prison, weren’t you, said Helen. You were a jailbirdie.
— How did you know?
— It’s your aura. It’s strong. I like it. Are you strong?
He smiled, still feeling good, and he rubbed at a spot on the pavement with the toe of his boot. He said: Am I strong? I don’t know. I guess I’m no slouch.
A taxi came. The same cabbie who’d driven Lee out to Donna’s house was behind the wheel. He ogled Helen. Lee told the cabbie where his place was. Helen pulled him into the back of the car and sat as close to him as she could. He could feel her nails on his thigh through his jeans. He put his arm around her and touched the big shape of her hair. She bit his ear and grinned.
When they got out at the variety store she came right out and asked him. He laughed.
— You don’t ask anybody what they did, said Lee. You just ask them how long they’re in for.
— Why is that?
— Because. It’s just how it is. Most guys didn’t do it, right? Like, they’ll run their mouths about a lot of other things they did, or things they could do, but whatever they’re in for, they didn’t do that.
— So how long were you in for?
— Twenty years was what I was supposed to do. I got out conditional after seventeen.
— And? Did you not do whatever they said you did?
— No, said Lee. I did exactly what they said I did. But that was a long time ago.
Upstairs in his apartment, he told her he didn’t have a drink to offer her.
— That’s fine. I’m going to powder my nose.
— Say what?
— I’m going to use your washroom, Brown Eyes.
She was in there for a minute and she came out smelling strongly of perfume and she was on him quickly. She pushed him down and lowered herself onto his lap. The short skirt was bunched up and he had his hands on her big thighs and on the elastic of her underpants. She pushed her tongue into his ear.
— Let’s see. Let’s see just how strong you are.
He tore at the blouse she was wearing and then turned her against the couch and took her.
Afterwards, they lay together on the pullout. She lifted one leg up and flexed the toes.
— Oh my oh my.
He considered what he could see of the ceiling. He lit two cigarettes, gave her one.
— In the city you lived downtown, said Helen.
— I did, yeah.
He wasn’t accustomed to talking about himself. What he was used to, for the most part, was the way people talked around what they wanted to know. But he told her what he had the words for. When he’d been conditionally paroled, he was moved into a halfway house on Sherbourne Street. From the outside you wouldn’t be able to tell anything about it. It was a big house. It had a board fence around it, and there was an intercom at the front, and the gate locked electronically. There were twelve beds in six rooms. It was run by the St. Leonard’s Society. The St. Leonard’s people got Lee fixed up with a job at a shop that made office furniture. Lee did the woodworking. The man that ran the place was also an ex-con, twelve years out. Clean and sober. He had given a lot of jobs to people like Lee and he’d seen more than a few of them fuck everything up.
Helen was quiet. Then she said, slowly: Do you like what you do?
— Yeah. That’s what I’m proud of. I make things. I see them come together.
A moment or two later, Helen was asleep. Her hand was on her chest and the cigarette she’d been smoking was burning down between her fingers. Lee took it carefully and dropped both hers and his into an empty cola bottle on the floor beside the couch.
He’d never been sure what he was going to do after his conditional release. He didn’t care for the city all that much but he’d been told he could stay on at the furniture shop if he kept straight. He’d figured that was about as good as it was going to get, but then in July Barry came down to the city to visit. He’d never actually met Barry until then, he’d just known him from the letters they’d written back and forth. Those last few years it was Barry who had written the most and in early July it was Barry who came down to the city to tell Lee that his mother was
