This Cake is for the Party (16 page)

We tried to speak to each other honestly. We tried to discuss the details of his flight, and how long he would be away, and what the absence would mean for the projects we are working on together. We talked a little about what would happen if I wasn't here when he came home. And the water continued to leak. It dribbled down my throat and my T-shirt caught the liquid, a circle of wet cotton. It continued to flow even when Gabe pressed his hand to the crease behind my ear, the softest place on my skull, to find its origin. His hand filled with water. There was nothing that we could do to stop it. It was two hours before it ceased. And in those two hours, we finally heard each other.

I am telling you all of this now, perhaps selfishly, almost certainly too late, but in an attempt to give you the most significant thing about myself that I can gather: this mystery. I hope that this will make more sense to you than it ever did to me.

Respectfully,
Magda

Paul Farenbacher's
Yard Sale

Paul Farenbacher always told me, Never call yourself a salesperson. What you do isn't
sales
, he'd say. You aren't in
sales
. What you are doing is providing people with an opportunity. This is what you do. Sometimes. It's not even what you
do
. It's not who you are. You are Meredith; you are a lovely woman. And Meredith reads and enjoys the theatre and spending time outdoors. Meredith also sometimes provides an opportunity for an individual to purchase excellent cleaning products. See? This is not sales. Never say you are a salesperson.

Paul Farenbacher provided opportunities for individuals to purchase products for twenty-five years before he retired, before he got sick. He started out selling detergents and disinfectants—not too different from what I do now, in fact—but after that, he sold cookware: heavy, enamel-coated cast iron. He also had a brief stint selling vitamins and nutritional supplements made from Blu-Green algae. I still have a questionable canister of this powdered seaweed at home. He claimed it strengthened his immune system. I have used it exactly once. I blended it into a Blu-Green Banana Smoothie, as suggested on the side panel. The powder turned the liquefied fruit such a disturbing shade of turquoise that I was moved to pour the lumpy miracle cure down the toilet. I snapped the plastic lid onto the tin and tucked it into the back of my cupboard. I should throw it away, but I can't.

I would really like a cup of coffee. It's nine o'clock on Saturday morning and I'm standing on the Farenbachers' front lawn with their son, Trevor. I'm trying to make eye contact with the early birds as they swarm the rack of Paul Farenbacher's suits, looking for bargains. A money belt loaded with coins hugs my waist and I am grateful for the anchor. It's beautiful today—drifts of petals from the cherry trees have sifted into small piles on both sides of the curb. A light breeze and the petals stir like confetti in a snow globe. Trevor is having a hard time with this sale. He's going around behind his mother's back with a black Sharpie, marking the prices up when she's not looking. He came back from Costa Rica this winter, when his father got sick. He said he wanted to restructure his business and get certified to teach kitesurfing here in Victoria. I wonder what he wants to do now.

Paul Farenbacher used to live in Costa Rica. One of the ten windiest places in the world, he told me. That's why Trevor was there. But in the sixties, Paul Farenbacher was involved in something called the Instinctive Nutrition Movement, a group who smelled their food and then decided to eat it based on their intuitive reaction to the odour. They used to eat live shellfish, he told me. Right out of the ocean. Something about the briny tang was intuitively comforting to the ancient reptilian mind—it triggered memories, perhaps, of an amoebic past spent suspended in saline—so they would gnaw at live prawns and crabs still blue from the waves, bite into the salty bodies before boiling water could taint them.

I've never been to Costa Rica. I've never been east of Osoyoos, British Columbia.

Trevor's mother, Margaret, stands in the middle of the lawn, next to Paul Farenbacher's reclining chair. One of the early birds approaches her. The woman is wearing a pale blue trench coat. She has very curly hair. It's scraped off her face and cinched in a tight puff at the base of her head. The woman looks at Margaret, she looks at the chair, and she bites her lip, thinking.

Can I sit in it? she asks.

Of course, says Margaret. Use the lever, get a feel for it.

Just pretend you're in your living room, Bruce says. Try to ignore us.

If only it were that easy, says Trevor.

Bruce is Margaret's new boyfriend. Today is only the second time I've seen them together. The first time was the wet and uncomfortable Thursday evening at Welsh & Bloom Funeral Home, only two months ago, when the whole neighbourhood came out on the rainiest night of the winter to see Paul Farenbacher arranged in a box in a jaunty pinstripe suit I'd never seen him wear before (such wide, bold stripes: he looked as though he were dressed for a performance in Vegas). A collection of Paul's old cronies was there, from all his years of work—the cookware men, the detergent and spray disinfectant men, the Blu-Green algae men (who were actually mostly women)—huddled under the dripping canvas awning out front, a cluster of khaki overcoats under a cloud of smoke that condensed into fog. The sixty-year-old's version of extreme sport: smoking at a funeral sponsored by lung cancer. The risk! The bravado! And Margaret Farenbacher in the front row, tucked into a pearl-grey suit like an altocumulus formation, managing to look parched in the rainstorm, her face powdered, her lipstick bleeding into cracks, her hair shellacked into feathers. Beside her, the tall man in black we all now know as Bruce, or
Margaret's
new boyfriend
, looking like he could use a cigarette himself.

Margaret has sold the Farenbacher bungalow and is moving in with Bruce, which is the reason for this yard sale. Perhaps that's why Margaret chose to dress her husband in pinstripes on the day he was buried; in a muted way, she was also celebrating her engagement to Bruce. I don't mean to sound unkind. I've lived next door to the Farenbachers for thirty years. I grew up with Trevor. I learned how to ride a bicycle in their driveway. Paul and Margaret used to babysit me. Margaret can be a very lovely woman.

I still live with my parents, in the house where I grew up. I run a small business called Scrub Goddess, a line of all-natural household cleansers. I started by mixing baking soda, a mild abrasive, with clove oil. I made batches of the stuff in the kitchen sink. I called it Artemis Powder and stuck a pink label on the jar—the same kind of jar you'd find filled with Parmesan cheese at the grocery store— and started selling it door to door. Business has grown, and I've converted our unfinished basement into a workable industrial unit. My mother helps me run my booth at the trade shows. Ten years ago, if someone had told me this would be my life, I would never have believed it.

It's comfortable, the woman says, after she's sat in the chair, pressed her lower back against the lumbar pillow, experimented with the lever, and hauled herself out again. It looks very new.

Oh, it is, says Margaret. It's hardly been used.

You're unbelievable, says Trevor.

She just means that it's in excellent condition, I say to Trevor.

The woman asks Margaret, Why are you selling it?

Bruce nestles Margaret's shoulders under his big arm. Well, he says, I already have a leather club chair, and there's just not enough room for the sectional, the loveseat
and
two big chairs in my living room.

Margaret pats the back of the La-Z-Boy like it's a dog. It's been very good to us, she says, but it's time to let it go to a new home now.

I'll need a hand if I get it, the woman says. Let me think. She starts to walk away.

Don't think about it too long! calls Bruce.

Margaret is wearing a pungent perfume. The thick scent hangs around her like a sticky brown cloud. She has styled her grey hair so that it wafts up off her head like layers of meringue. She wears caramel-coloured loafers that sink into the grass. They're dark around the toes, stained from the dew.

She'll come back, says Bruce. Don't worry.

Do I look worried? Trevor says.

Trev, says Margaret.

Trevor turns away from her, walks over to the boxes set in the shady grass in the front of the yard. I follow him. Do you want to take a break? I ask. He ignores me.

He crouches by the milk crate, his back arched in a C-curve, and silently flips through his father's old record albums. He looks like his father—smaller than average, even a bit shorter than I am. Stocky, with the kind of muscles that I've always thought were good for rock climbing or skateboarding. We kissed once. In the kitchen at the Murphys' annual holiday block party. Trevor came in looking to refill his glass with something, and there I was, refilling my own. We were both drunk. He pressed me up against the refrigerator when we kissed, and my back slid over a button on the fridge door that made a pile of ice cubes fall out. They spilled all over the floor like a cold, glittering win at a private slot machine.

When I found out that Paul Farenbacher was sick, I started to come over to visit during the day, when Margaret was at the office. Trevor was still in Costa Rica. I made miso broth with thin slices of green onion and I served it to him in a deep red and white soup bowl I found in Chinatown. We listened to the radio together. I offered to make him a Blu-Green Banana Smoothie once, and he made a face and smacked the air with his hand. Those people don't know shit from putty, he said. Throw that stuff away. The smell of Windex made him feel sick, so I spritzed their windows and countertops with my spearmint-scented Demeter Spray.

He bought the La-Z-Boy as a gift for himself soon after his diagnosis. He said he'd spent his whole life fighting it, but that it was finally time to recognize the desires of his inner lazy man. He showed me a catalogue of chairs for lazy people: slots for the remote controls, coolers in the armrests, space for a whole six-pack of beer. Paul ordered the basic model in solid blue. After the chemotherapy, this was the only place he could still feel comfortable. He often spent the night there, in the reclined position, a blanket tucked up around his chin. He'd lost all of his thick white hair—he'd gone silver in his twenties, and as long as I'd known him, his hair was a source of pride—but he refused to wear a toque over his bald head, even on cool nights. My head is not a teapot, he'd say.

Trevor finally says something to me. Should I keep this? he asks. He's holding an Arlo Guthrie album.

You keep whatever you think, I say. Keep it, if you want it.

He slips it back into the milk crate and stands up. No. I have enough.

Why don't we get some coffee. Get out of here for a while.

I'll take the whole crate, says a man behind us. I turn around. A pair of sunglasses hang around his neck on a thick orange plastic cord. He already has his wallet out in his hands. His fingers press two green bills out of the crease. He says, I'll give you forty bucks and I'll take the record player and this whole crate of albums off your hands.

The record player alone is twenty-five, says Trevor.

I'll give you forty for the whole shebang.

What did I just say? says Trevor.

I put my hand on Trevor's back and feel his spine through the cotton. That's fine, I say gently. We can do forty. Do you need a hand getting it to your car?

The man is still looking at Trevor. No, thank you, he says carefully. I've got it.

After he's gone, Trevor says, Well, he just cleaned up, didn't he.

It's just five dollars. It doesn't matter.

Whatever, he says. I hardly remember Dad using that record player anyway.

Your dad liked his music, though, I say.

What do you mean by that? Trevor looks at me.

What I meant was that Paul Farenbacher liked
his
music, the records that just drove off in a blue car with a yellow “Save Our Troops” decal. He had no use for contemporary artists. I'd burned him CDs thinking I could find something with a classic roots feel, a new collaboration he'd like despite himself: Billy Bragg playing with Wilco, Robert Plant with Alison Krauss. He thanked me for the albums but never listened to them more than once. Eventually I accepted that he simply preferred the sound of his own records.

Your father had strong opinions, I say to Trevor. I mean, he knew what he liked and didn't like. I used to listen to Emmylou Harris with him, I say.

Trevor looks at me slantwise. How is your father doing, Meredith? He must like his new job, sitting on the couch testing candy all day.

He's actually on the computer all day.

I was only kidding.

My father used to work at the Island Dairy plant before he injured himself. He had an accident while sweeping the floor with a cheap broom—the plastic handle fell off mid-sweep, and the metal rod, which was sharp and jagged at the end under the plastic cap, slipped and punctured his forearm, just past his wrist, severing a tendon and leaving him with numbness in three of the four fingers of his right hand. He's since gone on disability, which has significantly cut the household income even though he was only a few years away from retirement anyway, and now he stays at home and helps my mother track promotions for her Candy-of-the-Month mail order business. We're all self-made people out here on Linden Street.

He's doing better, I tell Trevor. He's starting to write with his left hand. It's almost as good as his right. You can only tell on some letters, because he writes them backwards.

What letters does he write backwards?

I think about it. S, I say. And N.

Trevor pulls out a ratchet set. Mom, are you sure you want to get rid of this? he says. You can use these, you know. These are good tools.

I don't even know what that's called, says Margaret. I wouldn't know how to use it. I have my hammer and my screwdriver set and my little power drill, and I'm just fine with that.