Heartache and Other Natural Shocks (20 page)

I turn to Michael and try to make conversation, anything to ease the tension. “So, what’s the best Christmas you’ve ever had?” I ask.

It’s a dumb question, but Michael smiles gratefully. He recounts an amusing tale about being snowed in at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on Christmas Eve with six drunken Italian opera singers performing impromptu arias in the airport lounge. He’s a very funny storyteller, but Geoff doesn’t even crack a smile.

By the time Geoff places the angel on top of the tree and Clarissa plugs in the lights, it’s dark outside. The little, overloaded tree glows bravely. Clarissa sings “Silent night, Holy night.” She slides her arm around Geoff’s waist, and Geoff begrudgingly sings along. Michael and I join in, but the whole thing is awkward. Michael looks uncomfortable, and I, being Jewish, feel like an imposter on a Pat Boone
TV
Christmas special. Suddenly I wish I were back in Montreal, walking with Mollie along the slushy sidewalks of Saint Catherine Street, or skating outside on Beaver Lake, cutting my blades into the dark ice.

Finally, Michael looks at his watch and says they should go. He and Clarissa have a dinner date with some friends. It’s a relief when they walk out the door. I flop down onto the couch and turn to Geoff. “Michael van Meers is a perfectly lovely man, and you were rude. You didn’t even say a word to him!” I scold.

“She didn’t tell me he was coming till the last minute,” Geoff says. “It’s
our
Christmas. He doesn’t belong.”

“You invited me,” I say.

“Clarissa and I agreed on that. We didn’t agree on Michael van Meers.” Geoff scowls. I shake my head. “He always wears those lumpy sweaters,” he mutters.

“A fashion indiscretion?” I ask. “Is that the worst you can come up with?”

“Yeah.” Geoff sinks onto the floor and hugs his knees.

“They like each other,” I say.

“I know,” Geoff sighs. “She glows when he’s in the room. He’s funny and well-read. He shows up on time, and he always picks up the bill when they go out. But it doesn’t mean he’s going to stick around. Clarissa’s done this before. She gets involved, and then something always goes wrong. So, why should Michael be any different?”

“I thought you were an optimist,” I say.

Geoff shrugs and toys with the ornaments on the tree: a camel, a trumpet, origami cranes made from pretty Japanese papers. They bob and sparkle in the silken light, a colorful, dancing menagerie. “You know, she still keeps pictures of my father in her drawer, under her scarves, where she thinks I don’t look,” he says. “He was so handsome. Like a matinee idol. They met skating in Rockefeller Center.”

“Sounds just like a movie,” I say. Geoff throws me a sardonic smile. “But does she still love him, after all these years?” I ask. “Even though he walked out on her?”

“I don’t know,” Geoff says. “Maybe love is like a bad habit you can’t break.”

I think about that. I wonder if my mom still loves my dad. I wonder how many times a person can fall in love, and if it’s ever as good as the first time. “Do you think love can last forever?” I ask Geoff.

“I hope so,” Geoff says. “That’s why I like the old movies. Either they’re fearlessly romantic, or they make the sad
things in life seem so beautiful, when really they’re not.” He spins a crystal icicle on the tree, and it sends arcs of rainbow light skittering around the room like lost wishes.

Geoff offers to drive me home, but I decide I need some fresh air. As soon as I step outside, the cold slams into my chest like a brick and the wind funnels down the street, rattling Christmas lights and shooting needles of ice into my face. There’s no snow on the ground, just a stubbly crust of frost cemented to the grass like frozen dandruff. I pull up my hood and breathe through my scarf as I hurry down Cummer hill.

Halfway home, I stop at the plaza drugstore to warm up. A sappy Muzak version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” plays too loudly, and I shuffle along the aisles, rubbing my frozen hands together, pretending to be interested in little pots of eye shadow by Mary Quant. A saleslady with penciled-on eyebrows and a beehive hairdo gives me the evil eye. The way she looks at me makes me want to pocket a lipstick or knock over a display of candy canes on the way out, but I don’t.

I leave the drugstore, and I’m about halfway down the plaza, when a silver Mercedes pulls up beside me. I cut across the parking lot and the car follows. No one’s around, and I’m starting to feel panicky, when the passenger window slides down and a male voice calls out, “Hey, Rapunzel, want a ride?” My heart
ca-lunks
in my chest. Ian is behind the wheel in the cavelike darkness of the car.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Getting some smokes.”

“Oh.”

“Come on, get in. It’s freezing.” The automatic locks click open.

I slip inside and sink into the black leather bucket seat. “Thanks,” I say, trying for a confident smile.

Ian puts the car into gear. “Where’re you off to?”

“Home,” I say, feeling like a loser. It’s seven o’clock on a Saturday night. “What about you?” I ask.

Ian doesn’t answer. He steers the Mercedes out of the plaza.

“I guess you know where I live,” I say.

Ian nods. “I know where you live.” His eyes are like slices of pale moonlight. He drives too fast, with one hand on the wheel, and it makes me nervous, but I try to look relaxed. The streetlamps sweep bands of light across his face, accenting the hollows of his cheeks and the curve of his mouth, making him look like a comic book superhero, or villain.

Ian takes a left turn where he should be going right. “Oops, you went the wrong way,” I say.

“I know,” he says. “There’s something I want to show you.” He stares straight ahead, and I, the nervous hostage, don’t ask questions. A few minutes later, he turns onto Hawthorne Crescent and pulls into the driveway of an enormous dark house, his house. My stomach flip-flops. He gets out of the car, and I follow him along the side of the house,
past a cedar hedge wrapped in burlap. The path slopes downward, so that in the back, the basement is at ground level. We cross a flagstone patio and pass the gaping turquoise shell of a pool. Ian tips up a stone urn, reaches underneath it to get his key and unlocks the French doors.

The basement den is done in blue and white, and everything matches. There’s a blue leather sectional couch shaped like a giant
L
and a blue leather bar with three chrome swivel stools. The carpet is white, and you can see the neat, straight tracks of a vacuum cleaner on its thick pile. A painting of a sailboat hangs on the wall. Everything is new and expensive, like it was lifted straight out of
Architectural Digest
and plunked down in suburban Toronto, a showpiece of contemporary design. I can’t imagine Ian living here. There’s nothing of him in it.

Ian doesn’t look at me. We take off our boots and toss our coats onto the couch. And then things get weird. I mean, he’s the one who invited me over, but instead of showing me around, he just stands there in the middle of the room in his black Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and jeans. I don’t know whether to sit or stand, so I make polite conversation, saying stupid things like “Well, this is a nice place,” and “It’s sort of a nautical theme, isn’t it?” My words get sucked up into the dead air. Ian frowns.

“So, is anyone home?” I ask.

“No.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“Did your mother design this place?”

“My mother smokes, shops and gets her hair done,” Ian says sarcastically. He shifts from foot to foot, looking like he already regrets asking me over.

Finally, I say, “So, what did you want to show me?”

Ian licks his lips and says, “You can’t tell anybody.” And suddenly I realize that he’s nervous, and that whatever it is he wants to show me is important and personal, and Carla has never seen it. For some reason, he’s chosen me.

“Okay,” I say.

He nods. “Okay.” It’s a pact.

Ian leads me out of the den and down a hallway. At the end of the hall, he pushes open a set of double doors, and we walk into the strangest room I’ve ever seen. Mounted on the wall opposite the door is a massive, striped tiger skin, complete with head, teeth, claws, thick pink tongue and golden marble eyes. On either side of the tiger are antique rifles, hunting knives and scimitars.

The doors behind me click shut. I turn, and there, beside the entrance, is a towering bronze statue of a cross-legged Buddha sitting on a lotus flower. Smaller statues of Hindu gods and goddesses in stone, clay and bronze line the wall. The two walls are like yin and yang, darkness and light, violence and meditation. The air smells of decay and incense.
Even with the lamps lit, the space feels musty, like the cavernous inner sanctuary of an underground tomb.

“Wow,” I say, gazing at the collection of exotic treasures.

“My grandfather’s,” Ian says. He walks to the corner and opens a battered trunk that looks like a pirate’s chest. Inside are soft cloth bundles. Ian peels back the crimson fabric on the top bundle to reveal two long swords. Rapiers. Their polished steel blades are engraved with a snake design, and their hilts have been carved to look like coiled serpents. I don’t know anything about swords, but these look ancient and dangerous, like relics from a raided treasure trove.

Ian picks up one of the rapiers and wraps his fingers around the grip. He extends the sword in front of him, and my eyes travel along the sinewy muscles of his arm to the gleaming tip of the blade. Nothing moves. Not him, not me, not the air in the room. His body is like a tensile wire. I can hear the rhythmic sound of his breath, in and out, like the wash of tides.

He lowers the sword, and his eyes meet mine. “Try it,” he says. He offers me the sword, ceremoniously laying it across the palms of his hands. I slide my fingers around the grip and feel the weight of it. It’s nothing like our tinny school swords. It has heft, power and history. What bloody battles have been fought with this weapon? I swish the blade through the air, moving it in arcs until it whispers back to me. It feels good in my hand. I walk around the room, admiring the balance of the
weapon, swiping and stabbing at motes of dust that float in the yellow lamplight, while the tiger and the Buddha watch on.

When I turn around, Ian is waiting for me, holding the matching rapier in his hand. He salutes me with his sword. “En garde,” he says, lifting it into the air.

I stare at him, thinking
He can’t be serious. Surely he doesn’t expect us to fight with real weapons and no protective gear
.

“Come,” he commands, waving the tip of his rapier. “Don’t you want to see how it feels?” He flicks his long black hair off his face.

I shake my head. “I’m not good enough.”

“Don’t worry, Rapunzel, we’ll just practice,” he says. His steely eyes pin me to the spot. And what can I say, here in this room, caught in this ghostly underworld? Ian has chosen me as his sparring partner—and really, haven’t I been training for just this moment?

His rapier catches a glint of light. I bring my sword into the ready position. “En garde,” I say. I swallow my fear and execute a simple cut, which Ian counters with a swift, sharp clang. The force of contact shoots through my arm. Ian grins. We beat our blades, testing the feel of them, listening to the metallic notes of their song. Then we run through the basic attack and parry exercises. Ian is fast, light on his feet but not aggressive, allowing me to get the feel of the weapon, to understand its strengths and demands.

Gradually, he begins to move me around the room, circling
me in a fluid dance. He forces my direction, pushing my pace. He challenges me to look for openings, to turn a defensive move into an offensive one. We hardly speak. He coaches by example. When I play well, he nods. When I don’t, he guides me through the sequence again. When he lunges at me, I leap away, scared.

“Focus,” he says calmly. We repeat. This time I parry, enveloping his sword and thrusting at his shoulder. “Harder,” he commands. Our swords smash together. I throw the weight of my body against his. We lean into each other, holding hard. “Good balance,” he says, smiling, then pushing me off. “Now, show me what you can do.”

His eyes glitter, and he moves toward me like an animal stalking its prey. My head buzzes. Sweat trickles down my back. The gods and goddesses watch with impassive eyes as we face off.

“Defend,” he shouts, attacking, and our swords arc through the air, flashing in a vortex of spinning steel. It takes everything I have to keep him away, but the harder I fight to protect myself, the harder Ian comes at me. We pant and grunt. Adrenaline rips through my body. I move on instinct, at the edge of panic.

“Stop,” I say. But Ian won’t stop. Terror wells up in my throat. “No more,” I shout.

Ian laughs. Then he drives his sword straight at my chest. The steel tip quivers an inch from my heart. I yelp. My sword clatters to the floor.

“Touché,” Ian gasps, lowering his weapon.

“You almost hit me!” I cry.

“I didn’t.”

“But you could have.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Ian says.

“Do you?” I ask. I’m shaking uncontrollably. My heart is crashing around in my chest.

Ian walks over to me, his eyes fixed intently on mine. His finger glides across my sweaty cheek and downward along the curve of my jaw. I see black splinters in his gray wolf eyes, and that tiny white scar at the corner of his lips. “You did well,” he says. “I was right about you.” Then he closes in and kisses me.

It happens slowly, as if in a dream. His long fingers slide into my hair. Our lips part, and I’m enfolded into the heat of his breath. I close my eyes. His tongue slips into my mouth. Our sweaty bodies press against each other. Soft and hot. Salty and damp. I’m dizzy with the taste of his mouth. I’m lost. Adrift. Floating. Gone. When he pulls away, I’m still in a daze.

“Again?” he whispers.

I blink at him. Is he asking if I want to kiss him again? I do. But then a smile flits across his lips, and he nods toward the rapier still in his hand. Oh. He wants another bout. But I have nothing left to give. Nothing. I shake my head.