Open

“I got swept up in the sheer snap, crackle and pop of [Lisa Moore’s] stories. Her splicing of time and memory. Her fabulous lists. The eroticism of everyday life. She puts all five senses on high alert, ‘at alarming speed: falling awake’ as she says.”

— Shelagh Rogers,
Globe and Mail

“Lisa Moore’s stories are electric with the intensity of the lived and observed moment, and they evoke a passionate response.
Open
leads the list of our top 25 fiction picks for the year.”

— Amazon.ca

“Moore’s talent is staggering, her images arresting, her dialogue, particularly between men and women, needle-to-the-eye sharp.”

—
Maclean’s

“Whether Moore is describing the path of a storm … or a girl’s first orgasm … she has a genius for nailing the physical world on the page. One image after another is a feat of seeing, of waking up the senses…. cryptic and passionate.”

— Marni Jackson,
Globe and Mail

“Moore opens scenes as if they were oysters, reveals the meat and juice of life, in all their messy succulence, and finds in the course of her revelation the occasional unexpected — and startlingly beautiful — pearl…. The stories are full of nerve and verve. They brim with an irresistible mix of adrenaline, compassion and insight…. perceptive and wonderful.”

—
National Post

“These are stories to lose yourself in, and maybe to find yourself in, as well…. Every year, there are about a hundred books about exactly the same thing. And every year there is one like this that will knock you flat …. Lisa Moore, Lisa Moore, Lisa Moore. Remember that name.”

—
Vancouver Sun

“… accomplished, polished … powerfully visual … Moore’s riffs hold us rapt by being so arresting.”

—
Quill & Quire

“Observant, witty, genuine and resonant,
Open
is a significant collection on the Newfoundland and national literary stages. This is very good work.”

— St. John’s
Telegram

“Lisa Moore writes like a dream. This is a marvelous collection … ‘Mouths Open’ is an almost flawless story…. Moore mounds detail and melds it almost seamlessly with the mood of the story so that the physical world outside is strangely transubstantiated into the internal mood of the narrator.”

— Michael Redhill,
Globe and Mail

“What could be better? Nuance and cunning and, every time, of all the possible words, exactly the right word. The making of wondrous fiction demands both compassion and hard choices and Lisa Moore seems born to it.”

— Bonnie Burnard

“Lisa Moore is one of those rare writers who can change the way you see the world, who can make your own life feel infinitely more fragile, more real. It’s uncanny how effortlessly these stories nail the ephemera of the sensual world and the human heart. Reading
Open
is like wearing corrective lenses for the first time, every detail coming into a focus sharper than you’d thought possible.”

— Michael Crummey

“Open
is an uncommon book of promises and prayer, full of tastebuds, wet licks, profound marriages, desire and modern children. It is the new writing: intense, sensual, bright and dark, funny and sexy, wide open.”

— Michael Winter

“Each of the ten stories in
Open
is as certain as it is surprising…. Like Alice Munro, Moore writes about ordinary events in the lives of ordinary people…. Moore creates strong characters … who linger long after the book is closed.”

—
Atlantic Books Today

“Open
serves notice that Moore is a writer to watch…. a stylist who leaves often searing images in the mind of the reader and whose deft handling of the language renders many of her characters unforgettable.”

—
Edmonton Journal

“Rare is the short-story collection that nourishes like a novel. … Lisa Moore is in full command of her imaginative powers in
Open…
. Her infectious style reminds us of another witty literary Moore (Lorrie), while packing the emotional clout of Alice Munro. … Here is a sexy new Canadian voice that dares to challenge the traditional short story form to a duel — with exciting, often wrenching, results.”

—
Les Ailes

STORIES

LISA MOORE

Copyright © 2002 Lisa Moore

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.

Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or
any other means without the permission of the publisher is
illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of
copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic
editions. We appreciate your support of the author’s rights.

This edition published in 2009 by
House of Anansi Press Inc.
110 Spadina Ave., Suite 801
Toronto,
ON, M5V 2K4
Tel. 416-363-4343
Fax 416-363-1017
www.anansi.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Moore, Lisa Lynne, 1964–
Open : stories / Lisa Moore.

eISBN
978-0-88784-871-1

I. Title.

PS8576.O61444O64 2002 C813’.54 C2002-900331-8
PR9199.3.M647O64 2002

Jacket design: Bill Douglas @ The Bang
Cover photograph: Laura Jane Petelko

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund
.

M
elody lets the first half dozen cars go by; she says she has a bad feeling about them.

The trip will take as long as it takes, she says. There are no more cars for an hour. She pulls her cigarettes out of her jean jacket and some matches from the El Dorado. We had been dancing there last night until the owner snapped on the lights. The band immediately aged; they could have been our parents. They wore acid-washed jeans and T-shirts that said ARMS ARE FOR HUGGING, VIVA LA SANDINISTA, and FEMINIST? YOU BET!!!

Outside the El Dorado two mangy Camaros, souped up for the weekend Smash Up Derby, revved their engines and tore out of the parking lot. I watched their tail lights swerve and bounce in the dark. They dragged near the mall and sparks lit the snagged fenders. A soprano yelp of rubber and then near
silence. I could smell the ocean far beyond the army barracks. The revolving Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket still glowing in the pre-dawn light. Waves shushing the pebble beach; Brian Fiander falling in beside me. He had been downing B52s. He was lanky and discombobulated until his big hand clasped my shoulder and his too long limbs snapped into place like the poles of a pup tent.

The clock radio in my dorm room came on in the early afternoon and I listened to the announcer slogging through the temperatures across the island. Twenty-nine degrees. Mortification and the peppery sting of a fresh crush. I’d let Brian Fiander hold my wrists over my head against the brick wall of the dorm while he kissed me; his hips thrusting with a lost, intent zeal, the dawn sky as pale and grainy as sugar. Brian Fiander knew what he was doing. The recognition of his expertise made my body ting and smoulder. My waking thought: I have been celebrated.

I felt logy and grateful. Also sophisticated. I’d had an orgasm, though I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know
that’s
what that was. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d said the word out loud, though I’d read about it. I believed myself to be knowledgeable on the subject. I’d closed my eyes while Brian touched me and what I’d felt was like falling asleep, except in the opposite direction and at alarming speed: falling awake. Wildly alert. Falling into myself.

I made my way down the corridor to the showers, the stink of warming Spaghetti-Os wafting from the kitchenette. Wavy Fagan passed me in her cotton candy slippers and she smirked. I had a crowbar grin; his hand on my breast, slow, sly circles. Wavy smirked and I knew:
Oh that’s what that was
.

The showers were full of fruity mist. Brenda Parsons brushing her teeth. Her glasses steamed. She turned toward me blindly, mouth foaming toothpaste. She had been going out with Brian Fiander.

We can see anything that’s coming long before it arrives, and nothing’s coming. The highway rolls in the sulky haze of midafternoon and Melody and I are eternally stuck to the side of it. The night before comes back in flickers. A glass smashing, swimming spotlights, red, blue. Hands, buttons. The truck, when it appears, is a lisping streak, there and not there as it dips into the valleys. A black truck parting the quivering heat. A star of sunlight reaming the windshield.

I say, Do I stick my thumb out or what?

I’ll do the thinking, says Melody. She ties the jean jacket around her waist in a vicious knot. We don’t hitch but the truck pulls over. I run down the highway and open the door. Melody stays where she is, she just stands, smoking.