The Book of Living and Dying Read online

  “Hey, look who I found,” Donna said, grabbing Sarah by the hand and drawing her into the booth. Peter smiled happily back at her.

  “What a coincidence,” Sarah mumbled. She forced a smile. “Hey, Peter.”

  “I was just telling her all about the fun she missed last night,” Donna said to Peter.

  “How’s your nose?” Peter asked.

  Sarah drew her hand self-consciously to her face. “Oh, it’s fine,” she said, frowning at Donna.

  Donna laughed, waving her off with her cigarette. “It happens every twenty-eight days like clockwork.”

  “Big party at my place,” Peter reminded Sarah. “You’re gonna be there, right?”

  “Of course she is,” Donna jumped in. “We’re coming together, if you know what I mean.” Donna and Peter snickered conspiratorially.

  They had the same kind of teeth, Sarah noticed, jagged and pointy, like a couple of sharks, or grinning jack-o’- lanterns.

  He turned to her. “Bring your guitar, Sarah. We can play a few tunes.”

  “Uh … I don’t know, Peter …” she said, tapping absently at the numbers on the small jukebox on the table. She spun the dial and watched as the music selections fell one on top of the other in a metallic fan.

  “Come on. You’re great,” Peter persisted.

  Donna winked at Sarah. “That’s what all the boys say.”

  Just then, the bell on the door jangled angrily and a dozen or more students burst loudly into the coffee shop wearing matching red-and-white-striped jerseys with “FEWD” across the chest.

  “Oh God,” Donna spat. “What are they doing here?” She glared across the diner as the group took up several booths and started yelling out orders to the waitress. Snatching a quarter from a pile of change on the table, Donna leaned over and forced the coin into the jukebox, then punched a number in, cranking the volume knob as high as it would go. Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings” screamed out. “It’s pricks like that that give us students a bad name,” she said with a feigned British accent. She grabbed the Zippo and began snapping it aggressively, open and shut.

  “They’re not all bad,” Peter said.

  Sarah shot Donna a pointed look: What do you think of him now?

  Nick sauntered up to the table, apparently wearing the same filthy apron, his belly seemingly bigger. “You order or you leave.”

  “When’s it due?” Donna snorted into her hand. She smacked another cigarette from the pack and lit it. Still affecting the accent, she spoke through a cloud of smoke. “I’ll have toast and marmalade with a spot of coffee. Oh, and Nick, old man … could you be a dear and tell that group of rowdies to keep it down over there? We’re trying to have a conversation.” She raised her eyebrows and picked at her teeth with her black-polished nails.

  “Whatta you want?” Nick said, ignoring Donna’s request and pointing his pen at Peter and Sarah.

  “Same.”

  “Same.”

  Their orders arrived, and Sarah sipped the morning away with her coffee. There would be no seeing Michael today, she concluded, not with Donna on duty. She would have to hang with her throughout the day and into the night. Maybe even Peter, too. She would bide her time until she could slip away, then sneak over to Michael’s later. She definitely didn’t want to go home, not with John potentially waiting there. But she would have to put in a good show to avoid suspicion or Donna might follow her around all night. She knew she could wait it out. She’d done it often enough before.

  Hospital time was different than ordinary time. It had landmarks, but no destinations. Morning meds, 7:00 am. Breakfast, 7:30 am. Tray pickup at 9:15. Sponge bath and fresh linen, 10:30. Noon meds, 11:00 am. Lunch, 12 noon, and so on, until lights out at 9:00 pm. It was the nighttime that got especially difficult, with its liquid edges and confused intentions. Nighttime was for sleeping, though sleep rarely arrived to claim those delinquent hours. And so it was spent listening and waiting, the minutes placed end to end and stretching out toward eternity.

  “So what do you want to do?” Peter asked.

  Donna looked at him suggestively. “What are you offering?”

  “We could go to my place.”

  “And …”

  “Blow a few, if you want …”

  “Definitely want.”

  “What about you, Sarah?” Peter asked.

  “Oh, she’s in,” Donna answered for her.

  Sarah lowered her eyes. “Yeah, sure, let’s go.”

  “Okay,” Peter said, a little too excitedly. Pulling a wad of money from his pocket, he made a big show of picking up the tab, peeling off several bills with quick snaps.

  Trying to earn brownie points, Sarah thought, disdainfully.

  The three of them got up from the table and walked across the shop together.

  “Hey, look! Candy canes!” Donna chimed as they moved past FEWD territory.

  Insults and wadded-up napkins flew through the air.

  “Hey, Peter! Whatta you doing with that scag?” someone called out.

  “Get bit,” Donna called back, flicking her cigarette butt at one of the tables.

  “Thanks, Donna.” Sarah pulled up the collar on her jean jacket and dodged a napkin bomb. She pushed open the door and stepped into the autumn afternoon, the air refreshingly crisp and clear after the smoky haze of the coffee shop.

  Donna came shrieking out to the sidewalk. Lifting her kilt, she mooned the coffee shop window. “That’s the most they’ll get tonight.”

  “Doubtful,” Sarah muttered. She stood with Donna in front of the shop while Peter hung back, talking to some friends. Donna knocked on the glass, made a face at him. He raised his hand, indicating he’d only be a moment. Donna knocked louder, until Nick’s irate face appeared in the doorway.

  “You get outta here!” he yelled.

  “You get outta here!” Donna yelled back, copying his accent.

  “Jeez, Donna.” Sarah shook her head.

  Nick jabbed his arm rudely in the air. Donna did the same until Peter squeezed past the gesticulating Nick and out the door. He put his arms around Donna and Sarah, Donna talking loudly, singing, making people look. Peter squeezed Sarah’s shoulder, laughing. Dream on. Sarah turned away just in time to see Michael stepping out of the arcade at the end of the block. He squinted down at her from the doorway and watched them walk by. Watched her walk by. Their eyes met, his opinion obvious. Donna grabbed the back of Peter’s pants as they passed and stuck her tongue out at Michael. Sarah averted her eyes to the sidewalk; she’d have to explain later. Tugging the hat playfully from Sarah’s head, Donna put it on her own as Sarah squirmed to get away from Peter, who only pulled her closer.

  They stood outside the club, a line of people shifting like zombies behind them, drawn to the same place without knowing why. The music throbbed through the walls, blaring when the black-painted door opened, dampening when it slammed shut.

  “They’re friends of mine,” Peter yelled to the bouncer as the door opened again. “Sarah plays a little guitar.” He moved his fingers like he was playing a heavy riff so the bouncer would understand him.

  Sarah covered her mouth with one hand to keep from bursting out in derisive laughter. The bouncer nodded sternly at her. Looked at her chest. The music swallowed them as they pushed their way in, the crowd seething, surging, parting, fusing together. Peter’s face so close to hers.

  “What do you think?” he shouted.

  “They have to be breaking some kind of fire regulation,” she yelled back. “All these people …”

  “Yeah, on fire!” he said. He put his arm around her again and waved to his friends as if to say, “Look who I’m here with.” He turned to kiss her, trying to cop a feel under her jean jacket.

  Sarah pushed him away. “I need a beer,” she said, pointing at her throat. “I’m so dry.”

  Peter disappeared on a quest for beer. Sarah shoved through the crowd, past men looking fierce, looking hopeful. The room swaying, faces blurring. The mu
sic pressing against her, into her head, pounding to the rhythm of the pain thumping in her temples. Someone grabbed her. It was Donna, dragging her toward the washroom and the glare of fluorescent lights.

  “Look what I found,” she said, placing a little white pill into her hand. “Merry Christmas.”

  Sarah shook her head, stumbled into a bathroom stall, slammed the door and locked it.

  “Come out and dance with me,” Donna said. “Don’t be a drag, Wagner. You’re being such a drag.” She banged on the door, kicked it, waited, then finally left, the music surging and receding as the bathroom door opened and closed.

  Sitting on the edge of the toilet, Sarah made up her mind to ditch Peter and Donna both, now that she could slip out unnoticed. She flushed the pill and left the bathroom.

  But Peter was waiting for her outside the door with a pint of beer. He handed her the glass and leaned toward her, slobbering against her face. She took a gulp of beer, spilling most of it trying to dodge Peter’s groping mouth, and thought she would scream.

  “Could you hold this for a minute?” she said, sloshing the beer against his chest. Before he could figure out what was going on, she squeezed through the crowd and bolted through the rear exit into the alley, where she started to run. Afraid he would follow her, she kept running until she was over the bridge toward the park, slowing down only when she reached the stand of pine trees, the cool air helping to clear her head. Over the night-washed landscape, the moon was strapped to the sky by the crisscross of hydro wires, the forked path up the hill like frozen lightning in the grass. It pointed to the little house hiding beneath the spruce trees, one eye open. His room.

  Creeping up to the house, Sarah stood on the stone and peeked through the glass. The light was on but the room was empty. She walked around the house, gaping through the darkened windows, the accusatory faces of the masks gaping back at her. “I can’t go home,” she said aloud, making her way back to his room. Standing on the stone again, she could see that the window was slightly ajar. A small push and it swished easily open. She measured her options briefly, then clambered up, feet kicking against the side of the house, the sill cutting into her hips until she flopped onto the bed like a fish.

  Unsure of what to do, she simply lay there, her ears still ringing from the noise in the bar. What if his father came home? It would be best to leave, to pretend she was never there. But she didn’t want to go. She felt she had to see him or she would go crazy. More crazy. The pot and alcohol helped influence her decision to stay, encouraging her to put her head down on the pillow and wait for him to crawl in beside her. It was too tempting to explore, though, to see more of him. She got up slowly and moved over to the shelves.

  The stacks of videos sat neatly filed next to the TV. Each one had a clean white label bearing only the date, nothing more. Sarah selected one: January 8. She looked at it and pushed it into the machine. Turning on the TV, she adjusted the volume so there was no sound. The tape rolled and jumped. There was no image, only snow. Then the faint outline of a young child. A boy, maybe? Michael? A cousin, running along the beach? The picture was grainy, uncertain. Now the boy walked down the hallway of an old house, opening doors, the rooms cavernous and uninviting. The image cut to a dog, a golden retriever, trotting along a sidewalk, looking into the camera, a thin cord of silver trailing behind it like a luminescent spiderweb. The screen blurred with snow as the picture skipped away.

  The fog buzzed on the screen for a while before Sarah decided there was nothing else on the tape and rewound it. Putting it carefully back in its jacket, she replaced the tape on the shelf in its original spot and selected another: July 15. Again the blurred image, the tape jumping, but the same boy, it seemed. As she checked the date on the jacket again, a strange cityscape sprang up on the screen, the buildings slightly distorted, sometimes looming, sometimes wavering as though under water. Then nothing, the image fading to static. Sarah hit rewind, replaced the tape and pushed another into the machine: September 15. The tape was blurry, as before, the image snapping and jumping. But this time the figure of a woman slowly emerged. A young woman with long hair, sitting on the edge of a bed. The aspect of the room was familiar. It was Michael’s room, she realized, yet somehow different, with certain details more vivid than others, while other parts receded into shadow. The camera moved closer to the girl, her face in profile and indistinct, the features unclear except for the smile that crept across her face as she let her jacket slip from her shoulders and worked the edge of her sweater up, her long hair fanning out, her breasts blooming from beneath the sweater, exposed and full, like peonies.

  Sarah giggled, she couldn’t help herself. So this is your secret.

  The girl laughed too, her face turned away for a long while before she finally faced the camera, the image flickering, becoming cloudy, then starkly sharp. Sarah gasped.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She spun around in horror as Michael’s silhouette filled the doorway, the image of the girl still moving on the screen.

  “What—what is this?” she stammered, pointing at the screen.

  He glanced at the TV. “Turn it off. I can explain.”

  The girl in the tape continued to laugh, inching her jeans down over her hips.

  “How did you do this?” Sarah shrieked, finding her voice. “How did you get this tape of me?”

  Michael moved toward her, catching her wrists as her fists flew up to his face, beating wildly. “Listen to me. It isn’t real.”

  “Get away from me!” she screamed. She fell away from him, grabbed her bag and shoved past him, through the door and into the living room, where the masks loomed.

  “Sarah, please let me explain!”

  Struggling with the lock, she flung the door open and ran into the night. Her knees gave way as she slipped on the wet grass and stumbled down the hill. Without looking back, she picked herself up and continued to run, her hair whipping around her face, the tears stinging her eyes. She could hear him at the top of the hill, calling her name through the dark.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The oak tree shimmered with yellow and gold leaves. She had been walking toward it when she registered a sound, creeping into her slumbering consciousness, barely brushing the edge of audibility. It started low, like it was coming from somewhere in the bowels of the house, then working its way up through the damp concrete foundation and into the floorboards. It found its way into her room and, miraculously, to the receptors in her dreaming ears, forcing her awake. It grew gradually louder and more urgent. The cry of a baby. Where was it coming from? Someone had left their infant outside, obviously. Outside in the cold. Sarah eyed the rug over the trap door fearfully. She willed the parents to pick the baby up, to stop it from crying. But when its wails grew louder and more wrenching still, she covered her ears with her hands. Someone should do something. Someone should make it stop. And then it did, the wails reduced to a muffled whimpering as if someone had pushed a pillow over the child’s red little face.

  Sarah wasn’t at all comfortable. Sitting on the couch, wedged between two men she didn’t know, a drink clasped desperately in her hands, the ice melting in clear, limpid spirals into the rust-coloured brandy in her glass. Who were these guys, anyway? Too old to be at some high school party, that was clear. Lest they think she was interested, Sarah stared straight ahead, careful not to engage them with so much as a glance. Donna danced wildly in front of her, surrounded by a group of admirers, enjoying the attention.

  Sarah gulped her drink, her stomach bucking with the kick of nausea. But no matter how much she drank or how sick she felt, she couldn’t stop thinking about Michael, about the video she’d seen. Tilting her glass back recklessly, she spilled the brandy down her chin and onto her shirt.

  “Drink much?” the guy beside her yelled over the music.

  Sarah didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as look at him. To look into an insane man’s eyes is to share his insanity. Isn’t that what Donna was always saying? She
wiped her chin with her sleeve and stared into her glass. Somehow last night had become tonight. She had blurred through the entire day and into this evening. Had she even sobered up from the night before? She couldn’t remember much of anything except fumbling toward sleep and narrowly missing it, her mind staggering in and out of consciousness, the oak tree looming in her dozing state. And the baby crying. She remembered that. Now she was here, at Peter’s party. He’d looked happy to see her when she arrived, even though she’d run out on him. “A bad trip,” she’d said. He seemed to accept that. Certainly, it had nothing to do with him.

  The worst part, the part that kept her drinking, was that she really liked Michael—and that Donna was apparently right. Maybe he was just a wanker. But what had he meant when he’d said the video wasn’t real? She drained her glass, then stood up shakily and moved into the crowd. Donna pulled her into the throbbing dance.

  “It’s Nirvana, it’s ‘Breed’,” she shouted.

  “I know,” Sarah shouted back. She danced half-heartedly, Donna’s face inches from her own, laughing maniacally. One of the boys put his arms around Sarah’s waist, tried to dirty dog her. Another lurched toward her, pointing at Donna.

  “She’s something else, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Sarah yelled into his ear. “Too bad she’s gay!” She raised her eyebrows and nodded at the guy to show that she was serious, enjoying his look of shock.