Part 4 (2/2)

”Are we gonna write letters to the editor?”

”Yes!” said the crowd, in unison.

”Are we gonna live the change we want?”

”Yes!”

”Are we gonna play dead?”

”Yes!”

That was the formal end of his presentation. The crowd clapped and he lifted his hands. ”Now comes the hard part,” he said. ”At booth twenty, I have chapbooks and CDs and sandal-wood soap and T-s.h.i.+rts for sale...”

s.h.i.+rley walked close enough to the chanting circle to see that Abby was still waving around for the door handle. So she checked her wallet and was delighted to discover two crisp twenty-dollar bills.

At the organic beer and wine garden, s.h.i.+rley bought a gla.s.s of Chardonnay and wandered around looking for a seat. All of the tables and most of the chairs were taken. Finally, after walking through the area three times, a woman and her male companion waved.

”Would you like to join us?”

”Thank you,” said s.h.i.+rley, and sat.

The couple introduced themselvesChris and Nancy Cook. They each had a gla.s.s of beer and a bag full of pamphlets, hygiene products, and carob snacks. They pointed out their thirteen-year-old son, Noam Chomsky Cook, who sat with his Game Boy just outside the fence. When s.h.i.+rley said she owned the Rabbit Warren, they complimented her on the store.

”Though you could certainly have more fair trade products,” said Chris. ”Don't you think?”

s.h.i.+rley had endured criticism like this from Abby. Rather than explain the retail business to the Cooks, she nodded and took a sip of organic Chardonnay.

The activist fair was no less hollow than professional hockey, no less hollow than anything she could buy or sell or experience on a night like tonight. Trapped in the vinaigrette aftertaste of the wine, s.h.i.+rley wished she had just stayed home with Raymond, in the b.l.o.o.d.y echo of the house across the street. An echo that likely inspired her recent and unprecedented bout of skepticism. Doubt. Gloom.

”Not that we're asking you to change,” said Nancy. ”Goodness knows.”

After another sip of Chardonnay, with her nose plugged, s.h.i.+rley cleared her throat. ”Almost everything in my store is from Canada and the United States. I try to focus on local artists.”

”Oh,” said Nancy.

”Almost.” Chris leaned back in his chair and touched his goatee. ”What does 'almost' mean?”

”Not that we're, you know,” said Nancy.

Chris began telling s.h.i.+rley about their recent trip to Peru, wherein he understood for the first time that life here in the northern half of the world is what the Latin Americans call una bromaa joke. He used the words bourgeoisie and imperialism in one sentence. The music and singing from the chanting circle halted, and a great roar of applause began. s.h.i.+rley was just about to tell Chris and Nancy Cook to eat their German sandals when Noam Chomsky appeared at the fence. ”Can we go home now?”

”What's your highest score, buddy?” Chris raised his voice toward jollity but didn't actually look at his son.

”I got 1,449.”

”As soon as you get over 1,500, then we'll go.”

Noam Chomsky stood staring at his parents for a long moment, and then returned to his spot on the rubber floor of the b.u.t.terdome. Beyond him, the chanting circle had broken up. s.h.i.+rley could see Abby wandering around, with her hand above her eyes as though she were blocking out the sun.

Risking a gastrointestinal revolt, s.h.i.+rley plugged her nose again and finished her gla.s.s of wine. ”It was a real treat.”

”The pleasure was ours,” said Chris.

”Absolutely,” said Nancy.

The Cooks didn't stand up to shake s.h.i.+rley's hand, so she didn't bother leaning down to shake theirs. This experience at the activist fair, in sum, had been the opposite of a Rotary meeting.

s.h.i.+rley exited the organic beer and wine garden and pa.s.sed over Noam Chomsky Cook, who looked down at a blank screen. Noam Chomsky was only pretending to play his Game Boy. In the distance, Abby spotted s.h.i.+rley and started jogging toward her.

Instead of meeting Abby halfway, s.h.i.+rley bent down and put her hand on Noam Chomsky's head. ”It gets better.”

Noam Chomsky placed his Game Boy on the rubber floor. ”When?”

14.

a white van arrives.

In their investigations, no detectives or CSIS agents had battered down Madison's bas.e.m.e.nt suite door. No one had even left a voicemail message. The police cars hadn't stayed long Monday night, so she a.s.sumed the attempted break-in at 10 Garneau had been blamed on teenage miscreants or frat boys. Poor teenage miscreants and frat boys: how much of their nasty reputations did they truly deserve?

All week the crisp mornings had given way to warm afternoons and evenings with light, fragrant winds, the sorts of September afternoons and evenings that inspired false hope in Edmontonians. How could snow dare destroy this?

On Thursday, her day off, Madison agreed to help her mother clear a final growth of weeds from the flowerbeds in their front yard. Though they had talked constantly for almost two hours, Madison had absorbed precisely nothing of her mother's current opinions on global warming, same-s.e.x marriage, marijuana deregulation, and the tenor of a new and inevitable Alberta, controlled by a fiscally conservative yet socially liberal and enlightened urban elite.

”I love talking politics with you, love it.” Abby trimmed three rose bushes, tossing the dead or unnecessary bits in a pile of dandelion carca.s.ses. ”You don't interrupt me. You never laugh sarcastically or call me a pinko. Your father is my husband and my best friend but sometimes I'd just like to take a strap of leather and...”

The soil was so warm and moist, Madison wanted to crawl into it with the earthworms and huddle for six months. When she emerged, strong and rested and wise with her baby, she would be healed. No more anxiety or laziness or regret or confusion.

Madison knew it was immoral and foolish to squander these hours with her mother, who was nearly sixty and would not live forever. Already some parents of her childhood friends had succ.u.mbed to cancer; Madison went to three or four funerals every year. In 2002, Jonas lost his grandfather, mother, and cat. Crawling out of his sorrow, what had Jonas suggested? Jonas, who didn't carry a teaspoon of mush in his heart? Listen to them. Phone them back when they call. Go for breakfast. Watch bad movies on Sunday nights. Tell them you love them.

Recalling this advice made Madison's daughterly transgressions seem doubly sinister. As she ignored her mother, she chewed on the consequences of ignoring her mother. A good person would make a memory out of this afternoon in the yard. Instead, Madison stuck her hands deeper into the soil, and twisted them, and made fists.

”...and what kind of person even thinks about buying a Hummer? It's a crime against humanity. And guess what your father thinks? He thinks they're cool. Cool! As though his Yukon Denali isn't big and pointless enough. To him I say, once global warming melts the Arctic and the oceans go cold and start another ice age, well, what then? What about Madison, or your grandchildren ifwe hope and hopewe have grandchildren? What are they going to do when Alberta is rendered uninhabitable?”

”We'll move to Belize.”

”Madison Weiss! How could you say such a thing.”

The women were ten feet apart in the yard, separated by a tray with ice water in a sealed pitcher. Madison crawled over and poured herself a gla.s.s, and watched Abby clip and trim, the purple veins snaking through her legs and the slight tremble in her hands. ”I love you, Mom.”

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