Part 12 (1/2)
As they walked across campus to the station underneath Hub Mall, David put his arm around Madison. A few paces behind, he could hear Raymond bawling again. It was an embarra.s.sing and distasteful display, so he attempted to drown the professor out with a father-daughter heart-to-heart.
”So,” he said. ”You going to go with cloth diapers you think? Or Huggies or whatnot?”
”I haven't thought about it, Dad.”
Mindful of her mother just ahead, discussing the upcoming theatre season with Jonas, Madison spoke quietly. David wanted to honour his daughter's discretion, so he matched her volume. ”Do you think it's a boy or a girl?”
”I don't know.”
”What are you hoping?”
Madison bit her bottom lip and furrowed her eyebrows, a look of concentration she had mastered before kindergarten. Thinking of her at that age, three or four, ponytails and scabbed knees, could have turned him into a bawling idiot like the professor. Here was his little girl, on the verge of starting her own family. It wasn't an ideal situation, of course, thanks to the typically boorish behaviour of the Quebecker, but she would have help. Lots of help.
”I guess I'm hoping for a girl,” she said.
To David, it only seemed natural to want a boy. If Abby hadn't suffered debilitating complications during Madison's birth, they would have tried for a boy and named him Jake. ”If it's a boy, I think you should name him Jake.”
”Can we talk about it later? I'm scared Mom's going to hear, and if I don't tell her myself, in that mother-daughter way, she'll be crushed. You know how Mom likes things.”
”Do I ever.”
David imagined the confession. It would have to be in the dining room, over dinner, with Tchaikovsky or Cuban something-or-other playing on the hi-fi. Madison would have to announce, coyly, that she had news, and Abby would have to turn down the music and prepare herself by sitting up straight. Then she would insist on guessing. She would guess a new job, then a new boyfriend. After her two unsuccessful guesses, Madison would make the announcement and the screaming and hugging and kissing and hysterical planning would commence.
They entered the LRT station and started down the stairs to purchase their tickets. David took the bowl of hummus from his wife and whispered ”waste of money,” just loud enough for her to hear. Whereafter he endured a swift kick in the s.h.i.+n. Then, downstairs on the platform, as they waited for a car to arrive, a couple of drunken hillbillies in jean jackets wrestled and b.u.mped into an elderly woman reading a novel. As David started over to give them a stern lecture, the hillbillies shocked him by picking up the woman's book and apologizing like gentlemen.
David leaned against the emergency phone and counted. That made three surprises in one night.
34.
six guesses Back when he started acting, Jonas was p.r.o.ne to diarrhea and even fainting before a show. Almost nothing unnerved him now. Yet in one week, he had found himself shaken by Carlos the suburban theatregoer and, oddly, by the Let's Fix It meeting.
Inside Commerce Place, between the art gallery and the men's spa, Jonas turned and stopped his neighbours. No one had said a word since they exited the train, not even Abby Weiss, and the tension was beginning to cause sour gurgles in his stomach. ”What's going on here?”
No one answered. The neighbours looked at one another and then back at Jonas. Madison shrugged. ”We're going to the Let's Fix It meeting. How many gla.s.ses of wine did you drink, Jonas?”
”I know what's going on. What I mean is, what's going on? We're acting like we're about to be executed.”
Abby lifted her hummus, said, ”Um, h.e.l.lo?” and turned to s.h.i.+rley, who lifted her bowl of baba ghanouj.
”We're all thankful for the dips, ladies. No, it's the tension I can't stand. I feel like going back home or turning straight into the nearest bar. Are we a community or what? Are we doing something positive here?”
David stepped forward and stood next to Jonas. He shook the bag of pitas and cut vegetables. ”I think I know what Jonas is getting at. We have to go into this thinking like a team, a winning team.”
”I'm going to need some serious pharmaceuticals to feel like a winner,” said Raymond Terletsky.
Jonas had an urge to slap the weepy professor. But not slapping your neighbours, he remembered, is the very essence of community. Instead, Jonas whistled and waved everyone into the rotunda. Under the skylight, in the centre of the building's chi, Jonas had his neighbours form a circle. He stood in the middle. Just when he was about to make his announcement, Madison whispered, ”k.u.mbaya, my Lord, k.u.mbaya.”
The neighbours laughed, and Jonas pointed at her. ”Don't upstage me, woman.”
”Sorry.”
”This is all I can do. This is all I got.”
”Sorry. Really.”
A few moments of dramatic silence pa.s.sed. Then, Jonas said, ”We're going to have a contest.”
Abby clapped around her bowl of hummus. ”Goody, goody!”
”Everyone has to guess what the Let's Fix It meeting is going to be about, and whoever's closest to the real thing wins a bottle of wine. And not just Wolf Bla.s.s either. We'll all throw in ten bucks and buy something nice.”
It took a moment of shuffing and sighing, but they eventually agreed. The professor managed a diabolical smile. ”Who guesses first?”
Abby raised her hand. ”I know what it is. The people who own the High Level Diner are going to set up a charity for Katie Perlitz's post-secondary education.”
”No way,” said her husband. ”This is for time shares in Kelowna. Either that or it's an invitation into a pyramid scheme. I smelled this one ages ago, compadres. Within the hour, we're gonna be sitting across from closers with bad cologne.”
Jonas swivelled. ”s.h.i.+rley, what do you think?”
”I don't have a guess.”
”Come on. You have to guess.”
She took a step closer to her husband. ”Maybe it's Jeanne Perlitz herself, wanting to speak to us all.”
Everyone rumbled with appreciation and approval. ”Ooh, you're going to win,” said Abby.
Raymond cleared his throat and said, ”I'm hoping to walk through a portal. Either a time machine or a door into another dimension. The seventh or eighth. Or maybe we're going to have a seance.”
”What dimension are we in now, professor?” said David Weiss.
”Third. Third or fourth. I don't know. We're in the TV dimension.”
Jonas pointed to Madison.
”I've thought a lot about it since the signs went up but I can't figure out what it could be.” Madison stepped out of the circle toward the optical store, and then came back. ”What if this is standard for neighbourhoods where something awful happens? What if there's a nice lady, a rich fairy-G.o.dmother type from Old Glenora, who throws parties for people who live next to murder-suicides and drive-by shootings and kidnappings and rapes? Maybe there's going to be yoga and grief counselling.”
”My hummus is grief counselling,” said Abby.
Jonas looked at his watch. ”We're five minutes late. Perfect.” He walked out of the circle and started toward the rotunda and the escalators, and his neighbours followed. It was his turn to guess, and he wanted them to ask for it.