Part 19 (1/2)

48.

s.h.i.+rley wong acquires billets The hockey billets were named Craig Buckner and Blair Kravchuk, but everyone called them Steamer and Patch. They moved in on the first Monday of October, just as the crisp leaves and crabapples began to clutter s.h.i.+rley Wong's backyard. As she gave the boys a tour of their bedrooms in the bas.e.m.e.nt, she attempted to refer to them as Craig and Blair, but they were adamant about being Steamer and Patch.

”Really, Mrs. Wong,” said Steamer, the blond Mormon boy from Cardston with big blue eyes. ”No one calls us anything else, except our parents.”

”I'm Patch,” said Patch, the slow-talking giant from Lac La b.i.+.c.he. ”I'm just Patch, you know what I'm saying?”

Chopping onions and garlic upstairs, while Patch unpacked and yelled at Steamer about how much he was hating this final year of high school, s.h.i.+rley wondered if she had done the right thing.

There was so much extra room in the house, and after thirty years of marriage she had found the silence of the last few weeks to be disturbing. Yet Steamer and Patch lacked the rhetorical skill and eager curiosity of her children, whose travels through the house she had really been hoping to replace.

For years, she had watched hockey with three high-school friends. Two had recently moved to acreages and the third had sworn off the game during the NHL strike. So the hockey talk with Steamer and Patch would be sublime. But she couldn't imagine sitting in the living room with Steamer and Patch after dinner, watching Biography on A&E. She couldn't imagine referring to them by their preferred nicknames without feeling like a disc jockey on the cla.s.sic rock station.

Steamer, she had learned, after some embarra.s.sed laughter, was called Steamer for his tendency to take bowel movements in locker rooms just before games. Patch liked to squeal the tires of his truck as he accelerated from a resting position. In Lac La b.i.+.c.he, and apparently elsewhere, this was called ”laying a patch.”

Neither boy had heard anything about the tragedy at 10 Garneau. It seemed neither boy had ever read a newspaper or watched The National. When she told them what had happened across the street, Patch seemed to be thinking about something else. His truck, for instance.

Steamer had been puzzled. How could someone gamble all his money away? How could a woman just kick her husband out of his own house? Why had the law not intervened earlier? For Steamer, the events at 10 Garneau simply reinforced his feeling that life in the city was altogether wrong.

For their first dinner together, s.h.i.+rley prepared a large tray of lasagna with Caesar salad and garlic bread. She put a bottle of red wine on the table and tuned the stereo to the modern rock station. s.h.i.+rley was about to call the boys for dinner when Patch bounded up the stairs in his jean jacket. He smelled of cheap, musky cologne.

”I'm headin' out, Mrs. Wong.”

”Ms.”

”Huh?”

”Aren't you hungry, Patch? I'm just finis.h.i.+ng dinner.”

Patch stepped into his cowboy boots. ”Me and some of the guys are gonna hit DQ or something later, after a couple beers on Whyte. We're just goin' out for a couple or whatever.”

”Is that allowed? You're just seventeen, aren't you?”

Patch ignored the question and walked, in his slightly bow-legged way, out the back door. His heels were so heavy on the sidewalk leading to the parking pad that she could hear him through the closed kitchen window. The engine of his big red truck roared. To her relief, he didn't lay a patch.

At the top of the stairs, s.h.i.+rley called down to Steamer that dinner was ready.

”Hot dog!” he said, and hurried up in a pair of sweatpants and a red T-s.h.i.+rt with a scary clown on the front. Underneath the clown it said, ”Cardston Children's Festival, 1996.”

s.h.i.+rley sat across from Steamer, who quickly prayed and then clasped his hands in antic.i.p.ation. He looked shocked at the food, but s.h.i.+rley came to understand that on account of his uncommonly large eyes Steamer always looked shocked. The boy filled his plate with lasagna and salad and bread, then turned to the stereo and cringed. ”Mrs. Wong?”

”Ms.”

”Can we listen to something else?”

s.h.i.+rley hadn't been paying attention to the music, but it featured squealing guitars and angry vocals. ”Sure, Steamer.”

”I listen to a lot of that stuff around the team and it's just that...”

”Cla.s.sical?”

”How about country? You got that?”

”Some. We have Willie Nelson, I believe. Hank Williams maybe. Patsy Cline.”

Steamer excused himself and hurried out of the dining room and downstairs. He came up with a pile of CDs, and put one in. It was pop country music, with lyrics about Jesus. ”My parents don't like me listening to this sort of thing too too much but it doesn't hurt.”

”No.” s.h.i.+rley shook her head, lying. ”It doesn't hurt.”

For the next while, Steamer talked about finding a compromise between living the gospel and playing hockey with boys in a state of total apostasy. He pointed to her gla.s.s of wine. ”Like, I don't know how you could drink alcohol. It's totally wrong. But I have to accept that, right?”

”Right, Steamer.”

s.h.i.+rley ate a small piece of lasagna and a few forkfuls of salad. Then she sat back and listened to Steamer talk about his religion. A few times, she tried to engage him in a discussion of the Edmonton Jesterstheir prospects in the AJHLbut it only led him into a discussion of his teammates and their rampant sinning.

The phone rang and s.h.i.+rley hopped for it. Her new evening helper at the Rabbit Warren was having a bit of trouble with the Interac machine.

”I'll be right there.”

”How about I just re-start it. Maybe...”

”I'll be right there!” s.h.i.+rley hung up the phone. ”I'm sorry, Steamer, it's an emergency at my store.”

He stood up. ”Can I help in any way?”

”No thanks.”

”What an awesome dinner. I'll wash up the dishes how about?”

”That would be very good of you, Steamer.”

He smiled, raised his eyebrows, and lifted his chin.

In the backyard, unlocking her bike, s.h.i.+rley began thinking of ways to get rid of Steamer and Patch. s.h.i.+rley wondered if she had been too hard on Raymond. Maybe they were all twits and beyond judgment. Then she felt like a twit for falling under his spell, for trusting himthemfor so long. Were they capable of any better? Lost in this line of reasoning, s.h.i.+rley discovered she had forgotten the combination of her bike lock. She tried one last time, but the numbers around the dial meant nothing to her. Thinking she was alone, un.o.bserved, s.h.i.+rley prepared to break into a good cry.

Just to make sure, she looked back at the house. Standing at the sink, Steamer looked out at her with his permanently shocked eyes. s.h.i.+rley decided to walk to the Rabbit Warren.

49.

a dance with mr. goober In front of the mirror in her tiny bathroom, Madison practised her French. Je voudrais manger des caillettes provencales ou un boeuf bourguignon. Yet she reserved a small percentage of emotional distance. No one could deny this was their first night out together without Jonas or her parents or Garith or the lunatic professor, but Rajinder had not used the word date.

Yet.