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When the school year ended, and we all went our separate ways, I didn’t see Rob again, and it was pre-BlackBerry. I didn’t have his number at home, and I hadn’t given him mine. Anyway, I’d cut off my phone in Kingston once my roommates left because I didn’t want to pay the bill, and we weren’t coming back to this apartment. Carl came to get me in his brother’s pickup, and he carted my worn-down furniture home to the basement to store it for the summer.
Rob drifted away, and I was fine with it—a fling, nothing serious; we were too different anyway. Meghan had just moved out, too, and she let me crash in her bachelor apartment at Yonge and Eglinton. We worked at a bar across the street, and I doubled up by doing extra weekend shifts at the old movie theater on Yonge. I loved that job, and watched so many great films that summer.
My mother begged us both to come back and stay with her and Carl, but it wasn’t ever really home. Neither my sister nor I wanted to return. Meghan needed her freedom, and I didn’t want to be parented. No matter how hard it got between me and Meg, we never boomeranged after leaving. My mother was happy and settled, but that didn’t mean that we were too. The city was big enough that I didn’t run into anyone from high school, even though I could have if I wanted to. And I could have called Tanya or even some other friends from Queen’s, but I didn’t—I kept my circle tight to me and Meghan, the two against the world perspective we’d always had. My high school years had been rough, and the last thing I needed was to do what I had done last summer, which was fall back into an awful, toxic relationship with my ex and then feel bruised before starting my third year of university like I did my second. Bad relationships were my north star. The worse my ex treated me, the more I went back, the more worthless I felt, the more I decided that was love. And cocooning myself with my sister was the only way I knew to break the habit.
* * *
At the end of that summer, back in Kingston, I ran into Rob at a massive house party Tanya dragged me to. The living room of the house on Alfred Street was packed, the air in short supply. When he smiled at me from across the room—half a head taller than anyone else, tanned from spending the summer sailing, handsome, and so inviting—I melted in an embarrassingly typical girly way. The way he leaned in close, half talked, and half whispered, nuzzling deep into my neck before pulling me tighter and tighter—it wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt with anyone. I felt sexy. I didn’t feel angry, or used up, or desperate for his attention.
It still felt like July, even though it was early September when I pulled Rob out of the party. “You disappeared,” he said. “I came to see you after my last final and poof you were gone, like you never were there at all.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Do you want me to make it up to you?”
“Yes,” Rob said. “I do.”
As we made out back at my new, sparsely furnished apartment (my roommates were still missing), I was surprised I was still so attracted to him. He was long, broad, and naturally strong. I loved the sight of his arms when he was on top of me, and the fine hair on his chest. “I like you so much, Kelly,” he said. “Try not to disappear again.”
We lay in bed, and he told me how he had started off at Queen’s taking history so he could go to law school, like his dad, but he had hated every minute of the humanities. After he switched to commerce he found out how happy he was being embroiled in numbers. Up, down, back, and forth—the market, in all its unpredictability, was exciting for Rob. He could play in the stock market. He had that freedom. I told him that I didn’t even know what a stock was and had no idea how they worked besides watching Gordon Gekko inWall Street.
He laughed at my film reference, and I took off his shirt again so I could run my hands up and down his smooth stomach muscles. The next time the sex was urgent, over almost too quickly, and then he confessed. “I kind of have a girlfriend.”
“Why are you here if you have a girlfriend? I’ve been there and done that, and I’m not up for it again.”
“It’s been off and on for a long time. She goes to school in Montreal. I haven’t even seen her since the beginning of the summer. It’s something we do, break up and get back together, you know? Don’t you have someone like that?”
I wasn’t ready for a confession, not a full one, anyway. “I did,” I replied. “And then I grew up.”
“Harsh!” He laughed. “Ouch! You’re burning me up with your maturity. I’ll call her tomorrow. I promise.”
We’d been together ever since.
* * *
Rob came back into the bedroom and flopped onto the bed. “God, my mother drives me crazy when she’s not happy with something. Are you sure you don’t mind staying the night?”
“If it’ll make her stop calling six times a day until we do what she wants, yes,” I said. “And I’m so sorry, but Marianne from work and her ridiculously named boyfriend Cash are coming to dinner on the twenty-seventh along with Garrett and Jen. Don’t worry—I’ve already promised Garrett that I’m not cooking. We’ll order Indian food. He’s a vegetarian.”
He started to object, but before he could say anything, I squished down to face him and cut in. “I apologize. Sincerely. She invited herself. I forgot my card key today after lunch and called her so she could let me in. I was all preoccupied and Marianne asked about our holiday plans, said something about knowing Garrett since high school, and all of a sudden, she’s baking dessert.”
He threw his arms around me, squeezed my ass, and pulled me tight to him. “We’ll make it work. But you can pay me back for the inconvenience of feeling like the odd man out with your work friends. Right now.” He kissed my neck.
“Thank you for not making me feel like a total shit.”
“You are a total shit. But I still love you.”
We kissed for a while with our clothes on, like teenagers. Then he changed into the sweats he always wore to sleep and turned on the TV to watch the news. I grabbed the remote and switched over to the channel that was always playingLaw & Order. I yawned as Rob pressed himself back up into a seated position. “Where are those chips? Seriously. I need the whole bag.”
He shook his head. “You are going to end up a potato. It’s not good to eat so much crap. And you can’t in bed. Go”—he pushed me out of bed—“watch TV in the living room, I’ve seen this episode ofLaw & Ordersixteen times.”
“Look.” I flashed him. “I’m still young. It hasn’t caught up with me yet. I can eat all the chips that I want.”
“Out!” he said. “New Year’s resolution for the household: no more chips, no more all-nighters, and no more burgers for lunch,” he said.
“Fine. But it’s not the new year yet, so I’m eating those chips.”
After falling asleep on the couch and getting a decent night’s sleep, the next morning I could face the last day of work before the holidays. As usual, Rob was long gone before I even gained consciousness. He’d left me a note printed neatly in all caps:PLEASE PICK UP A BOTTLE OF NICE WINE FROM THE LIQUOR STORE IN THE UNDERGROUND BY YOUR OFFICE. I WON’T HAVE TIME. LOVE YOU.Tucking it into my purse, I left the condo, late as usual. If I made all my transit connections, I might get to work by nine-thirty, which wasn’t too bad for me.
We usually finished work at six. I could muster the strength of mind it took to happily work until the sky was completely dark, and we should all be enjoying predinner cocktails. That said, they never made us work the whole day on Christmas Eve. Siobhan would start sending people home after lunch and shut the phones down with a message that we’d all be returning after the New Year. But because Beth and I had the huge party on New Year’s, I guessed we’d be the last to be let go.
