Next Year, for Sure Read online

  The housemates are good to Emily, Chris can see. They let her get it out at her own pace—the call, the terrible connection, her brother running out of minutes.

  I’m so sorry, you guys, Emily says, turning to Chris and Kathryn. She steps into Kathryn and the two embrace. I love your skirt, Emily says.

  Then she holds Chris and says nothing for a long time.

  —

  Emily takes the seat that Chris has been mentally saving for her.

  So what did I miss? Emily says.

  Kendra says, Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Ahimsa Party.

  We’ve been disavowing our religious heritage, says Naveed.

  Miriam, Emily says, will you tell them about the Cult of Mariko?

  Many years ago, Miriam tells them, there was a different group of people living here. Miriam is the only one left from those days. Anyway, one of the housemates back then, Mariko, found out she had breast cancer, pretty far along, but treatable, they said. When her hair started to fall out, the rest of the house decided to shave their heads too, you know, in solidarity. We did it out on the porch, one after another. It’s a more common thing to do these days, Miriam says, but back then, well the neighbours must have wondered about all these bald heads coming and going, because a few weeks later, two men came by asking questions about who we were and what were our views. It was right after the sarin gas thing in Tokyo, so people were worried about cults. So we started calling the house the Cult of Mariko for a while, even after she was gone. Everyone loved Mariko.

  Zachary likes the idea of everyone shaving their heads. One by one, everyone at the table covers up their hair with their hands and Zachary laughs and begs them to do it for real, until Kendra takes him upstairs to get ready for bed. I wanna be a cult, he says.

  —

  A quiet contentedness settles over the table. There’s tea, still too hot to drink, and brownies Yvonne brought.

  I think I was in a cult, Kathryn says. Or my mom was, when I was a kid.

  Chris has never heard her call it this before. The first time Kathryn told him about it, she said it was a trailer park. And it is—he looked it up. But then you start to catch whiffs of things, like this trailer park had its own grade school, right there on the property. Its own church.

  Kathryn starts to tell them about the jello. All the little kids were led into the church and handed bowls of jello. It was green, she remembers, and cubed, and the children were excited because they never got sweets. They were told to eat, and then the pastor asked if anyone knew how gelatin was made. They didn’t. The pastor said they pull out the bones of baby animals and grind them into dust. You all know Bambi, the pastor said. Little Bambi? And he held up a jiggling bowlful. The kids started to cry, pushing away the half-eaten jellos, but the pastor said, No, you have to eat it all.

  They made us, Kathryn says.

  God, you poor thing, Miriam says.

  How did you get out? Naveed asks.

  And why jello? Yvonne wants to know.

  Tonsillitis, Kathryn says. That was how she got out, years later.

  Her doctor said Kathryn should have been miserable—a massive infection, raging fever, far from home—but it was the happiest he had ever seen her, those three days in the hospital. He started asking questions about things at home.

  Six months later, I was an emancipated minor, Kathryn says.

  Nobody says anything for a while. Then Kathryn raises her tea mug.

  Thank God for tonsillitis, she says, and they all drink to the blessed inflammation.

  —

  They are clearing the dishes when the phone rings. Miriam answers, then sadly holds out the receiver to Emily.

  Please don’t leave, Emily says to Chris and Kathryn. Chris watches the bottoms of her feet run up the stairs.

  Kendra comes back down from putting Zachary to bed.

  It’s bad news, she says. He wants Octopus’s Garden again.

  There is groaning and complaining among the housemates, but they carry themselves into the living room and they sing Octopus’s Garden, loud, with Naveed on acoustic guitar and Miriam playing this small accordion. Naveed isn’t great—he has to hum most of the guitar solo—but they’re all so into it, Chris thinks. Except for Moss, who is doing dishes.

  Chris sits on the loveseat with Kathryn and watches them play. He wonders what all this sounds like to Emily upstairs, hearing these inane lyrics through one ear and who knows what through the other.

  I hope she’s okay, Kathryn says.

  The housemates are moving on to Leonard Cohen now. So Long, Marianne. Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.

  Do you want to go check on her? Kathryn asks.

  Chris can’t decide if that’s the right thing to do. Instead he says, You should play, and nods to the piano.

  Naveed stops mid-verse. You play? he says.

  I only know one song.

  For god’s sake, let’s hear it, Kendra says, before this guy starts playing Pink Floyd.

  Naveed strums the opening chords of Comfortably Numb.

  It takes some coaxing, but in time Kathryn is at the piano playing her one song: His Eye Is on the Sparrow.

  Chris has only heard her play it a couple of times. It’s astounding what fingers can remember after so many years.

  —

  When Kathryn finishes the song, the housemates want to play it with her. They go through the song again and again, working on harmonies. Chris looks on from the loveseat, where Maslow the cat is circling his lap. He thinks about Kathryn learning this song note by note in that chipboard church. He thinks about Kathryn’s mom and the masking tape and the silent times and how Kathryn survived and remade herself into this person. Kathryn the Amazing, who taught herself the entire high school curriculum in ten months, who donated bone marrow to a man she’d never met, who does little dances in the kitchen to Al Green. He still can’t believe he gets to go home with her.

  —

  The singers are working on the chorus when Emily pads into the room. She sits next to Chris on the loveseat.

  Are you okay? he says under the melody.

  She takes his hand, their fingers lacing together automatically. They sit and watch their people make music.

  At the bridge, Kathryn looks back over her shoulder, and for a second, Chris wants to pull his hand away. A reflex. But Kathryn smiles at them and turns back to the piano. She’s having fun.

  Chris is not entirely certain that Kathryn saw their hands, but he thinks she did, he’s pretty sure. And for once, it feels real, whatever this is they’re doing, like something that cannot be undone. Not easily, not wholly. He looks down at Emily’s hand in his, her gnawed-down nails, his beet-stained fingers.

  CHAPTER 10

  Bachelorette

  No doubt her choice was unwise, but a choice had to be made—three hours in Sharon’s car with the always neighbourly Ann-Marie already installed in the passenger seat, a map spread purposefully across her legs; or three hours in a car with Leslie and Lori, strangers to Kathryn, math teachers.

  They all understood that Kathryn was supposed to go in Sharon’s car and that rat-like Maura would ride with Leslie and Lori, since they all know each other. But when Leslie asked, rhetorically, So who’s coming with me, Kathryn said, I can, like she was being sociable, like we’re all friends here.

  Super, Sharon had said, and motioned Maura over. Things have been quietly stiff between Sharon and Kathryn for most of a month. If asked, Sharon would probably say it was because Kathryn had disappeared for two weeks—didn’t return calls, wouldn’t acknowledge emails—and right when so much needed doing. But Kathryn suspects the real problem is that she failed to agree with Sharon on the matter of open relationships.

  It’s unwise, Sharon had said at the end of her lecture on the subject.

  Kathryn said nothing, and then asked what she should bring to the party.

  —

  For the first however-many miles, Leslie and Lori try to inclu
de Kathryn in the conversation.

  So are you excited? Lori asks, because Kathryn is the maid of honour and so should be excited. But it is hard to think much about a wedding that is still three months away. Besides, Kathryn has done all this before. She’s already been three months away from this particular wedding, the first time around. She’s already been through all the planning, the buildup.

  Maura says you used to be a teacher, Leslie says.

  Maura, the little rodent, went through teacher training with Kathryn and Sharon. They disliked Maura—her mousy keenness, her pious tattling—and they tried to avoid working in groups with her. Now Maura works at the same school as Sharon, and is apparently the kind of friend you invite to your bachelorette party.

  Maura said you do something with books now. That must be exciting, Lori says.

  I make the index at the back, Kathryn says.

  Leslie says, My word processor has a thing that does that.

  Hmm, Kathryn says.

  Still, it must be fun, Lori says, getting to read all those books.

  Kathryn assures them it is not.

  After a while, Leslie and Lori give up on Kathryn and start to talk about school stuff. Kathryn listens to the way they talk about the kids they like and the ones they don’t. They probably think Kathryn is a washout who didn’t have what it took to outsmart a bunch of five-year-olds. And maybe they’re right. Kathryn doesn’t much care what they think. In the back seat, she is increasingly insulated from their conversation by the bad Top 40 pouring from the rear speakers. Every time a song comes on that Leslie likes, she turns the radio up another notch, and never turns it back down.

  —

  It’s going on dark when they get to the cabin. Ann-Marie starts herding them around. The cabin belongs to her brother-in-law’s family, so she knows where everything goes.

  It’s a big place, three bedrooms, and Kathryn is still deciding which bed to put her bag on when Ann-Marie pushes a glass of champagne into Kathryn’s hand and shoos her into the kitchen for an announcement. Sharon is standing on a chair.

  I’m sure you’ve all been wondering, Sharon says, why we’re not having this party closer to the wedding.

  No, Kathryn has not been wondering. Kathryn remembers something about people being away for the holidays, and then scheduling conflicts in January—it’s the same reason the wedding had to be on her birthday, it’s just a hard time of year, Sharon had said—but now Sharon is on a chair saying the real reason is that she and Kyle have decided to start trying again, and that after this weekend of debauchery, Sharon won’t be drinking for quite a while.

  Kathryn watches Ann-Marie not be surprised by any of this.

  So, Sharon says, what I need from you, dear friends, is to help me squeeze all my celebrating into this weekend.

  Everyone is jubilant. They all exclaim and take turns hugging Sharon. No one mentions the last, lost baby. It’s not that Kathryn thinks they should, but there’s not even a shade of remembrance. Instead there’s champagne and tequila shots.

  —

  They drink into the night. They dance to the Cure and the B-52’s and Sharon and Kathryn are exceedingly cordial to each other. Sharon keeps using Kathryn’s name—Kathryn, can I get you another drink; Kathryn, would you like to pick the next CD—like they’ve just met and she is trying to cement the connection, but also like there isn’t already a connection.

  By midnight, they are drunk and bickering about wedding cakes.

  I took Ann-Marie to give you a break, Sharon is saying. I know you’ve got a lot going on.

  But why go to another tasting at all, is what Kathryn can’t understand. They’d already chosen a cake, the first time around. It was lemon. Sharon and Kathryn sat with the little plates and agreed the lemon was by far the best. Why choose a new one? Kathryn has been looking forward to tasting that cake again, for two years now. But Sharon, apparently, wants a new, different cake. She’d probably prefer a new, different maid of honour, too, if they were as easy to cancel as cakes.

  Kathryn says none of this. She knows she is behaving like a child and so puts herself to bed. She listens to the rest of the party from under a pillow. Around two, she considers tunnelling through the mattress, through the floor, to freedom.

  It sounds like you need Sharon to be a better friend, Emily had said once over sushi. Yeah, Kathryn had said. But Kathryn knew that if she were ever able to say that to Sharon, it would be in the past tense: I needed you to be a better friend.

  —

  At breakfast, Sharon offers up the Emily situation like a party favour. It’s noon, but they’re calling it breakfast.

  I’m not letting him have an affair, Kathryn is trying to clarify, because it’s not an affair, but the women are upon her, invigorated, titillated, their hangovers vaporized. They demand to hear everything.

  We are trying an open relationship, Kathryn says.

  So you’re swingers? Maura asks. Maura truly is an idiot.

  They basically hold hands, Kathryn says.

  That’s so much worse, says Leslie. The rest of the women agree.

  But are you seeing someone, Ann-Marie wants to know.

  I could, Kathryn says.

  Oh honey, says Ann-Marie.

  Soon, they have all the dirt they need to start making judgments: It’s not natural. It never works. You’re lying to yourself. People aren’t built that way. No one can do it in the end.

  After a while, Kathryn stops arguing. She sits and blinks and shrugs. But she is doing it in the end. It is working.

  —

  There are games in the afternoon. Truth or Dare. Who or Who. I Never. These are Ann-Marie’s doing.

  The questions are depressingly lascivious, and Kathryn can feel the women judging her whenever the topic touches on infidelity. Judged by Maura, who slept with their practicum supervisor when they were in grad school. Judged by Leslie, who talks about her husband like she doesn’t even like him, and by Lori, who just told them she has a pact with her husband about which five celebrities they’re each allowed to sleep with, guilt-free. These are the women who will judge her? These are the people who look at her relationship with Chris—with Chris, who every Sunday folds Kathryn’s clean underwear so that her favourite pair is on top and her least favourite pair on the bottom, who still mails Kathryn handwritten love letters from his office across town because she once said, years ago, that she missed the days of finding actual mail in the mailbox—these women will look at her relationship with Chris and be embarrassed for her?

  —

  Everyone was supposed to bring trivia about Sharon and Kyle, ten questions each, but nobody told Kathryn.

  Still, Kathryn could win easily. She knows the answer to every question. Of course she knows how Sharon and Kyle first met. She was there. She was there for their first fight, too. Kathryn knows their pet names and on which date they first had sex and who proposed to whom and how.

  So Kathryn could win if she wanted, and she wouldn’t say no to the prize right now—a four-ounce bottle of absinthe. But Kathryn doesn’t want to win. She doesn’t want to answer questions. Also, Sharon is lying. She is saying now that her all-time favourite song is Here Comes the Sun, but Kathryn knows it is Careless Whisper. It has been Careless Whisper as long as she’s known Sharon. Why would Sharon lie about something like that?

  —

  The one good idea Ann-Marie had was cheese fondue. The actual breaking of bread does little for the group, but the bubbling cheese has healing powers. People start telling their own stories of cheating and being cheated on. Kathryn would like to point out that there is no cheating in her case, but instead she eats more cheese. The women are talking about themselves now, not her, and Kathryn is content to let them. A box of white wine is making everyone less small-minded.

  They talk, in time, about polygamy, which they’ve seen on TV and have strong opinions about, and this strikes Kathryn as even further from the mark. But she thinks, too, that what she secretly wanted, bac
k before Sharon and Kyle were engaged, before things got weird, was for the four of them to be married somehow. Not the way they’re talking about now, where you’re in each other’s beds, but that promise, that explicit understanding that she and Chris and Sharon and Kyle were bound to each other, the four of them, for life.

  —

  They brought too much alcohol and Kathryn doesn’t want any more of it. What she wants is carrot juice and plain brown rice. She fills an empty beer bottle with water and holds it up whenever someone tries to hand her a drink.

  It’s the last night, the final push. In the morning, she can go home and this will be over.

  Realizing this, Kathryn begins to tidy. She starts to put the cabin back together as it is still being wrecked around her. It makes her feel that much closer to leaving.

  Maura finds her in the kitchen packing the leftover food.

  I just want to say, says Maura, stupid-drunk. I think you’re being so brave. I mean, I could never do it.

  This rankles Kathryn somehow, though Maura clearly thinks she has offered a great compliment. She is hugging Kathryn now and Kathryn is beginning to wonder if Maura has fallen asleep in her arms when she notices Sharon watching from the doorway.

  Sharon says, I’ll bet Chris was thrilled when you told him you’d be away all weekend.

  Maura looks around, confused, and slumps out of the room.

  He’s not seeing her while I’m gone, Kathryn says. Kathryn had asked him not to and he had said, Of course.

  And you believe that, Sharon says.

  Absolutely, Kathryn believes it. She is surprised that Sharon doesn’t believe, because Sharon knows Chris, knows how relentlessly scrupulous he is.

  Call him, Sharon says.

  Kathryn tries to smile at this, turn it into a joke.

  I dare you, Sharon says.

  Everyone has been daring each other all afternoon, like drunk children, but Kathryn will not be goaded. She would, in fact, love to call Chris right now because he would be at home and Kathryn could hear his kind voice, but she will not be told what to do. Instead, she turns to the sink and begins to pry at the burnt cheese on the bottom of the fondue pot. It’s been soaking for an hour and is just starting to give. She goes at it with a wooden spoon, a scrubbie, her fingernails. And when she finally looks back, Sharon is gone.