12 Rose Street (17 page)

When Zack rehearsed the lyrics at home, we both cringed at the line about how the speaker took his blows and did it his way. But Zack had an actor’s voice and an actor’s ability to get inside the words. That late afternoon in a generic funeral chapel empty except for six people and the Inferno Red urn that contained all that was left of Cronus, the opening lines of the song touched a chord in me.

I remembered the small smile that played on Cronus’s lips when he reached his decision about using the silver
bullet. “We only live once,” he’d said. “Might as well make it count.”

At the end, Cronus had made his life count. I’d read through the
ALS
pamphlets that he’d collected. He could have lived another five years. They would not have been easy years, but he would have been alive to all the quotidian joys that life offers. Instead, he had chosen the hero’s option. He traded his life for something larger than himself, and he had faced the end with defiance and pride. When Zack finished and Sinatra’s distinctive baritone filled the chapel, I was in tears. Zack and I listened hand in hand until the song was over. Despite Cronus’s directive, I said a prayer. By the time I looked up again, Slater Doyle, the undercover officer, and the old woman were gone.

“Time to go,” Zack said. Angus picked up the orchids and the photograph. Zack put the urn on his lap and led the way out of the chapel.

When we stepped outside into the sun, Zack took a hard look at my face. “Why don’t we put off dinner at the Sahara Club until you’re feeling better,” he said.

“Good plan,” I said. “I’m not quite ready to take on a slab of meat. Would you mind waiting, Angus?”

“Nope. Okay, if I come back to the condo and talk about a couple of things with Zack?”

“Fine with me,” I said. “You guys and Taylor can decide what to order in. I’m going to bed. You can bring me a plate.”

“You hate eating in bed,” Zack said.

“I do, but a week from today is my birthday. It’s also our first citywide rally, and I plan to be in fighting trim.”

The intervening week was without incident, which, given our campaign’s recent history, was reason enough to celebrate. My fifty-eighth birthday started out the way the best birthdays should. Zack and I made love, and because we no longer had to follow the porcupine rule of having sex very carefully, we were adventurous. Afterwards, Zack gave me my first gift of the day, a pedicure using a deep red nail polish in a shade called “Throb.” When Brock and I got back from our first mercifully foreshortened post-accident walk with the dogs, he asked me to wait on the third floor while he dashed into his condo and came out with a gift box. Inside was a gift certificate for Crocus and Ivy, my favourite everything-I-don’t-need-but-long-to-have shop, and a T-shirt with the message “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Can I order these T-shirts by the gross?”

“I’ll look into it,” Brock said. “Happy Birthday, Jo.”

There were surprises waiting at my place at the breakfast table. Taylor and I always exchanged wacky socks on birthdays. Over the years we’d been fiercely competitive about
who could find the craziest pair. That morning as I opened the box Taylor watched my face carefully. The socks inside weren’t our usual machine wash–tumble dry horrors; they were gorgeous – obviously hand-knit of brilliantly coloured wool in striking patterns.

“Taylor, these are amazing,” I said. “Where did you get them?”

“I made them,” she said. “I went online and found the pattern – it’s Icelandic. I’d never seen anything like that combination of colours and patterns before, so I went down to Knit-Wit and bought the wool. Do you really like them?”

“I love them,” I said.

Taylor sighed with relief. “Good, but just in case, I have a backup present.” She handed me a gift pack of Chanel bath products.

“Perfect,” I said. “I can’t think of anything I would enjoy more. Now, I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

“Not so fast,” Zack said. He wheeled into the living room and came back with a ceramic sculpture that was unmistakably Joe Fafard’s work. The sculpture was of my old friend, the artist Ernest Lindner. The piece was relatively small – perhaps a foot tall. Ernest sat in his easy chair, wearing his usual overalls and blue slippers, smoking his pipe and looking, as he always did, fiercely interested. I had admired the piece from the first time I saw it, in Ernie’s house decades before.

When Ernest died, I was a single parent with three children. A piece of Joe Fafard art was wildly out of my price range, but I’d always remembered this piece, and now here it was.

Zack, looking like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary, pushed his chair close. “You’re pleased with your present?”

“I’m ecstatic,” I said. “How did you find it?”

“I had Darrell Bell track it down,” Zack said. “A guy in Calgary owned it, and now you own it.”

I examined the piece. “It’s perfect,” I said. “And Joe got Ernie’s expression just right – he was fascinated by the human comedy. Ernie was ninety-one when he died, but he never seemed old to me. He used to say there’s always something new to discover.”

“Not a bad thought for a birthday,” Zack said.

Jill called early to say “Happy Birthday” and apologize because she’d ordered her present online and it hadn’t been delivered yet. She sounded tense, but when I asked if there was something wrong, she said she’d been burning the candle at both ends and the lack of sleep had caught up with her. I knew the feeling.

I spent the rest of the morning doing exactly what I wanted to do. During my recuperation, long, hot baths in Epsom salts had been part of my regimen. That morning I filled the tub, left the Epsom salts in the medicine cabinet, and opened the Chanel No. 5 soap and bath gel set. After my bath, I dressed and went over to Margot’s to play with Lexi and check out the colours Margot had chosen for Lexi’s brother’s nursery and the outfits she’d already bought him. Not surprisingly, Brock had already contributed everything the well-dressed newborn needed to prove he was a Saskatchewan Roughriders fan.

Margot and I took our tea into the family room, where we watched Lexi carefully place different sizes of brightly striped balls into bowls, then dump the bowls and start again. “She loves balls,” Margot said. “Look what Brock’s taught her to do.” Margot sat on the floor and then opened her legs in a V. Lexi crawled across the room, ball in hand, bumped down into a sitting position, imitated the V of her mother’s legs, then rolled the ball to Margot, who rolled it
back, and so it went until Lexi crawled over to me and handed me the ball. “Your turn,” Margot said. And so Lexi and I rolled the ball back and forth in Margot’s sunny family room. “I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday than this,” I said.

“You deserve a good birthday,” Margot said. “You’ve had a harrowing month, but you’re through it. You look great, Jo.”

“I had a very nice beginning to my day.”

Margot had one of the all-time great dirty laughs. “I knew it. I could tell when you walked in the door. You and Zack are like teenagers.”

“We started late. Now, I’d better get a move on. There are a few dozen details about the rally I should check on.” I crawled over and scooped up Lexi, who rewarded me with a lovely gummy smile. I hugged her close. “That smile is my second best present so far,” I said. Margot slipped into the family room and came back with a pastel envelope.

“It’s for a year of spa days for you and friends of your choosing. Of course, I’m hoping that Lexi and I will always be on the list. It’s a very selfish gift.”

“That’s not a selfish gift,” I said. “In Milo’s words, it’s fucking inspired.” We both laughed, but when Lexi joined in the laughter, Margot and I grimaced.

After the Racette-Hunter complex was completed, the R-H staff moved out of the old converted Noodle House that had served as their temporary offices into the new building. That left the space on Cornwall Street vacant, and Zack and Brock’s campaigns rented it for their headquarters. The old Noodle House was bright and airy but small for the number of workers involved in two campaigns. People worked cheek by jowl, many sitting on exercise balls, listening to classic rock, using each other’s desks and office supplies, overhearing one another’s conversations and fuelling themselves on
bad coffee and greasy doughnuts. But spirits were high, and whenever I swung by, it appeared that everybody was having fun getting things done.

The rally had been my idea. Our suppertime neighbourhood hot-dog barbecues had worked well, and I wanted to build on our success. We’d rented the Pile O’ Bones Club, a facility that was strategically located near the city’s centre. The name of the club was an allusion to Regina’s past. Before the arrival of settlers in the 1880
S
, First Nations hunters stacked the bones of the buffalo they killed in a pile, believing that buffalo herds would return to the area to visit the ancestral bones. The hunters named the area Oskana-Ka-asateki, or “the place where bones are piled.” The explorers, fur traders, surveyors, and settlers who moved through the area, needing a name that was less Cree and more catchy, took to calling the settlement “Pile O’ Bones,” but Princess Louise, wife of the Governor General, decided that the new settlement deserved a more regal identity, so Pile O’ Bones became Regina.

Despite a name that was a romantic allusion to our city’s past, the Pile O’ Bones Club was without charm. However it was also large, fully accessible, and surrounded by a patchy lawn where we could set up barbecues. We’d hired a couple of local bands, invested heavily in wieners, buns, condiments, and juice, and crossed our fingers about the weather and the turnout. The plan was for people to pick up a hot dog and a drink, enjoy the sunshine and music, then come inside, listen to Brock introduce the men and women who were running as progressives for city council, and hear Zack reiterate what was at stake in the election.

Because it was my birthday, after Zack finished firing up the troops, our kids, grandkids, and I would join him and a giant cake would be rolled out on stage. Everybody would sing “Happy Birthday.” Taylor and our granddaughters would
help me blow out the candles, then we’d all hit the streets and go full out to elect a new mayor.

When I dropped by Shreve–Poitras headquarters to pick up the cheques for the hall rental and the bands, the place was deserted. Our workers were already at the Pile O’ Bones. I was just about to lock up and leave when Slater Doyle came through the front door.

“If you came to buy a T-shirt, you’re out of luck,” I said. “Looks like our volunteers have already taken them all to the rally.”

Slater’s expression was grave. “Is there some place we can talk privately?”

I gestured to the empty room. “Choose a chair.”

“We should be somewhere where no one can walk in on us.”

There was a small office at the rear of the building that was used for storage. I led Slater to it. When he closed the door behind him and leaned against it, I felt a twinge of panic.

“This won’t take long,” he said. “We need to talk about how you want to deal with an affair your husband had.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said. “Zack has always been open about his past. I’m not crazy about the number of women he was involved with, but I’ve accepted it.”

“This isn’t about Zack,” he said. “It’s about your first husband, Ian Kilbourn.”

The walls of the tiny, cluttered office seemed to close in on me. I took a deep breath. “Go on,” I said.

“Do you remember a woman named Valerie Smythe?” Slater asked.

“Of course,” I said. “She was Ian’s secretary.” The image of Valerie – tall, spare, severe, and watchful – flashed through my mind. Valerie’s job was taking care of Ian, and her job was her life. She was, in the phrase of the time, “the office wife.”

“Ian would not have been romantically involved with Valerie Smythe,” I said.

“You’re right,” Slater said.

“Slater, what’s this all about?” I said. “Ian’s been dead almost fifteen years. If there was an affair, making it public now won’t affect the outcome of the election.”

“Depending on what you decide today, it could,” Slater said evenly.

Slater was still blocking my access to the door that led out of the room. My panic was rising. I tried to keep my tone rational. “I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “What could Valerie Smythe have to do with this election? After Ian died, she was just another name on my Christmas card list.”

“Apparently, after you and Zack married, Valerie found your Christmas cards offensive. She felt you were rubbing it in.”

“Rubbing
what
in?” I said

“Her fall from grace,” Slater said. “Valerie Smythe was Roger Bouchard’s executive assistant.”

The penny dropped. “And Bouchard was the
CEO
who embezzled funds from his investment firm,” I said. “Valerie was a witness for the Crown, and when Bouchard came to trial, Zack was his lawyer.”

“And Zack tore Valerie to shreds on the witness stand,” Slater said. “She had a breakdown afterwards. She hasn’t been able to get a decent job since, and she blames Zack for ruining her reputation.”

“So Valerie comes to you with some trumped-up story about Ian,” I said. “Slater, I’m still not getting this.”

Slater removed his tinted glasses. Unprotected, his pale grey eyes blinked against the light, but it was clear he wanted me to see his eyes as he told me. “The story isn’t trumped up, Joanne. Valerie Smythe tape-recorded your husband’s exploits. But why talk when we can listen?” Slater took an old compact cassette player from his jacket pocket and held it out to me. My limbs felt heavy and strange. When Slater saw that I was rooted to the spot, his tone was
matey. “I know this has been a shock, Joanne. Let me help. I’ll get the tape started – full volume so you don’t miss anything. I’ll set the scene for you. Your husband is getting a great blowjob and he’s just about to ejaculate.”

Within seconds I could hear Ian’s voice coming from the player. He was urging his lover on, telling her where to touch, how to suck, when to lick. Finally, there was the wordless crescendo that I knew so well; the abrupt cry of ecstasy and then, after a pause, his voice still hoarse with passion. “Your turn now. I’ve been wanting to bury my face between your legs all day.”