Bow Grip (20 page)

Caroline played for quite a while, and I watched her the whole time, her eyes closed, her shoulders moving gently in time with the music. She finished the classical-sounding tune she started off with, and then bent it into what I eventually recognized as a distant cousin of “Smoke on the Water.” I hadn’t heard that song since the summer after high school, doing bong hits in Dave Norris’s mom’s basement suite and playing air hockey. I liked it even better on the cello.

Then the fridge kicked in with a painful electric buzz,
and Caroline stopped short, her brows knit into a well-plucked zipper.

“That fucking goddamned bitch-ass of a kitchen appliance.” She passed the back of her bow hand across her face. “I wouldn’t mind so much if it whined in tune, but it’s just a bit sharp to be a B-flat. It’ll stop in a minute.”

I ripped a bit of cardboard from a six-pack of empty Coronas stacked by the back door and used it as a shim to prop up one leg of the fridge a bit, which made the hum disappear.

“Well, aren’t you handy. Why the fuck didn’t I think of that? I’ve been bitching about that fridge for four years.”

I shrugged.

Caroline sat back, spun the cello around, and ran her hands over its rounded back. “This is the most beautiful instrument I think I’ve ever touched. Like playing a stick of butter with a hot knife. What a beauty. You should have it appraised. It’s probably worth a small fortune. Do you know where it came from? It looks older than mine, and mine originally belonged to my grandfather. He played first chair in the Toronto Symphony for years. He’s the one who taught me, at first. He would’ve loved to have seen this. Look at the scroll work on the brass, and the inlay in the back. They definitely don’t make them like this anymore.” She leaned over and pressed her nose against it. “Smells like heaven. Have you smelled it?”

I nodded. I actually had. A mix of beeswax and hardwood and something sweet, like honey or chocolate, which hung in your nostrils for a bit, like warm angel food cake. I felt oddly puffed up with pride, like I had built the thing myself.

“All I know is that it belonged to the wife of the guy I got it from. She died in a car accident a while ago.”

“I’d offer to buy it from you but there’s no way I can afford it. Just don’t ever let it collect dust in a closet, or I’ll be forced to bitchslap you. An instrument this beautiful deserves to be played and taken care of. You have to love it like your wife.”

“I’m divorced.”

“Just as well. She’d only be jealous. This cello is a fucking masterpiece, Joseph. I hope you have house insurance. Don’t ever leave it in your car. I could tell you a million tragic tales.”

I nodded, solemn. She was the preacher, and I was the requisite sinner.

Caroline shook her head, pushed the neck of the cello in my direction. “Sorry, Joseph, I got carried away. You’re not paying me good money to sit there and watch me slobber all over your instrument. Let me go grab mine, here, pull up a chair beside me, and we’ll start with proper body position. We should get down to it, my roommates will be home by four-thirty, and all chaos will break loose.”

I slipped another couple of Tic Tacs in my mouth and sat with my cello between my legs, trying to mimic the relaxed stance that Caroline had just demonstrated. I felt thick-fingered and clumsy, all wrong angles and thumbs. Caroline sat back down next to me, and peered over her strings at the position of my legs and arms.

“Now, straighten up your back, and plant both feet on the floor, solid, like. Good. Now position the neck so it rests against your right thumb, about an inch above your shoulder. Like that, yeah, good. Put the bow down for a minute, though, we’ll get to that bit in a minute here. First things
first. Pluck your first string, in open position, with your first finger.” She showed me the same on her cello. “Good, we’re relatively in tune. Now press down on that same string with your first finger, try to make it sound like this.”

I did exactly as she told me, so excited I forgot to even feel self-conscious.

“Good, good ear, Joseph. You’re a natural, see? Now alternate between those two notes, on my count of four … two, three, four.” She tapped the worn hardwood floor with the round black toe of her boot, and I plucked along slow beside her. “Now try the same thing on the next string over.”

We went on like that for quite a while, until I learned the first two notes on all four strings, and then she made me do it while I spoke the names of the notes out loud in time.

“C-D-C-D-G-A-G-A-D-C-D-C-A-B-A-B and again, from the top.” Caroline stood up, her cello resting on its endpin, and walked around me, lifting my elbow with one finger and kneading my right shoulder so I relaxed and dropped it a bit. I plucked away, my tongue resting in the corner of my lips to help focus.

The next hour passed by like this, easy.

I could barely force myself to stop and look up when the front door burst open and a scruffy little dog skittered into the kitchen, its whole ass moving in a furious wag.

“Don’t pet the fucking mutt. She piddles when she gets excited.” This from the tall woman who appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing camouflage pants and a black leather jacket. She stomped over to the table and slipped her hands under the tomato tea cozy, pressing them around the still warm ceramic.

“Joseph, this is Amelia, one of my roommates,” Caroline said. “Is it four-thirty already?” Caroline stood up and stretched the small of her back, placed her cello back into its case, propped it up in the corner. “I guess we should pack it in for today.” She washed out another mug from the sink, placed it in front of Amelia. “How was your shift?”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Suspenders Man came in and tried to return a DVD with a big thumbprint of a comeshot, right smack in the middle of the disc. Jacko totally almost popped a blood vessel in his head when he saw it. Banned the guy for three days. Sorry, Joseph. Daily debriefing.”

I nodded, unsure how to follow that.

“We’ll get to the bow next time, Joseph,” Caroline said. “You did great. You want to book the next lesson now?”

I stood up, carried my cello over to its case. “You busy next Sunday? I’m coming back to Calgary next weekend. I’d love to do this regular, like, before I forget everything I learned.”

“Same time then? I’ll photocopy some sheet music before then for you too, now that I know where you’re at. You like Deep Purple?”

I nodded.

“Just practice what I taught you today as much as you can until then. Until you can do it without looking at your left hand.”

“Can I borrow your washroom before I head out?”

“First door at the top of the stairs. The hall light is burnt out, so watch you don’t step on the cat.”

In the bathroom, there was a stack of
Utne Readers
and some incense matches on the tank lid. I pissed for what seemed like a long time, taking care not to backsplash and gently replacing the seat in the downright position. Lit an
incense match, just to see what amber smelled like. Smelled kind of like the cello did.

I headed back downstairs and towards the kitchen, and heard the two of them talking.

“Kind of cute, in a truck-driver sort of way.”

“Not to mention his million-dollar cello, and a good ear. Picks stuff up right away.”

I rounded the corner into the kitchen, and they both stopped short.

“That was quick. I didn’t even hear you coming.” Caroline swallowed, and looked at Amelia.

I held up my wrists and shook them, naked except for my gold watch. “No bangles. Nice to meet you, Amelia.”

I picked up my cello and tucked my journal under my arm. Caroline followed me to the front door.

“That was fun. I learned a lot,” I said. I fumbled in my front pocket for my cash. “So two hours is sixty, right?”

“Right. And I’ll see you next week. You take good care of that baby, you hear me?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“The cello. Treat it like you would a baby.”

“The cello. Right.” I let out my breath. “I will.”

Then the door closed, and there was just the sound of her tall boots walking away.

T
he whole city of Calgary seemed wrapped up in a sordid affair with the strip mall. I found one with a liquor store in it on my way back to the Capri and pulled over to get a bottle of something for dinner. Then I thought about how maybe bringing Kelly a bottle of wine might remind her of how she had no wine goblets, just plastic glasses with
Spider-Man 2
graphics and McDonald’s logos on the side. Plus I thought red might not go too well with pork chops and mushroom sauce, and white wine always made my lips go numb and my face break out in a weird speckled rash. I settled on a six-pack of beer, and four of those cranberry vodka coolers, so she’d have a selection.

The Capri’s parking lot was close to empty since it was Sunday night and the weekend traffic had moved on. Hector’s truck wasn’t there, and almost all the other rooms looked empty, curtains drawn against the dark. I stopped in my room for a minute to brush my teeth and re-apply some deodorant, and I grabbed the little gift I had bought for Raylene on my way out the door.

Kelly came to the door wearing an apron that said that’s no way to treat a lady in block letters, over a pair of jeans and a baby blue sweater. She had her hair pulled back into one of those weird hair things with the wire inside of them, the same colour as her sweater. Raylene was looking freshly scrubbed and content, colouring in her book on the bed closest to the door. I took my boots off, noticing a new pair of miniature red shoes with buckles lined up beside her pink rubber boots on the snow mat behind the door.

“You get yourself some new shoes, Raylene? They sure are pretty.”

“Gramma brought me them. Plus some new felt pens. They smell like their colour, too.”

She held up a fat blue marker in my direction. I leaned in to sniff. Sure enough, blueberry, sweet, like Kool-Aid.

“Neat.”

Raylene bent her arm back towards her own nose, nodding and bouncing a little on the bed. I noticed a blue streak under one nostril, and a matching orange one on her upper lip. She was in her little feety pajamas already. I sometimes secretly wish they made flannel pyjamas with feet sewn right in them, men’s size large.

This kid was starting to seriously grow on me. So not spoiled, unlike Sarah’s kids. Every toy under the sun, and still always lamenting how bored they were.

I passed Raylene the 7-Eleven bag. “I got you something, too. Just a little game of checkers. I thought maybe I could teach you how to play.”

I set the beer and coolers down on the TV table. Kelly’s work uniform was laid out on the only chair, her gold name tag with the Esso logo pinned on it and a box of tampons placed squarely on top.

Kelly fussed around a bit then, helping Raylene pry open the plastic package and remove the checkerboard, and putting a couple beers in the mini-fridge. “Say thank you to Joseph for the present, Bug,” Kelly said, then turned to me. “You don’t need to be buying us anything, Joseph, I’m supposed to be paying you back with this supper.” She played up being annoyed, but her face glowed a pleased colour of pink. “I need to go check on our dinner.”

Turned out Mike’s Hard Cranberry Lemonade was
Kelly’s all-time favourite, how did I know, and Raylene already knew how to play checkers, but had left her old set on the Greyhound, plus this new one had Snakes and Ladders if you flipped it over, which was her favourite game in the whole world next to Hungry Hungry Hippos, which her cousins had but she was probably going to get for Christmas anyways, right, Momma?

Kelly had put down a tablecloth and laid the table with three differently patterned plates. There was an empty juice bottle with two flowers made from pipe cleaners in it for a centrepiece. During dinner, she took sips of her vodka cooler, leaving lipstick marks on the rim of her plastic glass. She seemed kind of nervous. Raylene asked me if I could cut up her pork chop for her in such a bell-like little voice it tapped on my breastbone. At one point, Kelly made Raylene laugh until milk came out of her nose, and Raylene bolted into the bathroom for a Kleenex, her plastic pyjama footies whistling on the indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Dinner was perfect, right out of the can, just like my mom used to make on nights when I had a hockey game. Pork chops in mushroom sauce, a little cluster of cauliflower and broccoli and baby carrots, the frozen kind from a plastic bag, which Raylene pushed around her plate with the back of her fork.

Later, I was halfway through letting the kid beat me at Snakes and Ladders when she conked out, flat on her stomach with both hands folded under her chin. Looked like she was pondering her next move, except she was snoring.

Kelly picked her up and spun her end for end, then tucked her into bed, tugging the covers up around her daughter’s round little flushed face. Raylene stuck her feltpenned thumb into her mouth in her sleep. Kelly pulled
it out, Raylene put it back. Kelly pulled it out again and tucked her little matchstick of an arm under the covers, right next to the stuffed moose.

We both watched her slip into sleep for a minute or so, her feet twitching under the covers. She shifted a bit, freeing one arm from the sheets. Her fingers found the satin trim on the motel blanket and she rubbed it between her thumb and first finger.

Kelly let out a long sigh. “She’s been wired for sound all day. Tony’s mom gave her cream soda. That stuff is like crack for a six-year-old. Wanna step out for a cigarette?”

Kelly unfolded two camping chairs outside on the sidewalk, shifting the leg of one around to avoid the cracks in the concrete. “And Grandma got us another smoking chair, too, in case of company.”

“She went all out, huh?”

Kelly snorted and didn’t respond, waiting for me to light the twist of paper at the end of her machine-rolled smoke.

“I think I ate too much,” Kelly said, puffing out her cheeks. She tapped her ash into the palm of her hand, then tipped it onto the concrete between her slippers.