Here to Stay (14 page)

He texted Will the next morning.

If you got room at your feet, I got a really big problem to lay there.

He sent it and shoved the phone in his back pocket. Took it back out and added,
Help.

Will rang him a few minutes later. “Talk to me.”

“What’s it going to take to get me to Canada? How did Lucky do it?”

“She got student papers,” Will said. “She applied for a master’s program at UNB and got in. That’s one of two ways you can come here and stay longer than six months. Student papers or working papers.”

“Okay,” Erik said. “So I either go back to school or I get a job.”

“A job with an open-ended contract,” Will said.

Erik started writing things down.

“Actually you have a third option,” Will said. “You marry Dais and come here as a non-working spouse. Stay home and take care of the kids.”

A wincing pause.

“Fuck, my bad,” Will said. “Sorry.”

“I can stay home and take care of your kids,” Erik said. “You can fulfill your dream of banging the manny.”

“You’re flirting with me,” Will said. “That’s what this is.”

“You wish.”

“You fucking tease. Where was this attitude back when I could’ve done something about it? You’re hurting my feels. I should let you rot there in New York.”

“Don’t,” Erik said. “Help me. Let’s just table the third option and let me try getting there on my own.”

“All right, all right. Let’s see.” An exhaling sigh. “Technical theater jobs up here are so heavily unionized. You barely have a chance unless you have an uncle or a godfather who’s already in.”

“Doesn’t have to be the theater. I’ll wait tables.”

“Dude, you need something long-term to get working papers. Let me think.”

“What about citizenship?”

“You’re way ahead of yourself. Lucky’s not even a citizen. She’s a permanent resident. That’s a ton of bureaucratic bullshit but it won’t kill you. We need to get you here first.”

“All right,” Erik said, scribbling again. “Stupid question but am I going to have to speak French?”

“Oh yeah,” Will said. “New Brunswick is officially bilingual. You’ll definitely need French to get your papers.”

“Fuck. Really?”

A long, sober moment of silence.

“You can’t sort of do this, Fish,” Will said. “Draw a line and get on one side or the other.”

“All right,” Erik said. “I guess I can audit some classes here the rest of the year. Dais will help me.”

Will burst out laughing.

“What?” Erik said. “Son of a bitch, are you fucking with my head?”

Will responded with a string of French.

“Goddammit, Kaeger,” Erik yelled.

“I
had
you,” Will said. “Aw fuck, I shouldn’t have laughed. I totally had you.”

“How do you say asshole in French?”

“Mon tabarnak,” Will said, howling laughing. “J’vais te décalisser la yeule, calice.”

“I didn’t miss you,” Erik said. “At all.”

“Oh man,” Will said, chuckling. “All right. I’m sorry. I’m hanging up now. I’m going to call in every favor I can think of. Someone has to know somebody who knows somebody.”

“If you owe anyone blow jobs, now would be the time to deliver.”

“No way, I clear all oral debts immediately. You don’t want that bad credit following you around.”

Credit made Erik think of financial details. A long road of paperwork and hassle and stress rolled out in front of him like an ugly carpet.

But Daisy.

Waiting at the end.

She answered the phone. She wasn’t married. She was free and you were free and you got another chance.

Draw a line and get on one side or the other.

He scraped his toe on the floor in front of him and stepped across. “Help me,” he said to Will. “I want this.”

“So do we. We’ll move the Earth.”

IN A PERFECT WORLD, the technical director of the Imperial Theater would have retired or quietly expired of a heart attack, leaving a vacancy for Erik to step into. And he and Daisy would have spent their working days under the same roof.

Unfortunately the director was young, hale and hearty, and any vacancies at the Imperial were under union stronghold. Will didn’t dare pull a string for fear of making enemies. Pipe dreams were extinguished and other avenues explored.

The entire province of New Brunswick had not one graduate theatre program. Erik would have to go back to school in an entirely unrelated field. Now chasing down thirty-six, he didn’t feel enthused about starting from scratch.

The Fredericton Playhouse was his most promising lead. He interviewed twice and got on famously with its board. But they had no openings. They kept his resume and his number and promised to be in touch.

Night after night, through the spring of 2006 when he came to Canada every few weeks and his time left at Brockport dripped away, he and Daisy held onto each other and talked the problem to shreds.

“You and me,” Erik said. “Eye on the prize. I don’t care what it takes. You and me. It’s all that matters. It’ll work out.”

“Worst case, I’ll leave here and we go back to the States,” she said. “We have a ton of options. It’ll work out.”

They reassured each other and made love, and then tossed and turned through the night.

Acadia State Playhouse. Theater New Brunswick. The Capitol Theater. They loved him. They had no work.

Erik found himself making wishes when the clock read 11:11 or 12:34. Searching the evening skies for the first star. Looking for signs and auguries as he entreated the universe:
Please, let me find work.

Salvation came from the most random and unlikely of places. He was in Brockport’s library, researching jobs, when a spicy orange perfume slid around his nose and a woman spoke over his shoulder.

“Well, look who’s here.”

“I know that voice,” he said, not turning around.

“I hope so,” she said, her breath a warm whisper on his earlobe. “You slept next to it for six years. Four of them legally.”

Erik turned and looked up at his ex-wife. A smile spread across his face at her fine, noble features and long cornrowed hair. Then his gaze dropped.

“Well, look at you,” he said. He put out a hand and gently touched her pregnant belly.

“Don’t touch me, Erik Fiskare,” she said. “Said no woman ever.”

The scrape of his chair cut the silence of the library as he got up and embraced her. “Look at you,” he said again.

“Look at me,” she said, laughing. “In a fix.”

“How far along?”

“Five months. It’s a girl.”

He slid his hands down her arms to catch her fingers up. They were bare.

“No, you conservative twerp, I’m not married,” she said.

“Conservative? Have we met?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Book report. What are you doing here? Do you have time, you want to get coffee?”

She sighed. “I’m so sick of coffee. Soon as I give birth, I’m getting drunk. Yes, let’s get coffee. Fucking
decaf,
this is what it’s come to.”

Her catchup took ten seconds. She was still teaching music at a private school in East Rochester. She met a man. She got pregnant. He bailed. She made a decision. “Happily ever after,” she said. “To be continued. The end. All of the above. Fuck it.”

“I’m thrilled for you. You look beautiful.”

“Thanks, baby,” she said. “As usual, it hurts to look at you. What’s giving you that decidedly masculine, non-pregnant glow?”

He smiled, his cheekbones warm with a guilty joy. “One guess?”

She leaned her cheek on her hand and studied him a moment. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, you finally called her.”

He gave her the condensed version, ending with his current predicament. Through it, Melanie made small, precipitating noises. Nodded. Shrugged. Laughed. And now her cheek was back on her hand and her eyes blinked over a crooked smile.

“Wouldn’t it be ironic if my sister’s best friend’s cousin’s husband had a friend who knew someone who was opening a dinner theater in New Brunswick?” she asked.

He stared at her, his utter unworthiness heavy in his lap. “Oh, Mel, don’t tease me.”

THE DINNER THEATER WAS in Moncton, a two-hour commute from Saint John. Being part of a start-up venture would mean long, grueling hours. But it was open-ended work and it got Erik his papers.

Moncton, fortunately, was Will’s hometown. He got his hands on strings and started pulling. The Acadian Ballet Academy was putting together its summer intensive program. They needed guest teachers. Madame Bianco from the New Brunswick Ballet was invited. She accepted.

Maurice and Ségolène Kaeger owned an apartment in Riverview, a pretty community across the river from downtown Moncton. They rented it to graduate and doctorate students at the university. Now they offered its summer lease to Erik and Daisy. At the same time, Daisy arranged to rent Barbegazi to the guest conductor coming in for Symphonie New Brunswick’s summer program.

Emptying his office, saying goodbye to friends and colleagues and packing up his apartment left Erik drained. The twelve-hour drive from Brockport to Saint John was a bear, including an enchanting delay at customs when he had to unload the entire U-Haul, explain its contents and his intentions, and then load it again.

“You know I can stand in bars and take numbers,” he muttered under his breath as he lugged boxes back into place. “I’m not the kind of terrorist you’re watching for.”

“Reason for your visit?” an official asked him for the hundredth time.

Tired and punchy, Erik looked the guy dead in the eye and replied, “Because I love her.”

The official raised his eyebrows. A corner of his mouth went up then the other joined it, showing a wide smile with a gold tooth.

“That’s the best reason I’ve heard all day,” he said, signing Erik’s papers and handing them back. His fingers touched the bill of his cap. “Good luck, my friend.”

Erik had three days to unload his boxes and clobber and load up on sleep and sex. He sorted out what was going into the attic at Barbegazi and what was coming with him to Moncton. Then he packed up again and headed to the Riverview apartment. Daisy would finish the spring season, see to Barbegazi’s tenants and join him in two weeks.

They agreed later spending the summer in Moncton together was the best decision they could have made. It allowed them to be a couple right away. They were both clocking long, hard hours of physically demanding work, but they could sleep together every night and be the first thing they saw in the morning. Saturday nights and Sundays were all theirs and they made the most of Moncton’s offerings, all the while assessing Erik’s new job and how it was going to work for them come fall.

Almost immediately, it was obvious the two hour commute was not sustainable. Not on a daily basis and not with Erik’s schedule. Swallowing disappointment and manning up, they faced the idea of a commuter relationship come September.

“We’re in the same time zone,” Daisy said.

“And on the same timetable,” Erik said.

They both would work Wednesday to Sunday. After Sunday’s matinee performance, Erik could drive back to Saint John, spend Monday and Tuesday, then head back to Moncton on Wednesday. The Kaegers would let him continue the lease of the apartment, at an embarrassingly generous discount.

The future sorted out, they leaned into the joy of the present. The summer was beautiful that year, with mild weather and not too much rain. The days passed in a blur of work and love. They discovered the Trans Canada Trail, the world’s longest rec path, went right through Riverview. They rented bikes and explored it on their days off, even making little overnight trips to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia to pick up the trail there.

On the fourth of July, Jacqueline Grace Kaeger was born. Erik and Daisy headed back to Saint John.

“She’s all you, Luck,” Daisy said, looking down at the baby in her arms. Jacy had little wisps of nearly-white hair, some of it already curling up. Her wide cheeks and pointed chin were an exact, almost eerie replica of Lucky’s face.

“Finally I get some representation,” Lucky said from her hospital bed. She looked worn-out, as did Will. Erik couldn’t help feeling concerned for their well-being.