Holding Still for as Long as Possible (21 page)

I looked up again and saw Josh with his phone flipped open, madly texting. When he saw me looking, he clipped the phone closed and shoved it in the pocket of his jacket. We had made a rule about not checking messages during these get-togethers. It wasn't working out.

Now I started to feel annoyed at Josh for his comments about Billy. How could he want to see someone so flaky when he'd been on me for years to work harder, go beyond my comfort zone? How could he valorize her anxieties when he was so resentful of the people he encountered at work in a similar state of crisis? How many times had he said
Fucking 211s!
when we walked by muttering homeless people on the street or angry crazy drunks. I bet those people just weren't as hot as Billy, as laissez-faire.

I recalled how she'd been the other night, walking around in her underwear, totally unconcerned that a bunch of drunk girls had taken over her kitchen. Not one punitive stare. Sitting at the table with her stubbly legs outstretched, sex bruises on her neck and arms, chewing her lip. Seemingly unconcerned that I knew she'd just screwed my ex. She reeked of sex. Her posture said,
I don't give a shit. Whatever.

Sure, I had also appeared unconcerned. But I'd had a country of whiskey in me. I could've taken out my own appendix at that point.

And yeah, I had shown up at Roxy's hoping I'd run into Josh, get a little anger out. When I got home he was eating a bowl of cereal on the couch, glaring at me.

“Where were you, huh? Stay out all night? Sleep with Roxy?”

“No. We just kept going is all.”

“Huh. Interesting.”

“Not really.”

I went to bed. He went to work.

Still, even though I resented Billy, I understood her appeal. She reminded me a lot of Star. Eccentric, but when she looked at you and said something that came right from her heart, you felt like the only person in the room. She didn't ever say anything to seem polite; she didn't bother with small talk. She had a kind of who-cares confidence I found intimidating. Maybe I wasn't jealous of Josh wanting Billy, but of Billy wanting Josh.

Over the past weeks, my e-mails to my old summer-camp boyfriend Jason had been getting intense, with lots of dramatic language. I sensed that the distance between us geographically was making our connection seem stronger than it ever had been. I had bought a ticket to New York and then cancelled it. “Spring,” he'd suggested. “I'll come visit in May. Give you a chance to settle things.”

Josh and I biked home, getting off to walk over the footpath bridge above Lake Shore Boulevard. On the other side, he biked fast and didn't stop to look back and make sure I was keeping up. I watched him dodge bikes ahead of me and curl dangerously around cars under the Dufferin bridge. He disappeared in front of a streetcar as the sun dropped behind our neighbourhood's ugly new condo developments.

[ 21 ]

Billy

At 7:15 a.m., I woke to the double-beep pulse of an incoming text message.
B there in 10. Unlock your front door and turn on CityNews.

I ran downstairs naked, unlocked the dead bolt, and peered outside. Pouring rain. I curled back under the quilt again, pushing the tiny
TV
on my dresser alive with my toe. Perky blonde anchor talking about April spring showers and a new hospital super-bug. I fell back to sleep.

When I woke up again, Josh was standing in the doorway of my bedroom, pulling off his uniform. I couldn't have fantasized about it being any sexier than it was. He crawled on top of the bed, pulled back the covers. I bristled from the cold. He spread my legs with his knee. Wrapped his hand in the mess of my hair.

“You wouldn't believe my night.”

He looked both tired and commanding, boyish and soft. No matter how anxious I was, I could always have sex. It was the only thing that didn't fill me with fear.

The television showed a blurry story: Man jumped in front of a
VIA
train from the side of the Gardiner Expressway. I picked Josh out of the crowd of emergency personnel behind the news anchor, watched him placing a pinkish sheet over the body.

“Whoa, there you are! What did the guy look like?”

“He was mangled.”

Josh kissed me while one of the anchors talked about how the jump would affect rush-hour traffic. I pushed him gently off to watch the rest of the footage, the pleasant haze of morning sex now too stark a contrast with Josh's last hour of work.

“About, like, twenty-five firemen stood around doing nothing, as usual,” he said, kissing my stomach.

“It's so fucking sad,” I said. “I wonder who the guy was.”

Josh shrugged, ran his hand under my slip, and hiked it above my breasts. He hadn't slept in twenty-four hours, and he fucked as if his life depended on it. He pushed into me fast, sweat dripping from his forehead, hips pounding. Delirious. When at last he fell beside me, we stayed gripped together. He sighed heavily, and for a minute I thought he might be crying. His eyes were washed in red, all pupil.

“Are you okay, baby?”

“Yeah. Tired is all. I should probably go.”

I made some coffee to go in a travel mug and walked him out to his car. The sun was just starting to rise. This time, I wanted him to stay but knew that he couldn't. He looked more exhausted than I'd ever been.

“Billy,” Josh said. “You wanna be my girlfriend?”

“Like, your only girlfriend? Your one and only?”

“Possibly. Totally.”

“Let's just take it as it goes. Okay? Rebound for now, and see what happens.”

“Okay.” He took a sip of coffee.

I hoped what I had said didn't sound harsh. I didn't mean it to be. “Same time tomorrow?” The post-night-shift booty call was proving to be both a fantastic way to wake up and a good way to end an all-nighter. This was the fourth dawn hook-up in a row, and I was enjoying the oddness of it.

That morning, while Josh slept at home in the bed that was still Amy's, I accomplished 48 sit-ups, 1 thin layer of mango lotion, 1 online Scrabble victory, 31 minutes of cardio, 4 coffees, 1 witty retort, and 8 sexually suggestive text messages for Josh to wake up to. Scattered throughout these activities were thoughts of the jumper and his life. What had he thought after he leapt? I pictured the moment before jumping. I could see myself in a similar spot. I could totally understand it.

What did it do to Josh, I wondered, to be the one covering up the remains of bodies? Did he particularize each body or did he see them all as a sort of General Body? Had it become for him like it had been for me when I had a job at the candle factory? Trays and trays of the same thing had passed by my vision — wax or skin, it hadn't mattered. It all became routine. Mundane. Life and death. Start your shift. End your shift. Go home. Fuck. Eat. Sleep. Start over again. Probably that's the way it was for Josh. Probably it was not as interesting as I thought.

I was still reluctant to nail things down with Josh. It felt so good to be with him. But I ached for Maria sometimes; I missed how familiar she was with me and my anxieties. It was too soon. Maybe I had too much going on in my brain, too much fear, to commit to anything as hopeful as Josh.

I checked the burners on the stove three times —
Good Will —
and went back to sleep.

[ 22 ]

Josh

I was having a cigarette outside the Toronto Western Hospital's emergency department and trying not to flirt too much with Deb, the married nurse who'd taken a liking to me. I had a mild hangover. Mandy, my partner for the day, was worse off. She reeked of gin and kept holding her head and moaning. Now she was sleeping in the back of the truck while I babysat the patient.

Deb and I were having a forced conversation about our weekends, about why I never went out to the bars with the other medics. Her flirting was clumsy and coltish, despite her wedding ring, and it made me uncomfortable. I nervously closed my eyes, wishing the conversation would end.

As if I had willed it to happen, I opened my eyes and Billy was there, cutting through the Emerg parking lot towards Kensington, looking down at her phone, almost bumping right into us because she was so intently texting.

“Oh, Josh! Wow. Hi.”

“Hi, Billy,” I said, giving her a big hug. The nurse scurried off back through the automatic doors. I felt Billy shaking a little, so I put both hands on her shoulders and stared at her curiously. “Are you okay?”

“I'm cold, just came from a doctor's appointment upstairs. How's work going? It's like a little ambulance party around here.”

There were six ambulances parked outside the Emerg, lined up in two rows of three under the awning. She leaned against the
Hospital News
newspaper box, pulled at my collar. Billy's red nails looked perfect against the dark blue fabric of my uniform.

“Offload delay. My patient's going to be here for hours. It's good, though, because I'm kind of hungover today.”

Billy loved to hear about my work. She was so curious about everything, especially the gross calls. These days I often left her voice messages in the middle of a shift: “
You won't believe the call I just had
.
The house was literally covered in shit
.
He put his shit in
jars
! T
hey were all over the house
,
labelled
,
in old pickle jars
!
” And she'd freak out. I'd picture her picking up the message on the sly at work, phone shoved into her pocket, having to shut her eyes tightly and whisper “
EW EW EW
” before texting me back,
Tell Me More!

“What's wrong with your patient?” she asked.

“Eighty-year-old with abdominal pain.” I shrugged. “We won't be able to off-load her for hours.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. You look pretty,” I said, unable to stop from smiling like a goof.

“You look pretty hot in that uniform, as usual.”

Billy was usually tentative or distracted, so I appreciated this comment.

“Are you allowed to go get a coffee with me? Or water?” she asked.

I nodded and walked her to the Tim Hortons in the Atrium. She held my hand while we stood tenth or so in line. For the first time ever, I hoped everyone took a really long time with their orders. Billy was the only person, other than Amy, I'd held hands with in years. She was a lot shorter than Amy and she held my hand firmly. Amy had always rolled her eyes at hand-holding. After a while, she'd say it made her arm hurt, as if I were holding onto her hand while she just
let
it be held — no reciprocal grip. Billy held my hand, rubbing my wrist with her thumb. Her palms were so soft.

“I can't believe how much people stare at you when you're wearing your uniform. It's unreal.”

I had become used to it, but watching Billy watch everyone watching us was kind of amusing. I saw how other guys filled out their uniforms, and still they didn't exactly look like the hot catch Billy described me being.

I almost doubted Billy's sincerity when she pushed down the brown lid of her double double and leaned into my ear to whisper quietly, “I can't keep my eyes off you in that uniform. You just look so . . .
in charge.
Wanna take my pulse?”

After we got our coffees, Billy walked me back to where the trucks were parked outside the entrance. I offered to show her the inside of my truck. Luckily, Mandy was no longer sleeping in there. Billy hopped up on the bench seat and grabbed me by the collar. For a few minutes, we made out like two teenagers in the back of a school bus. As soon as I pulled away, though, Billy blushed and fumbled with her right hand, trying to locate the side door handle.

“I'd better get going,” she said.

I helped her out of the truck and watched her walk away, phone already out of her pocket, madly texting and not paying attention to anything, as if she'd never run into me in the first place. I wondered who she was texting, so focused like that. I felt almost jealous; clearly I was losing my mind.

Mandy came outside. “I'm gonna book off at one, Josh. I just barfed. I'm toast. Sorry, man, I can't handle it today.”

“No problem.”

Back at the station, Dave was paired up with me for the rest of the shift. “Hey, Hangman.”

This was his new moniker for me. There were old guys who'd been on the road for thirty years and only seen two hangings, but me, I'd been on for three years and I'd seen eight. Dave had caught wind of this, and there you go. Hangman. Lovely.

The day felt ominous, and this feeling was cemented inside me by Dave's comment. Sure enough, our second call of the day was an Echo
VSA
hanging.

“Fuck you, Josh,”
Dave said, smirking, as we pulled out of the station gate.

Minutes later we pulled up to a duplex near Eglinton. There was steam rising all around us, as though we were in a movie about someone hanging himself.