Weekend (21 page)

       
JOE

Joe and Ajax's daughters were left at the table with the bottles of bubbles and the trickling stream of pedestrians beyond the small, hedged fence.

“I'm going to take Mom and Logan some food,” said Simone, standing and rubbing her belly, a gesture familiar and comforting to Joe. Simone gave Vivi a kiss on the cheek. “I'll catch you in the morning, sis. I'm going to order and then get this weight off my feet.”

As they watched Simone disappear inside Le Lapin, Joe thought,
Could I have a glass of wine to pump and dump?
She turned back to Vivi, who regarded her across the table with a frank gaze, startlingly blue eyes under her frame of purple hair. Scout slid off Joe's breast, sound asleep, and Joe worked to fasten her bra and get her top back together.

“I'm sorry about what happened with your wife,” said Vivi.

Joe held the slumberous baby and fiddled with the salt shaker. Vivi seemed to Joe to be surrounded by sparks.

Vivi's melodic tone dropped. “Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, but Mom told us. She just walked out, without any warning?”

Joe said, “I've heard rumours that life goes on. Two years out, they say, it's as if nothing ever happened.”

Vivi shuffled in her chair. “You're staying at your mom's?”

“I have a house, but I guess you heard what happened there.
My ex—” She could not get used to ex'ing Ell. “She pretty much cleaned it out.”

“That's shifty,” said Vivi.

“Well, I'll miss things, I guess, is all. According to her, what's hers is hers and what's mine is hers because I'm the
noncontributing
spouse.”

Vivi stuck out her tongue; Joe noticed a piercing. She found herself wondering where else Vivi had piercings.

“Is there legal recourse?”

Joe transferred Scout to the car seat now taking up one of the spare chairs, rocked it to settle her. “Apparently, the law doesn't care about what they call household goods. But it's a gesture of bad faith that will probably go sour for her in court,” said Joe. “As if I ever imagined a woman I trusted completely and was crazy about would sue me.” Joe sighed, then bitterly laughed. “But I'm so sick of talking about my situation.” She twirled ice in her empty lemonade. “Let's talk about you.”

Vivi grinned. “I do a boring IT job in Vancouver; how do you think my life is? I need to shake it up. Go back to school, move somewhere, rattle it somehow, get the lead out.”

Joe smiled. “I guess I meant, how's your romantic life
?
”

“Ah,” said Vivi lifting her glass, laughing. “Well, that would be a different story.”

The waiter came by to take their order.

“I fuck women now, I guess is the news. Mom doesn't know. I'd say I came out, but I don't think it's called coming out if nobody much knows.”

“Congratulations,” said Joe. “That's big.”

“I was bisexual, but then when I got to my twenties, I don't know, something changed in me, and I realized I was with men for all the wrong reasons. To fit in. To ease my way. As a reaction against having queer moms.” Vivi shrugged. “They thought I was gay since I was tiny, so I always balk at confirming it for them.”

“I like your mom,” said Joe.

Vivi said, “We're lucky in that regard, I think. I don't know how Simone is going to stand being in the Bahamas and so far from Mom when she has the baby.”

“As much as mine drives me around the twist, I'm grateful for her. Especially now.”

“Our other mother, Hope, can really be a dick, a lot like your Ell. Worse, probably,” said Vivi.

“Oh no.”

“She disavowed us after the breakup and pretended we weren't her kids. Went around in the world as a person who didn't have children. Puts on a good front, but that's all it is, a front. They had a messy breakup, and Mom didn't get what she should have. I learned that money is power. Mom was bouncing from one medical emergency to another, and Hope exploited her disability. No basic human empathy. She went unglued when she realized Mom was going to have open heart surgery—but not out of worry—out of anger because it meant Mom might not die as soon and she could be stuck supporting her.”

Joe extended a hand for Vivi's.

Vivi started to cry. “Oh, look at me. Two drinks and I'm making a scene.”

“You're worried for your mom,” said Joe. “That's reasonable. Maybe now, in the face of this crisis, you're just letting yourself start to feel things.”

Joe stroked Vivi's hand, astonished by the unlikeliness of the contact. Vivi was almost a replica of her mother—wide-shouldered and radiant with intelligence, but bruised around her eyes, stressed and sad. “I'm sorry it's been hard for you, Vivi. Hope sounds horrible.”

“The appalling thing is that she doesn't even know it. She'd charm you if you met her.” Vivi pulled her hand away and swabbed at her eyes, but barely broke the gaze, and Joe didn't either.

Their meals came; Joe tucked into Coquilles Saint-Jacques with her stomach growling. “She's strong, your mom. Maybe things will get better for her now. They'll get her an operation for her fibrillation and get it under control. Logan is smitten; I've never seen them like this.”

“Mom's awesome, really. Ask her to show you her work sometime. She shows at Wilderness Gallery here.” Vivi poked at onion soup.

“That's across from the AGO, right?”

“Yup,” said Vivi proudly. She wrinkled up her nose. “I hope Mom does find some happiness. She works like a dog. If she had even a dollar for every hour she's devoted to her craft, she could pay off her mortgage.”

They finished their meals in companionable silence. It was cooling off, and Joe covered Scout, tucking the blanket up around her ears. She asked Vivi if she wanted to move inside, but Vivi said no. “If it's all the same to you, Joe, could we just go back to my hotel room and continue our chat?”

“Um,” she said. “I have … um … the baby.”
I have Elliot,
was what she was really thinking, quite desperately,
I have Elliot!

“We can talk around Scout.”

“Um,” said Joe, thinking
talk, just talk,
but still a wash of nervousness overtook her. She reminded herself that she needed human companionship—she needed to be out in the world. A little subverted lust would not be a bad thing, except maybe for her stitches.

An hour later, Joe was nursing Scout in Vivi's nondescript hotel room in an uncomfortable chair and had called her mother to say she would be out late.

“Did you ever sleep with anyone else while you were married?” Vivi asked. She had sprawled across the bed, leaning on the heels of her palms. “Or was it only Elliot?”

“I did, once,” said Joe, “but I never told Ell, which violated every letter of our agreement. It was right at the beginning, before we had really cemented things.” She flushed as she thought again about Logan, and then her breath stalled as she realized,
This is Logan's almost-wife's daughter. How do you spell incestuous?

“Tell me more about you,” said Joe. “You know all too
much about me, given the week you arrived, but your mom hasn't told me much.”

“I was with a guy for a lot of years. A fundamentalist who maintained that I was going to Hell while he and my stepdaughter were going to Heaven. He was a liar, a cheat. He'd been convicted of fraud. I was a total hermit with him. Now I'm forcing myself out into the world—I'm trying to see how many things there are to do in Vancouver. Beach volleyball. Biking, hiking, caving. Bungee-jumping. I went to Africa for a couple months.”

Joe stood up with Scout, who was starting to complain, and held her the way she'd seen a doctor hold babies on YouTube to stop them from screaming. Scout settled and her eyes flickered closed. Joe gently transferred the weirdly contented baby back into her car seat. “I'm sorry.”

“I was young. I didn't know I could have a life,” Vivi said, pushing back her fizz of hair. “I didn't realize there was a whole world outside that hotbox of marriage.”

“There's a life outside marriage?” said Joe ruefully. She thought she might cry. She thought about dead Dree, for whom there had surely by now been a funeral of some kind. A woman who had loved her was no more than dust now. The enormity of the world outside her marriage already overwhelmed Joe, and she hadn't done a thing to prepare for that enormity except remove her wedding ring when she unpacked at her mother's place. Now she rubbed her thumb up and down on her index
finger where the ring had been for so many years, then had to force herself to stop, to lay her hands flat against her legs.

“It hurts, is all,” said Vivi. Tears wetted her eyes and spilled over. She grabbed tissues. “I'm only a year out of it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

“No,” said Joe, getting up, crouching beside Vivi, putting an arm around her, “don't be sorry. Please. I'm just as sad as you are. Maybe that's all we get to be in this life, broken. A bunch of broken people betting it all on a vague dream of future happiness.”

Vivi inclined her head onto Joe's shoulder and said that she was pretty sure Joe was wrong. “It gets better.”

“It gets better,” said Joe. “It gets better. I believe it'll get better. Someday it may even stop hurting. But the place where Ell lived is a vacant canyon inside of me.”

“I know,” said Vivi, reaching for Joe's face, running her finger across Joe's lips. “I know exactly. Can we lie down?”

“Yes,” Joe whispered. She confided the ways she was out of commission. The faint scent of lemon as she buried her face in Vivi's hair. She knew her breasts were going to leak, but she forgot to be anxious about it, and before she had time to analyze what was happening, to ask herself if it was what she actually craved, whether she'd regret it in the morning, whether it would change her friendship with Ajax, with Vivi's
mother
, whether it was breaking a bond with Elliot that she wasn't ready to smash, whether Vivi was the woman she wanted to hold, these unfamiliar shoulders, these breasts—these breasts! She'd missed
breasts! Was that cruel to admit?—they were beside each other, Joe smelling her own milkiness, smelling Scout. They read each other, maps of forgiveness and solace and lust, removing clothing, touching, their fingers conduits for surprise. When Joe met Vivi's gaze full-on, she caught her breath and had to flick the light off to escape the intensity. She let her fingers run across Vivi's skin, across her nipples, feeling the areolas wrinkle, the nipples harden. She kissed Vivi, the sensation burning across her own lips, a line of fire. Vivi tasted of red wine; Joe's tongue felt the metal stud in Vivi's mouth, warm, round. It made her clit twitch. Vivi's lips were traps. She didn't stop kissing her. Joe touched Vivi's damp face, let her fingers tangle in Vivi's purple curls.

Vivi climbed on Joe and sat astride her, leaned forward, her hair tickling Joe's face. Where Elliot had been swarthy, earthy, bound, Vivi was a bird, hollow-boned, about to launch into flight.

Air.

       
AJAX

The next day was pouring rain, a deluge with thunder and lightning. Logan and Ajax woke early, and Ajax pressed herself hard back into Logan.

“Your arm,” Logan said, pulling away.

“Never mind my arm,” said Ajax. There was no way she could get on hands and knees, but like this?

Logan rolled away.

Ajax made a disconsolate noise.

“Lube,” said Logan, laughing. “You know you never need to ask twice.”

“Ah,” said Ajax and rolled onto her back grinning.

“God, I love you,” said Logan, the squirt bottle in their hand. They put a fingertip on Ajax's chin. “I love you, I love you, I love you! You scared the fucking
shit
out of me this week, girlfriend.”

Ajax grinned ruefully. “I know, but think of this; tomorrow you get to call me ‘wife.'”

“Whoa—wife. My wife.” Logan wrapped her tight in their arms. “My wench.”

“Want me to call you husband?”

“Hmm … Not sure.”

“I'm really sorry about what happened,” Ajax said, pulling away so she could see Logan's eyes. “Sorry for you. All of it. The arrhythmia. This.” She lifted her arm in the sling. “No second thoughts now you know some of the crap that can happen?”

“I'm just glad you're going to be okay.” They trickled their fingers through Ajax's hair.

Ajax snuggled in. “Will you rub my clit? I just about went mad in the hospital, I was so horny for you.”

Logan touched her until Ajax arched her back, until she moaned. Logan said, “Baby, you don't need lube.”

“I do if you fuck my ass,” said Ajax, turning so her gimp arm was on top.

“Baby,” said Logan, slipping their wet finger inside, wiggling it against Ajax's anterior wall, the back of her clit.

“I'm gonna come if you do that,” said Ajax groaning.

“Come with me instead.” Logan slipped a condom on. “Where do you want my cock, baby?”

Ajax had pins and needles in her bad arm and checked to make sure it was suffused. When it had been compromised, it was a very dark red; now it was blotchy. It pulled her away from sex. “In my asshole, in my asshole.”

Logan pushed in an inch, met resistance. “Do you want it? Say it. Tell me.”

“Logan, make me hurt
so
good.” Pushing her ass toward Logan. “Really, really slow, honey,” said Ajax, savouring it. Ajax couldn't last, not after her anxious, bored, hospital-bound days. She was ravenous; she pushed back hard onto Logan's cock. “Fuck, fuck, I'm already coming, Logan.”

“I'm coming too, baby. I'm coming inside you.” Logan ground themself in deep, and Ajax cried out.

Ajax's orgasm still thrummed vaguely in her toes and legs
when something else, something new, started to suffuse her. At first she just thought,
Cool
, but in another minute it was clear to her that it was something a lot more meaningful than just her orgasm's afterglow moving up into her abdomen and chest, moving into her head and down her arms. She didn't have the words for it—the closest she could get was that it was a full-body pre-orgasmic state, except it lingered, built, and instead of reaching toward climax, it reached instead toward her love for Logan. She felt it concentrate in her belly just above her naval, and it moved out to the edges of her skin and past it, in her imagination, concentrated light.

As quickly as it washed through her, it vanished.

“I wish I had something better to wear,” said Ajax. Simone had gone out to find something, anything, black slacks and a tank top, which Ajax had pulled on when she returned. Logan wore shorts and a pressed white polo shirt. “You're sure we want to be this casual?”

“You're a knock-out,” said Logan, leaning on the doorframe.

“Can you go see if your mom has a white scarf I could use as a sling? Or look, here's Joe. Send Joe.”

Kisses all around.

Vivi was mere steps behind.

There was an air of frantic gaiety.

“Morning,” Vivi said, and when no one was looking whispered in Joe's ear, “I brought flowers.”

“Where on earth did you find peonies at this time of year?” asked Ajax, beaming. “Where's Simone?”

“Here I am!” called Simone from the hallway.

Logan put a collar and bow tie on the dog, who didn't protest.

Vivi pinned a boutonniere on Logan.

Logan came back into the bedroom shrugging their shoulders, smiling, passing Ajax a scarf, helping her rig it as a sling. In a perfect imitation of Ruth, they said, “‘You want me to treat this day like it's something special and you're wearing shorts, Erika? Please go put a dress on.' I wouldn't say Mom's what I'd call overjoyed, but she's meeting us in the lobby.”

“Do you have the licence?”

“Licence, check. Bride, check. Children, check. Mother? Check. The officiant's meeting us there. Honey,” said Logan, kissing Ajax's neck, turning her around. “You're going to shatter mirrors this morning, you're so beautiful.”

Ajax gave herself a stern talking-to:
Not a kid, for god's sake. Calm the shit down. No fretting yourself into A-fib.
She started to cry, but they were tears of happiness.

“It's okay,” said Joe. She took Ajax by the shoulders. “I am incandescent with joy for you, Ajax McIntyre. You are going to have a brilliant marriage. You can so do this.”

Simone handed out mini-cameras and the little jars of bubbles. “Take lots of photos, everyone, because we don't have a photographer.”

“Mom, you look stunning,” said Vivi.

“She's perfect,” said Simone. “Here, Vivi, take some pictures.”

“I feel better today,” said Ajax, wiggling her fingers. Today was the first day she'd been able to freely move them. “Apparently, I'll need my ring finger today. Oh, Logan, I am just crazy over the moon about you.”

“Come be my wife, then, gorgeous,” said Logan, kissing her forehead.

Joe wore Scout in the Snugli, leaving her free to hold hands with Vivi. If anyone thought this was unusual, no one commented.

Ajax took a big breath.

Logan took her elbow.

And they walked toward it, whatever it was.

A beach. A lake. A marriage.

Life.