Every Happy Family (6 page)

Three Months Later

ANNIE

“This plane smells,” Annie says to Les as she twists the air knob one way then the other for a lukewarm blast.

Her brother's eyes are closed, his head pressing the back of his still-upright seat, desperate for sleep, she knows, after six days in a cheap room in Times Square that vibrated when the traffic barrelled down Broadway. All night long, light from the Square's giant TV screen bled through the curtains, so Les reported, to bathe the room in “the colour of nightmares.” Unlike Les, Annie had slept like a log. External chaos calmed her right down – what a former boyfriend called Ritalin logic.

To help Les get caught up on the plane she gave him a few Ativan, memory erasers as she thinks of them. Before yesterday's meeting with Faye, their so-called real mother, they both should have popped a handful.

“Don't you think it smells?” She knocks her knee against his.

“Like what?”

“Like the inside of a dry-cleaning bag.” She reaches and twists on his blower too. “The air from these fans is more of the same.”

“It'll change when we take off.” His voice is groggy and he looks incapable of opening his eyes. Was three Ativan one too many? She just thought because he's so tall...

As the plane taxis out to the runway, instructional videos flare onto every seatback. She's in the middle seat, Les and his long legs on the aisle while a large man reading the
New York Times
fills the window seat. Wearing pressed chinos and collared polo, the man has a storm of dark grey curls on his square head, a defined goatee. She guesses fifty-five to her forty-five, a Spanish background, from Barcelona, no, Brazil, Buenos Aires. Good Air? Is that what that name means?

Under the armrest, his generous thigh, like that of a body builder gone to fat, presses warm along hers. She doesn't mind. There isn't nearly enough touching in this world. Faye, her own flesh and blood, didn't even bother to stand when she and Les arrived, but shook hands across the table. Shook fingers.

Annie pretends to read the airplane magazine as she checks out her neighbour. He's big, but big all over, well-proportioned. She's never had a really large lover. Markus was chubby but not what she'd call fat. Charlie had a beer gut and lovemaking required angles. Faye, who at sixty-five is a Pilates instructor, looked shrink-wrapped in her skin, her posture a goddamn pencil. She'd ordered sashimi, steamed vegetables and seaweed salad, announcing to no one in particular, “I don't do starch or red meat.” That was after Annie ordered udon noodles with pork. “A large hot sake,” she added to her order in terror, her morning lithium be damned. When the sake arrived and a third doll-sized cup was placed on the table, Faye held up her palm like a stop sign. “Not for me.”

“So,” Annie leans in behind her seatmate's paper. “Are you coming or going?”

His paper collapses in a heap on his generous lap. He looks amused and she likes how he takes his time answering. The skin on his face is smooth and lightly tanned. He doesn't have a fat face.

“If going means going from home then going.”

“Oh?”

“Brother's wedding. Second marriage.”

No foreign accent, an educated-sounding voice. “You're from New York, then.”

“Jersey.”

“So what does a man from Jersey do in Jersey?”

“Architect.”

“Wow.”

Bowing his head slightly, he raises a humble hand that has dimpled indentations where knuckles should be. “Industrial designs, not art galleries or skyscrapers.”

“Still. Wow. My nephew is studying architecture. In British Columbia.”

She'd done a handshake analysis workshop last year, a kind of prescreening for men. To make better choices. Glad to have chosen a flattering push-up bra this morning, she wants to shake his fat hand.

“So you're coming?” he asks.

“Coming home, yes. I'm in industrial design too, sort of. Clothes. I repurpose used fabric among other things.”

“Repurpose?”

She pinches up her pants. “Canvas tarp dyed navy blue. These?” Maroon braids run down the pant leg's outer seam. “Vinyl upholstery from old diner booths.”

“I'm impressed.”

She lowers her voice. “Lined with wedding gown satin. Lovely against the skin. In the early days of women's pants, they were all satin lined. Keeps you warm in the winter and cool in the summer.” Annie had driven Les crazy fretting over what to wear to meet Faye. In her more youthful fantasies, she wore white, billowy skirts and peasant blouses, bare orphan feet. Yesterday she finally settled on skinny jeans and a white ruffled blouse. And, for a touch of high fashion, red spiked heels, red lips. She limited her jewelry to silver bracelets and one pair of earrings. All tattoos were discreetly covered. Not that Faye took any notice. In her sleek black sweatsuit and runners, Faye had just come from teaching what she called “a private.” Her words were directed to Les, always Les, her grey businesslike eyes hooded to look professionally bored. Dyed blonde hair, bone straight like Les's, was pulled back into a whisk of a ponytail that tugged at the corners of her makeup-free eyes to make her look vaguely Asian. So this is what a murderer looks like, thought Annie. A murderess?

A flight attendant drifts by, eyeballing seatbelts and chair backs.

“So you were in New York on business?” asks her seatmate.

“Well, I did show my work at e-MERGE, a trade show for new designers, and actually got a couple of commissions out of it.” She hooks her thumb at Les. “My brother's idea, so I could write off my expenses. I really thought my flapper tops made from plastic straws would be a hit but no, leather cummerbunds.” She shrugs. “The main reason was so we could meet our birth mother. Well, so I could. Les didn't have the same compulsive need but kindly came with.”

“You mean this was –”

“First time, yeah. Finally tracked her down after all these years. Planned to spend the week with her but she put us off until yesterday. Gave us a whole hour and a half.”

“I'm sorry.”

“At least I can let that fantasy go.” The plane turns onto the runway and squares-off with the sky. “Ooh, I love takeoffs.”

He lets go a long exhale. “Flying unnerves me. Especially takeoffs.”

“No, no, I'll guide you through.” The engines rev to a high whine and the plane shudders. “Listen, flying is so totally out of your control,” she says over the noise.

“That's what I find –”

“So liberating.” As the plane starts forward, she grips the back of his hand and lifts it, raising her arms in the sign of surrender. When he tries to tug free, she holds on and he laughs, a deep purr of a laugh, and lifts up his other hand. “Lean back and close your eyes,” she tells him. The plane picks up speed. “Feel the power of this amazing machine...exhilarating...vroom... Feel it?”

“Yes.”

“And now...oh yeah...listen for it...that hush as the wheels...release us from the earth.” The plane lifts off the ground and noses skyward. “Ahh.”

After another minute, she reluctantly lets him go. “Better?”

“The nicest takeoff I've ever had. Thank you.”

“Annie.” She holds out her hand.

“Jonathan.” His hand swallows hers whole. His handshake, not too tight and not too loose, tells her he's sensitive, considerate, self-aware. And the subtle squeeze before they let go of each other's hand, that he's interested.

Les is reclined and asleep when the trolley rolls by with complimentary drinks and Annie orders him a Bloody Caesar so she can have two. Jonathan orders a minibottle of red wine.

“It's called the Reunion Registry. Reunion. Makes it sound all happy tears. As if you had something to reminisce about. Remember when you abandoned me as a baby?” She drinks and then raises her glass. “Tastes terrible. Yours?”

“Terrible.” They tap plastic.

“My mom, the one who adopted me, that is – Gerry, short for Geraldine – single after I came along, worked in a bridal shop. Taught me to sew. She was a rock, a practical throw-a-can-of-mushroom-soup-on-it kind of person and used to answer my questions about my birth mother with “no use digging up what's already buried,” so of course I registered the day I turned eighteen. But you see, your birth parent has to put their name in. That's how it works. They're not like a private-eye business. We resorted to that later.” Faucet mouth, a little voice warns, but she's helpless to stop. It always happens when she meets a man she likes. “So there I was, waiting with bated breath for the phone call. You dream about it a lot. I was depressed for a year after Joni Mitchell was reunited with her daughter. Not that I look anything like Joni but I loved Joni and, you know, there's such a shitload of possibilities you can't help but dream big. I was banking on Dad being Bill Clinton for a while.” She takes a long drink.

“You'd have Hillary as a stepmom.”

His wry smile makes her laugh.

“You know,” she says, pausing, “I realize I just assumed my father was dead so didn't even think to ask yesterday.” She huffs, mentally kicking herself. “So Hillary might
be
my stepmom for all I know.”

He laughs though she wasn't being funny. “Anyway, not too long after I'd put my name in, I finally got the call.”

“But I thought you said you had to hire a private –”

“It wasn't my mother they found. Annie Kellman, they said, did you know you have a brother? I had a brother! I danced around my room for an hour.” She slips the second Bloody Caesar cup inside the empty first one and pats Les's sleeping leg. “Gerry died when I was twenty, dropped dead of an aneurism, boom, on her way home on the bus.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, I was devastated. And permanently stoned on something or other for the next two years. Les is my family now. Nicest man, I can't tell you. Gentle, kind, funny. Loved him the moment we met and the poor guy hasn't been able to shake me since. The truth is I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for him.”

“You're very fortunate then.”

She loves the elegant way this man speaks. “We were never sure if we were full or half siblings, since we hardly look related. Me the size of a pygmy and, he six two. And the hair.” She grabs a swath of her dark, wiry curls. “Though I always thought we had the same mouth. Not that it really matters whether we're full or not, but that was something we wanted to ask our mother.”

“And did you?”

“Oh, I'm getting to that.” The food trolley is making its way down the aisle. “I'd really like some cheese and crackers. Stuffs me up, cheese, so I shouldn't eat it, but I love it. Lost my appetite after yesterday but am getting it back talking to you.”

“Glad to be of service,” says Jonathan and empties the rest of his bottle into his glass.

“Because of Les, I've got this amazing family: Jill, his wife, who's stupid-smart, a university prof, linguistics, and beautiful and organized and sane. Very few sane women on my planet. Two nephews, Quinn's the one who's in an architecture program, and Beau's in high school, a rugby man; and one niece, Pema, who's a fashion hound like me. She's adopted too. Tibetan. Well I'm not Tibetan. I helped them find her through this meditation group I was involved with. Oh, god, those kids are the best things in my life.”

“Those are interesting,” he says with a graceful gesture towards her earring.

“Thank you. I make them from Scotch broom pods.” She gives them a little rattle. “Seeds.”

“That's very clever,” he says. “May I buy you some cheese and crackers?”

“Why yes, yes you can.”

“Would anyone care for a snack?” The flight attendant leans in to snatch the empty wine bottle.

Annie raises her hand. “This nice man wants to buy me some cheese.”

Twenty minutes later, she knows Jonathan has two grown daughters, the younger one a veterinary nurse, the elder a graphic designer recently married and unable to have children. He says nothing about his wife and is not wearing a ring. She buys him another wine and herself another Caesar and tells him the story behind believing Faye did something criminal to her father.

“I did this retreat led by a spirit guide, amazing woman, a psychic really. The work was done in groups and so when it was my turn, I stood in the middle of the circle and had to ask the group my question: Why is it that all my relationships with men end badly?”

“Fair enough.”

“Oh god, yeah. Not to scare you off or anything.”

“I'm flattered,” he says in a humble, adorable way that makes her heart sway.

“The group was instructed to tune in to me, meditate on me while holding my question in mind, and then they were to spontaneously express whatever feelings or words or imagery came to them. One woman screamed, more angry scream than fearful. One guy crouched and covered his head. Another woman kept repeating I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you, while another said I had big black shoulders.”

“Very odd.”

“Very, but wait. So the leader's job – she called herself a spirit guide – was to interpret everyone's response then give me my answer. Oh yeah, one woman was hugging my thigh and another guy was running around the perimeter of the room at a pretty brisk pace. Anyway, do you know what the spirit guide said?”

“Couldn't begin to –”

The plane takes a hard bump, then another, and Jonathan sucks in his breath, his eyes darting out the window. The seatbelt sign pops on.

“Out of your control, remember?” Annie says, lifting up her hands. “And turbulence is nothing to worry about.”

He sighs. “Tell that to my racing heart.”

She places her mouth in front of his chest. “Turbulence is nothing to worry about.”

She's made him smile his wry smile again. She likes making this man smile. “Do you like to cook?”

“Love to cook.” He touches his stomach. “My downfall.”