Flight of Aquavit (48 page)

Even if you’re feeling better, you’re still wounded

and its much colder out there than it is in here and

the two don’t mix well.”

“Okay, but you’re going to take some of your

winter clothing back.”

We exchanged some clothing with me ending

up with most of my stuff again including the

hooded coat, gloves and boots. My colourful scarf

was once again around my neck where it

belonged, rather than wound around my head

like some kind of gay bandage. I headed outdoors.

It had begun to snow again but lightly and, unlike

last night, there was no wind to blow it around

like a blender full of flakes. The first thing I

noticed with alarm was that any sign of our

arrival the night before, footprints or trampled

trail, had been wiped clean by the storm. If anyone

was looking for us, they’d have no clue we were

here. As I began to tread my way around the barn,

past the bare-branched bushes, I began consider-

ing tentative plans for attracting the attention of

would-be rescuers. Perhaps a big SOS carved out

in the snow with urine? And then, like one of

those unrelated thoughts that sometimes come

unbidden and inexplicably to the forefront of my

brain, I thought of Sereena. And my mother’s mys-

terious tea service embossed with the letters S-O-S.

The answer came to me. The expensive tea set

belonged to…Sereena…Sereena Orion Smith—

SOS. I had never before connected Sereena’s full

initials with the well-known international request

382 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

for help. For a bizarre moment something inside

me told me it was no coincidence at all. But I let it

go. I had more pressing matters to attend to at the

moment.

As I rounded the corner of the greying struc-

ture I looked for the tallest thing around.

Anything would do, a tree, an abandoned piece of

farm machinery, anything I could use to get

myself high enough to get a lay of the land and

maybe spot a nearby village or farmyard where

we could find help. Then I saw something immea-

surably better. A house.

An hour later we were moved in. The old farm-

house, obviously obstructed from our view last

night by the storm, was as deserted and aged as

the barn. It had no electricity, little in the way of

insulation and didn’t even have any straw, but it

had a wonderful wood fireplace complete with a

well-stocked woodpile and several boxes of

wooden matches. It didn’t take long for the one-

room shack to heat up. When we were sufficiently

warm I presented Jared with another surprise. I’d

found in the cupboards a veritable gourmet meal

of canned goods. There was tuna and mushrooms

and Vienna sausages and corn and a can of peach-

es for dessert. And no meal is complete without

half a 1.75 litre bottle of Canadian Club rye

whiskey, cut with snow melted over the fire. We

were so famished that for several minutes we sat

on the overstuffed couch pulled near the fireplace

and ate with barely a word between us.

Anthony Bidulka — 383

“I have never tasted a better sausage in my

life!” Jared enthused as he chowed down on the

last of the rubbery pink encasements. “It’s my

new favorite food.”

“That’s good. There’s plenty more in the cup-

board. We may have to live on them for a while.”

I checked my watch. “I can’t believe we’re getting

tipsy on C.C. at eleven in the morning.”

“All we need is a two-four of Pilsner and this

would be the perfect white-trash Christmas Eve.”

“Should we sing a carol or something to make

it official?” I asked as I licked tuna juice from my

fork.

Jared winced. “Let’s save that for the made-for-

TV movie version of this escapade.”

I laughed and passed him the corn.

We fell silent for a few more minutes, eating our

grub and enjoying the fire licking at the logs. A lot

was on my mind. Not only the obvious—our pre-

carious situation—but something possibly even

more precarious, assuming we lived. For the

moment I could think of nothing more to do to get

us out of our situation, so as I was busy sating my

need for food and warmth, I allowed myself a few

minutes of idle wonder. Wonder about that kiss.

Was it simply a thank-you kiss? A desperate

“we’re gonna die so let’s kiss” kiss? Or was it

something more? All of this got me thinking about

what had happened at Diva’s two Saturdays ago.

Jared had found out, in a most humiliating and

public way, that his partner of five years had had

sex with someone else. I had no idea what had

transpired between Jared and Anthony since that

384 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

shocking revelation. Had they been fighting? Had

they broken up over it? It was time to find out.

“Jared,” I began hesitatingly, “I wanted to say

I’m sorry for what happened at Diva’s.”

Jared eyed me carefully over the can of corn

but took the time to eat another spoonful before

saying anything. “Why are you sorry?”

“I guess I feel responsible. If it wasn’t for me

and the case I’m working on…it wouldn’t have

happened…I mean…the thing at Bare Ass Beach

would have hap…but, well, you wouldn’t have

been at Diva’s and Daniel wouldn’t have seen

Anthony and…well, you know.” I can be extreme-

ly eloquent when the situation calls for it.

He ate a peach sliver.

“I’m sorry you had to find out the way you

did. I’m your friend and I should have been there

for you. And I should have been there to kick

Anthony’s butt.”

Jared repositioned himself on the sofa so as to

be directly facing me. “Russell, I knew about it.”

Knock me over with a feather boa. “You did?”

Suddenly the flames of the fire seemed to be lick-

ing at my cheeks.

“Yes. And why would you want to kick

Anthony’s butt?”

I stumbled over words for a bit. “Well, for what

he did to you. For fooling around on you. But I

guess…but…You knew?”

“Yes.” His voice was calm and revealed noth-

ing, but his eyes had turned an unusual shade of

green.

“And…you’re okay with it?”

Anthony Bidulka — 385

“I have to be, Russell. It happened this sum-

mer…when Anthony and I weren’t a couple.”

I had raised my glass of watered-down rye to

my lips but lowered it again afraid I might gag.

The fire was all over my body now and I could feel

perspiration form at my temples. “What are you

talking about? You and Anthony have been

together for years!”

“Not this summer we weren’t,” he said, his

voice soft.

And I didn’t know about this!

Shit. I didn’t know about this.

How did I not know about this?

“What happened? Did you find out he was

cheating and leave him?” I cannot believe the

garbage that sometimes comes out of my mouth.

The look Jared gave me then was odd. It was

sad. It was critical. It was discomfited. “I did leave

him. Not because he was cheating. But because I

was.”

I’m sure my eyes grew as big as they do in car-

toons. My throat tightened and all I could do was

stare at him.

“It has always been a challenge, Anthony and

I, with our careers, especially mine, keeping us

apart for such long periods of time. I come back to

Saskatoon and he sometimes flies out to my loca-

tion shoots, but it isn’t perfect. And I began to

think it was too hard. I foolishly thought love

should be easier. So when I met a man, another

model, who seemed to be…easier…I decided to

end it with Anthony.”

I finally found my voice and some whiffs of

386 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

good sense and said, “I was just so used to you

being away, sometimes for months at a time, I

never noticed you were…really gone. And

Anthony didn’t say anything. It’s hard to remem-

ber but I don’t recall anything obviously amiss

this summer.”

“That could be,” he allowed with a sad bob of

his head. “We talked about what to say to people

after we, or rather I, made the decision. But we

never got that far. We were still very much in love

but it took Anthony’s persistence to show me that

love still counted for something. I was such a

knucklehead. But he kept on calling, just to talk,

just to see how I was, no judging, no histrionics,

no accusations or pleading to get back together.

Sometimes we’d be on the phone every night for

hours at a time. He really believed in us. And I dis-

covered that something worth having is worth

working at, no matter how hard. So you see, when

Anthony and your client had their thing on the

beach, he had every right to be with another man,

because I was too.”

I took a punishingly huge gulp of my bitter

drink and contemplated my shame. Had I been

prepared to believe the worst about Anthony in

order to fuel a childish fantasy of a possible future

with the lovely Jared Lowe? I had believed it pos-

sible Anthony was a philanderer and a blackmail-

er and maybe even a kidnapper. I sunk under the

weight of how incredibly selfish and down right

stupid I had been.

“In the fall,” Jared continued, “we got back

together, stronger than ever and we’re very happy,

Anthony Bidulka — 387

Russell—as really, we always have been.”

I nodded mutely. What a fairy tale this turned

out to be. My knight, sitting next to me beneath a

tattered horse blanket, had revealed the chinks in

his not so shiny armour. My maligned friend

Anthony turned out to be the injured party and

ultimately heroic character. As for me? Well, I

turned out to be the fool. And the kiss? Who

knows for sure what it was, perhaps an intimate

act of thanksgiving for our survival.

“I’m glad it’s turned out that way,” I said, real-

izing without a bit of doubt that I was being com-

pletely truthful.

“Me too,” he said, reaching out to take my

hand in his and giving me a meaningful look.

“Someone will come for us, Jared,” I told him,

wanting…needing to change the subject.

“Do you really believe that? Who? Who will

come for us? No one has even the foggiest idea

where we are.”

That was when the banging started.

Despite our history of congenial dislike, I was

never so glad to see someone as I was that

Christmas Eve morning to see Darren Kirsch,

coming through the door of that shack with two

RCMP officers at his heels.

“Are we disturbing something?” were his first

words as he directed a bemused stare at our sur-

prisingly cozy situation: cuddled up on a couch in

front of a roaring fire, full of corn and tuna and a

little slap-happy from downing rye shooters.

388 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

“How did you find us?” we both asked at once,

shocked by the men’s appearance and jumping up

from the couch like two teenagers caught in a half-

nude embrace.

“We’ve got a snowplow and two cruisers wait-

ing outside,” he told us matter-of-factly. “I’ll fill

you in on the way back to town.” He stopped

there and gave us a careful once-over. “You guys

okay?” he said, barely disguising something not

dissimilar to genuine concern in his voice.

We nodded and hurriedly gathered our meagre

belongings while one of the RCMP officers put out

the fire and Darren and the other officer per-

formed a quick search of the farmhouse. I don’t

know why they were searching it, but I didn’t

really care. I just wanted to get the hell outta there.

An hour or so later when we arrived at the

Saskatoon police station downtown, we were

greeted by my mother, Anthony, Kelly and Errall.

Apparently, the Saskatoon cops first became aware

something was amiss via—in a roundabout way—

James Kraft. NYPD officials had contacted Darren

to tell him to keep an eye on me because James’

death was now being ruled “suspicious,” and I,

given my involvement with the case, was topping

their list of people they wanted to investigate.

Darren called the house to give me a heads-up and

reached Errall, who had come over with Kelly after

Mom, in a state, had called Kelly fretting about my