Love Is Overdue (46 page)

Angela’s eyes went wide at my random
outburst but Ivan just laughed and sucked his teeth. “You believe
him?” he challenged, taking my cue and following suit with the lime
and the salt.

“
It’s a pretty wild
accusation, I’ll admit that,” I said.

The two of us tossed back the tequila
in unison. Angela’s remained untouched.

“
Yeah, but do you believe
him?” Ivan repeated.

I opened my mouth to answer, but then
I stopped myself. I had no idea what I believed anymore. Angela
looked like she wanted to say something but was staying silent
deliberately. I really wished she hadn’t given up on the tequila so
prematurely.

My mind was running in so many
directions and had been already for over 24 hours, but the
realization that I was now sitting at a table among two people that
knew Ben a hell of a lot better than I did was suddenly hitting me
hard. Ivan was his brother, his blood, his family – he had been his
best friend his entire life until only a few years ago…and
Angela…Angela knew him in the most intimate way. Ben had loved her,
fucked her, he’d lived with her, he’d wanted to marry her…and here
was I. What did I, or could I possibly even know about Ben, that
could even hold a candle to the two of these people here in front
of me?

Whatever was going on with Ben was a
complete fucking mystery to me. Ben hadn’t come to me or confided
in me or needed anything from me. He had been there for me in every
possible way – when it came to my mom, to the apartment, to Laz –
but what good was I to him? I wanted to cry…

“
Okay, fuck it.” Angela’s
voice cut through the silence then, as she apparently had changed
her mind, and was downing the tequila in one quick shot. She made a
face and set the glass back down. “Ben and Maria were never even
that serious. They hung out for a few months – Maria got pregnant
and Ben decided to try to do the right thing – it was…” Her voice
trailed off for a moment. “It was an attempt on his part of trying
to make something out of nothing. He loves his daughter very much,
Gabriela, but I would bet my entire Joni Mitchell collection that
he’s not fucking Maria.”

Nobody said anything for a good few
seconds.

I let my breath out slowly. “You like
Joni Mitchell?” It was funny how that was the first thing I
processed out of her revelation.

“
Of course. Who
doesn’t?”

Ivan sucked his teeth at the two of
us. “Y’all ladies like to trip out over nothing.”

“
Yeah, well, sometimes it’s
warranted,” Angela pointed out, and I couldn’t help but think about
what she may have been referring to.

Ω

The three of us sat around the kitchen
table and polished off the rest of the bottle while we waited for
Ben, and the conversation seemed to flow a little more freely as we
all got a little hammered in the process.

I decided to
ask the questions since I didn’t feel like answering many myself.
Angela, I learned, was a nail-tech at a salon on East Broadway – it
“paid the bills”, as she put it. I realized that made sense,
considering she had a beautifully coiffed french-tipped manicure,
which I had been noticing for a while already.

What impresses you in a woman? ...Pretty hands…
It was the first thing I thought of
when she mentioned it. Why was I so fucking jealous?

She was, however, taking night classes
twice a week at UBC, trying to get her degree in social work. It
stung a bit. She was actually trying to do something with her life
– “make a difference”, as she put it – even though it would never
make her rich, but that was what Ivan was for. Ha ha.

Ivan, as Ben had mentioned to me
before, was a mechanic and co-owner of Martin’s Autoshop over on
East Hastings and Boundary Road. He’d also played professional
soccer and was a member of the Whitecaps for four years, but had to
retire after fucking up his knee during a playoff match about ten
years ago… He coached now, though – some kids at the Grandview
Community Club – and his kids both played as well, although Levi
was currently more interested in partying, sleeping, chasing girls
and just generally “fucking around” than anything else, but
hopefully he’d come around again…

Oh, and Ivan was also a
vegetarian.

“
Well, aside from the
occasional piece of fish and maybe some fried chicken,” Angela
clarified, chewing on her wedge of lime.

Ivan narrowed his eyes at her and I
laughed softly. “I guess you wouldn’t eat Ben’s cooking then,” I
said.

Ivan just sucked his teeth. “Depends
what he make – am not that rude, y’know…unlike him. He think all
vegetarians are a buncha fuckin’ idiots. Those are his exact words
– direct quote.”

That made me laugh. “Yeah, I could see
him saying that.”

“
That’s one thing I miss,”
Angela was reminiscing. “Waking up on a Sunday morning and fryin’
up a pan of bacon, drenchin’ it in some maple syrup and watchin’ a
Coronation Street marathon on PBS…”

I cracked up laughing but Ivan just
sucked his teeth in disgust. “Y’see, that right there is what can
keep a lady single for life…if I ever woke up and saw that shit I
don’t think I could come home again for at least a month…fi
real.”

Angela rolled her eyes at him. “You’d
be home by bed-time,” she dismissed him easily.

And then the sound of the doorbell
seemed to sober us all up in a heartbeat – or so I thought. Ivan
got up to answer it. Angela and I turned awkwardly silent yet
again. I waited, listening, as I heard the sound of the front door
unlatching, and their voices – muffled slightly by the half-wall
separating us.

Ivan was the first to step back into
the kitchen, but Ben was right behind him. I felt like I hadn’t
seen him in a week but of course it had only been about 30 hours or
so. He looked as good as he always did but there was something
different about him. Something in his face. In his eyes. As many
questions as I had about what was going on – what the hell had
happened, was happening, and would happen in the future – I was
starting to become afraid to know.

He nodded his chin at the empty bottle
of tequila and all the juiced and sucked up lime wedges strewn
across the table. “What’s all this?”

“
Just did some shots to
ease the tension. You want one?” Angela offered, even though the
bottle was empty.

“
No, not really.” Ben
glanced at me then.

“
So you waan tell us
w’happen or what?” Ivan cut to the chase. “Where’s
Sophie?”

Ben dropped down onto the kitchen
chair next to me and leaned over the table, holding his head for a
good ten seconds. “Fuck…” He let his breath out suddenly and then
just leaned back in the chair. “She’s at my place. Adam and his
girlfriend are stayin’ there with her until I get back.”

“
Where’s Maria?” Angela
asked.

“
I have no fuckin’ idea.”
Ben was quiet for a moment. “I picked Sophie up from school
yesterday because Maria ask me to take her and…Sophie – she just
start tellin’ me all this shit about how she doesn’t waan go home –
why can’t she just come live wit me and I just don’t even know what
to say – she never talk like that before so…I told her we should
take a walk to the duck pond on Granville Island, y’know, I figure
she likes it there and maybe she’ll open up more so I can figure
out where the fuck all this is coming from…she starts goin’ on
about Miguel, y’know – ‘He’s always mean to me’, ‘He tells me I’m
bad and he doesn’t like me’…I ask her if he ever hit her or hurt
her and she says no… ‘but he hits my mommy all the
time’…”

“
Aww…
hell
no…” Ivan sucked his teeth, cutting
Ben off in mid-sentence. “Fuck that shit, Ben – let’s go. That
motherfucker probably still sittin’ gettin’ pissed at the bar right
now.”

“
Ivan, are you crazy?”
Angela piped up immediately.

Ben just sucked his teeth. “Believe me…it crossed my mind.”
He paused. “After she told me that I just took her straight back to
Pops and Sally – I know that fuckin’ prick works nights so I go
straight to Maria’s place. She don’t wanna open the door, y’know,
she keeps the fuckin’ chain on and tells me she’s sick and I just
keep telling her I know what’s going on, I know because Sophie told
me, and so eventually she lets me in and…” His voice trailed off
then, and he just shook his head slowly. “I never seen anything
like that in my life…fuck, I mean…she was just
covered
in
bruises…black eye…fuckin’
handprints
on her
fuckin’ arm…seven months pregnant. She’s crying…sobbing…I just
start beggin’ her to just leave, to come with me, to get the fuck
out of there, to call the police – at that point am almost in tears
myself, am practically on my knees just pleading with her…I don’t
even give a fuck anymore…until…I don’t know…somehow eventually she
agrees so I help her pack a bag and she comes with me and I take
her home with me…she wants us to pick up Sophie but I won’t do it
‘cause I can’t have her see her like that…and by this morning he’s
already calling her. She promised me she wouldn’t answer – she
won’t talk to him – but not more than like two hours later I hear
her in the bathroom, I guess she called him or something…Sally took
Sophie to school so I told Maria to just sleep and rest and not to
fucking leave – I wouldn’t be gone long, and I promised her I’d
bring Sophie back after school, but…” He shook his head slowly. “By
the time I got back from seeing my lawyer she was already gone.
Haven’t seen her since.”

Listening to him sent a cold shiver up
my spine but I did my best to stay composed. “I don’t think she
went back to him – not yet anyway,” I said then. “At least that’s
what Miguel told me. That she was with you.”

Ben looked at me, just taking in my
words in silence.

“
Ben, right now you can’t
worry about Maria – she’s a grown woman, she’s gonna do whatever
she wants,” Angela said then. “You can’t change that, you just have
to make sure you keep Sophie safe.”

“
What your lawyer say?”
Ivan wanted to know.

Ben didn’t say anything right away, just stared straight
ahead. “I told him I want full custody – emergency petition or
something – I don’t know, he workin’ on it for me. We never did
have anything set up legally so he said that will probably make
things easier for me.” He was quiet for a moment. “The last thing
I’d ever want is to keep Sophie from her mother but what other
fuckin’ choice do I have? Even as she sat there with me last night
– black and blue and completely fucked up by that Puerto Rican
piece-a-shit – she still tried to make excuses for him…tellin’ me
he never did anything like this before…he’s just
stressed
…he drinks too much…he’s gonna get help –
fuck.”
Ben sucked his teeth in disgust. “You know, you right, Ivan
– let’s me an’ you go
help
that motherfucker
right now…” He pushed his chair back suddenly, moving to get
up.

I was near panic now.

“
No!” Angela said again.
“You can’t do that! What you gonna do? Go beat him up and get both
your asses thrown in jail? Then what happens to Sophie,
huh?”

“
Ahh…fuck it…” Ivan groaned
in obvious reluctance. “You know, she right Benjamin. But if you
waan I can just go take him out myself – I don’t mind.”

“
Stop it, Ivan.” Angela
again. “No one here is thinking clearly right now.”

The images rolling through my head in
that moment, however, seemed clear as day. I must have been about
Sophie’s age – maybe a little older – and we were in the thick of
the summer heat in Sao Paulo – only a few weeks after New Year’s,
as I still had the bright yellow feathered boa my mother bought me
at the fireworks celebration in town wrapped around my bedpost.
Lazaro and I were in our bedroom, both of us in just our underwear
as we lay on our twin mattresses that were stripped bare of even a
sheet to cover us, the small electric fan our mother had
circulating along the wall doing nothing but assaulting us with an
even heavier wave of that sticky humid air. Neither of us could
sleep. The sound of Raoul’s drunken voice vibrated straight through
the concrete walls. The smack of his hand hitting flesh. My
mother’s sobs…

“
Have you ever smelled his breath in the morning?” Lazaro
had whispered to me, through the steady hum of the fan. “I’m pretty
sure if I struck a match, his whole head would blow up into
flames.”

I thought about that for a moment.
“Then you really would have killed a dragon.”

Ω

I got up
suddenly. “I think I need some air,” I addressed all three of them,
but then immediately grabbed the back of my chair to steady myself.
The tequila had obviously gotten the best of me. I saw Ben glance
over at me. “I’ll be back.”

I stepped out onto the porch and
fished in my bag for my cigarettes. It took me a while as I
navigated through all the crap I’d bought at the shop
earlier…

I heard the door open behind me about
a minute later and Ben was beside me.

“
Hey…” His voice was soft.
“I’ll take you home, Gabby.”