My Temporary Life (14 page)

Terry is driving, and I’m lying back in the passenger seat, enjoying the ride. We’ve ventured almost a hundred miles from home playing our game, to a small town that has the unlikely name of Hope, but unfortunately, it’s been a futile trip. Hope’s small service station does have an operational car wash, but it isn’t a Brutus. It isn’t even close to a Brutus. It’s shinier and newer than Brutus ever looked, even on his best days. So, after driving every gravel road that we could find, in order to dirty Terry’s car, we’ve turned around, preferring instead to drive the dusty vehicle home.

Terry has his Dad’s friendly grimace on his face when he speaks, and is trying to pretend that he’s frustrated. “On the phone the kid told me. He told me that they’d had the same car wash for the last ten years. That sucker’s barely three years old. Why’d we drive out here all this way if it wasn’t Brutus? Why’d we come this far?”

“
I don’t know, Terry, maybe he just needed your three bucks. Maybe it’s as simple as that.” He squirms a little in his seat as I let him pretend that we’ve come all this way just to see a car wash.

“
Malcolm, you can’t trust a kid. I should have asked for the owner of the place, when I called. I shouldn’t have listened to that kid on the phone. I mean how old was he? Fifteen? Sixteen? What the hell do you know about car washes when you’re fifteen years old? What the hell do you know about anything when you’re fifteen years old?” His question lingers for only a moment before he realizes what he’s said, and he can’t help but smile at his remark, thinking back to when we were that age, building our own car wash.

“
I know what you’re thinking, Malcolm Wilson. I know exactly what you’re thinking, but it’s different now. It’s different today. We had something that they never had. We had vision. We always had vision.”

He’s half right. He had vision, still does in fact. I, on the other hand, was just trying to survive, flying back and forth between countries, never knowing how long it would be before I left again. When I did get the opportunity to stay in one place, I took it. I only visited Scotland a few times after leaving to attend school on Vancouver Island, and each time my Dad always looked as though he was going to ask me when I was coming home. He’d stand at the airport and the question would hang in the air between us, waiting to be asked. I never gave him the opportunity though, always rushing to get onto the plane, making plans, telling him that I loved him and that I’d see him soon.

I sometimes wonder where the young boy who was so lost, who wanted so badly for things to stop changing, went. My life since school in Canada has been so calm, so uneventful that I don’t really know who I am anymore. I’m certainly not the young man who punched Stuart Douglas in the face while he lay on a rainy Kilmarnock schoolyard. But I’m not the boy who was pissed on from the tree either. I suppose I’m somewhere in between, somewhere calmer, safer.

We’re passing another little town, both lost in thought, enjoying spending time together, before he broaches the real reason that we took our trip to Hope. “So, you’re coming. With or without Marsha, you’re still going to come. Don’t disappoint us, Malcolm. You have to come. You always come.”

I’ve just endured another relationship implosion, and on the phone, when I told Terry that my girlfriend of eighteen months had left, and that I would not be attending his annual beginning of summer party, he immediately decided that we should play our game. So, we took our road trip, our road trip to find Brutus. It’s just an excuse, of course, just a reason for him to talk to me, and to see how I am.

“
Her name is Natasha, Terry, and you know that very well. Besides, I came to your party when I worked for you. Then it was different…”

He cuts me off before I can continue. “Natasha, Marsha, it doesn’t matter. There’ll always be another one. There’ll always be another girl. And, remember, you never worked for me, Malcolm. We worked together, just like always, working together.”

He’s right; we did work together. At first I worked solely for Terry and his Dad, Bill, but soon, with their encouragement, I opened my own small firm. Now Terry’s company has grown so large that I’m only a consultant to him, but because of my connection to Allister Enterprises, and my safe, fastidious approach to my work, my small company is modestly successful.

In college, I took the brilliant mind of my childhood that solved problems and equations so effortlessly, and settled. I stuck with my safe, dependable numbers. They’re my specialty-numbers, formulas, and my beloved equations. I love how they come together, fall into place and work in perfect conjunction with each other. Numbers don’t vary. They don’t stray. If a series of numbers add, or multiply, or subtract a certain way today, they’ll do that over and over again tomorrow, without fail. I try to live my life the same way. I enjoy order. I love the solace that I get from my numbers.

I am an accountant.

We come over the crest of a hill and the full force of the early June sunshine hits the dirty windshield, and we reach for our sun visors at the same time. “You’re right, Terry. We worked together, and that’s when I came to your company barbecue. It’s a company barbecue, for your employees.” I stretch out the word ‘company’, trying to remind him of why he started his annual party in the first place. “I’m just not in the mood to go this year, Terry. I’m just not there, buddy.”

Terry has always had this way of drawing me in, of speaking as though he’s sharing a great secret that only I’m able to hear. He can haul his short, stocky, muscular frame into a room, and instantly make you feel his presence. He has personality; this way of instantly making you feel at ease. I can stand beside him with my six foot two lanky frame, and my unkempt hair, and he’ll curl his finger up, bringing me in closer, speaking as though he doesn’t want anyone else to know what he’s about to say.

I know what’s coming next. I can anticipate it. Every time I have relationship issues, Terry gives me his theories. I have to listen to them. I have no choice, I’m trapped in the passenger seat, so I recline back and try to smile, enjoying the sunshine that’s beaming through the windshield.

“
I have an idea, Malcolm. I want you to think about something. I want you to think about this. Forget about work. Forget about Marsha, Natasha, whatever. For you, this summer should be about sex, nothing else, just sex, and the procurement, thereof.” He likes to use words that he isn’t quite sure of their meaning, and then watch my reaction to see if I’m going to correct him. I never do. I just close my eyes, and let him continue.

“
This girl, and the one before her, and the one before that, they’re all gone now. You need to look forward. You need to have some fun, and not fall in love with every girl who lets you get your feet under her table.” He’s smiling when he says it, liking the fact that he’s mixing Scottish metaphors with his Canadian theories.

“
Where the hell did you hear that, Terry Allister? That’s my father talking. ‘My feet under her table.’ That’s hilarious, Terry. It really is.” I can’t help but laugh, thinking how my Dad’s sayings have worn off on Terry.

“
Yes, I did hear your Dad saying that. And it’s exactly what he’d say to you. When did you talk to him last anyways? Are you still calling him every week? Tell him I said, hello. Tell him that I was asking for him.”

Terry met my father when he came from Scotland to see me graduate from college, and instantly liked him. My dad liked Terry too. At first he called him ‘a bit of a lad’, but soon, like the rest of us, he fell for Terry’s charm. As the years went by, and Terry became more and more successful, he’d ask me if I was still counting the bags of money for ‘that daft wag’.

“
I don’t know if that would be my dad’s advice, Terry, but, yes, I spoke to him the other day. He’s doing well, tells me that he’s going to retire, take it easy. I’ll believe it when I see it. I can’t imagine my dad not working. I don’t know what he’d do with himself.”

“
Maybe, he’ll get a woman; find himself a Scottish lady. You know there’s lots of fun to be had out there. Do you remember what I was like, before I met Jo? It was about fun, Malcolm. It was always about fun.” We leave the side roads, and enter the main highway just as Terry starts to reminisce about his single days, the days before he married Jo, and the car, appropriately enough, begins speeding up.

“
That’s how it was, Malcolm. You remember. You have to. And that’s how you have to think, this summer. Think about the fun. Don’t think about falling in love with one girl. Think about chasing girls. In fact, just think about the chase. I’ll tell you something, my friend, sometimes the chase was the best part of it. The chase is overlooked far too often. It’s the foreplay before the foreplay.”

He tells me the story about the girl with the long loopy earrings. It’s the same story that I’ve heard for years. It varies sometimes, in little ways, but it’s still the same story.

“
Hot, hot, smokin’ hot day, Malcolm, and our cars end up stuck at the same light. I’m right beside her, looking into her open window, and she’s squinting into the sun. She has this little trace of a smile on her face, and those earrings were dangling, the sun shining right off them. You’re listening, right, you’re getting this?” He has his not-so-serious, serious expression on now, the one that forces you to pay attention to him.

“
Yes, Terry. I’m listening. In fact, I’m not sure, but you may even have told me this story once or twice before.”

He hears me but doesn’t listen. He just keeps right on talking, trying to make his point. “Yeah, yeah, anyways, I look into her eyes, right directly into her eyes, but it’s not her eyes that I see. All I can see are her breasts, her glorious, lovely, hot summer breasts. We talk. We talk about the weather, the heat, but all the while I’m thinking about touching her, thinking about how smooth her skin is going to feel. We pull over, have a coffee at a coffee shop, and an hour later, I’m in her bed.”

I’m laughing now because I know what comes next. It’s the Terry Allister philosophical ending. His story is an interesting story, and it probably did happen just the way that he says it happened, but it’s the way that he sums it up that I enjoy listening to. It’s the way that he’s motivated his employees, and I suppose, himself, all these years. He’s an inventor, a salesman, a husband to Jo, and a good friend to me, but like lots of people, he sees himself as something else. Terry sees himself as a philosopher. No, Terry is a philosopher.

“
Now, Malcolm, that little encounter all began with a flirt, just a flirt, but it became much more than that. It’s not just flirting. It’s about finding a maybe. I looked at her, she looked at me. Then, I asked with my eyes, no words, just eyes, and she smiled back a maybe. And let me tell you, my friend, there’s lots of satisfaction in a maybe.”

He pauses, and taking his eyes off the road for a moment, looks over at me, making sure that I’m listening. I stretch in the comfortable reclined seat and look over at my friend, allowing him to give me his philosophical summary.

“
Maybes make the world go round, Malcolm. Maybes give us hope. They tuck us into bed at night, and they wake us up in the morning. Maybes help us navigate our way through just about anything. Yeah, that’s what you need, my friend. You need a whole summer of maybes.”

I’m smiling now, and after a moment he is too. He’s remembering the girl, I suppose, and is smiling the way he always does when he has someone who will listen to his theories.

In the movie of my life that plays in my head, I’ve tried to imagine myself just as Terry suggests. I see a charming, carefree, ladies’ man that sneaks out of bathroom windows in the middle of the night, before husbands get home, and then laughs about it afterwards. I imagine myself juggling Brittanys and Courtneys and best of all Sheenas, and being faithful to none of them. In the real world though, the world I really live in, I know that just isn’t me. Terry talks about the girl with the loopy earrings, and all of the others that he knew, but all I’ve ever really wanted was one girl, or even better
the
girl.

We leave the main highway, and enter the city. He starts weaving his car through traffic, changing lanes and overtaking slower drivers. It’s our drive to the water. Both of our homes look out at the same water, only my view is from my fifteenth floor apartment and Terry’s is from his house in the hills.

“
Yeah, the party will do you good. You never know; you might just meet somebody; you might meet a maybe, Malcolm. Just remember what I told you. Take a break; take a break from serious for a while. Have some fun, for Pete’s sake.”

My friend is probably right; I need a break from something. I’m not sure if it’s from women, or commitment, or work or all three. I’ve taken a few days off from my accounting practice to try and forget Natasha, and the ones before her. I’m thirty four and I’ve been in two serious, and two not-so-serious, relationships in my life. All of which seemed to end the same way.