The Big Dream (7 page)

Nothing happens that afternoon – he somehow gets through the last half-hour with no calls and just goes without even seeing Suyin. The next morning, he has a new date in his Outlook calendar and realizes that Suyin will fire him when she shows up at their eleven o'clock appointment. He doesn't have anything to do – his station has been shut down or something, no calls are coming in.

He dicks around on his cellphone for a while. He's going to have to cut off the internet capability, he can't afford it. Tomas and Vicki are writing on each other's Facebook walls every day now, practically – if it gets around that they're dating, Tomas will totally lose his player status. Suyin is walking around the CSR room, talking to people, picking up timesheets because it's Friday. She's going to fucking fire him never even knowing how into her he is, how good a boyfriend he would be.

Suyin would forgive him for one silly little slip. It's her boss, he forgets that bitch's name, but she is a total bitch. Suyin is a sweetheart who likes him. She would never hurt him. She's probably really sad and upset that she has to do this – because she doesn't want to hurt him and because she will miss him. She doesn't even know how he feels, or that in his head, heart, bottom drawer, he's already her perfect boyfriend.

She comes up behind him and says, “Grig.” His headset, which he hadn't even realized he was holding, hits the floor. She scoops it up, says, “Let's go,” then turns without waiting for an answer.

He watches her walk away, picturing her striding ahead of him on the bumpy asphalt pathway in front of Tomas's basement stairs, on the way to the party. Suyin's hips would be swaying the way they totally aren't now, and he would know the sway came from the rub of a lace thong in her ass.

She has disappeared down the hall. He finds her in the CSR conference room, standing at the table, head bent. She looks like a priest, praying on her feet.

“Hello, Suyin.”

She makes eye-contact but doesn't smile as she walks towards him. It seems like she's walking straight into his arms, but at the last moment she deeks left and taps the door shut behind him. Then she pulls back to arm's length, still holding eye-contact. It's very sexy or, at least, it could be.

“Hello, Grigori. I think you know why I wanted to speak to you alone.”

Her words sound like a porno, but when he takes a step towards her, she goes back to the table and reads from her file folder.

“You've been on probation since our feedback meeting on March 23. I'm sorry to say that since then there was an incident that forces me to terminate your contract.”

She is reading aloud. Someone has put her to this, clearly – it is an assignment she hates. She hates the department bosses and
Dream Inc. and everything that forces them to be apart. Her hand grip the paper in front of her chest. “I have to ask you to leave the building now.” The page rattles but she keeps it between them. Her eyes seem teary.

“Is ok, Suyin.” He is so tense that he makes an old mistake – everyone knows “It is.” “Don't worry.” He takes a step forward. He wants to reach out and take the paper, tell her don't worry, he's the sort of guy who has gotten her an invitation to a big party and bought her a present. She will be so grateful. On Sunday after the party and all the fucking in the pink lace thong, he will take her to complimentary yoga at the mall, and stand quietly in a corner watching her twist and bend. Then go home and fuck again. On Monday they will come to work holding hands above the parking brake in Suyin's car, and she will explain to the bosses that they are fuckers, and give him his headset back.

“Of course.” She lets her hand fall. “I'm sure you'll find another job soon.”

His fingertips are almost touching her grey-sweatered arm when he registers what she has said. “No. Is better I stay here. You'll help.” He smiles encouragingly.

“No . . . the decision is . . . is firm. That feedback was your final warning. I'm afraid nothing else . . .” How could she let the bosses fuck her, fuck
them
around like this?”

“Do not do this, Suyin. You know I love you.”

He is close to her now, can feel her breath against his chest, or thinks he can. She takes a step to the side.

“What did you say?”

Something pounds hard in his belly, down low near his dick but not sexy.

“There's this party I will take you to, my friend Tomas, he's a fun guy, you'll see. And his girlfriend, Vicki. I have told them all about you.”

“All about me what? Whatever would you tell them about me?”

He is confused, tired, can't remember if
whatever
is the same as what. He has been so good to her, so sweet and polite, not like with those Scarborough whores. Yet she is trying to get rid of him. He could make her so happy, buy her presents, take her places.

“I asked . . . I wanted them to help buy you a present. I wanted to pick the right thing.” This is true, more or less.

“Grig . . . it wouldn't be . . . appropriate for me to accept a gift from you.”

He wants to tell her it's appropriate, that he loves her and she cannot betray his beautiful love, but it's a thong and a tight-ass like her would never understand the long day downtown and stupid nosy Vicki and all the complimentary yoga he has in mind. It's hard for him to get his thoughts organized to tell her in English, but he will. He closes his eyes to think but then he hears the
snick
of the doorknob turning and he opens his eyes and slams the door shut with his palm.

“Grig! I have to – ”

“I love you, Suyin, you don't fucking – ” This is not what he meant to be saying, and she is flushed and water is tricking down her face and she goes for the door again and if she leaves she'll be out of his life and he won't see her pretty, tight-ass little face and he knocks the door shut again.

“Grig, what are you
doing
?”

She's crying, crying!

“I'm sorry, Suyin, don't cry. I love you.” He reaches out his arms and she flinches but she's in the corner by the door and she can't pull back. She's afraid, that's what she is, the stupid cunt, afraid of
him
, when he loves her and buys her gifts. He puts his arms around her, presses her wet face into the front of his shirt to dry her tears. He hugs her so tight.

“MA, I'M HOME.” Yaël took off her steel-grey trench, hung it carefully on its hook, then bent to unzip her steel-grey presentation boots.

Her mother was sitting on the hall bench beside her, rubbing her left foot. “I see you. You gonna to eat here tonight?”

“Yeah, but early. I'm going out.” She knocked over a boot, bit her lips, righted it, all without looking at her mother. Yaël was anxious. To go to a party with graduate students, to be introduced as Sasha's girlfriend – these were huge wardrobe questions, a totally new hair problem. And her longest black miniskirt was in the wash and the autumn humidity would get into her hair if she didn't straight-iron it, and was all this even worth it for another woman? Her mother sat watching Yaël take off her pearl-button earrings, her presentation watch, her hairclip, until Yaël couldn't stand it anymore and whirled down the hall to turn on the shower.

When she came back her mother was putting her shoes under the bench, and had to ask over her shoulder, “Did the logo presentation go all right?”

Yaël started unbuttoning her blouse. “Yeah, of course. Abey home?”

“Working late again. You know how fall is. I'll fix your dinner. Who you going out with? Lahley and Jane? Who's driving?”

“Sasha. It's a party. We're gonna meet there.” Yaël gave up on the buttons and whipped her shirt over her head, muffling
meet
and
there.
Her mother would have watched Yaël's whole life on cable, in real time, had there been such a station. Yaël would have been happy to limit their conversations to food and clothes, but when her mother asked, she always answered, an involuntary reflex. She knew if her mother ever asked her point-blank if she was sexually attracted to females, she would answer yes. But her mother probably wouldn't ask her that.

Chien came up and since she was taking her clothes off anyway, Yaël gave him a pat and let him rub his woolly head against her nylon leg. “I've got to be there by eight. Don't put sauce on anything, ok?” Then she unzipped her tweed skirt, let it slip down, kicked it up into her hand and marched to the bathroom, wondering whether lesbians said
girlfriend
or
partner,
and whether that was the same as what intellectuals said. Probably.

Sasha had said come any time after eight, but Yaël had spent the day discussing fonts and pantones and swirls for the logo, smiling hard at people she didn't like. She was tired enough that she'd have to go early to make the preparation worthwhile, if it would be at all.

She thought of the raised-eyebrow thrill of a man's face upon seeing her best – hair, breasts, eyebrows, thighs. She would miss those eyebrows, that twist of a man's desiring mouth before he kissed her. But she was not saying
never again
to men. And despite Sasha's sneakers and books and intellect, her face was probably still capable of opening into wonder for a perfect toss of perfect hair. Yaël thought it could happen.

Yaël came downstairs in her blue silky robe and blue Chinese slippers, her blonde hair dripping polka dots on her shoulders. Her
mother was waiting in the kitchen, surrounded by food. Yaël ignored the boiled potatoes in the sink and opened the oven to stab one of the turkey cutlets with a fork. The oven door crashed shut and her mother sucked in a breath but didn't say anything. Yaël dumped broccoli onto her plate, then put a tiny spoonful of sauce over the meat. “It's not spicy, is it? The sauce?” Yaël looked hard. She couldn't see anything in the goop except flecks of freeze-dried onion, but some spices could dissolve.

“It's not spicy.” Her mother had changed into a housedress with snaps up the front and slippers that were like Yaël's but green. She opened a drawer and took her time rummaging for the potato peeler, clattering around. The housedress was not flattering but Yaël had never come up with a way to tell her mother that.

Yaël sat down and cut a piece of meat with only a little sauce on it. She had her mouth full when her mother said, “So who's this Sasha?”

She swallowed. The sauce was a little spicy, a little sharp, too. Maybe paprika. It wasn't worth starting an argument over. Neither was her mother's question. Yaël dug her fork into a broccoli. “Sasha is my friend who invited me to the party.”

“Sasha's party?”

“No. I don't know whose party.”

“So, what? You'll go with any boy who invites you to a party?”

“Sasha is a girl.”

Her mother glared at her through the pass-through, her fingers curled around a naked white potato. “It's a
boy's
name. Short for Alexander.”

Yaël had almost finished scraping all the sauce off her cutlet. “Not in Canada.”

Her mother put the potato into the pot before she said, “What's it short for?”

Yaël thought of the tight complete tinyness that was Sasha. “That's all it is. Just Sasha.”

“Who's Sasha?” That was Abey, just coming in from the hall.

“Sasha is Yaël's new friend that is taking her to a party.”

“I'm taking myself. We're meeting there.”

Her brother was wearing dusty coveralls and he didn't take them off before he sat down next to Yaël. She watched carefully to see if any dust was floating towards her robe. He narrowed his dark eyes. “Boy-Sasha or girl-Sasha?”

Yaël's kept her big blue eyes round. “Girl.” She cut another piece of meat and chewed it at him. The sauce had soaked into the breading. She set her fork down and said, “Mama, I'm done. Want me to give the rest to Chien?”