The Devil You Know: A Novel (31 page)

Don’t feel so panicky now, do you? David said.

Do you think that was really it? I said. I stopped and he stopped with me, just ahead of where I was. I grabbed his two hands. Really? Just a stupid panic attack? Like a loser?

David took one of his hands back and tucked a little of my hair behind my ear.

I think you had a little anxiety, Evie. That’s all. You’re working really hard. Don’t let the fear take over. Don’t let it rule you. He messed up my hair again with his fingers, but softly. Maybe you need a little break.

I twirled around and fell backward against him.

Okay, I said. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, my chin pointing sharply up at him. Break me.

There was a pause and I opened my eyes. David was looking down at me like I was something small and funny but also damaged in some way. Like a cute kitten, but it’s blind.

I think we’ll just go home, he said.

U
p, up, up the stairs! I charged forward, one arm high in front of me. David had my keys and he nudged me aside so he could get the door open.

Also? I said. Also I’m drunk.

The door swung open and we fell inside.

Coffee! I kicked my boots off and went into the kitchen. David followed behind me, watching as I scooped grounds into the Bialetti with a teaspoon.

Come lie down with me, he said.

Why? I said.

Just do this, he said. Forget the stupid coffee. Let me take care of you.

I should never have kissed you! I said. I should never kiss anyone! I make terrible mistakes!

You make the best mistakes. Come lie down.

He had his face against my neck and it was warm there and nice and I held on to his hands and then I was up on the counter, his thumbs pressing into my hips. His mouth on my neck, collarbone,
a hand tugging down at the neckline of my sweater, another hand up inside. His mouth on my mouth.

The Bialetti screeching on the stove.

Wait, wait, I said. I don’t want to catch on fire. I had to turn away to see what I was doing, to turn off the gas flame under the coffee. David at the same time pushing up on the sweater, trying to get it over my head.

We found our way into the other room, to where the bed was. My sweater was on the floor now with half of David’s clothes and I wriggled out of my jeans and threw them at the pile. David rolled over and we looked at each other like that. Then he reached his arm across my body and slid the drawer of my nightstand open.

I don’t have any, I said. He craned his neck anyway, to peer into the drawer. Condoms, I said. That’s what you’re looking for? I don’t have any.

Why not? David shut the drawer. That’s totally irresponsible.

Well, why don’t you have any?

I’m not going to carry them. I’m not going to just put a couple in my wallet before I come to your house.

Too bad, I said. Closing my eyes and sinking deeper into the pillow.

Wait. I can go out.

As soon as he said this, he was up and balancing on one leg, shoving himself into his pants.

I don’t know, I said.

Just wait here!

I live here, I said. Where else can I go?

Just don’t move, David said. He threw his coat on and launched himself out the door. I could hear the
bang bang bang
of his feet on my stairway and I did just what he said. I didn’t move. I lay there and thought, What happens next?

Now is the chance to change your mind. Usually with guys there isn’t a big pause like this, there isn’t a big change-your-mind-think-it-over
moment. There was a soft thunk from out in the hall. David, back already. But then no other sounds.

You back?

I got to my feet and went out into the hall on tiptoes. It was cold there. There was a draft that rushed all around me. I still had my panties on and I pulled a tank top over my head.

I poked my head through and then one arm after the other and I stretched my arms back behind me. There was still time. I walked into the kitchen to make sure the gas wasn’t on, turned on my toes, switched off the light.

He was there. Outside the window. Just standing, a fist against the glass. What I’d thought was the sound of David coming back in, his footsteps on the stairs.

Had he seen me in the hall? Half naked. Slipping the tank top over my head.

T
he downstairs door slammed and I heard the sound of David’s feet on the stairway, and then he was knocking at my door. He’d locked himself out. So he was knocking.

I walked over to the window and spread my hand out against the glass. On the other side, the stranger didn’t disappear. He was close enough that I could see the small wrinkles on his face, between his brows, hard lines at the corners of his mouth.

I wanted to be sure enough to make a positive ID, but it was dizzy-making. He uncurled his fist and spread out the hand on the other side of the window, matching mine.

I was surprised he didn’t look more angry.

David knocking.

Evie, hey, Evie!

I pressed my other hand against the glass and pushed my body closer, elbows splayed out. Push-ups against the window. I thought of what David had said to me, down in the street. Don’t let the fear take over; don’t let it rule you.

I’m not yours, I said. Fuck you, I’m not yours. I pushed off the window.

I turned my back and stripped the tank top off again.

Not. Yours.

David knocking louder now, insistent. His fist turned sideways.

I walked out of the room. There was a slam against the glass, or else it was David at the door, banging, banging away with a fist.

Evie!

I opened the door.

What’s going on, David said. Cold feet?

All kinda cold parts.

He came inside. I took his navy peacoat off his shoulders and put it on and did up the top buttons, and he left his boots against the wall. We stood around in the hallway for a minute. I danced back and forth a little. David reached for me in his coat and thumbed the buttons open and it slid off and hit the ground.

If you were outside, standing on the fire escape, you’d see just my heels and ankles, my calves, doing this nervous dance. My shoulder. Through the doorway. I started to laugh.

This is a safe house, I have a good lock. I said this out loud.

David switched the hall light off. My tank top was still on the floor.

You look like a little kid, David said. Look at you. In your bare feet.

I bent down and picked up the camisole and stretched it tight, spreading my arms out wide. I stepped half into the kitchen.

Tie me up, I said.

David pressed a hand between my breasts and pushed my back lightly against the door frame. He still had all his clothes on.

I don’t need to tie you up, Evie, he said. Plus I like this little dance you do.

His cheek twitched. He had a little white plastic bag from the convenience store in one hand and he swung it back and forth. There was a sound like a branch cleaving away from a tree and David
said the wind was wicked and I should be grateful he was so willing to brave it for me.

I pulled him by the hand and we lurched into the other room. I couldn’t get his shirt off fast enough. The buttons all stuck and caught in their holes and I fought them with shaky fingers. My mouth on him wherever the skin showed. He was wearing a pair of army pants with a button fly and I fought that, too, and a button came flying off and I had my hands on him. We were on the bed.

David was on the bed and I was over him and he sat up and grabbed my wrists and held them for a moment.

Tell me you want it, he said. My teeth at his throat and his ear and along his jaw and he ducked his head to keep away from me and held me there like that, a foot of space between us. Even a small moment of reflection was going to be too much. I wanted the interior noise of fast motion, of rushing headlong into this. The man on the balcony was coming in. Another minute and he’d be in the room with us. So long as we kept moving I wouldn’t panic. I wanted my mouth on David’s mouth to stop myself screaming but he held me like that until I’d said it, I want you I want you, David I want you, and we rocked back together so the bed frame smacked the wall.

L
ater, when he was sleeping, I got out of bed. We’d left the bedroom curtains open and it was still dark out. Four in the morning. Even at that hour, you can hear the traffic from Queen Street, cabs coasting along. I dragged myself into the kitchen. There was a crack down the pane of the window, as though someone had thrown a stone at it. A stone or some other heavy thing. No moon that I could see. No one was left standing on the escape.

M
y mother’s name as a little girl was Anneliese, although she told me her father had often called her Anja or Annika. Her family had been in the country for a couple of generations already, but they’d all kept their grandparents’ ginger-blond hair and light eyes. There’s a pocket of Swedes and Danes and Finns up in the north, aside from all the French Canadians. There’s one Chinese family in every town in northern Ontario; or, at least, there’s one Chinese restaurant. That might be more accurate. In many small places, this restaurant is the only thing open on Sundays, or Easter or Christmas. It’s a hub. I don’t know if this is true of other places or not.

My own father always called her Annie. She went through a stage where she wanted me to call her Annie, too. This was not an unpopular thing among parents in the ’70s and ’80s. There’s no question that Annie suits her, as a name: it’s trim and practical and outdoorsy.
Annie
sounds dependable, too, as a pal, but perhaps not as a mother. I felt that Annie wanted to be more like my fun roommate, and less like the person responsible for my safety and well-being. Annie might spring for an off-road bike ride or teach you to make a gimp bracelet, but she didn’t have to hold your hand at night or be home for dinner or take you to Girl Guides. I imagine my mother also knew this about Annie, and that’s why it appealed to her.

She’s a Pisces. You can see this in her, if you believe in that sort of thing. She’s a vivid dreamer. I’ve seen her sit straight up in bed
and talk to me as though she were wide awake, only the words she’s stringing together don’t make sense. The words are all English, but she’s put them together wrong. It sounds like an incantation. When I was a teenager I thought she was possessed. Pisces are also escapists, which is connected to the dreaming.

We were at a second-floor pool hall on the Danforth. I’d said good-bye to David outside my house that morning and jogged through the snow to the newsroom. It was Mike’s turn on Murder House Watch, so I stayed in town all day and then came straight out to meet my mother after work. There were twelve or sixteen tables with lights hanging over them and a guy sitting in a corner window booth who’ll sell you beers and balls by the hour. There wasn’t any separate bar. He had a row of highball glasses hanging from a dusty bracket over his head and two refrigerators and stacks of triangles on the counter. The beer all came in bottles: 50, Blue, Ex, Canadian. There was a swimsuit pinup calendar sitting flat on the counter next to the stack of triangles and when I paid for the beer I noticed he’d drawn a long arrow in pen to the girl’s vagina. In case anyone missed it.