Your Song (6 page)

“So, how is your Masters’ thesis coming along?” I ask her after we
’ve ordered our meal. We are both drinking cranberry and vodka, something we always order when we’re together.

“Well, my thesis supervisor just emailed me today with her final suggestions before my defense. So, hopefully in two weeks’ time I will be all done,” she says enthusiastically.

“Do you feel you’re ready for the defense then?” I ask.

“ Dr. Durand has been very supportive preparing me for the proce
ss so I have to say I’m feeling . . . apart from nervous . . . I’m feeling well-prepared,” Amy says.  There’s that confidence again.

“Who’s Dr. Durand again?” I ask taking another sip of my drink and glancing around looking for Sweet Caroline.

“Eric, she’s my thesis supervisor. Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve talked about over the past nine months?” Amy asks exasperated.

“Yeah, of course I have, but I just forgot her name,” I say guiltily because the truth of the matter is I haven’t paid one bit of attention to anything academic in nature that Amy has talked about since I met her.

Amy and I spend the next hour or so eating dinner and catching up. The last time we saw each other was about a month or so ago and I’ve done a lot of travelling since then so we haven’t spoken much. Amy asks me about David and I share with her the news about Mr. Callahan’s health. Even though Amy never actually met any of my family or friends in our time together, I shared my stories with her. Despite her very short attention span for all things adult-like, for example death and illness, Amy tried her best to listen and be a friend.   When you’re dating someone you take her in and share your life, but with Amy, there was always something I held back. 

My deepest and darkest secrets were mine alone to keep. Like the fact that here I sit secretly eyeing the door waiting for someone completely different than Amy to walk in. Caroline, I decide, stays within me.  I don’t share a thing with Amy about my fateful meeting with Sweet Caroline only a few days ago.

“So, Eric, are we having dessert tonight?” Amy asks on cue as the young waiter is collecting our dinner dishes. As Amy struts away, Rod Stewart’s sexy anthem “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” comes to me. Hell, do I ever find Amy sexy.

Click.
The lock on the metallic restroom door is bolted in place. I turn around and Amy is already in position, up against the wall waiting for me. In one step, I walk over to her and my whole body presses hers hard against the wall. She gasps. Our lips reach for their familiar territory. Our mouths grab hold of each other’s. I press my lips down onto hers and we kiss fast, teasing, sucking, biting and tonguing with a lightning speed and a need to match it. I lower my lips and plant gentler kisses along her jaw line. She moans as my mouth makes its way towards her earlobes. I nibble there a bit and then I move down her throat. I nuzzle her neck lightly, then I blow on it and slowly I kiss it, making her want for more. Amy’s hands are on top of my shoulders and then run down my back guiding me downward. My hand reaches down for her right leg.  I take hold of the skin at the back of her knee and in one swift move; I jack her leg up and hold it up against the wall. With the palm of my other hand, I hike up her mini skirt and smooth the upper part of her inner left leg. Then I move my hand over the inner part of her right leg, circling and teasing her vagina but not touching it. My lips move down to her breast area and bite through the silky green fabric of her blouse until I can feel her nipples harden beneath me. I get harder myself. I look up at her. Her eyes are rolling back and she is biting her lower lip.

“Fuck me,” she moans. She reaches for my cock, still inside my jeans. She gropes for it and grabs hold of it in her elongated hand. She begins to rub it hard, moving her hand in an up and down motion over the denim of my jeans. Then, without delay, she pulls my front zipper down in one quick sweep. In no time, she unbuttons the top button on my jeans and pulls out my cock. I immediately drop her propped up leg back onto the floor and reach into my back pocket and pull out a condom. She waits for me to slip the condom on, as she’s done many times before. Then, I prop her right leg back up against the wall and with my other hand, yank her panties to one side. With the speed and ease we are used to, I enter her fast and hard. With her eyes closed, my mouth pressing on hers, we fuck. I am getting closer and closer to coming. I close my eyes. I have shut Amy completely out. Faintly, I can hear
her climaxing in the background, and as I ready myself for my release, I suddenly see Caroline beneath me. Not Amy. In my mind, I hear Caroline moaning and begging me to fuck her. I picture Caroline coming hard with me deep inside her. I imagine myself coming inside Caroline. It’s happening. It’s her. I see Caroline’s face. And then I explode. Hard.
Fuck.

“Did you miss me that much?” her voice interrupts my momentary state of bliss. I open my eyes and see Amy looking up at me.

“Wow, Eric. That was intense,” Amy says as she begins to clean herself up. She adjusts her panties back in place, lowers and straightens out her black leather mini skirt, palms her hair so it falls down straight and then opens the restroom door halfway.

“See you out there,” she winks at me slipping out through the door. I’m alone in the quiet of this public washroom. For the past nine months, whenever Amy and I go out to dinner and she asks whether we will be having dessert, my cue to meet her in the wheelchair accessible washroom, we meet in one of the stalls and fuck quickly and illicitly.  It’s been our little hot secret. We each take turns scoping out small restaurants in the city that are equipped with individual washrooms and then we make reservations under the name of a French word that Amy cleverly came up with,
Mr. and Mrs. Plancul
. By pure luck, I happened to have found this little restaurant that met Mr. and Mrs. Booty Call’s criteria, right here in the heart of Bloor West Village.  Here in body I am with Amy, but in mind and spirit, I’m in a completely different universe inhabited only by Caroline. I realize how royally fucked up I am.  

____________________

David is ready and waiting when I get to my sister’s house around noon on Saturday. As soon as my service appointment at the Porsche dealership is over, I begin to make my way over to my sister’s place in the Old Mill area of Toronto. Historic homes on tree-lined streets with expansive lots, I travel the winding streets finally pulling in to her long driveway. I park my Porsche beside my sister’s silver Mercedes SUV. Because my car is a two-seater, I end up taking my sister’s car for our Saturday afternoon outings with David where, for safety, he can sit in the back seat.  David pulls open their big oak door as soon as I step foot on the porch.

“Hi, Uncle Eric. Ready to go?” David is already out the door and heading to the car. Claudia and Ryan come outside to see the two of us go. Claudia and I exchange car keys and I promise to stay for dinner when I drop David off later.

Our first stop, as always, is to the bank. From the time David was five, I set up a bank account in trust for him at the
Scotiabank in the local Humbertown plaza. On our Saturdays together, I hand him some cash and his bankcard and we head to the bank machine. I take pleasure in teaching him about basic money skills: saving, spending, investing, and enjoying money. On our monthly trips to the bank, he watches as his money grows in his bank account. It won’t be long before we start investing it in GICs, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Before David makes his deposit into his savings account, he takes 10 percent of the cash I give him and uses it as spending money. I haven’t told my sister we do this and I’m not sure whether David has told his parents. Doesn’t make a difference to me, just another one of my secrets I keep tucked in hiding.

“Dairy Queen is on you today,” I remind David as we pull out of the parking space. Just as Amy and I take turns making restaurant reservations, David and I take turns treating each other at Dairy Queen. To watch the joy on his face as he pulls out his little boy wallet and pull out some cash to pay for our ice cream melts my heart every time. Here’s this awesome-looking kid on the cusp between childhood and puberty acting so grown up in ordering our desserts and then paying for them. I cringe when I think our Saturday dates may one day come to an end as teenager David will likely have better things to do than hang out with his uncle: chase girls, skateboard with his friends or sleep in all day.

“How does an afternoon in High Park sound?” I look over at David as we drive east along Bloor Street. High Park is Toronto’s largest urban park and a perfect place to go on a sunny early June afternoon, especially because it is only a fifteen minute walk east of Bloor West Village. I know, I’m obsessing!

Once David and I stock ourselves up with water and snacks, we make our way through a few of the hiking trails in High Park, making like the Japanese today, bathing in the forest, once again. The sun is shining but the air is cool. When we emerge from one of the trails, we make our way to Grenadier Pond where we feed the ducks and then lounge on the park benches for a while.

While David and I talk, I look around surreptitiously for sightings of Caroline. He tells me about school stuff and his swim meets. David is a competitive swimmer and part of a Toronto swim team. His practices and swim meets keep Claudia and Ryan pretty busy but I know they secretly love the fact that their son is performing at a competitive level. If you ask me, I’d say I just don’t get why all the fun has to be taken out of kids’ sports today by structured drills and skills and mandatory practices and participation at competitive events. Talk about zapping the fun out of something you start off loving to do and end up resenting and hating. When we were kids, we’d just meet up at the park and with whomever was there we’d organize our own baseball or soccer games, playing for fun.  Drive by neighborhood parks today and you won’t see a soul in sight. Sad.

“Uncle Eric, do you think can I drive your car one day when I’m old enough?” David asks o
ut of the blue as we walk back to the car.

“Of course you can. Why do you ask?” David has never shown interest in cars before. I wonder why he’s asking now.

“Well . . . I don’t know,” he says while kicking a rock along the sidewalk.

“You can tell me,” I reassure him
, kicking back the rock so it volleys along the sidewalk between us.

“I um . . . I uh . . . I just think that . . . maybe people will . . . um . . . might notice me more . . .
if I drive a car like yours,” he says in an embarrassed tone of voice, not taking his eye off the stone.

“What
kind of people do you mean?” I’m trying to clarify but I think I already know where this conversation is going. David doesn’t answer me.

“Do you mean
girls
might like you more if you drove a fast car?” I brace myself for our first girl talk ever.  Where do I begin to discuss girls with a nine year old? Girls are complicated, irresistible, overwhelming, and maddening at times and these are just a few of the adjectives that come to mind. I remember Danny and I at thirteen, trying to figure out the whole girl thing. Neither of our fathers discussed girls with us back then, nor did either of us have older brothers to show us the way. At thirteen, we were just horny teenagers aching to get laid.

“No, not just girls but everyone. My dad says that when you drive your Porsche everyone always looks at you.”

“David, those people aren’t looking at me. They are just looking at the fast car. There’s a difference between people noticing me and people noticing my car. Cars are just things,” I say guiltily, because I secretly know that I do get a lot of attention when I’m driving in my car. I love my black Porsche 911, the biggest gift I’ve ever given myself, next to buying my condo right at 100 Yorkville Avenue, that is. It may seem like I’m a materialistic guy but the truth is I work hard and make very good money so after saving it and investing it well, I’ve been able to comfortably and legitimately buy myself nice things. All by the age of thirty-two.

“My dad says people look at you even when you’re not in your car, Uncle David. He said ladies g
o crazy for you because you’re . . . a handsome guy?” David shares shyly. Interesting observations coming from my brother-in-law but they don’t mean much to me seeing how the one lady I want to be crazy about me probably has forgotten my name and the fact that I even exist by now.

David and I are back inside his mother’s SUV making our way to the closest Dairy Queen on The Queensway. David’s question about my car got me thinking all over again about Caroline and how after a week of scouring the area I last saw her in, I haven’t been able to find her.

“David, can I ask
you
a question now?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says with that little boy grin beaming across his face.

“Let’s say you found something that you really, really liked one day. You were never looking for this one thing but when you actually found it, you realized right away that this one . . . thing . . . is what you’ve always wanted and knew that you really needed . . . .” I trail off giving him time to imagine something he just found and really wanted.

I pull into the parking space at the Dairy Queen and he still hasn’t said a word. We walk into the Dairy Queen and my big boy nephew steps up to the counter. David orders himself an Oreo Blizzard and for me, my regular, a plain vanilla cone. 

“Okay, Uncle Eric, continue with your question,” he seems very interested in where this is going. With our ice creams in hand, we take our seats across from each other in a booth. I look down at this fetching dark eyed and dark haired boy and know that he will be the one breaking the hearts of many girls in a few short years.