“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think so. Thank you, though.”
This wasn’t working out quite the way he’d hoped. “Perhaps we could meet later?” he said. She had a half-hour break at eight, took it in the Starbucks up the block from the North Burnaby Inn. “I really would like to talk to you,” he said. He became aware that the other people waiting at the bus stop were looking warily in his direction.
“I don’t know,” she said.
The bus came, slowing to a stop with a hiss of tires and a whine of worn brake linings. The doors opened and the people at the stop began to board.
“I have to go,” she said. Without looking at him, she closed her umbrella and climbed aboard the bus.
Shoe watched the bus grind away, trolley poles popping and sparking on the overhead wires. He then crossed the street and went into the coffee shop, where he bought a black coffee to go and carried it around the corner to his car, an aging grey Mercedes. He unlocked the door, got in, and started the engine. Turning the heater up high, he put a tape in the cassette player. The coffee had smelled better than it tasted, but it was hot, so he drank it anyway, sipping slowly as he listened to David Helfgott playing Rachmaninoff’s C Sharp Minor Prelude. He felt detached and vaguely depressed. The shortest day of the year was a few days away. Then Christmas. Shortly after that, his fiftieth birthday. What did he have to be depressed about?
The first fat flakes of snow began to fall.
Victoria O’Neill stood at the broad living room window of the house high in the British Properties of West Vancouver. A thousand feet below her, beyond the hazy lights of West Vancouver, English Bay was strewn with strings of light from the half-dozen or so freighters at anchor there, waiting their turn to enter Vancouver harbour. She pressed her palms against the cool glass and pushed, imagined she felt it give ever so slightly. She pushed harder, putting her whole weight against it, and in her mind’s eye saw it burst, setting her free to tumble out over the rooftops of the houses farther down the slope and drop into the bay, to sink out of sight below the waves, embraced by the cold and the dark and the deep. The window did not break, of course, and she was not set free. Perhaps if she threw herself against it from across the room, she thought foolishly. She knew even that would not do it; the glass was half an inch thick, the kind of stuff they used in hotels and office buildings and shopping malls.
She laid her forehead against the cool, hard surface and closed her eyes. The big house thrummed around her, the sound of its emptiness amplified by the stiff membrane of glass, as if conducted directly into her brain through the bones of her skull. Behind closed lids, her eyes burned with incipient tears. A pressure built within her chest, expanded, forcing a silent sob from her throat. Christ, she was so fucking tired of it all she could scream. Tired of this ridiculous house and the ridiculous life she lived in it. Tired of silly neighbours and their silly dogs and sillier children. Tired of always waiting for Patrick to come home and tired of always waiting for him to leave when he was home.
On a sudden impulse, she opened her mouth and screamed against the glass. It was a muted, restrained scream, however. Taking a breath, she opened her throat and tried again, but succeeded only in bringing on a coughing fit, forehead jouncing painfully against the glass with each spasm.
“You are hokay, Miss Victoria?”
Victoria straightened with a start. Consuela, their middle-aged, part-time housekeeper, stood at the top of the steps to the sunken living room.
“Yes, Connie. I’m okay.” Victoria’s hands and forehead had left oily smudges on the glass of the window. She wiped at them with the sleeve of her blouse.
Consuela’s expression was stern. “Nothing is wrong?”
“No.” Victoria picked up her wineglass from the coffee table, but it was empty. “I was just being silly.”
“I stay if you want.” But she was already wearing her old navy peacoat and carrying a purse that looked large enough to hold a week’s groceries.
“No, no,” Victoria said. “Go home. I’m fine, really. Just tired. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
After Consuela had left, Victoria climbed the steps to the kitchen. She poured another glass of white wine from a bottle in the terra cotta cooler on the counter. Picking up the cordless phone, she carried it and the wineglass upstairs to her bathroom and set them on the rim of the big square tub. She started the water, adjusted the temperature, and poured in four caps of bubble bath. While the bath filled, she undressed and stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the dressing room door. A little doughy, she thought critically, twisting to look over her shoulder, and her butt was beginning to pucker a little. God, she was only thirty-five. What would it look like when she was fifty? Turning to face the mirror again, she hefted her breasts in her palms. Although they probably wouldn’t pass the pencil test, they didn’t sag too badly. She’d certainly seen worse at the health club. Much worse. She’d seen better too, though. Much better.
She stepped into the tub and slowly lowered herself into the foaming water. Settling back, she let the heat soak into her. She’d told Consuela there was nothing wrong, that she was just tired, and maybe that was all it was. After all, she hadn’t slept very well last night, after the argument with Patrick. She knew there was more to it than that, though. Fear clawed at the back of her throat. Damn Patrick. How could he have been so inconsiderate and insensitive? Didn’t he care? Didn’t he understand?
No, he probably didn’t understand, she thought. Sometimes she felt that the only person in the world who really understood her was Kit Parsons. Kit wouldn’t run out on her, abandon her like everyone else had. Would she?
Oh, stop feeling so goddamned sorry for yourself, Victoria thought angrily. Most people would think she had it made. A house in the British Properties, a closet full of clothes, a BMW convertible, and a husband who at least said he loved her. She was healthy—physically, anyway—reasonably attractive, and still relatively young. What more could she ask? Happiness? A highly overrated commodity, in her experience.
She reached for the wineglass, but it was empty. She should have brought the bottle.
The mixture of heat and alcohol had made her light-headed and loose-jointed, so when the telephone rang she almost dropped it into the water as she fumbled to answer it.
“Hiya, kid.”
“Hello, Kit,” Victoria replied, instantly recognizing Katherine “Kit” Parsons’ scratchy voice, ravaged by the almost two packs of cigarettes she smoked every day.
“Whatcha up to?”
“Nothing much,” Victoria said. “Taking a bubble bath and getting stewed on white wine. Patrick’s taking the five o’clock ferry to Nanaimo.”
“It’s not healthy to drink alone,” Kit rasped. “Want some company? I haven’t had a bath today.”
Victoria laughed. She was tempted, but said, “I don’t know, Kit. I’m really very tired. I think I’ll just watch a little TV and go to bed early.”
“Have you eaten? I could pick up a pizza or something. A video, too. We’ll just veg out. I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
“Kit, please. Not tonight. I wouldn’t be very good company.”
“All right,” Kit said, voice flat with disappointment. “But call me if you change your mind.”
“Yes, of course,” Victoria said guiltily and pressed the disconnect button.
As soon as she had disconnected she regretted not letting Kit come over. She could have used the company. Reaching out with her foot, she toed the faucet on. Hot water roared into the tub. Despite the rising heat of the bath, the familiar icy emptiness gnawed at her insides and the cold black tendrils of dread that always lurked just beyond the threshold of her awareness slithered into her mind. The flesh of her face grew stiff and numb. The numbness spread, invading her chest. Her