Ruth had never tallied her borrowings from Tom—if he didn’t worry, why should she? Jordan was the only importance in her life, and if Jordan needed money for medicines and extras, she could rely on Tom. Neither did she begrudge Jordan a bottle or two of liquor; indeed, according to some of her research, alcohol could actually be beneficial. It was certainly a view that Jordan held.
The marijuana was a different matter and had initially been a source of serious discord. Jordan had the evidence on his side: numerous reports gleaned from the Net that exalted the modest weed to the level of a super-drug, a modern day penicillin or insulin.
“It’s medicinal marijuana, Ruth,” he’d insisted the first evening she’d been hit by a toxic cloud as she walked into his room. “It’s government approved.”
“I know what it is,” she’d spat, ready to fly at him. “My mom was a hippie, for chrissake.” Then she’d stopped and scuttled out of the apartment, driven by childhood ghosts.
Ruth had walked the labyrinth of neighbourhood streets that night with her eyes on the sidewalk like a rat in a maze, blindly taking turn after turn without any hope of finding the way out—other than by luck. And as she walked, her young self walked by her side, reminding her of the times her mother had dragged her from street to street, with their possessions in a supermarket cart, and of the ignominy of being turned away by relatives and past friends despite the tears of her young daughter. “Cry harder next time,” her mother had shouted, slapping her around the head until her ears sang. She’d cried, but often to no avail, and they had frequently ended up sleeping in a car, or couch surfing in mildewed mobile homes; traipsing from the welfare office to shelters, falling lower and lower, yet never quite hitting the street. Sometimes there would be an “uncle” willing to take them in for awhile, until her mother started pawning the furniture for her dope, then they’d be back pounding the streets again. But, all the time, Ruth had clung to her roll of posters, together with the beaded purse her mother had stolen for her for Christmas 1977, and dreamt of the day her father would rescue her. In the purse was Ruth’s most prized possession—her birth certificate; incontrovertible proof of her heredity. It wasn’t the fictitious name on the document that gave her hope. “I just said John Kennedy for a lark,” her mother had told her, but the date of her birth could not be fudged so lightly: the twenty-second of May, 1965. Nine calendar months to the day after the Beatles’ sold-out concert at Vancouver’s Empire Stadium.
With a degree of arm-twisting from the authorities, Ruth’s aunt and uncle had finally taken her in following her mother’s disappearance. Her mother’s elder sister had some compassion for the young girl who spent most of her time hiding in her room, morosely staring at a wall of Harrison posters with a mirror in her hand as she tried to spot a likeness. With George crooning “I Need You” and “Love You To” on a garage sale record player, Ruth had attempted to pull her flabby face into the hungry features of the man, but a terrible hollowness grew inside her as the probable truth slowly sank in. But if George Harrison wasn’t her father, who was?
England holds the key to her heritage, and she planned the search for her father from the moment of her mother’s confession. She even wrote to Paul McCartney, before his knighthood, although, even then he had seemingly been too aloof to respond—just a standard thank you letter, inviting her to join his fan club—for a fee. She would have written to George himself, but the fear of rejection held her back and drove her to eat. But without parents to reassure and comfort her, everything drove her eat.
Now, twenty years later, the prospect of ever reaching England dwindles daily, but so does Ruth. Under the crushing weight of Jordan’s illness, the responsibility of running the café without him, and the mushrooming debts, a lesser woman might have shrivelled away entirely, but Ruth glosses over the cracks and stumbles on. However, Cindy sees beneath the surface and pauses at the door as she leaves one day.
“Are you all right, Ruth? You’ve lost a ton of weight recently.”
“You’re supposed to say congratulations.”
“Oh. I didn’t mean ...”
“It’s all right, Cindy. Thanks for noticing, but I’m fine.”
“Only, Jordan’s been sick for weeks. I’m just worried you’re gonna catch the same bug.”
It has been months, not weeks, but if Jordan’s bug has caused him to lose any weight it isn’t evident. If anything he’s a little bloated.
“It’s the cancer growing inside me,” he explains sourly when Ruth rags him about his expanding gut one evening, and she throws herself at his feet in remorse.
“I’m so sorry, Jordan. Forgive me please,” she begs, wondering how she could be so insensitive.
“Anger,” suggested Trina in the café the following morning, “and it’s perfectly natural, Ruth. You’re angry that this is happening, and subconsciously you see him as being responsible.”
“But it’s not his fault.”
“I know what you need,” says Trina, already heading for the door, and she’s back twenty minutes later with a loaded sports bag.
“Kick boxing?” questions Ruth, digging through the bag.
Trina leaps around the café flinging out her legs at the studious crossword gang and punching air. “Yeah. You gotta work off the anger, Ruth.”
“Oh, Trina!” yells Maureen. “We’re trying to concentrate ...”
“Sorry,” she whoops, and flings herself back to Ruth. “Marcie and I started lessons together, but she quit,” she says as she continues limbering up.
Marcie had ordered the custom designed lime-green Lycra ensemble, with matching boots and gloves, from a celebrity sportswear outfitter on the Internet, while Trina had picked up a second-hand kit for fifty bucks at Cash Converters.
The instructor had been late for their first lesson at the gym, and Trina’s impatience had quickly gotten the better of her.
“Come on, Marcie. Kick me,” she had cajoled, as she’d ducked and weaved in front of her friend, and Marcie had eventually made a half-hearted stab.
“No. Like this,” enthused Trina, and Marcie had burst into tears and rushed to the change room, ripping off her pricey gear.
“What’s the matter?” asked Trina in her wake.
Marcie had slumped to the bench, crying, “You never said people were going to kick back.”
“I’ve booked us for a class this evening,” Trina tells Ruth, but Ruth’s face clouds.
“I can’t leave Jordan tonight.”
“Why not?” says Trina. “He doesn’t know you’re there half the time.”
It is true, though Ruth is generally careful to avoid the admission; unwilling to acknowledge, even to herself, that Jordan has become addicted to the Internet; addicted to sites that she doesn’t even want to think about.
“I’ll ask him,” says Ruth, noncommittally.
Since his return from England, DS Phillips is becoming a regular at the Corner Coffee Shoppe, and Cindy begins making his caffé americano without asking as he seeks a seat near the back of the café.
Tom, near the door, is poring over a new yachting magazine with Matt, and is seriously debating whether or not to upgrade to a sixty-footer when he spots the officer. “I’d better give my people in New York a call to sort out the financing,” says Tom as he quickly folds the publication and sneaks out.
“You’re new around here, aren’t you?” Ruth says to Phillips as she delivers his drink.
“Couple of months,” he nods. “RCMP. On secondment from Ontario.”