“I have to go into the office,” Hal said.
Maureen did not look up from the Home and Garden section of the Saturday paper. “Fine,” she said coldly.
It was the first word she’d spoken to him since they’d got home the night before. He tried to swallow his anger, but it stuck in his throat like a fish bone. “I’ll try to get away by lunchtime,” he said.
“Fine,” she said again. She turned the page of the newspaper, snapped it straight, then picked up her coffee mug and took a sip.
“But I can’t promise,” Hal said.
She banged the mug down and glared at him. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Hal, will you just shut the fuck up.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” he said. Even after twenty-five years of marriage, her language shocked him. “I still have to go to the office.”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “You’re just looking for an excuse to avoid going to the homecoming. I’m not sure why. Until a couple of weeks ago, you seemed to be looking forward to it. Or is it that you just don’t want to spend the day with me?”
“That’s not it. There are just some things I need to do to get ready for the quarterly performance evaluations.”
“For god’s sake, Hal. You’d think, after all these years, you’d’ve figured out I can always tell when you’re lying. The rims of your nostrils turn red. The only time you can get away with lying to me is when you’ve got a cold or your allergies are acting up. The rims of your nostrils are always red then, so just to be on the safe side, when you’ve got a cold, I don’t believe anything you tell me.”
“What’s with you this morning?” he said, as if he didn’t know. “Look, I told you I was sorry about last night. I’ve got a lot on my mind these days.”
“So you said. That doesn’t excuse your behaviour.” She made a dismissive shrugging motion. “Go to the office, Hal. No one’s going to miss you. Certainly not me.” She went back to her newspaper.
On the drive to the train station, he tried not to think about Maureen and his brother spending the day together. He almost turned back, figuring that maybe it would be better to go with Maureen to the homecoming after all. At least he’d be able to keep an eye on them. He didn’t, though, but continued to the Clarkson GO Station, where he parked the Lexus in the huge, mostly empty lot, and trudged through the tunnel to the platform. He found an unoccupied bench and sat down to wait for the next train to Union Station, then remembered he’d forgotten to have his ticket stamped in one of the proof-of-payment machines. For most of the year he purchased a monthly pass, but he usually took vacation during July and August and it was more economical to buy ten-ride tickets that had to be cancelled for each ride. Wearily, he got up, inserted the ticket into a nearby machine, then slumped onto the bench again.
Maureen was right. No one would miss him. Sure, they might wonder where he was, why he wasn’t there, click their tongues and comment on how all work and no play made Hal a dull boy, but that was it. They wouldn’t give him another thought. Maureen. Joe. Rachel. That pompous old fart Wiseman. His parents, even though he’d promised to take them to the concert later that evening. The truth of the matter was, he was about as interesting and exciting as an old sofa.
And, he thought, looking down at his protruding gut, he was built a bit like an old sofa too. No wonder Maureen got all gooey-eyed over Joe. He didn’t look as though he’d gained an ounce in thirty years. In fact, he seemed even trimmer than he’d been when he’d quit the police and gone out west. Hal had never been exactly skinny, even as a teenager, but he’d started gaining weight in his second year of university and had continued to gain until he’d topped out at his current weight five or six years ago. When was the last time he’d been able to see his own dick without a mirror? he wondered glumly. Not for some time, even erect. Good thing he could find it by feel, he thought with bitter humour.
The train came and he climbed aboard with the other Saturday morning commuters and shoppers. He trudged up the stairs to the upper level of the car because it was usually less crowded. The only other occupants were a foursome of teenaged girls who fell momentarily silent, staring at him as though he were an alien just arrived from Mars, then dismissed him utterly, as though he’d suddenly ceased to exist. Or had never existed at all.
He found a seat and tried to ignore the girls as thoroughly as they were ignoring him, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off them. Try as he might to focus on his newspaper, his gaze was drawn back to them as inexorably as a compass needle is drawn to magnetic north. None of them was especially pretty, but they all wore skin-tight jeans that rode below their hipbones, and skimpy tops that revealed their midriffs and the shoulder straps of their brassieres, those wearing them. One girl, a chunky Chinese with shining black eyes and orange-striped hair, obviously wasn’t, and the nipples of her plump, immature breasts were like dark pebbles below the surface of the sand. None of them had tattoos, that he could see, or obvious body piercings. With a shudder of revulsion, he wondered if any of them had pierced genitals. Surely they were too young for that sort of thing. On the other hand, they were too young to be dressed so provocatively. Didn’t they realize the kind of message they were sending?
One of the girls became aware of his attention and whispered conspiratorially to her companions. They all looked in his direction and giggled. The Chinese girl glanced around the compartment, then locked eyes with him. His pulse raced. She plucked at the hem of her top, raising it higher on her midriff, as though she were going to reveal her breasts. Hal stared, mouth dry, perspiration pooling in his armpits and running down his sides, simultaneously fascinated and horrified. Then, laughing, the girl pulled the hem of her top back down. Her friends roared with laughter. Face flaming, Hal struggled to his feet and staggered down the stairs to the lower level, the girls’ laughter chasing him like the taunts of Yonge Street whores.
Marty Elias had teased him like that once, he recalled, as he sagged into a seat on the lower level. One day, when he got home from playing softball, he found her sprawled on the sofa in the basement recreation room of his parents’ house — she was Rachel’s best friend and always hanging about — wearing shorts and a stretchy pink tube top.
“What’re you doing here?” he said to her.
She looked at him. “Waiting for Rachel.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Where is she?”
Marty shrugged. Beneath the fabric of her top, her breasts were the size of half golf balls and shaped like foreshortened ice cream cones.
“How old are you now?” Hal asked, although he knew perfectly well how old she was.
“Same as Rachel,” she said. “Eleven.”
“You look, um, older,” he said.
“Yeah? Really?” She sat up a little straighter, thrusting out her chest. “My boobies are bigger than hers,” she said proudly.
“A little, I guess,” Hal said, face hot.
A sly expression crossed her small face. “I bet you’ve never seen a girl’s boobies before.”
“What? Sure, of course I have,” he lied. He had, but only in magazines.
“Gimme a dollar and I’ll show you mine.”
He swallowed dryly. He was certain she was teasing, but he dug into his jeans pocket anyway, feeling his erection as he fished out some change and a crumpled dollar bill. “I’ll give you fifty cents,” he said.
“Gimme the dollar.”
Heart hammering wildly, he gave her the dollar. She smiled triumphantly as she shoved it into the pocket of her shorts. She fingered the upper edge of the stretchy tube top. There was an almost unbearable tightness in his chest.
“Well,” he croaked.
Suddenly, she jumped up from the sofa and bolted up the basement stairs.
“Hey!”