“A child like her being how?”
“Bright, but non-conforming. And not socially adept.”
How could I say no? I didn’t imagine myself an Annie Sullivan to Alexandra’s Helen Keller, but maybe if I spent some time with her, I could help her feel less alone. Help myself feel less alone.
Jane and I had just set a time to meet the next Sunday when Alexandra came back out the front door. “Here,” she said. “Now do you see what I mean?” She handed me a blue ceramic dinner plate, an artisanal piece made with a finely cracked surface under a shiny glaze.
“Why did you bring that out?” Jane said.
Alexandra said,“Don’t Patrick’s eyes look like that? They do!”
Jane and I both stared at the surface of the plate for a moment, then Jane said,“You’re right, Alexandra. Patrick’s irises do resemble this finish. I noticed them yesterday.”
Not that I much cared, but she was right.
~ Chapter 4 ~
When I discovered Patrick’s secret baker identity, I wondered, for about a minute, if I should avoid Bagel Haven, so that he wouldn’t be able to make another joke about me following him. But there was no good reason to allow the small-worldliness of Rose Park to circumscribe my movements. Not when I could tuck myself at a back table, not when I saw how infrequent and short-lived were Patrick’s forays from the kitchen. I wasn’t sure if he even noticed my presence at Bagel Haven the next few days.
Besides, after my afternoons spent engaged in puzzle book research, and my quiet evenings at home, I liked having a morning destination. I welcomed Arthur’s cheery comments on the newspaper headlines and the weather; I enjoyed the consistency of the nine o’clock Bagel Haven scene. The retired man in the visor, whose name was Fred, was always there, at his table. The young mother with infant came often, looking less exhausted every day. And the three-man orange-suited maintenance crew, whom I’d privately nicknamed Curly, Earring, and Goatee, could be counted on daily to supply a laugh track for my breakfast, to give me a window on the real world, versus the Rose Park version.
Though they gave a me scare the morning they stopped by my table.
“Excuse me,” said the one I’d christened Curly. “Me and my friends are hoping you can help us settle a bet.”
My face flamed and my shoulders hunched as if I’d been caught in mid-offence. As if I’d blurted out the nicknames I’d invented for them and hurt their feelings. I swallowed a large unchewed chunk of bagel. “A bet? About what?”
“Lorenzo, here,” Curly said, and indicated the guy I thought of as Earring, “says you’re the sister of a guy named Noel Morrison who was in our year at Northside High, but I say no way.”
I answered quickly, without thinking. “Sorry. I don’t have a brother. I’m an only child.”
“I told you,” Curly said to Earring. “She doesn’t look like him at all.”
I took a sip of juice and saw out of the corner of my eye that Patrick was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, behind a loaded trolley of bagels. The unaccustomed adrenaline rush triggered by the lie must have gone to my head, because I said, “You know, I went to Northside, and I don’t remember anyone named Noel. Who was he?”
A timer in the kitchen sounded — bing, bing, bing.
Goatee said, “He was an asshole.”
Curly nudged him. “Nice talk.”
Goatee said, “I still say he brought Ryan down.”
Ryan? Who was Ryan?
Curly said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about”
The timer binged on. From the cash, Arthur called, “Patrick, can you get that timer, please?”
“Now you’ve got me curious” I said. “What did this guy do that was so bad?”
Goatee turned away. “Nothing. Forget it. Thanks for helping us out.”
Earring said, “Are you sure you’re not his sister?”
“I think if I had a brother, I’d know.”
Goatee pulled on Earring’s sleeve. “Let’s go. Look who’s coming.”
Patrick eased the bagel trolley out of the kitchen, navigated the turn. Patrick, one of six children, younger sibling to (now I remembered) a guy of Noel’s age named Ryan, and possessor of the cracked-blue eyes I saw in sharp focus when he passed by, nodded at the stooges, and looked me full in the face with a glare so cold it could have air-conditioned the room.
I searched the memory banks for information about Ryan Hennessy en route to the puzzle book site I’d selected to visit that day: a house on Fairway Drive that had been the clubhouse, circa 1897, of the Rose Park Golf Club, when the blocks surrounding it had made up the course. The club had moved to a location several miles north in 1905; the greens had been divided into building lots and the clubhouse converted to a single family dwelling. The only sign of the house’s origin was the two-storey, gingerbread-trimmed porch that had once afforded lounging members a view of the fairway. Or so I thought. I sat down on a curb across the street to give the place the once-over and see what else I could find.
Ryan Hennessy hadn’t belonged to any golf club. The Hennessy house on Hillside Road had been modest, semidetached, the sole family car an economy model. The father had owned a store of some kind in the east end of the city, hardware perhaps, and had died young, when I was in high school. I remembered that much, but I couldn’t picture Ryan clearly. He might have been a certain tall, wavy-haired guy from Noel’s year who favoured athletic jackets, or not.
I pulled out my sketchbook and started to make a quick drawing of the clubhouse. What could Goatee have meant when he said Noel had brought Ryan down? Down where? And how likely was it that Noel would have known Ryan during his one year at Northside High?
I had hated private girls’ school after only one day, but from an early age, Noel thrived at the boys’ version: Hounslow College, a prestigious institution that my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had attended before him. For years, Noel was head this, house that, an honour student, a sports star, debating team captain, ad nauseum. Mom, Dad, and I were all surprised when he announced his desire to transfer to Northside for his graduation year.
“I need to walk among the hoi polloi,” he said. “Mix with a broader spectrum of the population, enrich my life experience.”
At the time, I thought Noel’s decision to cast off the rep tie, blazer, and flannels in favour of more contemporary clothes was related to his desire to have sex with a wider range of women than those he met at the golf club or the ski chalet or the dances organized to bring together private school girls with their male counterparts. But now I think he switched out of boredom. And with a desire to see if he was capable of rising to the top of a bigger bottle of milk.
I peered at the gingerbread above the porch. Was that a golf ball motif worked into the carved pattern? It was. A stylized leafy vine design incorporated golf balls where one would expect an acorn or a pine cone. I’d found my hidden in plain sight feature. I snapped a picture with the cheap camera I’d bought for the purpose, made a rough sketch of the pattern in the sketchbook, and packed up.
Noel had had nothing to worry about. His Northside sojourn proved he was the richest of cream. Within two months of his arrival, he was the Morrison that everyone knew. He dated the prettiest girls, captained the rugby and tennis teams, pulled off a ninety average, was named valedictorian. Given his looks and talents, how could he not excel? He won over everyone he met — boys, girls, teachers, parents. Only I had been immune. And maybe Goatee.
The next day, I visited another puzzle