— * —
The bustle of her daughter’s household encircled Celia but couldn’t break through her lethargy. The days became endless and the nights short. She wished they would reverse themselves so that she could sleep sixteen hours and be awake for only eight. Sometimes she’d lounge in bed as long as possible, squeezing her eyelids shut, willing herself back to unconsciousness, but her treacherous body rarely allowed her to sleep beyond sunrise.
She’d been busy all her life, and there had never seemed to be enough time in her day for all the many tasks she needed to do: the cleaning, cooking, caring for sick children, laundry, and gardening never seemed to end. When the kids were young, she’d even managed to take in a small brood of the neighbours’ children to open a small at-home daycare. The days flew by. But on Lochrie Street, time slithered like a snail, dumb, slow, with nothing to direct it.
But that Sunday afternoon was different. As she sat at the front window, she looked out at the sidewalk and irritation crackled through her. The blustery winds of the night before had blown garbage onto the walk. And the dust! So much of it coated the normally white sidewalk. Usually, her lassitude allowed her to ignore such trifles, but on that day, dust and garbage were urgent matters. She rose from her perch at the window and went looking for a broom.
She stepped outside, and as she worked, she felt a little of her old strength returning, her muscles stretching and straining with each movement. A steady energy spread from her body up to her brain and she found herself humming a popular song she’d heard drifting from a neighbour’s window last week. She couldn’t remember the words, but the melody was familiar: Da da dee. Dum dum da. Da da dum. Dum dah!
She lifted her face to the sunshine, sniffed the air, and admired the blue sky above and sensed she wasn’t alone. She looked across to the Indian neighbour’s house and glimpsed him peeking through his curtains. She didn’t mind. After all, she’d been the one watching him these past few weeks. Perhaps she liked the thought of a man, and that man in particular, looking at her, reciprocating the watching. She blushed as she recalled the day she’d seen his thin legs and privates. He wasn’t an unattractive man, certainly. She hummed a little louder.
She didn’t know why Lydia had to come out right then and ruin her mood. It wasn’t so cold out and for once, she’d been enjoying herself. She didn’t need a coat. And more than that, she wished the man hadn’t witnessed her daughter treat her so stupidly. After Lydia forced the coat onto her, she felt all her energy drain right out of her, down her legs, out her feet, and pool on the sidewalk. She left the broom on the lawn and went inside to take a nap.
— 10 —
Knees
The next week, Ismail finally saw Daphne at the Merry Pint. She moved through the bar, greeting the regulars with smiles, handshakes, and hugs. Although only a few months had passed since they’d last seen one another at an AA meeting, she seemed changed to him and at first Ismail didn’t recognize her; her usual outfit of blue jeans, T-shirt, and sweatshirt had been exchanged for a red overcoat and a yellow dress that stopped just short of her knees. Thick white stockings came all the way up her calves, making her look like a teenager. She sat down beside him, he finally realized it was her, and Ismail instantly felt nostalgic for the good times they’d shared. She leaned over and embraced him from her bar stool.
“You look good, Daphne. New girl in your life?” Ismail probed, hoping for some ambivalence around her sexual orientation that would permit him a place in her bed once again.
“Not a new girl, Ismail! A new life! A new calling!” He watched her eyebrows bob up and down with each exclamation. “Instead of drinking, I write now. I am a writer!” She took a deep breath and then proceeded to talk non-stop about a class she’d taken at the university, the supportive students, her inspirational instructor. Ismail wasn’t sure what to make of this new Daphne, this Daphne with a new calling, inspiration, and yellow dresses and so he ordered a beer and settled in to listen. He noticed that she looked at his drink longingly, sucking hard on her straw, emptying her glass of ginger ale in several long slurps. Ismail guessed she was back at the Merry Pint to reunite with old buddies and maybe test her fragile sobriety, something he understood. He’d attempted evenings of soda water after AA and at first he’d been successful.
“Well, enough about me. What’s new with you these days?” Daphne queried.
“Me? Oh, nothing much. Same old, same old.”
“So … how are things? You still drinking?” She asked tentatively.
“Well, I drink a little here and there. It’s not a big problem for me — I’m much better these days. More moderate,” Ismail said, reaching for the pretzel bowl. It was somewhat true, and now that he was drinking less, he was already feeling the beer’s liquid kiss. Nabil’s voice rang through his head. Moderation is the thing, Ismail.
“I hope you aren’t still spending time with the Mary Pinters here,” she said, glancing at a pair of women sitting further down the bar. Although her expression seemed neutral — there was none of her tomato-red blushing — her voice carried a hint of jealousy, and Ismail felt himself brighten with hope. During their sober intimacies, he’d confided to Daphne about his encounters with a few of the lonely lady regulars at the Merry Pint. It was this gossip that inspired Daphne to coin the term “Mary Pinters.”
As though sensing they were being talked about, one of the Mary Pinters swivelled her stool and smiled at Ismail. He knew her name was Sandra, because they had spent a couple of hazy nights together in the previous few months. He waved feebly at her, and her eyes narrowed into a suggestive “come hither” leer.
“I haven’t slept with a Mary Pinter in a very long time, I’ll have you know!” he lied, laughing nervously. “Not since you were one of them.” Daphne smacked his arm in reply, sending a bawdy sting down its length, rousing his body awake.
“Hey, I’ve never been one of them! I don’t have drunken sex.” Daphne said, protesting, “At least not since I was in my twenties.”
“Yes, me, too. Not for a long while. I think that one three stools over must be missing me,” Ismail joked.
Daphne sized up Sandra.
“No really, I don’t come here very often anymore, not since AA. I drop in maybe twice a week, and only have one or two,” he explained, sipping his beer.
“Really? Just one or two, Ismail?”
“Yes, really. AA helped me cut down. It was good for me for a while, but I didn’t really feel it was for me in the end,” he said, looking guiltily into his glass.
“Well that’s good. I’m still working at it. I almost had a full year and then I slipped, pretty bad. I’ll have a month again next Monday … I probably shouldn’t have come. My sponsor would flip if she knew I was here — she told me to stop associating with people who drink. But maybe I’m like you, I like to test the rules sometimes,” she said with a sad smile.
“I couldn’t stand the meetings without you, Daphne. Those people were so serious, so earnest all the time …” Ismail trailed off, searching her face, fearing he had just offended her, after all she — and Ismail — had been “those people.”
“Yeah, I know. Anyway, the class is a lot like an AA meeting without the AA. Has the same effect on me, maybe better, even. You might like it, too … you should come. It’ll be fun.” Ismail raised his eyebrows, recalling that she used a similar argument to convince him to go to AA with her. She persisted, “Really, you should.”
“I don’t write, except for the very boring reports I do at work. Anyway, I don’t think I’m very creative.” Ismail knew he was being somewhat false. There had been a time, back in his youth, when he fancied himself a creative person. He wouldn’t have ever gone so far as to consider himself a writer — after all he was an engineering student — but he did write the odd