Cooking the World

It was unusual in the 1980s for a father to have sole custody of a child, especially a girl of 8. But there they were, two abandoned strays navigating the strange new space between them.

Marty started with TV gameshows. Figuring “Wheel of Fortune” was age appropriate and somewhat educational, he tried to bribe her with treats if she could guess the words. Ellen sat stiffly on the sofa, tight-lipped, even when the answers were painfully obvious.

He brought home two Barbies, not knowing if she’d prefer one with blonde hair like her mom’s or dark hair like her own.

“Dad!  Barbies minus the ‘r’ spells Babies! I’m not a baby!!”

“Aha! I knew you could spell!” Marty said, grinning at his scowling daughter.

They played checkers but she expressed no joy when winning and after three games, asked quietly if she could go to her room. He bought coloured paper and art supplies; he tried nail polish and My Little Ponies. He presented her with stickers and Smurfs and a Lightbright, but with each mumbled “thanks,” she seemed more haunted.

He took her to the re-release of Bambi and had to carry her out as her sobs, “I want my mommy!” were clearly disturbing the other people in the audience. Their looks confirmed his failure as a parent. At night after she went to bed, politely declining a story, he sat in his armchair, head in his hands, fighting the urge to both cry and punch the wall.

One Saturday afternoon, she came to him, holding a dusty rolled-up map.

“What’s this?” Feeling encouraged by the slight sound of enthusiasm in her voice, he exclaimed,

“This, my little Chickpea, is the map I had when I was a great explorer!”

Marty had been travelling in Europe when he’d called home and discovered he needed to make an honest woman out of Ellen’s mother, who years later turned out to be incapable of honesty. He used the money he’d saved for Asia and Africa to pay for a simple wedding and shortly before Ellen was born, got a job on the production line of the big valve factory.

He showed Ellen his route from Istanbul to Italy.

“I was here,” he pointed to the Naples dot, “when I found out about you. I was so excited to meet you that I got on the first plane and flew here.” For the first time in months, Ellen focused her eyes on his and smiled. He noticed that her dimples were becoming deeper like all the girls in his family.  He forgave himself the lie.

“What was it like to go to all those places?”

He dug out a box and showed her the stack of photos he’d taken during those two months. The Blue Mosque, the ancient Greek ruins, the narrow streets of Napoli, and all that blue sea. And the food! He felt like an idiot at the time, but seeing the pictures brought back all the flavours of herbs, fresh ripe tomatoes, peppery olive oil.

She looked at each picture a dozen times, asking questions that showed an intelligence and curiosity he didn’t know she had.

“I wish I could go to all these places.”

He then got an idea that would change everything for this tiny adrift family.

“Here throw this at the map.”

Holding her small hand in his, he aimed a dart at the map he’d hung on the wall of the kitchen. It stuck in Brazil.

“Ok, now we’re going to the library and we’re going to learn about this country and cook something special to make us feel like we’re there. What do you say?” Ellen smiled and ran to grab her shoes.

That night they sat together over steaming bowls of feijoada and Marty hid the stinging behind his eyes as his daughter animatedly recounted every fact she’d learned about the country.

Ellen had no fear of strange ingredients. She gnawed on raw lemongrass as they made curry for “Thailand night”; she peeled the heads and shells off of king prawns to make the rougaille when she’d hit Mauritius. She’d struck Milan and was amazed at the transformation of the risotto as she patiently stirred for 25 minutes as Marty carefully ladled in the stock. One of her favourite nights was when Marty spoke like the Swedish chef from The Muppets as they made their meatballs. “Cook the world night” became sacred.

By the time Ellen was in high school, she knew she wanted to travel the world and become a chef. But she worried about Marty’s health as his body seemed to be failing him despite his young age. His shoulders stooped and his joints were permanently stiff from the daily repetitive action at the factory. Everything took him more time—breaking an egg, flipping a crepe, mincing garlic. He had a chronic cough and often fell asleep before 9:00.

She couldn’t shake the thought that something was going to happen to him while she was in some jungle in Asia. Secretly vowing to care for him forever, she registered for the culinary program at the community college. The world would be waiting there for short trips after she got a job in a local restaurant.

For Ellen’s high school graduation, they made a Turkish feast of grilled koftes, hummus, eggplant puree, rice pilaf, and stuffed vegetables, hoping it was enough like an American barbecue to not put off the relatives, whose idea of ethnic cuisine was sweet and sour pork from Panda Express or Taco Tuesday.

When it came time to open the gifts, envelopes of money, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and a few cookbooks, she opened her father’s gift last. Inside was a crisp, white apron and in the pockets, something Ellen both yearned for and dreaded.

“No, I can’t.”

Clutching the plane ticket to her chest, she sobbed in her father’s arms as he whispered into her ear, “It’s time to really cook the world, my little Chickpea.”

 

 

The Dress

Jan had been in Bangkok approximately 14 hours when she fell prey to the city’s most common scam. That first morning, she had opened the balcony door to a stunning pink and orange sunrise bouncing off a sea of golden stupas. She was eager to visit these temples that looked like palaces of jewels compared to the sombre stone and glass she was used to. She dressed in a long brown peasant skirt and long sleeved white blouse and went to the rooftop to enjoy the complementary coffee, fruit, and a mild tea flavoured cake, marvelling that at 8:10 a.m. she could already feel beads of sweat forming above her lip.

As she sipped coffee, she looked again at her map. The night before over a meal of an omelette and spicy papaya salad, she had marked the routes she had planned to take to visit the temples of Wat Chanasankram, Wat Mahathat, Wat Pho, and Wat Phra Kaew. 15 minutes after she left the comfort of the hotel, she was stopped by a young well-dressed man, who told her with an impeccable English accent that there was a funeral for the King’s cousin and that most of the major sites were closed. He was so apologetic and lamented that there weren’t signs or information posted for foreigners.

Having neglected to do much research prior to the trip, Jan had no idea she had just become the man’s first victim of the day. So happily oblivious and feeling lucky to have met someone willing to take her on a private tour of lesser-known and less sacred sites (and for a mere 50 baht!), she eagerly climbed into a tuk-tuk with Ton.

They did indeed go to a temple, a small, quiet place where a man sat on a chair in the corner, flipping through a magazine, a few metal Buddhas placed on a table in front of him. Ton told her these were extremely sacred because they were blessed by the city’s oldest monk, so she bought two.

As the tuk-tuk zipped in and out between pedestrians and exhaust fumes, Jan tried to open every part of herself to drink it all in. she couldn’t see one thing—not a tree, sign, house, or shop—that remotely reminded her of the Midwest. The heat, the noise, and the smells were nothing like the pervasive aroma of fresh cut grass or the sound of the mowers, and the occasional rattle of a train. The sensation of being completely uprooted and placed upon another planet filled her with such unexpected joy, she realized there were tears in her eyes and her face was hurting from smiling.

And so it was with this big smile, that she entered a shop that was filled floor to ceiling with the most beautiful fabrics she’d ever seen. They made her think of temple gables, the sea, and ancient kingdoms. They shimmered and sparkled; some were bold and others were understated. They whispered exotic and shouted of royalty.

A small man with thick-rimmed glasses spoke to her, “You are an actress or maybe CEO.” She couldn’t tell from the intonation if it was a question or statement and responded a bit slowly, “Ah, no. I’m a teacher. I’m going to teach here. I mean, in this country.”

“Ah! A teacher! In Thailand it is a most revered job. A woman teacher, especially foreigner, must be dressed very respectfully.”

“Oh, but I brought a wardrobe and I’ve been told it is fine.”

Jan was starting to understand that something was expected of her and this wasn’t an excursion to see how fabrics were made.

“Then you need the special dress that you can wear on any occasion like wedding or holiday party”

Jan had only packed one suitcase for her year in Thailand, and though she had brought an assortment of mix and match skirts and blouses that were conservative and wouldn’t show her sweating, she didn’t have a “nice dress”—one that stays in the back of a closet in a protected bag until it can be brought out to dazzle and entice.

She thought about how cool she’d look at a wedding in the States wearing a sexy and elegant "Asian style" dress. It would be a unique and practical souvenir of her journey. Within minutes she was being measured and shown swaths of fabrics. Ton and thoughts of the sacred sites had suddenly disappeared. She chose a satiny pale silver with tiny intricate flowers in varying shades of colour.

She was presented with a bill and told to come back in two days. She gasped when she saw that the total was more than twice her budget of spending money that month. She’d been with the shop owner for nearly four hours so not wanting to be disrespectful, she paid the money and rode in silence with Ton back to the hotel. When he asked for triple what they’d agreed on earlier, she handed it over, silently, heart stinging.

She did pick up the dress and though it looked beautiful on the hanger, it bunched and pulled on parts of her body that it shouldn’t. She had met other foreigners who were aghast that she had fallen for the scam and she felt a fresh burst of hot shame each time she hung the dress in a new place. The dress followed her for five years and three countries, until she donated it to a charity shop when she returned home.

A few weeks later at her 10-year class reunion, still feeling the lingering effects of reverse culture shock and trying not to bore her ex-classmates with tales of her journeys abroad, she saw a group forming around a woman she didn’t recognize though she couldn’t mistake the shimmering silver that had transformed her into a breath-taking site.

“I saw it by chance. Never worn!! I got it for 10 bucks and altered it myself. I can’t believe someone gave this up. What a sucker!”

 

Art Class

It was a dazzling white winter day when Allison entered the studio to pose nude for a group of student artists. She had taken the long way through the campus to have the first look at the old oak trees and neoclassical buildings covered in a fresh layer of powdered snow. It was the winter break and most students were back home snug in their childhood beds, leaving the orphans and workaholics free to roam the post-apocalyptic like emptiness.

As Allison entered the room, she was immediately struck by a wall of heat and the smells of clay, paint, and dust. A short, wiry man in his 60s greeted her and took both his hands in hers. “Welcome. I’m Jim. We spoke on the phone.”

She had seen the ad for models wanted on a bulletin board in the English building. It wasn’t a lot of money but because she was avoiding going home for the holidays, she needed extra money for meals and drinks out with her friends who also preferred early afternoon games of drunken pool to spending time in tense family environments.

"You’ll be sitting up there,” he said, pointing to a wooden table covered in yellow flowered sheet, “and the other girl will be there,” he pointed to another table with a dark green shimmery cover.

 “It’s going to be a study in contrasts. You and Laura are as different as apples and orangutans. Now go into that room there while we set up. She’s already there.”  

Allison hadn’t realized there would be another girl and felt both relieved and terrified. When she entered the small room, the other girl had her back to the door and upon hearing Allison, looked back with her head over the shoulder, just like a painting. Long, wavy bright red hair flowed down the middle of her back and the one eye Allison could see was like a cat’s and shone a bright green. She had a wide smile and perfectly straight teeth. But what made Allison nearly gasp was the shape of her body—something she’d only seen on the pages of Elfquest. Laura was about six inches shorter than she was, with an almost grotesquely small waist, full heart-shaped backside, and when she at last turned for a proper introduction, a set of breasts that were at least a C cup.

“Hey, I’m Laura. This is great, isn’t it? Easiest money ever. I just hope I don’t fall asleep on that table. It’s so warm in here!”

“Allison. Have you done this before?”

“Sure, loads of times. Jim calls me a couple times a month. It’s practically paid for all my books this year.”

“What are you studying?”

“Double major in Business Admin and Accounting. How about you?”

“English. Not sure yet what my focus is going to be.”

“Ah. Well, you should get ready. You can put on that robe if you want but I actually find it more comfortable to just go out there and sit down and not have to take it off in front of them. Know what I mean? See you in a few!”

Allison began to undress, feeling more anxious as each winter layer was removed. She folded her clothes into a neat pile, underwear and bra hidden between her jeans and sweater. There wasn’t a mirror in the room but she brushed her hair and tried to stand up straight and strike a model pose—one hip slightly more forward that the others. She had the sensation she always had before jumping off a high dive board or the garage roof, that feeling that something beyond her control was preventing her from taking the final step off into oblivion.

Finally, mustering a confidence she didn’t feel, she opened the door and walked out. The first thing she saw was Jim’s naked body and his much too white high-top sneakers. The group of students were also in varying degrees of undress and were focused on their easels and the already posed Laura.

“Alison, we like to get nude as well to feel a sense of connection with the subject. By making ourselves vulnerable, we can tap into our id and transfer it onto the paper.  Hope you don’t mind. Now, I’d like you to wear this hat and sit in the same position as Laura. Imagine that it’s a hot, sunny day and you’re admiring the scenery in a field somewhere.”

Allison glanced at Laura and did her best to copy the pose. Legs stretched in front, arms behind for support. She looked down and saw the familiar folds of her stomach and the straight lines from her ribs to her hips. Her breasts hung off her chest like deflating balloons stuck on a Happy Birthday sign. She put her head back as if cloud-gazing and arched her back.

The minutes ticked by and she began to feel a numbing pain in her buttocks and she couldn’t feel her arms. She had started to sweat and the beads were rolling down from under her armpits. The large straw hat was itching her forehead and she longed to move any part of her body.

After two hours, Jim shouted, “Everyone, pencils down! Now, walk around in a circle and examine one another’s work. Girls, you too.” And so they walked in a slow motion conga line, Allison between a fully-clothed woman and a man completely naked save for his glasses and brown socks. After the third easel, Allison couldn’t bear to look anymore.

Most renditions of her body looked like a jumble of Picasso-esque lines and tiny triangles, whereas Laura’s figure curved and flowed like the Titian wet dream she was.

She hurriedly put on her clothes and took the crumpled $25 from Jim’s sweaty grip, mumbling a “thanks” and “bye”. He hadn’t asked her to return and nor would she have. Later at the bar, people asked why she wouldn’t take off her coat.

“Exposed myself to the elements too much today.”

 

On the List

Ryan was very open about being on the sex offenders register. He had told the story so often and in such tense environments that for the sake of everyone’s nerves he’d reduced the incident to a few sentences which sprang from his mouth like gunshots. “Met her on-line. Thought she was great. Looked over 18. She wasn’t. Parents found out. Sent to jail. On the list for life.” 

What he didn’t say was how horrible that first year had been after he got out. His hometown was so small that nearly every residence, including that of his parents, was too near a school. He rented a small trailer on the outskirts of town. When in town, parents would rush their children to the other side of the street if they saw him coming.

“So how’d you get a job here then?” asked a rather gruff fellow from Leeds who seemed a bit sceptical of Ryan’s story. They were in Thailand, a country notorious for being a magnet for pasty, sweaty paedos from the West. Though Thailand had been cracking down and weeding out potential sexual predators from the teacher pool, university positions were a little more lax.

Another of the lads chimed in, “Screwing a girl who looks like a woman—and who lied about being a woman—is definitely not the same as diddling a little boy.”

Lou, the only female at the table, had got a bad vibe off Ryan from the start. She thought he looked more like a serial killer than a paedophile, but suspected there was a nugget of badness in there somewhere.

“Don’t you think even if she were 18 that she’s still a bit young for you?  You’re what—28, 30?”

The men were silent a moment before bursting out laughing. Most of them had Thai wives or mistresses that were nearly half their age, albeit over 18.

Though Ryan didn’t say anything, he feared that Lou had a point. Ever since he could remember, he’d had a thing for girls who were likely in their last year of high school. And his favourite way to enjoy these girls was by laying down as they towered naked above him. Seeing the curves and flesh from that angle made him feel like he was floating on a river through a canyon. He remembered when he was about 9 years old and hiding under the wooden stairs that led to the basement. His babysitter had snuck her boyfriend in through the backdoor and as they stood on the stairs making out, his hand under her skirt, Ryan watched mesmerized through the gaps in the stairs as his caretaker’s buttocks moved in rhythm to his pounding heart.

In high school, Ryan wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Tall and gangly with glasses but with enough of a wave to his hair to seem mysterious. He was quiet and shy so was surprised to be asked to a dance by a girl who was as gorgeous as she was popular. They had made out heavily in every corner of the dance floor and later as they rolled around on the plush carpet of her parents’ basement floor, he asked her to stand above him naked. She laughed at first but he continued to ask, a whine creeping into his voice, until finally she asked him to leave and never spoke to him again.

The girl he’d met on-line had filmed herself for Ryan, camera at her feet, as she did various activities in the nude—dancing, working out, ironing. She’d never said it was weird or that Ryan was a freak and it was for this reason, he likely fell for her and blocked out the fact that in the videos, he could see it was a teenage girl’s room with its requisite posters and picture collages on the walls.

Ryan didn’t answer the question and Lou let it go. The other men who taught in the universities had no qualms discussing how the young women pushed the boundaries of the dress code by wearing the required knee-length black skirt but altering it so it fit their small bodies like a glove and finding white blouses so small, the buttons over their pert breasts were always seconds away from flying off. The men discussed asses, legs, and tits in the same jovial way they talked about football and rugby. But during these conversations, Ryan smiled and said nothing. He claimed to not really notice and insisted that he preferred curvy blondes, a type that was lacking in Thailand.

It was true that he really wasn’t interested in having a Thai girlfriend. It seemed like too much work, especially given his low salary. But he found he couldn’t stop looking at them. Though they were in their early 20’s, they looked much younger and they all seemed to have perfectly shaped bodies with small waists, shapely legs, and breasts that seemed would rest perfectly in the palm of his hand. Their skin reminded him of lattes and their long, black hair was impossibly soft and silken. Some of them flirted with him mercilessly, touching his arm and standing too close when asking a question.

Lou was the one who broke the news to the ex-pat group.

“I told you guys he was a creep, but you didn’t believe me!! I knew something like this would happen!”

She then began to tell them the whole sordid story of a hidden camera in his shoe and the footage gained in weekly speaking tests. He’d been caught when he left his phone in a classroom and a teacher saw an image after turning on the phone. He’d surrendered the phone and left the country immediately.

The men were mostly shocked that they’d been unable to detect such a deep flaw in a man’s character. But life went on and as they raised their classes in a toast of farewell, Lou said by way of closing the subject, “Once a perv, always a perv.”

Charlie's War

Charlie had always been a quiet, unengaged fellow, more likely as a child to sit in the basement with his Legos than watch TV or play with other kids.  The outside world and Charlie had always had a tenuous relationship, but as he grew older, he felt a burning need to get out of the skin he had grown around himself. He wanted to earn his isolation not be a prisoner of it.

So after finishing his degree in Computer Science, he packed a bag and headed to China, which he figured was as different from his Midwestern upbringing as possible. He had had a small group of friends who wished him well but seemed unfazed by his upcoming 12,000-mile journey. Perhaps because they were so used to entering and conquering so many fantasy worlds and navigating the intricacies of cyberspace, visiting Asia didn’t seem like such a big deal.

The most difficult good-bye Charlie made was to his menagerie of furry and scaly companions. Eddy Izzard the Lizard, Thelonious Chipmunk, and if forced to choose a favourite, a fluffy ginger cat named Einstein. Charlie loved his three pets more than the three humans who also shared his home, and with whom he rarely spoke.

Charlie booked a room in a hostel next to a canal in the old part of Nanjing. He had his first meal in a noodle shop, relishing the simplicity of water, chicken, and noodles. He had subsisted on Tony’s frozen pizzas and Lipton iced tea all these years and imagined this was his new local equivalent.

On his third day, he wandered into an open air market. Above hung a multitude of opened coloured umbrellas, giving the narrow and poorly lit laneways a festive feel. Small stalls sold pirated DVDs, others live fish and turtles in giant Styrofoam containers. One stall only sold belts, another stationary, and in between were baubles, fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs. Charlie looked at all the wares with mild interest until something stopped him dead in his tracks. So still and motionless was he that several people bumped into him.

Before him were stacks of cages, five high and three deep of various animals, each cage containing at least ten small creatures—kittens, puppies, rabbits, ducklings, and guinea pigs. He knelt down and tried to look the rabbits in the eyes but they seemed too lethargic to meet his gaze. One brazen kitten with matted grey fur began to squeakily beg, his siblings (or distant cousins) barely lifting their heads before nuzzling back into the heap of fur. So crammed was the cage of tiny felines that it was difficult to make out whose limbs belonged to whom.

Charlie felt a sharp stabbing sensation in both his chest and gut and in a few seconds was able to imagine the entire life of the kittens with no fresh air, no chance to run and play. He couldn’t allow himself to imagine their fate if not sold and wasn’t entirely sure what their fate would be if they were.

Next to the cages a middle-aged man sat in a plastic chair, smoking and looking at his mobile. He didn’t greet or acknowledge the foreigner as tourists didn’t usually buy pets on holidays. Charlie stood and realized he was shaking. The man didn’t look up from his phone, which further elevated Charlie’s anger. He had a sudden urge to grab the man’s throat and squeeze as hard as could. Having never felt a pull towards violence, he felt a sudden urge to escape and quickly walked away. It was a sweltering hot day and though not a heavy drinker, Charlie longed for a beer and made his way back to the hostel and its bar.

On his second beer, he tried to rationalize that his indignation was a by-product of his privileged white upbringing and that the trading of animals was just business. Why would a country that still hadn’t secured the rights of all its human citizens be advanced enough to be worried about its animals? By his fourth beer he had googled and contacted several animal rights groups that existed in Asia. The eloquence of his impassioned pleas surprised him and he briefly wondered if he had made a mistake not delving into a field involving the written word. After his sixth beer and not having received any replies, he began drinking whisky and developing a plan. He called it “Operation Furdom”, which momentarily put him into a giddy and giggly state.

What happened upon the implementation of Operation Furdom he would later describe as glorious and the closest he ever felt to God.

The Merchant of Cruelty (as he called him) was deeply engrossed in a conversation with a seller of cell phone covers, so didn’t notice Charlie clumsily opening all the cages. Though many of the animals were too weak or dazed to grasp the situation, a good many of the creatures sprinted from their tiny cells.

They masterfully dodged the shoppers and shop owners, who for a variety of reasons, tried to catch them. They wiggled out of hands and disappeared into cracks and crannies that seemed improbably small. People shrieked and shouted and the man worked frantically to stuff the shyer and stupider animals back into their cages, cigarette still dangling from a grimace. He briefly looked at Charlie, who hands in pockets, swayed and grinned at the mayhem. The man shouted, the words sounding like nothing more than barking.

The next day as he headed to the train station to begin a 24-hour journey south and away from the crowded cities, he saw something perched on a crumbling wall. As he neared, he became more certain that it was the grey kitten, who a day earlier, had begged him to do something. Though the cat hissed at first, he allowed himself to be petted before jumping down the other side of the wall and disappearing into a laneway without so much as a backward glance.

(Note: This story is based on my experience of seeing these pet stalls in Nanjing. I wrote a non-fiction blog about it here.)

 

 

Bodyscape

While her friends avoided scales and reflective surfaces and endured self-imposed hunger strikes, Cindy enjoyed gazing upon her naked form and smiled as she ran her hands over the peaks and valleys of the landscape of her flesh. Her mother, who subsisted on yoghurt and daily sessions at Curves, had waited anxiously for Cindy’s “baby fat” to disappear until she was 15. Though her mother continually sucked in her stomach and called herself a “a big fat toad”, she never used the word “fat” with Cindy, choosing instead to refer to her as “plump.” At night while the local news droned on, Cindy dutifully ate her baked chicken breasts and steamed vegetables and never asked for sweets or fatty foods. She’d never suffered from food cravings and had taken it in stride that she was going to have the body shape of the “unlucky ladies on your father’s side of the family” as her mother constantly reminded her.

Because of her wide bright smile and way of making a person feel they were the most treasured in a room, Cindy rarely had been the subject of ridicule. Once when the scrawny and mean Jeanette Parsons told her she was so fat, her “ass had its own zip code”, Cindy laughed so good-naturedly that Jeanette laughed too and when Cindy added that she was so fat she didn’t need the internet “cuz I’m already world wide” hands placed on each hip, Jeanette laughed even harder. And though she never had a serious boyfriend in high school, more than a few boys learned the secret that there is more pleasure to be had in grabbing onto softness than unforgiving bones.

In her 20s, when fashion magazines editorialized about the dangers of young girls striving for the “perfect bikini body,” she laughed and started her oft-stated diagnosis of “reverse body dysmorphia”. On occasion she was surprised when she discovered that her perception of her size and the actual number on the tag didn’t exactly match. But rather than feeling panic or self-loathing, she shrugged and grabbed the bigger size, vowing and adhering to a new rule to exercise more each week.

After two years of temp work at various offices throughout the city, she was finally offered a full-time position in a human resources department. Her mother immediately advised her to invest in some tailored business jackets that would have a “slimming effect”. She then went on to warn her of lunches out with the girls, happy hour drinks and appetizers at Applebee’s, and the general gluttony that would ensue with an increase in salary. Cindy, having heard the similar warnings before, chuckled and assured her mother she wouldn’t become a blimp, and added as she always did, that there would just be more of herself for her mother to love.

Her first year flew by as she fell into the rhythm of working five days a week from 9:00-5:00. She loved the constant flow of communication whether on the phone, in meetings, or just in passing with the scores of people who were employed there. At the end of each day, when she took off her heels, undid her blazer, and untucked her blouse, she felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and connectedness with the various “teams” she was a part of. So it was with a sense of earning a prize that she accepted an invitation with her group of work friends to take a 10-day trip to Thailand.

They had chosen to go in February when the Midwestern winters were at their cruellest and Cindy revelled in shopping for tropical climate wear. She chose a retro-styled bikini with a high-waisted bottom with a halter top in a bold turquoise colour and a few sundresses for nights on the town. At home she tried on each piece several times, loving the feel of the lightweight fabric and the way she could finally see her body without the confinement of winter layers—the flesh only slightly bulging between the two parts of the bikini.

They had spent the first three days in Bangkok, doing the requisite circuit of walking up and down Kao San Road with other tourists; taking pictures with drugged felines at the Tiger Temple; and riding the train on the Death Railway over the River Kwai. They tried som tam and curries, drank too much, and bought souvenirs of keychains and scarves.

On the advice of a staff member, they decided to travel to the relatively unspoilt Koh Lipe rather than the touristy Koh Phi Phi for the beach part of the holiday. When they arrived, the tourists, mostly from Asia, began climbing deftly from the ferry into the small wooden long-tailed boats that would take them the few meters to shore.

Suddenly, all eyes turned to Cindy.  A collective fear hung in the air as she stood to climb over the hull and down into the boat. Just as quickly, the spell was broken and she could hear and see nearly a dozen strangers, pointing and laughing at her. For a moment she felt the bouncing of her breasts and buttocks as the boat moved in the waves; her arm on the railing looked like a ham hock next to that of the Thai man who was helping people into the boats. She felt swollen like risen dough and wanted to punch herself down to a smaller size. Her face burned as her travelling companions cooed words of encouragement.

Looking up, she saw the small boyish figures before her and suddenly felt a surge of pity that they’d never know full breasts or burying a face into a soft, warm tummy. She stretched her arms above her, and because she was smiling so radiantly, the group found themselves smiling too. She dove effortlessly into the sea and they watched, mesmerized by the way the water rippled and eddied around her. And then, splashing and giggling, they followed her, minnows trailing a dolphin, as she led them to shore.

 

 

The Two Grandmothers

Tara stared at the short email until the black pixels started to bounce and blur. The notice telling her she’d better travel the 12,000 miles to her grandmother’s funeral read as both a plea and a threat. Tara shut her laptop and thought of calling her mother instead of replying. She'd told her mother she’d been unable to get a phone with international calling capabilities and so had only been communicating by email.

Though it was 10:00 a.m. and a Tuesday, Tara opened a bottle of wine and sat in front of the fan. Her rationale for drinking on the morning of a workday was that she had no emotional reaction to her mother’s news and she hoped the wine might help one along. She tried to empty her head and conjure images of the woman she had once loved more than anyone. But she didn’t know which woman to think of, the woman of Before. Or After.

At least once a month for as long as she could remember, Tara “spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa,” During these 24 hours, they played countless hands of rummy at the dining room table, M&Ms and sodas always at their sides. On cold days the trio baked cookies or created masterpieces in Grandpa’s shop, and on sunny afternoons, she crawled into the backseat as Grandpa took the wheel and Grandma rode shotgun. They drove for hours in the countryside, making up stories about the abandoned barns. Grandpa didn’t say much, but he always smiled and winked in the rear-view mirror anytime she said something clever. Grandpa was a dead ringer for Kirk Douglas and though Grandma’s composite wasn’t Hollywood lovely, some of her individual bits were, like the impossibly large blue eyes and a sparkling laugh that filled a room.

In the evening, Tara was tucked in snug on the sofa that seemed to stretch for miles, wrapped in fresh sheets and afghan blankets, drifting off to the sound of her grandparents’ murmurs, chuckles, and later, snores. In the morning, they ate BLT sandwiches in their pyjamas and Tara tried to ward off the growing dread of waiting for her mother to collect her, bringing with her a heaviness that flattened the room as she recounted yet another confrontation with Tara’s stepmother at the grocery store or a date gone wrong.

Grandma never drank and wouldn’t tolerate alcohol in her house but she did need a daily dose of chocolate to feel “right in the head”. That mild July day, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and Grandpa was more than happy to pop over to the store, as doing so allowed him his own indulgence of smoking his pipe. Windows rolled down, public radio blaring, he drove the long way home, arm resting on the window, one hand on the wheel. The horizontal light beams of the 7:00 sun had temporarily blinded him and he didn’t see the other car coming. Men his age ignored seatbelts so he, his pipe, and a lone Hershey’s bar were found 100 meters from the crumpled car.

The After Grandma still played cards but distractedly and without enjoyment. She suspected that everyone was cheating or letting her win out of pity. During these games, she chastised her companions for not having appreciated the man who was “the heart of this family”. She stopped going to church because “God only took the good ones” and each week she highlighted in detail how she hoped she’d die, wanting most to be “euthanized like an old cat”. One day she’d be nostalgic and amazed that a man loved her so much he’d die for her, while on another day she might weep and say she should have been an alcoholic. “Frank would never have gone out to get me more drink.” When her sister’s husband died of cancer, After Grandma, rather than offer condolences, sputtered bitterly, “You better damn well appreciate you had the chance to say goodbye!” Soon, friends stopped calling round and she began to shrink inside the rooms she once had filled with laughter. She watched TV, ate chocolate, and did little to take care of herself despite her family’s attempts at interventions.

Tara graduated and went to college and left the Midwest. She tried to send chipper emails, but the replies she did receive left her feeling helpless. “NOBODY TOLD ME HOW HORRIBLE GETTING OLD WOULD BE AND THAT YOUR FAMILY WOULD ALL EVENTUALLY ABANDON YOU. GRANDMA.”

The last time she had seen her grandmother was before she left for Thailand. Tara sat in the bright cafeteria with her and as they played rummy, her grandmother tried to make sense of what she was doing teaching English in a country halfway around the world. She said she and Grandpa had planned to travel when he retired but they’d been robbed of that dream. It was the first she’d heard of this plan and eagerly asked where they had wanted to go. “Why think of it now? I’ll die in this chair, in this prison. But you, you keep on seeing the world. You always had the freest spirit of all of them.”

Tara looked at her empty bottle of wine and contemplated her “free spirit”. She’d thought that by escaping toxic relationships and dead-end jobs, she’d be free. But her demons had followed her, stowed away as she boarded the plane. And here she was, drunk and likely to call in sick again so as not to be a spectacle in front of her class of 60 students who she doubted would even notice.

She opened the message again and considered getting more wine, but felt clear-headed and sure of what to do. The truth struck her so forcibly that tears formed as she poised her fingertips over the keys and sent her mother an equally curt reply.

“My grandmother did not die yesterday. She died July 12, 1991. There was and never has been a chance to say good-bye. I’m sorry.”