Old Flames, Burned Hands Read online

  It was still hard to believe that Sarah had never told her about her secret fling with Frankie Vomit. It almost stung that she hadn’t shared it with her, as if Tilda was some blabber-mouth who couldn’t be trusted. That was too harsh, she reconsidered. She had clearly been humiliated by the whole thing and was living with the consequences. Who wouldn’t keep the sordid mess to themselves?

  Was she headed down the same road to ruination with Gil? Nothing had happened (yet) but it was going to sooner or later. Holding Gil’s hand and, more so, kissing his mouth had shocked her system so hard she thought she might spontaneously combust. But she had wanted more. She was starved for more and wanted it all. Moreover, this was Gil she was talking about and the circumstances were different, if not downright otherworldly. Logic had taken a vacation so the regular mores of social conduct didn’t apply. She was on her own and Sarah’s sad experience was no signpost she could use to navigate her own path. Or was she simply justifying her own selfish actions?

  After picking up chicken on St. Andrews and greens on Baldwin, Tilda stopped in front of The Porthole, a narrow defile of a bar that was considered decrepit during the Mulroney era. The grimy marquis over the door displayed the shows for the next two days; The Dum Shags tonight and tomorrow Tox1c Tuesday, an open stage night for surprise acts. Her own name had appeared in that marquis more times than she could remember, albeit spelled haphazardly as the bar was eternally short of all the changeable letters for the sign. She had often been billed as Tilda Parsh or Tlda Parish.

  She pushed through the door into the dark interior. The chairs and stools were still propped upside down on the tables, the floor waiting to be swept. A man stood behind the bar with his back to the door, counting the fridge inventory.

  Tilda crossed the floor. “Ivan?”

  The man shot around, reading glasses half down his nose which looked out of place with his black Viletones tee. “Tilda! How are you?”

  “I’m good.” She cocked a thumb at the door. “I see you’re still missing the ‘i’ for the marquis.”

  “It’ll show up the day I retire.” Ivan pushed his glasses up into his hair and came around from behind the bar. “Say, a little birdie told me you quit the biz. Is that true?”

  “Yup. I retired on all my millions.”

  “Good to have a back-up plan. So what brings you to my stoop today?”

  “I wanted to ask about Tuesday night. Is the bill filled out?”

  Ivan scratched his head. “I had one band cancel out. And there’s always some dipshit who forgets what day it is and doesn’t show. Why, you coming to see the show?”

  “No. I want a slot in the line-up. Just me, no band.”

  The bar owner leaned back in surprise. “Huh?”

  LASAGNA NIGHT. Tilda was reluctant to run the stove in this heat but it was one of Shane’s favourites so she sweated through it to keep him happy. Shane wasn’t a complicated man, as he was fond of declaring. His needs were simple and his wants were few. She couldn’t argue with that and, she had to admit, it made life easier.

  Concentrating on the task at hand was the difficult part. She had checked the forecast. The sun would set at 8:51 PM. It was nigh impossible to stop glancing at the window to see if it was getting dark yet. Dinner conversation was slippery as she kept falling behind the topics and Molly rolled her eyes at her distraction.

  When he asked if she was feeling all right, she deferred to the usual answer of being tired from a bad sleep. He suggested going to bed earlier and went back to grilling Molly about her schoolwork and her friends with all the tact of a sledgehammer. Firing direct questions at her, he didn’t seem to understand that Molly’s one-word answers signalled that she was shutting down. He seemed satisfied with replies of ‘good’ or ‘fine’ and let the conversation die quickly as if his parental obligations had been met and he was now relieved of duty. He finished off his lasagna and went back to the stove for seconds.

  Along with her utter disgust with absolutely everything, Molly’s easy retreat into silence was disquieting. The grunts or disdainful sighs were as close to conversation she came and it worried Tilda. The only strategy Tilda knew to get her daughter talking was through subterfuge. Indirect questions about one of her friends or mentioning a certain band that they both liked (there were actually a few). It was like fishing, tossing bait into the water and hoping for a bite on the line. A parental sleight-of-hand that, thank God, her daughter hadn’t clued into yet.

  “Hey,” she said, turning to Molly. “Guess what I found when I cleaned out the studio space?”

  “Friskers?” Molly replied in a droll reference to their old cat who had disappeared when she was eleven. “Was he all dried up like a mummy?”

  “No, miss negativity. The pink ukulele! Remember?”

  “Oh. Wow.”

  The pink ukulele was an eyesore of an instrument that Tilda had found in a thrift shop in Winnipeg. Despite its hot pink finish it played well and Tilda had brought it home to add to her collection. Molly, who was eight at the time, had fallen in love with the thing right away. She and Kisha Tremblay (Molly’s neighbourhood BFF between the ages of eight and eleven) had adored the ukulele and bashed away at it in the studio. The two of them spent hours out there, singing into cold mics and strumming that pink instrument. The Labour Day before Molly started grade five, the ukulele had gone missing and both Molly and Kisha were inconsolable. Tilda had spent hours tearing through the clutter trying to find it but the pink instrument had clearly sprouted legs and run away. By Halloween of that year, Molly and Kisha were not even friends anymore.

  “Have you spoken to Kisha lately? I wonder how she’s doing?”

  “She moved away,” Molly said.

  “Moved away? Where to?”

  Molly shrugged. “Her parents split. She and her mom moved to Whitby. Her dad’s a real asshole.”

  Shane’s eyes shot up at the word asshole but he was unsure of who had uttered it. Seeing Tilda unperturbed by the obscenity, he assumed everything was fine and tucked back into his lasagna.

  Tilda sat up, this was news to her. “When did this happen?”

  “Over Christmas. Her mom finally clued into the fact that Mister Tremblay was cheating on her.”

  “Whoa!” Shane jumped back into the conversation. “I knew there was something shifty about that guy. Who was he snogging? Was it that Argentinean woman across the street?”

  “Does it matter?” Tilda fired a look across the table.

  “Worse,” Molly sneered. “A mutual friend. They’d been doing it for like two years.”

  Shane shook his head in mock solemnity. “Jesus. What an asshole.”

  “I know, right? She was friends with Kisha’s mom the whole time.” Molly pushed her plate away. “People suck.”

  Shane snorted. “He’s French. What do you expect?”

  Tilda rose and gathered up the plates. “That’s enough.”

  “What are you so upset about?” Shane said. “You never liked the guy.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” She snatched the plate from under her husband’s nose. “It’s not a joke. That family was torn apart.”

  WHEN the sun finally went down, Molly retreated into her room and Shane went down to his workshop. Tilda made tea and took her book out to the patio and pretended to read. Ears cocked for sound, her heart leapt at a rustling in the rosebush but all she saw was a plump raccoon waddling precariously along the fence. It looked at her as if irritated at her presence before clambering down into the neighbour’s yard.

  She couldn’t wait to surprise Gil. He had said that he wished he could see her perform one last time and, despite her resolve to end her career, she would play one last show. Just for him. Which was only a day away. Christ, she thought, maybe she should practice.

  The guitar waited on the bench where she had left it. It was a bit heavier than her old Hummingbird but it had a stronger resonance to it and she meant to ask Gil where he had gotten it. She couldn’t picture him perusing
instruments in a shop. Had he stolen it? She had so many questions like that, details that dropped away the moment she saw him. They returned in the moments he wasn’t there, in the anticipation of seeing him again.

  Where does he live? Was it close by or across town? Does he have a home at all? What does he do when he’s not haunting her? How does he live? Is he even technically alive? All of these nagging queries would drop out of her head the moment he appeared so she stopped listing them all and strummed the guitar, launching into an old song from her Daisy Pukes days, just to see if she could remember the chords.

  An hour ticked by and she had warmed her way through a dozen songs, the melodies and the lyrics coming back easily. Scrounging up pen and paper, she drafted up a rough set list for tomorrow night. She’d start with some of the more recent tunes, toss in an older one from the Spitting Gibbons that she remembered Gil liking and then alternate between the old and the new. Or new to Gil anyway. Toxic Tuesdays at the Porthole could easily turn busy. She might only have about thirty minutes to play and already her set list was too long.

  She took the pen and crossed out a few titles, trimming and reordering the songs to crunch the set to thirty minutes. A noise outside startled her. The guitar banged onto the bench, strings humming as Tilda leapt to the floor.

  Shane stood in the doorway, a prybar and a crate of tools in his hands. He sauntered in and set the heavy crate onto the bench. “It’s nice to hear you playing again. I miss that.”

  Her eyes zeroed in on the tools. “What are you doing?”

  “Thought I’d tear out some of the soundproofing on the far wall where the squirrels got into it over the winter.”

  “Do you have to do it now?”

  He shrugged. “Thought I’d get a head-start. The sooner I can move the woodshop out here, the sooner we can free up some space in the basement.”

  Something close to panic clenched up inside her at the idea of Shane invading her space, eager to claim it as his own. It was her refuge, her only retreat where she could scrape out some small peace of her own that didn’t involve him or Molly or anyone. He already ruled the house, at times leaving her no place to breathe and now he wanted this too? “No. It’s too soon. I’m still using it.”

  Shane cast his eyes over the garage. Aside from that ratty old sofa and a single wooden chair, the space was empty. “For what?”

  “I just need it.”

  “But we agreed we’d move stuff out here. The house is so cluttered you can’t turn around without knocking something over. We need the space, honey.”

  “Not now. This is still mine.”

  Her raised voice bounced over the sound-proofed walls and Shane took a step back. His hands went up, crying uncle. “Okay, okay.”

  “It’s too soon. That’s all.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” He turned on his heel and went out the door. “Take all the time you need.” Stomping back into the house, he took his anger out on the screen door by letting slam shut, something he was constantly barking at everyone else to quit doing.

  Tilda leaned back against the bench. She must have come off as crazy just now. So what? Shane should have warned her before barging in like that, ready to take this away from her. Didn’t he know how hard all of this was for her? Of course he didn’t. Subtlety and nuance never worked for Shane. He had to have everything spelled out for him. Let him sulk. He’d get over it.

  Chuffed, she snatched up the guitar but her mood had curdled so she set it back onto the bench. Where the hell was Gil? It was getting late and the waiting was jagging her nerves.

  Her tea had gone cold so she went back into the house to make more. The roar of the television boomed from the living room, the sound of gunfire and explosions from some action movie Shane was watching. Even that irked her. She reached for the kettle but decided against it. The night was too hot so she rifled through the fridge for a beer and headed back outside.

  He would show up before she finished the beer, she wagered. Settling onto the picnic table, she took small sips to stretch it out but nothing stirred and nothing rustled. Before long, she was tilting back the last of the pilsner. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all. Had she done something wrong, said something harsh the night before to keep him away? Maybe Gil had changed his mind and didn’t want to see her anymore? What if—

  Stop

  The doubts and recriminations swarmed up faster than if she had kicked a hornet’s nest. Shut it down, she scolded herself, before you drive yourself buggy. She had downed the beer too fast, that’s all. It was a hot night.

  She took her time with the second one. Back in the garage, she reordered the set list again and played through a few more songs before making the mistake of settling onto the sofa. It was old but deep and hard to get out of once you were on it. She closed her eyes, declaring to herself that she only needed a few minutes. When she jerked awake, the clock read three minutes past 2:00 AM. She killed the light and shuffled back to the house. To hell with Gil Dorsey.

  AS much as she tried, TIlda couldn’t stop fretting over Gil’s no-show the night before. Scolding herself to stop overthinking it the entire workday proved useless. It was impossible not to speculate on what had gone wrong and from there it was a short hop to panicked obsession. He had said before that this was a mistake. Maybe he had resolved that it was and vanished for good. Or had she said or done something to turn him away? Maybe she had changed too much for him. There was, after all, almost two decades between them.

  And so it went for the rest of the day and the walk home and the hustle of getting dinner on the table. Over-analyzing every moment, scrutinizing every awkward pause and projecting drama into every nook and cranny until she thought she would scream. This is what it feels like to go insane, she concluded. Brains frying from internal arguments, each wild speculation adding more fuel until her grey matter boiled up inside her skull.

  When dinner was over and Tilda sat alone at the messy kitchen table, a wave of smothering exhaustion blanketed her so hard she thought she might keel over onto the floor. Molly and Shane had both scampered once the meal was over, wary of her snapping remarks and short fuse.

  Zombie-shuffling into the living room, she found Shane and Molly watching an orange-fleshed TV host prattle on about celebrities. She stepped in front of the screen and asked the two of them to take care of the kitchen. She needed to lie down, she declared. They groused.

  Ignoring their kvetching, Tilda dragged her sorry bones upstairs and laid down on the bed. Too wired to nap and too anxious to distill her thoughts, she stared at the spiderwebbed crack in the ceiling. She still had a gig to perform tonight and, Gil or no Gil, she was going to play. It was too late to cancel out and simply skipping it was not an option. She may have given up her career but the work ethic remained firmly locked in place. She remained absolutely still for twenty minutes, grasping at nirvana, before she rose and crossed into the bathroom. Turning the shower on, she dialled the temperature valve to its hottest setting and slipped out of her clothes.

  MOLLY sat on the floor of her room turning the pages of an art book about Frida Kahlo. With a school project due next week on the life of an artist, she had been drawn to Kahlo’s strong but bizarre imagery. She had meant to be taking notes about Kahlo’s life but her notepad sat idle as she turned the pages, lost in the paintings.

  This was going nowhere. She pushed the book aside and sat up. She needed something to drink. Something cold and caffeinated so she could get back to work before she frittered the whole night away. She opened her door and made for the stairs.

  “Honey,” her mother’s voice called from the bedroom. “Can you come in here for a second.”

  Molly groaned and shambled to the door of her mother’s bedroom. “Yeah?”

  Tilda stood before the mirror, smoothing a hand down the front of the vintage cocktail dress she wore. “Does this look okay?”

  “I dunno. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’m playing a show tonight.” Tilda adjusted the
bustline. The fit was tight and flattened her chest. “Is this too, you know, showy?”

  “I thought you quit playing.”

  So the kid had been paying attention, Tilda thought. “One last gig.” Tilda smoothed the material again. “So? Too much?”

  Molly tilted her head, as if to see better. “Is that new?”

  “No. But I’ve never worn it.”

  “I wouldn’t go with that,” Molly shrugged. “Maybe if you were taller.”

  “Taller?” Tilda spun, craning her neck to see the mirror. “You mean I look fat in it? Be honest.”

  Molly sensed her mother’s anxiousness and was puzzled by it. Most of her mother’s moods were puzzling these days but she chalked it up to some mid-life crisis, which would explain the dress. For once, she went for diplomacy. “I think twenty-year olds would have trouble with that dress.”

  Tilda’s face darkened. “I’m too old to pull it off.”

  “No. You look like you’re trying too hard. Know what I mean?”

  Tilda took another sweep of her reflection, cocking a fist onto her hip. “You’re right. Okay, what do you think of these?” She nodded at the clothes laid across the bed and then shimmied out of the dress.

  Molly surveyed the choices on the bed and chewed her lip. “The club you’re playing. Is it fancy?”

  “God no. It’s the Porthole.”

  “Easy.” Molly took two pieces and put them together then tossed them aside. She dug through the closet and came back with a pencil skirt and a tank top. “Try that.”

  Tilda looked over the clothes. She never would have thought to put them together. “You sure?”

  “Vintage chic.”

  Tilda slipped on the clothes, checked the mirror and liked what she saw. “It’s perfect. Thanks honey.”

  “Sure.” Molly smiled then and sauntered off down the stairs.

  The smile almost startled Tilda, so seldom did she witness it anymore. Recruiting Molly’s help in picking outfits had been the nicest five minutes spent with her daughter in ages and she wanted to call her back, not wanting it to end. She kept mum and let the girl go. Better not to spoil the moment.