Gay
Excerpt from “Sweet Tooth”:
one
4 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 cups low-fat, plain yogurt
4 large fresh basil leaves, slivered
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
4 large fresh basil leaves, for garnish
4 radishes, finely chopped, for garnish
Pinch of salt
They served a cold soup first, and it seemed like a perfect choice for such a warm evening in early June. The soup had almost been an afterthought, for the rice required so much attention that the soup, and most of the meal, became insignificant. Everyone had tasted the rice, a wild breed, and the general consensus was that it was not yet cooked, so more water was added and it was cooked some more, and then more water and more cooking. Wild rice is the most difficult to cook; the grain never reaches the texture one would expect. Eventually, hunger caused the guests to call the rice cooked and sit at the table, at first without the cold soup.
August’s grandmother used to tell her that on particularly hot days one should drink hot tea to cool down. That if one drinks cold liquids, the body thinks it is cold and acclimatizes itself accordingly. So it follows that although the cold soup was refreshing in the heat of an early summer evening, it may have only increased the fervour of those who consumed it. And who would have thought, passion and cold soup.
Excerpt from “Blink”
You’d understand if you could see her. Here, in the Saturday morning street market, a black coffee in one hand, the other gently running over the spines of tattered books on a book table. Everything about her conspires toward composure. Each strand of hair flowing with the others, the perfectly cut line where her hairline parts. She’s not a woman who fidgets. She has the composure of the stone women who hold up temple roofs.
Do the melancholy candle vendor, the grim Belgian chocolatier, the slow grazing market goers feel this way around her? Redundant. Untethered, wanting to hold her hand so as to not float away.
Lost. I’ve lost sight of her.
The market air shudders. Oceans lie down on me. A flock of wingless, cawless birds fling themselves over the buildings, the Saturday shoppers motionless, paper thin and oblivious. Lost.
She turns then and I see her in profile, eating caramelized ginger delicately from a paper bag like it’s a secret between her and the ginger. Not lost.
Silly. I think, silly. Like a child. My mother must have used this word once. Many times. Don’t be silly.
I mention this to my therapist, how I lose her. It’s not the first time. He, predictably, asks how it makes me feel. Silly, I say. He, predictably, looks concerned.
I don’t tell him how I am braced for this pain now, braced waiting for the next sinkhole, for the sound to suck out of the room, and the deep, sea-floor silence to press in.
She’ll turn then, colour gushing back in, and see my furrowed forehead, throw me a subtle lift of her eyebrows to ask what’s up, as if nothing. Silly.
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Monday, August 1
The five of them met for dinner. The table overlooked the lake and the surrounding mountains tipped with white.
Matt had lost weight, was shaving every day and wore his black hair cut short. He said, “It would be nice to stay for a few more days.”
Christine said, “You know, this is the first time I’ve been to Jasper. And the first time I’ve seen a grizzly.”
Daniel, her brown-haired boyfriend, was taller than Christine, slender and introverted. He was finally beginning to feel relaxed enough around Lane to open up. “The grizzly was incredible.”
Lane nodded. “It was a thing of beauty. A hunter.” It’s good to be talking about bears instead of cancer, surgery, scarring, fatigue and what the last doctor had to say.
“Okay, tell us what you’re thinking.” Arthur looked out over the water. His new exercise program was beginning to pay off. His belt had two old cinch lines in the leather to prove it. It hadn’t, however, helped him grow back the hair atop his tanned head.
“I was thinking how it’s good for all of us to be here. I was thinking I’m glad you don’t have to have chemo. And I was thinking we should go to California next. Maybe San Diego.” Lane looked around the table, gauging the reactions of four people.
“Can Daniel come?” Christine asked.
“Can we stay close to the beach?” Matt asked.
Lane’s phone began to vibrate in his shirt pocket.
Arthur smiled. “That’s not what I asked you. That’s not what you were thinking. You just changed the subject again.”
“You really want to know what I think of grizzlies?” Lane asked.
He felt their curiosity pique and the resultant attention shift in his direction.
Lane ignored his phone. “The bear was afraid of us, yet we fear it. It’s a hunter. It’s very good at what it does. And it makes us feel like prey. Still, we’re not the endangered species.”
“Like you,” Matt said. “You’re a hunter.”
“And people fear you,” Daniel said.
Lane picked the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.
Christine grabbed it from him and put it to her ear. “Hello?” She slapped Lane’s hand away as he reached to take the phone back. “Hi, Keely. How are you? Yes, we’ll be back tomorrow. Probably in the afternoon.” She listened for a minute, then said, “I’ll pass the message along. He’s right here, but we were in the middle of a good conversation, and he was using your call as an excuse to avoid answering a tough question. You know how he avoids answering the questions he doesn’t want to answer? I’ll get him to call you right back.”
“What’s up?” Lane asked.
“I’ll tell you when we finish this conversation.” Christine curled her fingers around the phone.
“Could I have my phone back, please?” Lane motioned with his open right hand.
“No.” She put the phone on the table, covered it with a napkin and put her hands over top.
Lane looked at Arthur, who was getting his spark back after a double mastectomy. It had been a long haul. There was the shock of the diagnosis, the operation and recovery from surgery, then the chemo and all of those lovely side effects.
Arthur said, “She wants some answers. You expect the same from us. Remember your big speech about us being honest with one another?”
“Okay. What do you want to know?” Lane refilled his coffee from the carafe at the centre of the table.
“Do you admire the grizzly because it’s a hunter like you?” Matt asked.
“Or because it’s feared and misunderstood?” Arthur asked.
“What about the fact that it’s nearly extinct?” Christine asked.
Lane joined in on the laughter.
Daniel said, “Of course it’s not because male grizzlies sometimes kill male cubs.”
Christine glared at Daniel. “How did you know that was what the call was about?”
Christine will forever be leaping to conclusions after the way she was mistreated in Paradise, Lane thought, then asked, “About what?”
“Keely said they found the body of a missing boy. She thinks it may be related to one of your unsolved cases.” Christine lifted the napkin and handed him the phone.
