I’ve moved out, too. In February, Toby, the guy who threw the Halloween party where I met Gemma, needed a new roommate. Though my new job at the art supply store on Granville Island is only part-time in order to fit with my school schedule, I jumped at the chance. I’m barely scraping by but the rent is cheap and it’s a share house. I figured why not dive into the cliché and become a starving artist?
At that thought, I close the dessert menu. I’m only buying lemon meringue pie for someone special.
When dinner is over, I drop Katy off at her apartment in North Vancouver. She asks me in. I let her down gently.
“Who is she?” she asks. Her features sharpen. She can tell.
Still, I play dumb. “Huh?”
She sighs. “The girl you’re hung up on. Gemma, is it?”
I frown, bewildered. How could she know her name?
Katy smiles stiffly. “You called me her name the other night. In bed.”
Oh shit. I had no idea. I give her a pleading look. “I did? I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it. God knows I’ve been there. Take care, Josh. It was fun.” She gets out of the car and gives me a little wave. No hard feelings, thank god.
I watch her walk inside and then lay my head against the steering wheel. Jesus. Now I can’t even date without having Gemma invade me somehow. What did Amber call love when we were talking on the shores of Lake Wanaka? A fungus?
It was fitting. Love is a fungus. It’s hard to kill. Apparently this strain is lingering on, living in my pores and cracks and crevices.
I can’t tell if I’m grossing myself out or making myself sad.
I sigh and drive back into Vancouver. The city looks cold and lonely in the dark. Spring is on its way but feels so far off that it’s no more real than a ghost ship in the night. I go home and straight up to my room. Someone is in the kitchen, eating late, but I don’t stop to say hi.
It’s weird, ironic maybe, that my room is the very same room where Gemma and I had sat on the couch and watched people play Rock Band. I had wanted so badly to devour her.
She had bewitched me back then, and she still bewitched me now.
Only then, I welcomed it. Now, I wish it away.
But the feeling stays.
It’s April and I’m about to take a giant leap.
I have to call my dad to ask to borrow money. We’re not so close but it’s necessary; there are a few classes I want to take that start outside of the range of my student loan. I’d ask my mom but I always feel like a burden to her, even though she’s been texting me often, inviting me over for dinner. I just can’t. Art has taken over, and I’m glad.
“Dad,” I say when I hear him answer the phone. I’m sitting on the roof deck on the shoddy furniture, watching the city in the background and the budding maple trees that line the streets.
“Hey Josh,” he says, sounding warm and surprised. I hate that I’m not really calling to talk.
“Hi, listen, Dad, I have a big favor to ask you,” I say, just launching into it.
He sighs. “What is it?”
“Well, there are a few extra classes I would like to take at school but my loan doesn’t cover them and I’m just not making enough at the supply store to cover it. I was wondering . . .”
“How much is it?” He also gets straight to the point.
“In total, six seventy-five,” I tell him, wincing. “That is, six hundred and seventy-five dollars.”
The line goes silent. I can almost hear him thinking, stroking his mustache. Finally he says, “Fine. But if I do this for you, you have to do me a favor.”
I frown. What could he want from me? “Okay.”
“Why not come to Alberta when school is up and stay a week with me and your stepmom? We’d love to have you.”
This is a first for me. “Really?”
“Yeah. We miss you. We’re not getting any younger, and neither are you. I think it would be good for you to get away for a bit, out of the city.”
He’s right about that. I love Vancouver but it’s starting to make me feel both boxed in and lonely. “Okay, sure. That would be great. If I take these courses I won’t be free till the summer but I can come then. Oh, maybe we can go to the Stampede!”
He chuckles. “Anything you like. All right, I’ll get the money into your account. How is your mother?”
He rarely asks about her, and I can tell he doesn’t really want to know. “She’s fine. I don’t talk to her much, though. School keeps me busy.”
He coughs. “Right. Well, she’s still your mother. You should spend some time with her.”
I sigh. “Yes, fine, I will. Hey, thanks, Dad.”
“You’re welcome.”
When we hang up, I look at all the texts my mom has sent to me over the last month. She’s asked me over for dinner. Asked me to pick up my mail. Asked to come to my apartment to say hello. Asked me to come out with her and Mercy. She’s been asking and asking, and I keep answering her with I’m busy or Later or Sorry, can’t. Or I just don’t answer her at all.
I don’t know why I’ve been pushing her away. It’s like I’m punishing her for something she didn’t do. It’s like I’m punishing her for just being my mom.
Feeling guilty, I decide to answer her last text, sent a week ago: Come stop by and say hi. And pick up your mail.
I text back, Okay, I’ll stop by today, I don’t have school until the evening.