This All Happened(56)

            She asks so many questions until I say, Yes, yes, and yes to your next five questions too.

            She has this gesture of pursing thumb and forefinger together, as though dabbing a watercolour and pointing out my flaws.

            She wants to be able to shout from different rooms. Whereas I dont find that civilized.

            Then she gets into the fact that I’m ungrateful, and that I’m a prick, and that I never apologize.

            She says she wants to break up.

            6 She has left me alone. Power always rests in the one who decides. So I feel our argument is incomplete. I’m restless. I decide to fish for urban trout. I bicycle down to Virginia River, fly rod tied to the crossbar. I choose a small wet fly. A branch of a pin cherry leans over the water, and I know there must be fish in a pool below it. I land two mad trout on two flicks. Both are the length of this book opened out. Seeing their white bellies and tanned sides wriggle on the hook, heavy, straining in the grass for water.

            I bike down to Maisie’s with the fish in a bag knotted to my belt. Maisie is looking thin. Lydia is there. And she smiles. I try to read the smile. The smile is considerate but weak. It’s not a polite smile, not a forced smile. It’s a loving smile, but a smile that says she’s fine with a separation. I sit with Wilf Jardine. He’s going to work on Hibernia in two weeks. His brother, who worked on the land rigs in Alberta, got them a package deal. Land rigs, Wilf says, are a cross between the military and slavery. Got to give good head to the foreman.

             I give this some thought.

            That’s just a figure of speech, he says.

            Wilf thinks my thought was a literal consideration. There’s a way to hold your face that will convey a not-serious consideration. I may have to learn this.

            Wilf says, If you want, I can get you work out there. The pay is outrageous.

            I tell him that I’m out of commission for a year. I make a wriggling motion with my fingers to indicate a keyboard.

            I show him my trout.

            Oh, theyre nice. Brook trout. How are you going to eat them?

            In rosemary and lemon, baked.

            Have you ever cured any? You take equal amounts of sugar and salt and mix it with dill. Press the fish for three days. Delicious.

            7 I was to meet Lydia at the Grapevine at nine. And she is sitting next to Craig with a Bloody Caesar.

            Lydia: I had to get someone else to buy it.

            Who? Craig.

            Youre going to make me jealous.

            Well, you werent here at nine.

            At one point, Craig’s hand reaches over her arm to make a point. Craig introduces me to his friends, This is Lydia Murphy’s lover.

            This pisses me off.

            I am worried. That Lydia will fall for him. The trip with Alex is off, Craig says. Alex is crazy. He is oblivious to my relationship with Alex. He is not circumspect. Near the pay phone I ask Lydia if I should be jealous. A little bit jealous, she says. I realize I had been relieved when I thought Craig was with Alex.

            Lydia wants to drive me home, but I decide to walk. Two days without Lydia make me want to take a third. She is getting up early to shoot a time-lapse of the sunrise and needs her rest. Craig has offered to be her trigger-puller for two hours. It is so ripe for her to sleep with Craig Regular tonight. He’s shirked off Alex and Lydia is tired of me. But all this will be said tomorrow. If anything happens if Lydia is shit-faced and they lunge and she doesnt even remember much but that she was drunk I will not remain with her. In fact, that’s the reason I decline her offer. I want to open the floor to her negotiation with Craig. To see if it will happen. Masochism is jealousy’s backside. How can I become unjealous?