In my working novel thing, I’ve been able to complete what happens to my person in all of the major cities from Western Canada to Eastern Canada, and the most thorough is what happens in Winnipeg, which makes sense. I’d like to leave the Winnipeg section out here so that you can read it, and um. Yes. Read it, tell me what you think, or something. The basis is a man who is going across the country to find the woman of his dreams. It’s actually a bit more in depth than that, but you know. I don’t want to give it ALL away, anyway. Here is what happens when he arrives in the city.
—————————
I was greeted at the local coffee place by my cousin. I hadn’t seen Christine for about five years. She was the cute teenaged cousin any guy would want, because you could rot her brain with music and movies she’d never heard of. We didn’t stay in contact that much after I’d moved, because Christine thought the internet was either a big waste of time, or something she wanted no part in, and I can’t exactly remember what it was that had spurned her on it, but as far as I knew, she still felt that way. Christine was taller than I remember, sporting a thick, long haircut, a darker shade of red than I’d ever seen. After a good, two minute hug, we sat down, and she gulped at her coffee, waiting for me to tell her everything that’d been going on since I left. I got into the whole trip in little detail. The woman in Saskatchewan, and the ordeal of getting a new car in Calgary after the first rental broke down was about all I had time to cover before she cut me off.
“So, you probably have a bunch more to tell me, but I want to wait, because I need to ask you something,” she spoke as if it were a life and death situation, and yet she casually sipped at her fifth cup of coffee. “I want you to escort me to a party tonight. It’s nothing weird, just a bunch of people that I work with. I’ve told them all about your little escape across the country, and they’re dying to meet you.”
Great, I thought. A bunch of people expecting some fantastically popular, muscle toned, well spoken thug. Instead they’ll be getting a bearded, skinny guy who looks like he needs to have a three hour shower. What’s even worse is that it’s a formal party, and Christine was low enough in money that I ended up paying for the rented suit and dress that we were both going to wear to this thing. I made sure to get myself the strangest colour of suit jackets, and so to match, she picked out a dark purple dress. We looked either like brother and sister, or one of those couples that make you want to throw up, with their matching glory. We sat in our hotel room that had been paid for by her company, drank rum with random mixers, and had delightful conversation with people whose names I’d forgotten, but it didn’t matter. After getting through the formal dinner that included food that would have not had any taste to it without alcohol, we made our way back to the hotel room. I had prepared myself by buying a flask and filling it with tequila, just so that if I needed to, I could crash on the bed as quickly as possible, just to dodge some kind of rotten situation with people I didn’t know. What I wasn’t expecting though, was Christine’s happy drunk. She always seemed to be the type to pick up some guy and run off with him, or talk dirty, show skin, and then pass out. Instead, our one-bed hotel room was treated as the designated party house, catering to a swarm of random people I’d never met. Just as I was about to start downing the tequila, someone started yelling in my ear. “I don’t act old,” someone said, “So why do people treat me like I don’t know what I’m talking about?” He was standing by the window, barking at me. It was as if I had somehow accidentally found myself in the middle of a life story. ”Beats me man,” I yelled back at him. This big white haired story telling-bastard was hugging the weed. As he spoke, it turned slowly into a haze. The room had roughly fifteen people crammed into it, and yet Christine and I were the only two on the bed. We sat staring at everyone as if the party was going in hyper-speed, and we were stuck in slow motion. The whole night walked like someone who’d had just a bit too much to drink, and I sat there with the biggest thump of an alone feeling I’ve had in my whole life. I didn’t give a shit about any of these people, but because Christine had put so many stories in their heads, I was told to smile and nod, and to share little details about my life. I gave them stories I’d make up on the spot, because what drunk cares about what a stranger’s telling them anyway? The last thing I remember before waking up was eating pizza at three in the morning with Christine, watching some random show with nudity on a channel I’d never heard of. We had a knock at the door and were told to quiet down by a bellhop, or cleaner, who had said that we were being too loud, and he left us alone when I offered him a piece of pizza. After that, everything is a haze. I don’t remember falling asleep, or eating the rest of the pizza.
When I woke up in the morning, the room was a horrible mess. Christine and I had made a disaster of the place, but I didn’t want to deal with it. The floor was littered with empty cups, the tables had half finished cigarettes and bottles of alcohol, a complete disaster. I made it a point to leave a five dollar bill on the nightstand, and wrote “MAID MONEY” on it, because those people are going to have to earn their money on this room. It was seven in the morning when I got up to take a shower, and after disrobing to my underwear, I walked into the equally dirty bathroom that had a sink resembling a makeshift fridge. I pulled the shower curtain back and found a woman lying in the tub with no top on, still clutching a cup with brown liquid. Her hair was in wet clumps, as if someone had tried to wake her up but had failed. I didn’t want to wake Christine, so I closed the bathroom door after finding my clothes and some extra towels. I kneeled at the tub, drying this woman’s face off softly, covering her in towels, not only to warm her, but also to make sure that she didn’t feel like she’d just completely gone nuts with the drink the night before. Five minutes or so later, just after I’d made a pillow and blanket with most of the hotel’s towels, she sat up and looked at me in confusion. It wasn’t until that point that I realized who she was.
Claire stared at me and waited for a minute before she spoke. I don’t remember her being in the room at all last night, which means that I’d either had more to drink than originally thought, or that she’d been hiding in the bathroom. She looked terrible, but so would anyone after the night she probably had. There were a few things that didn’t make sense to me, like how she’d found out where I was, right down to the hotel room, or why she followed me here, after breaking up with me a few months ago. I hadn’t seen a single solitary second of sadness in her at work, she never seemed to have to put on a brave face like I had, but here she was, lying in a bathtub, missing a shirt and a few extra brain cells. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said, finally sitting up, throwing some of my carefully placed towels onto the bathroom floor. “And you’ve been on this stupid fucking quest for something I don’t understand. Why did you leave me?” She was obviously still drunk, or severely affected by the alcohol to be thinking that she hadn’t left me standing in the rain wondering what the hell I’d done to end up being the dump-ee. “I didn’t leave you,” I replied, washing my face in the makeshift fridge’s clean water, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. “You left me, remember? You told me that I had no feelings, that I was, how did you say it? ‘Like a robot. A robot without the capacity to love’. What are you doing here?” As she listened to me, she stood up shakily, and put her drink on the edge of the tub. She sat down on the toilet and started to sob quietly, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t about to comfort her, because I had started this trip partially to spite her, so to have her come at me now with this kind of attitude wasn’t going to break me down. “Listen, I don’t care how you found out that I’m here. I’m going to assume it’s Christine’s doing, but it doesn’t matter now. I’m finishing this quest thing, or whatever you want to call it, because I’ve come too far to turn back now.” She looked at me with eyes that I haven’t seen in a long time. The kind of eyes a loved one has when you’ve said something out of anger and didn’t really mean it, comparable to yelling at a child who doesn’t know any better, but this was the first time I really did have that robotic sensation she’d dumped me for, and I knew what was coming. “Let me come with you. I want to change your mind. I want you back. Let’s fix the mistake.” Instead of leaving her there like I should have, I gave her the spare t-shirt from my suitcase and had to partially carry her out to the car. She was in bad shape, but something told me that having her with me was the right thing to do for now. I don’t know what that something was, but I knew I was going to regret it.
“Wait here,” I said, closing the door and easing the window open a crack. “I have to tell Christine I’m leaving.” She nodded and closed her eyes leaning the seat back as if she was finally going to get some rest. I took my time walking back upstairs, because I didn’t really want to believe that my favourite cousin would do something like this to me. Even if she had, I was going to pretend that it wasn’t true, and completely ignore it. As I opened the door with the room key, she had already been awake and was sort of trying to clean up the terrible mess that had been made of the room. I smiled and took her in my arms for a brief hug. “I’m leaving. I’ve got some things to do before I get back out there, and I just wanted to thank you for the interesting evening.” She apologized to me originally, because she thought I’d been upset, but I was really trying to play down the fact that I wasn’t, if only to leave on good terms. After a few minutes of soft conversation and plan-making for the future, I sort of half forced her out with me so that she wouldn’t clean after the party mess, and we parted ways. As I made my way back to the car, I noticed Claire completely passed out in the front seat, with her mouth wide open, probably snoring. I laughed at the situation as I jumped in and started the car, and turned on some mellow music, to keep me attentive, and hit the gas.
