The Complex Arms Read online

  What did you want me to do? I couldn’t stand by and have someone beat the shit out of an old lady. I couldn’t let him lie to the Swanks about something I didn’t do. I don’t steal. She had told me about spending money on Derrick. “I love to spoil him,” she’d say. “He asks for nothing.”

  With that last episode, her fainting in the hallway again, well, it seemed they finally realized Mrs. Lapinberg was unwell. Can you tell I was worried about her? She was like my grandma that I never had. We make substitutes in life. Such a sweet dear lady. She’d lost a lot of weight since moving in. I worried about her. I said that already, didn’t I. I worried about all my tenants. I was just an old flower child who still wanted to save the world. How difficult could that be, right?

  Anyhow, that’s the story there.

  FROSTY AND ADEEN

  A soft breeze rattles the bedroom verticals, cools her exposed feet and ankles from the heat of the day. End of July, the other side of summer, autumn in queue, daylight shrinking into dusk, so deep her sleep, she doesn’t hear Frosty come in. Now she’ll be up all night.

  He’s sitting on the balcony nursing a Molson, smoking his Player’s, coughing and spitting phlegm over the railing. Adeen is now by his side.

  “Maybe it’ll rain. Feels like something coming down.”

  “I went for beer. That all right with you? Shit.” He’s looking up at her with a guilty defensive expression daring her to think otherwise.

  “I didn’t hear myself asking.”

  Adeen is combing his thinning hair with her fingers, and he’s attempting to disconnect the touch by shifting his head side to side.

  “Mona came ’round to take Irene off my hands for a couple of weeks. It’s my nerves. Sorry, Frosty. My fault. Don’t mind me.” And the fight is over. Until the next time.

  No reply from the lounge chair, just a suckling of beer, an infant yet to be weaned. Frosty has a thirst. To annoy Adeen, he forces a prolonged artificial burp until he is out of air.

  “Must you?”

  “Mr. Chen came by while you were asleep to give their three-month notice. He and the missus buildin’ a house in the Meadows.” As Frosty says this, he slams the empty Molson can on the railing. Another burp. The can wobbles, bounces a beat before smacking the pavement below, and then comes a familiar voice.

  “Hey, watch it there, Frosty. Could have hurt someone.”

  “Sorry, Payton.”

  “God in Christ forgives you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop with the sermonizin’.” Frosty pops open another can from the six-pack by his side and slides back into the comfort of being Frosty.

  Adeen has taken a seat on the other patio chair, searching the horizon for answers to her messy life, then says, “They deserve it. Came all the way from China with nothing. Not even speaking English. His restaurant must be doing well. Did you know she got a job with the feds when she came here? Imagine, working in the filing department and hardly knowing a word of English. She told me that was how she learned the language, how to speak it and write it. Never mind all the misfiled client files and government documents.” Adeen is chuckling. “Smart one, that Chen.”

  “Yeah, well, some people they get lucky. Asians like to gamble and you know how these foreigners are with their big families and money matters. They all camp under one roof.”

  “That’s so cliché, Frosty. You know that’s not true. At least they show something for their hard work. And it’s family.”

  “What you sayin’, Adeen? I don’t work hard enough?”

  “Why do you take everything so personally? I don’t want to fight. Anyhow, Mrs. Lapinberg is also leaving, end of the month, and she paid up what’s left on her lease. Plus, I had to call a plumber for Mrs. Antoniuk’s toilet because it overflowed and a plunger didn’t do the trick, so there’s a shitty smell in her bathroom because you weren’t here to help.”

  “You coulda waited.”

  “An emergency, Frosty. Now her floors will need disinfecting.” She is sniffling, struggling to arrest tears, which Frosty considers a human frailty.

  “My allergies have been bothering me,” she says as she hunts for a tissue.

  His simmering anger is clouding his thinking to the point where he wants out but reverses his decision and lowers himself back into the lounge chair. Instead, he says, “Goin’ to the casino tonight. So if you don’t see me ’round, you know where to find me.”

  “Casino? You promised me, Frosty.”

  He slaps his knees and rises. “That’s it. I’ll be back later tonight. You’re drivin’ me crazy.”

  “You’re drunk, Frosty. If you’re going to the casino, don’t bother coming back.”

  The slam of the door, then welcome solitude. She listens as his footsteps fade down the hall and out the front door, hurls a worn-out cushion against the wall; feathers fly like so many snowflakes but these don’t melt.

  “Christ. More work. Stupid.”

  She’s familiar with this scenario. Of course, he’ll be back. No doubt. Full-blown tears now slide down her cheeks, curve around the precipice of her chin, and meld with the perspiration already dampening her T-shirt. She suppresses anger with tears, a measure to purge loneliness, pain. “It’s desirable for survival,” her social worker once told her. “Don’t hold back; tears cleanse the soul.”

  She calls Mona to check on Irene, but there’s no answer. She makes a mental note to call later. They’re probably out at the park. She finds the vacuum and cleans up the mess of feathers on the carpet. “Asshole,” she mutters to herself. “What did I ever see in him. Won’t cry ever again. Ever. All cried out.”

  ADEEN

  I had only been in town a couple of days when a small, family-owned construction business in Edmonton hired me as an office administrator. The city with possibilities, indeed! My first time out and I landed a job. Flush with confidence and unspeakable joy, I received my first paycheque. I divided my money: rent for Mona, a pittance for my savings account, and a shopping splurge. Just this one time. And just for me.

  That Saturday I walked into one of those western apparel shops in West Edmonton Mall — you know, the largest shopping mall in North America, where you find everything under one roof, including the kitchen sink. Anyhow, I was looking at those fringed, cowhide jackets, thinking of buying one for Mona as a thank you for her hospitality, when this dude walked up to me and said in a voice deep as the valley, “Need a hand, ma’am?”

  “A hand?” says I.

  “Help,” he says. “Can I help you choose a jacket? These are for men. Ya lookin’ for somethin’ for your man?”

  “Oh, no,” says I.

  I tried to ignore his tight butt in his faded jeans as he led me to the women’s section. I kept thinking of the movie Midnight Cowboy. You know, where Jon Voight is wearing that buckskin tan jacket with the foot-long fringes on the sleeves. I mean, really, coming from Montreal, what was I to think? You see those types somewhere on the Main or at a costume party. I tried not to laugh out loud so I just smiled. Nonetheless, I did find him rather attractive, this captivating nonchalant hunk of a buckaroo, a bolo tie around his neck and a pronounced belt buckle that could have doubled as my compact mirror. I looked at his hands — hands say a lot about a man — and couldn’t help noticing how calloused they were, his well-bitten fingernails so unlike those of the Quebecois men I used to date, with their manicured, varnished nails and Armani suits from Eaton’s menswear department. It looked like this cowboy had spent his days working on the range. Seemed to be out of his comfort zone selling western wear.

  After he rang up my order, jackets for Mona and me, he said, “Just about finished my shift. Name’s Frosty. Wanna have a bite?”

  Oh. My. What a voice. His cowboy way of speaking gave me goosebumps. Reminded me of Ben Cartwright on that TV show Bonanza.

  I had a distrust of men, instilled in me by my own father’s abandonment of me at the age of five and later my high-school boyfriend, Irene’s father, deserting his duties
. They always leave, don’t they? So many single moms out there. Still, Ben Cartwright persisted and I couldn’t resist. What harm was there in a coffee with a cowpoke? He took me to the food court nearby, ordered two cups of coffee and a plate of Chinese food for himself. Said he hadn’t eaten yet. At the cash register, he made an apologetic fuss about his missing wallet.

  “Probably left it in my jacket pocket at work,” he said, with that sheepish dimpled grin of his. He made a grand effort of patting his shirt and jeans pockets this way and that, as though a wallet would reappear by some miraculous intervention. He wore his jeans so tight there was no room for anything thicker than a thumb. The only bulge I noticed was the one below his polished belt buckle. In any case, that day I paid for our order. It was one of those things. Some invisible force drew me to him. I should have left right then and there. Instead, I stayed. I blame my foolish decision on a craving for male attention, companionship, a father for Irene. Love. Perhaps. Maybe it was his melodic voice. Who knows? I was lonely. It had been a while since there had been a man in my life. I mean, Mona is a wonderful friend, but even Mona is looking for some rich guy to take care of her. Again.

  “My treat next time, okay?” he had said with an apologetic look that said Please?

  I didn’t intend there to be a next time. “No big deal. It happens,” I said.

  His twinkling, deep brown eyes stared into mine then slid up and down, side to side, taking in as much of me as he could see. “You got a gorgeous mane. Sorrel, like my Boss.” He was trying to redeem himself. Pathetic when I think of it now.

  “Your Boss?”

  “My horse. I call her Boss. Like the sound of it. Come here, Boss, and let me ride you, I say to her. Always makes me laugh.”

  “I don’t know horses. I’m from Montreal. We drive cars.” Tried not to sound sarcastic, but I couldn’t resist.

  “Well, you’ll have to come ’round and see her. I live near Tomahawk. Rent some land and a trailer from this real nice widow, Mrs. Ruby Garnet, but one day I’ll have my own spread with prize-winnin’ thoroughbreds. My dream. And yours?”

  I just stared into space as though I had to sort out my memory files to choose the best dream, and then, as if someone had just nudged me awake, I said, “My dream? I guess a father for Irene, a house would be nice. I’ve never lived in one. We’ve always stayed in rentals, my mom and me.”

  “Irene?” He just stared at me.

  “See, I have this daughter …” And then I just took a giant breath and, in an avalanche of words, everything unravelled: the complexities of being me, moving to Edmonton, Mona’s generosity in accommodating us, and the challenge that was Irene. This bit of information was intentional. Get it out of the way fast, I thought. It had always been my experience that at the mention of Irene and her mental problems most men would excuse themselves to the washroom and never return, but Frosty surprised me, waited until I had finished, reached over to press my hand and said, “You’re so brave. If I can help in any way …”

  I ordered more coffee, and the afternoon lapsed without any thought to anything of importance, and my life with Frosty was set in motion.

  He spoke little about his past, only that he was born Forester Whitlaw, the eldest of five boys, on his grandfather’s farm in a tiny hamlet somewhere near Stettler. Forget the name now; it was that memorable. “Close your eyes,” he said, “and you’d be out of there in a spit” — and he faked a spit in the air for emphasis — “long before you could whoop up dust quick on the road out. Ain’t nothin’ there … but cowpies.”

  His dialect and bad grammar, heightened by his baritone western twang, added to his appeal. Later, he would confess to writing poetry, which boosted his attractiveness even more. A cowboy poet! In between his noisy slurps of coffee, which I ignored, he described a typical prairie childhood: shooting gophers, fishing, farming, and helping his grandma with her garden.

  “Know how I came to the name Frosty?”

  I was going to ask. Related to Frosty the Snowman, maybe? But I kept my mouth shut and picked a packet of cigarettes from my purse. I was still smoking then. Figured I was there for the long haul. I decided to give him a chance. I had nothing better to do that afternoon and besides, his eyes and dimples were difficult to ignore.

  “Got one of them things for me?” he said, pointing to my smokes.

  So I slid the package of Du Mauriers over to him.

  “Winters here, you’ll find out soon enough,” he said as I lit his cigarette, “are harsh.”

  He blew coils of smoke at the ceiling as though he were savouring every molecule of nicotine. He told me I might want to head on back to Montreal at the first sign of snow.

  “I know snow,” I said. “This is Canada after all. Like that Quebec guy, Gilles something or other, who sings ‘Mon pays, c’est l’hiver.’”

  He didn’t know Gilles something or other or the song. Some Canadian, aye. Anyhow, don’t think the western provinces know anything about the east except how Trudeau screwed them with the National Energy Program.

  “My country is winter,” I translated.

  “Yeah, but nothin’ like here,” he had said. “Starts snowin’ end of October. Kids wear their snowsuits over their Halloween costumes, and the white stuff doesn’t let up until sometime in June.” He didn’t let me interrupt. What a hog! Should have seen it then.

  I didn’t believe him about the snow stopping sometime in June. Malarky. He still hadn’t said anything about how he got the name Frosty.

  “Well, never you mind,” he said. Instead, he told me how a man could freeze to death just poking his nose out the door, get wet fingers stuck or freeze burnt on doorknobs. Rip the skin right out from under you. And then, get this, he said, “Make sure you keep your tongue in your mouth, at least when you’re outside.” He laughed like a maniac and that made me uncomfortable. I felt my body move the chair slightly farther. At this point I wondered if I should just leave.

  “My grandpa, Forester, when he was a kid, instead of riding his horse, Radiator, to school in the winter, would run beside him and keep warm under the horse’s breath. By the time he got to school, there was a mess of frosty white eyelashes and eyebrows from the freeze of the moisture, and that’s how everyone came to call Grandpa Frosty. My parents named me after him. Poor folks.”

  I was going to say, How can someone so handsome with such a fine voice be such a bumpkin? It was beyond my big city understanding. Were they all like him here, I wondered? Even the farmboys I knew from Saint-Donat and Saint-Bruno would be considered sophisticates next to this cowboy who called himself a poet.

  He told me I could call him Frosty, like his friends, or Forester. I thought this name was strange, too, as I came from a world of Marcels, Michels, and Maurices, but at this point, newly arrived to this godforsaken place called Edmonton, everything was weird. If I had the fare, I would have scrammed out of here and right back to the mountains we called high-rises.

  I told him I would call him Forester because we weren’t friends.

  And you know what he said as he took another puff on his ciggie — or shall I say, MY ciggie? “Could be with time we can become friends. Maybe more. What say?”

  I ignored him, said nothing, and then he invited me over to his place on Saturday to meet Boss.

  I checked my watch and gave this big yelp. “Holy shit,” I said. “You’re going to be late getting back to work. Boss will probably can you. I mean your work boss.”

  It’s like he didn’t care. Then he confessed he’d quit that day and was to start work at Northlands Raceway the following Monday morning grooming the horses. He has this love affair with horses.

  “I always was a wrangler,” he said. “Not a trainer.”

  Didn’t have the brains, I guess. He just liked taking care of them and watching them race. When I asked why, he said they were forgiving. Made a bet now and again just for fun. I should have raced right out of there for sure. What is it they say about hindsight?

  He too
k another puff of the cigarette and said, “You know how you can tell a rich rancher from a poor one?”

  “Beats me,” I said.

  “By the number of horses in his corral. The more, the richer. Yep. That’ll be me one day. Make all that money in Nashville with my songs and spend it all on breeding horses, preferably winners. Stick around,” he said.

  I was speechless. What could I say? I’d just met the guy. We all have dreams, I guess.

  Frosty contemplated the palms of his hands and drew my gaze there. They rested on the table as he continued, “Wanted to be one of those jockeys once, you know, but, well, I grew too tall.”

  He had a rustic “aw shucks” kindness and romantic sensibility that intrigued me, pulled me into his world. It didn’t seem to bother him that I was the mother of a child with a disability. I liked that. That won me over immediately. We left the food court, he scooping up the package of my Du Mauriers from the table and shoving them into his shirt pocket. Frosty said he would ring me up and he did. I told him, “No funny business.” He swore it would be just a visit, a “gettin’ to know you kind of Saturday” at his place.

  Anyhow, that’s the story there.

  HOW IT BEGAN

  They made a date the following weekend. Frosty said he would pick her up; introduce her to Boss and his dog, Twister; then drive her home at a decent hour after a barbecue of steaks.

  “Didn’t get a chance to go into town for groceries so have to make do with hamburgers or hot dogs. All right with you?”

  “Oh, sure. I’m not fussy,” she said. “I’ll bring some wine if you like.” A cheap date. She was worth more than hamburgers and hot dogs, but with Irene part of the package in this relationship, she couldn’t be too particular.

  “That’s okay, got some beer in the fridge.”

  “I guess beer goes better with burgers anyhow.”

  She hated beer; eventually, it would grow on her and become her elixir. But that day, with the defiance of a woman who read too many magazines touting a cosmopolitan style of living, she brought Mouton Cadet for the ride. A night out, that’s all it would be and then she wouldn’t see him again. It wasn’t as though she had anything else planned that evening, so she scratched off the date on her life calendar as an adventure.