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1.
Patrick Brewer is in a lot of trouble.
He hadn’t been exactly crazy about the idea of going to his cousin’s wedding, even if it did mean a trip to Toronto, but his parents had promised that they would stay in a hotel - a big hotel, which he’d never done before - and if that wasn’t cool enough, they’re going to go to a Blue Jays game the day after the wedding. So Patrick has decided that this weekend is going to be an adventure.
“Patrick’s a real take-charge kind of guy,” his father often says, usually laughing and ruffling Patrick’s hair as he says it.
And he’s right. Patrick has a plan. He thought it out carefully this afternoon.
The hotel lobby is probably one of the biggest, fanciest places he’s ever seen in his life. He stares around in amazement as his parents check in at the desk, and as they go upstairs in the elevator. It seems like they’re going up forever. And their room is big and so clean and the beds are the biggest beds he’s ever seen in his life, and even the air smells differently, and...it’s just different from everything he’s used to.
His parents are going to the hotel restaurant to have dinner with his aunt and uncle. “You’ll be all right for a couple of hours, honey?”
Well, of course he’ll be all right by himself. He’s twelve, he’s not a baby. He’s used to being by himself at home after school when his parents are still at work, and lately they’ve started leaving him alone sometimes when they run out to get groceries on the weekend. They know they can trust Patrick to take care of himself.
Patrick knows this too, and that’s what he’s counting on tonight.
His parents order him room service - room service! - and tell him he can watch Men In Black, which is on one of the hotel TV stations.
He looks out the window. They’re on the 27th floor. It’s so high. He’s never been up this high before. He’s never been in an airplane, or gone up the CN Tower. He’s never really been anywhere, actually.
“Just make sure you keep the door locked, honey, and don’t go wandering around in the hallway. We’ll be back around 9. Have fun, my sweet boy.” His mother smiles at him from the doorway.
He hears them lock the door behind them as they leave.
Patrick eats his fancy hotel hamburger and fries (the ketchup comes in a little bowl...how crazy is that?) and waits for 15 minutes in case one of his parents has forgotten something.
Then he gets up and puts on his running shoes.
He’s figured it all out.
Patrick is going to Tim Horton’s.
Patrick loves Tim Horton’s. His parents are not coffee drinkers, so they don’t go there as much as the parents of some of his friends do - he’s heard his father wonder aloud, more than once, how anyone could actually drink a double-double - but sometimes as a treat the three of them will stop by after baseball practice and Patrick is allowed to choose a donut or a hot chocolate or a little bag of Timbits. He doesn’t get to go as often as he’d like, so when he noticed one a few blocks from the hotel as they drove through the downtown streets a few hours earlier, a plan began to take shape in his mind.
He’d been careful to watch how his parents operated the elevator, and which way they turned down the hallway to their room, and it’s paid off, because it only takes him a few seconds to find the elevator and then he’s on his way down, heart pounding with surprise and excitement and a little bit in awe of himself for actually getting this far.
He’s pretty surprised by how easy it is to leave the hotel. He half expects to be stopped by someone - by who, he’s not exactly sure, but technically he’s kind of doing something wrong, so it seems like the sort of thing that would happen - but the lobby is very crowded, and Patrick slips out of the elevator, through the crowd, ducks through the revolving door and is outside on the street more quickly than he expected to be.
That went well, he thinks.
And Patrick’s feeling very pleased with himself as he leaves the donut shop a short time later, holding onto his little box of Timbits. (He had enough money to buy a 20-pack, but that seemed kind of extravagant - one of his dad’s favourite words - so he settled for a 10-pack. Mostly chocolate. A few cinnamon sugar, a couple of jelly-filled. That seems reasonable. He doesn’t want things to get out of hand.
He’s congratulating himself again on how well his plan has worked and going over in his head how he’ll get back up in the elevator and find his way back to the room again (he’s smart, he remembered to turn the bolt to leave the door unlocked) once he gets back to the hotel. He’s a little distracted but pretty sure he turns the right way when he leaves.
Pretty sure.
Usually Patrick has a very good sense of direction and is good at paying attention. But this is not a city he knows, and it’s loud and there’s voices and music and car horns coming from every direction and there’s a guy on stilts juggling right on the sidewalk, and hot dog carts and ice cream trucks and more different kinds of people than he’s ever seen before in his life, and…
...and it’s way too late by the time he realizes he’s lost to do anything about it.
At first he thinks he’ll just retrace his steps back to the donut shop and then try again. He’ll figure out where he went wrong the first time and it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.
But when he starts to walk back in the direction he thinks he came from - did he? - he doesn’t recognize any of the buildings he sees - or does he? - and he realizes now, too late, that he should have looked at the street signs, but he was so sure that he’d remember the way back that it never occurred to him that he might...not.
When Patrick finally acknowledges that he’s lost he feels a sickening cold puddle of fear pooling in his stomach, numbing him so that he doesn’t even cry, he just...freezes. The Timbit he’s eating is like glue in his mouth and he thinks that if he tries to swallow it he will choke.
And now it’s starting to rain...
And as the first drops hit him, he feels more alone than he’s ever felt in his life...
And now Patrick begins to think he might cry after all...
And then he hears a voice behind him saying, “Hey. You okay?”
The boy leaning against the store window is a few years older than Patrick, taller anyway, skinny, dressed in...well, something all in black. He’s holding a Starbucks cup, the beverage inside piled with whipped cream and sprinkled with chocolate shavings.
“Are you lost? ‘Cause you look, like, really lost.”
Patrick knows he’s not supposed to talk to strangers. Even at home, away from this strange and confusing city, he knows that’s the rule. But he thinks that must only apply to grownups, and this boy isn’t a grownup, right? So it’s ok? It must be ok.
It has to be ok, because Patrick isn’t sure that he has any choice.
The boy continues to stare at him, a bored look on his face.
“I’m...my parents and I are at a hotel...somewhere around here...but I went the wrong way, I think, and...I’m not sure how to get back.”
“Which hotel?’
And for one long sickening moment Patrick’s mind goes blank, and now he’s really scared, but the next moment it comes back to him:
“The Royal York. We’re at the Royal York.”
The boy gestures, a vague wave of his hand in an indeterminate direction.
“Yeah, it’s over there. At Front & York. You’re at King & Simcoe. You should go east past University until you get to York, then go south. Can’t miss it.” He takes a drink of his coffee and stares at the flock of pigeons strutting and cooing at his feet.
“O-kay…” Patrick tries to process what he’s heard. But it’s in one ear and out the other. The streets seem so much wider and longer than they did earlier today when he saw them out the car window. And the buildings...the buildings are huge, solid walls blocking out the sky and making Patrick feel closed in and trapped. His hands are shaky and his feet feel like they will never move again.
The boy looks at him again. He doesn’t say anything, just continues leaning against the glass, sipping from his cup. When he sees Patrick isn’t moving, he pushes himself away from the window and sighs.
“Come on, then. I’ll take you there.”
And Patrick’s relief is so enormous that now he feels like he will cry. But he manages to hold it in, and only says, “Thank you.”
“You know, you’re lucky you ran into me instead of...well. There’s a lot of freaks and weirdos in this city. You should be more careful.”
“I will be. I promise. Thank you.”
“Actually, we’re staying there too. My parents and my sister. And me. We’re renovating at home right now. Electrical problems, apparently. Can you imagine? So we’re slumming here for a few days.”
He goes on:
“Um, I prefer...the aesthetic? Of the St Regis? But my mom likes the Royal York. So, yep, that’s where we are.” He slurps his coffee loudly.
Patrick isn’t sure what aesthetic means but he thinks he gets the idea. “It seems pretty fancy to me.” He thinks about mentioning the ketchup but something tells him not to.
“Mmm. I guess.”
The boy falls silent as they walk on. The rain is starting to come down more steadily. The two of them duck under the awnings and overhangs of the buildings they pass to stay out of the worst of it.
Patrick asks, ‘Um, so...you stay in a lot of hotels?”
“Not really. Well. Yeah. I guess. More than some people. More than you, anyway.”
“I’ve stayed in motels before, but never a big hotel like this one.”
“Motels? Ew. I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those,” the boy says.
“So, where do you live, then?” Patrick asks.
“Depends. Sometimes New York. Sometimes here. Sometimes other places. My parents are busy. They travel around a lot. Sometimes I go with them. Most of the time I don’t.”
“I’ve never been to Toronto before.”
“You haven’t missed much.”
“We’re going to see the Jays play at the Skydome on Sunday.”
“Hockey?”
“Baseball.” Patrick is astonished.
“Mmm. I’m going to High Park to see the cherry blossoms.”
“Cherries?”
“Cherry blossoms. You ever seen them? They’re...they’re pretty nice. But I’ll have to go by myself, which is...suboptimal.”
“Oh…” Patrick considers this. “That’s too bad. You don’t have any friends who would go with you?”
“No. I don’t have any friends. Here. I mean, I don’t have any friends here. But it’s fine.”
He frowns at his coffee before continuing.
“The cherry blossoms are like...little bunches of clouds floating close to the ground. They only last for a couple of weeks. Then they’re gone until next year. So timing’s very important. There’s only about a week left to see them so it’s lucky we’re in the city right now.”
“Do you think your parents will let you go by yourself?”
“Oh, they won’t care.” The boy takes another swig of his coffee, grimaces, and tosses the cup in a garbage bin.
“But I bet yours will if they find out you’re wandering the streets of downtown Toronto like some kind of pervert. What are you doing out here, anyway?”
“Um…” Patrick holds up his box of Timbits, blushing.
The boy snorts. “Oh my god, seriously?”
“I didn’t think it would be that hard to find my way back. I thought...but I guess I went the wrong way. These streets are confusing. Really threw me a change-up.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what that means. But whatever. You looked like you were literally going to throw up on the sidewalk, so I could tell you needed help. You needed a lot of help.”
Without warning the rain suddenly turns from a steady drizzle into a solid sheet, exploding onto the pavement with a roar. “Oh, fuck this,” the boy exclaims, and grabbing Patrick by the arm he drags him under the closest awning.
Patrick can feel the rain dripping down through his hair, falling on his neck and ears, and he shivers a little. The boy shakes his head like a wet dog, spattering water droplets around. He sighs and leans against the doorframe of the store they’re sheltering at. He peers through the display window, which is full of men’s clothes, and mutters under his breath something that sounds to Patrick like Jiv-on-shee, and nods with what looks like approval.
Patrick looks at the clothes. They don’t look like anything his father wears. They don’t look like anything anyone would wear, actually. Except…ok, yeah.
“Shouldn’t we keep going?” he asks, peering out into the street. “It’s...not that bad…”
“Um. Incorrect. We will be washed into the goddamn lake if we’re out there a minute longer. Besides, I don’t know about you, but my clothes are not improved by exposure to a monsoon. No. Nope. We are staying here until this lets up.”
Patrick realizes that he’s completely lost track of the time. When did his parents say they’d be back? What time exactly did he leave? He’s not sure of anything anymore.
“I just...if my parents come back and I’m not there…”
“You’re afraid of getting into trouble?”
“I’m afraid they’ll be scared.”
The boy stares at him. “Why would they be scared?”
Patrick stuffs a couple of Timbits in his mouth and chews slowly. He thinks about offering some to the boy, but for some reason feels shy; he feels like this boy isn’t the sort of person who accepts things from people.
After several minutes of silence, Patrick nervously tries again.
“I really think we should try to get back to the hotel. I don’t think the rain is going to stop soon.”
“You’re very impatient. We can wait a little longer and see if it lets up.”
“It isn’t going to.”
“And, apparently, very sure of yourself.”
“Why didn’t you bring an umbrella?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I’m not the one worried about my clothes getting wet.”
“Well, aren’t you a snippy little thing.”
“I’m not...little.”
“Oh, I think we’re pretty clear on what you’re not.”
“I really, really want to get back. Please? It can’t be that much further.” The panic is rising in him and he feels his throat getting tight and his voice sounds high and wrong. “I think they’ll be back soon...they trusted me and I didn’t listen, I let them down...I shouldn’t have...and…”
He’s not going to cry in front of this boy. He’s just not going to.
The boy stares at him for what seems like a very long time. Finally, he sighs. “Oh, fine, then. I didn’t like this shirt very much anyway.”
Patrick says, “At least the rain will be good for the cherry blossoms.”
The boy glances at him sideways and Patrick can’t help but grin a little. And the boy...actually gives him a funny little twisted smile, and Patrick suddenly feels like his evening hasn’t been the complete disaster it was turning out to be a little earlier.
They run from doorway to doorway down the street, dodging rain-soaked pedestrians trying to shelter, who exclaim with annoyance at two boys splashing through the puddles pooling on the sidewalk and along the curb, and it’s no time at all until they round what Patrick realizes is a familiar corner at last, and...
...and, oh, suddenly there’s the hotel and it’s the most beautiful thing Patrick’s ever seen.
They push through the revolving doors and, wet and breathless, practically fall into the lobby.
Patrick lets out a huge sigh of relief.
He turns around to thank the boy, but he’s looking away from Patrick and staring around the lobby.
When he turns back, there’s a look on his face that Patrick can’t read.
“Well. Here we are. That’s what you wanted, right?”
Yes, that’s what Patrick’s wanted more than anything else tonight. So why does he suddenly feel, once again, like he’s done something wrong?
“Well, thank you, so much...and...it was nice to meet you...um…”
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
Patrick is so startled he literally jumps. The Timbits rattle in their box.
“You’re so stupid. You don’t know me. I could be a fucking serial killer. I could be...and you just followed me. I could have been taking you anywhere. You could be dead in the back of a windowless van by now. What the fuck were you thinking?”
Patrick has been raised by gentle parents who don’t raise their voices to their son, at least not in this way. He feels tears beginning to prickle behind his eyes.
“Oh, my God. You’re not going to cry, are you?”
Patrick shakes his head, but he doesn’t speak, because he knows if he tries, he’s going to cry, and he’s spent the whole evening trying as hard as he can not to cry (he’s a take-charge kind of guy, after all) ...and because this boy is mad enough at him already.
But he knows the boy is right. He’d basically just stood in front of Patrick and asked Patrick to trust him, and Patrick had, and apparently that was the wrong thing to do.
Patrick’s had a very difficult evening, and he just wants it to be over.
But now the boy just sighs.
“Look…” The boy looks down at Patrick, his hair damp and shiny from the rain. His eyes look like tired dark holes. He sighs again. “Just be more careful, okay? Just...don’t be so ready to trust people. You won’t get hurt that way.”
Patrick looks up at the boy, who now seems more sad than angry. And Patrick’s not sure how he knows, but he knows that the boy was never really angry at him.
He nods. “Ok.” Patrick doesn’t think that trusting people is a bad thing...but he wants the boy to feel better and maybe this is the easiest way to do it.
And then he thinks maybe there’s another way.
He holds out the (now rather wet) box of Timbits. “Here.”
“Huh?” The boy frowns. He stares at the box, as if he’s not sure exactly what he’s supposed to be doing. But then he realizes what Patrick means, and he shakes his head.
“No, really,” Patrick says, thrusting them at him again. “Take them.”
“You know what, I think I’m good. Just get back to your room and dry off and don’t let your parents find out what happened, ok?”
“Well, here’s the thing: if they see me with these, they’ll know I went outside.”
“Mmm. Ok. You’re smarter than you look.” He hesitates, but then takes the box, that funny little twisted smile on his face again. And at that moment there’s the unmistakable gurgling sound of a stomach growling. It’s so loud. The boy looks startled and then embarrassed.
Patrick just smiles and nods. ”Yeah...I feel like...you will need them.”
And suddenly all the revolving doors seem to explode with streams of people and umbrellas rushing in from the rain, and the crowd seems to fill the whole lobby, surrounding Patrick and blocking his view, and when they finally pass, just as a tremendous clap of thunder sounds from outside, Patrick looks around and sees that the boy is gone.
2.
David Rose is in a lot of trouble.
It’s 7:27 and as far as he can tell, Alexis has vanished from the face of the earth.
He’s tried her phone and it doesn’t even ring, just goes straight to voicemail...and he’s starting to panic.
Her rambling phone call early that morning; the evening that had started out as a Montreal smoked meat crawl with a couple of girls she’d met at Salon Daome but which had rapidly deteriorated into what sounded like a poorly-conceived river cruise down the St Lawrence under the auspices of what Alexis claimed was a multinational cheese curd import/export conglomerate but which David was increasingly beginning to suspect was just a front for some sort of blood diamond clearing house; all culminating in the inevitable request: ”David, please come?”
This hadn’t been the plan. Montreal for Fashion Week, check out some clubs and galleries and then Alexis back to school and him back to New York, but then Alexis had gone and been, once again, just a little bit too much Alexis, and now David’s here, and Alexis isn’t.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad, David.”
Trust Alexis to make this all so fucking complicated. She can’t even descend into chaos in an organized way.
“Ok, David, I need you to be at the corner of Saint-Paul and Saint-Vincent at exactly 7:20 p.m. tonight because every night at 7:18 Etienne goes out for exactly 8 minutes to meet Remy and that’s when Marguerite is going to unlock the front door and I can come downstairs and meet you.”
“Wait - what - you’re locked in?”
“No, I just told you, Marguerite is going to unlock the door so I won’t technically be locked in. Well, not at that exact time. So, like, it’s the same thing.”
“Who the fuck is Marguerite? I’m calling the police. I’m calling Mom and Dad.”
“David, honestly, you’re overreacting again. I just need you to be outside waiting for me in the street in case Etienne and Remy come back early, because they probably won’t make any trouble if you’re there. Probably.”
“What the fuck, Alexis?”
“It’s just that there was kind of a funny misunderstanding? About a…missing passport? Or maybe a couple of them? Which I almost definitely don’t know anything about. Probably. And they just want to...talk to me about it tonight, apparently?”
Fuck.
“I’d rather just, like, avoid that conversation altogether? So…”
Fuck. Fuck.
“Etienne has a limp so you could, like, probably outrun him anyway, and Remy is actually legally blind, I think, so there really shouldn’t be any trouble at all. And they might not actually be armed; I mean, it’s a pretty good neighbourhood…”
“Just leave right now. Tell me where you are and I’ll come meet you right now.”
“Um, well, the thing is, I don’t exactly know where I am right now.”
“What?”
“It was very late when we arrived last night and I didn’t exactly pay attention. But it’s totally cool, since we’re leaving here in a couple of hours to head back to Etienne’s and that’s why I need you to meet me there. Plus I’m a guest, David, it would be rude to just walk out like that.”
“Ok, ok... then can you at least just call me when you get back to this...Etienne’s place?”
“That might be a problem.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“Because there isn’t any cell service there.”
“What do you...why is there no cell service?”
“Ugh, David, because there’s...plutonium in the walls or something, I don’t know!”
He can’t even keep track of where Alexis is going to school this year. This month. Lausanne? Louisville? Listowel? Does it even matter? She’ll be somewhere else by next semester, if she keeps on the way she is.
This is assuming he ever sees her again…
The irony is, that before he heard from Alexis this morning, David was actually starting to feel like he might be in...well, maybe not a good place, but a better place. A less shitty place than he’s been in recently.
Just in the last couple of days he’s been thinking again about finally talking to his father about the possibility of working out a business plan for the gallery idea...early days, very early days, of course, nothing really on paper yet, just a lot of things in his head, but he thinks they’re good things, maybe really good things, and for the first time he’s feeling a kind of excitement for something, a real excitement, not the buzz he gets from the clubs and the parties and the things people do to him in doorways and hotel rooms and the things they slip into his hand or his drink that he pretends he wants when all he’d really like to do is feel something, something that’s just for him, not for someone else, and this...this, he thinks, might be it.
He’d felt it last week, talking to Janet Kempfluugen about her latest installation and thinking that she might be someone he’d be interested in working with, even after she’d fucked him and gotten his name wrong the next morning, but he’d reminded himself, artists, and figured that this was the sort of thing he should get used to if he’s going to be any kind of success in the art scene.
And for the first time he was really beginning to think he could be...
...but now, standing on this street corner with Alexis nowhere in sight, he’s less sure about this, less sure about his ability to get anything right, because now it’s 7:32 and he really has absolutely no idea what to do next.
David looks up and down the street for what feels like the thousandth time. For the thousandth time, he scans the faces of the people passing him, looking for that familiar bounce of blonde hair and those over-animated eyes.
When it’s not there, again, he sighs and looks around for something, anything, to distract him from the dangerous spiralling in his head. Like...
...like the guy across the street, the one sitting at the sidewalk cafe with the red-haired girl. They’re both kind of cute. In a sort of whole wheat, small-town way. Not usually what he’d go after...but for a moment David thinks about just forgetting about everything else that’s going on and just walking over there and...but then the next second, fuck, no, he’s got to deal with this fucking mess first...
They look like tourists. Part of some tour group, probably; there’s a lot of them wandering around the city gawking at the goddamn picturesqueness of the architecture.
David makes his thousand-and-first scan up and down the street again, and when he looks back, the guy is staring right at him.
It’s not that David’s unaccustomed to people staring at him. He can stare back with the best of them, in fact, if there’s something to be gained from it. But he has a feeling that this isn’t that kind of stare.
Still, he meets it.
The guy doesn’t break the stare; rather, he leans into it, as if he’s trying to concentrate, and it looks like he might actually be frowning, but from this distance David can’t be sure, maybe the guy’s just constipated. The girlfriend looks like she’s asking him something, but the guy either doesn’t hear her or doesn’t have an answer for her, because he just keeps looking at David, and now David’s wondering if maybe he does know the guy? but David’s known so many people that he’s just stopped making any effort to remember faces. It’s kind of become his Thing: Oh, don’t take it personally, David doesn’t remember anyone, how could he, he’s barely conscious most of the time when he…
But then the girlfriend finally gets his attention after touching his shoulder (a couple of times) and the guy breaks the stare and looks back at her and they both smile, and the guy must have said something funny because they both laugh, and David twitches just a little in reflex, since he’s so used to being the thing that people are laughing at.
And David feels a flash of anger, wishing that Alexis could just be like this girl, safe and ordinary and stopping for espresso on her grubby little walking tour of Old Montreal with her safe ordinary boyfriend in his safe ordinary button-down shirt and his...what are those, mountaineering shoes? Well, if that isn’t a big fuck you to Fashion Week...
Why can’t it ever be easier to be David Rose?
It’s 7:36.
David starts looking around wildly for a guy with a limp, or a service dog…
If she doesn’t show, he has no idea where she is and no way to get in touch with her. She’ll just be...gone. And now David realizes that maybe this time he’s finally messed up, that he should have gotten their parents or the police involved, that he let her talk him into being her white knight one time too many, and this, he reminds himself, is what happens when you trust people. Not trusting people, that’s what he understands, why couldn’t Alexis understand that too, she’d be here now if she -
And David feels the tears coming to his eyes as his frustration and his fear start to get the better of him…
And Christ, now it’s starting to rain, what the fuck is going to happen next…
And as the first drops hit him, he feels more alone than he’s ever felt in his life...
The tourists on the patio across the street start to rise as the rain starts to come down harder. And it’s as if his anger has suddenly lit him up like a beacon because it’s at that moment that the guy with the redhead looks up and directly at him again.
And at first David panics, thinking wildly that this is Etienne or Remy and they somehow know who he is, and everything that Alexis has told him, and that this is why she hasn’t turned up, and once again he thinks, he knows, that something terrible has happened to her…
...but then he knows it’s not true, because
he’s not here for your sister
is what suddenly rises up in his mind, and David doesn’t know exactly how he knows this, and he feels...relief, strangely, out of nowhere, but also...something else he can’t quite identify...something...
The guy turns to speak to the redhead for a moment, then to David’s surprise he’s crossing the street towards him.
“Here.”
He holds out an umbrella.
David, instinctively, tries to demure.
“You know what, I think I’m good....”
“No, go ahead, we’ve got two. It’s ok. Really. It’s coming down harder now, and...I feel like...you will need it.”
And that feeling he can’t identify...is it that he finally feels...calm? Is it that he finally feels...hopeful?
Well, that doesn’t make any sense. But maybe, just for now, David will take it. Because it’s better than what he’s been feeling all day.
“Well. Thank you. That is...very generous.”
The guy smiles - he’s got a nice smile, David notices (David always notices smiles) - and says, “Well, fortunately, I’m a very generous person.”
And Umbrella Guy pauses, as if he wants to say something else, or as if he’s expecting David to say something else...and David suddenly wonders...what would happen if Umbrella Guy said something like are you okay or you look like you need help or what can I do...and David thinks about how no one has ever asked him what he needs and how nice it would be if sometime, someone realized that this is all he wants, for someone to say to him you need help. You need a lot of help and David knows as surely as he’s ever known anything that if this man were to say that right now all David would be able to say is Yes. Yes.
And for a second it looks like Umbrella Guy -
but that’s not your name
- really is going to say something, as if there’s something he’s trying to figure out -
And David very nearly asks, Don’t I...but then Umbrella Guy just nods and turns to cross the street back to Safe Girlfriend, who’s opened their second umbrella and is waiting for him at the curb.
And it’s just at that moment that Alexis appears around the corner, waving as she hurries towards him.
And David turns abruptly, opening his own umbrella as the sky rips open with a crash, and everything around him is swallowed up in a torrent of sound and water.
3.
“Patrick.”
“David.”
“David Rose...”
...and there’s a moment when something tickles the back of Patrick’s mind, not even a memory, more of a...a nudge, like a string around his finger, like he’s just remembered he’s forgotten to do something but hasn’t yet figured out what...is it deja vu? almost, but no, that’s not the right word, he feels he’s supposed to do something? say something? but he isn’t sure what it is, and for a second there’s...a feeling, a cold feeling like a memory of noise and confusion and being afraid, terribly afraid but of what he doesn’t know, of fear being replaced by relief...and sadness? and the sudden thought he needs...but that doesn’t make any sense, and so -
“...you bought the general store.”
...is what he says instead.
*
“You bought the general store.”
Those eyes meeting his, it’s somehow - there’s something that he - why can’t David quite - no, there’s something he’s supposed to know, supposed to say? He can’t think what it is but there’s something, surely, that he’s forgetting, if he just thinks for a moment he’ll get it, something about the smell of sugar and cinnamon and rain glistening on a cobbled street and being angry, and so tired, and then the sudden thought let him...but that doesn’t make any sense, and so -
“Leased. Leased the general store.”
...is what he says instead.
*
“Take this, it’s my card. And...I feel like...you will need it.”
“You know what, I think I’m good...”
But he takes it, because...he’s supposed to? He doesn’t know what that means.
When David steps outside, he’s relieved to see that the rain clouds that had been threatening earlier in the day seem to have moved off, and the sun has come out again.