By Lucy

The dawn comes early when you are suuuper hungover.

Actually, I wasn’t even hungover yet. I was so drunk I couldn’t sleep and I stayed drunk until noon, which was fun. Around 7 I gave up and went out to the living room, but my stomach was too trashed to be able to eat anything. I chugged one of those liquid IV packs and threw a second one in my water bottle to keep sipping.

My friend from France texted me, if you remember her. The one I met in Greymouth. I guess it’s been a year since Greymouth (and I presume her phone went ‘remember a year ago!’), so we caught up and chatted a bit. I was pleasantly surprised by how much she remembered about me. It would be nice to visit her if I ever make it to France.

Chris showed up right at 8 and we all hopped in the mini van. I got in the front and distracted everyone by chattering about what shenanigans I had gotten up to the night before. In a lot of ways I view Chris as a substitute grandfather and I felt like I’d rather be honest about my partying than try to pretend to be fine, and he thought it was chuckle-worthy so s’all good.

The first order of business was to explain Hanuman to Chris, but Chris took everything in his stride.

The second order of business was to drive the boat over to the thingy to empty out the toilet tank and fill it up with fresh water. Then we parked the boat at the pier next to the boat lift and waited.

Li, Tina and Michelle showed up and we started packing up the boat. All the snacks and liquor off, obviously. The gloves, sails, and most of the sheets, lest they get wet and moldy. Emily helped Tina and Li remove the boom while me and Hanuman were accosted by a woman who’s name I didn’t catch, who directed us on how to remove the forestay. Hanuman braved boarding the boat while it was still in the water.

Some background on Hanuman; he used to be in the Navy. In his misbegotten youth, he was placed in a diversion program that saw him join the military instead of doing time, which is how he got into carpentry and his love of boats. Sadly, the accident stole his love of boats from him, and it causes him no small amount of pain to be afraid to be on the water now when he has such fond memories of it. It’s still so scary to think physical trauma could change you in such ways… that who we are is malleable, in that sense.

Then the boat was lifted out of the water. After spending 3-4 years making boat slings, I was intensely interested in watching one in action.

Once the boat was safety nestled in its cradle, we filled up some buckets with soapy water and started washing it down. At this point Marissa, Doug and Kesia showed up and it started getting a little peopley.

“Hey Marissa, John offers you his number.” I say, with a flourish.

“Oh, really? Yay!” She starts asking me a million questions about him.

I bounced around, doing odd jobs as is my wont, because I’m the only one who can compile a list of what Chris is asking as he’s asking it. Around 11:30, Michelle headed out and I quickly realized that I should have left with her, because the hangover was starting to set in.

Chris tried to convince me to stay, and gave me and Marissa the soft job of setting up the lunch buffet he had brought for us. It was around then that he realized he had forgotten to email the list of tasks around.

I was starting to get tired of spitting out bits of glass from my water bottle and decided to throw it out once I got home.

When everyone breaked for lunch, I ended up at a table with Li, who was playing twenty questions with me about my cancer diagnosis. He’s pretty smart and I should probably hang out with him more. Apparently his wife is a Francophone – another reason.

Doug was heading out after lunch, so I hitched a ride with him. Someone mentioned I write novels, and he expressed an interest in reading my material because both Chris and Kevin backed me up as an excellent writer, so I grabbed his email on the drive.

Now, if only I had time to finish the manuscript…

When I got home, I crawled into bed and napped. Eventually I dragged myself out of bed and made myself sit at the computer so I wouldn’t fall asleep again. I don’t feel as bad this time as I did last time… lesson learned. Start chugging water after you’re done binging, head off the hangover.

“How was your weekend.” Paul asks.

“Terrible. Marissa awakened something in me about Landon.”

“Crushing on the teacher is so cliche.”

“I wouldn’t call it a crush.” I smirk to myself. “I’d call it a hatef*ck.”

“I don’t think I can apply terms like Hatef*ck fantasy to my other friends.”

“See, not cliche. I’m special that way.” It’s the only thing that fits. I respect Landon’s intelligence and superior knowledge, but I hate just about everything about him and so does everyone else, it seems.

I also concede that pinning the blame on Marissa is more of a joke than anything. I was interested before, that’s why I wanted to go to Nortenos. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I can’t pretend any longer.

Well, of course I didn’t! There’s nothing I can do about it, and even if he were single there is a long list of reasons not to. So it’s just going to irritate me until class is over and the feelings fade. Like an earworm.

“What really annoys me is how everyone keeps implying I could just break up a marriage, as if I have no morals at all.”

“I don’t think it’s morals, I think it’s looks. Everyone does low-key want some action from you.”

“No kidding. At last count, there was 4 guys I could have gone home with Saturday, not to mention any number of drunk guys at the bar.”

Cause I’m just a girl, I’d rather not be,
cause they won’t let me drive late at night.
Oh, I’m just a girl, guess I’m some kind of freak,
’cause they all sit and stare with their eyes.

Actually, jokes aside, one of the things I will miss from the class is that no one is being sexist. Other than Landon calling us “guys and girl” at the beginning of the course, which he quickly stopped doing once I asked him not to. No one’s hit on me, no one has been trying to ‘help’ me beyond the kind of help they’d offer to any red-blooded male. It’s great!

I make an attempt to go to bed at the usual time. A few hours of tossing and turning later, I’m glaring at my phone as it informs me it is midnight.

Crap.

Still, in the morning I feel mostly better. I’ll be better by lunch, at least. I’m finally done my antibiotics and my steroid spray and I can hear again.

Since I tossed the water bottle, no more bringing tea to school. I throw the mostly empty spare bottle of cream in my bag before I head out. I’ll be making drinks at school from now on, might as well keep one there. It’s cold on the street corner, hoping Richard actually picks me up and doesn’t forget. He shows up fairly quickly and we’re the first ones at the school, thank goodness.

“How was the show?” He asks me.

I still haven’t decided if I wanted anyone to ask me or if I didn’t want to talk about it at all and pretend it didn’t happen. “It was pretty good. My boyfriend says Landon plays bass.”

“What!” Richard exclaims, almost hitting the brakes. “No way, not Landon!”

I have a good chuckle to myself about that, and then change the topic to the fact Richard drives a standard.

I’m awkward when we go into the school. This is just me being in my own head, it’s probably nothing, but of course we have to say hi to Landon when we get in and take our seats. He barely says hi back.

Bruce comes in with two men and mentions some work that’s happening and the two guys will be using the skyjack in the shop. I suspect they are the reason we didn’t end up doing much work in the shop that day.

As most of the class has taken their seats, he starts asking everyone what their weekend was like. Everyone but me.

“Oh, hey Landon, sorry I didn’t make it out to the show on Saturday. Lucy texted me and I was gonna go but I was too comfy at home.” Richard says.

Headdesk. Thanks for calling me out, Richard.

“Don’t worry, man, I get it.” Landon says, not looking up from his laptop.

We convince Landon to put more Larry Haun on, which is good ’cause I’m still pretty hung over, and the lights being turned down and the dulcet tones of Larry’s hick Cali accent are soothing. Adam makes coffee cuz Trenton didn’t this morning and I pour myself a cup once I finish drinking my liquid IV nonsense.

Then we do more bookwork, and then lunch.

After lunch, Landon does another round of “how was everyone’s weekend”, and this time he does call on me. I’d decided to myself not to mention the show if he doesn’t, because he seems cagey about it, so I talk about the race, winning, and mention I’m still hungover. “Just givin’ ‘er, eh?” He says, with a small grin.

“Oh yeah. The carpenter way.” I grin back.

He tries to give us more lines to do, but the the sheets are so out of date compared to what the book says that we manage to convince him to let us go into the shop.

I spend most of that time at the planer, planing down the pieces I cut on Friday. I feel both good about the progress I made, and also like I still have far too much to do and not enough time to do it. It takes me a bit to get going as well, because I’m unsure about the optimal way to use the planer, but eventually I manage to whine at David until he helps me.

Word association is fun. When Landon was teaching us how to “dimensionalize” wood, he told us to straighten it on the jointer first because “if you run a banana through a planer you just end up with a thinner banana” and now that runs through my head every time I use one of the two. “No thin bananas”.

I go back to the classroom for something and notice a wide hose across the hall. Landon is in the classroom… with the lights off, playing on his phone. Hiding? “What are they working on?”

“Cleaning out the ducts.”

“Makes sense, we make a lot of sawdust.”

“Yeah, they haven’t done it for 8 years.” He says with a cynical laugh.

Oh dear.

At this point, I’ve got most of my pieces for my table sorted, minus the tabletop. I’m starting to feel mostly not hungover anymore.

When we go to leave, Richard runs in front of me to open the passenger side door before I can reach the car. Some of the guys near us titter. “Richard, such a gentleman!” They call.

I ask Richard to drop me off at Superstore so I can buy some groceries with my pocket money and walk home. Mr Flow is outside, also bringing in groceries.

“Why are you walking?” He asks.

“Broke. In trades school.”

He nods knowingly.

“Hey, they’re cleaning out the ducts at the hall. Isn’t that your job?’ I say teasingly.

He laughs. “They’ll need to rebalance the drums, then.” He shakes his head. “No way, I ain’t going back there. I worked there back when they first opened, and I’m not doing it again.”

What a glowing recommendation.

Jeremy comes over for Breaking Bad time. We’re finally into season 5, thank heavens. Season 4 was too slow for me. I work on dinner and make a crumble out of Kevin’s pears while the show plays on the big screen. I annoy Jeremy by calling several plots points in the show before they happen.

It’s funny, cause I know Jeremy’s always concerned I looked up spoilers, even though we were watching Severance as it released and there was no way for me to spoil it. I’m looking forward to performing the same party trick with Pluribus.

When I try to go to sleep, I can’t, so I start drawing. I’ve got the itch in my brain and the only way to get rid of it is to indulge it in some way.

It’s crisp Tuesday morning.

I’m so tired, still exhausted from Saturday’s bender. I barely make it out to the side of the road before Richard gets there.

I check my bank account. Then I do a double take. I got paid… finally. I went from 0 to several grand overnight.

Deliverance.

Why does it seem like my bad behavior gets rewarded? I save and play nice, no dice. I go out and get wasted and make a fool of myself, several thousand dollars. Like some unseen deity is paying me to debase myself for its amusement.

Well, no cosmic anvils have descended on high to punish me for Saturday, so I start to get cheeky with Landon again.

It’s hard to let go of two years of resentment from when he first called me (while I was in England, no less) to not inform me that there’s a two year waitlist for level one. Which continues to annoy, because if he had told me it was a 2 year wait list I would have done my level one in Toronto before transferring. I might even be at level 3 by now and at least 10-15 dollars more an hour! I’m unsure to what degree he remembers me emailing him repeatedly for an answer. It did make me chuckle when I realized I actually had Jeremy call him in the spring, for me. Yet, in a rare instance of me changing my mind about someone, I actually start to really sympathize with Landon.

I’ve been studying Landon to keep notes on how I should teach the class should I be lucky enough to secure a teaching job. It occurs to me that as much as he rules with an iron fist, I’ll have to be even more tough, because the young men in my class will take me being a woman as an excuse to try and push my buttons. That’s… frustrating, to say the least.

Something nebulous has changed, but it’s hard to say what or when. It at least began the previous week, when I realized that he’s finally started to get me. It’s hard to say how much me showing at the show changed anything; he definitely noticed me there, but didn’t acknowledge it and still hasn’t. Paul says it’s a sign of respect to go to someone’s show, but Landon doesn’t seem to enjoy being out in public so I’m not sure how he really feels about it, and there’s definitely a vibe of “don’t ask don’t tell” underlining everything. In a more visceral way, it’s become more and more obvious that we are two of a certain kind, as I’m the only one willing to vocally push back on the other students who are giving him a hard time, which he doesn’t always acknowledge out loud but I always catch the whites of his eyes glancing up from under the baseball cap. He could be a fantastic teacher… if he wasn’t a jerk.

It reminds me… if you haven’t seen Black Panther 2, spoilers, but it reminds me Shuri, and her relationship with Namor. I’m reluctant to enjoy the character of Shuri because her actress is an anti-vaxxer, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t identify with her “burn it down” attitude. The part where she goes to Bast’s realm and encounters none other than Killmonger as her spirit guide, I felt that. And even though they changed it on rewrites, Namor and Shuri were originally meant to be romantically interested in each other, and they still have terrific tension in the finished film because you can sense her desire to join with him and destroy the “regular” humans.

That’s part of me people don’t get; I tend to be drawn to the angry people because I am angry. I’m jealous of the male licentiousness, how they can just be angry and I can’t. And if I can’t have it, I want to get as close to it as I can.

It’s weird to admire people even as you loathe them.

First thing’s first, I text Kevin, “I got paid today. Debating if I want whisky or Mike’s.”

“Mike’s.” Kevin says. “Self-limiting.”

Makes sense. I could easily take too many shots of whisky, but I’m not chugging enough Mike’s to get myself really messed up.

One of the biggest gift’s Kevin gives me is hope. He managed to go through alcoholism and come out the other side, surely I can as well. He really knows what it’s like, he’s not condescending, and he doesn’t try to convince me not to drink at all.

Huh, and I just made plans with Richard to drive me to and from school. Should I drive myself? Nah. No point in putting wear and tear on my car and buying gas when I don’t need to. I can survive two more weeks like this.

It’s funny how being that broke melts your brain. I keep staring at the number over and over again, trying to force it into my head. I could buy things. Like food. And gas. And clothes. I quickly pay back rent and put some money on my credit card.

During a discussion on various types of burns, Trenton mentions he used to work at the Caribou, and Landon exclaims “There’s no good food in this town!”

We all fall silent in anticipation. We’ve learned that a certain tone of voice means he’s about to go off on some rant with an unhinged story, and a reprieve from boring bookwork.

“My wife used to work at the Caribou, when were you there?” He demands from Trention.

Trenton tells him a date and asks his wife’s name. I’ll decline to repeat both here.

“Yeah, that place was shitty. They kept trying to buy her recipes off her. She left after a while.”

She… was a chef? That explains the snobbery about the ‘lack of good food’, although it is another puzzle piece that doesn’t really fit into this contradictory man before us. It’s hard to imagine a man with a mohawk and spacers in his ears going to a bar and complaining about anything more sophisticated than the beer being warm, but I guess that’s just me being judgey.

He goes off on a few stories about terrible service at restaurants before someone asks, “Where does your wife work now?”

He glances out the window. “At the hospital, in the caf. Where chefs go when they burn out.”

Some of the guys in the class nod in understanding. It is a hard career, it’s true. It’s not hard to imagine she’s just like him; abrasive, punky, covered in tattoos and prone to swearing. And burnt out.

“Yeah, I’ve had glass in my food. Three times!”

“What? Where?” We all exclaim.

He lists one chain, Madhouse, and El Tres.

Well, El Tres is closed now, but I’ve been to both Madhouse and El Tres and neither struck me as the kind of place to accidentally serve broken glass. I’m not even sure what on El Tres menu would require there to be glass in the kitchen, either. If his wife really is well known in such a small and volatile community, I wonder if the real answer is that someone intentionally put glass in his food. Once or twice is an accident; three times seems like a pattern.

He also has a story about a student who was legendarily late once. Apparently the student was a bit of a stoner and had a job at a pizza chain. He was working thru school – it was a pre-apprenticeship program – staying up late every night mixing the pizza dough. One night he was too stoned, made the dough wrong, and hit upon the genius idea to throw the dough into a garbage bag and throw it into the backseat of his car rather than admit it to his boss. The next morning – because it was July – he discovered the dough had proofed overnight in his car, which now looked like it was filled with Oobleck. He tried and failed to clean it out before school, took an Uber to school, and then got home to discover it had baked in the midday sun. Supposedly he took Uber’s to school for the rest of the course and never got his car clean as far as Landon knows.

Back to bookwork. Sigh. We’ve started doing chapters we should have done at the start, like the sections on hammers and saws. But I think I can see the method behind the madness. He knows we don’t need this stuff but he’s obligated to teach it, so he’s stacked it at the back of the course, and we can focus on our tables.

Not that that stops everyone from complaining at him about it.

“I should get a sign. ‘No bitching zone’.” He snaps, irritated.

“Julie won’t like it.” I point out sarcastically.

“I don’t give an eff what Julie thinks, she isn’t my boss.”

Come to think of it, who is his boss? The hall president? HR? Someone technically hired him, who can fire him? They’d be my boss too if I became an instructor.

The days are starting to follow a pattern. Bookwork, OBC work, lunch, into the shop. Will we keep following this pattern? Unknown.

Before lunch, he gives us some work with a single question no one can find an answer for. I suspect the real answer is that there isn’t a single answer because you’re supposed to use critical thinking skills, but it’s always jarring whenever he does this to us because it’s such a departure from the standard rote bookwork. I can’t tell if this is him being clever or a jerk. Maybe both.

(I was right about the answer not existing)

Draper is working on the jobsite behind the hall. At lunch, he pops open the bed of his truck and starts a little propane BBQ he’s got.

After lunch, in the workshop. Time to start notching everything out.

I dunno if it was just the pieces I picked or what, but they were splintery as hell. It was really frustrating to draw the saw across the grain and have it suddenly splinter along the length of the board like a guitar string in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Maybe it’s the cheap hand saws. It’s really annoying that people can’t take care of stuff and he has to buy cheap crap ’cause he’s constantly replacing it. Even as I struggle to use the cheap saw, Richard goes over and breaks the jointer and Landon spends the next 2 hours fixing it, so we’re down one jointer.

Still, the chiseling is starting to get easier, and it’s definitely down to skill because I didn’t sharpen my chisels once while we were working on the tables. Landon had the sharpening equipment all locked up and I probably could have asked him to get some out for me but I didn’t want to.

Time to go work on Kevin’s shed.

Before I hop in the car, I ask on a whim, “You don’t have a saw, do you?”

Emily hops up, “I do!”

You… do? Even Hanuman looks at her with confusion.

She got some little Ryobi chop saw while it was on sale. It’s not really designed for this kind of work, but I won’t break it cutting 2 panels of OSB, so I borrow it. Stop at Taco Time for the usual.

Kevin putters around the yard while I hop up on the roof. “You don’t have to babysit me, I won’t fall off the roof. I’d have to hand in my scaffolder card if I did.”

“I’m not worried about you falling off so much as through.”

Same same. Anyone who works with wood should be able to tell when it’s getting too spongey.

First order of business; peel all the old shingles off the roof. They disintegrate in my hands and leave the nails behind.

“You should have done this years ago.” I point to his house roof. “When was that done?”

“Within the last ten years.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to just have them pop a bundle of fresh shingles on the shed?”

“Nope!” He says, cheerfully and with a smile.

“Well, now you know.”

He’s been picking at the shed too, cutting at it with his little handsaw and the hole saw he found in a tote. If I’m going through the roof for any reason, it’s because he cut it up!

The most annoying part of the procedure is peeling the sheet of old OSB off the rafters. Obviously, the wood was rotting around the nails, so it was hard to get a good grip on anything without my hammer breaking through it. Rotting wood also tends to stick to the other wood, so you end up scraping it off with the nail puller to get a flat surface.

“This must be fun for you, getting to see carpenter Lucy.” I observe sincerely, as he stops raking up leaves to watch me balance on a thin piece of lumber. He nods.

Of course, my job isn’t done once the roof is off. The walls are rotting too. And it’s starting to spread to the rafters.

“I’ll fix what I can, but you need a new shed. It’s not worth replacing the whole thing bits at a time like the ship of Theseus.”

“You can build it when you get back!” He says.

I can do that.

Actually, grumbling aside, I do appreciate the offer because it’s letting me flex my muscles without too much on the line. All he wants is for the shed to be water-proof, not gorgeous.

He leaves around 7 for an event. I start tearing down the rotten panel on the wall, but then I realize the light is fading fast. Time to pack it up and call it a day. I nail a tarp over the hole in the roof and throw all my tools back in the car.

Grabbed Mike’s on the way home and managed to drink 3 before I finally gave up and went to bed. My pent-up frustration expending itself.

Some Harry Potter fanfic has been published with the Harry Potter bits airbrushed over, called “Alchemised”. I’m intrigued about it in a way, that I didn’t understand with the furor around Fifty Shades of Grey. For one thing, Fifty Shades of Grey was a photo copy of something that was already crap to begin with, whereas Alchemised has quality source material. For another, the author of Alchemised said it was painful to them to change it to a standalone work, meaning the editor made them work for it and not just use find and replace. I also feel like I could probably get Paul to read it with me since he’s also a Harry Potter fan.

I’ve started referring to my relationship with Paul as “incestuous” in my head, because it’s not really sexual but its also not ‘normal’. It sort of comes with the territory, as any photographers in the comments can attest; you have to comment on the model’s body to discuss the photo shoot, with all the attendant subtext. But me and Paul are also so dryly sarcastic with each other I think anyone eavesdropping on our conversations would probably think we were being serious.

Speaking of wizards, I finally watched Weapons. The name is bollocks; besides a title drop of someone referring to someone else as being “weaponized”, there isn’t any “weapons” in the movie itself, but it’s still a good movie that’s a fan of “Once More, With Clarity“, if you’re into movies that don’t follow a linear timeline. It’s a pitch black comedy; gory, but the gore is so timed or so over-the-top that you’ll probably be laughing more often than horrified. I don’t want to say too much about it so I don’t spoil it, but if you are ok with a bit of gore and a couple of jump scares then I’d recommend it.

To be honest, I also loved it because Amy Madigan is in it, and she’s been a favourite actress of mine ever since I watched Streets of Fire as a kid.

Wednesday morning I drive myself in, since I have a dentist’s appointment and I need to go shopping. When I get to the doors at the school, they’re locked.

Some of the guys follow me up. “I saw Julie go in.” Richard says.

“Well, she didn’t unlock it.” I reply.

He tests the door anyway.

“Did anyone notice if Landon’s truck was here?” I ask.

“He parks it out back.” Trenton says.

A second later, we hear a roar and see a black truck flying down the road.

“There’s Landon.” We all say, laughing.

He flies to the back of the building without acknowledging us. A few minutes later, he comes to the front and unlocks the door, walking away as if this is normal.

Today we have lots of little bookworks. A page here, a page there. I’m feeling more rested and I fly through it at my usual pace.

Shortly before lunch, Landon baffles me. He usually does a lap around the class every 5 ish minutes during bookwork to see how much progress we’ve made and if he can move on. Despite the last 6 weeks of me finishing at least half an hour before everyone else without comment, he stops by my desk. “What are you doing?”

I look up at him for a long minute. Doodling on a blank sheet of paper, what does it look like? “I’m done?” I say blankly. I’m always done this early, he’s never stopped by my desk to comment on it before. David is also done and we exchange a perplexed glance.

“You can’t be done already.” He picks up the 4 sheet booklet and flips through it. All done. He throws the booklet back on my desk and continues to stare down at me. “What am I going to do with you?”

MustsuppressdirtycommentsMustsuppressdirtycomments….

A performance deserving of standing ovations
And who would have thought it’d be the two of us?

Reminds me of 20 years of teachers saying that exact same thing. “Who said you have to do anything with me?” I sputter, finally, as he heads back to his desk.

“I can’t just have you staring at me this whole time.”

“I’m not!” I most emphatically am not. My head’s down to look at my doodling.

At lunch, I walk out to the front. “Julie, you didn’t let us in this morning.”

“Well, technically I start at 9, and my policy is that if the boys are going to ignore me I’m going to ignore them.” She says, in a way that implies Landon is regularly rude to her, to no one’s surprise.

After lunch, we go into the workshop. Workshop has become impromptu ‘David’s therapy time’, because I’ll let him prattle on while nodding politely and occasionally asking a clarifying question. Oh, great. Now I’m going to have 2 sisters mad at me for poaching their husbands.

Some days Landon doesn’t come to summon us for a break. I’m never sure what to do with it; I usually wander off to the lobby by myself for a hot minute. Mid-afternoon, I dip into the classroom to grab my food. The lights are off, but Landon is in the class… hiding from us again? He glances up as I walk in and I freeze as we exchange a long look.

“Um…” I clear my throat. “Mind if I take a break?”

“Go ahead.” His eyes flicker back to his laptop without fully leaving me. “I’m not going in there to yell over them and get ignored anyway.”

“The radio is dead. Or broken.” I add, having spent about 15 minutes trying to convince it to work earlier.

The ghost of a smile touches his mouth, “Probably dead.”

Normally I’d sit at my desk to eat, but there’s too much tension in here and I’m trying to be a good girl. After an awkward pause, I leave the room and go eat in the lobby.

Back to the shop.

Shortly after 3, as I’m in the zone and focused on something, Landon comes over and knocks on the table to get my attention. “Gah! What?” I exclaim.

He taps on his wrist. I glance at my watch; he wants to know the time. I tell him the time, then frown at him as he walks away. Where’s his phone/ watch/ hasn’t he been hiding in the classroom, which has a clock, this whole time? He yells at everyone to start packing up.

Before I head out, I stop by the front desk to buy a hoodie. My old hoodie is a couple years old and starting to wear, mostly because I have a bad habit of rolling the sleeves up to my elbows and stretching it. New travels, new hoodie. I grab the one with a moose on it; remind me of home.

This new dentist is funny. He tries to get ahead of my inability to be numbed by really numbing me. It doesn’t work; not only can I still feel the tooth being drilled, but the numbing extends all the way from my bottom jaw to my ear and around my eye, causing both of them to prickle for the next 4 hours.

Then it’s off to Soroptimists. I bring a Mike’s with me; I don’t see a difference between having a glass of wine and cracking a can, and Emily can drive us home. A few of the old ladies who notice what can it is start teasing that I should have brought one for everyone.

Emily is now a full-fledged Soroptimist and our new secretary, congrats! All the old ladies line up to hug her and she later scolds me for not warning her, but I honestly don’t remember being subjected to a hug train.

My dad texted me at some point while I was in school (I keep my phone on Do Not Disturb). He said “I thought you would have grown up and moved back here by now, but I guess you are an adult and can make your own decisions”.

Why must everything my family says be cartoonishly passive aggressive? Calling me an adult is immediately negated by saying I would have ‘grown up’, as if moving to Thunder Bay was a childish or immature decision. “Why’s that?” I ask him.

“Well, if I lived there I’d be dead by now. All your doctors are here.”

Hah, see? Absolutely zero faith in me. I researched the doctors up here and Thunder Bay is world-renowned for medical research. Lakehead is quite prestigious and contributes a lot to the tertiary economy. Plus, it’s not uncommon for people to get a grant to go to Toronto for treatment they can’t get here. Finally, my usual doctor in Toronto is not a young man; he’s been my doctor for almost 20 years, and I imagine he’ll retire before I need surgery again. I reply, “I’d rather be dead than chained to Barrie.” Ok, maybe not a super mature answer, but he hasn’t really earned one.

It’s frosty in the morning Thursday, a deep frost. The clock keeps on ticking. I should probably wear a jacket, but I stubbornly stick to my sweater and watch my breath curl out of my mouth.

When me and Richard get to school, I say, “Landon, I’m not sure I’ll be in tomorrow. I have to fast for a doctors’ appointment.”

“Hangry Lucy?” Richard says.

“We’re just doing a half day tomorrow, if that helps your decision.” Landon says.

Sure. I guess I can come in ’til noon.

Landon made a fatal mistake; he ran out of coffee.

Carpenters absolutely mainline coffee. Normally I wouldn’t care, except I’ve been drinking coffee just to replace my usual second tea that I can’t have now that my bottle broke. I point out to him that Bruce has K pods in the other classroom, and he runs over and steals some. I go out of the lobby to make myself a coffee in the Keurig there. What is he drinking? Does he have a coffee maker in the back that he refuses to share? I sincerely doubt the stir stick is in his mug for decoration. Tea?

Maybe it’s an eye-opener, a carpenter special.

The class is deep in some conversation I missed the beginning of when I get back. From what I gathered, Landon spent a significant amount of time living and working as a carpenter in Portugal, for some reason.

What? Why? Does he speak Portuguese? His last name is German, so it’s not family, not close family anyway. Why come back if you’ve got connections in Portugal? Like everything, he doesn’t seem to have enjoyed it; he especially complains about the lack of ‘good beer’ and name-drops Superbock as vile, although one of my friends says he enjoys it (I have no opinion because I don’t like beer).

We spend all day in the shop, I suspect partially because I won’t be able to do much tomorrow. All of us are thrilled to bits, me included. I’ve got most of my table pieces done and I start to glulam my tabletop together ahead of mostly everyone else. I figured I’ll start the glue curing while I set about chiseling out the 3-inch-thick leg for the castle joint. Landon approves of my glue technique; most of the boys tried to glue every single board together at the same time, despite him warning them not to do that, including David. I stagger it; glue 2, glue 2, then glue the four together. Even pressure, just enough to hold them together, and not too much glue either. David practically upends an entire bottle of woodglue on his so it’s dripping off and Landon comes by to tell him it looks like crap and he’s a shitty carpenter.

I’m ahead of almost everyone… except Richard. Despite being second last to finish his chair, he’s pulled ahead of even David in working on his table. We all jokingly accuse him of running a con.

As we were packing up the shop at the end of the day, Landon yelled, “Hey, Richard!”

We all stopped to listen.

“What’s the difference between you and that table?”

“Um… I don’t know?”

“That table could support a family.”

We all instantly broke into laughter, although some of us exchanged nervous glances. Richard’s face was beet red and he was obviously trying not to hang his head or look embarrassed.

When we pile in the cars, Richard opening the door for me like usual, I exclaim, “That was effin’ rude of him, to do that to you!”

“It was just a joke.” Richard mumbles. “I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.”

“It’s not just that! He’s rude to everyone, all the time, on purpose.”

“He kind of is, yeah.”

I go home and destim for a bit, then me and Emily go to Superstore to go Thanksgiving shopping. Ironically, I have very little to grab outside the turkey, and Emily has a whole lot, so I end up pushing the uncooperative cart behind her while she searches for things.

Oh, and pick up my scope things, bleh. I avoid eating much for dinner… less to evacuate. Amusingly, the scope instructions says ‘sigmoidoscopy’, but I haven’t had a sigmoid colon for over a decade now. I presume she means ‘a short scope and not the whole intestine’, which is why I’m not fasting for 2 days this time.

My hands are dry. Well, everything is. The frost reduces humidity and the shop is always sort of dry. My hands are splitting, the wood is splitting. Yay.

In the morning, me and Richard arrive after 8:40, but even though the building is open, the classroom is locked and dark. We head back to the lobby; Julie is here, so I go over to talk to her.

“Plans for this weekend?” I ask.

“Oh, I have to do a whole bunch of gardening – “

Makes sense, it’s garden-winding-down-season.

“- Working on this rotten window in my house.”

“Julie.” I chide gently. “You work in a hall of carpenters.”

“These guys never help me out! It took me 5 years to get them to build me a simple fence.”

Well… there is no such thing as a simple fence. But they should still jump to help her, regardless. She keeps all of us in work.

“Want me to yell at Landon for you?” I offer, slightly hopeful.

“You know, I technically start at 9. But Landon told these guys to be here early and he’s not, so here I am.” She says huffily. “But no, no thanks.”

Just as she says that, I notice his black truck fly by the window. We both pause to glance at it.

“Yeah, he never seems to want to be here.” I say conspiratorially.

“Well, ya think? He’s got too much going on, two tickets and all…”

I’m amused by this angry rant on her part, because she almost never unwinds like this, and is always counselling empathy. But also, two tickets? Oh, right, he does interior systems as well, how much work does that require to maintain? And why would he bother?

“And he’s f*cking rude.” She adds.

I break into a fit of giggles as Landon flies thru the office, not even stopping to glance as us as he hustles over to unlock the classroom. She never swears!

“Well, if you need help, I’d come help you.” I offer.

“Well, thank you Lucy, that’s very kind.” She says, and then she turns around and disappears deeper into the office.

How old is this guy? 3 years minimum for a carpentry ticket, 2 or 3 years for interior systems, Margaret said most union halls want 5 years experience minimum as a journeyman before hiring as a trainer, plus 7… I know I said he was probably in his 40’s, but I meant early 40’s and now I’m thinking late 40’s. He still looks young. And when does he have time to sleep? Hunting, fishing, golfing, maintaining 2 tickets, playing in a band…

As class starts, David asks, “How are we finishing our tables?”

Landon crosses his arms over his chest. “Well, usually that can of sealer I bought lasts for both the chairs and the tables, but you guys burned through it on the chairs. And I’m not buying you more.”

Well, yeah, ’cause some of the guys were practically drinking it, coating their wood so heavily it was dripping off onto the floor (which there is no practical reason for). Jerks. Well, whatever. I don’t plan to stain it in class, and if I seal it I can’t stain it, so I’m not too put out. I do miss the small cans of stain Ikea sold for its unfinished pine furniture.

How weird are we? The only class to use the entire can on the chairs. Not to mention that me and David seem to give him a daily conniption because we’re too smart and he’s not used to handling two gifted ‘spergs.

Landon gives us some perimeter and area work. I blow through it and start doodling. Apparently prepared this time, he gives me and David a second worksheet. Me and David get stuck on the same question, and when David protests I back him up.

“That’s mean.” Landon says.

“Lucy’s being mean to Landon.” Trenton repeats in a sing-song voice.

“I defend him from the lot of you most of the time, I’m allowed to be mean this one time.” I expected a sarcastic retort from Landon, and when I hear nothing I look up. He’s staring at me with some indecipherable expression, speechless. I return the stare just long enough to induce a blush, then go back to the impossible question (which we never did solve).

After bookwork, he makes us go into the workshop. Oh, perfect, exactly what I didn’t want to do while fasting. I decide to take it easy and just do uncomplicated things, like handsaw the rest of my joints.

As we start working on our tables, David is in a chatty mood.

“I heard you and Julie talking. It is such a high school clique here. Everyone’s so rude.”

“Yep.”

“The only person everyone likes is Bruce.”

That’s because Bruce is a nice guy with no ulterior motives. “Well, no shit. I mean, look at our joke of an election this year. Everyone running unopposed. Who knows why Landon is teaching.” I keep a weather eye out for eavesdroppers.

“I’ve heard rumors about how Landon got his job.”

“How?”

David’s quiet for a minute. Eventually he repeats, “Like Julie said, it’s a high school clique mentality in here. Everyone’s known everyone since high school. They all stick up for their buddies.”

“Ok, so who’s Landon’s buddy?” I repeat.

No reply. Since when is David reluctant to spill the tea?

“Who’s his boss?”

“Oh, the president.”

“That’s fun.” I guess that explains why Landon can threaten to have us tossed out of the union for defying him.

It’s an interesting preview of me wanting to work here. It’ll just be me and Bruce trying to keep our heads down and get our work done with all the drama llama’s, except who am I kidding? I can never successfully stay out of the drama.

“This saw is impossible.” I say, throwing it on the table in exasperation.

“Here, borrow mine.” David says.

David’s saw is much, much better. Fewer strokes to cut the same amount. I feel pretty good about it now.

Go home. Do more purging. Lay on my bed and pray for death.

Paul’s coming to drive me to the hospital, since he’s there working today anyway. He does a day or two there a week. Emily left this morning, on the bus to Kenora. It’ll be a quiet weekend.

At the appointed time, I walk out of the apartment and down the stairs. Stick my head out; he’s not there. I could go back up to the apartment, but I sit down on the cold metal stairs instead.

After a minute, I hear the squeak of brakes that need changing, then the beep of a reversing truck. “Here.”

I go outside. There’s an ambulance parked in the parking lot. I run over and hop in. “You brought the ambulance to pick me up?” I exclaim, taking pictures of everything on the inside. “Look at all the buttons!”

“Of course I did, look how excited you are.”

It’s funny to see Paul all cleaned up and dressed in his paramedic outfit, like a respectable member of society and not the degenerate that he is. He drives us back to the hospital and parks out back, in a loading zone with some other ambulances.

After a few minutes, his trainee comes over and hops in the back. He’s kinda cute; he has a full head of curls. But I’m slumming it in pajamas and delirious from hunger.

After ten minutes, Paul decides to escort me to the Endo unit, since he can just badge his way thru all the doors.

We enter thru the cafeteria. “I’ve never been here.” I say, looking around at the glass walls.

“I wouldn’t recommend you eat here. You might end up with glass in your food.”

“Knowing my luck.” That would be the second or third spouse I’ve pissed off this week, it’s too depressing to keep track. I’m suddenly self-conscious that I chose to wear my union sweater.

He badges us up the staff elevator at the back, and then we cross to the endo unit. I stand next to the sign that says “Be right back.”

“You can head out, I’ll be fine.”

“Alright.” He says, but he seems reluctant to leave.

After several minutes, the doctor calls me. “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t forget today!”

I glance around, “I didn’t, I’m in the endo lobby looking at a ‘be right back’ sign.”

“Oh, really? Be there in a minute!”

A flustered male nurse comes out to get me and leads me back to my assigned bed. Change into a gown, get stabbed – they like putting the IV in my hand here for some reason – ask me a million questions about my health. Then in we go!

They’re rushing through everything, clicking sensors all over me, and get the lines all tangled immediately. “Don’t worry, you’ll be in and out in half an hour!” My doctor says over the din. A small Asian woman grabs the line in my hand and injects something into it. “This is Dr So-and-So, she’ll make sure you stay asleep this time!”

Yay!

I have a few muddy memories of passing out before the procedure. I suspect the anesthesiologist tried some sort of light sedation before realizing I needed more and giving me the good stuff.

I had a dream. It’s rare for me to remember my dreams, especially since sedation isn’t technically sleep, so it’s weird that I managed to get deep enough to go into REM. Maybe it’s more like drug-induced hallucinations (apparently it’s more common with Propofol). I dreamed that I was on a jobsite being a carpenter.

I didn’t want to wake up. My first memory is of the anesthesiologist yelling “Lucy, wake up!” and me startling awake.

Wheel me back to my bed. Leave the printout beside me and take off.

This time the nurse doesn’t forget about me, which is unfortunate because I’m so much groggier this time, and just want to fall asleep and go back to my dream. Eat my cookies, drink my apple juice, get the needle taken out and change.

Paul got called away to work, but doesn’t want to admit it. When the nurse comes around to see if I’ve left yet, I give up and call Kevin and ask him if he can drive me home. He can, yay!

Lay in bed for the rest of the day. Fall asleep early, wake up around midnight, can’t sleep again. I ignore the paper saying I shouldn’t have a drink for 24 hours and have a Mike’s and fall asleep again.

(Don’t be me)

I had plans to spend the day working on Kevin’s shed, but I still feel groggy from the sedation. I text him to find out what his plans are, and it turns out he’s at the newly minted Ren Fair all weekend. He invites me to his set the next day at 11 AM, and I point out to him that we were supposed to do fancy brunch at Anchor and Ore at 10:30.

“Oh, sorry, I got the days mixed up. That was last weekend.”

Oh… ok. So you’ve known all week that it wasn’t happening and didn’t tell me…?

Yeah… whatever. Guess I’ll just stay here all day…

At 2, the apartment has become stifling. I walk to Shoppers to grab a couple of things I am low on, snapping pictures of weird buildings on the way.

When I get to Shoppers, I realize I need some new hair ties because I am running low, except I want to cut my hair off and I’m not broke anymore, so why not just book it? Book my haircut for next week. Done.

Walk home, wait impatiently for 8PM. A few of us had plans to go to Shooters.

I put on my Tripp dress, which I know is John’s favourite, throw some overnight stuff in my bag and head out. Shooters is walking distance for me, which is part of why I picked it, although I imagine John would get an Uber for me again.

As I approach the bar, I notice John going in. He’s too far away to hear me. When I enter the warehouse-shaped bar, I see him going up to Marissa.

Oh, shoot.

I should be, and I am, glad for her – she got the night off, she feels social enough to come out, and she’s connecting with John – but I can’t deny that I’m immediately jealous. And I hate myself for it.

I also notice Jeremy, looking small in the corner by himself. John notices Jeremy at the same time and we all go over and sit with him. He’s already got a gin and soda, Marissa and John order beers, and I order a long island iced tea, which was a contender for the worst long island iced tea I’ve ever had.

“So, did you sleep with Landon yet?” Marissa asks.

“Oh, hah.” My cheeks feel pink. “No!”

“Cause he’s married?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fair.” She nests her face in her hands with dreamy eyes. “That shirt he was wearing was like a mini skirt on a girl. And those sleeves of tattoos…”

She’s not wrong, that shirt was deadly. He might as well have been shirtless for the amount it covered him. I wonder why he picked it… Lucy and Marissa have the vapours.

I tell them the story about him stopping by my desk and saying “What am I going to do with you?”. Marissa giggles, “Pin me against the wall!”

“Hah, right? Like, what kind of comment is that?”

I’ve got a sweet tooth for bad decisions
My mind is wired wrong, it won’t take long ’til I’m the villain

One thing that will annoy me until the day I die is that you can’t see all of the tattoos on his arms ’cause they disappear under his collar. They almost look…

Click. Something floats back to me from months ago, some article about Indigenous kids learning the trades. That’s why his name sounds familiar! I search it up quick. It’s not a punk mohawk, it’s a First Nations mohawk! The fishing, the hunting with a bow… and the tattoos….

David’s wrong. They didn’t all go to the same high school together. He grew up on a reserve, he’s an “outsider”. And like everything, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Trenton mentioned he lives on the reserve because his girlfriend is Fort William First Nations, and Landon never offered up that he’s the same.

One of the pet projects I really wanted to work on this summer was recruiting indigenous kids into the trades, I even told Shelley it was part of the reason I wanted to join Rotary. Is that the nature of my interest in him… some subconscious draw, knowing he had the same cause? Well, it doesn’t matter now. He’s too cagey, and I’m fixed on leaving.

We sit around talking and drinking for 3 hours, vibing pretty good. Somehow John finds out I’ve never had a Jagerbomb and orders one for both of us – I’m not a fan. He also suggests something call a Burt Reynolds, which has butterscotch flavouring in it and I prefer it much more, although this bar is chintzy on the alcohol. At one point, Marissa goes to the bathroom and John goes to the bar to order another round, leaving me and Jeremy alone to gossip.

I turn to Jeremy, “Still feel like a third wheel?”

“Yes. I have to watch you and her fight over him.” He says, in a tone that implies he’s very much enjoying it.

“Bah, we’re not fighting over him. If anything, we’re spending more time flirting with each other than him.” I’m sure John would agree.

“I still think it would be rude if you slept with him.”

“You are entitled to your opinion.” It is kind of rude, but I also think it says a lot more about John that he’s comfortable two-timing.

At 11:30, Marissa heads out. We hang out for another hour-ish, finishing our drinks. Jeremy challenges John to a game of pool, which is close but Jeremy wins. Then John pays for my drinks and we head out.

“I’ll walk you back to your place?” He offers.

“Oh? I was kinda hoping we could go to yours.” I say with a grin.

He runs his hand through his hair. “Ah, I wish we could, but I’m still staying with my ex.” He grins back. “Didn’t you say your roommate was away for the weekend?”

“Her boyfriend is still there.” Well… I’m actually not sure if Hanuman would care.

We walk back to my place. I’ve come too far to give up now, so I ask him to wait outside and go inside to talk to Hanuman.

“Could, uh, John stay the night?” Wink wink, nudge nudge.

“Oh! Sure!” He says, going back to his room and putting his headphones on.

Back outside. “You can come in.”

John has no reservations, immediately flopping on my bed and making himself comfortable. I crack open a Mike’s and sit down at my desk while we chat for a minute. I have to admit to myself; it’s not that I don’t find John attractive or that I wasn’t tempted to sleep with him before, but a good portion of my motivation now is trying to distract myself from Landon. Then the tension breaks; he offers me his hand and I accept, jumping on top of him.

And that was all she wrote!