By Lucy

I’m alone when I wake up around noon. I dismissed him; he was gonna be up ’til 7, there was no reason for him to stay once I was too tired to keep going. I’m sore, and when I wander out to the bathroom there’s a hickey blossoming on the right side of my neck.

“Do you mind hickeys?”

Depends on the mood. Since the last two guys I worked with, hickeys were verboten lest someone piece it together. It’s nice not to have to worry. I giggle to myself; will Landon ask about it?

Although as the day goes, I start to have my misgivings. It wasn’t as impulsive as it seemed on the surface… I spent the week going back and forth on if I wanted to sleep with him. And I was starting to lean back towards it having been a not good idea.

“Are you still coming by at 1?” Jeremy asked me.

Ah, yes, our Thanksgiving dinner. “No, probably not. Just woke up.”

“Good, me too.”

I managed to get up and going fairly quickly, having breakfast and packing several bags with everything I needed. I made the tomato salad in advance so it would have time to marinate. It took three trips to get all the food out to the car.

First things first! Butternut squash in the oven! Contrary to popular belief, most pumpkin pies bought at the store aren’t pie pumpkins; they’re butternut squash.

Next, I start prepping the turkey while I set Jeremy to work making the stuffing.

Once the turkey is in the oven, we head over to the couch and watch a couple episodes of Breaking Bad.

The turkey takes about half an hour extra, by which time John and Kevin had arrived and settled at the table. I set Jeremy on making mashed potatoes while I finished putting the pie together and threw it in the oven. To everyone’s surprise, Jeremy, who doesn’t own oven mitts, does own a meat thermometer.

After we finished dinner, we all went to the living room and watched “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. Then, lacking in other ideas, I put on Grinch Night.

Yes, there really was a Halloween themed Grinch movie, and it is quite a trip. I recommend watching it, it’s not hard to find; you can usually find a copy on Youtube.

“Oh, yeah, new Hazbin Hotel soon!” I exclaim.

“Yay!” Kevin says.

John’s never watched it. Neither has Jeremy. He refers to Alistair as a girl, so we have to put on something to prove to him that Alistair is a boy.

At this point, I call it a night. I’m exhausted from slaving over a hot stove. John comes home to help me carry the leftovers in, and then I send him away. Hanuman frowns, “Why isn’t he staying?”

“Oh, I can’t let them have it too often, Hanuman, then they might miss me.” I say dismissively, so I don’t have to address my real feelings on the topic.

“Why is that a bad thing?”

Maybe me and Landon have more in common than I realize.

The next day is time to finish Kevin’s shed. It’s not a bad day; cool enough to take the edge off, sunny.

It was raining the night before, so I wait ’til 10 for the morning dew to burn off. Head over and start hacking away.

Gotta finish taking off the one panel, first. There’s no winning here; there’s trim on everything, but it’s all rotting and disintegrates once I touch it with my hammer. Finish breaking it off and cut down a sheet for the panel.

Drama strikes. Emily’s little saw, the guard is stuck. So you have to lift it manually to cut, and then it doesn’t go back down when the cut is done. I’m not likely to cut myself, more likely to put it down carelessly, forgetting the spinning blade is unprotected, and have it cut whatever I put it down on.

Attach the panel. Cut the smaller pieces and braces for the side of the gambrel roof. The rafters are almost too rotted to hold a nail and I have to MacGuyver it a bit. As I throw screws into the OSB, I hear Landon complaining you shouldn’t use screws with framing because they can’t resist windshear. Well, there’s obviously not a lot of windshear in the backyard anyway, or the roof would have flown off a long time ago.

Break for lunch.

Kevin doesn’t have lunch things. He does have, like, 10 different kinds of cheese, so he fixes us a plate of charcutery and we have a fancy break.

Then it’s time for the roof.

Kevin has to help me with this. Well, I could probably get it up onto the roof by myself if I had to, but I don’t have to. One sheet, two sheet. Mark the rafters. Leave 1/8 gap so the OSB can breath. I should probably bevel the edge, but the saw was crying just from cutting them lengthwise and I’m tired of hearing it scream. I’m also worried it’s just gonna crap out on me. Hammer down the vapour barrier and have Kevin hand me up the shingles. By this time, it’s 5 PM and my arm is starting to get sore and tired, but I’m determined to finish it today.

Then… huzzah! A roof!

Throw the trim and the door back on. I ask him if he wants me to replace the siding, but he just shrugs and says it doesn’t need to be pretty, just waterproof. Well, that it is. Already my mind is drawing up plans for making him a nicer shed, with an attached woodshed because his current one has seen better days as well. Fix the deck. Lots of plans!

We head back to my place ’cause I wanted to watch Weapons again, with him. He declines dinner but accepts the leftover pear crumble, which he devours, to my surprise. Maybe he was hungrier than he thought.

He enjoyed the movie, possibly more than I did! It was a good day.

Tuesday, back to school. The final week. My life is measured in a lot of final weeks.

As I wait around for Richard to grab his stuff from the backseat, I wonder if anyone thinks we are an item. I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it; he’s easy on the eyes and we’re at roughly the same maturity level and age. I also get the feeling he has seriously screwed up his life. I’m also just not pursuing anything right now.

Adam rolls in on his motorcycle. A bit chilly to be commuting on the bike, no? Turns out the battery in his truck died. ‘Tis the season for it. All the other boys stop to catcall him and whistle.

You can tell it’s cold because Landon comes in with some cable knit jacket sweater thing. It doesn’t look at all like his style; I’m willing to bet he bought it because it has a high collar and he seems to prefer clothes that act like blinders on a horse.

Math test time!

I didn’t study at all because perimeter and area are not hard, especially since we are allowed a cheat sheet of formulas. Unfortunately, it appears Landon was in a sadistic mood again, because the test we got is bollocks. I had a feeling as I was completing it that I was going to get a bad mark, but I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

I hate going over tests after the fact, but this is just mean. For one thing, I’m pretty sure I got #3 ‘wrong’ because I used 3.1415 instead of the pi button, because when I used pi again afterwards the answer was the same but off by 0.012, and I feel he should have just given me that. And the triangle is just nonsense. In hindsight, I assume he meant for it to be an isosceles triangle, but that’s not indicated on the test itself, the angle isn’t even indicated as a right angle, and we didn’t do Pythagorean theorem at all so he’s testing us on stuff we haven’t studied. I assume the incorrect answer on #4 is just me converting from cm to meters wrong because I seem to get stuck on that.

To ze shop.

Shop class has become “listen to David while politely nodding” time. Sometimes, like Friday, it’s good.

Today it’s not.

I get annoyed at him for using up all of Paul’s spoons Saturday. Someone in the family died and they all went to the farm to tidy it up and loot it, and David was being frustrating. He starts complaining about Paul’s wife and I get frustrated with him to the point that I scream at him to shut up and ignore him for the rest of the day.

The other guys are finishing their table tops. The poor planers are crying all day long.

I don’t like 2 of my rails. They started splitting too much once I tried to chisel out my joints. I also broke one by accidentally dropping one of the heavy cast-iron bar clamps on it. Everyone’s wood has been splitting overnight from the moisture changes, but I think I can do better. I fly through cutting and jointing 2 more rails, several inches longer than the original ones, and centre the joints so they are well away from the edge. This works much better and I’m done in half the time, with a better result.

I get a little ahead of myself and slice my finger open with my chisel. Ouch! I run to the first aid kit, but someone parked a Skyjack in front of it. I go back to David. “Can you get me a bandage?”

He glances over at the Skyjack. “Oh, of course. Sure.”

As he gets the bandage out, he says, “I dunno why everyone keeps running to Landon for bandages. We’re all first aid trained now.”

I shrug. “Running to dad.” I snicker. “Don’t trust the others?”

“Probably that one.”

When we come back for lunch, our tests are face-down on our desks. I glance as my mark – 3/10 – and shuffle it into my binder, before placing it back into my bag. It’s hard to care when I know he’s not gonna fail me for it.

After lunch, more bookwork. More printreading practice.

At the end of the day, I detour on the way to the car to check out Adam’s bike. Honda Shadow, probably a 750 – those are pretty common. I wonder if he’d take me out for a ride.

Time to go shopping! We got some sort of ‘VIP’ code from Sportchek, so why not take the time to stock up? I need new clothes anyway.

Gas, liquor, TacoTime on the way home.

When my clothes are in the wash machine, I dig my test out of my binder to take a picture to send to Paul. I open my binder to where the test should be, but it’s not there. Huh, that’s weird.

When I find it, I notice something. The 3 has been whited out and replaced with a 4. Further down the page, one of the answers that was marked wrong is now correct.

“What the f*ck?” I yell. Hanuman looks at me quizzically. “My teacher went into my bag and changed my test results.” He still looks confused. “I had a 3 and now it’s a 4.”

“Ok, so you got a better mark?”

“No, I mean…” Am I crazy? “He went thru my bag! Also, how did he suddenly remember and realize it was correct after he gave it back to me?”

Hanuman shrugs, still looking at me like I’m overreacting.

I’m tired and don’t do much before bed. I should be stripping the meat off the turkey and doing something with it, but my brain hurts.

When Emily got home, her and Hanuman looked at my test, and also declared it unfair. “This is a failure on the teacher’s part.” Hanuman says.

“Well, duh.” I roll my eyes, “He keeps saying he doesn’t know what to do with me, either.”

“That’s just because he’s not used to having such a gifted student.”

“Two, David is gifted as well.”

Actually, come to think of it, it wouldn’t surprise me if Landon is technically gifted, or close to it. He’s pretty smart and good at lateral thinking. One would expect him to be familiar with the struggle, though.

Wednesday morning I dragged myself from lucid dreams to face the cold morning.

As I walked out to the usual spot, I noticed a dog standing under a tree. For a moment I froze, panicked, waiting for it to come and tear my throat out, but then I realized it was just a puppy, tail wagging as it politely waited for acknowledgement. I called it over to me and it happily let me pet it.

“Where’s your owner?” I looked around, but the street was empty. Did he escape from a backyard on this street? I grabbed his collar and spun it around for the tag, but there was no address on it, just a phone number. I snapped a photo of it and the dog took off, sniffing and peeing on trees.

Now what? I can’t ask Richard to wait for me, and we can’t be late for class. I punched the number into my phone; maybe they’ll pick up right away and come out.

No luck. Went to voicemail, with no identifying features. I left a voicemail explaining what was going on and kept walking.

When we got to the hall, the front desk was all closed up. I went to grab a K cup and back out to the lobby to make a coffee. Mandy opened up the desk.

“Where’s Julie?”

“She went to the Nazareth concert last night.” Mandy said. “I guess she’ll be late!”

Just then, my phone started ringing. I recognized the number as the dog’s owner and answered it.

“Hello, you said my dog is loose? I’m not in town right now, my neighbour is watching him.”

“Yeah, he was on [redacted] heading towards [redacted]. I couldn’t stop to grab him cause I had to head to work, sorry.”

“Oh shit, that’s a busy street! I gotta call my neighbour, thanks bye!” Click.

Well, someone’s about to have a bad day.

Landon was sitting pensively at his desk when class started. As it hit 9, he stood and came around to lean on the front of his desk, the usual tell that he’s in a serious mood. “Where does everyone think they are on their tables? Scratch that; who feels behind on their table?”

About half the hands went up.

He nods to himself. “Ok, once you’re done the test, you can hop on into the shop. We’ll see how far you get this morning.”

Excellent.

I did alright on the test. I was annoyed at a couple of the answers I totally blanked on, but as usual I was confident I had passed and that’s all I care about.

Into the shop!

David grabbed his pieces and disappeared outside with a propane torch to singe them. I went over and turned the radio on; no one was really planing or jointing anymore, so you could hear it easily. It worked today, so I guess Landon fixed it.

I felt good to start in the shop. I finished notching out my replacement B rails and felt a lot better about having redone them. Cut them to size and put the rails together with the legs.

Yay! I have a table!

I grabbed a sander and started sanding down my tabletop. No point in delaying any more.

At 11:30, Landon came in, “Who wants to go for lunch?”

Crickets. I look up at him so he’d know at least someone heard him, and shrugged.

“Do we not get a lunch at all if we say no?” Trenton asked.

“No, you’ll just get one later.” He kept looking around the quiet room as if he was confused. I assume this is not normal class behaviour.

“Later, I guess.” I said. 11:30 seemed a little early, and we were all probably concerned that he’d pull us into the classroom after and not let us back in the shop again.

David came back in around noon. I explained to him how we declined lunch.

“Oh, that sucks. I’m kinda hungry.”

My stomach is starting to growl, too. At 12:10 I went into the classroom. Why am I the one always going in to fetch the teacher? “Are we going for lunch whenever we want or are you coming to dismiss us?”

“I’ll come get ya.” He glanced at the clock. “In a few minutes.”

“Ok.” I turn on my heel and go back into the shop. I went up to David, “He says he’s coming to get us in a few minutes. Probably 12:15.”

“Ok.”

After lunch, we all obediently sit at our desks, waiting to hear what we are doing next. At five minutes past when lunch ended, he slams his hands down onto his desk. “Back to the shop!”

Oh, ok, jeez. Would it kill you to communicate?

Back in the shop, I notch out my table top – I need notches for to sit it flush in the rails – and sand it down a bit. I’ve decided to shelve tapering the legs; I’d rather focus on simple done well, than trying to cram everything and finishing nothing. One of my boards is flaking bits of wood, for some reason.

And… now what? How am I attaching it to the rails…?

“Hey David, do you think the cleats could hold up the tabletop?”

He looks at me quizzically. “I mean, usually the cleats are to stop you from lifting the table top off the table… why don’t you ask Landon?”

Because I don’t want to talk to Landon if I can avoid it. That hasn’t changed in the last 8 weeks. Whatever! He picked that moment to do a wander thru the shop, so I waved him over. Unfortunately, after I asked him what I needed to do, in my head he suddenly became Charlie Brown’s parents and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying.

Crap.

Once he wandered off, I asked David to repeat what he said, my cheeks turning pink. I can’t wait until this week is over.

I had to cut an extra rail to glue inside the skirt to hold up the table. Fortunately for me, someone had been ripping boards and not cleaning up the Sawstop earlier, so there was a bunch of long, straight 1×1 inch pieces just waiting to be cut shorter. Some days I get lucky. I hunted around the room for a drill and attached them together, then started chiseling out the mortise.

At one point in the day, I went to ask David something and accidentally called him Paul. Oops.

At 2:30, it was clear he wasn’t going to release us for a break or call us back to the classroom, so I went to the classroom and had a break by myself. When I got back to the shop, he had wrangled some of the others who were done already into setting up the shop for something. Someone mentioned it was for high school kids. Trenton panicked and started hiding pieces of his table, and it was hard to argue with that reaction.

Bruce wandered by in a bright orange shirt that looked a lot like mine. I waved him over.

“Why are we always twinsies?” I ask with a smile.

“It’s not the exact same shirt. What are you wearing tomorrow?” He chuckled, in his reserved Brucey way.

“Probably the red one. When are the teenagers getting here?”

“One, tomorrow.”

“Ah, ok, so not today. Good.”

“Don’t like teenagers?”

“Who does?” I snort. “I wasn’t much like a teenager, even when I was one. I’d walk around all prim and proper, with a clipboard. Other teachers often thought I was one of them”

At 2:50, Landon yelled at us to pack up. At 3, he kicked us out of the shop.

Aren’t you supposed to be here ’til 4? Where do you have to be??

Whatever. Went home, grabbed the car, went to the store. Needed toothpaste. My toothpaste is 20 bucks, and then they wonder why people who are disabled are broke.

Emily and Hanuman were having their turkey dinner that night. I grabbed my turkey to carve up for a casserole while hiding in my room.

I watched Smile 2 while I was carving up the turkey. It was amusing to think how twisted it was to be cutting something up while watching people be bloodily ripped apart on-screen. Also, the non-zero risk of cutting myself during a jump scare.

I didn’t watch Smile 1. Everyone says Smile 2 is the better movie and you don’t need to have watched the first one to follow it, and what really drew me in was the juxtaposition of horror with fame. In one early scene, she’s doing a meet and greet with fans that really highlights how obnoxious most people are. How terrifying it is to meet a real creeper when one accosts her, indiscernible from the supernatural monster stalking her.

And, in another sense, how fame eats you whole. I’m starting to feel the weight of my Lucy persona. Paul says I care a lot about how people perceive me, and I do but not in the sense that… I mean…

In a sense, I have no choice but to be famous. I’m the only woman on most jobsites. I either have to go out of my way to be standoffish, or lean into it. And so it has been since high school; I had friends who were famous in my high school, and I had to adapt.

Years ago, I had a lot of things I wanted. Kids. A house. A college degree. One by one, all these things were ripped from my reach. I chased and I chased, but I finally got so broken down that I only reach for what I can grasp, now. In a sense, this persona, and this way of living, is something I can control, something to live for. I’m not addicted in the sense that I grew up wanting to be the weird, famous one. I care about it because it’s the only thing left that can get me out of bed in the morning.

And then you achieve success, and you realize it can’t fix the deeply broken person that you have always been.

The music is also really, really good and Naomi Scott is fantastic as the main character. I’m not alone in the opinion of wishing she would do a full album and tour in the persona of Skye Riley. Like I hate live music and I’d pay for that!

I’ve been avoiding John since Saturday night. He’s always given me a bit of a sketchy vibe, but I think that he just sees the surface Lucy persona as all that I am, not anything deeper, and it’s turning me off. Marissa also cancelled their coffee date and he had some not-nice things to say about that that did my opinion of him no favours.

Made myself a Thanksgiving casserole of turkey, stuffing and cream of chicken soup. Was actually pretty good, I’d make it again. I know some people live for cold turkey sandwiches, but I hate having leftover turkey cause I don’t.

On Thursday, Bruce is in the shop when we get there, furiously cutting up sheets of plywood. He was mistaken; the kids are going to be there at 9 and be there until 1. They’re making birdhouses.

“How much are they paying you for this?” I ask him.

“Some things are worth more than money.” He replies. Kudos.

Landon surprises us. He’s taking us all to the Foundry on Friday to celebrate everyone graduating. He asks for a show of hands of who will actually go. 2 guys say they aren’t. Adam puts his hand up but I suspect he won’t actually show up.

“How much are you buying?” Trenton asks.

“Oh, you know, 2 or 3 rounds. I’ll stay until you guys start getting silly.”

Hmm… that could be a short time or a long time, depending on how well these guys hold their liquor.

“Are you playing there?” Richard asks.

“No.”

“When are you playing next?”

Landon purses his lips together. “Yeah, I don’t really like to advertise. Not super thrilled about being up on stage.”

See, I was right, he isn’t comfortable on stage. So then why be in a band at all? Why be a teacher, which is much the same?

Of course, I’ve seen someone who struggles with social anxiety try to teach, or perform on stage, and he is not one of those people. He’s not a die-hard introvert. This is trauma; something has made him leery of being on a stage.

“I am doing the Hunger.” He admits, after a moment.

“Cool.”

“What are we doing tomorrow?” Trenton asks.

“Don’t worry, you’ll like it.”

“Is it a test?” Zach asks.

“Nope, no tests. Quit worrying. You guys will like it.”

Not easing our minds, bud.

Critical schoolwork Thursday morning; watching Mike Holmes. For whatever reason, most tradies don’t actually like Mike Holmes. I will admit, watching him overreact and overengineer fixes is a bit more painful to fix now that I know what I’m doing, and despite the impression otherwise, he doesn’t actually have formal training in a trade. His final bit of goodwill was burned by plastering his name on 3 projects that were so badly built the homes had to be entirely torn down.

The kids are still in the shop, so Landon gives us some bookwork. Except he obviously just made it up, because it says “interior systems” at the top. Some of his old homework? Me, Adam and David are done pretty fast, so he gives us a second, harder one.

I actually enjoyed doing this, to the point that I kept working on it through lunch, which made Landon laugh. Maybe I should get an interior systems ticket. When I was in college, we had a dry math class called “Techs and Specs”, and on the first day the teacher said, “Most of you will hate this class, but there will be one or two of you who love it and this is what you should do for a career if you are that person”. I was not that person, but I took the advice to heart. If everyone else hates it and you don’t, it’s probably for you.

“Hey Landon, did those sanders ever come back?” Trenton asks.

“Nope. They’re gonzo. At the pawn shop already.”

What a confusingly flippant answer. You didn’t kick anyone out, so none of us stole them? The cameras are broken? Bruce took them home and forgot to tell you?

Finally Landon gets tired of waiting and kicks the kids out of the shop so we can use it. I have too much to do, and also nothing at all. I finish hammering in the cleats and slot everything together.

Now the top.

The top has warped on me. It was flat, but over the weekend the moisture changes made it bend along the diagonal. Stupid cheap SPF. Landon says to screw down one corner, then have someone sit on the other edge and hold it flat while I screw it down.

Richard is done – Richard was done first – so I recruit him to help me.

Tada! A table!

Now I have not much to do.

Well, I could go to town trying to sand it down flat, but it seems rather pointless when I know it’s just going to warp again. I’ll get a passing mark for it and fix it later, who cares.

Richard takes off shortly afterwards – Landon told us we could leave after we were done – so I’m rideless, and it’s raining. Adam agrees to give me a ride home, in his little red mid-life-crisis mobile, so I hang around until he’s done, sanding the table for something to do.

Trenton’s messed up. He keeps breaking his rails and recutting them. He ends up being the last one to finish. He actually comes in early Friday morning to finish up.

Adam agrees to drop me off at my haircutter’s place. I realize I am way early; my appointment is at 4 and I’m here at 3.

I go in anyway. “Hello, I know I’m super early, I was just wondering if she might be available early. If not, I’ll just go walk to the mall or something.”

“Let me check.” She goes around back. “She can see you in about 20-25 minutes?”

Sounds good. I pop open my snack and eat some of it.

The stylist comes out 20 minutes later and calls me back. The minute I sit down in the chair and she touches my hair, she goes “oh yes, I remember this.”

Hah, yes, hi it’s me, Medusa.

Once my hair is washed and we’re at her station, she says, “What are you thinking of?”

I pull out my phone and show her a picture of Skye Riley. “This.”

“Oh my god, that’s so short.” I brace for her to say no, but she does a 360 around my chair, considering. “Yeah, I think we can make that work.”

Yay!

Cut, cut, cut. My long red locks fall to the floor. The lady comes by to sweep twice.

One of the other stylists comes by and does a double take. “That looks great – wait, didn’t you come in here with long hair?”

She has to blow dry my hair to add in the top layers, and then it’s done!

Oh gosh, it feels so much better already!

I decline a style – I’m just walking home in the rain – make an appointment to get my hair dyed next week, and head out.

I am trying to be.. thinky, about this. Part of me wonders if this infatuation is the universes’ way of telling me I should stay. I have to admit, I’m not 100% gung-ho about leaving, now that I’ve crafted a career path in my head. Every year I’m gone means another year it’s likely someone else will become teacher at the hall, or a mayoral candidate. What if I’m meant to stay, and stay focused?

It reminds me… there’s this story in Dragon Age. The king’s daughter has died, so there’s a public funeral that everyone must attend but no one is allowed to speak. A man meets a woman he falls instantly in love with, but he can’t ask her out. Over the course of a year, he tries and fails to find her, praying to all the gods, until in his desperation he prays to the Dread Wolf, who answers him. His answer is,

“Kill the king’s other daughter.”

Go home and stick my head in the door. “Alright, the yelling can commence.”

“Yell… why?” Emily comes over to look at me. “Oh, you cut your hair! Looks good.”

“I thought you’d be mad at me.”

“Why would I do that?”

Cause you kept telling me not to cut it after all the effort spent dying it red.

My mind keeps going round and round what to wear to the Foundry. I want to wear my Tripp dress, but I’m also hyper aware that it is the exact same dress I wore to the Bar. I’m also a little self-conscious that it shows off one of my cancer scars, and I’m not in the mood to be asked a billion questions. In the end, I decide to wear it anyway. Who cares.

Friday, the last day, thank God. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.

Richard is on time today, the first day this week.

“Oh, nice hair!”

When we go into the classroom, Landon doesn’t comment on it. I half-expected some sarcastic comment about getting my head stuck in the planer.

Eric comes in next. “Wow, did you get a haircut?”

“No, I got my head stuck in a lawnmower.”

No one else comments on my hair.

Class doesn’t start for a while. Zach is late, and his phone goes right to voicemail when Landon calls him.

“It’s an automatic fail if he doesn’t show up today.” Landon says, so dry it’s impossible to tell if that’s sarcasm or not.

“Wait, really?” Kevin says.

“Oh yeah. Not showing up on the last day is just rude.”

Kevin starts furiously texting. I glance at Zach’s desk; all his stuff is here, and I doubt he’d just leave it behind.

“Is anyone going to the union meeting on Monday?” Trenton asks.

“Nope.” Landon says immediately. “I’ve worked here for 7 years and I have not been to a single one.”

And you sound darn proud of that pathetic fact.

At half past, Zach calls Landon. His power went out and his phone died.

“He does live out in Neebing!” Kevin chimes in. “My power went out last night too, halfway through frying my fish.”

“That’s the most Thunder Bay thing I’ve ever heard.” Landon says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine, we’ll wait.”

Shortly before 10, Zach shows up. Then Landon finally tells us what we are doing; a practice Red Seal.

I still can’t decide if he’s sadistic or smart. It is a good idea to start practicing as soon as we can, but most of these guys, it’s just going in one ear and out the other. Is he hoping he can make an impression, or just trying to help those of us actually here to learn? Or just enjoying watching us struggle? He tells us he expects us to know about 80% of the answers on this test and not to stress about it too much.

He gives us about an hour. I get mine done first, but then this kind of test taking is familiar to me. Skip every question where the answer doesn’t immediately come to mind, then go back and do the ones you have to think about. I didn’t try much with the math questions; this isn’t for marks, so it doesn’t matter what grade I get.

I got 55. Maybe I would have gotten higher if I’d done the math questions properly, he took the test away so we can’t see which answers we got wrong.

Time to clean up. He sends us to the shop to grab our tools… and put them in our car, which I don’t have here. I just pile them neatly next to my desk. Then we have to clean up the shop. He doles out roles; you and you, vacuum, you and you, take the sanders outside and blow them off… Me and Emerson are last, and he sends us into the classroom to wipe down the desks and counter, stack the chairs and push the tables to one side.

The end of an era.

When me and Emerson are done, we join everyone in the shop, and help them. Around 1, we’re done. Probably would have been done around noon if it wasn’t for Zach being late. Landon has us place our tables near the shop overhead door and gives us a slip of paper with our marks. I haven’t managed to get anyone to agree to drive my table and chair home, and Paul is delirious from lack of sleep and speaking nonsense.

I jump in the car with Richard, but then David comes over. “Don’t you want me to drive your stuff home?”

“You didn’t actually verbally agree to!” I say, but I get out and help him load up his table and mine.

I direct him to Jeremy’s address. Jeremy doesn’t open the door when I knock, so I hide the table and chair around back and hop back into the truck.

“Isn’t this your place?” David asks.

“No, I walked to school, remember? I just don’t have space where I am staying for this.”

“Oh.”

He drops me off at home, yay.

Shower, unpack, destim. I blow dry and straighten my hair, having Emily help me with the back. I feel like being a little dressy. I spend a few minutes trying to use a cold compress to make the bags under my eyes go away. Google helpfully suggests sleep.

I walk down, it’s only a 40 minute walk. As I walk past Renco’s, I notice Wolfgang’s truck in the parking lot. I’m glad I decided to wear my paperboy hat, which hides my face, and my hair is unrecognizable. I duck every time a truck goes by, just in case it’s him, but he doesn’t drive down the street until just when I reach my destination, and it’s easy to hide and not be seen.

I get to the Foundry early; 4:58. Are they open? Is anyone here? I don’t bother checking and just stand outside on my phone. A minute later, Mitchell and Eric wander up. The two Dryden boys.

“Is it open yet?” Mitchell asks. Eric lights a smoke.

The door opens and a small woman drags a large, heavy sandwich board outside and struggles to set it up. “Probably just now.”

As we wait for Eric to finish his smoke, Richard arrives, wearing artfully torn pants and his hair gelled back. “Got a date tonight?” Eric asks him.

“Not anymore, she cancelled on me.” We all laugh.

We head inside and grab the big table that says “reserved”. I sit one seat in from the end. As the guys start to file in, only Mitchell sits near me, on the opposite side and at the end. When David arrives, he takes the seat on my immediate left. Great.

15 minutes after five, I realize the only people who aren’t here yet are Adam and Landon, and the only seats open are the one across from me and the one beside me to my right. As stated previously, I’m willing to bet Adam isn’t going to show (I was proven correct). Leith does show up, despite saying he wouldn’t.

When Landon arrives, he picks the seat directly across from me. I can think of a few reasons for that, but the problem for me is that I don’t know what to do with my gaze. I’m aware that I quickly become awkward in my attempts to look anywhere but directly in front of me.

Something about him seems softer tonight. I can’t put my finger on it; I expected him to be even more tightly wound, but then I guess he wouldn’t schedule an event like this if he was going to hate it the whole time. He’s wearing the usual skinny jeans not affixed to his hips, black shirt and ball cap, but he’s also wearing a dark puffy waterproof jacket with the collar popped. With the hat pulled low over his face, he looks smaller, as if he’s shrinking.

The few times he says my name to get my attention, his voice is notably soft, as if trying not to startle me. I hope he hasn’t noticed my affection, but I think he’s smart enough to figure it out despite every effort on my part. Or maybe he’s just noticed that I’m an anxious wreck.

“I had to dive into the bushes to avoid Wolfgang on the walk here.” I say with a smile.

“Oh no!” He laughs.

A waitress comes by. We already ordered two pitchers of beer for the table – not that I drink beer – so Landon orders one more. He tells her it’s on the company credit card.

Ooooh… that makes sense. He’s not paying for this personally, he’s paying for it out of union funds. Technically we are all paying for it, then.

No one comments on the scar or the tattoo, but I don’t believe Landon didn’t notice them, or doesn’t know what they mean. I imagine David might have commented on them were he facing me, where he could see them.

After Landon asks me a personal question requiring a long-ish answer, I give myself permission to scan his face. I have a habit that Josh taught me long ago, to find something on someone’s face to focus on so you can sort of make eye contact without having to look into their eyes. I notice a small cut on his upper cheekbone, too high for a shaving nick.

Oh.

The waitress comes back with beer and asks what we want for food.

“What does everyone want for food?” He claps his hands together for attention.

Crickets.

“No one wants anything?”

Zach pipes up, “Does it come out of the beer budget?”

Facepalm.

“No, no it doesn’t.” Landon glances back down at the menu. “How about some pizza?”

“Sure, pizza sounds good.” I say, a little loudly, hoping to incite some mob mentality.

Sounds of agreement. He orders 4 different pizzas. Trenton and David order wings. I catch the waitress before she can flee and order a margarita.

The first time Eric gets up to go outside for a dart, Landon pops up and follows him. Eric comes back in after a long time; we all jump on him immediately.

“Did Landon have a smoke?” Kevin asks.

“Oh yeah.” Eric says, gesturing towards the window. “He’s on his third now.”

We all glance around the table. Landon smokes? Since when? None of us have noticed him go outside for a smoke, or smelling of smoke, and it’s hard to hide outside a glass building. But no one answers in the affirmative that they noticed him smoking.

When he comes back, he acts like nothing happened. Me and David are in a conversation about finances and he jumps in, “See, this is why I don’t have kids. Too expensive.”

No one decides not to have kids because it’s expensive, like that anyway. They say it’s expensive to justify that they didn’t want any to begin with, or you’d bitch about the kids you want to have but can’t afford. Also, why do you keep mentioning it? Are the in-laws bothering you to give them grandkids?

“Yeah, more guitars.” Richard says.

Him and Landon go off on some conversation about guitars and chords. “Yeah, Queens of the Stone Age is all C sharp and lower.” Pause. “What’s below C?”

Wait, what? You play bass, everything below C should be your best friend.

Then they start talking about fishing. I’m stuck with David, because he’s the only one who doesn’t want to talk fishing.

The pizza arrives and we devour it, and order another round of beer. This time “Blueberry Ale”, which apparently has a reputation for getting people messed up. I order another margarita. Mitchell is three beers deep and falls asleep in the middle of taking a drink, and dumps his beer on Landon.

“Mitchell!” He yells. He hops up and goes outside. We watch him wander past the window, smoke in hand, on the phone talking to someone.

I take Mitchell’s beer glass away, hand him a glass of water and a slice of pizza. “Finish these and I’ll give you your beer back.”

Landon comes back in and has another beer, then wanders off to the bar. I turn to David. “I bet he’s settling up, so order anything you want now.”

David goes up to the bar and orders a coffee and a double of whisky.

“Well, I’ve settled up the tab, so you’re on your own from now on.” Landon announces, returning to the table. He turns to Mitchell and offers him his hand to shake.

Oh no. Time slows down as I steel myself.

I needn’t have worried. Even though I psyched myself up for a proper firm handshake with eye contact, he barely gripped my hand, letting go quickly, as if I’d burned him.

I watched the rest of the handshakes with hungry eyes. It was only me he did that to. If anything he did could confirm it, that would be the moment.

“Good luck!” He says, with a backwards wave, and then he’s gone.

I finish my margarita and the pizza on my plate, but at this point all the guys are getting pretty drunk, and most of them are crowded around the other end of the table watching the Jays’ game. I have no desire to spend my own money to listen to David ramble, so I call Emily for a ride. I wish Adam had showed up – we could have talked bikes or something.

Paul texts me, “How was the Foundry?”

“My heart hurts,” I reply simply.

“Want to call me and talk about it?”

Yes. Once I’m settled at the computer, I call him and he lets me rant. As I recount the night, the soft look in Landon’s eyes and the cut on his cheek, my voice breaks and the tears fall.

“The thing that hurts is there’s no reason for it. I don’t have a reason to like him, I hate him, and I’m never…. never… going to see him again!” Sob.

“I know.” Paul says simply. There’s nothing else to say to that. It just has to run its course and fade.

Except I have an eidetic memory.

It.

Won’t.

Fade.

Can you teach me how to fly?
Can you see, I’m scared to die?
I’ve only just begun to learn to crawl

Can you teach me how to fight?
Will you keep me up all night?
And will you be there on the ground if I should fall?
Fall for you…

It occurs to me that a large part of my pain is that I was never taught to deal with my memory.

Well, how many people know how to raise a child like that? Not many. But at least, if they weren’t so focused on keeping me isolated so I wouldn’t talk about the abuse, they might have gotten me some real help.

I really hate that everyone keeps teasing me about it. Everyone knows you can die of a broken heart/ die of loneliness, but not many seems to want to take my very physical pain seriously. The mockery isn’t helping because it just keeps the pain fresh while making me feel isolated.

People forget the biochemical side of this. Love, wanted or unwanted, is a process in the brain. It causes all sort of things to fire off; elevates your heart rate, makes it hard to sleep, eat or focus, much like the fight or flight mechanism.

Did you know Tylenol can treat heartbreak? Studies have found that emotional pain literally causes the pain receptors in the brain to fire, and taking pain meds can make it go away. OCD meds have caused people to stop being in love, or to stop being jealous, because it’s all just neurotransmitters in the brain, much as we’d like to think it’s something more complicated.

Of course, there is a fine line between treating a stressor and medicalizing something that doesn’t need it. What if there was a pill that could make you not gay? Get rid of BDSM inclinations? What if you could take a medication that stopped you falling in love at all, and people abused it to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week, without getting distracted, like some sort of dystopia?

There was a point to my honesty over the past 3 posts… that uncomfortable emotions happen and we have to acknowledge them. We develop feelings about people we don’t want to have certain feelings for – whether that be hate or love – doesn’t mean we need to do more than acknowledge them.

The deeper, unspoken side of this is that I went through a seismic life change 2 years ago, and I’m still grappling with a lot of new things, changed things, about myself. One thing I haven’t even begun to consider is what it says about my love life. I have acknowledged that I’m still in love with the Vagabond because clinging to that feeling allows me to shelve the others, but no one (myself included) has really addressed the feelings that I am shelving, or why. One thing this whole nonsense is digging up is that apparently I do have a desire to be in a close emotional relationship, that I’ve been burying deep inside me for a long time.

But… I am getting tired of this, being the other woman, the good-time girl. Something’s gotta break.

In the morning, the apartment was stifling. Maybe it was the haircut, maybe it was knowing that school was done and I had succeed, but I suddenly had so much energy.

Paul suddenly had the day free. The track washed out. “Want to do brunch?”

“Sure.”

Hanuman is awake already, I know. I message him, “You and Emily want to do brunch?”

“It’s a sleepy yes.” He texts back. “She won’t be awake for a while.”

Who else is free? Not Kevin. Maybe Heidi and Kev? I bypass Kev and just text Heidi. “You and Kev want to do brunch?”

“Sure! Probably just me.”

“No worries!”

We pick Pur and Simple, a southern chain that opened up recently. Meet there for 9:30. It occurs to me that I’ve got the winter tires in the back seat of my car, and Paul’s backseat is also a mess. But Emily can drive the 200 and I’ll just ride shotgun with Paul, then her and Hanuman can split whenever they want.

They have online check-in, so I check every half an hour up until we leave, and it keeps saying there’s no line!

I run out to the truck when Paul gets there. As he drives, he reaches over and flicks the pointed anime fringe covering my left eye. “I love this.”

When we get to the restaurant and hop out, he says. “The length is good, too. Long enough to grab, short enough to not get tangled.” And with that, he reaches over and grabs a fistful of the hair at the back of my head, and yanks my head back.

“Ow, let go of me, you pervert!” I turn and punch his arm. “Everyone’s still gonna complain they liked it better long. Men.”

Of course, there’s a line-up out the door now. When we get to the front, they tell us there’s no available tables for 5.

Bollocks.

Me and Paul wait outside. Hanuman and Emily arrive and go for a wander. Paul mentions he needs to move firewood today and I offer to help. It’s been like 2 weeks since we hung out, maybe longer.

Half an hour later, as a table opens up, Heidi arrives. Her and Hanuman start an immediate pun war.

As we’re seated and started going thru the menu, Heidi gets a text from Kev – he’s coming too. Service is a bit slow, but then it is busy here. I order the fresh squeezed OJ and it is too die for! I was disappointed with Stacked because its menu is basically the same as Tina’s, but this place has different stuff. They also have an explicit keto option, which is great!

When Kev arrives, we discover the other side of our placemats are colouring sheets. We ask a waitress for some crayons and most of us start colouring!

Heidi mentions the Thunder Bay ‘documentary’ and I remember something that was mentioned last night.

“My classmate Richard was a cop and he says he was in the background of a shot.”

“Was a cop?”

“Yeah, Richard won’t tell us why he got fired from the cop shop.”

“What’s his last name? Google it! I betcha he beat someone.”

I tried that already, but I do it again with “thunder bay reddit” in as well. After a few results, I find an article that surprises me. It links him to… well, I don’t want to get into the details, but it links him to a kid who died in an accident a few years back. And I recognized the name, because the story popped up when I googled Landon’s band, connected to the singer.

It feels like a missing link, like that’s why Landon kept picking on Richard. He remembers Richard being connected.

Still, nothing juicy in the context of him being a cop.

“Oh yeah, it’s the rock show today! Who’s going?”

“Can we?” I ask Paul.

He shrugs. “Sure.”

When the waitress comes to ask how many bills, Paul says, “One.”

Emily’s jaw hits the floor. Kev glances at me; already planning to e-transfer one of us back.

Eventually we went our separate ways. Heidi and Kevin went home to get her kid, and Hanuman and Emily went home. Me and Paul went to the rock show.

It was not what I was expecting. There was every kind of rock there, but also some New Agey stuff like tarot cards and mandalas. I was super thrilled and wanted to buy everything in sight, but of course that’s not logical. I limited myself to a single rock, carved in the shape of an ammonite, and a pack of thin Tarot cards no wider than my thumb, since they’d fit easily into my luggage.

As we got towards the end of the show, we noticed Kevin there with a woman. I yelled and waved, “Hey, Kevin!”

The woman turned at the same time and started immediately shooting daggers at me with her eyes. Um…

I talked to Kevin just long enough to be polite, and then excused myself. Once me and Paul were out of hearing range, I said, “Was it just me, or was she glaring at me?”

“She definitely had a stick somewhere about something.”

“Ok, just as long as I wasn’t imagining it.”

Shortly thereafter, Kev and Heidi showed up. We chatted with them for a minute, but I noticed Kevin and his lady friend getting closer and closer, and wanted to skedaddle before the rules of engagement required we talk to them. Heidi’s smart watch flashed up with a warning that her heart rate was elevated; guess she’s not a fan either. Or she’s still carrying a torch for Kevin.

Off to Nolalu!

Not actually. Paul lives near Kakabeka, out in the woods. It’s funny, I’ve driven past his house a dozen times on the bike with the Vagabond. I have 0 cell service out here. There’s a bunch of trees that look like evergreens turning brilliant yellow and losing their needles; Paul says they’re called ‘larch’.

First thing we do is unload the half-load of firewood currently in his trailer. Presumably he started unloading it and got side-tracked. Then we hop in the truck and head out to the “farm”. He’s been listening to some EDM but I request something else, so he puts on a “Canadian road trip” mix and we rock out to it and talk about things.

As we turn on to the road, he says. “Shit. I forgot the key. Do you have anywhere you need to be?”

“Nope.”

Back we go, and then away again.

As we pull up to the farmhouse, Paul says, “Looks like David has been here.”

“To no one’s surprise.”

The smell of urine and rot wafts out the door as soon as Paul unlocks it, like cracking the seal on a tomb. I lean over the side of the path and wretch. It’s so potent I can feel it in the back of my throat.

Paul grabs a rusty wheelbarrow and we get to work. The good firewood is in the house, unfortunately.

I start rambling about the interior systems work we never did take up. “I got so side-tracked by it, I kept working on it through lunch. I can’t resist a puzzle.”

“Well, we know you like a mystery because you like Jeremy.”

“Why’d you pick Jeremy and not Kevin or Landon?

‘Cause Kevin’s not a mystery, he’s a cryptid.” No comment on Landon.

I start laughing. “I’m sending that to Kevin right now.”

“Please do.”

Soon enough, the trailer is loaded and we can re-seal the foul air and take off for fresher meadows.

Paul’s wife’s car is back in the driveway when we get home. Anxiety seizes my heart. Always second best, and punished for it. Hopefully she doesn’t come out and pick a fight with me.

He gives me a butter tart to keep me going. I mentioned in the car how much I miss Barrie’s butter tarts; they invented them. He also gives me an unopened bottle of Crown they found in the house.

We unload the trailer quickly and head out. I have to pee, but I ain’t going in that house with her there.

It’s only after he drops me off and leaves that it occurs to me I need something from the storage locker. Oh darn.

Because I’m curious and a nosy shithead, I keep googling Richard as I cook dinner. I discover that, at the very least, he was friends with someone who worked for Tbaynewswatch, because there are a few articles about him for no real reason, but they are unintentionally telling. Like, apparently 3 ish years ago he was set to become the manager of an establishment… which, considering the two year wait list for level one, means he was let go of being the manager within a year.

At 7, I go to pick up Jeremy. We wanted to go to a haunted house someone set up in their yard. Even though it technically opens at 7:30 and we got there at 7:25, the line-up is already down the block. Fortunately it moves quick.

It was pretty good, I wouldn’t have minded donating some cash towards them if I wasn’t scarily broke. As usual, I giggled when the actors ran at us screaming and waving fake weapons, while Jeremy cowered behind me. Until some kids went running through it until they caught up to us, and then it was just listening to them scream and ruin the moment.

On the drive home, Jeremy comments, “You seem different today. Less stressed.”

Less stressed already? Jeez, what a turn around. Guess my headache really was from school.

Still…

I keep looking at the tattoo on my wrist. Amor Fati. I love my fate.

After I drop Jeremy off and head home, I crack open the Crown bottle.