Cue the Dead Guy. H. Mel Malton
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“Yes, he. It was a costume party, like I said.”
Becker backed away from the truck, shaking his head.
“Drive safe,” he said. At that moment, I didn’t know what I had ever seen in him, really, I didn’t.
The light rain had turned to fog, and it was a long drive home. The Old Rock Cut Road is much better than the highway, because when the weather’s bad, you can creep along without some idiot coming up on your tail doing a hundred and thirty, trying to get past. I drove carefully, but Rico displayed an annoying tendency to cringe at every corner and apply the phantom brake at every opportunity.
“So, Rico,” I said, “what exactly did happen back there with Shane Pacey—before the stairs incident?” It was a nosy question, I know, but he was hanging onto the strap above the door with a white-knuckled hand, and I thought that getting him to talk about the evening would relax him.
“Oh, God, Polly, it was so embarrassing. I’ll never be able to go back there.”
“It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
“Well, it was, in a way. I suppose I led him on.”
“He really thought you were a woman, didn’t he?”
“He must have. Did you hear what he said after he . . . after he found out I wasn’t?”
“I could hardly miss it. Not a nice boy, our Shane. But it’s weird. Guys like that aren’t usually so easily taken in. He must have been plastered.”
Rico didn’t say anything.
“Not that you weren’t totally convincing, Rico, but usually you can tell, really up close, you know?”
“Well, that’s what I thought,” Rico said, finally. “I mean, when he made a pass at me upstairs, I thought, oh goody, a kindred spirit. Someone to—you know—flirt with a little. He kissed me on the way downstairs, you know. You’d think he would have figured me out by then, eh?”
“Did he come on to you just out of the blue?”
“I was talking to that lovely girl, Amber, when he arrived. Pacey was already drunk then, I think. He met Juliet at the door and made a big show of complimenting her and so on. He bowed and then swept her into one of those ballroom dips and kissed her on the mouth. Everybody laughed.”
“I see. So why did you think he might be a kindred spirit?”
“No straight guy would take a risk like that, would they? Juliet would swallow him whole.”
“True.”
“That’s what I thought. Then he came over to the bar, where we were standing. He knew Amber, you could see that right off, but it was obvious that they didn’t like each other much. She seemed really surprised to see him. They said hi, but they were sort of stiff. Anyway, seeing as every other male up there was drooling whenever they looked at her, I figured that Shane was more my type than hers. Then she introduced me and I saw his eyes light up. It was wonderful.”
“She know, do you think? That you were a guy, I mean?”
“Oh, yes. She had already said that she thought I looked incredible. She was fooled at the beginning, but it didn’t take her long to figure it out once we got talking. She’s smarter than she makes herself out to be, I think.”
We had just taken the last corner before the rock cut, and a car behind us passed, flashing its lights. Rico didn’t even notice.
“Anyway, when he looked me over, she smiled. It was a match-maker smile, like she’d done us both a favour and maybe would be collecting on it later. I was planning to thank her, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“She set you up, you mean?”
“Could be. If she knew him, then she must have known how he felt about girls like me. Men with that attitude don’t generally make a secret of it.”
“Maybe she didn’t know him that well,” I said. It was hard to imagine the puppyish Amber deliberately being cruel.
“Or maybe she sicked Pacey on me, then stepped back to watch the fun. You keep an eye on her, Polly. Pacey, too. If you guys hadn’t been at the bottom of those stairs tonight, I’d probably be dead.”
“I’m glad we were there, Rico.”
“Sorry about your nose, eh.”
I knew my nose would be a conversation piece for the next couple of weeks, and I was already tired of it. I just nodded.
“I’ll never be able to show my face at Steamboat again,” Rico said for the millionth time. “They’ll all be laughing at me. And I’ve got to go in tomorrow to meet with Kim Lee about the AIDS benefit. I can’t cancel. We’ve had this set up for weeks.”
“It’ll blow over, Rico,” I said. “You know how self-absorbed theatre people are. As soon as they get into rehearsal, they’ll forget it ever happened. Anyway, tomorrow, you’ll be Rico, not Ricki. They won’t even know you.”
We were almost home. Crossing the highway from the Old Rock Cut Road to our concession road was usually a nightmare, but it was nearly three at that point, and there was nothing coming either way. I gunned it and pulled into the strip mall where Rico’s antique store sat sandwiched between the hardware store and the Quick-Mart. He lived upstairs in an apartment cluttered with his favourite pieces, the ones he “simply couldn’t give up”, and the tools of his trade—sanders, cans of paint, varnish and polish, ledgers and reference books, and a fat old cat called Oscar. We could see Oscar sitting in the upstairs window, waiting. Rico had left a light burning, and the apartment looked cosy and inviting.
“You want to come in?” Rico asked. Usually, I would have, but I had chores to do at home in less than four hours, and my own pet, Lug-nut, would be waiting for me, too.
“Not this time, thanks. I need to grab a couple of hours’ sleep before rehearsal tomorrow. You want a lift in for your meeting with Kim?”
“Thanks. I’ll be ready. I’ll dress butch. Maybe Pacey won’t recognize me.”
“He’ll have forgotten the whole thing, guaranteed,” I said. One could only hope.
I don’t even remember driving the last two kilometres home. My nose throbbed and I was utterly bagged. I had to work with the cast the next day—well, the same day, really, and I wasn’t going to get much sleep. Still, I figured that everybody else would be in more or less the same shape.
I parked George’s truck next to the farm house and staggered up the trail to my cabin. Half-way up, Lug-nut met me on the path and gave me a hero’s welcome, jumping up and licking my face and wagging his butt-end as if he hadn’t seen me in years. Once home, I lit an oil-lamp (I don’t have hydro) and shucked my goat-costume (ruined forever by blood-stains and bad karma). Then I set the alarm for seven-thirty and flumped down on my futon. Just before I fell asleep, I reflected on why I love my dog so much: he was the only one who had made absolutely no comment about my damned broken nose.
Five
PRINCESS: Our castle’s built with bricks of gold / but one-by-one they’re being sold.
-The Glass Flute, Scene viii
Early mornings in Cedar Falls in the District of Kuskawa are always beautiful, even if it’s pouring rain, which it wasn’t. The air was soft, full of moisture, and there was a mist rising off the hayfield, mingling with the pale lavender of the sunrise. It was a little chilly, though, and my breath was visible as I shivered on the porch in my long underwear and mukluks while Luggy had his morning whizz. Over at the far end of the field, a small herd of creatures was grazing. It surprised me to see them. George couldn’t possibly have milked the goats already and let them out, could he? Then I noticed the rack of antlers on the largest one. Deer are very like