Dialogue

We haven’t spoken in a while. Now, I get a text from her.

I got a new job!

Mazel tov! I respond. And I just finished the probationary period at my new job. Now if they wanna fire me, they’re stuck with me for two extra weeks!

Hooray! So, when do we celebrate?

A week later we’ve agreed to meet up in her area. There’s a sushi place near her house she wants to take me to. I text her when I get to her street.

Should I meet you at your place, or…?

My place! Immediately after she texts, No, head to the restaurant! Immediately after that she decides, No, stay there!

Ha, okay, I’ll wait here.

I’m almost at Bloor. Do you see me? I look up from my phone to see her down the block. She reaches me and throws her arms around me. We kiss.

“Hi!” she squeaks in a small, cute voice, beaming at me. “It’s just down this way. Follow me!”

We get there and place our orders. Under our coats we’re both still dressed up from work.

“So,” I start to ask, “how’s the new job?”

“It’s fine. I sit at a desk and wait for a bunch of lawyers to finish up in their separate meeting rooms.”

“Hey, we’ve had worse jobs. How’d you find this one?”

“Through my stepmom.” She shrugs before I can even ask how she feels about that. “It’s okay, I mean, I can pay my rent and what I owe on my credit cards. What about your work?”

“Eh, it’s alright. It’s not what I studied — like, I actually avoided stuff like this in school. They mostly just hired me for this government program that gives them a tax rebate for hiring a recent grad. But, I am definitely not complaining.”

“Well, here’s to being gainfully employed!” We don’t have anything to drink yet. Instead of raising a glass she raises her chin and smiles.

We catch up some more. Our food arrives.

“You have to try the butterfish,” she insists, pointing to a piece of nigiri sushi with her chopsticks.

“I’ll pass. The texture puts me off.”

“Oh, no, you’ve got to try it. Flip it upside-down and put it on your tongue, fish-first. It melts — literally.”

“I’ll try…” I awkwardly flip the piece of sushi with my chopsticks. The rice separates when I dip it in soy sauce. After a bit of a struggle, I manage to get it in my mouth. “Hm. Mm. Oh… Okay, holy shit,” I exclaim as I chew, “you weren’t kidding.”

“It’s good, right?”

“It’s amazing. You were right!”

“Any plans for after this?” I ask her. We’re done our meals and are waiting for our cheques.

“Nope. You?”

“Nope.” We grin at each other. She gets a text, though, and moves to answer it. “In the Arms of An Angel” begins to play over the speakers in the restaurant and she frowns. I find it amusing. I wait patiently for her to finish typing.

“Shit,” she finally says, putting her phone down.

“What happened?”

“That was my cousin. I have to go hang out with him.” She looks defeated. “I’ve turned him down too many times before, and now I have to go to this play with him.”

“Oh. I honestly thought you were upset because you hate Sarah McLachlan.”

“What?”

“Her song was playing and you looked really annoyed… Er, nevermind.” I’m frowning now, too. The waitress shows up with a single bill.

“Wait, no, these should be separate,” she protests.

“No, that’s fine, let me pay.”

“Really? But I can pay for myself, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Nope, I’ll do it. You only just got a job.” I’m already pulling out my wallet. “You can get the next one.” She assents happily.

I pay and we get up to leave. As we put on our coats the waitress asks, are we on a first date? The two ladies at the table behind her turn to face us, cheerfully eager to find out, too. I imagine this is what it feels like to be in a Woody Allen film.

“Uh, no, actually,” I reply, meekly looking between the two ladies and the waitress. “It’s kind of far from our first date.” They all nod approvingly.

We wish everyone a goodnight and leave the restaurant. Slowly, we make our way back along Bloor.

“Are you doing anything tomorrow?” I ask her.

“No, I don’t have any plans.” She gives a dissatisfied groan. “I wanted to spend tonight with you!” I chuckle.

“Same, but, that’s fine; we’ll meet up tomorrow.” We get to her street. “Are you headed to the station?”

“I have to go home first.”

“I can walk you to your place, then.”

“No, you should just go.”

“Well, alright.” She looks at me pleadingly, not moving to leave. We kiss for much longer than a kiss goodbye should last. I laugh into her shoulder a little.

“Seriously, you live a minute that way. I might as well just walk you to your door.”

“No, no, that’s fine.” She kisses me again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She’s too hungover from her night out with her cousin to see me the next day. We reschedule for the next week, after a brunch date she has planned with her dad. I text her on the day of to ask when we should meet up but she doesn’t respond. Two hours afterwards I get frantic texts from her.

Brunch was a trap. I’m sorry I missed our date today, but my dad lied to me.

That’s okay, I text back. What happened?

My dad beat the shit out of a guy in a washroom last month and he needs me to be a character witness at the trial.

Fuck, is all I can think of for a response.

She calls me later. It turns out she’s at the lawyer’s office. She’s on a break right now from some kind of defence-building meeting.

“He was at a restaurant with my stepmom,” she describes, “when one of her exes showed up and said something. It was a joke, or a comment — I don’t know, it was something small that didn’t really mean anything. But, my dad followed him to the washroom anyways, locked the door, and beat the guy to a pulp.” She explains that her dad snuck out of the restaurant and went straight home. When her stepbrothers saw the state he was in, with his bloody clothes and bruised knuckles, they weren’t concerned. They lauded him.

“Christ. Why would your dad do any of that?”

“I don’t know. He’s an angry man. And he deserves to go to jail.” She scoffs. “I want to do what I did in Halifax all over again and watch him try to tell me I’m the bad person.”

“Hey, listen; it’s fine. It’s going to be okay.” I don’t know what “it” is in this case.

“Yeah,” she grumbles. “Let me call you back, I’m getting another call.”

We hang up. A minute later she texts me.

That was my stepmom. She says I have to get back to the lawyer’s, that they’re paying for this time. Like I fucking care.

That’s alright, I tell her. You can call me after. You can call me any time, really. I’m here for you. Okay?

Okay, she responds.

But, somehow, I already know that she’s about to disappear into radio silence again. Even if we were dating, and not just intermittently intimate without a title, there’s nothing I could do. She’s gone.

The next time I hear from her, it’ll be many months from now.

Way It Was is a writing project and ongoing attempt to work through a lot of relationship related shit. Find out more about it here.