Meg looked at the clock on her dashboard again and did the math in her head. She had half an hour to get home, shower, do something with her hair, and drive Shane to the hockey banquet.
It just wasn’t going to happen.
The traffic she was sitting in was so stuck people had started turning off their engines. She hadn’t got to that point yet. She refused. It was admitting defeat and letting the world win. Life was already too grey without encouraging the universe to dump on you. So she kept her engine running.
A few minutes ago, two ambulances had gone by on the shoulder. She’d listened to the radio report. Serious accident. Several cars involved. She felt guilty for being frustrated. Then she felt annoyed at feeling guilty.
Maybe if she skipped the shower? That would save some time. She looked in the mirror at her hair and grimaced. If only hats would come back. In the next half an hour.
OK.
It was time to start problem solving. Shane would just die if he had to miss this banquet. He was up for an award and it would kill him to not be there. He’d even got her to buy him a tie, for crying out loud. So she was going to get him there, one way or another.
She fished her phone out of her purse, flipped it open and called home.
He answered on the first ring and asked, “Where are you?”
She explained and heard him groan. “No way, Mom! No way are you stuck in traffic today! How am I going to get to the banquet?”
“Don’t panic. We’ll solve this. What about a taxi?”
“Is there any money here anywhere?”
“No.” Another groan.
She said, “Call one of your friends who’s going tonight.”
“I don’t have phone numbers. Just e-mail and they’re probably all getting ready. They won’t be sitting at their computers.”
“What about Coach? We have his number somewhere.”
“Perfect! Hang on!” She heard the phone hit the table hard and footsteps. Then a minute later, Shane read the number to her.
“OK, I’ll call him and explain and ask him to arrange something. Don’t panic. I’ll call you back when I know something.”
Sigh. “OK. I’ll just sit here and not panic. Sounds like a plan.”
“I’m sorry Shane, I didn’t plan this and I couldn’t anticipate it, could I?”
“No. I know. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“You could just call Dad, y’know.”
“I’m not that desperate. Let me hang up and try some things.”
“K. Bye.”
Call Dad. Yeah. Right.
She called Coach’s number and got a machine. There was no point in leaving a message. He’d probably gone already.
There was no answer at her Mom’s. She was still at Aunt Abby’s.
Joyce was next. What are sisters for, after all? Joyce’s machine picked up, too, but Meg thought she might be home anyway. She hadn’t answered the phone herself for weeks, since she’d broken her jaw in a bike accident. It’d be wired shut for another couple of weeks, at least. Meg left a message and hoped Joyce would call back.
Who else was there? All the numbers in her phone were work people, or people she’d lost touch with since the divorce. She started deleting a few but it was too depressing. So she stopped. It’d be easier to get a new phone.
She swore and punched the steering wheel. This was starting to get to her. She thought how nice it would be to have an excuse to give somebody the finger, but road rage wasn’t a viable option right now.
She threw down the phone on the seat beside her, laid her head back against the head rest, took a deep breath and thought about relaxing.
She could do this. She could figure it out. It was just a matter of clear thinking and a calm spirit.
She began to recite the credo that her counsellor had taught her. “I am strong and I have within myself all I need to accomplish my goals. (deep cleansing breath) I am strong and I have within myself all I need to accomplish my goals. (deep cleansing breath) I am strong and I have within myself all I need to punch a hole in the roof of this damn car, spread it wide enough to climb through, stand on the roof and fly away. (bloody deep cleansing breath!)”
What good was it to try to convince yourself of something that’s not true?
She grabbed the phone and tried Joyce again. Machine.
Mom. No answer.
Coach. Machine.
Pathetic.
How had she become this person? She didn’t want to be this person. 37 years old, self deluded and essentially friendless.
Too busy being strong enough to need anybody. Especially not him. Tony. “Just call Dad.” Great idea, except they hadn’t spoken in – was it 3 years now? Or two? – and she wasn’t going to be the one to break radio silence. No way.
Not that he was a villain or anything, he’d never been mean. He’d just been… Tony. And she’d got to the point where she’d had enough of… that and she’d left.
And she’d done really well on her own. There were some definite advantages to being single, even being a single parent. It had been fine because she’d been strong. People had kept saying “if there’s anything I can do, anything you need…” She’d said thanks, she’d let them know and after a while they’d stopped offering.
She’d never regretted it. Hardly ever. Once in a while, when she was tired, it would have been nice to just let somebody else be the strong one. To have someone to lean on. It would be a relief. Like now. Sitting in traffic, smelling cars and impatience, under low grey clouds that sat there, like the cars. Like the whole world. Just sitting there.
And she remembered something. A day like this – how long ago? Wow, 20 years? She’d been a student living in Toronto, working part time. Work was boring and graduation was still a year away. She’d had to take the bus everywhere. She hated taking the bus. They never seemed quite clean.
She’d been on her way home. It was evening on a grey, grey, hot, humid day like this one. Everything seemed faded and damp and grubby. Everybody seemed faded and damp and grubby.
She’d climbed on the bus and got a seat near the middle, squeezed into one of those ones that face sideways, so everytime the bus started or stopped you’d get jostled sideways into the person next to you which was uncomfortable for so many reasons. And busses are such a ‘personal space’ nightmare to begin with. No wonder everybody stared up at the ads, unless there was someone standing in front of you, in which case you looked at the floor with such exaggerated downness, so the person standing there didn’t misunderstand.
Nobody spoke. The smart ones wore headphones to discourage anyone who didn’t understand the rules. But that was accomplished mostly by body language. Shoulders slightly hunched, face turned down, both feet planted on the ground, hands in lap.
And the bus smelled like a bus. Like exhaust and hot aluminum and vinyl that had been sat on for too long. Like feet and clothing and sweat and breath. Like something you didn’t try too hard to identify, because if you did then you’d have to wonder where it was coming from. The overall sensation was one that left you wanting to go home and wash out your sinuses.
Just a whole lot of people who wished all the others would go away and so many cubic feet of air that would rather be somewhere else.
Out of the corner of her eye, Meg noticed a woman starting to dig in the bag on her lap. High drama it was not, but there was nothing else to do, so Meg watched as the woman pulled out an orange.
What happened next, she was never able to quite describe. As the woman’s fingernails tore into the peel, the world changed colour.
Fresh orange peel has a smell – a sharp, clean, knife blade of a smell. An alive, bright, kick-ass smell that penetrates and gets behind your eyes and into your brain. And that smell filled – exploded through – the bus and transformed that poor old air and caught every tired grey person breathing it by surprise.
Meg smiled remembering the tennis match effect of so many heads turning in unison to watch the woman’s fingers, brown fingers against the bright orange peel making such magic, to bring a dead day back to life.
That smell.
Meg had taken a deep breath and realized that the orange in that woman’s hands had somehow wakened a bit of her that had fallen asleep. She thought it might be joy.
The memory nearly made her cry. Why remember that now? Where on earth had it come from? She felt like somebody was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t figure out who or what. A message that needed decoding.
But it softened something in her that she hadn’t realized was hard.
Meg turned off the engine and the silence was actually kind of nice. She sat for a while listening to the message she didn’t quite understand.
Then she took the phone and tried Joyce one more time. Nothing.
Mom. Nothing.
Coach. Nothing.
She scrolled down the list of numbers, looking for one in particular, almost hoping she’d lost it. But it was still there.
She ran her fingers through her hair and down the back of her neck, said “OK God, help.” And hit “dial”.
He answered.
She said, “Hi, Tony. It’s Meg. Shane... - I need your help.”