emails to every other single woman I knew seeing if she wanted to go to a movie Saturday night. Friday, I would usually just go to a mall, buy the girls too many Christmas presents or spend a long time in the bookstore browsing the self-help section, skimming through titles about infidelity and mid-life crisis. Sometimes, Becky would manage to book off from family responsibilities and we would have the luxury of an evening out together in a restaurant. It felt odd to be alone on a Saturday night without our children, strange like the empty house, but—as long as I didn’t drink too much wine—less tear-jerkingly sad.
We tended to have long conversations in which Becky patiently allowed me to revisit old haunts again and again. “Al said we were never suited to each other. That we’re too different.”
“I thought he said you were too alike.”
“He’s said that too. He’s not entirely consistent.”
Becky pondered the question and then offered, “I don’t think you’re all that alike. Al is very likeable and—”
“And I’m not?”
She laughed.
“Of course you’re likeable, sweetie. I was just going to say that Al wants to make a good impression; I think he wants people to like him.”
“And I don’t care whether people like me?”
“Well, you don’t, Sharon. You are so wise and gentle with your characters but you can be really tough with real people. You’re rude sometimes.”
Becky wasn’t being cruel, just repeating our accepted wisdom; she was good cop, I was bad. Al charmed people; I got my hands dirty. I was rather proud of my status as the tough one in the crowd, the person who could be counted on to complain if service was slow or fire the neighbourhood teenager who was supposed to shovel the snow but missed the big storm.
“Al got himself in a bind this time. Any way he moved he was going to piss somebody off.”
“Yeah. Backed into a corner. He couldn’t please both you and…what’s her name again?”
“I don’t believe I remember her name.”
Becky laughed again.
“Underneath his charm, there’s a certain superiority…” she said, pensively.
“Oh yes.”
“So, underneath that there must be need. People who bother to be charming do it for a reason.”
Was it need? He certainly made himself interesting. He first seduced me with stories of the Iranian revolution, romantic and frightening tales that made him seem so heroic. Even though he was only a boy at the time, even though he isn’t Muslim and his family eventually fled Iran, he described Tehran in those years as a tantalizing place, full of both promise and danger. By day, the city throbbed with heat, anger and displays of the Shah’s military might, but by night the cool air was alive with forbidden cries of “Allahu Akbar.” In his push to create a modern society, the Shah had outlawed Islam, even forbidden the veil. His secret police were everywhere, but nobody could find let alone stop the people who cried their protests from the rooftops. I guess that story didn’t turn out so well in the end, but Al just seemed to regret that pulsating moment of hope and fear, and it all sounded fabulously exotic compared to sneaking cigarettes in the girls’ washroom at Halifax West High School. Al wanted my attention and he got it.
At some point in these conversations, I would usually remember my manners and ask after Becky. On one occasion she said she’d had a bad week; she had a paper to prepare for a conference and two of her boys got head lice, first one, then the other, so she had kids sent home from school two days running. She had spent two nights in a row washing and combing so she could send them back the next morning.
“They are so bloody hard to see. You’d think a doctor would be good at it, but David was no help at all, and he says the treatments often don’t work. If we haven’t got rid of them by the weekend, we’ll just have to give the two of them buzz cuts.”
“At least with boys you
We tended to have long conversations in which Becky patiently allowed me to revisit old haunts again and again. “Al said we were never suited to each other. That we’re too different.”
“I thought he said you were too alike.”
“He’s said that too. He’s not entirely consistent.”
Becky pondered the question and then offered, “I don’t think you’re all that alike. Al is very likeable and—”
“And I’m not?”
She laughed.
“Of course you’re likeable, sweetie. I was just going to say that Al wants to make a good impression; I think he wants people to like him.”
“And I don’t care whether people like me?”
“Well, you don’t, Sharon. You are so wise and gentle with your characters but you can be really tough with real people. You’re rude sometimes.”
Becky wasn’t being cruel, just repeating our accepted wisdom; she was good cop, I was bad. Al charmed people; I got my hands dirty. I was rather proud of my status as the tough one in the crowd, the person who could be counted on to complain if service was slow or fire the neighbourhood teenager who was supposed to shovel the snow but missed the big storm.
“Al got himself in a bind this time. Any way he moved he was going to piss somebody off.”
“Yeah. Backed into a corner. He couldn’t please both you and…what’s her name again?”
“I don’t believe I remember her name.”
Becky laughed again.
“Underneath his charm, there’s a certain superiority…” she said, pensively.
“Oh yes.”
“So, underneath that there must be need. People who bother to be charming do it for a reason.”
Was it need? He certainly made himself interesting. He first seduced me with stories of the Iranian revolution, romantic and frightening tales that made him seem so heroic. Even though he was only a boy at the time, even though he isn’t Muslim and his family eventually fled Iran, he described Tehran in those years as a tantalizing place, full of both promise and danger. By day, the city throbbed with heat, anger and displays of the Shah’s military might, but by night the cool air was alive with forbidden cries of “Allahu Akbar.” In his push to create a modern society, the Shah had outlawed Islam, even forbidden the veil. His secret police were everywhere, but nobody could find let alone stop the people who cried their protests from the rooftops. I guess that story didn’t turn out so well in the end, but Al just seemed to regret that pulsating moment of hope and fear, and it all sounded fabulously exotic compared to sneaking cigarettes in the girls’ washroom at Halifax West High School. Al wanted my attention and he got it.
At some point in these conversations, I would usually remember my manners and ask after Becky. On one occasion she said she’d had a bad week; she had a paper to prepare for a conference and two of her boys got head lice, first one, then the other, so she had kids sent home from school two days running. She had spent two nights in a row washing and combing so she could send them back the next morning.
“They are so bloody hard to see. You’d think a doctor would be good at it, but David was no help at all, and he says the treatments often don’t work. If we haven’t got rid of them by the weekend, we’ll just have to give the two of them buzz cuts.”
“At least with boys you
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