Sweet Affliction by Anna Leventhal Page B

the beginning Marcus only ever said no. And he never thought to ask her the question. One evening Abby picked up her shoulder bag and told him she was going to an art opening at a studio in the East End.
    â€œBut you hate vernissages,” Marcus said.
    â€œIt’s an old friend,” she said, and Marcus pictured one of Abby’s art school companions, a feather-haired girl in a Laura Ashley dress, or the one with the multicoloured dreadlocks. Marcus had always felt like this girl may have wanted to sleep with him, but her show of public and exuberant lesbianism kept getting in the way.
    â€œAre you going right now?” he said. “I can be ready in ten.”
    â€œWell, I don’t know,” Abby said. “Helga Volga might be there.”
    â€œOh.” Marcus instantly revised the image of the old friend. A gangly tattooed boy with a thatch of mink-black hair. A sculptor with strong calloused hands. Someone in a band.
    â€œOh, well, okay, then have a good time, I guess.”
    â€œThanks!” Abby seemed not to pick up on the anxiety in his voice, taking his wishes at their best. Which is how he meant them, he really did.
    When the door had closed, Marcus stood in front of the record shelf for a long time. Finally he pulled out Leonard Cohen’s
Songs from a Room
. He put it on.
    After that,
yes
became a possibility. And from a possibility, a certainty.
    The cat, who was once very fat, is now very thin, so when she sits on her haunches her flesh hangs down over her feet, as though she’s wearing a ball gown. When she’s hungry she hovers by Abby’s legs and makes a series of high-toned upbeat enquiries. These Abby answers by getting up off the floor where she’s been lying next to Angela and going to the kitchen, while the cat trots along, almost tripping Abby in her excitement. Sometimes when the cat’s cries become too much for her, Abby will shut her in the bathroom, where the cool tile and plant life calms her. Once Abby retrieved the cat to find she had defecated in the bathtub, directly into the drain, like target practice.
    Abby’s learned to tell when Marcus is setting out on a crush. It starts with a discussion of some random information, some factoid that Marcus would otherwise find silly or irrelevant.
    â€œHave you heard of synesthesia?”
    â€œYeah,” Abby will say.
    â€œIt’s this condition where your senses are crossed and you can, like, hear colours and see smells.”
    â€œI know. There was a special about it on the CBC. We listened to it together.”
    â€œAlice has synesthesia.”
    â€œReally.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œShe told me that when she hears ‘
Wednesday’
, she sees green.”
    â€œThat doesn’t count.”
    â€œShe said she thinks of lemonade as pointy.”
    â€œIf that counted then everyone in the world has synesthesia.”
    â€œI find it super interesting,” he’ll say.
    The next thing he’ll find super interesting will be her eyes, and her opinions on contemporary music and art, and her legs, and eventually her bed. And for a little while Abby will have nights to herself, to sketch and read and sit in her armchair, listening.
    â€œWho do you think knows more about women,” she asked Marcus once, “someone who’s dated a lot of them or someone who is one?” It was a serious question. But now she sees that knowledge comes neither from first-hand experience nor rigorous study. Both of these things make knowledge more likely, the way going out into a storm makes getting hit by lightning more likely than staying home and watching TV. But neither guarantees it.
    Abby’s hair aches. She reaches up and pulls her ponytail out of its elastic, massaging her scalp with her hands. It’s so easy, she thinks. It’s so easy to tell ourselves that what we do is normal, that there is order and logic to everything. She