The Film Club by David Gilmour Page B

weightlifting, dink size, French actors, and e.e. cummings. Such a time! I may have been waiting for a job but I wasn’t waiting for life. It was there, right beside me in the wicker chair. I knew it was marvellous while it was happening —even though I understood, sort of, that a white ribbon awaited us down the road.
    These days, when I return to Maggie’s house as a dinner guest, I pause rather tenderly on the porch. I know that Jesse and I will come out here later in the evening with a cup of coffee but it won’t be quite the same as it was back then in the film club. Curiously enough, the rest of her house, the kitchen, the bedroom, the living room and bathroom, bear no trace of me. I feel no resonance, no echo of my time there. Only the porch.
    But where was I? Oh yes, Rebecca’s visit that fine spring afternoon.
    She stepped lightly up the steps; Jesse remained seated. There was an exchange between them; she stood with her hands in her jacket pockets, the expression on her face like that of a stewardess who thinks she has just heard something unpleasant but isn’t positive she got it right. A polite but cautious smile. Something unusual going on. In the far distance you could see one of the construction workers, frozen, holding on to the side of a ladder, looking this way.
    I heard the door open and they came inside. “Hello, David,” Rebecca said. Breezy, in charge. Or at least she wanted to be perceived that way. “How are you feeling today?” she said. It caught me again by surprise.
    â€œHow am I feeling? Well, let’s see now. Fine, I think. How’s school?”
    â€œWe’re on a little break now so I’m working at the Gap.”
    â€œYou’re going to end up running the world, Rebecca.”
    â€œI just like having my own money,” she said. (Was that a shot?) Jesse waited behind her.
    â€œNice to see you again, Rebecca.”
    â€œAnd you too, David,” she said. Never Mr. Gilmour.
    Down they went.
    I went up to the second floor. Turned on the computer and looked for the third time that day for messages. Maggie was the last person on earth to still use a dial-up Internet phone connection so there was always a wait and buzzing and whining and shrieking before the screen came up.
    I read the morning paper on-line. I looked out the back window and saw our neighbour Eleanor poking about in her back garden with a hoe. Getting ready for a new planting season. Her cherry tree had shot into blossom. After a while I went to the top of the stairs. From the basement I could hear the murmur of conversation. Rebecca’s voice, animated; then his, strangely deadpan, too even, as if he was trying to talk from his chest. Talking from an attitude.
    Then silence followed by footsteps on the floor below, two pairs of feet. No words exchanged. The front door opened and closed, carefully, as if someone didn’t want to disturb me. By the time I got downstairs I saw Jesse. He was leaning forward, grim-faced. In the distance I spotted a small figure, Rebecca, retreating at the far end of the parking lot. The boys on the construction crew, heads turned in her direction.
    I sat down with a creak in the chair. For a moment we just sat there. Then I said, “What’s up?”
    Jesse turned toward me, holding his hand in a way that obscured his eyes. I wondered if he’d been crying. “We just broke up.”
    This was what I’d been afraid of. A new guy with a car and a swanky apartment, a stockbroker, a young lawyer. A more appropriate audience for Rebecca’s professional aspirations.
    â€œWhat did she say?” I said.
    â€œShe said she was going to die without me.”
    For an instant I thought I had misunderstood him. “She said what?”
    He repeated it.
    â€œYou dumped Rebecca?”
    He nodded.
    â€œWhatever for?”
    â€œShe came over to talk about our relationship one time too many, I guess.”
    I took a