The Selected Short Fiction of Lisa Moore by Jane Urquhart, Lisa Moore Page B

drawn with sonar radar of a three-dimensional palace. I thought of Gordon Austin and his haiku books, of Philip’s daughter playing in the snow of another continent. Sarah and I trampled the snow but the columns still looked clean, the shadow edges hard.
    I imagine a map of the city with plastic inlays of Sherry’s sales, family migration patterns from one neighbourhood toanother. Each move changing lives irrevocably. Sherry is responsible for it. You sell a house to a customer and five years later they’ll be back to you for another. There are only three things to think about in selling real estate. Location, Location, Location.
    In India several years ago I was on a tour of a city palace. A guide separated me from the crowd, ushered me into a stone tower. Before I knew what was happening he had bolted the door and the windows. No light leaked in. The darkness seemed to affect my inner ear and I swayed. Before I could scream he struck a match. There were thousands of convex mirrors imbedded in the walls. The guide, myself and the flame — reflected, wobbling. The guide said, The bridal chambers, night of a thousand stars. Our image splintered infinitely. Smashed but contained whole in each of the convex mirrors.

MELODY
– I –
    M elody lets the first half dozen cars go by; she says she has a bad feeling about them.
    The trip will take as long as it takes, she says. There are no more cars for an hour. She pulls her cigarettes out of her jean jacket and some matches from the El Dorado. We had been dancing there last night until the owner snapped on the lights. The band immediately aged; they could have been our parents. They wore acid-washed jeans and T-shirts that said ARMS ARE FOR HUGGING, VIVA LA SANDINISTA, and FEMINIST? YOU BET!!!
    Outside the El Dorado two mangy Camaros, souped up for the weekend Smash Up Derby, revved their engines and tore out of the parking lot. I watched their tail lights swerve and bounce in the dark. They dragged near the mall and sparks lit the snagged fenders. A soprano yelp of rubber and then nearsilence. I could smell the ocean far beyond the army barracks. The revolving Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket still glowing in the pre-dawn light. Waves shushing the pebble beach; Brian Fiander falling in beside me. He had been downing B52s. He was lanky and discombobulated until his big hand clasped my shoulder and his too long limbs snapped into place like the poles of a pup tent.

    The clock radio in my dorm room came on in the early afternoon and I listened to the announcer slogging through the temperatures across the island. Twenty-nine degrees. Mortification and the peppery sting of a fresh crush. I’d let Brian Fiander hold my wrists over my head against the brick wall of the dorm while he kissed me; his hips thrusting with a lost, intent zeal, the dawn sky as pale and grainy as sugar. Brian Fiander knew what he was doing. The recognition of his expertise made my body ting and smoulder. My waking thought: I have been celebrated.
    I felt logy and grateful. Also sophisticated. I’d had an orgasm, though I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know
that’s
what that was. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d said the word out loud, though I’d read about it. I believed myself to be knowledgeable on the subject. I’d closed my eyes while Brian touched me and what I’d felt was like falling asleep, except in the opposite direction and at alarming speed: falling awake. Wildly alert. Falling into myself.
    I made my way down the corridor to the showers, the stink of warming Spaghetti-Os wafting from the kitchenette. Wavy Fagan passed me in her cotton candy slippers and she smirked. I had a crowbar grin; his hand on my breast, slow, sly circles. Wavy smirked and I knew:
Oh that’s what that was
.
    The showers were full of fruity mist. Brenda Parsons brushing her teeth. Her glasses steamed. She turned toward me blindly, mouth