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  “What do you study?” he asked her. She was picking up her smelt fritters, lingering as she did now at the counter while her friends shot the breeze and blew smoke rings in the front window.

  “I’ve told you,” she scolded. “Design. I want to be a designer. I will be a designer.”

  But one needed to pay the bills, and so there was Canadian Tire, where, in six years of part-time employment, she had reached the rank of floor supervisor. He succeeded in not laughing the first time she told him. With her white spiky hair, Benny in a Canadian Tire uniform was a dissonant mental picture. Still, he was impressed by the evidence of practicality. Her diligence in paying her own way. What had he been doing in his early twenties? Getting drunk at Decoder gigs. Fighting with Olli and Wes about the album that never got made. Completely at odds with the idea of a game plan. Even now, Canadian Tire was what? An unused credit card. An untapped source of cash. An emblem of his irresponsibility or his bad business sense. Of deepening trouble.

  The mail was not improving but it was that time of the month. He was shuffling through a stack of envelopes. Mid-morning, a Tuesday. Benny hadn’t been in because she was working, but her crew had gone, and Jules had arrived in front of her own personal ridge of high pressure. Clouds were scattering. There were a number of thick statements in the pile, the envelopes reassuringly hefty. When they closed your account, Jeremy imagined, you received only a slim letter.

  He set aside the statements to consider later. At the bottom of the stack there was a Postal Announcement Card. He checked the optional boxes across the top of the card for clues as to what was waiting for him. It was not a parcel but registered mail. Not good.

  They had a medium lunch service, enough to be encouraging. When it was finished, Jeremy borrowed Jules’s old Impala station wagon to run some errands. In truth, a single errand, but he kept it to himself.

  In the main branch of the post office, the ceilings of the central hall were so high that a single trapped bird could not be captured. They had tried food, drugged bait, nets and finally BB guns, at which point The Vancouver Sun did a soft feature. There was a minor public outcry, the result being that you could now, if you were very lucky, get shat on by a starling while standing in the interminable line.

  Jeremy retrieved his letter and walked to the marble side counter. He was already muttering the words: “Damn, damn, damn, damn.” It was a very slim envelope.

  One sheet only. He spread it flat on the countertop, and read: “We regret to inform you that your account with Royal Bank Visa has been closed and that all borrowing privileges …”

  Jeremy took a deep breath and let his eye skip down the page.

  “… $5,243.50, including interest. Payable immediately.”

  He let the breath out, his eyes unfocused, staring through the page, through the countertop, as he processed this news. Very bad news for a kite, he knew. You could not simply remove fifty-three hundred dollars from the soaring, madly circling stream of payments without threatening to crash the whole unstable contraption. Nothing from Peter meant nothing for Paul. The money, or at least some portion of it, would have to be replaced.

  Jeremy let his head roll back until he was staring directly at the ceiling. Above him he saw the starling, sitting on the corner of a bank of neon lights. The bird was looking at him, head cocked over as the Professor liked to do.

  He checked the time. They were rocking towards dinner now, in the ascending part of the long crest. Jules had the dinner prep list. It wasn’t entirely fair to leave it all to her, but by the time he got back, in a couple hours with any luck, there would be a crowd of bike couriers drinking after-work beers (hopefully a lot of beers). The CD player would be going up a notch in volume every half-hour, shuffling between Piazzolla and Hüsker Dü, Gavin Bryars, Carlisle Floyd. Sawing from world to metal to experimental to American opera, giving the place an off-kilter cultural shuffle they were cultivating to go with the rooted, local menu.

  He pulled out his wallet and inspected his cards. Fifty-three hundred dollars. From where? Amex might work for a thousand or two in an automated teller machine; he had never tried it before. But he pulled himself up short before considering the idea any further. Credit cards were common, vulgar he sometimes thought, but Amex still held a certain undeniable caché. Dante had arranged it, for one. And out of respect, Jeremy did not use the card, ever, except to facilitate the awkward moments brought on as he strained the limits of other cards.

  “The Visa card has been declined, sir.” He had heard these words on more than one occasion.

  Jeremy might protest politely here, then offer the gold card.

  “I’m afraid we don’t take American Express.” Pause. And then more often than not the clerk would mutter, “Oh, forget it. We’ve been having trouble with the lines. Just sign here.”

  But even if Dante were not considered, Amex had to be revered because Amex had no limits and no credit terms. Jeremy thought of it as the Great Satan of credit cards. You could buy a yacht on the third, but if you hadn’t paid by the thirtieth Amex would most certainly, most utterly seriously, come hunting through the world for only you. Sifting through the stones of every city in every nation.

  Amex was out of the question, which left only a couple of options. Household Finance Corporation. Canadian Tire.

  He withdrew the card and thumbed the edge. He thought of Benny, but also of the sprinklers and the lawn furniture he did not need. The cash that he did. He disliked what the situation demanded of him. Creativity, sure, but also guile. And he disliked even more the revelation of this creativity and guile within him. But what other option was there? The Monkey’s Paw had to be worth the effort. The card had a pre-authorized $2,500 limit, enough to buy time, certainly. It was offering its assistance.

  He put the red and white card in his front shirt pocket.

  At the store on Burrard Street he leafed through the catalogue, looking for a single expensive item that could be transported without too much difficulty.

  “Marine batteries?” He asked a clerk finally. “I need a dozen.”

  Black, plastic-cased behemoths with steel cable handles, marine batteries weighed eighty pounds a piece but were also, crucially, $175 each. A dozen with appropriate taxes came in under $2,500, he calculated by hand on the white margin of the catalogue.

  “You must have a fleet,” the guy laughed, as they humped the batteries from the shelf onto a flat-bed dolly.

  At the counter, the look on the young woman’s face suggested that she didn’t care if he was buying twelve barrels of ten-penny nails for the purposes of shrapnel-bombing the provincial legislature. “That’s $2,394.63 with tax,” she said. Bored.

  He made it under the limit and, heart pounding, flourished the card from his breast pocket like he’d been popping in and out all afternoon buying pulleys and 10W40. Pliers. Sets of goggles. Whatever it was ordinary Canadian Tire customers bought on a Friday afternoon.

  She swiped the card. Ran its hard edge through the magnetic slot, and Jeremy thought: That’s it. My relationship with Canadian Tire has changed. We’re sleeping together. Now everything will be subtly different: the way we speak on the phone, our letters and our conversations. He signed the slip, took his receipt and left.

  Second stop, Canadian Tire again. Not the same store, naturally, but a different location, where he would return the batteries and try for a cash refund. This ruse involved convincing the clerk that the purchase had also been cash, which made the whole operation highly time-sensitive. By the next business day, even a couple hours later, the purchase would show on the card. And so Jeremy was speeding, driving far across town to the Canadian Tire where Benny worked. Her location seemed the logical choice. He wasn’t expecting any help from her—in fact, he was hoping very much he wouldn’t see her at all—but if it absolutely did not work, if the clerk refused to bite and called in the floor supervisor, well then, at least Benny might understand that it wasn’t stealing.

  “What was wrong w
ith them?” It was the first question the kid asked him. They had already unloaded the batteries and trucked them back into the store.

  “Voltage.” Jeremy winced internally. The full extent of his knowledge about batteries was that they were rated by voltage. The young cashier glanced at him and down to the receipt again.

  “I’ll ring it through in that case,” he said cheerfully. “The system will credit your card.”

  “I’m sorry, but I paid cash,” Jeremy lied, and looking up just as he said these words, he caught his own reflection in the shoplifting prevention mirrors and grew red with embarrassment.

  “Well, the receipt shows a charge to your account. Here’s the card number.” The cashier pointed to the top of Jeremy’s receipt.

  Jeremy pretended to think. “I presented the card for the discount,” he said finally. “I suppose the other cashier must have keyed in the number.”

  “Darn,” the cashier said. “I’m new.”

  Jeremy stared down intently at his own hands. “I’ll tell you what,” he said after a second or two. “Why don’t you phone and get the card balance? It should be zero. Since I didn’t use the card to buy them, the batteries won’t show.”

  Please don’t show, he thought.

  The cashier waffled, but finally picked up the phone. He looked greatly relieved when he hung up. “The card balance is zero,” he said.

  “All right,” Jeremy said, smiling broadly. “I told you.”

  “Now I just need a signature from a supervisor for the cash.”

  No go. Well, it had been worth a try. “Sure,” Jeremy said, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. “Call Benny. She’s working today, isn’t she?”

  The batteries were in the store. No crime had been committed, not that he knew of anyway. He waited, frozen at the till. She came right up next to them and put both her hands firmly on the counter. Patchouli and CK gently filled his nose. Benny looked at the cashier, then up to Jeremy with evident surprise.

  “Jay,” she said, smiling but confused, even reddening at seeing him in this setting. “What’s up?”

  The cashier tried to explain it all while Benny read over the receipt and while Jeremy stared at her profile and could not help but wish to be anywhere else on the planet but here. How sorry to be busted in this undertaking, by this slightly ramping nose. This perfect ear.

  They went to the manager’s office together. It was her calm suggestion, the redness of embarrassment or pleasure gone from her cheeks. “Marine batteries?” she asked when the door was closed behind them. Her voice was flat but her eyes fully animated and locked on his own. “Twenty-four hundred bucks? Come on.”

  It was Jeremy whose face was now burning, but he kept quiet. He didn’t have anything to add that would change her mind if it were made up already.

  “Do you scam the card company too?” she asked, growing curious. Trying to work it out.

  “Oh God, Benny. No, it’s not about that.”

  She looked at him very carefully while he explained to her what it was about. About a need for cash or, more accurately, a need for time. And he told her much more. He told her about The Monkey’s Paw, not just about its financial struggles but about what it stood for. The creativity. About the amount of himself that had been poured into it even before it was opened.

  She looked at him slowly throughout his explanation, her arms crossed under her breasts again, nodding slowly as it dawned on her what, under the circumstances, might be born of conspiracy. She felt a flutter of excitement she did not reveal. A sense of the connection that could be made, the links forged. She had set out to do it herself, she knew, although she could never have predicted how it would be realized. He had come to her.

  Jeremy finished his piece. She chose to scold first: “Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing badly. How much cash do you think is in those tills? Not three grand, I can tell you that. You really disappoint me.”

  He looked down at his boots.

  “I’ve worked here since I was seventeen,” she began again, her expression now very serious, although her heart was pounding. “Since I moved out. Six years. They trust me.”

  “I am sorry this thing happened,” he said. “I’m leaving now. Your batteries are back in the store. Nothing has been—”

  “This place has paid for everything I’ve done,” she went on, interrupting. “Travel, school.”

  He watched her numbly as she rifled through the desk, extracted a key and turned to unlock a heavy filing cabinet against the far wall. There was obviously a risk, she assessed, but manageable. Petty cash for a large refund was not inconceivable. She pulled an envelope out of the middle drawer, turned and put it on the desk between them.

  “Benny—” he said, meaning to go on and refuse this assistance. But she cut him off.

  “Unfortunately,” she said, putting one hand on her hip and holding the other out palm up, “unfortunately, as it happens—bad call on my part—Todd called in and found that the card balance was zero, and since I’d just come on shift and was busy with ten other things, I checked your driver’s licence to make sure the card was yours and gave you your cash back.”

  She blinked her eyes at him. Then she unwound the string binding on the flap of the envelope and counted out the cash. “Two thousand, three hundred, ninety-four,” she said when she was finished. “I owe you sixty-three cents.”

  “I don’t know,” Jeremy said, breathing a little raggedly. “I mean, fine, but—”

  “Take it,” Benny ordered, and he did.

  She walked him out.

  “Thank you,” Jeremy began, but he wasn’t entirely sure what she had done for him. The quality of the favour.

  “You know where I want to go,” she said, ignoring the fumbled thanks. They had reached the Impala, and Benny leaned comfortably against the front fender. “What I want to be.”

  “A designer,” Jeremy said. “And I know you’re going to be a good one.”

  “What I’m trying to say is,” Benny said, “I know what it’s like to have ambitions. To want something. To work hard for something.”

  Jeremy had to smile a little. “You have a twin who hangs out with a bunch of slackers in a little restaurant in Crosstown all afternoon.”

  Benny was making no apologies. “That alter ego might turn out to be a good investment.”

  Jeremy fingered the cash in his pocket. “What am I going to do with both of you?” he asked finally.

  To which Benny replied: “What are we going to do with you? is the question.”

  He put his hands up to his chest then spread them wide. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “You should be careful, I have a few.” And with these words, Benny got up off the fender and kissed him. A cheek kiss, a friend kiss really, but it had a certain forcefulness he wasn’t sure he recognized as friendly. It left a little damp mark, a smudge that he could still feel in the car. Driving uptown, across the Granville Bridge, Jeremy found himself smiling. Grinning uncontrollably.

  He stopped at a Royal Bank machine and counted out twenty-two hundred dollars cash onto the sill of the kiosk. He punched the keys slowly, doing what he had to do. The machine took the money without gratitude. He kept $194 for Xiang, who by now took only cash. He wasn’t ahead—Jeremy understood well—down half a Royal Bank Visa and up one whole Canadian Tire. But he was aloft. With these few small manipulations, the kite was again pulling tautly at the end of its lengthening tether.

  Onward to Crosstown. Dinner service was accelerating towards him as he plunged through downtown. Past the Inferno Granville with its smell of burnt coffee and its canned jazz.

  He found a parking spot right across the street and looked admiringly at his restaurant. There they were, his bike couriers. Sitting in the front window taking in the sun, which had just broken through and was streaming down, a golden wash of promise and fortune over The Monkey’s Paw Bistro.

  He walked in at full speed, into a room of good smells he could read like written wo
rds. There was a white fish stock. There were roast shallots. It was all coming together.

  “Hey, Jay,” one of the couriers said.

  “Dino,” he said, turning around walking backwards through the restaurant towards the kitchen door. “I have some cooking to do, sir, but you are having a round of beers on me. Zeena! For Dino, givin’ it away here.”

  The couriers were grateful. They cheered, something along the lines of: “Yay, beer! Beer is good. Uh-huuuuh.”

  And Jeremy was laughing at the moment his back hit the swinging door into the kitchen, the moment he collided with Zeena coming the other way with a tray of coffee mugs. The mugs hit the floor and shattered into about two hundred and thirty thousand pieces. Nobody was hurt, and it was lucky it happened on the other side of the pass-through, well away from the range top, or it would have been fish stock and roast shallot sauce from scratch.

  TWO

  DANTE BEALE

  Summer came. Cherry blossoms gave way to rich purple leaves. The sleeping bags multiplied in Victory Square. Crosstown smelled like pot and moved like a trance. Crowds spilled out of the Cannabis Café and Fabrek’s Falafels, and the streets were full of young travellers and rivulet-haired, round-faced women in hiphuggers. The neo-hippie. The zippie. The raver. The punk. Jeremy found there was boundless optimism to be absorbed from every passing nose-ringed face, every busy Hacky Sack-obstructed street corner.

  Plus, they were getting the foodies out. In the last week of June, they were slammed.

  Thursday, in particular, they got hammered. You couldn’t predict these things. There was a tremor out there, somewhere, in the substrata of the foodie psyche. Late in the afternoon, just as the summer light took its first dip towards the horizon and the end of the day came into sight. The shock waves rippled out, shaking through the molecules. A fine effervescence, a singe of electricity, spreading in great concentric circles, piling up energy in front of itself.

  The first small wave broke with a phone call, which rang at The Monkey’s Paw as Jeremy arrived after his afternoon break. Zeena answered it and winked hello at him. Four-top. Moments later, from the kitchen, he heard it ring again.