I sprawl myself across the width of her soft bed. I raise my legs up with the high heels still on. Damn, I look good. Damn, I feel good. Damn this entire life.
Liv’s side table contains both her sex toys and her nail polish collection, so it smells like a strange combination of rubber, bubble gum and acetone. I choose the reddest-of-red colour. I choose it because it’s a similar shade to the first red lipstick I stole, from Shoppers Drug Mart on my thirteenth birthday. It is red like newly bloomed poppies and red like blood from a fresh wound.
“I’m glad you chose this colour. It was my wife’s favourite . . . It is my wife’s favourite.” Liv has a problem with tenses too, which are dependent on how hopeful we are of reuniting with those we have lost. I slip the heels off and prop my feet atop Liv’s lap as she weaves a rolled-up tissue between my toes. She gathers her bleach-blond hair into a messy bun, exposing the dark brown at her roots, then begins painting. I love listening to stories about Erin, so I keep quiet, hoping she will tell me more. “When Erin got pregnant, she still wanted me to paint her toenails, even though she could barely see her own feet by the end of her third trimester. I loved doing it, though. She’d fall asleep every time.”
Each nail looks like a race car when she is done, shiny and perfect. We both admire her work for a moment. Liv looks at the blood red of my nails and she begins to shake. When she kneels next to the bed, I can tell her head is heavy with thinking, so I reach my hand out to hers and hold it tight. That’s when she speaks truth. “It’s time to run again.”
My heart sinks. My skin is suddenly cold against this silk robe. This fake silk kimono. There is a sour smell to the sweat of my armpits against this fabric. Every pore on my body touches the kimono in pins and needles. It’s time to run.
Arranging for Liv to not only cross paths with Charles Greene, but also to engage with him meaningfully took a substantial amount of planning and patience. The Resistance strategically placed Liv as a server at Legal Tender, a bar located in the heart of Toronto’s financial district, where Charles was a regular.
After two months of Liv being on the job, the two finally met. It was Cinco de Mayo. Despite the incessant rainstorms, the bar was packed with executives who embellished their tailored suits with tourist sombreros on their heads and handlebar moustaches on their faces. There wasn’t a Mexican in sight.
Charles sat at a booth with two men who clinked their Coronas. One had a reddened face and bloodshot eyes. The other had smart spectacles and a loosened tie. Charles, on the other hand, appeared soft and disarming in his blue golf shirt and khaki slacks, casual Friday to their power suits.
Over the sound of faux mariachi music and dudes screaming “Ándale!” at random, Liv approached his booth to take food orders.
“Are you hombres ready to order some tapas?” With a listless face, Liv turned the page of her notebook and clicked the nib of her pen into position. Charles removed his sombrero and finger-combed his boyish haircut.
“Uh-oh! Someone’s trying to fill us up on some food because we’re gettin’ too rowdy,” Bloodshot Eyes said, half speaking, half spitting.
“Speak for yourself,” Loose Tie said through even looser lips. “Charles and I are being perfect gentlemen.”
Liv looped her bleach-blond hair behind her ear and recited the specials. “Well, the chef has two amazing platters tonight and—”
“What about you? Do we get you on a platter?” Bloodshot Eyes said.
Loose Tie put his hand around Liv’s waist. “Don’t scare her away! Look. She’s scared. She’s scared.”
“Two of the platters. Just bring one of each,” Charles intervened. He looked at Liv apologetically as she retreated to the kitchen.
When their table was just about finished for the night, another Drunken Suit approached Liv.
“I need to settle my bill, beautiful,” he said sloppily, pretending he didn’t know Liv, pretending they had not trained together for months for this very moment. Liv began processing his receipt. In Charles’s plain view, Drunken Suit began stroking Liv’s triceps with the surface of his knuckles. Liv swatted him away like a fly, and like a fly his hand returned.
“Can I help you, sir?” Charles said to Drunken Suit, aggressively putting his arm around him, like they were pals.
“I’m paying my bill.”
“How about this: you can go back to your table and put down two crisp fifties and call it a night.”
“I don’t think so. I just had four beers.”
Charles stepped towards the man until they were practically nose to nose. “Put down the money at the table and leave the lady alone.” The man wavered and did as he said.
Liv made a face. “Yikes. Thanks. I’m sorry you had to do that.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with fools like that all night, including my friends over there.” His pale blue eyes flashed towards his booth. Bloodshot Eyes and Loose Tie were struggling to get their jackets on.
Liv waved off his concern. “It’s part of working here. The bankers are the worst. Lawyers a close second.”
Charles rubbed his boxed beard with a sly grin. “And the businessmen like me?”
“They’re okay, I guess.” Liv pretended to fight back a grin and made eye contact, long enough for him to remember her face.
The next morning, at his office on King Street, Charles looked up and saw Liv distributing the paperwork among his colleagues. Their eyes met and she made a face, the same face she’d made in the bar, before quietly exiting the meeting.
Later that day, Charles leaned on the door frame of the staff lunchroom while Liv waited for her food to microwave. “Hi, intern.”
Liv held up her hands defensively. “I swear I didn’t know who you were when I met you last night.”
“Moonlighting?
“That’s my part-time job so I can afford the life of an intern.”
“I hope you know who I am now.”
“Of course I do. You’re Charles Greene, CEO of CAN Create.” Liv looked to the side, blushing. “And you’re a great fighter of drunken men who manhandle waitresses. Thanks again, by the way.” Charles smiled a slow smile, interest alive on his face.
They both threw protocol aside and shared dinner at Flax, Toronto’s latest organic farm-to-table restaurant. By the end of their dinner, the two were sharing dessert.
“Okay . . . I have to ask. What’s it like? Being a CEO of this multinational corporation? God, I hope I don’t sound like a hick saying that.”
“You sound like you think I’m a superman or something.”
“Well, you kind of are, aren’t you? I mean, your company occupies the top seven floors of a skyscraper that has the best views in the city. You have thousands of employees. These people have houses because of you. They can feed their families and send their kids to school.”
A waiter approached politely. A Black man, hands behind his back, smiling gently. “How are we enjoying the dessert?”
Charles paused with his spoon in the air and snarled, “How about you let me eat without you asking me questions that interrupt our conversation?”
The waiter’s smile faded slightly before he attempted to reinvigorate it at its edges. He failed. He bowed and receded to the kitchen. Charles threw Liv a look and she snickered.