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justlookfrightened · 6 years

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Locked out, Part 27

Start from the beginning here: Part 1

Read previous installment here: Part 26

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Monday passed in a blur, with the community picnic in the afternoon and fireworks in the evening. Eric was pleased to see the pies he made the evening before disappear quickly at the picnic, and enjoyed catching up with his camp kids from previous summers.

No one was outright rude, even if he felt like some of ladies of his parents’ generation were looking at him more than was polite. Most of the people his age simply ignored him, which was about the best he could hope for.

He did see a couple of his old hockey teammates, which was fun. He wished he could tell them that he was skating every week with an NHL player -- forget dating, they’d love to hear about his practice sessions with Jack. But it was probably better not to talk about the time they spent together, especially here, where not being out didn’t stop people from assuming his sexuality.

Lying back on a blanket next to his mother to watch the fireworks, he couldn’t help thinking how much better it would be if he was lying next to Jack, with his parents nowhere in the vicinity.

He told Jack about it that night -- their latest talk yet.

“You can tell people we skate together,” Jack said, looking confused. “You can even tell them you’re faster than me. I don’t mind.”

“But they all think I’m gay,” Eric said.

“So?” Jack said.

“So if you’re willingly skating with me, then they’ll think you must be gay too,” Eric explained.

“That really doesn’t follow,” Jack said. “I mean, are all of the hockey teammates you have ever had been gay? Everyone you trained with for figure skating?”

“First, they think any guy who figure skates is gay, which -- at least from the perspective of 14-year-old me -- is sadly not true,” Eric said. “And no, of course not all of my teammates are gay. But they don’t have a choice about being on the ice with me. You do.”

“Eric, they voted you captain,” Jack said. “No one made them do that. And I know it’s hard because I’m not ready to be out publicly -- not yet, if I can help it -- but that won’t last forever. I promise. For now, no one can tell me I can’t have friends who are gay. And of course you can talk about me to your friends and family.”

Eric didn’t argue, but privately thought Jack just didn’t get it. Providence was generally an LGBT-friendly city. From what he’d read about Montreal, it was too.

The next day, he sat at the kitchen table, plotting out a couple of vlog episodes he wanted to record that week, including one with MooMaw as a guest star. They had talked about it yesterday, and he promised he would give her a copy of the video.

He was tapping at his laptop, wondering if they could get away with two -- maybe even three? -- recipes, since he had learned so much from MooMaw, when his mother set a glass of tea next to him and took the seat opposite.

“You’ve been home for almost three days and I feel like we’ve hardly had a chance to talk to each other, Dicky,” she said, sipping at her own glass. “How are you doing, really? Not too lonely up in Providence all by yourself?”

“It’s fine, Mama,” Eric said. “I mean, the people at work are nice. My boss, James, makes sure I know I’m invited out with the team every week.”

“What’s that like?”

Eric shrugged.

“Okay, I guess. I only went once,” he said. “They’re all older than me, and I work with them, so …”

His mother made an encouraging noise.

“It’s just a little hard to be myself?” he said.

“Tell me about them,” she said. “What’s this James fellow like?”

“He started the Greenhouse, and he’s the one I work with most,” Eric said. “Kind of like a cross between a yuppie and a hipster? He’s, I don’t know, somewhere in his 30s? Smart. Very smart. Is into using social media to help the startups he works with get attention.”

“Is he a family man?” she asked.

“He’s not married, I don’t think,” Eric said. “At least he’s never mentioned anyone. Marcus, though, is engaged. He’s got like half a dozen pictures of his fiance on his desk. And Shelly -- the one who started the farmstand, she’s married and has kids.”

He didn’t mention that her wife’s name was Gloria.

“Have you had much of a chance to cook? You said your landlord didn’t want you using the kitchen too much.”

“Actually, remember the guy I mentioned? Jack? I told him about how I couldn’t bake, and he offered to let me come over and use his kitchen,” Eric said. “Mama, you should see it. It’s gorgeous -- gas range with an electric oven, marble countertops, and I could live in the cabinet space.”

“Sounds lovely,” his mother said. “But you should be sure not to wear out your welcome. You don’t want to take too much advantage of his kindness.”

“It’s not really like that, Mama,” Eric said.

“No? Then what is it like?”

“It’s just that --” he really likes me, and I like him, and we’ve been sleeping together three nights a week? Nope. That wouldn’t work. “It’s just that he really likes my food, because you know how most people are -- they barely know how to feed themselves -- so I make sure not to just make desserts, and whatever I make I share with him.”

“Oh,” his mother said. “I guess that makes sense. Almost like you’re a personal chef or some such.”

It struck Eric that his mother thought almost the same thing Tater did, although Tater thought Jack was paying him to cook. Well. His mother knew better than Tater how much access to a kitchen was worth to him.

That night, the backdrop behind Jack was different. The room was paneled instead of painted, and the curtains were a cheerful checked pattern.

“We came over to the lake house today,” Jack said. “In Nova Scotia.”

“Isn’t that, like, a long way from Montreal?”

“I guess,” Jack said. “But the flight’s not long, and there’s several every day.”

“But don’t you have to get to the airport like two hours ahead?” Eric asked.

“Not really,” Jack said. “We all have Trusted Traveller identification, and the lines aren’t long. And it’s only a short drive from the airport to Hatchet Lake.”

Eric wondered, briefly, about that: Did they rent a car every time? Keep a car there? At their house or at the airport? Wave a wand over a pumpkin and have it turn into a carriage?

Instead, he asked, “What’s it like there?”

“Really quiet,” Jack said. “It’s summer, so there are more people around, but there’s woods and meadows, and we’re not far from the ocean. I spent a lot of time here after … after my overdose. I think my parents were taking turns staying with me, a few days at a time. But it was the only place I could really relax and just think. It’s where I decided to keep playing and enter the draft again the next year.”

“It sounds like it’s important to you,” Eric said.

“It is,” Jack said. “That’s why I wanted to share it with you. Maybe I’ll send you some photos tomorrow?”

“That would be great,” Eric said.

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Tagging: @thehockeyhaus @cow-mow@communistchexmix@falling-out-girl @whatnowpunk@wikihowpunk@zimboniiiiii@butterflyimportantstuff@ladyaulis@delicatelycrispyblizzard@cyn2k @eyesforeverwithpride @bookbelle494 @herecauseoftheweirdo @paintedbilardo

Next installment: Part 28

#omgcheckplease #omg check please #zimbits #locked out #my fic

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londonlanded · 6 years

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Week 58

And all of a sudden, I’ve got less than a week left. The goodbyes are hitting harder and more frequently, they’re going from being weekly to multiple times daily, as is the nature of parting.

Monday, started my morning off the way I have been all summer, with a cup of coffee and the St. James Church groundskeeper, Kostas, for company. He imparted a few extra doses of wisdom since he knew he’d only get 5 more chances to, and I really, really tried to enjoy the view.

Tuesday, a last meal at the restaurant Penny introduced me to, with the angel herself. Farmstand has sustained me this year nearly as much as the girl in my company, I’m going to try and not think about the months of rent I could have paid had I not been shown the beauty of their gluten free, 85% vegan, 100% feel-good menu.

More importantly though, it was my last moments with my stellar company. Penny and I have had such a funny saga of a friendship, it’s waxed and waned over the years but the takeaway of the whole thing is that she’s been a piece of home this year, both when I knew I needed it and when I didn’t. She’s the reason I’m here actually – I was visiting her in New York when I caught my early flight home and met Plane Lady who turned my world on its head. I proudly announced that to the rest of my guests at my goodbye fiasco last week, too, and realized only there that I was introducing the girl who’d made my whole life with the rest of them possible. At Leicester Square station, we said our goodbyes, but ours was one that weighed a bit less than some of the others I’ve had recently. Not for lack of love for the girl, quite the opposite, if anything. Probably because I see our home town in her eyes in the years to come, and I find it hard to doubt nearly twenty years of having her around. That’s right, first grade through 2018, I have bridges whose strength I’ve questioned on occasion, but the one between us isn’t one of them.

Wednesday, I popped out to attempt a trip to the bank (hot tip don’t go at lunch time you’ll never get seen since money moves quickly everywhere outside bank walls apparently), and on my way back to the office, swung into the Banksy exhibit that’s opened literally across the road from work. It’s a small exhibition, but a good one, and I actually think I preferred these pieces to those I’d seen in Amsterdam last time I saw his work. I know he’s anonymous, but I only say him since there are rumours he’s the lead singer of the band Massive Attack, which means he’s tentatively been identified though not to the point of being forced into admission, which is something I genuinely hope never happens. Some things are best left a mystery.

Wednesday night though, that’s when the day got good. I set off from work to meet a friends’ sister who’d just moved to London herself, and was struck with the hardcore Canadian accent I’d forgotten about. Fresh off the plane, Lindsay sounded just like home. While I spend a lot of time with Penny, she’s spent so much time in the states (read, the past 5 years), that her accent has softened on top of not being too strong to start with. I don’t really come across Canadians much in my little London life, so hearing this Oakville girl tell me about her last moments in Canada, punctuated by Tim Horton’s and a tattoo of mountains she keeps getting told look like a British Columbia skyline, really brought me home.

But that’s not the highlight, though the highlight was just as homey as Lindsay had made me feel. We met Anatholie and Jack, my replacement at the Worldwide Sales Office (who I recruited, thank you very much) and her boyfriend, at Covent Garden station before finding our way to the very same Canadian bar Penny and I had stumbled across the week before. The Maple Leaf sports bar is as tacky as you can imagine, and looks a lot like some of the less classy locations we’ve got at home. Still, we weren’t there for the sports, we were there so that Lindsay and I could show off one of our national treasures to my non-Canadian kids. I had decided to indoctrinate my foreign friends one last way, by convincing them of the infinite beauty of my nation using chips, gravy, and cheese curds, at one of the only poutine-selling outlets in the city.

Rosie, Sophia and Nicki were already waiting, and had decided on their food before we’d even stepped in the door. Before we even ordered, the first Canadian epiphany of the evening came to pass when Rosie realized that there’s more than one kind of hockey in the world, and that when a Canadian is talking about hockey, they’re probably not referring to the type that’s played on a field. I want you to imagine the look on someone’s face who has just realized that they’ve had a number of conversations with people that may or may not have been about the topic they thought they were discussing. Rosie’s born and raised London, and not the sporty type so I forgive her, but I definitely won’t forget the tears of laughter that sprung from her once she realized how ridiculous she sounded after having said the sentence, “oh my gosh, there’s hockey on ice!”

Anyway, back to the real purpose of the evening, Lindsay and I went for the weird, bastardized British version of the stuff (aka peas were served on top, no thank you), but we made sure the rest of our crew stuck with the classics. I went for a Bulwark cider, made from Nova Scotia apples that I haven’t had since Uni, and the rest of the table gave Sleeman a go. Two orders of the classic stuff, one of triple pork, and one with burnt ends (aka charred short rib ends), chicken wings and mac and cheese, we were one carb-and-oil-loaded table, but damn were we ever happy about it.

Verdict after first bites? Lindsay shouted, ‘yes, squeaky cheeeeeeeeese’ and I laughed in agreement, since, before that moment, I hadn’t realized that was the quality-control method that was required in order to determine cheese curd authenticity, but once she said it I realized she was bang on. Canadian verdict; cheese was on, fries were on, gravy was a bit on the sweet and British side but hey, no one really thinks about the gravy quality as much as they consider the rest of the equation, so I’ll forgive them. The rest of the kids were thrilled at their choices, and most importantly of all, our resident Belgian approved of both her pint and her plate. I’ll take the win, thank you.

Thursday, a day dense with exit interviews at work, where I was offered the chance to come back to the company by three different people. While I don’t know how likely it is that my career in hospitality extends beyond this week, it’s nice to know that my performance has earned me the chance to open the door again if I choose to. I popped out at lunch to say bye to Anette who’d come back to London briefly, and before the day ended, one of my colleagues dropped this on my desk and made my day a bit brighter than it had already gotten.

One of the directors had bought me a little goodbye gift since I’d gotten her a thank-you one, and on the envelope it came in, she’d written a little note to the person I’m hoping to be. Just FYI, in the show Suits, Jessica Pearson is the phenomenally dressed, confident, level, rockstar boss of Harvey Spector. Her badass character was part of my initial inspiration to pursue this little legal adventure I’ve decided to embark on. I’d be pretty satisfied if I wound up being half the lawyer she is in the show, I guess we’ll see. More importantly, and in the same subject line, I got my first list of readings on Thursday, too, all to be done in time for Monday. Looks like the fun has begun.

Thursday was also the day I’d dedicated to packing up everything I own, and stuffing my musty, London clothes into a suitcase in preparation for the purge I do once I get back home and have access to a washing machine that doesn’t imbue my entire closet with the smell of the building it’s standing in. Turns out I own just as little as I thought, and I might not even have needed Brooke’s help a few weeks ago when she brought a bag back for me.

Regardless, I filled the extra space with bonus stuff I wasn’t counting on getting to keep, and took the dozens of decorations down off my walls, realizing only after I’d done so that my room was brighter, and far less fun without them. I also realized that my room’s definitely better suited to a single bed, note to the future tenant if they feel like acting on that one (though the tenant happens to be a friend of mine, so I’m going to bet on them keeping it as they knew it). By 1:00AM, I was packed and spent, and was finally letting my weary head hit the pillow for the second last time.

Friday, my last day at work, another hefty round of goodbyes, this time with a slightly deeper dose of finality. I spent my last morning, for now, sitting in my favourite spot on the grounds of St. James Church Piccadilly, waved goodbye to Kostas the groundskeeper, got my final free coffees from my friends at Pret (two, plus lunch on the house, my budget is really going to miss those folks, almost as much as I will!). It was a beautiful morning to say goodbye to the place that has seen me through so much.

The office was quiet, the day passed more quickly than almost any other I’ve had, and with a quick phone call from the VP who was working from home but who ‘wanted to hear [my] voice one last time before I embark on my next journey,’ my career at the London Worldwide Sales Office came to a quiet close. Anatholie and I were the last two in the office, tying up some loose ends in her training and on a project we’d been tasked with, and with a final thank you, she left me in the place I’ve called mine for the past 6 months. Another desk cleared out, another page turned, I walked out into the light rain with a slightly heavy heart, but a much more satisfied soul.

By the time the light was fading, I walked into Paris’ flat for the last time, turns out last week wasn’t it after all. Some endings, well, aren’t. And thank god it wasn’t, because that room was filled with more love than I’ve ever seen it, comparable only perhaps to last Saturday’s crowd. Though the party was technically for Paris’ departure, there wasn’t a single person in that room that wasn’t losing me, too. I didn’t hit until just then, when the first few friends walked over to hand me tokens of their individual sadness, letters and pictures and small gifts to keep them in my mind long after they’ve left my day-to-day life. The sadness didn’t hit as hard as I thought it would, but the denial seemed to supersede any capacity of mine that existed for any outright demonstration of feeling.

It also seemed that was only true for me though, as the rest of the evening was peppered with more tears than I’ve ever had shed for me at any other time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much sadness, and known outright that I’m a big part of the cause, but known at the same time that it stems only from love. I’ve never had friends like this before, nothing to do with the lives I’ve built before this one, but it’s entirely to do with the nature of the environment I’ve found myself in. It’s non-academic, professional, and fundamentally built on people who have no one but the friends they make and the connections they foster.

We’re a bunch of kids, alone and building our lives in London. No one’s got their parents, no one has anywhere else to go, there’s nothing immediate beyond the people you surround yourself with. We found love in each other because we needed it to survive. And now, when we lose one of the pillars around which our safety net has been intricately woven, we notice. We don’t fall apart, we have many, many, strong and tall beams that hold the rest of it together, but we feel it. The world as we know it shudders and shakes and gives way to the new reality where there’s a piece of it that’s missing, and before the healing can begin, the acute feeling of loss is the only one anyone notices. And when you’re the beam that’s being freed from the tethers you chose to tie yourself down with, you’re left with a feeling of loss that, if you’re anything like me, your body will deny you until it’s ready to stop plowing blindly forward through life. If you’re anything like me, you look back only once you’re able to do so fondly, and without longing for what you’ve left behind.

I do not know when my new reality will set in, when I’ll finally register that I’ve lost this old one, but I know when I do, I’ll really fucking feel it. I am not looking forward to that moment, those moments, as they’ll fall together with increasing frequency if I know myself at all, until finally they, as a whole, become true. Don’t get me wrong, I am entirely the agent of this change, but that hasn’t remotely mitigated the consequences of electing to go through with it. At the end of the night, it was Paris, Veronique and I on his couch, talking about their plans and laughing at the uncertainty that plagued them. The fact that my next three years are relatively prescribed are the reason that I’ve got the most consistent and predictable future of anyone in attendance on Friday night; this is the hotel business, and part of the reason it’s not for me.

You need to move upward, and if not, you need to move on. I’m as keen as the next person to ascend in rank and responsibility, but my passion for hospitality isn’t quite as intense as my desire to face the inherent volatility of the industry. I’ll leave it to the professionals, one of whom I’m done pretending to be. That said, this industry has taught me more than any other I’ve worked in, and it’s done so without also bringing me the professional success that I’d initially associated with personal growth. This company, these people, this line of work has changed me in ways I never imagined were possible. There’s a time and a place for directed ambition, much like there’s one for fleshing out the corners of who you are. This year in London has been the latter.

Vero and I hugged tightly in the back of our Uber, she stepped into the flat I remember walking into for the very first time, knowing I was going to find a friend on the other side of her front door. I remember the day we met, too, I was sitting in the PBX office, bouncing childishly on the exercise ball I’d claimed as my seat for the day, and wondering who this immaculately-dressed intern was. One day of crossover, one day spent training her on what my job entailed before she moved onto another department to ensure she got full exposure of the hotel’s 5 departments and 40+ roles within them. We got on so well that we broke into peals of laughter enough times to earn a telling-off by one of the other agents on duty at the time. But by then, it was too late, we were already friends. There was no doubt or hesitation, only the immediate and mutual understanding that we had less that morning than we had when we left work that day.

Saturday morning was slower than I’d wanted, but the weight of my week was starting to set in, and so was the exhaustion associated with preparing for a new life while packing up an old one. Armed with printouts of my readings for Monday, and covered in the dust swept off the few things in my room that hadn’t been taken from their resting places already, I packed up the last of my things just as I heard the doorbell go. Giulia had turned up, a little later than her initial plan which was to show up at our send-off the night before, better late than never holds true, even for my Swiss German, clockwork girl.

She shone a little last-minute light on my life before Paris turned up and helped me carry the last of my donation items to the Oxfam box down the road. We had a little photoshoot on my street and G and her sister went off on their London adventure before Murat and Mandekh showed up to help me finish mine.

Murat and Paris took to trying to defy the laws of physics in the boot of Murat’s car, trying to fit my bodybag-esque duffel around my other bag, which was made a touch more challenging since I had to fit a hard-shell carry-on into a bag that looks like it should be soft. After a quick stop at Tesco for British nibbles for the people at home, we were on our way, and my little entourage disembarked with me at the Queen’s Terminal, and helped me heft everything I owned through check-in and bag drop.

And then, it was time to go. The tears I’d been doing a decent job at holding off found their way onto Paris’ shoulder, as his found their way onto mine. He told me he couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to be seeing me later, that this was really it, for now. I couldn’t feel it either, the finality of my turning around and walking away was too far from the realm of realistic for me to have imagined it before that moment, even at that moment. I don’t remember the last time I clung to someone, and I don’t remember the last time someone clung to me. I also don’t know that I’ve ever cried so much in public and simply not cared. One last time, I was experiencing the gift that only airports, train stations, and bus bays can afford. The beauty of transience is that it holds no expectation, we were as ourselves as we allowed ourselves to be. And that afternoon, we set our sadness free.

I had a thought while walking down the stairs to my gate that day, carrying my guitar and my backpack, trusting the staff that I’d handed my bags to that the rest of my material world would make it home, too. Well, I had many thoughts, but one of them stood out above all else. That my life will never again be the same, but that there is nothing more powerful than the moments you realize you’re never going to have again. I know I have a few more of those coming in my life, that every monumental change is accompanied by its own series of palpable shifts in the day-to-day. but I’m not sure that the rest of my shifts will be quite so acutely different as this one will be to the world I’ll be entering on Monday. I am trying to think of this transience as a gift, that the stark contrasts are there to show us how lucky we are to be human, and capable of such a diverse array of experience. The optimism will come, but for now, there’s a bit more denial than there is acceptance. But there is far more love than there is loss, and as it is, life not yet given me a greater gift than it did when I landed here. We cannot lose anything without having first gained, and the question now is not whether I did, but just how much.

I also learned a lot about goodbyes, and I think I managed to verbalize the single most important thing about them, or rather, the most important thing about the absence of them. Goodbye implies, at least for me, that there’s nothing more to say. I think the majority of the people in my world know that when it comes to the way I see them, that will never be the case.

And with that said, I think I’ll put this one to bed, but only until we all meet again. Here’s to all of our adventures between now and then, and it seems that, at least for me, the next one has already begun.

Thanks for giving me a reason to keep writing. It’s just my life, but I’ve always believed that it’s better shared.

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