Dreams pulled so unpredictably on the fabric of time. Sometimes the night was one leisurely picture show, a cinema where you could wander from screen to screen. Identities blurred and swapped: It was your father, but he was a woman, or at least you thought so ... There were dreams that seemed to go on forever; Síle had once dreamed a whole life sentence in prison for murder, and woke up with her face clenched from years of weeping but found her cheeks quite dry. At other times you could conjure up a whole world in seconds, creating an elaborate backstory to explain the ringing of the phone that had woken you.
Why did people assume that daytime was the real life, it occurred to'Síle now? It would be hard to explain to a Martian that diurnal events counted and nocturnal ones—no matter how dramatic or memorable—didn't. In the night people journeyed far from the ones they slept beside, they lived out infinitudes of time, and in the morning they all behaved, like adulterers, as if nothing had happened.
At home on her purple sofa, lips to the receiver, she told Jude, "We never calculated your sexual density."
"Uh-oh," said Jude at the other end of the line.
Síle grinned. "Don't panic, I'm really not a jealous fiend. Full disclosure and burning love, that's all I demand."
"Okay. Chronological order?"
"Aren't you an archivist?"
"It's possible to classify in other ways; thematically, for instance—"
"Get on with the genital encounters," Síle told her.
"In high school: Sven, Pete, Dave—then Mike, oh and the other Dave..."
The rush of names startled Síle. "You had sex with all those monosyllabic boys?"
"Well, not always, uh, intercourse, but we necked. Made out in the backs of cars."
"Necked and made out, meaning, genitally?"
"Sure, we had to keep warm in the long winters. Mike was the abortion."
"That's a cruel way to describe any young man."
"You know what I mean," laughed Jude, "it was his condom that burst. And, give the guy credit, he drove me to the clinic in Toronto."
"The Dave I met, the bartender at the Dive, he wouldn't be one of the Daves you mentioned?"
She could hear Jude squirm. "He's the second, but really that was only one night at a drive-in."
"What was showing?"
"One of the Aliens movies."
"The first, I hope—or no, we must be talking nineties here, yeah?"
"Dunno. I think it was set on a prison planet."
Síle rolled her eyes. "The third, not Sigourney's finest hour. So what are we at, five? This sounds like an all-male lineup," she commented.
"Yeah, they always get that wrong in the movies, they make the girly-girl the one with all the guys in her past," remarked Jude. "Whereas in my experience it's the tomboys who hang round pool halls and cars with the guys, and fool around with them, too. But no, there were some girls too: Hannah, Sue ... some girl from Quaker Camp who used to cut her arms; this is awful but I'm blanking on her name."
"Did it feel any different with the girls?" Síle wanted to know.
No answer for a second. Then, "Sex is always different, depending on who you're with."
"Your generation's really ditched the old labels, haven't you?"
A pause. "Classic case of the limitations of phones," Jude told her. "I can't tell if you just sounded impressed or sad."
"A bit of both," said Síle, laughing a little.
"In my case—in a bunch of cases—the labels don't fit," Jude said gently. "I could sleep with just about anybody. In fact," getting there first, "I have! But I've never lost my heart till now."
"Shut your eyes, this is where I kiss you." After a minute, Síle said, "Go on with your list; you haven't even left school yet."
"'Reader, I married him,'" said Jude in a determinedly sprightly tone. "Rizla proposed the night I turned eighteen."
"What possessed you—"
"You know Gwen asks me that at least once a year?" Jude sighed. "I was furious with my parents for splitting up, but that's no excuse. Riz seemed kind of glamorous, as well as being my best bud. I guess I thought life with him would be a trip."
"Was your wedding the last time you wore a dress?"
"Actually we both wore jeans. Then when we got back from our trip to Detroit and moved into his trailer—"
"He took you to Detroit for your honeymoon?" said Síle. "The city where they can film post-apocalyptic disaster movies without building a set?"
Jude laughed. "We heard a couple of good bands. Rizla got into a stupid fight and broke his thumb. Anyway, that year we were mostly unemployed and often wasted, my mother thought I'd thrown my life away, and I was beginning to see her point. And then I realized I fancied the check-out girl at the Valumart in Mitchell much more than my husband. So I told Rizla it'd all been a big mistake."
"How did he take it?"
"Pretty well. Then I went off to plant trees in northern Ontario. It's what kids do, here, to make some cash," Jude explained.
Síle frowned. "Hang on, what about the check-out girl?"
"Oh yeah, she was Lina," said Jude.
"I'm running out of fingers," Síle commented, starting on her right thumb again.
"I had a thing with another tree-planter called Steve—though we sometimes fell asleep halfway through, we were so wiped out! Then I worked in a bar in Goderich, and I slept with..." She ransacked her memory. "Another Dave. Sorry! In Stratford there was Gwen, then Kay; Kay and I had a nice few months..."
"Not Gwen as in your straight friend?" interrupted Síle.
"See what I mean about labels?" asked Jude wickedly. "Nah, you're right, Gwen only likes guys, in fact only tall jocks. She and I were tanked at the time, we never meant it to happen. Not that much happened, actually, just enough to make us mortified in the morning."
Síle shook her head in wonder.
"Then there was Lynda."
"Not the waitress at the Garage?"
"Mm. And I think she may have had a little encounter with Rizla too, just after he got hired as the mechanic there."
"Small-town life," murmured Síle with a shudder.
"She's getting married to Bud in June."
"Your neighbour with the big mustache?"
"No, that's Bub the turkey plucker; Bud's a contractor. There'll be a marquee in the field behind the elementary school."
"Are you invited?"
"Of course. I'm playing 'Amazing Grace' on guitar after the vows. Our little ... moment was years and years ago; Lynda's probably forgotten it ever happened."
"I doubt that," said Síle seductively.
"Next is Clarisse at the Children's Pioneer Museum. Oh, and I forgot Mrs. Lubben."
"Mrs. Lubben?" She folded down another finger.
"I never knew her first name; I was about fifteen. She was the mother of a girlfriend of mine."
"Girlfriend as in lover?"
"As in friend, sorry. We need a translation machine!"
"So," said Síle, "I make that eighteen, including me. What a varied crowd!"
"Well, you know, growing up in the country, you tend to hook up with whoever's up for it. Hey," Jude asked, "are we including everything genital? Even if it's, like, one-sided?"
"Absolutely."
"And ... incomplete?"
A rueful laugh from Síle. "If it didn't count as sex till somebody came, I'd have to exclude my whole first relationship!"
"Okay then, I'll add some semi-stoned fooling around with a turkey-jointer called Marsha."
"Can no one resist your seductions?"
"Blame those long cold winters," said Jude, sheepish.
"You're sure that's it now?" Síle asked. "Nineteen, going once, going twice ... Nineteen it is. Starting at age..."
"Fourteen. That's what, eleven years ago. So my density's nineteen over eleven. Does your little gizmo do math?"
"Yeah, but so does my brain," said Síle. "One point seven partners per year."
"Wow. I guess Jael would approve. More th
an you do, I suspect," said Jude lightly.
"No no," said Síle.
"I wouldn't worry," Jude told her, very low. "I've never felt this way since the day I was born."
***
A mild May night, Jude's birthday. She'd celebrated at lunchtime with a fifty-minute call to Síle, to hell with the cost. Now she was taking her Triumph out for the first long ride of the season. High beams on, she wound her way along country roads, the air faintly floral already. Riding her bike at night felt oddly safe to her, as if the dark were one vast cushion. She went all the way to Lake Huron, and climbed down to a little beach she knew. Somebody had a campfire going, behind the rocks. She sat on the damp sand and let it trickle through her fingers. Twenty-six. She felt a sudden longing for a cigarette, but now she knew it would pass.
On her way home, she braked at Rizla's trailer and knocked on the window. He put his head out. "Thanks for the key ring, you freak," she said, pulling out of her pocket a little wooden naked woman attached to a heavy bunch of keys.
Rizla continued blowing his nose. "Just a little something I whittled in front of the box."
"'TV My Inspiration, Says World-Renowned Folk Artist Richard Vandeloo.'"
"Happy birthday, anyhow. Coming in?"
Jude shook her head. "I'm going to drop in to the office, check my e-mail."
"After midnight?" He did an impression of a panting dog.
"Yeah, yeah, I've got it bad." Jude got back on her bike. "When I'm being rational I know there must be lots of other brilliant, beautiful women out there—"
"You figure?" asked Rizla, scratching his neck. "Maybe you could give me their numbers."
"—but for some reason the only one I'm interested in is Síle."
"Beautiful's not much use, if you can't see her," he pointed out.
"I can, in my head."
He guffawed, leaning on the corroded windowsill. "It's all a bit suspicious."
"What is?"
"You just-so-happening to lose your heart to someone so out of reach. I mean, you gals are meant to be into commitment; I was reading about it at the dentist's."
Jude stared up at him, briefly distracted. "You finally let Johan see to that molar?"
"Well, he looked at it."
"It needs a root canal?"
He waved that off. "Sometime when I've got the dough."
"Ah, Riz—" Jude reminded herself that this was none of her business. "Anyway—you were saying you read about me and Síle in a magazine?" she asked confusedly.
"No, all of you muff divers."
"Oh speak up, I don't think Mrs. Bayder-Croft heard you."
Mrs. Bayder-Croft, in the house next door, was too vain to wear a hearing aid.
"It's a true fact," Rizla insisted. "So what's the matter with Jude, we ask ourselves? Finally lands a serious girlfriend, but she lives halfway round the planet—"
"A quarter of the way," Jude corrected him.
"It ain't healthy, is all."
Jude laughed, and revved up the Triumph.
The next evening she had a drink with Gwen at the Shakespeare's Head in Stratford. They had no particular love for its Ye Olde décor, but at least it wasn't full of squealing nineteen-year-olds.
Gwen was deep into an account of her recent snowboarding trip to Blue Mountain. Jude thought she was listening, she really did. But Gwen stopped and said, "You're miles away."
"Sorry."
Gwen lifted a nacho heavy with melted cheese. "Five thousand k, in fact?"
"Not that many, actually; less than a thousand, tonight. She's on the Boston rotation for the next month."
"Did she send you a birthday present?"
Jude grinned. "The most fantastic saddle bags, for the bike." With a scrawled note, So you can take me for a long ride.
"Geez Louise." Gwen had some odd expressions she picked up from her elderly residents.
"Isn't it weird, how love kind of warps time?" said Jude suddenly. Gwen narrowed her eyes, and Jude felt a wave of embarrassment, but pressed on. "When you're falling for someone, everything slows down strangely. A bit like that time we took mushrooms in the woods in grade eleven."
"Mm," said Gwen reminiscently.
"Daily life becomes this sort of epic: The First Time I Saw Her Face, Our First Walk by the Lake, The First Phone Call, The Night I Stayed Up Making Anagrams of Her Name..."
Gwen stared. "Anagrams?"
"When I can't sleep...," admitted Jude.
"What can you make out of Síle?"
"I use her surname as well, O'Shaughnessy. The best so far is She Is Enough Lassy; I figure lassy with a y could be an alternate spelling."
Gwen hooted with laughter.
"No, but my point about time is, then the minute you start feeling happy, the days start to zip by."
"I don't usually get as far as the happy stage," Gwen reminded her.
They gossiped about various schoolfriends of theirs who were currently pregnant or bankrupt. "Oh, hey," said Jude, "what were you up to at the Darlene Motel on Tuesday?"
Gwen looked blank.
The Darlene was one of a rash of motels on the outskirts of Stratford. "Tuesday, just after five? I saw your black Chevy."
She shook her head. "Lots of them around."
"Okay," said Jude, confused.
Gwen took another nacho. "My folks were asking after you on the weekend. They said, 'How's she getting on with that holiday romance?'"
Jude couldn't help bristling at the phrase. "You could tell them it's a long-distance relationship."
"Aren't they all," said Gwen enigmatically, into her beer.
The conversation was in a lull. "How's work these days," asked Jude, "have you managed to fire that care assistant yet, the one who left bruises on the old ladies?"
Gwen set down her glass. "I can't lie to you. I mean, I guess I have been, but now you've brought it up—"
The care assistant? Bewildered thoughts began slowly lining themselves up in Jude's brain. "Is this about the motel? I didn't mean to bring anything up."
"It's okay."
"Gwen, I wasn't—I just thought maybe you had a relative staying at the Darlene."
"He's somebody's relative," said Gwen wryly, "but not mine."
"You don't have to do this."
"Oh heck, I might as well."
Let her speak, Jude told herself.
"He usually comes to my place," Gwen began in a low voice, "but I've had the plasterers in, on and off all week, so we went to the Darlene. It's only maybe the second or third time we've had to do that; I can't believe you spotted my car."
"It's your plates," Jude apologized, "the second half's always stuck in my mind: XOX, like hugs and kisses."
Gwen grimaced. "His wife's not well. That's how I justify it, though some would say that makes it worse."
"What's wrong with her? Is she dying?"
"I wish," said Gwen under her breath, then shook her head as if to disperse the evil words. "Depression, mostly; agoraphobia, on and off. Some OCD stuff like hand washing and calling him every half hour."
"Oh, Gwen." Jude could see what a haven her most sane friend would be to a man in that position. "Is he—" She didn't know what she was allowed ask. "Did you meet this guy in St. Mary's?"
A peculiar grin. "A ways before that. I've known him about as long as you have." Leaning to Jude's ear, she breathed the name: "Luke Randall."
Jude covered her mouth. The bank manager lived just outside Ireland on a curve in the road. He was a short, stocky guy, not Gwen's type at all. He came into the general store quite often, but nobody ever saw his wife.
"I knew you'd look at me like that."
"Sorry, I—"
"You must think I'm a worm."
"I'm just taken aback, that's all." Jude struggled for words. "How long—"
"Three years, give or take. Maybe I should have told you before, but keeping secrets is a hassle so I thought I'd spare you."
Jude was Silenced. She thought of three years o
f compromise, three years of waiting.
"And before you ask, he'll never leave his wife."
Síle had dragged Marcus and Jael out to what sounded like a really interesting Danish one-man show, and now she was paying for round after round of martinis in an attempt to make it up to them.
"The way he kept going behind the screen, and taking painfully long to come back out in the mask of his mother," Marcus recalled.
Jael shook her head. "That wasn't the worst."
"Could it have been a reference to Hamlet?" suggested Síle.
"The worst bit," announced Jael, "was when he played that footage of the Twin Towers, and he stood naked in front of the screen and made flapping birdies with his hands."
Síle groaned. "I'd almost managed to forget that bit."
Marcus pointed at her. "You dragged me up from Leitrim on the first warm Saturday of the year for this multimedia caca."
"I've said I'm sorry! But at least you can spend the rest of the weekend with Pedro."
"Well, there's that," he said with a dirty grin. "So when do we get to meet this Jude character?"
"When she can find the price of the flight," said Síle, trying not to sound sullen.
"Bad sign," said Jael, shaking her head.
"Her job doesn't pay well."
"Maybe, to coin a phrase, she's just not that into you."
"Shut up, you cow," said Marcus.
"So what does Pedro think of your rotting manor?" Jael asked him.
"He drives down nearly every week; he says it's the only place where he can really switch off."
Jael rolled her eyes. "With the hormones bubbling away in the pair of you, Pedro would think a urinal was the Taj Mahal."
"Actually it's not so squalid now the roof's on; you and Anton and Yseult should venture down for tea," Síle told her.
"But I do miss him a lot of the time," Marcus was saying quietly.
"Blame Síle," said Jael, "she started all this."
"All what?"