Claire
lived downtown in a shabby house with her 9-year-old son Max and covered the
mortgage by renting rooms to boarders. She could handle the day-to-day stuff, daycare
and groceries, but she sometimes had to scramble to make holiday times special
for her tiny family of two. There were lonely times when other partnered
parents couldn’t triangulate Clair and her son into their plans and having boarders
plus kids around all the time meant she didn’t date. Occasionally Claire longed
for something more but mostly she liked the independence and didn’t think any
relationship would have lasted anyway.
Sometimes
when she showed up on a guy’s radar it was obvious, it seemed to happen most
often with Mediteranian guys. There was Ahmen from up the street, a big
handsome Egyptian with brown eyes and the best pecs in Kensington Market who turned
into a giggling, thumping puppy if she so much as glanced his way. Once as she
and Max walked home at dusk, from his roof Ahmen strummed a love song loudly improvising
her name into the song. On a disability pension after an accident as a
firefighter, he needed pot to stave off his PTSD induced and repellant yelling fits.
He often told her they would be great together.
There
was Chapado Johnny, who had for years wandered daily along Baldwin Street in a
liquor haze, a bottle of homemade wine dangling in flimsy plastic shopping bag.
When he saw Claire and he would somehow articulate, “I love you” with a thick-tongued
voice and Portuguese accent.
Most
guys who courted her had assets, a business or property. She presented an
instant solution to some: just add dad and, voila, a nuclear family. Claire was
not looking for a husband, but she understood the old world logic, if only she
could devote herself to such a simple concept.
Ali’s
store was near her house and he lived upstairs. The store window was piled with
colourful oriental rugs usually topped with two fat sleeping tabby cats. At
first Ali introduced shoppers to his pretty brunette German wife who worked
with him in the store but when her daughter went to a German university, the
wife got lonely and went back too.
Ali
needed helpers to fling back the rugs when he was selling; he gave Max a job on
Saturday mornings. Ali came to Claire’s house himself to install new broadloom
in the basement. When he finished and she tried to pay him, he looked past her,
around her home and refused the cash.
The
following Saturday Max came home with an invitation for tea. On Sunday Ali
showed mother and son around his tidy apartment, the clean kitchen and the
empty bedrooms. There was an entertainment and a sitting area. She could see a
roof garden out back over the showroom. He settled Max in front of the TV,
motioned Claire towards pillowed furniture. He made chai tea and served it in
small glasses with heaps of coarse sugar and sat himself in a rattan chair like
a throne. There were little shortbread cookies, pistachios and dates. He
explained his situation about his wife leaving, trying to manage the store, living
alone and complained he couldn’t sleep.
At
the store on Monday afternoon Claire dropped in to give Ali an herbal sleep aid.
He looked at the little bottle in his hand then up over the cats, out the
window and muttered, “thank you”.
She
was surprised a few weeks later at a carpet sale when Ali introduced Claire to his
new wife, a tall lady with long blond hair in a flowing orange dress. Ali had been looking for a wife and told the
customers that he was moving the store to his wife’s hometown Calgary. Soon the
shop was gone.
A year later the phone rang at Claire’s house, she picked
up, “Claire? Hi, it’s Ali. Remember me?”
Claire said, “Ali? From the carpet shop? You don’t sound
like yourself.”
The
caller defended he was Ali’s brother, also named Ali. Really, was there a
brother? She couldn’t remember and she didn’t believe him, although he sounded
Persian. She could hear someone else talking quickly in the background.
He
went on, “You bought a carpet, right?” He seemed impatient, even frantic. “You
know the store isn’t there anymore, we have a truck full of rugs and we’re having
a big sale tomorrow.” It was hard for Claire to piece it all together: Ali must
have bundled all the carpets into trucks but didn’t he drive them to Calgary? An
image of twin trucks streaking on a highway came to mind, one driven by the
blond lady in an orange dress and the other by a thrilled and grinning Ali. Or
did someone buy a lot at an auction that include sales lists? Or was this his brother? It
felt like a trap. Did Ali owe someone money? He had been in the army. Could
these be Iranian secret service trying to trap him some way?
Claire
stalled, “Give me your number, I’ll phone you back,” she needed time to think.
“My
number?” there was more impatient talking, “I can’t find the number. I will
call you.” They both hung up.
She
waited and was relieved when he didn’t call. Ali never came back
to explain.
942 Words
