The Second Part of Chapter 4: Merging and Reawakening

At lunch, Vilia, Nicolas and Clarissa went to the food court in the adjoining mall. Clarissa had her own lunch, and purchased only some freshly squeezed juice. Nicolas had some chicken wings from a stand, while Vilia had poutine.

“Always the healthy eater,” noted Vilia, as she watched Clarissa eat her whole-wheat sandwich with turkey, cheese and spicy pepper rings.

“Healthy eating’s important, you know,” said Clarissa.

“Did you ever, you know, live a little? This poutine is tasty and rich, you know; perhaps you’d like to try some?”

“I’ve heard bad things about the amount of salt that’s in the gravy,” said Clarissa.

“So? It’s not like I’m going to get high blood pressure; I only do this every two weeks,”

“I heard that about salt too,” said Nicolas. “They just like to use it as a cheap flavouring. By the way, what does your boyfriend like to eat?”

“Salty snacks. I don’t see anything wrong with it,” said Clarissa. Nick raised his eyebrows.

“He is your boyfriend, though; you aren’t going to mould him in your image, starting with the gruelling workout regime?”

“I don’t see any need for a regimen; as long as he’s healthy and smart, I’ll take him,”

“Maddie tried to mould me,” said Nick. “It’s always, ‘you need to exercise more’, or ‘ne mange pas les croustilles’.”

“Yvon complains about that a lot,” said Clarissa. “You ought to hear him sometimes; just yesterday, he came into my office, and I thought he was going to talk about funding a program, but he just talked about how his wife was pushing him to give up chocolate mousse; I would never go that far,”

“You mean for yourself?”

“No, I mean for Jim.”

“You let him eat whatever he wants? Good woman; that’s exactly what I would want in a wife, by which I mean, not nitpicking over my eating habits,” said Nick. “I prefer not to worry about heart attacks and other results of high blood pressure and cholesterol, especially when the risk is low,”

“Thank you,” said Clarissa. “I mean, the risk might be higher for other people––I have heard of some people keeling over just out of the blue––but fortunately, that’s rare. Oh, and have I told you? I moved in with him. Now, instead of catching the bus at Hurdman, I’m walking to work,”

“Is that out of a desire to stay thin?”

“Actually, it’s because I don’t want to drive, and bus service isn’t that good downtown. It’s either half an hour walking, or twenty-five minutes on a bus. That’s how bad it is,”


When James arrived home that evening, he found Clarissa already there, cooking a dinner. “Thanks honey, I’ll wash up when we’re done,” he said. Thus, the relationship changed from courting to a more domestic one, although the couple still went on frequent dates; living together would also be cheaper than the two of them living separately, considering the lower costs of living, as far as housing and food were concerned.


The relationship progressed such that James and Clarissa did their grocery shopping together. On their first joint trip to Hartman’s, the nearest grocery store, they met Belinda, who knew the couple through their mutual friend, Eunice. Neither of them knew Belinda particularly well, but both of them knew her reputation for gossip.

“Hello, don’t you two look simply lovely,” said Belinda upon seeing them.

“You look nice too, Bela,” replied Clarissa. This was not entirely true, thought James; her slightly wavy hair was dishevelled, and looked like she had not washed it in a couple of days. She was also slightly sweaty, which was an effect that alcohol had on people during heat waves such as the one they were currently experiencing. Indeed, it seemed that it was summer immediately after the last vestiges of snow had melted; there was hardly any spring of which to speak.

“We’re just going to Hartman’s,” said James. “We need to stock up on vegetables, you know,”

Vegetables like potatoes that I can cut up and fry, thought he.

“I just told Jeannine how lovely you look together, and that you will be quite the item in the summer. I hope this impression is true,” said Belinda.

“Oh, it’s very true,” said James.

The interrogation went on in this vein for several minutes, covering everything Belinda could think of; towards the end, James and Clarissa were becoming slightly evasive in their answers; neither of them were willing to reveal every single personal detail.

“Well, see you around,”

“See you,”

“What do you think of her?” asked Clarissa.

“She seems rather prying. Is it really necessary for her to know every last detail of our lives?”

“For her, yes; she thrives on gossip like you and I thrive on bread and water.”

“Do you think we should um…try to minimise our contact with her?”

“She lives on Lyon Street, you know,” said Clarissa. “If she wants to come over from time to time to discuss the neighbours or whatever, I don’t see any reason to stop her, provided she doesn’t get too out of hand. She also has a reputation when it comes to the bottle; she likes anything alcoholic, as long as it tastes good, which is why I could never understand her obsession with wine. I hate the stuff; I think it tastes horrid.”

Belinda actually drank substantial amounts of wine, and considered herself a connoisseur; she had a substantial wine rack in her basement that dated back to her marriage to Kale, who was now divorced from her.

James opinion of Belinda declined steadily over the next few weeks, just as he and Clarissa grew more and more attached. Both of them were busy, but they could still spend their evenings together.

On one such evening, the two were discussing a seasonal topic: their mothers.

“Mom can seem overbearing at times,” said Clarissa.

“How so?”

“She seems to have her own suggestions for how everything in my life should go; it’s all done out of love of course,”

“Is she one of those who put the ‘mother’ in smother?”

“I wouldn’t say she’s smothering me; she let me go my own way when I turned twenty; she thought that by then, the mothering duties insofar as guiding her children had run its course,”

“Mom was not so much like that; she was much more hands-off with me; she would always say ‘boys will be boys’, and leave it at that,”

“Was she like that with Kate?”

“Not so much; with Kate, she was more like your mother,”

“I wonder why mothers would treat their sons one way and their daughters another,” said James.

“I think you’re pulling too broad a conclusion from too small a sample size; we are only talking about two mother-child relationships here,”

“I heard Eunice’s mom would let her do whatever she wanted,”

“Really? I heard that she was simply skilled at slipping through her mother’s fingers and flouting all the rules; she was quite the party girl in university,” said Clarissa.

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