The Second Part of Chapter 14: Halloween and After

Unfortunately, not only Christine had heard Mario’s compliment; Eunice, who was at that moment standing at the other end of the room, bloody cocktail in hand, and she clearly heard her husband over the hubbub. She rolled her eyes. Must just be one of those things, she thought.

“This is a nice party; I really like the blood cocktail,” he said, holding up a glass of red cocktail, which was really gin with cherry punch.

“Thanks. I mixed it an hour ago.”

Christine turned to Eunice and said, “Hey Eunice, do you know where Clarissa is? She’s a neighbour, is she not?”

Rick added, “I remember her tabletop dance from last Halloween; she’s quite fun when she wants to be; it was too bad her husband was a pill-popper.” Rick had not gleaned the information in the last comment from first-hand experience; rather, he had heard it repeated from Christine and Laura; he had not thought to ask why the contents of James’s medicine cabinet had become so widely known, but after his death, the details of his life, real and imagined were pored over without discrimination, but with enthusiasm, by all of his friends and those who considered themselves friends. Christine, Rick and Eunice weren’t alone in noting Clarissa’s absence; Belinda was also loudly pondering the reasons.

“I mean, how long should we expect a broken heart to last?” pondered she, which Eunice thought was insensitive. As usual, she had a glass with something alcoholic in her hand, which in this case was green and looked like a lime and vodka cocktail, and she was talking to whoever would listen to her, in this case Christine, who seemed to be nodding and interjecting more out of politeness than genuine interest.

“I don’t know, Bel, a loss like that is pretty hard to recover from; I wouldn’t be surprised if the mourning period continues for a while,”

“Maybe we should phone her up, and invite her over; she could do with a drink or two,”

“She’s pregnant, Belinda,”

“Oh, yeah. Anyways, she should be enjoying herself. I’ll call her,” said she, taking her cell phone out of her bra (there was no other place to put it, as the slutty witch costume Eunice had lent her had no pockets). Great, thought Eunice. Drunk dialling: here we have one of the inherent risks of intoxication, although not the most harmful.

“Hi Clarissa, it’s Belinda. Why aren’t you having fun at Eunice’s party? It’s quite happening; it’ll cheer you up,”

Belinda heard Clarissa reply, “Oh, that’s all right, I don’t have a costume.”

“I don’t think that’s all right; we’ve seen you moping around when you come home from work. You’re not yourself; you’re not the woman I knew for so long. I don’t care that you don’t have a costume. Throw some makeup on; you can be a call girl or something. Or, you know what, Eunice has a whole closet full of costumes, you can wear one of hers. That’s what I’m doing; I’m dressed up as a witch,”

Rick, who was facing her, with a beer in hand, thought that she certainly wasn’t dressing
up.

“I’m just too tired right now; I just got off of a grating day at work,”

Belinda suspected this reason at once. “That’s not a good reason for missing a Halloween party that you’ve been invited to, there’s no good reason. You get off busy days at work all the time. Isn’t that the way it is in the public sector these days?”

“Yes, well––”

“Well, come over here. I miss you,” said Belinda.

“Okay,” said Clarissa, rather unconvincingly.

“Bye, Clarie,” said Belinda, and hung up. Does she want to be sad and lonely? Belinda pondered this question as she sipped her cocktail and chatted to the person next to her about whatever, which meant that Cora, who had a much kinder ear for gossip than others, engaged her.

“You know that actor who’s sleeping with the Prime Minister’s wife? He’ll be in a TV show in the fall,” she said.

“I heard it’s such a soap opera; the Prime Minister’s affairs, I mean, not that TV show.”

“Yeah, it’s Pointe. You know, that cops drama in Montréal.”

“Henry, this guy I work with, is a real fan. He says he likes the intense action and the plotlines. It seems to be the only thing that keeps him somewhat relaxed; otherwise he’s quite harried, and seems to stress out about work, his family, his dog, his family, the kids not doing well in school, and family, of course. They have quite the overactive home life. Talk about soap opera,”

She inquired, “Really? What kind of soap opera?” She scavenged for interesting tidbits and factoids just as much as she spread it around. She then saw an attractive man and tried to catch his eye. This man was Zachary, and he pretended not to notice; when she was drunk, she tended to forget people’s availability status, but one could hardly blame her in this particular case: Zachary and Christine had started dating only a week previously, after four attempts by Eunice to get them together.

“There seems to be an ongoing fight with his wife about her credit card, for one; she tried to get a new one, and some loan officer on the phone from wherever said it could not be approved. I hear it around the water cooler all the time, and then there’s the fact that they’ve fallen into a sort of rut in terms of their daily routine; he was complaining that he always ate the same thing, but I think it’s just his fault for not knowing how to cook. He never learned, you see; he lived off Kraft Dinner and frozen pizzas in his university days.”

“Fascinating,” said Belinda between sips of her cocktail. “That’s such an interesting image of his character. I bet he was coddled as a child; you know the kind: they were never taught how to cook, they didn’t do their own laundry, their mom made their bed, and you know, for cooking, I think it would be better if he were taught cooking. It makes him into a kind of man-child, only with kids,”

“He did have a rather extended youth; he only moved out of home when he was thirty-two.”

The conversation went on in this fashion for about five minutes, where they discussed (Cora told Belinda) various things about Henry: his hair, his clothing, his lunch, which was three pieces of herring as he was trying to lose weight, and his behaviour at meetings, which Cora found bombastic, and Belinda could only agree. It was quite remarkable that they could turn someone as boring as rice into a rather scintillating figure, thought Cora. After tiring of the minutiae of Henry’s life and character, the conversation turned to something else: Mario, the host of the party.

“I heard from Eunice they’re trying to get pregnant.”

Mario overheard. “Oh, yes,” he confirmed, and then went into unnecessary details.

“Really? Um, I think that’s just a bit too much information,” said Cora, and she tried to edge away from Mario, who was standing in the kitchen, out to the porch, where there was some light snow falling; gossip isn’t really gossip unless the subject is not overhearing. Belinda had finished her cocktail and fetched a beer, and continued: “I think they were inspired by Jim and Clarissa,” said she. “It’s never too early,”

“What about you?”

“Oh, I tried once with some guy, then I met Kale, and after a few years I found I didn’t really like him, so there was the divorce, and now, there’s this guy on whom I’ve got a crush; his name’s Kevin, but I don’t know about him. There’s also someone from my mom’s work. She works at Home Depot in Toronto, you see, and there’s this particularly handsome young man who I saw carrying some plywood under one arm when I last went to visit her at work three weeks ago.” Then Belinda just thought of something; “Hey, Eunice,” she called, walking inside and impolitely abandoning the conversation with Cora, who was rather miffed, “I called Clarissa at least fifteen minutes ago, and she lives just down the street. What’s keeping her?”

“It’s probably James’s death, though I don’t like how it’s been dragging on like this,” said Eunice, glad that she wasn’t the only one with Clarissa on her mind, “I’ll give her a call myself.”

She went to the telephone and dialled Clarissa’s number. The phone rang four times, and then it went to the message tone. “No answer,” said she. “Maybe she’s asleep; I don’t think we should disturb her,”

That was the last time that night that Eunice attempted to contact Clarissa; subsequent attempts would not have ended in success, she guessed: if Clarissa were asleep, she would remain asleep until morning. This instance, however, marked the time when Eunice started to be worried about Clarissa; she had attended last year’s Halloween party, when she had masqueraded as Marie Antoinette, the theme of that Halloween party being villains and villainesses. James, being their neighbour, and like them childless, was also invited to that party, but by a stroke of misfortune, he had the flu.

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