The First Part of Chapter 27: New Light

Ken was at O’Shaughnessy’s pub downtown on that Friday night chatting with his friends, Kevin and Steve; all of them were drinking. Ken was having a Grand Marnier, Kevin a Bacardi Breezer, and Steve was having a beer. That was when he saw her; she was very pretty.

“You’re checking her out, I see,” commented Kevin. “I know her; her name is Clarissa. Do you want me to introduce you?”

Kevin also knew about the miscarriage; word gets around, after all, but he thought it would be better to spare Ken the sorry details of her recent life.

“How is she?”

“She’s lonely, maybe you should hook up.”

Ken walked over, attempting to be as confident as he could.

“Good evening,” said he.

“Uh, good evening,” replied Clarissa. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Ken.”

“I’m Clarissa,”

“My friend over there says he knows you. He says you’re single,”

Clarissa smiled. “That’s true; he knows me well, apparently. Oh, it’s Kevin!”

“I’m single too, you know,”

“I’m interested,” said Clarissa, who to Ken sounded seductive.

“I work for the bank of Canada; you know, forecasting inflation and that sort of thing. I personally think it’s a waste of time; you remember that old adage about forecasting being at best a waste of time and at worst a sin?”

“What do you forecast for tonight?”

“Optimistically, us hooking up?”

“You’re a very good forecaster; it may not be such a waste of time. You know what, let’s stop beating about the bush and get back to my place. I have a nice house just a fifteen minute walk away.”

“Congratulations, Cupid,”

“Thanks, Steve,”

Kevin watched Ken and Clarissa sit down at a table together, chatting animatedly. I think this is going to be a success, he thought.

“You’re smiling,”

“Oh I’m just thinking of some disreputable woman who seems to take a fancy to me; every time I see her, she seems to be drunk. Not that I would want to see her that often; she happens to be a neighbour, and she tries quite routinely to flirt with me, and could never seem to pick up that I’m gay. She always thought she had some sort of chance; I guess that’s what you get with vacuous women. Just last week, she approached me and told me all about a cute dress she purchased, like I care, and it was definitely not pretty: it showed too much skin, and she does not have a particularly nice body. Too much hangs out, you know. It didn’t help that it already had a wine stain on it.”

“That sort of reminds me of my neighbour; she’s not exactly agreeable herself, and she isn’t all that savoury, though she seems to do well for herself; she put an addition on her house last September, and now it’s one of the nicest houses in the city; she always seems to buy the very best things for her children, and I can’t stand them running around the neighbourhood, riding their motorised dirt bikes around the gully out back. She doesn’t seem to like me, either; she’ll pick on absolutely anything, such as me hanging my laundry out to dry, the way my lawn is landscaped, and my lifestyle, which I simply can’t understand, and just seemingly anything she can think of.”

“Need I know her name?”

“Juliana, but there are probably lots of people with that name in Sudbury.”

Ken and Clarissa walked out of the bar, hand in hand. Clarissa had only had a shot of Frangelico, and Ken had finished a beer. They were giggling as they walked down the downtown street, which at eleven at night was busy, this being the bar and nightclub district, and the night being rather warm for the time of year: ten degrees.

Ken moved very smoothly, thought Steve. They look nice together. This wasn’t the first time Kevin had done this, either; he didn’t try, but he was a skilled matchmaker; it was Kevin, after all, who had helped Ken find his first wife, Viola, and he suspected him of pulling the strings with a few other people: he had introduced their friend Marie to a man named John, and there were others, but he was rather tipsy, and his memory came and went when he was drinking. This is not to say that he always played Cupid; he also got in the game himself, as he was presently dating a man named Luc.

Kevin did not think it worthwhile to mention her name, although he knew her perfectly well; she was Belinda, and in his opinion, she had talked too much, and was getting far too nosy for her own good. If she only paid as much attention to her garden, where the crocuses would have just finished and be replaced by other flowers if she had them, as she paid to her neighbours in an effort to pick up any scrap of information, then maybe more people would like her; she would also have a better front garden, which right now was a small bare patch of earth. He did not like the way she had carelessly put her recycling on the kerb, leaving copies of People and similar magazines to blow around in the strong spring gusts; that had made quite a mess of the street, and unlike last fall’s leaves, it was offensively bright and gaudy. He did not know that the real reason was that Belinda had moved to her mother’s house, which was why she had been neglecting the front garden. Belinda had in fact been very careful to keep it quiet, which ran counter to her personality; the embarrassment of losing her job and whittling away her savings was too much for her, and only in May did Kevin realise that Belinda would be gone. Kevin thought, after four drinks, that he had spent long enough in the bar, and bade his friends good night. While walking brusquely home, he saw Ken and Clarissa, both tipsy, making their way to Clarissa’s house.

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