Swimmers in Winter Read online

  “How is that possible?” Jackie asked. “What does it mean?”

  “Anything you want it to,” Claudia answered, as though the question did not surprise her. “The idea is that the food—the way it comes together as a meal on a plate—is different from anything you’ve tasted before.”

  “But how can you taste something without remembering what it is or what it reminds you of? Doesn’t everything have a history?”

  Claudia nodded. “Right. But the idea is that the way the different ingredients come together is new. It’s the boldness of the claim that brings customers in. It makes them wonder, just like you did now.” She shrugged. “I know what you’re saying. It’s not my idea though. I just have to work with it—cook with it.”

  Claudia says it’s the best place she’s found in her seven-plus years of working kitchens, starting with the diner. With Eva.

  Jackie had never gone into the diner. Only heard stories.

  Let me tell you what the place was like.

  ◊

  Jackie stops at the edge of the sidewalk. She leans against a newspaper box and takes off her glasses, puts her hand across her eyes. Her thoughts are trespassers.

  Always keep moving.

  She starts walking again, still thinking of Claudia. Pictures her cooking over an industrial stove, the smells and stains of the kitchen that seep into the clothes she changes out of before she comes home. No trace of the kitchen, no sign of where she’s been when she walks in, except when she moves closer, except on her skin.

  It’s dinnertime, and though she ate before leaving for work, Jackie’s hungry. At Claudia’s restaurant, they’re probably serving bread to start, made fresh on site, still warm in a basket under a bright cloth. Below the crunch of its thick peppery crust, the bread must feel so soft, like a pillow, held and torn between the teeth. She imagines it as she darts around a car caught in the intersection and avoids a bike courier ripping around the corner before the light changes.

  And the meal tonight? It would have a lot of spice, because that’s one of Claudia’s specialties—she always adds heat to the sauces, different layers of it. Flavour like a fire burning at the back of the tongue, lighting up the darker hollows of the mouth.

  Then later, dessert. Tasting of what? Rosewater, cream, and something sweet and salt tipped.

  ◊

  “What’s on the menu tonight?” Jackie asked before she left for work. She asks this a lot, though Claudia doesn’t usually want to say.

  “Chef’s secret,” Claudia answered. She lifted her hand to mess up Jackie’s carefully slicked-back hair.

  Jackie saw it coming. She reached up quick to grab Claudia’s wrist with her left hand, an old self-defense move, one of the first ones she was taught. Though she was out of practice, the gesture was still habit to her, body memory flooding back from years of martial arts classes taken in the corner of a dusty gym.

  Claudia did not seem surprised. She smiled with her eyes only and waited, her arm still caught in Jackie’s grip. Jackie didn’t know what to do next. Ask about the menu again? That’d be like trying to force water from stone.

  “Okay,” Claudia said. “Relax. I won’t touch your hair. I know it’s perfect.”

  Jackie realized she could feel Claudia’s pulse under her thumb. She released her hold.

  ◊

  From Grade Nine until after Jackie finished high school: karate, kickboxing, punching bags, and reflex bags—but no boxing, no real contact—the blocks and punches and kicks falling in and out of rhythm with the clanking lifting and falling sounds of the weight machines.

  At first there was the shock of the solid force that fighting required. Not just the physical force alone, but the delivery of it. A solid mind. The way it made her limbs stutter at first, and how out of balance she was in the fighting stances required.

  But she didn’t quit, because it felt like survival, and because what she did in the gym was more interesting than anything else she could think of to do, was safer than anything else she had begun to realize she wanted.

  What did all those hours of training and practice, before and after school and on weekends, in exchange for helping to clean the floors and equipment in the evenings, come down to?

  It meant the ground at her feet, not her face against the floor.

  She practiced again and again until her body was a quick blade cutting through what real threat was left—no threat. Just ghosts, and security.

  Eventually, it got her into her line of work.

  Jackie began working as a guard about eight years ago. First, part-time hours at the droning, dizzying malls on the outskirts of the city. Then, the company promoted her to work downtown at big office buildings where everyone seems to have something towing them along. A year ago, she got offered a night security position at one of the big bank headquarters downtown, along with a small raise. She thought Claudia was proud of her.

  But would you be surprised at where I’ve ended up? Did you think I had it in me?

  ◊

  She’s two blocks from work now, at the edges of the gathering dusk. A steady flow of faces and forms ripple in and out of shadow. The light still refracting off the shining metal surfaces of cars and trucks, and the polished stones of buildings, tangles with the evening, softening forms. Even the patch of concrete at her feet seems pliable, as though it would give under the weight of her step, grey cement folding inward like a sponge.

  She stumbles at a curb and catches herself, nearly falling to the pavement.

  Look out!

  The light turns green and people brush past her. The air, when she inhales sharply, is harsh with exhaust from the cars lined up bumper to bumper, nowhere to go.

  She stops again and looks around, to gather her thoughts, to calm her mind, filter what she is seeing. Tries to pretend nothing happened.

  The pavement is solid again when she presses down on it hard with each foot. Testing, looking around.

  As the sun goes down, the brightly lit interiors of the office buildings get easier to see from the street. Just now, there’s a movement at a window six stories up. A small woman, framed by the glass, waves a pale cloth. She’s looking down at the sidewalk. Is it red, the woman’s hair?

  Then the real question drops into Jackie’s mind, like a spider from a strand of its web.

  Eva?

  The woman in the window turns away, flicking the cloth in her right hand as if it were a signal. She must have been cleaning the insides of the windows.

  Did you see me?

  I have to get to work, Jackie tells herself.

  I’ve been waiting for you.

  ◊

  Jackie arrives at the start of her shift with no time to spare. She shoves her bag under the security desk at the centre of the bank tower lobby and takes her position, straightening the collar of her jacket, placing her feet shoulder-width apart.

  The desk dwarfs her. She thinks of it as hers sometimes, as though it belongs to her. It’s long and wide, and set on a slanted gradient starting just above eye level so that she can hardly be seen when she’s sitting there. The seat can only be accessed by unhooking one of the two heavy black ropes hanging between two waist-high metal posts at either end of the desk. These are her partitions.

  Behind the desk are two rows of five computer screens, and an electronic door-lock system diagram lit up green in all places where the locks are functioning properly. A flashing red light means an emergency malfunction.

  The walls of the lobby are clear glass from floor to ceiling on three sides, with sets of wide revolving doors on each side that she locks after dark. Behind the security desk rises the fourth wall made of massive slabs of what look like marble, a pale cream colour with flecks of grey that glint depending on the angle she takes to view its surface. It frames three sets of large copper-coloured elevators shining as if they’re polished each day.

  She wasn’t sure
how she felt about working nights at first. It messes up her sleeping pattern, and it could start to mess with her head, if she let it. But a hard run or a workout with weights after she wakes up in the afternoon wrings the weariness out of her body. Then she’s ready for the night and is, for a while, clear-headed.

  On the night shift, there’s just the one floor she has to guard. She’s mostly on her own, but that just means she only has to rely on herself. It should be enough.

  ◊

  Before high school, before she ever stepped into the gym and learned to move, fight back, Jackie’s very name held the weight of disaster.

  The girls in her classes hollered it louder than anyone. “Jackie!” Like it was a crazy joke. From street corners and down hallways, dragging out each of the two syllables, their calls pitching higher as she walked away. Her name was how they’d try to cut her open and get inside.

  But then she met Eva. And when Eva said her name, she made it new.

  “Hey Jack,” she would say in greeting, using that deliberate, even tone she had, just an inch away from fury. Insisting the name deserved to be spoken. Her eyes would meet Jackie’s, hold them, even as the other girls walked past, either staring or collapsing against each other in hilarity.

  “Hey Flappy Jackie. Fucking fag-girl,” they’d say, like an ugly secret.

  But Eva would continue, “It’s good to see you.” And the blades of laughter dulled.

  Was it a spell?

  Despite herself, Jackie wouldn’t let go of Eva’s eyes, not until they were gone.

  ◊

  By eleven, the cleaners have finished, and they say a quick goodbye as Jackie locks the door behind them. One other guard is working the shift with her tonight, up in the executive office suites high above. He’ll be down to give her a break at three.

  Here in the lobby, the surfaces of the giant floor-to-ceiling glass walls reflect the brightly lit interior, obscuring the outer world into shadow. If Jackie looks hard, she can see the hazy glaze of streetlights, and the shine from the neighbouring buildings like massive glowing beacons in the dark. Anyone looking in can see her every move, as if she’s alone on stage in an all-night performance.

  Her hands shake, trying to get free of what holds them. An old dread moves, first feathery, then tight, in her chest.

  Why now?

  Jackie swallows hard to tame it and realizes her throat is dry. Where’s her Thermos of cold tea? She reaches for her bag tucked underneath the desk, then catches a sudden movement out of the corner of her right eye. She spins around, scanning the interior, the bag swinging from its strap held tight like reins in her hands.

  It’s only her reflection in the wall of glass.

  The cameras are recording her every movement. She tries to look in control, reaches into the bag without taking her eyes off the glass. Don’t look away from your opponent. Hold their gaze, stare them down.

  She finds her Thermos, opens it to take a sip, swallows, then sucks in a lungful of air.

  There’s more movement. On her left, to the other side of the lobby.

  Jackie flinches. The liquid catches in her throat, making her cough so hard she has to lean forward to catch her breath and close her eyes for a moment.

  It’s only headlights, probably a night delivery to the building across the street.

  That’s all it is.

  Eyes open again, she watches the movement turn and

  disappear, her heart racing.

  Eva?

  Listen. Now she hears a voice, or the memory of one, thrown softer, then harder, against the walls and ceilings of the bank lobby.

  I haven’t changed that much, Eva. As you can tell.

  ◊

  Jackie remembers the night she first met Claudia.

  Eva kept mentioning the girl she’d been seeing for a while, so Jackie was curious. The only thing she knew was that the two of them had met working at a diner together on Yonge Street, and that Eva was plotting their next move. Something new and better.

  It was normal for Eva to be looking to the future. Jackie thought it was because Eva couldn’t trust the present. It wasn’t enough for her.

  They all met at a club downtown, where the dancing was fierce, the crowd was mostly friendly, and the bar staff would serve without asking for ID. And as the three of them stood together in a triangle, Eva introduced Claudia to Jackie, shouting her name over the sound of the music.

  She was tall, like Eva said she would be. Not much taller than Jackie, but enough to make an impression next to tiny Eva. Jackie’s old friend and this new girl looked good together.

  Jackie remembers how still Claudia stood, how it took a lot to get her to smile, and later, to move. But Eva seemed to know exactly how to coax these from her.

  The music surged and pulsed. They stepped back into a semicircle to look around, and Jackie caught the eyes of a few strangers walking by. But she wasn’t interested in following up those glances. She was too curious about the pull between Eva and Claudia. She could feel it, like she had discovered the strength of a force field.

  “Jumping Jack,” Eva said after the first round of drinks, her tone halfway between a joke and a question. “Dance for us.” Then she smiled at Claudia and pulled her close.

  Jumping Jack was a nickname Eva had given her back in high school. Eva revelled in telling people about themselves, showing them she could name whatever clung to them—even if it was a sore spot, something they wanted to hide. In Jackie’s case, Jumping Jack alluded to how on edge she used to be, how she was always ready for escape.

  Jackie no longer let anyone call her anything, but Eva liked to remind her of the nickname anyways. That night, maybe it was to show Jackie—to prove to her—how much they’d both changed. There they were, in the club, maybe in love. Buying their own damn drinks. Not afraid.

  “Hey, Jumping Jack,” Eva repeated. “I said, dance for us.”

  Jackie found herself turning to the crowded dancefloor. There didn’t seem to be a choice. Whenever she looked back, Eva and Claudia were in each other’s arms. The crazy energy between the two of them seemed to follow her, seemed to invite her to step inside of it—if she wanted to.

  She hoped that they were watching her.

  Afterwards, Eva and Claudia walked her home, all of them hot from the club, jackets open to the night, not feeling the cold, a little drunk. And Jackie realized, in what might’ve been an ordinary moment, fluid and clear as the empty night streets, that something had changed.

  Eva seemed calm for the first time in years. It was like she was younger, had found a way to go back in time. Claudia, on the other hand, was looking up as if, from her height, she could see the constellations above the city’s beaded atmosphere of hazy lights. Her manner somewhere between amused and patient. That was her strength, Jackie would eventually realize. Looking back, she wonders if Claudia had most of the answers even then, contained in all those books she read. The ones with the long titles and the abstract covers and the small print.

  Falling a step behind, Jackie again saw Eva and Claudia in the same frame, fitting into each other. The pull between them becoming her centre too, no matter how she felt about it.

  From then on, the three of them began staying out late together, crashing at each other’s places, stepping over roommates or acquaintances sleeping on shared second-hand couches. Regardless of whatever it was she meant to them, it seemed like Eva and Claudia wanted her around and enjoyed her company. And the more time Jackie spent with them, the more interested she became in what was theirs.

  Do you remember how it was?

  All of us were scavengers then.

  ◊

  Jackie is pacing now in the lobby. After every few steps, she pauses to gaze at the things she can and cannot see. She stands like she thinks a guard should, like she does every night: shoulders wide, back straight, arms at her side or folded across her chest.

 
Watching. Waiting.

  When Jackie stops to listen, the empty lobby is thick with sound. The click-clack of her footsteps across the expansive marble floors. The ventilation system circulates countless whispered streams of air. Occasionally, she can hear the muffled motors of a cruising taxi sliding by, or a truck barrelling its late-night cargo through the back corridors of the financial district.

  She often hears a tune, hummed softly. Eva used to hum while she worked on her paintings, back in high school. Little melodies, small refrains, old songs, colours constantly added to the space around her.

  There it is again, underneath it all.

  Late in the night, for a period of about an hour, each of the elevators’ doors slide open a few inches. This is a mechanized system test. It takes Jackie by surprise, even though it happens every night. When it does, she checks her watch. The timing is never the same. Who decides? Which computer?

  Jackie’s mind begins to wander. She finds herself picturing a stranger entering, one who somehow does not set off the motion detector and manages to pry open the mechanically locked door. And as they move to face her, crossing one of the demarcated thresholds of the entrances, their image is captured on the camera from three precise angles.

  Every guard has a story they tell themselves of what could be: imagined scenarios like vines across a wall, gradual and pulling.

  The air in the ceiling vents flows louder.

  ◊

  Thirteen-year-old Jackie landed with a thud on the pavement in the laneway, a block from school. She lay on her side, her cheek slapped by the cement, her body rattled with points of pain where it hit the ground. The school bag carrying her eighth-grade math textbook, wallet, and a small notebook of slow, half-done equations had fallen off her shoulder. She pulled it close, held in both arms like a lumpy shield.