CHERRY BLOSSOMS // Revisited // Montréal // 3.12

Winslow showed up at eight in the morning with two coffees from the bakery and a hot chocolate for Odie (who was developing a crush on the good-looking kid).

Geoff had got up and taken an Advil. His neck was so stiff he was sure he had spinal meningitis, at least the early onset of it. His stomach was clenched tight as a drum and while he made bacon and eggs, he didn’t have any and Odie ate the share he’d made for himself. He’d talked to O in the morning about her behavior yesterday. It was fine for her to be upset with Mom. He understood, but that in this family, they would not do that. Leave things the way she’d left them.

Said, How do you think mom feels away from us, away from her family, and that was the last exchange between you two? Odie said mom doesn’t care, and he didn’t like that. He put his hand over her forearm and said, “Of course she does. I think you hurt her feelings.”

Odie didn’t like that. Didn’t like that maybe she’d hurt Mom’s feelings. She was quiet after that and he sat and watched her eat and he drank his coffee.

Now they were in the studio, Winslow, O, and Geoff, and he was pulling back the tab on his fourth coffee of the day. Odie was helping Winslow. Helping by standing on a stool, both hands on her hot chocolate and cutely bossing him around, telling him which boxes of prints got loaded, then changing her mind and saying no, not those ones, bringing him back, then saying yes, those ones. Winslow played along and got her giggling.

One year ago, it was Nia, Odie, and Geoff doing this. He wasn’t as well known then, but, boy, it seemed like the family business and it was a lot of fun. All three of them going to the Expo. Nia had taken Odie around by the hand and the two of them had a great time. Nia bought Odie a dozen books she wanted. Then look at them this year—how things had changed. Nia working all the time. Odie growing up. An assistant. And the fucking thing he was trying not to think about this morning: Nia having dirty sex with another man last night.

“Geoff, I think we got it all,” Winslow said. He was young, practically a Geoff doppelgänger. Sandy hair, a beard, medium height, light build. He dressed similarly too, a staid sort of intellectual artist type. He adjusted his glasses as Geoff hoisted himself off the Herman Miller and went to the door of the studio.

Winslow and Odie had loaded up all the books he was bringing, all the prints. He’d sat at his table in a reverie. He patted Winslow on the shoulder, said nothing, but Winslow nodded to him, a warm smile, not understanding what was on Geoff’s mind but recognizing something was going on. Geoff patted him again, pointed him out to the car, then locked the studio up behind him. He wished there was someone he could talk to. He’d never admit what he and Nia were up to, but it would be nice to talk to someone who loved him. Someone who wasn’t Nia. But Nia was his best and almost the only real friend.

* * *

Rocco was in a bad mood. He was slamming a drawer, looking for where he’d left his wallet. The coat hangers still softly jangled behind him from when he’d charged through his things hanging in there, jamming his massive hands into pockets.

She bit her lip, felt tiny under his anger. She sat down on his bed and waited for him, spread her hands out behind her on his unmade sheets, clenched them in her fists. She wondered if he had jerked off last night. She wondered if the sheets under her well-dressed tush right now were stiff with his semen.

He found it in the washroom finally, and he grunted to her when he came out. He had a pair of jeans on, his thick thighs and ass jammed into them. She wondered how he’d stuffed that dick in there. He had a nice bulge, but it didn’t look like what she’d seen last night. The denim must really keep it in place. Black T-shirt with a V neck and those thick arms stretching its sleeves as he stuffed the wallet into his back pocket.

Nia was up at six-thirty, had a hot shower and got her hair dried. The show started at nine and they wanted to be there at the opening. They still had to do the thing they came here to do. The other thing that they came here to do.

“Let’s go,” he said gruffly.

She went to him, laptop in a bag under her arm, and got close to him. She could feel the heat off his body, like his frustration was an engine and she had it in the red zone. She put her hand on his arm, just below his shoulder, as they left the room. An innocent gesture. Two friends starting a long day together. She didn’t want his pot boiling over. He looked at her hand and he snorted, gestured ahead for her to go on down the hall. She felt his eyes burning on her ass as she walked to the elevator.

* * *

Geoff introduced Winslow to Jenny from Evergreen.

“Hey, Winslow, this is Jenny Brown, editor over at Evergreen—she did the Choo books with me. Jenny, this is my assistant, Winslow.”

They shook hands, exchanged pleasantries. Then Odele was looking for attention, being a little cutie behind his leg until Jenny noticed her and she bent down and hugged her. Jenny had brought boxes of special edition Choo books to sell at the table and Geoff sent Winslow over to her car to get them and bring them to the table.

Jenny said, “Nia not here?”

“No, she had to work this weekend. She’s in Montréal.”

Jenny cocked her head, furrowed her brow, and her narrow but pouting lips pursed. She said, “Aww, I really miss her.”

It caught him off guard somehow. Maybe it was the sweet way her eyebrows went up in the middle, the tone of her aww—something about that reaction poked him in the belly. He felt himself buckle. His breath caught instantly in his throat, his eyes swelled like he would cry.

“I do, t—” he couldn’t continue. His voice wavered, the sad sound of it making it worse, and he knew if he tried to finish his sentence, he’d bust out. He cleared his throat. Jenny looked at him and she didn’t know what to do. There was nothing wrong between him and Nia, but everything he was communicating to Jenny suggested trouble in the marriage. It was the opposite. He turned and faced the lake behind them, watched the seagulls and the waves, and blinked furiously. He missed her so much. He never loved her more, or needed her more. He was suffering because she was truly missed. Jenny looked around, bit her lower lip and looked to Odie, who seemed oblivious. Jenny rubbed Geoff’s arm.

He laughed, shook his head, tried to shake it away, saying, “Hoo, I just really miss her.”

They were standing near the boardwalk by Lake Ontario, next to The Power Plant, the art gallery down by the waterfront. There was an open expanse, a fountain, and a rectangular pond of shallow water. When they’d got here, Odele had asked, “Didn’t we go skating here?” They had. Two years ago, he and Nia brought Odie here when it was frozen over and they’d held her between them as she skittered around, her tiny white figure skates barely scratching the ice.

The Book Expo, more officially The Canadian Author Festival, was at the Harbourfront Centre. Fifty-thousand guests over the two days, coming for signings, for readings, and to buy lots and lots of books (hopefully!). Geoff had a major signing at one o’clock. That would be the official one, the one the folks at the Expo would make attendees line up for behind velvet ropes and he would sit in front of a black curtain with his black-lettered name on white cor-plast hanging askew behind him. They had ushers that kept visits brief. It would be a panel. He would sit with four other authors at a long table. The 1 P.M. signing was all children’s authors and illustrators. Then at three o’clock he had a Q&A panel in one of the smaller rooms. Probably twenty people, most looking for insight on how to break in to the business rather than fans. The rest of the time he would float between the Evergreen Booth, sign books there, meet interested people, and he had a table where Winslow would sit. He’d have books for sale, printed sketchbooks, his silkscreens, and two boxes of a special gold foil spine of Little Choo that Winslow was now getting from Jenny’s car. Geoff dried his eyes, as surreptitiously as he could, while they both watched Winslow wheeling two cardboard boxes along the sidewalk to them on a red metal push cart. Jenny stood close to him and she made light, cheerful small talk while they waited. Odie had her hand on a tree set in a metal grate at the side of the path and she walked in circles around it, singing.

“How’s the turnout?” he asked Jenny, sniffing.

“It looks good this year.”

He nodded and sighed, feeling better now. Book festivals in the city had become tricky, a lot of them going under. He’d thought of getting a table at the comic conventions just to get exposure. Sell some prints. He didn’t work in comics, but he had a lot of other kids illustrators telling him they had success—attendance at those shows was never an issue.

Winslow caught up with them, returned Jenny’s keys, and all four of them weaved through the gathering crowds, heading for the side entrance to the Harbourfront building.

* * *

There was a new company that dealt with pigment for concrete. When Dragon laid decks and pathways, some customers liked a color added, something to make it look like it wasn’t concrete. There was a new company, and they wanted Rocco’s business. Knew he was big in Toronto and wanted him to try their product.

Rocco did this thing when he talked to other men about business—she wasn’t sure if he did it on purpose, but she could see the effect. He’d lean on something, on an elbow, lean in, left hand on hip, one leg folded up. He’d get himself very close to the other person’s personal space, not in it, but right on the border, enough that they’d tilted their head. Then he’d look down coolly at them through narrowed eyes.

They were at a booth in the busy Expo, Level Two, in the Hall Viger of the Palais des congrès de Montréal. The show was bustling. The floor in this side building, with the smaller vendors, was cramped and warm despite the air conditioning. She stood off to the side and let people by and she kept herself in the line of sight of the man Rocco was talking to. She looked professional. Too professional compared to some of the other rough construction characters at the show. With Rocco’s size and her pretty charm and professional appearance, they were a great team. Rocco was in a shit mood, but things at the show had been going very well. She knew her value.

She knew that the company they were using now for colored concrete, Chromacrete, had pissed Rocco off. Two lots of mismatched color batches that had caused a lot of trouble. Rocco had closed himself into his office and fucking screamed at them over the phone. Lucky their office was in Calgary or he would have visited in person. She wondered how they would react if he had met them in person. How quickly they would have acquiesced. In the end they did anyway, after threats of legal interruption. The company had reimbursed him for the trouble, the labor it took to correct their already laid mixup, but Rocco was done with them. They were under new ownership, he said, and the new owner was a twenty-seven-year-old jack-off who didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. He told this new company he’d left Chroma and was with Brenner Colour now, but that was a lie. This guy would know Chroma was on the ropes and if Rocco said he was still with Chroma, he’d have pull. Just dumb macho business tricks, but she loved to see him work.

This guy, a young hungry male—pumped up arms like Rocco, but a head shorter—looked up to Rocco literally and figuratively. He was doing everything he could to win Rocco’s favor. Submitting to the dominant male. It had been like this all day and it was such a turn on. Knowing she was going to fuck Rocco, witnessing him dominating other males all day, watching other men bend to his will—it put butterflies in her tummy. Rocco was a force. He had a presence. He was a macho fucking stud.

She took her phone out of her skirt pocket, didn’t look at it, just let her thumb ease up and down the crystal surface. She swore she was going to make Geoff suffer with her silence. She wanted that for him. Her imaginative husband would make himself crazy. More crazy than if she let him know the play-by-play. Plus, she wanted to be alone in this. She wanted to forget about Geoff. But she couldn’t forget her best friend.

Fuck it. She smirked, looked at her phone, swiped it awake. She texted, laughing to herself at how mean she could be.