Sam winced from the whiskey. He stared down at Alice's white Adidas. She had her legs outstretched to the side of the table. The shoes were badly scratched five months ago, now they were more scuff than sneaker. She sipped from her hazy amber beer. The faded purple kiss of her lipstick marked the two empty glasses beside her.
Sam zipped up his jacket. Someone had engraved 'I think I'm losing it' into the table. The sky was a flat blue. It felt lower than usual. There was a candle burning between them. Sam hovered his left hand over it until he felt his skin start to burn. He took an ice cube out of his glass and let the cool water drip between his fingers and onto his jeans.
Sam finished his drink. He hadn't seen their server for at least ten minutes. Was she avoiding them? He put the ice cube back in his glass and swirled it around. The cocktail list was written out in purple and green chalk. A fifteen dollar cocktail with Earl Grey tea, an eighteen dollar drink with mezcal and grapefruit syrup. He looked down the list searching for the one with the lowest price and most ounces. 'The Gas Stove' had rye, cognac, vermouth and brandy; perfect.
A breeze cut across the patio and blew out their candle. Sitting there, Sam saw two Alices. Her red hair, cut short when they met, now down below her shoulders. Her cheeks were smooth where the smile lines that stretched from her cheek bones to her chin used to be. The freckles on her nose that blossomed in the summer sun were absent among the fallen leaves.
Alice turned her face towards him. He looked away at the scuffed sneakers, the engraved table, the suffocating sky. She let out a breath. He unzipped his jacket. He could see the server talking to someone at the bar. Sam drank the melted ice water from his glass.
“I'm going in to get another drink.”
“Yup,” Alice said.
Inside, electronic music played. An old soul sample crooned over a syncopated drum beat. Sam walked to the bar and waited to be noticed. The ceiling lamps were dimmed. Fake candles shined yellow electric light on the faces of the other drinkers. Sam leaned his arms against the bar and stared at the bottles of liquor. Patron, Hendricks, something called Arak. The server moved in front of him.
“What can I get you?”
“The Gas Stove.”
“Sounds good.” She turned away from him and grabbed a mixing glass. She filled it with ice and then looked back over her shoulder. “I can bring it out to you.”
“That's okay.” She shrugged. She took her phone out from under the bar, scrolled through it and tapped play. The music changed to an eighties sounding pop song. Big bright synths twirled over a swinging bass line. Sam liked it.
Alice was staring out into the street. She drank from her glass, swallowed and drank again. The waitress was wearing dark high-waisted jeans and a white bodysuit with black stripes. Her hair bounced against her back as she shook his drink. Her face was reflected in a mirror on the wall. She smiled big. There was a gap in her bottom teeth.
Sam could see her tongue dancing along with the bass drum. He looked out at Alice. She was nearly done with her beer. He looked at the beer taps and back at the server. She peeled a strip of orange rind, spritzed it over the cocktail and dropped it in. She mouthed along to the song. She closed her eyes when it got to the chorus. The synths swelled into a climax. The other guy at the bar was staring at her. His eyelids were low. His shirt was too tight.
“I'll settle up,” Sam said.
“Both of you?
He hesitated. Alice was scrolling through her phone. Her lipstick now a mauve. “Yeah, both of us.” She handed him a bill. He handed her cash. She turned back to the guy at the bar. His eyes got big.
Alice glanced up at him. He put his glass to his lips before sitting. He shivered just from the smell. She eyed his drink. He brought it to his lap. She went back to her phone. He looked at her face, the shoes, the engraving, the sky.
“I paid,” he said.
“I still want another.”
“I thought you were done.”
“I wasn't.”
“I didn't realize.”
She let out a breath. Sam unzipped his jacket. Shoes, engraving, sky. He drank. He kept a straight face this time. He smiled. She was on her phone. A bus boy came out to clear their table. Alice tilted back her beer and handed the glass to him. There was nothing on the table blocking his view. He saw her in full as she was now. Long hair, smooth cheeks, faded freckles. He looked into her eyes and he said it.
Northwood by Jacob Dalfen-Brown
Jacob is a recent graduate from the University of Toronto who is trying to figure out this whole 'art as industry' thing.
TW: @DalfenBrown
Once upon a time, a beautiful finance analyst lived at the edge of a large kingdom. Her apartment was small and occasionally infested with ants but more importantly, was only a bachelor apartment. The finance analyst had a fiancé and they were looking to settle down.
The finance analyst was well off and had a kind mother who promised to aid in her hunt for a house, but she searched the vast kingdom in vain. Decrepit, windowless homes went for over a million dollars. The most affordable ones were just as far away from the kingdom’s bustling centre as her own sad apartment, or even farther. She and her boyfriend engaged in angry bidding wars and intricate mind games with the help of their noble real estate agent.
They even went so far as to befriend an elderly woman in a desirable neighbourhood, in the hopes that they’d have an edge when she was finally forced to sell her four-bedroom two-bathroom row house and was shipped off to an old folk’s residence. Instead she died in her home. And her daughter swiftly sold the property to a developer.
The beautiful finance analyst was at a loss. She asked her father, a grocery store franchise owner, for a small loan, but he shook his head in sadness.
“I cannot help you” he said to his daughter, “I’m swamped in debt and want to retire soon. You’ll have to figure it out yourselves.”
The finance analyst was distraught. She wandered through all the best neighbourhoods in the kingdom, Ossington village, King’s West, The Town of Cabbages and Queen Leslie’s ville, her eyes puffy with tears, her heart low, staring at the houses she could never afford, with an almost painful sense of envy and despair.
Just as she was finishing her sojourn through Park Valley before beginning her long journey to her sad bachelor apartment a woman sitting on her front porch called out to the finance analyst.
“Good evening miss. Why are you crying so much?” said the woman.
She was well dressed in a cashmere sweater and her hair was silvery in the sunset. The finance analyst thought she hoped to look like that when she was older and accomplished, with a house of her own.
“Oh,” she said, “I want to buy a house and I don’t know how I can possibly do it”.
The woman gestured at the finance analyst to come onto the porch. The house was beautiful. Recently renovated, the finance analyst could tell. The porch looked made of hardwood and the chairs upon it were soft yet firm. The light that shone from the awnings above was delicate, illuminating the woman’s face in such a way that made her look far younger than her years. The woman looked towards the finance analyst, then her house, pensively.
“I’m thinking of selling the place as a matter of fact,” she said. “I was hoping to make two million dollars off it. What will you give me if I cut the price in half?” The finance analyst stared, mouth agape, at the woman, then she began a frantic search through her purse before placing her hand on her collarbone.
“I’ll give you this necklace,” she said, and she took off the gold chain with an emerald pendant, a gift from her grandmother, and handed it to the woman.
“Interesting. And what will you give me if I took off two-thirds of the price?”
“The ring on my finger” replied the finance analyst and tore off her engagement ring and handed it to the woman.
The woman smiled. She toyed with the ring before putting on her own pale, slender finger.
“And what,” she said, “will you give me if I gave you this house for free?”
The finance analyst gasped. Then tears formed once again in her eyes.
“I have nothing more I can give you,” she wept, and made to leave the beautiful woman’s beautiful porch.
“How about this,” said the woman. “Promise me, when you get settled and comfortable in this house, you will give me your first child.”
The finance analyst smiled for the first time all day. Who knows how things would turn out? She thought. She could be barren! She didn’t want children all that much anyway. And more than anything else, she was in distress and could think of no other way she would ever buy a house in such a perfect place. So, she promised the woman what she desired and the next day they went to a lawyer and had the deed turned over to the finance analyst and her fiancé.
The couple were elated. They had a house! And it was enormous with an open plan. There was plenty of light in the kitchen, a beautiful modern office for the finance analyst, and an extra bedroom, which her fiancé envisioned as the perfect child’s room.
At first the finance analyst was hesitant. But as time went by, she forgot about her promise and a year later was surprised when told by her doctor that she was pregnant. Nine months later she brought a beautiful child into the world. And still she forgot her promise.
Despite her earlier misgivings about motherhood, the finance analyst couldn’t help but love her son and when the woman appeared one morning on the porch and said “now give me what you promised” in clear and menacing tones, the finance analyst was stricken with fear.
She offered the woman all the riches she had, to empty her bank account, to sell off her stocks, but the woman was rigid with her demand and would not be dissuaded.
“I have always wanted a child,” she said, “and would rather have one than all the treasure in the world.”
“But you can’t it’s too cruel,” said the finance analyst.
Then suddenly she began to relax. She remembered how this kind of story went and could feel her hope returning.
“What if,” she said “I guessed your name. Would I be able to keep my child then?”
But the woman just rocked her head back and laughed a dark and guttural laugh. Without another word, she snatched the child from the finance analyst’s arms and strode away down the street.
“Don’t worry I’ll love him like my own,” cackled the woman.
“Stop please, you can’t do this!” cried the finance analyst, weeping.
“Sorry honey,” the woman yelled. “You have the house, now you have to live in it!”
She shrieked and laughed, rocking the child back and forth in her arms before she leapt in the air and flew away, never to be seen by the finance analyst again.
The finance analyst was beside herself with grief, but there was nothing to be done. She took to sitting on the porch for hours, wondering, plotting, waiting for another desperate soul like herself to pass by, so she could make them offer they couldn’t refuse.
A Fairytale, Emma Bider.
Emma Bider is a writer and PhD student living in Ottawa. Her poetry has been featured in Unpublishable Zine. She's currently trying to identify all the trees in her neighbourhood. Emma's collection of short stories We Animals is available at Octopus Books in Ottawa and on Amazon.
Twitter: @ebider
Instagram: @bideremma