sunday, saskatoon so early to toronto then montreal, rain jul is still in the city So I tell him that I will nap and maybe when I wake we can meet up. It has the feeling of a new day when I wake such was the depth of sleep. I want to go to September to see if they have the photograph of my parents— I’d been using as a bookmark in Lispector’s Chandelier. They are young, holding hands, my father moustached as he is still, on stick legs, they are so straight and skinny-strong. My parents are going to become what they are now, it’s clear, but there is the romance and innocence of unmanifested potential. It’s raining? jul says yes, I say that’s too bad. I understand this to mean he won’t join me for coffee, but we make plans later to go to art gang, a dj show. I am absorbed in my writing a letter to J and tired so I don’t see Ro sitting there or Ro entering. It’s still unclear who was there first. It had been more than a month but not just that. It had been since feeling our undisclosed ending, I’d sent him a message, come over later , yess (spiritual tic-tac) Spiritual tic-tac is borrowed from the film Match. The emoji I use for it is mac’s cordless mouse. I’d told him once that was what it meant. Maybe he remembers. I had made my peace, in fact loved that: yess (spiritual tic-tac) would be our last exchange. I could move, I could die, fall in love with somebody new, change my name. It was complete. Not resolved, in fact unresolved. I could vanish. It belonged to the same thread as my drinking red wine in the wardroom; specifically to the time that I had run into j, smoking outside and he suggests going elsewhere. of course, of course I want this. But don’t I want to go in and finish my glass of wine? this is exactly what I don’t want. It’s thrilling to me that this unattended half glass of wine stand in for me. It’s a stamp or an impression onto the room. Complete and unresolved the yess (spiritual tic-tac) gives me the same satisfying thrilling peace. Ro leaves September. This is when I see him, except the way that I see him is like seeing somebody that you think looks like somebody you know and wish it were them. Even if another part of me was fairly certain it was him, I just look. When it starts to rain harder he turns around and comes back into September and comes to sit beside me directly. How long have I been sitting here? I tuck the letter I’d been writing into the Chandelier and close it. I really couldn’t say. Time is slow to pick up momentum and does so in reverse. I tell him nervously about coming to see if they have the photograph. All these years of living in femininity and now that I’m older, now that it’s unbecoming, I have developed a certain shyness around crushes. I am mumbling about anything whatsoever as a way to distract myself from acknowledging the pink and ascension into my face to lessen the blush. He says that he has to go to the states. To pick up earphones, I guess? As a matter of fact yes. He says none of his friends want to go with him. He asks if I want to go with him. I see the moment the idea occurs to him. Yes, I say easily simply. I can’t tell if you’re being serious. I am. I say. When? Now, I’m just waiting for an uber to pick me up so I can go home to get my car. He says that I can wait with him, go and get his car and then pick up whatever I need from home, passport. I don’t want to see his apartment this way. If I am going to see it it’s important to me that I am invited over, that I am brought there by his wanting me there, not by convenience or efficiency. So I get up and leave, turn back to look at him. He is looking at his phone. It’s impossible that he doesn’t feel my looking but he doesn’t look up from his phone. I will guess not looking is somehow empowering to him, and gives him the upperhand. But it is also empowering for me to look, to look and in unconstraint linger in my gaze for as long as is beautiful. It gives me the upperhand to look and not have my look want anything in return. And then I walk home in the rain and wash the airplane smell in the shower, shave my legs. I tell jul I can’t go to the show tonight anymore. In the car I tell Ro what I’d been considering on the plane, thoughts about will power. How Roman it seems to consider willpower a virtue— it’s misguided, I try on for size— if you’re employing willpower it’s because you want something and you want its opposite— you want to not have it too. Am I talking about him now? us? There’s a lot of green, greener from it being overcast. Under rain like this life is permitted to glow from inside itself. Mostly I play classical music, Glass, and Einaudi, and other contemporaries. He has his hand on my thigh and interrupts me when we are ten minutes from the border. They are going to ask why we are going to the states, we need to come up with a reason. They might ask if we’re together. In my head I seriously doubt this. What do you think? Are we together? he says sure, I say and then get back to the Romans, to how willpower might have been different for the Greeks. Let’s say we’re not together, he interrupts again. Together, not together, it doesn’t matter what we say because the fact of us is that we are in the car driving to the states and then who knows what after. Always there is an ending. Sometimes we call it, sometimes it’s just felt (spiritual tic-tac) and in these words and feelings is the intention to secure the fact of it: Over. But always thoughts of him come into my mind as something to be received. And not always but very often there is us finding ourselves together again, alone and and apart from the natural order of our lives, to culminate in sex and another parting. So what does it matter what we answer. We get the earphones and he asks if I want to drive back to Montreal or stay in the States. I need to eat something I realize. We drive to Plattsburgh. Nearly all the restaurants are closed not that any of them are appealing, so we get pizza. He calls the concierge service of his credit card to find us a cabin for the night and in the meantime we are on airbnb. These concierges are very nice but mostly useless, he says. We find a house in the country, it’s an auto-book so we don’t need confirmation to stay. We stop at a pharmacy so that I can get contact solution and I remember to get condoms. When we get to the house in Jericho there are no lights. We park as per the instructions on airbnb. We lift the painted rock by the front door but there is no key. We knock but there is no answer. When Ro tries the door it’s unlocked so we let ourselves in. We are looking around, to match what we are seeing to the photos and for a note from the host or something else to welcome us. If something happens to you the newspapers will say that the mexican kidnaped you. Even if I die too, he says. I smile. That’s true. It feels wrong to have just entered the house and set my purse down in the bedroom but the payment had gone through and maybe the hosts aren’t even around. And then from upstairs we hear a man say, “Who’s in my house?!” It gets sorted. We don’t get shot, which we joked about after but was an actual worry for him, I think. When we are alone Ro says, Take off your clothes we’re going to shower. No, I say, Yes. No I don’t want to shower. But I’d already complied. Before disagreeing, even, and against some part of myself I’d already complied.
