LEAP

2 4 HOUR S, 4 COUNTRIE S, 1 NOV EL A story written across the globe in 24 hours on 29 February 2 012

LEAP

LEAP
LEAP 24 hours, 4 countries, 1 novel A story written across the globe in 24 hours on 29 February 2012 ISBN 978-0-9540083-7-6 Published by Spread the Word www.spreadtheword.org.uk Editorial Team Juliette Mitchell (lead editor) Prema Govindan Daphne Lee Anjana Menon Ameya Nagarajan Iman Qureshi Neelini Sarkar Kishani Widyaratna Designed by Alistair Hall at We Made This www.wemadethis.co.uk Cover photograph Lee Roberts www.flickr.com/people/moogy/ Produced by Ben Payne Sarah Butler This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

Contents
Authors Part 1 Delhi 1: Tanya Kuala Lumpur 1: Sara London 1: Dave Vancouver 1: Win Part 2 Delhi 2: Tanya Kuala Lumpur 2: Sara London 2: Dave Vancouver 2: Win Part 3 Delhi 3: Tanya Kuala Lumpur 3: Sara London 3: Dave Vancouver 3: Win Part 4 Delhi 4: Tanya Kuala Lumpur 4: Sara London 4: Dave Vancouver 4: Win Epilogue Dave and Sara Win Tanya Acknowledgements 5 6 7 16 21 25 31 32 40 43 47 61 62 66 69 72 81 82 86 89 95 106 107 113 115 118

Authors

DELHI Amana Fontanella Khan Nistula Hebbar Karuna Parikh Amrit N. Shetty Nirupama Subramanium KUALA LUMPUR Sharon Bakar Grace Chin Sharaad Kuttan Saras Manickam Zedeck Siew Gina Yap LONDON Shamim Azad Yemisi Blake Annette Brook Sarah Butler Robert Collins Cath Drake Romesh Gunesekera Shaun Levin Aoife Mannix Femi Martin Chris Meade Saradha Soobrayen VANCOUVER Sean Cranbury Alyx Dellamonica Jenn Farrell McKinley M. Hellenes Alex Leslie Arley McNeney

Part 1

Delhi 1: Tanya

Tanya Bhatia is running. It seems as though she always has. She slams the taxi door shut and sprints across the concrete, her long black hair flying behind her like a crazy sail, her high black boots clattering like hailstones. Shit! The lines at the airport security check point seem to be half a kilometre long. Why is half of Delhi on its way to international destinations at this unearthly hour? An old Punjabi lady cuts across her path, nimbly pushing a wheelchair that bears a decrepit gentleman. Tanya almost trips over the wheelchair but the old man seems oblivious to her presence. The couple whizzes past and the lady shoots her a triumphant look. Score one for the geriatric squad. Gosh! Just over two hours to go for her flight to Vancouver. At this rate, she might not make it past the entrance to the airport. Madam, aapka bag, a voice seems to be calling out to her from afar. Shit! Shit! She has left her backpack in the taxi. She is torn between giving up her place in the queue and running back for the bag. Shit! Thats the bag that contains her ticket and passport. She runs back to the taxi and grabs the bag from the drivers outstretched hand. As she sprints back, she realises that his expression has changed from eager expectation to bafflement. Too bad, she is too late to tip him. Thank you, bhaiyya. Thank you, she shouts out, spurring him to make a mental note to re-evaluate his Honesty is the best policy philosophy. She fumbles in her bag and finds her ticket and passport. The family in front of her seems to be arguing with the guard over a question of mistaken identity. This does not look like you, sir, the security guard is saying. This man is bald. He waves the identity card at the passenger, who sports a head of thick black hair. Arrey, tell him, na. You have got a hair transplant, his wife urges. What is there to feel shy? How much you spent on this transplant, and now they will not let you into the airport? This is surreal, thinks Tanya. She feels the need to contribute to the discussion, to hurry them along. You look just like Shahrukh Khan, she tells the man. He beams at her as his wife glares and says loudly, I know, I know why you got that transplant. Because you want all those shameless women to run after you. The guard, sensing that he will be party to a domestic squabble in a matter of seconds, lets them in. He then peers at Tanya, who is switching between her passport, her ticket and

her body. She glances at her watch. Almost midnight. She might still make it before they close boarding. Arre, madam! Yeh toh kal ka ticket hai! What? Kal ka? It cant be! Did the flight leave yesterday? She could have sworn the ticket was for the first of March! She grabs the ticket and checks it. There is the date: 1 March 2012. Yesterday was 28 February. She can do her math or geography whatever. She checked! It was February and it had 28 days, at least till last year, it did. Today is 29th Feb, madam, smirked the guard. Leap Year, you know. Shit! Shit! Shit! But she begins to explain. But Go home and sleep, he tells her. Come back tomorrow. But Tanya Bhatia cannot go back home and sleep. For one, she has no home; for another, the two-room paying-guest accommodation that she has called home for the past one year has been vandalized beyond recognition. She smiles to herself as she savours the memory. The worn-out blue bedsheet that covered the rock-hard mattress on her cot had been torn into fourteen pieces, the seepage stains that had spread through the walls like a suppurating sore had been doused with stale mustard oil and five days of garbage were strewn across the room, rather like one of those fancy art installations. She had hesitated briefly while ripping the light bulb out of the socket and scooping the muck out of the open drain to pour onto the bathroom floor, but then the memory of Mr Pasrichas claws scraping her butt, his whisky-sour breath as he groped her breast, assailed her like a stench and she tackled the desecration of her room with renewed vigour. Bastard! She was glad, glad that she had performed her last act of defiance she hoped the landlord would slip on the smelly little pool she had created by the door. There was no way she could go back. Madam? Zara hato. The guard recalls her to her predicament. She drags her trolley to the taxi stand and the reality of the situation hits her. She has a day, a whole day in front of her. An extra day to do whatever she wants. She doesnt know right now what she wants to do but she is sure she will not go back to Indventure Inc. Indentured Inc, her colleague Riya calls it. She is right, they are no better than bonded labourers, working ten-hour shifts, putting up with all kinds of crap from finicky customers, faking accents, faking politeness, faking being satisfied employees. Good morning, Mr Smith. This is Tina, how may I help you? Thank you for calling Urex Cards. How can I be of service to you? All that fake talk about Did you catch the game last night? Lovely weather we are having in London this time of year. Who the hell were they fooling? Screw them, she thinks and smiles to herself. That is exactly what she has done. She and Harry have screwed them.

Her smile widens to a grin when she thinks of the half-million dollars waiting for them, safe in some warm sunny location. Her eyes go soft when she thinks of Harry, the way his voice slides over her like smooth warm chocolate, the way he says her name, dragging the aa in Taaanya. She loves his voice; his picture when they Skyped had always been a little blurry, an impression of dark hair and a clean square face. She needs to hear his voice now but when she calls, she only gets a recorded message that his phone is switched off. She has no idea where he is, she doesnt even know if Harry is his real name; she only knows that she will meet him at Vancouver on March 1st, or would it be 29th Feb or 2nd March by the time she reaches him? Madam, you want hotel? A shady-looking fellow had sidled up to her. I have nice lodge in Paharganj, very neat and clean for all tourists, private bathroom. I get you taxi also. There was no way this guy was mistaking her for a tourist. She knows what she has in mind. A year in Delhi has hardened her. Go to hell, she mutters under her breath and squashes him with a glare. She has to figure out what to do. It isnt safe for her to loiter about at 1.00 a.m on a Delhi night. Well, this extra day is a present, the thinks to herself, so shell give herself a present. She gets into a prepaid taxi and speaks with an air of authority, as though she has just got off a plane. The Radisson, she says in her best British accent. I have a reservation. It is the first name that comes to mind and she knows it is close to the airport. It is expensive, not the place where your average worker from a call centre would stay, but the knowledge of the half-million dollars gives her the licence to blow some money. The taxi ride is uneventful. She walks into the hotel faking an air of confidence she is good at faking. She is ready for the drama in case they dont have a room: the returning non-resident Indian act, the incompetent reservation clerks, the long flight. But the hotel seems to have rooms. She flashes her credit card and is gracefully accepted into the hushed confines of five-star luxury. *********** Tanya was the oldest of four children this meant that her parents had come to expect a lot from her. Priyanka, Varsha and Nikita had all had it better than Tanya, for she had been there first to take all the risks and fight all their battles for them. She had fought with her mother when she wanted to wear a pair of jeans to school for the first time. She had argued with them and sulked for a week before they agreed to send her on a day-long school trip. Tanya had locked herself in her room and not let herself out for a month, not spoken to either of her parents and eaten only the bare minimum before they agreed to send her to the Government College at

Ambala. Tanya was tired of life and fed-up with the constant bickering she had to put up with. She was frustrated with how her father refused to let her go out alone in the city, how he objected to the way she dressed. She was tired of being someone her siblings looked up to. She was tired of being herself and she wanted to run away from this madness. She wanted to leave Ambala, never to return. Tanya looks around her plush surroundings approvingly. Marble floors. Crystal chandeliers. Fragrant, giant orchids exploding out of their gilded vases. She catches a glimpse of herself in one of the mirror-clad walls. Her hair, which she had laboured over with the straightening iron a few hours ago, has gone back to its wavy self. Her kohl has smudged, and she looks like she hasnt slept in a week. To her mortification, she realises that she is ruining the gleaming, manicured hall with her conspicuous lack of glamour. Not surprising. She always wanted to see the inside of a five-star hotel. Her family never had enough to spend on lifes luxuries. In fact, at one point it had been difficult for them to make ends meet. Tanyas dad worked as a clerk at the State Bank of India and it was difficult to raise four children on his meagre salary. He had no sons. Her parents, like all Indian parents, had always wanted a boy and continued trying till the doctor put a spoke in the wheel and declared her mother unable to conceive again. Tanya still remembered the day her parents returned from the hospital, disappointment writ large on their faces. In her younger days, she would have asked them what was wrong, but she had learnt to accept such things silently. Life had never been easy for her and it was only going to get harder. She decided to leave the city, her home, her parents and all her belongings, and run away to Delhi. As she looks around the lobby, Tanya licks her thumb and rubs it forcefully back and forth under her eyelids until the ugly black marks are gone. What to do about her hair, that unruly halo of frizz surrounding her crown? She raises her palm to her mouth and discreetly spits a small blob of saliva into her hand. Touching her head, she pats down the stray hair. Did someone see her? She looks around and catches a pot-bellied porter standing by the revolving glass door, looking at her. He is smirking slightly. Damn it, she thinks, Id better put that bastard in his place. Hey, you, she barks at him, clicking her fingers. Take this to my room. At the door, she slides the magnetic key through the lock and the tiny light flashes green. Turning to the porter, she points towards the bed and instructs him to leave the bags there. Should she tip him? Thats what rich people do, right? She slides a few 100-rupee notes into his hand. Go buy yourself something nice, she commands and then slams the door in his face. The suite is large, with high ceilings and giant windows that overlook the busy highway. She is finally away from the honking, the exhaust fumes, the hawkers

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selling cheap plastic baubles. She opens the window and, standing on tiptoe, shouts, Bye, suckers! to the pulsating madness below, laughing wildly. She spins around and decides to survey her new pad. Ooh, minibar! she exclaims. She opens it and takes out a mini Coke can. Choo chweeet! she exclaims delightedly at this diminutive version of her favourite drink. Digging through the minibar, she pulls out packets of Planters peanuts, Jelly Babies and Pringles and gobbles up the contents randomly. Chewing noisily, she grabs the remote and flips through the channels until she reaches MTV. With the music blaring, she skips over to the bathroom to see the luxurious treasures that await her there. The ceramic double sink below the large bathroom mirror is lined with tiny bottles of complimentary lotions, shampoos, hair conditioners and exfoliating scrubs. She opens the bottles, breathes in their heavenly fragrances and, screwing the lids back on, scoops them all into her arms and waddles towards her open suitcase, where she dumps her loot. Now what? Her flight is in twelve hours. She is bored, unsure what to do. She has exhausted all the entertainment that the suite has to offer. Best to get some sleep, she decides. The bed has a complicated array of pillows and cushions in silk, with gold fringes. Very fancy. She pushes them all to the carpeted floor with a sweep of her hand and falls into the soft bedlinen, her arms and legs spread out like a starfish. She grabs the remote, turns off the television and lies in the dark, the soft humming of the air-conditioning being the only entity keeping her company. She had just returned from college. It had been a difficult day. She had been up studying all night for the exams and fell asleep in class. Mrs Dixit, the Economics teacher, had caught her and proceeded to spend the next half hour humilating her. Tanya was close to tears when Mrs Dixit finished. She was standing in the middle of the class, and had never felt more alone in all her life. Why was life so unfair to her? She ran home from college that day, ready to lock herself into her room and cry herself to sleep. Her mother stopped her as she was entering the house and said in a soft voice, quite unlike her usual self, Tanya beta, can we please talk for a minute. Ma Tanya protested, but turned involuntarily to see the new sofa set. The red and black sofa had not been there that morning when she left for college. She also noticed her father sitting on the soft cushion and froze mid-sentence. Her dad never returned early from work without a reason and her parents were dressed in their best clothes! Beta, please wear the sari that I have kept in your room, her mother continued.

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But Ma, I dont Tanya, we dont have time for this, her father added tersely. Tanyas eyes filled with tears. Her mother grabbed her arm and walked her to her room. Beta, the boys family is coming down today, she whispered. Tanya felt her heart sink. She couldnt breathe. Something was stuck in her throat. Her heart had started beating very fast. Tanya wondered if she was dreaming. Beta, the boy is from a well-to-do family. His father owns a lot of land in Dedana, her mother added, bringing Tanya back to sordid reality. They have forty cows and a huge bungalow in the village, her mother continued, excitedly. Tanya could hear her mother speaking, but none of it made sense to her any longer. It did not bother her that her mother was undressing her. She did not worry whether the door was locked. She felt a searing pain as her mother pulled the string of the petticoat tighter, making her wince involuntarily. Tanya couldnt shout. She was helpless. Everything felt like a dream a nightmare. Returning to the present with a start, Tanya jumps out of bed and says out loud, What the fuck?! To the bar. The Zinc bar is a dark, slick drinking establishment with flocks of men in business attire, women in cocktail dresses and stilettos and a man playing the piano. Tanya walks over to the bar and, propping herself on a tall bar stool, takes a look at the menu. The drinks start at 1200 rupees for a single glass of wine. Thats more than she would earn in an entire week! As she is running her eyes over the ludicrously expensive menu, she notices two sleazy looking businessmen staring at her. One has a big, shiny ring on his pinkie finger and a thick, dyed moustache; the other seems to be wearing a toupee. The toupee man whispers something to his friend, who, smirking at Tanya, nods. Then he proceeds to lick his lips and smiles at his accomplice. Gross! Tanya thinks, trying to avoid their persistent gaze. The barman appears and asks Tanya what she wants to drink. She snaps her leather-bound menu shut and, faking nonchalance, asks him to get her a bottle of the most expensive wine the bar has to offer. When the bottle arrives, the waiter asks her if it will do. She takes a sip and, rolling the wine in her mouth, she pauses a moment. Hmm, yes, I suppose its all right, she sighs. Three glasses down, Tanya feels her body awash in warm, intoxicating waves. She raises her eyes, which were drifting along the well-stocked shelves behind the bar, and sees that the men are still dripping sleaze. Toupee man is now waving. His

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friend raises his glass to her, the diamond in his pinkie twinkling in the bar lights. Tanya knocks back two more glasses, hiccuping loudly when she finishes. Bill! she slurs to the waiter. As she waits for the waiter to bring her the bill, she realises how far she has come. It was almost midnight when Tanya reached the train station. She had booked herself into the Delhi Express and arrived an hour early. She had never thought she would find the confidence to do what she had planned, but her mother and sisters were away visiting an aunt, and it had been easy to get out of the house as her father was a sound sleeper. Tanya looked around, worried that someone would notice her. She walked to the closest of the wooden seats that lined the platform. She glanced frequently at the big white wall clock, and her heart leapt to her mouth every time someone walked up to her. She had had enough of her life and decided to change everything for good. She had never been to Delhi before but that did not matter she had read enough in the books and papers to make the decision. She knew things would work out once she was in the city. She also knew it could not be worse than marrying someone she had never even met. She had heard enough stories about girls who married into the villages. Her friend Pallavi had told her about her sister who was married into a village and how she had been tormented by her in-laws. Pallavi even told her how her sister had been treated by her husband worse than a maidservant. Tanya had always dreamt of love in her life. She wanted to go beyond the village; she had dreamt of the world outside, a world she had seen in the movies, especially her favourite: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. She looked at the clock: 12:20, twenty minutes more for her train to arrive. She was frightened, but at the same time, she was eager to run, to break out of her shell She smiled as she thought of the train to Delhi; she wondered what the future had in store for her. She was excited and frightened at the same time. Pallavi had been kind enough to find her a place to stay. The sudden blare of the engine brought Tanya back from her thoughts. The train had finally arrived. Tanya boarded the train, feeling relieved for the first time since she had decided to run away from home. Tanya has managed to drink a hefty 8,000 rupees worth of Cabernet Sauvignon. Damn it. She is spending much more money than she should. The credit card companies will notice something is wrong. Wont they? Tanya snorts, giggles and hiccups all at once. Who the hell cares, she mutters under her breath. Calling the waiter over,

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she explains that the men at the next table, the ones in the suits, have offered to pay the bill. She swivels around on her barstool and gives them a coy wave. The men wave back, and one of them blows her a kiss. She swivels back. They are such darrrrrrrlings! she slurs cheerily to the waiter, and then stumbles out of the bar. *********** Oh, shit! This was not supposed to happen! Why the hell did I mess around with these Neanderthals? Tanya says to herself. What do I do now? Despite the massive quantities of wine she has consumed, she is aware enough to realise that, unless she makes a dash for it, the two men, gypped of their evening fun, would hunt her down to her room. At the portico of the hotel, Tanya takes a deep breath. Dawn is streaking across the sky, but the reassuring slivers of sunlight do nothing to calm her. She grabs the solidly built durban, A taxi please, quickly. Some of her urgency seems to have conveyed itself to the man, and he gestures to a waiting cab a long sleek vehicle, way out of her budget. But when two men are bent on collecting from you after youve tricked them into paying for your drinks, you cant be choosy. Tanya doesnt even wait for the doorman to open the car door, pulling it open and sprawling on the back seat. Where to, madam? asks the driver, as Tanya searches for a safe enough place to hide out for some time. Only one name pops up. Just go to Hanuman Mandir, she says, referring to the popular Hindu temple dedicated to the Monkey God Hanuman, known as Sankat Mochan or the slayer of troubles in the Hindu pantheon. That is just what I need, she says to herself. The temple would just be opening its doors for the morning prayers, and would offer at least an hour or so of sanctuary. As the car makes its way to Central Delhi, leaving behind the suburbs and the uneven south Delhi skyline, Tanya takes a few deep breaths and searches in her pockets for some mints. Lurching into a temple at dawn with alcohol on your breath wouldnt help her win favours from God, she thinks to herself, the distance from the hotel and the men doing much to restore her humour. As she settles further into the seat, watching the city wake up on the streets, she notices the driver stealing surreptitious glances at her. A woman alone in a cab, reeking of alcohol, wants to visit a temple! Tanya can just imagine the flow chart of prejudice building itself in his mind. She decides to engage him in some chit-chat and starts by asking for some mouth freshener. Madam, I dont have chewing gum, just some paan masala, he replies, referring to the fragrant tobacco powder which is chewed across the country. Itll do, she replies. Where are you from?

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Rohtak, madam. Really? Im from Ambala. Quite close. There you go, she says to herself as the driver smiles back, his disapproval of a drunk woman dissipating in a moment of parochial loyalty. Madam, the morning prayers are very good, but if you can, please look up Baba Parmanand. He sits under the banyan tree outside the temple. Whatever it is that is worrying you, he will give you a way to deal with it. A lone woman, fleeing from a hotel at dawn, reeking of alcohol asking to be taken to a temple, I suppose I asked for it, Tanya thinks to herself. Until now nothing in her life had happened according to her birth chart, the astrological map to her life drawn by every Indian parent to guide them in matters of births, deaths and marriages. Yet, somehow, as the car pulls up outside the temple, Tanya is drawn to the man in ochre robes, sitting quietly under the tree. Namaste, babaji, she says to him as he just stares back at her. Motioning her to sit beside him, he looks deep into her eyes. My child, you are going on a journey, arent you? he asks her, shocking her out of her drunkenness. While she has visited the occasional soothsayer, she had always dismissed them as charlatans. Somehow, though, she feels the need to to believe in this one. Thats probably because you want so desperately to believe, she says to herself, half mocking. My child, show me your hand, the baba says in that inexplicably commanding way of holy men. As she extends her hand to him, he peers into her palm as though reading her plans for the future. You have already travelled through much in life. This will be the last journey of this sort for you. You will turn a corner, your old patterns will be broken. Still wrestling with uncertainties, Tanya has little patience with these opaque words. What does that mean? she asks a little exasperatedly. He smiles and replies, Your debts from your previous life have been repaid. You will embark on a new journey. It will bring you to yourself, you will find the place you are meant to be. Everything will be okay. The soothing words bring tears to her eyes and she finds herself sobbing. This is the first time in her adult life that comfort of this kind has been extended to her. Wiping her tears, she goes into the temple. Her prayers are much more fervent than they would have been and she submits herself to Hanumans grace with that much more devotion.

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Kuala Lumpur 1: Sara

The flaccid piece of unagi stared back at her. Its tired and brown edges bled into the stained rice. She picked it up with her chopsticks. It peeled off the edge of the plate like wet newspaper. Sigh. Happy birthday indeed. Sara looked across the table. Raja, the sub-editor, stretched his plump hand across the table and reached for the soy sauce. He poured it over his soba salad, as elegantly as his thick limbs would allow. Not that his salad needed any seasoning his eyes werent on the dish. It was staring down Kristines blouse. God, what a klutz, Sara thought. She stared at her food in doubled despair. A brown lace of soy sauce dripped down Rajas shirt, but he was of course oblivious to it. Mental facepalm! and I cant even see my toes anymore, and my body is developing this strange mucus that makes my sinus even worse every morning its disgusting. This had better be a boy, Kristine patted her abdomen, grimacing. The chatter continued, punctuated with more giggling. Raja was, of course, silent. He never said much, but loved to join the ladies for lunch. Todays lunch was on Raja, too. He said it was a special birthday treat from her colleagues at The Mint, and they had carpooled to the nearest Japanese food outlet. Having a soupy lunch would make her feel bloated in her high-waisted skirt, so she had ordered unagi don instead. She had hoped that the warm rice would at least cheer her up on such a dismal day, but the rice grains were so dry she could hardly swallow them. They could have been eating last nights biryani, for all she knew. Hey, Raja, I think we should head back now, she started. No lah, wait a bit. We still havent had dessert I ordered a special macha ice cream cake for you! He caught the eye of one of the Nepalese waiters and gave him a wink. Thats green tea, if you didnt know. Macha. M-a-c-h-a. Sara managed a weak smile and checked her Facebook profile for new updates. Nothing. She added a new status: Dudes gonna give me a cake. O-M-G. Kill me now. I have two deadlines and one copy that has been sitting on the content system since last night, you fucking moron, and if you had cleared the copy last night and not quibbled with me over the correct use of monetise and capitalise, I could

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have followed up on my story lead, you dumbass, and would be able to get home, change into something more cocktail, and get to the gallery opening on time. Ya, and you should totally use my guy Ahmad, he did such a great job capturing me in the garden when I had my first kid. We had it taken in black and white Sooo classy! Sara fidgeted with the collar bows of her blouse. A stitch came undone, accidentally. The thread hung loosely from her fingers. Raja reached across the table to pluck it from her hand. Here, let me help you, Raja said, flashing a smile. He reached across the table and accidentally touched her collarbone. Thank you, but Ive got it. Sara pulled and snapped off the thread with a jerk, and smiled back, through gritted teeth. The waiter appeared, finally, with the cake. Eskus me, heeer ees dee keq. Sara sucked deeply on her cigarette and exhaled. She was irritated, not only by the middling birthday lunch, but also because of the annoying itch from her blouses unravelled inseam. She chastised herself: it was one of mums pretty but very delicate 1960s silk blouses, and she shouldnt have yanked that hard. She inspected the damage and saw that a button, too, was loose. There wasnt much she could do about that now, except to tie the ends up and hope nothing else unravelled. The blouse was the one Ma wore on special occasions, like birthdays. It was a green silk blouse with big pussy bows and pearl buttons. Sara dreaded her birthdays. Not the compromise birthdays which she celebrated either on February 28th or March 1st, depending on which was more convenient and who happened to be around at the time, but what she saw as the big birthdays which fell on the 29th itself. These were the only birthdays when she felt she had moved legitimately forward in age. She could only remember the vaguest details of her first real birthday when she turned calendarically four. She sensed the unhappiness in the house even at that age even though she could recall no actual harsh words. It hung in the air like an odour that everyone smells but is too polite to mention. Her parents were circumspect with each other when they were together. Mealtimes were the worst, the pair of them seldom speaking beyond basic requests. She wondered how they had ever got together in the first place, they seemed so mismatched. She puckered up and checked her reflection in her vanity mirror, ground the cigarette end under her heel, and walked back into the office lobby. Work mattered, of course. It was the only thing that mattered. She was the

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blue-eyed wonder in the newsroom, with two cover story bylines in the paper before her probation period ended. She churned out the best articles and was the most persistent in chasing analysts and insiders for breaking news. This week was a slow week, and although shed almost done her quota for the week, pending some fact checking, there was the stupid column she had yet to start on. Its simple Its just a filler for the pages between the main story and the stock updates, just some human interest, Kristine had said when Sara asked. Why do we need it? Its value for money mah! Businessmen can read the paper, and so can their wives If they want to pretend to impress their men with the paper on their lap Hehe And with nothing else Tina giggled. Sara groaned internally and blocked out that imagery. She started walking towards the news wire terminals, making a point of avoiding walking across the newsroom, where Rajas desk was. The lunchtime encounter was enough. She would walk up one floor from the stairwell, up the fire escape, across the production floor, and down the elevator, and into the newsrooms entrance, and then left, to the wire terminals. A light-hearted commentary about an international human interest story, thats what they called it, like a piece on Obama showing his birth certificate to prove his American citizenship, or the bedbug invasion in NY retail stores. Ill just have to fire up this old clunky PC and hope I find something She thought to herself, mindlessly clicking through news of facial piercings being the main feature of next seasons runways In her pocket, her cellphone started buzzing. It was an unidentified number. Hello? Clank, clank, thud. Someone had dropped the phone on concrete. She couldnt make out what was happening at the other end, but she heard shouting in the distance. Crazy ah, aunty? Why simply push people? Fall down already, how? You pay for my broken hip ah? Stupid! You! You, wait! That was Mas voice. Sara panicked. Hello!? Hello? Ma, is that you? Oi, you! You come back here! Metal grills rattled, followed by a slam in the distance. Ma!? Her second big birthday, when she was actually eight was a little better because she had her school friends to distract her from the atmosphere in the house. Shed been at Alice Smith for just over a year because her mother felt that a private school

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would give her a better class of school friends, and of course their parents for her to mix with. She could still recall some of the names a french boy called Pierre who cried when he lost the party games, and an Indian girl called Shanta; the inseparable friends, Gabriel from Austria and Canadian Paul; and her best friend Elly who was of mixed race, just like her. That year she was so much taller than all the others. She was fated to be ahead of the others in her physical development all the rest of the time she was in school. It was on her third big birthday that the world came crashing about her ears. The tension had been building up in the house for weeks. The house had that oppressive feel like the weather when it is so unbearably close and muggy that you know a storm is about to break. Youre relieved when the lightning finally does come and you feel the first drops of rain against your skin. Her father was not one for making a fuss of such occasions, and her mother had insisted on inviting her whole class at school, as well as the parents. Must do it properly, she had said. She rented a marquee for the garden and there was to be a puppet show as well as a childrens entertainer. This would be the last big birthday Sara would have with this same group of friends. The following year she was due to leave Malaysia and go to a private school in England. She had been looking forward to it for months. Shed read enough Enid Blyton to know about the adventures she was bound to have. While the children played pin the tail on the donkey and ate curry puffs and sandwiches, the adults had their own refreshments on the veranda. Waiters carried trays of white wine, gin and tonic, and beer. Vera looked elegant that day wearing the green blouse that Sara loved so much and a single string of Sabah pearls. Perhaps it was to cover her sense of unease that Vera found herself relying on a little dutch courage. At least that is how Sara explains things to herself now, turning over memories like coins in her pocket. What Sara does remember is thinking Vera must be very thirsty because she kept topping up her glass of white wine, and then the embarrassment she felt as her mothers voice became increasingly loud and higher in pitch, and how it carried across the lawn. She lapsed more and more into Malaysian English. She heard her father ask How much have you drunk, Vera? Dont you think you should switch to orange juice or something? And then her mother telling him in front of everyone else to mind his own bloody business. Sara tried to focus on the entertainers her mother had hired. The puppet show featured several animals who decided to get their own back on the farmer who was exploiting them, but she lost track of the story as she froze listening to her parents. She dreaded what she knew would come next a no-holds-barred row as all

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their stored resentments began to pour out in front of everyone. Who are you to lecture me? You think youre so perfect ah? The puppets were now fighting with sticks and continued to mirror the conflict. But the show wasnt funny any more, and no one laughed at them. She didnt know where to look and gazed down at her feet wishing that she could suddenly become invisible. She heard Paul giggle nervously. Her face was burning. Chantells mother came to collect her daughter with some excuse about needing to go back early and one by one the other parents took their children. The entertainers sensed the change in the atmosphere and cut their show short. They threw the puppets into their case and packed the booth in record time. The only people who remained behind were Dads best drinking buddy, Gobind, and the party organiser, a nervous young Malay woman who stood wringing her hands. The waiters went around collecting the used glasses and totally ignoring what was happening. Try as she might she cant now remember all the accusations they hurled at each other. She did recall that her father said that he was tired of her mothers spendthrift ways which were bankrupting them. She remembered the way her mothers face turned dark, the way she tugged at her pearls as if they were suddenly choking her. I spending money? You you think I dont know about that Baya Angkasa condo? You think I dont know who lives there? Then her parents fell silent. There was nothing else to say. Her mother sank into a chair, her face buried in her hands. Her father went into the house and packed a bag. Before he left he called Sara over. He knelt down on the grass among the debris of the party, burst balloons and discarded paper plates. His best linen trousers would get dirty, she remembered thinking. He lifted her chin so that she was looking straight into his eyes. She didnt want to meet them. She still wondered if shed managed to keep all the suppressed anger out of them, if what he saw made him want to leave. Then he was gone in his silver BMW. He didnt come back. Not that day or any other. He sorted out affairs through a lawyer, but if he left any word about where he was, her mother never told her. They moved to an apartment where most of their neighbours were small business owners, clerks, factory workers. The plan for a boarding school in England was not mentioned again. Instead she was enrolled in SMK Jalan Perkasa, the nearest national type secondary school, and the struggle to make friends began all over again.

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London 1: Dave

Its a drab, white-washed morning in February that cant decide if its hot or cold. In a quiet corridor of The Whittington Hospital, a man, dressed in Hawaiian shirt palm fronds in green and yellow against a red background, silent parrots sitting on an occasional leaf a strange suede Russian hat with flaps, sun loafers and greatcoat stares out of the window at a row of bare trees. He is exhausted and thirsty. There are a few chairs, and long strip lights that make his eyes hurt. An elderly nurse stops and asks, Are you ok? Hmm yeah, just very thirsty. Ill get you a drink. Have you got your discharge letter with you, sir? No, I was going to He looks around, confused now. The nurse walks away, comes back with a glass of water. Its my break. I can help you to get the release order. Do you know where are you going? She smiles at him. He wants to say something. He wants to let her help him. No, no, but I will. He starts searching his pockets. A mobile phone. He doesnt recognise it. He pulls out a tissue and scrap of paper, and bins them. But then looks into the bin and sees that the scrap of paper is a receipt for the Days Inn. He plucks it out of the bin, its a bit sticky. Theres an address in Kennington Road, Waterloo and the reservation this evening and his name on it. Dave Martin. So thats where hes going. I need to find my son, he says. They told me he wasnt there. But he must have been. The nurse frowns and hurries down the corridor. The man stares at the hotel reservation. Dave Martin. His name is Dave Martin. It doesnt feel right. He doesnt feel right. He takes a seat and leans his head back against the window. Foxes. Hed dreamt of foxes again. This time it was not even a dark dark night; it was a crispy morning. And one of the younger foxes a cub stared out from under the shed roof. Dave suspected the fierce looking daddy would appear in at any moment. Hed gone to the bottom of the communal garden where a smelly rotten bench sat. No one had put their bottom on it for years but he sat down. The fox wouldnt budge, so he threw a pebble at it. You have to make them scared of you or theyll come in the house. And they make horrible noises at night, when theyre mating, and when the young cubs are taken out around the area. Theyre a nuisance nobody can put bin bags out the night before because the foxes tear them to bits. So, there you go! Scare them. But in the daylight the cub turned into a huge and

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hungry fox and it jumped over him. He tried to get up and run, but his stone-like legs seemed glued to the ground. He remembers waking to a strong smell sick, maybe, from the floor a wet red scarf hanging like a cold red snake on his neck, pins and needles all over. Hed looked at his watch. 07:30am, 29th February, 2012. No one had believed him, and the memories were so scattered, so fragmented, he was starting to question himself. Kennington Road. Waterloo. The Days Inn. Its like hes playing a mad game of charades with himself, giving himself insane clues he now has to unravel. What kind of nutter would play a game like that with himself? No, hes not picking random places for himself. Not a game. Hed have chosen it for a reason. The reservation has a name on it: Dave Martin. His name is Dave Martin. Hello. He puts his hand in the pocket of his coat and pulls out a wodge of crumpled tenners, a scratched Oyster card, and what was this? A library card with the name Jamie. And here too, a suitcase, with a sticker of Man United on it. Man United. A boy who cared for Man United. Jamie. Dave sees the nurse hurrying back towards him. Shes got a burly looking man in a white jacket with her. He doesnt wait to see what they want. He takes the suitcase and he leaves. He has to find Jamie. Its warming up a hint of Spring in the air. Daffodils cluster beneath a still bare tree and three have already opened their faces to the year. Dave opens the buttons of his coat, and shoves the hat into his pocket. He approaches the junction at the foot of Highgate Hill, and theres a flash of memory. He tries to catch it. The junction had been blocked off, he remembers that. Someone had been run over. Thats what it looked like. A policewoman hunched over a mans motorcycle. No body it must have been removed by the ambulance people, and taken up the road, back to the hospital. A car skids around the corner, and again, another memory. Police tape. Flashing blue. In the back of his eyes, he sees a face that takes up his whole world and then is gone. Its a boy, a sweet young boy. Its his son. His son is in trouble. A car accident. Someone else was there too but he doesnt have an image. Its a man, probably a man, possibly his age.Thats all he remembers. Where is my son, he thinks. Where is Jamie? They hadnt believed him in the hospital. There was no boy when we found you, they said. But the suitcase. Hed opened it for them, shown them what was in there: a pair of Bermuda shorts, some rolls of film, kids books, a half-eaten sandwich cheese and tomato (not his favourite, but the boy loved that hed make it for him before he

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set off for school, slice off the edges of the bread, cut it into triangles.) And he told them about that. About his boy and school. The boy could have been missing for days, maybe weeks, and now that he could walk without the pain in his ribs, he was out again and he would find him. London was full of accidents. Sometimes it felt like there were little bouquets of flowers on every corner, reminders. Those signs that said: Remember Me. And every now and then a bicycle painted in white, like a ghost of a thing. Everything was so so easily snapped away. A group of school children in uniform stood at the crossroads taking pictures of the accident. Filming. Snapping. It was what the world had become. Everything had to be filmed. And maybe, if hed been more like that, been more the kind of father who wanted to record every step that his boy took, kept little snapshots or video clips of his boy doing things climbing trees, laughing, running towards him as he often did when they hadnt seen each other for days then hed have proof. Hed be able to retrace his steps, show the hospital people, the police officers: this is where we were, this is my boy, now find him. Find my boy. He knows about darkrooms in London, though he cant think why. One behind Tufnell Park Station. Another further East Four Corners? And then here, a small family run business above a bookish cafe, with the newest family members more interested in holiday snaps than spending hours in a darkroom inhaling chemicals and watching the blurry faces of strangers appear in pictures taken in places you wish you could visit. Why does he know this? The man who owns the shop is clearly losing his sight. And his customers have been losing sight of him. When Dave walks into the shop its obvious theres been no custom all day. Ive got four rolls of film I need developing and scanning please. Ilford Delta 400. Now heres a man who knows what hes doing. Dev, neg and scan to CD? No problem. Ill have them ready by The man looks through his diary. Dave can see the repeated blank pages. Well, I was wondering if you could do an express service. Super express really. The thing is. I need to know whats on the film as soon as possible. I thought you MI6 would be using digital by now. The man smiles. How quick dya need em? Four hours? Four hours?! Thats record time mate. You do know its only me in the shop today? I can see that. But look, I dont need them on a CD. You can just send the files to me by email. Thatll make it quicker right? Yeah, quicker but not cheaper.

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Look, Ill pay whatever. I just need to see whats on those rolls. Ok, one super express service. Thats a twenty quid for dev and scan for each roll, twenty quid for a quick service, and a ten admin charge for emailing them to you. And that comes to 110 plus VAT. Whats your name? Dave pauses. Firstly in shock at the cost, but also to run the word Dave over in his head a couple of times. It still sounds wrong. He writes down his name and email address. Strange how his email address appears on the page, photogenius99@ hotmail, but his own name was so lost to him. Mind games. Dave leaves the shop with considerably fewer tenners in his pocket. For a moment he feels angry about being ripped off by at least forty pounds. But he tries to focus on the images currently wrapped around a small plastic spool, which could give him the missing parts of his story. He calculates that each roll holds thirty-six frames, so four rolls makes one hundred fourty-four possible chances of finding his son.

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Vancouver 1: Win

From the Goddess Blog My Hero Jennifer Aniston is my patron saint. Shes a testament to the power of good grooming, exercise, and diet. Never before has a woman done more and gone farther with less raw material. Shes worked her ass off to look the way she does. When you look at old pictures of her, shes just a moderately pretty little Greek girl, the kind you went to school with, who wasnt even that special. But through plain old hard work and assembling a brilliant team, she has emerged a hairless, hard-bodied blonde, with perfect skin, a swingy haircut with top-grade extensions that hide that cruel-joke jawline, a variety of discreet in-office procedures which include (definitely) a nose job, and (most likely) cheek implants, laser resurfacing and tightening, a boob lift, dermal fillers in the lips and nasolabial folds, and Botox. Shes worked every extra ounce of fat off her body, and kept it that way by doing the Zone diet for the last twenty years. I mean, what product does the woman sponsor? Smart Water. Water, for fucks sake. Thats a treat for her. But somehow she manages to do it all while looking like shes natural. Like shes having fun unlike Demi Moore, who doesnt look like shes had fun in about twenty years. Jen still seems, despite her megawatt fame, like the kind of girl you might want to have a drink with. Shes one of us, with her man troubles and less-than-perfect movie career. And thats why I love her. It takes so much fucking work to be the person she is, and even more work to make it look like it isnt work. Shes the perfect blend of person and consumer product, and I love her for it. Shes my hero. Well, her and Gwyneth. And this is what happens when she breaks both her rule about men who do coke and her rule never to bring a guy back to her apartment. When the phone call comes, Win is trying to convince some man whose name she cant remember that making French toast at 4:30am while belting out a Ween song is a bad idea on several levels. One: because of carbs, obviously. Two: because she has not used the stove since midMarch and is 93% sure that the gas it runs on will catch fire on the built-up mass of

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chicken grease molecules in the air from the Prime Time Chicken shop below her apartment. Three: because it is goddamn 4:30am and she is supposed to be running. On your knees, you big booty bitch. Start sucking, he sings in an almost loving manner, strutting around her kitchen with his shirt off and his stretched out Catholic-Celtic-Tribal chest tattoo jiggling away. Her apartment is a single square with a bathroom attached, so she can stay in bed while she watches him, as if hes on TV. Jesus, baby, you dont own a whisk? No, thinks Win, which is also why I dont own a belly like that. What the fuck do you whisk? Whipped cream? Uh, sorry, says Win. But baby, thats sweet, like really sweet but you dont need to do that. I really need to be going and breakfast isnt a strong suit of mine. Why did she do this? What in the actual fuck was she thinking? Because, oh right, he has a face that says I possibly own a rape dungeon or at the very least My job as a software designer gives me access to a wide range of Japanese tentacle porn that Im going to want to reenact. At least at home in my shitty apartment the guys coming in for the early morning chicken shop shift would hear me scream. Sometimes Gastown guys walk a fine line between got rich doing something geeky and lacks basic fashion sense and just some douche maxing out his credit card to buy bedazzled jeans. I said, On your knees, you big booty bitch on your knees, you big booty bitch on your muthafuckin knees, he half-raps, showing off his vocal range. Sweet merciful baby Jesus, she thinks. I have been penetrated by a man who appreciates the lyrical stylings of Piss Up a Rope. And how does she even know that song? Hes not listening. Hes whistling merrily as he searches for bread, and Win runs a mental inventory of what he might be seeing. God, what does her fridge smell like? And when was the last time she cleaned the kitchen? And what if he goes to the bathroom? Did she take out the bathroom trash? Did she leave her microwaveable wax on the counter? Oh, God, what if she didnt throw out the wax strips and he can see her pubic stubble trapped in the congealed wax like fucking prehistoric beetles preserved in amber? And this douche is exactly the kind of guy to blog about it, maybe take an Instagram of it. Oh my God. Her pubic hair is going to be on the Internet. She is supposed to be running. There is nothing better than running at 4:30am. You save a metric fuck-ton of money on make-up because its too dark to see you and everyone you pass seems to be in a secret club: a club of hardcore people who are running at 4:30am damn it, who could be sleeping but are awake bettering themselves through punishing exercise and any poor housewife who says she doesnt have time to get fit needs to learn by example and get out here, braving the Vancouver rain and the possibility of getting hobo-raped because your life is so busy and

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important that 4:30am is the only time you have. She loves starting her day at a caloric deficit, loves brushing the salt crystals off her skin as she steps into the shower at 6:30am knowing shes already worked harder than her boss or her assistant or that new PR bitch who thinks shes amazing because she went to some marketing school. She especially loves getting jacked up on Beyonce and running past the homeless, who are always up at that hour (homeless people are a lot like cats in their nocturnal prowling, she has decided), and giving them a look that says, Oh, what? You want this iPod? You want my debit card? Catch me if you can, bitches. Youre going to love this French toast, says the guy, who is using a fork to whisk eggs that are likely several months old and is splattering little eggy drops on every conceivable surface. Its going to rock your world. And now she remembers. The night is coming back. She had drunkenly nicknamed him Mr Declarative Orgasm, since he spent most of the encounter telling her what she was thinking or feeling. You love it, he said. Youre really enjoying this. Uh, yeah, said Win, focusing on remaining taut. She has literally the worst sex face ever: has a tendency to tuck in her chin until she looks like the before pictures on The Biggest Loser. It was important to elongate her neck. Like in pilates, during sex she likes to imagine elongating her spine, activating her core. This is the best sex youve ever had, he said. This is going to ruin you for other guys. His belly brushed against her and reminded her for some reason of the floppy stomach of a puppy. Uh, definitely, said Win. And now her effort to clench her thigh had given her a cramp. She was clearly dehydrated. She was going to pay for this so hard tomorrow. Dehydration aged her skin like some kind of Benjamin Button shit. She tried to stretch her leg, but Mr. Declarative Orgasm grabbed it and pushed it against her chest to make more room for his beer belly. I bet youre going to tell all your friends about this, he said. Yeahuhbaby, she said. Jesus, the only good thing about this was that she could feel the pain of the bones of her spine against the bed springs when he thrust into her, could feel her hip bones sharp against his gut, which she did not remember happening the last time shed hooked up with someone. Thank you poverty diet! Mr Declarative Orgasm had the spiky hair that little boys wore in the 90s frosted tips, oh God and he smelled of expensive cologne applied so liberally it took on the top notes of Axe Body Spray. As he leaned down to kiss her forehead, one of the little beached-out hair spikes poked her in the eye. If this douches gel gives her fucking pink eye she swears to God Ow, she said. I know, he said, stroking her forehead with the benevolence of some kind of

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freaking Saint. Im the biggest youve ever had. And now he has found a few slices of bread in the back of her fridge that have been there since The Time Her Parents Came To Visit and She Had to Pretend to be a Real Adult and is soaking the bread in the egg mixture. Because what this apartment really needs is the smell of more fried food. Fried chicken is not an odour thats easy to mask, despite the presence of 5 scented candles (3 magnolia, 2 amber musk, important to stay away from citrus scents because it makes the place smell like lemon chicken), 2 Febreze plug-ins and a whole shelf of sprays to deodorize and mask and freshen up. Her face perpetually feels oily. In the summer, the humidity causes white droplets of grease to congeal on the windows and the walls, so that every surface feels like the skin of some gigantic fat man. You sure like your products, eh? says Mr Declarative Orgasm. I went to take a piss, could barely see the sink with all them hair care and make-up and skin care shit all spread all over. I like a girl who can take care of herself. So many women rely on their genetics and then their metabolism slows down and overnight they turn into Jabba the Hutt. The thing about women these days is God, this man is a waste of a good Brazilian wax. She never should have gone to Boss to pick up. She can only afford one once every few months because while shes comfortable doing everything else by herself, you really want any hot wax applied to your kitty to be managed by a trained professional, and it always makes her feel so Samantha that she treats herself to a little sexy fun. But my God, if shes going to bring home guys of this quality, she might as well start going to the Roxy and hopping aboard the Roofie Express. At least hockey players go to the Roxy. When her phone rings, Mr Declarative Orgasm startles from his monologue, he has somehow gotten on to the subject of Alpha Men and says, Damn, is that work calling? Yaletown women and their freaking careers. Hello? says Win, too grateful for the distraction to be alarmed by the Winnipeg area code. Freddie? Her brothers nickname for her. Her awful Grandma name Winifred made all little-boyish in a way she hated. Whats the matter? Brandon, what happened? She whispered it, not wanting Mr Declarative Orgasm to feel any sympathy for her. So dad had a bad night, he said, his voice lacking its usual bluster. Her brother was the type of guy to tell pussy jokes loudly at the Curling Club to titillate the old men. His voice usually had only one volume and that volume was Outside Voice. He hasnt been eating and hes coughing up this, this stuff like green stuff, like the worst corrosive shit the body could ever make, like his bodys fucking eating itself and he had a bad night, like the worst night you can imagine, I was sort of holding him while we were waiting for the ambulance and I thought hed died I 100%

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thought he was gone but then he gave this croak and Freddie he smells so awful, even when we bathe him, like its coming from inside him and so we called the ambulance and I just kept trying to find his warm clothes because he could freeze to death outside, he really could and Brandon sighs. She can hear the rasp of him running his work-callused hands over his stubble. Like how bad? asks Win. Like its 4:30am your time and Im calling you bad, says Brandon. Like, get your ass on a plane bad. Hes . If her brother starts to cry she will lose it. She has not seen him in 4 years and her mental picture of him is based mostly on the photos his girlfriend whose name she can never be bothered to remember and so calls Chunky Highlights Girl posts on Facebook accompanied by dramatically illiterate captions: <3 <3 <3 Strait up chillin with my luv at the 7-11. OMG luv u so much baby! <3 <3 <3 Ill get on a plane, says Win, I mean after my event this afternoon and then the debrief of the event and then Ill look into plane tickets right now. Ill get on it. Mr Declarative Orgasm has stopped cooking and is staring at her with one hand on his hip. Do you even own a frying pan? he is whispering. Win shakes her head. Just be there, says Brandon. Mom is freaking the fuck out and its like, I have to work, you know? My job is no joke. I have to pay the rent and Shayla is talking about all this marriage stuff. Mom cant handle it and the doctors wont tell me anything. His voice is cracking and she cannot help but picture him in his leather jacket, his 19-year-old bravado, his patchy man-child beard, poor thing. She presses her tongue against the roof of her mouth to stop from crying. Ill be there, says Win. After I get my shit together. I just cant leave, I just cant drop everything. I dont work at the fucking Home Depot. Jesus Christ. But Im coming as fast as I can. Send dad my best wishes and Your best wishes? Like some greeting card? Im coming, okay? Dont get mad at me. What am I supposed to say? Okay, I have to go. Okay, Ill be there. Ill call you. Im getting out of bed right now. When she hangs up, Mr Declarative Orgasm is staring at her with a look of genuine concern, which looks wrong against the general douchiness of his face. His frosted tips have wilted in the oily heat from the kitchen. I need to go, she says. Let me make you breakfast. My dad. He stares at her and she swears to God, this guy with his blurry tattoo and his belly that suggests he will die at age 53 from clogged arteries and his Alpha Man swagger and his ideas about How Women Are, this guy has no fucking reason to feel sorry for her. She is weirdly grateful that she opted for waterproof, non-smudging

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mascara last night and suspects she is a piece of shit for thinking that, but still. Yeah, he says and sits down beside her. My dad died of, like, a fight, eh? So I didnt know until a few weeks later. He was in a coma, and if I had knownat least you can I dont want to hear about your dad, she snaps. My dad will be fine. Hes not evenyou knowhe hasnt even had it that long. Theres a lot they can still do Im just trying to If she looks at him and even the slightest bit of his chinnodding douche posture has relaxed, she will cry and she cannot cry and there is no need to cry; her brother is being dramatic; her brother is 19 years old, hes seeing some real shit for the first time in his life, of course hes scared; this is out of proportion; maybe she shouldnt even go; this is like all of her vacation time. Shes not about to imprint on this guy like some kind of helpless baby bird. Well, its not helping. You need to leave. Thank you for this she gestures unintentionally to his penis and he smirks in a weird, sad way, But you need to go. Im sorry. You need to go right now. He nods. He stands up and begins to put on his shirt, which of course has rhinestones. The french toast has begun to burn but neither of them move to turn off the element and so the sizzling is a kind of static that makes it sound as if the chicken shop guys arguing downstairs is coming from the radio. When she walks him to the door he moves to kiss her, but she avoids him, so he rubs the back of his neck and says, Hey, good luck with your dad and going to Winnipeg, she says. Im from Winnipeg. He smirks. Man, you know what they say. You go to hell, Ill go to Winnipeg. As she closes the door, the apartment has begun to fill up with smoke, so she turns off the element and dumps the toast into the garbage. Then she stands in the middle of her apartment for a very long time, unable to move. The sun has risen, showing the dust on the blinds, the greying sheets, the unswept corners, the curtains that seem to have cat hair on them, though she does not own a cat. Her skin is oily with the sweat that Mr Declarative Orgasm has left on her, his faint hint of cologne, the ever-present residue of scalded chicken fat. This cannot be her life.

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Part 2

Delhi 2: Tanya

Tanya walks away from the temple feeling lighter than shes felt all night. The sun is up now and the steady heat makes her head feel even lighter. Determined to be spontaneous now that the babaji has reassured her of her future, she buys a tiny bundle of bangles from one of the many shop keepers already selling their wares. Theyre pink with little star-like sparkles, and she squeezes her hand through them, shaking them about gleefully. The sounds of Connaught Place call out to her, and she decides to explore this side of town, where she has spent too little time. Always stuck in that stupid office, she mumbles to herself and continues towards the main road, away from the troupes of monkeys that are sitting around the temple, as if in homage to the Monkey God. Theyre picking at each others lice, and something about it brings back an unwanted childhood memory. She pushes it from her mind in a way thats become a habit, and hits the main road with a buoyant step. Its the end of February and despite the cold there are ice-cream vendors galore. She can now feel the alcohol and paan on her tongue going stale. Sick, man, she says out loud. Time to fix this shit. She buys a mango ice lolly to drown out the vile flavours of the night. The shops are beginning to open and, charged by the sugary ice lolly, she now walks along the circular roads of CP as its so fondly called. She remembers laughing with her colleagues as they rode the metro. Who calls the bloody place Rajiv Chowk? India: land of assumed names. She continues walking, looking up at the big Puma, Nike and Reebok signs. Bored men stand around with carts selling everything from Coke and water to chips and cigarettes. She watches as a young boy in a pale pink shirt says to the stall owner, Ek choti Gold Flake. The vendor hands him a cigarette and he lights it using a lighter dangling from a string. There is something about this carefree spirit of the day, her last in India, that makes her want to try one too. Why not? Why shouldnt she? Summoning the courage, she walks up to the cigarette seller and repeats the request shes heard. Ek choti Gold Flake, please? she says, and the words sound alien in her mouth, which is suddenly dry. The old vendor looks at her with a raised eyebrow. She hasnt pulled it off, she thinks. But then the moment has passed. He hands her the cigarette, demands a few coins, and swings the lighter in her direction. She lights it and sucks in hard. Her lungs are on fire, but nothing will allow her to cough in front of the seller and have him witness her amateur ciggie puff. Holding the smoke inside, she turns and walks away briskly, stopping only when she is out of sight and hidden behind one of Connaught Places

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protective tall pillars. Then she coughs and coughs until it feels like her throat is sore and bleeding. But that wont deter Tanya. No pain, no gain, Tanya, she tells herself and braces for a second drag of the cigarette. She inhales deeply, and this time she feels it that rush everyone talks about so much. She is dizzy, both from the cigarette and the excitement. Forcing herself to smoke the rest of it, she enjoys every minute, feeling emancipation pulse through her veins. *********** Tanya feels the cold breeze rush at her. The winter is receding but the wind is still quite chilly. She can see people walking around in their t-shirts and wonders what the weather is like back home in Ambala. She has not called her family or tried to contact anyone back home since she came to Delhi. Pallavi had initially called every other week, but even that had stopped once she got married four months ago. She told Tanya that her parents had disowned her completely and stopped worrying about her a few weeks after her disappearance. At least Tanya herself had managed to escape that loveless marriage. Love! Harry! Tanya desperately searches for her cell phone. She has to contact Harry and let him know about her real flight schedule. He had promised to be at the airport to pick her up. She shudders at the thought, wondering what she would do if Harry fails to make it to the airport. What if he thought she had abandoned him and wasnt coming? She finds her Nokia, unlocks it and scrolls through the contacts, looking for Harrys name. She dials his number. A familiar voice greets her: The phone you are trying to reach is currently switched off. Please leave a message for 658-7894 after the beep. Tanya feels anger well up inside her. She had briefly forgotten about Harry not returning her calls but everything is coming back now. Having never travelled outside the country before and not knowing what to expect, she is close to tears, feeling insecure and afraid. This is not what she had imagined when they talked about it. Tanya first met Harry four months ago. She was on the night shift and it had been a bad day. Her landlord had asked her to vacate her flat within the month probably because she had snapped at him the last time he had tried to grope her. Then there had been the group of boys who had teased her on her way into work. For the first time since she had arrived in Delhi, she was regretting her decision to run away from home. When she got into the office, the floor was very noisy. She had walked to her seat not wanting to run into anyone, least of all her boss whom shed

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had a huge altercation with the previous day. She had contemplated quitting, but had held back her anger knowing well that it would be impossible to find a job quickly, and she couldnt afford to be unemployed. Taking her seat she had switched on her machine. She waited for it to beep before switching the handset on, indicating that she was now available to take calls. She had her first call within seconds. Hi, this is Tina at Urex Cards. How may I help you? Hey babe, you got a beautiful voice, said the man at the other end. Tanya was taken by surprise and felt the anger return to her this was the last straw. There had been such callers from time to time but today she was in no mood to humour a stranger. She sighed, realising that it was going to be a difficult call. Good morning Sir. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Yeah! Its just about great. My pocket was picked on the Sky train. Tanya wanted to say something smart but stopped herself. Its been a really fucked-up day. Things have been miserable ever since I changed my job, the person on the other end continued. Well, Sir, I hope I can make it better for you, Tanya responded, trying to recollect what she had been taught in her classroom. Yes, you can, said the voice, before Tanya heard laughter at the other end. Do you realise that your voice has been the best thing that has happened to me today? the man continued. Tanya felt her anger easing; it was hard to resist that kind of compliment. Thank you Sir. That is very kind of you, she replied, smiling for the first time that day. Well errr Tina? Is that your real name? Tanya. You can call me Tanya. Her usual good humour was restored. Tanya, I wish I could take you out on a date, but I have lost all my money and credit cards. Though, we can still do that if you agree to pay! He laughed again. Tanya smiled. Can you please help me block my cards? Yes, Sir, it will take just a moment. May I have your card number please? Yes you can, but please call me Harry. Sir sounds so funny for a man who is penniless at the moment. There was more laughter. Harry and Tanya had continued to talk for a long time that night. Tanya did not realise how long she had been on the phone until the alarm sounded, informing her that it was time for a break. They had been on phone for more than an hour and were nowhere close to done. Tanya apologised and quickly disconnected the phone, realising that her boss was standing behind her.

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Harry had called her again a week later; she wondered how he had managed to find her but he had. They had talked for an hour again, this time making sure that it had nothing do with Urex Cards. Harry had told her about the weather where he was and also asked her about her day. But this time Tanya was careful to end the call before she was noticed. Before she did, though, Harry had asked her for her email address so that he could e-mail her pictures from the city. He had said that he was a photographer, at which Tanya had laughed, assuming that he was pulling her leg. He had acted offended and said he would prove it. Before long Tanya would wait for his calls. They worked out a code, where he would ring once, then disconnect and call again immediately. Harry was charming, talkative and didnt seem to have any trouble lending an ear to her problems. What he didnt have was luck with money. It started with his credit cards being stolen and graduated to his business going bust. And then he asked her. Baby, youre sitting on a goldmine. All these people their credit card secrets are in your hands. You know the answers to their secret code questions, its simply a question of withdrawing small amounts and wiring that money to an account in the Cayman Islands, he said persuasively. Tanya knew the exact minute when the idea solidified into a doable one. That was when her boss Deepak or The fuck as the office called him overlooked Tanya for a promotion, and handed it to his favourite sycophant Satish Kumar. Babe, just do as I say and you never have to see this guy again! Do this, and come to me in Vancouver. We can sit back and relax and not do anything for the rest of our lives, said Harry. And so Tanya had done it phishing and embezzling until $500,000 was salted away in an offshore account, waiting for her and Harry when they were ready to make a break. The rude shock of someone bumping into her brings Tanya out of her reverie. *********** Tanya looks at her phone again, almost willing it to ring, beep, anything! But it remains obstinately silent. In the silence, all that can be heard are the loud growls of her empty stomach. Rubbing her belly, Tanya looks around. A fly-ridden cart was piled with chole bhature, and several garishly lit fast food joints were the only ones open. Connaught Place is not the place for a full desi breakfast, which is what Tanya is craving. Parathas! she thinks, drooling at the prospect. After all, if I leave Delhi tomorrow, when will I get to have them again? She is craving not just any parathas, but the real stuff from Chandni Chowk, the chaotic Walled City of Delhi, where a

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whole street is devoted to parathas. Not willing to splurge the limited cash she had on another taxi, which would be unable to negotiate the narrow, labyrinthine gullies of the Walled City anyway, she makes her way to the Rajiv Chowk metro station, Delhis pride and joy. As she stands in queue, she cant help but look at her phone again. Ring damn it, ring, she exhorts the lifeless phone. As her train barrels into the station, she is pushed into the compartment by the jostling crowd. Mercifully, she finds a seat and plonks herself down beside a sari-clad woman, balancing a baby on her lap and holding on to another child. As Tanya glances at her, the woman stares back blankly; the effort of herding the two children through public transport has quite clearly exhausted her. There but for the grace of God, says Tanya to herself, quite happy to have escaped that fate. Whatever the future brings, she repeats to herself, I havent dwindled to being a wife. She couldnt think of anything worse than following her mothers fate of endless child-rearing in the godforsaken corners of smalltown India. Three stops later she is in Chandni Chowk. The contrast between the sanitised metro train and the chaotic street level world of the Walled City is almost overwhelming. Tanya takes a moment to adjust the sound levels in her head. The marketplace is too much like her own Ambala to make her feel intimidated. She flags down a cycle rickshaw, the only way to negotiate the teeming streets. Chandni Chowk, part of the city of Shahjananbad, built by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan, wasnt just a tourist ghetto. It is also the largest wholesale market for fabric, hardware, metalware and agricultural commodities in north India. Each street named after the main trade it followed, a feudal guild system flourishing in the heart of a modern capital city. As goods on handcarts and labourers carrying goods on their bare backs neatly sidestep oncoming traffic, Tanya, perched rather precariously on a cycle rickshaw, drinks it all in. Vancouver will be so different, she thinks to herself, feeling a little pang of nervousness, and not for the first time. Recalling the Babas words, however, she ignores the fact that her calls and messages to Harry have had no response. Everything will be okay, she repeats to herself, the soothsayers words like a talisman for what is turning out to be a departure of a day, in more ways than one. Madam, parathewali gali aa gaya, says the rickshaw puller. Parathewali Gali or literally the street of parathas, is a Delhi institution. Earlier a slew of shops would serve the Indian comfort food of stuffed parathas on this street, with cholestrol inducing fried potatoes and spicy Indian pickles. Now, only three shops in the entire street serve the food; the rest have converted to sari and fabric shops. Quite clearly the focus of the street has shifted from food to fashion. At Ram Chanders Paratha shop, a few tables are set with metal chairs and paper

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napkins, the cook frying paranthas to order as and when customers walk in. As Tanya takes a seat, she is spoiled for choice. Parathas stuffed with potatoes, paneer and even khurchan or the thick creamy layer of milk that sticks to the bottom of the milk pan is on offer. She quickly orders a cauliflower stuffed paratha with a dollop of butter and mango pickle, and is soon tucking into the crispy goodness. Her stomach unclenches in approval. Nothing can look bad after this, she sighs, and asks for a pitcher of buttermilk to polish things off. *********** After the meal Tanya feels good. The colour has come back into her face, making her Punjabi skin glow happily in the aftermath of butter and parathas. She doesnt know what to do with her day and, frankly, shes getting pretty stressed out thinking about why Harry isnt calling her back. She knew so little about him, and now this disappearance Shes trying not to think about it, and is conveniently distracted by a bright piece of cloth blowing in the wind. She looks up and sees a lady hanging freshly washed saris from a clothesline two stories above. The saris are in vibrant shades and some have mirror work on them. She sighs audibly and thinks of all the times she has walked past stores and swooned over beautiful clothes she couldnt have. And then all of a sudden she is completely distracted. A defiant little voice in her head says, Do it Tanya, you can have whatever you like! and she decides to listen to it. Shes been living in Delhi for a while now, and has never ventured into the fancy malls in Saket. They intimidate her, with their glossy posters and numerous counters. To hell with Harry, she thinks, and marches her way through clucking chicken and scattered garbage, towards the metro. She hops on the yellow line, counting the stops fourteen of them, Chandni Chowk to Saket and voil! The metro is mercifully empty now, and she finds a place in the ladies carriage, watching girls heading to work and rushing to other engagements. Hah, she thinks, Im never going to do that again. She steps out at the Saket station feeling thrilled, but by the time she nears the malls shes aware of how raggedy she looks. Her clothes are covered in dust from a day of running around town, her hair feels matted and her fingers look dirty. Shes dehydrated, and her feet are in pain. Never mind, she tells herself. All that was about to change. She steps into the mall and breathes in the smell she calls foreign. Its the heavenly scent of air conditioning mingled with perfumes being sampled, lemony floor cleaner, and the one she liked most Money. Humming to herself she walks slowly through the mall, where voices echo way above her, bouncing against high ceilings and mixing with the music floating out of stores. All English music Songs she didnt really know. How silly she was, getting all senti about Chandni Chowk and parathas when really, by now, 2012, Chandni

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Chowk should look a lot more like this. So backward, she thinks, and huffs up to a store. De-ben-hams, she says, reading the sign out loud before entering. Is this a stupid mistake, or the best thing shes ever decided to do? She cant decide, and before she can make up her mind about leaving the store or staying, a girl in a white coat walks up to her. Good day, maam, would you like to try our new Clinique products? Tanya jumps backwards, and says, No, no Thank you, thank you. God she sounds like an idiot! Now stop being a villager, she thinks, and with that walks up to a brand name she recognises in this sea of unfamiliarity. Revlon. Hello, the girl at the counter says. Her lips are bright red, and Tanya wonders what she would look like with the same make-up on. Hi, she says, picking up a bottle on the counter. It says toner and she hasnt a clue what that means. Maybe you become thinner if you drink it. Can I try this? she asks. The girl says Sure! really loudly and pours some of the liquid on to a piece of cotton wool. Tanya picks it up and puts it to her mouth, trying to lick it. No, no, NOOO! the girl yells, and Tanya drops the cotton wool on the floor in shock. Here, let me show you, the girl says. She seats Tanya on a tall chair and begins wiping her face down with cotton balls doused in different things. Im her project, Tanya thinks, as the girl busies herself, no longer even asking Tanya what she wants or doesnt want. What feels like hours later, Tanya is told to Look in the mirror, maam. Youre as good as new! She looks up and cant believe her eyes. She looks pale and powdered, and her eyelashes curl up dramatically. And her lips look identical to the shop girls. Red and pouty. Shes never loved her face more. Shes Madhuri Dixit. So What would you like to buy? the girl asks. Tanya is confused, but distracted by her own sudden beauty. Umm All of it? she says, not knowing what the protocol is. Great! the girl says loudly, and draws up a bill for Tanya. She goes to the counter and sees the amount. Rs.3500. Thats a lot of money but who cares; once shes on that plane shes as rich as a Bollywood star. She hands over her card with panache. Walking through the mall with her newly painted face, she feels like a queen. Nothing can stop her now. She reads names out aloud and the words roll of her tongue as she practices them. Guess, Zaaaaara, Benneetun, she says and smiles to herself. And then she sees something that takes her breath away. A tattoo parlour. A guy at work had got one done his wifes name on his forearm and she had been fascinated by it. It looked so sexy. Now here, in front of her is a real tattoo parlour. It looks empty, but that doesnt stop her. With this face, she could walk into the Prime Ministers house! There are a bunch of guys sitting around in black t-shirts

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and jeans, talking away. They barely notice her walk in, and the one of them looks up and says, Hey sweety, what can I do for you? Hes handsome, she thinks, and smiles at him. I want a tattoo. After she says it she realises the decision has been made. They start showing her books and catalogues of different tattoos. Some are obscene and make her blush and fascinate her. Topless girls and butterflies, tigers and Chinese proverbs. Then they show her a book with gods and goddesses. Theres a photograph of a man with a Krishna tattoo on his arm, and suddenly Tanya knows what she wants. This really is a day of epiphanies, she thinks, pleased with herself. I want one like this, she says, pointing to the picture, But Hanuman ji. With that she goes into a studio in the back and bares her left bicep for the Monkey God to be imprinted upon. No one told her it would hurt so much. No one told her that tattoos are made with needles. Or that her arm would bleed so much. Shes partly horrified at what she has done and partly over the moon. She stares at it in the mirror, not knowing whether to look at her face or her new arm. She pays the boys in black t-shirts 8000 rupees and walks away from the shop. No one told her a tattoo is forever.

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Kuala Lumpur 2: Sara

Ma! Whats happened now? Sara flung her handbag on the sofa and strode into the kitchen. In spite of herself, Sara could not keep the irritation from her voice. You know I have a meeting this afternoon and a deadline. I dont have the time to I told you that MumWhat are you doing? Im teaching those bloody neighbours a lesson and who called you, Sara? I didnt. Go away. Go back to your bloody office and your bloody work. Vera gathered a bunch of yellowing papers piled up on the kitchen table and dumped them in a stainless steel basin in the kitchen sink. She reached for a matchbox. Ill show them, throwing garbage on to my balcony. Huh, see, how you like this? You throw garbage, I throw fire show you properly, then you know. You see whos clever now. Vera struck a match. Sara grabbed her hand and blew off the flame. Ma! Stop it. You threw the garbage on to their balcony. Mrs Rajan called me at work. She wanted to call the police. Whats the matter with you? She led her mother forcefully away from the kitchen to the sitting room, hand under her elbow. Vera shrugged off her daughters hand. Liar! Liar! Now you tell lies ah? I never did anything. Vera shook her head. Everyone tells lies, you tell lies, your father, he tell lies, lies. Says he working late, Vera, today lot of work in the office ah, cannot come back early. Like I dont know, like I stupid woman. Enough-lah. So I burn him, Vera laughed and pointed to the sink. Burn. She laughed and went into her room, banging the door behind her. What do you mean, burn him? Ma! But Sara was speaking to the closed door. She walked to the kitchen. Ten minutes to clear the papers in the sink and hide the matchbox. Fifteen minutes to apologise to Mrs Rajan, have a quiet word with the security guard and rush to the train. Shed make it back to the office by 3. She lifted the basin out of the sink to dump the papers in the garbage bin when she saw the papers were not papers but old black and white photographs. Of her. Of her dad. Her dad holding her. Her dad kissing her on her third birthday. Dad feeding her a slice of the birthday cake. Twelve candles for my beautiful princess, hed laughed as he kissed her. Saras hands began to shake. She had never seen the photographs before. Where had Vera hidden them all these years? She could scarcely breathe. Her face felt on fire. Dad, dad. Where are you, dad? Ive thought of you every single moment of my life. Its my birthday today. You know that? My sixth. Vera threw open her room door and strode out. What you doing, Sara? Gimme back my things! Dont touch them-lah! Not yours, you know. She made to seize the

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photographs. Sara was quicker. She grabbed them first. Gimme! Sara, gimme! Vera clawed at her daughter. No! Ma, stop it! STOP! Vera stopped, her eyes glazing. Sara watched as her mother shuffled her feet, her lips mouthing silent angry words. My turn to speak, ma. My turn. Your turn, your turn. My turn, Vera, he says, shut up and listen for Gods sake. But I dont listen, I dont care, I know he liar. He yells I am not sleeping with anyone, Vera. I am not having an affair. Understand? Like I so stupid ha, ha. Like I dont know. I shout back, you think you only can shout-ah, I also can shout-mah, louder some more. Everyday, shout, shout, throw things. Then he angry-lah, hit me. Sara remembered. The yelling, mostly her mum screaming at her father; the sound of plates smashing on to the floor. Sara remembered her mothers tears when her father was gone and her mothers hard hands smacking her bottom again and again till her tears flowed too. Her father had left after that birthday in the photos. He had never come back. Shed never seen David Martin again. Its my birthday today, ma, Sara said finally. Maybe you can give me a present: tell me where my dad is? Tell me why he never came back to see me? And tell me, ma, why you hate me so much, she thought. Vera pouted and flicked her hair back. David, I say, everyone say bad luck if baby born 29 February. Sei-loh, birthday once in four years, how can, no good, bad luck one. So-ah, we induce lah, I say, bring the baby born earlier. His face turned red like brick. He scold, scold, scold. Sara struggled to keep her voice even. Ma, where is my dad? Vera turned and looked at her, her eyes shining with clear remembrance. I told him you were dead. Drowned-lah. Pangkor. School trip. Why? Vera shrugged. He love you. Call you his princess. Her fourth big birthday came round when she was in Form 4. She was still tall for her age and what she saw in the mirror pleased her. She had her mothers fine features the same straight nose and full lips but her fathers colouring: her eyes were green, flecked with brown, and her hair looked chestnut in some lights. She wore it straight down her back and enjoyed the way the boys at school looked at her now. Her mother had not celebrated her thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth birthdays, not even with a card. Sara hadnt minded because birthdays brought bad luck and were a reminder of her fathers leaving. She felt she didnt deserve anything. But part of her longed for there to be something special happening for her

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sixteenth. Most of all, though, she longed for there to be some word from her father. But there was none. She told herself she didnt mind. She told herself that she understood what her mother was going through. She knew better than to ask for a gift or a special dinner to mark the day. Although they were not exactly poor (her fathers settlement had been adequate if not actually generous), there didnt seem to be much money for the extras that would have added a little joy to their lives. But the day came and went and there was nothing at all to mark the day out from the rest. Apart from one thing. As she was walking home from school with a heavy heart she heard a pitiful mew coming from the monsoon drain. There was a small grey tabby kitten soaked to the skin, his coat matted with mud and one eye stuck shut. She felt a rush of kinship for this orphaned creature and climbed down to rescue him. Her mother said nothing when she brought the cat home. She called him Disco because once he recovered he proved to be some mover, dashing around the house, chasing sunbeams and shadows and sometimes his own tail. He was the first pet she had ever owned and she was surprised at the depth of affection she felt for him. She was even more surprised to discover that her mothers feigned indifference towards the creature was only a sham she returned home one day to find Disco sitting on her knee purring madly as Vera crooned words of love to him. It seemed her mother found it easier to show affection to an animal than to her. Her fifth big birthday came around as she turned 20. She was at a private college in Kuala Lumpur now, studying Mass Media. She had wanted to do Law, and with her grades any university overseas would have accepted her, but getting a scholarship was out of the question for someone of the wrong race. Her mother grumbled constantly about paying the tuition fees. Once again a big birthday went unmarked.

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London 2: Dave

Dave finds the nearest bus stop, and leans in to read the map, trying to decide on his next move. He feels something attach itself to his trouser leg, and when he looks down, sees at his knee the blonde head of a small boy who is holding onto him and admiring the suitcase, picking at the red and white sticker with grubby fingers. The boy kicks the case absent-mindedly with his bright red trainer and says, Open it. And he reaches up his hand and grips Daves finger. After a pause Dave says, OK! and crouches down to help. Im Oscar. says the boy. Who are you? That is a very complex question as it happens. Wha? Dave. Call me Dave. Hello Oscar. Hey have we met before? But he thinks not. Oscar feels like a stranger, but reassuringly taking control of the situation. Open it? Please! Dave says. Please. Open it. OK but hang on. He takes the boy by the hand and leads him over to a secluded stretch of wall, then slides his hands under the boys armpits and hoiks him up in the air, plonks him on the wall and sits beside him. Oscar smiles at him gratefully, as Dave sits beside him and puts the suitcase on his knee, he helps Oscar click open the lock and lift the top. Oscar gives a little nervous shiver. Dave realises hes weeping, tears washing down his face, and puts his hand on the boys shoulder. So many times just a touch on the shoulder was enough to soothe his own son. Oscar starts to stutter something. What did you say? Say it again, please say it again, Dave says. Hes crying too. Oscar just stares back at his hands. Whats the matter, Oscar old mate? Dont want to go home. The boy says. Perhaps his tears flowed so suddenly because he saw Dave weeping. It was a relief for both of them. But Dave finds himself closing and locking the suitcase again. Now dont fall apart on me, Oscar. I need you to help me sort myself out. Oscar picks at a scab on his knee. Dave slides off of the wall and stares at the tiny blonde head who now appears to be in his care. His head feels light, he probably

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shouldnt move too fast. The boy smells buttery, young, unlived. Ive lost my marbles, Oscar mate, Ive gone to pieces. I can see youre not happy but I feel like you know whats what. Uh? So What is What? Any ideas? What is what! Oscar smiles again. He is wearing a green t-shirt with a skulls and Surf Dude written on it. He wears a bright blue jacket with yellow buttons, he grips the handle of the closed suitcase like a businessman about to set off for a board meeting, and squirms his way off the wall. Lets go Dave He says and holds out his hand. At that moment a number 4 bus pulls up at the stop. A woman wearing a faux fur leopard print coat and big glasses steps onto the bus, gripping her Oyster card firmly. Oscar marches firmly towards the bus, his eyes on that coat and Dave has to follow. The child hauls himself onto the bus and walks past the bus driver as only one too young to be eligible to pay fares would do and waits patiently for Dave. Where does this go? Dave hears himself whispering. The library, Oscar mimics his whisper Upstairs? Dave nods. Oscar chooses a seat on the top deck at the front of the bus so he can see out the windows on all sides. Dave sits down next to him. His head fuzzes again the road is definitely familiar, but hes not sure if its because its like so many London roads or if he has done this journey before. Like on many London roads, shops keep getting erased. A cinema where once there was a Bingo hall. The bus swerves round and stops at the junction. Its a long way down the high road, the fish, the veg, the shoes, bit of stuff, kids stuff. They pass a toy shop. Across the front window are oversized colouring books and a memory flashes in Daves mind of Jamie trying to show him a drawing of a child riding a skateboard. Jamie was a keen skateboarder. He drew about it before he could do it. And at Waterloo, at Southbank, there is skateboarding. He is going in the right direction. A young girl stares at him from the pavement as the bus squeals to a halt at a bus stop and people jumble on board. Blue eyes: Jamie has blue eyes like this girl. The girl with the sweet eyes swears like a grumpy old drunk when she gets on the bus and takes charge of the back seats on the top deck. A billboard flies past asking him if he wants to holiday in the sun. He can feel the sun on his skin but there is no sun today. He has a bit of a tan; not the sort of tan you would get in London. Where has he been? It starts to spit but doesnt bother raining. The bus lurches to the left and Dave bangs his head on the window. He looks at

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it angrily. On the other side of the road he notices a camera shop. It seems very familiar. The name Sunny comes into his head. There was a camera once, his first. He could remember a Kodak Spot 400. He could remember moving the focus ring, the opaque matte screen that filled his vision slowly clearing and a picture becoming clear. A picture of a young girl and an older man, a father. He could hear the click and a momentary blackness. His finger twitched, pressed an air shutter button. Oscar shoves him. Youre dribbling. Daves eyes open wide. He was asleep for a split second surely no more. Come on, our stop! Theyve stopped by a library, and they charge off the bus in a hurry, Oscar in front, Dave behind squeezing onto the pavement just as the doors close on one leg, yanking the suitcase through. He waits for the cars to pass before he makes a dash. The 19 passes the other way and nearly clips him. Damn, hes just not getting his feet in the right places. There are boys hanging out smoking ganja outside the college next to the library, straddling the students bikes. Dave can imagine what the library thinks about that. Oscar stands rubbing his eyes on the other side of the road, then runs across. Careful, shouts Dave. He used to shout that to Jamie didnt he? Oscar blinks and pushes past him into the library. Thank you, whispers Dave. He assumes Oscar hasnt heard him. He doesnt turn around. His blonde head bobbing towards the dinosaurs and volcanoes of the childrens library. But Oscar is smiling for the first time that week, the smile lasts all day. The library is moving stock: weeding. Dave spies a library assistant putting withdrawn items back on the shelves, in protest, he thinks classics, like Toni Morrisons Beloved. Even the travel section has been moved, alongside the romance section. The staff look tired, disillusioned. The machines are coming and they are going. Travel? Dave asks. Travel biographies or travel books? Its 914.20 if its London and The woman looks tired. She eyes his bright shirt suspiciously. Travel, just travel! Just go towards the sign that looks like an apple, near the toilet, just over there Dave finds Asia and Australia first. Nothing rings a bell yet, so he pulls out a ton of books onto the floor then he picks up the Lonely Planet guide for Malaysia. He used to write for them the odd quick pic and a blurb on some place now and again he tries to remember when and where that was, but all he can remember is an aeroplane. Curry in a plastic container. Jamie on one side. And on the other hes not sure. Its a start. He takes the Malaysia book to the counter. Yes, he has a library

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card in his wallet. Can I get this out? Not with this card, its a childs ticket. Sometimes we let parents get books out for their child, but not adult books. She scans the card it reads James Martin. Look, can I have my own card? But I need to hold on to this other card It might be important. I have just come out of hospital and my head is all over the place, just trying to piece things together. You need to fill this out, and we need proof of address and some form of ID but you can bring this on your second visit. On your first visit you can take up to 4 books, 2 CDs, 1 DVD. She keeps on talking but Dave tunes out. Do you have the film Cach? He saw it once, he remembers now something about Russian dolls, everything inside out. He doesnt even have a DVD player. He needs to get things straight. He just needs to get things straight. Just checking for you now No sorry its out. Do you want to make a reservation? Its due back the day after tomorrow. No thanks. I only have today. He looks around the library lost again. The internet, he says. The librarian looks like shes had a long day. You want the computers? she asks. Dave smiles. Theres one free for half an hour. Number 9. She hands him a slip of paper with the login details.

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Vancouver 2: Win

From The Goddess Blog Dressing Well In a city like Vancouver, it can be hard to tell whos well dressed and who isnt. Sometimes its tough to tell at a distance whether those yoga pants are from Lululemon or like, Zellers. The good news is that in such a casual town, putting together a basic off-duty wardrobe is easy. Go with all black: it matches, its slimming, and it doesnt show the raindrops as much. Two or three pairs of yoga pants (Lulu is best, but TNA is also okay), a couple of fitted hoodies, and a selection of James Perse t-shirts (you can also get away with TNA or American Apparel). But what about work, you say? Half of the people I work with dress in the exact outfit I described above for everything but their own wedding. But take a look around your office what are your higher-ups wearing? That old dress for success line is totally true: dress for the job you WANT to have. Or, more to the point: Dress for the persons whose job you want to steal. Luckily, even the people at the top of the citys Most Powerful list have a very basic look thats easy to copy. Its just a higher-end version of the yoga pants, really. You need some good basic pants (again, all black will never let you down), a couple shirts, some jackets, a skirt or two if your legs arent fat, and your accessories (which is a WHOLE OTHER POST because Im totes tired and had three SkinnyGirl Cosmos for dinner.) Where to shop for these things is easy, too. Holts. Period. Get a credit card from there and get busy. Buy investment pieces: Theory, Equipment, Louboutin, and so on. At some point, you have to decide do I want to keep buying ugly cheap-looking shit, or am I making an investment in myself? One decent pair of Theory pants, as long as the silhouette is tweaked by your tailor periodically, can last for years. Trust me. Holts has sales at the end of the season, but most of that stuff is the ugly-ass Eurotrash logo stuff that only Chinese people buy. I know there are also

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sample sales and stuff out there, but who has the time? Also, the salespeople treat you better when you pay retail. So just suck it up. If I can afford it, anyone can. For real. Fucking Leap Day. It isnt really an extra day. If only. Win could use a spare day almost as much as she could use a facial and an actual, professional mani-pedi. She would blow off the event at Lupo if she could, but there is no way Lane Abbot, the Business Development Manager for McWinery, the company shes been promoting for the past four years, would take that kind of shit from her right now. The last thing she fucking needs right now is to have to pull herself together, scrape the last of her NW18 from the bottom of her bottle of Studio Fix, and smooth away the vestiges of last nights bender so that she looks like a dewy, fresh-faced twenty-three year old than the alcohol ravaged harpy she resembles now. She has a full bottle of NW33 left from summer, but now, with her winter pasty flesh as sickly pale as skim milk gone off, its too dark. Even if she was to blend really well into her neck and hairline, she would still look like she was wearing a Halloween mask made out of a leftover breakfast crepe. They dont call it pancake make-up for nothing. Win looks into the mirror without looking directly into her own eyes. She doesnt want to see the bloodshot capillaries making their slow, creeping way across the whites of her eyes. Holding the tangled mass of her wish-she-hadnt-just-beenfucked hair out of the way, she leans into the sink and drinks for a long time. The water here tastes like shit, like every drunken accidental near-drowning of her senior year, when Win and her best friend Tara used to sneak into the Kildonan Park pool at night and do feeble doggy-paddle laps around the perimeter of the pool, laughing so hard they inevitably inhaled half of the fucking water. The taste, brackish and chlorinated, is the flavour of summer, endless. She squeezes her eyes shut, and sucks the water in, her body desperately re-hydrating itself. Great. Now she will be fucking bloated for the rest of the day. Shell have to wear one of her fat outfits something with panelling or ruching that will cleverly disguise the subcutaneous bulge that is collecting along her waistline. That leaves her with very little to wear. And she has to be at Lupo in three hours. Fuck. Shit. She will have to come up with something, and she will have to look amazing in it. Flawless. Untouchable. Right now, she looks as though she has been touched. A lot. Way too much fucking touching. Win can still feel him on top of her, like his bulging beer gut has somehow, by osmosis, become hers. She will never fuck some stranger to break in a fresh Brazilian again. Until next month, or the month after. God, she is pathetic. What did she buy a discretely packaged, glossy pink water-resistant vibrator from Womyns Ware (the online outlet she would never be caught dead in the bricks and mortar store on Commercial Drive, with all of those

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Joy-of-Sex-era full-bushed lesbians clamouring for Joy Berries and syncing their menstrual cycles, or whatever) for if she just kept pulling, Saturday after Saturday, from the dregs of Vancouvers least trendy clubs? Just as she was stepping into the shower her phone went off again her real phone. Her home phone. Fucking Brandon. How many times did he have to call her to tell her the same fucking thing? He was beginning to turn into their mother. That boy should seriously have gotten out of Winnipeg years ago. It was probably too late, now. He was a part of it, it a part of him, forever like some intestine-sucking, many tentacled monster had risen up from the sewers at night when everyone was sleeping to suck whatever brains he had out through his nose. Win could feel it from here. Winnipeg, grabbing at her ankles. Slithering over her, pulling, caressing. Her skin stretching and giving way. Surrendering. No. She fucking wouldnt give in. Not yet. Not ever. It wasnt Brandon. It was Tara, a text. She knew better than to think Win would pick up. She hadnt heard Taras voice in two years, not since her third child was born, and Win had called her and squealed some semblance of a congratulatory monologue into the phone. She had never even seen either of Taras most recent children, though she heard through the grapevine of their mothers that Tara was up the stick again. She tried not to think about Taras belly, bulging and straining, all of those stretchmarks that must now riddle her stomach, tits, and ass. Nothing was fucking grosser than the body of a woman that has performed, multiple times, the miracle of birth. Some fucking miracle. Win preferred the miracle of Preparation H on the bags under her eyes, the miracle of a water-bra and Red Bull with Diet Coke. That was all the fucking miracle her life could handle. Ugh. Pregnancy. Thats what abortions are for, right? Win towelled herself off more carefully than she had time for, averting her eyes from the pulsating phone. Eventually, when she could no longer avoid it, she read the text. Whos more gross? it said. When she was young, when she was Winifred, she played a game with Tara: Whos More Gross. One-upping each other with disgust, they tore themselves down. They knew each other well enough like siblings, but by choice to know what hurt. The game always started slow. Tara: Look at me. Look at me. My pigtails look like spark plugs. Winifred: Nonono. My glasses are straight out of The Wonder Years. Tara: I have chicken knees. I will never give birth. But Tara did give birth. Five times. Her twenties a swamp. Twins in the centre, a prong that kept her still. Win left after the third child, when they were twenty-one. It was like watching someone disappear, but, she told herself, that is sexist, she

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should respect Taras choice. To hatch a small population to sink her life into. Win watched with horror, hating her own horror. Tara, pregnant with her first: Im the size of a tank. I could smuggle oil into a pre-electric country. Winifred: Ive fucked everyone in Transcona. Tara: I fucked one person from Transcona and will now repopulate it. Winifred: I will be single forever. Tara: I will never cook for only adults. Winifred: You arent even trying. They were heady with their self-pity and doubt. By this time Winifred hated Winnipeg, more than she had ever hated any person. She hated Winnipeg intimately, ferociously. Winnipegs face and hair, its stink and texture. How every bus route was mapped into her. How she could feel changes in the weather coming. There is a completion of knowing, she realised, that feels like death. The melodrama of this thought kept her in the city for a few more months. And then she left. The ensuing births via email. The first came when she was living in the basement suite in East Van, during the time she told nobody back home where she was living. Vancouver was a story theyd all believed in, so she just kept repeating it. Now her father is dying. She is twenty-nine and her father is dying. She sends Tara a text message. On impulse. Where do these impulses come from? Habit; a life relapse. Whos More Gross?!!!! My father is dying. Her body tenses, fearing an absence of response as soon as she presses the smooth black button on her phone. A minute later, her phone chimes. From Tara. Whos More Gross? Just found out the youngest is autistic. WTF. The object of the game, if there even is one, is to try to lose. You pick a topic (usually something that the person has been complaining about, so the topic is often my gross body, or how much I hate my mom or my boyfriend is retarded, for example), and then announce it and then just run with it. This game can be played

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in pairs, but its also fun in groups, especially if alcohol is liberally involved. Open the game with how dimpled your thighs are. Someone else counters with her flabby fat stomach. Then another girl pipes up with her flat chest, and then another talks about how her ears stick out and make her look like a jug. And it goes around and around with everyone getting grosser and grosser. Bodies are a fun topic, because if youre at someones house, you can actually stand up and grab hold of the offending part and show everyone how cottage-cheesy and disgusting it is. Its the only topic in the game that has that level of bonus round. Like, theres no bonus round for being mad at your boyfriend, at least not that Win ever discovered. No one is ever truly declared the loser in Whos More Gross, so the game never has to end. Also, its important that no one whos actually gross ever be invited to play. That would make it too easy, or just too fucking sad. Neither she nor Tara ever won or lost. Standing face-to-face as children, stripping their hips, faces, families. Win cant picture Tara now. Hasnt seen a photo since she left. Tara is a confusion of images. The pigtails she hated as a child. The nose she begged her mother to have changed, then passed on to her children (like a facial birthmark, as far as she was concerned). The self-flagellation they revelled in as children what purpose did it serve? A small mirror of their adult self-loathing. My. Mine. She shouldnt assume Tara is self-loathing. Tara is the most stable person her own age she knows knew. An autistic kid. Fuck. Win knows she could never handle that level of dependency. The sheer heft of it. The longterm death of it. She will never open herself to the possibility of that. The four abortions shes had since age fifteen. She never thinks about those absent babies, the way women say they do in magazines and on HBO. Those carefully graphed arcs. Where people change and grow. Win left those babies behind in never-gonna-happen land. Continued with her spreadsheet life. Her thumb hesitates. She keys in her response. Whos More Gross? My dads dying and I was too lazy to get to know him. He wasnt even abusive. I just didnt care enough. She presses Save Draft. Types in a new message: Whos More Gross?

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Leaky condo black mould Sends the message. Taras response: Whos More Gross? When my mom was dying of cancer all she would eat was cheap vanilla ice cream and I stole some of it whenever I was there Win: Thats so Transcona Whos More Gross? Im not naturally pretty Tara: Whos More Gross Stretch marks that look like anal bleaching Tara: Poor Freddie The Freddie weakens Wins elbows. The loathsome diminutive of Winnifred, briefly Fred, then Freddie after she started taking Shreddies to school as a snack. A plastic bag her father filled for her every morning, tucked into her large purple zippered pencil case, her prized possession, coveted by her younger brother Brandon. Brandon who never left the Peg, who has been caring for their father. Brandon who mails her a bottle of Cointreau every Christmas, who has never traveled farther than a province in either direction, Brandon who once mailed her a paper coaster from a local brewery by scrawling her address on the back. A dark brown ring on it. She held it to her nose and breathed in deeply. On the back hed written FUCK YOU and drawn a smiley face. That was four years ago, when he was just sixteen. Shed
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brushed it off as a joke. She hasnt answered any of his emails; she opened the last few only under the force of primal obligation. Had to say to herself You are a horrible person if you dont answer your little brothers emails while your father is dying. Whos More Gross. Perfect spelling but the simple grammar of a person who writes only for communication. Brandon pounded out the simple plan of their fathers cancer as it engulfed his stomach, as it went live through his bloodstream. Hey Freddie. Dads worse now. I am taking two weeks vacation pay from work. I will have no Christmas vacation. When are you coming? Brandon. Hey Freddie. Are you getting these? He has two months left, according to the oncologist. You can stay at my place. Brandon. Hey Freddie. You can stay at my apartment and you can stay as long as you want. Call mom. Brandon. Today she will get on a plane to go back to Winnipeg for the first time in eight years. She was twenty-one when she left. Arrogant, full of knowledge she would sneer at now in another person, the way she sneers at culinary students at events she organizes. Their earnest striving, their fumbling hold on adulthood. The unformed poses of their bodies. She hates those inadequacies in other people. Why cant they observe, learn, grow, the way she has. The way she had to. Learning that life is a masquerade or some bullshit cliche like that. Fuck those people and their privileged idealism. Why protect people from their own naivete? She likes to play a game with the students. She offers them Pinot Gringo (dark tones of mint and mulberry) and recommends the fish rillette. They accept her offerings, knowing none of the names. Whos more gross? Win was tempted to answer, say Definitely me. The grossest, ever. But not for long. She would pull it together. Any minute now, it would happen. She would zip herself up into a perfect rendition of herself smooth, seamless. Bullet-proof. She has nothing to wear, no make-up that suited the occasion or any of the clothes she would have to wear in the absence of anything worth shoving herself into a pair of extra-small Spanx. She saved money on underwear by wearing nothing but Spanx talk about a bonafide, modern-day fucking miracle. She had a vintage Chanel cocktail dress in the back of the closet she had found on one of her furtive Value Village forays, clawing her way through the racks wearing a pair of Jackie Onassis inspired sunglasses and a slouchy hipster toque. She disguises herself as a

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hipster when she wants to go incognito, has no money, and needs a dress on the cheap without having to go to one of the vintage shops that got to VV boutique a half hour before she did to pick the racks clean and hike the price-tags up by 600%. Thrift stores were fucking expensive enough in Vancouver. Sure, it was for charity but what about her? When would she get a fucking break? Win scrapes on enough makeup to give herself that effortless just woke up, ran in the park, drank a gallon of water and ate a macrobiotic breakfast all before 6am look, throws on her Lululemon colour-coordinated but not matching track suit, and grabs her stash of pilfered Clinique and Dior lipsticks, glosses, and eyeshadow trios. Sephora opened in ten minutes. It was time to go soft-cash exchange policy shopping. Win hates leaving the house barely made up. Its like one of those dreams where shes almost naked, and her clothes keep ripping or falling away, showing the pale flesh beneath that in the dream, she has forgotten to shave and her tampon string is showing. Its even worse when shes going somewhere she loves, like Sephora her own private heaven where she deserves to feel fully herself, fully put together and powerful, all of the sales girls clamouring to serve her. Today, their eyes barely make contact before drifting over her. She feels like something pale, wafting invisible, but in motion. Maybe its better this way. They wont remember she was ever here. She can be in and out in a matter of moments. She glides in, makes her choices, and takes them up to the counter, her best haughty-bitch expression on her face. I want to return these, she says, dumping the pile of opened and obviously swatched cosmetics onto the counter. The sales girl, her pout perfectly delineated and liberally glossed, like a sucked candy, raises her eyebrow skeptically. May I ask why? Win doesnt allow her gaze to falter. Because I didnt fucking like them, she says, her voice dropping an octave much more effective than screaming. Do you have a receipt? I dont need one. Are you new, or something? The girl gives her a considering look, her hands hovering over the cash register. Shes trying to suss Win out. Trying to gauge her. But Win cannot be gauged. She has made sure of it. She sighs loudly, and folds her arms. Do we need to involve your manager? The girl flushes, brightening beneath her Painte on glow. She hesitates and Win glares her down, actually starting to get mad. A fight is exactly what she needs to clear her fuggy mind of last nights bender, the morning call from Winnipeg, Taras cryptic but so perfectly clear text message that dug right down into the meat of Wins heart, or wherever she feels things these days. Cmon, please she thinks. Just give me a fucking reason. Grudgingly, the girl starts refunding the make-up back onto Wins maxed-out

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Visa, which should give her just enough credit to pay for what she picked out. Just enough to turn her from the frumpy stepsister back into Cinderfuckingella. The girl finishes, and hands her the bag. Thank you for shopping at Sephora, she mumbles. Win snatches the bag from her hand. Yeah, thats what I fucking thought, she snaps. This had better not happen again. I spend a lot of money here, you know. The girl nods. Sorry. Im really sorry. Youd better be. Win is the one who is sorry, or should be for what? Take your fucking pick. Everything has gone so fucking wrong so fast. Shes on the edge of being late. Her face is a mess, her ponytail congealed into a sweaty nest like an eighties back-comb prom hairdo. Her phones are vibrating in her pocket, juttering against the clean blade of her hip. She cant imagine answering them. She couldnt, even if she wanted to. She goes back to her apartment. She runs all the way, weaving through the clutter of people, leaping over homeless ankles and pressing her body sideways between people too fat to walk side by side, but always do anyway, like cattle milling, three deep. She slides between them like smoke, like something visible that will soon disappear. From the Goddess Blog: Working With What You Have Heres a little secret about me: Im not naturally beautiful. Like those women who actually just look the way they do and even when theyve just woken up and have a hangover or have been crying or got two hours of sleep, they still look so gorgeous, even when they should look like shit. They manage to make looking like shit just seem sort of rumpled and glamorous and vaguely French. Think of the young Kate Moss, who could smoke and drink and snort piles of blow all night, and then just put on a pair of sunglasses and shove her knickers in her purse and still look like the most fabulous thing ever. Im not one of those women. But you dont have to be born good-looking to look good. In todays world, real beauty doesnt even matter, unless youre planning to be a model. (And if youve ever seen models in real life, theyre actually super-freaky looking. Real beauty is terrifying and gangly, and contrary to what you might assume, is a kind of awkwardness, like a mutant baby deer or something. But it has the power to make you stop and stare.) The rest of us, the non-models, just need to create an approximation of

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beauty the kind you see on pop stars and reality TV people. All it takes is money, some hard work, and the willingness to commit. This can include things like: Diet and exercise (running and hot yoga are my favourites) Facials and body treatments Fillers and other injectables Hair styling and colour (highlights, highlights, highlights!) Contact lenses Manicures and pedicures Hair removal (Brazilians or laser, eyebrow threading and so on) Eyelash extensions Hair extensions And of course, the wonderful magic of make-up

Yes, it costs money. Yes, it takes time. But the results are so worth it. I look about five years younger than I actually am, which in turn, makes me able to lie about my age, and then I seem way smarter than the other 24-yearolds. So it pays off in more ways than one. Men are more likely to want to take care of you. Cops are less likely to give you a ticket. You can get past the line at clubs more easily. The list goes on and on. A lot of this you can do yourself. But dont even try these things at home unless youve had it done by a pro first, or had lots of practice. One head of shitty at-home highlights is a dead giveaway only poor people do their own hair. Same goes for eyebrows, self-tanning, waxing your lady business, and painting your own nails. If youre going to fuck it up, then spend the money and let the real people handle it. One way Ive found to save money is by running in the morning and then coming back to my condo. Theres a small gym in my basement, but theres also a sauna. I crank up the heat in there and do about twenty or thirty minutes of yoga after my run, before Ive even had breakfast. Free hot yoga! I sweat so much and work so hard I almost faint. Once I had to lie down on the floor for a few minutes and kind of fell asleep for a bit and was almost late for work. But still, Ive lost nearly two more pounds since I started adding it to my routine. I was in a public restroom the other day (well, its not actually a public

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restroom, but its the washroom on the main floor of the hotel lobby right beside where we have lunch a couple of times a week, and lots of people have found out about it, so now its a an actual public washroom and is rapidly becoming less nice. Homeless people go there for the towels.). Anyway, some bitch had stuck a yellow post-it on the mirror over the sink that read, Smile! Youre beautiful! with a bunch of hearts and bullshit smiley faces on it and a link to a website: www.operationbeautiful.com. I looked it up when I got back to the office. What a load of horseshit. Why do ugly chicks have to ruin it for everyone? Because guess what? Not everyone is beautiful. Not everyone is gorgeous in her own way. Some girls are beautiful and some girls are plain, and lots of girls are just straight-up dogs, okay? Thats how you can tell who the fuck the beautiful ones are by taking a look at all the ugly people around and seeing that theyre better than that. Its like those stupid Dove commercials trying to convince a bunch of lumpy fours that theyre hot. Why does everyone have to try and claim a piece of the beauty real estate? Im mean, Im all for people making an effort. The world could use more diets and clarifying shampoos, more mascara and pumiced heels. People out there are fucking gross and they need to pull it together. But quit calling it beauty, because its not. Everyone gets one good thing in life one good talent thats just handed to them. (Mine, for example, is a work ethic that would kill most people.) Some people are incredibly smart and work as scientists or inventors, or doctors, or pilots or whatever. I dont NEED those people to be beautiful. In fact, Id prefer them to be ugly. Its like, that way I can trust them, you know? Theyre doing what nature designed them to do. Not everyone can be or have everything. Do I go around and tell everyone how fucking smart I am, or start up some campaign to let everyone know that theyre all geniuses in their own special way? No, because we all know that some people are fucking dumbasses. Hell, I work with some of them. But theyre beautiful, so theyre doing what theyre good at, in the place they belong. Whats so complicated about that? Everyone needs to stay where they are, and not pretend to be something theyre not. Life would be a lot easier that way. Win puts on her make-up, breaking open the little tubes and vials, the magical elixirs that never seem to last long enough. This is not glamour. This is armour. She looks beautiful from a distance, but like a Monet, she is a total blur up close. She delineates her features, blots them out and paints them back on again. She tries not

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to remember doing this with Tara for prom Tara, already pregnant, bulging out of her gown, her feet too swollen for pumps, so she wore a pair of bejewelled tennis shoes she decorated for her final art project. She spends a lot of time not thinking about Tara. Not thinking about who she was then, and who she is not now, and never will be again. She squeezes herself into the sausage casing of her Spanx, all of her meat and bone compressing into the perfect outline of a woman, over which she smooths down the seams of the Chanel gown. This is not what she has been saving it for. She is really pissed off that she has to wear it now. Her only comfort is that she can wear it again, at her fathers funeral, and it wont be the first time. It will be some little thing she can throw on, already used up. She can wear it like someone whose closets are bursting with funereal couture, and this old thing is the one that will travel best, crushed into her carry-on. She cant afford to lose anything, so she never brings anything she cant carry. Win sits down at the five-year-old laptop where she composes her vitriolic selfhelp blog posts, and checks the balance of her bank account and each of her credit cards. Her stomach lurches, and she almost throws up which would actually be a relief right now, if she wasnt afraid of smudging her make-up. She was broke. Completely tapped out. Dry as a bone. There was nothing left. She couldnt afford a taxi, let alone a plane ticket. What the fuck was she going to do? She had to get to Winnipeg, even if she would never survive the trip. She didnt even have a decent winter coat, for one thing. What would her mom say? Win stares at the screen. There is no arguing with this. Her head, always just above water, is about to take the plunge. She can taste the brackish water already it tasted like Winnipeg. The thing that scares her is how good it tastes. She only needs to inhale, her lungs filling up. Sinking to the bottom will feel for a moment like freefall, like an ecstatic choice she has made. She is in control. She is always in control. Except for now, when she has no fucking money to buy a goddamned plane ticket. Shit. Just at that moment, something weird happens. Something that never happens to her. A possible deal. She sees an email pop up from Harry, a guy she barely knows. She met him in London the year before, when she was at a wine conference. She hadnt liked him much, didnt let him fuck her, and still he managed to get a hold of her contact information. He had emailed her a few times, but she had always deleted them before reading. This time, however, the subject line catches her eye: In a bind She opens it, and scans the email briefly.

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Hey Win, I dont know if you remember me, but you said that if I was ever in Vancouver I should look you up, maybe stay at one of those guesthouses you told me about, in the Okanagan, or wherever. I have this friend, Tanya Bhatia, who is coming to town. Her accommodation fell through (totally my bad but Im really trying to impress this girl, you know what Im saying?) Point is, I was wondering if she could stay at one of those places just for a few days. I would so owe you one. Let me know if its cool I would totally appreciate it. Harry. Wins mind starts to whir. She reads it again, fast. And starts to smile, for the first time that day. Yeah, Harry why not? Sure, Harry. Theres this place called Peasant Hills there is a vacancy for this week. Ill text you the address, after you take care of the little processing fee you know, for the inconvenience, the towels and complimentary food basket Ill have to replace all of that when you go. Five hundred. Deposit in my Paypal account by the end of the business day, and were cool. Tell your little friend not to make a mess or break anything. Win. She hits send. If he comes through, and he probably wouldnt, Win will actually have the plane fare home to Winnipeg. She doesnt know what to hope for. She takes out her phone, the one on which Taras messages have piled up like the garbage in a tide-line since she last replied. She types: Im grosser. I always have been. Havent you figured that out yet you stupid bitch? I love you, and Im coming home if it kills me. Re-entering Winnipeg will be like entering a preoperative body. She read somewhere once that stasis is a dream-state. How could she have been so passive while living there? The Peg. Watching the births and gathering credits at the University in town. She cant think of that time without a sick lifelessness enter-

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ing her body, pressing into her chest the smallest amount of pressure possible. The worst thing it can possibly be is exactly the same as when she left. Oh fuck she needs a cigarette. She always needs a cigarette, or some other small release. That is what sex is now for her. Only release. Never satisfaction, the way it was when she was young, the way she used to come. The boyfriend shed almost followed out of Winnipeg when she was 19 but she hadnt loved him enough because she hadnt understood that she would have to leave anyway; because she was afraid to leave; because her best friend had a kid and she felt too guilty to leave her. Shed described sex with him to Tara as a big tree being ripped out of the ground. And that was how shed felt. Sections dangling and showering rocks and clay. So earth-woman. So crushingly typical. So shocking to realize that her body had done the love thing the way all bodies did. How completely humiliating. Whos More Gross? I feel tied down by my children. But who doesnt. Win stares at the words, their silent apparition. The things she could write back: that she surfing on an ever-vanishing wave crest of debt; that she has not had sex that has moved her in years; that she continually creates and recreates herself with a revolving set of accessories and mannerisms; and, most humiliating of all, that she sings along to Adele in her car and weeps. She cannot write these things so she writes: Whos More Gross? I call his funeral the after-party in my mind Tara doesnt respond. Win has broken the games only rule. She packs a carry-on, fake Prada, but convincing from a reasonable distance. Just like Win. She throws the bag into the trunk of her car, the car that looks better than it is, immaculately maintained. She cant afford parking. Shell just have to pray her car doesnt get towed.

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Part 3

Delhi 3: Tanya

Tanya walks into the Zara fitting room, where well-heeled women are trying on dresses that are two sizes too small. The familiar tune of Chammak Challo shatters the cool silence of the mall. Tanya grabs her phone. Maybe it is Harry, finally. She is disappointed; it is only Riya. She hesitates. She hasnt told anyone about her plans. Even Riya, the closest thing she has to a friend, knows nothing about Harry. The shoppers glare at her as the shrill ring tone continues to puncture the air. Hey, Riya, she moans in an attempt to fake sickness. Whats up? Tanya, why arent you at work? Riya sounds frantic. I am really sick, yaar. I have a bad stomach and fever, and my throat is hurting like hell. Please tell The fuck, I mean Deepak, that I wont be coming in today. Tanya, youd better speak to him yourself. Hes gone ballistic. Apparently, there has been fraud at Urex Cards and they have traced it to our centre here. Tanya feels something cold slide down her throat and get stuck there. It is almost as though someone she loves has died. She tries to quell the wave of panic that rises up within her. Oh? What exactly have you heard? I dont know much. But someone has been fooling around with the credit cards of our Urex customers and siphoning off money. They are saying the total amount could be almost half a million dollars. There are cops here from the financial fraud unit. Tanya, everyone is scared as shit. Everyone has to be here. They are going to question Relax, Riya, says Tanya, but she herself is far from relaxed. The events of the morning are fading, and the lightheartedness she has felt has given way to something akin to fear. This is the first time she has felt so tense since she took the decision to run away from Indventure, from India, from everyone I dont think anyone in our team could have done something like this. Ill call Deepak and tell him that I cant come today. I cant even get through fifteen minutes without running to the loo. Im in a really bad state, you know. Must be that butter chicken I ate at the dhaba yesterday, Tanya finds herself blabbering, trying to string words together, trying to make sense. I have to hang up, Riya says. If Deepak asks me, Ill say I spoke to you. They might start tracking calls. Bye. Tanya looks at her phone. Her one main connection to Harry now seems like a bomb that could go off at any minute. Maybe they were already tracking her, the one

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absent employee. As if on cue, she gets another call. This time it is from Deepak, her boss. She panics and switches off the phone. She cant lie to Deepak. He is sure to see through her. Shes never liked him, but shes always had a grudging respect for his persistence, his ability to get to the bottom of things. She could fake it, but now she knows that she is not all that good. She catches sight of her face in a passing mirror. The made-up face looks alien; she doesnt know herself. It comes to her as a shock behind that drinking, smoking, swearing swagger, beneath the British accent and the red lipstick, she remains Tanya Bhatia from Ambala, the eldest unfortunate daughter of an ordinary clerk in an ordinary city. Tanya realises she needs to pull herself together. She cant let Harry down. She has to be careful. No more credit cards. She is glad that she had withdrawn almost all her money from the bank the previous day. My mother has to have an operation, she had tearfully murmured to the bank manager, who had been quite sympathetic. Harry had told her to leave the money they would have more money than they could ever want but she couldnt leave behind all her hard-earned savings from Indventure. Heck, she could use the money! Smart move, that! The money mysteriously being withdrawn from the ATM might have prompted the bank to snoop around. Harry would be proud of her. She had not told her parents of her impending flight since they didnt care anyway. She was still safe. No one knew where she was. She could not be seen in any public place. They had CCTV cameras everywhere these days. The most important thing was to get in touch with Harry. She calls him again, praying now. Please, please Hanumanji, let him pick up. Where could Harry be? It wasnt like him to be so inaccessible, especially now that she was coming out to meet him. What had the astrologer told her? Everything will be okay. Sab theek ho jayega. What a fraud. Serves her right for landing up with a fake astrologer. She tries again and again as though just pressing the buttons hard would miraculously cause his voice to float over the ether to her. There is no response, just the irritating ring tone. Her mind is numb now; she cant think, refuses to think, of what could have happened to Harry and what will happen to her. *********** Tanya wanders forlornly through the crowds strolling around the mall. There are couples linked arm in arm, toddlers carrying balloons, packs of adolescent boys listening to music on their mobile phones. She avoids eye contact with them. She feels tears rise to her eyes, but she bats her eyelids furiously to keep them from rolling down her rouged cheeks. The one thing going for her at this moment is her breathtaking, persona-altering makeover. She does not want to ruin that at any cost. Harry is tormenting her with his silence. She has spent so many

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months deceiving others. Is this a joke? Worries begin to sprout in her mind, rapidly populating her thoughts and crowding out everything else. Stressing out like this is not cool, she berates herself. Trying to maintain a positive outlook she reminds herself that things ARE going to get better from here. Didnt the astrologer say so? Look at my face! I am a new person already! People are even treating her differently, especially the men. She is now a person who lives in five star hotels, buys make-up from foreign brands and pays for her expensive habits with credit cards. All of the problems of the past are going to dissolve, like sugar cubes in a steaming cup of tea. Whatever worries she has on her mind will all be forgotten when she arrives in Vancouver. Harry promised to take her to Mount Whistler, where he would teach her how to ski. Yes, ski! She will be whooshing down white, snowy slopes. Then they will stop and sculpt a snowman together, or even have a snowball fight. She focuses all her attention on these pleasant thoughts, imagining the pleasure of breathing in the clean, crisp air, hearing birds in pine trees. Dont focus on the bad. Its all going to work out, she tells herself, comforted by her vivid imagination of life in Canada. Everyone in India only talks about Amreeka, Amreeka, she snorts. They have no idea. Canada is so much better. Less gangs. Less drugs, she lists all the advantages of her new home that Harry had taught her. In the midst of her reverie her phone rings. She snaps out of her daydream with a start. She digs through her handbag. There is so much crap in here! Take-out menus, receipts, candy wrappers. She throws it all out of the bag. Where is her damn phone? Shit! Shes scratched her nail polish against her key-chain. Damn, it. Finally, she finds the phone in a deep, crumb-filled pocket of her bag. Its Harry. Baby, where the hell have you been, she shrieks. Ive been calling you all day, baby. There is so much I have to tell you. I met with this astrologer, and he said everything is going to work out. Oh, and I went and got a makeover, Harry, you have no idea Maam, said a stern male voice. Harry? Maam, my name is Officer Brooks. I need to speak to you urgently Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit, Tanya shouts into the air, hurling her phone into the parking lot as if it were an object carrying a contagious, dangerous disease. Passersby turn their heads to look at her and some point at her, whispering among themselves. Tanya, who is frozen on the spot, looks at them with sudden fear. They are all watching her. They all know! she thinks desperately. Everyone knows! Weve been found out! Thats why Harry was untraceable. She runs through the car park, her high heels slamming down on the asphalt road. She dodges oncoming cars, their headlights glaring in her eyes. A car horn blasts behind her. She runs into a shopping trolley that appears out of nowhere, nearly knocking her to the ground. Look

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where youre going, stupid! someone shouts at her. She continues running. Now the tears are flowing, and this time she cannot fight them back.

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Kuala Lumpur 3: Sara

She had to drive back to the station, spend ten minutes looking for parking, walk through the car park, up a set of escalators, across the footbridge over the highway, down a set of escalators and up two flights of stairs, stand in line for a ticket, and walk up another set of escalators on to the platform. By the time she got there her blouse was sticking to her back. She put tissues to her face, then blotting paper; her palms felt sticky too. When it came, the train was only half full, but Saras head was full. Have to file the stupid filler column, she thought. That stupid column. Sara thought: that woman. I should just move out. I need to. I should just send her to the old folks. Then shell learn her lesson. Its the right thing to do. She is sick after all. No one can expect me to take care of her shit on my own. I have to work. No one would say anything. Not like Ma has any friends anyway. The neighbours wont mind. How could she keep dad from me? Oh god, I cant deal with this now. That woman forgot my birthday. And that stupid column. Fuck! Then Sara thought: I should just write about her. That was a brilliant idea. She got to the office at 4:30; an hour and a half was more than enough to bang out random angsty, mother-issues shit and graft it on to some inconsequential current-events non-story. Soon there was an open document on her monitor that read: Issue: 05/03/2012 Pantry Chatter Title: How Not To Forget Byline: Sara Martin Bodytext: My mother is fifty and has early onset Alzheimers. The symptoms are usually small, arguably charming oddities: putting her set of apartment keys in the washing machine, trying to pay the electricity bills twice Wait, Sara thought. Ma actually doesnt do those kinds of things often. She needed a third example. So she searched Alzheimers symptoms and found what she was looking for: cant follow recipe directions. or mixing up the steps in her butter cake recipe.

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Last week, my mother forgot my birthday. To be fair to her, I was born on 29 Feb: leap day. I only celebrate my birthday once every four years. So it is understandable that she finds remembering it difficult. And who hasnt forgotten an important date? The story of the husband who forgets his wedding anniversary is a well-worn clich. Normal memory loss is easily dealt with, especially with modern technology. We use our smartphones to store addresses, appointment reminders, and miscellaneous notes. In December 2011, a tech firm based in the US unveiled MemoryMinder, an Android-powered tablet designed as a collaborative reminder tool for both individuals suffering from short-term memory loss and their families. Sara stopped. Why am I padding, she thought. Tina does that, not me. I dont pad. She got rid of that last paragraph and went on: Of course, Alzheimers is much more than garden-variety lapses of memory. Poorly understood, the disease is associated with plaques in the brain. And as she wrote she kept a separate window open, for research, but very soon her Google-spelunking began to divert her. Sara froze and thought: Discipline. Focus. Im better than this. She rubbed her eyes, took a large lungful of air-conditioning, and adjusted the height of her seat. Then she got up, went over to the wire terminal in the corner, and scrolled up and backward through the feed, looking, looking looking and her eye caught on the following: Amnesiac mistaken for bomber triggers scare LONDON (Wednesday) Traffic came to a standstill around Nelsons Column today when a middle-aged man brandishing a suitcase was mistaken as a crazed bomber. The man, apprehended by police, was identified as Dave Martin, and certified by his local health authority as suffering from amnesia. Martin first approached a group of tourists from Malaysia as they disembarked from the bus, demanding to see his son and threatening to unleash the contents of the suitcase if his demands were not met. According to the police his suitcase contained nothing more than childrens books. Police understand that Martin believes his son to be missing. Dave Martin, Sara read again. Then she shrugged it off, printed the story and put it under the keyboard on her desk. The office felt quite cold, now; she felt dried sweat and her aching shoulders, an

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ache which had come on all of a sudden. Sara thought: Dave Martin claimed to be searching for his missing son I was faced once again with the temptation to cut my loses and run, to leave her to professional care and continue with my life. It would be the sensible thing to do. I am not equipped to look after her myself. I have to attend to my own life and career. But abandoning her would be unforgivable. It was already six, and Saras copy was due. She read it again, and reread it, and her eyes kept sliding over the lines of typography and did not take. It was still angsty, mother-issues shit and it wasnt the shit she had intended to write. She sent it to the server, closed the document window on her monitor, then shut her eyes. Then she walked ran to the lift lobby, afraid of the subs and the editors. She told herself: no, I cant deal with this now. If they want me to rewrite it, Ill rewrite it. Later tonight. After I get back from this thing. Ive got another story, a real story, to chase.

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London 3: Dave

Daves hungry, he realises, as he waits for the web browser to load. He wants a full English breakfast. No. He has that sick feeling in the cave of his stomach and his mouth is as dry as a cream cracker. Something moist, something like scrambled eggs would be more like it and coffee, lots of coffee, no froth. It turns out he can remember his email account but not his password. He tries Facebook. Same problem. Twitter. Same problem. He slams his fists against the table top. A couple of people look up, then quickly down again. The clock on the screen ticks down thirty minutes time draining away from him. He signs up for Facebook again. He searches for Dave Martin but there are pages of them and none of them look like him. He flicks around, getting nowhere, drowning in the torrent of strangers; all those smiles, hugs and cheeky waves, fat, thin and curvy, in t-shirts, in business suits, swimwear. Hes floating disembodied, a voyeur in this global village square of undiscoverable lives where every now and again someone catches your eye, a glimpse of someone who looks like someone actual. He is drawn to a woman called Win for no reason he can explain. He looks at her photo wondering if theyve met before possibly, probably, no, he doesnt know. There is something familiar about her yet disturbing. In some ways she could be any woman from any city anywhere. Her blonde hair curling in at her slight shoulders betrays an expensive taste. Her lips have the hint of botox and her eyes the slightest squint. Like shes trying to be intense or is perhaps attempting to stare back through Dave. Straight into his heart. Its like he is remembering something he cant put his finger on but something he should know about her, something dangerous. Who was she? Who did she belong to? All veiled and obtuse, a difficult woman, or a simple woman, just hiding herself, trying to cling on to a sense of being alright, but we are never alright, even in the present moment we are living twice. There is the life we want, just out of reach, those endless profiles, people all wanting someone to want them to know them, but how can they when they dont even know themselves, how the hell can they expect someone else to know them, when they dont have a clue who they are. Was Dave really Dave, only because someone else said so, black, white, woman, man. On Yahoo! news a child wanted to be a girl, even though he was a boy, the doctors seemed okay with it, the school, the parents, the kids, and this child just knew, just knew what we all spend thousands in therapy trying to know about ourselves. Win looks as if she is trying too hard, he knows that look, just after you had your

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heart ripped out of your body, he had been so cleanly shaven for most of life but since that time he just felt sore and rough and couldnt bear the pretence of everyday life. It takes one to know one. He must have known her. Maybe not now or in the past, or was it now he knew her and in the past, time just bends round, never how you want it or need it to, it cheats you out of your life, the things that matter, people, now all there is this Facebook, and if you werent in the book you basically were faceless, no one. Like his son, was no one to those who didnt give a flying monkey. He glances around the library, and sees a young woman in a pink puffy jacket with the same glossed blonde hair as Win. All these people, all these endless profiles on Facebook, what do they care about his son? Curled up in a corner of the Childrens Section, Oscar is turning the pages of a book. How could he have let this boy come with him or let himself be led? Dave smiles at one of the young mums, her daughter on her knee, struggling to read about a caterpillar to her grumpy, wriggling offspring. Scuse me, love, but is that your son over there? Sorry? The blonde one? No not mine. This ones enough of a handful. Just noticed he seems to be here on his own. Can you keep half an eye out for him, make sure hes ok? Oh yeh, sure. She smiles, friendly, curious, a hint of suspicion towards this strange man concerned about a child. Ta. Dave fingers the hotel reservation in his pocket. His time on the computer has run out. He picks up the suitcase and leaves. The only thing he can do is get back on the number 4 and get himself to the hotel. Maybe then things will fall into place. As he waits at the bus stop, Dave thinks about all the ways it is possible to lose someone. All the ways it is possible to lose a child. Children go missing all the time; they dont all make the news. They go missing from the arms of parents who lose them in custody battles. Affection has to be scheduled; hugs on every other weekend, bedtime stories every full moon. Children are lost when they are taken by strangers. They are bundled into cars while screaming. Forced to drop what they are holding; a teddy bear, a book, the faces of their loving parents. And their parents will also lose them there, in memory. Day by day these children drift further into the land of the missing, even though they are still missed. Hes grateful he has the pictures that he will have the pictures pictures make it impossible to forget. So does the suitcase. He makes his way to the top of the bus and rests the suitcase on the seat beside him, unhooks the latch. Hes hungry, but he cant bring himself to touch the halfeaten sandwich. His son hated vegetables, but he loved sandwiches. Fragments of memory come back to him: like how he learned that he could trick his son into

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eating his five a day by placing them between two slices of brown bread. The Bermuda shorts take him right back to the beach. They still smell of the sea, and there are grains of sand, still there. Jamie had never swum in an ocean before. Dave feels a flicker of excitement as he remembers. Jamie had exclaimed that the waves were bullying him, pushing him around, making him do things with his body that he didnt want to do. But with his fathers encouragement he had continued to fight, hed mastered the waves. Dave just hopes hes fighting now, fighting to find his way back home. Back to his father. There are many ways to lose someone, even without noticing them gone, its like hearing a gate shut behind you, something clicks in his mind like a latch. So many times, so many things lost over time, lost in the beginning, lost in the ends of things, time just slipped and wormed its way out from under his nose.

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Vancouver 3: Win

From the Goddess Blog Dining Out Vancouver is a restaurant-lovers dream come true. Every kind of cuisine is represented, at nearly every price point. No matter how hard you try, you can quickly burn through a weeks pay cheque trying to sample it all! The best advice I can give for dining out in Vancouver is to not eat too much. I always eat an apple or two before I go out, so that I can just have an appetizer instead of a full meal. Thats a huge saving right there, and it keeps the calories down too. Another good idea is to share a meal with a friend, or, if youre trying a new place for the first time, to go with a group and nibble at a few plates. Of course, in the good old days, a man would take you out for dinner and pick up the cheque without a moments hesitation. Those days are mostly over and a girl is expected to at least act like shes reaching for her wallet. A secret: Ive been known to bring a very small clutch bag with me on a dinner date, and just stare blankly into space when the bill arrives. I can bear awkward silences longer than a lot of people, so it usually works in my favour. Because of the line of work Im in, I get plenty of opportunities to try new places and attend restaurant openings. When the good stuff is free, I trade my minaudiere for a larger tote bag. One dark corner and a moment alone, and I have shrimp for the next days lunch. I learned that from my grandmother, who never met a buffet she couldnt scam. But its not really a scam! Theyre just going to throw half of it in the dumpster anyway, and then some hippies going to take it to their garbage-potluck party. (Seriously, you guys, this is a thing! I saw it on the news and they call themselves freecyclers. EWW.) Lupo Vinoteca is an Italian place in the heart of Yaletown. Its a small place, built into a heritage home on Hamilton Street, near the library and the CBC. Win strides up the stairway, past the Closed for Private Event sign and into the dining room, which is immaculate. Six tables for six, white linens, bottles of

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sparkling and still water already glistening with condensation. The smell of oldcountry basil and garlic. You look amazing. The owner kisses her cheek. Suddenly, everythings normal. Shes back in her world. Its like the magic prince kiss, restoring her. Shes not some ugly duckling or frog prince, not some fucked up hag with a sick dad and money problems and a closet full of classic Fluevogs she cant Ebay fast enough to get her to Winnipeg. Not that she wants to go. That peck on the cheek brings Win back to herself. She starts setting out press packets on the sideboard: slick red folders with a summary of vintages, price points, and availability the national magazines will only cover wines if theyre available across the country, which actually means in BC and Ontario. Minutes blur past, people start arriving, and she realizes she was hoping this would be one of those dull midwinter events that hardly anyone actually comes to. I guess theres been a drought, she thinks, because Jurgen Gothe is here, and that crazy photo blogger with five thousand rabid Twitter followers shows up, and the editor of Vines, and the schlumpy unfashionable bitch from BC Cuisine, and that Instagram guy who tried to get her into bed last month why didnt she check the RSVP list again before she came? Soon the room, instead of being tragically empty, is full of wine folk on the make. Theyre all here for a free gourmet meal; the more imaginative among them are hoping to make friends who will, at the very least, invite them somewhere else to get loaded and stuff their faces. A few probably even have a passion for the vino. The journalists are the worst of the lot. You can pour cream sauce and product down their throats for a solid year and not get more than a column inch out of the effort. And you have to suck it up, Purolator them yet another box of wine samples a month later, smile and nod and chit-chat and invite them to the next gig. Shes spent the past four years impressing each and every one of them. Shes spent night after night in their company, socializing with them as though they were friends, sometimes even enjoying it. But then there are the leeches. McWineries, the distributor, has been obliging her to invite servers from some of the four star hotels that offer their product. Shed had serious doubts waiters? Seriously? But she had to admit many of them were smooth; theres an art to serving wine to the well-fed and conspicuously successful. It takes social skills. You have to talk as though you were born into a class that cares about vintages and terroir and the amount of hang time in 2009, all while preserving some sense that the person at the table comes from somewhere even better and is clearly smarter, nicer, and above all likely to ante up a decent tip.

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So the sommeliers and servers and bartenders turned out okay, actually, not party-killers at all. But all their invitations had plus ones attached. And there lay the problem. They brought their boyfriends or girlfriends or friends friends or siblings imagine Brandon at an event like this! or dogwalkers or who knew their fishmonger. A total grab bag of human random, scraped off the pavement and clad in last years Top Trashy, opaque hose and shoes from Payless. Itd be like me showing up with Tara, she thinks. As if the thought has somehow wakened her past on the Prairies, her personal phone and the McWineries Blackberry start humming against each other at the bottom of her purse, making an unpleasant angry-bee buzz. Mom apparently bought a billboard in Winnipeg and posted not only her personal phone number but the work phone too. So she cant shut either of them off entirely in case Dad dies, in case he dies, but Im not thinking that and hes probably not even that sick But okay, shes done everything, all she really has to do now is introduce the winemaker and the chef and set the PR folders out here so the press can descend and let it all unfold. The first stage is mingling. The mouth-breathing hordes show up and are offered an amuse-bouche and a glass of something light. When the server comes by, she realizes she cant remember a single detail of the menu, after five thousand e-mails with the kitchen. She accepts a napkin and a pottery soup spoon; it contains a single meatball in gorgonzola, with the tiniest wafer of polenta. Red, she thinks, its a red day. They are tasting all of The Imaginary Vineyards reds today: theres a low price point blend. Whats in it? She cant remember that either. All this stuff thats second nature to her, all this stuff she fucking well organized, and now she cant get a grip on it. Whats wrong with her? With reds you build subtle vintages first, bigger flavors later. Therell be red meat. Lamb? Her phones buzz again and she finds herself muttering Shut up, shut up, at it. Its Tara again. Only Tara would text, text, text, both phones, in that way. Its like she has a cartoon animal version of Tara trapped in her purse, a bumblebee buzzing to get out. Im licking off my baby bumblebee. Her subconscious serves up that old grossout kids song. Shut the fuck up, she tells the purse again. I havent said anything yet. Oh. Emm. Eff. Gee. Twelve is here. Technically, Twelves name is Lane Abbot. Technically, Lane is her boss. That is to say, he works for a conglomerate that distributes the Imaginary line wines and

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represents half a dozen Okanagan Wineries. The conglomerate, in turn, has hired her to do all of their PR stuff in Vancouver. She has a couple of other clients, but without McWineries, her financial Jenga game will fall apart. Which it already has, she reminds herself. Because she cant buy a plane ticket to Winnipeg, godforsaken shithole nobody should ever want to go to, a town so pathetic that even with fuel costs it should cost fifty bucks at most if there was any justice in the world, not four-fifty. In fact, in a truly fair world someone would be offering her money to go to goddamn Winnipeg. But if she cant buy a ticket to the hairy-butt middle of the country and more importantly back, she is so very not Winning anymore. And also, shes now been staring into Twelves too-youthful face for at least five seconds. My phones are on, she says, stating the obvious to buy time. He volleys back the blandest of And So? Smiles. Bastard. Twelve looks like a kid someone brought to a wedding, a twelve-year-old whos had his pimples sanded off and then been stuffed in a suit for the day. Hence the nickname. He doesnt look old enough to go to a PG-13 movie and yet hes got an 80,000 a year job, a shiny gold-embossed card that says Business Development Manager, and the power of financial life or death over her. Hes waiting, hes waiting, she has to answer and shes not about to tell him the truth. She opens her mouth with no idea whats going to come out and says, Do you remember Tanya Bhatia from Delhi? She tries not to sound like she struggled to remember the girls name. Uh Big buyer, we thought we might expand a few of the big labels out that way India, he repeats. Hes probably thinking that Wins not in sales, which is true, or that nobody that they know of in India gives a shit about BC Wines, but she just needs to make some kind of convincing noise thatll make him fuck off. The server is still there and she takes a glass, pulling in a long whiff of the red, making a big deal out of all the pretentious time-wasting wine bullshit. Anyway, Tanyas flying here, wants to meet some distributors, wants to see some wineries, and its all through this other guy, Harry, I dont really know what she wants but it seems worth meeting her At least that part is true. But anyway, shes having some trouble connecting through Heathrow and I told her Id have the phone on. Buzz! Hum! They offer, helpfully. Her bag shakes like a palsied old lady. Phones. He nods, following it, but theres no real comprehension there. Hes waiting for more. But hes a businessman, right? And you never walk away from an opportunity. She talks a good game and I dont know whats going on and maybe Im just

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wasting a bunch of energy on something thatll go nowhere. . . And this too is true, she realizes. Theres something there, with Tanya and Harry, that just isnt right. . . . but if we can move into that market, at all. I mean, a billion people, right, and they have a Wine Society so somebody there cares. It could be something. Hallelujah, theres the click of connection on Twelves face. Yeah. Okay. So, we should mingle, yes? Yeah, he agrees. But What? How do you know thats not her now? Little smartass. Before she can dig herself out, or deeper, or better yet go on the attack, shes saved by the chef, who is signalling her, with one well-sculpted eyebrow. Time to get everyone seated, she chirps, and then to Twelve, Catch you up later, okay? He nods. Her phones go quiet, as if theyre disappointed to have lost his interest. She looks around for a glass, sees shes got one in her hand inexplicably, its empty and ting-ting-tings with a spoon to get everyones attention. Three dozen moon-pale faces turn to face her, and she was right to go with the Chanel cocktail dress. Theyre buying it. Buying her. The event starts to fall into the usual rhythm everyone sits and starts mulling over the afternoons pairings, which have been printed up on creamy card-stock and laid out atop what Wins mom would call the appie plates. Her mums one of those women who might make a joke about hors douevres being horses ovaries, give her a chance and a couple of glasses. She needs to stop thinking about Winnipeg. Its wrong to walk around with an empty glass; she restocks. Okay, introduce the winemaker. Introduce the chef. They make boutique food at these things, tiny portions on wee, dear little plates. Even so, youre screwed if you eat more than half of anything they bring you by the time the dessert arrives youre so stuffed you can feel the food pressing your eyeballs out of your skull. But the familiar routine and that first glass of was it Zinfandel? Its just a blend, it doesnt matter, Imaginary doesnt want to say. Anyway, she feels like herself, her true self, her Win the Winner is Damn-well Winning, okay? self for the first time today and probably if she has another, just one more, itll come together. Shell figure out the money and be on a plane to Winnipeg, or shell figure out what to say to Mom and Tara and not go. One way or another, shell get out ahead of all this drama. Again. Though the veal is good enough to eat all of it.

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And the grilled ribeye, it turns out, is worth finishing. Plus its not as though she cant hold her liquor. And theyre finally into the Shiraz, which is her favorite. Shed started out next to this petite UBC academic whos married to a professional wine snob from the Vancouver Culinary Institute. She chose her because shes a wallflower, someone she doesnt have to pay that much attention to. But sometime between courses two and three theres been a swap, and now shes sitting next to the friend of a bartender and you cant not make conversation. What do you do? she asks reluctantly. He recoils a little, rubs his nose. What is his problem? She cant possibly have wine breath, can she? Win, murmurs Twelve. Dessert? Okiedoke. She floats to her feet to introduce the pastry chef, whos introducing the zabaglione. Jesus, baby, dont you own a whisk? She remembers a snatch of the conversation from this morning, with Mr Declarative Orgasm, as the assembled journalists and foodies contemplate the pastry chefs whipped egg confection. Oh my god, Tara, Im so gross, Im sick-makingly full and hugely fucking drunk, she thinks. Nevertheless, shes got this, she knows this, she has it completely under control. Knows what to say, has the timing on the joke, and then the Imaginary Winemaker can talk about his friggin tawny port and itll all be wrap-up. But instead what happens is this. She leaps to her feet, pretty much jumps straight up in the air, knocking the seat of the chair with the backs of both knees, sends it flipping over backward and into the path of the server, who ducks it handily all things considered, theyve got social skills and a certain amount of balletic grace but now shes falling too, going over like a logger has cut her ankles out from under her. One half-full wine-glass, tipping onto the white tablecloth as she flails for balance, leaves a Pinot Noir comma, stark red on white linen, and then its a view of the ceiling sort of sweeping past. Its quite close, intimate atmosphere and all. And she tries to save it somehow by pushing the chair out of the way, or what am I doing? Im on the way down. Smash! into the chair, agony flaring in her left shoulder, and then shes on the floor, atop her purse, a disaster clad in Chanel and used shoes. Tucked under her shoulder blades, both phones start buzzing again, as the server fails to dodge a second time, does a belly flop on top of her, and Win struggles to not spew veal all the way to the ceiling as her whole successful event collapses like a souffle.

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The word grief popped into her mind unwanted and unsummoned. Grief. She feels grief for her father. This numbing feeling, a surreal echo effect that presses on the babysoft backs of her ears when she allows herself to touch down on the fact that he is actually dying, will be gone. Then the phrase behind her eyes: Grief is so gay. In her mind, Win still calls things gay, the way they did when they were kids and teenagers. When nobody was gay, in Winnipeg, in the 80s and early 90s. Where the fuck did that come from? A fragment of dialogue from her North End childhood. She never talks about the poverty of the neighbourhood she came from. How it was blunt and never moved. How nobody talked about leaving. That is what being trapped is: not knowing that you can leave, or want to. She repeats it to herself, a mantra to cuddle and laugh at: Grief is so gay. Rebelling against the solemn demands of death. Everything her brother is going through. She wants to write back to him, Grief is so gay, to see what hed say, but he wouldnt respond. Thats how people truly communicate through media: through lack of response. Shes learned this working in PR. For everyone who clicks like on Facebook or retweets there are dozens of silent watchers. Those are the people you need to convince. Not the instant responders, the herdy strivers. The people who want to participate, be included, be enriched. Those people are suckers. Begging to be bought. Grief is so gay. Fuck she does not want does not, does not, does not want to go back to fucking Winnipeg.

Whos more gross? Im about to get fired. She types this into the pink Razr phone, because shes about to have to hand over her shiny McWineries Blackberry. She didnt throw up. Thats all that can be said for the leap day so far. Now its time to suck up the end of life as she knows it. Here comes Twelve. She has retreated to her car. Its the closest thing she has to a shell now, and she supposes the fact that the guys in the firehouse on the corner havent run it over for being parked on the edge of their lot is a small mercy, too. Small crusts of zabaglione are drying on her Chanel dress here and there, little islands of regurgitated egg foam in a sea of vintage silk. She leans across the passenger side and opens the door for him. What does Twelve look like when hes pissed? Yesterday she might have said it would be fun to slap him just to find out. It occurs to her that he reminds her of Brandon. Then she thinks that Brandons probably grown a foot and looks nothing like

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Twelve does now. Whos grosser? Win, Lane, or Brandon? Probably Win. She hasnt looked in the mirror yet. If she looks in the mirror, any semblance of self-control she has managed to retain will unravel completely. She might even cry. All that pilfered make-up for nothing. She is still so drunk, she can barely see Lanes face as he gets in, folding his gangly legs up like a dead beetles into the passenger seat. He doesnt quite close the door. Wine smell, she thinks. Ive got wine smell. So, whats the deal? he says. He doesnt actually seem all that pissed, just bewildered, like a kid whose dog she just ran over with her ten speed. There is a look on his face like Why, Win? Why? She doesnt know. I dont know, Lane. I just dont fucking know anymore. He flinches slightly, and then recovers like he is making a conscientious effort to be cool about this. Is it the Tanya thing? Maybe hes offering her an out here, but why would he? Shes tempted to take up the lie, spin something, but spinning would take energy, and sobriety, and giving a shit. She hands him the Blackberry. Why dont we call the day a dead loss? You dont have time for this you need to be in there apologising for me. I could just ask Marco to make you an espresso. Sit here, have a coffee-- Sober up? Im trying to be a good guy here, he says. Funny, you sound like youre channelling my mom. I always assumed you were grown in a lab. If only, she says, under her breath, and then the Blackberry hums in his hand. He raises it, reading. Hey! He holds it out of reach. She wobbles and comes within a hair of face-planting in his crotch. Next February 29th, Im staying in bed for twenty-four hours, she thinks. Clearly theres a curse at work here. You sort of quit, remember? He reminds her. The gadgets yours the e-mails mine. Its a weak protest; he knows she hasnt got any fight left. Paypal. Five hundred bucks. She stares at him blankly for a minute, then realizes hes telling her the money came through, from Harry, for her plane ticket. Encouraged, he starts scrolling through her texts. Heres one from Brandon. It says: Theres still time. They think hell make it to morning. Stop fucking reading my mail, she says. Lane says: He? Whos he?

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Nobody. Father? Brother? Uncle? What? She lets out a long not-gonna-cry breath. Look, Lane, I appreciate that youre trying to be nice, but I really cant talk to you about this right now. Or, like, ever. So would you please just get out of my car? I have a plane to catch. He stares at her. Are you fucking serious, right now? She laughs, half-hysterically. Ive never been more serious in my life. She leans across him and opens the car door for him, like some asshole football player in a teen movie whos just impregnated the prom queen. She averts her gaze. Shes way too close to him as it is. She can feel his breath on her neck, wine-soured and warm. Okay, he says. Okay. Whatever. But dont think you can come shmoozing back to me whenever the fuck it is that you get your shit together. Yeah, no problem there. He gets out, huffily. Win pulls away from the curb, tires squealing. She cranks open the window to air herself out, and mops up mascara and caked concealer with the heel of her hand. The rain pelting her windshield is starting to look like shaved ice, melting on impact. Perfect. Its fucking snowing. She hates Vancouver in the snow. When she lived in Winnipeg, they always heard that the whole city shut down and went into hibernation at the first sign of ice. Fucking pussies, she and Tara used to say. But the reality is worse: everyone mushes on, over the ice, even though theres no snow removal, even though nobody has the tires for it and theres no budget to deal with it and not one single native driver has a fucking clue how to handle winter driving conditions, and unless you have the monster job that affords you an SUV, the world of Work expects you to show up even if the roads are deadly as shit. Schools in session, and only the people with four-wheel drives and six-figure incomes get to call in sick. And then she realises she cant actually drive anywhere. Not because of the snow but because shes too drunk and shes sure to get arrested. Thats pretty much how this day is going. For a second she can taste the air in the imaginary jail cell. Your dads dead, honey, put on these orange overalls. She pulls over, half a block from where she started. Gets out of the car. Ignores the No Parking sign. It can wait for her in the tow yard. Then she pulls her carry-on out of the trunk, rolling it past Lupo one last image of Twelves head in the window, face turned away from the street, from her. Dragging a widening half-circle of slush under the wheels of her suitcase, she goes around the corner to the Skytrain station.

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Part 4

Delhi 4: Tanya

Tanya is undone. In the space of a day her plans have come crashing down around her like a pack of cards in a gale. As she stands outside the glitzy mall, it seems to mock her in its everydayness. She takes a deep breath but it fails to calm her down. Who was that man? Why did he have Harrys phone? Questions swirl around her head like a whirlpool on amphetamines. Has he gone back on his word? The one time I do something dishonest, it comes back to bite me! she thinks, in a panic. Oh God, why did I throw my phone away! she wails to herself. Making an about turn, she runs back to the parking lot, where in her panic she had thrown the phone as though bad news was contagious. As she scrambles between cars, she knows its a fools errand. The parking attendant gives her a strange look, but Tanya ignores him, then changes her mind and lopes towards him. He shies away, as though her panic and heightened hysteria have communicated themselves to him. Have you seen a Nokia E72? she fairly barks at him. He shakes his head, unwilling to get into conversation with her. Even if it is here, it could be crushed under a car, he says finally, just wanting to get rid of her. The other parking attendants gather around, attracted by the drama of a woman in a panic. Madam, you should learn to look after your things, says one of them, quite clearly putting her travails down to gender issues. You people throw your things here and there and we people get into trouble, another adds, now warming up to a theme one of rich women who throw their phones in order to accuse poor parking attendants of not being careful on the job. Oh, chuck it! Ill buy another one, Tanya thinks to herself, wondering just why even the simple act of hunting for a lost phone had become an exercise in dealing with gender and class prejudice. She turns around and tries to hail an autorickshaw, but stops. Where do I go? What do I do now? she asks herself. Ever since the day she left Ambala, she has charted her own course, but this crisis was worse than that. What if I end up in jail? she thinks, quite forgetting the happy predictions of the morning. Visions of jail, stinking and overcrowded, loom in her head. I cant go to jail, I cant, she repeats to herself desperately. She makes an effort to calm herself down and casts her mind back to just how she and Harry had communicated in the past, when phones became dangerous. Why didnt I think of this before? she hits her head in exasperation. Of course, I

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can check our email account. He must have left a message for me!, Tanya and Harry had devised a way of communicating through e-mail which would not leave an electronic trail. Quite simply, they had opened an e-mail account which both could access. Instead of sending mail, however, they saved messages in the draft folder. Each checked the mail at a designated time and deleted the draft message once it had been seen. She hadnt checked the email account all day. She raises her hand again for an autorickshaw; the glitzy mall was no place to find a cyber caf. She had to go to the nearby Saket shopping area, which, because of a late 1990s development of the citys first multiplex cinema hall, had become a buzzing upscale market, and a hangout zone for young people in south Delhi. She gets out of the autorickshaw and, in order to save time, asks the nearby paan shop owner about the nearest cyber caf. Its inside the market, next to Buzz, he says mentioning a popular pub in the area. Tanya takes a deep breath and walks purposefully towards the pub. The crowd, even for a Wednesday, is thick: college students, executives on a lunch break and ladies who lunch hang around at the market in an uneasy alliance. Tanya feels they all know the trouble shes in. If I really cared what people thought, Id be in Ambala, raising an ungrateful pack of children, she thinks vengefully. Sab theek ho jaygea, sab theek ho jayega, she repeats to herself and walks into the cyber caf. I want to surf the net for half an hour, she says to the owner of the caf. Rs 15 for half and hour and no porn please, he replies with a smirk. Tanya, clearly put off by the word, gives him a withering look. Please God, let there be a message, she prays as she logs on. And there it was, in the drafts folder a message from Harry. As she clicked on the message, she felt her hand tremble; she knew it wasnt because shed missed lunch. The message read: Baby, I think the cops are onto me. If you cant reach me, call Win on + 6047318200 Tanya stared at the message in disbelief. Who was Win, and why did Harry want her to call him or her? she thinks. She asks for a piece of paper and pen, jotting down the number. I have to buy a phone soon. If I make it to the airport thats when Ill do it. Not willing to waste any more time, Tanya pays the caf owner, and somewhat less at a loss than before decides to head back to her hotel. *********** Win, Win, Win. A name like that could only mean that positive things awaited

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her. Tanya repeats this theory to herself while zipping out of the market. Damn these markets with their stray dogs and chow mein stalls. She is exhausted, but adrenalin is beginning to course through her. She needs to get back to her hotel as soon as possible. As her stolen day of wandering and adventure proceeded, she had almost completely forgotten she had a flight to catch and a hotel room to check out of. She stops at the main road and curses the traffic. How the hell is she meant to get across town now, at this hour? The metro didnt stop at the Radisson, and when she had left this morning she had taken a taxi. Just hop into an autorickshaw? But that would ruin her make-up and hair, and, besides, her arm is aching like crazy now. She decides to take a taxi, though shes certain shell get stuck in traffic, and theres a taxi stand at the end of the road. Radisson Hotel, she tells the driver of the first taxi she spots, and wonders if, with her face full of make-up and going to a hotel in a taxi, she looks like You know One of those girls. She doesnt have the time to care, though, and her thoughts wander to the subject of her work. She doesnt know how Riya could possibly continue working there so happily. Oh, but she was just one of those average girls. She would work there for a few years and then get married to a person of her parents choice. Fuck that, Tanya mouths, too shy to say the word out loud. Tanya is no Riya. She would never fall for that stupid formula most Indian girls are so thrilled to live. As for Deepak (she mouths The fuck), she would be glad never to see his ugly face again. No more call reviews, and no more Tanya have you done this, and have you done that?. Before long, the taxi is inching its way through the last of Delhis traffic. The Radisson looms large on the edge of what was so inexplicably called a highway. Something has gone wrong with the lights in the sign, and it now reads Rad son. She leaps out of the taxi and pays in a hurry. Thank you, she shouts and dashes into the hotel, slipping on the freshly polished floors as she makes for the elevator. As she waits, she is terrified those men she tricked in the bar will find her. She would pay, of course, but shes scared they might do something bad to her. And all that talk of police on that call from Harrys phone has freaked her out. The lift arrives, and then shes up, up and away towards her room. As she slides the key into the electronic reader, she feels her knees almost giving way. Food! She hasnt eaten in hours, and she feels as if the parathas had been a week ago. Trudging across the thick carpet, she calls room service and demands a butter chicken and naan with dal makhni. Shed been lying to Riya, of course; she hadnt had any butter chicken the day before. She looks at the bedside clock and sees she has enough time to shower before the food arrives. She takes out a fresh set of clothes from her barely unpacked bag and steps into the shower. Its one of those super-powered jet showers that come down like an Amazonian rainfall. As she

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stands there, grime, dust, sweat, tears, tiredness and ruined make-up falling to the floor in a puddle around her, she smells the sweet smell of expensive shampoos and shower gels. Scrubbed clean, she steps out and dries herself with a plush white towel. She could live in luxury, forever. The food arrives just then. She wraps small bites of piping hot butter chicken in buttery bits of naan and polishes it off like a teenager after a game of basketball. Warm, clean, cosy and fed, she zips up her bag and backpack and heads downstairs. As she pays and walks out to the taxi, she checks out her ticket and passport, and in one last gesture filled with magnanimous philanthropy and gratitude to Hanuman ji she tips the doorman a thousand rupees. Just like a film star.

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Kuala Lumpur 4: Sara

She looked at her watch again. 6:55 pm. The venue was just around the corner. A hundred metres ahead. A left turn. Another right turn. Then she would arrive. But it was taking forever just to get there. The cab had not moved from the same spot for five minutes. She looked at her watch. Again. 6:56pm. Should she walk the rest of the way instead? She took out her purse and fished out some cash for the fare. Then she tossed the rest of the items into her bag her iPhone, notebook, pen and audio recorder. She made sure she had everything in the bag. Ill drop off here, she informed the cab driver and handed him the cash. He frowned at her through the mirror. Its dangerous. The bikers will run you down, he tried to discourage her. Bad traffic was the best time to earn money. It would be bad if she got off here because it meant he would be in traffic and it would be unpaid for. If I dont get there in four minutes, my boss will run me down, she threw the money on to the passenger seat. It was the exact amount showing on the taxi metre. The driver grunted unhappily. Sara opened the car door and jumped at the loud honk. A biker had stopped inches away from her. She was stunned for a moment. The biker started cursing her. She closed the car door again and let him pass. The cab driver had an I-told-you-so expression on his face. She ignored him. This time she looked before she opened the door, shut it and sprinted between other cars to reach the sidewalk. Stupid art exhibition. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to launch anything in this area, at this hour of the evening? Sara complained to herself as she walked, almost ran, to the venue. By the time she got there, her forehead was sweaty and her hair messy. She signed in at the media desk and, seeing that the VIP had not arrived, she ducked into the washroom to tidy up. As she put on more lipstick, her mobile phone buzzed in her bag. The text message was yet another birthday wish. And what am I doing on my birthday? Work work work. Then again, she had wanted to attend the art exhibition because of its theme: Leaplings. Everything related to the 29th of February. Everything related to this special day. Everything related to her birthday. Maybe, just maybe, she would be able to discover more about herself. Maybe photos of other leaplings would brush away the loneliness she always felt inside.

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The washroom door opened and a woman shouted, Hey, hurry, Dato Sri is here. The toilet in the next cubicle flushed and a reporter rushed out and followed the woman. Sara followed, audio recorder in hand. Everyone was excited, or pretending to be excited, as the media crowded around the VIP, a local millionaire who had always supported the arts. The man was modestly smiling at the cameras. His wife simpered, hanging on his arm. The portrait of a rich and happy couple. Fakers! thought Sara. In her line of work, she had met many politicians, CEOs and businessmen, and she realised that not all of them were as capable as they appeared to be. They had mostly got to where they were thanks to luck, who they knew, or dirty tricks. She forced a smile and went into journalist mode, pretending to take notes as the VIP chatted away. If anyone peeked at her notebook, they would have seen doodles of a man and a little girl: a happy father holding the hand of his daughter. Her father and her. She could still remember the moment very clearly. Her father had come home with a flower for her. A red hibiscus. He slipped it behind her right ear and said she looked beautiful. She believed him. He added that she was his princess. She believed him. He said he loved her. She believed that too. Now she wondered Had it all been lies? Had he really loved her? The sound of applause broke into her thoughts. She put the notebook on her lap and clapped too. The reporter beside her saw the sketches and shook his head. She shut the notebook. Happy smile. Stand straight. Shoulders back. Focus, focus, focus. She followed the other journalists as they walked, a few paces behind the VIP couple, around the gallery. More camera flashes. She wondered when it was going to end and, when it did, if she would have time for a little birthday celebration of her own. A nice glass of red wine at her favourite French restaurant, perhaps. She continued to sink into her thoughts when suddenly her eyes were drawn to one of the photographs on the gallerys walls. It was a picture so familiar that she would have been able to describe every detail of it even with her eyes closed: a man in his late forties smiled warmly as he looked down at a twelve-year-old girl whose hand he held. But, for Sara, it was not just another man in his late forties. It was the man she had been longing for; the man she last saw more than a decade ago; the man she wanted desperately to connect with. She fumbled for her purse. The picture in it was the same as the one framed on the wall before her a larger version, but definitely the same picture.. How had it got there? Sara quickly searched for the name of the photographer on the card stuck beneath the picure: Azrul Zakaria. She didnt recognise the name.

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What do you think of it? Sara turned around. An elderly man in his early sixties was admiring the piece too. Hes a good friend of mine, he said, with a smile. The girl what a precious darling, such a sweet girl. His princess. She was born on 29th February thats why I thought this picture was perfect for this exhibition. Sara stared at him. You took this shot? Ah, pardon me for being rude. Let me introduce myself. Im Azrul. Azrul Zakaria. Do you know my father? she asked again. Your father? Yes, Im the girl in the photo. Thats me and my dad. Sara? he asked in surprise. She nodded. Do you know where he is? Is he in London? Oh Sara! Azrul embraced her, which should have been awkward, but wasnt. Please tell me where is daddy? Wheres my father now? You have to tell me! The VIP and journalists all turned as she raised her voice. She turned her back to them and whispered, Can you tell me about my father? *********** It was an hour before midnight. Sara waited anxiously at the ticketing booth at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. She needed to get to London. Fast. She shifted from foot to foot, praying for an empty seat on the very next flight to London. Business. Economy. It didnt matter. All she wanted was to get to London. And her dad. Nothing else mattered.

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London 4: Dave

Strange to be arriving at a hotel that hed booked for himself but couldnt remember. It felt a little like arriving for an appointment with himself. An afternoon love affair arranged by him. He couldnt have planned it more as a surprise. Leave the details to me, Ill book everything. Youll simply wake up with the reservation in your pocket telling you everything you need to know. Meet me at the Days Inn, Lambeth Road (Kennington Road?). Room 229 He looks up at the hotel with a strange sense of scrutiny hes not experienced before scrutinising not the hotel itself, but his taste in having chosen it. This was where he was going to stay with his son? He likes the simplicity of it, the way the rooms are all the same, always. And now that he looks at the reservation, the dates were all wrong. They were supposed to be here a week ago. A family room. Would they let him stay. Three nights. A base in London. What was the plan? Were they going to the theatre? The Young Vic? Whenever the boy came to visit theyd do something like that: the theatre, the Eye. Hell get up to the room. Hell charge his phone. Find the last call and call it and look for Jamies number in the phone. If Jamie had his own phone If Jamie had tried to call him. Did he make him memorise it? The number. If anything happens, remember this. Well play, like a game. We have hours on this flight. Youll remember this number And then he thinks something dreadful: what if Jamie could remember nothing, just as he couldnt? What if he cant remember not only the number, but anything Theres a map on the front wall of the hotel glossy yellow with logos plastered across it. He steps in closer to look. For a moment he thinks: Ill surprise him. Ill take him somewhere weve never been. And then the realisation: My boy is lost. It was like when his mother died, and the missing her and the seeing her kept bleeding into each other, morphing into each other. On the map he sees how near the London Eye is. Just a matter of blocks north of the hotel. Would Jamie have wanted to go there again? He loved it the first time, he remembers now, high up there, London like a carpet, like a memory-ground. As if anything could pop up at any moment. The book they used to read, the way buildings would rise up off the page, come alive as if they were waiting there, lying down for the page to be turned. Would Jamie have tried to find his way to the Eye on his own? Might he have

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seen it from somewhere from the street, glimpsed it as a beacon of safety, familiarity and moved towards it as the only thing they knew together in London, the thing theyd ridden on? And he could see him standing there waiting for him a sudden vision, as if it were a premonition, as if thats where the boy would be, there and nowhere else. Am I mad to be thinking this? Jamie knew nothing about the hotel did he? Would he have told Jamie about the hotel as they sat on the plane? He was an inquisitive boy. The Eye was all he knew. If hed found it, if hed seen it, he would have gone there. Dave crossed to the reception. I have a reservation. Could I leave my things here? Have you checked in? No. I need to go. I have my reservation slip here. He produced his print-out. It looked tatty already, insufficient somehow for the task of getting him his room. This was last week, sir, she said, her face cold, puzzled. I couldnt make it, he said. There was an accident. Look, he said, and lifted the side of his shirt. He didnt care what she saw. The scraping of the skin, the blood that had dried and scabbed over. Youll need to make a new booking, sir. You have all my details here. You can call the hospital. Im sorry, sir. Theres not much I can do. He will walk out. He will turn around and walk out. Turn and walk and go to my son. Sir? Ill come later. I dont have time now. Ill be back. Feeling slightly ridiculous, like he was quoting from a movie. Terminator, is it? Yes, this is all like a film, like he is trapped in something. The lines came naturally to him. Anything could come out of his mouth. Knowing that was happening its strange how it freed up his tongue to say simply whatever he has to in the moment. He is talking in the moment. And he is walking now, back along the main road hed come down from the station, and the Eye is there, above, ahead. Marking the edge of the river. Like a telescopic lens over the rest of the city. A huge magnifying glass, a hoop. The day they had been there was in early summer. One of those days that made London seem like a foreign city, full of sun-warmth and light and kindness. Laid back. And he remembers the boys face as they stood before the The Eye The Eye! He thought now his eyes widening, as if something so tall could not have been imagined, pictures could not have prepared him for this. Not a building, with storeys

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going up, but a hole, a loop, going round so slowly it seemed to slow the rest of the world down along with it. Thats him, moving steadily from point to point the whole day and yet turning back to nowhere. Hed kept moving with the sense of purpose that he had something to find, that he was going to find Jamie. Horribly, for a moment, he felt like something worse: a tourist, ambling. Ambling while Jamie searched for him. He remembered losing his mother in a department store when he was a kid what the hell? He couldnt remember booking this hotel, but he could remember a moment from thirty years ago. She couldnt have been gone for more than two minutes. And hed stood there and waited, knowing that she would find him. Hed told a friend that story once, and they hadnt believed in his silence. Any child would have screamed its lungs out, theyd said, and thats what he wanted to do for a moment, for this moment while he stood there in front of The Eye, a thing an insect, an ant beneath an oversized magnifying glass, to stand and wait for his son to find him. There are swarms of people around the Eye. Where is the highest point he could position himself to look for Jamie? No hes thinking about this all wrong. It isnt a matter of positioning himself to see Jamie: it was a matter of positioning himself for Jamie to see him. He walks to the front of the long snaking queue, and stands in the area between the getting-on ramp and the getting-off ramp. It feels the most obvious place a little raised, and it keeps him apart from the tourists getting on and off the Eye. Jamie could have been here hours ago. Since this morning. How long would he have waited? Would he have stood frozen, waiting for his father. A little boy. What else would you do but wait? He remembers something: when he was here with Jamie, the last time. They were with someone. A man. Why? He grasps for something more solid. Its like feeling an object underwater and trying to identify it by obscured touch: an object disappearing, soft. The man they were with: had he appeared out of nowhere, a tourist, someone they met? No, that didnt feel right. He remembers a touch, a feel of skin. He and the man were touching. Not like strangers. He and the man, and the boy with them. They were there together. Theyd arrived together. They were in London together. Had he come to London with that man? He takes out the reservation print-out again. It was a family room. Who was the Family? Him and his boy and there was a flash of laughter in a room, the three of them and the TV on and laughter. That was the same man, the same laugh, the same touch, because thered been that moment on the sofa in the pod looking out at London and the man leaning against him, his back against his chest. Jamie had

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sidled up to him, and taken his hand. He remembered now. Jamie had done it because hed felt left out, jealous of his father holding another man. Because it was he and the man who had been holding each other, looking over London, in the cool, breathless air of the pod over the river. Hes been looking for the wrong person, or for only one of the people who is missing. It isnt just Jamie. Its this manhis lover. A man hed come to London with. Dreadful for a moment, not remembering like not remembering an entire relationship from the past, someone you shared everything with, only to remember nothing of them. In one ear, out the other. You were there. And I dont remember you. And of his son, what does he remember? There was the sandwich in the suitcase, he knows that belonged to his boy. And the man was he called Dave? Was the name on the reservation slip the other mans name, the man who he was with, whod brought him to London, him and his son. If he was with this man, the one hed held in the Eye hed be in the hotel. Hed be in the room theyd reserved together. Hed got it all wrong. They are there, the man, and Jamie. Hes been wandering, like a fool. It is they who are waiting for him, waiting for him to return. And thats what will happen, hell go back to the hotel and tell the woman her cold, puzzled look that he is there to join his man and his son and they will be relieved to see him. His son will be breathless, caught up in the confusion of relief and despair, of having lost his daddy and now found him. This is my room, hell say. My partner is in this room, room 229, on this slip. Is he? Has he checked in? What is his name? And hell go up to the hotel room and ask the man one thing: What is my name? I said Id be back, he tells the receptionist. Im here. I think someone Im with might have checked in under this reservation. He hands her the tatty print-out. Could you check? he asks. She puts the print-out on the desk, taps in the details. No, she says. You never checked in. Did somebody else? She glances at her screen. No. The room was cancelled. He is turning, round and round, like the Eye, moving so slowly it never feels like he is moving anywhere at all. Could you find the details of whoever made this booking? Again, the receptionist looks at her screen. Theres nothing under the reservation, she says. He turns. He looks back across the reception. Eager to get out of here. Eager to keep moving, and yet moving is bringing him nowhere. I could book you in for today, the receptionist suggests.

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There is something numbingly comforting about the cheeriness of her suggestion, its blissful obliviousness to his confusion, and to his walking around all day, fruitlessly searching. You have a room? he says. Yes. He cant walk any more. He has to stay in one spot, at least for a while. Single room? she asks. Hell wait. Yes, he says. Single. She punches through the booking. He keeps looking outside. Traffic passes. A whole world of bustling, an entire nexus of streets and people and the only person he needed to see cant be found. I need you to do something for me, he says to the receptionist. Im expecting someone. But Ive lost them. If anybody comes asking for Dave Martin, will you let me know. How long are you here? Until ten. When you go, can you tell whoever takes over? Anybody looking for Dave Martin, can they contact me?. She notes it down. Thats fine, sir, she says lending it again an air of normality, of everyday mundanity. Youre lost in the city? Cant remember your name or who youre with? Unsure of your identity? No problem, sir. Well do what we can to assist. Your key, she says, merrily. Enjoy your stay. He nods, his mouth dry at the thought of sitting in the room, waiting, sleeping, while his son is out there. He takes Jamies suitcase, and goes up in the lift. The room seems purpose-built to remind him he is nowhere he might call home. This is a hotel room, it says. It is decorated in no way any human would ever consciously choose to adorn their own habitat. It is anonymity stretched to the point of insistence. He lies on top of the bed. Softness experienced anew after walking the whole day. He opens the mini-bar. Takes off his shoes. Drinks a miniature bottle of whisky neat, straight from the miniature bottle, how Gulliver would have got drunk in Lilliput. The light outside has faded to evening (or was it just the dullness of the decor?). His feet ache. His head is hazy. The bed is soft He sleeps. And as he sleeps he wakes, every hour, every two, and thinks: Jamie. Out there. Me holed up in this room, darkness outside, foxes, cars crashing. And he falls asleep again. He dreams of angry foxes getting into this room turning it into a total wreck.

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The phone rings. He answers. Yes? It is morning. Not even morning. Its practically the afternoon. Jet lag, Dave thinks. Mr Martin? asks a man. Yes, he says, feeling fraudulent, suddenly, admitting the name. Theres someone here to see you. Sara. Shes down here, waiting. Sara? Yes, sir. She says she knows you.

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Vancouver 4: Win

From the Goddess Blog Accessories Change Everything Once youve got your basic work wardrobe together you get to make it your own using the power of accessories. A good selection of scarves, bags, jewellery and so on can inject personality, but it can also make a super-barebones selection of clothes look like a lot more. First of all, handbags are fucking expensive. If youve got a friend travelling to Asia, be sure to give them a list of good knockoffs to pick up for you none of that cheap shit. What you really want is a connection with someone who offloads the stuff that the workers in the factory itself are willing to steal. A quality counterfeit bag is a joy I have one that Ive been carrying for years, and I challenge anyone to prove its not real. Stay away from fake Vuitton though its so fake that even the real ones look like bullshit now. Also avoid Hermes bitch, youre not fooling anyone. Get things that are less obvious, but still scream money: Tods, Ferragamo, possibly Fendi. Of course, if anyone ever wants to know what I want for a gift, you know Im putting the real deal at the top of the list. Also, if you carry Coach, you might as well just kill yourself right now, because the best job youre ever going to have is assistant-managing a Gap. Fossil went gayboy five years ago. Now is the time to raid the closets of your elderly relatives and begin gathering real or costume jewellery, scarves, belts and whatever else you can get your hands on. I dont usually like old stuff, but when it comes to accessories, the vintage vibe is hot, and you can save yourself a lot of money. Plus, even if your family and friends arent made of money, chances are good that some old girl along the line saved up for a few trinkets and is looking to give them to a good home before she slips the surly bonds of earth you know. The mortal coil.

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And dont even get me started on luggage. Baby, if you have more than a carry on you are not travelling light. Fucking WestJet, with their cheerful customer service agents. The bright young thing in the blue polyester jacket at Domestic Departures instructs her to make her way to the self-service check-in kiosk. Yeah, thanks, Ive done this before, Win mutters. I mean, really, who hasnt done this before? She finger-punches the required information into the touch screen and yanks the boarding pass from its slot. She needs a Starbucks. She needs to wash down the Ativan in her purse, for starters, and that sweet caffeine will keep the sedative merely relaxing instead of immobilizing. Rolling her case along the floor after check-in, she relaxes a little. The wheels make a soothing clicking sound, and the relative cleanliness and order of the airport is calming. Shes always liked airports, since they seem to attract a better class of people. Not everyone can afford to fly, for starters, and there are shops and services everywhere. Here is where shes in her element. Everything is geared towards efficiency. Didnt get your wife a present from your business trip, you inconsiderate bastard? Heres a pyramid of cultural Vancouver-y First Nations items with a neutral palette that fit in every decor scheme. Forgot your fave thong as youre rushing to hook up with your overseas lover or, more likely, didnt want your husband to know youre cheating on him so you intentionally brought granny panties? YVR has the only Victorias Secret in BC. The airport is somewhere that anticipates her needs. She looks longingly through the window of the duty-free shop. How can you be thinking of a drink after what happened this afternoon? Her shoulder still stings from the fall, and she plays the scene over in her mind. Ah, fuck it, she thinks. People fall down all the time. The elderly, for example. Those people with that twitchy disease. Here at YVR, she already feels safer she might not being going on holiday, but nobody else here knows that. For all they know, she could be a minor celebrity, on her way to St. Barts for a month. In the security lineup, it makes her feel better that the people around her might be thinking shes beautiful and important. Her phone buzzes against her hip, insistent. From her brother? She considers texting three exclamation points back. Instead: Im coming. Now. After many long minutes of snaking through the line, it becomes clear that no one ahead of her has ever flown on a plane. Why else would the elderly Asian couple in front of her be trying to take a hot plate, dish set, and three Playstations in their carry-on? Why else would this very old man take 3.7 hours to undo his velcro shoes and place them on a conveyor belt? Why else would this business-looking guy not get the memo that, yes, his belt is made of metal and so are his cufflinks and so are his keys and he should not react with such surprise each time the metal detector

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beeps and he has to go back, re-empty his pockets and try again. She would like to explain to these people that they are the only thing standing between her and an extra hot, non-fat latte with a side order of Ativan. Shes still several sheets to the wind, but she can still manage to take out her laptop and place it in a bin, remove her shoes, and place both of her cellphones alongside the laptop. Sweet merciful baby Jesus, this shit is not so hard. She walks through the metal detector with nary a beep and flashes a triumphant smile at those waiting behind her and keeps right on smiling three minutes to Starbucks, three minutes to Starbucks, just keep smiling, three minutes to Starbucks until the security guy explains to her in his broken English (dont even get her started) that her toner and under-eye nutri-mask are over the size limit for liquids. No, theyre not, says Win. Yes they are. See? Five ounces, written right here. You can only have three. Yeah, but Ive used some. Doesnt matter. Its basic math. Whats half of five? 2.5. And this is clearly half finished. So Im good. Doesnt matter. Im not going to light this shit on fire. And the nutri-mask isnt even a liquid or a gel, its a paste. A paste that costs, like, $30 an ounce. Maam, it doesnt Cameron Diaz uses this. Its expensive. This very product was put in the gifting suites at fucking Sundance. Kayne probably uses it. Do you know Kayne? Yes? Kanye? Maam. Fine. I want to talk to your manager. Wheres your manager? The security guy sighs. He looks at her toiletries. He looks back at her. He sighs again. Seriously, Im not going to light them on fire. I just dont want to look like absolute shit this week. Go ahead, mumbles the security guy, and Win has to brush aside several layers of wine-induced fogginess to come up with some semblance of a grateful smile. Thank you ever so much, she says, while wondering whether her voice is too formal and too overcompensating drunk. It takes her one minute flat to get to Starbucks and thank you Travel Gods its relatively empty and the Starbucks worker-monkeys do not scald the milk in her latte and the minute the foam hits her upper lip she feels her jaw unclenching. She places the Ativan under her tongue, takes a few deep yoga breaths and mutters,

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fuck yeah. She even has enough change left over to pick up a Cosmopolitan at the newsstand, its cover promising The Sexiest Sex Moves EVER! This will be fine. The Travel Gods are on her side. Shes sorted out Harrys little friend. Shes been allowed to keep her toiletries. She has a Starbucks. It is not yet snowing. Everything will be well. Her father, too, will be fine. As the Ativan begins its slow dissolve into her veins, Win feels a strong conviction that this whole dad thing has been taken out of proportion and that he probably only looks cancery. Her dad is a tough, rangy bastard. The man was a mechanic, came home stinking of oil and sweat, was covered in strange burns and gashes, ate the same salami sandwich and milk for lunch for however many years. How do you get stomach cancer from that? He wasnt out there eating McDonalds every day. He enjoyed beers with the best of them, yes, but nothing to rot out his gut. Maybe he didnt clean his hands properly and ingested toxic chemicals. Everything in an auto shop is poison, probably. And thats when she sees him: his edges blurred by Ativan and wine and the light coming in strange from the too-many windows. Her father. As if shes conjured him whole and healthy and standing at the old lady purse shop kiosk across from the Starbucks waiting for her mother to buy a handbag. She can almost smell the Aqua Velva on him, the hair product (what was that?) so thick she could see the comb marks. She can almost see the lattice of scars on his hands and forearms, his pasty white legs in the 1950s swim trunks he wore while on vacation the few times they ever went, his Santa belly, which he claimed was insulation in case anyone tried to stab him. She walks towards him and half waves, though shes partially convinced hes just an illusion, some good omen of her father, healthy and vibrant and totally kicking cancers ass. But when she gets closer, she sees that the nose is wrong too sharp and the cheeks are too ruddy; this is a man who got fat from hard drinking, not from steak and potatoes and he is wearing a garish gold chain. Hes waiting for his wife, who is probably the same age but who is in poor health and is trying to climb on to one of those golf-carty numbers they use to schlep old people around from gate to gate. Hes holding her purse and her cane, trying not to get in the way as the teenage airport attendant helps her on to the seat, calls her maam. He shifts from foot to foot, looking elsewhere as if he can barely stand to see the way his wife has declined. The sense of disappointment that Win feels is overwhelming. It burns through the Ativan high. Of course its not her father stupid to think that she needs to back off the substances, needs to get out of here. As she walks past, she squints again, so the man looks like her father one last time. He will be fine, she tells herself, trying to get back that peaceful glow she felt at the Starbucks. Of course hell be fine. My

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dad is a fighter. The cellphone in her pocket buzzes again. Its her brother. When are you getting in? Whats your flight number? She texts him the information. Because you should get here, her brother responds. I know, Win texts, her fingers so numb that these 5 letters take her nearly a minute. A snack might make everything better, she thinks. She heads back to Starbucks to add a usually off-limits lemon-cranberry scone to the mix of alkaloids, depressants and God knows what whirling through her bloodstream. Tara: Whos More Gross Your fathers funeral will be a welcome opportunity to wear heels Food has helped her remake herself. Someone sees you with a hotdog, youre sunk for life. Compotes, crackers, cheese in small and delicate amounts. Anything from a goat. A while back there was a yak phase, which quickly passed, sometime around the big SARS scare. With Freddie shed left behind string cheese, pulled pork, potato pancakes. She still eats instant noodles out of the box, cracking them between her teeth, but only in private. She watches Millionaire Matchmaker and admires the matchmakers brazen cruelty, feeling an uneasiness in the private floor of her stomach. Win: Whos More Gross Mortgage or retirement plan? Win settles into her seat at the edge of her departure gate area with her coffee, scone, and her Cosmo. In addition to the sexy, sexy, sex-sex, the magazines cover also posits the question: Is Anal Bleaching the New Brazilian? The elderly woman sitting beside Win at the gate who is totally reading over her shoulder with her beady little crone eyes gives her a look of shock and confusion. Like, if you dont want to be grossed out, dont read over other peoples shoulders. Win gives her a nod that rather aggressively says, Oh yeah girlfriend, you been there, but in truth she draws the line at anal bleaching. Eyebrow threading and electrolysis: of course. 17 product face-care routine backed by the support of a dermatological professional: good investment. Brazilian wax: great excuse for a Percocet and who wants to go around feeling like their snatch

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is a member of ZZ Top? Totally worth it, even if the little Korean ladies make cutting remarks about the shape of your lady parts and call you a good girl when youre done. But she abhors anal bleaching for the following three reasons: 1. Any guy whos ever gotten anal and been critical of the skin tone of his partners anus is not the kind of guy you want knocking at your back door. End of story. So at best, you bleach your anus and the guys so grateful he doesnt notice, and, at worst, you learn that your new boyfriend is a Grade A douche. 2. She has sensitive skin and this one time in high school she bleached her upper lip (even though her hair was already blonde) since her mother wouldnt let her wax and the bleach burned her skin and left an oozing sore and everyone called her Herp-zilla for like 2 years. In fact, probably shell be at the drugstore running some errand for her father tonight and some asshole she went to high school with will see her and be like, Hey, Herp-zilla, needed a re-up on your Valtrex? 3. Anal is a privilege, not a right, and there have to be compromises. So, sure, anal. Fine. But anal plus an asshole as pink and shiny as Mr. Cleans head? That makes a girl look needy. Like shed do anything to keep a man. Like the guy can make whatever demands he wants. Win never wants some guy to think, Well, damn, if shes willing to bleach her asshole, shes willing to have an open relationship so I can manage the hell out of any one of the mega sluts who work for me at the Cactus Club. Which, it turns out, are all reasons that she is expounding to the elderly lady, making descriptive hand gestures, causing the elderly woman to give her this smelled-shit expression, which is absolute bullshit, because Win is just trying to be friendly. I mean, if this mothball-smelling bitch wants to read over her shoulder, then Win might as well give her the full run-down. Its probably the most excitement this woman has had since the Kennedy assassination, and itll make for a great story at her Bridge club. Win can just see it: Oh my God, Mildred, you will not believe the flight I just had, at the gate there was this woman and she was talking about such filth I had to read the Bible for three hours until I felt right again. Girls these days are so scandalous! I tell you, I almost fainted from the shock. Youre welcome, says Win to the old woman, trying to be precise with her vowels.

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The elderly woman stands and leaves, trying to balance her coffee with her muffin with her heavy bag, leaving a trail of muffin crumbs like shes Hansel and fucking Gretel. Win thinks not for the first time that its unfortunate that the elderly are the one group of people you can never, ever punch in the mouth. Other people she would like to punch in the mouth include but are not limited to the chick with the wispy anorexic hair whos talking loudly on her cellphone about what a skank her mother is. The mega fatties who Win just knows shes going to end up sitting next to, with their thighs oozing under the arm rests and she will just not tolerate four hours of that heavy breathing fat people do. Like a porn soundtrack or something. She especially would like to punch in the mouth the flight attendant whos standing now in front of her with her friendly WestJet smile saying, Im sorry, maam, Im going to have to ask you to keep it down just a touch. The woman has one of those voices that inserts a question mark after every third word: Im sorry, maam? Im going to have to ask you? To keep it down? Just a touch? Win is not dignifying that with a response. She looks away and all the metal and glass of the airport makes her vision blur. She focuses on the play area a few feet away, where a little boy is steering a bright yellow plastic plane, shouting, Vrm! Vrm! Im going to make you die! and the mother is fussing after him, saying, Now Grayson, thats not very nice. People who give their kids made-up names are among the people she wants to punch in the face. Winifred is, of course, a terrible name, but at least her parents didnt throw a bunch of syllables in a hat and pull out two at random: Kaylan, Kaylyn, Shaylyn, Graysyn. Always too many vowels. The flight attendant keeps talking in her question-marky syllables, saying something about respecting other passengers, about how those who perhaps are under the influence of substances are not allowed to fly and WestJet reserves the right to As if this woman has the right to talk to her like a kindergartener in light of all thats happened. If she wanted meanness, shed have flown Air Canada. Where are the corny jokes and bright smiles, people? Seriously. Im fine, says Win. She studies the flight attendant more carefully and sees the woman has the pockmarked skin of someone who is still paying the price for her teenage years, the kind of woman whose skin defies foundation primer and who has not learned the lesson that less is more in the foundation department. Clearly, this woman is jealous. Clearly, even on a day like this, a horrible day, Win is a level of hotness that this woman will never see when she looks in the mirror. Im sorry, says Win, secretly talking about the womans whole face situation, but it appeases her enough that she leaves.

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If someone asked her why she left Winnipeg, there would be no better answer than tearaway pants or unironic moustache or those women with the crispy over-dyed hair and the mom jeans. How do people even have bodies like that? Even now, when shes so stoned-drunk that she has to consciously remember that she has feet, shes still thinking God, I shouldnt have eaten five entire courses, thats probably a weeks work of calories, Ill have to work out for oh my God 6.8 hours. No person should ever have to turn into that. No person should be walking down the street wearing an 80s hairstyle and have every single person think, God, I bet she rocked that look hard in the 80s, as if your current form was some fleshy bag for your younger, hotter self and everyone could see that. You might as well walk around with a sign that said, I peaked in 1991. It was sad. She didnt know how people could not see it as sad. And the underground tunnels. And the dollar stores. And the friendliness that Win believed was strictly out of boredom. And the Hey, at least were not Detroit civic pride. And the statue of the Golden Boy, which seemed to her like some metaphor gone wrong. Already, Win felt herself regressing into the person she used to be. Just knowing she was heading back to Winnipeg, her clothing began to feel too tight. She was expanding. She could practically feel her hair crisping from the cold and blasts of central heating. And everyone in Winnipeg would stare at her, she knew, as if she was the odd one out. She couldnt quite help standing up and pointing to the obvious Peggers. (Peggers God wasnt pegging a name for anal sex with a strap-on? How perfect for a city thats been fucked by poverty.) She knew that talking would just result in some sort of lecture from the pocky flight attendant, so she simply pointed at every Pegger and fired an imaginary gun at them. Tearaways man: blam. Mom jeans: blam. Woman with a face like a perogy: blam. Terrible highlights and Mickey Mouse sweatshirt: blam. Proud of herself, she blew imaginary smoke off her imaginary gun and placed in in her imaginary pocket. Probably wasnt the best to even pretend-shoot people in an airport, what with the potential for a full-body cavity search and all. WestAttention, WestJetters bound for Winnipeg, says the loudspeaker fag. Our flight is going to be delayed a bit while our planes leaving Calgary are grounded due to weather conditions. Well keep you updated Fuuuuuuuck, Win breathes. Travel Gods, why have you forsaken me? She turns, looking, not even sure what shes looking for, but she knows if she sits here, facing this fag on the mic, this Minion of WestJet, for even another second shes going to rip his glasses off his face, crush them underfoot and start kicking him with her pointy shoes. And everyones staring, arent they? Or theyre about to. Or are they?

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Maybe the Ativan wasnt such a good idea. Turn, turn, and its tempting to just keep spinning, whirling like a kid on the playground, surrender to the mad urge to not care what people think, just for a second. And thats when she sees the sign directing international transfer passengers to the Victorias Secret on the main concourse. One of the first things she did when she came out to Vancouver was go into a Victorias Secret, across the border in Bellingham and get her rack measured. It had been a revelation. Bra shopping in Winnipeg was something you did with your mom or with Tara, and you guessed at your tit size and chose between boring beige or slutty red. At the Victorias Secret, discreetly dressed eighteen-year-olds took her into a back room with a measuring tape before giving her a form to fill out. From this they derived a series of testing bras to choose from. Win had wanted something padded. The girl had frowned, nodded, and brought her eight different padded bras, all in plain black cotton. Once shed found the one that buffed the girls from a B to a sort-of C, theyd given her another form, and a quick seminar. These are the ones you like, the girl said, and heres where you find the colors. Shed left Win standing in front of two drawers full of multi-colored boobslings: cotton candy pink, mint green, royal purple lace, a weird brown shade shed always thought of as doghair, topaz, yellow polka dots, you name it. It had been a bit like being a pair of boobs on an assembly line: heres the quiz, heres the back room, here are your bras, now go here to choose the final product. It had at once been entirely anonymous and strangely like a day at the spa. Win, of course, had walked out without spending a cent, carrying only the form that told her what size of bra she needed and which styles she should source out elsewhere. Like a great Mecca for the Mammary-Equipped, it beckoned her now. Shop a little. Steady your nerves. Figure out what to do next. She follows the helpful little arrow on the sign. Win can see the Victorias Secret window across the concourse, but down one level. A ten-foot-tall Doutzen Kroes presents her impressive cleavage in the all-new Very Sexy Push-up bra Now With Matching Panty and Thong the hot-pink sign declares. At the other end of the concourse is an escalator. All that stands between Win and that escalator is a glass wall. With a door in it. Theres a black stool, but no ones sitting on it. The Ativan has numbed the pain in her injured shoulder down to a tolerable blur. Its not so much that it hurts any less, but Win just cant bring herself to care about is as much. Its been such a hard day, she thinks. So many assholes. So many people who just didnt understand her and what shes been going though. So fucking selfish, all of them! Wouldnt it feel so much better to be able to put on a fresh new

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pair of panties? Something fun and new and lacey? A woman exits the shop carrying a hot pink bag. She doesnt look anything like Doutzen, or even Adriana or Alexandria, for that matter, but the bag confers status, financial ability, and the remotest possibility of taste. Plumes of pale pink tissue spew from its opening. Its all too much. Win adjusts her handbag, pulls the handle of her carry-on rolling case to its full extension, and heads for the glass wall. From this angle, she reasons, its practically, like, invisible. A distant alarm sounds as she passes through the glass door, but otherwise she meets no resistance. The Victorias Secret window seems to rise to meet her as she descends the escalator. For a second, shes certain she can actually smell it the satin and lace, the Body Rush bronzer, the Dream Angels room and linen then a crowd of men in matching white jackets appear at the foot of the escalator. For a moment, she thinks they are Clinique beauty advisors, and almost waves at them. Here in international departures, I am among friends. It isnt until she notices that they are armed that she turns and runs. Visions of tazered immigrants come to her mind as she sprints back up the staircase. The cardios really paid off, but the suitcase slows her progress. A hand grabs her sore shoulder and jerks her arm behind her back. She feels something pressing into her kidney and hopes its a club instead of a gun. Ow, Win groans. I was just trying to shop. In the small white room, shes been left alone for a few minutes while they find a female officer to conduct the body search. Apparently, trying to shop in the international side is some kind of international incident, because Win was lead away in handcuffs, screaming until the hallways around the concourse were full of spectators. Why would you assholes put a shop somewhere and then not let me shop? she yells. She jerks her head at the woman with the shopping bag she had seen earlier. She knows what Im talking about! The woman looks horrified instead of sympathetic. What the hells her problem? What the hells the matter with these people? My taxes pay your wages, you fucking cocksuckers! Get your fucking hands off of me! The cops, or whatever they are, have taken everything from her her jacket, suitcase, purse and her beloved Blackberry. Now, in just a few short minutes, some huge-handed woman is going to walk in here and stick her arm up Wins ass. Thats one way to spend a Wednesday night, she thinks. Probably would take blood too, test her for drugs. Yeah, have fun with that sorting out the Adderall from the Ativan, the wine from the T-3s. She rests her head in her hands and feels the weight of this day, this weirdo, bullshit, once-every-four-fucking-years day. Her dads

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waiting for her, maybe dying right now, and she isnt going to make it. She would get off that stupid fucking delayed plane in Winnipeg, and her brother would be there, and he would look at her and that would be it. The guilt, the grief, the sadness, the shame, all coming home to roost. Everything shed worked so hard for, everything she tried to do with her life gone, just like that. She might as well get stripsearched, interrogated, and spend a night or two in jail on suspicion of terrorism what the hell else was she going to do? In the side pocket of her J Brand cargoes, she feels a buzz. Her Razr phone. They hadnt found it on her, and shed forgotten all about it in the melee. She admires her thigh no one else she knew was thin enough to actually fit anything but leg in that damn pocket. She pulls it out and doesnt even bother to check the number. She would have been happy to talk to anyone, even Twelve, right now. It isnt Twelve, though. It is Tara. Hey, Win says. Win! Im wait. Youre answering your phone! What the hell? I know, right? Win laughs. Its a super-special day. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, probably ruining whatever makeup still clung to her face. Where are you? Somewhere in the background, a little kid squealed, in glee or pain. Wow. Just wow, dude. How about I tell you when I get there if I ever get there? You need a ride? After everything Win had done to make Tara disappear from her life, Tara just refused to stop being her friend. It was weird, sure, but also weirdly comforting. Especially now. Sure, but whos more gross the one who needs a ride after getting ass-raped by Vancouver airport security goons, or the one who drives a scabby fucking minivan to the Winnipeg airport? Tough call. What do you say we call it a draw for today? Until I see your fat ass, you mean. Yeah, bitch. Thats exactly what I mean. The child-squealing increases in volume and pitch. Fuck, Tara whispers. I gotta deal with this. See you soon. Text me the flight number. And she was gone. See you soon, Win repeats, into the dead air.

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Epilogue

Dave and Sara

Sara takes a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and reads the address for the hundredth time. The photographer at the exhibition in Kuala Lumpur had handed it to her saying This is where your father is staying. But I warn you, Im not sure he wants to be found. Sara turns left on to Kennington Road. She doesnt know what kind of hotel she expected her father to be staying in but the grim block that confronts her is a shock. Why would anyone choose to stay in such an anonymous, soulless place? Sara gathers her courage and pushes through the hotel doors into a dingy reception area. She approaches the receptionist with her heart pounding. Im looking for a Mr David Martin. Sara feels nervous. Hes staying in Room 229. Mr Martin? Oh, yes. He came last night. Ill just call him. What name shall I say? Sara, I mean he doesnt know me, but its very important. I see. The receptionist calls the room and speaks to Dave. Hell be down in a minute, she smiles at Sara. Thank you, I really appreciate it. Sara feels sick in her stomach. She cannot believe after all these years she is about to be reunited with her father. She doesnt know if its the jet lag but she suddenly thinks she might be about to faint. Dave Martin steps out of the lift and looks blankly around. The receptionist raises a hand and Dave walks towards the desk. Sara presses a hand to her middle. Sara? I am so glad youve come. At last, he thinks, there is someone who can tell me who I am. Who are you? Sara asks, completely confused. This man cant be her father. Hes at least twenty years younger. Dave Martin, I believe. Do you think Im someone else? Ive never met you in my life. Im looking for my father, his name is Dave Martin and I was told hes staying at this hotel in Room 229. I am sorry but I think I am Dave Martin. That is my room number. You see, he pauses. I am afraid I dont remember much. Something has happened to me. Can we talk? I am looking for my son, I believe. What do you mean you dont remember much? Do you know my father? Sara cant believe shes travelled all this way only to be confronted by some lunatic whose

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not sure who he is. I need a drink. There is a pub across the road. Can we? I just need some help. Dave looks pleadingly at her. Sara considers fleeing from this horrible hotel reception and this horrible man who is not her father but has his name. But if she leaves, what then? Shes flown thousands of miles and she cant give up now. This man who is staying in her fathers room must know something. Okay. A drink. Thank you. Ive so many questions I need to ask you. Sara follows Dave reluctantly into the pub across the road. She doesnt want to answer his questions. She just wants to know where her father is. Dave stands at the bar looking confused. What would you like to drink? Sara asks. Thats the trouble, he replies. Im not entirely sure. Sara rolls her eyes in frustration. Ill have a pint of Guinness, Dave announces. They find a table at the very back of the pub. Are you sure you dont know my father? Im not sure of anything. I woke up yesterday in hospital with no recollection of who I am. Just this hotel reservation in my pocket in the name of Dave Martin. My fathers name is Dave Martin and I was told he was staying in that hotel in Room 229. Im very confused. I thought my name was Dave Martin. Im starting to think I had someone elses hotel reservation. This man that Im involved with Involved how? A boyfriend? I dont know. But maybe Dave Martin is his name, not mine. I dont know, Sara takes a deep drink. Could her father have a boyfriend with amnesia? Cant you remember anything else? Only that Im looking for my son. And theres something to do with a car. And that we went to the London Eye with this man who I felt close to. Thats it. Sara has an idea. She takes a photograph out of her bag. This is a photo of my father. It was taken at my twelfth birthday. Dave stares at the photo. Do you recognise him? Yes, yes I do. Hes the man from the London Eye. Dave can feel cold sweat across his forehead. Theres something something about him Ive no idea why, but I dont like him at all. Youre talking about my father. Do you think you know him? I cant remember. Im not remembering enough. But I look at him and some-

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things wrong. I know somethings wrong there. Something between us. Sara could have been talking to a madman. Somebody chancing on her and taking advantage of her confusion. But he had a reservation under her fathers name. In the same room. And he recognised her father. I have some photos of my own, he tells her. On four rolls I had with me when I woke up. Theyre being developed. What are they of? I dont know. I might have taken them when I was here. They might show who I was with. Where are they? The developers going to email them to me. Did you see an internet cafe on your way here? Dave and Sara sit surrounded by the soft hum of internet cafe computers. Theyve struck lucky managing to sit at a newish computer, rather than the pre-dot com bubble machines. They watch the inbox screen of Daves Hotmail account, waiting for a bold line of text to appear. The password was Jamie, of course. Its been ten minutes and so far Daves received three Gumtree notifications and some Viagra spam. Sara sits by his side, trying not to succumb to the feeling that shes on a wild goose chase and just trailing a stranger as he stares at his email. Dave closes his eyes for a moment, feels the tiredness pulling him towards sleep. A fox dream again. By now hes had so many that hes semi-conscious of whats going on. He is in Trafalgar Square, around 4pm on what he knows is a Friday. Everything he sees is in black and white, apart from his hands. The pigeons are swarming like starlings and commuters are carrying on with their journeys home as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. There is a fox perched next to one of the lion statues, watching Dave as he observes whats around him. An American man approaches Dave and asks him to take a picture of him and his son. Dave agrees, turns and directs them to stand in a position so that the National Portrait Gallery is behind them, rather than the fox. The tourist and his son beam identical smiles with a small gap in their front teeth. Dave presses the shutter button and watches as the viewfinder adjusts the sight from blur, to artistically out of focus, to super sharp. Done. Dave hands the camera back. Man, lovely picture. Shame about the fox in the background. Sara wakes him and he stares around the cafe in confusion wood laminate tables, cheap chrome chairs. How long was I asleep? he asks. Youve got mail, she says.

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The screen. Theres an email from the photo store. The subject line reads: MI6 Secret Files :) He opens the message. Hello Dave, Looks like your photo skills might need improving. Two of the rolls were full of black frames, one of the rolls is so out of focus itll make you dizzy. Ive attached the scans from the last roll. Doesnt look very Top Secret to me. Thanks for your custom. Dave downloads the files and opens them as a slideshow. For a moment the screen turns black, a faint loading bar slowly fills. Annoyingly, the slideshow transition causes each photo to fade into a water drop effect before revealing the next image. Dave sees a picture of himself, smiling and looking straight into the camera. Its an open and loving portrait with a background of a park that he knows well but cant recall the name of. The water drop settles on the face of Saras father in the same park. He looks older than in Saras photo. Crouching by the entrance of a childrens adventure playground, he has his arms open to embrace a boy of about eight years old running towards him. The boy is moving too fast for the camera to compose a clear face. David notices the design of the Manchester United kit he is wearing. David pauses the slidehow. The images he has yet to see freeze in a pixelated grid pattern. He sits back in his chair and can hear the hum of computers again. Added to that is the tinny speakers pumping pop music from the cafe walls. The sounds of keyboards being tapped in the cubicles next to his become more distracting. He hears the rush of traffic outside. With each passing truck on its way to a delivery, the windows of the cafe vibrate and wind pushes the door open. Amongst all these sounds he begins to listen to his thoughts. Places, times, clues and names that repeat and repeat. Sara, Jamie, Dave, Sara, Jamie, Dave, Sara, Jamie, Dave. Me. Show it again, Sara says. Shes sitting, tense at her side. He would like to lie down, Dave thinks, in a room with the curtains shut against the day. He presses play on the slideshow again and a photo comes up of the man she says is her father. You know him, she says. The certainty is more hers, than Daves. She trusts him more than he can trust himself. He has photos of her father. Scroll through them, she urges. There are photos of her father with the man she is sitting next to. Photos of them on a bridge, with the Houses of Parliament behind them. Photos of them by the lions

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in Trafalgar Square. All the photos were taken at an unusual perspective, from low down, showing the two men looming up. Taken by a child. And then more photos of the man sitting beside her: hes with her father, with a small boy between them. Its you with my father, she says. Youre together. Yes. The discomfort wells up inside him again not remembering this man, only remembering antagonism, only knowing that he had to get away from him. Keep scrolling, she says. And then theres her father with a woman, in Malaysia. Mum! Sara says. Its my father with Mum. The two of them are posing, holding each other close, clearly enjoying a romantic trip photo after photo shows them tightly bound. Its the same roll of film as London. This is recent. She tries to think. Why would Mum be with him now? Theyre together, the two of them, he says. It is all coming back. Hes not sure he wants it to. They split when I was 12. He walked out on her on us, after they rowed at my birthday party. Ive only ever heard her speak about him with anger since then Sara is thinking hard about what to do. They both need to find this man in the photo. Her father, Dave Martin. She has an idea. Theres a boat, she says. Its called Ethel something, on the Thames Im sure I could find it, its not far from here, not far from the London Eye. Mum and I went to visit her friends on the boat a couple of years ago when we were in London. I never knew how she knew them but she seemed to know them well. Theres nothing to lose and its the best lead yet. Dave, who by this time is certain he isnt Dave, though hes yet to find his own name, starts to feel queasy about the man he saw at the Eye, which isnt far from the boat moorings. Hes not sure he wants this story to fall into place. They head down to the Thames path. Its hard to know where to look, so they take their time passing a range of different vessels in various states of repair: Vuelvo Al Sur, Naked lady, Maastricht Treaty, and then they reach Ethel Ada, a handsome boat with a For Sale sign. Here it is! And it looks like they are getting rid of the boat. A white board hangs off her port side, with neat writing in red and blue: Thames sailing barge with secure residential mooring on the Thames with links to Waterloo. 24m x 6m approx. 350,000 ono. Extensively refitted and rebuilt by the present owners, and converted for either residential or charter work. This barge has masses of character and represents a part of Londons industrial history that is now all but

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gone. A light is on inside, a warm glow. They hear voices. What should they do? Are they ready to find out the truth? They look at each other, nervously, their eyes almost saying you do it, no you do it, like kids being scaredy cats. They move towards the light. I dont know who your father is, he says. I know I dont want to see him. But I also know that hes the only person who knows who I am. I could say the same for myself but I do want to see him. I really do. Theres a ramp down to the boat. He goes first. They tread, as though about to walk off and drop into the water, the unknown, rather than as if they were setting foot on a boat. The voices get louder, and Sara is sure she recognises one of them. Her breath catches. She had forgotten the exact quality of his voice and a flood of memories wash over her her father reading her stories, telling her how much he loved her, that she was his special girl. And then anger takes over. She pushes open the door and there he is, standing in a tiny kitchenette, a cup of coffee in one hand; a little older than the picture shes carried in her head since that day, a little greyer. On a narrow leather sofa sits a young boy, holding a book and staring up at her like she has no right to be there. And then shes flailing into her father with her fists, all the pent-up anger finding a release in sudden violence. The man she found at the hotel who didnt even know his own name, who, it seems, has been betrayed as much as she has holds her back. She turns to look at him and thinks she can see the memories shifting across his face like the slideshow they watched together in the cafe. You were driving the car, he says. You were driving the bloody car. Maybe you should sit down, says the man Dave Martin, her father, this mans lover, and who knows what else to who else. You too, he says to Sara. The man from the hotel sits next to the boy and takes his hand, holds onto it like hes drowning. Sara perches on a fragile looking chair opposite, and the two of them wait for everything to unravel.

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Win

Its the dreaming that kills ya. Up like smoke from a rubbed Persian lamp, the voice appears in her head as she snaps the Razr shut. A boys voice that she recognises from the movies. Some indistinct memory of moonlit romance in a wood too impossibly corny to be real. Shadows of trees on the screen and the insinuation of celestial light. His dark eyes and transcendent jawline. Her body, the result of rigorous and calculated diets based on equal parts humiliation, starvation and the prospect of future loneliness, appears naturally pliant in his stilted embrace. The smell of popcorn and decades-old geriatric skin flaked, crotch stench clings to the sagging drapes of the old Kildonan Theatre where she would see matinees with Tara in the distant days before either of them had been formally introduced to a penis. The sound of the projector above and behind her in that secret room upstairs is a powerful memory. Its mechanical hum producing the magical wedge of light that cuts through the theatre and fills the screen with people and things. The dust in the air was evidence of something that she could never quite understand. Where did it come from? Why was it even there? What fucking purpose did it serve? When the movies were over the girls would rush from their seats and run straight up the aisle past the listless ushers in the lobby and out into the sunlight where theyd stagger around the tiny parking lot blinded, giggling, stumbling like final witnesses to an apocalypse. Win feels the lights in the ceiling of this fucking airless interrogation chamber staring straight through her skull which feels like a bag of crushed apples pushing needles out through her eyes. Her left ear is wet from the torrent of drool that has seeped from her mouth in what has clearly been several moments of abject unconsciousness. She wipes it away with the back of her hand and dabs it dry with the shoulder of her shirt. The hum of the fluorescent lights is a fog in her ears and the sterile meaninglessness of the chipboard cupboards comes slowly into focus. This white room is too sudden, immediate and real for Win. There is a stack of sticky notes in a rainbow of pastel colours on a desk and some sort of bullshit memo tacked to a corkboard. A list of useless phone numbers is taped to the back of the door. Win briefly wonders whether there is a room anywhere in the world that sucks as thoroughly as this one. The institutional grey carpet is threadbare in several places where the wheels of the swivelling chair that she currently inhabits have worn down over time. The air in this room smells of nothing. The entire place is a testament to the

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genius of modern institutional decor and, so far as Win is concerned, evidence of a poisoned culture whose antidote exists only in the pure poetry of the hairless human chest. This room is some sort of brutalist nightmare compared to the big expanses and wooden elegance of the airports departure terminal that, on a day like today a day ravaged by grey clouds and snow and flights cancelled by cold weather was full of light and life and the smell of new luggage. Win felt like she was trapped in a toy box. It was like the lamest person with the lamest ideas in the world had been appointed Architect of Stupid Shitty Rooms and simultaneously awarded the contract to build some functional life-sized detention cubes at the Vancouver airport for nameless customs agents and rent-a-cops to populate with unfortunate people like her. Her head is a slow motion collision of drugs and liquor. Her legs have made it clear that they are quite willing to be gravitys bitch and her arms feel like hollow tubes of indifference. It hurts her to blink. She does not hear the announcement that her flight has been postponed indefinitely. That the weather in Calgary has deteriorated further. She is oblivious to news that the temperature in that other city continues to plunge. Cold winds have blown in from frozen tundra wasteland regions and caused chaos for hapless mechanics who cannot guarantee that the plane will not drop from the sky like a stone over the Rockies. Win does not know that her airplane sits idle and empty, abandoned on a tarmac beset by arctic winds.

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Tanya

As she slowly sips the turquoise drink under an equally turquoise sky, she cannot believe that the picture-postcard scene around her is real. At any moment now she could wake up, she could be back in Delhi, at Indventure or worse, in Ambala. But she runs her fingers through the sand under her deckchair and feels each grain. It seems real enough. Was it just a week ago? She had made it through the airport on time. She had been nervous till the time the plane actually took off, and it was only when she saw the last few twinkling lights of Delhi that she allowed herself a quick sigh of relief. And then panic again when she landed in Vancouver, when the man at the immigration counter scrutinized her, and when she didnt see Harry. The frantic call to the number that Harry had left in the mail. Win, whom she had imagined as a man, a large blond knight-in-shiningarmour kind of man, turned out to be a boozy woman of indeterminate age. Not the kind of girl Harry would hang out with, surely. A long silence had greeted Tanya as she hollered into the phone. After a couple of minutes of thoughtful speculation, Win had given her an address, some guest house in a place she could not now recall. Thankfully she had enough dollars from a previous official transition management trip at Indventure. Strange woman, that Win. As Tanya was wrestling with her bag at the conveyor belt, she had felt her ass vibrate: Key under third pot from gate. Tanya had figured that Win was referring to the flowerpot in the garden, which, as she neared the gate, she realized was under a couple of hundred feet of snow. Tanya felt depressed in the cold, alien land and wondered if she had made the right choice after all. The weather did nothing to brighten the next couple of days. It was then that the envelope reached her. It was hand-delivered to her on the third day. Plan B, said the cover. Inside it, like an admission ticket to a whole new life, had been the passport, the ticket and money. Tanya, babes. Get out of here as soon as you can. The cops seem to be on to me but I know how to get out if it. I will see you in Aruba soon. Follow the instructions to get the money out. I know you can do it. You are my amazing Indian princess. Love, Harry It hadnt been too difficult. Yes, a little difficult to chop off all that lovely straight hair to look like the girl in the new passport not the stodgy blue Indian one, but a

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Canadian passport. One that identified her as Tina Arora, wife of Harmeet Arora. Harry Arora of Vancouver who had come by way of Patiala, or even Ambala. She should have been shocked, annoyed or even upset, but Tanya Bhatia had laughed for the first time in two days. Tina Arora had caught the flight to the Caribbean island and taken the cab to the little house on the beach, and it was Tina Arora with the sleek brown page-boy haircut who had opened the account at the bank. Now, a week later, she feels as if she has been here all her life. Here by the little bar on the beach, sipping a drink, listening to the waves this is the life she was meant to lead. Can I join you, a voice asks. She looks up for a moment expecting Harry, though a voice in her mind knew it was not him. A lean, well-muscled man in tiny black swimming trunks is smiling down at her. His even white teeth have enjoyed the attentions of a skilled orthodontist, and the even brown tone of his torso has enjoyed the loving ministrations of the Caribbean sun. Sure, she says. I am Tina. I am Javier, the man beams at her. Ill call you Harry, Tina Arora smiles back.

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END

Acknowledgements

Spread the Word would like to thank all of the writers who worked across the globe and around the clock to make this happen, and to the editors who worked so painstakingly to bring everything together. Thank you to Ben Payne and Sarah Butler for producing the project. To Alistair Hall for making it look so good. To Bhavit Mehta and Jon Slack from Amphora Arts, and Andrew Turner and The Society of Young Publishers for their support and enthusiasm. To Chris Meade from if:book for his digital know how, and to Charles Beckett and Arts Council England. We couldnt have done this without our co-ordinating partners across the globe: Grey Yeoh at the British Council, Malaysia office in Kuala Lumpur, Neelini Sarkar, Akshay Pathak and Saloni Grover at the German Book Office in Delhi, and Sean Cranbury at W2 Community Media Arts in Vancouver. Spread the Word is Londons leading writer development agency. It is a catalyst for developing writers, with a strong reputation for providing bold, playful and accessible support for writers of all levels from networking events to publisher and agent talks, advice surgeries to an online city of shared stories. We connect writers with the wider literature world and offer a sustained relationship to talented writers for the development of their careers. www.spreadtheword.org.uk We are encouraging everyone who downloads LEAP to make a donation, however small, to the global literacy charity, Room to Read. Room to Read envisions a world in which all children can pursue a quality education, reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world. To achieve this goal, they focus on two areas where they believe they can have the greatest impact: literacy and gender equality in education. Room to Read works in collaboration with communities and local governments across Asia and Africa to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and support girls to complete secondary school with the life skills theyll need to succeed in school and beyond. To find out more and to make a donation visit: www.roomtoread.org