A Handbook for Beautiful People Read online

  A HANDBOOK FOR BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

  Copyright © 2017 Jennifer Spruit

  Except for the use of short passages for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, in part or in whole, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or any information or storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Collective Agency (Access Copyright).

  We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada.

  Cover design: Val Fullard

  eBook: tikaebooks.com

  A Handbook for Beautiful People is a work of fiction. All the characters and situations portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Spruit, Jennifer, 1982-, author

  A handbook for beautiful people / a novel by Jennifer Spruit.

  (Inanna poetry & fiction series)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77133-441-9 (softcover).-- ISBN 978-1-77133-442-6 (epub).--

  ISBN 978-1-77133-443-3 (Kindle).-- ISBN 978-1-77133-444-0 (pdf)

  I. Title. II. Series: Inanna poetry and fiction series

  PS8637.P778H36 2017 C813’.6 C2017-905379-5

  C2017-905380-9

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Inanna Publications and Education Inc.

  210 Founders College, York University

  4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3

  Telephone: (416) 736-5356 Fax: (416) 736-5765

  Email: [email protected] Website: www.inanna.ca

  A HANDBOOK FOR BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

  a novel

  JENNIFER SPRUIT

  INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.

  TORONTO, CANADA

  In memory of Angel Buggins,

  who laughed louder than the rest.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue: From a Great Height

  1. First: Apple Seed

  2. Bigger: Ravioli

  3. Tortilla Chip

  4. Christmas Orange

  5. Lemon

  6. Cookie

  7. Pop Can

  8. Burger

  9. Iced Capp.

  10. Triple Scoop Ice Cream Cone

  11. Eggplant

  12. Coconut

  13. Honeydew

  14. Microwave Popcorn

  15. Chicken

  16. Pumpkin

  17. Baby

  18. Shrinking

  Epilogue: Later

  Acknowledgements

  PROLOGUE: FROM A GREAT HEIGHT

  GAVIN CLIMBS with his bare hands on the cold cement, the nobility of the stone lions forgotten, and drops down on the wrong side. Headlights flash, and he worries someone will stop now that he’s here and it’s almost over, so he backs his heels against the hard certainty of the bridge, trying to be invisible. Under his foot, a rock skitters and disappears, but Gavin can’t hear it land. The Bow River below is glacial, rushing and wide, cutting into the sandstone bedrock like it has for centuries. It is thick with spring runoff, surging like a returning hero who is both majestic and dangerous. This is when he should try to find grounds big enough to overcome what has been done, but he has no reason. Only a chest filled with rage.

  Gavin unbuttons his pocket to get the wad of bills. He takes the elastic band off and fans them out, seeing the look she gave, then deals them into the river, stalling until the last flimsy flutter. Then he reaches behind himself, tentative, feeling with his fingers until he can hold on tight and lean out over the water and really see the blackness of it.

  Until tonight he’s always been afraid.

  1. FIRST: APPLE SEED

  WELL PAST DARK, Marla shakes the tree branch she waits under, thinking snowflakes will fall on her hair and make her look like she walked out of a snow globe. Instead, a hump of wet snow thumps on her head and drifts under her collar. She scoops it out because she is not going to look slushy in front of her man. Tonight she is a lady.

  “Where are we going?” Liam matches his steps over the snow bank with the old footprints of others because he’s wearing alligator shoes that he cares about, and gives his car a wide berth to avoid the caked-on road salt. Just the way he adjusts his scarf makes her sure she is right about him.

  “Surprise,” she says.

  The wind whistles between the downtown office towers, swinging the streetlights and blowing dried-out snow and frozen garbage back and forth. Foggy lights and bass lines filter out of downtown clubs, and the C-train rattles past in fluorescent glow, carrying teenagers, drunks, minimum wage earners, hockey gamers. Several sidewalks are blocked off because falling ice has been letting go all day, slipping down glass buildings to shatter on cars and hot dog stands. Against the barriers, bands of tittering girls without coats smoke and pretend they don’t feel frozen. Marla remembers that.

  It’s warm inside. Liam holds the door for her, and she purposely walks slowly to create a real Marla moment as she enters the lobby of the concert hall, sliding her coat from her shoulders. She twirls for the clavicle-baring women who stand with their arms held just so while they laugh in a tinkly way at men with generous amounts of grey. Marla grins, thinking she’s probably the youngest, tightest woman here. “I love the orchestra,” Liam says, squeezing her hand. “Thank you.”

  Marla knew it. She’s been planning this for weeks, saving her diner tips in a spaghetti sauce jar on the stove to buy the best tickets left.

  Liam treats her to a glass of wine. She likes the feel of its delicate stem between her fingers, its crystal perfection. It feels like a good omen, and she toasts him. “To me and you.”

  It’s then that a gentleman walking by nods to Liam, causing Liam to pause in mid-toast and stand straighter. “Liam! You’re not playing tonight, are you?” The man has one of those goosy accents Marla is into.

  “No, I, not tonight. A Russian cellist.” Liam fingers his tie and talks with his hands when the gentleman commends him on his performance of Fauré’s Elegy during a youth talent showcase a decade ago: “Such subtlety and complexity, an incredible range of emotion.”

  Marla has seen Liam’s cello, of course, but she has only ever heard him play it when he’s teaching lessons. She remembers peeking around the open door to see him hold it the way one would hold a lover, swaying and confident like the two of them were dancing. She feels suddenly flushed, and sips her wine so no one will notice. It tastes heavy and dark and beautiful, just like this night around her.

  The goosy gentleman has his hand on Liam’s shoulder. “You’re a teacher, right? The University of Calgary Music Department is looking for a cellist. You should apply.”

  “I haven’t played like that for years.” Liam smooths his tie, looking down, which is too much for Marla.

  “Oh, you should,” she says, thinking about him on stage in a tux with tails, bow in hand. Or at a bar, everyone forgetting to breathe because of him.

  The gentleman grins in a grandpa way. “And who is this? A student?”

  Liam leans close to him. “This is Marla. My girlfriend.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry—” He turns to Liam. “I heard you swore off women?”

  Liam pulls on his earlobe, looking around at no one in pa
rticular. He keeps his voice low. “Marla’s different.” Liam catches Marla’s eye, and she wonders if it’s an apology.

  “What do you do, Marla?”

  Marla doesn’t answer for a moment, listening to couples behind her make educated little quips about nothing she could ever care about. She looks down at her thrift store shoes and fishnet stockings, which are both really awesome. “I’m a waitress at a diner. I serve coffee.”

  Liam puts his arm around her. “She’s an excellent waitress.”

  The man, who hasn’t introduced himself, hmmms. “At least you’re not another artist, right?” When he finally leaves, Marla rolls her eyes and tugs Liam towards the entrance to the theatre.

  Liam checks his phone. “Sorry. I know him. He’s a violinist.”

  “They know you everywhere.”

  He nuzzles her neck. “Not the way you do.”

  Marla traces the outline of his ear, down his jawline. “No, I shouldn’t think so.”

  Liam laughs. “Are you affecting a British accent?”

  “Indeed I am.”

  The orchestra plays the best part first, a wave of sound that grows and swoons and then falls to pieces, all arising from the oboe. They do it for each group of instruments, and each time Marla cheers.

  Liam winces at the older couple beside them. “No one cheers for tuning, Marla. No one cheers here at all.”

  Marla sits very straight. “I always cheer for what I love.”

  For the rest of the night, the orchestra makes nosedives and roaring animals out of valves and wood and horsetails. Marla watches the string players, admiring how they saw together like a line of lumberjacks. This is fine for several minutes, but the music is nonstop, rushing to a climax only to wallow in several minutes of fluty fluff. A tease.

  Marla steals a glance at Liam, who has his eyes on the soloist, a man who is solid of purpose the way Liam is, arching his neck like he’s in the throes of indescribable passion. Liam is almost completely at peace: his hands gentle in his lap, eyes soft, nostrils flared in the hint of a smile coming. Marla feels the sound fall away, even the bonging big tub drums and the cymbals (how pale and silly to be a cymbal player, she thinks), as she reaches for her man’s hand.

  After the concert, Marla can’t bear to be out in the black, cold night and slips off her heels. She runs past the other concert-goers through still corridors to try the doors to the plus fifteens, the covered walkways that connect buildings fifteen feet above ground.

  Liam doesn’t want to chase her at first, but she calls him on, lightened by the energy of the orchestra. He has no choice but to follow her through a maze of little passages—past art exhibits and parking garage pay stations, over traffic, up and down stairs, and around corners to create an impossibly convoluted route to his car. Marla knows all the plus fifteens; she has them memorized like a map she holds in her hand. But she’s not homeless now.

  When they finally emerge in a concrete stairway with metal railings, Marla kisses him under the glowing EXIT sign. “Liam, take me to Nose Hill.”

  He laughs, holding her slender hands in his. “It’s minus twenty-five.”

  “I want to see the pony.”

  He smiles, fond. “That was a deer.”

  “You didn’t see it. When will we go?”

  “When it is spring.”

  Liam carries her the half block to his car, where she puts on her shoes. Marla turns on dance music just to hear something thump along with her heart. She loses herself as she sings, badly, and realizes too late that they’re at his house.

  Liam’s neighbourhood was rough and worth little when his still-together parents bought here decades ago, but has been well tended for years by hedge-growing senior citizens who trusted its proximity to downtown would be valuable in the end. Now Liam’s mother is gone, and the house is his, at least in name. Inside there are traces of him, like the upright bass he won in a duelling banjos kind of thing or the musical score from some opera taped to the wall, but they are intruders compared to his mother’s period furniture or the paintings by his ex-wife.

  “I can’t stay tonight.” She catches Liam’s eyes just long enough to see he is all wounded. “It’s not that I don’t want to.”

  “I get it. You have a child.”

  Marla turns the dance volume off. “Hey, that’s mean.”

  “What am I supposed to say? It’s not right, whatever you two have.”

  Marla sighs audibly because it’s totally exhausting to explain her roommate to him every day. “Dani’s life is complicated.”

  “She’s a drug addict.”

  “She’s my friend. Come to my place, Liam. You don’t work until lunch.”

  Liam considers it, his face tight. He flips his keys back and forth with his fingers. “Okay. But I want to show you something first.”

  He leads her down. In the basement corner with the best natural light are framed walls for a little room. The floor is tiled, which causes Marla to feel kind of astounded. “Didn’t this used to be concrete?”

  “It’s for you, for when you finish massage school. You’ll need a place to work until you can get your own office.” He stands aside so she can really admire the two-by-fours, how straight they stand.

  Marla bites her bottom lip. “I’m not even in massage school.”

  “But you should be.”

  Marla shakes her head and strokes Liam’s chest, gentle. “Let’s talk about it later.” She slides her hand down, parting the folds of her handkerchief dress. He watches her, shivering.

  She kisses him softly, pulling him into her until her back rests against the naked frame.

  While Liam’s neighbourhood is full of people all tucked in for the night, Marla’s is alive: teens posturing in front of the liquor store, grizzled guys and trashy women at the pool hall, future oilfield workers wheeling their hockey bags out of the arena. On the corner, the bus lets people off, and they walk, their breath steaming in the cold. Bowness is rough and ready, full of people who use the street to holler at pretty girls or work together to push a stalled pickup out of the intersection.

  Marla lives in the big house beside the church, and the downstairs belongs to Dani. The light is still on in the basement, and Marla can hear music: big band again.

  Liam pauses at the door. “She hates me.”

  “You hate each other equally. I just need to know she’s not starting fires or something.” Marla shoves a pile of newspapers and boots over to open the door all the way, and leaves her jacket hung over a chair. Marla can’t tell if Liam is afraid of Dani or jealous. Maybe both.

  Dani’s in her bathrobe eating pizza, picking the mushrooms off and flicking them into the box. She hums with the music, breaking into song between bites.

  Marla lifts the lid of the record player, but before she can move the arm thingy, Dani is in her face. “Don’t touch the vinyl, please.” She wipes the lid with her sleeve like Marla soiled it, leaving it loud. “I didn’t hear your ass coming in. You could have been a rapist.”

  “Expecting someone?”

  Dani tucks the tag in on Marla’s dress. “E’s coming by. You know E.”

  “I don’t want drug dealers here.”

  “He’s fine. How was your date? Did you fall asleep?”

  “Liam’s upstairs. We’re going to—”

  “Oh, I know what you’ll be doing.” Dani arches her back as she runs a hand over her breasts and down her side. She moans, and it turns into a dog howling. She barks, grinning at Marla. “Liam!” Dani hollers, “when you get tired of Marla, come give me a ride!”

  “Gross.” Marla hears the clank of metal on metal upstairs—Liam has dropped something in the sink. Marla takes a piece of pizza from Dani’s box and nibbles it. “Don’t knock it just because you’ve never made love.”

  Dani closes the lid and puts the box in her mini frid
ge. “The things you don’t know.”

  Marla saves the crust for last and munches it, savouring the crunchiness. “I have to go.”

  “It’s been a slice. You have that forty bucks?”

  Marla forgot. All she has left is a ten. “Don’t do it.”

  Dani unwinds Marla’s scarf, close enough for Marla to feel her breath. Dani wraps the end of the scarf around her own neck, slowly, so they’re joined together for a moment. Her arms move in the kind of arc that encapsulates her femininity: showing vulnerability but completely in charge. Dani’s voice tickles, but her eyes are hard. “Hustling isn’t something I do. It’s who I am.”

  Marla shakes her head, takes the scarf back. “I want you safe.” She helps Dani dig under the couch cushions and through the coffee cans in the cupboard, but they don’t find anything. “Turn it down, Dani. I’ll get your money.”

  Marla checks her messages—two missed texts, both from her foster mom. How was your big night? Just checking in. Trying to be involved.

  Upstairs, Liam has finished the dishes, wiped each one, and put them in the cupboard. “I don’t like your pet,” he tells her. “When is she leaving?”

  Marla shrugs, shutting the door to the basement so Dani won’t hear. “She’s getting clean so she can get her son back.” Marla hasn’t told him the rest.

  “I doubt that. Look.” E. saunters past the window wearing yellow denim. He has witchy hair, coloured and primped into planned cowlicks and angles. He purses his lips in an O at them, and then bangs on the back door. Dani yodels from downstairs, and the door bumps open and shut.

  Liam crosses his arms. “Predictable.”

  Marla fusses with her fingernails and reminds herself to smile. “I know what you’re thinking. He’s not a pimp—he’s a beauty school dropout.” She feels under the table where she leaves all the produce stickers, peeling them off with her fingernails, nervous.

  Liam doesn’t laugh. “He’s a drug dealer, Marla.”

  Okay, it’s not funny. “Give her a chance. She’s going through some shit.” Liam raises his eyebrows, and Marla realizes she’s angry. “Sorry, stuff. It’s hard for her.” Marla mentally shakes it off, smoothing her hands over her dress. “Come.”