The rain did not pour or drizzle, for it was neither cake batter nor a decadent hot fudge sauce. No, this rain seeped, like a shaving cut oozes through a bandage or small square of toilet tissue. It was an unfortunate rain on an unfortunate day. The sky was gray against the horizon, silhouetting the cathedral. No one going in or out of the building seemed to notice much aside from the forbidding hearse parked in front of it. Every so often, someone would cast their eyes upon it, and then the crying would start again. Women with tissues tucked in pockets or purses seemed to be everywhere. The men had a few tucked inside the cuffs of their dress shirts, just in case their allergies should act up. Men, of course, never cried at funerals. Suddenly, thunder boomed across the small town’s main street. Umbrellas like swords flew up with mighty swooshes, defending against the unseen enemy, Mother Nature. Parents hurried their children inside before they took it into their minds to ruin their stiff, ironed pants or darling, lacy socks by playing in a mud puddle. Elderly ladies helped their ailing husbands inside, holding the crook of the husband’s elbow affectionately. Younger people of about high school age shuffled inside, looking guilty. It was the age, naturally.

In all of the fuss and commotion, no one took the time to notice the boy standing across the street with his hands shoved inside the pockets of his hoodie. The boy, nineteen years old, was not dressed for anything in particular. He wore fitted cigarette pants, a pin-striped dress shirt, a black hoodie, and, most strangely, a knit hat. A clove cigarette hung from his lips jauntily. Taking one long, final drag from it, he threw it to the ground and put it out with the toe of his sneaker. With a sidelong glance at the cathedral, he sighed. He had no real business being there. Everyone inside the church had had an invitation, carefully considered and embossed with gold letters on fancy card stock. There had been no card for this boy, embossed with the words Sebastian Proulx. As far as the people inside were concerned, he didn’t even exist. More notably, everyone would notice the guest in absentia and the empty place at the head table with another embossed card reading Reserved for Miss Vivienne Proulx. The bride would probably sigh, and shake her head. It didn’t matter, anyways – nothing would change, not on this day.

The boy placed another cigarette between his lips and lit it with a match. It was a strange quirk of his, using matches. At first it had been out of necessity – he hadn’t had the ability to use a lighter proper for years – but now the habit remained simply out of preference. Nothing about the boy in question was terribly ordinary. His hair was outlandishly violet at the moment. It continued to rain, as it had all day, but still the boy stood there, waiting for something to happen. That no one seemed to care whether or not he was there seemed somehow fitting. He was, after all, just another boy on another rainy Sunday. It wasn’t unusual for this sort of thing to happen on a day like this one. The boy was bitterly glad that at least some other element of the charade seemed determined to rebel with him. Finally, the cathedral’s bells started chiming. He held the cigarette aloft between two long, elegant fingers.

That boy, one should note, had driven five hours just that morning in order to make it on time. He had gotten up at the crack of dawn to pack the trunk of the Honda Civic, and now that he had actually made it he was questioning his actions. Strange that he hadn’t thought about it when he had hung his dress shirt in the back seat or while he was driving down the Interstate. It was a case of stage fright if there ever was one. The boy, Sebastian, picked at his fingernails anxiously, peeling the last of the black nail varnish off. It was a nasty habit, in any case. A tiny bead of blood oozed from the corner of a fingernail. Sebastian pressed it to his mouth, sucking the injury gently to stop the bleeding. He was procrastinating. Nothing was ever going to change if he didn’t muster the courage to go into that building and say his piece. It was, after all, a building first and foremost. The purpose didn’t matter, just that it was a building and that he needed to go through with this. Of course it would be easier to pretend that it was anything else, instead of where he needed to be.

Sebastian adjusted the tilt of his hat and fluffed what hair was visible. He was going to do this, he told himself. After all, he’d only dreamt of this day a thousand times before. In every dream, though, he’d never gotten this far. He always backed out before this point, or turned around and went home. In a way, he almost didn’t want to go into the cathedral at all. After all, the Church looked down on murderers, and Sebastian Proulx was, in fact, a murderer. The bride would probably have him thrown out, anyways. She was prone to such things, being made of a higher moral fibre than Sebastian was. It was she who had cut ties after he had committed the ultimate crime, when he had needed her most. He had hoped that one day she might understand – that it had been absolutely necessary for him to go through with it. Sebastian would not enter the cathedral, not unless he absolutely had to do it.

After all, it was the bride herself who had had the audacity to invite her to the wedding and to ignore Sebastian completely. It was a sombre tribute to the person that he had used to be – to the person who Sebastian had willingly murdered. He lit another match to watch it burn. The wind put it out before the flame even reached his fingers. A disappointment, just as so many other things in life were. Was she disappointed in him? He had made an honest effort to get over her, but to no avail. If he had really tried, he would not have been standing outside the cathedral in the rain on her wedding day. Many things that could have been different were not, though all of them would probably have led to this place. These days, most things led back to Sebastian’s former life.

For the longest time, no one bothered to notice Sebastian, the boy on the curb across the road. He was just a part of the scenery, something to be ignored and set aside for later use. Today he wasn’t particularly eager to be a part of the main event, considering what it was to be. No, he’d much rather wait, just like every other day of his life. Sebastian Proulx was always waiting for something. He wondered whether it would ever stop raining. Unlike the city, no one was waiting to sell the boy on the corner an umbrella to keep him dry. Here, that boy was completely anonymous.

--

One should probably begin at the beginning of this story, before the wedding or the rain and before Sebastian ever went home to that godforsaken town. It all started with a black Sharpie on another rainy day. This, of course, was before Sebastian Proulx even existed. The person that existed then was Vivienne Proulx, or Viv for short. A short description of Viv is warranted here. Vivienne Louise Proulx, aged fifteen, was tall for her age and generally sported a strange hairstyle. She gravitated towards loud colors like neon green and orange. The kindest thing one could say about her was that she was unique, for she had a bad attitude towards most things and a fondness for curse words. Viv only liked a few things: her cat, her music and her car. She didn’t care that she wasn’t yet old enough to drive the old, beat-up grey Honda Civic. It was hers, and she would drive it if she wanted to. The trick, Viv thought, was not getting caught. Viv drove everywhere in those days, and drove her friends most places too. It was not an unfathomable idea considering she really only had two friends in the world, and one of them was feline.

Viv lived with her mother and her father in a two-bedroom bungalow in an average part of town. Her mother, a largish woman with a tight red bun and a wobbly everything else, slept in the farthest bedroom by herself. She occupied all of the double bed when she slept. If Edward tried to get in the bed and sleep with her, she would throw him out so violently that he often cried out in pain. Viv couldn’t do much for him, though. She thought that he would have learned by now about dealing with her mother. Sophia Proulx was a proud woman, and she would never let you forget it. Each day, she woke up just after Viv had left for school, and made herself breakfast. Her breakfast consisted of three pieces of toast, two eggs and four slices of bacon on a plate with butter slapped between the slices of toast. Edward never got anything from Sophia, nor did he expect it. He usually waited, tail between his legs, until she left for work before getting his own meal.

Edward Proulx was as slim as Sophia was fat. He was sort of graceless, and often wandered about as if he were lost. For his breakfast, Edward drank a pot of coffee – black – and usually helped himself to a yogurt cup and a granola bar. He was a writer by profession, though his first novel had undersold the expected five hundred copies the publisher had printed. The books were instead used for other things – a copy of the book sat under the leg of the kitchen table closest to the window, which Sophia had kicked out the previous winter in a fit of rage. Edward was a kind man, very gentle and forgiving. No matter how ruthless his wife acted towards him, he still loved her. It was that kind of quiet desperation that made the man seem eccentric. Really he was a very good person who was just in very bad circumstances.

Usually, Viv drove the two blocks to the school. On the day our story begins, she was getting ready to go. Her keys were in the ignition, her sun visor flipped down to check her cats-eye makeup one last time. Satisfied with her reflection, she flipped the visor back up and turned the key. The car, rather than roaring with life, coughed and sputtered helplessly. Viv cursed loudly and tried it again. Her father wandered out of the house in his blue terry-cloth bathrobe to see what was the matter. She sighed, noticing the stubby pencil tucked behind his ear and the folded-up newspaper in his pocket. It was the puzzle page, she could tell without looking. A look inside the hood of the Civic confirmed Edward’s suspicions – that the Civic was rather sick and would require bed-rest and perhaps a doctor’s visit. The whole thing made Viv feel like crying.

Rather unhappily, she made the trek to school in her lime-green leggings and leopard-print skirt, stomping her combat boots with every step. They were made to be stomped in; heavy black boots with thick leather soles and bright yellow laces. Viv stormed into the school and wrenched her locker open. It contained two purple pens, a poster of Patti Smith leering sympathetically with the viewer, and a random assortment of papers in varying stages of crumple. This was the place that it happened. Viv, totally absorbed in hunting for her favourite drawing of her English teacher, was practically inside the locker in her search.

From behind her came a voice. “Um, excuse me?” it said, barely above a whisper.

Viv turned around and snarled, “What?”

The voice belonged to a face that was blushing like strawberry wine. “It’s just... Oh, never mind. You, um, you dropped this.” A hand, quivering, held out a crumpled piece of paper with a rip running diagonally through the top portion. The face seemed to be attached to a tiny girl who was trembling.

Viv took the paper – it was the drawing she had been looking for. She had been planning to color it today, since she had just gotten new coloured pens. “For God’s sake, stop trembling,” she said. She folded the drawing and put it in the breast pocket of her work shirt. It really wasn’t very good unless you happened to like horror movies.

“Sorry...” the girl said. She came up to about Viv’s shoulder and would have been unremarkable if it hadn’t been for her brilliant emerald eyes. “I just, I really like your skirt.”

Viv shrugged. She had no particular feeling for the skirt, just that it was something to cover her body and she liked the pattern on it. Actually Vivienne Proulx hated fashion, but you couldn’t tell it from looking at her. The hatred burned somewhere deeper within her, mixed with self-loathing and pity. “Thanks, I guess,” she said slowly, looking at the girl with what she hoped was her best glare.

The girl withered. “I guess I’ll just...” she mumbled, scurrying off to wherever it is good girls go to get away from bad girls like Viv. She would have been more terrified if it had been three months later. Regrettably, Viv had no piercings because she was not sixteen yet. The tattoo place downtown knew better than to accept a form with her father’s signature forged on it, because the owner of the place was a fan of Edward’s work.

The bell rang, making Viv late for the... what was it, the third time this week, or the fourth? She rolled her eyes and strutted into English class late, ignoring completely the teacher’s request to go down to the office to get a pink slip. All the secretaries would do was sigh at her and peer over their neat little wire-rimmed glasses at her. Viv made a mental note to get a new pair of glasses. Even though she didn’t need them to see, she liked the way they made her look. She sort of looked older, more sophisticated with them on. Certainly not like herself, which was what Viv really liked. She coloured her English teacher’s hair with an electric blue pen, adding green highlights and making the stripes on his tie pink. He was only talking about Twelfth Night after all, and she had read it when she was eleven. Besides that he was teaching it wrong, she thought to herself, so she shouldn’t have to sit through his idiocy. It was the same in the rest of her classes; she simply didn’t have the patience to deal with these Philistines.

After some time had passed, and Viv had moved on to the mauve pen for his shoelaces, the bell rang. She took a little more care in folding the drawing up this time. It seemed more valuable to her now that someone else seemed to like it. Not, of course, that she cared what anyone else thought of her. It was simply vanity – taking pride in one’s own work. The girl with the giant eyes smiled at her in the hall as she passed, this time without blushing. Viv glared down at her and tossed her signature violet-streaked hair. She went into her math classroom, and instead of doing her trigonometry worksheet like she was supposed to, found herself drawing eyes. Finally she got fed up with trying to concentrate and folded the worksheet into a paper airplane. Just as she was about to sail it straight into the recycling bin – Viv had always been very environmentally friendly from a young age – her teacher stopped her.

She walked up to the desk, high heels clicking quickly across the dull grey tile floors. She snatched the plane up out of Viv’s hand and hissed, “Vivienne Louise, what exactly do you think you are doing?”

Viv frowned up at the woman, who had her salt-and-pepper grey hair scraped back into a bun and Coke-bottle reading glasses perched on her head. “It’s a practical application of our homework, Carol,” she said icily.

The teacher glared at her. “Do I have to refer you to the office again, Vivienne?” She destroyed the airplane, exuding joy and exuberance with every carefully constructed fold of Viv’s she ruined. “If you continue to act up in my classroom, I’m afraid you are going to be suspended again. And we don’t want that, now, do we?”

It was all a farce, of course, as these things often are. “Carol,” Viv said, grinning from ear to ear and perhaps beyond that. “Have I told you how absolutely ravishing you look today?”

In a split second, the woman’s face transformed from a pleasant if somewhat wrinkled mask to a nightmarish snarl of teeth and unbridled rage. “Get out of my classroom,” she growled. “No, get out of the school. You are going to be expelled, Vivienne Proulx, mark my word!” This was the moment that Viv had been waiting for. She had been waiting for it for years, actually, and it had finally happened.

Triumphantly, Viv stood up, opened the rings of her binder, and pulled out the contents. She got up on the top of her desk, and, arms spread wide, let the papers fall all around her. Every drawing she had made in the past six months of math class fluttered around her, and before any of them had had a chance to meet the ground she was running down the hallway to her locker. Viv hit it with her fist until it sprung open. She collected her things and stomped down to the office proudly. The secretaries didn’t even blink as she blustered into the room. She was actually going to miss these poor ladies. After all, Viv knew she was the most exciting part of their day. Her favourite, Edna, finally looked up at her and sighed.

“What are you in for now?” Edna asked in her gravelly voice. Rumour had it that Edna actually used to be a man, and that in the seventies she had had a sex change operation. No one had any idea if it was true, but one could see where the basis of such vile rumours came from. The woman did have exceptionally broad shoulders, and her unflattering, dingy dresses and droopy cardigans never quite sat right on her body.

Viv smiled. “Carol decided it’s time to expel me,” she explained.

Edna sighed. “I’ll have Mr. Faris see you after lunch.” She typed something on her ergonomic keyboard, which Viv had always sort of admired. It reminded her of the sort of thing you would see on a science-fiction program or something. Edna had long, bright-red talons that made her typing very noisy. At first it had made both of Viv’s eyes twitch whenever the woman typed something, but by now she had gotten used to it. She actually kind of liked the sound now – it was soothing. Viv sat on one of the hard chairs along the wall and swung her legs giddily. The heels of her boots thudded against the legs of the chair.

During third period, Viv was allowed to call her father at home and explain what had happened. Edward picked the phone up on the second ring. He was probably watching talk shows in his underwear again – was it almost time for his favourite? “Good morning, sweetheart,” he said pleasantly.

“Hi, Edward,” Viv sighed. She could hear Maury Povich talking in the background. “So, are we watching cheating husbands or ghettolicious makeovers today?”

“Paternity tests, actually. What’s happened now?”

“I’m getting expelled,” she said. Viv was not one to beat around the bush. “Geoffrey will probably call you later about it. I just thought you might want to know first.”

Edward sighed on the other end of the call. “Your mother is not going to be happy about this, you know.” He chuckled. “I guess I’m going to have company tomorrow, then.”

“Probably. Shall we order Chinese take-out, or pizza?”

“Let’s go out tomorrow. We can have cake.”

“Okay, Edward. I won’t keep you from Maury any longer. I’ll see you when I get home.” Viv hung up the phone. She was not looking forward to facing the wrath of Sophia. Her mother was an exceptionally crabby woman. More than likely she would thunder around the house for hours after the news had been broken. The house shook when she was like that, simply because of her considerable size. Viv would have been afraid of her mother if she hadn’t had somewhere to go. Unfortunately, with the Civic out of commission, she would have to hoof it around town until Sophia had calmed down.

Viv did the crossword in the paper, still waiting for Mr. Faris – Geoffrey – to call her into his office. She coloured in the squares of the words she didn’t know with her new pens. Mostly, she just wanted to go home and go back to bed. She would probably have to get a job now to pay for the Civic. It wouldn’t pay for itself to get fixed. After the fifth or sixth word she coloured in, Geoffrey called her into his office. Viv plopped herself down into the swivelling office chair opposite him. Geoffrey – the principal – was a dour little man who wore a lot of obnoxiously bright ties. For as long as she could remember, Viv had wanted to raid his tie collection.

“Miss Vivienne,” Geoffrey drawled. He liked to pretend that he was from the South, even though actually he was only from south of Whitby. “You’ve really done it this time.”

Viv grinned at him like a jack-o-lantern. “I know.”

“You know that I’m going to have to expel you.” He stroked his moustache thoughtfully. Viv wished in a vague sense that she had a moustache to stroke, too. It seemed very dignified. “Did you already call your parents?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I talked to Edward. He’s fine with it. It’s just the monster that we have to worry about.”

“I’m sorry,” said Geoffrey.

“Don’t be,” Viv said. “I’ve been waiting for this for years. They probably won’t even bother with trying to make me go to another school because I’m almost sixteen.”

“You’re a very strange girl.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to miss you, you know,” Geoffrey sighed. “You hellion, what are you going to do now?”

Viv shrugged. She hadn’t given it much thought. “I don’t know, I will probably see if the tattoo shop will let me hang out there as a receptionist or something. Or maybe I can do some of the art for them or something.” She pulled the drawing of her English teacher out of her pocket and left it on the desk for him. “You can keep that. It’s supposed to be Mr. Mack.”

She could hear Geoffrey laughing behind her as she walked out the door. Edward was waiting for her in the lobby, swimming in his winter coat and a pair of rubber boots. The girl from that morning was standing on the stairs, eyes wide, clearly terrified. Viv grinned at her, and, as she followed her father out, turned to the cluster of students that had congregated and raised her middle finger high. Vivienne Proulx had left the building, for good.

--

Sebastian Proulx hated parallel parking more than anything. The only time he had ever been able to do it well was on his driving test, and that was more necessity than actual willingness. He remembered now precisely why he had hated living here, and that reason was this hill. There was no avoiding it – he would have to gently coax the Civic up the hill if he wanted to make it on time. Rain streaked the windshield, and bitterly Sebastian wished that he had had time to wash the car before making this trip. But, then again, one generally doesn’t have the presence of mind to go to a car-wash just before taking a spontaneous five-hour road trip. Actually it wasn’t entirely spontaneous – the notion had crossed his mind before, but he had simply pushed it aside. Sebastian’s car chugged slowly up the hill, the speedometer hovering just above forty. Impatiently, he stomped his foot down hard on the gas pedal, causing the Civic to lurch forward suddenly, sputter, and stall.

Before he was even aware that it was happening, the car was rolling back down the hill at an alarming rate. Sebastian cursed loudly and pulled the emergency brake. The underpinnings of the car groaned loudly, but luckily the vehicle stopped by the side of the road and not in the middle. The street, having been deserted at the time, went on as if nothing had happened. After a few moments had passed, Sebastian got out of the car to inspect the damage. The thing was probably junk now – it hadn’t been an especially young car to begin with, and it had endured more than five years of abuse. Unhappily, he reached into the back of the car and grabbed his dress shirt, still on its hanger. It wasn’t particularly wrinkly – however, it had fallen from its hanging position during the ride downhill. Sebastian pulled it on and, the first time, buttoned it wrong. He took a deep breath, undid the damage, and buttoned up again, this time starting at the bottom.

He was going to have to walk quickly if he wanted to make it in time. Sebastian looked up the street and sighed. Really, if he wanted to make it in time to see her walk into the cathedral, he was going to have to run. There was a time – up until about five minutes previous, to be precise – when Sebastian had hated running. He took off his hat – his signature piece – and ran like hell. Anyone watching from a store window must have thought him absolutely insane, maybe an escapee from the psychiatric ward of the local hospital. Though he was running at full speed, he arrived a moment too late. That first, fateful moment he had been planning on – it was gone. She had already been ushered in by grinning members of the bridal party and her tearful parents. It was too late.

Sebastian Proulx may not have been a hopeless romantic before, but he sure as hell was now. He had to come up with a new plan, and fast, otherwise Joni really was going to marry that bastard. And Sebastian really couldn’t live with that. He had to at least try to win her back; otherwise, this whole trip would turn out to be for nothing. This whole existence would be irrelevant.

--

The house’s matriarch thundered through the door, bringing with her a large puddle. Edward Proulx cowered on the pink-flowered sofa quietly, clutching his TV Guide anxiously. His wife kicked off her orthopaedic loafers and stomped into the kitchen for a mid-afternoon snack. That was where his daughter got her walk from, right there. Thank God Vivienne had more grace than that woman. He flipped from Ricki Lake to the Oprah show, in search of a mood-lifter. The domestic goddess was doing a feature on plastic surgeries. Fascinated, he tried to concentrate on the show, instead of on Sophia. She was banging around in the kitchen, probably in search of the bag of Fritos he’d polished off that morning.

From the kitchen, she bellowed, “Edward!”

He had no choice but to scuttle in there to see what she wanted. “Yes, dear?”

She glared at him, her beady little black eyes blazing. “What happened to my chips?”

Edward shrugged. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be throwing things tonight. It had taken long enough to get the glass out of the poor cat’s paws last night. At least he had thought to pour her wine down the drain before she got home. The liquor store would be closed before she needed another drink. The fat cow was still glaring at him. “I don’t know where they went, honey.”

“Don’t lie to me, Edward.”

“I’m going to miss my show,” he muttered. Mostly, he just wanted to be back in the living room before Sophia had a chance to spread herself out on the couch. She could have the armchair if she wanted it. Her commentary was more irritating than anything. It wasn’t like anyone could hear her, anyways, or at least anyone that actually cared. Edward had learned long ago that the best way to live with a woman like Sophia was to ignore her entirely.

--

Vivienne Proulx liked downtown. She especially liked the noise – it was possible to lose your own thoughts completely in the ruckus. Everything seemed bigger downtown; louder and brighter and bigger and better. At the moment, she was perched at the top of a rather tall concrete wall, looking down at a coffee shop. She wondered what kind of drinks people were buying, hot chocolate or coffee or espresso or hot water. Personally, she didn’t like any kind of caffeinated beverage, but she did like the people who frequented this kind of place. Boys with Mohicans or crew cuts or spiked hair or piercings, she didn’t care as long as they were exotic. This day in particular seemed to be lacking character, for most of the people she observed coming and going were ordinary people. They were mothers, grandfathers and their grandkids, businessmen with fat leather briefcases, and twentysomethings with eye-bags hidden beneath massive sunglasses. Viv wanted to be twentysomething so badly. It seemed to her like the perfect age – no responsibility but herself and whatever struck her fancy. Eventually she jumped down and started down the street.

Though she started at Fred’s Coffee – the coffee shop – every time, she never actually went inside. Her next stop was Valene’s Pet Emporium, where she had gotten her cat, Ethel. Valene’s did not have a bell that jangled when the door opened. Instead, the door triggered the sound of a bird chirping. According to Valene, it was unfair to the animals to give them a headache like that. Viv made a beeline for the kittens, who lounged comfortably on a cat-tree at the back. She could spend hours playing with the little ones because they were just that cute. Ideally, she would have liked to take them all home with her, but for now she had only been able to save one of them. Ethel probably wouldn’t have tolerated a kitten anyways. She was a very sensible sort of cat, mostly – unless she happened to smell catnip.

Valene usually stopped to talk to her, unless the store was unnaturally busy. Sometimes Valene’s mother would stop by, too, and when she did she brought cookies. Most of the time Viv liked being at the Pet Emporium better than she liked to be at home. At least Valene’s family was kind of normal. Her mother was really nice and baked cookies like mothers should, and her father always gave everyone hugs and high fives and smiled all the time. Viv wished her parents would be like that instead of... well, whatever they were. She picked up an orange-and-white kitten and listened to it purring.

“I wish I could take you home with me,” she told it. “I think you’re a boy kitten, though, definitely.” The kitten mewled in response. “I’m going to call you... Hmm, let’s see. Sid, I think.”

“Viv, step away from the kitten,” Valene said, coming up behind her.

“Come on, Valene, he’s too cute to give up. Look at this little guy.” Still, Viv put the kitten back with his siblings gently. “Did you do something different today?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Had she gotten a haircut? Whatever it was she had done, it looked good.

Valene flushed. “I have a date tonight with Fred,” she giggled.

Viv’s eyebrows flew up. “Fred? As in Fred’s Coffee Fred?” This was scandalous news even to Viv’s ears. She had never actually met Fred, being that she had never been inside the eponymously named coffee shop. He must be something spectacular – Valene had lots of suitors, but she usually ended up turning them down.

“That Fred. I have no idea what I’m going to wear. It’s been so long since I’ve gone on a date... I’m going to feel so silly,” the older woman gushed. Valene was thirty-two and a licensed veterinarian. Soon after she began practicing veterinary medicine, Valene had decided that she couldn’t do it anymore. It just made her too sad, she had once said. Then, her mother had finished her business degree, finally, and it was she who came up with the idea of a pet store. Everything had fallen into place so neatly for Valene, except a husband. She was notoriously unlucky in love and had sworn off men numerous times. The real problem was that she was too easily impressed. Of course, no one would ever say that aloud.

“Wow, Valene,” said Viv, trying to sound enthusiastic. “That’s great.” She forced a smile, but she could tell it didn’t reach her eyes. “You could wear that great swishy skirt with the sequins, maybe,” she suggested.

Valene grinned, staring off into the distance. It was futile to even talk to her when she was like this. Words went in one ear and came out through the other. Poor Valene deserved some happiness in her life, though. For Val’s sake, Viv really hoped it worked out with Fred. The shop’s cat-in-residence, Glinda, rubbed against Viv’s legs, leaving long grey hairs on her leggings. Glinda had come from the same litter as Ethel had. “What was that, Viv?” Valene finally asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Viv murmured. “Just good luck on your date tonight. I’m going to wander around downtown for a while longer.”

The birds chirped again when Viv left the shop, and she wondered whether the bell wouldn’t be kinder to the dozen or so cats that lived there. Surely the bird sound was more annoying than a bell, because at least they could see the bell instead of having to look for a bird that wasn’t there. Viv continued her trek down the street to Days Gone By vintage clothing shop. Days Gone By was run by an eccentric little man named Maurice. He was completely hilarious, and despite being tiny, somehow managed to fill a room with his presence. Maurice also had a collection of excellent vests, some of which he was willing to give to Viv in the event of his death. At seventy-one, though, Maurice was showing no signs of being ready to go yet. One always got the sense when talking to him that he knew some kind of inside joke and that it was probably about you. The old man loved practical jokes more than anything, so it was likely to be the case.

Unlike Valene, Maurice had a bell on the door. “I like to see who’s coming and going,” he had once told Viv. Today, he was wearing black trousers with a lime-green dress shirt and a brown leather vest. “You’re a little early, aren’t you?” he scolded her gently. “Did the little devil get herself in trouble again, maybe?”

Viv frowned at him. “Of course I did, you old coot,” she teased him. “I caused a coup in math class, so they finally threw me out.” She fingered a baby-blue men’s dress shirt tentatively. It was similar to the one Maurice was wearing. “I don’t think they’re going to make me go back, though.”

Maurice laughed. “Of course you’re going to go back, baby girl. You need an education before you can go raise hell in the rest of the world.” He grinned, showing not only his yellowing teeth but also the spots where teeth used to be that he had lost in the war. Maurice had an ongoing war with his dentist, who insisted that the old geezer needed dentures. The reply to that, of course, was that Maurice had spent his whole life au natural, so he was not about to change.

Personally, Viv thought that his smile had character. He was an original, that Maurice.

“I am not going back there,” she told him.

“Yes, you are. I don’t care what that pushover father of yours says. It took him ten years to finish that godawful novel, and I had to push him then, so now I’m going to push you. You are going back to school, even if I have to drag you there myself.”

Viv stood silently for a minute and stewed about it before she saw the flaw in Maurice’s plan. “Um, Mo?” she said quietly. “There’s no other school for me to go to. I don’t think they’re going to let me back in.”

The old man simply grinned. “Then we’ll home-school you.”

“As if I want to be stuck in a room all day with crusty old you, Maurice.”

“In that case, I’ll put you to work.”

Viv groaned. Having a job was not going to agree with her. She wasn’t prepared to spend the rest of her life performing menial tasks in order to make minimum wage. The only other option was to go back to school, but she could see no way to get back in. Well, that wasn’t entirely true – there was a way, but it was incredibly risky. She had been waiting her whole life for this opportunity, and when it finally presented itself, like a scared little girl Vivienne turned away from it.

--

The stretch of highway between Ottawa and Toronto had to be the most boring stretch of highway Sebastian Proulx had ever seen. He twisted the volume knob on his tape-deck – yes, his car was that old – and the soothing sounds of Screeching Weasel filled the Civic. Soon, he would have to stop for gas. Global warming was hard on the little Honda. It was like a familiar grandparent – reliable, but somewhat cranky and unpredictable and more wasteful than in the past. The duct tape holding the seatbelt together dug into his chest. It wasn’t the most pleasant road trip he’d ever taken, but for the time being he could cope. As long as the car made it home in one piece, everything would be alright.

Finally, the car began to sputter, and Sebastian was forced to pull off and gas up again. When he undid his seatbelt, the duct tape came loose again. There was no more tape on the roll, either, so he would just have to improvise. He didn’t have time to find a store and buy more. Maybe the gas station would lend him some, or at least help him take apart the seatbelts so he could use the passenger side seatbelt instead. Sebastian put forty dollars of gas in the car and went inside to pay – it was an older, independently owned gas station, so there was no paying at the pump. It was uncomfortable doing that, anyways, putting one’s credit card into a machine that might very well be storing and stealing your financial information for later use.

“Hi, there,” the attendant greeted him. It was a younger boy, probably about seventeen.

“Hey, man. I know this is probably a weird question,” Sebastian began, “but do you have some duct tape I can borrow?” He wrung his hands and studied the array of chewing gum at the front counter.

“Sure,” said the boy. “No problem. I won’t charge you for it or anything. That’s your car out there, isn’t it?” he asked, jerking his head towards the old Honda beater. The look on his face was one of pure pity. He was clearly glad he could use Mother or Father’s car instead of owning his own personal heap. Sebastian smiled at him as he swiped his debit card and typed in his PIN code. “Just out of curiosity, though, what do you need duct tape for?”

“My seatbelt’s broken.”

“Oh. Well... that just sucks.”

“Tell me about it,” said Sebastian. He went back to the ailing Civic, and, after a period of trial and error, fixed the seatbelt so that it would stay in one piece. Before leaving, he went to return the duct tape to the boy and to say goodbye. “Here’s your tape back, man.”

“No problem. Hope your car makes it to wherever you’re going,” the kid said. It was sort of strange calling someone only two years younger a kid when Sebastian so often felt like a baby himself still. He was watching when the Civic pulled out of the service station, though Sebastian couldn’t tell if he was impressed or depressed. Probably both – the Civic had that effect on people. It was such a classic beater that it often inspired a mixture of pity and hope in other people. For a car that had originally cost a hundred bucks, it wasn’t bad.

Sebastian was glad that he didn’t have to cross any international borders on this trip. The border patrol always gave him a hard time, and airports were even worse. His identification didn’t help much, and he hadn’t bothered to get it updated yet. Paperwork was something he avoided whenever possible. Besides, without the surgery, it was pointless to even begin the process. No one would look twice at him without that doctor’s certificate that was so elusive. Doctors were bastards these days, anyways, Sebastian reflected. One day he might lose that cynical edge, but until then he would regard them cautiously. Never trust anyone who might tell your secrets, that was the first rule of living stealthily. The other rules were not quite as common-sense as one might think.