‘No, no! God, no, I literally have no need for privacy whatsoever. I have plenty of space. So much space. Too much: it needs to be filled, and I could absolutely use the company. Really, you’d be doing me a favour.’
I make a sort of reluctant face, as though I’m considering whether this is too weird, too spontaneous.
‘Look, you can throw me a couple bucks every week if it makes you feel better,’ Naomi offers. Pure loneliness bleeds from her and I feel the impulse to hug her. ‘I mean, I could be like a patron of the arts!’ she continues.
I already envisage the perfect scenario: meeting Ted by chance, in his own sister’s house. A writer who has cometo stay with her from London. As set-ups go, it truly could not get any better than that.
I hold my glass up to toast Naomi. ‘My very own de’ Medici. I love it. And thanks so much, I appreciate this.’
‘So, it’s settled.’
‘Well, for a little while at least, until I get my sea legs,’ I half lie.
I arrive at Naomi’s house in a cab a day later. It’s on the sort of street that is only ever seen in very glossy rom-coms with middle-aged characters. The street has got serious kerb appeal: picket fences, SUVs every which way, expansive lawns that keep the neighbours further than arm’s reach. The house makes me think instantly of the mums in Stoke Newington, packed tightly together in their redbrick terraces, and how they could only aspire to having a house like this. It’s the size of a regional fecking airport. The kitchen ceiling must be three metres high at least, and boasts a kitchen island so long that it could feasibly be used for track and field events. Nothing about this says “teacher salary”. Off the kitchen is a playroom, a blurry explosion of pink and purple plastic that hasn’t been organized or tidied. As I stand surveying the toys, Naomi creeps up behind me, takes me by the shoulder and leads me wordlessly to a girl’s bedroom, which also happens to have a sofa and a desk in it. Save for the stripped bed, the room has been left exactly the way it was, many years ago. There’s a Harry Potter lampshade, a Justin Bieber poster fraying at the edges, a half-used pot of lip gloss. It feels unbearably sorrowful. Deep down, I’m not sure I can do this.But Ted has probably been in this house lots of times, I think to myself. I have to sit on the thought to save myself from vibrating with excitement.
‘I wouldn’t normally let people stay in this room as it was Elizabeth’s, and I don’t know if you’re OK about it…?’
‘No, I would be honoured, if you are OK with it,’ I say quickly. We seem to have fast-tracked into a sisterly intimacy in no time at all.
‘I know you’ll be all right in here. It has space to write too,’ Naomi says, setting my suitcase gingerly next to the bed. She picks up a swimming trophy, taking a moment to look at it. ‘I’ll move some of this stuff out of here and I’ll get fresh linens organized.’
The house still looks like a busy family home and it is strange, all the space and stillness around us.
‘Towels in here, spare bedding in that closet,’ she goes, pointing at various cupboards and alcoves on the landing. ‘Take anything you need from here, and this is the main bathroom. I’m down the hallway, in there. But first, food!’
Watching Naomi bustle around the kitchen makes me feel as though I’m being mothered, in a way. I sit at the gigantic island, feeling misty with gladness, as she uncorks a bottle of wine with the flair of a veteran sommelier. She rustles up fajitas in under fifteen minutes, slinging recommendations about Toronto– where to eat, where to drink, what to see– as she goes. I’m excited about tapping into the quotidian rhythms of a new city. This feels like the warmest and sunniest of starts.
‘I met a girl on the plane, Jodie,’ I tell Naomi. ‘She’s nice, so I might check in with her in a week or two. She seems to know a lot about the nightlife around here.’
‘That’s a good person to know!’ Naomi says. ‘What I know about after hours in the city would be a really short conversation. I haven’t gone to a club in years.’
‘Where is a good place to meet boys?’ I ask tentatively.This is a line I haven’t had use for in a very long time, and the thought of it is intoxicating. I’m also letting Naomi know that I am single, the pilot light is on, I am ready to mingle with eligible men, up to and including her kin.
‘Ohhhh, we’re going there, are we?’ She laughs nervously in a way that suggests she hasn’t a single notion about where the men are. ‘God, David and I got together so young,’ she says. ‘We were like nineteen. First week of college. There was no time for the whole experimenting thing. We were so normal, it was kind of ridiculous.’
For a minute I forget about Ted. Or rather, he recedes closer to the back of my mind. But then I have a warming thought, of Ted and me visiting here as a couple and enjoying Naomi’s hospitality, once I’ve actually met him. His arm around my waist as we pull up to the forty-foot kitchen island. Shabbat dinners on Friday nights.
‘I can’t believe I met the One through my step-sister,’ I can hear Ted telling a reporter. ‘You really do find these things when you least expect it.’
Naomi’s question pulls me out of my dreamy, duvet-like reverie.
‘Are you still in touch with the guy, your ex?’ Naomi wants to know. ‘The father?’
Be sane, be normal, be cool. ‘We’ve stayed friends, but agreed to stay out of each other’s way, for a while at least. It’s for the best.’
‘That’s so sad. But I can totally understand how something like that could tear a couple apart,’ says Naomi. ‘I definitely lost a few friendships after the automobile collision, you know?’
I am outraged that others would pile yet more misery on this woman in her lowest hour. Who are these peoplethat head for the doorway during the worst time of your life? ‘People are dicks,’ I say emphatically. I start to feel a real protectiveness towards Naomi. ‘How can that even be a thing, genuinely?’ I finally say. ‘Who throws a mate away over something like this?’
‘Right?’ Naomi says. ‘Anyway, fuck ’em. Fuck every last one of them.’
After dinner, we settle on her porch with its rocking chairs and peeling white floorboards as the sun sets over the street, dappled sunlight from a perfect Canadian autumn all over us.
This is as happy as I’ve felt in a while, until Naomi begins weeping quietly over her glass of wine. At first, she tries to stop the tears, but the effort becomes too much and she lets go with some heaving, convulsing sobs. She reaches out to my hand for support in a way that alarms me.
‘I just miss them so much,’ she seethes, getting more and more worked up. ‘I can never, ever get used to it, and I don’t want to. Like some days I can hardly breathe. I could drive my fucking hand through the hollow in my heart.’
She takes a fortifying breath, exhaling with a shudder. I am way out of my depth, but oh, how I want to make things somehow better.
