I arrive home after a day of tramping around Bathurst Street, wolf-starved for something on Ted. Desperate for anything, any kind of connective tissue between us.
In the kitchen the night before, Naomi pulled out an old soup tureen that her mother had given her. ‘We used this every year for Yom Kippur,’ she’d said casually, but the detail had burned into me. I realize I have become addicted to hearing those tiny, throwaway details, sporadic though they have been.
But now, I shout her name through the house, wandering from room to room, an itch in my palms.
I rifle through sideboards and lockers. I take apart bathroom cupboards and linen cupboards, looking for something, I’m not sure what. In any case, I come up with nothing. No family photo albums, no paperwork, no Ted. There is only one thing for it, and that is to have a very quick, precursory snoop in Naomi’s bedroom. The walk-in closet is too full of dresses and suits, and I can hear my breath starting to sound heavy as I push them out of the way, searching for anything that might feed whatever horrible feeling I am lugging around in my body.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ The voice comes low, from the doorway. Not curious, but outright suspicious.
‘I needed to find a first-aid kit,’ I tell her, but she is frozen, somewhere in a far-off land between spooked and sceptical.
I have no choice but to stick to my story and brazen the entire horrible moment out.
‘Under the sink,’ is the sub-zero response.
A couple of days later, however, all appears forgiven. As the fairy dust of good sex seems to sparkle on her eyelashes, she is telling me about Stevie, and we’re all buddies again.
‘You know what? I could get this guy to stand on his head and lick his own dick, and he would do that for me,’ Naomi says. ‘Like, I could probably get this dude to doeh-nee-thing.’
We are sitting back on the porch of the house, our spot, amiably absorbing the early sun. Naomi’s eyes are shining in a way that indicates she hasn’t had that much great, aerobic, experimental sex before. It’s as though she is totally shocked that this is even happening; as if she has somehow never deserved it, or it never occurred to her to demand sex that could be this good.
‘Can you believe this guy came from us looking on theinternet?’ she marvels. ‘But you know what? You only need to make a connection with one person.’ She stops to reflect for a second. ‘I genuinely thought all the good guys were gone. I certainly didn’t think that I’d find anyone like that while swiping at home, watchingSNL.’
‘I wouldn’t say that all the good guys are gone,’ I tell her. I notice Naomi is on camomile tea, not her customary bottle of Shiraz. ‘After all, the internet sort of brought us two together, didn’t it?’ It’s meant to sound warm and chummy, but even I can tell there’s a top note of creepiness in my own voice.
In her enthusiasm, she makes a grab for my hand. All I can think of in that single moment is: this is a hand that has touched Ted Levy, repeatedly. These are the hands that have hugged him. Cooked for him. Maybe roughed up one of the childhood bullies whom he has previously talked about. Not for the first time, I drink in the physical form of this woman, so very familiar to him.
I’m often trying to think of a way to bring Ted back into a conversation with Naomi. Living with her has started to involve the cerebral equivalent of sitting on my hands. I spend a lot of time hoping that she will bring up her brother, or that I can bring him up without sounding too invested. Every so often she will mention the word ‘brother’– she never calls him Ted– and it feels like a bracing splash of cold spring water to my senses. How can I not tell where he is yet?
But right now, we are talking about Stevie, a man whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, but who has already stayed over in the house a handful of times. All I know of him is that he’s in orthodontics and wouldapparently lick his own dick or something in order to sexually gratify a woman. He’s already taken Naomi to a cottage in upstate Ontario for a dirty weekend; a decidedly important box has been ticked.
‘A very dirty weekend, from the sound of it,’ I tell Naomi, and she bounces with glee.
‘When we woke up in the morning, the lady in the next cottage stuck her head out the front door to see who was staying in the next house over and didn’t know what to make of us,’ Naomi says. ‘We musta been noisy for sure!’
Whoever admits to another human being that they are noisy in bed past the age of forty?
Because listening to someone tell you about the really great sex they are having (while you yourself are having none of this supposedly really great sex) is so damned exhausting, I go into the kitchen and retrieve an open bottle of wine that I’ve not bought, setting it down between us. Her eyes dart downward towards it. But she’s on a roll conversation-wise about this Stevie character, so she is less aware of my absolute need to get to the end of the bottle.
‘I mean… this is just so goddam great!’ she finally shrieks, a crescendo of giggling schoolgirl hysteria. I suck Riesling through my teeth, down my throat. I’ve identified the emotion: insecurity. I’m worried that I will no longer be so huge in her emotional world.
A smaller thought starts to settle in my gut. If this Stevie situation gathers legs and becomes a Thing, she will definitely want the whole house back to herself, so that they can fuck away on every worktop and on that seven-mile kitchen island and he can stand on his head, or do sexy cartwheels, or what the fuck have you, in every corner. I will likely be told to sling it, and I’m categorically not doing thatbefore I get to meet Ted. As Naomi talks, I start to picture the four of us out on double dates.
‘What do you make of Stevie, then?’ I will ask Ted.
‘Oh, as long as he makes my step-sister happy, that’s all that matters to me. She is pretty important to me. Always has been.’
‘I know. And she has been through a lot as well. I just want her to be happy too. I love that about you, Ted. You are the one person who will always put family first.’
‘Well, not always.’ He will pull me in for a kiss. ‘Some things are more important than family. And some people are. Right?’
‘I was hoping you’d say something like that.’
With the Riesling wine long gone, we head back inside. I’m too afraid of what she will say if I bring up Alice, but I feel bold enough to ask: ‘Did you and your step-brother ever go out on dates together?’
Naomi gives me a look as if to say:Why are we talking about him? Again?
‘You know, when you were younger.’
