Em
“Why don’t you show Ian his room?” my mother suggested. “You two can unpack and get cleaned up before dinner.”
Ian eyed everything as we made our way up the staircases but didn’t say a word. He probably hated my mother’s eclectic decor, but every artwork and tchotchke was dear to me. Ian’s preferred decor would be early mancave with pine panelling and neon bar signs.
By the time we got up to the third floor, I was puffing, and Ian looked like he could still jog up to the top of the CN tower.
“Little out of shape?” he asked.
I tried to glare at him, but I was breathing too hard to make it really work. “It’s because of my suitcase. A gentleman would have offered to carry it.”
“Too bad there’s not a gentleman here,” Ian replied. “Besides, I hear that chicks can do anything guys can.”
While I really wanted to suggest that Ian insert one part of his anatomy into another lightless part, I bit my tongue. For this scheme to work, we had to appear like a loving couple. If I pulled off the role of Ian’s adoring girlfriend, I wanted a best actress Oscar.
I opened the door of the guest room. The multiple quilts at the foot of the bed hinted at how cold it got at night. My childhood was spent either sweating or freezing because the third floor of our old house had all the temperature extremes.
Ian dropped his tiny duffel bag on the chair.
“How did you get all your stuff in there?” I asked.
“One change of clothes and my kit bag. What else do I need?”
I recalled the contents of my suitcase and listed them, “Laptop, books, journal, sweaters, slippers, robe, pajamas?”
“Got my phone and I sleep raw,” Ian said.
“Too much information.” Yuck, of course he did. Luckily, I didn’t have to change his sheets. “The bathroom is right across the landing.”
I opened the door and heard the familiar drip of the tap. Should I tell him about all the idiosyncrasies of the plumbing? Nah, I’d let him find out for himself.
“Okay, if you want to wash up or whatever, you’re all set,” I babbled. Ian made me nervous. Maybe it was having to reveal so much about myself to someone who was practically an enemy. For someone who spent her days projecting scenarios, I certainly hadn’t thought this through.
But instead of going to the bathroom, Ian followed me to my room. Since nothing had changed in here since I left for university, it was a shrine to teenaged me.
Ian looked around. I was embarrassed by the number of academic awards I’d displayed in perfect order. He paused in front of a tiny photo. “You played lacrosse?”
“Not really. Just for one summer.” My parents had sent my sister and me to a camp where we learned about First Nations culture. Unexpectedly, I’d really enjoyed playing lacrosse and joined a club when I got home.
“It’s a pretty tough sport. Some teammates have played,” Ian said. Was there an admiring tone in his voice?
“I’m not athletic like you, but I’m not a total couch potato either.”
His gaze raked over me. “I’m sure you put your body to good use.”
That sounded more like “I’d like to put your body to good use.” I blushed. When I was reincarnated, I wanted to come back as someone whose skin didn’t betray her every emotion.
Ian turned to my bulletin board. “You sure have a lot of photos of old Lucas here. I thought chicks burned photos of their exes.”
“Your exes probably do. But if I got rid of all the photos with Lucas in them, I wouldn’t have any high school memories.”
Ian made a low whistling sound. “How long did you guys go out?”
“Ten years. Pretty sad, right?”
He shrugged. “I’m surprised it took you that long to figure out he was an asshole.”
For a moment, I was stunned silent. Sure, Lucas had disappointed me when he wouldn’t commit, but before that everything was perfect. My family was so sad that we’d broken up. Friends warned me I’d never find another guy like him.
“What are you talking about? Everyone liked Lucas,” I said.
I heard a faint snort. “Really? I didn’t. I’m pretty sure Abby didn’t either. And if you took a poll of our old hockey team, at least half the team wished he’d stop yakking and play hockey.”
Lucas disliked Ian, but I never dreamed the feeling was mutual. Lucas was very popular. He enjoyed managing sports teams and organizing get-togethers. My social life took a downward turn after the breakup, because I wasn’t part of our whole McGill clique anymore.
“Anyways, dating a chick for ten years and then saying you don’t want to get married is a shit thing to do. You gotta be up front about that crap.”
“Is that what you do?” I asked.
Ian nodded. “Gotta set the ground rules.”
I could see the flaw in this argument. “If you’re so honest about what you want, why are your ex-girlfriends burning your photos after your breakup?”
Ian frowned. “Trouble is, chicks always believe they’re different. That they’re the one who’s gonna change your mind.”
Was that me? Lucas had never said right out that he didn’t want to get married, but the fact that he never proposed despite my hints should have been a sign. Maybe not as obvious a sign as someone saying, “I never want to get married.”
Having given me enough to ponder for hours, Ian drifted out of the room.
My mother’s mung bean casserole could best be described as challenging and at worst revolting. I watched Ian take his first mouthful. His eyebrows elevated almost imperceptibly, then he reached for his glass of water. But he gamely worked his way through the large serving that my mother deemed “a big boy” like Ian needed. I felt guilty because one of the things I’d promised him was good food. Then I remembered I still had an insulated pack full of muffins, fruit, and road snacks. I’d leave it in his room later, so if he was still hungry, he could have a snack.
My parents dominated most of the conversation with a discussion that veered from local politics to global warming. Our dinner table was always a place for debate and argument. As a child, I remembered going to a friend’s home for dinner and being shocked that the conversation was limited to “How was your day?” and “Pass the salt.” Ian wasn’t saying too much, but his occasional comments showed he was listening.
Then we got onto my mother’s favourite bugaboo: income equality.
“When you compare the differences between the richest and poorest households in the United States, the injustice is clear. The highest income quintile has experienced growth since the eighties, while the lowest quintiles have actually had periods of decline.”
“But how would you enforce any kind of change? You can be sure that the top income earners would protest against reform.” My father enjoyed playing devil’s advocate and teasing out arguments against a point of view he actually agreed with.
My mother said, “Ben and Jerry’s is a good example of how a corporation can affect change. They created a policy that the pay ratio of the highest earner to the lowest earner could not be more than 5:1. That’s positive change in action.” Then she turned to Ian. “You’ve been very quiet. What are your thoughts on wage disparity?”
Showtime. I was pretty sure that this was the point where my last boyfriend Todd had lost my parents’ respect when he declared that high salaries were necessary to attract the best CEOs. Ian wasn’t going to say that, but I hoped for some kind of right-libertarian statement about his freedom to become a millionaire. Or if he was completely inarticulate, that might do the trick too. Had he even been following the discussion?
Ian cleared his throat. “Well, I’m no deep thinker like everyone here, but here’s how I see it. I’m working on a new office building right now. The engineers and architects make a lot more dough than me, and that’s because if they screw up, the whole thing’s gonna fall down. But if I don’t do my job right or maybe the guys pouring the foundation mess up, then the building could also collapse. So whose work is more important? The guys who make the plans or the guys who execute them?”
My mother nodded like a bobblehead. “Exactly, exactly. As Marx said, the proletariat creates the wealth in society. People like you who are doing the labour. Do you belong to a union, Ian?”
Oh no. My mother was getting a proletarian crush on Ian. More proof of my failure to think through this whole charade.
I tuned in again when Ian finished speaking. “Besides, why are you asking me all this stuff when we’ve got an economics analyst right here?” This time he managed not to pronounce the word as a-nal-ist.
That was nice of him to say, but I couldn’t be distracted from my mission here: establishing Ian as a bad boyfriend.
“What do you think about a flat tax rate?” I asked him.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Personal income tax gets charged at a single rate of, say, 20% instead of rates that increase as your income rises. It’s a popular idea in the U.S. to eliminate tax complexity and deduction loopholes. Here in Canada, Alberta already has a flat rate for personal income. There are no sudden rate jumps if your income rises into a new bracket.” I didn’t bother telling him the negatives because if he agreed with a flat tax, he’d be hearing them all soon.
Ian squinted at me like he was trying to figure out what the catch was. “Sounds okay.”
My mother was ready to explode at the injustice to lower-income earners. For one moment, I almost felt sorry for Ian.