The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [45]
On a purely technical matter, next weekend I’ll be dropping off Zoe for her monthly three-hour visit. Do you want me to drop her off at your place, or do you want me to drop her off at a custody-visit hot spot like the aquarium? Your call.
You have my numbers and email.
J.
Glove Pond
Kyle paid the Chinese food delivery man, and Brittany carried the bags to the dining-room table, which had been dusted by Steve with several sweeps of a small throw rug.
Gloria then opened each grease-blotted delivery bag with wonder, as though it might yield gold, frankincense and myrrh. She made no effort to fetch cutlery or plates; Kyle went into the kitchen to find some. He rifled through the cutlery drawer, where he found chunky pieces of sterling silver dinnerware. The silver was so badly neglected that its surface was like the oil- caked and smeared concrete bay floors at a Mr Muffler franchise. Jesus, these people are disasters, he thought, looking for something, anything, that might be useable as serviettes. No paper towels. No tea towels. No cloth napkins. In the end, he found a three-week-old copy of a local shopping flyer, and around each knife/fork/ spoon he folded a paper sheet. He carried these four set-ups out to the dining-room table.
“What are those?” asked Gloria.
“Set-ups.”
“What’s a set-up?”
“It’s a restaurant term. Instead of placing a separate napkin, fork, knife and spoon, you bundle them up in the back room and then simply put out one ‘set-up’ for each seat. It saves time.”
Nobody commented on the fact that they were using newspaper sheets as napkins. Brittany removed her cutlery. “This is expensive stuff,” she said. “Sterling.”
“Wedding gifts,” said Gloria.
“You could pawn each of these suckers for a few grand,” said Kyle. “Your cutlery drawer is worth maybe forty grand.”
Brittany said, “You could pay for a first-class trip around the world with just your serving spoons.”
And here, dear reader, is where time froze for Steve and Gloria—where their perception of the universe stopped, leaving them in a not unpleasant dimension- less limbo. And then, like a small rose seedling emerging from beneath the winter snow to be kissed by the sun’s love, both time and reality returned to the couple with a trickle. And then tiny acetylene bursts somewhere in their reptile cortexes were followed by walloping endorphin rushes and a moment of satori bliss.
“Kyle, we need plates,” said Brittany.
Kyle went to fetch some while Steve and Gloria remained almost tasered with joy. Only after another minute did they return to full consciousness. They unwrapped their set-ups and began to poke into the contents of the takeout boxes and flats.
“Ooh!” said Gloria. “Moo goo gai pan. I love moo goo gai pan.”
“No,” said Steve. “You merely enjoy saying ‘moo goo gai pan.’”
“And what if I do? Kyle, would you like some moo goo gai pan?” Gloria speared the largest, juiciest piece of chicken bathed in the foil tray amidst a flotsam of defeated mushrooms and vegetables.
“Sure,” said Kyle.
Kyle was amazed at how much noise his putative hosts made while eating—their athletic slurping and brisk glottal vacuuming noises reminded him of nothing more than soft porn.
“So,” said Brittany. “Where is your son right now?”
Steve and Gloria’s forks stopped in mid-pounce. “Why do you ask?” asked Steve.
“I’m making conversation,” said Brittany.
“Our son is a very special boy,” said Gloria.
“Special indeed,” Steve echoed.
Kyle assessed the data around him—the house frozen in time; Steve and Gloria’s wrinkled skin; the absence of any evidence of human life under sixty—and