The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [53]
“Me neither,” said Kyle.
“Let me see that bottle,” said Steve. He opened it and began digging at its contents with a disposable chop- stick. “It’s not hard,” he said. “It’s granular.” Steve sprinkled some soy shavings onto the cold, oily glacier that was once moo goo gai pan, and then ate a forkload.
“Delicious. A good soy sauce is like a good wine. Gets better with age.”
“So, Kyle,” said Gloria, unaware that she was batting her lashes, “is your family literary?”
“Literary?”
“Do they, you know, read books? Are they like me, for example—and live for nothing but art and music and masterful writing?”
“Kyle doesn’t like discussing his family,” said Brittany.
“Why not?” asked Steve.
“I don’t think it’s anyone’s business,” said Kyle.
Brittany said, “Kyle thinks his family is nothing but a collection of emotionally frozen, passive-aggressive hillbillies.”
“Really?” asked Steve.
“That’s not true,” said Kyle.
“But it is,” Brittany said, “and never discussing them won’t make it untrue.” She looked at Gloria. “Our place is like your place. No family photos anywhere. Not even stuck to the fridge with a magnet. When I try to ask about his family, the subject gets changed.”
“Gloria,” said Kyle, “tell me more about your upcoming role as Lady Windermere in the local dinner theatre production of Lady Windermere’s Fan.”
“It’s the lead role, you know.”
“It must be difficult.”
“She can’t remember her lines,” said Steve.
Gloria spun around to Steve. “That’s not true! One doesn’t remember lines, Steve. One internalizes them. One doesn’t rattle off lines like an idiot savant. There must be a soul and music to them. Please pass me some Scotch.” Gloria poured.
“I had to memorize half of human knowledge to become a surgeon,” said Brittany. “But I could never memorize a script. And Lady Windermere’s Fan is a long play with complex nuances.”
Kyle asked, “How do you remember your lines? Do you have any techniques?”
“I try to read the lines and have the emotions behind them fill my body.”
“Hooey,” said Steve. “You have no technique. Trying to get memories to stick to your brain is like trying to get Ping-Pong balls to stick to a brick wall.”
“I’ll make a very good Lady Windermere,” said Gloria. “I will.”
Brittany changed the subject. “Before you went to fetch the soy sauce, we were discussing your son,” she said. “The one in college.”
“Ah, yes.” Steve and Gloria spoke in unison.
“What’s his name?” Kyle asked.
Steve and Gloria looked as though they were deciding whether to accept a plea bargain.
“Yes,” said Brittany. “I bet you chose a good name.”
Gloria sipped her Scotch and Steve idly scraped more flecks of mummified soy sauce from its diseased flask.
There was a silence.
Finally, Steve said, “Kendall. His name is Kendall.”
Gloria looked at him as if to say, Really but quickly snapped to and said, “Yes, young Kendall. Such a good son.”
Bethany
c/o YHA London—Hampstead Heath Hostel
4 Wellgarth Road
London, England
VIA FEDEX
Hi, Roger.
Surprise! I’m in jolly olde London. I made the jailbreak! Farewell, Shtooples! Sorry I didn’t say goodbye to you. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of leaving. Getting my passport took a week, and I talked myself in and out of this maybe fifty times while I was waiting for it. Was there a new chapter of Glove Pond to read—or a diary entry? I’ll have missed it. Sorry.
It’s great here, Roger, art and beauty and music and stuff everywhere—I feel like Gloria, which is scary—except every time I look at the price on anything I faint. How can these people afford to live in their own country? We got here a week ago and are staying in this hostel in a place called Hampstead, which is where Wallace and Gromit would live if they were here: nice little stone houses, and behind every door I can clearly sense the presence of various kinds of exotic cheddars. All they eat in this country is sandwiches—the kind you got in your lunch box in school, cut diagonally and sold in sets of two inside vacuum- packed containers at corner stores and train stations. I bet even the car dealerships