Walking Along Steeles at Midnight
BY Sara Heinonen
We are six courses into Clarence Lau’s wedding banquet up at the north edge of the city. Two courses left to go. A waiter moves from table to table pouring red wine. Another carries pitchers of Orange Crush and Coke.
Clarence and I work at an electronics store. So does Gordie, who is sitting beside me. Gordie and I are both married, but spouses weren’t invited. Although I didn’t really want to come tonight, the invitation had the weight of an obligation. The small talk at our table ran out before the meal started but shrill music blasting from the speakers is keeping things festive. We watch a slideshow on a screen beside the stage, a repeating loop of family members posed in various living rooms, images that make me want to get up and stretch, even walk right outside into the blizzard that started when I set out from our apartment downtown. Gordie’s offered to give me a ride to the subway after the banquet. There aren’t any windows in this Chinese restaurant, so the conditions we’ll go out into are a mystery.
Clarence and his bride come over to our table. He’s holding a glass of wine and his face is also red. With his glasses off, his eyes look big and crazed. He says we should all have dim sum together soon, as if it’s something we would do. His bride smiles at each of us. She hasn’t stopped smiling all night. I remember my own wedding two years ago: that feeling of goodwill and being cushioned from uncertainty and feeling surprised, too, that a decision Yousef and I made could result in so many people together in one room.
The next course arrives and we stay still while the waiter mechanically serves out portions of noodles on small white plates. The entertainment is Clarence’s brother shouting into the mic in Cantonese, his voice hoarse and manic above the music and conversation. A Chinese man across the table tells Gordie and me that they’re going to start playing games to embarrass the bride and groom. The waiter sets my plate down hard. Dotting the noodles are shiny, unfamiliar mushrooms, round and black, like the buttons on my cardigan. I wore this cardigan even though it’s really not dressy enough, because all I wanted was to be warm. When I was getting ready, Yousef had his head in the fridge, making comments about our food going bad all the time and the waste of it and how it directly related to our needing to save every penny for our own place, which was important if we were going to start a family—which was our plan, right? As if my going out was spoiling both the food and our chance of conceiving. I said it was just pork chops I forgot to cook because they were hidden behind some beers. He turned to me and said my sweater looked too dowdy for a banquet, a lousy way of saying he wished I would stay home and help him figure out what to have for dinner. I said dowdy was the effect I was going for, and left.
The mushroom is slippery in my mouth. I look up while I chew to distract myself from the texture and notice the short young man with big, surprised eyes who is walking along the wall of the restaurant. He’s been doing this all evening, circling the room as if he’ll eventually end up somewhere different. Nobody pays attention to him. I guess he’s somebody’s relative and is always like this. Every so often he stops and stares at the rows of lights on the ceiling, like he’s charging up on energy, then he starts going around again. He is strangely free while the rest of us stay put, sitting and eating like we’re supposed to. Stuck with these mushrooms and noodles that slip from chopsticks.
An amplified voice grabs our attention as the wedding party ushers the bride and groom onto the stage. Two bridesmaids dab white powder onto the bride’s eyebrows. The best man turns Clarence to face his new wife and then she leans toward him until their noses touch. She swishes her face back and forth against his. It looks like they’re kissing and people laugh. When she pulls away, the couple turn to present themselves to the large room full of guests. Clarence’s eyebrows are now powdered white as well. The bridesmaids clap and the rest of the wedding party cheers. A woman at our table shouts across to me: “You understand? This means they grow old together! Good luck for their marriage!”
As soon as dessert is over, people get up fast to leave. The wedding party forms a line by the door and we shake hands one by one and say thank you. There’s a lot of smiling. It went well and now it’s over and everyone can go home and sleep.
Outside, the cars are mounded with hours of heavy snow. Under the sodium lights, they look like orange igloos. Gordie gets in his Honda and starts the engine. I stand and wait. The air stings my cheeks and I like it and the snow is still falling, but in a relaxed way after the storm’s frenzy. When he comes back out and begins wiping the snow off, I realize I don’t want to get in the car. I don’t want to hear any more about Gordie’s big plan to open a computer-repair business really soon. I don’t want to hear anything. What I want is to be alone in this quiet and to walk. I want to cross the parking lot and walk along Steeles Avenue past closed stores and sleeping houses. Yousef will be asleep, too, his own private knot of concerns loosened by the startling world of his dreams, that part of him I’ll never get to meet. Once, I asked him how he can be so sure about all the things we should do and he said it’s like our deciding to get married, as simple as our warm fingers threaded together. While Yousef sleeps and dreams, I’ll walk. I’ll exhale cold clouds of air, a cloud for each of my doubts. Like whether I could get all the way home before he wakes, if home is where I head toward.
Gordie finishes wiping the snow off the car and I clear my throat. “Actually,” I say, “I’d like to take the bus instead.” The snow is a blanket pressing the air out of my voice, making it sound like it’s been prerecorded. If I mention walking, he’ll probably say something to ruin the idea.
Gordie stares, his eyelashes thick with snowflakes. “What are you talking about? Get in, it’s freezing.”
I look toward Steeles Avenue. A car passes. The houses beyond are identical, all dark. Something familiar that’s turned sinister, like a Christmas tree at night with the lights unplugged. Six years ago, I answered an ad for an office assistant at Gold Tech Electronics with the thought Only until I find something better. I’m still there, thinking about leaving, but doing nothing to make it happen. I keep showing up where I’m expected. Showing up to work and to weddings. Showing up at home.
I walk over to the Honda as if I’ve changed my mind, but I haven’t. I want to feel my boots sink into thick new snow on a deserted suburban sidewalk. I’ve got my hand on the door and the snow is landing lightly on my face. It’s just a matter of how to refuse the ride.
