Writing a book involves a lot of time thinking ‘What if?’ and then playing out scenarios, wondering if they are realistic, if they drive a story forward, if they work – and if I want to write them and if anyone will want to read them. I seem to do this with my own life more and more, now that I am older. What if I had studied something else, moved someplace else, had stayed home the night I met someone at a bar who would change the course of my life – and not for the better. Events and missed opportunities from the past play out in my mind often as I go about my day, buying groceries, walking in the park, working out at the gym. Lately one plays out more and more in my head.
My second year of university I took a bus trip from Ontario to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was me and a girl from my residence and two of her friends and forty strangers on a long bus ride that saw mechanical issues in Montreal and extreme delays. By the time we got there we were a day late and the bus had a ripe smell of unwashed bodies and a dodgy toilet. We passed the time braiding each other’s hair and listening to music. Guns N’ Roses were big at the time.
I can’t remember the name of the hotel, but I do remember a lot of things about our eventual arrival and that trip. As we got out of the bus in the parking lot and the driver started pulling luggage from the hold, my friend bent down to get her bag as a coconut fell from a tree and hit her in the head. I almost fell down laughing. She was not impressed with me. I have always had a strong appreciation for physical humour, and it has got me into trouble a few times.
We checked in, took showers, pulled on swimsuits and headed to the beach. I used SPF 2 and burned like a marshmallow over on an open flame and spent the rest of the trip spraying myself with Lidocaine. At the local bar, I think called the Candy Shop, I had to wear a big wrist band saying I was underage. I ordered a diet coke (which I never drink) and was served a rye and coke (which I had never drunk before or since) and thought I was going to end up in prison. Some sailors from Australia where there and one took a shine to me. As I tried to avoid him he kept telling me not to be so shy. A guy from Ryerson in Toronto rescued me, and I had a little holiday romance. He bought me roses from a street vendor and we walked along the beach. His name was John and I still think about him.
At a pool party I ran into someone I went to high school with. It was a peculiar interaction, as he sent his friends over to ask me if I was who he thought I was. We chatted for ten minutes. It was more than enough time.
The shop across from the hotel sold little chocolate cheesecakes and I packed away a few of them on the trip. I went through a stage where I thought cheesecake was the work of magic fairies, but I don’t care for it much anymore.
We were all sharing a new clear shampoo by Dep I think. It smelled divine and I looked for it for years after, wanting to experience the scent again, but can’t find it.
It was a good trip, and all these years later I still remember it fondly.
On the way back, I was standing in MacDonald’s in a different state, I’m just not sure which one. A few of the buses ferrying Canadian students back to the land of snow and ice were filling the parking lot. I remember I was wearing white jean shorts, a peach coloured anorak I bought from a beach shop, and white tennis shoes. My skin was a mixture of soft tan and fading burn and my was hair pinned up. I was standing with a group of girls from the trip, drinking fountain pop and not eating as I’d run out of American money when a guy nearby broke off from his group and came over to ours. He started talking to me. In my memory he looked like a young Wayne Gretzky – no small thing back then. He told me he liked what I was wearing, that I knew how to dress. Everyone had bought what I call a festival anorak, with Fort Lauderdale and the year (which I am keeping to myself) written along the side. I have never cared for clothing with writing, so I bought a plain one in a peach and cream herring bone pattern.
I remember wondering why he was talking to me when I was standing next to my tall, gorgeous friend. I flashed back to the sailor telling me not to be shy – I had no interest in him and was trying to let him know, but this guy, well he had something. And I couldn’t figure out why he was talking to me. He tried a few times. I was tongue tied. And he walked away.
My friend said, ‘he liked you. He was trying to talk to you.’
I did not pick up on it. With him I was shy. It’s happened to me many times in life. Someone really interesting comes along and in my mind I wonder why they are choosing to pay attention to me. I spend so much time lost in my thoughts the person gives up, then I want to chase after them and say… hang on. I’m actually normal.
Most of the time.
Here it is, thirty years later, and I still think about that guy at MacDonald’s. Because I have a PhD in Dwelling, and I am addicted to making myself unhappy. But also, because I like to play the ‘what if’ game.
What if I had picked up on it? Because he was cute, and outgoing, and I was standing in my happy place in the US, not MacDonald’s but the eastern seaboard. Say I had picked up on the signals, like any normal female probably would have. And say we’d had a great conversation. Say we kept in touch, and he wrote me long letters, because he strikes me as the kind of guy who would, and we fell in love. That would have saved me from a few dark relationships in my twenties that changed me as a person, and not in a good way. Maybe he would have been the one. And maybe… well, there are so many maybes. So many what if’s.
If he ever thinks of me I hope he knows I was shy, the way I am around men I find attractive. I hope he doesn’t think I was rude. And I hope he knows like with many moments in my life I wish I had that one to do over. And I hope the next time he told a girl she looked nice, she smiled at him, as I wish I had done.
It’s long gone. The memory remains. Maybe there’s something in that.
*
Many years ago I was driving with my mother on a backroad in Nova Scotia, on our way to visit my father who was in the hospital. Two squirrels ran out on the road and I saw them, but I was also aware of a transport truck behind me. I couldn’t brake or swerve. And I hit one. It was my first and only roadkill and I felt sick as it happened, and sick now thinking about it. I said to my mother, ‘Oh God. I killed one. Do you suppose they were a couple?’ To this day I have no idea why I thought this but my mother said, ‘You never know. You might have done them both a big favour.’ I still think about that, too.
Sometimes I believe everything happens for a reason. Sometimes I believe there is an elegance to the world, a plan if you will. Other times I think we are given opportunities and have to make the most of them. Sometimes I think I missed the opportunity for a wonderful romance with a boy who looked like Wayne Gretzky on a bus trip to Florida. But then I remember what my mother said when I hit a squirrel on a backroad in Nova Scotia. Maybe I was spared pain. For now it remains a ‘what if’ in my life, unless I use it for inspiration instead of despair, and turn it into a story, into a book. Make a few bucks to take another trip. And this time if someone speaks to me, I plan to be ready.