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get out of this.
    â€œBertha Jean, leave me alone.”
    â€œShhh,” BJ says.
    BJ’s only weakness, if you can call it that — more of a sore spot—is her name. Bertha was her grandmother’s name and since her grandmother died a week before Bertha was born, her parents gave their baby girl the name as a sign of love and remembrance. The name haunted her until grade six when Michelle found out Bertha’s middle name and started to call her friend BJ. I started using the nickname too, and by junior high no one remembered BJ as anything but BJ. Not that she wasn’t teased about that name a time or a hundred. But we still had “Bertha” as a little word we could poke her with every
now and then.
    BJ narrows her eyes at me. “Let me guess how it went with Jamie. He started out shaky. Not a favourite of anyone in the garage and clueless about all things mechanical. We know that. The guy can barely pump his own gas. But he’s starting to grow on them. People like him and he’s doing pretty good at the garage. He’s catching on fast and trying really hard, just like he always does.” BJ finishes her spiel, sits back and crosses her arms.
    â€œYeah, right.”
    I wish I could laugh and tell her she’s wrong. Jamie’s charm and passion for life are as predictable as BJ thinks they are.
    If anything could prove that Jamie is a special kind of person, it’s my father’s acceptance of him, first as my boyfriend and then as my husband.
    â€œWhat does he do?” Dad asked after he overheard the guys in the garage talking about my new boyfriend, gossip they rarely got to share.
    â€œWell, he’s a jack-of-all-trades. Right now he’s playing bass guitar in a band called—”
    â€œA band?” Dad’s voice went down an octave and he crossed his arms.
    â€œRight now. He does roofing sometimes. And he worked on a supply boat for a couple of months last year.” I could see by my father’s face that every word was digging a bigger hole for Jamie.
    â€œWhere does he live?”
    â€œIn an apartment.” Something told me not to include the part that he shared the two-bedroom with four other guys.
    â€œAnd who pays when you go to dinner?”
    â€œWe take turns.” It was one of the few lies I ever told my father.
    â€œI think it’s time we meet this fellow. Bring him over to dinner on Sunday. And don’t expect me to be nice to him. I don’t tolerate slackers.”
    And Dad hadn’t at first. He practically told Jamie that he didn’t think he was right for his daughter. But Jamie kept coming back to the house, undeterred by anything or anyone, and a little over a year later, after Dad walked me up the aisle, Dad shook Jamie’s hand and smiled. Such is the power of Jamie.
    As the waitress comes with our food, BJ smiles.
    â€œI know I’m right,” she says, opening a bottle of ketchup. “That’s exactly what Jamie would do.”
    â€œChange of subject,” Michelle pipes up. “How’s your nan?”
    I shrug. “Same.”
    â€œWhen I went to see Pop at the home, Mrs. Talbot said your nan started to take off her clothes in the common room. But the aides stopped her and brought her back to her room.”
    â€œJesus,” BJ says, “why did you tell her that?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause there’s some things you just don’t need to know.”
    â€œLike what?” Michelle leans back in her chair.
    â€œLike what you just told Jennifer.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œI don’t know. Lots of stuff.”
    â€œHa. Good rebating skills, BJ. ‘Lots of stuff ’ really straightens that up for me.”
    â€œLike that the word is ‘debating,’ not ‘rebating.’ Like you get lots of words wrong.” BJ starts to wave her hands as she speaks. “It’s not cancer of the Eucharist that Mrs. Simon