pianist again. Two more acts followed, forgotten as soon as they finished, and then came the intermission.
They hung around the corridor outside the banquet hall and Billy told Pete about how he’d met the girl. There were three high schools in town. There was a small Catholic French high school called Sacré Coeur. There was Northside Secondary, where Pete had gone before he’d quit, and where most of the out-of-town kids came by bus. And there was Heron Heights, in town, where Billy said Emily had just started grade twelve. Billy had been at Heron Heights with the Northside lacrosse team, playing an exhibition game, the first of the season. He said he’d noticed Emily sitting with her friends in the stands nearby. After the game, Billy had thought she’d gone, but later, when he was coming out of the change room, he saw her in the corridor. He said he’d gone up and talked to her a little bit, and since then they’d been on a couple of dates. He was agreeable with just about everybody, but he was bold as well. Pete envied much about him.
—Hey, you.
They turned and saw her coming towards them. She walked with cool poise.
—That was great, said Billy. The piano playing. I didn’t have any idea you could do that.
—Thank you. I practised that one for a long time. I didn’t think you were coming. If I’d known you were here, I might have been nervous.
She reached out and took Billy’s hand, then asked if he was going to introduce her to his friend.
—This is Pete.
—Hey, Pete. I’m Emily Casey.
—Hey, said Pete. What kind of music was that?
—It was a waltz, said Emily. Chopin.
—Well whatever, said Billy. It was great as hell. Anyway, when you’re done here, you want to come with us? We’ve got a case of beer in the car.
—I can’t, said Emily. I’m here with my family. But I’ve got some time in the week. And next weekend my friend Nancy might have some people over.
They would have talked more but just then a man appeared in the corridor behind them, some distance away. He was a slim man. Collared shirt and tie. The man was simply standing there, not moving towards them, but all the same Pete felt himself scrutinized. He occupied himself by examining some outreach tracts in a rack on the wall.
—Emily, said the man.
She gave the man a little wave, turned back to Billy, and said: That’s my dad.
—The cop, said Billy, his voice low enough that Emily’s father couldn’t hear him.
—Yes. Anyway, call me.
She withdrew as coolly as she’d arrived, going through the doors of the banquet hall with them watching her, and her father watching them.
The case of Labatt made a full revolution of locations before it was opened. They ended up back at Billy’s brother’s apartment, where they smoked more dope and drank beer. Billy and his brother sat on the couch with their guitars and spent some time disagreeing over what song to play. Billy’s brother had married just out of high school. His wife was watching television and didn’t pay attention to Pete or Billy or even Billy’s brother.
The hours passed and the beers got fewer. Pete went out on the balcony to get some air. The lights of town winked up at him,unchanging. Pete thought about the old bald man, Grady—or was it Gardy?—who’d come to the gas station earlier that night, with his one idiot son in the car and his talk of his other son, lover of Thunderbirds, long dead. Pete thought also of Emily, cool and collected, seated at the piano in the silent instant before she played.
S tan’s cronies usually convened at Western Autobody & Glass a couple of times each week. The sign over the bay doors read Family Owned and Operated Since 1934. Huddy Phillips, who’d opened the garage himself, had signed it over to his son Bob five years ago, but Huddy and the other old-timers still got together in the adjoining office to swap their stories. They stood around, drinking coffee, talking at length, sometimes talking over each
Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas