The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak

Author:Todd Babiak [Babiak, Todd]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Humorous, Literary
ISBN: 9781551992501
Google: Sy8Lii8hcPEC
Amazon: B0035J5DVO
Barnesnoble: B0035J5DVO
Goodreads: 13533118
Publisher: Emblem Editions
Published: 2006-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

49

a dance with mr. goober

In front of the mirror in her tiny bathroom, Madison practised her French. Je voudrais manger des caillettes provençales ou un boeuf bourguignon. Yet she reserved a small percentage of emotional distance. No one could deny this was their first night out together without Jonas or her parents or Garith or the lunatic professor, but Rajinder had not used the word date.

Yet.

Madison didn’t want to get her hopes up in case Rajinder, whose social skills bordered on performance art, just wanted to be friends. After all, this was an early dinner on a Monday, a pre-soaps event instead of a romantic Friday night. Then there was the boring weirdo factor: maybe Rajinder was a boring weirdo.

Even so, she drank some non-alcoholic Saskatoon berry wine from the farmers’ market, lit sandalwood candles, and filled the basement suite with her most powerful pre-date CD: The Cure’s “Mixed Up.” Of course, she also wore her number-one pair of panties, the blue-and-white ones with the mosquito on the front.

The tiny bathroom mirror was not full-length so Madison had to stand on a milk crate to check herself out in profile. Her jean jacket and best scarf added a French flair to her ensemble, and helped hide the belly.

Did wanting to go to Paris make her a proper francophile? Was it a coincidence, un heureux concours de circonstances, that they both loved France? It didn’t matter, really. What mattered was that for the first time in over two years, Madison was genuinely interested in a male of the species who wasn’t a sixteenth-century Japanese poet.

Finished in the bathroom, and with another ten minutes to waste, Madison danced around the basement suite with Mr. Goober, the plush monkey her father had won at a Calaway Park balloon-popping kiosk in 1987.

As Madison danced to The Cure, she told Mr. Goober, in French, that she loved him. She had always loved him. It had been a secret before but now Madison didn’t care if the whole world knew. “Monsieur Goober,” she said, with a tender kiss, “je vous aime.”

There was a knock on the door, seven minutes early. Madison shrieked and threw the monkey. Mr. Goober crashed into a stone goddess statue on the television, a gift from her mother. Madison shrieked again, this time in stealth. The windows leading into her basement suite were not large, but she was stricken with the certainty that Rajinder had just seen her slow-dancing and smooching with Mr. Goober. She ran into the tiny bathroom to both check her makeup and register her mortification. Then she turned off the stereo, blew out the candles, took a deep and restorative breath, and started up the stairs.

Rajinder stood a few feet from the door in a grey suit and a white shirt opened at the neck. He held a bouquet of freesia. “Jonas told me they were your favourite.”

“They are my favourite.” Madison took the flowers and smelled them, peeking up to scan his face for a clue. No, he hadn’t seen the je vous aime bit.

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