I just re-discovered this piece on an old flash drive. Surprisingly, I didn't have to do much editing to it. I like the tone and Georgia-ness of it. Also so very true of what happens in the ESL teaching world. Here is Georgia and Rick the one-legged surgeon. Rick is a bit of a jerk in this one. I never followed up on her encounter with the other man but perhaps I will.
Tonight is the night, Georgia
says to the photocopier as she prepares her lessons for the next day. After six months of unemployment, she has
found a part-time job at one of the vaguely less shoddy English as a Second
Language schools downtown. She can make
this shoddy judgment because she has now worked for a grand total of nine ESL ‘colleges’,
including one that shutdown two weeks after it opened. She never found out the
exact reason behind the closure, she just knew that one afternoon, as she was
teaching vocabulary of items in the house, the lights went out and an
announcement was made over the loud speaker about a fire and a need to get out
and bring all of their belongings. By
the time she had counted all of her students to make sure they were all there,
the owners had locked up the building, put a note on the door and fled.
Georgia only works two and a half
hours a day now but is mildly hopeful that more work will come up. One of the long term teachers may or may not
have a tumour on his lip and Georgia figures he
very well have to take time off.
“Tonight, tonight, to – night,”
Georgia sings, pumping her courage.
Rick, the one-legged surgeon she
has been seeing for two months, has not made one move on Georgia, not a
kiss on the mouth, not a peck on the cheek, not a hand on the small of her
back. Georgia is so attracted to him that
she feels the hairs on her arms rise up whenever he stands close to her. They are both still taking yoga – they’ve been
promoted to pre-intermediate; well, Claudia, the instructor had suggested that
Georgia might want to stay a fifth session in beginner but Georgia had balked,
out of pride and out of wanting to see Rick more. She doesn’t really enjoy the classes at all
anymore but she loves the tea time she has with Rick in her basement suite
after. They also usually go out at least
one time on the weekends – to a movie or dinner or to a pub concert on
Commercial Drive. Rick pays every time,
saying he can claim her as a business expense.
“Huh?” Georgia
asked the first time he made that quip. Georgia doesn’t feel guilty because as a
one-legged surgeon, Rick makes at least 10 times Georgia’s annual net income. She knows that if she were still living in
the United States,
she would be eligible for food stamps.
Georgia has been patient waiting
for Rick to initiate some physical contact.
She’s not, of course, a hundred per cent certain that he is interested
in her that way but his sustained eye contact and generous compliments – he
told her the other day that he liked her new haircut, when in fact she hadn’t
done a thing to her short, dyed red head, nothing but forgotten to comb it –
leads her to believe that he must want to be with her in some way.
He’s confident but so gentle that
she decides that he is simply shy in this area.
She thinks if she kick-starts him, that he’ll take the ball and run with
it.
“Balls,” says Georgia. “Tonight we’ll have balls.” With that she finishes her copying, goes into
the teachers’ room to get her purse and says goodbye to a couple of the late
Friday afternoon stragglers.
“Have a good weekend,” she says to
Norm.
“You too,” he calls back, as he
rolls a homemade cigarette.
“Oh my god I so will,” Georgia says
and in a move surprising even to her, throws her hat in the air and catches it
before it falls to the floor.
“To life!” she shouts, as she walks
out the door.
“I’m going to ask him straight out,”
Georgia
says to herself in the mirror as she runs her fingers through her hair, trying to
give it a little life.
“Rick, do you or do you not want to
have sex?”
Maybe not have sex.
Make love.
Yes, that is better.
It is so the time. There had been some speculation by Georgia’s
cousin George, on his visit last month that Rick was gay.
“Or maybe,’ he added, “He’s just
not that into you.”
But George is an idiot, thinks Georgia. A former drug dealer turned former drug
addict turned into his present incarnation, assistant head of a missionary
Christian bike gang in Bellingham. She knows that Rick is not gay as well as she
knows that she is in love with him. Not
only has Rick been married before, for six years before his wife left him for a
blind American veteran of the first Iraq invasion, but he has told her a few
times that he finds women older than himself very attractive.
“I mean, look at Sophia Loren or Helen Mirren. Those are hot women and they really came into
their hotness in their 50s.”
Rick has been dropping hints for
weeks, Georgia thinks, about his attraction to her. The older women comments, telling her she has
amazing eyes, complimenting her knowledge of left wing political heroes and her
reading material.
“He just needs a little push,” she
says and walks out into the living room where her roommate is watching TV.
“So, um, Rick is going to pick me
up and we are going to go out to the Rime restaurant to hear Sarah Jane
Morris.”
“Uh huh,” says her roommate,
flipping channels.
“Okay, yeah, she’s an amazing folk
singer from England that I’ve never heard but that Rick really likes so that is
where we will be and we might come back here or I’m not sure we might go to his
place. Well, the show might go a bit
late so I’m not really sure when I’ll be back.”
“Alright, Georgia,” says Richard, who has yet
to turn away from the TV.
She has already figured out the
logistics, loud sex wise. While their
basement suite is small, the two bedrooms are on opposite sides, Richard’s
right by the kitchen and Georgia’s
by the door. She has never heard
anything from Richard’s room and in a test last week; she taped herself
screaming and played it in her room while she ran over to Richard’s. She could hear it pretty well without any
music on, but when she put on a CD at volume level 6 and above on her player,
her screaming was almost completely muffled. And that was loud shouting. If she and Rick
were to have sex, she would force herself to keep it down. And Rick was such a gentleman that she knew
he would be considerate as well. Or,
better still, they could go to his place.
But he lived quite far away in West Van and the Rime was only two blocks
from Georgia’s. Tea at her house was a much more natural next
step.
Rime is packed by the time Georgia
and Rick get there, but they manage to find a cozy table for two in the corner.
“This is a cozy table for two,” Georgia says,
and looks Rick in the eyes. Then,
feeling embarrassed by her brazenness, shifts her gaze to his artificial
leg. It’s a hot summer night, so Rick is
wearing a pair of walking shorts. Georgia is
fascinated by the fact that he has no problem letting the world see his fake
limb.
“Does your leg hurt tonight?” she
asks him. “I mean, I mean, your stump?
Did you stand a lot today?”
“Nope, no surgeries. So a lot of sitting in my office.”
“Oh good. I don’t mean oh good you didn’t have any surgeries. You are a surgeon, I’m sure you get off on
surgery, like I get off on teaching.”
Oh god.
“Anyway,” Georgia inhales.
“Would you like some wine?”
“Huh, oh yes, yes, good, yes wine
please.”
By the time Sarah Jane Morris gets
to the stage, Georgia
has had three glasses of wine and shared a small plate of French fries with
Rick. She’s more thirsty than hungry and
finds that, as always, the wine is making her feel more relaxed, even a bit
sleepy. If not for the hard pounding her
heart is doing as she decides when would be a good time to talk to Rick about
sex, she would be nodding off.
“Here she comes,” says Rick and
starts to clap.
Sarah Jane Morris plays for an hour
and Georgia
finds that she loves the music. The
singer sounds like a latter day Janis Joplin and even throws in Take Another
Little Piece of My Heart.
‘Baby, baby, baby!” Georgia sings
along, getting louder and louder until the last baby is more of a shriek. A man behind her taps her on the shoulder and
Georgia
turns to look at him.
“You are a good singer!” he tells
her and even over the mania of the crowd she can hear that he has a thick
Spanish accent. No one has ever told her
that she is a good singer before.
“Thanks!” she smiles back, feeling
emboldened. She notices he is a good
looking young man with strong cheekbones and deep brown eyes.
She looks at Rick but sees that he
is enthralled by Sarah. They haven’t
talked much during the show because it is too loud and Rime is a small venue
and no one is really chatting. Still, Georgia tried to engage Rick, her theory
being that if she keeps his attention through the evening, her real question
would be easier to ask.
“Georgia,” Rick finally said, “I
really love this singer. She’s so great,
don’t you think? Would you mind if we
just listened for awhile?”
“Oh,” Georgia said, feeling tired
suddenly. “Of course.”
She tells herself to not take that
personally, Rick simply wants to listen to the music. But the wine and her nervousness gets in the
way of everything else in her brain and so when the waitress comes around, she
orders a beer.
She watches Rick watching Sarah
Jane Morris, who is 55 if she is a day.
Her bright red hair whip along with her head whenever she moves, which
is a lot.
Rick is in love with Sarah Jane
Morris, Georgia thinks to herself. Oh
god.
“You sing a lot?” the Spanish man asks her,
leaning into her a bit.
“Oh, well, no, no,” she smiles and
looks over for Rick, who has now gone up to the stage because the concert has
ended and Sarah Jane Morris is preparing to leave. There are other fans milling about but it is
Rick who has her attention.
“Oh,” says Georgia, her
insecurity from earlier in the evening returning.
She looks back at the youthful
Spanish man.
“Where are you from? I mean, I hear an accent. Spain?”
“Huh? No, no, Dominican Republic. I moved here last year.”
“A bit different here for you?” she
asks him, becoming enthralled with his eyes.
For his part, he is still smiling, his perfect white teeth bright
against his brown face.
“Oh, it’s nice here for sure. I like it.”
“Are you here alone?” he asks her.
“Huh,” says Georgia. “No, no not at
all. I’m here with, well over there with
Sarah Jane Morris is my, um, my, with Rick, I’m here with Rick. We are here together.”
“Oh,” says the Dominican Republic
man. “Maybe that is too bad.”
“Really?” says Georgia, “Well, huh,
well.” She is blushing and noticing that
she is making sounds similar to a girl giggling in the school yard.
“Who are you, you know, here with?”
“Oh, my brother, his wife, and her
boyfriend.”
Oh, huh? Her boyfriend?”
“I make a little joke there. Actually, he is my cousin.”
Oh, huh? Her boyfriend?”
“I make a little joke there. Actually, he is my cousin.”
“I see. I see.”
Georgia is almost
repulsed at how sexy she is finding the Dominican Republic man. He’s at least ten years younger than Rick and
20 years younger than she is. She has
always, always loved Latin men and in her youth went to Cuba for three
weeks. When she returned, she was
bruised from the wild times she’d had with a man named Eduardo. She remembers that he had a dog named
Donatella and a short round mother whose name she was never told.
It has been so long, years, since
I’ve had male attention, she thinks, and now –
“If you live around here.” The man
continues, “I would love to see you again.
We could talk about music and our lives.
We could meet for a drink do you think?”
Georgia actually pinches her leg, half-convinced she will wake up on the beach, having fallen asleep in the sun. No such awakening happens and she is startled at the red mark she has left.
Georgia actually pinches her leg, half-convinced she will wake up on the beach, having fallen asleep in the sun. No such awakening happens and she is startled at the red mark she has left.
“We could,” she says, looking at
the stage, seeing that Rick is making his way back to the table.
“Here,” she scrawls out her name
and number on a napkin. “Call me if you like.”
The man takes the note. “I will,
Georgia. I am called Danny.”
“Okay then,” Georgia stands
and looks at Rick who is completely back.
“Well, should we go, Rick?”
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