She of the Mountains (5 page)

They sat down, and before she was able to unwrap herself from the layers of Edmonton winter-survival gear, the words stumbled out of him:

I just want you to know that I dig you.

There it was, sitting on the table between them, exposed for all of its unromanticness—the word
dig
. A teenage confession that prompted mutual teenage giggling for the next five minutes, but without eye contact. That kind of intimacy in this moment could heighten a
dig
to a
like
. And yet, his flushed cheeks revealed to him that he did, in fact, like her.
Like her
, like her. This was no friend crush.

Once the moment had passed and their faces stabilized, conversation flowed as effortlessly as it did when they were at work. But his confession had irreversibly changed how they looked at each other, or rather, enhanced it. The wool scarf around her neck, for instance, was suddenly indistinguishable from her skin and was completely irresistible to him.

Uma! Uma! Uma!

I rush over to where Ganesh is sleeping.

Bad dreams again, dear one?

I rock him back and forth in my arms. He barely nods, still half asleep.

What happens in these dreams?

Someone is hurting me.

After he falls back asleep, I hold him a little longer and then carefully ease myself up.

I turn around and see Shiv close behind us, pacing.

Parvati, there is something I haven't told you. Something you haven't asked me.

I know.

You do?

I do.

Why haven't you asked?

Because it doesn't matter, he is still my precious boy. At least, it didn't matter …

I think you need to know.

I think you are right.

As you know, I had been in a battle … that day.

We both wince. We have been trying to forget that day. Perhaps this is another reason why I had not yet asked the most obvious question.

I was informed by the forest dwellers of an elephant king west of the mountains who had become greedy, claiming more and more of the land as his own. They said that his mind had turned black.

Shiv, no. NO.

I went to reason with him and to restore order. But—

NO. My son! But … how?

Do you recall that I wasn't able to reattach his original head? I didn't know what to do. I immediately thought of the last head …

That villain's head! You put that savage's head on my son's body?

I was desperate. I had to do something.

You had done enough! None of this would have happened if you had only …

He tries to put his hand on my shoulder, but I step back.

But that still doesn't make sense
, I continue.
Why was the union successful? How did he come back?

I don't know.

You don't know?

I honestly don't know. I think there was something about the energy in the room at the exact moment when head and body were put together.

Why don't I remember?

You were stomping, dancing hard, and everything was falling apart. Everything. But there was a distinct smell that cut through the air. Once I recognized it, I felt hopeful.

What smell?

It was you, my beloved. It was life.

The office needs a Christmas tree
, she announced.

The declaration came as a surprise to him because they had talked about how her family didn't celebrate Christmas and about her acute preference for all-inclusive holiday greetings at this time of the year. That he was one of the only staff members in the office when she made the announcement convinced him that this tree project was just an excuse for them to spend more time together, so he quickly volunteered to assist.

Maybe because this was something he had only ever done with his family, or because he was so particular about the tradition, but he felt there was something intimate about putting up a tree together—the careful winding of the screws at the base so the tree itself stood centred and the precise placement and distribution of the decorations to ensure that the lights were visible but the garbage-bag-green wires concealed. Thankfully, he had brought his copy of Christina Aguilera's
My Kind of Christmas
. Gleefully listening to her vocals, somersaulting higher and faster, reduced any tension between them.

They backed away from the small artificial tree, now lit and tinselled.

We did it!

It's so beautiful.

It really is.

His arm extended itself around her shoulder. She responded by putting her arms around his waist, and in this sideways embrace, they began to sway to the music. His body gradually turned in to face hers, their bodies clasping each other, growing into each other to form another tree. Limbs for branches, adrenaline for lights. They said nothing.

At the office holiday party, the memory of their special afternoon helped keep his jealousy at bay as he watched her boyfriend dote on her and, later that night, dance with her. After what felt like a respectful amount of time had passed, he asked her for the next dance. She accepted with a curt
okay
, as though she was doing him a favour, as though he was a worker asking his boss to dance at a holiday party. He responded by keeping as much distance between them as he could within the constraints of a slow dance. He didn't pull her close, and she didn't make eye contact. But he made her laugh by imitating his co-workers' clunky dance moves.

After their dance, they gave each other a forced smile, and he politely said
Thank you.

She walked back to the table where her boyfriend was sitting. Morty looked at her curiously, as though he was seeing something he'd never noticed before.

You know, if he wasn't gay, I would be really jealous right now.

The first time she put her hand on his bare chest, he winced. And the second time.

They were under her desk, lit by the sparse glow of the computer screen above. Her playlist was on shuffle and by now had run its cycle at least three times. He wasn't paying close attention to the songs themselves, but each repeated song signalled the progression of a night he didn't want to end, even though his eyes were tightly closed and his legs trembling.

She had been slowly working at taking off his shirt, kissing the back of his neck as she rolled up the light blue fabric, and had finally succeeded. He felt as though all of his bones, his entire rib cage, were exposed.

After high school, his clothing had become a second layer of skin, a necessary fabric that protected his body from other bodies, a layer he removed only to change or shower or at the dreaded annual check-up with his doctor. But lying beside her, he drew courage from her body, her presence in every part of it. She did not possess the awkwardness he had witnessed in others, the uncertainty of their steps or the teenage stumbling that surfaced when they were faced with the inconvenient or unexpected. There was no apparent divide between who she was and her expressions, gestures, and movements; everything synced together in a gorgeous rhythm, like the perfect score to a perfect moment in a perfect film. Even her thoughts were clearly represented. In his spare time, he had been compiling a dictionary of all of her faces:

          
a.
   
single arched eyebrow: subject is unimpressed, skeptical. If in midst of joke, recognize its failure to be humorous and change subject. If in midst of disagreement, abandon hypothetical data and reframe with fact.

          
b.
   
fluttering eyelashes, eyes widened: subject is in a state of wonderment and will shortly follow with a flurry of questions, but they are mostly rhetorical.

          
c.
   
closed eyes: subject is not necessarily asleep, but rather potentially hyper-awake, as her true vision exists in her mind. Resist feeling neglected; subject is savouring.

          
d.

He had made comments about wanting to see the drawer where her underwear slept and wanting to photograph her nude. This was how he flirted with her—speaking outlandishly to test, push, and flatter, but always meaning it. Perhaps it was those comments that made her now gesture to her chest:

Do you want to see them?

Of course I do.

They are big …

Of course they are.

No. Like really big.

Warnings like this were given because he was gay. In a couple of weeks, he would, in turn, warn her that
This is not going to be a conventional relationship
, not really knowing what he meant, but trying to create some semblance of self-preservation in the event that he didn't measure up to the type of boyfriend with which she was better acquainted.

I'll admit that Morty really knows what he is doing
, she had once mentioned.

Oh?
he had replied, hoping that he sounded adequately interested, which he was. And wasn't.

That's pretty much why I keep dating him.