Molly of the mall, p.23
Molly of the Mall, page 23
“Absolutely. I’ll expect a book report on my next visit.”
We walked back to the Mall in what a novelist might describe as “a contented silence.” When we got to the place where our paths would diverge, he said, “I will see you again very soon. And I’ll want that book report.” He leaned in to kiss my cheek. I could only nod and look down at my shoes. As I turned to catch my bus, he caught my hand. “There are so many things you can’t see. You’re going to be the heroine of a most amazing novel. Write it all down, Miss Austen. Promise me.” I promised. “And one more thing: call Mark.” I nodded and looked away. Mark.
WHEN I GOT OFF THE BUS, I WAS FULL OF WORDS. I dashed home and called Mark’s house. He didn’t answer. I didn’t leave a message. Genevieve, Susan, Glenda, and I were going to Andante tonight to see a band and I thought about asking Mark to join us. Susan has a crush on the drummer, and we were all going for moral support. I called him back a few minutes later and when the answering machine kicked in, I thought better of it. I needed a girls’ night out, and even though I wasn’t sure if I would tell anyone about the Penguin Man or Mark, seeing my friends seemed like a great way to improve my mood. By this time, I was quite certain that the Penguin Man was probably just being nice about Mark, so I wouldn’t be too devastated about his engagement to a girl he had never mentioned. If the Penguin Man had been right, Mark would certainly have called me by now. I told myself, “It’s best to move on.” Mrs Woolf nodded, but Miss Austen continued to be evasive.
I stood in front of my closet for some time trying to decide what to wear. I settled on something decidedly un-Mall: a sparkly, black sundress and my new pointy Fluevog shoes with silver detailing. I looked in the mirror on the way out, and saw a glimmer of the self I had not been for some time. At the last minute, I stashed a pair of ballet flats in my bag in case the new Fluevogs inflicted their characteristic cruelty on my feet. I had missed being non-Mall Molly, and from the minute Genevieve picked me up, I started feeling like myself again.
It was a perfect, early summer night, and the patio doors at Andante were open. Music spilled into the street, laughter and cigarette smoke swirled around me as I was embraced by the press of the crowd. My bare shoulders and arms were basking in the unaccustomed warmth, desperate to believe that summer had indeed arrived. I was surrounded by people I knew and loved, and my laughter came easily. I paused for a moment to sip my pint of Big Rock porter and take everything in. Glenda was amusing a group with one of her stories; Genevieve was listening intently to a beautiful man, unaware, I think, of how utterly taken he was with her; and Susan was enmeshed in the circle of the band members’ girlfriends. I could tell the drummer had told everyone about Susan, and they were excited to finally meet her. At one point, all four of us made eye contact with each other and we each raised our glasses. I’m not quite sure what the other three raised theirs to, but I raised mine to the arrival of summer, to pretty sundresses, to my darling friends, and to everything that made tonight special.
Seeing everyone so happy made me smile, but as the night wore on, my long day caught up to me, and I was feeling tired. Acquaintances were talking to me, but I couldn’t hear them over the music. I nodded as they talked, but comprehended very little. The crowd was building, and hands on my shoulder and on my back were gently pressing me one way and then the other. Pretending to listen to my acquaintances, I found my thoughts wandering back to my conversation with the Penguin Man and the image of Mark walking away. Maybe later tonight Genevieve could help me think it all through. Or maybe this was something I needed to sort through myself. Words had been failing me all day, and I wouldn’t know where to begin. I used a waitress coming through with a tray of drinks as an excuse to extricate myself from the conversation. I had been feeling lonely for weeks, but somehow, right then, I just needed to be alone. I wished I smoked to have an excuse to separate myself from the crowd, and to stand alone for a few moments. I walked to the edge to the parking lot to look over the Edmonton skyline.
It was the time of year when the northern lights would sometimes silently thunder across the sky, and I wondered if tonight would be one of those nights. Even without the northern lights, tonight was spectacular: oranges, pinks, and reds spread seamlessly across the dome of the sky. As I looked across the river, I looked at my city from an angle I rarely see. I stood on a cement block to see over the trees: lights blinked atop the high-rises downtown, and the glow of streetlights hung over the river valley like a fog. It wasn’t Mrs Woolf’s Bloomsbury, or Miss Austen’s village, or Emily Brontë’s moor, but it was my city. It belonged to me and I belonged to it. As the sky gloamed, I thought it best to return to Andante as my friends would begin to worry.
Walking into the club, I let the press and warmth of the crowd, the pounding of the bass in my chest, and the sparkle in my sundress take over again. In my absence, Susan, Glenda, and Genevieve had settled at a table across the room, and, spotting them, I attempted to make it across the crowd. Navigating the space upstream seemed more difficult than it should have. I waved at Glenda and Genevieve, and they waved back at me, frantically pointing, I thought, to the door. Assuming they wanted to leave, I pressed my way back outside, and turned to look at the sky as I waited for them. The sun had fully set, and the moon and a smattering of stars glowed warmly above me. I was so engrossed in the stars, that I failed to hear footsteps approaching. I jumped at the hand that gently touched my shoulder and the voice that said,
“Molly?” I knew the voice instantly.
“Mark?”
“Molly.”
“Mark.”
For whatever reasons, Mark left me completely speechless. Maybe I thought we should be at our poetic best right now, but we stumbled around the obvious situational topics for quite a while. He was fine. I was fine. I was here because Susan loves the drummer, he was there because he’s a friend of the bassist. Susan and the drummer do seem well matched. It is a beautiful night. The sunset was spectacular. Seems like summer is here. My dress is very cute. My shoulders must be cold. He really didn’t need his jacket. I was fine. Really? No, actually my shoulders were cold. Thank you. How are you really? I was a little tired and so, he admitted, was he. He offered to drive me home, which I accepted. He then remembered his friend had driven. We laughed. He was tired. Still jet-lagged. One of us suggested walking. It was a long walk, but it was a beautiful night, and I had ballet flats stashed in my bag. A walk would be perfect. While Mark said goodbye to his friends, I gestured across the room to my friends that I was leaving. Using the ultra-secret-girl code of signals Genevieve gave me the “call-me-immediately” sign, Susan the “I told-you-so” sign, and Glenda the “he-is-very cute” sign. Mark had a funny smile on his face that made me wonder how ultra-secret the girl signals really are. He guided me through the crowd and into the quiet air.
Getting away from the crowd was a relief. He didn’t seem to want to talk about Europe, and so I left my questions for another day. As we walked down the train tracks in the moonlight, we didn’t talk about much. We laughed about tiny things, exchanged gossip about our friends, and talked about everything other than ourselves. The walk was a long one, but we were at the edge of the University Farm before we knew it. Although there weren’t cars anywhere in sight, we stopped for a walk light at the intersection closest to our neighbourhood and were silent. We were two blocks from my house, and I had to ask what I’d wanted to know all night.
“How was Aloysius & Flint?” He looked confused so I added, “You said you couldn’t go for lunch because you needed to buy polo shirts.” The walk light illuminated, but we stood still.
“Oh. Right. No, I just went home.”
“Why didn’t you come for lunch with us?”
“I was feeling pretty tired. And I didn’t think your boyfriend really wanted me to come along.” The “don’t walk” light flashed and turned to red. A car waited beside us for the light to change again. “He seems nice, by the way. What’s his story?”
“He’s a musician. He reads a lot.”
Mark nodded and said, “Of course.” The light changed and we let the car pass us before we crossed the road.
“He likes Steinbeck and Hemingway. He’s fond of Cajun food. He only listens to music before 1989. And he’s engaged to his girlfriend, Lisa. They’re getting married in the fall.” Mark’s pace slowed as he processed what I was telling him.
“Your boyfriend’s engaged to someone else?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a guy who likes to talk to me about novels. And Penguin Classics at that.” Mark said nothing until we were at the edge of my yard. Heathcliff was sitting on our front porch. We all nodded acknowledgment and then Mark and I stood fully engrossed in the new buds on our neighbour’s privet hedge.
“What are you doing tomorrow? Free for a walk?” he asked. I had the day off and was free all day.
“Of course.” Mark looked at me, then at Heathcliff, who was captivated with the sky. He pushed an errant strand of my hair behind my ear.
“Meet me at the bench at ten o’clock? I have something for you.” I nodded and our fingers caught and lingered. He kissed me on the cheek quickly and I watched him until he turned the corner to his street. I joined Heathcliff on the porch. It was almost two o’clock in the morning and he was staring at the sky.
“Looking for something?” I asked, gazing up.
“The northern lights. It’s very late in the season, but the conditions seem right for them. Someone saw them earlier this week so I thought I’d watch for them.” In silence, we stared up at the sky. Heathcliff said, “This sky is magnificent even without the northern lights. I could stare at it forever. Last night I saw hints of Jupiter. It should be at its brightest soon.” As someone obsessed with fescue and plants, I’d only ever seen him look down, never up. But he knew as much about the sky as he did the earth. We stared on in silence until I said, “Can I ask you something? Why do you love fescue so much?”
“It’s not all fescues,” he explained, “just the ones that grow here. Indigenous fescues. I like that they’ve evolved so they can survive this climate. You can plant them other places, but they’ll never really thrive the way they do here.” He walked over to a section of garden he’s cultivated since childhood, and picked a stem of grass. “This is plains rough fescue. I love how it smells.” He handed me the stem of grass, and I caught a barely discernable scent. “Alberta’s the only place in North America where all three kinds of rough fescue grow. That little stem in your hand likely descended from seeds that date back to the end of the ice age. It’s like a time capsule of our whole region’s history. If you know the story of fescue, you know the story of Alberta. It’s pretty magical when you think about it.” I’d never thought to think about a blade of grass like that before. I stared at it intently. Maybe this is what Whitman meant when he leaned and loafed, observing a spear of summer grass. “Nowhere else in the world will you see a fescue growing like this one. And nowhere else in the world might you see that,” he said, pointing upward.
As if on cue, a dash of phosphorescent green danced across a corner of the sky. More greens followed, and soon the sky was awash with waves of yellow and hints of purple swirling like flames across the expanse of our sky. There was nothing either of us could say about the spectacle before us. It was if the sky had put on a performance for those who waited and watched. On this particular night, it was just for Heathcliff and me. And when it was over, we heard not a sound. I’d never heard such silence in my city before. Heathcliff and I sat until we heard the morning’s first birds, which I took to be my cue to head inside and go to sleep. Just as I was about to get up, Heathcliff said, “You know Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen never saw the northern lights from their front porches, right?” I nodded, dusted off my dress, and opened the front door. I looked back one more time, and Heathcliff turned to look at me. “Do you also know that Woolf and Austen never assumed their big brothers didn’t see them kissing Mark Forster by the privet hedge?”
“That’s Mrs Woolf and Miss Austen, to you,” I retorted, and swatted him gently with the stem of fescue I still held in my hand.
It wasn’t until I got into my room that I realized I was still wearing Mark’s jacket. It fit so nicely. I didn’t want to take it or my sundress off. I fell asleep in both while thinking of what today had brought and what tomorrow might bring.
BECAUSE I’D BEEN UP SO LATE, I OVERSLEPT, AND had to run to meet Mark. I was five minutes late and found Mark looking anxious, and then relieved to see me. We sat on our bench at the top of the hill, and noted how almost before our eyes the leaves were filling the river valley with new green. The horses from the stables below us grazed on the new spring grass, more than once kicked their heels in the air, and galloped up and down the pastures. I told him about seeing the northern lights, and staying up with Heathcliff until the early morning birds chirped.
“Last night was so magical, in so many ways.”
I started to dread that I’d said something wrong because Mark was quiet for a few moments. But then he spoke, straight ahead, not looking at me.
“I went to the Mall the other day because I had so many things I had to tell you. But then when I saw you with that other guy, I panicked and lied, and said I had to go shopping. I don’t know why I picked Aloysius & Flint. Maybe it’s because the only other store I saw was the fur store, and I knew you’d hate me if I shopped there. As I walked to my car, I was convinced I’d lost my only chance with you. By the time I got home, I told myself I could get over you, that you and I could go on being wonderful friends, and that it would be fine that you were with someone else. But last night, when I saw you in your sparkly dress, with my jacket on your shoulders, I knew I was wrong. It wouldn’t be fine. And then you told me he wasn’t your boyfriend, and so I can tell you this now. I went to the Mall to tell you that I came home from Europe early to give you this. I know I missed your birthday last week, but I bought it on your birthday.” He handed me a parcel he’d hidden in his messenger bag. He’d wrapped it in William Morris wrapping paper. I whispered, “The chrysanthemum pattern. My favourite.” I unwrapped it carefully so as not to rip the paper. Inside was a stack of about twenty postcards from across Europe, written but not mailed, and a book. It wasn’t a novel as I’d expected, but a well-worn copy of Let’s Go: England. “Thank you, Mark,” I said, unclear why he left Europe a month early to give this to me.
“Go to the section on Hampshire. I’ve marked it.” I flipped to the section and found a small pink envelope with my name written in his neat script tucked in its pages.
“Mark, I don’t understand.”
“Open it.” Inside were two entrance tickets to Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, good for a year.
“I still don’t understand.” He turned to face me and took my hands in his.
“Molly, from the minute I arrived in Europe, I kept thinking, ‘Molly would love this’ and ‘Molly should see this.’ Everywhere I went, I wrote you a postcard that didn’t even come close to what I wanted to tell you. I wrote you letters in my head about everything I saw. And then I started thinking ‘I wish Molly were here to see this’ and then, ‘I wish Molly were here.’ That’s all I could think about. I was in England around your birthday, and thought, in honour of you, I’d go to Jane Austen’s house and call you from a payphone outside the museum. I went to Chawton, found the payphone I’d use to call you, and walked around the town thinking about how I would describe it to you. As I walked around, I couldn’t get over how wrong it felt for me to be there without you. I sat outside Jane Austen’s house and realized, it wasn’t just Chawton. It felt wrong to be anywhere without you. I went to the museum, bought two tickets to the house, and then went to the payphone I’d found. Instead of calling you, I called the airline and booked my ticket home.”
I was, perhaps for the first time in my life, entirely bereft of words. He continued, “I couldn’t send you the other postcards because what I really wanted to say to you was this: It’s up to you whether I’m your Colonel Brandon or your Willoughby, your Mr Darcy, your Mr Knightley, or even your Mr Collins. But you need to know you’re my Marianne Dashwood, my Elizabeth Bennet, my Emma Woodhouse, my Catherine Morland, my Fanny Price, and my Anne Elliot. And, if you’d let me, I’d like to take you to Jane Austen’s house next spring after you graduate.” I didn’t know whether to say, “Mark, I love you,” or “Mark, you’ve read all of Miss Austen,” which, I realize, in my books might amount to about the same thing. I settled on:
“Mark, you’ve read all of Miss Austen,” and then followed with my second choice. “Mark, I am so in love with you.” And, dear reader, I do confess, although there was no rain dashing against window-panes, nor great swoops of wind, we did kiss tremblingly on the cliffs above the North Saskatchewan, under the cloudless, blue Alberta sky.
Acknowledgements
A faithful crew of family, friends, and community have been essential for me while writing this book. I am grateful for the love, support, and friendship of many but I would particularly like to thank:
Linda Zagaglioni, for giving Molly her first audience; Gwendolyn Ebbett, for making many wonderful things possible; the University of Windsor, for being a supportive, caring, and exciting place to be; and the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society of Windsor, for being my Windsor family.
I am deeply grateful for and indebted to:
NeWest Press’s Claire Kelly and Matt Bowes, for making everything work flawlessly, and Kate Hargreaves, for her meticulous design work. I will be forever grateful to Merrill Distad for his gallant championing of Molly and his exquisite editing.
Molly’s first readers, Susan Holbrook, Griff Evans, and Dayna Cornwall, who offered invaluable feedback, steadfast encouragement, and devoted friendship.
The Whyte, Martin, and Jacobs families, especially:
