death becomes him

Monday morning I woke up after a heated night of tossing and turning... without a man on top of me. My temperature was two-hundred and five degrees and I could barely see straight I was so ill. My head was throbbing, my sinuses were pinching and my legs felt like they were in the first stages of rigor mortis. I felt worse than the day Frederick Davenport left me and just as wretched as the morning I found out Ugly Betty was cancelled. My pain was, as the French would say, doloureux, and I needed someone to blame.

I rolled over to the edge of my bed and picked my blackberry off the night stand. Its red light was flashing at me like an anxious dog who was barking for attention. Through my sore eyes I checked my notifications: two missed calls at ten to three in the morning (no doubt from fabulous friends under the influence) one text message from my manager at work telling me to take lunch off (thank Meryl) and six likes on Facebook for a picture I posted the night before of my face. I took a second to cry out in pain and then scrolled my thumb through the long list of contacts in my address book until I landed on the name responsible for my weakened state.

Bay Roberts, a Newfie import, is one of my favourite people to work with. He is kind, caring and pretty much the exact opposite of every other man on the West Coast. Ever since he started this strict push-up routine two months ago, his upper body has been the main topic of conversation between me and my glass of red wine at the end of the night. Well, all weekend Bay and I worked side by side tag-teaming the same section. We were a match made in heaven, like crisp sauvigon blanc with crispy calamari. While he sold expensive wines I seduced each guest with my NC-17 description of the feature lamb sausage and wild mushroom risotto. The only thing that slowed the two of us down, of course, was his dry cough and runny nose.

“How could you?” I T9’d him.

“what?” he wrote back.

“You gave it to me. Last night! How could you not know? ”

“who is this?”

“Fox, Rugged Fox.” 

“oh hey bud whatsup? holy shit i thought you were my x!”

“You infected me with your cold!”

“oh shit bro sorry. that sux. i hope you feel better!”

“At the very least you could have gone to first base with me.” 

I didn’t feel that Bay understood the severity of my illness, so I dialled my best friend Love and put her on speakerphone while I dabbed my forehead with a cold Ralph Lauren cloth. As soon as I heard her voice echo out from the speaker, I wailed “I’m dying!”

“Am I on speakerphone?” she cut me off. “Honey you know how much I hate it when you put me on speakerphone. Now kindly take me off and we will start again.”

I pressed the appropriate button and moved the smart phone up to my ear. Then, just to get my point across, I cleared my throat, blew my nose and cried out once again, “I’m dying!”

“Darling we’ve already gone over this. Oprah is not gone she has just moved on to her own network.”

“I know but Gayle King that is totally not the reason why I called. But side note: can we talk for a minute about how stunning she looked in that finale coral L’Wren Scott dress?”

“Bitch please," catch-phrased Love. "She looked like the great berrier reef.”

“Wow." I had no other word to capture the anger I felt at that moment. "You are such a wretched human being but I still love you. Now where was I? Oh right, on my death bed!”

I turned down the ladies on The View so that I could hear her better.    

“Pumpkin, what’s the matter?” Love asked.

“I have tuberculosis, pneumonia, scarlet fever, and West Nile Virus. I got bit by a tarantula on Saturday night and now I have a massive rash all over my chest. I can barely muster the energy to pour myself a glass of red wine, let alone open the bottle, I can’t find a husband or a one-night stand because I’m fat!”

My heartbeat was erratic and I felt myself falling apart faster than usual. I was drowning in a pool of my own misery and the table-for-one water had just passed my nose and reached the bottom of each eyelid.

“Control yourself!” Love demanded. “And for the record - we are not fat. Now take a deep breath, pull yourself together and I will drop by this afternoon with some chicken noodle soup.”

“I don’t think that stuff works on me,” I said. “Last time I checked, there is no 'Chicken Soup for the Gay Soul.' What I need is more red wine to wash down this Cold FX. Something cheap and 15%, try Chile first but if not go Australian. I am still not big on South Africa.”

By the time Love arrived at my apartment three hours later I was practically comatose.

She had stopped to drop off some clothes at a consignment shop on Main, but from the look of all the retail bags dangling from her arms, she had walked out with five times more than she left behind. She plopped down all the paper bags on the floor by my writing desk and took a plastic bag with her in to the kitchen. My ears were so plugged I could barely make out what she was saying. That was until I heard the sound of a wine bottle slide out of its paper-bag home and my ears perked up to attention. I threw the cover back to get out of bed to help, but she threw her hand up like a Spice Girl, and stopped me before I could move any farther.

“No offence Fox, you know how much I love you, but this bitch needs to move to Toronto in ten days and cannot afford to catch whatever it is you’ve got going on over there. So consider yourself quarantined until such a time as I leave.”

She placed a glass of red wine on my night-stand and rolled her eyes at the sight of mine lighting up.

“You know you really shouldn’t be boozing at a time like this,” she said. “Alcohol is the last thing your immune system needs.”

I didn’t have the energy to fight and so I refrained from defending my drinking problem. The last thing I needed was to be suffering from a cold, tarantula bite and withdrawal.

“Fashion show?” I said, shifting the attention in the room off the glass in my hand and on to the paper bags on the floor.

“Shut your face I thought you would never ask!” she exclaimed, scrambling to pick all the bags back up before retreating to the washroom to change. “You are so going to love my new winter clothes.”

Ever since Love got accepted to U of T last April, she has been totally panicked about the thought of surviving an actual winter. Having spent her entire life on the West Coast, her only concept of dressing for the cold is making sure there is an extra twenty for cab fare in her Matt & Natt wallet. As soon as she emerged from the powder room and catwalked down the main hallway, I could barely withhold my laughter.

She was dressed head to toe in the least practical winter outfit I had ever seen. I mean, she had all the style basics of the season down: gloves, boots, jacket; except nothing on her body looked to offer any sort of warmth. Her neck was draped in the most beautiful silk scarf, whose vintage appeal and restrained elegance would bring Don Draper to his knees. But come minus twenty in February in the little apple, her neck was liable to fall off. Her hat, which was embroidered mustard-yellow and echoed Annie Hall, was perfect for a chilly day in Portland; but would not save her from a terrible bout of hypothermia while waiting at the streetcar stop. I mean don’t get me wrong, she’d make a beautiful ice sculpture but that was about it.

“What is so funny?” Love harkened to me. Her polly-pocket smile had quickly snapped back up. 

“Nothing,” I said, unable to stop myself from laughing. I was giggling so hard I completely forgot I was sick.

“You don’t think I’ll be warm enough?” 

“Not unless you are planning on carrying around a portable fireplace!"

Love retreated to the sanctuary of her own reflection in the mirror.

“But what about the jacket?” she started to lose it, “it’s Michael Kors and was practically a steal!”

“Did you check the inside label?” I asked, taking a sip from my wine. “What it is good for up to minus one?”

“Oh my god stop it!” Love cried. I had pushed her passed the point of no return and began to worry for my own safety. For a second my brain flashed to the scene in Misery where Kathy Bates shoves a wooden log in between James Caan’s two feet. Love ripped the jacket from her shoulders and gently threw/laid it on the floor.

“What?” I feigned innocence, “I thought you were the one who was supposed to make me feel better.”

“Yeah, but now I feel like shit!”

“Well then pour yourself a glass of wine and come and join us on the bed,” I smiled.

“Waah,” Love threw her arms up in the air. She then swept in to the kitchen and returned to a seat on the edge of the bed with a full pour in her hand. “You better not make me sick asshole,” she raised her glass in the air.

I could not control the grin on my face. I met her glass with mine and said thanks.

“For what?” she asked.

“I haven’t felt this good all day. I don't know what I am going to do once you are gone.”

A silence fell between us and for the first time it kicked in that in less than two weeks she would be two time zones and three provinces away. We both took another sip of wine, and before I had a chance to get lost in the future, a single sneeze brought me right back in to the miserable present.

"But seriously," I said, wiping my nose with a piece of two-ply toilet paper. "Can we talk about that silk scarf for a moment?" 

“Oh I know right? I would totally kick Betty Draper’s ass.”

Comments

[Chef Green]

Oh Foxy, this is classic me loving you. Love it! I want more of your words! And my words are sad without you as well. They miss you over at The Sauce.

I do hope you feel better soon, and that the red wine soothes your spider bites. Also, WTF?

[Julia Davidson]

Hey dude,your seems to be an attractive writer.Your writing have impressed me a lot.Am desperately awaiting for your next post.Just keep going.