AV俱乐部

Renovations

Geordie Miller

The summer that I think I almost had my first kiss, I was living in a hotel. We had a house fire in the spring. No one died; some ideas were borne out. My mom鈥檚 idea that homes were violable; my idea (my sister鈥檚 too) that May could be much crueler than April; my dad鈥檚 idea of himself as someone way past hope when it came to home improvement projects.

I was down the street at the schoolyard playing basketball alone, developing my pre-shot free throw ritual. A van pulled up 20 feet from the baseline, rolled down the window and broke my rhythm. It was my parents鈥� friend shouting something about a fire. It took me another brick and a honk of her horn to realize that it wasn鈥檛 basketball slang. We drove down Highland Avenue, past the hideous palette of front doors.听

Ours had been forest green. We joined the crowd across the street.听听My dad and a polo鈥檇 man with a notepad gesticulating. I worried about the stack of library books under my bed, while firefighters arranged a makeshift yardsale.听听Our living room on the lawn, evicted by smoke.听听We stared so long that the black cloud became suspicious, peeking through the blinds. It saw my sister pointing back at it and laughing.听听It was hard to blame her: there鈥檚 something funny about futility. AV俱乐部 watching people water brokenness.

It took two men named Billy and Frankie four months to rebuild our house. At first we lived at my Aunt Barbara鈥檚. She smoked in the house, so her furniture smelled like why we were there. We were welcome to stay as long as we wanted.

We moved into the hotel less than a week later.听听It was on top of the escarpment鈥攁 ten-minute drive from our neighborhood. At first my sister and I couldn鈥檛 believe our luck. Hotels had reserved a place in our collective imagination alongside amusement parks, action movies, and our cool cousin Jennifer鈥檚 rotating cast of boyfriends.听听An enclosed mischief: extensive hallways to hide down, Nicky Nicky Nine Doors, Jacuzzi beards and groaning ice machines.

We devoted the first month to obliging our fantasies. The glass elevator was particularly conducive to games of tag. We would lie prone, ascending as our pursuer stalked the mezzanine below. Our bellies full of breakfast. To us 鈥渃ontinental鈥� came to mean wonderful; we never bothered to ask for definitions, preoccupied with the next croissant or the latest Did-It-Ourselves combo, like cantaloupe sandwiches, with maple syrup.

There were less delightful excesses. The concierge would broadcast our entrance with mortifying familiarity.听听Our suite had three televisions; the suitable selections in the pay-per-view catalogue could not keep pace with our spectacular orgies, reducing us to rounds of re-runs.听听Boredom we would wander into wedding receptions, testing how long we could last before being asked to leave by an exasperated banquet manager or the not-drunk uncle.听听We felt entitled to interlope, our sleep so often interrupted by their noisy afterwards.听

One night I sleepwalked, though not for the first time.听听Rising from my double cot, kitty corner from the kitchenette, I ambled out, down three flights of stairs, into the vacant lobby. My striped boxer shorts a pale cloak for pubescence.听听I was on a night errand, allegedly asking the nonplussed woman at the front desk if she remembered to leave the window open so the cat could get in, before taking the elevator back upstairs.听听Back to sleep.

The dream of my residence being a bigger draw than Ryan Gillen鈥檚 new Sega Genesis did not survive into summer.听听My friends were like me. The indoor pool鈥檚 novelty evaporated.听听Everything about the hotel was too deliberate.听听July was for aimless Sega marathons.听听Or for weaving through the 40-block grid that circumscribed our lives. For biking around with no purpose beyond biking around. I was out of the loop, in the dormant period between the age when sleepovers were a weekend highlight and an alibi.

Anyways, I didn鈥檛 need to vacation in my neighborhood because most weekends the hotel transformed into a veritable airport lounge of traveling youth organizations: soccer teams, dance troupes, even the occasional orchestra.听听I hardly hesitated to capitalize on my minor celebrity as one of the two kids who lived in the hotel, not to mention the oldest. These friendships could only last an afternoon or evening鈥攖wo, at most.听听Such was the bond I formed with the left side of a Windsor hardball team鈥檚 infield that I ventured to watch their game. We went out for pizza in the extra inning, then a stretch of table tennis in the games room. We exchanged addresses and became typical pen pals, writing once, or not at all.听

I was just settling in to a certain lonesomeness, when the phone rang one afternoon. It wasn鈥檛 an insurance adjuster asking after my parents.听听And it wasn鈥檛 my sister鈥檚 synchronized swimming coach. It was my friend Tim, who I hadn鈥檛 seen in forever.听听I overcompensated for this absence; my hotel stories took on an edge. The concierge started receiving prank calls, I instigated a public feud between two rival gymnastics parents; pay-per-view erotica, and so on.听听Tim probably saw through this veneer of rebellion.听听He mentioned that Friday was Andrea鈥檚 birthday and she was having a party.听听Of course I knew it was her birthday; new to me was the tacit assumption that I was invited.听听Sure, probably.

Yes, definitely. Andrea Waler grew up on my street and we had known each other since kindergarten.听听I had invented all sorts of other common ground for our romance to spring from, but reality was a lot barer.听听Our mutual interest in a Thomas the Tank Engine puzzle never found an adolescent corollary.听听To be sure, I imagined us hanging out in my room and listening to the Counting Crows, but she liked Nirvana, and had freckles on her nose, and was sarcastic.听听I was in love鈥攁 love undeterred (perhaps further fortified) by an embargo ushered in at the Grade Five Fun Fair when her best friend Leah Zablocki caught me picking my nose behind the Dunk Tank.听听Andrea unscrupulously avoided me at recess for two years.

My sister had a synchro meet the same weekend as the party, and we were leaving for wherever at 6am on Saturday. My parents, slightly moved by my sudden urgency about a Friday night yet in no mood to negotiate, agreed to chauffeur me to and from the party, provided I accept an earlier curfew.

Friday belated, but it came.听听I had taken no chances and bought Andrea a gift certificate to SAM THE RECORD MAN.听听I got dropped off at Tim鈥檚 house.听听We watched 鈥渢he Countdown鈥� and then walked to Andrea鈥檚 together, amidst the old tree stumps and new porch furniture.听听Everyone was in the basement, the lights lower than the ceiling.听听I put my card on a pile next to the chip table.听听The couches and chairs were out-of-place, imports from the den and patio.听听Why we weren鈥檛 outside became apparent an hour later when people began playing spin-the-bottle.听听I retreated to the bathroom upstairs, blaming obscene amounts of pop.听听Dissatisfied with my exile and unsatisfied with the results of my tried-tested-and failed technique of ignoring whomever I like-liked, I talked myself into a dialogue with Andrea that went beyond 鈥渉ey, happy birthday.鈥澨�听The clock on the kitchen microwave said I had 14 minutes until my ride showed up.听

Returning, I was pleased to see that the game had dissolved and been replaced by slow dancing.听听I mumbled something to Andrea as 鈥淕lycerine鈥� at last came on.听听We locked arms and I loosened up.听听As we spun around, Andrea made me laugh with her running commentary on how the people around us were or weren鈥檛 dancing.听听鈥淲hat would she say about us?鈥� I wondered, ready with the line I had rehearsed upstairs, the one about not letting a spun bottle decide鈥�then the voice of Andrea鈥檚 mom at the top of the stairs; she shouted my name and I knew I had to go.

On our way home, I asked my dad to drive by the house.听听A tarp was exhaled in the dark; the roof looked nearly finished.听

鈥淗ow was your night?鈥�

鈥淧retty good,鈥� I replied.听听

My sister鈥檚 synchro routine received the lowest score in the province, but I was proud of her.听My lungs were full of chlorine, and my heart was full of matinees and mall walks.听听All weekend I was distracted by my next encounter with Andrea.听听I gathered anecdotes for her about would-be hecklers and a dull team dinner.听听On the drive back, I listened to听August and Everything After听the whole way through.听听I mouthed the words out the side and rear windows, to rest stops, headlights, my reflection, somewhere else.

I meant to phone Tim on Monday; he had Leah鈥檚 number, and I could get Andrea鈥檚 from her, but I stayed up late watching sports highlights, not calling.听听A while later someone saw Andrea at a movie with a guy from West Park.

We moved back into our house just before the first day of school.听听In the final weeks at the hotel, my sister and I had grown desperate to get away from it.听听We would consent to long hikes, a previously untenable proposition.听听I began to enjoy any detour, especially ones that took us past the house.

It was a number of years later when we were told how the fire had started.听听My sister and I had always assumed that the furnace overheated.听听鈥淭he dryer exploded,鈥� my dad explained to us at dinner one night.听听鈥淎fter I filled up the lawnmower, I poured the extra gas down the sink. I don鈥檛 know what I was thinking.鈥澨�听He shook his head, and we knew to be quiet. As if we had always known.

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