The Age Read online

  The green light flashes as she begins to punch in numbers, each digit displayed in thin red outline. She pauses before the final number, then presses and waits. The red light blinks, then glows solid, the door handle tight. She tries to focus, each number formed in her mind and on her lips before she presses. The same flashing red light. Was there a trick to the sequence? Did she jumble it? She can no longer be certain the numbers in her head are the ones scrawled in Andri’s notebook. She tries again quickly, gouges her frustration into the keys. As if sensing her mood, the keypad lights wink out, leave the screen a dormant black square.

  Inside the building, a door opens, voices in echo. She crawls under the rail and hops down from the landing, crosses the alley and squats beside the dumpster. Businessmen slip out, raincoats flapping at their knees. Their talk is loud, assured. After they’ve gone, she knocks her head against the dumpster’s metal wall, stupid, stupid, tells herself she’s not allowed to move, must sit there all night, watch the moon pass overhead, let the stink of the alley soak through her clothes and skin, a loser’s vigil.

  The door bangs open against the metal rail. A man in a dark cap and jacket hovers at the keypad, then props the door with a toolbox, gives Gerry a full view of the hallway. At the far end, a green door with a small window to the lobby. The man scans the alley and notices her, squints to make her out, nods before he turns to get something from his toolbox. He’s older, a heaviness nested around the edges of his body, settled in the seat of his jeans.

  She stands, pushes her hands into her pockets. “Hey.”

  He glances at her. “Geez, I thought you were a guy sitting there.”

  “Is it broken?”

  “Were you foolin’ with it?”

  “Uh, not even. Some guys just came out, though.” She walks up to him, folds her arms over the safety rail, rests her chin. “You work here?”

  “Why? You looking for a job?” His smile shows that he’s teasing.

  “I’m still in high school.”

  “Wow. Okay, well, this conversation’s over.” His hands busy with a screwdriver, six screws to remove the spring-loaded door.

  She struggles to hold his interest. “I’m graduating.”

  Four screws loosen the faceplate that lifts to reveal a narrow screen and a single cable jack. He shakes his head. “Sure you are. Your dad doesn’t work here or something, does he? ’Cause I really don’t need the trouble.”

  “No.”

  “You sleeping rough?”

  “What?”

  “On the street?”

  “No.” She worries the dumpster smell might have clung to her, feels her jacket and finds a sticky patch near the shoulder. She slips out of it, rolls it into a ball, presses the wad against the rail, and leans her chest over it. “If it’s not broken, why do you have to fix it?”

  His eyes flit to check her out.

  She pulls her shoulders back a little, something she imagines Megan would do.

  “What’s with the hair?”

  “What hair?”

  Her joke gets a chuckle. He goes back to his work. “They’re only supposed to try twice on this thing. If the door doesn’t open, they’re supposed to go around front, check in with security. Three times and the keypad shuts down. They always try three times.” He taps the screwdriver against his thigh. “Anyway, you should scram. I’m supposed to do this in private. Don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “I like trouble.” The words trip out of her, eager, awkward.

  His mouth crimps at the corners, amused but unsure. From the toolbox he lifts a black plastic console. It opens like a book to reveal another keypad, a wire he plugs into the cable jack.

  “You go to school for that?”

  “My brother taught me. I do installs out in the sticks, but he took his kids to Disney for spring break, so here I am in the big shitty.” As he leans forward to check the connections, his T-shirt rides up, bares doughy flesh pinched by the band of his jeans. In the light, his wrists are pasty, spattered with freckles. The rim of his cap flattens a brush of rust-coloured hair, thick and wiry like the coat of a terrier.

  “Does that machine make new keys?”

  “Keys?” His face is flat and broad, ginger fuzz grows over his upper lip. “There are no keys, grasshopper, only numbers.”

  She wonders if she will have to kiss him, tries to imagine his taste, raw and creamy, meat soaked in milk. “That machine makes codes?” She presses her body against the rail, cocks her hip, rests her cheek on her arm.

  He stops working and stares at her, brow tight, as if her questions make him nervous. “Did your boyfriend do that to your face?”

  Something bitter and squeezing inside her makes her feel ashamed. She turns her head and stares up the alley. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” When she looks back at him, she forces a smile.

  He fiddles with the console. “So, you’re graduating.”

  “Not really.”

  “You like to party?”

  She shrugs. “Depends.”

  For a while he works without talking, pushes buttons, digs a small notepad from his back pocket, flips through pages of numbers, scribbles new ones with a stubby pencil. “Wanna see something cool?” He gestures for her to climb the steps.

  She kneels beside him, aware of his body heat in the air between them. He points to the console box, his voice bolstered with authority. “This is way state of the art. Futuristic and shit, you know? Most companies stick with a single four-digit code, but we do three double-digit numbers, harder to crack, easier to remember, year, month, day, or like, 36-24-36.” He smiles.

  “That’s the code?” Even to her, the pretend innocence sounds moronic.

  “Would I tell you the code? Do I look like a retard? Geez.” The muscles in his neck harden, then relax. The light leaves half of him in shadow, and his body seems momentarily frozen in place. He shuffles back on his heels, and as he does he settles his hand on her leg, just above her knee. She fights the impulse to crawl away, wonders whether Megan enjoyed it with the man who looked like Magnum P.I., whether she took off all of her clothes.

  The hand squeezes but doesn’t travel. He gestures to the box. “Anyway, every few weeks, we have to update the code. But we can’t just make a random change ’cause people don’t want to have to memorize a whole new code every time. So we use an assigned number key for each door.” He points to the panel. “3, 1, 3, right here. We add the digits of the number key to the digits of the previous code to make the new code. Takes people a while to figure it out. That’s why they’re always jamming up the keypads.”

  “So, if the old code is 10, 10, 10, then the new code is–” The security light makes it hard for her to see his eyes. “13, 11, 13?”

  “I guess you’re on the honour roll.”

  She lets her shoulder rest against his. “But, if you don’t know the old code, the number key won’t help you?”

  “Bingo.”

  “I guess I can’t break in then.” She nudges him, tries to knock him off balance, but his body holds rigid, a reminder of his size, his strength, the fact that no one knows she’s here.

  “Don’t know why you’d want to, anyway. Nothing but men in suits in there. You don’t go for that, do you?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Didn’t think so.” His lips make a smacking sound. “What kind of music do you like?”

  She guesses at what he likes. “I don’t know, old stuff, Zeppelin.” He nods. “Cool. Zeppelin IV?”

  “Sure.” Another code. When a guy played Zeppelin IV, it meant he wanted to have sex with you. “What if the number hits 99, do you just go back to 0?”

  “You’re pretty smart. We get a lot of calls about that one. You good at math?” He presses the plate back onto the door, his fingers quick and skilled with the screwdriver.

  “I guess.”

  “What are the odds of me running into you in this alley when I don’t even work downtown?”

  She waits for the pu
nch-line.

  “Probably,” he draws the word out, pretends to think. “Sixty-nine to one.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Don’t you mean to two?”

  Grinning, his face in full light, he’s not threatening at all but full of goofy humour. She sees how relieved he is, how she’s done him a favour by being a good sport. He’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t care if she was fat or strange-looking, as long as she could laugh at a joke, have fun. “I’ll be finished up in about half an hour. If you wanna wait, maybe we could do something?” The offer makes his mouth crooked.

  She feels for the rail and pushes herself up, tucks her chin to look down at him. “I thought you didn’t talk to high school girls?”

  He stays on his knees. “So did I. But you don’t look young enough for jail time.”

  She smiles. “Thirteen’ll get you twenty.”

  “Look at us, a regular Cheech and Chong.” He reaches for his toolbox, stands and pats the door. “So, anyway. Think about it.” The door glides closed behind him, locks in place with a whir.

  She considers staying. Despite his size, he seems harmless. They’d drive somewhere, maybe Lost Lagoon, find a place to park. He would have beer. Afterwards, he’d be grateful, make jokes. He’d want to drive her home, but she’d ride her bike, speed away, catalogue how she felt different.

  The number key repeats in her head. She doesn’t trust herself to keep the secret, what she will be part of because of him, can’t be sure the details won’t leak out after enough beer. She swings over the rail and jumps down from the landing, tries to stop the smile that pulls at her face. Each trotting step she takes lightens her, each rain-filled pothole pond holds the moon.

  ——

  Through the small back door window, they look like a family sitting down to dinner. The amber globe over the table lights their faces, leaves the rest of the kitchen in shadow. Michelle giggles into her hands as Andri builds a pyramid of beer cans in front of her. Andri laughs, squinty-eyed, teeth the size of Chiclets. Hidden by the table, Ian reaches for Megan’s arm, strokes it with the backs of his fingers. Their ease makes Gerry feel as if she is the bomb, a collision of particles meant to blow everything apart. She turns the doorknob.

  Andri’s cheeks flame red, he raises his beer can. “Behold the tiny devil! She returns to us!” Beside him, Michelle shakes her head, mouths, “He’s drunk.”

  Megan slides away from Ian, stands beside her chair. “I thought for sure you’d figured it out and were just playing along. We didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “No.” Ian takes a swig of beer. “You meant to scare me.”

  Across the table, Michelle wags her finger. “You deserved it.”

  “Michelle, I swear to God, if you weren’t pregnant.” He makes a cartoon of himself, heaves out of his chair and punches into the crook of his arm. In his flailing, he knocks against the counter, then the table. The beer can pyramid topples.

  Michelle laughs and sticks out her tongue. Andri’s head swings back and forth between the two of them, his mouth a smeared grin.

  Megan holds out her arm. “Come sit down.”

  Gerry wishes this moment could be a photograph, the group of them captured in black and white, suspended in a cone of light, loose smiles, Megan beckoning. Or perhaps an oil painting, like the ones she’s seen on school visits to the art gallery, carved gold frames, historic people about to do historic things. “You don’t have the code.” She says it plainly, without malice or gloating.

  Andri sighs, rests his face on the table, bats at a beer can with his fingers until the can clatters to the floor.

  “Gerry.” Megan shakes her head. “Ian, grab her a beer out of the fridge.”

  Ian leans back against the counter. “None left.” He closes one eye and aims at Gerry, his fingers in the shape of a gun. “Sorry, kiddo.”

  “I was there with the guy who changes it.”

  “What is she talking about?” Andri mumbles into his arm. “Where were you?”

  “He showed me how to figure out the new code.”

  The low growl of Clem’s snoring drifts in from the bedroom. Megan walks toward her, tries to take her hand. Gerry curls her fingers in a fist.

  “Look, I know you’re mad,” Megan says.

  Andri sits ups, tugs a battered pack of American cigarettes from his jacket, tips one to his lips, and lights it.

  The air cracks as Ian opens a fresh beer. “Let her sulk.”

  “I can prove it.” Gerry says.

  Michelle’s hand waves away the smoke. “Andri, the baby.”

  “Forget the baby.” He points his cigarette at Gerry. “What can you prove?”

  Andri parks the car in an alley two blocks from the revenue building. The engine pings as it cools. He stuffs the car keys into his pocket, zips his parka. “I hope you are not wasting my time.” Gerry shakes her head, prays he can’t tell she’s spent the drive trying to sharpen her fuzzy memory of his notebook.

  On the way, they pass a tunnel that leads to a teen nightclub Gerry has heard of but never been to. The tunnel is dark, shadowed with kids lined up to get in. Here and there a lighter flickers, casts a fan of hair in relief. Two girls climb out of the tunnel and lean against a concrete pillar to share a cigarette. They wear long white shirts with rolled-up sleeves over black tights, and tall, buckled boots with pointy toes. Their eyes sink between bands of black liner, both of them with a side of hair shorn. While one smokes, the other dances to the throb of bass coming from the back of the club, a military stomp that makes Gerry bob her head. She wonders how hard it would be to slip away from Andri, ask to bum a smoke, and join them in the lineup. The club’s back door swings open and Frankie’s “Relax” pours into the alley. A guy in a T-shirt and suspenders with a short blond Mohawk steps out and calls to the girls. Behind him, a swirl of coloured lights, a strobe’s rapid-fire flash. The girls scream as they fling their arms around his neck. He ushers them through then pulls on the door so it seals them in with a thud.

  Andri lags behind her, sucks on his cigarette and grumbles about the cold. To Gerry, the night is warm, heat brewing against the back of her jacket and under her arms. She doesn’t mind the slow pace, uses the time to tease apart numbers that swim together and switch partners as she attempts to put them in order. Perhaps, she decides, if she tries not to think about them, they will come clear. She turns and walks backward, focuses on Andri’s face. “Have you ever been to prison?”

  He picks tobacco from his tongue. “One year at a labour camp. Much worse than your prison. Right after university.”

  “What did you do?” She imagines Andri smuggling refugees across a border, breaking into government laboratories, sabotaging missiles with computer code.

  “I had some pamphlets. Political writings. I didn’t agree with them, but I was handing them out for a friend. They sent us to a mine in the north. Disgusting place. They poison your food. But only now and then, so you get sick, then you’re afraid to eat. No blankets, so you can never get warm. Anyway, I survived. My mother paid money for us to come here, so I could drive a forklift. Canadian dream.” They reach the parking garage beside the revenue building and Andri stops at the locked-down gate. “I will watch from here.” He clutches the hood of his parka up around his neck.

  Gerry takes the cement stairs slowly, pauses at the door to give herself time to think. She stands with her fingers on the spring-loaded cover but knows without even opening it, there’s no point. She hops off the stairs and walks back to Andri.

  “What?”

  Gerry shrugs. “I don’t remember your numbers. I mean, I thought I did, but– You get two chances, maybe three, I’m not sure what the guy said.”

  “This is what we drove here for?”

  “Just show me your book again.”

  “Forget it. Let’s go.”

  “Without my numbers, your code is useless.”

  “What’s useless is a girl who can’t remember a simple code.”

  “I thought you wan
ted me to do this.” Gerry feels the fight drain out of her. “So what? I’m supposed to give you the change code? So Ian can do it? Or maybe Michelle?”

  Andri’s face tightens. He digs in his pockets for his cigarettes, lights up and draws a deep drag, scowls behind a veil of smoke. “Michelle has done her part. Ian.” Andri flaps his hand in the air.

  Gerry waits, listens to the horns of cars cruising a few blocks away as Andri finishes his cigarette. He crushes the butt in his fingers, reaches into his jacket for his notebook, holds it open.

  She jogs the stairs. The keypad triggers fresh anxiety, rubber buttons mocking her. She takes a deep breath and recites Andri’s code in her head, adds her numbers, then presses the buttons slowly. A soft click inside the door signals an unlocking. She reaches for the handle. The door doesn’t budge. Over her shoulder, Andri nods his head for her to hurry.

  She double-checks her math, tries to see the numbers in her mind, pushes the buttons more firmly, allows for a longer pause. The same click, the same locked door.

  “No luck?” Andri calls. “You tried, anyway. We go back to the car. Back to the drawing–”

  She kicks at the door in frustration.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” Andri waves his arm. “Get down from there, let’s go.” He walks toward her.

  It occurs to her then that the code has been updated more than once. She pictures the code in her mind and adds her numbers to it twice, double- and triple-checks her math. The buttons offer spongy resistance as she presses. The doorframe whirs. She reaches for the handle, it drops, and the door swings open.

  Andri stops at the foot of the stairs. He raises his hands and claps. She stands at the threshold, basks in his applause.

  As they walk back to the car, Gerry notices the lineup for the nightclub has dwindled, everyone now inside, the tunnel empty. She listens for music leaking out, imagines stepping away from Andri, disappearing through the club’s back door, losing herself in a pit of strangers and vanilla smoke, bass pounding in her chest, eyes closed as lights spin over her face. She strains to hear, but the song has changed, the pulse now muted and distant, not a song at all but the beat of blood in her ears.