VenCo(4)

“Dread.”

“Huh?” Harley glanced her way as he leaned over the bar, using a damp cloth to wipe up the night’s layer of sticky.

“It’s dread, not anticipation,” she said to him, or to herself, or to no one in particular.

“Preach,” he replied. He was used to Lucky’s general moping. “God’s gotta listen sometime.”

He tossed the rag into the small bar sink and put his hands on his hips, surveying the collection of functioning alcoholics and depressed divorcés. He checked his watch. “Time to end the dream, people,” he announced. “Back to the nightmare.”

He flicked on the overhead lights, and the bar revealed itself in all its Wednesday-night glory. A collective sigh replaced the hum and buzz of the neon lights, which had become audible in the sudden silence after the music clicked off.

Lucky stood, pulling on her hoodie and jean jacket. “Alright, then.”

Harley came out from behind the bar to start the work of shaking a few people awake and politely pushing them towards the sidewalk. He left Darla, also known as Sweet D, for last. She’d come in after her drag show for her usual glass of milk and shot of bourbon, still in heels and padding. Darla was always welcome to stay until he was done mopping the linoleum.

“See you soon, Luck?” he said as she passed him.

“Probably.” The bells above her chimed as she made her way out into the night.

She stopped by the front window to put in her earbuds and pull her hood over her head. It wasn’t that cold, with spring starting to muscle its way into April. You never knew in Toronto. She could wake up to a blizzard. But right now it felt like walking weather. So with head covered and eyes down, she hit shuffle on her favourite playlist and started for home.

The East End of the city was like the aftermath of a love affair—broken and messy, shrieking at intersections, moaning in doorways. The parking lots were small and hard to get into. The shoe stores were run by grandfathers, and the bakeries featured meringues collecting dust in their yellowed front windows. A single block housed four different cell-phone repair stores. Sales posters were more often misspelled than not. The nail salons were suggestively named things like Finger Bang or Just the Tip. Lucky’s neighbourhood was a place people moved on from rather than into—a spot reserved for the very old and the very young, or the renters who couldn’t fork out a security deposit for a West End studio with underground parking.

The moon watched Lucky cut a small figure down the grey sidewalk, giving her a half wink from between the streetcar wires and eternity. Eyes on her Converse and the pavement, she missed the moon and she missed the tall woman in a salmon-pink tulle gown skipping into an alley ahead of her. When Lucky crossed the street to avoid two drunks fighting, she also missed the two foxes carrying a netted bag of oranges between them. She didn’t see a half-dozen bats careening from an open apartment window, looping calligraphy onto the dark sky, then chasing one another into the parkette. Focused inward and down, she missed all the magic and chance.

Dread, Lucky kept thinking. Nothing ever happens except more of the same.

She turned up the volume on her phone to drown out the screech of an ambulance headed for the hospital where no one went if they had another option. She’d had to take her grandmother there last month after a bad fall. Thankfully Stella hadn’t broken anything, but the attending physician suggested that she needed full-time care. Who the fuck could afford a nanny for an old person?

“Not many,” the doctor had agreed. “There’s always the province-run homes.” Over her dead body, Lucky had thought, but now that they were facing eviction from their apartment, she had no idea what to do.

Her street was dark: half the streetlights were dulled to a muddy waver, and none of the porch lights were on. She stood still. She felt like if she turned onto her block, the quiet would swallow her.

I could just keep walking. I could walk to the bus station. Buy a ticket to Santa Fe. Sell jewelry on the side of the road. Live in a motel with my own key and thin towels. Be alone. Be happy.

The wind picked up, and soon she was shivering. Why was she stalling? It wasn’t like she had to tell Stella tonight. It wasn’t going to be easy. This was the place her grandma had lived in since the day after her wedding, the place she’d shared with the love of her life until his heart blew out. The only place that held happy memories of her son, from before he’d fallen in love with Arnya, moved out, and disappeared down an opioid drain hole.

She decided she’d look for a new apartment before she broke the news. Who knew? Maybe she’d live up to her name for once and find a rental in the neighbourhood, so Stella wouldn’t get too confused—even one with two bedrooms, so she wouldn’t have to sleep in an attic crawl space anymore. She’d probably have to take on another job to afford current rents, but she’d cross that bridge . . . Deep breath in. No, she wouldn’t tell Stella tonight. Lucky pushed all the air out of her lungs and started walking again.

It was only yesterday she’d opened the letter saying they had ninety days, but already the street felt like any street, not her street, the one she had lived on for more than half her life. It made her feel adrift, without the anchor of belonging. She was surprised how quickly it was happening. She almost passed the little walkway that led to her front door, not recognizing it, but caught herself and turned in. She stopped again at the foot of the steps.