What She Left Behind

By Emily Kendy

Rebecca is establishing her legitimacy as a freelance writer, while adventuring through the city’s underbelly with her best friend Simon. Once she meets Ezra, the unattainable editor of a popular underground music magazine, her escapades reach tragically absurd proportions as she struggles to find her balance between bad life decisions, a dead-end job at a local bookstore, and a rocky relationship with her father’s new family.

When family tensions, epic dating mishaps, and nights of lawless debauchary escalate, Rebecca is forced to learn that in order to climb mountains she’ll first have to crawl out of the gutter.

“A harlequin romance from hell." -Chris Walter, author of Boozecan

“A catastrophically funny romp through the muck and ironies of dating, and the growing pains of ambition.” -The East Vancouver Writer’s Collective

“Never before have I hoped so intensely that a fictional character gets struck by a train at the end.” - Craig Calhoun, winner of Broken Pencil Magazine's Literary Deathmatch, 2014

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emily Kendy
• Release date: Aug 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311375377

Emily Kendy

Emily Kendy has written for music publications in Canada and the US, with articles published in the Globe and Mail, the Calgary Herald, and Adbusters magazine. She was runner up in “SubTerrain’s Lush Triumphant Short Fiction Contest,” and participated in Broken Pencil’s bloody and gruelling literary deathmatch. She lives in Courtenay, BC, with no cats and writes about her dating adventures on her personal blog Little Mess of Petals.

Book preview

Swingin’ them shovels ‘round

Diggin’ up words of pleasure

From evil hollow ground,

O – an’ here’s one now girl

The devil is in his eye

You’d better start stirring up soil boy

Or hear e’r you’ll lye.

- 16 Horsepower

Chapter 1

Rebecca tried to convince herself she was better off alone as she rode the bus up Main Street. She was heading to the post office, in order to mail six resumes. Her mother wanted her to get a real job, and despite Rebecca’s desire to exert as little effort as possible to do so, she was tired of hearing the regular refrain of I didn’t put you through journalism school so you could work in a bookstore!

Ruminating on the topic of heartbreak as she watched the storefronts pass, Rebecca decided the trouble with being alone really lay in the fact that she didn’t know how to cope with her newfound solitude. Random bursts of productivity, like attempting to establish a career, were mainly just a distraction. Truthfully, she was still mustering up the focus required to match her socks in the morning. Thoughts of the future were supremely exhausting, and generally ended in power naps.

Rebecca pulled the bell cord and stepped off by the mall at the top of the hill. She passed a woman on the sidewalk with a tiny brown mutt barking in her arms. Rebecca glared down at it, baring her teeth secretively. Little dogs were as irritating as pimples, which she had the dark urge to squeeze until their tiny heads popped off like dandelion tops.

Once on the other side of the doors, Rebecca’s nose hairs were nearly scorched off by the aroma of perm solution wafting from a nearby hair salon. She held her breath as she approached the post office, checking the addresses of the big city newspapers on the envelopes in her hands. She knew there was no way she was going to get one of those jobs. Contrary to what her mother was telling people back home, Rebecca hadn’t technically graduated from the program. Instead, she’d ended up in an unpleasant, one-sided conversation with the Dean of the Journalism Department, near the end of her final semester.

They’d sat together at opposite ends of his cramped desk, in a stuffy office sprouting academic books from the walls like a five o’clock shadow. As he talked, Rebecca stared at the heaping piles of files, loose leaf papers, journals and textbooks in an effort to avoid ogling his wickedly ineffective comb-over. Her journey stopped here, he told her, clearly well-versed in the art of expulsion. It was a mighty air of indifference cobbled together from years met with handfuls of lazy, unmotivated students who left through his door, never to return. He went on to say that she was eligible to redo her final term again next year. One year being the traditional amount of time it took to reflect and learn how to take college more seriously. After the meeting, Rebecca felt that she’d just wasted nearly four years of her life, and shuffled across the campus with her stomach in knots, head bowed against the wind. Her long red hair whipped out around her like frayed ends.

Not one to invest any significant amount of time in self-actualization, she pointed the blame at her insanely boring political science professor who’d given her a failing grade in the first place. From her seat in the back row of the lecture theatre, Rebecca would squint and flick the lint-sized professor between her fingers; it was a game to spice up the otherwise mind-numbing tedium that was civic government. She hadn’t meant to miss over half the classes, but with her social life consisting of all-night house parties, which were becoming a more regular occurrence than food, getting out of bed at 7 a.m. proved mostly impossible. When it came time for the final exam, Rebecca knew she was done for, having not cracked the assigned textbook and still somewhat high from the roach she’d found in an ashtray that morning on the way to class. She did her best to pretend to know what she was talking about, but the results weren’t pretty.

So, after her talk with the dean, Rebecca made one last attempt to correct the situation by pleading her case to the poli sci professor, on the off chance of upgrading her complete lack of interest to a mildly interested C. This office was spotless and uncluttered, and smelled like a lethally gross combination of cheap perfume and stale cigarette smoke. Rebecca took a hesitant seat on the other side of the professor’s desk, hands folded politely in her lap. She began the spiel she’d practiced the night before with her roommate Simon, but it quickly became apparent in the stone-faced gaze of her professor that her case was weak and her show of regret had arrived too late. The professor chastised her in an aggravating, motherly way. Rebecca could see all that remained of this bridge was smoke and embers.

At home it was a lot easier to pretend all was as it should be. Rebecca isolated herself in a bubble of limbo, finding solace in the hollow times of dawn, after a party, when the rug was thoroughly trampled, dusted in crumpled flyers and cigarette butts. Inevitably searching for the weed grinder, she would maneuver over the unconscious bodies of strangers clumped about in clumsy positions as if dropped from the sky. This was the start of every day, when she would knock out the crystal build-up from the grinder lid and funnel it into the glass bong her boyfriend Jeremy had given her as a birthday present. She discovered this was all she needed to survive the trauma of a botched degree. It was a self-induced state of ambivalence that was maintained with the help of marijuana, mushrooms, acid, ecstasy and whatever else happened to find its way to her central nervous system. Had Rebecca been wildly popular in high school, she might not have found it so easy to blow off school but at 23, and just discovering her quirky charm, these parties were her first experience as a burgeoning social butterfly. It was all that mattered.

As a teenager, she’d been a late bloomer with a flat chest, confused hair and a homemade fashion sense. During high school dances, she’d spend the slow songs hiding in the bathroom stalls, wondering if her paisley print hand-sewn hammer pants weren’t as flattering as she’d thought. It always took an artful dodge or two to avoid the onion-breathed foreign exchange boys who’d clamour after her when the jocks finished picking off her pretty girlfriends. The smell of public bathrooms with their chalky pink soap always brought her back to sitting on the water tank, feet on the edge of the seat, sneaking a cigarette and waiting for the long version of Stairway to Heaven to end.

Back in Vancouver, at the party house, Rebecca was determined to live in every moment of the festive summer happenings, botched future or not. Then she discovered that Audrey, her best friend and roommate, had started sleeping with Jeremy. Or Jeremy had started sleeping with Audrey. It really never mattered; both became lost to her. Rebecca discovered the secret affair one morning when she made her way up the stairs to the kitchen before the crack of dawn and caught Jeremy creeping out of Audrey’s bedroom. Her sleepy-eyed, couch-surfing boyfriend offered up characteristic perplexity.

Sorry, he’d muttered, half-shrugging like somehow it wasn't his fault.

Being extraordinarily bad at confrontation she’d simply run back to her bedroom sobbing loudly and wailing behind her closed door loud enough to hopefully ruin everybody’s day. Jeremy did not enter and try to console her, which only made her cry harder. It was a painful blow and one she hadn’t seen coming, given Rebecca’s penchant for ignoring nuances of behaviour that would have helped her differentiate between her own desires and actual reality. The cheating boyfriend revelation was difficult to recover from, and Rebecca nursed her broken heart with a generous helping of intense despondency. Audrey had the nerve to tell her they were in love, while Rebecca packed. She spent the next several days making everyone feel uncomfortable as she moved through the house, boxing random items like dirty ashtrays, fridge magnets, and empty CD cases, in a blubbery haze of mucus and tears. It was Simon who finally stepped in to save her.

Around this time, Simon had made the unrelated decision to move out, and into his boyfriend Rene’s condo, which was a modern and expensive low-rise looking out over the rooftops of Granville Island. The couple, wanting to help her get back on her feet, kindly insisted Rebecca crash with them temporarily until she felt human again.

Simon was employed at a porn store and enjoyed gardening almost as much as gin and tonics. Whenever he played tennis, he jumped around the court with one leg extended like a ballerina. He had an arresting face, with lagoon blue eyes that were enhanced by his slick black hair. His boyfriend Rene had the sculpted features of a male model, was soft-spoken, and the more conservative of the two. Rene was often out of town, traveling extensively for work, but when he was around Rebecca found him to be one of the most patient men she’d ever encountered. She would have found Simon’s outrageous antics as a lover and companion unbearable, but Rene seemed to take his boyfriend in stride, and as a friend, Simon was enormously fun and loyal.

Simon placated Rebecca’s despair with drug and alcohol fueled patio barbecues, and they talked themselves to early morning silences, ruminating on love, loss, and the secrets of the universe that seemed so clear in the midst of a high, and so hard to remember the next day. In one evening’s smoky lucidity, they puffed quietly and stared off into the distant glowing lights that pockmarked the darkness across the harbour like furtive forest eyes.

Rebecca insisted that Audrey and Jeremy had nothing in common and the relationship would never last.

Simon played the devil’s advocate, a role for which he was naturally suited. Evolution is the result of uncommonalities.

Rebecca shot him a sideways glance. Is that a word?

It is now.

The flying squirrel is a great example, Simon told her, gazing nostalgically into the sky. One romantic forest night long ago, bat and squirrel fell in love despite the odds.

Rebecca picked at a loose thread on the knee of her jeans. I don’t think that’s how that happened.

Simon shrugged. Who really knows?

I’m pretty sure scientists do. I thought you were on my side.

I am, but don’t let jealousy blind you. Life works out the way it’s supposed to, even if you can’t see it yet.

His bluntness had a powerful effect; it was a sort of neutralizer to her narcissistic indulgences. I’ll have to take your word for it.

Do, said Simon, through a tightened breath as he passed her a roach. She took it, thoughts swimming to the edges of the cliffs of anonymity, bits and pieces trickling over into moments of insight before washing out with the waves of a common harbour.

Where is our fame and fortune, Simon? She asked.

Chasing after people who work a hell of a lot harder than we do, he muttered.

In mid-August, a couple of weeks after moving in with Simon and Rene, Rebecca landed a job at a small bookstore. She was allowed to wear black and act like a snob and this new attitude problem did wonders for her demoralized self-esteem. Shortly after the job score, she answered a roommate-wanted ad at an apartment just off Main and 17th. Morgan was a vivacious fitness fanatic, and answered Rebecca’s knock wearing a Lycra two-piece. She was sucking green smoothie juice through a straw like a swimmer pulling breath through a snorkel.

It’s a protein shake. It’s really not that bad, she told Rebecca, revealing bits of seaweed in her teeth. It was far beyond Rebecca’s comprehension as to why someone would voluntarily drink a glass of sludge or wear full body spandex, but despite their superficial differences, the two hit it off. They sailed through small talk during a tour of the apartment. Soon their shared affection for musicals was discovered, which cumulated in a spontaneous duet of from Jesus Christ Super Star. He’s just a man, and I’ve haaaaaad so many meeeeen beeeefore!

That’s awesome you know that song, said Morgan, catching her breath after the resulting bout of giggles. Those are the funniest lyrics!

Totally relatable, right? Rebecca asked flatly, to which Morgan responded with a blank look.

Perhaps they weren’t completely on the same page, but she felt relatively confident about their compatibility as roommates. Sure enough, three days later, Morgan invited her to move in.

Settling into September, encouraged that her 24th year would be better than the last, Rebecca finally caved under her mother’s nagging and mailed off the resumes for various journalism positions while trying not to gag on the smell of salon ammonia. It was an effort to satisfy the poor woman’s delusional belief that her graduated daughter was an interview away from being a star reporter for the Vancouver Sun. After shoveling the handful of resumes into the mail slot at the post office, Rebecca stopped for a coffee on her way back to her new apartment. Outside a café, cup in hand, she took a seat at a rickety table and absently unfolded a newspaper-style magazine that was laying on the metallic surface.

The word Dissent splashed across the top of the cover page in gothic font, like a smear of wet paint. It was an amateur production: cut and paste music articles with sporadic colour photos between black and white pages. Pictures of half-naked women and crude cartoons flanked ads for hydroponics stores and tattoo parlours. It appealed to her in every possible way. The snapshots of debauchery, rock n’ roll and midnight mysteries was captivating. She longed to find herself deep in the midst of it all; in those smoky, rollicking scenes of booze and loud music that were jumping up off the pages and leaving her fingers black with inky temptations.

She checked the masthead for the editor’s name and spoke it out loud: Ezra Fielding. It tasted like an exclamation point and she thought it was an excellent name for an editor. The next morning Rebecca dropped a seventh resume in the mail, this one carefully spell-checked with a thoughtful cover letter addressed Dear Mr. Fielding. Its contents enquired about potential writing work, or possible internships. After closing the mouth of the red mailbox with a silent prayer to the universe, she headed off towards the bookstore and consequently forgot all about it.

It wasn’t until two weeks later that the phone rang while she was watching a program about a widowed father who was letting his three teenage daughters pick out a new trophy wife/stepmom. The show was single-handedly creating a new definition for uncomfortable, and so she lunged at the receiver rather than let it go to voice mail, muting the woman on TV who was timidly undergoing a lie detector test.

Hello?

Is this Rebecca Davis? The voice was smooth and curious.

Yes.

"Hey, this is Ezra Fielding from Dissent magazine."

It was him, she thought wildly, her heart nearly popping out of her mouth as she answered. Yes, of course! Thank you for calling me back!

Oh well, I try. Do people not call you back often?

You’d be surprised!

He had a gentle chuckle that she was immediately charmed by. She didn’t really have any expertise in voice profiling, but he sounded good looking. So, I got your resume, he told her. Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond, things are crazy around here right now; we’re in the middle of production.

She fiddled with a corner of the masking tape that held the batteries into the TV remote. No problemo!

There was a pause. So, you want to write for the mag?

Yes. Are you hiring?

We’re always looking for writers. His voice was so soft, with such an earnest quality, that Rebecca nearly forgot what they were talking about.

I should probably tell you that we can’t pay. I mean, we’d like to one day.

Oh.

You can think about it.

No! Rebecca cried, more shrilly than intended. I mean, yes I still want to.

He asked her a few questions about her experience, which she elaborated on as best she could, putting the art of bullshitting into practice. But if he thought she was being vague, he didn’t say.

Have you ever written about music? he pursued.

CD reviews, she said, amazed by the lies that were coming out of her mouth and instantly worried he’d ask to see her pieces. There was a pause on his end before he offered her the cover interview for November’s issue.

The guy who was supposed to write it is AWOL, Ezra explained, adding that he didn’t have enough time to do it himself. It’s scheduled for next week.

Okay!

We’re looking at about 2000 words long.

Okay!

When Ezra discovered that she did not have the necessary recording equipment for a phone interview there was another uncomfortable silence. He proceeded to clear his throat, as though to dispel the anxiety he had about offering her such a critical piece. He told her he’d drop off what she needed the following day.

I could come down to your office and pick it up after work, she said, hearing the lack of sleep in his voice and eager to be uncomplicated. But he insisted on bringing it to her and so she gave him her address and hung up, squealing quietly at the prospect of meeting him. The writing gig sounded decent too.

She didn’t mean to get carried away. But Rebecca couldn’t help herself, and she tumbled head over heels into a fantasy about their inspired literary love match. One fueled by passion and fights and lots of make-up sex. It didn’t seem relevant that she had no idea what he looked like, and hadn’t even met him physically. If he was a hideous troll and they were destined only to be friends, then she would resign herself to the very real opportunity of making a name for herself as a writer in Vancouver. While she knew her mother wouldn’t be too pleased with her offering of free labour, Rebecca didn’t care about the money. The way she saw it was that she’d been rolling around in the mud beneath a ladder dangling from a cloud in the sky, and now she’d somehow managed to grab hold of the bottom rung. All she had to do was develop the upper arm strength to pull herself up.

Chapter 2

Hey, bud!

Ezra nodded and waved in the direction of an unfamiliar face. The Alberni was moored in the harbour of the Plaza of Nations. Routinely rented out for private parties and cruises, it was an old boat that sagged in the middle like a long-appreciated lounge chair. When Ezra arrived, the vessel was quickly filling up and swaying in the waves. On board were punks, rockers and a motley gang of assorted deviants who were already drunk and hanging off the railings, spilling their booze in animated conversation. Clusters of curvy girls in high-heeled shoes shuffled faux confidently around on deck, clearly new comers to the event and inexperienced with the rough and tumble gravity and slick surfaces that made the sight of six inch spikes a punch line waiting to happen.

He scanned the rooftop of the vessel for his friend Alex, before gazing out across the bay, chewing absently on a bitter clump of Nicorette gum. He didn’t swim and certainly never planned to learn in this lifetime, but despite the wobbly sea legs, he had a job to do, which was to make sure nothing went wrong over the course of the evening. The soles of his new cowboy boots clanked against the metal rails of the plank, and he spit into the oily water before boarding. He veered straight for the main lobby and bar in the hull of the ship, where a couple dozen people were in line for drinks and creating a boisterous air of exuberance that seemed to be teetering on the edge of reckless abandon.

Ez, Ez, said Alex, stumbling up to Ezra.

Alex was clearly already in that zone. Ezra knew that together he and his friend looked a bit ridiculous but he couldn’t help the fact they dressed alike. Their sartorial affinity for urban cowboy attire matched right down to the rolled up sleeves around the elbows. Ezra was 99% sure Alex had copied–and unbeknownst to him vise versa. He was unclear as to when it actually started, but was pretty sure they’d been dressing the same way before becoming friends.

There’s a jack-off on board who keeps mentioning New York, said Alex, leaning on Ezra, breath reeking of alcohol. Don’t you hate those fucking pricks, man? Here he affected a righteous nasal accent of ambiguous origin. "In New York you shit gold."

Ezra studied his lankier friend whose eyelids were already slipping down like window blinds. Are you loaded already?

I’ve been drinking since this morning, when Vikki got back.

Vikki was Alex’s girlfriend. She was the lead singer of a bubble-gum pop band. Ezra thought the music was so-so but Vikki was hot. So was her guitar player, Lou, his current something-or-other. But he hadn’t spoken to Lou in nearly two weeks.

Don’t worry, don’t worry, said Alex, flailing his arms and nearly knocking off Ezra’s cowboy hat. He was always waving his arms around like a manic conductor when he talked.

Why the hell should I be worried? Ezra asked, straightening the black brim. At least you can swim.

Do you want some of this ecstasy? I bet you could swim on ex, man.

Ezra eyed the capsules in his friend’s outstretched hand. He reached for one despite his better judgment. Doubtful. Now I just need a drink.

"Here, have mine. I gotta take a leak. If you see Vik tell her I’m looking for her. We’re gonna join the Sea Level Club." Alex’s wink slurred overtly.

The guy in line behind Ezra snickered.

With Alex’s drink in hand–he would have preferred a whisky but the rum and Coke would do–Ezra slipped the pill in his pocket and stepped outside once more. He made his way starboard, chatting with different groups of people as musicians set up gear on the front deck. When the boat eventually groaned to life, the deranged crew staggered and slopped their beverages in slippery unison. Ezra downed the remains of his drink and stepped deftly towards Jason, the guitarist for local rock band The Manimals. The musician was in the process of untangling a bird’s nest of cords.

Hey man.

Jason looked up. Ezra, how’s it goin’?

It’s going.

I just saw Vikki, they’re not on the bill tonight are they?

Nope. They’ve got the night off, said Ezra and added casually, You haven’t seen Lou?

Sorry, man.

Gazing around the boat, Ezra asked, Have you guys found a record label yet?

Not yet, said Jason, flicking the shaggy hair out of his eyes. Agent Orange in Calgary is talking to us, but it’s still up in the air.

"You should come by my office next week. We could probably work out a distro deal with Dissent Records."

I didn’t know you’re in the record business?

Ezra puffed his chest in an unconscious habit. I am now, he said. I’ll call you this week and we’ll talk about it.

Jason thanked him and Ezra told the guitarist to help himself to the contents of the promo beer cooler behind the bar. As he wandered on again, Ezra ran into the sound guy and sent him in Jason’s direction. Next he found himself cornered by a random cute girl who seemed to know who he was, and nattered away at him until her drunken friends dragged her off. She was young, he could tell. How young? He didn’t really want to know. Soon The Alberni was under way and the ropes slipped from the dock. As the ship’s gears warmed up, the booze cruisers floated down False Creek and out into English Bay, while the sunset cascaded across the horizon to light up the distant Siwash Rock in an appropriate purple haze.

As night descended, the line-up of bands belted out sweaty grunge rock that echoed through the channel to disturb the neighbours on each