What Passes For Normal

Chapter 6

"Can I ask you something?"

Neea and I are washing the pots and pans. She's washing and I'm drying.

"Sure," she says, handing me a freshly washed wooden spoon and pointing at a ceramic pot on the counter with a bunch of kitcheny items sticking out of it.

"How did you do it?" I ask. "How did you deal with something so awful—Sienna, the guilt you were feeling, the divorce—all of it piled up like that? How did you get through it without getting all messed up?"

"What makes you think I'm not all messed up?" Neea says with a laugh. Then she stops and thinks for a while.

"I really don't know what it would have been like, going through all that, if I didn't have to concern myself with little Teddy and his needs. A young child never stops needing you. It doesn't matter if you're sad, if you're at the end of your rope, in complete despair. You don't have a choice. You have to do what needs to be done. That's what kept me from being too absorbed in my own sadness. I had Teddy to take care of."

I look down at the tea towel I'm using to dry. It's soft and worn and the simple pattern of blue flowers and green fish is faded from years of use. Just fish and flowers on an old tea towel, but then, as if this whole evening hasn't been weird enough, I find myself fighting back tears. Neea's busy with the dishes and talking about Teddy, so I just turn away a little so she doesn't notice. Jesus, what's wrong with me? Maybe a delayed reaction to her sad story, I don't know. I never said I made sense.

Anyway, we eventually go back to the table and our glasses of wine. That's when things get really strange. Instead of just random waves of emotion, I experience something I haven't felt in a very long time: the urge to tell the truth.

See, I pretty much live by telling lies. It's what keeps me sane, it's what sometimes keeps me from getting arrested, it's what keeps my parents sending me cheques so I can eat and buy some warm clothes and not freeze to death in the winter. I don't want to get all romance-of-the-bohemian-life about it, but on the street, honesty gets you exactly nowhere. Even before I became a volunteer street kid, before I left Kamloops and Pat's Pit of Quiet Torment, I would lie all the time.

It isn't that I'm a bad person, or that I don't see the value of being trustworthy, etc., it's just that the truth is often so impractical. It can be complicated and unpleasant, whereas a well-crafted lie can be clean, simple and exactly what someone wants to hear. That's right, sometimes lies don't only benefit the liar. Sometimes people might suspect that you're lying to them but they decide to accept it just because it's the easier path.

"This guy sat right next to me on the bus, Mom, and he reeked! I'm pretty sure it was marijuana. The smell must have gotten on my clothes."

OK, that one was weak but she bought it and it spared us a discussion that neither of us wanted to have. With years of practice under my belt, I can be a goddamned convincing liar and that talent has served me well. But now all of a sudden, with a glass of wine in me, talking to a complete, but admittedly very nice, stranger, I'm suddenly willing to abandon my winning strategy. Why? I have no idea. It's like I'm possessed by a truth-demon. Maybe Neea spiked the wine with sodium pentothal.

"You know what?" I say to her, "I haven't been a hundred percent honest with you."

"Really?" says Neea.

"No... Do you want to know the truth about me?" I say.

"I do," she says simply.

I don't know this woman, and after today there's an excellent chance that I'll never see her again, so why should I care what she thinks? Why go to the trouble of cooking up lies if there's no point? This might even be fun...