Free Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland Page A

calibrate loneliness into its own little status yardstick like this, I begin to believe I deserve what life sends me. No, Liz, don’t think like that.
    Seven years ago.
    It feels like a thousand years, and it feels like yesterday.
    I think I’ll pour myself a glass of white wine right now.
    *    *    *
    Oh boy.
    This is harder than I thought.
    … I’m back—and I very much need to keep things in perspective here. The trip to Italy was more than twenty-five years ago. Hale-Bopp and Jeremy were seven years ago. Here I am in 2004 , sitting in my condo, writing about the trip to Italy, when BOOM! —in the same way some people get flashes of light before a killer migraine, I have the aura that precedes a loneliness blizzard, those sweeps of loneliness that feel not just emotional but medical. Whenever I sense a blizzard about to attack, I have a few tactics I immediately employ that drain it of potency. I hop in the car, I drive to a mall or someplace filled with people, and I look at the colours of all the things on the shelves and listen to all of the voices. When the stores close, I try to find a comedy at the theatres, or I go to a coffee place. The 1990 s were great because suddenly lonely people had a place where they could all be lonely together while pretending to be fine on the outside. Well, that’s what I do in coffee shops. My head may be cyclonic with desperation on the inside, but I’ve worked damn hard to ensure I don’t look the way I feel. I try to look as if I have a meaningful slot in society. Do people look at me, Liz Dunn, and wonder if I merit a fully stocked condo and a late-model Honda Accord? I have a job, and I’m good at it, but what if I were so messed up that I couldn’t contribute to society? What if I were so messed up that I couldn’t even stuff envelopes for a living? Strap her onto the iceberg and cast her out to sea. If it does happen someday, I’ll be angry, but I won’t be shocked.
    *    *    *
    Leslie can’t be considered an idiot for having had no idea I was pregnant. I was a very fat and not too communicative teen, and she’d left home for college that summer after the Italian trip. When she saw me at Christmastime, I merely looked fatter than usual.
    Yes, a nephew out of the blue twenty years later was a shock, but maybe not quite as big a shock as the fact that I, Liz, had done something gossip-worthy.
    “Lizzie, when? How? How could you have been pregnant— ever?”
    “Leslie, I may be dull, but I am fertile.”
    “How old is he?” She looked at Jeremy. “How old are you?”
    “I’m twenty.”
    Leslie looked at me. “That’s not possible. You were in high school.”
    “Yes. I was.”
    Jeremy looked at me. “Was that hard for you—having me during high school?”
    “Actually, no.”
    Leslie barged in. “You were never pregnant in high school.”
    “Yes, I was.”
    “Who was the father?”
    “Leslie, shut up already. I’m not telling you.”
    “Mother and Father knew you had a kid?”
    “They did.”
    “Did William know?”
    “No.”
    She was insulted. “They never even let on. Does Mother know about him— now?”
    “No. You’re the first. We just met yesterday.”
    Jeremy said, “You guys call your parents Mother and Father? That’s so old-fashioned. Do you all dress like Sir Lancelot and Maid Marian, too?”
    I said, “It sounds odd, but William was the first-born, and that’s what he started calling them, and then it stuck with us.”
    Leslie was overwhelmed. “I just don’t know what to say. Yes I do. Jeremy, where did you grow up—here?”
    “No. All over B.C. ”
    “Where’s your family?”
    “That’s a tough one.”
    “Did you find Liz, or did she find you?”
    “I found her.”
    I looked at Leslie and said, “Leslie, knock it off. We have plenty of time for things to unfold.”
    “How am I supposed to feel here, Liz?”
    “Well, as this isn’t really about you, I suggest you look at it as entertainment, and