Free Idea in Stone by Hamish Macdonald Page B

being awkward.
    “Um, sure,” he said, far too late. He walked down the steps and stood next to her chair. The motorised thing was beyond him; surely she didn’t expect him to carry that up the stairs. So he gestured toward her, reaching this way and that, not knowing how to begin lifting her.
    “Ever give a dog a bath?” she asked.
    “Uh, yeah.”
    “Like that. Just pick me up like that.” She threw her cigarette on the lawn. “Don’t worry. Really, you can’t mess me up any worse than God did.”
    An unconscious laugh burst from Stefan’s mouth. His face flushed with social horror, until he saw the woman in the wheelchair grinning at him. “It’s okay,” she said in her odd voice, “you’re not comfortable with anything until you can laugh about it. So, there, we got that out of the way. Now pick me up.”
    “I’m Stefan,” he said, curling one arm under her and one behind her back. He lifted her, her tiny legs flopping down from the little square of her body. Her dog analogy was apt: she weighed about the same as the Labrador he once washed, but she was better about being carried.
    “I’m Helen,” she said, “Helen Jackson. You’re Delonia’s son, right?”
    “Among other things,” he said, carrying her through the front door. “Hey, I know that name. You’re one of my mother’s producers, aren’t you?”
    “You got it,” she said.
    “Um, where should I put you?”
    “Where are the drinks?” she said with even more of a croak, as if playing for comedic effect.
    “Let’s go to the kitchen, then,” he said. The soft chair in the corner was momentarily empty, and he sat Helen in it like a strange troll doll, careful to make her skirt fall nicely.
    “Thank you,” she said. “Do you have any bourbon?”
    Stefan nodded, giving her a one second finger. As he poured the drink, he found himself taken with this woman, her total mastery over her condition—not physically, there was nothing she could do about that, but socially, personally. He brought her the drink, handing it to her with a square napkin. He pulled a chair over from the kitchen table and sat beside her.
    “So what do you do?” asked Helen.
    “I do voice-over work for a children’s show.”
    “Oh yeah, which one?”
    “ The Green Brigade . Do you know it?” Helen nodded. “I’m ‘Bloob Ox’.”
    “Really? That’s amazing. You don’t sound anything like that in real life.”
    “Well,” said Stefan with a cocky angle to his head, “that’s where the talent comes in, isn’t it?”
    “Do me,” she said.
    Oh God . Many people asked him this, and he was generally able to do it to varying degrees of success, depending on how much vocal character the person had in the first place. But with Helen it wouldn’t be fair. It was too easy. How could he produce anything close to her voice that wouldn’t sound like a mockery?
    “Go on. I’ve heard myself on tape before, I know what I sound like. I dare you. If you get it right, I’ll buy you a drink.”
    Stefan swallowed, then poked his fingers underneath his jaw to loosen his tongue-muscles. “Okay,” he said, “here goes. Hi, my name’s Helen Jackson, and I’m here tonight to make you all feel very awkward .”
    “Son of a bitch,” she said, “that’s very good.” Stefan sighed. His risk paid off.
    The two of them talked for an hour, gossiping about the people around them. They talked about the state of the world, then came back around to their work in broadcasting.
    “I’m going to leave the show,” Stefan confided. “I’m going to leave Canada.”
    Helen’s eyebrows rose on her pointed, elfin face. “Delonia never mentioned this.”
    “She doesn’t know.”
    Her eyebrows rose higher.
    “She’s everywhere, Helen. There’s no place I can go here where I’m not ‘Delonia Mackechnie’s son’. If she’s not getting in my way, her reputation is.”
    Stefan expected her to counter this, but instead she said, “So where are you