Godblog

Godblog

Godblog

Laurie Channer

Text © 2008 by Laurie Channer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, digital, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.

Cover art/design: Vasiliki Lenis / Emma Dolan

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

Darkstar Fiction

An imprint of Napoleon & Company

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

www.napoleonandcompany.com

Printed in Canada

12 11 10 09 08  5 4 3 2 1

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Channer, Laurie, date-Godblog / Laurie Channer.

eBook digital ISBN: 978-1-894917-93-3

               I. Title.

PS8605.H3563G62     2008    C813′.6       C2008-905618-3

For Evelyn Channer,

mother and nurse,

who knows nothing about computers,

but everything about work.

One

Heathen’s cellphone died on the bus trip halfway from Whistler to Vancouver, just as she tried frantically to get information from the Vancouver Police. Mohammed gave her his, but fresher batteries still couldn’t break through the big blue information firewall. She could only assume that Dag would have been taken to the nearest hospital. When the shuttle bus arrived in downtown Vancouver, Harry, the driver, didn’t know which way to send her. Luckily, the doorman at the Wedgewood Hotel pointed her to St. Paul’s Hospital, four blocks away. He even offered a courtesy cab to get her there now that the police cordon had pulled back from the coffee shop, and traffic had begun to move through the city’s core again. Without a thought, Heathen blew off both the cab and Mohammed, who stepped off the bus right behind her, and sprinted the four blocks.

At St. Paul’s, after a couple of false starts in the ER, she got directions to the ICU just as Mohammed caught up. Without a word, he joined her in the elevator.

At ICU on the third floor, Heathen asked about Dag at the desk. A tall, Asian, uniformed cop interrupted a conversation he was having with one of the doctors. His nametag said Tse. Who are you? he asked. Family?

Friend, Heathen said. Heather Dundonald. Friends, she corrected herself, remembering Mohammed. We used to work with him in Whistler.

Are you related to Grace Dundonald? the cop asked.

She’s my niece, Dag’s roommate, Heathen said, her stomach suddenly bottoming out. Why? She hadn’t heard that anything horrible had happened to Grace.

You’re the one she was e-mailing the pictures to? he asked. Heathen nodded. I think she could use you in there, the cop said, pointing not toward the ICU ward, but to the families’ lounge.

It wasn’t a big room, and it was made even smaller by the considerable presence of Stewart Dundonald. Big and broad, even sitting on the couch next to Grace, his ex-bobsledder frame towered over her. Grace looked shrunken in on herself. She sobbed inconsolably, head down almost to her lap, her long, red curls tumbled over her face like a curtain.

Oh my god, how bad is it? Heathen said.

Critical, Stewart said. They just told us. Now, I want to get Grace out of here and back home, but she—

Oh god, oh god. Grace sobbed harder. Heathen sank down on the arm of the couch next to her, and Grace shifted over to lean on her. Jesus.

I want my daughter away from all this trouble, Stewart said. She’s only eighteen, for chrissakes. She doesn’t need to be a part of it. Look how all this stress has upset her. We’re putting a lawsuit on those cops. He made to put his arm around Grace, but she shrank away, huddling closer to Heathen, still unable to compose herself enough to talk. But Heathen got the message.

Give her a minute, will you, Stewie? Noble as his intentions were, he just didn’t get it. It was Stewart who was upsetting Grace the most. Heathen had also noticed that Grace had a white-knuckle grip on a cell phone that was clutched protectively to her chest. It wasn’t her camera phone, which would have been the same as Heathen’s, but a different one. She leaned down to Grace’s shaking curls. Tell me about the phone, Gracie-Grace.

Grace showed it to her. Last dialed, it read on the screen. With a 204 area code number. Manitoba. Redial? it prompted.

His mom, she managed to whisper. I said I’d tell her.

"We have to take care of you now, Stewart said. There are authorities to deal with that kind of thing. You’ve no responsibility for that boy."

Heathen’s own tears were stinging her eyes now. Poor kid. Poor kids. She stood up, shaky with her own feelings. Stewie, I need you to come with me, she said to her brother. He had a bunch of years on her and ran his own sporting goods business, but he could still be extra-thick on the emotional side. Grace will be okay for a minute. Grace would probably be more than okay without her smothering father intruding.

Stewart followed her out into the corridor, standing where he could still see Grace through the open door. Heathen very deliberately pulled the door to, just enough to block that view, and saw that Grace was already pulling herself together some.

What’s this about? Stewart said.

Heathen faced him. Stop what you’re doing. What are you talking about? I’m trying to help my daughter.

Look, Stewie, she said, taking a deep breath. If it cost her all the at-cost ski gear she got from him, it still needed to be said. She loves ‘that boy’. His name is Dag, and first off, you should use it, because he means a lot to her. You and I probably don’t even know how much. Heathen’s voice cracked on a sob in her throat. "She’s spent this whole godawful day being there for him—you can’t just whisk her back to Calgary or wherever because she’s your little girl. Grace put herself in this, and she does have a responsibility to see it through. Good for her that she recognizes it. You want to help her, help her with that."

Officer Tse came over. We’re still going to need a statement from her. He said it kind of gently, but with a glance toward Stewart that spoke of an impatience at having been previously shut out.

Heathen wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Yeah, you’ll get it. Do you know what happened?

They stabilized him in the ER, then he came up here in critical condition.

"But what happened? In the coffee shop?"

We’ll see what the surveillance cameras show. But the manager says the woman stabbed herself, and Olsson fell and hit his head, knocking himself out, Tse said. The doctor here, he gestured back toward the nurses’ station, where the woman he’d been talking to was writing on charts, says the ER was treating that head lac when the X-ray showed a skull fracture. But judging from the amount of intracranial bleeding, it was hours old.

Oh, fuck, Heathen said. Grace said he was hurt. She thought it was a concussion or something from getting hit by a car. You mean Dag walked around with a skull fracture all day? Didn’t Grace tell you guys he needed to see a doctor when you were dragging them around from place to place? She sure as hell told me.

Tse didn’t answer that, which told Heathen that Grace of course had. Nobody thought to bring him to an ER? she said. Jesus! Didn’t he show signs of a head injury? Confusion? Irritability? Nausea? Balance problems? She had them memorized herself, because of her freestyle skiing.

Still no confirmation, just an awkward silence. Of course, the man couldn’t say so. In case of a lawsuit, Vancouver PD had to circle the wagons. This guy couldn’t be heard admitting anything that could be construed as negligence.

Look, it’s not my case any more, Tse said. I just came here...for Grace—before anyone else got here. And for continuity with any evidence or statements from the victim, because it was an injury sustained in the commission of a crime.

Or not, Heathen said.

Tse ignored that jab. The detectives are coming in a while to take her statement, he said a bit stiffly. "Tell her not to go anywhere till they get here. And I’d like your number, too." He handed her a pad and a pen. Heathen wrote her name and Mohammed’s cell number down.

Tse’s voice was different when he spoke again. She really stood up today, he said. I hope everything goes okay.

Handing the paper and pen back, Heathen followed his glance. Through the narrow opening in the doorway of the lounge, she could see Grace inside, on the other cell phone. Stewart hovered, but safely outside the room. Heathen looked around and saw that Mohammed had faded back to the coffee machine near the elevator. She went over to tell him all the horrible news.

Two

Whistler

Jefferoo watched the snowboarder on the half-pipe. Opening day of the season, and he knew this guy’s ride was over. One second the rider was upside-down in midair over the course. A split second later, he cratered in on his twisting inverted aerial, hitting the landing on his knees instead of his feet and face-planting for the fourth time in a minute and a half. Jeff and the other snowboarders looking on didn’t even gasp any more at his bailed tricks. They just watched in embarrassed silence.

Jefferoo turned to Jared beside him. None of this looked right. You sure that’s Dangler Dag? That’s Kenzo’s jacket. The Swede busts way better air than that.

No, Jared said, it’s him. He borrowed Kenzo’s gear. His didn’t fit any more.

Jefferoo watched Dag dribble stinkbug style down the vertical of the half-pipe to rest on the flat like a chucked-out pop can in a culvert. Among the pro snowboarders and would-be pros in Whistler, now, as of this moment, Dag looked like a wouldn’t-be. Dag was done. Done like dinner. Dead in the water. Or, the snow.

For a second, it didn’t look like he was going to move. Jefferoo knew the feeling of wanting to lie motionless in the cold snow, butt and head aching, versus the need to get the hell and gone out of public view as fast as possible. If only time could stop there and hold off the painful extrication and only slightly less painful mockery of the tribe yet to come.

It was a long trudge out of the pipe. Jefferoo edged over to be the first to meet him off the pipe. Dude, Jefferoo said, with great feeling. Oh, dude.

Thanks, Jeff. Dag raised a fist to tap knuckles gratefully.

Dude, Jefferoo said, "we don’t even have a word for that yet. But we totally have to make one up now."

Dag shed those bits of gear that hadn’t fallen off in his crashes, shoved his borrowed board at Kenzo, mumbled something and began to bugger off of Blackcomb at a quick limp.

Not quick enough. I got it! Jefferoo hollered after him. PERFORMANCE ART!

•   •    •

Heather blew her cigarette smoke at the mountain. Every patio in Whistler Village, the touristy centre of town, faced the mountains. The chairs at all the tables were turned to face the view. Today, though, in the middle of the afternoon in September, past the midday rush, the patio was empty. High season hadn’t started up yet. Heather leaned her chair back against the wall of the coffee shop.

While she blew smoke rings and slugged from a bottle of water, a young guy limped up the lane that led from Blackcomb into the village. Instead of following the path that curved around to the front of the coffee shop, where it faced the central pedestrian area, he walked straight over the back patio railing, wincing as he did, and dropped into a chair at the table nearest to it with an air of weariness. He didn’t seem to notice Heather and faced out at the mountain with his back to her. The whole of her break, he just sat there, either staring at the mountain, or maybe sleeping. She couldn’t tell which from behind.

At the end of her break, Heather strolled over, for form’s sake. Hey, she said, not that you have to order anything, but if you want to, I’m on my way back in.

He looked at her, kind of startled. He was cute. Blond, short hair, nineteen or twenty, a few years younger than her. Nice dark blue eyes with long, pretty eyelashes that a girl would kill to have. Oh, sorry, I’ll shove off— he started. Heather also noticed that he looked dishevelled and banged-up. From a dark red residue, she could see his nose had been bleeding recently.

No, it’s cool if you want to sit here, Heather said. I just thought I should check.

He swivelled his head around, grimacing again as he did. Which, um…where…?

Heather got it. Limping Guy had grabbed at the first patio he’d come to, without even knowing which one it was. BlackArts Coffee Company? she said, pointing to the hated beige apron with the trademark oversized coffee rings printed on it that had to be worn over her eternally coffee-smelling black shirt and pants. You might have heard of it? Her attempt at a joke. BlackArts was the trendy coffee megachain these days. Even Whistler Village already had two.

Hey, I know you, he said suddenly, looking surprised to recognize her. You’re Heathen.

Heather was more surprised to hear this blast from the past. She hadn’t heard that nickname in maybe two years. She looked at him sideways for a second. "It’s Heather," she said. Do I—

I ride—rode with Jefferoo’s crew, he said. Dag Olsson. I didn’t know you worked here.

Heather could top that. She didn’t even know him. Oh, hey, she nodded politely, but couldn’t place him. He didn’t have to tell her he was one of Jeff’s snowboarding buds, though, they were the only ones who called her Heathen, which she didn’t like, instead of Heather. That was why Jeff had encouraged it. No wonder they hadn’t lasted as a couple. Heather was a freestyle skier, moving in different circles, so she couldn’t necessarily be expected to remember all of Jeff’s boarder buds. But she thought she would have remembered one of Jeff’s friends being such a nice-looking guy. Most snowboarders were kind of goofy.

Yeah, a year and a half, she said. My sponsorship pays the rent, but this keeps me in groceries, lift tickets and weed. And I can flex my shifts around my skiing.

You do moguls, right?

Aerials, she said. I’m off to a training camp in Calgary in a couple of days. So, anyway, she added, I’m due back in there. You want something or not?

No. Too yupscale for me, he said. Yeah, Heather knew too well that no bucks totally went with being an amateur athlete.

She nodded sympathetically. Me, too. That’s why I only work here. I couldn’t afford to actually drink here otherwise.

How is it? Working here, I mean?

Oh, come on, don’t ask to be polite. Half this fucking job is spent with a damp rag in your hand, wiping coffee machines, tables, windows and toilets down for the greater glory of BlackArts.

I’m not being polite. I barely have my share of the next phone bill in the bank, he said. Just been sitting here trying to figure out what to do about finances. I need a job, like now. I was working at the golf course all summer, but that finished last week. Any openings here?

She gave him her are-you-insane look. Dag, this is BlackArts, in Whistler, at the start of ski season. Of course we have openings. Fill out an application, but it’ll just be a formality.

Any full-time?

Only the manager is full-time. Everybody else is part-time so that they don’t have to pay benefits. But we all only want part-time, because, you know— She gestured at the mountains. But so many of the staff are going to be cutting down their time to get out on the hills again, you could pick up enough shifts that it’d be like full-time. Mohammed will be grateful someone’s applying. We’ve left him pretty desperate. Maria, another barista, had just started her last year at high school and cut her shifts back from the extra summer hours she’d been doing, and Heather would be cutting her own to spend more time on her skiing. But something struck her as odd about this. Why do you want full-time when the season’s just starting? Supplementing the sponsorship?

I’d have to have some before I could supplement it, Dag said.

No sponsorship? You’re kidding!

No, he said, I’m not. It happens to some of us.

What’s your ranking?

I don’t have national ranking.

How’d you do in the summer training camps?

I didn’t do the camps, he said. I was working at the golf club. Look, I’d really appreciate that application form, and if the manager’s in, maybe I can talk to him, too. He got up, wincing again.

"Like, now?" Heather asked. You sure you’re in shape for a job interview?

I busted some wack air, he said and shrugged. I can deal.

Heather handed him a BlackArts napkin from her apron pocket and the dregs of her bottle of water. De-goof yourself, she said. There’s still some blood around your nose.

Thanks, he said, doing it.

She pointed to a spot on the table. That, too, she said. "Because, dude, if that’s blood, I’m not cleaning it up."

Dag cleaned off the table. Now?

Heather smiled. She’d already successfully downloaded scutwork onto him. Oh, you’re going to be just fine.

• • •

Heather’s next shift was a week later, after returning from her training camp.

She sailed into the shop, straight off the bus from the Vancouver airport, on a high at how well it had gone, and started regaling Maria and Mohammed about her week away.

Even with Saturday afternoon customers flowing in, she barely slowed down. BlackArts baristas were pro at maintaining personal conversations around and over serving a steady stream of customers. After a year and a half there, Heather had excellent radar for when it was starting to bug Mohammed and could switch it on and off, picking up a half-finished sentence as much as half a shift later when it was really busy. Mohammed was thirty and pretty cool, but also grown-up serious about his role as manager. Heather knew he was saving up to break away from BlackArts someday and open up his own shop, a Middle Eastern-style coffee place like he knew from back home, all couches and cushions, as she understood it. It sounded really nice. Today, though, he seemed unusually happy to listen. Heather finally had to interrupt herself.

What? she said to him. What are you looking so pleased about?

He shrugged. It’s nice to have you back. We missed you. Heather could never be sure that he didn’t mean these things in a personal way. But he never followed up on them. She didn’t know why not. He was fit, and had longish black hair, the interesting accent—every time she thought about it, she decided it was the manager thing; Mohammed was ultimately too serious about his career in coffee to ask out someone on staff. Why? Didn’t New Guy work out? You missed my sterling service around here?

Maria snorted. Are you kidding?

Mohammed spoke almost reverently Dag’s great with customers, good attitude, doesn’t slack off, pitches right in, even the crappy jobs.

Ah, so it was Dag he was taken with. My god, Mohammed, Heather said, your wet dream. She could tease him; she’d been around the longest of all the baristas. I’ll bet you’ve been smiling like that all week, haven’t you? She turned to Maria. "What do you think of New Guy?"

Thumbs up, she said. Good butt, too.

So where is Wonder Boy? Heather looked around.

I sent him to the Northside store to pick up some Kenyan dark. We’re out.

When Dag came back, Heather got to see for herself. He was good, especially on the bar, efficiently filling the orders she and Maria called out as if he’d been there months instead of days.

Heather invited him out for a beer after their shift, since she had some per diem money from her sponsors left over from her trip. She had an ulterior motive, too, though.

You still hang with Jeff? she asked as soon as their butts hit the chairs in Tapley’s pub. Before he could answer, she cut in with, Wait, what’s your beer?

Winter Ale, he said. That was a Granville Island microbrew popular with a lot of the snowsport types. Heather figured it was for the specific seasonal connection as much as the surprising vanilla flavours in it.

She waved at a harried waitress, then was back to the matter at hand. So, do you? Hang with him?

No, he said, I don’t ride any more.

But you’d just come off the slopes when I saw you on the patio, like, a week ago.

"I did ride, but I don’t ride any more," Dag said. I’m right out of that scene.

"You mean you gave it up to work at BlackArts?" Heather was incredulous.

No, I gave it up. Then I stumbled onto BlackArts.

Stumble was right. Heather remembered him limping onto the patio. So, you made this momentous decision in the space of five minutes between Blackcomb and the store?

No, he said, I made this momentous decision while I was still in the air on my last crappy trick. It’s hard to explain. He shrugged. Basically, I lost all my tricks, and it’d take another season to get my chops back, which I can’t afford. And because I have rent to pay and food to buy…there was BlackArts.

But, how could you just give it up? Heather couldn’t even imagine giving up her skiing. Fortunately, she’d been doing better and better lately and didn’t have to worry about it.

Dag sighed. Would this story play better with you if I said I moped and wallowed at home about it for a week first? Sorry, but I didn’t have the option of wallowing. When I got off Blackcomb, it was die or do something.

But— Heather started.

Tell you what, Heathen, Dag said. I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve spent two years here, tried real hard, worked the part-time jobs, shared a house with other riders to save money, and haven’t made any headway in the circuit. It was worth a try, because snowboarding was my best thing during high school. When we sat down and talked about what I’d do after, even my mom agreed it was worth a shot, if I could support myself trying, since she couldn’t. I’m good— he paused and corrected himself "—I was good till recently, but a lot of guys here are pure prodigies. Not everybody makes a go of it."

Heather didn’t know what to say to that, but then two beers landed in front of them. How’d you do that? Dag asked. We didn’t even order.

Heather laughed. I’ve trained half the bar staff in town on a few sign language letters so I can order from all the way across a crowded, noisy bar and not have to wait as long for my beer. Two-W-A, she demonstrated, flashing him signs, is Winter Ale. P-K, she did another, is a pitcher of Kokanee. And so on. She was thankful for the chance to change the subject. So, about Jeff...

Jefferoo and that tribe are good heads, Dag said. But I need to be out of the whole scene. Maybe it’s just for now, maybe forever. He shrugged.

Heather laughed. I’m not on you any more, dude. I meant, how’s Jeff doing? She pumped him for what she’d been dying to know, and Dag gave it up. He told her how many girlfriends Jeff had had (none, just casual encounters) since their breakup. Heather wasn’t all lovesick or stalker, she just wanted to measure up whether she was doing better than him romantically, especially since she wasn’t with anybody at the moment. She’d had somebody steady for a while last year, but she’d been kind of waiting to see what was going on with Mohammed. It seemed like he liked her, but he never made an overture. She hoped it wasn’t the ethnic thing. Skiing was full of white North Americans. Mohammed’s accent and dark looks appealed to Heather as a refreshing change. Getting on so well with Mohammed was one of the few reasons she kept working at BlackArts, because god knew the work wasn’t all that inspiring.

Dag felt like a bud right away. As in, he let her monopolize the conversation, which Heather knew she kind of tended to do anyway. She sprang for a pitcher for their second round.

Dag initiated one conversational thread. I’d have known you were still skiing just by your hair, he said. You have serious skier hair, Heather. Girl skiers all have the same hair. About this long— He gestured between his jaw and shoulder.

Yeah, I know, she said, flipping her dirty-blonde hair self-consciously. He knew what he was talking about. No-maintenance, because it’s always under a hat or helmet, getting sweaty and showered a couple of times a day. Just long enough to tie back.

And you guys never chop it off super-short, he said. Even though that would be easiest of all.

Because we desperately want to hang onto some femininity. Especially Heather, who knew she wasn’t a major babe or anything, just a classic girl-jock. A little taller than average, no curves, but at least she was a hardbody, if a little broad. She also had a plain, open face and wore her dirty-blonde hair straight, cut just below her jaw.

I think short-short hair is sexy, he said, "but none of the athletic girls I’ve known would go for it. I went out a couple of times over the summer with one of the waitresses at the country club, who wasn’t an athlete. Her hair was dyed super-black and just down to the nape of her neck. That was cool." He sounded wistful.

I cut my hair that short, and I’d look like a boy, Heather said. I think I’ve seen that girl around the village. You aren’t still with her?

She went back to UBC. It wasn’t serious.

Heather doubted it would take him long to find someone else to go out with. He had those nice blue eyes with the long Bambi eyelashes going for him. Funny how she still couldn’t place him from before, though.

After they’d shared a second pitcher, he invited her back to his place. Heather had no delusions as to what it meant. Sexual recreation, snowboarder-style. It meant he thought she was a bud, too.

•   •    •

The sex was okay, not great. He kept asking how’s this, how’s that, when Heather would have preferred to just get on with it, cut the gabbing. For a guy on the snowboard scene, where the casual sex flew around like fresh powder, to Heather he still seemed to be working on his moves. Nice job on the oral, though, she had to give him that. Otherwise, they bashed knees and elbows a lot. Maybe the bruises on him, now turning Technicolor, weren’t from wack air at all, just ungainly sex.

It was a kind of relief when they finished and she could untangle herself to go down the hall and use the john. He shared the house with a bunch of other guys, so she slipped on her underwear and sweatshirt to leave the room. When she came back, since she was half-dressed already, she resisted sliding back into the bed and perched on the rickety wooden chair in front of his computer. Can I use this? she said, firing up his browser.

Whatcha doing? he asked.

Checking tomorrow’s weather.

Hoping it’s crap for training? he said. So you can skip it with the hangover you’re going to have?

I don’t skip training, Heather said, reading. Sometimes I’m late, but I don’t skip. His homepage was set to a minimalist page. Blank background, with a single line of text:

Don’t just sit there, Die or Do Something.

"You mean you don’t skip training any more," Dag said.

She barely registered that. What’s this? Heather asked, pointing to the screen.

My new motto, Dag said. Gonna get it on a T-shirt.

Really?

No. That’s just some guy’s blog.

She read the header. The Hero of the Teeming Masses? Who’s he?

Who’s anybody with a blog? Some self-important shmuck who thinks somebody else actually cares what he thinks.

I guess you do, if it’s your home page.

Well, I like that motto. Do you want to stay over?

Not in a single bed with a six-foot guy. Not if she didn’t want to wake up totally cricked before she even started to work out. No, thanks.

You’re different now, Heathen, he said.

Heather, she corrected him. What are you talking about? You don’t remember me.

"I know you don’t remember me, but I remember you. Heathen the party animal. You had this pink hair and the crazier toques than the boarders. The worst Abominable Snow Slider around."

He’d graciously refrained from the acronym: ASS. Anyone on the slopes who wears a really stupid-looking hat to get attention. And he sure knew a surprising, and kind of disturbing lot about her. I still use a neon orange helmet, she said. And I was not a party girl.

Anybody who teaches bar servers sign language so they can shave five minutes off their drinking time is totally a party girl. He sat up in bed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s bad that you reinvented yourself, I was just noticing it.

She was glad that it was dim enough that he couldn’t see her flush. I could make the national team by the end of this season, she said, and be in the Olympics here in 2010. I’m trying to be more serious about my sport.

So that’s why you don’t have pink hair any more, he said. You want to look respectable when CBC comes around to do an Athlete’s Diary segment on you.

She felt her face go even redder. "It could happen. And it’s Heather, not Heathen."

Because Heathen sounds too wildchild for the IOC? he said.

Shut up, she said. Heather hated being teased. And I remember you now, too, she said, trying to tease back, even though she really didn’t. Sort of, anyway. One small fragment had come back to her, either aided by, or in spite of the beer. Dangler Dag, right? Why’d they call you that again?

A commentator used that once about me at a meet, he said. Because of my incredible hang time. I just dangled up there.

I thought there was something else.

No, that was it, I busted big air.

It was an answer that sounded good, but his tone sounded both defensive and dismissive, suggesting he had left something out. And Heather remembered something else fuzzy. She remembered that none of the girls in the group, or on the fringes, got involved with Dangler Dag, no matter how often relationships switched around. Heather couldn’t recall entirely why, because he seemed nice enough, but obviously, Dag wasn’t going to fill her in himself. Heather was glad she’d remembered this much, though, because there had to be a good reason for it. Even if she couldn’t remember it now with the alcohol in her system, she knew not to take this little attraction any farther, Bambi eyelashes or no Bambi eyelashes.

Anyway, Dag said abruptly, when she sat there, musing quietly for too long, it never caught on the way you’d think. Not the way Heathen is going to stick to you.

By her next shift at work, he had everyone else using it. And it stuck.

Three

Heathen started checking in on the Hero of the Teeming Masses blog after seeing it on Dag’s computer. Back at the beginning, the first one read:

Welcome into the presence of the Hero of the Teeming Masses. The Hero offers only his own wisdom and counsel. There are believers, and then there are un. No harm, no foul.

What is important is that the Hero believes in himself. If you do not believe in yourself, feel free to believe in the Hero.

Watch this space.

•   •    •

Dag was a fucking star at work. Tips were excellent when he was on. And he was on all the time. Heathen didn’t know how he did it. Sure, you had to be pleasant to the customers, but Heathen didn’t make a religion out of it. There were a number of times she wanted to tell Dag to cheer down and, since they were now pretty good pals on the job, a couple of times she actually did. But it really worked for him. First, he had the cuteness thing going on. Then, he chatted people up: how was their drive up with all the roadworks, were the kiddies good in the car, how’d their ski run been. He couldn’t possibly have cared, but he made it sound like he did.

Ginette, another barista, told her about a day that Dag spent trying to flip the whipped cream canister around like