Sourmouth Read online

  Riley walked forward and hovered over the woman as she scanned the pages filled with names and dates, “I made the reservation weeks ago myself. I was told by the woman on the phone that it was confirmed”.

  The makeup drenched woman raised her right hand to her temple and shook her head as if freeing herself of mental cobwebs, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got no record of it. There must have been a mistake somewhere along the lines. The booking must have gotten lost or cancelled since then. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do”.

  The couple stared at each other in disbelief, subconsciously both shifting their luggage in their hands, as if to say “I want to put this down now”.

  “This isn’t acceptable. We booked our room weeks ago. We were told that all we had to do was show up and pay when we arrived,” Violet bellowed.

  The shaken woman just shook her head nervously, “I am truly sorry but by now someone is already checked into whatever room you supposedly booked and there isn’t another available”.

  “It isn’t ‘supposedly’, it simply is. And instead of telling us that you are sorry you should be kicking out whoever is laying in our fucking bed,” Violet roared, shaking her bag as she talked.

  The woman vigorously shook her head again hard enough that she risked pulling a muscle, coupled with the feather wiggling above the choice of action made her look like she was an irritated chicken, “I’m sorry, but I cannot. The people there and in every room have already paid and are mostly made up of our regulars. At this time of year there’s only a few places open to serve visitors, so if I turned away any of them, there’d be nowhere for them to go. And next time they would choose not to do business with the Olde Cove. I’m sorry, but I cannot”.

  Riley closed his eyes in order to try to calm himself. There was one important tidbit of information in that barrage of excuses, “You said that there would be nowhere for ‘them’ to go if you kicked them out? What does that mean for us if they can’t find another hotel?”

  At this point the painted flapper looked as if she might start bawling at any moment, “Sir, without a reservation I doubt you will find another place to stay...”

  #

  “Damn it all to hell!” Riley roared as they stormed out of the hotel and down the creaking wooden steps to their car, “We need this like we need sperm-flavoured ice cream. How can everything go wrong for us within the span of two hours? Have we offended some sort of god? Would everything suddenly look up if I slaughtered a goat?”

  Violet tossed her luggage into the back of the rental car, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong. But I do know that not everything has gone south. I guess. I mean, we both got here alright, didn’t we?”

  “I’m pretty sure that you vomited on a duck on the way in,” Riley retorted.

  “We got our rental car...” she continued before he was able to interject further.

  “Which will probably have its brakes fail just as we’re coming down a winding road on the mountain. We’ll fly off the side and end up in the ocean like we’re in an action movie”.

  “Fuck. Ok...” she said in frustration as she slapped her thighs with her hands, “we have each other. For what it’s worth, we’re still together instead of suffering somewhere all alone”.

  Now as much as he wanted to continue to vent, Riley was stopped dead in his tracks with her sappiness, which honestly he saw as a cheating way to try and calm him down.

  “Did...did you want to grab a bite to eat? I think we could both use something to help ease our nerves. And you don’t even have anything left in your stomach anyway,” he said with a defeated huff.

  Violet just nodded her head, first in acknowledgement and then towards the eatery just to the side of the Olde Cove.

  The restaurant was a novelty joint called The Red Wolf’s Choice. It was essentially a small, rectangular shaped stone box that looked like it fell out of a 1950s children’s cartoon. It seemed to be the type of place that kids would have gone after school to get thick malted milkshakes and break out in song and dance numbers. The worn walls were painted over with an obnoxious bright yellow with thin red strips of lightning along the sides, all of which pointed to just adjacent of the entrance at a large cartoon wolf with a chunk of meat and bone between his jaws.

  The name of the diner sat on top of the roof, jotting outward to the right side with an old Christmas wreath hung over the letter “f” in “wolf”, most likely a lucky toss from some bored teenager. The front windows looked like they hadn’t been washed in a year and the glass in the entrance door was starting to crack from the bottom up. Somehow the duo didn’t see the meal coming from this place as the start of their tide turning.

  But inward they went to find that the interior décor was fashioned much like the kitschy exterior. The walls were painted a fainter yellow than the outside was, as not to irritate the people who were tolerant enough to sit inside and sip their coffee there. Along the walls were tightly grouped booths for four with bright red pleather seats with what appeared to be sparse plastic green trees strapped to the wall behind them in order to give the appearance of people sitting in the woods. It clearly wasn’t working towards what it was meant to but the owners couldn’t be arsed to care.

  The couple couldn’t locate a “please wait to be seated” sign so they opted to help themselves to a seat, even though it made them look like entitled snobs just rushing to be served. But they figured that was the better option instead of looking like fools just standing around for no reason for someone who might never come.

  Quickly though they were flanked by an older Caucasian woman holding an unlit cigarette between her fingers and a pad of paper, “Hi there folks, my name is Helen, I’ll be helping you today”.

  The woman was a bit shorter than Violet and was probably in her early-sixties. She was noticeably slim in her old grey Sunday church dress that was miraculously wrinkle-free. She wore a set of gold and silver rings on each of her hands, which gave away nothing in terms of clues as to whether she was married. Her hair more white than grey and was worn high in a bun behind her ears, still in curlers. As the waitress bent down to hand the Tylers their menus, Violet couldn’t help but notice the tired smile plastered across her face that read how much she hated the job and all of the people around her but had to pretend like she cared for the sake of a paycheque.

  The waitress started to rattle off special daily options with as much zeal as her soul could manage having done it countless times before, “Your specials today are the Canine Chowder, the Ravenous Retro Burger, the-”

  Violet interrupted with a small smile and sympathetic eyes, “We’re fine without hearing the specials if you’d rather not bother”.

  With a visible deflation the waitress’s arms fell to her side, causing her to nearly drop her other menus to the ground, “Thank you. If I need to read out these godforsaken specials one more time I’m going to burn someone with my fag. Please let me know when you do actually need anything”. And with that almost psychopathic confession she departed to take a seat in a corner booth, with her head rested upon her crossed arms on the table as she played with her cigarette.

  “I remember being a waitress in high school. It’s one of the worst jobs on this planet aside from the people who clean up crime scenes and telemarketers,” Violet confessed as she laid her menu down on the table without even bothering to open it.

  Riley was well into the little booklet by the time he responded, “I like the sound of the Retro Burger. I wonder what makes it retro though. Is the cheese from the ‘50s or something?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure that would make it a rotten burger. Retro would be if it were made out of Brontosaurus meat, like in the Flintstones. I guess though if you’ve got Bronto meat that would have to be pretty old, too”.

  “You remember that one movie that we worked on...the dinosaurs in space one? When for some stupid reason we decided that it would be a good idea just to drive halfway across the country to the shoot?” Riley asked her.


  Violet nodded, “I think we had scheduled the drive to take six straight days. We had it meticulously planned out from the routes to the stops to how long we could rest and sleep”.

  “I’ve never admitted it...and I don’t know about you, but it wasn’t the trip itself that was the most fun about it. I mean, I obviously had the most fun just being with you. But aside from that the most fun I had was just putting it all together. It was all of the planning that we did beforehand. I remember all of the maps that we borrowed from the library that were sprawled across the floors as we paced around the apartment trying to figure it all out like we were solving an ancient puzzle to get to the treasure. When all we got to was the set of a really bad movie”.

  “I remember. I can’t say that the preparation was my favourite part. We were still really young in our relationship back then. I think we were only dating for a few months. And I recall thinking ‘Wow, this guy is getting obsessive about absolutely nothing’. And at the same time that I was thinking that you might be a bit too much for me to handle, I was just lost in how happy you were about all of that too. I looked at your face and I could see the child in you. Even before you even told me, I could guess just from how pleased you were that road trips weren’t something you ever did as a child”.

  “So it was a pity road trip?” he asked, slightly hurt.

  “Don’t be silly. I wanted to go on the trip itself with you. I really did. I just wasn’t into the painstaking scheduling. I promise that I don’t regret it at all, even after you got sick”.

  “You make it sound like I just came down with the measles or smallpox. I was fucking poisoned. They were trying to kill me”.

  Violet laughed, “It was your own fault! I told you ahead of time that you were insane for wanting to eat a waffle at every single restaurant stop on the way. To this day I still say that it was incredibly stupid. And I think that history proves my point”.

  He shook his head with a smile, “I didn’t think the idea itself was stupid. How can waffles ever be stupid? Though in retrospect I will admit that me asking that one greasy spoon to make waffles when it wasn’t even on the menu was a really stupid decision. I basically had to pay a bribe for them to even try to cook it from scratch and then I got food poisoning for my efforts”.

  “You vomited out of the window for like two miles afterwards. The drivers behind us could have followed your trail. And just when I thought you had nothing left in your stomach to throw up you insisted that we still stop at the next restaurant and get more waffles. We had to repeat the whole ordeal for another half a mile afterwards”.

  “You jest...but I did it, didn’t I? I got a waffle and nothing but a waffle at every restaurant on the whole six day trip”.

  “You say that like it’s something to be proud of. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that I should have left you at a restroom as soon as you started to projectile vomit like you were possessed”.

  “I’m sure that you could ask anyone and they’d be nothing but impressed. I’m pretty sure I’m in the world book of records if you search hard enough”.

  The Tylers chuckled at their reminiscing as they diverted their attentions back to the menus in front of them.

  “All joking aside, do we have a plan?” Violet said as she watched her husband’s eyes flick around the pages in front of him.

  His mouth made a little rolling motion in on itself as he thought, “Maybe I’ll go the safe route and just get the poutine. I’m sure that the Canadians couldn’t possibly mess up their national dish, right?”

  “Really, I hope that you know what we’re doing more than I do right now because I’m rather lost”.

  “I do know what I’m doing. I’m going to be avoiding the waffles. After our trip down memory lane I’m having war flashbacks just thinking about them”.

  “Riley!” Violet chided, “I’m serious. I’m not in the mood to sleep in the damn car for the rest of the week. What should we do?”

  He shrugged, “And I’m supposed to know what to do any more than you do? I didn’t plan on any of this happening. The reservation was made specifically so we didn’t have to worry about something like this. So why are you hounding me about it?”

  Violet pushed her body back against the plush of the booth in slight offence, “Hounding? I’m just hoping that you’ve got more input than what we should have for lunch. I can’t be the only one worrying about what we’re going to be doing for this vacation of yours”.

  “Vacation of mine?” Riley asked with his eyebrows readying to launch from his forehead, “If I could kindly remind you that it was your idea that we try to get away from everything and quote and unquote...fix us”.

  “Yes, it was my idea that we take some time to ourselves. But it was your idea to vanish into the wilderness so that we could become one with nature”.

  He shook his head and finally put down his menu, “Don’t make me sound like a bloody hippie. I wanted to get away from all of the stress of the city like the never ending Twitter posts and then Facebook tags and our shitty paying jobs. I never said that I wanted to become one with the Earth and Mother Gaia. You can blame me for this if you really want to, but please at least stick to the truth for once.”

  “It’s your shitty job, I’m fine with mine. And what do you mean for once?” she asked.

  Riley’s eyebrows somehow rose even higher than before, “Um, I don’t know. How about you going out with your trashy girlfriends and flirting your way through half of the city? And then the thing with...that guy...”

  It was the phrase “that guy” that went a bit too far for Violet to take. She went from being slightly annoyed to being visibly upset, “How dare you bring that fucking shit up now. I’ve made my apologies for it and I’ve explained myself. I told you everything! And most importantly nothing actually happened. It’s not fucking fair for you to keep throwing that shit into my face every time you need to make a point. When will it become a moot issue? When we’re in our fifties and you’re upset that you can’t find your slipper, will you bring up that time twenty years ago when I made out with someone else? If the law has time limits for convictions, I’m pretty sure that it’s a misdemeanour for something as trivial as that”.

  “You didn’t just make out with someone. You fully intended to fuck him. And I stress intended. Because if it wasn’t for your last minute burst of guilt you’d have come home to give me sloppy seconds. You make it sound like that was some small infraction. That he was just some guy. If it was just the kiss at the bar and you walked away from him without it going any further I could have understood that as a drunken mistake. I might not have liked it but I would’ve gotten over it quick enough. But wanting to go back to his place to have sex with him? For you to just leave the bar with some random walking erection like you were a sorority chick with her panties already half way down her legs? I’m sorry if I can’t just get over that like you seem to be so eager to”.

  “You always seem to miss the most crucial part of this story, which is the fact that I didn’t actually have sex with him. That walking erection as you like to call him went home alone like most of the other pigs from the bar. I haven’t had sex with anyone but you in the four years that we’ve been married. At the time of ‘that guy’ I’ll remind you that you were behaving like a slob. You had quit your job without us properly discussing it and began teaching art to burnout teenagers or the kids of rich parents hoping to groom the next Picasso. And you barely acted like you even gave a shit about me. I was the roommate that you occasionally got to bone. And yes, part of me needed something more than you were offering. I wasn’t content with being your friend who you happened to be married to. Part of me wasn’t ready to become an old woman yet and spend her time at home knitting while you drew silly pictures and took up random hobbies. But when I got in that cab with ‘that guy’ and realized that it wasn’t you that I was running off with I panicked. I might not have been happy with you at the time...but there was never anyone for me but you. E
ven if you have stupid hobbies and a stupid job and you have a stupid face. If you have yet to realize it, you’re the only stupid ‘that guy’ that matters to me”.

  And almost as soon as it began their fight was over. It was an argument they had many times before and most likely would have again in the future, but it was important for both of them to occasionally vocalize their problems and to work out their frustrations. Their problems were a by-product of a marriage where their courtship took about as long as it took for the ink to dry on their wedding certificate. The fact was that as much as they were in love they hadn’t yet discovered each other’s faults or more essentially learned how to deal with them before they were faced with the tribulations of marriage. And while though they were often at each other’s throats and could sometimes barely seem to care, they still loved one another tremendously and neither wanted to give up on the notion that they could be saved.

  It was the waitress that finally broke up their silence, “If you two children are done making the other customers feel uncomfortable can I get you anything to eat?”

  Violet smirked at Helen’s forwardness, “I think we’ll have the Retro Burger and a poutine. And we’ll just split them between us”.

  The waitress winked at them with her smoke stained teeth flashing happily, “Will do”.

  But as she turned away the waitress decided to do a full 360 on the balls of her feet to turn back to the couple, a surprising move for a woman her age, “Not to pry into your business too much, but I overheard that you were looking for a place to stay?”

  “Our hotel lost our reservation. And apparently there isn’t anywhere else on the island that would be free or so we’re told. I suppose we’ll have to go get something in the city and just travel back and forth between there and here. It’s not ideal, because it kind of defeats the point of coming somewhere isolated and idyllic, but we don’t have much choice,” Riley explained.

  “Actually, that’s not a choice at all. I wouldn’t survive that ferry ride twice a day for the whole week. We would have to just cancel Bowen Island completely and stay over there,” Violet said in response, throwing yet another wrench in their plans.