Jack, the giant-killer Read Free

comfortable pair of old Levi’s. When she walked down the street, did people turn to look at her and maybe…
    laugh? Did they think she was some kind of hippie burn-out, even though she’d barely been out of diapers during the sixties?
    She wasn’t sure what had started it, but one moment she was just standing there in front of the mirror, and the next she had a pair of scissors in her hand and the long blonde tresses were falling to the floor, one after another, while she stood there saying, “I’m not empty inside,” over and over trying to find some meaning in what she was doing. And when she was finished, she was more numb than when Will had walked out the door. There was a stranger staring at her out of the mirror.
    She remembered fumbling with her make-up,
    smudging it as she put it on, smearing it some more as she knuckled her eyes. Finally she bolted from the apartment herself.
    The October air was cooling as it got dark. The streets of Ottawa were slick from the rain that had been washing them for the better part of the afternoon. She walked aimlessly, stunned at what she had done, at how light her head felt, at the touch of the wind on her scalp.
    She had gone into a bar and had a drink. Then had another. Then lost count. And now she was here, in some grimy bathroom, the sound of the bar’s sound system booming through the ceiling from upstairs, some strange-looking punk-rocker staring back at her from the mirror, and she was too lost to do anything.
    “Get out of here,” she told her reflection. “Go home.”
    The door opened behind her and she started guiltily as a pair of young women entered the washroom. They were sleek, like Vogue models. Styled hair, high heels. They regarded her curiously, and Jacky fled their amused scrutiny, the washroom, the bar, and found herself on the streets, stumbling, because she was far from sober; cold, because she’d forgotten to bring a jacket; and empty… so empty inside.
    She took Bank Street south from downtown, leaving behind the unhappy mix of old-fashioned stone buildings and new glass-and-steel office complexes that looked more like men’s cologne containers when she walked under the Queens-way overpass and into the Glebe. Here stores still fronted Bank Street, but the blocks running east and west on either side were all residential. When she crossed Lansdowne Bridge, she turned east by the Public Library, following Echo Drive down to Riverdale, crossed Riverdale and walked down Avenue Road until she eventually reached Windsor Park.
    Her route took her in the opposite direction from her apartment on Ossington, but she liked the peaceful mood of the park at night. The Rideau River moved sluggishly to her left. The grass was still wet underfoot, soaking her sneakers. The brisk walk from downtown Ottawa had warmed her up so that her teeth no longer chattered. The night was quiet and she was sober enough to indulge in one of her favorite pastimes: looking in through the lit windows of the houses she passed to catc’h brief glimpses of other people’s lives.
    Other people’s lives. Did other people’s boyfriends leave them because they were too dull?
    She’d met Will at her sister Connie’s wedding three months ago. He’d been charmed then, by the same things that had sent him storming out of her life earlier this evening. Then it had been “a relief to find someone who isn’t just into image.” A person who
    “valued the quiet times.” Now she was boring because she wouldn’t do anything . But he was the one who’d changed.
    When they first met, they’d made their own good times, not needing an endless tour of parties and bars. But quiet times at home weren’t enough for Will anymore, while she hadn’t wanted a change. Had that really been what she’d wanted, she asked herself now, or was she just too lazy to do more?
    She hadn’t been able to answer that earlier, and she couldn’t answer it now. How did other people deal with this kind of