Companion 1

Azure sea. Burning blond sand. Swaying palm fronds. Luxury high-rises everywhere.

Numbing loneliness.

My legs are brown now, ten days of sun will do that. I've detoxed, too, a boring process but necessary, as are the walks, long, fast and often. It's like I'm training for something, and I suppose I am: the last quarter of my life, destined to be as entirely empty as the quarter just completed, a thoroughly depressing thought.

"Hi."

She surprised me; I hadn't seen her sit down on my bench. I smiled dismissively.

"Are you staying there?" She nodded to the opulent pile behind us.

I smiled again, she could make from that what she would.

"I work at a hotel down the beach, nice but not as nice as that one. Cleaning rooms, not a great job but it pays the bills ... barely." I was about to get up when she quickly added, "I have a friend. She used to work at McDonalds." I settled back down, I wanted to leave but didn't need to be rude about it. "She met a woman; she became her companion," she said the word as if a companion had importance. "She does everything the woman doesn't want to do ... cooking, cleaning, shopping ... everything she wants. That's why I came down here; she told me to, she said I could meet someone here. She thinks I can be a companion too."

I had never heard of anything like this but she was a cleaning girl, anything would be better than that. "Well, good luck," I said, getting up. I think she had more to say but I didn't give her the chance.

Hotels should rent people out to have dinner with ... and lunch and breakfast for that matter. There is nothing that says lonely more than a person dining alone — you can veritably feel people wondering and pitying so I tend to eat faster knowing that, particularly now that I'm not deadening my sensibilities with alcohol.

My degree was in Russian literature. It was an interest in my youth, an intense interest. My plan was to study something I cared about and then, because my dad was paying, study something that would get me somewhere, law in my case.

I got married right after graduation #1 and was so miserable by the time graduation #2 was nearing that I couldn't quite stomach law anymore so I joined my older sister in her property management firm. When my husband traded me in on a newer faster model six years ago, I was 47. I immediately went back to Russian lit, perfect for we depressives. I finished a Chekhov at around four o'clock this morning.

My trick to beating booze is to create a habit (and beat an old one). Every day at 2 o'clock, 6 o'clock when I'm home, I mean every day, I go for a walk, doesn't have to be a long one, usually is but doesn't have to be, I just have to be dressed for it with my walking gear and boots on, like today.

"Hi." It was her, the girl from yesterday, she saddled up to me as surreptitiously as yesterday. I fought off my surprise and gave her the same smile but didn't break stride. "Did you think about it?"

"Think about what?"

"A companion, I'll make a wonderful companion."

That stopped me in my tracks. "Was that an offer?"

"We would try it ... for a month, that's what my friend did ... but they knew it was going to work after a week. She is payed minimum wage plus room and board."

The woman, really a girl, looked Asian. "How old are you?"

"22."

She looked 14 until you looked a little closer. Her face was scrunched in expectation; I think she thought I was considering her offer. I wasn't, I was trying to fathom her: who does this?

"I know I look younger than that. I'm Filipino."

I started walking again; I wanted some distance from her.

Not a chance; she was at my side. "Did you think about it?"

"I did not, no. I don't want a companion ... I don't even know what a companion is."

"I can be whatever you want me to be."

Can you be gone? I didn't say that but I thought it.

"Would you rather walk alone?"

"Yes, I think I would."

"OK, but think about it as you walk. I'll wait for you on the bench."

"I'll be an hour or two."

"That's OK, I'll be there when you get back."

I stopped. "What makes you think I want a companion, you don't know anything about me."

"You walk everyday alone, you eat alone, you are sad. You need someone — I want to be that companion."

"I'm going home in two days."

"Where is home?"

"Canada."

She brightened visibly. "Where in Canada?"

"Vancouver."

"My parents live in Toronto; I lived there for two years, moved to Winnipeg then Edmonton. I came down here four months ago."

I was going to start walking again but I couldn't. "You want to find someone to be a companion with ... to? Is that even a thing? I've never heard of it?"

"What are my options?"

"What do you mean?"

"What are my options? Whatever I do I'll be making low wages in a boring job. I'd rather look after you."

"That makes no sense. I don't need looking after for one. For two, why would cleaning my house be any more exciting than cleaning rooms?"

"I wouldn't just be your cleaner, I'd be your companion."

"Do you know what companion means? It isn't an occupation. A companion is a friend, someone you do things with."

She smiled. "Yes, that's exactly it. I'll be waiting at the bench." When she turned back I lit out.

Tolstoy owned villages, villages filled with serfs — Tolstoy owned people, thousands of them. He didn't pay them, they worked the land, they paid him. To read Russian literature is to be schooled in great societal inequities, that's what I was thinking about, that's what her proposition meant to me. I could afford to buy someone, I could afford to pay someone $100 a day. But why would I? To eat with me at a hotel, OK, fine but what else? I drew a blank, I actually thought hard about it but came up with nothing ... except to wonder about the woman who employed her friend. What was she getting out of her companion? How empty must her life have been to feel the need to buy someone to fill it?

As empty as mine? I banished the thought and picked up my pace.

She was there, I could see her from a distance, a diminutive figure, 22 maybe but with childlike innocence. I thought of skirting around her but hated the cowardice.

She was smiling when she spotted me like I was a best friend. "I was thinking I could learn to do massages; I could give you rubdowns after your walks — my friend has picked up all kinds of skills. Paying the bills, for one. Her partner hates paying bills."

"Partner."

"Well, that's what you come to be."

"Look ..."

"Maria."

"Look, Maria ..."

"I thought we could talk about it at dinner. What time would you like to meet? We could go to a place on the strip, that's what they call it. I could meet you here at say, 6 or would you prefer it to be later?"

"Seriously?"

"There are a lot of exciting things about this but for me it will be learning all the skills you want me to learn. We can start talking about that."

"Look ..."

She almost jumped to her feet. "6 o'clock then."

She was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, she may have weighed 100 pounds, maybe, and she was pushing me around, not obnoxiously but deftly, in a manipulating kind of way. I was fascinated.

I have done considerable travelling over the years, been to a few third world countries,. I've seen the hardships; i know the hustles ... I can understand how young third world kids have radically different options than I had. And I've noticed how they embrace life with far more desperation. I get that; doesn't mean I find being a target acceptable. I don't. But I do understand her motivation ... to a degree. What are her options? She is brown in a white world, not well educated and absolutely no social advantages. Her's would be a life of minimum wage. A depressing thought.

I was there at 6, I only momentarily considered avoiding her then thought of the prospects of dining alone again. She materialized as she does, now in a colourful and pretty red-yellow flowered dress that suited her; she looked pretty ... and her age.

She gave me three choices of the better restaurants — proving she could do research. I chose Thai which turned out to be nearby.

I assumed she'd be like a little girl with her grandma, looking around, excited to be there. It wasn't like that at all. This was a business dinner to her. She was focussed, entirely focussed ... on me. The girl wasn't messing around and anyway, it wasn't a girl at my table, it was a young, ambitious woman with intelligent eyes and obvious determination.

Fine. "Why me?"

"You need me, I need you."

I needed a drink.

She was looking at me with expectations I just couldn't understand: the interview was to begin, it's just that the employer had no job opening — I was going to tell her that immediately but didn't want to be left alone so decided to wait until dessert.

"I texted my friend to tell her I was going to meet with you." She smiled. This wasn't hard for her, she was nervous but confident. "Sell yourself, she said, convince her she needs you." She laughed with a kind of eager innocence. "'How can I do that?' I texted back, 'I've never got this far before' — I've looked at a lot of women but never found a fit. Do you know what she said?"

"No."

She looked around for the waiter. "Would you like a drink?"

"I don't drink any more."

"Why not?"

"I wasn't managing well."

"You don't have to manage any more, I can do that." She turned and so help me she all but snapped her fingers and a waiter appeared. I ordered, I didn't mean to, I felt I had to, she did, too, wine for me, water for her.

"My friend," she leaned into the table, this was going to be her sales pitch. "She told me to be myself, to be openly honest, that's what she said, openly honest and to convince you I can change your life for the better ... that is my job, that would be my only job; that's what you would be paying me for. It's a transaction, that was her word. She said you would understand that."

"I don't."

"Oh." Finally, the woman had doubt, momentarily she looked deflated.

"I've never heard of anything like this."

"She has been with her partner for almost two years. Her life is perfect. Is yours?"

"No."

"It can be, that would be my job."

"That's nonsense."

"We give it a month. If your life isn't heading that way you tell me to leave. I go."

The waiter brought our drinks. The alcohol, shunned for over four months, flooded me with memories, good ones, bad ones, complex ones, guilty ones — familiar ones.

"You can have two. I want you to have two, no more."

"Perfect."

She smiled. "That would be my job."

"What do you get out of it ... I mean beyond the money?"

She laughed, merrily. "I now clean the rooms you live in ... I would be living in them. I would be living with a woman who is educated, experienced, full of surprises. I would have to learn all kinds of new things all the time, what they are I have no idea, maybe riding horses ..."

"No, not riding horses."

"Then swimming, I would have to learn to swim or learn to like walking, I've never walked for pleasure — I have all kinds of things to look forward, don't worry about me ..."

"Find a man, get married, have children."

"Any man I can find will be as poor as I am ..."

"So this is all about money?"

"And opportunities."

"I'm not all that interesting."

"But you could be, that's my job."

It wasn't her, it was the alcohol: life is always sunnier after that first drink. I got a firm no after my second and a blueprint as to how it would work. She would fly home with me, set up house as a partner, for about $100 a day she would hold my hand on our walk towards nirvana, a state of absolute well being. That was her job. Simple. I can't begin to explain how badly I wanted to believe.

It was her 'no' after my second drink that did it, not the no that I couldn't have more ... the yes that she would allow me to have the two: a huge weight lifted off my shoulders; a crack of bright sunlight appeared on my horizon.

When my head hit the pillow I felt a slight surge of confidence I hadn't felt in years ... decades. I didn't have to be alone ... and the sharp sting of alcohol need not be forbidden.

"Did you have an unhappy marriage?" She fell in step with me the moment I came out of the hotel the next morning. "I was awake half the night thinking about that."

It says something about my state of mind ... and my vulnerability that I didn't tell her to mind her own business.

When I awoke this morning I was at my new horizon: everything seemed brighter and rosier. I knew why, of course: I can drink again, I had permission — I can't drink a lot, that's OK, but I can drink some; I didn't need to watch myself, to censure myself, to abstain. I could have my very own guardian angel; for a $100 a day I could find freedom again, release. I was already looking forward to dinner.

My marriage. I had to reach back into the deepest recess of my memory. "I felt trapped. I hate feeling trapped."

"You couldn't just leave?"

"Can you? You say you're trapped; trapped in the minimum wage economy."

She smiled, it's an innocent smile, a child's smile, bright and hopeful. "Can I leave it? That depends on you."

She's smart, this little girl, devilishly smart. She stayed silent wanting me to dwell on that question, think about it with all its profundities. Was she trapped? She was, certainly; she couldn't just climb out of her minimum wage existence, not any time soon. And she couldn't marry out of it either, not likely. Solution: the gig economy: rent yourself out ... by the hour, by the day, by the year; by the decade, make yourself indispensable — put a hand over my second glass.

And she was smart enough to leave me alone, to want me to walk alone, to work it out, to consider the possibilities.

It all became clear before I had even worked up a sweat. She is a survivor, this little girl; she is no dependent. Don't worry, be happy she was saying to me. Seven hours to a drink.

We went back to the same place, why not? There were memories there, the only good ones I'd had in years. I drank slowly from my first glass knowing there could only be two. She was wearing the same dress as last night — there would only be one, maybe borrowed. As the alcohol emboldened me I imagined us in a store; imagined us picking one out for her, two for her, an armload. Really?

"You're smiling."

If she had waited for me to bring up the subject of the ticket it would never have happened. She knew that. So she did. I looked at her long and hard. I'm considered attractive in a stern, no-nonsense way. The girl had courage to take me on. She held my glare. It was the alcohol, without it I would be as trapped in me as I was in my marriage. "Do you have a passport?"

She quickly went to her purse and held it up: black, Canadian, like mine. There was no victory in her eyes only excitement, then her lips began to move. "We'll go to your room after and book it." It was a statement, a command, a demand. I finished my first drink and waited for her to order the other.

I have been to Thailand twice; I have seen old men on buses with young girls and young boys. I had felt revulsion ... there; I was considering it here on the plane ... revulsion with myself.

But did I make the rules? No. There is a systemic power imbalance, everyone know that. It's called money. I have it, she doesn't. But it's money I've earned. Money I've toiled for. The part of it she wants she has to earn, she has to toil for — that's the way it works. She's no Thailand child, she's an adult; her eyes are as wide open as mine, or should be.

But it's different now, isn't it? Norms are different. I am an Uber, she tapped the app: I am nothing but a gig in the new economy.

She told me this morning when we were waiting for the taxi that she had texted her friend who had immediately texted back. She read from her phone. 'Remember, she is far more complex than you are, her life is far more complex than yours. Always stay true to yourself but remember this. Be seen and not heard. Listen and look until you know when to talk and see.'

We didn't talk the entire flight. The turbulence seemed appropriate. She held my hand; I fought off the need for a drink. How would I explain her? To who? My sister certainly — a woman thrice married. Who else? There is no one.

My place felt like a jail cell when we walked in; it gave me the creeps. I've lived here since my husband booted me out of another cell I had created and had to endure. But it isn't a cell to her. She looked around in amazement then rushed to the living room curtains and threw them open like I might have done a couple of weeks ago to view the ocean from my luxury hotel room.

I tried to shower away my mood.

When I went into the living room in my robe I felt a very real shock seeing her, under a light, a cup of tea in hand, her legs folded under her in the corner of the sofa: people don't visit this place, I'm alone here.

There was a mug of tea on the coffee table in front of me when I sat down. Seeing someone in my living room was so foreign to me I actually wondered why she was here, I'm sure my face showed it. But she didn't flinch; this was her plan; I was her selection; she had confidence in her choice.

"Welcome to Vancouver," I saluted with my mug. "I hope this works out for you."

She saluted back. "For us, I couldn't find any wine."

"No."

Companions are companions because they want to share. We have nothing in common, not even a plan beyond room and board and $100 a day.

"I'll do a shopping tomorrow," she said.

"We'll do it together and work out the finances. I'll show you around the city. We'll make a day of it."

She grinned.

"Do you need anything? Toothbrush?" I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"No, I'm good."

I got up. "Can you make sure to turn the lights out before you go to bed and always check the front door to make sure it's locked."

She was standing up staring at me. "Do you want me to come with you?"

I had taken a few steps towards my bedroom when her words registered. I stopped and looked back. "Excuse me?"

"Do you want me to come with you?" She was looking at me straight in the eye, challengingly.

I turned to face her. "Are you gay, is that what this is about?"

"No, it's about being your companion. It's hard imagining how we can become true companions without that."

I had nothing to say; it was like I had misunderstood the whole thing — that I had been too naive or stupid to see what this was about. Not once had I thought about sex, if that's what she was intimating. No surprise, I am dead to it, I have been dead to it for years, decades.

I turned and escaped to my room.

The confrontation gripped me in a kind of paralysis; I curled into a catatonic ball and clung to myself as if to ward off the external assault. I get panic attacks, I used to reach for the bottle, now I concentrate on my breathing, to feel the air in my body replenish and escape, replenish and escape in the constant renewal of life — a repetition of the boring rhythms of my existence when I often wish that upon escape the air never replenishes.

I once had so much promise. I once was so alive. And then I had to share. I could blame no one but me. The disappointment was always with myself. I was dead to him as soon as I discovered his deficiencies, deficiencies that I learned later were intractably human; mere vulnerabilities we all try to deal with but can't ... because they're vulnerabilities. I was blind to my own until the cover of marriage was gone and I was on my own again.

I slapped away every helping hand and poured my support down my throat.

I am a shell of a woman now, I know. Here, let me help you. For a hundred a day I will measure out your hope, two glasses with dinner with the prospects of more. And I will talk when you want. And listen if you talk. But I won't if you don't.