Page 9 of Rhymes with Metaphor

“Y es,” said Reg testily . “You go and have a romantic afternoon in a boat with Juliet while I play nursemaid to New Bug.”

“This is romantic for you, too,” said Martin. “You’re a poet. In a boathouse.”

“Watch out, Shakespeare,” said Reg.

“That’s the spirit.” Martin clapped him on the back.

The boathouse wasn’t so much a writer’s room as a repurposed guest bedroom with a view of the lake and—this was new today—a view of Martin rowing Juliet slowly across the water.

Behind Reg, Joel lay in the guest bed, looking peevish and sulky and wearing striped pyjamas that were, thankfully, not translucent.

He’d gotten his appetite back overnight and was now loudly crunching a packet of Combos. It made focussing on poetry impossible.

O for a muse of fire—and an exterminator.

“Couldn’t you have stayed with someone else this week?” said Reg, turning to look at him.

“Like who?” Joel was still hoarse, but his voice was nothing like the wreck it had sounded when he’d first arrived.

“Whoever gave you the mono.”

“It’s ‘mono,’ not ‘the mono,’” said Joel.

“You’re a nerd,” said Reg.

“Thank you,” said Joel with such forceful sincerity that Reg felt insulted.

“Don’t be pedantic. Anyway, why couldn’t you stay with her?”

“There isn’t a her,” said Joel.

The conversation had become marginally more interesting.

“...a him, then?” said Reg.

“Not that I know of,” said Joel.

“That you know of?” said Reg.

“Mono is transmitted through the sputum,” said Joel. “Someone coughed into their hand and touched a doorhandle, then I touched the doorhandle and got infected. That’s the most likely scenario. I have no idea if it was a man or a woman.”

Reg noticed that the hand Joel was holding his root beer with was unnaturally steady.

“Planning to become a surgeon?” said Reg.

“Psychiatrist.”

Reg felt less sorry for him. “Why?”

“I have an aptitude for science. And I’m good at reading people.”

“I prefer books myself,” said Reg.

“My father was a psychiatrist, so everyone expects me to be one as well.”

“And will you be happy as a psychiatrist?”

“It’s my career. It’s not about being happy.”

“Why shouldn’t you be happy in your career?” said Reg.

“Why do you want to be a poet?”

“I don’t want to be,” said Reg. “I simply am.”

“Why, though?”

“I write poetry because I can’t not write poetry.”

“But you were saying you can’t write,” said Joel.

“That’s temporary. I’ve managed a few pieces lately.”

“In my shower,” said Joel. “On your apartment wall. In the sand at the beach.”

“My muse comes when it comes. I don’t command it.”

“Have you considered carrying a notebook?” said Joel.

Reg went into the cottage, and hunted up the battered copy of How to Be Topp by Geoffrey Willans that Martin had brought over from England.

One of the many little pieces of home they’d clung to since moving to Canada.

He returned to the boathouse, where Joel was mercifully finishing the last of his Combos.

Reg rolled the desk chair to the side of the bed and sat.

“What are you doing?” said Joel.

“Reading you a bedtime story.”

“It’s not bedtime,” said Joel.

“You’re in bed. You’re wearing pyjamas. It’s time for a bedtime story.”

Joel looked at his watch. “It’s 3:05 p.m.”

“And halfway up the stairs was your bedtime yesterday, apparently. Is that watch really necessary? There isn’t anywhere you have to be, is there?”

It was a veritable saucer of a watch, looking obtrusive on Joel’s slender wrist.

“It’s so I know what time it is,” said Joel. “I notice you don’t wear one.”

“Time is not my master.”

“I’ll bet you’re always late to things,” said Joel.

Any residual guilt Reg may have felt about his choice of book dissipated.

“As an academic, you should appreciate this.” Reg opened the book and read it aloud. He put particular emphasis on the term “new bug” whenever it appeared, sometimes accompanied by a meaningful look at Joel.

At first, Reg enjoyed himself. But before long, Joel stopped him to correct a point of grammar.

“It’s called artistic licence,” said Reg.

Joel was quiet until Reg reached the end of the book.

“What do you think?” said Reg.

“I think there’s an entry in the DSM for people like Nigel Molesworth.”

“Do you know what?” said Reg. “I don’t believe you’ve ever had a moment’s fun in your life.”

The look on Joel’s face made Reg feel like he’d just authored a book called Kicking Puppies for Fun and Profit .

Reg went back to his desk. Joel was accommodatingly silent while Reg attempted to work—pointlessly, as it happened. He felt uninspired. He stared out the window across the lake.

“Thanks,” said Joel.

“For what?” said Reg warily.

“For bringing me out of the rain when I was sick. For letting me sleep at your place.”

“I didn’t have any plans for that day anyway, apart from attempting to write deathless verse.”

“Did I thank you before?”

“No. Don’t you remember?”

“I don’t remember much after I wrote my last exam,” said Joel.

“What do you remember?”

“The smell of coffee in your car...graffiti on a brick wall. A drawing of a hand with a snake bracelet. Did I hallucinate that?”

“No.”

The silence stretched out, and Reg wrote a draft of a poem called, “Haunted by a Hand,” not knowing if it was about him or Joel. Or Flip. By the time he’d finished, Joel had fallen asleep.

Martin and Juliet returned from their excursion an hour later, looking flushed. While Juliet went upstairs to change for dinner, Martin stayed in the kitchen, drinking rum and Coke with Reg.

“I snogged her,” he told Reg conspiratorially.

“I’m glad your afternoon was so productive,” said Reg.

“Did New Bug behave himself?”

“Do you remember that lizard I rescued from a car park last December? And you said how nice and calm it was, lying there quietly in my hand? And the vet said that was because it was too cold to do anything but sit there?”

“Then it thawed out and bit you and hid behind your fridge,” said Martin. “What’s that got to do with Joel?”

“I think that New Bug has thawed.”

“That’s what happens when you warm to someone,” said Martin.

“Carry that metaphor any further, and you could return it for a refund,” said Reg.

They sipped their drinks in silence.

“Still,” said Reg. “He’s a bit of a dark horse.”

“I don’t follow,” said Martin.

“He must have contracted mono from someone. Any ideas?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not privy to New Bug’s dalliances,” said Martin. “Nor do I want to be.”