HE MET HER AT THE BUTCHER’S SHOP where she lined up behind him alongside the counter, waiting to pay.

“That’s definitely a new one,” she said. “Buying pastry at the meat store?”

Cradling his blueberry Danish, Joel wondered if he was being ridiculed. When he turned around, her glossy lips curved into a warm smile.

“They bring the pastries in fresh each morning from a Romanian bakery in midtown,” he explained, hoping not to sound too defensive. The cashier was ringing him in and he had exact change, which he placed on the counter. Transaction finished, he turned to the girl again. “A lot of people assume Danishes originated in Denmark, but they didn’t.”

“They’re Romanian?”

“No, some say French, but most authorities agree they’re Austrian. The Romanians, however, do excellent versions.”

She laughed, and Joel thought she might be interested in hearing more about the Danish’s contentious history, but then the cashier asked her if all the pink papered bundles atop the glass were hers and did she want them double-bagged, so he lost her attention. He left the shop. Normally, he would have strolled back to the condo for his Saturday morning summer ritual, coffee and pastry while breaking down his fantasy baseball team’s stats. Instead, he waited, leaning against a derelict newspaper vending box under full sun. Downtown Toronto was poor for trees; where he worked on Adelaide West the red maples thrust out of raised concrete enclosures like the wretched arms of prison inmates. Store bells tinkled as she came out with two bulging plastic bags.

“I thought maybe you’d like to try my Danish,” he said.

Her puzzled expression suggested he’d said something inappropriate. His best friend, Noah, said he trended that way. It’d be just his luck if Urban Dictionary’s entry for “try my Danish” referred to a sex act.

She lowered her bags to the pavement. “Thanks, but I’m paleo.”

The city’s diversity never failed to astound Joel. “Does your faith prohibit all pastry?”

Above each of her eyebrows a furrow appeared, two lines that converged to meet over her nose; the overall effect reminded Joel of the bird wing logo on his Mazda.

“Paleo is a diet, heavy on meat and fat, minimal carbs.”

“They might have a meat Danish. Do you want me to ask inside?”

“No thanks, you go ahead and enjoy. At least you’re getting antioxidants.”

He tried to think of how not to let her walk away. He was terrible at these things. “I’d like to know more about your dietary restrictions. Maybe we could . . .”

Like a condemned man dangling beneath the gallows.

“I’m Claire,” she said.

He floated home with her number.

According to Noah, the right thing to do was wait until mid-week or, better yet, the week after. Joel held out for the entire two blocks it took to reach his condo. Then he texted, asking her out to dinner, including a cow emoji.

Joel smacked the wall. He meant steak.

The swelling of his hand was barely noticeable five hours later when Claire messaged back: monday bevy after work?

TEETERING ON STILETTOS, the lounge hostess deftly navigated a darkened obstacle course of low-slung tables and couches. It was all Joel could do to keep pace while pointing out each hazard to Claire who followed. He was still wriggling into a comfortable position on his bean bag chair when Claire announced she could only stay for one drink. A rusted elevator plunged into the basement of Joel’s chest. She wasn’t into him.

“My father died two weeks ago,” Claire added.

Joel felt his lungs unclench, oxygen pouring in. Amazing that he didn’t levitate. “I’m so sorry for asking you out when you’re grieving the loss of your father.

“How could you know?”

“I could have asked.”

“You would ask me if my father died?” She laughed.

He laughed too, but wished his beanbag chair would swallow him whole and spit him into Mordor. If only he knew how to talk normally with women. Too much of his small-town adolescence had been squandered on video games and terrible movies when he should have been reading great Russian novels and studying French. No wonder at thirty-one he remained single, his parents worrying for his future. He worried for his future. Mom and Dad were right, he needed a wife. If nothing else, marriage would improve his conversational skills. That way, even if he ended up divorced, he’d be far better prepared for a second, more successful marriage.

“I need to explain something,” Claire said. “When I was nine, my father moved to Vancouver, basically the other side of the country, telling my sister and I he needed distance from our mother. So I rarely saw him before Mama died. But after his cancer diagnosis last year, Papa moved back and I became his main caregiver. You can understand why I need to take it slow, right?”

He’d had no expectations, even though he’d cleaned his condo top to bottom, just in case. Now only he would experience that cleanliness, which in any event was temporary. Sex was also temporary, but indelible in memory; you couldn’t say the same about a shiny sink.

Three and a half weeks later,thespare toothbrush Joel had tucked away for Claire in his bathroom vanity had yet to see any action. He was walking her home from the Revue Cinema. La La Land. For her, the fourth time. She confessed that she aspired to act professionally but, so far, theatrical breaks continued to elude her. Everyone she knew said she’d been incredible starring as Maria in her high school’s production of West Side Story ten years ago. He hadn’t seen West Side Story, so in front of Lucky Fortune Szechuan Palace, her face illuminated neon red and green, Claire recited a scene. Her amazing Greek or Russian accent as she pleaded over alterations to a party dress thrilled him and he wanted more than ever to sleep with her.

“I’m still mourning, Joel,” she said outside her lobby door when he tried to prolong their kiss. So he took solace in how she’d confided to him her acting ambition. Didn’t sharing that heartfelt desire bind them closer than any mechanical act of sex?

To that question, Noah texted back:

No, duh

But it wasn’t Noah whose insides tightened like coaxial cables in Claire’s presence. A condition that elicited a surprising declaration from Joel later that week over dinner at the Steak Pit. They’d been silent for several moments while he cross-hatched his baked potato to create crevices for the sour cream and chives.

“I love you,” he heard himself say.

A chunk of seared sirloin at the end of Claire’s fork had been arcing toward her lips, but stopped short. On her forehead emerged the distinctive Mazda logo. Joel understood now that, in contrast with his reliable hatchback, these markings were ominous. He waited in agony for her response. The last time he’d been in love was four years ago. It was the eagle feather safety-pinned to Sandra’s knapsack that initially caught his eye. She said she’d found it by a culvert near her house and thought it was beautiful, but actual eagles, with talons capable of carrying off a toddler, terrified her. Joel couldn’t specify what about Sandra affected him so deeply, but each day when he left home he felt both protected and empowered, like a beekeeper in a bodysuit entering the hive. When it all ended, he wondered if his love for Sandra had depended on nothing more specific than a soaring bird of prey moulting in the vicinity of her home.

Claire’s fork continued to hover. “You’re very special to me,” she said, and popped the meat into her mouth.

He felt the colour rising in his cheeks. Special? He couldn’t read her face, the table candle throwing shadows, her eyes unfathomable caves. Claire wiped her lips on the linen napkin. She’d finished chewing, but he noticed her throat hadn’t stopped working up and down. Heart swelling like a submerged sponge, he leaned across the table, knocking over his water glass, and kissed her. She kissed him back.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK at the Nathan Phillips Square Farmers’ Market, he and Claire browsed tables geometrically configured in tidy rows. The eastern edge of the square stood under the shadow of an overhead concrete walkway and in the distance Old City Hall’s gargoyles leered from up above. Ninety minutes northwest of Toronto, Joel’s hometown market had been a sprawling alphabet soup affair in Memorial Park adjacent to the municipal clock tower. The hollow thunk of the clock’s minute hand had marked his adolescence. Thirteen years ago when he moved to the city, he saw it as short-term. In practically no time, he’d be back to help the people he’d known all his life, an accredited pharmacist. But poor grades – horrible, actually – drifted him into information technology, where straight out of the college’s annual job fair he’d hired on with his current company.

Claire filled her cloth bag with early autumn beets, kale, chard and carrots, then single-handedly cleaned out the artisanal cheese-maker of his double-cream brie. She’d told Joel her finances were stretched and he wondered how she could afford triple-digit cheese purchases on a receptionist’s salary. She’d also complained her tiny fridge barely accommodated all her cuts of meat. Now she had all this produce and cheese. IT customer support analysts routinely lived down reputations as overly cautious geeks. But IT analyst beekeepers? An altogether different and unpredictable species.

“I’ve got loads of space in my fridge,” he said. “Hey, why not simplify everything and move in with me?”

The Mazda insignia appeared and he guessed what was coming.

“A bit early for that,” she said.

He imagined his face now redder than the beetroots, ego wilting like their inevitably composted tops. He didn’t pursue the topic, but later at home, battling the Covenant on his Xbox, it occurred to Joel that the part about how it remained “a bit early” may have meant because of her father’s passing.

Three weeks later they lay snuggled up under his comforter. Claire nuzzled his neck, her breath warm and moist on his skin. Since the farmers’ market, his stainless-steel side-by-side hosted all her meat, eggs, cheese, cream, butter, fresh produce, chia and sesame seeds, along with four varieties of nut butters. Preparing her meals at his place, digesting all those lipids in front of his home theatre TV, her limbs had invariably found their way to his bed each night where they intertwined in all their glorious silky nakedness with his own, and because the poor angel endured endless street noise at her studio apartment, she regularly fell straight into dreamland. Lying next to Claire these past weeks, her perfectly formed posterior lobes wriggling against him in her slumber, his own sleep hadn’t come as easily.

She’d explained that her father’s death had dampened her sex drive. She insisted only a total Neanderthal wouldn’t sympathize. He agreed, though he was secretly envious of Neanderthals who, presumably, got regularly laid. He and Claire had averaged once per week, or 1.33 to be accurate. Maybe his own more robust sex drive derived from the good fortune of having two living parents, not to mention all his grandparents with the exception of Grampie Carmine. He reminded himself once a week was way better than none per week, as had been the case for eight straight months before he’d met Claire. He merely needed patience. He shifted the comforter and positioned his mouth by her ear. “Make it official and move in with me?”

“Why not?” she murmured back.

North to south, blissful warmth infused each of Joel’s organs. He nudged closer and caressed Claire’s breast. The next instant, the bed sheets rustled and where his thigh had been touching hers, he felt a cooling membrane of air. “I’m still grieving,” she reminded him.

LIVING TOGETHER PROVED EASY-PEASEY, though at the end of the first week he’d failed to thoroughly scrape down the blender she used for her protein smoothie. “Stop being a pig, Joel. Old banana smears look just like snot.” He saw her point. Clean blender, no conflict. Again, easy-peasey!

Over the phone with his mother he described his girlfriend as sweet and sensitive, heartbroken over the death of her father. His parents couldn’t wait to meet her. Joel imagined Thanksgiving as the perfect time. He pictured holding hands under the banquet-laden table, his younger brother Jordan stealing lustful peeks at Claire, his father discreetly winking, effectively saying, Way to go son, you really picked a winner! His family would fall in love with her the same way he had.

The next weekend, as he prepared breakfast, she slouched at the table, scrolling Variety on her phone. “All day at work I sit at my desk opening envelopes and email attachments,” she grumbled. “Touched-up head shots of incredibly pretty young things, CVs loaded with volunteer work at seniors’ centres, mock UN human rights councils, starring roles in Much Ado About Nothing. Meanwhile my eyes are puffy and I think my Paleo diet is making my legs thick.”

“Muscular legs on a babe like you are totally hot,” he said from over by the coffeemaker.

“How freaking insensitive can you be?” Claire reminded him she’d only taken the reception position at the agency because Terry, the theatrical agent, had dropped her from his active roster after she’d failed to secure a role in over four years.

Still waiting on the coffee, Joel mustered support. “The world needs good receptionists.”

The felt slipper Claire aimed in his direction KO’d the paper lantern hanging above the coffee bar, a handcrafted decoration purchased in Vietnam by his brother. She announced she was going to Starbucks, and at that moment, in his head, Joel was cancelling Thanksgiving dinner with his family. Her artistic temperament was proving tricky to navigate.

A WEEK LATER, JOEL TIPTOED ONTO HIS BALCONY. Seated at the bistro table, bare feet resting on the bag of potting soil he’d never potted, Joel gazed at the city skyline. As kids, on summer nights he and his brother would lie on the lawn and gaze up at the wash of stars. Majestic reminder of The Big Picture. Tonight, however, no starlight seemed capable of penetrating the city’s halo. Above the neighbouring condo’s roofline, and the taller condo behind, he searched without success for Venus. Surely no coincidence. What happened to the woman he’d fallen in love with? The one who’d affectionately tongued his ear while humming the Winnie-the-Pooh theme song, baked a Snickers cheesecake on their two-month anniversary, contentedly blew out the candles and snuggled when bedtime poetry sent him nodding off? It seemed she’d been replaced by a tyrant who ten minutes ago rolled up his used car magazine (he was thinking of trading in his Mazda) and whacked his bare feet because he’d rested them on the coffee table.

But in eight years of work he’d decoded and repaired every IT problem that came his way. So he asked his brain to bear down and troubleshoot. He imagined a customer’s call, their voice tinged with frustration and anger, bewildered that something once working so well no longer functioned. He knew this stuff cold. Step-by-step, he walked Customer Joel back to the problem’s origin. When he’d met Claire, she’d been mired in darkness. Her father’s death. Naturally, her grief eventually lifted. And with it? Just like that, he recognized the solution: a restore point. He needed to temporarily replicate Claire’s emotional state at the time they’d met – not that she should relive her suffering! Deep sadness, social withdrawal, dependence on pharmaceuticals, zero interest in sex? No, that would be crazy and cruel.

He needed her just sad enough.

NEXT MORNING, AS CLAIRE SIPPED HER COFFEE, Joel announced the latest body count in Yemen. Then from an international news site on his tablet, he moved on to Afghanistan. Syria. Nigeria. Never a news junkie, he was now learning morbid global events were a dime a dozen! Migrants alone: drowning at sea, dying in deserts, freezing in mountains; prey to smugglers, bandits, border officials and vigilantes.

“We live in a horrible, horrible world,” he moaned.

She scraped back her chair. “Sorry, I’ve got to run.”

Unsure if any of the traumatic events had penetrated, he tried her again the next morning. Tibetan monks in Chinese prisons. Mexican journalists gunned down by narcotraffickers. He’d moved on to a car bomb in Mali when she interrupted.

“To succeed in my career, I need to channel energy into the arts, not the news.”

Two evenings later, when she reached for the remote control to turn on Netflix, he said: “To inspire you, I’ve compiled a list of Oscar winners we can watch together.”

“You did that for me?” She blew him a kiss. As the opening titles started, he probed the popcorn bowl for her fingers, but they wriggled free, her eyes locked onto the screen.

Schindler’s List.

Over that week and next they watched The Killing Fields, Hotel Rwanda and Sophie’s Choice, near the end of which she promisingly snuffled non-stop. The following night, however, she paused Srebrenica: A Cry from the Grave.

“I don’t think this won an Oscar, and it’s a documentary,” she said. “No one is acting.”

“Even more inspiring,” he replied.

She hunted the TV menu for sitcoms.

Out on the balcony, Joel mentally constructed a graph depicting progress to date. Not good, he surmised. He noticed a spider slowly descending its thread from the balcony railing. How ingenious: all essential tools for achieving its goal contained beneath its exoskeleton. By tomorrow the industrious rascal would have a substantial web.

Attachment. But of course! Claire had been sad because of loss, and what preceded loss?

He started with a goldfish. Flimsy emotional fodder, true. But goldfishes had beneficial attributes. They were lovely to look at. And low maintenance. And inexpensive (no reason not to be practical). Finally, his ultimate goal required sacrifice and, in that regard, a goldfish wouldn’t weigh as heavily on his conscience – alternative options at Galaxy Pets made him queasy.

The first day, Claire seemed oblivious to Angus, as Joel had named the frisky little guy. The next evening, however, while Joel searched the fridge for the mayonnaise displaced from its usual spot by Claire’s innumerable condiments, he noticed her over at the living room corner table peering intently into Angus’s bowl. The following night, before flicking off the living room lamp, she leaned over the bowl and said “Goodnight, Angus.” He gave it another week.

Finally ready, he waited behind until she left for work, then scooped Angus out and let him flop around on the table. Fish jumped out of the water all the time, he would explain, and Angus had been quite an athletic fellow. Until the dirty deed was over, Joel waited in the bathroom. His throat felt inexplicably tight. He splashed himself with cool water – but then, making the connection to Angus’s circumstances, he closed the faucet and sat on the edge of the tub heaving deep breaths.

That night, Claire made it through dinner and ninety minutes on the phone with her sister without appearing to notice Angus’s demise. Preparing for bed, Joel finally asked, “Have you seen Angus?” Implicit was the alarming idea a goldfish could walk away from its bowl. She went out for a look. Joel soon heard the toilet flush and Claire wordlessly climbed into bed and fell asleep. He laid awake for hours. Her actions had seemed atypically cold. But who was he to criticize? He’d been Angus’s murderer.

The next day after work, Joel returned to Galaxy Pets and bought a rabbit. Her luxuriant deep chocolate fur, mottled with gold, plus an adorable white patch under the left eye, inspired the name Zsa-Zsa.

That night, with Zsa-Zsa on his lap, Joel joined Claire in watching the show about next-door neighbours who’d married each other’s high school sweethearts. Joel rolled his fingers down Zsa-Zsa’s flank, letting the soft fur ripple. Claire’s hand soon also revelled in that lush pelt. Zsa-Zsa’s pink nose twitched, but otherwise she remained frozen, as if she understood her role in his overarching plan to win back the Claire he loved. Oh, Zsa-Zsa, he thought, you have a huge heart, don’t you?

Joel sought out Zsa-Zsa’s heart three weeks later. Following online instructions, he explored beneath the ribs until his thumb felt a spongy resistance, then he pressed. Zsa-Zsa’s ears stiffened and her hind legs thrashed, a few spastic kicks persisting even after her pulse stopped. Joel lifted the limp body to his face, Zsa-Zsa’s soft fur mopping his tears. He tried rationalizing – millions of animals died every day. Later at work, brooding over his despicable nature, he nevertheless found himself eagerly anticipating Claire’s discovery of Zsa-Zsa.

He ended up working an extra hour. Randall, three desk dividers away from Joel, had engaged in political conversation with a customer, so Barry made everyone sit through the protocol reminders in the HR manual. All of which meant Claire was already home when he arrived.

She said nothing, which he found odd. So he asked where their bunny was hiding and she said she’d arrived home ten minutes earlier, found Zsa-Zsa lifeless, tossed her in a plastic bag, and released her down the incinerator chute in the hall.

“You did all that in ten minutes?”

She nodded, eyebrows lifting as if to question why he’d ask. He asked because he found it chilling.

“Hey,” she said. “Let’s check out that TV show about the girl with webbed feet.”

Watching that week’s episode – Emily (the webbed girl) was banned from competing on her high school swim team because of her natural advantage – Joel recalled an earlier discussion he’d had with Claire about her fondness for horses and dogs. And what did horses and dogs have in common? Total obedience. Attachment plus.

FOR OBVIOUS LOGISTICAL REASONS, a horse was out of the question. But Saturday afternoon, the teenaged sales girl at Galaxy Pets assured Joel that no canine was cuter than a Papillon. And once he saw the liquid pool eyes, those outsized ears, he couldn’t help but agree. Easily trainable, the girl assured him, and apartment-sized, to boot!

On the way home, the little chap nipped at Joel’s ankle and attempted to lick each passing stranger, earning several cooed sentiments like Aren’t you the sweetest thing? One of the strangers asked about the dog’s name, and with horrible events in Tibet still rattling Joel, he didn’t hesitate. Lhasa. At the sound of his own name the dog looked up with an open smile. “Who’s a clever boy?” asked Joel.

At the condo, Joel found a note from Claire saying she’d gone for a workout. When she returned, Lhasa immediately darted over, trying to scramble up her legs.

“Surprise!” Joel said.

Claire soundlessly dropped to the floor and cuddled Lhasa as he licked her face and neck. They rolled together, then chased each other, Claire crashing into the wall cabinet and knocking Grampie Carmine’s whiskey glass off its shelf. Shattering his only memento of Grampie might normally have reduced Joel to tears but for the bliss that now lifted him like a summer kite.

Over the next four weeks, if Joel was disappointed that sexual relations with Claire remained stubbornly static at practically nonexistent, he took solace in the fact that their conversational relations had blossomed. Each day they gushed over Lhasa’s adorable antics, other dogs he’d cavorted with, YouTube training techniques, new doggie accessories. What Joel therefore had to do at the end of the month would be the most deplorable act he’d ever undertaken.

He drove Lhasa to High Park. In the off-leash area, while Lhasa was making friends with a neurotic Schnauzer, Joel retreated in the direction of the public washroom. Then he booked it.

Pulling the Mazda up at the first traffic light, Joel vigorously rubbed his eyes to redden them. He had to convince Claire that Lhasa had raced off and escaped the fence, that Joel had run himself ragged and screamed himself hoarse, weeping like a fool. He wasn’t much of an actor and she might prove hard to persuade, especially given the sudden loss of three successive pets. At the next red light, however, Joel found himself trembling, eyes flooding. He wheeled the car around, racing back to High Park. He scoured the off-leash area and vicinity, shouting for Lhasa. By the time he returned to the condo, his sweat-stained shirt was littered with thorns and brambles and his raw voice left no doubt about what had happened.

“I was afraid of something like this,” Claire said. “They should ban off-leash areas. Dogs need constant control.” Joel collapsed on the couch as if he’d donated blood. “Aww, somebody could use a hot bath,” she said. “Let me pour that for you.”

After easing himself into the tub, bath salts stinging his scratched arms and legs, Joel felt himself slowly unwind. He slipped his head underwater.

Two hands immediately yanked him to the surface. Claire.

“Careful, sweetie. Every year thousands accidentally drown in their tubs. And let’s face it, you don’t exactly swim like a fish.”

Joel wasn’t sure what he found more disturbing. A short dunk in the bath hardly required the subaquatic endurance of marine life. But then there was Claire’s surprising stealth and physical strength.

Later in bed he was almost asleep when Claire snuggled up. She patted his head. “I love how your hair is so soft. A little more brushing, maybe adding a curl, and it would look so cute.”

With those words echoing, it was hours that night before he would finally nod off.

Next morning before he got up Joel could hear Claire on the phone in the living room. He peeled back the covers and listlessly planted his feet on the floor.

“Where do you think you’re going, mister?”

Claire loomed at his side. Maybe he’d shut his eyes for an instant, but still. Total ninja move.

“I called your office and told them you were sick,” she said.

“You did?” Sure, some strange malaise had overtaken him, but that hardly counted as illness. “I really should go into the office. I’m trying to solve –”

“Let someone else worry about the problem, honey.” She shooed him back into bed.

Joel resigned himself. And Claire, with slow circular motions, rubbed his belly.

Avi Sirlin

Former longtime Bickford Park resident Avi Sirlin currently lives in lovely Victoria, British Columbia where, on a clear day while standing on his tiptoes by his bathroom window, he can see the distant silhouette of the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. Avi’s previous publications include his 2014 novel The Evolutionist as well as short stories in various journals such as Grain, The New Quarterly and The Fiddlehead. He is completing work (yes, still) on a new novel.