"We’re going to need friends here," he said to me when I said it maybe wasn’t such a good idea. "Ray used to be a friend of both of ours, he should be again." So he came over that night, our second in the new apartment. It was January, a messy time for a move, and the floors were still dirty from the slush on the movers’ boots.

"I mean, New York was great, but I just didn’t see an opportunity for anything amazing in it. Sure, I was taken care of, and it was secure, but you know? I thought taking a chance was worth it, for the potential reward. Here, I could be a partner before I’m thirty." He had been over for almost an hour, and George was explaining to him why we left New York.

"Definitely, yeah," Ray said. The three of us were in what would eventually become the living room, drinking vodka and pineapple juice. I usually take orange, or soda, but Ray had brought the drinks. I really did want something else with it, but we hadn’t been to the supermarket yet. Besides, the fridge had only arrived that day, and it was still getting cold.

I was sitting on the floor, but the two of them sat on the boxes that had arrived that day. Ray was sitting on ‘Ski Stuff.’ The three of us had grown up together in Ottawa. We weren’t really friends until senior year, when we shared an English class. After graduation, George left to study at Queen’s, and Ray and I started dating.

"So, what about you? I’ll say it again man, you look great." George gives compliments very easily. That’s what makes him a good lawyer, I think. He knows how to earn someone’s trust real fast.

"Yeah, thanks," Ray said. "I joined a gym and they have a tanning thing there, makes you look a lifeguard all year." We had dated for a few months, and then his sister died of leukemia. He blamed me for keeping him away from her while she was sick, and I moved to New York to get away from him and start acting school. He sent me letters, but I didn’t open them, and they stopped.

I was there for three years before George arrived to join one of the big Manhattan firms. Our friendship flared into romance quickly, and he proposed to me that July, on a horse ride in Central Park. I had to hold my breath so the smell of manure didn’t make me sick. We never talked about Ray directly. But sometimes, in bed, George would ask if he was the best lover I’d ever had, and I knew it was Ray he was worried about. So I always said yes.

"The girls in your class must love you," I said. George was right, Ray did look good, but in a funny, almost European way. He was bigger than I remembered him, but still skinny. He still had fine hair, and it kept falling over his eyes. He laughed.

"Yeah, I do get a love letter now and then, actually," Ray said. "But everyone else on the staff has at least a hundred years on me, so I’m kind of the pick of a poor litter." He taught Social Studies at a prestigious private high school out in Mississ-auga.

"How did you get into teaching anyway?" George asked. He pulled out an unopened pack of cigarettes and began scratching at the plastic wrap. He had only recently started smoking again, and was still re-learning the habits. "I don’t ever remember you having much interest in class while we were in school."

"Yeah, you’re right," Ray said. "I hated this stuff first time round." George got the cigarettes open and offered one to Ray, which he took. "After I got back from New Zealand, teaching was just the easiest thing to get back into school for. I guess I’m lucky that I ended up enjoying it so much."

"New Zealand? How long were you there for?" I said. There were three things I had never told George about Ray. The first was the letters. The second was that he had a sense of adventure that, especially in those days after high school, I had found irresistible.

"Almost three years. I was down by Southland, in the countryside. Actually, it’s kind of interesting what I was doing there." He paused to let George light his cigarette. "Do you know what sheep inverting is?"

"No idea, but it sounds dirty." George only made jokes while other people were talking, something I didn’t notice until we began living together. Ray smiled at him.

"Not really. Actually, it’s pretty basic. Sheep are big business there. Wool comes in different consistencies, and the best wool for shearing is along the back – especially in Leicesters, the kind of sheep I inverted. So, to that end, farmers breed the sheep with the broadest backs possible. Over time, this has made the little bastards almost triangle shaped, with carriages that dwarf their legs. They look like those weightlifters you see on TSN late at night." He pulled his hands up into his armpits to demonstrate. "Anyway, this causes a very simple problem. New Zealand is covered with hills, right? The sheep are going up and down hillsides all day, and they fall over. Problem is, because their legs are so pathetic compared to the rest of their bodies, they aren’t strong enough to get themselves back up."

"So your job was to flip them back over?" I said. My drink was finished, but I didn’t want to get up, so I just pulled an ice cube out and sucked on it.

"Exactly. I went around all day on an ATV, looking for sheep that had gotten laid out. When I found one, I’d get off and flip him over. It seems stupid, but it’s absolutely necessary. Those sheep are expensive, and if one gets left alone like that he’ll die for sure. So breeders hire one or two guys, depending on the size of their herd, to be sheep inverters. That’s the proper name they’ve given it. The guy I worked with had been doing it for almost forty years."

"Jesus," George said, "Can you imagine that being your career?" He shook his head and glanced at me. The wall behind him was bare and spotty from the furniture of the previous owners. Eventually, we would paint the room in a lime green – something that looked nice even in the winter.