Snapped

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Snapped Page 11

by Pamela Klaffke


  The other shoppers at the market force me to break my rhythm and my methodic clickety-click, which infuriates me and annihilates the pleasantries of my nightmare backyard luau in favor of a tacky low-budget game show called Fast Food where the contestants are held at gunpoint as they do their shopping. There is no time for browsing or reading of labels, calculating the value of this can of deadly mercury-filled tuna over that can, or searching through pockets to find that goddamn coupon or asking the cashier if you can write a fucking check when the line behind you is twenty-deep. There is no time for such fuss. Contestants shop fast for what they need, the good ones have a list and a plan and they pay in cash. The shopper to finish in the shortest time wins a toaster oven and gets to shoot the slow shoppers in the head at close range. There’s a studio audience and everybody cheers when the last coupon-clipping check-writer is killed after pleading for his life and wetting himself.

  Three full episodes of Fast Food play in my head before I make it to the cashier with my black shoe polish, ground beef and Velveeta. The clerk looks at the ceiling as she asks me how I’m doing, if I have any coupons or some kind of club card. She scans the tin of shoe polish, the pound of ground beef, the Velveeta—the Velveeta won’t scan. The cashier sighs and glides the bar code over the scanner again—and again. The Velveeta won’t scan. She keys in the UPC number by hand. The Velveeta won’t register. She picks up the phone on her till. “Price check on four,” she says, her voice broadcast throughout the store. The people in line behind me huff as if somehow I’ve willed the Velveeta not to scan, its code not to register. I think about abandoning the Velveeta, fleeing before the cabal of shoppers behind me overcomes me and suffocates me with a makeshift hood of plastic, not paper, bags. But I cannot leave, I am committed to making this casserole. I could use cheddar, Jack has cheddar in his fridge. But Lila’s recipe calls for Velveeta and Lila’s recipe has a star beside it.

  A young man with a spotty face and deep wet circles under his arms approaches the cashier. He sighs loudly and takes the Velveeta away and everyone in line behind me huffs again and I’m sure they’re going to lynch me. I pull the camera out of my bag and hand it to the cashier. “Would you mind taking my picture?”

  In Jack’s kitchen I gather all the ingredients and arrange them neatly on the counter, like they do on cooking shows. I brown the ground beef with the onion and some mushrooms and spices. I cook the egg noodles at the same time. I’m very efficient in my dress and heels. I stir a can of tomato soup into the beef mixture and then the Velveeta. Once the noodles are cooked, I add those, too, and pour it all into a casserole dish I’m surprised Jack has. I cover it and put it in the fridge.

  I pour red wine into one of those stemless glasses that are deceiving in the volume they hold and take out the Polaroids of myself. I write Snap Store, Toronto on one, Fast Food on the other and tape them on the pages after the Artners Dinner photograph in the notebook that was Lila’s and blank. I smooth out the latest Snap and turn to Eva’s Life of Style spread. I cut out the brunch picture, the one with Eva and Tiff, Rockabilly Ben and the girl looking away, who I’m convinced is Parrot Girl, and tape it into the notebook. Then I copy Lila’s casserole recipe out word-for-word.

  The phone rings. Caller ID tells me it’s Jack calling from his cell. There’s a note by the phone that says Sara—call Ted and Eva! I crumple it up and toss it in the garbage. Jack talks fast and in fragments, the way he always does after a shoot. He speaks too loudly after too many hours of blaring playback of whatever song he’s making a video for. I hold the phone away from my ear and page through the phone book until I find Alex’s number and write it in the notebook underneath the casserole recipe. Jack keeps talking. They’re wrapping early, something about the drummer walking out, enough footage, deal with it in post, drinks at the pub, upstairs on Gloucester, you know the one, the pub, upstairs, on Gloucester, come on, you know, yeah, see you there, baby.

  Jack isn’t at the pub when I arrive, but Alex is. He stands and waves me over and I wish he’d sit down because people are looking. He’s wearing a silky shirt and a black vest with shiny silver buttons, his pants are brocade and as tight as the crushed velvet pair I saw him in earlier. I paste on a smile and tell myself this is not a mistake, Alex is an old friend, when he lived in Montreal we used to talk every day, he bought me drinks when I was twenty and had no money, he told me when my hair was all wrong.

  “I was so glad that you called!”

  “Me, too.” I remember the time my boyfriend dumped me for a man and Alex poured a pitcher of beer over his head. I remember all the blow-job tips he gave me and I really am, genuinely, happy to see him. It’s sad when people lose touch.

  “So tell me everything—work is good? The boy is good? There is a boy, right?”

  “Jack. He’s meeting us here.”

  Alex claps his hands. “Yay!”

  As if on cue, Jack walks in followed by a dozen others. There are two women: Renee, the makeup artist Jack uses, whom I’ve met, and Lucy Sparkle, the lead singer of the New York electro-goth band Jack is shooting the video for, whom I haven’t met but I’ve heard only has anal sex with her actor boyfriend because she once got pregnant and had an abortion, this according to a friend of a friend in Manhattan. I shake Lucy’s hand. She’s wearing lipstick the color of eggplant and looks appropriately dour.

  Jack gives me a quick kiss and introductions are made all around. “And this is my old friend Alex,” I say with maybe a hint of defiance. Alex stands and curtseys. Jack shoots me a puzzled look that I choose to ignore.

  Several drinks in and I’m crossing and recrossing my legs. I’ve been drinking beer and I have to pee, but I can’t leave the table because I need to monitor what Alex is saying because he keeps going off about this time we did this and that time we did that and I’m mortified, although everyone else—including Jack—seems to find these tales of my aberrant youth riveting. I shift and grimace until I can’t take it anymore and I dash to the bathroom and get in and out as quickly as possible. I don’t have the patience for the pushbutton hand-dryer so I wipe my wet palms on Lila’s dress on my way back to the table where Alex is recounting my brief fling with lesbianism—if a drunken tongue kiss in a club with a hot Swedish girl can be considered lesbianism. I switch from beer to wine.

  I should be happy that no one is laughing at Alex or calling him a queeny old hag even though he is and all of his stories are about a million years old. I should be happy that he’s happy being a queeny old hag with old stories. I should be happy that when he lived in Montreal and was the belle of the ball he took me under his wing and taught me about hair and music and blow jobs, but I am not happy at all. How can he just sit there being so fucking happy and old and in those brocade pants? Didn’t he know that the Hipster Twins were laughing at him today? Couldn’t he tell I was lying when I said I was leaving tomorrow? Doesn’t he know that I invited him out because I feel sorry for him? Can’t he just tell me why he’s happy—how he can be so shameless and oblivious and happy—and leave me alone with these people who would never talk to him if he weren’t my guest?

  I’ll bet Alex won’t tell me his happy secret even if I ask nicely—I imagine it’s the only thing he has of any value, though some of his records might fetch a nice price considering the current market for eighties vinyl. I wish I had a tiny tape recorder. Ted gave me one once to record the interviews I did for Snap when I used to do interviews. I used it once then buried it in the back of my desk. Notes were easier and besides most of the people I interviewed were in bands or fashion and so drunk and stoned that anything I wrote was often at least close to what they meant and most of the time I made them sound better, smarter, cooler than they really were. But the tiny tape recorder would be easier than the notes I’m scribbling on the small pad I’ve dug out of my purse. My pen moves furtively, my hands under the table. I can’t see what I’m writing and Alex is talking too fast and I fear I’m missing the clues that he’s dropping, the hidden hints to his
happy secret.

  My hand cramps at a crucial point in the conversation—Alex is talking about the time we went to Maine and couldn’t find a place to eat where the fish wasn’t fried—and my pen drops to the floor. “Fuck!” I drop to my knees and feel around the sticky tiles until my hands are filthy and I find the pen. I hit my head on the underside of the table as I try to stand and my wineglass topples over, spilling cheap Merlot down the back of Lila’s dress. “Fuck!”

  Jack bends down and helps me up. Everyone stares. A flash goes off in my eyes and I’m blind. Alex breaks the silence with laughter and everyone joins in. My vision returns and I see Alex setting the camera and the undeveloped photo on top of my open purse. “I couldn’t resist,” he says with a satisfied smile. That I’m humiliated, filthy and sticky makes him happy, he’s practically erupting in cheer. His secret to happiness is revealed. I won’t need my notes.

  I order another glass of wine to replace the one that’s drying on my back. Jack leans over. “Maybe you should take it easy, baby,” he says.

  “Fuck off,” I snarl at him.

  The chatter around the table dies until dour Lucy Sparkle, who allegedly uses anal sex as birth control, speaks up. “Hey, Sara, Jack says you can hook me up with Gen-Gen.”

  “What?”

  “Gen-Gen—Genevieve whatever—the French chick. We want to cover ‘J’taime My Baby Tonight.’ We do it live and it’s fucking awesome.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Didn’t I read she’s doing a TV thing?” Alex chimes in.

  “And making a new album.” Jack talks like he’s the fucking authority on Gen but the only reason he knows anything about her at all is because of me.

  “Oh my God. Sara—you have to hook us up. It would be wicked to work with her,” says Lucy.

  “Wicked.” I pretend to agree, but what I’m really thinking about is how you’d get two big cocks up Lucy’s teensy little ass like that porn star who’s interviewed in the new Snap. “Has anyone seen the new Snap?” I ask and look accusingly at Lucy. She’s got a confused face on but I think she knows what I mean.

  “I was reading it today on set,” says Renee the makeup artist. I love Renee. “Loved that new column with all the pictures—is that Eva B. your sister?”

  I hate Renee. “She’s my assistant,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice even.

  “Well, it’s great. Her look is so fresh.”

  Fuck off, Renee. You’re not looking so fresh with your messy ponytail and your vintage Polo rugby shirt that’s probably a boy’s size twelve from the eighties that on second thought might not be a bad look—it might be a DO—but I just can’t tell. I have to go. I tell Jack that I have to go and he tells me to relax. I pull on his sleeve and tell him I have to go now and he tells me to chill.

  “I do not want to chill, I want to go.”

  Alex lets out a whoop. “Oooh, you’d better go, Jack. You don’t want to set this one off.”

  “Shut up, Alex,” I say.

  “Uh-oh—she’s in a mood,” Alex says in a singsong voice.

  I will kill him. No, I’ll make him kill himself, bite his own penis off right here on the table and bleed out while we watch and order more drinks—that, I’d stick around for. Alex was always bragging about how he was so flexible, that he could suck his own cock, get him high on coke or poppers and he’d show you. I think about grey pubic hair and then I really have to go. I stand up and straighten my dress. The stream of wine down my back is dry and stiff. I grab my bag. I think of Lila and what she would do. She would walk feetfirst, shoulders back and clickety-click out of there. She wouldn’t have been in a grubby pub—she would be designing dresses and eating casserole and reading her fashion magazines while enjoying a civilized drink and transcribing the pathetic ramblings of the kind of people who frequent grubby pubs.

  I navigate the stairs with some difficulty, but make it to the bottom without falling. I stumble my way to Yonge Street and flag a taxi. I’m close to sleep by the time we pull up in front of Jack’s building.

  I unzip Lila’s dress as soon as I’ve dead-bolted the door. I pour the last half of the red wine from earlier into the stemless glass on the desk and drag myself to the kitchen. I turn the oven on and take the casserole out of the fridge. I wash my face clean and shower. I redo my makeup and put on a different dress. I set the table and light candles. I empty a bag of mixed greens into a bowl and toss it in store-bought vinaigrette. I hear Jack’s key in the door just as the timer on the stove beeps.

  I’m wearing oven mitts and holding the baking dish. “I made casserole,” I say brightly, holding it out for Jack to see. Orange pockets of Velveeta bubble up through the browned top.

  “I don’t want casserole,” Jack says. His voice is flat.

  “But I made it for you.”

  “I don’t want casserole, Sara. I’m going to bed.”

  I set the baking dish down on the stove and strip off the oven mitts. I toss back the last of my wine and follow Jack into the bedroom, trying not to cry.

  He moves away from me when I move close. The lights are out and I’m naked—I’ve even taken my bra off. Jack is wearing boxers and a T-shirt. I press my breasts up against his back and he moves away from me again. I slide an arm around him and slide my hand inside his underwear. His cock gets hard in my hand and he groans and rolls onto his back. I straddle him and fuck him relentlessly until my inner thighs are chafed and he comes inside me.

  Whore

  Jack doesn’t try to talk me out of it when I tell him I’m going home three days early. I want my bed, my pillows and my ugly stretched-out underwear. Jack’s in a rush to get to the edit suite and the taxi I called will be here any minute, but I stop what I’m doing and push Jack back on the couch. I open his pants and hike up Lila’s dress. He feigns disapproval, but his cock is hard and by the time I get him inside me he’s moaning and bucking his hips. I bear down on him and think about Gen and Ted and Eva and Snap and that things aren’t really so bad—I just have to deal with it, be professional, wear my glasses and one of Lila’s suits. Jack comes just as my taxi honks outside. I climb off him and adjust my dress. Jack mentions that he’ll be in Montreal next week, to talk with Ted and me about the Snap video, TV, online whatever. There are no sentimental goodbyes.

  The flight is full and I’m stuck in a middle seat between a businessman who doesn’t look up from the Fortune magazine he’s reading as I squeeze by, and a woman whose immediate eye contact and chipper hello tell me she’s a chatterer.

  “Business or pleasure?” Chatty asks.

  I’m bent over trying to pull one of Lila’s Flair magazines from the brown leather carry-on without elbowing either Chatty or the businessman, but it’s impossible so I stick my hand in Lila’s purse and feel around until I find my notepad and a pen. “What?”

  “Your trip to Montreal—business or pleasure?”

  “I live there.” I flip past pages of illegible notes. A Polaroid picture sticks out of the pad. I flip it right-side up and gape in horror. My eyes burn bright red, my mouth is slack and Jack’s glasses balance on the tip of my nose. My hair is disheveled and my shoulders are curled. I’m a softheaded hunchback with cleavage and my face looks so old. I shove the picture back in my bag.

  “You’re a lucky one—I’d love to live in Montreal. There’s so much culture. It’s so European.”

  “Mmm,” I say and start making a list of vegetables to buy. I’m going to eat healthier, cook more at home.

  Chatty goes on about Montreal and her trip—it’s business, she’s a life coach and she’s written a book about women and work and choices and all I want to do is finish making my list of vegetables. She finally takes a breath as I write bok choy and I think she’s done with me, but she’s not. “So, what do you do?”

  “I’m a photographer.” I say this out of habit and with no enthusiasm.

  “That sounds exciting.”

  “Actually, I’m the co-founder of Snap—it’s a weekly magazine, a
nd we do a lot of consulting.” I have no idea why I say this.

  “I know it,” Chatty says. “You do all that cool youth-culture pop-culture trend stuff.”

  “Yup.”

  “I’d love to interview you for my next book—it’s stories about successful women entrepreneurs.” Chatty pulls a slim leather case from the inside pocket of her suit jacket and produces a business card. “Seriously. Call me. I’m in town until Saturday. I know you’re probably obscenely busy but maybe you could find a window? I’m staying at the Queen Elizabeth.”

  “Maybe.” I take her card. Ellen Franklin, Franklin Enterprises, Toronto. And in script lettering at the bottom of the card: Because life is all about options.

  After we deplane I try to lose Chatty Ellen Franklin by taking out my cell phone and pretending to check my messages even though the phone has been dead for more than a week, its charger plugged into the wall by my bed at home. I race through the terminal doing my best imitation of someone determined and important, the dead phone pressed to my ear. But Chatty Ellen Franklin catches up to me at baggage claim so I nip outside to smoke.

  Chatty Ellen Franklin smokes, too. This is unexpected and elevates her a smidgen above her previous ranking as airline irritant. We smoke and make the requisite small talk about how awful smoking is and about how neither one of us really smokes that much, mostly when we’re stressed or when we drink, which for me is pretty much all the time but I don’t tell Chatty Ellen Franklin that.

  We get our bags and I agree to share a taxi, not so much because Chatty Ellen Franklin has won me over with her perma-smile and motivational lingo but because I’m too exhausted to make an excuse not to and she thinks I’m a successful entrepreneur who should be in a book.

  As we make our way into the city I learn that Chatty Ellen Franklin is all about women helping women. She speaks to women’s organizations and networking groups about making the best choices for themselves—because life is all about options—and about encouraging other women to do the same. “It never ceases to shock me how it’s often women who keep other women down when we should be supporting each other. If a woman is unhappy with her choices she doesn’t want the women around her to be happy with theirs—you must have run in to this on your way up.”

 

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