by Anne Jolin
“We’d be honoured to have your campaign spearhead our sponsorships.” I shook a little as I spoke. I was struggling to maintain an emotional equilibrium.
The week of the gala was always emotionally taxing for me.
“I’m glad to hear that.” He stood, buttoning his suit jacket once again. “I’ll have my assistant contact you this afternoon to coordinate anything you need from us.”
I stood as he did, following the somewhat abrupt end to a quick but otherwise very deep meeting. “On behalf of the Halo Foundation and myself, I want to say thank you. It’s not often we have sponsors that are so passionate about what we do,” I said, and I meant it. Standing in front of him, outstretching my hand, I wished I had more eloquent words of thanks, but in that moment, my grief was plunging in and out of my heart, making it hard to breathe.
“I just have one condition.” His hand tightened around mine.
“Oh?”
I wasn’t surprised by this. It was often when making sizeable donations that the sponsors had conditions, though usually they were ironed out prior to the ending handshake of a meeting.
“To thank me for the donation, I’d like you to let me take you to dinner.”
“Oh.”
Using the hand not joined with mine, he pulled a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of his grey suit and held it just above my desk, waiting for my eyes to move down to the manila cardstock and back to him.
I’m sure people would say I too often bent easily to the will of men. I’m sure some women would say I even lacked self-worth. Self-worth. God, what an idea that would be. Did we even know how to measure self-worth romantically as women anymore? If you asked a man out, you were too forward. If you waited for him to ask you, you were too shy. If you took off your shirt, you were a slut. If you left it on, you were a prude. I mean, who was to say when enough was enough?
I’d indeed chosen a poor time to mull over the contradicting retrospect of womanhood. The inevitable lose-lose that women seemed to be faced with when dealing with the opposite sex.
“Well…” He pulled our joint hands towards him. “Do we have an agreeable arrangement, Charleston?”
If I said no, I was ungrateful. If I said yes, I was somehow a traitor to the female backbone.
But hey, some liked it bitter and some liked it sweet, and I learned a long time ago it was not possible to be everybody’s cup of tea, and I didn’t care to be.
Perhaps that was just me though.
“Agreeable.” I smiled genuinely. “It’s the least I can do.”
While you may think that was a preposterous thing to agree to, or anti-feminist of me to take money in exchange for agreeing to spend time with a man, it would be wise of you to acknowledge the curiosity it peeked in you.
Said wealthy politician was incredibly handsome. Said politician was willing to donate an obscene amount of money to the charity I loved more than anything in this world. Lastly, it was no secret that over the years I’d been on countless dates and survived nearly a decade of love affairs with the opposite sex, and yet, I was remarkably lonely.
I know, I know. How could someone as fond of male affection as I was be lonely? It was easier than one would expect. Hadn’t you ever been in a crowded room and yet felt as though you were entirely alone and unjustly misunderstood? Most of us have at one time or another been enveloped in such loneliness. For me, however, it was a constant. That was how my heart and its ravenous addiction responded to love. I was submerged in affection, yet never full. I was at a loss, doomed to repeat the same mistakes forever. In my self-preservation and unrelenting realism, I had buried myself under a fear of forming actual connections with people, and without connection, we became hollow.
Sure, I’d been in the company of great men, but let me remind you, great men aren’t always easy to love, and even fewer had the capacity to love you back. And even if they could, love you back that is, would it be enough? Would that one person be enough to sustain me with a lifetime of highs and withstand a copious amount of lows that would no doubt be the fall out of our duality?
I wasn’t sure.
Just as I wasn’t sure all the lies we’d been fed as young women growing up were true. I’d begun to wonder if I was advocating for a future and a life I no longer believed in, chasing things that would inevitably turn to dust when I caught them.
Perhaps I’d never believed in earnest that loving romantically was anything but fleeting. Perhaps it was simply all…wrong.
For, at first, they taught us that behind every great man was a great woman.
Wrong.
Later, they revised and preached that beside every great man was a great woman.
Wrong.
Surrounding every great man was a slaughterhouse of women, some great, some not, positioning for the rise of her own empire. It was a difficult thing being Queen of the King, and even if you made it to the crown, bet your ass you’d have to fight dirty day in and day out to stay there, because behind every great woman was another woman ready to take her place.
Women were constantly in competition with one another.
Right.
So, yes. I said yes to the beautiful, great man proving all of societies woes intact. I’d done so a dozen times before and each time prayed without abandon that maybe this time, with this high, with this great man, I’d be the one who was wrong.
If the devil didn’t want me, maybe the saint would.
“Wonderful.” He dipped his face low to mine. Encouraged by anticipation, my eyes fluttered closed at his approach, the addict in me disappointed when his lips whispered across only my cheek.
I was hot-headed. I loved hard. I was impulsive. I obsessed and I fell hard. I was on top of the world until suddenly, I was not. This worried me, for as I bathed in the briefest of disappointments, I could feel hope climb from the depths of me, because it had found someone new to cling to.
Dropping the envelope to the desk, he released our handshake on a squeeze and moved towards the door.
“I’ll see you Saturday, Charleston. It’s been a pleasure.”
With that, his perfectly tailored suit moved through my now open office door and I watched until he eventually disappeared at the end of the hall.
Beau Callaway was a great man.
Could a woman like me ride a high that great and survive the fall? I wasn’t sure.
“That was quick,” Kevin chimed in, displacing my dark mood with his own bubbly one.
“He knew what he wanted.”
“Char, darling. When will you learn?” He grinned. “Men like that usually do.”
I was dead on my feet by the time I pulled my black Range Rover to the curb outside my building. It would be safer, as my dad often reminded me, to park underground, but I almost never did. Call it laziness, or an unwitting testing of fate, but I couldn’t be bothered.
Kevin and I had worked well into the evening alongside Emma fine-tuning minute decorative details for Saturday’s gala. With the added influx of cash from Beau’s more than generous six-figure donation, we were able to add a few of the items we’d originally crossed off the budget.
I left at seven to meet Tom, our in-house sound and set-up whiz, at the venue a few blocks over. This would be the first year we held the gala at The Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel, and Tom was methodical about trial runs. We ran a sound check and agreed that the stage would need to be moved back two feet to accommodate the extra sponsor table in front.
The clock on my dash let me know it was nearly nine before I shut down the engine, climbing barefoot from behind the wheel. I worked long hours and I wore big heels; it wasn’t uncommon for me to finish the day climbing the stairs, sans shoes, to the entrance of my apartment building.
Hiking my purse higher on my shoulder, I adjusted the laptop and files into one arm so I could enter my access code into the screen without dropping my boots. After checking my mail and depositing the flyers and junk mail in the lobby trashcan, I forwent the stairs for the second
time today, making a mental note to let Leighton drag me to the gym at least one day next week as I stepped onto the elevator.
My building was a renovated warehouse turned apartment complex. That meant it was only five levels with four apartments per floor, and it was rustic chic in an exquisite way. Exposed brick, retro but refurbished fire escapes, and brilliant, heavy copper doors throughout. There was a rooftop terrace shared by all the tenants that was amazing in the summer, and quite possibly the reason I purchased a third floor unit just shy of two years ago.
I tossed my mail and keys onto the entryway table and heeled the door closed behind me, leaving my boots somewhere in its wake. My unit was a two-bedroom, two-bath with vaulted ceilings. The wall across from the door was exposed brick, with three large bay windows that if I was home at a reasonable hour would showcase the sunset over English Bay. The kitchen to the right was a cook’s marvel, though I never used it except to reheat takeout or bake frozen pizza, the extent of my cooking skills.
Dropping my purse, laptop, and files onto the breakfast bar, I continued down the hall, pulling my sweater over my head as I went. I passed the guest bedroom and bath, which were almost never in use, and unbuckled my jeans, shimmying out of them at the entrance to my master suite. The room was dominated by a king-sized bed, two side tables, and a blue chaise that sat flanking the two smaller walk-in closets. I discarded my bra to the hardwood floor as I padded into the bathroom. It was modern with a vintage flare, just like the guest bath, and lavender towels hung from the hooks on the wall. I turned on the glass shower, moving back to the antiqued vanity and relieving my hair from the chignon.
In the time it took the water to heat, I stripped the remainder of my clothes and settled under the spray. My evening showers were a ritual habit and quick, an added step to the nightly routine of cleansing and lotion application. Lazily towel drying my hair, I slid into the pale pink kimono hanging on the back of the bathroom door and moseyed back out of the room.
My kitchen was barren, though I did manage to find a pad Thai in the back that still looked edible and a Diet Coke that wasn’t flat, and brought them to the seating area along with my laptop.
The living room had one large, white sofa with an array of throw pillows that sat across from an out-dated flat screen television, and on either side were two elegantly mismatched armchairs. Positioning my dinner on the old trunk that substituted as a coffee table, I flipped open the mail app on my laptop and scrolled through.
Among the unread messages was an email from Beau’s assistant, which I skimmed while devouring the cold noodles with a fork (chop sticks weren’t my forte). It was the usual standard request for signage, seating arrangement, and press release information. However, attached to it was security plan and subsequent exit strategy that was thorough and a bit intimidating. I fired back a response to her that I’d have the requests taken care of by Wednesday afternoon and forward the security specs to Tom for assistance in coordinating with Beau’s security team.
Taking a pull from the pop can, I switched on the news and settled in for the ten o’clock recap of the day’s events.
Weather and sports were first, which I listened to half-heartedly while finalizing the catering agreement, but the election news perked my interest.
“In other news, Beau Callaway is leading the polls against his opposition Michael Danes by…”
The mail notification sounded from my computer distracted me, and I pulled the laptop back across the couch, closer to me.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Forgive Me
I look forward to Saturday.
Please forgive me for not getting your number.
Mine is attached. Text me.
Beau
Smiling, I stood from the sofa, taking my dinner to the trash and fishing my phone out from the disaster that was my purse.
Reading the numbers off the e-mail, I punched them into the iMessage screen and then saved it in my contacts.
Me: You’re forgiven.
Grabbing a blanket off the armchair, I sat cross-legged next to my laptop again, when my text alert went off surprisingly quickly.
Beau: Lucky me. What are you doing?
Pausing the television, I took a picture and attached it to my response.
Me: Watching the news, which happens to be you. Ears burning?
Beau: Always.
I had a short attention span and wildly craved new experiences, something I hoped a man like Beau could understand. I’d chosen a career where no day was the same, but yet lived a life where I constantly drove forth the need for something more, a higher high that only ever left me unsatisfied.
The entirety of me was a living juxtaposition.
I both wanted to be loved desperately and yet fought against it with abandon.
My heart was doomed forever in love’s purgatory.
I found a picture of him on the internet and was saving it to his contact info, just as the alert sounded in my hands.
Beau: Sleep well, Charleston.
I didn’t answer, even though I wanted too. I didn’t answer, because it gave me more power not to answer, or at least I thought it did, and I needed the upper hand in all my romantic connections.
Beau, the great and beautiful political dreamboat, would be no different.
So, I was probably crazy, but weren’t we all?
Normal wouldn’t make for a good story, would it?
Saturday, the Fourth Annual Halo Foundation Masquerade Gala
“Henry?” I called out to the empty hallway.
Nothing.
“Henry?” My voice broke at a higher pitch this time, searching the kitchen frantically, and still, nothing.
My legs tore through the house, searching room after room. “Henry?”
I hit redial on the flip phone.
Calling Henry…
The sound of Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me” played from a distance, echoing through the walls.
My limbs worked harder, faster.
“Henry!” I panicked, my hip crashing into a table in the living room.
Glass broke everywhere as the picture frame collided with the floor.
“Henry?”
The music stopped and his voicemail picked up.
“Hey. It’s Henry. Leave a message at the beep, or don’t, whatever.”
My heart arrested at his voice and I froze, hitting redial again.
Calling Henry…
“Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away…”
Tears streaming down my face, the music mocked me.
“Henry!”
I hit the step to the basement and exploded with fury as the music grew louder.
“Henry?”
I saw a shadow under the bathroom door.
“Henry!”
Turning the handle, I pushed, but the door barely moved. I backed up and hit the door harder this time, my shoulder protesting in pain.
The door moved at best a few more inches, enough to see his lifeless body folded over in the mirror.
“Henry!” I screamed, backing up farther this time and rushing the door.
He didn’t move.
I dialled the numbers as my thighs burned from pushing so hard.
Calling 911…
“911. What’s your emergency?” The female voice burned into my brain.
“My brother… He… My brother, he’s not moving. He’s… he’s in the bathroom… and I can’t… I can’t get in and he’s not moving!” I screamed into the receiver like I hated her. Like she’d done this to him.
“What’s your address?”
“4313 Holly Park Drive.” I connected with the door again and felt it give. “Henry!”
“Miss, an ambulance is on…”
The phone shattered against the tiled floor as my body pushed through the crack in the door.
“Henry! Henry! Henry!” I dropped to my knees and screamed in his face.
Nothing.
My fingers shook as I placed them against his throat.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He had a pulse.
“Henry!”
I slapped him, hard.
He choked and my heart seized.
I hooked my arms around his torso and pulled. He was bigger than me. So much bigger than me.
“Stay with me, Henry, please,” I begged, using all of my strength to roll him onto his side.
Opening his mouth, I shoved two fingers to the back of his throat and pushed.
Vomit covered my hand and the sleeves of my school uniform.
Pulling my hand out, I kept his head turned while the stench perforated the air.
“Henry!”
His eyes didn’t open and my tears had grown to sobs.
I pushed two fingers down his throat again.
More vomit.
He choked and spit.
“Henry, please.”
His massive frame convulsed with each heave.
Behind his lids, his eyes moved as he coughed, and finally the grey of my brother’s irises found me briefly.
“Henry!” I sobbed, slapping his cheeks again as his eyes began to close. “What did you take? Henry!”
They opened again.
“What did you take? What did you take?” I repeated over and over again.
I placed his head in my lap, pulling the sweat-soaked blond hair off his forehead.
“Henry?” I said softer this time.
He smiled at me.
“I’m sorry, Charlie.” His eyes closed.
“Charleston?”
“So sorry, Charlie bear.”
“Charleston?”
I came to looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
“Char? Are you listening to me?”
My eyes moved to find Kevin’s in the mirror. “I’m sorry, what?”
“The guests have started to arrive.”
I nodded, noting he looked as handsome as ever in an all-black tuxedo with a red mask.
“I’ll be right down.”
He stepped forward, squeezing my bare shoulder. “It looks beautiful out there.”
I tilted my head backwards, fending off the tears that threatened to ruin my expertly applied makeup and praying they stayed put in their wells.