by Betsy Burke
“It looks that way,” I said.
“He’s a goddamn father?”
“Maybe they’re adopted.”
“Sure.”
“Maybe they’re all acting, reciting from a script, and there’re hidden cameras rolling somewhere nearby.”
“Right. Oh fuck. Would you look at that? I can’t believe it. He’s wearing sweats and Adidas.”
“I don’t think that’s a crime.”
“Are you kidding? Max is always going on about the vanished days of sartorial splendor and how everyone looks like they’re wearing pajamas when they’re dressed in sweats. It’s one of his pet peeves.”
“Maybe he’s one of a pair, an identical twin. This is the evil twin, or should he be the good one? I can’t decide.”
“It’s just so awful. He’s just so…so…so…”
“So what, Sky?”
“So average.”
That was it. That was the thing that had been bugging me. Max hadn’t set my gay radar going. He exuded heterosexual normality under all the finickiness.
Then Sky started to cry. Again.
All those times I’d seen her so furious and sharp, and I’d wondered if she ever cried. Now it seemed she was starting to make up for lost time. She was getting wet and gushy. Wet and gushy was my classic routine, not hers. I put an arm around her shoulder.
“Sky, it’s going to be okay. Really, it is. You’re going to look back on all this and laugh.”
She nodded.
I rummaged in my purse and found a crumpled Kleenex. “It just looks used but it’s clean really.”
She blew her nose loudly. The tip of it was bright red. Now I understood why she avoided crying when possible.
I said, “This is the first time I’ve come up against the straight married guy playing gay so that he can be seduced into being straight. At least that’s how it seems to me. I don’t know what else to say.”
Sky was already calm again. She looked resolute. “Well, I do. Let’s go eat. I’m starving and if we sit here any longer I’ll have a bad case of jelly bean mouth.”
We drove around for another hour then picked a place called The Spectacular All American Restaurant because the prices were good and there was a huge choice. Sky ordered lasagna and I ordered a triple bacon cheeseburger with fries.
“That’s it,” she said. “I am through with men forever. I’m going to get my libido surgically removed.”
“Isn’t that a bit drastic? I’ve heard it’s an outrageously expensive operation. Where is your libido anyway?”
“Under your Freudian slip, I imagine. I can tell you one thing. When I figure out how, I’m getting it removed and taking it back for a refund.”
“They don’t give you much for a used libido these days.”
“But mine’s obviously defective, or it wouldn’t have let me get involved with Max in the first place.”
“What are you going to do, Sky? You still have to work with him. He’s your boss.”
“I don’t know, but one thing’s for sure. These are not things to ponder on an empty stomach.”
The waitress brought our orders. As soon as she’d set them down, she put a small bowler hat on her head and burst into the theme song from the musical “Cabaret.”
She belted it out at top volume until Sky held up her hand and said, “EXCUSE ME. Excuse me. Excuse me for just one second.”
The girl stopped singing.
Sky whipped out a ten-dollar bill and waved it in front of her. “This will be your tip if you’ll kindly piss off, unless we want food or drink. In which case, we’ll snap our fingers in your direction. And tell the other waiters to stay out of our faces, too.”
The girl was completely crestfallen. She crept away to inform the others.
How were we to know that all the waiters and waitresses were aspiring musical comedy performers? That the restaurant was famous for showcasing undiscovered talent?
Sky said, “I can’t stand people in my face unless I invite them to be in my face. And I can’t stand musical theater if it isn’t in a theater.”
We finished eating, paid the bill and got back in the car. We were on the road again by seven.
It was somewhere not far from the Canadian border, along a deserted stretch of highway, that the car began to sputter and die. Sky was able to pull over just in time.
“Shit,” she said. “No goddamn gas left.”
“Sky,” I wailed. “Whad’you mean no gas?”
“I’m sorry. I got so caught up with being mad at Max the Dickhead Daddy that I just forgot to look at the gas gauge.”
“You just forgot? I’ve got to get home. I’ve got a show to mount tomorrow. Paul’s show. Paul Bleeker, the man I’m sleeping with. Well, technically not actually sleeping with but…”
“Listen. First, my advice: Do Not Panic. Take my phone and call The Mummy right now. Let her know the situation. If you leave it till the last minute it could be worse. Don’t give her the chance to twist it around and use it against you later.”
I made the call on Sky’s cellular.
Nadine said, “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day. I wanted to tell you not to come in tomorrow. Paul has decided to change all the plans at the eleventh hour. He’s having the show set up by his own handlers. He’s very particular about not revealing anything to anybody until the very last minute.”
“His own handlers?” I tried hard to imagine what they might look like.
“You’ll be on duty for the opening. Friday night, you have to stop by at Schultz’s at about six and make sure the trays of food are ready. Make sure they get the order right. They’ve been getting sloppy lately. Tell them we won’t use them again if they don’t get it right. The trays are to be delivered by seven. The champagne will be delivered earlier. Your share of the work will be during and afterward. You’re pouring, cleaning up and doing the closing. And I want the place spotless. Is that clear?”
“Clear as the ice water that runs through your veins, Nadine.”
“Maybe you’re not aware of it but you’re expendable, Lucy.”
I pressed the phone’s off button.
Change had to come soon. It just had to.
Sky and I wasted several hours waiting for the guys from AAA to come with enough gas to get us to an all-night gas station. At the border, the customs officials were sure we were hiding something and all but dismantled the car, coming up with some earrings Reebee had lost the year before and a few handfuls of jelly beans.
All Thursday, I practiced getting dressed for Paul’s opening. I tried on nearly everything in my closet twice. I put makeup on and took it off until my face hurt. I took a three-hour bath, running more hot water whenever it got cold.
Sky still had my red dress at the Retro Metro. I toyed with the idea of wearing it to the opening, but something stopped me. I wasn’t quite ready. It felt wrong. A red dress like that could be worn when you had nothing left to hide, when you just didn’t care what the world thought. It wasn’t fashionable but it was beautiful. It would be my day when I wore it, a day that belonged entirely to me. It wasn’t the kind of dress you wore when you had to clean up afterward.
I opted for my usual cop-out artsy-fartsy dark look: hair up, black flats, black leotard and leggings covered by big black baggy silk shirt to hide bulges. Sort of like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina when she cooks eggs for Humphrey Bogart. Well…okay. Add fifty pounds or so.
I don’t know what made me call Sam. Maybe it was because Friday was such torture. The whole empty day stretching before me, nothing to do but worry about Paul Bleeker until evening. I thought I would get an answering machine and be able to listen to Sam’s message voice. But he picked up and I had to invent something.
“It’s me, Lucy Madison.”
“Lucy. Are you okay? Are you being threatened? Is Dirk there?”
“No, no. This is uh…an unofficial call. I…er…uh…wanted to tell you…I mean I forgot to mention las
t time we talked on the phone, I went to the FOBIA meeting. It was great. I got a bit of a shock though at first. All that square-dancing.”
“I thought you might get a kick out of it. Band was okay, wasn’t it?”
“You were there?”
“Popped in for a few minutes,” said Sam.
I jumped in with, “Listen, um, there’s going to be a big show opening tonight in the gallery where I work. Lots of free food and champagne. It’s an important artist. His name’s Paul Bleeker.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Really? You have?”
“Yep.”
“I just thought, um, you might like…”
“Sure. If I get freed up in time I might take a run down there. Rogues’ Gallery. In Gastown. Right?”
“You have a good memory.”
“One of the people in the office was mentioning it yesterday. She’s something of an art buff, too.”
I stiffened to hear Sam say “She” then said, “It kicks off just before eight. I hope you can make it.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Sam, “Thanks for letting me know. Bye, Lucy.”
“Bye, Sam.”
By the time I left the apartment and started toward Schultz’s on Friday evening, I was a bundle of nerves. First of all, none of my friends would be there. Sky was at home, and she was going to have to have her telephone receiver surgically removed from her ear because she’d been stuck to it, talking things over with Max, since her return from Seattle.
I tried phoning Jacques’s place, hoping he would come and give me moral support, but nobody was home and I had no idea where he was.
And Leo had a gig that night.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Knowing I would somehow be part of Paul Bleeker’s exhibit made it worse. At first, I had thought it would be wonderful. I had planned to stand next to the portrait he’d done of me and look svelte, wait for people to notice the resemblance, then bask in the glory of being a famous artist’s model.
I realized I was dreaming again. Svelte was out the window. So was standing around. Nadine wanted me to serve as a kind of mobile human trash can, ready to grab empty glasses, scrunched napkins, paper plates, the minute they were dropped or abandoned.
When I got to Schultz’s, I ordered a cup of their good old-fashioned percolator coffee and checked the trays they’d prepared. They looked wonderful. And as usual, I was starving. On the excuse of having to approve the merchandise, I popped a prawn square into my mouth and declared it fantastic—like sex on tiny crackers. I told them to send the food on.
From there I walked to the gallery. There was a full moon that night. The air was warm, well…warm for Canada, salt-swept and heavy with pollen. I was brimming with a sense of expectation, a premonition of things to come, but of things with no name or shape. I was looking up at the sky, at the beginnings of the luminous moon making its way up and across, and wasn’t looking where I was putting my feet. I nearly tripped over a homeless man lounging on a warm air vent. He stared up at me with weepy hound-dog eyes. In that moment, it was as though I had become him and he had become me. For a split second, we were inseparable, sharing the human chain, both of us as strong as its weakest link.
Then he sank back down onto his air vent and closed his eyes.
The vague sense of hope plummeted and turned into misery.
What was I doing, nearly thirty years old, alone, unaccompanied, solo, conspicuously single—walking along in this city that wasn’t my city, and not even getting the walking right, but tripping over derelict human beings in the street—on my way to an exhibit of somebody else’s art—not even my own art? Why did Jeremy have to abandon me? How had I ended up in this situation?
This was not part of the master plan. Where had it all gone wrong?
When was my life going to feel like it was really mine and not a spectator sport? When was I going to look in the mirror and say, Yes, I know you. You’re Lucy Madison. You’re that girl who knows what she wants and goes out and gets it. Welcome back. Everybody’s missed you. Your chubby, wimpy shadow here has been standing in for you but doing a terrible job. Everybody’s been waiting for your return.
When was it going to feel more like Christmas and less like PMS?
Or were my expectations too high?
Then I thought, Omagod. I’m just like Dirk. I’m insane and don’t even realize it.
I walked a little faster.
Outside the gallery, a fair-sized group of people had started to gather. The windows were obscured by heavy black velvet drapes and it was impossible to see in. I tried the door but it was locked. I used my key and slipped inside.
The temperature was just above freezing. As well as being chilly, it was pitch-black in the gallery. There was a strange, sickly-sweet smell, but my nose was still a bit stuffed up and I couldn’t quite place it.
I was in a maze of black drapery. Black curtains created a spiraling corridor, like a snail’s shell, in which more black curtains divided areas off into cubicles. At the center of each cubicle was a tall object hidden by a silk black cover sheet. Sculptures, I suspected. There were single overhead spot-lights for each object but they hadn’t been turned on. Suspended above each object was a video screen.
I tried to find my way out of the spiral, battling with the curtains. I finally gave up, got down on my hands and knees, lifted the bottom of one of the curtains and crawled out near Nadine’s office. The door was slightly ajar and I could hear voices inside. I went in without knocking.
There was a small crowd in there. Nadine, The Mortician, Mae West and Onassis all drank champagne from crystal glasses. They were dressed in either fur coats or camel hair. Why hadn’t anybody told me to bring my own dead animal to wear? It was freezing in there.
I took a closer look at the four hairy men lurking in the corner and recognized Paul Bleeker’s cronies. Even they had the sense to be wearing heavy sweaters.
“About time,” said Nadine when she saw me. “Go and see that there’s enough loo paper, would you, Lucy? And give the toilet bowls a quick scrub while you’re there. And be fast about it. The trays have arrived. They’re all by the tables. You checked them on your way over, I hope, to see they didn’t forget anything. The staff there has been getting sloppy lately…”
“They didn’t forget anything. The order was complete.”
She noticed the way I looked at Paul’s friends. They didn’t recognize me.
“These are Paul’s handlers,” she said. “They have years of experience with his work.”
Sure, I thought.
Years of sitting around with brains fried on who-knows-what and discussing whether toe-jam or belly-button lint was the better medium. They didn’t seem too worried about Nadine’s demoting them from the East Sheen Group of Artists to gallery lackeys. They looked so stoned that remembering their own names would probably have presented a problem.
“We open the doors in twenty minutes,” said Nadine, checking her watch. “As soon as we open, you’re to get over by the food tables and pour champagne. They’re in the circular space at the center of the spiral. When you’ve got the tables organized, I want you to patrol for garbage, anything that gets dropped. Oh yes, and discourage smokers.”
“It’s pitch dark in there, Nadine. How am I supposed to pour in the dark?”
“There will be some indirect lighting. The sculptures will be spotlit and there should be light from the videos. In the meantime, use this.” She opened her desk drawer and handed me a tiny penlight flashlight.
“And where’s Paul?”
“Paul? Ha ha ha.” She laughed as though she had him tucked away in her pocket or purse. “He’ll be making an appearance soon, I shouldn’t wonder. Now hurry up and do those loos. We’re letting people in soon.”
I shuffled away to the storeroom to get rolls of toilet paper, rubber gloves, sponges and cleansers. Just as well I hadn’t worn the red dress.
I quickly scoured the bathrooms, inspected myself in the mir
ror, then went to look for the tables. It was strange, like being in a stage production, groping around in the dark to take my place before the curtain went up. I turned on the flashlight, squinted and stumbled around until I found the tables.
They were there at the center of the spiral, in a big circular space. There were several large tubs containing crushed ice and bottles of champagne. On one of the tables were rows of glass champagne flutes as opposed to the plastic cups we usually brought out for openings. There were also china plates and linen napkins. I rearranged the trays, then grabbed a couple of artichoke hors d’oeuvres and stuffed them in my mouth. I had to keep rubbing my hands together and hugging myself to stay warm. My teeth began to chatter. My leotard wasn’t nearly heavy enough.
I uncorked a bottle of Brut, poured myself two glasses, and clinked them together, toasting in silence to my faltering sanity and a better future. Then I downed them both.
The lights came on. I could hear the woosh of the cover sheets being pulled off the sculptures. I was miffed. It was the first time I had ever been excluded from an exhibit’s preparations. The videos started automatically, creating flashes that gave a strobe-light effect. Through all that fabric, I could hear the muffled sounds of Nadine opening the front door and letting in the public. Little by little, wooly voices seeped through the curtains. Snatches of conversation reached me then drifted away.
I continued to pour champagne until most of the glasses were filled. Over the next half hour, there were sounds of awe and appreciation, and then a few people trickled into the center and began to drink champagne. Through the drapes I could hear The Mortician commenting, “Interesting choice of medium. Witty. Very definitely enhanced by the projections. Good Lord. Is that who I think it is? Do I recognize…?” And then his voice wafted away and disappeared.
Another slightly familiar woman’s voice came into earshot but I couldn’t place it. I strained to hear more.
“…at a party…quite interesting…the forefront of the modern art scene in Britain…very sweet really…a little party up in West Vancouver…”
I knew that voice. It was Francesca de la Hoity Toity, Sam’s colleague from the Forensic.