by Terry Fallis
“Tell me what, James? What’s happened?”
“You remember that paper I wrote that you kindly read on your trip to Paris, the one about Holmes’s deductive powers in ‘The Blue Carbuncle’?”
“What do you mean, do I remember it? Of course I do. How could I forget? It was well written and well reasoned. Without it, the flight would have seemed even longer and the seat even harder.”
“You’re very kind. Well, this morning, I received a telephone call from the editor-in-chief of The Baker Street Journal. Did you hear that, Hem, The Baker Street Journal?”
“And, and?”
“They’re going to publish the paper in the next quarterly edition with very few edits,” he nearly shouted. “They’re actually going to publish it! I am in a state of shock.”
“That’s just fantastic news, James. I’m very happy for you.”
“But, Hem, that’s not the best part, not by a long shot,” he continued, almost breathless. “Twenty minutes ago my phone rang again. It was a very senior executive of the Baker Street Irregulars, the society I’ve been trying to join for twenty years now.”
“Right, and?” I had an inkling of what was coming.
“Well, the BSJ editor-in-chief is putting my name forward in January at the next major gathering here in New York. It’s at the Yale Club. It’s lovely there, it really is. Anyway, I’m tickled to my toes. I don’t know how it happened. It’s totally out of the blue. But it seems I’ll stand as what they call an investiture in January. I’ve been accepted! Oh, I must think of my official investiture name. It’s all a little hard to absorb right now, but it seems I’m in, villainous name and all!”
“Yes! James, that is such wonderful news. You’ve wanted this for a long time. Just savour it. You’ve earned it. I’m very happy for you. Have you told Jackie yet?”
“She’s my next call.”
Jackie Kennedy had been circling James since our very first NameFame group meeting. I don’t think they were dating per se, but they’d started hanging out with each other and even enrolled in swimming lessons together. It was good for them both. We spoke for a few more minutes. I’d never heard James in such an advanced state of euphoria. When I closed my phone, I was feeling good. The universe was unfolding as it should.
“What was that?” Marie asked.
“Oh, well, um, it seems our James just got some really good news, you know, just some Sherlockian stuff, and he’s very happy.”
Marie smiled and was about to say something more when the public address announcer drowned out her words.
“Ladies and gentlemen, would you please rise, remove your hats, and join Diana Ross … from the New York Police Department in the singing of our national anthem.”
The announcer paused after saying her name and before noting her connection to the NYPD. I’m sure he did it on purpose. You could almost see every fan in the stadium snap to attention at the prospect of hearing the Motown legend sing, only to be laid low when they realized they’d been momentarily duped. The sighs of disappointment throughout the stands could not have been more, well, audible, had the home team just missed an easy game-winning chip-shot field goal, wide right.
For the last few years, the New York Jets had invited local fans to audition to sing the national anthem to open pre-season games. Hat had persuaded Diana to apply, but she had done the rest by nailing her audition. Marie and I stood and cheered until the opening bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner” settled over us. Diana stood there alone at the microphone on the fifty-yard line and belted it out. Hat stood a little out of the way but still directly in her line of sight. She had her eyes fixed on his from “Oh say can you see” all the way through to “the home of the brave.” He kept smiling and nodding his head in support. Her voice never wavered. Not once. She knocked it out of the park, even though I’m sure there’s some NFL edict forbidding the use of baseball metaphors at a football game. Throughout Diana’s performance, Marie squeezed my hand tighter and tighter as it became clear that Diana was not just going to get through it, but was delivering the performance of her life. The crowd roared their approval when her last note died away all too soon.
“That was amazing. She was amazing!” Marie said, beaming. “And she had not a drop of alcohol to get ready.”
“It’s one of the many benefits of dating a man who doesn’t drink,” I replied.
A few minutes into the game, a very proud Hat escorted Diana up to fill the empty seat next to us. She looked a little wobbly, but that just made her all the more endearing in the moment. I stood to give her a hug as she went by me to sit on the other side of Marie.
“Hey, down in front!” someone yelled from a few rows behind us.
I stiffened and reached out to put my hand on Hat’s arm, fearing that his namesake’s principle of nonviolence was about to suffer another setback. But Hat had come a long way in a short time.
“Excuse me, my friend, but this is Diana Ross. She just sang our beloved national anthem for you. That is why she is late. So, if you please, just let her take her seat and perhaps show her your appreciation for that very fine performance.”
I turned around to catch the fan’s reaction. He looked over at the back of Diana Ross’s head and nodded.
“Hey, yeah, it’s the anthem singer, right here in our section,” the fan shouted. “Great job, Diana. You got a nice set of pipes on you.”
I grabbed Hat as he started to head toward the fan.
“It’s okay, Hat,” I said, so only he could hear me. “By pipes, he means her voice, just her voice. It’s an expression. He was being nice. Really.”
Hat relaxed and waved to the fan. He then made eye contact with Diana, who was now seated next to Marie.
“See you after the game.”
She waved to him and he bounded down the stairs to field level to take over his audio dish duties from the intern who had handled the first few plays.
I was proud of Hat. He’d come a long way. Four months earlier, he’d applied for and landed an engineering job at the cogeneration plant at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It wasn’t quite as good a position as the one his temper had cost him over at the station at 14th and FDR, but he was managing, and by all accounts – well, really by his own account – was keeping his employers happy. I believed him. In general, he was an open book, utterly free of pretense. It didn’t surprise me that he’d also kept his job slinging the audio dish at the Jets games. That’s what any hardcore Jets fan would do. The home team lost the game, badly. But it was just the first pre-season game. According to Hat, it was not yet time to lift the protective shield covering the panic button. He had a good feeling about the coming season.
When the game ended, Let Them Eat Cake! was still open and a little understaffed with Marie taking the afternoon off for Diana’s professional singing debut. So she was eager to get back. We said goodbye to Hat and Diana and walked with the crowd back to the car a few blocks away. We held hands.
Two months after I’d been granted my empty drawer in Marie’s bathroom vanity, I moved in completely. Two months after that, I sublet my apartment and put most of my stuff in storage. After my ill-fated Jennifer experience, I didn’t think I wanted to live with someone else ever again. Wrong.
We entered through the back door directly into the kitchen. Peter Parker stood at the stainless steel counter mixing up batter for the cakes that would be baked very early the following morning.
“How was Diana?” he asked with eyebrows elevated.
“She rocked the house,” Marie replied. “She killed it.”
“I knew she would. That’s friggin’ awesome.”
“Everything cool here?” Marie asked.
“Busy, busy,” Peter said. “It’s been a good night.”
Peter Parker had given up his high-rise window-washing gig a few months earlier. Marie said she just liked the cut of his culinary jib and took a chance on him. Peter had become good friends with Clark Kent. Without Clark’s encouragement, Peter may not
have given up his pendulous and perilous window-washing gig. He didn’t love cleaning windows but he was good at it. He loved cooking, though he lacked confidence in the kitchen. But a few weeks after the big move, Peter was thrilled. Because he felt a debt to Clark, he started putting a bit of money away each paycheque to help fund Clark’s laser surgery so he could finally dispense with his heavy glasses. I made a quiet donation that helped advance matters, on the understanding that Peter would keep our little secret.
Peter worked hard and took advice and direction very well. Marie quite enjoyed taking this rough-cut, tattooed kid and turning his natural but raw culinary talent into a mainstay of her kitchen. She called it her Pygmalion moment.
I walked through into the café-bakery proper and nearly collided with Bob on his way out. Bob. Yes, that Bob. You remember him, the one who had let me go a year or so earlier. Bumping into him was fate, serendipity, or perhaps just plain old sweet justice.
“Bob, what a surprise. Good to see you,” I lied.
“Hem? What are you doing here?”
“I actually work here. I handle the marketing and advertising.”
“Oh, Hem. I’m sorry. It’s not exactly a big-brand account. Could you not land another agency job?” Bob asked.
“Bob, it’s fine. I didn’t want to hook up with another agency. I actually want to be here. I’m having a blast.” I changed the subject. “How are things at M-C? I confess I haven’t given the old place a second thought since I was escorted out the door.”
That felt good.
“Well, you see, I’m not exactly with M-C any more.”
“Not exactly?”
“Well, not at all, really. I left a month ago,” he said. “I just got tired of the pressures of leadership, you know? So I’m giving freelancing a go. Getting my hand back in the work itself.”
“They toasted you, too, didn’t they?”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it in that way,” he said. “Um, they just decided that we should part ways, and after thinking it through, I agreed.”
I said nothing.
“Okay, yes, I was toasted.”
“I’m sorry, Bob. I kind of know what that feels like. But it’s really worked out well for me. You may really take to it. I have.”
“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he replied. “Look, if you ever need some help on taglines or creative for this place, call me?”
“Sure, Bob. I’ll keep you in mind. Good to see you.”
The next morning, I sank into my usual chair in front of Dr. Madelaine Scott.
“Hem, you look well.”
“Thanks, Doctor. I feel great. I feel … settled. Yeah, ‘settled’ is a good word for it, I think.”
“Have you had many or any encounters with Ernest Hemingway lately, or has he gone off to cover some war or drink wine in Paris?”
“He seems well and truly gone from my head, not that he was ever really there.”
“Okay then, more to the point, how are you and your father getting along?”
“In the last few months, he’s actually become my father in more than the biological sense. He’s about forty years behind schedule, but I’m not complaining.”
“Explain what you mean,” she directed. “Elaborate, if you could, please.”
“Well, we’ve discussed it before. I barely saw my father growing up. My mother was, for the most part, a single parent. My dad was parenting a big company, and it was often a problem child, whereas I, of course, was always, and for evermore, good as gold. Dad’s hands were full with company business pretty well around the clock. But all that has changed, quite dramatically. It was a combination of my sister’s intelligence, toughness, and obvious business savvy, and a long-lost letter written in 1945 by my great-grandfather that has transformed my father. Oh, and I’m sure his brush with death was also a factor.”
“Ah, the cancer. You told me.”
“Right. A prostatectomy is seriously invasive surgery. The recovery was slow, painful, and completely beyond his authority. He’s not used to surrendering control over anything, but he had no choice. All he could do was sit back and watch as his daughter completely overhauled Hemmingwear in the process of saving it. It gave him plenty of time to think about his life, the company, family traditions, his children, and his future. As he healed, I think he changed. I think he grew. I think he was able to take a lifetime of family indoctrination and turn it back on itself.”
“Is that just your view, or does he see it that way?”
“He hasn’t used those words exactly, but the change in his demeanour and in his long-held views on a range of issues is quite startling. I’m getting to know my own father all over again, and I’m learning new things with each encounter.”
“When is he due back in the office?”
“As of a conversation Sarah and I had with him last week, he’s not coming back. And that’s the clearest evidence that his world, that our world, has been altered.”
“That’s a lot to take in. How are you feeling about it all?”
“It’s knocked me back on my heels. But I like it,” I replied. “And get this. My father and I are going fishing next week. We’re going fishing, in a boat. Neither of us has spent much time with fishing rods. But he wants to try. And strangely enough, so do I.”
That afternoon I was seated at my favourite table toward the back of Let Them Eat Cake! in a sun-filled corner. I had a commanding view of the entire seating area. It was a beautiful day. I was working on the marketing plan for the café-bakery. It wasn’t very elaborate. We didn’t have much of a budget to commit, but even on a shoestring, a little creativity can take you a long way. I had already set up a Facebook page and Twitter stream and was doing my best to sustain a flow of interesting content. For foodies, I took photos of Marie as she created her extraordinary cakes. I then posted the shots in order, including batter mixing, pan pouring, baking, decorating, and finally a close-up of the finished masterpiece. It was quite the process but seemed to fill some deep need among online cake fans. Whether on Facebook or Twitter, or on the Let Them Eat Cake! blog that I started, the audience grew quickly, and thankfully so did the traffic coming through the front doors. After all, an online audience is nice, but to survive, we needed butts in chairs and hands reaching for wallets. It all seemed to be working.
As I noodled through the idea of building a YouTube channel on which we could post baking tutorials and a whole range of other videos, my cellphone chirped.
“Hey, Hem,” said Sarah. “Sorry I missed your call earlier. I’m swamped here. What’s up?”
“Hey, Sarah. I’m going to send you a photo I took while I was out for a walk this morning. Hang on a sec.”
I pulled my phone away from ear and emailed the photo to Sarah.
“Okay, I’m back. Before you open it, let me ask you something. Have you seen any recent changes in sales, I mean in the last few days?”
“Funny you should ask. I’m looking at the daily tracking data right now and there’s been this unexplained sales jump over the last two days.”
“No kidding! Well, it might not be totally unexplained,” I suggested. “Has the spike been in men’s or women’s or both?”
“It’s been a solid uptick for both, but the women’s numbers are up slightly more. What’s going on? What have you got?”
“Has the photo arrived yet?” I asked, enjoying drawing it out a bit.
“Yeah, it just came in. Hang on.”
I could hear her fingering her keyboard to open up the photo on her computer screen. Three, two, one …
“Holy shit! Holy shit!” she hollered down the line. “Is that a billboard? In Manhattan?”
“That’s exactly what it is. Very cool, eh?”
“Pardon my ignorance, but who the hell are they, and how did you make this happen?”
“I’m disappointed you don’t recognize them. You’re looking at a cover shot of the brand-new smash album from the hip-hop superstar duo J Flash and Cara
Tune. I just checked and it debuted at the top of the Billboard Album charts earlier this week. You’ve heard their stuff if you’ve listened to the radio any time in the last three years. They’re a brother-and-sister act. Kind of like Donny and Marie, but not really.”
I opened the same photo on my iPad in front of me. It was a shot of the two famous rappers, taken from behind them, but with their heads swivelled, looking back into the camera with what I can only describe as benevolent snarls of their faces. True to the strangely and regrettably persistent trend, their jeans were riding low to the mid-curve of their respective buttocks. And there, for the world to see, were their wide and red underwear waistbands emblazoned with the word “Hemmingwear” in a very funky, very hip, kind of jagged white font.
“I’ve heard of them. They’re huge! How did this happen? What did we pay for this? I knew nothing about it! It must have cost a fortune! Where are the billboards?”
“Whoa! Calm yourself, Sarah. Not that we’d ever admit this publicly, but this is pure serendipity, not savvy marketing. I stumbled across the billboard this morning. I saw it, stared at it, and walked right into a parking meter while I dragged my jaw along behind me. One of my NameFamer friends, Jesse Owens, is actually related to them. I was pretty sure she had something to do with it. I called her after I’d recovered enough to construct complete sentences. Under some heavy questioning, she admitted that she’d given them our product and suggested they wear them for the cover shot if they liked them. They both loved the underwear and the rest is marketing history. In addition to the album cover, it’s been released in print ads and billboards across the continent, and it all hits Europe next week. But there was a quid pro quo.”
“Okay, here we go,” Sarah said with a sigh. “What does she want?”
“Well, it’s pretty onerous. But as of this morning, I’m now chairing the fundraising committee to help collect the dough we need to transform her dental clinic into a full community health centre in a part of town that could sure use one.”