The Monitor

by Janice Macdonald

  Maia: You mean anyone can go see them?

  Sanders: Sure. That is part of the purpose of the programs. Check the libraries and the universities near you . . . whereabouts are you?

  Maia: Near Halifax.

  Sanders: Right. Well, I’m betting there will be two or three folks around there to take your work to. Try the Dalhousie English Department.

  Maia: Oh, I don’t have anything worth looking at. Just some old poems from college days.

  Sanders: Don’t sell yourself short! You have a real sense of rhythm here.

  Chimera: He’s right, Maia. You should think about writing. Not that there is that much money in it. Unless you’re Stephen King, that is.

  Sanders: What about you, Chimera?

  Chimera: Me, write? A little bit, but not enough to pay bills with.

  Sanders: I interrupted you before. You never told us about your dress for your evening out.

  Chimera: Well, it’s red.

  I said the first thing I could think of that wasn’t what I was wearing. I stared down at the moss green velour, and plucked at it a bit nervously.

  Chimera: And short.

  Maia: That should get the heads turning, girlfriend! So where are you going?

  Chimera: A party, an anniversary party for my uncle and aunt.

  I didn’t know I could lie with such facility. This was mainly because I never lied, knowing full well that my face would give me away. Steve had once told me never to take up poker. My typed font didn’t blush, though. Who knows? I could get used to this.

  Whatever I did, I couldn’t let Sanders know I was going to be in the same room as him tonight. It was going to be bad enough wondering which guy in a navy suit he was, and worrying that my heretofore unknown ­telepathic powers would have him zoning in on me before the opening speeches were over.

  Chimera: And I think I hear my ride now. Gotta run!

  I logged out, not bothering to wait for the inevitable goodbyes. I was breathing hard, as if I had navigated a dangerous passage on a fallen log across a gorge.

  I still wasn’t sure why I didn’t want Sanders knowing I was in his town. Cerebrally, I knew that the chances of his being an ax-murderer were pretty remote, but I would have felt a whole lot easier if he were pretty remote, too. Or, if I was being completely truthful, maybe I was scared of introducing another man into my real life and messing up the good thing I already had. Whatever. I wasn’t going to get all analytical about it; it was important to me at a gut level, and I had learned to trust my instincts as I aged. Just as I was about to head to the washroom to recheck my makeup, Steve knocked on the door, saving me from being a complete liar on-line. He looked fabulous, as tall men always do when dressed up, in a navy double-­breasted suit. I twirled around and felt delighted with the look of approval in my Prince Charming’s eyes. Yes, my ride was here, and Cinderella was going to the ball. Now if only she knew what Rumplestiltskin looked like.

  21

  Denise looked fabulous, like a fairy in a children’s book. (Bruno Bettelheim would have been proud of me: I couldn’t seem to get fairy tales off my mind.) Her dress picked up the light and reflected it off every little sequined surface, and the transparent heels of her shoes made it appear as if her feet seemed to float, rather than walk. She greeted Steve and me as we wandered into the Timms foyer.

  “You are so lucky you could walk here! The parking is horrendous, which means that we either sold more tickets since I checked at noon or everyone came in separate cars. Grab a drink.”

  She handed us a couple of drink tickets.

  “I am too keyed up to use these. You can buy more over there, but since it’s a benefit, the prices are jacked up on everything. Check out the silent auction stuff upstairs, too. Oh, I hope this goes well.”

  We assured her that it would go marvelously and thanked her for the tickets. She said she’d try to find us later, and we split up. Steve decided he’d have a beer, and I ordered a spritzer. We angled our way to the windows, where there were some low, upholstered benches. Someone was playing the grand piano that sat under the staircase. It was classical and familiar, but not ­immediately so. The gala was to be confined to the upper and lower foyers of the Timms Centre, not spilling into the theater itself. We didn’t need the theater; there was enough drama walking around the lobby.

  Steve looked so great dressed up that I would have to watch out for predatory single women. I looked at him and a wave of lust came over me. It was so strong that I blushed, thinking it must have been physically obvious. Maybe not, because Steve just smiled at me and squeezed my hand.

  “So, do you know all these people?”

  Not all, I assured him, and decided not to tell him about the one I might know better than I realized. I am not sure why I didn’t confide in Steve right then. I suppose it had something to do with our just getting back together, and something to do with the presuppositions folks had about chat rooms. I wasn’t sure he’d understand about Sanders. To be totally truthful, I wasn’t too sure I understood, myself.

  It wasn’t as if I was interested in Sanders in a relationship-forming way; at least, I didn’t think so. The whole concept of flirting on-line, though, seemed so refreshing. It occurred to me that my parents’ generation had had an easier time of things. They had been repressed about a lot of things, but innocent flirting had been mowed under along with larger issues of harassment and free love. We got more honest with each other but the cost was that we lost some of the fun qualities of social interaction.

  I was musing about this and at the same time counting eight or nine men in blue suits while Steve went off to get us another drink. Two was my limit, even of spritzers, so this one would have to last longer than the first one had. I had gulped it nervously. I was going to have to settle down a bit.

  It wasn’t as if Sanders was going to find me, after all. I had the entire advantage. I knew what he would be wearing, and he thought I was in another color, at another party, in another town. So why was I so jumpy?

  I wanted to know who he was. It was that simple. The part that wasn’t at all simple was why I wanted to know. I knew that part of it had to do with safety, a sort of belling of the cat. If I knew what he looked like, he wouldn’t be able to sneak up on me unawares in any other situation. The other reasons were darker. There was a real fascination involved in putting a face to an on-line persona. One thing I was sure of, no one looked the way I imagined them looking. Any time anyone posted a picture of themself, I was usually shocked by how different they were from my image of them. He or she would be larger, or balder, or younger, or dressed in clothing I’d never have imagined them wearing. The slogan-spouting activist who stood waving, wearing a tee-shirt with the notorious swoosh on it, was a case in point.

  I thought of Sanders as a raffish-looking intellectual; the sort of fellow who wore a Harris tweed jacket that likely had belonged to his uncle (or bought at the Goodwill) with a school tie or an old woolen scarf that had a darned hole in one corner. A turtleneck, corduroy trousers, low, shapeless, leather shoes, and a bookbag slung over one shoulder completed the look. I was pretty sure he was a shadowy stand-in for Leonard Cohen or another, lesser-known, Beat poet, but I didn’t care. This was my imaginary friend, after all. He could look ­however I wanted him to.

  There was no one here that looked too raffish, though. Or maybe what I meant was that even the raffish-looking ones were clean and tidy. After all, some of the professors and hordes of the writerly set in this town could be considered seedy-looking in a good light. Tonight, though, the lights were dim enough for any Blanche DuBois, and everyone looked marvelous.

  I could name many of the people here. Some of them I had worked with before moving over to do distance courses at the college. Some of them had been my professors; many of them had been fellow students. Some of them were writers whose readings I’d attended and books I’d bought. Of course, some of them were complete strangers, too: the stratum of society who supported the arts in principle without
hands-on involvement. These were the modern equivalents of the Renaissance patrons, and there were far too few of them, in my opinion, for us to ever have an autonomous arts scene in this country. Blessings on the ones who did exist.

  Greg Hollingshead was wearing a blue suit. So was Timothy Anderson. I couldn’t imagine either of them as Sanders. For that matter, so was Steve, I realized, as he reappeared, proffering me another white-wine spritzer. Blue must be this year’s lime green in men’s fashion.

  “You are so lucky,” I said to Steve, as he perched beside me.

  “Because I’m out on the town with a beautiful woman? I know,” he said.

  “That’s not quite what I meant. I was just thinking about fashions. Look at all the women here; if two of them showed up in the same dress, there would be a wave of whispers so strong it could budge the piano. Meanwhile, look how many of you show up in blue suits, and no one blinks an eye.”

  “Ah, that’s what you think. You just don’t know how to read the signs. See that fellow over there?” He pointed toward Timothy Anderson, a poet and opera singer I knew slightly. “That longer jacket is very stylish, sort of a Will Smith, Samuel Jackson look. He can pull it off because he’s so tall. Meanwhile, over there, that fellow with the three-inch lapels is probably wearing the same suit he bought for his sister’s wedding fifteen years ago. And see the fellow with the Nehru collar?” I nodded. “Retro. Very big in Toronto at the moment, I hear.” Steve looked around the room and gave a low whistle. “And see that fellow by the window? Look how that jacket swings from the shoulders. That has to be Armani.”

  “So you’re saying that there are levels of fashion even in men’s suits. Touché. I guess I was just looking at the general concept. I didn’t realize it was quite so intricate. I knew about tie widths but not much about style or cut. What about your suit? Is it au courant?”

  Steve shrugged modestly. “It’s about two years old, and cut classically enough that I can get away with it for another couple of years, or until Letterman goes off the air.” He grinned. “The trouble with suits is that they are expensive and made to last. You can’t justify buying too many, and you can’t afford it, either. Unless you’re working right in the city five days a week, you won’t be buying a new suit for every occasion. So you have to choose on the conservative side if you want staying power.”

  “I think that double-breasted style looks great on you. Very wide-shouldered Johnny Weismuller-ish.”

  “And I’ll bet you’re imagining what I’d look like in a Speedo,” grinned Steve. His grin turned into outright laughter as I blushed bright red.

  “You are so transparent, Randy. It’s almost too much fun to tease you.”

  “You’d be surprised. I am getting pretty good at being coy and opaque on-line, for your information,” I said, rather archly, because I knew he was right. I couldn’t lie to someone’s face to save my life.

  “How’s that going?” Steve asked casually. He seemed almost too casual about it, seeing as he hadn’t been very approving of the whole idea. I looked at him but ­couldn’t read anything more than general interest in his face. Now, Steve, he could win any poker bluff.

  I shrugged. “Not bad, I guess. It’s a lot like being cruise director on a ship, I think. We have to make sure that folks are playing nicely, that no one is feeling too left out, and that they’re not throwing things overboard or peeing in the lifeboats.” I stretched my legs out a bit, with my little witch boot toes straight up. Steve smiled and then pointed to my left. There was a fellow balancing a drink in one hand and a plate of nibblies in the other, trying to get past my outstretched legs. I apologized and pulled my feet back in under the tent of my dress. As he passed by, I noticed that he had a slight pinstripe in his, of course, blue suit. I’d have to ask Steve whether that was a fashion faux pas.

  But not at that moment. Steve stood and reached out a hand to me, saying we should try to see the silent auction stuff before too many more people crowded us out. We walked up the stairs, seeing our reflections in the darkened windows to our right. It felt so grown up, being out late in fancy clothes. Actually, what it felt like was my idea, when I was a child, of what being grown up must feel like. Really being grown up had a lot more to do with paying taxes and minding budgets and checking the triglycerides on the label, I knew that. Those weren’t what I’d rushed through childhood to get to, though. Walking through a glittering party with a handsome man who thought me charming, along with making an entire dinner out of ice cream or talking back to a rude sales clerk—those were the things I’d had in mind.

  Denise must have depleted several lifetimes’ worth of charm to coax the donations she had. The silent auction was amazing. There were weekends at the Jasper Park Lodge, and weekends in tipis; tickets to the symphony, the opera, the Citadel Theatre, and the Canadian Finals Rodeo. Folks had already filled a page and a half for a busily peopled painting by Toti of Whyte Avenue, and there was a lot of interest in some hammered silver napkin rings.

  I found the most wonderful prize: a library containing a signed volume from every writer-in-residence who had ever spent time at the University of Alberta. Since some of those writers had already passed away, this was indeed a special collection. I jotted my bidding number and a bid of $50 onto the sheet accompanying the books. Steve, whose tastes were amazingly eclectic, bid on a Ted Harrison print. I then bid on a handwoven shawl, a gold U of A watch, and tickets to next year’s opera production of I Pagliacci. If no one else bid, I would be in trouble.

  The thing was, people were bound to keep bidding at a silent auction, and eventually you got what you ­wanted, either at an exorbitant price, or through dogged diligence, or both. I usually got too tired to keep checking on the tables I was interested in, and lost things by five dollars or so. I decided I would keep an eye on the library until it hit $100 and monitor the opera tickets up to $75. That was about my limit for philanthropy.

  “I think there is food around here somewhere,” I said to Steve, who was eyeing a Golden Bears melton and leather jacket a little too keenly. “C’mon, you would never wear that. You know it.”

  “I can dream, can’t I?” He was willing to be led away, though, and it occurred to me that I knew very little about Steve’s U of A career.

  “Were you ever on a team when you were at ­university?” I asked as we headed back downstairs toward the food table.

  “Who, me? Nah, I didn’t have the talent or the discipline. Besides, I was trying for prime minister, not premier.” I laughed. Several Alberta mayors and provincial officials were former football players.

  “I wasn’t really athletic at university, either. I sometimes went for a swim, but mostly I spent my time in three places: classes, library, and student pub.”

  “Indeed. Of course, when we were of university age, there were rules where the college pubs weren’t allowed to start serving beer until after three o’clock.”

  “Isn’t that the same now?”

  Steve shook his head. “Sadly, no. They can open at eleven, just like any bar in the province, and they can sell any hard liquor they wish, not just beer and wine. I have a feeling this leads to much less productivity in afternoon classes.”

  “That is one of the great pleasures of distance education; you don’t have to see whether they are drunk or not.” Steve laughed, but I wasn’t completely joking. “Truth is, I have no great desire to see them at all. I have no curiosity about what those distance students look like. To me, they are words on a screen, or mailed to the college. Some of my colleagues make a point of being at the department office on the days their students book to write their final, but I am perfectly willing to have the secretary hand them the exam envelope and pop it in my mailbox when they’ve done.”

  “Is that the same with your on-line chat-room people, too, or just your students?”

  “Well, sort of, although I do admit I have a bit more curiosity about the folks in the chat room. I tend to wonder where someone has disappeared to if I haven’t s
een the name pop up on the screen for a few days. Some folks are as regular as every day. Others are less frequent, but they don’t seem to be what you’d call haphazard. They seem to have rhythms to their on-line use, and if you’re a regular, you begin to sense those rhythms. So, when someone disappears, I get to wondering what’s keeping her. Do you see what I mean?”

  Steve nodded. “Do people disappear and return?”

  “Well, from the time I’ve been monitoring, a couple of folks have taken some time off for holidays, or to move house, but only one person has really vanished, and I don’t know if I’d have noticed that if it weren’t for her boyfriend continuously looking for her.”

  “Her cyber-boyfriend?”

  I grimaced. “Yes. That sounds sort of grotty, doesn’t it? Believe me, it doesn’t seem that way on-line. It really does feel like a community.”

  By this time we had managed to make our way through the cocktail-sausage-and-raw-veggies-with-dip line and were sitting on the floor-level radiators that lined the windows, with styrofoam plates perched on our knees.

  “What makes it a community? Isn’t one of the first determinants of a community a shared background and space?”

  I’d forgotten that Steve’s background was in sociology with a minor in anthropology. This argument was right up his alley.

  “That might end up having to be redefined, Steve. From what I’ve seen, this really is a community. Folks care about other people. They come to the site to share their gossip, their stories, their triumphs, their grief. They remember each other’s birthdays and sit vigil with the mourning. There are in-jokes and running gags and cliques and even scapegoats. It’s got all the markings of community.”

  “Except that you all hide behind masks and nicknames.” Steve shook his head and stole one of the mushrooms left on my plate to swipe up the rest of his ranch dressing dip.

  “Well, there is that, I’ll grant you. However, look around you here. How many people do you see showing you their unvarnished faces in this room? Do you think Denise teetering about in her glass slippers is the real Denise?”