12 Rose Street

by Gail Bowen

  The flight to Saskatoon took only thirty-five minutes, but that was still thirty-five minutes too long for me. I didn’t exhale until the plane touched down and then it was back to business. On the cab ride to Quinlan’s studio overlooking the Saskatchewan River, Zack and I talked about questions that might prove problematic. With live radio the nutbar factor is always high, but the producer of Quinlan Live was adept at using the cut-off button.

  When Zack did his pre-broadcast mike check, the board was already lit up. Quinlan turned to Zack. “Ready to rock and roll?” he said.

  Zack slipped on his headphones and gave him the thumbs-up. Zack had a good radio voice: deep, intimate, and assured. His précis of his relationship with Cronus and of the effect that relationship might have on his campaign was comprehensive but concise.

  And then it was the listeners’ turn. Call-in shows are a landmine for candidates. As a rule, there’s some judicious stagemanaging beforehand, but the agreement Slater Doyle and I reached meant that Zack was flying without a net. My pulse quickened as soon as the first caller came on and didn’t slow until the hour was almost over.

  The calls had broken about 60–40 in Zack’s favour. Zack had spent his adult life thrusting and parrying in courtrooms, so Quinlan Live was a comfortable arena for him. He picked up key points in the positive comments and ran with them, tying them to planks in his platform. And, without breaking a sweat, he found the weak spot in the argument of hostile callers, picked apart their case, and dug in.

  With five minutes to go in the hour, there was a treat. Peggy Kreviazuk called in and in her breathy, still-girlish voice endorsed Zack’s candidacy and urged others to support him. Peggy had been a force in progressive politics in our province for close to sixty years. A regular at the weekly meetings of the Regina City Council, Peggy was one of the few people I knew who took civic politics seriously. Her integrity was beyond question, and someone in the Office of the City Clerk recognized her integrity by occasionally passing along information that Peggy could use in her questions to the mayor and council members. Two weeks earlier, when we’d bumped into each other at the farmers’ market, Peggy and I had a spirited talk about the election. Peggy always turned heads. That day her wispy hair was an improbable but flattering shade of pink, and she was sporting a top printed with the New Yorker cartoon of Homer Simpson wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt. When she saw me, she extended her arms and gave me her standard greeting. “The struggle continues, Joanne.”

  I gave her my standard response. “And so do we, Peggy,” I said.

  When Peggy finished her encomium to Zack, the second hand of the large clock on the wall opposite Jack Quinlan was ticking towards the end of the hour. I didn’t allow myself to exhale. “Time for one more call,” Quinlan said. “Cassandra’s on the line. So, what are your thoughts about the upcoming civic election in Regina?”

  “I’ve been following the campaign closely,” Cassandra said. Her voice seemed familiar – precise in its enunciation but with a huskiness that conveyed urgency. “You’re an impressive candidate, Mr. Shreve. I’ve watched your career. You’re a man who gets things done. You’re frank about your failings. You’re a person of character, and people whose judgment I trust think highly of you. I’ve read your platform, and what you say is correct. We live in a wealthy society. We have enough money, enough food, and enough work for everybody. Your campaign slogan is spot on. There is ‘enough for all.’ And it is time that we redressed the balance between the haves and the have-nots. You’re clearly the better of the two mayoral candidates.”

  When she paused, Zack jumped in. “Thank you, Cassandra. Politics can be bruising, but I’ll take a lot of bruises for a call like yours.”

  “I’m afraid that I’m about to inflict a bruise too,” she said. I stiffened, and Zack shot me a quick look. “Suddenly it seems possible that you might win,” the woman said. “It’s time to end your campaign, Mr. Shreve. Ridgeway’s cohorts are prepared to do whatever it takes to defeat you. There’s already been one tragedy. If you stay in the race, everyone will suffer.”

  Jack Quinlan was quick off the mark. He leaned into his microphone. “These are serious allegations, Cassandra,” he said. “Do you have any specifics?” It was the right question, but it came too late. Cassandra had already broken the connection.

  Quinlan wound up the show, and the news came on. Quinlan opened his mike, exchanged a few words with his producer in the control room, and turned back to Zack and me. “Cassandra was a first-time caller, and she called from an unlisted number. My producer talked to her briefly before she was on-air. He said she was rational, focused, and articulate. He thought she’d be ideal.”

  “She chose a great nom de guerre,” I said. “Cassandra had the gift of prophecy, but Apollo placed a curse on her so that none of her predictions would be believed.”

  When Zack and I were alone in the elevator, he pulled out his phone and started tapping away. He found what he was looking for, then handed his phone to me. “If you want to bum yourself out, check the number of Cassandra’s prophecies that came true,” he said.

  “I’m already bummed out,” I said. “Zack, I recognized Cassandra’s voice. I’ve heard it before, but I can’t place it.”

  “No surprise there,” Zack said. “Nothing comes easy in this campaign.”

  I’d cooked the briskets for four hours the night before. They were in the refrigerator ready to be sliced, so I could reheat them for an hour before we ate. While I prepared them, Zack ran through his messages. After we’d both finished our tasks, I glanced at my watch. “We have time for a swim before lunch,” I said.

  Zack groaned. “Wasn’t Cassandra’s warning enough misery for one morning?”

  “Did that get to you?”

  “Nah. Trial lawyers get death threats. All the same I’m going to call Debbie. Cassandra was seemingly sane and definitely knowledgeable. We have to take her warning seriously.”

  Getting Zack to hit the pool was never easy, but swimming kept his muscles toned and his blood pressure from spiking, so I persisted. That day after thirty minutes in the pool, I could see the tension drain from Zack’s body and I could feel it drain from my own.

  Milo O’Brien joined us for lunch – more accurately, he was present at the lunch table as we ate. When I offered him a salmon sandwich on rye, he blew me off, opened a fresh chocolate bar, then, foot tapping, fingers drumming, gave us a snapshot of the response to Zack’s appearance on Quinlan Live. As erratic as Milo’s behaviour was, we’d learned to trust his reading of Facebook and tweets.

  And Milo’s report was provocative. To my surprise, most of the messages had come from new supporters who urged Zack not to be intimidated and continue to fight the good fight. When he’d finished, Milo slid off his stool, slapped Zack on the back, said, “Hang tough, big guy,” and left.

  Zack watched as Milo made his exit, reaching out to beat on every surface his hand touched. “Milo is one weird dude,” Zack said.

  “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

  “Speaking of,” Zack said, “have you ever wondered whether there’s a bedfellow in Milo’s life?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Milo is smart, devoted, and loyal – that’s enough for me. My guess is that having sex with Milo would be like having sex with a woodpecker – a lot of rat-a-tat-tat and not much more.”

  Zack and I were still musing over Milo’s private life when Howard Dowhanuik called.

  Howard had never mastered the art of preamble. “Do you have any idea what was going on with that last caller on Quinlan Live?”

  “She was giving us a warning,” I said.

  Howard was withering. “Thanks. I would never have picked that up on my own. I’m assuming Zack’s not going to heed the warning.”

  “You’re right. He called Debbie Haczkewicz about it, but we’re just going to play through. Milo O’Brien, our numbers guy, says the response on social media has been overwhelmingly positive. A lot of people who were on the fence or ind
ifferent are supporting us now.”

  “Good,” Howard said. “And more great news. I’m bringing dessert tonight.”

  “You’re turning on your oven?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said I’m bringing dessert. Be grateful.”

  “I am grateful, but you’d better double your order – Mieka and her girls and Angus and Peter and Maisie are coming over. And a surprise – Jill Oziowy’s coming to town.”

  “God, I haven’t seen Jill in years,” Howard said.

  “You saw her at the gathering Zack and I had after our wedding.”

  “I didn’t stick around that day. Remember?”

  “I remember. You didn’t approve of the groom. Anyway, it will be good to see Jill again.”

  “I’ve always been surprised that you and Jill stayed friends,” Howard said.

  “Why wouldn’t we stay friends?”

  Howard harrumphed – an invariable tip of his hand when he didn’t want to answer a question. “Just – you know – people drift,” he said.

  “Well, Jill and I didn’t, and you and I didn’t. See you at six.”

  Jill’s plane was arriving in Regina at 5:35. Mieka lived five minutes from the airport, so she and the girls were picking Jill up and coming straight to Halifax Street.

  Zack had just finished mixing a pitcher of martinis and putting on a Bill Evans CD when Mieka and the girls arrived with Jill. I’d wanted our condo to be particularly welcoming and it was. The hearty beefy fragrance of brisket filled the rooms. Taylor had set the table with linen and china in the warm hues of Tuscany: terra cotta, saffron, dark green, and pomegranate. I’d filled a drabware vase Taylor found at a flea market with sunflowers for a centrepiece.

  Jill and I spent our first few minutes in a blur of hugs, half-sentences, and more hugs. Jill looked terrific, but she always did. Our local paper had done a profile of her not long after she became Ian’s press secretary. The profiler had opened his piece with the sentence: “Jill Oziowy is not a conventionally pretty woman, but she is not without appeal.” She had enlarged the first paragraph of the article and taped it to her office door. When I’d first met Jill, she had untamed shoulder-length carroty-red hair, freckles, startlingly gold-flecked tawny eyes, and an open smile. The freckles, the smile, and the tawny eyes were the same, but Jill’s hair was now auburn and it was cut very short with a diagonal line in the bangs. Her form-fitting leather jacket was the same shade as her hair and she was wearing slim-cut black pants and fashion boots. In the early days, Jill got much of her wardrobe from Value Village, but I suspected the outfit she was wearing that night owed more to Holt Renfrew than to VV.

  Jill had brought gifts: for Madeleine, Lena, and Taylor, sports shorts and pretty shrugs; for Zack, six elegant blown-glass martini glasses with hand-etched palm fronds and delicate stems; and for me, a six-pack of Moosehead and a giant bag of Cheetos. My heart leapt when I saw the beer and the garish orange-and-yellow Cheetos bag. There had been many election nights when Jill and I sat at my kitchen table, sipping a Moosehead and waiting with orange sticky-crumbed fingers for early election results. On those nights it seemed that Jill’s heart and mine beat as one. We were two women whose lives centred on Ian Kilbourn, and in those moments we knew there was nothing we could do to alter his political fate.

  When Zack handed us our martinis in the new glasses, I was still happily clutching the Cheetos bag. Jill came over and hugged me again. “I’m so glad you liked my present,” she said. “You have no idea what it means for me to be with all of you again – especially today.”

  It was a perfect September evening, warm enough to sit out on our terrace and watch the city. Angus’s contribution to the meal was a dozen chilled Corona Extras; Peter’s girlfriend, Maisie Crawford, brought an antipasto platter; Mieka brought the promised roasted vegetable salad; I’d made latkes that simply needed to be warmed before dinner; and Howard’s mystery dessert was sitting in bakery boxes on the sideboard. There was nothing to do but enjoy our time together. Zack, Jill, and I had martinis; Howard and the kids had ginger ale; and everybody else had beer. When we all had drinks in hand, Jill raised her glass and said, “To Ian Kilbourn – without him, none of us would be here.”

  Lena wrinkled her nose. “Granddad would be here,” she said. “So would Taylor and Maisie. We should say their names too.”

  Jill accepted Lena’s suggestion with grace. “All right,” she said. “To Ian. And to Granddad, Taylor, and Maisie.”

  I’d feared the evening might get mired in Auld Lang Syne, but the present was chock full, and the future was filled with shining possibilities.

  Taylor had brought up the portrait of Margot and her family for us to see. The painting was unfinished, but the canvas was alive with light and colour and the likenesses of Margot, Declan, and Lexi were already filled with life.

  Jill was captivated. “That’s an amazing piece,” she said. “And you are how old?”

  “Sixteen on November 11,” Taylor said

  Madeleine and Lena had fish of their own to fry. Madeleine was trying out for the basketball team, and Lena was trying out for everything, including the Pius X Liturgy Club. When I reminded Lena that she was an Anglican, she said it didn’t matter; besides, the Liturgy Club got doughnuts from Tim Hortons for their meetings.

  The local paper wanted to do a feature on Peter’s street-front vet clinic. The clinic was located in the city’s core and clients paid what they could, which was usually not much if anything. Zack subsidized the clinic, and Peter thought Zack’s contribution should be part of the story, but Zack vetoed the idea, saying he didn’t want to politicize a private commitment.

  Talk of the campaign dominated the dinner table. Everyone, even Madeleine and Lena, had an opinion about how the race was going. When I suggested that our local NationTV might do a daily political feature from the schoolyard at the girls’ school, Jill was quick on the uptake. “That’s not the worst idea you ever had,” she said. “It might be fun to do a weekly segment from different schools around the city. Find out what kids want for their hometown.”

  Mieka shot Zack a significant look. “A wise grandfather would invest in a trip to Dessart with his granddaughters before they’re on NationTV chatting about the choices voters face in this election.”

  Zack turned to Madeleine and Lena. “My policy on bribery is flexible. Choose your day, ladies. Sky’s the limit.”

  Howard’s surprise dessert turned out to be three-dozen Black and White cookies from a Jewish bakery that had just opened on Smith Street. Howard presented the cookies as if he’d invented them himself, noting the even distribution of black fondant and white fondant icing and announcing that each bite had to contain both black and white icing. The cookies were large, and the perfect bite was almost impossible to manage but we had fun trying.

  Willie and Pantera were never shy about letting me know when it was time for their post-dinner run on the roof garden. That night when I picked up my jacket, Madeleine and Lena followed suit. Then, in the way of parties, everyone decided to come with us. We stepped out of the freight elevator into a cool, starry evening. The air smelled of autumn: wood-smoke, wet leaves, and the acrid scent from the heavy heads of the marigolds that still flourished in the roof’s planters. The lights strung on the evergreens made the roof garden seem like fairyland.

  As her daughters played a game of hide and seek whose rules only they understood, Mieka watched fondly. “This will be a great memory for them,” she said. She slid her arm through Jill’s. “I’m so glad you’re here tonight. You’ve been part of our lives from the beginning. I want you to be part of the girls’ lives too.”

  “Tonight’s a start,” Jill said. “While I’m here I’d like to do something special with Madeleine and Lena.”

  “Like that time we went tobogganing on the night of the first real snowfall?” Mieka said.

  “I remember every single second of that night,” Jill said. “I’d been watching the snow through your dining room window whi
le we ate. So had your dad. When we were through eating, your mum started to clear the dishes and Ian took command. “Just leave everything. That’s tobogganing snow. If we get dressed and go now, we’ll be the first ones on the hill.”

  “The creek was frozen solid and we slid across the ice and climbed up to the bike path,” Pete said.

  “And as soon as he got on the bike path Dad took off,” Angus said. “He wanted to be the first person on the toboggan run, and he was. He didn’t even take one of us kids with him.”

  “Your dad was a kid,” I said, and Jill and I exchanged a smile.

  “We stayed out way past bedtime, but it was a perfect night,” Mieka said.

  “Not quite perfect,” Jill said. “You kids probably don’t remember this part, but when it was time to go, I decided to have one last ride. I struck a bump, got thrown from my toboggan, and hit my tailbone. God, did that hurt.”

  “I remember,” I said. “Ian ran home to get the car so he could take you to the medi-clinic. And the kids and I trudged back to the house with the sleds and the dogs.”

  Mieka’s brow furrowed. “It was still a great evening,” she said.

  “It was,” I agreed. “But after I got you kids to bed, I had to deal with the dishes. The moral of that story is carpe diem, but clean up the kitchen first.”

  Mieka was clearly exasperated. “Mum, you just blew away the pixie dust.”

  Zack put his arm around me. “Mieka, your mother is the one who sprinkles the pixie dust for us all.”

  Jill had had a long day of travel and the next day was a work or school day so we wound down early. Zack and I saw Jill and Mieka and the girls to the door. Jill stood aside as we went through the usual round of family hugs. She seemed isolated and Mieka picked up on her aloneness. “Why don’t you stay with us tonight, Jill?” she said. “You won’t have to go through the hassle of checking into a hotel, and you and I can get caught up over breakfast.”