Poles Apart

by Terry Fallis

  “He’s just proud of you, Mom. We all are. And I think he’s just starting to realize, way too late, mind you, that he was – as he just admitted – an idiot. Maybe our little boy is growing up.”

  “Easy, Ev. He’s still your father,” Mom scolded.

  “Mom, please. We both know he’s a man from a different era, maybe a different geological period,” I said. “Perhaps living with a diverse group of stroke patients and hanging out with them everyday as they all get better has exposed him to some ideas and ways of thinking that aren’t rooted in the 1950s. This is a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I guess so. If he’d been like that when I wanted to do my MBA, we’d probably still be together. But it’s just so odd. I don’t know how I feel about it.”

  We didn’t talk for much longer. Mom’s phone buzzed.

  “Shit. That’s Nathan in the car. I gotta go, Ev.”

  “No problem, Mom. Go forth and build resorts,” I said, standing up to give her a parting hug. “And keep me posted about Dad’s, you know, evolving behaviour.”

  I wore my best jeans, a white button-down-collared shirt, and a casual blue blazer-type jacket. I pulled on my brown Blundstone boots to give me an extra inch. I fussed and mussed with my hair for an embarrassingly long time until it fell just the way I wanted it to. This was a little unusual. Normally, I was fine with my hair falling however it wanted to, as long as it wasn’t falling out. Strange. Then I checked my coif in every reflective surface in my apartment as I paced the place. My hair looked best in the toaster, where the curved stainless steel edges somehow made my locks look fuller, more luxuriant. At least I thought so. Plus, if I positioned my face square-on to the toaster at close range, and at just the right time, the toast appeared to pop directly out the top of my head. Finally, thankfully, it was time to go. I grabbed my car keys, checked my hair one last time in the lustrous bowl of a serving spoon I’d left in the dish drainer, and headed down the fire escape.

  We’d agreed to meet on the loading dock so as to avoid any of the early-bird demonstrators who might soon be gathering out front. I’d parked my dad’s car in the alley before jumping into the shower. As I turned on the landing of the steel staircase, I saw that they were both there, Megan and Shawna, leaning on the railing and talking. Last time I’d seen them together, they’d been in my head. Now, they were actually together, laughing. I wondered about what. Despite Lewis’s skill, I found it hard to descend a metal fire escape with anything approaching stealth. They both looked up as I tried to look casual and cool coming down.

  “Here comes trouble,” Shawna said, leaning toward Megan. But she was smiling. They both were.

  There was more than an hour till show time, so Shawna was still in her sweats and her face was as free of make-up as mine. To be clear, that means utterly bereft of any cosmetic assist. Her face looked lovely au naturel. Megan was dressed a little more casually than the last time I’d seen her, but could still pass for a lawyer. She had donned some make-up – when you write about cosmetics, you tend to notice them – and clearly knew how. I’m not that skilled in the art of women’s fashion, but I think you would call what she was wearing a blue dress, though I’m probably not doing it or her justice. She looked great.

  “You haven’t been filling her head with stories that might be prejudicial to my reputation, have you?” I asked, more concerned than I dared let on.

  “Not at all,” Shawna replied. “Would I do that? In fact, I’ve been pumping you up. Right?” She looked at Megan, who nodded vigorously.

  “Oh yes. I’ve never met a babysitting Tsing Tao master,” Megan said. “It’s a great honour.”

  “Fantastic,” I moaned. “It’s going to be like that, is it?”

  They both laughed. Then Shawna stepped forward, pressed her hands against my arms, not unlike the move she’d made in my apartment, and planted one on my cheek.

  “My hero,” she said, before turning to head back into the club. “Have fun, you two.”

  Megan and I watched her disappear through the loading-bay door.

  “I didn’t expect to connect so easily with people who take their clothes off professionally. But she is very cool,” Megan said as we walked down the steps to the alley and my dad’s Ford Focus.

  “I know what you mean,” I replied. “But I guess they’re not much different from us in many ways. You know, they take their pants off one leg at a time, too.”

  “Yeah, but when we do it, there’s no pole and no people,” she noted.

  “Yes, and that’s a good thing, in my case,” I admitted.

  “For you or for the people?”

  “Both. And the pole for that matter.”

  “Right,” Megan said. “You know, Shawna said some really nice things about you.”

  I opened her door for her and she slid in. I dashed around to the driver’s side as fast as I could to try to stay on this agreeable topic. Then I calmly lowered myself into the seat.

  “That was kind of her. Unless she’s just messing with us both, you know, by setting unrealistically high standards that no mortal man could ever achieve.”

  “Oh, I think she was giving me the straight goods.”

  “Speaking of straight goods, did she happen to mention that she and I are just, you know …”

  “Good friends?” Megan filled in the blank.

  “Right. Good friends. That’s it exactly.”

  “No, she didn’t really mention that.”

  “Oh, well, it’s true,” I said. “And I got to say, her daughter, Chloe, is a little miracle. When I babysat her for a few hours the other night, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her perfectly innocent face as she slept.”

  Our drive to the Capital Grille over on International was nice. We chatted about lots of things. Megan was far more relaxed than at our first meeting. Then again, the absence of smoke, flying dropkicks, fists and rotten vegetables, and the police might have been a factor. But she seemed comfortable. We seemed comfortable. It all seemed comfortable.

  My mother had recommended the Capital Grille as a reasonably priced but classy and quiet restaurant. She was right. We were seated in a private corner in high wingback chairs. The chef was clearly gunning for membership in the Cholesterol Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. That was okay with me. I ordered a crock of French onion soup, followed by seared tenderloin with butter-poached lobster tails – you know, lobster tails poached in butter – followed by chocolate hazelnut cake accompanied by a trio of handcrafted ice creams. Megan skipped the appetizer and went directly for the pan-seared scallops and wild mushroom risotto leading directly to a flourless chocolate espresso cake. I didn’t plan to eat again until the weekend.

  “So how goes the book, whatever it’s about?” Megan asked when the waiter had taken our order.

  “Oh, you know, it’s coming along. Still a long way to go, but I’ve got it pretty well outlined and about a third written. I just have to put my ass in the chair and get the rest of the writing done.”

  “You’re really still not able to tell me what it’s about? It’ll be public soon enough anyway, won’t it?”

  “As an attorney, I’m sure you’re not counselling me to abrogate my contractual obligations to secrecy and confidentiality, are you?”

  I made sure to say this with a smile.

  “It’s going to be like that, is it?”

  “I’m afraid so. My own mother doesn’t even know about this. In fact, you’re one of just a handful of people who know. But I appreciated your legal eagle eyes on the contract.”

  “It’s nothing weird like erotica or porn, is it?”

  “Of course not! It is so not like that at all,” I stammered. “If you only knew how off the mark that suggestion is.”

  “You are a mysterious one, Mr. Kane,” she replied. “What else do you do around here?”

  “I moved here for a while so I could help my dad recover from a stroke he had a couple of months ago. He’s at the Orlando Health Rehab Ins
titute learning how to reuse the left side of his body.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “So, ever the good son, you drop everything and come to take care of your father. Impressive. Commendable. Shawna might be right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, she initially thought you might be masquerading as a truly enlightened man just as a ploy to meet women. And looking as she does, Shawna has had lots of opportunity to practise judging men, and women for that matter. But she declared you legit pretty soon after meeting you.”

  “I’m honoured to have passed Shawna’s scrutiny. I think she’s an impeccable judge of character,” I said.

  A few minutes later, the waiter delivered my onion soup with a flourish. I was then forced to carry on an adult conversation while trying to wrangle the cheese strands that always seem to making eating onion soup a trial. But it tasted so good.

  “So what’s it like working alongside Mason Bennington?” I asked before shoving home a spoonful of soup.

  “Every day is a new adventure. He’s about as mercurial as they come. But like every other American, he deserves, and is entitled to, legal representation.”

  “If you were a sole practitioner, would you have him as a client?” I asked.

  She narrowed her eyes a tad.

  I had promised myself before the date that I wouldn’t lead her down the same path that had ended my previous three relationships. I’m either not very good at keeping promises or I have a problem recognizing which path I’m on until it’s too late to turn around.

  “I’m a first-year lawyer, fresh out of law school, fresh off the bar exam. I’m with a good firm, a respected firm. But I have no power in the firm yet. I’m not in a position to decide which clients I work on. So I’m doing what I have to do to get by until I can decide.”

  “Sorry, sorry, my question came out sounding far more judgmental than I intended,” I said. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to discover how you really feel about Bennington and his little enterprise. I know your firm has tied your hands professionally. I was more interested in how you felt personally.”

  “I’m a bit conflicted. Personally, as you might imagine, I’m not thrilled to be serving the legal and business needs of the owner of a chain of strip clubs, however progressive they might be. They’re still strip clubs. But professionally, I’ve been exposed to so many different areas of the law, and gained so much more experience than I ever would have had chasing down precedents in the law library for the tax partner. Bennington’s legal needs are so deep and wide, I’m basically getting five years of experience in a matter of months.”

  “Is he good to work with?”

  “Without violating attorney-client privilege, he’s a nightmare. The people who work for him, Lewis, Shawna, the other dancers, they’re great. But Mason is, shall we say, challenging. And if he’s in a bad mood, get out of the way. And he’s been in a bad mood quite a bit lately.”

  “What’s eating him? He seems to be the toast of business pages.”

  “Yeah, well, the business pages haven’t yet picked up on the fact that for Mason Bennington to succeed, members have to join XY, and then come often to eat, drink, and ogle. The members aren’t exactly breaking down the doors here in Orlando.”

  “I guess the demonstrations and the protestors’ GoPro cameras have put a damper on walk-in traffic.”

  “Yes, but Mason thinks it runs deeper than that. He thinks it all started when Candace Sharpe made that unknown feminist blogger famous overnight. Her post about him is a very painful thorn in Mason’s side. And it makes him crazy that she can hide behind this veil of anonymity and yet command such popularity.”

  In the ensuing few minutes, I like to think I proved that it’s possible to descend into a full-on panic attack, complete with the threatened loss of most bodily functions, while maintaining at least a viable impression of a cool and calm exterior. It’s a gift. I could feel my legs trembling beneath the table. I lifted my feet off the centre pedestal support of the table so I wouldn’t set off resonant frequency vibrations and topple our dinners into our laps.

  “Why is he so fixated on a no-name – a literally no-name – brand-new, flash-in-the-pan feminist blogger? It seems like an overreaction, doesn’t it?”

  I worked hard to keep my breathing and the timbre of my voice under control. It wasn’t easy. It didn’t sound like my normal voice, but Megan didn’t seem to notice.

  “I have no idea. It’s like that post wounded him, publicly humiliated him, and he’s out for revenge.”

  “Let’s not talk about Mason Bennington,” I suggested, through my ably disguised hyperventilation. “What’s the future for you? What do you want to be doing in five years?”

  “Who knows? I guess I’d like to be established in my legal career and in a position to work on cases that would mean a lot more to me than defending the likes of Mason Bennington.”

  “Like what cases?”

  “I worked as a researcher at a big legal aid clinic right in the heart of Anacostia, a pretty rough part of Washington, while I was at law school. I really liked the people who work there. They work hard. They care about their clients. And when they win, it usually means that something good happens to someone who hasn’t had many breaks in their lives. I miss that feeling. I don’t get that feeling when we score a legal victory on behalf of the XY Club.”

  “What do your parents think about it all?”

  “Both my parents are lawyers in DC. My mother works at the State Department and my father is chief legal officer for a big NGO that builds hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa.”

  “Following in the family footsteps. They must be pleased and proud you went into the law.”

  “They know and like the firm I joined. But I doubt they’re enamoured of my principal client – not that I had any say in it.”

  By then, our entrées had arrived and we went on to other things. Our conversation lightened considerably as we covered a whole range of topics that might have seemed superficial – movies, television, books – but really help shape an impression of another person. I liked this other person. She had her head screwed on right. I found her to be thoughtful, deliberate, confident, gentle, and kind. At one point, she looked up and noticed that the couple at a table farther along the wall from us was trying to take a selfie, with limited success.

  “Be right back,” Megan said, as she pushed her chair back and walked over to the neighbouring table.

  “Why don’t I take the shot?” she offered, holding out her hand.

  “Would you?” the man said. “I can’t get us both into the photo.”

  “Happy to. Ready?” She pulled back so she could squeeze them both into the frame. “Done.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  “No worries.”

  Megan slid back into her seat and resumed our conversation without missing a beat, as if she’d never left to deliver a good deed. By dessert, I was pretty well sucked into her orbit. I could feel myself being drawn in and could do nothing about it. I was powerless. It was like opposing gravity. Gravity always won. I’m not saying I fell in love at the Capital Grille. I’m just saying I was having difficulty looking anywhere else, or listening to anyone else, or thinking about anyone else, when we were together. I don’t know if she was feeling the same way. But it felt like she might be. I just wasn’t sure.

  I could feel the pressure building. It didn’t seem right not to tell her. It felt like the kind of revelation that, if not made early, might not end well when discovered later. But it was scary to ponder the potential range of her reactions. It could all be fine and might even endear me to her more. Conversely, I might soon be wearing her flourless chocolate espresso cake.

  “Um, I think there’s something I should be probably tell you about me. Better to do it early,” I said, putting my fork down on my plate and looking directly at her.

  “That doesn’t sound all that good to me,” she replied, setting down her own fork and retu
rning my gaze. “Let me guess. You’re married?”

  “Ha! No, I’m not married.”

  “Gay?”

  “Nope. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “Of course not,” she agreed. “Okay, you keep pet snakes?”

  “Nothing like that. I hate snakes,” I said.

  “You’re a convicted criminal on the lam using various pseudonyms.”

  “No!”

  “Okay, I’m tapped out.”

  “It’s, um, well, I should tell you that … well, I don’t know where to begin with this. It’s kind of a funny story. Well, sort of, I guess. Er, you see there’s something about me that you really ought to know that might, um, or possibly could, influence, how you feel about me, about us, I mean if there’s even an ‘us’ or and chance of an ‘us’.”

  “Okay, now I get it. You’re indecisive? Prone to vacillation? Anxiety attacks when you have to break important news? Can’t get your words out?”

  “No, despite how I just sounded,” I said. “Okay, here goes. You see, Megan, I mentioned earlier that I’m a writer. And, well, it just so happens, that I’m …”

  She looked at me just then with the most innocent, wonderful, warm, and inviting countenance, her lovely face turned slightly upwards in anticipation.

  “… Canadian. I’m a Canadian. There I said it. I’m Canadian, born and raised in Oakville, Ontario, a bedroom community of Toronto. I’m Canadian.”

  Her face crumpled. She recoiled in horror, then placed her hands on top of her head, her eyes wild and wide.

  “No! No! Not that! Not Canadian. Why does it always have to be this way?”

  She said this in a rather loud voice. Diners four tables over looked our way.

  She promptly resumed her normal appearance, lowered her hands to the table, and returned her eyes to their normal aperture.