“So sorry for the interruption, folks,” she said, after a pause, not appearing to be sorry at all. A friend from another group had come over, a tall and stick-like woman in a black dress.
“Everything okay, Jenny?”
“Wonderful – it’s just that someone bumped into me a minute ago and spilled my glass of champagne. Now I’ll need to find another one.”
“Quelle horreur!” said the stick. “We should take care of that immediately.”
“Yes, we should,” Jenny Wynne said. “Oh there’s a waiter now, and he’s good-looking to boot. Quickly!”
Flashing a brief, arrogant smile to the group, she slid away, in the same movement sweeping a flute off a silver tray as it bobbed past. In a moment she had joined up with a nearby circle of young staffers from a rival publication, thus bringing closure to the drama she had just instigated.
Stephan watched her as she mingled. She wasn’t monopolizing her conversations or fighting for attention, but the eyes of those in her vicinity did revolve inexorably towards her, insignificant moons locked in orbit around some gas-giant of a planet. She wore a silvery nothing of a dress. It shimmered in the mood-lit room, picking up and refracting the colours of everything around it – faces, oriental carpets, tables heaped with rich food. The teen-like skinniness and self-conscious glances that had marked her as a newcomer at Helmut’s back in the day were now long gone.
She was irritatingly beautiful. There was something about the colours of her skin, subtle hues of white and pink and gold, that looked as if they belonged in a photograph. There was a crackle of warm energy in those colours, which fluctuated beneath a translucent surface, so pale and subtle that they seemed on the cusp of fading to black and white. The smirk of her mouth, somehow both arch and unaffected, added to the sense of liveliness and energy she projected.
The others in Stephan’s circle had been watching her too.
“She certainly is attractive,” Amanda was saying.
“Attractive, maybe, but evil all the same,” replied Joan. “She didn’t even care that she ruined Sandra’s dress.”
“Didn’t care? Surely you’re not suggesting that was an accident?”
“Oh, come on now – you and your conspiracy theories.”
“But Sandra published that nasty gossip piece in Tattle Tales last month, about that latte incident at Starbucks with B-Licious, the hip-hop artist. Think about it.”
“Hmmm.”
“Anyway, Jenny Wynne is a horrendous prose stylist.”
“Absolutely. Her stuff is so unstructured.”
“She has such amazing hair,” sighed Amanda.
“And pretty good aim with a champagne flute,” added Nathan, raising his own glass as if in salutation to her skills before downing it in a quick gulp.
The evening hurried onward. Soon after the incident with Ms. Blankton, the sit-down dinner portion of the event was announced, and everyone dutifully filed into the main ballroom. It was quite the production, a slick simulacrum of a Hollywood awards show. There were video vignettes announcing each award category, and a deejay who pumped out snippets of ambient techno music to herald each presenter and usher out thank-you speeches that went over the thirty-second limit. Local pseudo-celebrities appeared on stage to present some of the higher profile awards. Jenny Wynne – fleetingly – was one of them. Mumbling into the microphone, her jokes falling flat, she was suddenly the uncertain little girl once again. And then she was off the stage, vanished into the darkness on the far side of the theatre.
It seemed odd to Stephan that so much effort was being directed inwards – towards writers, editors, photographers and designers – rather than being put into the publications meant for actual readers. If the creators could only convince themselves that what they were doing was worthy of sequined gowns and chocolate fountains, then whatever the outside world thought, or didn’t think, about them wasn’t so important. Most titles aimed to be the Canadian answer to some internationally renowned American or British magazine. The Canadian version of Vogue, the Canadian answer to Harper’s. And every story had to have a Canadian angle – the Canadian contribution to the Space Shuttle program, say, or the Canadian answer to American Idol.
As per the unwritten rules of all awards shows, the event was not only extravagant but also drawn out. After a couple of hours, Nathan – who had continued to imbibe throughout dinner – had his head down on the table, and could be heard faintly snoring. But if Stephan’s own mood was any indication, the awards-show format did encourage attentiveness in many of the guests, no matter how uninterested everyone pretended to be in it all. He found himself waiting for the announcement of his own award category with carefully disguised anticipation. He feigned interest in the architecture details of the space, and spent several minutes adjusting his shirt cuffs and neck tie.
His attention was warranted, because when his category finally came up it was revealed that he had won a silver medal. He felt a warm rush of pleasure as the crowd applauded his name and his table-mates grudgingly offered their congratulations, although he kept up the pretence throughout that it was all an embarrassment. He wasn’t invited up on stage to give a thank-you speech as the gold medalist, the real winner, was a few moments later, but several of his shots were briefly flashed on the room’s giant video screen. And when he excused himself to visit the restroom as the next category was announced, he found that he was smiling broadly at his reflection in the mirror as he soaped his hands.
Later that night, he tagged along to an after-party at the Stem with Amanda, Carol and, surprisingly, Nathan – the latter having miraculously rallied. They took a cab across town via Richmond, through the Entertainment District, where the sidewalk writhed with 20-year-olds on their way to and from the dance clubs that lined the strip. Meanwhile, Carol regaled them with a rambling story that climaxed with her puking in her high-heeled boot at a previous edition of the magazine awards back in the day. (The point of the story seemed to be that Carol knew how to party. A subtext was that the event, and perhaps Carol herself, had seen better days.)
“Why so quiet, mister silver medalist?” asked Amanda, nudging him, as they neared their destination.
“Just taking it all in, I guess.”
The entrance to the Stem was via an unmarked grey steel door set into a brick wall at the end of a nondescript alleyway. Nathan, who was of course a member, brandished a grey plastic key fob and the door clicked open to reveal a bleak stairwell and cramped elevator, like something out of a Coen Brothers movie. The elevator carried them (barely) to the top of the building, its creaking door opening directly onto the club’s sleek, modernist interior.
Magazine people seemed to have taken over the entire establishment – it was a repeat of the awards themselves, minus the more mature and less socially aggressive guests. Competing cliques stood in discrete groups, their eyes rolling enviously towards each other. If one of the members of Urbanista had defied the tribal codes and chatted up a staffer from This City, a massacre might have ensued. Until such a provocation occurred, the only thing to do was to find out which group could consume more martinis and/or exchange wittier banter.
After an hour or so in dutiful conversation with his clan-mates, Stephan slipped on his suit jacket, which he’d been holding tucked under an arm, and stepped out onto the Stem’s half-dark rooftop patio to get some air. It was cool outside, and quieter now, the ranks of party-goers thinned by slow attrition. Here and there small groups of stalwarts clustered in talk, forming dark islands of activity demarcated by cigarette-ember lighthouse beacons.
He went to the edge of the balcony and stood gazing out over the city. The sky above had turned a sickly grey, and the handful of stars able to compete with the city lights were fading fast. Down below, the clustered office towers of the financial district were lit up like Christmas, even though they would be abandoned now by all but a few cleaners, security guards, and perhaps the occasional insomniac MBA gearing up for a big PowerPoint extravaganza th
e next day.
From an invisible condo in a tower across the road there came the sound of a stereo playing an old Smiths album from the late 1980s. A faint breeze wafted in off the lake, tousled his hair. The night air was somehow almost fresh, at least by smog-ridden downtown standards. The song the stereo was playing at that moment had been a favourite of Stephan’s when he was in high school. He’d owned the vinyl record, and later the cassette tape. His friends had made fun of him for liking such an obviously prissy Brit band, had serenaded him in imitation of Morrissey’s moany falsetto. But he hadn’t cared – in fact, he’d been secretly gratified by their mockery. The sound of Johnny Marr’s layered guitars, jangling mournfully in a minor key, put him in a wistful mood. It seemed as if something had just clicked into place, and for once the life he was living was identical to the one he daydreamed for himself.
A ghostly figure broke away from a group that had been standing in the shadows on the far side of the patio and made its way over to the railing near him, where it lit a cigarette. How strange, he would think, years later, whenever he looked back on the scene, that people still smoked in those days. A few years later, and the story might never have unfolded.
It was her.
The flare of pale yellow flame from her lighter illuminated her features for a second or two before fading. Then her face was dark again and she was blowing smoke rings out over the railing. He watched as each ring stood perfect and solid for a few seconds before evaporating into nothingness, swallowed up by the hot night.
Something about her posture made him think that she hadn’t seen him. He wondered if he should make some sound to let her know, without startling her, that she wasn’t alone. He might have slipped away unseen, but her position along the railing blocked him into a dead-end corner of the balcony, so that he couldn’t leave without passing directly behind her. But before he could make any sign she turned to him, unalarmed, her face in darkness but a halo of golden light on her hair.
“Who’s that over by the potted plant?” she called. “Raymond? Is that you?”
He emerged, feeling somehow like a voyeur caught in the act.
“Sorry... I...” He stepped forward into the light, and she looked him up and down.
“You’re not Raymond,” she said, sounding miffed, as if he were somehow to blame for the fact that he wasn’t Raymond. “Aren’t you one of those people from This City I ran into earlier?”
“Well, it wasn’t me that you actually ran into. That was someone else.”
It was an aggressive, as opposed to genuinely witty, thing to say. Most likely it was the alcohol talking, and he half-expected, even wanted, her to take it the wrong way, lash back at him. But she only smiled.
“No, of course I know that,” she said. “But you may have been splashed.”
“Only a little. And anyway it gave me a chance to actually use my pocket square, which was kind of novel.”
Her smile morphed into her trademark smirk.
“I’m Jenny Wynne,” she said, confident and matter-of-fact, extending her hand for a formal little shake. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
As he took her hand in his he resisted the temptation to tell her they’d met before in less sympathetic circumstances.
“Between the two of us, I’m out here because I’m in hiding,” she said, in a conspiratorial tone.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope Sandra Blankton hasn’t returned to take her blood-, or at least champagne-, soaked revenge.”
“Not yet, thank god,” she said, happily. “But just now a man I was with at the bar told me that I had the most beautiful nose he’s ever seen. He said he wanted to eat it.”
“That’s a little... I was going to say on the nose.”
She giggled. “It is, isn’t it? I’m glad I’m not alone in feeling that. So if you don’t mind I think I’ll wait over here in the shadows with you for a few minutes.”
“Be my guest.”
They wound up chatting together with surprising ease, almost as if they were old friends reunited after a long and tiresome interval. They talked about the journalism business, the eejits and douches who peopled it, about books and articles and movies they liked. In future years when looking back on the conversation, he would have trouble recalling any specifics, but be certain nonetheless that their words had been sophisticated and insightful, profound even. She was a skilled talker, without question, her sentences curving sinuously, intricate and bright in the air between them. And although he usually preferred to express himself with images rather than with words, that night he was in excellent verbal form, spinning out his own thoughts and ideas with confidence and clarity.
She lit another cigarette, in the same moment drawing back her hair and blowing a stream of white smoke through puckered lips. Her arms were lithe and graceful, her skin creamy and taut. Beneath the fabric of her silver dress, her hip bones protruded on either side of her waist, looking sharp, almost weapon-like, as if they could slice flesh. At least they could bruise, as Sandra Blankton had probably discovered earlier in the evening.
After a time she paused in mid-sentence and shivered. “It’s getting cold out here,” she said.
“Do you think he’s gone by now?” Stephan asked, hoping that this would turn out not to be the case.
“We’d better make sure before I go back in there.”
They went to a yellow window and peered through. Inside, the crowd had thinned further. Most of those who remained were seated at tables, talking calmly, candlelight flickering over their faces. The coast appeared to be clear.
“Thank you so much, Stephan,” Jenny said. “You’ve been a gentleman. I enjoyed our chat.”
“I’m glad.”
Something about her company made him feel sure of himself, affirmed his belief that he belonged among the clever and articulate.
She started to go, then paused and turned back to him. “Seriously,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I felt like I was hanging out with an old friend.”
Or an old nemesis.
“I had fun too,” he said. “Maybe we should...”
“Keep in touch? I was just thinking the same thing.”
Just like that, they exchanged phone numbers. He moved his thumb over the keypad of his phone, pressing the buttons in a deliberate, careful way, as if keying in a nuclear code.
A moment later she was gone, and he was alone again in the shadows.
Chapter 3
The sun was already high overhead when he opened his eyes the next morning. It beamed through the bedroom window so hot and bright that his shabby green curtains, purchased at Value Village, looked as if they might spontaneously combust. Stephan’s suit lay bunched up on a chair in the corner of the room, soiled and bereft. It was good that he’d bought it in black – the champagne that Jenny Wynne had splashed on the lapels wouldn’t leave much of a mark. He stayed in bed for several minutes after waking, replaying the previous night’s events in his mind and smiling at several of his recollections.
Eventually he trundled out to his basement apartment’s spartan galley kitchen and set about making himself a late breakfast of eggs, toast and tea. Butter spat and crackled in the frying pan as the eggs cooked. Water hissed in his stainless-steel kettle, which shrieked as it came to a boil, taunting his hangover. Taped to the door of the nearest overhead cupboard: an ancient black and white print of a pier in the midst of a storm, waves swirling all around it.
As he was finishing the eggs, his orange tabby cat, Gamblor, wandered in to see what the commotion was about. He’d named her that while still in university – it was a Simpsons reference that had seemed hilarious at the time. Despite her ill-temper and indifference to him, he adored her.
“Good morning, my dear,” he said. “Sleep well?”
Gamblor purred and, with uncharacteristic affection, rubbed her flank against his calf.
“Nice to see you too.”
He poured some water into a bowl and placed it in fro
nt of her. She gave it a few sniffs, whiskers twitching, and then drank, her pink tongue lapping at the water in dainty slurps.
That night, recovered from the previous evening’s excesses and feeling restless, he left his apartment, which was situated on a quiet side street near the university, and went downtown to do some black-and-white printing. Located in a converted warehouse in the east end of downtown, his lab of choice was a small, independent facility run by an ex-newspaper photojournalist. He’d outfitted the place with modern colour-film developing machines and was phasing in more and more digital processing equipment. But the lab also housed several old-school darkrooms, appointed with vintage equipment, which Stephan loved to use. There was something about the manual process, laborious though it could be, that yielded photographs of astonishing depth and richness, Stephan believed. He worked in black and white whenever a project was special enough to warrant the extra effort.
When he arrived at the lab that night, at around eleven, he found a couple of other photographers just packing up to go home. The owner kept the facility open 24 hours a day, with key access after 9 p.m., on the principal that insomnia and inspiration went hand in hand. Only a minority of customers took full advantage of this policy, however, and usually the place was deserted by around midnight. Sure enough, within a few minutes of his arrival, Stephan was alone, with nothing to disturb his concentration but the humming of ventilation ducts in the ceiling. It was perfect.
His favourite darkroom was number three, a tiny black cubbyhole in an out-of-the way corner of the facility, where interruptions were least likely. He’d already developed the negatives of the shots he wanted to work on tonight, made up contact sheets and circled the best images with a grease pen, so now he filled three plastic trays with chemicals: developer, stop and fixer. Each chemical had its specific, essential role to play in the developing process. The trays filled, he plugged in the enlarger, rolled up his sleeves both literally and figuratively, and started printing.
The Silver Age Page 3