The Journey Prize Stories 22

by Various

“No. Sleep,” she says to the dashboard, then to me, “It happened so fast, starting with the 2/13 terrorist attacks in LA and New York during the Olympics. We were supposed to get hit too, but the city was crawling with security.”

  “I remember the news clips of cruise ships full of rent-a-cops.”

  “Yeah, they’re still here.”

  “The ships or the cops?”

  “Both. Together. A lot of people stayed on after the airports and borders reopened, and more have been pouring in ever since the Saudi-American war started. We needed somewhere to put everyone, including all those actors and athletes that refuse to work anywhere else. It’s never too hot here, and other than the odd flash flood, it doesn’t rain much anymore.”

  It rained non-stop those first days Sarah and I were here. Sometimes we couldn’t even see the houses across the street, and the sound of foghorns was the only reminder that there were other people around.

  “Who is this Lucky Woods character on all of the billboards and bus stops?”

  “She’s a local real-estate tycoon. Owns The One & Only development company. She’ll probably be our mayor next year.”

  “At least she’s prettier than Stalin.”

  “She’s had a lot of cosmetic surgery.” Lana grins with her eyes this time, and it’s such a lovely sight that I can’t resist smiling back.

  She stops at a toll bridge and flashes a laminated card. “They restrict downtown car traffic now.” The bridge feeds into a tall canyon of skyscrapers that frames those slashed-up mountains, but she turns, loops under the bridge, and comes up alongside the bay and a recreational highway, with its bike, rollerblade, and walking lanes in heavy use. Where did the old seawall go, with its crumbly stairs disappearing under the waterline? The logs are still there, lined up for the sunbathers. The water looks so cool and inviting.

  “Can you still swim in there?”

  “Of course.”

  “Nobody’s swimming.”

  “There’s an indoor pool at your hotel.”

  I don’t want a pool. I want to swim in that bay, where I asked Sarah to marry me and she said yes, put her cool arms around my neck and kissed me with her hot mouth.

  The pastel Miami-style apartments still line the beachside avenue, but are mixed with taller, sleek glass towers. Many of the balconies are packed with people, drinking cocktails, looking out at the water and the impending sunset, as if in theatre boxes watching a performance. Parked on the bay are dozens of yachts, a high-end floating shantytown.

  “What are all those boats doing here?”

  “Most of them anchor here year-round, but some are here for the fireworks tomorrow.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Nothing special. They happen every Friday.”

  With the mountains all carved up, this place isn’t as electrifyingly green as I remember, although colours tend to ripen in the memory bank. After Sarah left me for good last year, I got the greens of this place all mixed up with her eyes, but when she finally agreed to see me again a few weeks ago, they seemed so dull and translucent as she said, “I wish I just felt like I don’t know you anymore. What you’ve become. But now I wonder if I ever really knew you at all.”

  What possessed me to think that she wouldn’t suspect the story was anything more than fiction? And then to look her in the eyes and feign shock at the very suggestion? I should have burned that manuscript, but hubris brought me here instead.

  “Here we are,” says Lana, as if to a toddler needing the loo.

  The hotel is a tall, impossibly thin glass slab plunked like a gravestone atop the old Sylvia Hotel, where Sarah and I once drank too many Long Island iced teas. We pass by an army of paparazzi and crowds of people waiting for a glimpse of some celebrity or other. Lana pulls into the roundabout. A bellhop comes jogging over, grinning wildly, the eager eyes of a fan.

  “It’s a huge honour to meet you, sir. I’m Marius.” He grabs my bag from Lana and leads the way into the lobby and the elevator, past blankly curious eyes, the odd pair flashing with a tabloid-induced hatred of recognition.

  Marius blurts out, “I’m a huge fan. I’ve read everything.” He presses 39 and keeps his finger on the button. “I just have to say, that E-Life piece last night was an abomination. I hope you sue the crap out of them.” His anger is better than pity, or the horrific nudge-wink of my lawyer.

  “Here we are,” says Lana, before the elevator doors have even slid open. She must be desperate to get to cocktails on balconies, away from this sordid handler job.

  The room is full of gift baskets, mostly fruit. Who could ever eat all this fruit? I’d have to hunker down and make a fulltime job of it.

  The bay is a sheet of pale blue with the sun gone down. But still nobody swimming. Is it contaminated? I’m desperate to get my stinking shoes off, but not until they leave. “Please take a basket, both of you. I insist.”

  They pick a small basket each.

  “My number’s on the schedule,” says Lana. “Don’t hesitate to call.”

  “See you bright and early.” I wave, but they’re too close to be waved at, and the gesture feels somehow violent.

  Sleep is impossible and eventually I crack.

  “Are you sure you can swim in there?”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Oh, did I wake you?” Or maybe I interrupted something else.

  “No. I’m awake. I’ll call the hotel and tell them to give you after-hours privileges at the pool.”

  “I don’t want the pool.”

  “The bay’s clean. I’m positive.”

  “Do you swim in it?”

  “I’m not much of a swimmer. I’ll make a call and –”

  “No please. I shouldn’t have called. I should be sleeping. You should be sleeping. I don’t have a swimsuit anyway.”

  “I’ll get you one.”

  “You’re very sweet, but that’s not necessary. I’m off to bed now. Goodbye. Sorry.”

  Under the bathroom’s greenish interrogational light, I face off against my pasty, saggy, cellulite-pocked body. I know what lurks below the surface, having seen too many televised liposuctions: the unconscious body on the metal slab, vivisected by scalpels, the slashed flaps assaulted by a screeching vacuum that suctions out a milkshake of nicotine-coloured fat and pink capillaries. The sad, vulgar vulnerability of imperfection laid out for the world’s entertainment.

  Here in Publicity, even the toilets refuse to mind their own business. An indifferent voice intones: “Low potassium and pH levels and high specific gravity. Please increase intake of fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates and water.”

  Here she comes, a skyscraper of coffee in hand, looking for me with that circumspect gaze. Who knows what kind of new scandal I’m capable of getting into under her watch? She wears a tangerine suit and heels, high and noisy on the marble.

  I stand up and wave, and she smiles at me with her bright-orange mouth.

  “Good morning. I hope you slept well.”

  “Yes, thanks,” I lie. She sits down, giving off a waft of soap. Is it a kind of perfume? Fingernails painted orange, too. Were they like that yesterday? “Sorry about last night.”

  “It’s no problem.” She gives a between-you-and-me smile, then makes a grabbing motion across the screen of the lobby bar’s E-Paper, as if to ball up its contents.

  “It’s okay. I’ve already seen it.” The new footage of a small but noisy group of picketers in front of a BookMart, wanting me stripped of my Booker Prize, while a couple of free-speechers attempt to drown them out.

  “You’ll do the TV and digital-streaming interviews in Conference Room 25, and we have a backup room for print journalists if we start running behind. Oh, and we might have to evacuate. There’s a wildfire heading west. Nothing serious right now, but the winds could change.”

  “There was nothing in the paper about that.“

  “I checked about the hotel pool. You can swim any time you like. Just call the concierge. There are swims
uits in the store downstairs. Not very fashionable, unfortunately.”

  Bless her for pretending it matters.

  “Still nobody swimming out there.”

  She checks her watch. “It’s early.”

  “But look at all the people on the beach, in swimsuits.”

  “I’m sure they’ll go swimming.”

  There’s that make-it-happen voice again. She’d need to hire actors or bribe people.

  “How did the interviews go?”

  “Fine.” I was an utter fool to pass up the warm-up coaching.

  “Ready for the next one?”

  “Yes.” Even if it kills me.

  She beckons to a young woman, in pigtails of all things.

  “I’d like to smoke,” I say.

  “I didn’t know you smoked.” Lana sounds offended, not by the habit but because she should have known. “You can’t smoke in the hotel. You can’t really smoke anywhere.”

  “Then we’ll go to my room.” I can keep my eyes on the water. “We’ll eat some fruit, okay?” I say to the journalist, who shrugs and smirks. Obviously not a fan. Probably just a hack reporter, looking for a break, baiting herself for the tabs.

  Lana accompanies us right to the door of my suite. She seems to disapprove of my bringing this reporter to my room. Is everything suspect now?

  Pigtails admits upfront that she’s not read any of my books. She’s familiar only with the ones made into movies, so there’s no safe reminiscing about favourite fictional characters, as if they have minds of their own and are still out there doing their own thing; if only they’d just call and check in once in a while to let you know they’re okay.

  “Did you pick the Philippines knowing that the age of consent there is only 12?”

  I resist the urge to hiss, Get your facts straight. She was 15! Almost 17 now. “I went there to write about a fictional marine biologist investigating mass dolphin beachings,” I say instead.

  “So, it just happened by accident? Like manslaughter?”

  Lana’s decisive knock is right on time.

  “The air conditioning is too cold,” I snap before she’s even had the chance to close the door on Pigtails. “I need to get outside!”

  “Fine. Why don’t you do the next one at the beach? It’s just audio.”

  Yes, I’ll let the sun penetrate my surface-of-the-moon skin until it’s so hot, there’s no choice but to go swimming. Before it’s too late. Before I go home, where there’s no natural, unspoiled body of water left. Another regret would be too heavy for the plane.

  As we pass the phalanx of cameras camped outside, representing the worst of the tabs – CNN, TRUMP, and TMZ – Lana puts a protective hand on my shoulder for a second before thinking twice and taking it off. I feel like a spurned child.

  The CBC reporter shakes my hand. “I’m a big fan of your work,” he says, as if confessing guilt by association.

  “Do you swim in there?” He looks like he could do anything with that body. They all look like they’re in training for something.

  “Ah. I’m not really into swimming.”

  “Do you smell smoke?”

  “No,” the reporter and Lana answer in unison, as if a natural disaster would reflect badly on them.

  We yield to the traffic on the recreational highway and run for our lives when there’s a break. “I’ve got lunch for you,” says Lana, handing me a canvas bag. Her eyes are hidden behind large black sunglasses, but her rosy cheeks ball up encouragingly.

  The reporter wants to go way back in time and talk about his favourite character, Piggy La Fleur, on his doomed honeymoon. “I loved that scene where he’s trapped in the hotel’s glass elevator, in his Speedo. He panics and tries to climb up to the hatch, but he’s all greasy with suntan oil. People below are pointing and laughing and he spots his new bride looking mortified and he realizes that she doesn’t really love him. You make the most terrible things so funny.”

  Have I always been such a plunderer, exploiting the vulnerable for a cheap laugh? If only I could swim! I need to be submerged, cleansed, exfoliated with sea salt. The breeze is so hot and the paved mountains seem to heave and smother, providing no relief.

  “I’m having trouble reconciling this place with the one I remember.”

  “When were you here last?”

  “Thirty-five years ago. It was raining and the whole city was socked in, so we had no clue there were mountains everywhere. We woke up one morning and there they were, as if they’d sprung up out of our dreams. We had to go swimming before we could believe they were real. It’s terrible, what they’ve done to the mountains.”

  “The One & Only has built a lot of affordable housing up there. And everybody gets a crack at owning one through the lottery. There’s a $7 million dollar home up this week.”

  Three children running for the water! They run right in without hesitation, kicking through small waves and shrieking from the cold shock. How wonderful it must feel. Who cares if the water’s tainted? I should stand up right now, expose this rotting body and jump in. I’ll keep swimming towards those mirage-like green mountains in the distance, until I’m too tired to fight off life.

  I’ll do it. I must. I’ll tear off my shirt and make a run for it. But what if I find the shoreline covered with scummy debris and chicken out? What if a shooter gets a picture of decrepit old me lurking near the children? How readily accessible is the lurid tabloid version of the self, turning even the most innocent yearnings to shit.

  “I thought you might cancel after that piece on E-Life.” That hadn’t even occurred to me. Am I just a monkey on a leash? Or so much worse? “If it’s any consolation, I think it’s your best book.”

  “Thank you.” I wish I didn’t feel the same way.

  Here comes Lana to collect her charge. “Did you see those kids swimming?” she asks.

  “Yes. They were speaking German though.” Probably tourists, and tourists don’t know any better. They’ll swim in anything.

  She shepherds me into the hotel through a service entrance, alongside tiny Asian maids and Amazonian actresses.

  “You’re sunburned,” says Lana, inspecting my face with concern. She roots through her bag for a bottle of aloe gel. “This will soothe your skin,” she says, and my throat starts to burn with the threat of childish tears at the shock of maternal attention. It’s something of a relief to know that, on an autonomic level, I can still react to kindness.

  But it leaves me vulnerable for the next interview, another TV crew, tanned and armoured with muscles. How do they find the time, here in Publicity?

  “Forty-five minutes,” she says to them. She’s developing frown lines already.

  I perspire heavily under the blinding television lights, which I suspect suits them fine. They’ve brought no one to powder my nose or remind me not to wear stripes.

  “You’ve always been drawn to the theme of exploitation, but critics are saying you’ve taken the subject too far,” says the reporter, licking his lips. “Do you think your protagonist committed a crime?”

  “Yes.”

  “In some countries he’d get life in prison.”

  “Here, in so-called civilized countries, they rarely even do time. We express outrage, but we do nothing to change the laws.”

  “So this book is meant to highlight our cultural hypocrisies? Express that we’re all somehow complicit in child rape?”

  I lie about needing to go to the bathroom, which will surely be perceived as a glaring indication of guilt.

  Lana is hovering outside. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s horrible. I just want to go swimming!”

  “I can arrange that.”

  “I don’t want you to arrange anything. Just let me go to the fucking bathroom!”

  “Of course,” she says, stepping back. I’m disappointing her too.

  “Why do we do this?” I mutter to my big, sunburned clown face in the mirror. How could twenty minutes outdoors wreak such havoc? The bags under
my eyes glow a sickly bluish-white from wearing sunglasses, and there are grim white creases around my nasolabial folds. Why didn’t she tell me how awful I look? I’d like to retreat to a dark crawl space to die, but she’s pacing outside waiting for me.

  “Okay?”

  “I survived. I’m sorry for –”

  “I understand. Just two more today and no more cameras, I promise.”

  “I’ll do them at the bar. You should take a break.” Somebody should be looking out for her, too.

  “We’ll head to your reading at six.”

  “You must have better things to do.”

  “Like fireworks?” She smiles with her whole face, and it’s like a life preserver.

  Here she comes, black sleeveless dress, black stilettos, hair spilling around her shoulders. Does she have a room here for quick changes? The nails are still orange. That’s reassuring.

  “There’s been a bomb threat at the venue. We had to cancel the public reading.”

  “Oh dear.” So it’s come to this.

  “Don’t worry. It was probably something to do with that action movie about the Saudi-American war. It premieres tonight at the multiplex next door. But we’ve found a new venue for a private reading.”

  She looks unimpressed when I order a double, and starts clock-watching when my bellboy fan Marius and his hugely pregnant and famished girlfriend join us. By the time the bill arrives, we’re fifteen minutes behind schedule.

  “I’m paying. I insist,” I say. Lana doesn’t put up a fight.

  Walking to the reading, we hit an intersection clogged with environmentalist protesters and riot police. I think there might still be hope for this town, but it turns out to be a movie shoot. Within two blocks there’s another movie shoot; it’s hard to tell where the real world begins.

  The new venue is a cramped condominium party room. Aside from a few very attractive young people who look like movie extras, there’s a murder of book-chain execs, old-fart academics, and errant realtors. I stick with a safe passage about the mass dolphin suicides, and get the reading done before the slurring kicks in.

  Afterwards, there’s a little party for me in a condo on the 52nd floor – one of those cold, modern, blinding-white jobs, full of wilting food in takeout containers and boxes of wine. Lana stays in the background, ever-watchful, throwing me the occasional guarded glance. The talk is mostly bestseller lists, government grants, books about war, finance, science – real life, that’s what everyone wants. Nobody trusts fiction anymore, and why should they?