In the photographer’s bedroom, after inspecting the disappointingly dull contents of his bathroom medicine cabinet, Didi flings open the closet and sees an ocean of shirts, all in pale blue denim. She hugs the shirts to her and burrows her face into them as if she were his long-time lover missing him dreadfully while he was off on assignment somewhere remote and squalid, and she thinks that if he were to wander in at this exact moment to find out what was taking her so long, his heart would involuntarily contract at the sight of a young woman so capable of devotion that she’s transported from her earthly surroundings.
Didi deeply inhales a scent she finds surprisingly fresh for a man his age, a scent that scurries up her nostrils like the first sharp tang of spring, until she realizes it’s the smell of dry-cleaned clothes, and because she’s allergic to dry-cleaning chemicals she knows it’s only a matter of time before her eyelids start swelling shut and her nose begins to run and then any chance at all for salvaging the evening will be gone. Back in the bathroom she checks her face, which still seems all right, although she has to close one eye and then the other in order to focus properly. She thought she was a redhead this week, but the person staring back at Didi has this black hair and these terrible chunky bangs. When did she dye her hair black? When did she have it cut? This whole time she’s been acting like a redhead, doing red-headed things with her hands, saying red-headed things, trying to think red-headed thoughts, and her hair has been black? Was it black last night?
She’s already back in the dining room refilling her glass when she remembers she didn’t flush, unlike early this morning when, after waking up alone on the roof (even the palm tree was gone!) and somehow managing to crawl down into the apartment before being sick, Didi made sure she flushed and then flushed again. Then she’d washed her face, scraping at the flecks of roof pitch with an AirMiles card someone had left in the soap dish, before stepping into the hallway and belting out the theme song from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. One of her hosts appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, wide-eyed, naked, just as she was pretending to toss her hat into the air Mary Richards-style, and closed the door in her face, loudly, but she caught the pretend hat anyway just to prove she didn’t need other people around to have fun.
It was only afterwards, when she was standing down on Adelaide, that she realized she didn’t have cab fare or even enough for the streetcar and had to walk all the way home while flipping the bird at ignorant would-be johns in rusting Impalas and gleaming Isuzu Rodeos with bicycle racks on the back who couldn’t differentiate if their very lives depended on it between her ironically short terry-cloth shorts (that had just been at a party with Rufus Wainwright and his new lover and the latter’s understanding and rather empathetic ex-girlfriend) and something a hooker would wear. And after all that she had so looked forward to tonight, to a fun evening in a fourteenth-floor luxury apartment belonging to a semi-famous photographer who specialized in portraits of aging women intellectuals, so excuse her!
The steaks and those very large, scary baked potatoes have somehow made their way onto the table and she finds herself sitting in front of a plate with a knife and fork in her hands and the photographer is still talking, something about how if he hadn’t become a photographer he would’ve been a short-order cook, an excellent short-order cook, because that’s how much he likes a well-greased grill (??!!), and how much simpler his life would’ve been, and Didi wonders why he’s telling her these things, wonders if he maybe has her confused with somebody else, with this Deirdre whose name he keeps snapping his jaws down on as if they’re a leghold trap, because, well, explosions, if you like that kind of thing, could be considered a turn-on, but a well-greased grill can’t be construed as anything other than a well-greased grill.
In between all his words, if she squints, she can see that he’s trying to tell her something and that it has nothing to do with innuendo. She knows she should be interested in these things he’s talking about, that somehow these things matter, but she isn’t. In fact, they make her feel itchy.
What she really, really wants to ask, once and for all, is What are we doing here? She tries to will this simple question into being, to thrust it into the air between them like a magician conjuring a dove from the old-fashioned beige clutch purse of the mousy divorcee in the front row, the bird’s small breast throbbing against the magician’s thumb, the woman feeling off-balance but delighted (He picked me!), but when the words refuse to materialize, Didi tugs her blouse off over her head and lets it float to the floor.
The place had looked spotless, but now she sees dust scudding in drifts over the dulled parquet like clouds as the blouse wafts down in slow motion. In these elongated seconds, between her shirt coming off and him looking up from his plate and noticing, Didi has time to think she should be happy because here she is just one degree of separation from Annie Leibovitz and, in effect, only two degrees of separation from John and Yoko, David Byrne, Chris Rock, Nicole, Brad, Ben, Gwyneth, Kate-from everybody. This should make her feel elated, but instead she’s filled with this prickly, fur-bearing sadness. She is, after all, only one degree of separation from that ugly dog at the edge of that bridge that no longer exists, in a country that no longer exists-so close that she could be that ugly dog, and in fact, if you looked closely enough, she is that ugly dog, and she needs to know if that dog ever jumped into the river to try to get to the other side or if he’s still there shivering and whimpering for his owners, for the only people who loved him no matter what and who may or may not exist anymore anywhere on earth.
1 Named Marnie, Teka, and Charlotte, names she’s tried to forget for nine years now but which cling to her brainpan like the words Deirdre fleas gouged into the lip of a desk with the tip of a red Bic.
SOMEONE IS KILLING THE GREAT MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS OF AMERIKA
I’ve stopped caring about skeptics, but if they libel or defame me they will end up in court.
– URI GELLER, PSYCHIC SPOON BENDER
Belief is commonly easier to acquire and maintain than knowledge.
– BARRETT L. DORKO, P.T.
You try telling that to Dodge.
– ME
Someone is killing the great motivational speakers of Amerika and I am afraid I may be next. In an effort not to alarm my followers, I have camouflaged my disappearance as a wilderness retreat. The surroundings are more rustic than we are accustomed to and there have been grumblings about the lack of facilities. I tell them their ancestors didn’t have backpacks containing rolls of three-ply toilet paper and antibacterial wipes; they had to make do with leaves and corn husks. In more recent times, it’s possible they resorted to sections of newspapers that left their backsides inked with the TSE Composite Index or Blondie. Soon everyone is enthusiastically gathering foliage, although Dodge, twiddling his small goatee, complains about not having a copy of the latest Vancouver Sun editorial page. Dodge, with his almost indiscernible sense of humour, has for a long time now caused me equal measures of joy and grief.
As I watch my crew milling about with purpose-collecting firewood, securing tarps, taking inventory of the granola bars and shrink-wrapped Bavarian rye breads, the nut butters and fruit leathers, giving each other a hand-I can see it has been worth it. Is this not all I ever wanted? Cinders unfolds a foil astronaut blanket and wraps it around my shoulders. Felix has torn up a patch of moss he now cradles in his arms like a kitten. He advises me to stroke it with a pinky finger while keeping my eyes screwed shut tight. Gratitude wells in my breasts for all I have wrought. If this isn’t synergy, what is?