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We park at my place and walk through the streets of the Plateau, then over to Saint-Laurent. It’s June and the tourists are starting to descend, making it prime DON’T season. Within seconds I spot no less than three socks-and-sandals men, but they’re boring so we move on. We walk east and along the way encounter a beefy man with a mullet. He’s wearing a mesh half-shirt and drawstring bouncer pants with a Mickey Mouse print. His sneakers have neon green laces and he’s got a thick gold chain around his neck. I approach him and ask to take his picture. I click away but he won’t stop smiling. I ask in my most polite voice for him to stop and he does, but the smile lingers in his eyes. His pride is like a sucker punch. Tears well up and sting. Eva has him sign the release and I quickly wipe my eyes.
“Are you all right, Sara?” Eva asks once Beefy Cartoon Pants Man has gone.
“Allergies,” I say.
“Gosh, that’s terrible. Is there anything I can do? There’s a pharmacy around the corner—I could get you some of those pills, those antihistamines.”
“That would be great, Eva. Thanks.” I park myself on a bus bench and fiddle with my camera in an effort to calm down while I wait for Eva to return. I have to shake off this psycho-spaz cry-baby thing. There’s a bar across the street, one of those crappy fake Irish pubs—no affected urbanites, no suburban scenesters, no Apples Are Tasty or Snap, no Sara B., take my picture! It’s exactly what I need. As I dart across the road, I call Eva on her cell and tell her to meet me there. My beer arrives just as she does. I rip into the box of allergy tablets and weasel two out their childproof packaging, then down them with my beer. I assure Eva that once the pills kick in my eyes will be just fine.
Mecca
Not everything French is chic, and Montreal isn’t the zenith of cool. Part of my job on this Trend Mecca Bootcamp Weekend is to ensure that none of the six participants figures this out. I’ve known them for half a day now and am confident this will not be a concern.
As we tour the myth of the city—the shops and cafés, the lairs of local designers—the überalphas emerge from the group of type-A corporate alpha dogs and as usual the advertising people rise to the top of the shit pile. They know it all. Everywhere we go, they jostle for position—who can get an I’ve heard about this out of their mouth faster? There’s a creative director from Chicago determined to harness the zeitgeist and one from Vancouver who’s all about the next big thing. Then there’s the woman from Baltimore who won’t shut up about how she has her finger on the pulse, though from the way she keeps ogling Zeitgeist from Chicago I think she wants her precious finger up his ass, and from the way Big Thing Vancouver keeps leering at her, it’s his ass that wants Precious Finger. I want to cut my veins open and hurl myself into the St. Lawrence River, but I can’t because I don’t have a knife or a razor blade and we’re not going to be near the waterfront until after lunch.
I thank God that Eva is such a small-talk enthusiast. She answers silly questions about the city and Snap and she sounds very authoritative. We’re lunching at a popular bistro on Saint-Laurent better known for its attractive staff than its food. I order a side of mayo for my fries, which is something Precious Finger cannot deal with—the fat, the calories, the cholesterol, your heart—so when it arrives, a goopy dollop in a small white bowl, I’m sure to pass it around for everyone at the table to try. I notice Zeitgeist watching the waitresses and Precious Finger watching him. He is momentarily distracted by my fries/mayo offering. After one bite he declares it genius. He’s chewing as he says this and I see tiny bits of salivamushed potato-and-mayo spray from his mouth.
It’s Precious Finger’s turn and I reckon she has no choice but to risk it all—her weight, her cholesterol, her heart—if she has any chance of impressing Zeitgeist, ardent supporter of genius fries-and-mayo and, more important, of getting a chance to shove a well-lubed finger up his ass. I am convinced that Zeitgeist is the kind of man who has a bottle of travel-size lube beside the bed in his hotel room if not in the fake army surplus bag he’s had slung across his chest all morning. Just because it’s green and burlap with numbers and patches on it doesn’t mean it’s not a purse.
Precious Finger closes her eyes and screws up her face as she brings the mayo-coated fry to her mouth. I watch Big Thing from Vancouver watch her, rapt and eyes glazed. Zeitgeist is still watching the waitresses. Precious Finger purses her lips and makes a face. She munches fast. Her mouth is tight but her cheeks move furtively. Her lipstick has been wiped clean by her lunch—mandarin-almond salad, vinaigrette on the side, one fry-and-mayo. She looks like a squinty squirrel. “Mmm, delicious! Genius,” she says.
Zeitgeist stops looking at the waitresses and turns his attention back to the table and briefly to Precious Finger. He points at a stray spot of mayonnaise on the side of her squirrelly mouth. She blushes and dabs it away with a napkin.
“Good, huh?” Zeitgeist says.
“Delicious. Genius. You were so right.” Precious Finger brushes her bangs off her forehead. “Actually, I’m thinking of ordering some more—if there’s time.” She looks at me. We can be late for the flea market in Old Montreal. Witnessing Precious Finger force-feed herself a plate of fries and mayo is an opportunity I refuse to pass up.
The fries come and I take out my camera. Precious Finger moves in closer to Zeitgeist, her head nearly resting on his shoulder. Big Thing scoots into frame. I coax Precious Finger to eat a fry while I snap a photo, but she won’t until Zeitgeist slathers one in mayo and feeds it to her. His face is smirky. Big Thing’s shoulders slump in defeat. I take the picture and Precious Finger excuses herself to use the washroom. I wait two minutes and follow her in. I don’t have to go, but I wash my hands. The sound of the water does nothing to drown out the sound of Precious Finger retching in a locked stall.
I’m back at the table before she is and am surprised to find Ted there, smiling and doling out handshakes all around. Ted never comes on the Trend Mecca Bootcamp Weekends.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Nothing. Just thought I’d stop by, maybe tag along.”
“Sounds great.”
It is great that Ted is here. Between him and Eva they answer all the inane questions. I walk behind and take pictures that I’ll delete at home. No one bugs me when I have a camera in front of my face. We push through the crowded flea market, visit the studio of an artist friend, walk some more, shop a little and the three advertising alpha dogs talk and talk and talk while the three boring corporate types take notes and ask nerdy questions. We stop for drinks and dinner. Precious Finger sits beside Zeitgeist and forces another order of fries and mayo down her throat and then we’re off to see a band that Big Thing is particularly excited about. “They’re gonna break big this summer,” he announces like he’s the Casey Kasem of alterna-everything. We flag three taxis after the show and I’m stuck with him riding back to the Bootcampers’ boutique hotel. He won’t shut up about the Montreal scene, which is not what it was five years ago, let alone ten years ago, but he doesn’t need to know that. I want to strike him in the head with a giant mallet, but reconsider and think I’d rather use it on myself. I remember that I have a big wooden meat tenderizer in a drawer at home that I’ve never used.
The three boring corporate types go straight to their rooms and to bed, blathering about time zones and saying they have to call their wives or their boyfriends or their kids or their cats. If he doesn’t call his wife, one man says—the one with the shirt and tie and high-waisted no-name big-box-store blue jeans—there will be hell to pay.
Zeitgeist, it seems, has no fear of hell or paying. Each time he lifts his glass to drink, the gold of his wedding band reflects the candlelight. Precious Finger pets his leg and Big Thing abruptly excuses himself. He settles into a seat at the bar and two women I’ve seen here before sidle up to him. If Precious Finger doesn’t want him, he can always rent a lady friend for the night.
So it’s me and Eva and Ted and Zeitgeist and Precious Finger. Eva is trying to convince Ted that now is the time for Snap to expand its online presence. Precious Finger is pawing at Zeitgeist, who seems sufficiently drunk and has stopped looking at every other woman in the room. But this could well be because his eyes can no longer focus or because he’s now thinking seriously of Precious Finger’s lubed finger in his ass while her squirrelly mouth is wrapped around his cock, which I’ll bet is a stubby, skinny thing.
I stir my drink with a skinny straw that makes me think of Zeitgeist’s dick but longer. It’s unpleasant, so I take out my cell phone and check for messages I know aren’t there. I told Jack I’d be busy all weekend with the Bootcamp and that I’d call him Sunday if the whole thing hadn’t killed me and if not we’d talk sometime Monday. It’s Friday night and I’m annoyed he hasn’t called. I check my messages at home. Nothing. Well, a call from Genevieve that I can barely hear due to the noise in the bar and Olivier’s piercing screams. No wonder Ted is here. I dial Jack’s number but hang up before it rings or my number shows up on his call display and we have to have that stupid conversation again about me not leaving messages.
Zeitgeist and Precious Finger say their good-nights and stumble off together to the lobby. Eva and Ted are laughing. I lean forward and rest my elbow on the table and my head on my hand, like a girl playing jump rope with friends waiting for the right time to step into the game. I order another drink and scan the busy bar. I feel someone watching me but I don’t turn my head to look, afraid of the hipster boy-waif or nightmare suburban suit guy that I might find standing there. He moves closer and hovers behind me and to the left. I pretend the dodgy artwork on the wall to my right is interesting.
“Hi, there. Can we help you?” Eva asks.
“Oh, yes, perhaps. We’d certainly appreciate it.” It’s a woman’s voice.
I turn to face her, relieved. I smile and look up and then down again, stirring my drink with the Zeitgeistskinny-dick straw. They’re ladies—old ladies, old ladies with orthopedic shoes and red hair the same shade as Eva’s.
“It’s so crowded and we noticed you weren’t using all of your seats. We don’t mean to impose, but—”
“Sit, sit, by all means, sit,” says Ted as he leaps from his chair to pull back two for the old ladies.
The old ladies thank us too many times and offer to buy us a round of drinks, which Ted refuses and instead says that he’d be honored to by them a round. Ted’s using his chuffy voice, which means he’s awfully proud of himself and I wonder why he’s here and not home helping his wife with their screaming child.
The old ladies’ names are Esther and Lila. Esther takes Ted’s hand in both of hers and shakes it. She does the same with Eva. Then it’s my turn. I tell them that my hands are really cold and Lila seems okay with this and backs away, but Esther grabs my hands anyway and now she knows I lied—my hands aren’t cold, I’m just not an old-people person.
I learn things about Esther and Lila I don’t want to know. Lila is divorced. Esther is seventy-five; she’s six years older than Lila, who I guess that would make sixty-nine, not that I could tell a day’s difference in their made-up wrinkly faces even if I could look at them for more than a second. Neither woman is married or has children. They do share an apartment, but Lila makes it clear that they’re not funny by which I assume she means lesbian. Esther is quick to add that there’s nothing wrong with being funny, she’s always simply preferred a man’s touch. She looks right at me when she says this. I look at my watch and grab my phone off the table. “I have to call my boyfriend,” I say. My voice is too loud but I can’t shove it back in my mouth so I clod off to the lobby to pretend to call Jack, but change my mind and go outside to smoke and pretend to call Jack.
I left my cigarettes in my bag at the table, so now there’s nothing to do except stand outside and play with the buttons on my phone. There’s a guy smoking a few feet away. I think about asking him for a cigarette, but he’s a hipster boy-waif, the kind I was afraid might be hovering behind me when it was really the old ladies. I weigh my options. I bum a smoke, he’ll want to talk—people always want to talk. He’ll ask me what I do and I’ll tell him the truth because I’m too tired to lie and I’m still smarting over being busted by old lady Esther for saying my hands were cold. I’ll tell the hipster waif-boy what I do and he’ll be impressed without saying so, like Parrot Girl was when I took her picture. Then I’ll be reminded of Parrot Girl and the goddamn Apples Are Tasty fiasco and the night—not that it’s been stellar or anything—will be unsalvageable.
“Would you like one?” It’s Esther. I didn’t hear her come up. Old people are quiet and sneaky.
She holds open a thin gold case filled with cigarettes. I take one. I can’t help myself. “Thanks.”
She lights it for me with a gold lighter that matches the case and I thank her again. “It’s a lovely night,” Esther says.
“Yup.”
“The young girl, Eva—is she your sister?”
I laugh. “No. She’s … “ What is Eva? “We work together.”
“You could be sisters.”
I’m flattered, I suppose, that someone, Esther even, thinks Eva and I could be related. “We really don’t look alike.”
“It’s not that. My sister and I looked nothing alike. It’s more your presence, your mannerisms.”
I shrug, not sure what to say, so we smoke in silence for a moment. “That Ted is such a pleasant young man. He said something about putting out that trendy magazine Lila and I pick up all the time, Snap?”
“We run it together.”
“Oh, my. Well, congratulations. That’s quite an accomplishment for two young people. Lila and I think it’s a hoot, by the way. Those DOs and DON’Ts always have us in stitches.”
“I do those.” I take a deep drag on my cigarette. It’s a hoot, they say, the old ladies are in stitches. A taxi peals up in front of the hotel and I consider throwing myself in front of it.
Lila breaks out into a coughing fit as Esther and I approach the table. It’s loud and audible above the trancy music. People are starting to stare. She doesn’t stop and I look at Ted in panic. Should we do something? Should we call an ambulance? Does anyone know CPR? Esther swats her friend playfully on the shoulder and the two women burst into giggles. “Oh, you,” Esther says and turns to me. “She does this every time I nip out for a ciggie. She hates it when I smoke.”
“Filthy habit!” Lila says.
“Sara here was telling me that she takes those photos that crack us up so much,” Esther says, changing the subject as she lowers herself slowly into her chair.
“The ones in Snap? We love those!”
“That’s what I told her.”
“That’s how we found out about this place—we read about it on that fun MUST DO list!” Lila says. She’s awfully excitable and squirming in her seat. I hope she doesn’t have a stroke.
“Lila’s addicted to magazines and newspapers,” Esther explains.
“It’s better than being addicted to cigarettes!”
“And she keeps them all. You should see her library, Sara. Floor-to-ceiling magazines—fifty years’ worth all stacked and in order.”
“What kind of magazines?” I ask.
“Oh, everything. But mostly fashion. I was quite the clotheshorse in my day—used to pore over every issue of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar for inspiration then sew up my own dresses.”
“And you have all of those? Fifty years?” I would kill—well, maybe not kill, but certainly maim or pay handsomely for fifty years of those magazines.
“When I was a teenager I would make confirmation dresses for girls in the neighborhood. I spent every penny I made on magazines and material.”
Esther beams proudly at her friend. “Our Lila was quite the entrepreneur.”
“Sounds like it,” I say. I look at Lila. Her face is heart-shaped, her features are delicate and her cheekbones high and defined. Behind the mask of age and powder and blush she was probably quite beautiful.
“Perhaps you’d like to come for tea sometime and take a look,” Lila suggests.
“That would be awesome!” If my status as a complete retard was ever in question, it is in this moment that I irrefutably determine that I am. I scrawl my cell-phone number on the back of my card and give it to Lila, who accepts it, probably out of pity for the softheaded thirty-nine-year-old who says awesome.
There are two taxis idling outside the hotel, but Esther insists on driving us—even suburban Ted—in her old Mercedes sedan. She’s only had one drink and though no one asks she makes a point of telling us that her eyesight is perfect.
“That’s because she had the laser surgery,” Lila whispers to me. “Used to be blind as a bat.”
I notice a copy of Snap from two weeks ago folded open to the MUST DOs page on the backseat. The address of the boutique hotel is circled in black ink. I pick it up and place it carefully on my lap and Ted, Eva and I slide in.
Eva is staying at my place for the weekend. With the Bootcamp schedule it’s more convenient than her driving to and from Pointe-Claire every day, and I like having her around.
It’s late and we should probably sleep, but my soft retard head is dancing with visions of midcentury fashion magazines, their pages filled with photographs by Avedon, Penn and Hiro. I open a bottle of wine and relax into my favorite chair. Eva sits with her legs curled up under her granny nightgown. It’s short, flannelette with long sleeves and a high lace-trimmed neck that looks itchy. I admire her unwavering commitment to personal style. I’m dressed in my black silk floor-length chemise again. I’m dying to take off my bra, but don’t want to scare Eva with the reality of thirty-nine-year-old breasts. I sit up straight, suck in my stomach and arch my back a little. I am a lady in repose.
I’m only half listening to Eva. She’s talking about online something and some Internet show that is either something she wants Ted to watch or wants him to produce for Snap and I’m not sure which because I’m talking about Lila’s magazines and what I know is in them. I’m speculating about how much such a collection would be worth and I get up and log on to eBay and find that a single issue of Vogue from the fifties can go for more than twenty-five dollars. I try to do the math but it’s too much for my soft head. I debate the merits of Vogue versus Bazaar aloud and decide that it depends on the decade and on Diana Vreeland, and which magazine she was with at the time. Eva’s talking at the same time and I wish she’d shut up, but she keeps talking and so do I and we talk louder and faster and over each other until it’s all white noise and I have to go to bed.
It’s Eva who wakes me at eight-thirty. Bootcamp starts at nine. She tells me Ted called and that he’s on his way to pick up his car, which he left at the Snap building overnight, and he’ll meet us at the hotel at nine and we’ll take the Bootcampers for a bagels-and-lox breakfast. I must have been out so hard I didn’t hear the phone.
Eva’s dressed in a sixties day dress with tiny pink flowers running along the hem. As usual, this is topped with a cardigan and her red hair is coiffed and sprayed. I can see a hint of blond roots as she bends down to hand me a coffee and three Advil. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she says and skips out of my bedroom.
I heave myself up and wash the pills down with the coffee. My glamorous silk chemise is twisted up around my waist, exposing the ugly stretched-out panties I wear when Jack’s not here. I’m still wearing my bra and the straps have left deep red grooves on my shoulders. Eva is humming in the kitchen.
I shower then call Ted and tell him I’m running late and to entertain the Bootcampers until Eva and I arrive. I like Ted-the-helpful-tagalong much better than Ted-the-angry-Apples-Are-Tasty-e-mailing ranter.
I want to wear my glasses and my baggy vintage men’s 501s that some crazy Japanese guy offered to buy off my ass on the spot at a gig last summer for four hundred American dollars, but I don’t. I shimmy into a cute summer wrap dress. I seal the plunging V-neck with a piece of the stickiest double-sided tape until it’s semi-respectable-looking and my tits aren’t entirely popping out. I make up my face and scrunch up my hair until it looks artfully tousled, but it’s lopsided. I want my ponytails. I strap on sandals with heels, but there’s no way my contacts are going in. I put on my prescription Ray-Bans and vow not to take them off until after sundown.
Every time Precious Finger laughs her shrill laugh at breakfast I feel like someone is stabbing an ice pick into my ears. Who knew such a sound could come out of a tiny, squirrelly woman? I can only imagine what kinds of offensive noises she was making last night, undoubtedly naked and writhing with her undoubtedly shaved pussy impaled on Zeitgeist’s skinny stub. I can imagine this but I don’t want to. What I want to do is throw up or lie on the floor or call Jack and tell him to get the next flight to Montreal so he can make me tea and pet my head.
I pick at my bagel and let Eva tell the group about the day’s itinerary: shopping, eating, music. “And tomorrow—” she’s getting them all worked up now “—we’ve arranged an exclusive tour of the Snap offices and a roundtable discussion with some great examples of the city’s most stylish DOs.”
This is news. Trend Mecca Bootcamp Sunday is usually homework day, when I spend time with the participants arranging their photographs and notes into a sort of scrapbook that they can take back to their bosses as proof that the weekend was ten grand well spent. And it’s the day we hand out the goody bags, which is my favorite part because it means that shortly they’ll all be getting on airplanes and going home. Trend Mecca Bootcamp Sunday is not for Snap tours and roundtables. I glare at Ted from behind my sunglasses but he doesn’t notice so I kick him under the table. He points to Eva and gives me the thumbs-up sign. It takes all my willpower not to grab a serrated knife off the table, hold his hand down and saw off his fucking thumb.
“It was just an idea we came up with last night. I told her it was impossible, we could never assemble the right people in time for a Sunday roundtable, but she called this morning and said she’d taken care of it. What was I supposed to say? I thought she ran it by you.”
“She did not run it by me,” I hiss. We’re outside the bagel place. Eva is a few feet away chatting up the group while I smoke and bitch at Ted.
“Are you sure, Sara?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“You were pretty drunk last night.”
This is true, but I’m sure I would remember agreeing to something like this. It’s not the sort of thing I’d be likely to forget unless of course Eva was talking about it while I was talking about Lila’s magazines. Fuck me hard with Zeitgeist’s skinny-stub dick—I don’t know what to say. “Well, she told me about it, but I thought she meant for the next Bootcamp.”
Ted looks relieved. I am a lying dirtbag with possible blackout issues. No more hard liquor. No more drinking till I’m drunk. Wine and beer only, and only with food. Ted and I join the others and walk up the street to our first shopping stop of the day. The straps of my high-heeled sandals rub against my feet and I can feel the blisters bubbling up.
By midafternoon I’m gimping behind the group like I have some kind of palsy. Women pass and either smile in empathy or sneer at my stupidity. The men—the straight men—are oblivious: they’re staring at my tits, which refused to be contained by the stickiest double-sided tape and are pushing out of my clingy wrap dress. I sit down once we reach the Snap store. I rarely come here—it’s too weird, all the staff know who I am and act skittish and extra friendly when I visit so I don’t except on Bootcamp weekends and that’s only because Ted reminds me that the Bootcampers always drop serious cash. It’s better to endure a stop at the Snap store than to contend with bitchy Ted, who inevitably shows up in my office the following Monday saying something like I have a bee in my bonnet or I have a bone to pick with you. He thinks this is funny but is never actually amused if the company store wasn’t on the tour.
This particular Bootcamp weekend I am delighted, ecstatic, positively aglow that we’ve stopped at the Snap store, as I can get off my fucking feet. I survey the shop and notice we are stocking an excellent selection of limited-edition sneakers, the sight of which make my feet throb more and I long for an axe and an epidural to numb my lower half so I won’t feel the pain when I lob off my swollen, blistery feet.
We’re also selling pairs of hand-knit, mismatched argyle socks and this is most helpful—I’ll need something to cauterize my stumps before I shove them into a pair of three-hundred-dollar hip-hop-fantastic sneakers. I’ll be like one of those ladies I see walking to the Metro station in the morning, dressed in a skirt suit with socks and sneakers, the practical pumps she’ll change into at the office stuffed in the plastic Gap bag she carries. I could be one of those ladies, but better, with good clothes and expensive sneakers and hand-knit mismatched argyle socks that the Gap-bag ladies don’t know they want yet but they will in about eight to twelve months. I could make myself a DO and parents everywhere would write me hateful letters because after seeing me as a Snap DO their kid bought in to the amputation-is-awesome hype and now there’s nothing they can do to get their child’s feet back. They’ll never be in the Olympics unless it’s the Special Olympics and that’s just not the same no matter what anyone says.
I’m trying to think of the closest axe store when my cell rings. I’m disappointed when the caller ID comes up as Genevieve and not Jack and then I’m sure I’m a dirtbag whose feet deserve to be chopped off without an epidural.
“Hey, Gen. What’s up?”
“You haven’t called me back.”
“Yeah, sorry. It’s Bootcamp weekend.” Gen called yesterday. I picked the message up at the bar but couldn’t hear a thing. I remember this with total clarity and it’s a gold-star moment on a dark and unforgiving day.
“I know it’s Bootcamp weekend. I don’t know why you need Ted there, but fine, whatever. It’s work, I know. But I need to know if you’re coming to the party.”
“Right. The party.” I have no idea what she’s talking about. And why is Ted telling her I need him here? “What’s the date again?”
“Next Saturday at eleven—a.m.”
“Of course, eleven a.m. It’s not like you’d have a party at eleven p.m.,” I say.
“We used to.” Gen’s voice is very small.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. I’m fine. I’ll let you go.” She’s snuffling, but I have to go—the group is heading out the door.
“Are you sure? We can talk later if you want.”
