Montreal
For Christmas this year my husband and I decided to get each other presents that don't cost anything (although he broke the rules and bought me Beedle the Bard as well as the two "textbooks" Rowling wrote for Comic Relief). So for my gift to him I wrote a slightly fictionalized account of the weekend we met, which was almost 6 years ago now. It's kind of personal, but I thought "what the heck - I'll post in on LJ." So if you're inclined to read it, please don't think too poorly of me! I've never quite figured out what he saw in me that weekend, but I'm glad he did, because it changed my life.
The bus pulled out of the depot in downtown Toronto, crushing the fall leaves under its wheels as it headed for the airport on the edge of the city. In the far back sat a young woman, quivering with excitement. She leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the window and closed her eyes, savouring the moment.
Finally, she thought. On the road again …
It had been two years since she had moved to Toronto, two years since she had felt the thrill of discovering a new place, and although this trip was only for a long weekend, just the anticipation of it energized her like a month-long vacation. She grinned to herself, remembering the ad for this weekend’s conference - “Religion, Ethics and the Public Square” - that had somehow ended up in her mailbox at work. She remembered looking at it and thinking, I’ve never been to Montreal - why not? And so she had smiled and spun, earnestly pleading her case to her boss, and had somehow managed the time off and all the conference fees paid by her employer, even though the conference had little relevance to her job.
Freedom.
In truth, the conference did interest her. Her summer job in the Premier’s Office during university had sparked a keen interest in politics, and her upbringing as a Christian had made her wonder about the relationship between politics and religion. But for the most part she just craved new experiences - and attending an academic conference in a world-class city seemed to fit the bill.
I … am … so … bored ….
She sat near the back, doodling on the new McGill writing pad she had purchased in the campus bookshop, along with a brown leather bag to match the brown suit she was wearing. Really, she had thought, I can’t possibly tote around my black briefcase while wearing a brown suit. These things needed to be considered when trying to blend in amongst the intelligentsia.
But she didn’t feel like a member of the intelligentsia now. The first couple of sessions had been interesting, even captivating. She had always loved learning; always loved to wrap her mind around a complex issue until she could sift through - and tear apart - the various arguments in search of the truth. Preston Manning had spoken first, and she had found she could follow his lecture with relative ease. But the second speaker had been the chair of something-or-other at some Prestigious University, and she had wished she had brought her pocket dictionary. Now, half-way through the first day, she was seriously considering skipping the rest of the sessions and heading out to explore Montreal. But … her employer was expecting a report on the conference and, given that this was his area of expertise, it was hardly the kind of thing she could make up.
Then, just as she was starting this think this weekend had been a mistake, things started to look up. Walking up the aisle toward her was one of the only other conference attendees under the age of 40 - and he was hot. Sandy blonde hair, olive skin, an expression of deep concentration on his face. She blinked, and shook her head. Snap out of it, she told herself. You are not picking up on this excursion.
But that didn’t stop her from following the blonde’s progress as he walked past her and stopped a few feet away to chat with a colleague. He spoke animatedly, and she liked how he leaned forward and gestured with his hands. His colleague must have said something amusing, because the blonde threw back his head and laughed, and that made her smile because his laugh seemed to take over his whole body. It was a very freeing sound.
Hm, she thought, surprised at herself. Blondes aren’t usually my type. Then she checked herself - no type! no type! The last thing you need right now is a weekend fling!
She got up and moved out of the auditorium into the street and walked briskly around the block, continuing her positive self-talk the whole way. She had just come off a string of unhealthy relationships, if you could even call them that, and was only a few months past the heartbreaking end of an unplanned pregnancy. The last thing she needed in her life right now was another man. Just stay away, and you’ll stay safe.
The rest of the day she made a conscious effort to avoid looking for him, occupying herself instead by striking up a conversation with Preston Manning and his wife and ending up invited to lunch with them. She sat with Mrs. Manning during the afternoon session, pleased that she had been befriended by one of the “first ladies” of Canadian politics.
Finally, it was the last lecture of the day, and she sat near the door so she would be able to make a quick escape if it was too mind-numbing to endure. And then the blonde man she had noticed earlier sat in front of her. He had a friend with him, a tall man whose head of dark hair blocked her view of the speaker. She concentrated on every word the lecturer spoke, trying to keep up. When it was over, she quickly gathered her things and prepared to head to the relative safety of her friend’s apartment where she was staying.
“Hi, I’m Mark.”
The blonde had turned around and was holding out his hand to her. Startled, she shook it. “Sara,” she said simply. He grinned at her as if she had just said something charming. “So, what did you think?”
Her brain froze. “Uh …” she stuttered. “About the … uh, the lecture?” He nodded, still grinning. “Oh … well, I thought it was … interesting,” she finished lamely. “How about you?”
“Yeah, I thought it was pretty good,” he answered, shrugging. “Although I disagree with his interpretation of Rawls’ political liberalism as played out in nonburdened societies, especially when you take into consideration the criterion of reciprocity.”
He looked at her, patiently waiting for her response. I have no idea what you just said, she thought as she hastily rearranged her features to resemble comprehension and nodded sagely. I didn’t know they came in both ‘cute’ and ‘smart’.
He continued, “I mean, anyone who had read Rousseau knows that realistic utopia isn’t the issue here.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, nodding again. “For sure. So, what brings you to this conference, Mark?” Stop talking to him. Just say goodbye and go away.
“Work,” he replied. “I’m with Focus on the Family, public policy. How about you?”
“Well, it’s kind of work, kind of personal interest,” she answered. “I’m the Director of Communications at Tyndale University College in Toronto. So it really has nothing to do with my job, but I managed to convince my boss otherwise so that I could come.”
He grinned at this and nodded approvingly. “Nice. So, are you here alone?”
Uh-oh. Make something up.
“Um … yeah.” Brilliant.
“And do you have dinner plans?”
“Uh … not really.” Is this going where I think it’s going?
“So, would you like to have dinner with me?”
No, I would not like to have dinner with you because I’m finding you very attractive right now and I’m trying to cut down on the complications in my life.
“Sure, that would be nice. Thank you.”
Damn it.
They left the university and found a small and mostly empty restaurant nearby. Small talk came easy to them - he told her about his sister living in Australia and she talked about her work at Tyndale. He was engaging and attentive, and they found that they had much in common - similar backgrounds, a love for books, and their great anticipation of the second Lord of the Rings movie.
Slowly, Sara felt herself begin to relax, but as soon as she recognized it she reprimanded herself sharply.
Sure, she thought. He seems like a nice guy now, but that’s how they all seem at first. Give him half a chance and he’ll be trying to get into your pants.
“I have a son,” she said out loud, and the bluntness of her statement startled her.
“Oh,” was all he said, looking unfazed.
“I just like to bring it up near the beginning of … you know, meeting new people. Just so they … know. I placed him for adoption. His name’s Samuel.”
Actually, she didn’t like bringing it up at all, but the more she talked to Mark the more he seemed like a really good guy, and it seemed fairest to let him in on the truth sooner than later - the truth being that she was probably not the kind of girl he was looking for.
He asked a couple of questions about her son and was polite and sympathetic.
This is the part where you’re supposed to make an excuse, get up and walk away, she told him in her head. But instead he turned the conversation to politics and she found herself telling him about the summer she worked for the Premier and how she had almost broken up the country via a poorly-worded letter she had written and sent out under the Premier’s signature. As they laughed and continued swapping stories, she started to rack her brain for something else she could tell him that would raise the self-preservation red flag in his mind.
“I drink a lot,” she blurted out. “I mean, I used to, before Samuel, and then I didn’t while I was pregnant … but … well, anyway, it’s … kind of a problem.”
He looked at her across the table with a bemused expression on his face, then put some money in the folder on the table and stood up.
Okay, that did the trick, she thought.
“We’d better get back or we’ll miss the next session,” he said, holding out her coat. She stood and accepted it from him wordlessly, not meeting his eyes. “Afterward some colleagues of mine are going out - would you care to join us?” he continued.
“Um,” was all she said.
“It’ll be fun,” he promised. “And I know they won’t mind.”
“Um,” she said again.
“C’mon,” he said, smiling. “It’s Focus on the Family - how scary can we be?”
At this she smiled back. “Sure,” she agreed, and something twitched in the pit of her stomach that she was quite sure had nothing to do with the meal she had just eaten.
Hours later, she lay on the sofa in her girlfriend’s apartment and reflected on the day. She had met and had lunch with a national political leader and his wife, had met an attractive, intelligent and seemingly nice man, and had then dined again with said man and a group of people more wealthy and influential than anyone in her circle of acquaintances. She had been more reserved than normal throughout the evening, feeling somewhat out of place amidst all these people who knew and worked with each other. But, given that most at the table were of the male gender and given her natural disposition to please and attract, she had handled herself quite well. In fact, she was rather impressed with herself for reining in the shameless flirt that had landed her in so many regrettable situations in times past.
This is me, she thought. The New Sara - able to sit at a table of men and make normal, polite conversation and then go home alone. She allowed herself to dream a little. Maybe someday … maybe someday I’ll be capable of a normal, healthy relationship where things develop slowly and naturally, as they should. Maybe someday I’ll meet someone like Mark in Toronto and things will actually work out …
And dwelling on that happy thought, she drifted off to sleep.
“No, no, I’m good, really,” she said, slurring her words slightly as she half-heartedly tried to wave off the rich lawyer who was re-filling her wine glass for the fourth - or was that fifth? - time. He laughed and put his arm around her as he filled her glass to the brim.
It was the following evening, and she had spent most of the day with Mark, still trying to bluff her way through the illusion of understanding regarding the conference. Mark seemed to find the lectures somewhat interesting but mostly simplistic, while she was no longer even trying to keep up. And so they had sat at the back of the lecture hall, both bored but for very different reasons, entertaining themselves by writing notes to each other on their pads of paper as if they were in junior high.
After the day’s sessions, he had invited her once again to dinner with some of his colleagues, a different group this time. Sitting around the table were a mix of lawyers, policy wonks, journalists and generally wealthy and interesting people, including a televangelist from Texas. She was sitting between Mark and a tall blonde lawyer named David who was picking up the drinks tab and seemed to have made it his personal mission to get her completely pissed. Saying no had never been a specialty of Sara’s, and she had rarely passed up an opportunity to get drunk on a handsome man’s dime. The conversation was lively and she seemed to be garnering her fair share of attention from the men at her end of the table. Mark, who was engrossed in conversation with the beautiful red-haired lawyer sitting across from him, had stopped after two glasses of wine and was now drinking water.
Hm, she thought. That’s odd. I wonder why he stopped drinking? And why is he talking to that redhead?
She reached for her purse under her chair as a pretense for slipping out from under the drunk lawyer’s arm. Without knowing why she was doing it, she slipped a hand under the tablecloth and rested it just above Mark’s knee. She could hear him stutter momentarily in his conversation, and she smiled benignly at the redhead, thinking in her head, Hands off, bitch.
Mark turned to her and smiled, and she removed her hand from his leg and wrapped it instead around her wine glass. He eyed her glass and leaned close to whisper, “How much have you had?”
“More than you,” she murmured. “David’s the one who keeps pouring - I’ve lost track. I told you I like to drink,” she added defiantly.
“So I see,” he answered, sliding his chair back and standing up. “Let me call you a cab. It’s getting late.”
He walked towards the restaurant lobby in search of a phone, and she felt her lower lip swelling in a pout. She was having fun, why did she have to leave?
At that moment David turned to her and said, “Some of us are going dancing, aren’t you going to come?”
She smiled at him brilliantly and patted his arm. “Of course I am - as long as you promise to dance with me.”
They were just getting their coats on when Mark returned from the phone. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“We’re going dancing! Come on!” she effused, then promptly walked into the banister at the bottom of the staircase. “Ooops!” she said with a giggle.
Mark sighed and took her arm, steering her towards the door. “Yes, I think I had better come with you,” he said as they piled into the waiting taxi.
The club was almost empty and they had the floor to themselves. She loved dancing, drunk or sober, and danced with enthusiasm and abandon. The band didn’t seem able to keep up, and Mark spent most of the time watching her from the side of the dance floor, a look between amusement and concern on his face. Occasionally he would join her, rescuing her from David’s octopus arms. At last the others deemed it time to go, and she reluctantly followed them out of the club. David and the redhead took a cab back to the hotel, and Mark hailed another one for her. She was surprised when he followed her into the back seat.
Aha, she thought. Now we come to it.
She tried to give the taxi driver directions to her friend’s apartment in French, but wasn’t quite sure she was speaking the right language. Then it occurred to her - perhaps her friend’s apartment wasn’t the best place to bring home a man for a night of drunken debauchery. She turned to Mark, putting her hand on his thigh again and trying to hold her gaze steady as the world spinned around her.
“So,” she purred, “Your place or mine?”
He looked down at her and smiled, but it wasn’t the lecherous smile of collusion she had been expecting. It was kind, and it clearly said she was knocking at a closed door. “Not tonight, I’m afraid,” he said simply.
She stared at him in disbelief. Had she done something wrong? There was a sharp prick in the foggy recesses of her mind, something that felt vaguely like triumph, but was quickly followed up with rejection. She swallowed it down and forced a smile onto her face. “Another time, then,” she said, and started looking in her purse for money to pay the cab driver. She felt his hand on her arm as they pulled up in front of her building. “Allow me,” he said, handing his credit card to the driver. He helped her out of the cab and walked her to the door. She hesitated before placing her hand on the knob. “Thanks for bringing me home,” she said.
“It was my pleasure,” he answered. “Have a good sleep.”
BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP!
“You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered into her pillow, groping around for the alarm clock that was drilling a hole the size of an Olympic swimming pool into her head. Her hands came up empty and she remembered that she had put the alarm clock on the other side of the room so that she would be forced to get up to turn it off. She buried her head under the pillow and pressed it over her ears, but she could still hear the shrill and highly annoying blare. Taking a few more moments to swear profusely into her pillow, she sat up, immediately regretting the action. The alarm clock was still going, so she grit her teeth, stood up, and crossed the room, slamming the off button harder than was necessary.
She stood for a moment in the centre of her room, staring at the clock and trying to remember where exactly she was and what it was she was supposed to be doing now that the infernal noise had ceased. Then the events of the previous evening started to come back to her, trickling in through the fog in her brain and causing the blood to rise in her cheeks. She closed her eyes and gingerly shook her head.
So much for the new Sara, she thought. That didn’t last long.
She sat down on the sofa again, massaging her temples and trying to remember exactly what had happened. They had gone out for dinner, and there had been drinks … lots of drinks … and then somehow they had been dancing, and then there was a taxi, and … and …”
Holy crap! Her eyes flew open and her head shot up, and despite the resulting stab of pain she leapt to her feet and grabbed the phone off the hook.
“Hello?” Her best friend’s voice, back home in Toronto, was muffled with sleep, but this was too important of a discovery to worry about phone call etiquette.
“Kathy! You will never guess what happened,” Sara said dramatically.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“So I met this guy,” Sara started.
“Um … I could have guessed that,” Kathy interrupted dryly.
“No, listen, this is different.”
“Uh-huh,” was the only reply.
Sara quickly filled Kathy in on how she and Mark had met and a few basic details about him. Then she got to the important part.
“So we went out again last night with some of his colleagues, and this one guy was buying all the drinks, and, well, I got a little drunk. Okay, I got really drunk.”
“Oh, Sara,” Kathy said, sighing. “What happened?”
“Nothing! That’s the point!” Sara answered, as if she had just proved a difficult argument. “Mark took me back to the apartment in a taxi, and I put the moves on him and was like ‘Your place or mine?’ I know this sounds presumptuous, but get this - he didn’t want to sleep with me.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone. Finally Kathy spoke. “You were drunk, and you came on to him, and he didn’t want to sleep with you?”
“Exactly!” Sara said jubilantly. “Isn’t that great?”
Kathy laughed. “But everyone wants to sleep with you!”
“I know!” Sara was laughing now too. “That’s why this is so awesome! I mean, think about it - this guy is solid. He’s handsome, smart, we have tons in common, and he doesn’t want to sleep with me! I think this is it!”
“Whoa, hold on - what do you mean you think this is it?” Kathy said.
“I’m not saying I’ve found the man I’m going to marry or anything,” Sara said. “I’m just saying that he’s someone I could marry.”
“Wow,” said Kathy. “This is big.”
“I know,” said Sara, nodding soberly. Then she frowned. “I mean, there is the very likely possibility that he won’t want to talk to me after last night and thinks I’m a total tart, but still - this proves that there are decent men out there,” she said.
“Who don’t want to sleep with you,” added Kathy.
“Who don’t want to sleep with me,” said Sara. “Who would have thought that would be part of my criteria for what I’m looking for in a potential husband?”
“Indeed,” mused Kathy. “So are you going to see him today?”
Sara paused. “I hope so.”
When Sara arrived at the university he was standing outside the front doors, waiting for her. He smiled as he took in her slightly disheveled appearance and said simply, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she said, ducking her head. “Look, about last night … I’m sorry. I’m not usually like that. Well, actually, I am usually like that, but I’m trying not to be, if that makes any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” he said, lifting up her chin to look into her eyes. His touch sent a shiver through her body. “No harm done,” he said softly. “Shall we?” he said, gesturing towards the door.
There was only one session left to endure, and once it was finished they wandered aimlessly outside together. After grabbing lunch at Chez Cora’s, they contented themselves by sitting outside on a bench and counting the number of Jettas that drove past.
“I love Jettas,” Sara told him. “They have a such a friendly shape - almost sensual.” She could feel, rather than see, his raised eyebrows, but felt that after last night she hardly needed to hide any of her quirks. He knew it all now, had seen it first hand, and somehow was still here, sitting behind her with his arm around her shoulders. She could rarely recall feeling more content. She knew that they only had minutes left together, maybe an hour at most before she had to leave to catch her plane. She also knew that it was very likely they would never see each other again after this weekend. But she felt so glad to have met him, to know that he existed in the world - and because of that the world was a more noble, hopeful place in which she could exist as well.
The end.
The bus pulled out of the depot in downtown Toronto, crushing the fall leaves under its wheels as it headed for the airport on the edge of the city. In the far back sat a young woman, quivering with excitement. She leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the window and closed her eyes, savouring the moment.
Finally, she thought. On the road again …
It had been two years since she had moved to Toronto, two years since she had felt the thrill of discovering a new place, and although this trip was only for a long weekend, just the anticipation of it energized her like a month-long vacation. She grinned to herself, remembering the ad for this weekend’s conference - “Religion, Ethics and the Public Square” - that had somehow ended up in her mailbox at work. She remembered looking at it and thinking, I’ve never been to Montreal - why not? And so she had smiled and spun, earnestly pleading her case to her boss, and had somehow managed the time off and all the conference fees paid by her employer, even though the conference had little relevance to her job.
Freedom.
In truth, the conference did interest her. Her summer job in the Premier’s Office during university had sparked a keen interest in politics, and her upbringing as a Christian had made her wonder about the relationship between politics and religion. But for the most part she just craved new experiences - and attending an academic conference in a world-class city seemed to fit the bill.
I … am … so … bored ….
She sat near the back, doodling on the new McGill writing pad she had purchased in the campus bookshop, along with a brown leather bag to match the brown suit she was wearing. Really, she had thought, I can’t possibly tote around my black briefcase while wearing a brown suit. These things needed to be considered when trying to blend in amongst the intelligentsia.
But she didn’t feel like a member of the intelligentsia now. The first couple of sessions had been interesting, even captivating. She had always loved learning; always loved to wrap her mind around a complex issue until she could sift through - and tear apart - the various arguments in search of the truth. Preston Manning had spoken first, and she had found she could follow his lecture with relative ease. But the second speaker had been the chair of something-or-other at some Prestigious University, and she had wished she had brought her pocket dictionary. Now, half-way through the first day, she was seriously considering skipping the rest of the sessions and heading out to explore Montreal. But … her employer was expecting a report on the conference and, given that this was his area of expertise, it was hardly the kind of thing she could make up.
Then, just as she was starting this think this weekend had been a mistake, things started to look up. Walking up the aisle toward her was one of the only other conference attendees under the age of 40 - and he was hot. Sandy blonde hair, olive skin, an expression of deep concentration on his face. She blinked, and shook her head. Snap out of it, she told herself. You are not picking up on this excursion.
But that didn’t stop her from following the blonde’s progress as he walked past her and stopped a few feet away to chat with a colleague. He spoke animatedly, and she liked how he leaned forward and gestured with his hands. His colleague must have said something amusing, because the blonde threw back his head and laughed, and that made her smile because his laugh seemed to take over his whole body. It was a very freeing sound.
Hm, she thought, surprised at herself. Blondes aren’t usually my type. Then she checked herself - no type! no type! The last thing you need right now is a weekend fling!
She got up and moved out of the auditorium into the street and walked briskly around the block, continuing her positive self-talk the whole way. She had just come off a string of unhealthy relationships, if you could even call them that, and was only a few months past the heartbreaking end of an unplanned pregnancy. The last thing she needed in her life right now was another man. Just stay away, and you’ll stay safe.
The rest of the day she made a conscious effort to avoid looking for him, occupying herself instead by striking up a conversation with Preston Manning and his wife and ending up invited to lunch with them. She sat with Mrs. Manning during the afternoon session, pleased that she had been befriended by one of the “first ladies” of Canadian politics.
Finally, it was the last lecture of the day, and she sat near the door so she would be able to make a quick escape if it was too mind-numbing to endure. And then the blonde man she had noticed earlier sat in front of her. He had a friend with him, a tall man whose head of dark hair blocked her view of the speaker. She concentrated on every word the lecturer spoke, trying to keep up. When it was over, she quickly gathered her things and prepared to head to the relative safety of her friend’s apartment where she was staying.
“Hi, I’m Mark.”
The blonde had turned around and was holding out his hand to her. Startled, she shook it. “Sara,” she said simply. He grinned at her as if she had just said something charming. “So, what did you think?”
Her brain froze. “Uh …” she stuttered. “About the … uh, the lecture?” He nodded, still grinning. “Oh … well, I thought it was … interesting,” she finished lamely. “How about you?”
“Yeah, I thought it was pretty good,” he answered, shrugging. “Although I disagree with his interpretation of Rawls’ political liberalism as played out in nonburdened societies, especially when you take into consideration the criterion of reciprocity.”
He looked at her, patiently waiting for her response. I have no idea what you just said, she thought as she hastily rearranged her features to resemble comprehension and nodded sagely. I didn’t know they came in both ‘cute’ and ‘smart’.
He continued, “I mean, anyone who had read Rousseau knows that realistic utopia isn’t the issue here.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, nodding again. “For sure. So, what brings you to this conference, Mark?” Stop talking to him. Just say goodbye and go away.
“Work,” he replied. “I’m with Focus on the Family, public policy. How about you?”
“Well, it’s kind of work, kind of personal interest,” she answered. “I’m the Director of Communications at Tyndale University College in Toronto. So it really has nothing to do with my job, but I managed to convince my boss otherwise so that I could come.”
He grinned at this and nodded approvingly. “Nice. So, are you here alone?”
Uh-oh. Make something up.
“Um … yeah.” Brilliant.
“And do you have dinner plans?”
“Uh … not really.” Is this going where I think it’s going?
“So, would you like to have dinner with me?”
No, I would not like to have dinner with you because I’m finding you very attractive right now and I’m trying to cut down on the complications in my life.
“Sure, that would be nice. Thank you.”
Damn it.
They left the university and found a small and mostly empty restaurant nearby. Small talk came easy to them - he told her about his sister living in Australia and she talked about her work at Tyndale. He was engaging and attentive, and they found that they had much in common - similar backgrounds, a love for books, and their great anticipation of the second Lord of the Rings movie.
Slowly, Sara felt herself begin to relax, but as soon as she recognized it she reprimanded herself sharply.
Sure, she thought. He seems like a nice guy now, but that’s how they all seem at first. Give him half a chance and he’ll be trying to get into your pants.
“I have a son,” she said out loud, and the bluntness of her statement startled her.
“Oh,” was all he said, looking unfazed.
“I just like to bring it up near the beginning of … you know, meeting new people. Just so they … know. I placed him for adoption. His name’s Samuel.”
Actually, she didn’t like bringing it up at all, but the more she talked to Mark the more he seemed like a really good guy, and it seemed fairest to let him in on the truth sooner than later - the truth being that she was probably not the kind of girl he was looking for.
He asked a couple of questions about her son and was polite and sympathetic.
This is the part where you’re supposed to make an excuse, get up and walk away, she told him in her head. But instead he turned the conversation to politics and she found herself telling him about the summer she worked for the Premier and how she had almost broken up the country via a poorly-worded letter she had written and sent out under the Premier’s signature. As they laughed and continued swapping stories, she started to rack her brain for something else she could tell him that would raise the self-preservation red flag in his mind.
“I drink a lot,” she blurted out. “I mean, I used to, before Samuel, and then I didn’t while I was pregnant … but … well, anyway, it’s … kind of a problem.”
He looked at her across the table with a bemused expression on his face, then put some money in the folder on the table and stood up.
Okay, that did the trick, she thought.
“We’d better get back or we’ll miss the next session,” he said, holding out her coat. She stood and accepted it from him wordlessly, not meeting his eyes. “Afterward some colleagues of mine are going out - would you care to join us?” he continued.
“Um,” was all she said.
“It’ll be fun,” he promised. “And I know they won’t mind.”
“Um,” she said again.
“C’mon,” he said, smiling. “It’s Focus on the Family - how scary can we be?”
At this she smiled back. “Sure,” she agreed, and something twitched in the pit of her stomach that she was quite sure had nothing to do with the meal she had just eaten.
Hours later, she lay on the sofa in her girlfriend’s apartment and reflected on the day. She had met and had lunch with a national political leader and his wife, had met an attractive, intelligent and seemingly nice man, and had then dined again with said man and a group of people more wealthy and influential than anyone in her circle of acquaintances. She had been more reserved than normal throughout the evening, feeling somewhat out of place amidst all these people who knew and worked with each other. But, given that most at the table were of the male gender and given her natural disposition to please and attract, she had handled herself quite well. In fact, she was rather impressed with herself for reining in the shameless flirt that had landed her in so many regrettable situations in times past.
This is me, she thought. The New Sara - able to sit at a table of men and make normal, polite conversation and then go home alone. She allowed herself to dream a little. Maybe someday … maybe someday I’ll be capable of a normal, healthy relationship where things develop slowly and naturally, as they should. Maybe someday I’ll meet someone like Mark in Toronto and things will actually work out …
And dwelling on that happy thought, she drifted off to sleep.
“No, no, I’m good, really,” she said, slurring her words slightly as she half-heartedly tried to wave off the rich lawyer who was re-filling her wine glass for the fourth - or was that fifth? - time. He laughed and put his arm around her as he filled her glass to the brim.
It was the following evening, and she had spent most of the day with Mark, still trying to bluff her way through the illusion of understanding regarding the conference. Mark seemed to find the lectures somewhat interesting but mostly simplistic, while she was no longer even trying to keep up. And so they had sat at the back of the lecture hall, both bored but for very different reasons, entertaining themselves by writing notes to each other on their pads of paper as if they were in junior high.
After the day’s sessions, he had invited her once again to dinner with some of his colleagues, a different group this time. Sitting around the table were a mix of lawyers, policy wonks, journalists and generally wealthy and interesting people, including a televangelist from Texas. She was sitting between Mark and a tall blonde lawyer named David who was picking up the drinks tab and seemed to have made it his personal mission to get her completely pissed. Saying no had never been a specialty of Sara’s, and she had rarely passed up an opportunity to get drunk on a handsome man’s dime. The conversation was lively and she seemed to be garnering her fair share of attention from the men at her end of the table. Mark, who was engrossed in conversation with the beautiful red-haired lawyer sitting across from him, had stopped after two glasses of wine and was now drinking water.
Hm, she thought. That’s odd. I wonder why he stopped drinking? And why is he talking to that redhead?
She reached for her purse under her chair as a pretense for slipping out from under the drunk lawyer’s arm. Without knowing why she was doing it, she slipped a hand under the tablecloth and rested it just above Mark’s knee. She could hear him stutter momentarily in his conversation, and she smiled benignly at the redhead, thinking in her head, Hands off, bitch.
Mark turned to her and smiled, and she removed her hand from his leg and wrapped it instead around her wine glass. He eyed her glass and leaned close to whisper, “How much have you had?”
“More than you,” she murmured. “David’s the one who keeps pouring - I’ve lost track. I told you I like to drink,” she added defiantly.
“So I see,” he answered, sliding his chair back and standing up. “Let me call you a cab. It’s getting late.”
He walked towards the restaurant lobby in search of a phone, and she felt her lower lip swelling in a pout. She was having fun, why did she have to leave?
At that moment David turned to her and said, “Some of us are going dancing, aren’t you going to come?”
She smiled at him brilliantly and patted his arm. “Of course I am - as long as you promise to dance with me.”
They were just getting their coats on when Mark returned from the phone. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“We’re going dancing! Come on!” she effused, then promptly walked into the banister at the bottom of the staircase. “Ooops!” she said with a giggle.
Mark sighed and took her arm, steering her towards the door. “Yes, I think I had better come with you,” he said as they piled into the waiting taxi.
The club was almost empty and they had the floor to themselves. She loved dancing, drunk or sober, and danced with enthusiasm and abandon. The band didn’t seem able to keep up, and Mark spent most of the time watching her from the side of the dance floor, a look between amusement and concern on his face. Occasionally he would join her, rescuing her from David’s octopus arms. At last the others deemed it time to go, and she reluctantly followed them out of the club. David and the redhead took a cab back to the hotel, and Mark hailed another one for her. She was surprised when he followed her into the back seat.
Aha, she thought. Now we come to it.
She tried to give the taxi driver directions to her friend’s apartment in French, but wasn’t quite sure she was speaking the right language. Then it occurred to her - perhaps her friend’s apartment wasn’t the best place to bring home a man for a night of drunken debauchery. She turned to Mark, putting her hand on his thigh again and trying to hold her gaze steady as the world spinned around her.
“So,” she purred, “Your place or mine?”
He looked down at her and smiled, but it wasn’t the lecherous smile of collusion she had been expecting. It was kind, and it clearly said she was knocking at a closed door. “Not tonight, I’m afraid,” he said simply.
She stared at him in disbelief. Had she done something wrong? There was a sharp prick in the foggy recesses of her mind, something that felt vaguely like triumph, but was quickly followed up with rejection. She swallowed it down and forced a smile onto her face. “Another time, then,” she said, and started looking in her purse for money to pay the cab driver. She felt his hand on her arm as they pulled up in front of her building. “Allow me,” he said, handing his credit card to the driver. He helped her out of the cab and walked her to the door. She hesitated before placing her hand on the knob. “Thanks for bringing me home,” she said.
“It was my pleasure,” he answered. “Have a good sleep.”
BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP!
“You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered into her pillow, groping around for the alarm clock that was drilling a hole the size of an Olympic swimming pool into her head. Her hands came up empty and she remembered that she had put the alarm clock on the other side of the room so that she would be forced to get up to turn it off. She buried her head under the pillow and pressed it over her ears, but she could still hear the shrill and highly annoying blare. Taking a few more moments to swear profusely into her pillow, she sat up, immediately regretting the action. The alarm clock was still going, so she grit her teeth, stood up, and crossed the room, slamming the off button harder than was necessary.
She stood for a moment in the centre of her room, staring at the clock and trying to remember where exactly she was and what it was she was supposed to be doing now that the infernal noise had ceased. Then the events of the previous evening started to come back to her, trickling in through the fog in her brain and causing the blood to rise in her cheeks. She closed her eyes and gingerly shook her head.
So much for the new Sara, she thought. That didn’t last long.
She sat down on the sofa again, massaging her temples and trying to remember exactly what had happened. They had gone out for dinner, and there had been drinks … lots of drinks … and then somehow they had been dancing, and then there was a taxi, and … and …”
Holy crap! Her eyes flew open and her head shot up, and despite the resulting stab of pain she leapt to her feet and grabbed the phone off the hook.
“Hello?” Her best friend’s voice, back home in Toronto, was muffled with sleep, but this was too important of a discovery to worry about phone call etiquette.
“Kathy! You will never guess what happened,” Sara said dramatically.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“So I met this guy,” Sara started.
“Um … I could have guessed that,” Kathy interrupted dryly.
“No, listen, this is different.”
“Uh-huh,” was the only reply.
Sara quickly filled Kathy in on how she and Mark had met and a few basic details about him. Then she got to the important part.
“So we went out again last night with some of his colleagues, and this one guy was buying all the drinks, and, well, I got a little drunk. Okay, I got really drunk.”
“Oh, Sara,” Kathy said, sighing. “What happened?”
“Nothing! That’s the point!” Sara answered, as if she had just proved a difficult argument. “Mark took me back to the apartment in a taxi, and I put the moves on him and was like ‘Your place or mine?’ I know this sounds presumptuous, but get this - he didn’t want to sleep with me.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone. Finally Kathy spoke. “You were drunk, and you came on to him, and he didn’t want to sleep with you?”
“Exactly!” Sara said jubilantly. “Isn’t that great?”
Kathy laughed. “But everyone wants to sleep with you!”
“I know!” Sara was laughing now too. “That’s why this is so awesome! I mean, think about it - this guy is solid. He’s handsome, smart, we have tons in common, and he doesn’t want to sleep with me! I think this is it!”
“Whoa, hold on - what do you mean you think this is it?” Kathy said.
“I’m not saying I’ve found the man I’m going to marry or anything,” Sara said. “I’m just saying that he’s someone I could marry.”
“Wow,” said Kathy. “This is big.”
“I know,” said Sara, nodding soberly. Then she frowned. “I mean, there is the very likely possibility that he won’t want to talk to me after last night and thinks I’m a total tart, but still - this proves that there are decent men out there,” she said.
“Who don’t want to sleep with you,” added Kathy.
“Who don’t want to sleep with me,” said Sara. “Who would have thought that would be part of my criteria for what I’m looking for in a potential husband?”
“Indeed,” mused Kathy. “So are you going to see him today?”
Sara paused. “I hope so.”
When Sara arrived at the university he was standing outside the front doors, waiting for her. He smiled as he took in her slightly disheveled appearance and said simply, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she said, ducking her head. “Look, about last night … I’m sorry. I’m not usually like that. Well, actually, I am usually like that, but I’m trying not to be, if that makes any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” he said, lifting up her chin to look into her eyes. His touch sent a shiver through her body. “No harm done,” he said softly. “Shall we?” he said, gesturing towards the door.
There was only one session left to endure, and once it was finished they wandered aimlessly outside together. After grabbing lunch at Chez Cora’s, they contented themselves by sitting outside on a bench and counting the number of Jettas that drove past.
“I love Jettas,” Sara told him. “They have a such a friendly shape - almost sensual.” She could feel, rather than see, his raised eyebrows, but felt that after last night she hardly needed to hide any of her quirks. He knew it all now, had seen it first hand, and somehow was still here, sitting behind her with his arm around her shoulders. She could rarely recall feeling more content. She knew that they only had minutes left together, maybe an hour at most before she had to leave to catch her plane. She also knew that it was very likely they would never see each other again after this weekend. But she felt so glad to have met him, to know that he existed in the world - and because of that the world was a more noble, hopeful place in which she could exist as well.
The end.