The diner was long and narrow, with a maze of interior walls breaking up the dining room, retaining the outline of the domestic space that had once occupied the first floor of the old Glebe mansion. Diners sat in small groups around tables, some of the chairs turned to face the jazz band that formed a tight clutch beside the old upright piano, which wasn’t really tuned as well as it should. The fretless bass and trombone could flatten out their notes in a pinch, and the worst of the sharps were avoided, requiring creative key signatures. It was still late afternoon, but not much outside light made its way into the dining room, so the tiffany lampshades and wood panelling gave the room a cozy, by-gone era warmth. Patrick and Andrei stood perched beside the bar, leaning casually on their elbows, glasses of draft beside their elbows. “This is a very different kind of jazz from what Alison had me listening to the other night. The tunes are much more recognizable.”
“Dixieland is not really in my taste,” Andrei added, although he recognized many of the standards his mother would play during church hall recitals. Her popular repertoire had come from a small clutch of nineteenth-century Tin Pan Alley sheet music.
They looked at the two figures dancing not far from them. There was something sublime about watching two women dance together. Alison, the taller, led with a confident sense of the rhythm. Tracy followed dutifully with under-arm twirls, her skirt flaring with as much flourish as the tight space would allow. The last song of the set came to an end and the band made its temporary exit, leaving the patrons free to talk without having to compete with five instruments in an enclosed space. Alison and Tracy came back to their seats beside their two escorts, as the sign over the entrance had called them.
“There, now you’ll have to dance with us the next set,” Alison said, sipping at the last of her tall Manhattan with the last of its ice cubes. “Otherwise, the men in the bar will start coming around like ants to a picnic.” She nodded in the direction of a few other patrons sitting obliquely at bar stools. Sure enough, they had a hypnotized look in their eyes, as if deep in thought as to how to get them away from their escorts. Alison and Andrei resumed a previous conversation, while they motioned for fresh drinks, leaving Patrick and Tracy to be company for each other.
Tracy picked up her purse, ready to make her excuse to check her makeup in the powder room, but changed her mind. She had followed Alison’s suggestion of wearing much less makeup than usual and was feeling conspicuous in the public setting. Sensing an air of shyness come over Patrick, she started off the conversational thread. “This is peachy. We don’t have much of a chance to talk, just the two of us.” She couldn’t take her hands from the top of her purse, or shake the need to touch up her lipstick. “I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable with the French postcard. We were probably more tipsy that night than I realized.”
Patrick tried to look dismissive. “Not really. Surprised, but not too shocked. ‘Tis only that there’s been so much hysteria about security issues, I was in a panic about what papers you might get hold of.”
“I know about shy guys like you. You have a way of putting women on a pedestal. It’s not your fault. I remember the way the school teachers and church ministers used to drill us with their moralities. But we don’t really deserve it. Not many of us, at least. None that I know.” She let the thought settle into Patrick’s brain, unclutched her hands from her purse, put it aside, and shifted closer to Patrick in her chair, so they could talk in a more relaxed tone. “I realize we’re not romantically linked. And I like the way we’re cool as friends. I just don’t want you to have certain false notions about me.”
“Is there a boyfriend in the wings somewhere I should know about?”
Tracy thought for a moment of the undergrad boys she knew were still looking at her and Alison from across the bar. She remembered that hungry look from her university days. “Not really. There was someone I used to date during my undergrad days in Kingston. I joined the sorority; the pledges had to draw the names of boys from a hat. Mostly from the Engineering Frat house. Young, mostly handsome, completely self-absorbed. We had to contact them and bring them to parties at our sorority house. Or go on a date to a downtown bistro. Of course, they were completely vain and pompous. They usually talked about themselves all night long, as if nothing else mattered besides their whims and pleasures.”
The band had taken its place around the piano again and set back into a steady stream of danceable music. Patrick felt Alison tap his shoulder, motioning to follow her and Andrei to the floor. The undergrads looked expectantly, as if they were ready to pounce the minute either of the men abandoned the floor.
Later, the four walked north along Bank Street, now in separate pairs. Alison and Andrei walked ahead hand-in-hand (or mitten-in-glove).
“What happened to the boy from Engineering you were telling me about?”
Tracy looked at him, wondering if she awoke a twinge of jealousy. “Nick? We went on a few dates. For a while, he followed me around campus like a puppy dog. He knew my schedule and had a way of popping up unannounced. He was older and graduated before me. He still shows up every now and then – his work brings him to Ottawa occasionally. It’s usually late in the evening and he’s already tipsy. Say, after he’s had a falling out with his fiancée and is feeling sorry for himself. He still talks about nothing but himself, and thinks nothing else matters besides his whims and pleasures.” They were now alone at the entranceway to Andrei’s walk-up. He and Alison had been considerably ahead and had gone up. In the secluded foyer, Tracy turned back to Patrick’s, blocking his way through the door. “I’m only telling you this because I don’t want you looking at me and seeing little Anne Shirley from Green Gables. I know everyone does.”
Patrick could tell, there was something more on Tracy’s mind. Something she wanted to tell him, but felt conflicted. “Maybe we should get together and have a better opportunity to talk alone some more.”
“That would be swell. Why don’t you come to my place one evening; I’ll see if I can find something not too challenging to make from my Betty Crocker Cookbook.”
Except for the lack of electronic equipment, there was a marked similarity between Andrei’s bachelor apartment and Patrick’s: the minimum of spartan furnishings, general clutter, coursework and scientific journals filling most empty space. And a pervasive musty odour. There weren’t any more chairs in Andrei’s either, which left two people sitting on the bed. Andrei’s beverage options were tea from a kettle and chilled vodka.
“What’s this?” Alison said, looking at a small table in one corner of the room. Three chess sets were laid out, with what looked like different games in progress. Behind each board were small piles of postcards.
“Correspondence chess. I have games in progress with colleagues I’ve met at conferences. We mail the moves to each other.”
Alison picked up the postcards, which had touristy scenes from the locations they were mailed: Boston, Osaka Japan – she showed Patrick the stamp – and Prague. “Czechoslovakia. That’s quite impressive. Who’s winning?” She looked at the boards, but saw no clear imbalance.
“We’re pretty evenly matched. You get lots of time to think about each move. So there are fewer mistakes than in speed chess.”
“Speed chess?”
“With a clock.” Andrei pointed at a clock with two faces beside a folded-up board and set. “It makes the game less of a drag if each move doesn’t take forever.”
“Is anyone else hungry?” Alison turned back, directing her question at the others. “Didn’t Patrice say something about a boss Chinese take-out in the neighbourhood?”
“Correct, over on Elgin Street,” Andrei said, realizing they would also supply enough plates and cutlery. “I don’t think I kept the menu. That would be helpful.”
“Let’s all go and see what they have,” Tracy volunteered. “There’s usually something like Dinner for four. Or we could each pick individual dishes. Moo Shoo Pork is my favourite.”
“Do you mind if I stay here? I think I’ve loosened a heel and it won’t go much further.” She raised her ankle and wiggled her heel, hoping to make it appear loose. She looked at Andrei, “If that’s okay? Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something in your record collection to listen to.”
“Not a problem. We’ll only be gone about half an hour. They’re pretty fast.”
“My order can be something like chicken fried rice. That’s pretty much a staple. I love almost anything, as long as it has some vegetables in it. Maybe not bird’s nest soup.”
“I don’t think they have anything exotic at this place. You must be remembering restaurants in Vancouver.”
The three others put their coats back on and headed back out the door, leaving Alison kneeling in front of the record player, pulling albums out one by one to inspect the covers. There wasn’t anything particularly unusual in his collection: popular music from the radio over the past few years. The only thing distinctive in his musical taste was a small collection of Sibelius and Scandinavian orchestral music. She put on one of the Sibelius albums and moved over to his bookshelf. It groaned under the weight of mathematics textbooks. She was intrigued to see a Lewis Carroll, several works from Dostoyevsky and more from Franz Kafka.
The papers scattered on his dresser and desk were mostly notebooks filled with page after page of mathematical notations. Nothing she was going to be able to decipher, or make any sense of. She finally alighted on a file folder of correspondence, which consisted of letters of application for lectureships from other universities. Some rejections, others in progress. The ones in progress were surprisingly, or perhaps not so, from overseas universities – a few in Australia seemed to be interested in his credentials. She placed the folder back carefully, having satisfied herself there was nothing more to be found, short of crawling around looking for hiding places. She returned to her tea and let the music wash over her thoughts for a few minutes. She thought it odd she didn’t find anything like personal letters. But not everyone kept old letters; he probably kept his professional correspondence in his desk at the university. She thought again about the letters of application. At first, she thought it unusual that he was seeking a lectureship elsewhere. But then she considered that she herself always had resumés in active circulation. There was a difference between a contract lectureship and a tenure-track position. Tenure was the holy grail and took a well-planned series of moves to get even close to one. She marvelled at the discord of the room around her. Men were all like that, in one way or other: helpless in the time between being in their mother’s care and having a wife to order their lives for them. The Sibelius swelled to its climax, then fell silent. The arm retracted itself and the turntable switched off with a decisive click. She looked for something different to put on for when the others came back. Frank Sinatra was always cheerful. “Fly me to the moon,” she hummed to herself, replacing Sibelius back in its sleeve and putting the new disk onto the platter. There was an automatic play switch. She clicked that; the arm lifted, moved across and settled in place all on its own. “The marvels of modern gadgetry.”
