exactly
looks
like her. More like she
reminds
me of her. Don’t you think?”
“Don’t see it myself,” I lie.
The truth is, the waitress doesn’t look like Heather Langham all that much, though they share some general characteristics—height, age, style of hair. But the girl in the referee outfit who now comes our way with a tray balanced on the flat of her hand has the same rare brand of charm as Heather had. An aura, I suppose. A goodness that doesn’t disqualify desire, as goodness alone can often do.
She returns with the frosted mugs, pours draft from the pitcher. It’s Randy who chats with her. His goofy, going-nowhere banter that waitresses are happy to play along with. He’s firing off queries regarding what’s good on the menu (“All I can say is the kitchen passed inspection last time around,” she says), what she’s studying (“I took a year off backpacking in Europe lastyear, so now I’m chained to this place to save up for tuition”) and if she grew up in town (“Grimshaw bored and raised!”). Then Randy notices the ring on her finger. A platinum band with an emerald shard embedded in it.
“Now that’s a lovely stone. Matches your eyes,” he says, taking her hand in his to inspect it more closely. “Don’t tell me it’s an engagement ring? You’d
kill
me.”
“I don’t know. Pre-engagement, I guess.”
“No worries, then,” Randy says with a laugh. “
Everything
is pre-engagement when you think about it, darlin’.”
As Randy and she tease, he turns to give me a wink both the waitress and I are meant to see, a shared pleasure in the moment. It’s the first bloom of alcohol, the comfort of being with a friend you know well and who asks nothing of you. As for the waitress, she doesn’t seem in any particular rush to leave our side, though she shows no special interest in us either. She is simply, generously, unselfconsciously making our day and nothing more.
As the afternoon turns to evening, the pitchers come and go in steady succession. The sudden emotion that had gripped us earlier is replaced with easy talk, catching up. He takes me on a comic tour of the low points of his acting career (“I’ve got nothing
but
low points!”), the cattle calls and megalomaniac furniture-commercial directors and gigs as an extra on a handful of Hollywood blockbusters, most notably as “a bartender who slides a Manhattan over to George Clooney … which apparently I was doing wrong somehow, because they cut me out and spliced in somebody else’s hand.” I tell him about my Parkinson’s. How I sold Retox and was doing little but waiting for things to get worse. Somehow, though, I felt I related all this misfortune in the same tone Randy related his: plainly and without self-pity, each of us acknowledging that we had been visited by ourmeasure of failure and regret, as everyone has at our stage of the game.
And through it all, we remember Ben. How his life was wasted on a pointless obsession. And then his death, so preventable and yet unsurprising, even fated. But we quickly shift away from the outcome of Ben McAuliffe’s narrative to a greatest hits of scenes from his youth, his dorky visions, his sleepy goaltending. Soon Randy and I are laughing and coughing and laughing again, which we’re thankful for, seeing as it makes our anguished tears look to the rest of the room like beer-fuelled hilarity.
Some time later I make my way to the men’s room and see how busy the place has gotten. The work crews kicking the mud off their boots, the girls-night-outers squeezed into their finest denim. Even a clutch of suits tossing back a couple of after-work quickies before heading home to the newer streets north of the river.
And then two faces I recognize. Stepping out of the crowd and offering hands to shake. A big fellow in a Canada Post parka first, followed by his stout, patchily bearded friend.
“Trev? Holy shit! I was right. It’s you!” the first one says, and claps me in a
looks
like her. More like she
reminds
me of her. Don’t you think?”
“Don’t see it myself,” I lie.
The truth is, the waitress doesn’t look like Heather Langham all that much, though they share some general characteristics—height, age, style of hair. But the girl in the referee outfit who now comes our way with a tray balanced on the flat of her hand has the same rare brand of charm as Heather had. An aura, I suppose. A goodness that doesn’t disqualify desire, as goodness alone can often do.
She returns with the frosted mugs, pours draft from the pitcher. It’s Randy who chats with her. His goofy, going-nowhere banter that waitresses are happy to play along with. He’s firing off queries regarding what’s good on the menu (“All I can say is the kitchen passed inspection last time around,” she says), what she’s studying (“I took a year off backpacking in Europe lastyear, so now I’m chained to this place to save up for tuition”) and if she grew up in town (“Grimshaw bored and raised!”). Then Randy notices the ring on her finger. A platinum band with an emerald shard embedded in it.
“Now that’s a lovely stone. Matches your eyes,” he says, taking her hand in his to inspect it more closely. “Don’t tell me it’s an engagement ring? You’d
kill
me.”
“I don’t know. Pre-engagement, I guess.”
“No worries, then,” Randy says with a laugh. “
Everything
is pre-engagement when you think about it, darlin’.”
As Randy and she tease, he turns to give me a wink both the waitress and I are meant to see, a shared pleasure in the moment. It’s the first bloom of alcohol, the comfort of being with a friend you know well and who asks nothing of you. As for the waitress, she doesn’t seem in any particular rush to leave our side, though she shows no special interest in us either. She is simply, generously, unselfconsciously making our day and nothing more.
As the afternoon turns to evening, the pitchers come and go in steady succession. The sudden emotion that had gripped us earlier is replaced with easy talk, catching up. He takes me on a comic tour of the low points of his acting career (“I’ve got nothing
but
low points!”), the cattle calls and megalomaniac furniture-commercial directors and gigs as an extra on a handful of Hollywood blockbusters, most notably as “a bartender who slides a Manhattan over to George Clooney … which apparently I was doing wrong somehow, because they cut me out and spliced in somebody else’s hand.” I tell him about my Parkinson’s. How I sold Retox and was doing little but waiting for things to get worse. Somehow, though, I felt I related all this misfortune in the same tone Randy related his: plainly and without self-pity, each of us acknowledging that we had been visited by ourmeasure of failure and regret, as everyone has at our stage of the game.
And through it all, we remember Ben. How his life was wasted on a pointless obsession. And then his death, so preventable and yet unsurprising, even fated. But we quickly shift away from the outcome of Ben McAuliffe’s narrative to a greatest hits of scenes from his youth, his dorky visions, his sleepy goaltending. Soon Randy and I are laughing and coughing and laughing again, which we’re thankful for, seeing as it makes our anguished tears look to the rest of the room like beer-fuelled hilarity.
Some time later I make my way to the men’s room and see how busy the place has gotten. The work crews kicking the mud off their boots, the girls-night-outers squeezed into their finest denim. Even a clutch of suits tossing back a couple of after-work quickies before heading home to the newer streets north of the river.
And then two faces I recognize. Stepping out of the crowd and offering hands to shake. A big fellow in a Canada Post parka first, followed by his stout, patchily bearded friend.
“Trev? Holy shit! I was right. It’s you!” the first one says, and claps me in a
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