Last Dance. David Russell W.
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You generally would trust a lawyer to make an argument against discrimination.”
He was beginning to seethe now. He leaned forward, the table no longer a friendly barrier, and practically hissed. “And let me remind you, Mr. Patrick, that lawyering is no longer how you make your living.”
I couldn’t decide what to say next: should I chastise him for his thinly veiled threat or inform him that my other pet peeve is people who use the word lawyer as a verb? I chose neither. It probably wasn’t worth the effort.
I let out a long, slow breath before responding. “Okay.” I stood up to leave.
Bill looked surprised. “Okay?” he asked suspiciously.
“I guess that’s it,” I replied, trying to restore the friendly tone in which the conversation had begun. “I wanted to confirm that the kids had understood you correctly. You’ve made your position clear.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re right. You have the authority to make whatever decision you think is best. I leave it up to you.”
“Oh,” he replied, still skeptical. “Well, I’m glad we can agree to disagree amicably.”
“Sure,” I told him. “You’ve got your job to do. I just told the kids I’d talk to you, and I did. No hard feelings.”
“That’s good. Thanks, Win. I appreciate your support.” I wasn’t sure how he interpreted my disagreement with him as support, but on the other hand, he was probably happy I didn’t really feel like fighting.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll see ya.” I walked out of the main office and headed down the hall to my classroom. I’d spent more time on this than I had really planned, and Bill did have a point: it was his show to run, not mine.
I reached my classroom and was relieved to see that none of the kids had stayed behind to hear how the conversation had gone. I was trying to convince myself I had done all that I could and hadn’t sold out in the interest of employment preservation or the need for some pasta and a good Cabernet Sauvignon. I told myself the kids would understand that Mr. Owen was my supervisor and there was little I could do for them. Then I realized the truth: my cool status was about to go out the window.
By the time I got home, I had nearly put Tim’s graduation date dilemma out of my mind. It was Tuesday, which meant Pasta Frenzy night at my favourite little Italian eatery in Kitsilano. I might have given up the seemingly more glamorous legal profession for the arduous task of teaching the youth of today, but I had steadfastly refused to give up some of the luxuries that had come with my former job.
I also knew I wasn’t kidding anyone. I had mostly done work for Legal Aid, often working extremely long hours at provincial government Legal Aid rates. Consequently, I had forgone some of the richer areas of legal practice, but I had managed to squirrel away most of my earnings over my brief career. This was mostly because I had happily lived off the avails of my then-wife’s income, or rather, income she had inherited without having yet had to bury her parents. I had grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle: near the beach, plenty of restaurants, and just about every kind of takeout and delivery food possible. Kitsilano is Vancouver’s born-again bachelor’s paradise.
Tuesday nights were particularly bad for getting a table at Chianti. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon to find lineups of hungry patrons snaking up the sidewalk, interrupting the traffic flow of neighbouring businesses. Fortunately, I had been going there long enough that a table was pretty much reserved with my name on it, particularly on a Tuesday. I’d thrown the staff off one Friday by actually bringing a date. Both the dinner and the ensuing relationship were shortlived — neither made it past about ten o’clock that same night. Having left my one real long-term relationship with my ex-wife, I had not yet re-mastered the art of dating. Who am I kidding? I’d never mastered it in the first place. Tonight I had lucked out. Only a few patrons occupied the multitude of tables the little restaurant held. It was still early. As my first year of full time teaching had progressed, I found myself eating earlier and earlier; today it was only 5:30. I seemed to be tempting the aging gods, pushing my eating habits perilously close to those of my parents. And they didn’t even live in Florida.
Though I wasn’t sitting in her section, my usual and favourite waitress approached me within moments of sitting down. As was the custom between us, she already had a glass of red wine in her hand — for me she never bothered with a tray — which she set down before me as she sat down across from me. “Professor,” she said in her usual greeting.
“Teri,” I replied. “Nice of you to join me.”
“It’s high time someone did.” Teri, like a growing number of other friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, believed she was responsible for reminding me of my continuously single state. Never mind that she herself had never mentioned a boyfriend, significant other, or apartment full of cats.
“Hmmphh,” was my masterful retort. “For all you know, I may very well be joined by a delightful dining companion tonight.”
“Is your mother in from the suburbs?”
“I said a ‘delightful,’ not ‘guilt-throwing, health obsessing, church bingo-running’ companion.”
“In that case, I shall assume this one glass is all that will be needed.”
“That depends on how good your wine selection is this evening.” As was also part of Teri’s custom, selection of the dinner wine was not left up to the patron, at least not in my case. Our rule was simple: as long as it was red, she could choose for me. She also generally limited me to one glass. She aimed to make sure my life did not descend into an alcoholic haze in which the potential for a new life partner would become that much more limited. I sipped the wine that she had brought, a South African Pinotage, bold, given the gloomy late spring weather.
“And the charges? Are they giddy with anticipation at their pending departure lo, these few weeks from now?”
“But then they won’t have me around any more.”
“I guess I answered my own question.” She stood up to leave. “I’ll bring you the special.”
“Of course.”
“Is everything okay, Winston? You look a little bummed.”
“Just tired. Thinking about the perils of pedagogy.”
“More so than usual? Any particular pedagogical predicament?” Teri is very found of alliteration. I thought momentarily of burdening her with Tim’s travails on his pending prom, mostly so I could out-alliterate her, but I knew I would also have to share my failure to persuade the vice-principal of the errors of his ways.
“Nah. I think I just need a vacation.” Teri left to place my order. Dinner, of course, was excellent: a simple linguini in cream sauce with peas joined by a half order of tortellini in a pesto sauce I had never been able to replicate. Of course, I hadn’t really tried that hard, given my proximity to the sauce’s origin.
My body replenished, I undertook the ten-minute walk back to my condominium and found it in its usual depressing condition. Living this close to the ocean is supposed to be a blessing along with a curse; one is blessed with the view of Vancouver’s remarkable English Bay but also cursed with the problem of never getting anything done wiling away the time staring out the window at the view. For several months, neither blessing nor curse had been an issue, given the large green tarpaulin hanging from roof to basement of the three-storey building. Like many of its contemporaries, my apartment building had succeeded in bringing in young urban professionals looking for a semi-upscale lifestyle but had failed miserably at what would seem the simple task of keeping out Vancouver’s notorious rain.
My view was now limited to the small sliver of a seam where two tarps joined right in front of my balcony. When the wind was blowing, sometimes the view through my vertical viewfinder would blow back and forth, like a filtered panoramic camera lens teasing with little bits of view. I used to pity the poor suckers who had fallen victim to