In front of a building where teenaged members of the community association had painted a mural that featured a dove bearing an olive branch, hookers, both male and female, many of them younger than our daughter Taylor, stood on corners, their pelvises thrust forward provocatively, their eyes dead.
Zack’s face was bleak as we moved through the Core. “God, this is depressing,” he said.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I said. “I come down here all the time. I keep hoping I’ll find another site that might work for the new play centre.”
The idea of opening a place in North Central where children could play and their parents could sip coffee and visit was my daughter Mieka’s. By training, Mieka was a caterer, but caterer’s hours aren’t good for a single mum with two young daughters. UpSlideDown, Mieka’s first café/play centre, was an invention of necessity, and from the moment it opened in an area of our city with boutique shopping, heavy foot traffic, and plenty of young families, it was a hit. When Mieka noticed that parents were getting more out of visits to the new play centre than happy kids and the chance to kick back with a good cup of joe, she took note. While they sipped their coffee and watched their kids play, the parents who came to UpSlideDown were sharing questions about child-rearing and picking up parenting skills from one another.
Parents in North Central were often very young with troubled histories, and Mieka and her friend Lisa Wallace, a community development worker in North Central, realized that opening a place where young parents could learn parenting skills while they watched their kids play might serve a real purpose. They found an old school-supply
warehouse that was ideally situated and solidly built. I was enthusiastic, and after he had engineers check out the building, Zack bought it for me as a pre-retirement gift. We were in business, and then Leland’s Village Project came along. Our perfect dream stood in Leland’s way. I received a substantial cheque from Peyben for the building, and within a week it had been demolished.
“Finding another piece of property for the play centre shouldn’t be a problem,” Zack said. “You made a tidy profit on that deal with Leland. Money always opens up options.”
“I’m reminding myself of that,” I said. “I also remember that the property was a gift from you.”
“And probably paid for by Leland’s money,” Zack said. “And so the dance goes on.”
“I guess the question is who gets to dance and who gets to watch,” I said.
Zack chuckled. “Careful, Ms. Shreve. Your socialist roots are showing.”
A fifteen-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the manicured lawn and the shimmering swimming pool set like a jewel in the Japanese courtyard behind the condo where Margot and Leland lived. Still visible on the brick face of the four-storey building were the words COLD STORAGE. When I tapped in Margot’s security code, a gate in the fence slid open. We followed the driveway to the garage, where we again tapped in the security code. The door opened and we drove inside. There were perhaps a dozen other cars there – all new, all expensive.
Zack opened his door, reached into the back seat, pulled out his wheelchair, and unfolded it. When I didn’t move, he turned to face me. “Are you feeling weird about going to Cristal Avilia’s old condo?”
“A little,” I said.
“Well, don’t,” he said. “This is Margot’s place now, and there’s been nobody else for me since the day I met you. You fill me to the brim.”
A walking path wound through the grass of the courtyard to the back entrance to the condo. Wrought-iron chairs with yellow-and-white-striped cushions were arranged in conversational groupings between clusters of flowering bushes. The scent of barbecue hung in the air, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. After tapping in the security code for the third time, we entered the building and stepped into a freight elevator that moved us smoothly to the top floor.
The foyer of Margot’s condominium was spectacular: an open-concept plan with a vaulted ceiling and skylights. Two storeys of light, hardwood, granite, and glass. The furniture was all simple and elegant: soft pale leather couches and chairs, bronze lamps that cast a gentle glow, huge ornamental jars filled with dried grasses. It was a stunning setting for a woman who was pretty stunning herself.
Margot was a natural blonde with creamy skin, delicately arched brows, full lips, and dagger nails that were always painted a shade of red that hinted at danger. On more than one occasion I’d seen her in court, and even in her barrister’s robes, Margot was a man magnet. We met frequently at social events. She never showed up with the same date twice, although the glitter in the eyes of her escorts suggested they would welcome a return engagement.
But that night, as she and Leland Hunter greeted us, Margot was radiant with the knowledge that she had found the lover with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life. At first glance, Leland Hunter did not appear to be a man who would make a woman’s loins twitch. The contours of his shaved head were not pleasing. His face was long and angular, his eyes were hooded, and his nose was large and appeared to
have healed imperfectly from a break. His body was taut, sinewy, seemingly without an extra ounce of flesh. He looked like a fighter, not a lover.
Zack, Margot, and I were dressed casually, but Leland was wearing a grey summer-weight suit, a white shirt, and a brilliant aubergine and grey silk tie with matching pocket handkerchief. A power suit, but Leland didn’t need expensive tailoring to announce his power. Before he uttered a word, we all knew the room was firmly in Leland’s command. “I hope you know how pleased I am to finally meet you, Joanne,” he said, extending his hand. “Our children are close, you and Margot are close, and Zack and I are close. It feels as if tonight, the final piece is sliding into place.”
Leland’s handshake was firm and he didn’t release the pressure until I’d responded. Even his movements were efficient. “I agree,” I said. “It’s time we met.”
“Would you like a tour of the place before we have our drinks?” His voice was gravelly, throaty.
Zack shot me a quick look and waited for my response.
“That would be fun,” I said.
“Fun for us, too,” Leland said. “Margot and I don’t entertain often.”
Margot laughed and slipped her arm through his. “Try never,” she said.
“Okay, never,” Leland said. “All the more reason why we welcome the chance to show off.” Hand in hand, they led us through the condo, pointing out the skylights in the twenty-four-foot ceiling, the original exposed brick wall, the hickory kitchen cabinets, the polished granite counter, the sleek fixtures, the two-sided gas fireplace, the skyline views from the terrace.
“It’s gorgeous,” I said.
“It needed work,” Margot said tightly. “It looked like a place where men could live out their fantasies, which, of
course, is exactly what it was.” She had no knowledge of Zack’s connection with Cristal, but she was clearly still baffled and angry at the turn Cristal’s life had taken. “Anyway, I’m pleased with it.”
“You should be,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”
“Leland’s is the only other condo on this floor – same plan as this one, but it’s spiffier. He cheated, though. He hired a decorator.”
“You’ll notice where I choose to spend my nights,” Leland said.
“Oh, I notice,” Margot purred.
The sexual heat between them was palpable. Zack and I exchanged a glance, then his gaze moved towards his law partner. “The faster you feed us, the faster we’ll be out of here,” he said.
Margot had one of the all-time great dirty laughs. “In that case,” she said, “let’s get dinner on the table.” She gestured towards the balcony. “I was hoping we could eat outside, but that wind is wicked and it looks like rain. Leland pulled the table over so we could still have the view.”
“Not much to see now,” Leland said. “By next year, we’ll have something very nice to show you.”
Margot shot a look of distaste at her perfect kitchen. “Meanwhile, all we can offer you is the sad spectacle of me making dinner.”
“Can I help?” I asked.
“God, yes,” she said. “All the food came from Evolution, and Aimee has given me written instructions for every dish.”
Margot passed the list to me, and I read through it. “Absolutely straightforward,” I said. “Let’s crank up the oven to 375 and as soon as it’s ready, we’ll put in the beef tenderloin and the potatoes. The meat will take about forty-five minutes for rare. Aimee has everything else timed. The roasted red pepper soup needs a crème fraiche
drizzle at the end. I can show you how to do that in about a second and a half.”
“I’m ready,” Margot said. “Send me in, coach.” When she clapped her hands together, I got a good look at her engagement ring, a pear-shaped solitaire.
“Wow, that’s a gorgeous ring.”
“It is, isn’t it?” she said. “Leland had it specially made, and it took a while to find exactly the right stone.”
“It was worth waiting for,” I said.
“Just like Leland,” she said. “By the time I met him, I’d decided I was happy on my own. I liked my work. I earned a lot of money. I had a reliable vibrator, and there were plenty of men to take me to social functions where my vibrator wouldn’t have been welcome. Then along came Prince Charming.”
“And out went the vibrator,” I said.
Margot’s grin was wicked. “It was an old friend. I gave it an honourable send-off.” She opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of champagne. “Let’s get rolling.”
The food was excellent, the wine was splendid, and the talk was good. Not surprisingly, given the company, the first topic of conversation was marriage. But the wedding we spoke of was not Margot and Leland’s, which was still more than three weeks away; it was Ed Mariani’s marriage to Barry, his partner of twenty-seven years.
On Sunday, Barry and Ed would be married in the rooftop garden of the condo on Halifax Street. “I am over the moon about the garden,” Margot said. “When I was a kid, I spent half my life in the Wadena Library. One afternoon I found a coffee-table book about roof gardens. God knows what a book like that was doing in a local library on the bald prairie, but I lugged it home, and every night I just stared at the pictures, dreaming. I kept renewing it until finally the librarian told me I might as well keep it, but if anybody else wanted
to check it out, I’d have to lend it to them. And now here I am on Halifax Street with a roof garden of my own.”
“We were lucky,” Leland said. “The developer who did the initial renos on this property completed the structural work on the roof garden before she ran out of money, so we just had to do the finishing and choose the plants and the furniture.”
“Actually, Ed had to choose the plants and the furniture,” Margot said. “Leland was travelling, and I was working sixteen hours a day on the Zwarych trial. I didn’t want to wait till next year, so Ed took over. He did a great job.”
Leland’s smile was slow in coming but worth waiting for. It softened his face, made him seem approachable. “Margot and I are so pleased that Ed and Barry chose to have their wedding here, and according to the forecast, Sunday will be a perfect June day.”
“That’s good news,” I said. “Ed and Barry have waited a long time for this.”
Leland turned to me. “Margot tells me you’re the best man.”
“I am,” I said. “We struggled with the title. ‘Matron of honour’ sounded like I should be wearing a feathery hat and support hose, and Zack pointed out that ‘chief witness’ sounded as if I was testifying in court, so we stuck with ‘best man.’ I kind of like it.”
“So do I,” Zack said. He turned to Margot. “So, how come you aren’t getting married in the roof garden of your girlhood dreams?
“Because I had another girlhood dream. I wanted an old-fashioned, small-town Saskatchewan wedding,” Margot said.
“At heart, Margot is just an old-fashioned, small-town Saskatchewan girl,” Leland said.
Margot gave him a sidelong glance. “Hardly,” she said. “But despite my big-city ways, I wanted a Wadena wedding – not
the ones they have now, which are just the same as weddings anywhere – the kind people had when I was a kid. No floral arrangements – just everybody emptying out their gardens and bringing all the flowers to the United Church in jam jars. And everybody in town sitting in the pews whispering about how beautiful I look and checking my waistline to see if I’m pregnant.”
Zack choked on his wine. “Are you?”
“Focus your laser gaze on me at the wedding and decide for yourself,” she said. Margot leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “This is going to be a great wedding, and the reception’s going to be so much fun. It’ll be at the golf course and everybody in town’s invited. Sis Gooding will do the food – she does the food for everything in Wadena. There’ll be perogies and cabbage rolls and turkeys and hams and jellied salads that match my attendants’ dresses and crepe paper and fairy lights looped through the tree branches and a country band that plays ‘Careless Love’ for the bride-and-groom dance, and people clinking glasses to make Leland and me kiss.” In the candlelight, Margot’s face glowed. Leland reached over and touched her cheek. Then he gave her his slow-blooming, transforming smile.
In addition to his wedding day, there was another significant event on Leland’s agenda. The next morning our university was awarding him an honorary doctorate. It wasn’t his first, but Leland didn’t dwell on himself, he focused on me. “It must be a thrill to have an earned doctorate.”
“At the time it was simply a relief,” I said. “I was a widow with three children, and if I was going to get a job teaching, I had to finish my dissertation. Most academics just see the Ph.D. as a union card.” I met Leland’s eyes. “Of course, there are circumstances where a union card can be a powerful tool.”
Zack picked up on the challenge in my words and cleared his throat. Margot watched with interest, but Leland was unruffled. “Because a union prevents people like me from shoving workers around,” he said.
“If you understand that, why is the Village Project nonunion?” I said.
“You know the answer to that, Joanne. A union project costs more. That means more investors – more people to answer to. There’s a saying in the development business: ‘Beg for forgiveness, not for permission.’ I’m not going to waste time begging for permission. I’m going to do whatever’s necessary to take this district back to what it once was.”