The Silver Age (5 page)

After finishing his undergraduate degree, Pete had
immediately gotten a job in IT at a television network back in the city,
settled down. Pete had met Sally while they were still students. They wanted to
live in an urban rather than suburban setting, but they made no apologies about
seeking a cozy, conventional life together. Pete had always been clear that he
had few ambitions besides holding down a job, raising a family, and eating at
least three decent meals a day.

“Life is short – you might as well try to relax and enjoy
some chop steak and a pint now and then,” he’d once said to Stephan. Slightly
modified, the statement might fittingly be chiseled on his gravestone one day.

When Stephan arrived at the Olde Trout he found Pete
already ensconced in his customary booth, nursing a pint of dark ale and gazing
contentedly at a soccer game on the big-screen TV.

“Sir,” Stephan said as he came to the table, mock
formally bowing to his friend, as if they were both 18th century aristocrats
rather than 21st century middle class kids from the Canadian suburbs.

Pete looked up, grinned. “There you are!” he said. “I was
beginning to think you’d stood me up, you old player.”

They shook hands, as per their custom, Pete breaking into
a complex mason-like shake, full of intricate regrips and intermediary fist
bumps. Stephan rolled his eyes at the childishness of it, but went along, even
participating in the climactic high five.

“Hmmm... good sound,” Pete said, nodding. It was
important to him that their high fives had a deep resonance to them. Back in
their student days he’d insisted on redoing high fives over and over, until
their hands were red and raw, in a quest for the perfect pop.

Pete poured Stephan a glass of beer from the pitcher he’d
already ordered them, and the two friends sat facing each other, sizing one
another up like scrawny, milquetoast gunslingers. Pete looked well, Stephan
thought: pink cheeked and youthful, a slightly dazed expression of happiness on
his face. Despite his considerable appetite for food and libation, he was thin as
a board, aside from a barely perceptible beer belly.

“So?” Stephan said.

“So?” replied his friend.

This was another of their rituals, dipping their toes
daintily into the conversation, as if diving right in would somehow be overly
hasty.

“I don’t know... how’s the wife? Hang on, is that what I
say now that you’re a married man?”

“Sure, has a nice ring to it, in a 1950’s, lunch box sort
of way.”

“Okay, good. So then, I’ll proceed: how’s the wife?”

“Sally’s great, thank you for asking,” Pete said
brightly. He always lit up at the mention of his wife’s name. It was actually
kind of sweet. “She says hello, and she also wanted me to tell you that she saw
some photo story you’d done, in a magazine at the dentist’s office, and loved
it. Something about show dogs?”

“That’s so thoughtful of her,” Stephan said, ignoring the
context – there was nothing less sexy than picturing one’s work as a prelude to
a good tooth buffing. “Have I ever told you that you have fantastic taste in
wives?”

“Mmm, once or twice.”

Sally’s parents were Korean Presbyterians, and in a nod
to their faith, the wedding ceremony had been held in a downtown church.
Stephan, in lieu of a gift, had volunteered to do the photos. He shot them in
black and white, and had painstakingly hand-printed each image, so that the
memories of the day would be flawlessly documented. Stephan had been happy for
his friend, of course, and Sally was smart and lovely, but he had worried that
things would change now that Pete had tied the knot. It hadn’t happened. Pete
was still the same guy he’d always been, a lover of long sessions of armchair
philosophizing over plates of old-fashioned comfort food and pints of beer or
carafes of cheap wine. He was in fact even more himself now, if that was
possible.

“So tell me about the married life,” Stephan said. “Do
you feel any different?”

Pete thought for a moment. “In most ways no, not at all.
But in a few, yeah, I guess I do. It was more for her parents that we did it,
but now that it’s official, there’s something about looking at her and knowing
she’s my wife.... it’s hard to explain.”

“So you’re still glad you did it, then. No six-month itch
or anything like that.”

“No regrets. I mean, we fight every once in a while, of
course, and there are days when I miss my time alone,” Pete said. “But you
know, she was away for a conference the other week – it was nice to have my
freedom at first, but after a day or two, it was like life had gone from colour
to black and white.”

“Black and white can be beautiful, too, though,” Stephan
said. His tone was a touch defensive. He couldn’t help it.

“Well, you of all people would say that, wouldn’t you?”

Stephan laughed. “Yes, I would,” he admitted.

They had another drink and then ordered some food from
the gravel-voiced server. Pete seemed to be well acquainted with her – he
called her by her first name, Phyllis, and she called him Sonny. Stephan
ordered a sandwich, while Pete had the chop steak. It arrived a few minutes
later, a gravy-coated mess of ground beef with home fries on the side. Pete
bent low over his plate and inhaled deeply.

“Ahhhh, chop steak,” he said. “Chooooopschteak. Mmmmmmm.
Yeeessss.”

“Does your wife have any suspicions about this action
you’re getting on the side?” Stephan asked, smirking.

Pete just grunted, his mouth already stuffed with food.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, amid the Trout’s
hubbub. It was a terrible place, if you thought about it – the food greasy, the
clientele verging on boorish. But Stephan also understood the appeal. You could
let your guard down, have a few drinks, tell an off-colour story or two. The
comfort food was, well, comfort food. It was the antithesis of the Stem.

“So what about you?” Pete asked, after he’d finally come
up for air. “Any... activities I should know about?”

“Aside from late nights at the photo lab?” Stephan asked.
It was too soon to go blabbing about Jenny Wynne, even to Pete. He didn’t want
to jinx anything. “Not so much.”

“You’re sure you’re not holding out on me? Handsome young
media figure like yourself?”

“Sorry to shatter your rosy picture, but it’s not all
‘hot chicks’ and sexy one-night stands. Or unsexy one-night stands, for that
matter.”

“Nah, I remember what being solo could be like... for me,
at least.”

“I remember your pain in that department as well,”
Stephan said, chuckling. Pete had never had much luck with women – until he
did.

“I’m glad my sad history amuses you, but seriously,
there’s nothing going on?” Pete had always been more perceptive than he looked.
“You seem up to me. I thought maybe some misguided female had taken pity on
you.”

Stephan couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

“Ah, interesting,” his friend said, grinning back at him.
“Well? Out with it.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Fine, then. Be mysterious. But you should consider going
for it, if it’s anything real. We could go out for dinner together, all four of
us – that is if Sally and I aren’t too dull for you.”

“If anything actually happens, you’ll be the first to
know.”

Phyllis brought out dessert. Stephan had chosen a dish
labeled, unconvincingly it turned out, as “Tiramisu.” Afterwards they ordered
some liqueurs, just for the hell of it. They had a round of Frangelico,
straight, then some Pernod before finishing up with scotch on the rocks, which
they sipped at like bankers. The evening moved into its montage phase, a
procession of quick-cut little moments to be savoured and almost instantly
forgotten. On his way to the bathroom, Stephan had the idea of bringing a
notebook with him next time, or a tape recorder, and secretly capturing a few
fragments for posterity. A minute later, the thought had vanished, too, with
the moment that contained it.

It was getting late. A couple of years earlier, they
might have kept going, stayed up all night. Now they were more careful. It was
Pete who finally announced that he’d better head home.

“One more, for old time’s sake?” Stephan asked. He was
almost ready to give up on the evening, but not quite.

“Some of us have to work for a living.”

“I work too, you know.”

“True, but you don’t have to be at your desk at 8:30
every morning.”

“Maybe not, but I’m guessing that the steady paycheque
must be a consolation of sorts. And besides, tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“Even worse. Brunch with Sally’s folks.”

“Oh, fine,” Stephan said. “I suppose you’ve done your
part.”

Out on the street, they said their goodbyes.

“We’ll have to do this again soon,” Pete said. “It’s been
what? A couple of months since our last meet-up? That’s not acceptable.”

“Agreed.”

A cab approached, and Pete flagged it down. “Want to join
me? I can drop you off along the way.”

“No, that’s fine, thanks,” Stephan said. “I think I’ll
walk for a bit. Get some air.”

“Suit yourself, then. I’ll see you again soon.” He slid
into the cab’s back seat, and was gone, with a wave of his hand out the window.

*  *  *  *  *

Ever since his teenage years in the suburbs, when he’d
hike down to the lake on cold autumn days, Stephan had loved to walk. The
steady rhythm of his stride always put him in a meditative state of mind. It
was something like the feeling he had in the darkroom. The part of town he was
now in, Little Italy, had gentrified in recent years, but was still known as a
busy, active neighbourhood. Tonight, for whatever reason, it had a quiet,
lonely, feel. The storefronts were dark, the sidewalks deserted. An isolated
cluster of club-hoppers passed him now and again, their voices beery bleats.
Otherwise the night was still. He turned up a side street, a black corridor
between silent row houses, and disappeared into the darkness.

So many men, so much time

by Jenny Wynne

Youth is wasted on the young – it’s such a terrible
cliché, I know. (I happen to love clichés, incidentally, since they’re so much
more heartfelt than originality, as I assume Oscar Wilde once observed.) But in
this case, the cliché also happens to be totally wrong. Okay, maybe not 100
percent, unequivocally, disproven-by-brainiac-scientists-with-graphs-and-charts
wrong. Vanilla wrong. But wrong all the same – at least when you look at
certain members of the current twenty-something set in our fine (if
occasionally a tad on the chilly side) city.

Twenty-somethings today are determined to get everything
out of our extended youth. We’re gathering our rosebuds while we may, and
finding there’s no big rush, because tomorrow the florist will have a new batch
airlifted in from their boutique growers on Tenerife.

We’re trying out different careers – in the media,
on-line, as gourmet chefs who build cedar-strip canoes on the side. And we’re
testing out all the romantic options too. A bit of ex-jock finance guy here, a
little sensitive poet with a taste for flowery prose and light bondage there.
Yummy. Life for young people today is like the tasting menu at Semaphore – so
many options… just be sure to schedule in some aerobics the next morning.

Of course, you baby boomers out there had your youthful
salad days, too. LSD, Woodstock, going back to the land and running around
naked in the fields while strumming Fender Stratocasters, etc. (I picture the
naked aspect of that as being a tad uncomfortable, by the way, what with all
the mosquitoes, cow pies, and poison ivy patches out in the hinterlands –
although probably you were too stoned to notice.)

Actually, you eventually did notice, because by the time
you were into your mid-twenties you were already settling down, populating the
earth, and lining up for those high-paying corporate jobs so many of you wound
up settling into. You traded in your Mystery Machine for a minivan, your
commune for a gated community.

But by the time Generation X came along, the party was
over. No wonder Kurt Cobain was so bitter – if he hadn’t been a rock star, he
would have been stuck in some crappy McJob.

There were other factors at work, as noted by leading
sociologists. The human lifespan has been growing longer – meaning less rush to
land that (admittedly non-existent) corporate job. Result: adolescence now
extends for many of us to the age of 30 and beyond.

Things are a little better now than they were in the
early nineties. If you want that corporate job badly enough, you just might get
it (although with the bursting of the internet bubble it may not be at
www.billionsfornothing.com). Drive out to the suburbs, and you’ll find plenty
of young fogies who already have kids and cars and picket fences and retirement
savings plans.

Good for you guys, I say. (Just don’t come crying to me
when one of those now-elderly and stratospherically wealthy ex-hippie CEOs
replaces you with a guy named Chang from Chungking and you realize you spent
the flower of your youth mastering Excel shortcuts for nothing.)

As for the rest of us, no doubt we’ll eventually want to
settle down, too. Hopefully by then we’ll have robot nannies to take care of
dirty diapers and other horrors – a girl can dream. Maybe we’ll even decide
that we want some of those trappings: the suburban house, the minivan, the
cottage on a lake up north. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get them – and when we
do, we can sit out on the dock sipping gin and tonic and reflecting back on how
much fun we had in our twenties.

But in the meantime, we’re enjoying this party while it
lasts… and lasts… and lasts.

Chapter 4

As he waited for her near the entrance of the café she’d
selected for their meeting, Stephan let his eyes wander over the outdoor patio,
already fully colonized. There were people here and there among the patrons who
stood out to him: a woman in her twenties with cascading chestnut hair that
partially hid a glinting silver chain at her neck, regaling her rapt
table-mates with an elaborate tale about her zany roommate that was no-doubt
largely fictional; a ruggedly handsome white guy in his early thirties, wearing
a grey jacket over an open-necked shirt, caressing a stubbly cheek as he
chatted with a beautiful east-Indian princess who regarded him with unveiled
longing. Stephan smiled to himself as he looked on. This was one of the ways in
which you developed your eye as a photographer: by carefully observing faces
and gestures and filing the best ones away for future reference.

He had changed the exterior that he himself showed to the
world a great deal since coming to the city. It wasn’t about physical
appearance: it was more nuanced than that. As a student you could be carefree.
You went out dancing at a club, or shot pool over drinks with your friends.
That was what people expected of you. But since moving here and embarking on
his career, he’d gradually become more conscious of how he presented himself.
He was cooler in demeanour now, and more alert – in certain situations prone to
calculated shows of indifference or impatience. It was a matter of self
defense. If you were too genial or deferential in the city people assumed you
were a lightweight, and brushed you off accordingly.

Stephan wasn’t a snob or social climber. Unlike Helmut,
for instance, his goal was not to gain access to a certain clique or set. He
felt pride, of course, when he won an award, or had one of his shots published
on the cover of a well-known magazine, but his ambition was about something
else, something more subtle. That was partly why he was in fact well suited to
a career in photography. A good photograph, he understood on some instinctive
level, could offer a glimpse of the unnameable essence that lurked within
things. If he could capture that essence, or at least get some kind of hold on
it, then he would have a chance of succeeding on his own terms.

Jenny Wynne arrived at the café a mere half-hour late,
looking rushed, a touch out of sorts, even. She was wearing dark jeans and a
pale pink shirt, closely tailored, the sleeves rolled up over her elbows, and
was carrying a casual yet expensive-looking brown leather shoulder bag. For a
moment he was disappointed that she hadn’t worn something more elaborate for
him, which was ridiculous of course. Had he expected that she was going to show
up in a ball gown, like a princess in a fairytale girded for frog-kissing duty?

She was glancing around the room, her eyes like security
cameras, recording everything. He raised a hand in greeting; she saw him
instantly and came over.

“Stephan, hi!”

“Nice to see you again, Jenny.”

He rose from his bar stool to greet her, confident and
collected. She gave him a hug as if they were old friends, and he felt the
shape of her back under his fingers, cool and hard.

Her cell phone blooped as she sat down beside him. In a
smooth series of motions, she fished it out of her bag, scrolled through a text
message, sighed, turned the phone off, put it away and looked up at him from
under fluttering eyelashes, her smile a jaunty backslash.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I had to stop by my parents’
place to pick up a book I needed to look at for a column I’m working on. My
father – he teaches law and politics at the university – got on a tear about
the decline of western civilization, and it took some manoeuvering to extricate
myself.”

Stephan was sure he’d seen the man on television news
programs, holding forth around election times, clad in an unctuous turtleneck
and tweed jacket.

“He does tend to drone on,” she continued. “Getting
fawned over by buxom graduate students all day for his entire adult life – it’s
made him self-important as hell.”

“Hmmm.” Stephan pictured himself at the centre of a
cluster of ambitious young women in clingy cardigans and wire-framed glasses,
straining to impress.

“He thinks my writing is a bunch of worthless fluff,”
Jenny continued. “He’d much prefer it if I were an academic, like him, or a
crusading human rights lawyer.”

“A person of substance.”

“Yep, pretty much.”

He thought of his own parents, puttering in their cozy
suburban backyard. How would someone like Jenny Wynne react to his father, with
his yellow accounting notepads and conservative political leanings, his
prominent role in the local Chamber of Commerce? As a student, Stephan had once
participated in a group exhibition to the opening of which his father had
insisted on wearing a letterman jacket with a huge Pepsi logo on the back,
picked out in a fuzzy, carpet-like material, that he’d won at a charity golf
tournament. His mother would be an easier sell. She came from a family of
once-enterprising Scots who’d helped to build the railways before declining
into lethargic averageness a couple of generations back.

“But I’m going on about myself,” Jenny Wynne was saying.
“That’s so rude of me... and like my father, come to think of it – sorry about
that.”

He grinned and shrugged, to show her that he didn’t mind,
which he didn’t.

“Feeling thirsty?” she asked.

“I could go for a drink.”

“Fantastic – let’s sit down. Patio work for you?”

“No, not my thing at all, sorry. Let’s see if they have
anything in the basement.”

As if by silent arrangement, stubble man and his adoring
companion chose that moment to leave, and Stephan and Jenny were able to lay
claim to their table. Eventually, a waiter wandered over, a lithe twentyish
woman with black bangs cut straight across her forehead. Her demeanour wasn’t
rude exactly but abstracted, as if someone close to her had died and, sorrow
wracked, she was only just keeping up appearances. She was in on the unspoken
codes of the city, too.

Jenny ordered a glass of wine to start and Stephan had
the same. The sun was just setting, its rays skimming in from the horizon –
golden hour, as photographers called this time of day, because the light was at
its warmest and softest, and there were few shadows. But there was a bit of a breeze
as well, to keep the humidity in check and to rustle her hair, lifting a few
loose strands now and then away from her neck.

When a few minutes earlier they’d stepped out onto the
patio together, he had sensed people’s eyes on her, and on him, too, by proxy.
The sensation was unfamiliar, somehow like being bathed in a fine warm mist. It
died down once they’d taken their seats, but every now and then he felt it
again, and would look up to discover some woman’s eyes flicking over him from
across the patio. He shifted in his chair. The attention seemed unearned, but
then again, so what?

They talked a little shop over their drinks.

“So have you seen
Bullmoose
yet?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I was at the launch party for their
first issue,” she said. “I’ll say one thing: the Pecorino family knows how to
throw a party... assuming Russian escorts and monied ex-fratboys in fitted
suits are your idea of fun.”

“Do they know how to run a magazine?”

“Do they need to? As far as I can see, their editor just
looks in
GQ
and
Esquire
each month and then finds the equivalent
person or trend up here.”

“Ha ha. That’s quite mean.”

“I know. It’s hypocritical, too – I do the same thing in
my column most of the time.”

“I think we all borrow a little inspiration now and
then,” he admitted. “What’s the old line? Good artists borrow, great ones
steal?”

“Well, I’m getting tired of it, of knowing that so much
of my little world is just an imitation of something cooler and more authentic
happening elsewhere.”

“So what to do then?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We go to the source. New York, London,
Paris, Los Angeles.”

“And start over from scratch?”

“I’m afraid so. How sad for us, I know. The gods weep.”

He considered the possibility of the two of them going
down to New York together, taking their clichéd shot at the big time.

“Would you ever actually make that kind of move?” he
asked, curious.

“Yes, I would,” she said. “I’ve still got a couple of
years left on my current contract, and then... well, we’ll see. But sure, I
have schemes, just like everyone else. Book ideas, a couple of drafts of a
screenplay tucked away on the hard drive. I’d love to give it a shot.”

“Was that what you wanted to meet about?” he asked. “To
discuss our long-term plans?”

It was his boldest comment yet, but she didn’t miss a
beat.

“Nothing quite so grand, I’m sorry to say.”

“Well, then?”

“They’re doing a redesign over at the
Telegraph
,
and it’s time to give my column a new look, but the photographers over there
are just so literal and blah. Typical newspaper types. Anyway, it’s not the
normal procedure, but I’d like to have my own shots done. The editor in chief
and I happen to be on very good terms, and he’ll say yes if I ask nicely. Plus,
I’m in talks with a small publisher here in town to bring out a collection of
my best columns, if you can believe it.”

“You want me to take your picture?”

“Well, it’s just a little thing, and I know it’s totally
beneath you, but I thought you might be willing to help out – for a fee, of
course.”

“Hmmm...” he said, folding his arms. Channeling Helmut,
he decided not to give in too easily.

“So you’ll do it then, that’s great!”

“Hang on, I didn’t say...”

In an instant, the warmth seemed to drain from her face,
which suddenly resembled a blank mask – not angry, not disappointed, just
indifferent, which was far worse. He scrambled to make that non-expression
disappear.

“I mean, are you sure you’d want me? You know my style
isn’t flashy.”

“Well, I saw your work at the magazine awards, when you
won your silver medal, and I’ve been through your online portfolio as well, you
may be interested to know. There’s a lot of variety in there – plenty of people
stuff. I want to do something fun and contemporary for a change. And I think
you’d be perfect for a project like that.”

“I see.”

It was over now, but she did him the kindness of
continuing to negotiate. She had a knack for it – not pushing too hard at any
one moment, or resorting again to the mask of indifference, but subtly moving
things along. She pointed out that it would be an opportunity for him, however
low-key, to apply his style to a new type of subject. She mentioned, in
passing, that there’d be many interesting people at the book launch she could
introduce him to. Who knew where the collaboration might lead?

When he finally allowed that sure, he’d be able to help
her out, it wasn’t a surprise to either of them. Nonetheless, her warm response
was such a relief, it was as if some subtle but resonant frequency of her being
was suddenly unblocked to him.

“Stephan! That is so wonderful – I’m really, really
grateful.”

A few minutes later, after she’d stepped away to use the
ladies room, he finished off the last of his drink in a mood of quiet
contemplation. When he’d first encountered her at Helmut’s studio, it would
have been impossible to imagine their even speaking to each other again. He
could, if he wanted, tell her about this. If he asked her to think back, would
she remember the photographer’s assistant she’d unwittingly dispatched on a new
career path? But when he saw her coming back towards him from across the room,
her smile whole and intact, he thought better of raising the issue.

They met at his studio the following week for the shoot.
Thinking to ease in, Stephan began with some simple, austere setups,
photographing her in casual clothes against a plain white background. Penny was
on-hand to assist, positioning a reflector disk to angle the natural light from
the skylight onto Jenny’s face. She did her job as required, with her usual
professionalism, but it was clear from her demeanor that she was not especially
taken with Jenny Wynne, or by Stephan’s cozy rapport with his new friend. A
couple of days later, minus assistants, the two of them met in the garment
district for a session of outdoor location shooting in a warren of narrow
alleyways between old brick buildings. The location was perfect, the aged,
soot-blackened brick walls providing a compelling visual foil to Jenny’s
smooth, pristine skin.

He felt a sense of deja vu shooting her now. It seemed to
him almost as if fate had decided that this was something he needed to do. His
approach this time was the antithesis of Helmut’s tack back in 2000: informal
and candid as opposed to stuffily contrived. The difference was in part
self-conscious, in part a matter of taste.

He was attuned for serendipity, for Easter eggs of real
emotion and grace, and he kept finding them. In their meetings to date, their
conversations had flowed as if they’d been reading from a script. Now their
physical interactions on opposite sides of the lens seemed to have been blocked
by an unseen director.

At one point, now deep in the labyrinth of alleyways,
they found a swing, someone’s idea of a joke, or of art. It was just like one
of the swings in the playground of his primary school – a black rubber seat
shaped like a band-aid held aloft by steel chains. In this case, however, the
chains were anchored not to the traditional A-frame but to a steel pole wedged
between the brick walls of the abutting buildings, four stories up. It was
quite the contraption, and didn’t look entirely safe, but before he could voice
this observation she had already hopped onto it and was gliding elegantly
through the null space of the alleyway.