I elbowed Wanda, once again pre-emptively.
“Anyway, there I was, standing in the loo, positively dripping with perspiration, despite the fact that I had been cleaning in the nude. Oops! Another secret revealed.”
She placed her hand over her mouth in mock embarrassment.
“Well now, if I haven’t let the cat out of the bag! Not only do you know that I write in the nude, now you also know that I clean house in the nude.”
“We won’t tell them what else,” said Dietrich.
They both giggled.
“Now, where was I….”
“Starkers in front of the toilet,” said Wanda.
“Oh yes. I was about to take a shower when I decided to treat myself to a nice warm bath instead. So, I filled the tub with bubbles and Dietrich fetched me a magazine. Now I don’t remember which magazine it was, do you Didi?”
“No, but I can guarantee that it was not Ms. Oops, not offending any sensibilities here, I hope.”
They giggled again.
“For the sake of expediency, let us suppose that the magazine was Chatelaine. Now, picture the scene. Yours truly, the poetess, stretched out in the tub, perusing an article about women and eroticism whilst ensconced in delicious little popping bubbles. Under normal circumstances, such an experience would be the ultimate in relaxation. But as I stood on the mat patting myself dry, I felt not at all relaxed. As a matter of fact, I became more and more agitated. ‘Why?’ I asked myself. ‘Why should I feel agitated after such a good long soak?’ Then it hit me. The article in Chatelaine had made it sound as if lesbians revel in endless heights of ecstasy. The implication was that heterosexual women lead boring sex lives. I asked myself, ‘What makes lesbians think they have all the fun?’”
I looked at Wanda to see if she knew why, but her eyes were glazed over and she didn’t seem to be listening anymore.
Vivien went on to tell us how she had dried herself, slipped into her favourite housecoat and fluffy blue slippers, and gone to the kitchen to brew herself a cup of tea.
“As I sat at the kitchen table sipping my tea,” she said, “I found myself searching for a poetic response to the article. That’s what writing is, you know, a never-ending response to life’s conundrums. In any case, whilst still adrift in this reverie, I wandered into the den and absent-mindedly flicked on the TV. This was an unconscious gesture. Dietrich can tell you how unusual it is for me to watch TV at all, let alone in the daytime. But for whatever reason that early afternoon, I flicked on the TV, and what should be on the screen but Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ video. You’ve all seen it, I trust?”
No one answered, all of us save Dietrich in a collective state of stupefaction.
“Anyway, as Madonna sang, suddenly, like Athena bursting forth from the head of Zeus, there it was, a fully formed poem. I scribbled it down quickly so as not to forget, and you shall hear it now, my final offering of the evening: ‘Voguing Virgin.’
Vivien struck an Egyptian pose that would have been an insult to the memory of Pepper LaBeija and the other Harlem drag queens who had developed and refined the art of voguing. She heralded each new line with a different pose equally devoid of attitude or chic, then held the pose while she earnestly enunciated her lines, stressing each clunky word, not only the nouns and verbs, but the articles and prepositions—the, a, to, of—each little word receiving its due and more. She finished the poem with an exaggerated curtsy, maintaining it for some seconds in a living tableau.
Dietrich clapped vigorously, the rest of us more tepidly. He got to his feet and opened his arms to Vivien, bending down as she stretched up on tippytoes to receive his embrace.
“Sweetheart, that was fabulous, absolutely fabulous, as always.”
He released her so she could bask in the adoration of her audience.
“Vivien Jones de Witt, ladies and gentlemen.”
He resumed clapping, and we five audience members, save Wanda, followed suit. Vivien bowed in acknowledgement and sat down.
I was exhausted, but at least the ordeal was half-over.
“Before I begin my own reading,” said Dietrich, “on behalf of my wife and myself, I wish to extend our heartfelt appreciation to our dear friend Susan for inviting us here this evening and making us feel so welcome.”
“Sara,” snapped Wanda.
So, she had been paying attention.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The name of your dear friend isn’t Susan. It’s Sara.”
Dietrich slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand.
“Sara, Sara. Of course, how clumsy of me.”
Vivien swivelled her head to justify her husband’s mistake. “The name of our son’s girlfriend is Susan, you see, and we’re such a close-knit family. We love her dearly, so it’s actually a compliment to be mistaken for her.”
“No, no, Vivvie, no excuses. I do apologize, Sara, for that unforgivable faux pas. Allow me to begin anew. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sara, for being so kind as to invite us here this evening.”
“You invited them?” said Wanda. “I could’ve sworn they invited themselves.”
Vivien’s back stiffened, but Dietrich ignored the comment and continued to wax my praises.
“By providing a welcoming space for poets to give voice to our humble scribblings, the dedicated Saras of the world help put food on the table and thereby ensure that the music endures. Therefore, on behalf of toiling wordsmiths everywhere, I thank you. Please, a round of applause for our gracious hostess, Sara.”
The others clapped while Wanda cleared her throat in her excuse-me-while-I-barf manner. Missy turned and eyed the cookies that were on the card table behind. She would have to get up out of her chair to access them.
Dietrich retrieved his briefcase from the front counter, carried it back to the podium and snapped it open, humming and fumbling around. When he found what he was looking for, he snapped the briefcase shut, set it down, and fanned out a handful of chapbooks for all to see.
“Our current tour is dubbed, The Great Plains Project,” he said. “This rainbow of titles represents the intertwined lives of the two itinerant artists who stand before you this evening. These works, replete with our joys and our sufferings, our chuckles and our tears, are the collaborative oeuvre of two creative souls who have embarked on a hand-in-hand journey that eschews the coastal highway of profit for the elevated but treacherous goat path of altruism.”
Dietrich went on to further lament the difficult lot of the poet, in particular the challenge of finding a publisher in this day and age.
Wanda mumbled that she couldn’t imagine them finding a publisher in any day and age.
“Each book in this modest collection has been assembled individually,” said Dietrich. “Each copy represents the mingled sweat of our brows. You can understand that ours is a painstaking work-in-progress, not, of course, without precedent. As you know, the grand tradition of self-publishing includes such luminaries as Leonard and Virginia Woolf. But even their illustrious Hogarth Press would not have survived without its intrepid supporters. Which brings me to this: If you feel moved by what you hear this evening, please speak with Vivien at the conclusion of the reading. Lacking any talent in this area myself, I long ago relinquished control of all things monetary. Therefore, should you be so motivated as to purchase a book or two, Vivien will gladly accommodate you.” He gestured at his wife. “Right, Vivvie, my love?”
What? They were using my space at no charge to sell their books directly to my customers? Granted, there were only three potential buyers present, and Deeanna and her companion only counted as one because they were unlikely to buy duplicates, and Missy didn’t count because she never bought anything, and the books weren’t real books, just stapled chapbooks, but it was the principle of the thing.
“Say the word and I’ll toss them out on their doggerel ears,” mutt
ered Wanda.
“No way are you pretend-buying one of their books,” I muttered back.
“Now, let’s see,” said Dietrich. “Where shall we begin?”
Honestly? He had arranged the reading ten days ago and still had no clue what he was going to read?
“What would please this audience most?” he said.
“A stiff scotch,” said Wanda.
Missy took Wanda’s remark as her cue to get up, squeeze past me to the card table, reach under the cellophane, grab a handful of almond lemon cookies, and stuff one in her mouth. The cookies were Missy’s least favourite, which was one reason I had bought them.
“Oh, Didi, why don’t you read from We Animals Caged?” said Vivien, clasping her hands to her bosom.
“Excellent choice,” boomed Dietrich.
Missy froze in mid-chew. When she realized he was not referring to the cookies, she stuffed a few more in her coat pocket and left, reducing the audience portion of our group to four.
“I must warn you, though,” continued Dietrich, “I have yet to make it through this particular verse without breaking down in tears.”
Then why read it.
He shuffled through the little books. “Let me see now….”
“It’s the bright orange one,” said Vivien.
“Ah yes, right you are. Here we go, We Animals Caged.”
He held up an orange chapbook for us to admire.
“I would first like to draw your attention to the cover, which holds special significance for me. I executed the drawing myself in a single sitting during one of those creative frenzies that we artists are sometimes fortunate enough to experience.”
It was a line drawing of what might have been a moose or a cow peering out from behind a series of vertical bars.
Vivien sighed and Deeanna clapped. Her companion continued to sit on his hands, as he had been since dropping the book on the floor.
Dietrich took a sip of water and began to read, a poem worthy of Sarah Binks, about a woolly sheep dog and a steel-grey bear trap. If Vivien’s poetry was sprinkled with prepositions, Dietrich’s was littered with adjectives.
“That cage could use a cleaning,” mumbled Wanda.
As predicted, Dietrich broke down in sobs halfway through. He dabbed at his eyes with his silk ascot.
“It’s all right, Didi darling,” cooed Vivien. “Take all the time you need.”
“What about our time?” said Wanda, this time quite loudly.
Deeanna’s companion jiggled and bowed his head as if he were stifling a laugh, while Vivien directed a disappointed schoolmarm glance at Wanda.
Dietrich almost made it to the end of the poem (which took up the entire chapbook) before breaking down anew. By the time he finished, the poem, including the weeping interludes, had taken fourteen minutes to read.
“No reason for anyone to buy it now,” said Wanda.
Vivien twisted in her chair to give me a look that said, Can’t you do something about her?
Like the others preceding it, Dietrich ignored the comment. “That was my final offering of the evening,” he said. “Thank you for your kind attention.”
I clapped enthusiastically, because thank god the ordeal was finally over. The others, including Wanda this time, joined in.
Dietrich held up a hand to shush us.
“Thank you, thank you so much. Such acknowledgment deserves an encore.”
I thought I heard Wanda scream, No, but the voice must have been inside my own head.
Dietrich again fumbled through the briefcase.
“Let’s see now, perhaps something a little lighter…. Ah, yes, here we are. I love this one, it’s one of my favourites.”
He pulled out a single sheet of yellow paper.
It was to be a short one, at least.
He read something about poodles and sacré merde steaming in the grey gutters below the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre after an autumnal rainfall. Vivien laughed like she was hearing the poem for the first time, but it couldn’t have been the first time.
“Who would’ve thought it possible to pervert Vogon poetry?” Wanda muttered.
And she was right. It was as if we were trapped in the torture scene from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where the hero is strapped down and forced to listen to Vogon poetry, “the third worst in the Universe.” The more the hero writhes against his restraints and the louder he screams, the longer the Vogon reads.
Dietrich pulled out another couple of sheets from his briefcase, blue this time.
“I don’t usually like to finish on a sad note,” he said, “but you’re such a wonderful audience. I’m going to share one last poem with you. This one’s about the war years.”
He then read something about a blameless little German boy destined as a man to carry the guilt of an entire nation. Dietrich’s eyes moistened, but this time he did not break down.
By the time he finished, our little group had been sitting for almost an hour and a half, and I had reached a decision. Wanda and I would take that holiday she had been insisting on. She hadn’t mentioned the holiday since before Christmas, but the morning after the reading, I booked the plane tickets.
When I surprised her with the news, her response was a surprising, non-committal, “Mmmm….”
6.
I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED ARMCHAIR TRAVEL BOOKS, and with August fast approaching, I busied myself researching the trip. I determined which were the best beginner snorkelling sites on Maui, where to book the perfect room in the perfect charming hotel on the beach, and where to find the cheapest car rental, because surely, we would want to explore the perimeter of the island. I made a note to reserve a table at Mama’s Fish House for Wanda’s birthday, which was also the eve of our anniversary. All this information was stored in a red folder by my side of the bed, so I could add to it should other compelling ideas pop up in the middle of the night.
Best of all, the trip would be a chance to rekindle the fires.
“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men…”.
Meanwhile, things continued to unravel between us, and as the departure date approached, with each passing day my hopes diminished that we would leave before things completely fell apart. A particular night in July still rankles, when Wanda surprised me with a suggestion we go out dancing.
EARLY ON IN OUR COURTSHIP, Wanda took me to my first women’s dance. She couldn’t stand them herself, she claimed (citing the lame music), but considered it part of my initiation to the dyke scene. She had taken me to a softball game and to Virginia’s Bar a couple of times, but it was the dance that won my heart. I will never forget the excitement of a room pulsating with the voices of hundreds of women, women of all ages free to express the joy of being in each other’s company. And despite the DJ’s predilection for the two-step, I delighted in the flirtatious give and take on the dance floor, the promise held in a waltz.
After that first wondrous evening, Wanda did condescend to attend another dance with me. She warned me beforehand about the former girlfriends she was bound to run into, including the one from her early days in Winnipeg and the one she’d had a brief fling with before me. When dance night finally rolled around, I felt so deflated that I spent most of the evening in a corner nursing a drink. Meanwhile, Wanda had swigged a couple of beers and danced the night away with her supposedly despicable exes. She even danced with horrible Kate the Psycho who she never wanted to see or talk to or so much as hear another word about as long as she lived.
So I had stopped mentioning the dances. And now Wanda wanted to go dancing again?
Maybe things were looking up.
THE NIGHT OF THE DANCE, she spent an uncharacteristically long time getting ready, and when she finally came down the stairs, she was dressed in the pearly iridescent silk shirt reserved for special occasions.
“You sure y
ou want to wear that?” I said. “The hall gets so smoky.”
“Oh, o-o-oh, smoke gets in your eyes,” Wanda sang in reply, twirling me about the kitchen.
At the hall, Wanda remained in high spirits. She got a beer for herself and a Coke for me, since, as usual, I was the designated driver. She pecked me on the cheek and promised she’d be right back. It was an actual peck, like we were a tired old couple. She headed to the bathroom only to mysteriously slip out the side door. Had she forgotten something in the car?
I knew the rules. If you were part of a couple, no dancing with anyone else early on. And you were not to ask a butch to dance.
I sat tapping my toes as I observed the scene around me. An older, buff woman with streaked, gelled hair had inserted herself into a group of twenty-somethings. To accentuate her buffiness, she wore a tight white shirt over her perky breasts and even tighter leather pants. She must’ve been at least sixty, but she was hopping about feverishly in the midst of the more subdued group of young dykes. The scene was dispiriting.
The DJ started a round of two-steps, and Wanda suddenly reappeared and seized my hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
I protested. “But we hate the two-step.”
“So maybe it’s time to broaden our horizons.”
As Wanda steered me around the dance floor, who should we bump into but Cindy and Freddie?
“Well, hi there,” said Wanda, much too casually. “Sara, you remember Cindy, don’t you?”
I HAD MET CINDY ONCE, and I certainly knew all about her. Everyone knew about the woman who had moved from New Brunswick to be with Freddie.
I had met her on a cold Saturday afternoon in late spring, the backyard still crusted with snow. Normally, I would have been at the bookstore, except that Carmen had wanted to trade her regular Saturday off for my Monday.
I was upstairs gathering laundry when I happened to glimpse out the window to see an animated Wanda laughing with a chic-looking young blonde in the snow-covered garden.
The Heart Begins Here Page 4
