Uncharted

by Graeme Connell

  Brewster

  #

  Hey H and H,

  I had a very interesting time in Revelstoke. Nice city, lots of history. I love the early 20-century style of architecture; it tells a story. The old buildings have been restored and lend a delightful air in the mountain town, as if time stands still. The buildings, many of them privately owned residential and commercial, have revitalized the town core. Concrete and glass towers have not invaded the beauty of the place.

  The trip up to the Meadows in the Sky was a miracle in itself. Most enjoyable day, and I did have great company. My only regret is that we never visited that place as a family. Your mother and I always said we would, but I always wanted to get to our destination and didn’t like stopping to take in the sights.

  He shuts the lid on the iPad and opens the venetians to look out over the balcony at the city skyline. Quite the scene, he thinks. Wonder who the main customer is for a place like this? Businessmen? Tourists en route to the mountains? He looks in the desk and is thrilled to find letterhead notepaper and an envelope. Maybe a letter to Melanie, later. He sees a couple of postcards and regrets that he didn’t send a card to the kids from Revelstoke. He thinks he should finish his note to Harris and Hannah. He likes his comfortable den for the night and smiles at the sudden flash of humour that he’s as hungry as a bear.

  He opens his iPad on the mahogany desk and resumes his letter.

  The flowers were remarkable: views across meadows of red paintbrush, blue Arctic lupine, bushy hairdos of the western anemone, piny subalpine daisy, knobbly white-pink heads of Sitka valerian, carpet after carpet of pink and white heather, yellow arnica, and white rhododendron bushes. Imagine how your mother would have reacted at seeing the last of the season’s golden glacier lilies. Now, don’t laugh. I only know all these flowers from a brochure I picked up at the artist’s cabin at the summit!

  I expect the pair of you will give me an award for the stupidest man ever known. After years of insisting I take cameras everywhere I go, I did not take one on my road trip. You heard correct—not a single one. As a result, the grand array of blooms in the meadows go unrecorded. My only excuses are that the trip up there was totally unplanned, that your mom was not with me and I’m not that into the job right now. On top of that misfire, I saw a grizzly between Louise and Banff.

  I wonder how you are both doing. How does winter affect your business, Harris? Being so close to the tropics, it must still be a terrific escape hole for sail and sun. We’re in for a fabulous summer this year, and no doubt Hannah’s Nova Scotia will be awash in colour come the fall.

  I have a meeting later this week with the park folks to go over our earlier discussions for the wildflower project. Even though I have most of the photos ready for them. I continue to have reservations about it. They say they have some news for me and new developments. I wonder where this will all lead?

  A lot happened to me on the trip these past few days. and it will take me some time to process it all. I met a lot of people who reminded me over and over that I am not alone. I did get a lot of advice on how to move on. So stay tuned on this front.

  I love you guys and do love to hear of your adventures. Stay calm and stay cool, and I promise I will too!

  Dad

  He reads through his email, checks his spelling and does a couple of rewrites where he sounds a bit negative. He figures his message will ease the minds of his worried offspring; he’s aware his moods have caused them concern. He presses send. The email is now in cyberspace. Time for food. He’s expecting the best in this luxury hotel. Mr. Bear, let’s go eat. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Brewster unpacks his computer on the park’s boardroom table. He’s the first to arrive for the requested meeting, and he assumes its purpose is to roll through plans to possibly extend the scope of the project to pictures on the wall and education materials.

  “Hello, Brewster. Good to see you this morning.” A happy José comes into room followed by Louise and Tanya, who chairs the meeting. Brewster’s had enough experience with meetings like this that he has the feeling he’s being set up for something, but what?

  After a good bit of idle chit-chat across the table, Louise leaves the room and returns a minute or two later with an attractive, middle-aged woman leading a little white dog dressed in a red coat. “Brewster, we’d like you to meet Clotilde Chiasson. We understand you’ve already exchanged emails.”

  “I met Clotilde in the park one day, working at her sketches,” Tanya says. “She’s a very talented botanical artist, so we invited her here to meet with you and to move our joint wildflower project up a notch.”

  “Hello, Brewster,” she says. “I think we literally bumped into each other one time, in the park. It’s nice to formally meet you. I’ve seen your pictures, and I think they’re the best close-ups I’ve ever seen.”

  Brewster knows he’s staring at Clotilde. He watches her arrange herself directly opposite him. The dog sits quietly at her right foot. Tanya coughs. “Thank you both for freeing up your time to be with us, and on such a beautiful day. I’m sure we’d all rather be out in the park. Louise, over to you.”

  Clotilde looks over at Brewster, who quickly turns to face Louise. “As the education group here, working mostly with very keen and knowledgeable volunteers, we feel we can expand on our original thinking and create a thoroughly informative and interesting book combining Clotilde’s botanical art with your photographs, Brewster. We see you both selecting the flowers, and Melanie’s notes will form the background with our added technical information.”

  “We don’t have anything like this, so specific to the park,” Tanya adds.

  Brewster feels trapped. His initial reaction is to pull back, to walk away, but Melanie’s bench is already installed. Will they take it away?

  “It sounds a good idea, but it’s gone beyond what we agreed on,” Brewster says, avoiding eye contact with Clotilde.

  Tanya senses the awkward moment and suggests Clotilde pass some of her artwork around the table.

  When he looks back to Clotilde, he’s immediately taken in by her beauty. He watches as she removes her folio from a red backpack and passes samples of her detailed drawings across the table. Maybe he has seen this woman before. There’s even music in her voice. She can talk, he thinks. Is she really deaf? What’s with the dog?

  “These are really good,” he says as he views her work. “Louise, you mean we put these with the photographs. Isn’t that doubling up a bit?”

  Tanya retells his comment to Clotilde, who nods. “I’m sorry, Brewster. I could not see what you said.”

  “People will most likely first identify the flower from the photograph; they will be drawn to it,” Louise says. “We see the artwork describing the parts of the flower without the flower having to be picked. One complements the other.”

  He nods in tacit approval of their new plan, though he still fails to grasp how he can work with a deaf artist. Tanya senses his hesitation and suggests they work through her and Louise, though they do encourage collaboration to coordinate their contributions.

  Tanya closes the meeting with a request to have all the material to her before the end of August, so that design work can proceed on the final format of the book.

  Brewster suggests he meet with Clotilde in about a week. He will email his selections in batches.

  As gets into his car, he worries that Melanie’s concept has been hijacked.

  #

  “Irene? Hi, it’s Brew …” He coughs, covers the mouthpiece with his hand and splutters and coughs some more. “Irene. Hi, it’s Brewster. Sorry about that. I must have something stuck in my throat.” He splutters again. Nervous tension. “Um, I have a couple tickets to the show at the Jube at the weekend, and I wondered if you’d like to go?” There. He’d made the invitation. He wipes the sweat from his eyes and listens to the
quiet at the end of the phone. “I’ve had the tickets for a while; we have a subscription,” he adds, breaking the silence.

  “Well, hello to you too, Brewster,” Irene says. “I really didn’t think you’d be calling me up, but yes, I’d love to go. Why don’t you email me with the details and arrangements, and I’ll get back to you? I’m in the middle of a conference call to Vancouver. I’d love to go.”

  He slowly puts the phone back into the silver charger unit and sighs with relief. He feels all clammy after the call, at having taken this major step to invite a woman friend out on a date.

  It’s not a date, he reminds himself. Just a couple of friends going to a show together. Harris and Hannah would say it’s a date, though, and they’d probably laugh at him. He really feels like a schoolboy now, like when he was 15 and invited one of the girls in the swim club to go to the movies. It wasn’t really like that with Melanie. No ice to break. They’d met by chance at a Christmas party and spent the evening together—and then the next 34 years.

  Now, although he’s made the effort and extended an invite to Irene, he’s not sure he wants to go through with it. Sure, they’d enjoyed each other’s company at Revelstoke two weeks ago, but this is different. Why? Well, not sure. Just different. She’d done the inviting to her breakfast table, and she’d initiated the sunny eye-opening afternoon up to the Meadows. He’d simply gone along with the whole idea. Yes, a night at the Jubilee will be different. Now, what is he to do? Does he take her to dinner and then the show? Does he pick her up, or meet her there? What about afterward? Do they go for coffee? A late-night supper, perhaps? Will he have to take her home? Maybe he’ll call the whole thing off. She’s given him an out.

  It’s Monday night, and Hannah usually calls. Should he tell her he’s invited a woman to a performance at the Jubilee Auditorium? What will she have to say about that?

  “Dad, that’s terrific. I’m so glad. Now tell me again, where did you meet her, and what’s her name? I hope she’s older than me.” Hannah’s voice leaps down the phone line as he mumbles his way through.

  “There’s nothing in this, Hannah. Nothing. We met at the hotel in Revelstoke. I had this season ticket and thought she might like to go. Nothing to get excited about.”

  “Oh, tosh, Dad. You like her,” Hannah says. “This is really good for you. You do need to get out and find yourself again. I’m sure she—what’s her name? Irene?—is a lovely person. You’ll have a wonderful evening. Now, this is what you do.…”

  On Friday afternoon, Brewster picks up his cell phone.

  Hi, Brewster. Sorry to be a nuisance, but I have a late-afternoon conference call with a client in Portland, Oregon. Is it okay for you to meet at my office here in Quarry Park—say, at 7:00 p.m.? I’ll leave a message with security. I’m looking forward to our evening. See you then.

  Brewster is stunned. Is this woman always like this? She is so tied to her work. It’s like 24/7. Oh, well. No worries. At least that covers the pre-show dinner—which, he quickly realizes, he hasn’t made any arrangements for anyway.

  Irene talks a mile a minute when he meets as arranged. She is ready and waiting. “I just told the client—he’s a philanthropist based in Portland—that I was heading to a special concert tonight and had to leave. He laughed and said, ‘We all gotta learn there’s more to life than work,’ and he asked that I get back to him early next week on what we might suggest in working with local companies there on development plans for the fossil beds. Interesting project.”

  Irene slips her arm through his as they walk from the parking lot to the auditorium. “Long time since I’ve been here,” she says. “If you have a subscription membership, you must come here a lot.”

  “Melanie and I often came, but it’s really a company thing. On one hand I’m supporting the place, and on the other I usually give away tickets to clients and visitors to the city. Sort of my own little PR thing, and a thank-you to tenants and staff in my building.”

  Brewster feels the awkwardness disappear as they settle into their seats, the curtain goes up and the orchestra sweeps them into a new land. It’s a dazzling opera with captivating theatre and music, and they’re totally engrossed in the magic that rolls across the auditorium. They sit close together, slightly leaning toward each other and caught up in the emotion. Brewster feels her gasps of delight as the sopranos and tenors release their rich voices.

  Tension melts, and for the moment Brewster forgets his grief as Irene looks at him. He smiles and remembers how Melanie used to do the same thing. He’s pleased at this escape into a creative world.

  He doesn’t want to stand at the encore. He doesn’t want to leave his seat. Irene grabs his arm, lifts him up and claps vigorously, swept up in the audience’s adoration. She resumes her chatter as he pilots his car through the traffic. He doesn’t have much to say, leaving it all to her. He doesn’t want to lose the moment and suggests they stop someplace for a late-night snack to close out a successful evening.

  “Not sure what we can find,” she says. “Let’s just go to my place, and I’ll make you a decent cup of coffee.”

  Brewster doesn’t know how to read this. Hannah’s tips for a successful evening disappeared sometime earlier as the evening took control of itself. “Um, well, that sounds good, but I thought we’d just go to one of those places around 17th.”

  “That would be very nice,” she says. “But after such a magical evening, I’m not sure I can handle a noisy crowd.”

  Brewster finds himself without any conversation as they drive south across the city to Irene’s condo, just blocks from her office. Irene is quiet. “It was a lovely show,” she says. “I think I should go to the theatre more often. A wonderful, refreshing escape.”

  She offers directions to her condo and the parking area and overrides Brewster’s protestations and stage fright. “Maybe I should just leave you here and head on home,” he says. “It’s almost midnight.”

  Irene laughs. “Are you’re embarrassed to be out with an unattached woman? Come on in. You’ve only got yourself to go home to. Make this your night out.”

  He’s blown away at the interior of her ultra-modern home. “It’s just new,” she says, watching him look around the living room as he walks to the windows overlooking parkland to the river. “It’s big for just me, but I often have friends or family staying over. I work a lot from here too. It’s more of an investment, really. The security is handy because I’m frequently away, in exotic places like Revelstoke.”

  She busies herself in the kitchen, all part of the big room. “I’m making you a flat white, an espresso style I picked up in New Zealand when I was on cycling holiday there a couple of years ago. Just like a cappuccino, but you steam from the bottom of the jug, and it produces a nice micro froth.”

  Brewster is quite uncomfortable, not knowing what to say or even what to do. She puts the coffee mugs on the table near the white leather sofa, sits beside him and produces a silver bowl of dark chocolates from the shelf underneath.

  “There,” she says, settling back. “This is much better than a noisy, can’t-hear-yourself-think restaurant. The square ones are caramel, the ovals are generally nuts and the swirls are cremes. Well, more or less.”

  “That Mark in the photo?” he says as he picks out a caramel.

  “Yes. A picture of him working in Africa. That’s the last picture he sent me, and that was maybe 20 years ago. I was frantic for a long time, trying to find him and thinking the worst. It turns out he went to Africa after his time in Asia. Then I heard he’d gone to South America. I’ve lost track of him, and after my last discussion with the Canadian authorities, I gave up trying. They told me they’d been in touch with him, and he’d said he would make contact, but there’s been nothing.”

  “That must’ve been tough on you,” Brewster says. “Really tough. Years of not knowing.”

  “You bet. I got really angry, but blamed m
yself. What had I done wrong? Was I a bad wife, a lousy and insufficient lover? Did I want too much? Was I overbearing, too busy with my work? I hurt a lot, and in many ways I still do. I keep a wall up around me and have deliberately not allowed myself to become too involved with any man. It grew into an easy pattern. I love my work, I love what I do, I love the outdoors. I have good friends, guys and gals, and I love my solitude. I read a lot, travel when I can and stay busy.”

  “You’ve obviously found a lot in life, and I wonder if I can do the same now,” he says. “I’m kinda surprised that you’ve avoided any serious relationships, though. You’re bright, attractive and busy.”

  “Ha-ha. That’s why I keep my wedding ring on. It scares them away and keeps my work and life in balance. There was one time that I was really hurt. In a way, I overreacted after I realized that Mark would not be coming home anytime soon. A guy I worked with in Fort McMurray became more than a shoulder to cry on. He lived in New Brunswick somewhere but would fly in for work on rotation. He quit the camp life and would stay at my place. I thought there was a chance we’d end up together. He was special and caring.

  “Then after a couple of months, one of my associates asked me how I felt about him—and about the fact he had a wife and family back home. I’d never suspected anything. I was a naive Prairie girl. I finished early that day, went home, packed all his things into his suitcases and left them outside the front door. I’ve never seen or heard from him since.”

  “Certainly an interesting life,” Brewster says as he reaches out and touches her hand. “I guess that’s when you sold up and headed back to university, as you told me over breakfast.”

  “So right. I had to, and before I got back to the lecture halls I had a lot of time with a psychiatrist. My parents were really grand and helped me back on the road. Completing my master’s degree was the best thing. It gave me a great change of pace and time to heal. “But enough about me. What you see is what you get,” she says as she gives his hand a squeeze. “You’ve done very well for yourself after starting out as a tradesman and getting to where you are now, financially secure and with what sounds like two great kids. Sad thing is losing your wife. But grief won’t change that. Staying miserable all day and every day won’t alter that. That’s what my shrink told me, or words to that effect. Even now, I still expect Mark to walk through that door. What would I do?”