Neea was so sweet yesterday, taking me shopping downtown so I could get something decent to wear tonight. I've gotten a few new things since I've been living here, but only replacements for the most egregiously worn-out crap I was wearing before, and for the hoodie and backpack that Kodi destroyed.
But this time it was for all-new clothes!
I'm not supposed to care about stuff like this. I've never been the pretty things type, and for many months I've looked like absolute shit and haven't cared, but right now, dressed decently and going out with Teddy and his friends, I'm allowing myself to be pleased. Yeah. New clothes.
So I'm wearing these cool, dark grey jeans, the kind that fit snugly all the way down my skinny legs; plus a white shirt with an oversized collar and a nice, nubbly little beige cardigan. Still got the white Chucks with the doodles all over them but they work with this look, I think, and I'm secretly hoping an art collector will offer me a hundred grand for them. When we were out shopping, Neea wanted me to get a skirt but I was like, whoa, one step at a time, woman! Anyway, it might not sound like much, but I'm feeling good.
Teddy's friends are actually pretty cool. Jello, no surprise, turns out to be a real nutbar, and Byron's girlfriend Katie and Teddy's friend C. J. are really nice. We all cram into Byron's little car to get here so it's like, quick introductions and then me wedging myself in between strangers. It turned out that C. J. didn't know the others either so I wasn't the only new face in the group.
We pile out of the car and walk to the gallery and I get a moment of nervousness seeing loads of well-dressed people inside, having artsy conversations and holding glasses of wine. What's it going to be like in there? Can I really do this? Then we barely get inside the door when Jello says loudly, "There are penises! I told you there'd be penises!"
He's looking at these big nude pictures of men and women on the back wall facing the door. It's full-frontal, so yes, there are a few penises.
"You promised not to embarrass me," says Byron.
Katie's laughing at her boyfriend and I'm thinking this'll probably be OK.
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They hovered just inside the door, not sure of what to do or where to go until Shane spotted them and came over. He was wearing a shiny black dinner jacket, even shinier black shoes, a crisp white shirt and bright purple velvet pants. "Hey! You guys showed up!" he said.
"Of course!" said Jello, giving Shane a hug.
"Good, we need some young blood around here," said Shane, laughing, then added in a loud whisper, "This is Victoria high-society so everyone's, like, ninety."
"Grace wanted to come too," Byron said, "but my Dad said no way." His little sister Grace was fifteen and, as far as Mr. Lin was concerned, needed to be sheltered from everything in the world that wasn't flowers, teddy bears and ponies.
Shane laughed. "Uncle Wayne. Such a prude!"
He hugged Byron, Teddy and Katie, then went on to hug C. J. and Darwin who he hadn't even met. Shane was a hugger and when Teddy did the introductions, Shane hugged the girls again.
"What's C. J. stand for?" he asked.
"She won't tell us!" said Jello.
"Must be something really embarrassing then," said Shane, laughing. "Thanks so much for coming, you guys! Grab a drink!"
He added with a wink, "You're all legal, right?"
Shane went off to talk to some other guests who had just come in.
"He said he was gonna be nervous," said Byron.
"He doesn't seem too nervous," said Jello.
"I think he's half-drunk," said Byron.
Teddy was looking at C. J.
"Umm, Clementine Jemima?" he asked her.
She laughed and shook her head.
"Cassidy Jordan?" asked Byron.
"Nope," said C. J.
"Caitlyn Jasmine!" said Jello.
"Uh uh," said C. J.
"How about Callista June?" said Darwin.
"Conchita Juanita!" said Jello.
C. J. shook her head.
"Constipated Jackrabbit," said Teddy.
C. J. laughed. "Definitely not!"
"Crabapple Jugular," said Byron.
"Condescending Jupiter," said Jello.
"Cosmic Jellyfish!" said Darwin.
"That's it!" said C. J. pointing at Darwin. "Damn, I didn't think you guys would guess!"
With that out of the way they decided they should probably check out Shane's photos. As they walked around, Teddy overheard some people using the word vernissage in describing the event. He wondered if that was something specific to photography exhibitions, or just some art-world term that he'd never run across before. He thought that people who used words like vernissage probably also enjoyed the occasional amuse bouche.
Shane's friend Zoë was there, wheelchair-bound but with more energy than the rest of the room combined. Zoë had been in a wheelchair since battling spinal muscular atrophy in her late teens, but that didn't stop her from making huge sculptures out of old cars, harvesting their bodywork in its various colours and then bending, twisting, reshaping and welding it into new forms that sometimes looked like plants, other times like people or animals. Her sculptures took the most industrial materials and turned them into forms from nature.
"Very cool that you guys all came out to support Shane. I know he really appreciates it," said Zoë.
Teddy and the boys had met Zoë a few times and Teddy had once gone with Byron to meet Shane at Zoë's studio. It had been a pretty cool experience seeing her sculptures in various stages of completion and the crazy array of torches, benders and cutters she used. Teddy said hi to Zoë and introduced C. J. and Darwin. They all chatted a bit, with Zoë taking some good-natured potshots at Shane, who stood across the room schmoozing with a well-dressed couple. Then Zoë introduced them all to a man named Ash who was dressed in a black suit, like an old-school undertaker. He wore glasses with thick black frames and was bald except for two neat rows of inch-long bleached blonde bristles, kind of a thin double-mohawk.
Ash asked the group some friendly questions about how they happened to be there. Teddy tried to pay attention but was distracted trying to recall the name of that species of penguin with the yellow feathers on its head because that's exactly what Ash looked like.
"Teddy's Dad is an artist," he heard C. J. say brightly.
Teddy frowned at her with a sharp shake of his head.
"Oh yeah?" said Ash. "Would I know him?"
"A. A. Aiken," said C. J. proudly. "He's famous."
Teddy was certain he'd never mentioned his father's name to C. J. and he narrowed his eyes at her. She shrugged and said, "Google."
"I don't think I've heard of him. Is he local?" asked Ash.
"Vancouver," Teddy said.
"Who represents him?"
"Um, Sheila Thorne-Dennis," said Teddy.
"OK. I'm not acquainted with her either. But then, it's not like I know everyone," he said, laughing, by which he obviously meant that yes, he did know everyone and since he didn't know Teddy's dad then A. A. Aiken must not be anyone.
Whatever, thought Teddy.
"There's Jeff," said Darwin suddenly. "Jeff!" she shouted and tugged Teddy by the arm toward a group of people on the other side of the room.
Teddy managed to mutter a quick "excuse me" to the penguin man as he was dragged away.
"Who's Jeff?" he asked Darwin when they were out of earshot, but then clued in.
"Oh, right... Thanks," he said. Darwin smiled.
"Jeff is awesome, isn't he?" she said. "I could tell that conversation wasn't fun for you."
"Yeah, I've had that same one a few times before."
"So what kind of art does your father do, anyway? Pervy stuff? Or dogs playing poker or something?"
"No, no, nothing like that... well, I guess some people might call it a little pervy. He paints women who, uh, have trouble with their clothes."
Darwin laughed. "What kind of trouble?"
"Trouble keeping them on," said Teddy. "I guess you could say he paints a world without buttons and zippers."
"OK," Darwin said, smiling. "So it's, like, art about the dangers of going fastener-free?"
"Exactly," said Teddy with a laugh. "The stuff is surprisingly popular though. He sells a ton of prints, like around the world."
"Porn sells," said Darwin.
"It's not porn! Jeez."
Darwin laughed at his touchiness, then said, "Well, artists have always painted nudies, right? Why should it bother you? Your Mom does it too. How come your Dad's art is, like, this touchy subject? And really, just ignore me if I'm prying..."
"No no, it's OK. It's just that my Dad's stuff is, uh... different."
"Different, how? Different good? Different bad? Different weird?"
"Different... cheesy." said Teddy. "Oh man, I can't believe I said that."
Darwin laughed again. Teddy continued. "It's all women, but, like, women on windswept seashores, women in front of stormy skies, sad women looking out of open windows, stuff like that."
"While their clothes fall off."
"Yup."
Teddy looked around for C. J., realizing that he'd abandoned her. Over in a corner of the room, Byron and Katie were talking to Shane's parents, Byron's aunt and uncle, who were dressed up in their finest and beaming with pride. Not far from them he spotted C. J. and Jello looking at one of Shane's photos. Teddy couldn't hear what Jello was saying but he could hear C. J. laughing. Jello seemed to be working his usual magic.
Wait, wasn't C. J. supposed to be his date?
Well OK, not his date really because it was a group thing, and since he hadn't told Jello that he was interested in her, technically no violation of protocol. Still, not entirely cool either.
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Wow, Teddy is going way beyond the call of duty here. Not just allowing me to come out with him and his friends tonight, but actually being nice to me too. I have to say I didn't have high hopes for this little soirée because A, I thought Teddy was just trying to get his mother to quit nagging him, and B, I thought he was on a mission to get busy with that girl, C. J. I figured I'd be amusing myself with a bunch of strangers but I still wanted to come out because I haven't done anything like this in, well, ever.
But now Jello and Cosmic Jellyfish are being all super-friendly over there, with lots of giggles and unnecessary touching, and Teddy's here with me, ignoring them and being sweet as pie.
Well, at least he was. He just said something about "checking in" and went to over to talk to them, leaving me alone to appreciate one of Shane's masterpieces.
This photo is funny. It looks like it's been set up like a romance novel cover. There's a painted backdrop of a castle on a craggy rock during a raging storm with this lusty coupleâreal live peopleâin the foreground. She's got cascades of shining brunette hair, skin like cream and full red lips. She's wearing a silky green dress from maybe the 1800s which, of course, shows off her quite spectacular bosom. Is this what Teddy's dad's art looks like?
It's the man, though, that makes the photo interesting. He's not your typical romance novel cover boy, the sexy, dark, vaguely menacing type. He's a clown, like, an actual clown with make-up and a big red nose! The two of them are locked in a passionate embrace, the woman looking like she might pass out from the sheer sexiness of it all, when meanwhile she's in the arms of a clown! He's wearing a demented outfit with frills and a patchwork of different colours and his bright orange hair is sticking out in all directions from underneath a little purple Charlie Chaplin hat. He and his costume are so totally in contrast with the rest of the scene that I have to laugh out loud. The photo is completely insane but somehow awesome. I'm not sure what it says about men and women, people's notions of romantic love or whatever, but it's pretty damn funny. I'm grinning away at it when someone slides in beside me to look at the same picture.
"So, men are clowns?" the guy says.
He looks about forty, neatly trimmed beard, kinda short, round-faced and a tad overweight. He's wearing a brown corduroy sport coat that could be the separated twin of my father's but under it is a Conan the Barbarian T-shirt that pretty much screams "irony."
In reply to his question I shrug and say, "I think it's more that Shane is playing with people's preconceptions."
"Shane?" he says, then catches himself. "Oh right, the photographer. Hmm. Preconceptions about what?"
"Love, romance, stuff like that."
"Okaaay," he says, apparently wanting me to expand on this theory.
I glance over and spot Teddy talking to C. J. and Jello. Be nice if he'd come back right about now.
"Uh, you know," I continue unenthusiastically, "people are fed a steady diet of images and clichés about what it should look likeâlove and whateverâbut maybe Shane's saying don't buy into that. That it can look like anything. Even like this."
"Whoa," he says. "Where did that come from? Are you an art critic? That was truly impressive!"
"No, I'm not an art critic and I don't think it was all that impressive. I made a thought in my head and then I said it."
I know this is one of those times when I should just walk away but for some reason I don't.
"No, really," the guy goes on, unfazed. "You're amazing. I can tell you have a very unique mind!"
Ugh. He can tell, can he? "Actually, I'm just normal," I say flatly. "Plus, FYI, things are unique or they aren't. There aren't degrees of it."
He laughs and takes a step closer to me. "That's exactly what I mean!" he says, putting a finger to his temple. "Smart."
If I was smart I'd be getting away from you.
"Where were the girls like you when I was still single?" he says now, speaking just above a whisper. He holds up his hand and with a sad pout points at his wedding ring. I feel my stomach kind of heave a bit.
"Probably in Kindergarten," I say, disgusted.
He chuckles nervously but doesn't leave. He seems about to lean in and lick me or something. I can smell salmon mousse on his breath from some of the canapés that have been going around. I'm debating whether it's going to have to be a punch in the face or a knee to the balls when Teddy, mercifully, comes back.
"Hi," he says, and I flash a big, grateful grin at him. Conan Guy just evaporatesâpoof!âand I'm looking at Teddy, so glad he's here, so glad he's tall and his wavy, brown hair is the just right amount of messy, and so glad he's looking back at me. He smiles then turns toward Shane's photo.
"Wow," he says.
"Yeah," I say. "Men are clowns."
"Pretty much," says Teddy with a shrug.
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Teddy got a text from Neea asking how it was going. He texted back, "fun" and then she asked if Darwin was having a good time too. He answered, "yeah. you'd be proud. i'm being nice."
Just then Zoë glided over to them in her wheelchair and asked how they were liking the show. "It's great!" said Darwin without hesitation, and Teddy nodded in agreement.
Darwin went on, "I guess I'm used to photography that's just, I don't know, pictures of things. Shane's stuff really makes you think."
"Oh, definitely," said Zoë, smiling. "He likes to mess with people."
She looked over at where Shane was speaking to a couple of very well-dressed women. "Looks like he's making an impression too," she said.
"Who are they?" asked Teddy.
"The one in white owns this gallery. Her name is Claire Elston. The other one is Ina Loach and she's even richer than Claire. The two of them kind of rule over the art world in Victoria."
"Ina Loach, like, Ina DaCosta Loach?" asked Teddy.
"Yeah, you remember her from the news a few years ago, right? Big court battle over a huge inheritance."
"It's still going on," Teddy said. "Just not in the news much anymore. My Mom knows her... through work, though, not as friends."
"Have you guys checked out the series called Fetish yet?" Zoë pointed toward a group of large photos on the opposite wall. "It's a little... intense."
Teddy and Darwin wove their way between clusters of people to a photo in the centre of the wall. "Wow, she's an angry girl," said Darwin, looking at the photo.
The shot was of a girl, maybe Japanese, dressed in a schoolgirl outfit, dark blue pleated skirt and a white short-sleeved top with a wide collar trimmed in blue. Like a lot of Shane's pictures, this photo was huge. She was standing on a sun-dappled sidewalk, dark tree branches arching over her from the right and parked cars lining the street to the left. Her school bag was on the sidewalk beside her. She was staring directly at the camera, at the viewer, brandishing a baseball bat menacingly, a look of utter rage on her face.
"Um..." said Teddy, "maybe it makes more sense if we go from the beginning," gesturing toward the start of the series, fifteen feet or so down the wall from them. As they walked toward the first photo Teddy was fussing on his phone, trying to find a picture of the exact species of penguin.
So many kinds! Wait... there! Erect-crested penguin. That was it. He held the phone out for Darwin to see.
"Right?" he said.
Darwin looked across the room toward Ash then back to the photo on the phone. "Oh my god," she said, laughing. "That's so perfect!"
Teddy had never seen Darwin laugh so honestly. No agenda, no secrets, just pure laughing. She was like a completely different person. He was amazed to think that this Darwin had been hiding inside that miserable, sickly, drugged-up Darwin all along. He liked this one so much better!
The series of photos started with the same Japanese girl on the same city street wearing the same school uniform. Teddy knew that it was a pretty common Internet thing to be pervishly into Japanese schoolgirls, so he guessed that's where the title "Fetish" came from. They looked at the first photo, taking in all of the crisp, colourful detail. Because it was so big, the girl was nearly life-size which had an unnerving way of drawing the viewer right into the picture.
"Shane uses this big, old-fashioned camera to get such huge images," Teddy said. "It cost, like, thousands. All on film, of courseâhe hates digitalâand he takes hours, or even days, to set up his shots."
"It really shows," said Darwin. "Every detail is perfect."
In the first shot the girl didn't look angry at all, but was happily licking a popsicle, pretending to be innocently unaware of any sexual connotations of what she was doing. In the next shot she smiled at the camera flirtatiously, letting a little of the innocence slip away. She posed with exaggerated cuteness, big smile, head tilted to one side, leaning forward at the waist with her popsicle-free hand on her hip.
The third photo showed the girl turning her attention back to the popsicle, her tongue curling out of her mouth to lick it suggestively, innocence pretty much gone. In the fourth shot, she held the popsicle horizontally, most of it inside her mouth, her lips pursed around it, leaving no doubt about what she was mimicking.
"I don't think that's her first popsicle," said Darwin.
In the next picture the popsicle was gone and a new prop appeared. It was the baseball bat they'd seen earlier in the angry photo. Was she going to suck on that, Teddy wondered? She held it up toward the camera, smiling widely, head again tilted sweetly to one side.
Teddy's phone chirped. It was a text from Byron: "dude, whats up with cj and jell? you pissed?"
Teddy quickly texted back: "no. i'm good. look how cute they are together!"
Another chirp and another Byron text: "so you into darwin now?"
Teddy answered: "don't be dumb".
So... OK, sanity check: was he into Darwin now? For weeks, every time Teddy was doing something with his friends, his mother had pleaded with him to take Darwin along and every time he'd refused. Why had he caved this time? She was acting more normal now as the effects of her meth addiction wore off, and she looked so much better. He remembered how disgusted he'd once been by her appearance and behaviour. He also remembered that, even though he wouldn't have wanted to admit it, he'd always been drawn to something he saw in her, a little spark, a hint of the girl she was before the drugs. He hadn't expected to ever see that girl, figuring the damage was done.
"Byron," he said to Darwin as he slid the phone back into the pocket of his jeans.
"I like your friends," said Darwin with a smile. "They're goofballs, just like you."
Teddy smiled, nodding in agreement, and found himself looking at Darwin a second or two longer than normal. She didn't look away. Her smile, he noticed, just like her laugh earlier, wasn't forced or fake but real, and really pretty.
They were in front of the next photo of Shane's Japanese schoolgirl series, a little further than midway down the long wall of huge pictures. In this one the Japanese girl still held the baseball bat but now she raised it to her shoulder as if about to swing. It was a cute, sporty photo. But in the following photo her expression suddenly went from sweet and demure to angry. Now it looked like she was going to not only swing the bat, but swing it at the photographer. It was this one that Teddy and Darwin first looked at a few minutes ago and it didn't make much more sense now than it had then. Was the girl supposed to be pissed off because the photographer wanted to take sexy pictures of her and she wasn't into it? Was the viewer meant to think the photographerânot Shane but the pretend male photographer in this pretend fetish photo shootâhad said something to make her mad?
In the next image she swung. There was a blur as the bat arced toward the camera. In the shot that followed that, the angle changed, as if the photographer had been hit and was falling, still snapping photos. Over the next few images she swung the bat again and again and the angle of the camera got lower and lower but always focused on her murderously angry face. Smears of blood appeared on the bat and spatters of it on the girl's clothes and face. In the second last shot the photographer's foot and part of his leg extended awkwardly into the bottom of the frame: he had been beaten to the ground and the girl stood over him, bat raised to deliver another blow. In the very last shot, the camera was sideways, down at pavement level, a bloody bat and melting popsicle lay on the ground nearby. The girl was gone.
"God damn," said Teddy, quietly.
"Yeah," said Darwin.
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If you liked this chapter I hope you'll kindly consider giving it a vote. Votes really help to increase a story's reach and my little tale could use a boost. Thank you for reading!
â D.B.