Archibald Full Frontal, page 19
“And this is my good friend, Dan,” Sam continues seamlessly.
“Dan?” Archibald looks him up and down. In jeans and a red shirt, he looks like a college jock, appealing and unthreatening.
“I have heard a lot about you, Mr. Weeks.” Dan smiles calmly. He has been well prepped.
“And I have heard absolutely nothing about you. And I can see that that was a complete faux pas. Call me Archibald, please,” he says flirtatiously. His eyebrows lift as he spies the mountain of gifts in the corner.
“Time for presents,” I announce.
“Would you care to escort me, young man?” he asks Dan, taking his arm.
“My pleasure,” Dan replies congenially.
After Archibald has ripped through the presents, Maria appears as if on cue, with her creation lit like a candelabra.
People cram around the cake and sing as Archibald revels in the attention. There is boisterous applause as he manages to extinguish all the candles, after three tries. He inspects the cake and proclaims it “glorious, simply glorious!”
“A toast!” Archibald proclaims. “Thank you to all of you. You are fabulous. But there are some names I simply have to mention: first, Maria.” I search the room and notice her in the doorway. “There is only one person who could have created this stunning vision, this delectable bounty of calories and style. She has been with me for so long, so many years, and I rarely take the time to thank her publicly. She may have the face of Medusa, but she has the loyalty of Lassie and the heart of Raphael. She is my better half on my bad days, and my favourite pain in the derrière on my best days. To my Athena. My household warrior. To Maria!”
“To Maria!” the room toasts.
Was she blushing? She waves her arms dismissively before scurrying away muttering and scowling. But she is pleased by her tribute. I can tell.
I cut in to help distribute the cake.
“And there is one other person it behooves me to mention,” he continues, still in generous mode. “This event smacks of her design. She is an organizer of the humdrum, the person in the wings, my enabler and, at times, in my wilder moments, my jailer. Her youth and energy add … je ne sais quoi … a distraction that I find refreshing when she isn’t running me ragged, eating me out of house and home, draining my bank accounts, or forgetting to gas up my car. She is the Shirley Temple to my Tequila Sunrise. She is my granddaughter. To Magali. To Maggie!”
Once again, the room raises glasses, and I find myself blushing, falling victim to his sycophancy.
“Now, let’s break this thinktank up and take this scrawny tea party upstairs! Maggie is making martinis!”
Upstairs, as predicted, I am the bartender. More people materialize from the ether. Sam and Dan act as busboys. Dan collects empties and Sam distributes rounds through the apartment on a tray. The house becomes cluttered with people. Sam is called to the piano and Dan is recruited to dance with one of the Deliahs. As he dances, I notice a ten-dollar bill stuffed down the back of his pants. Zoltan is perched on a stool in the kitchen boiling eggs; Vern is massaging Rita’s nylon-encased feet. A collection of poetry students plus Reggie have congregated outside on the balcony smoking weed, adding youthful vigour to the event. I balance a tray of crantinis for the younglings and a scotch for Edward on my hip. As I place them on the dining room table, I notice the office door ajar.
It is neat and quiet inside, as usual, invitingly dusky. Carolina is standing in front of Archibald’s bookshelves, holding a tan-coloured volume in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.
“Carolina?” I ask. She peers over her shoulder and drops the book. As she bends to retrieve it, her glass of red wine splashes over the surface of Archibald’s most prized Persian rug, cream with blue peacocks and a floral border. I leap forward and catch the book, which is luckily unscathed.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Carolina gasps.
We stand frozen in horror, red quickly sinking into the cream and blue tableau of the carpet at her feet. I look around frantically, knowing time is of the essence. I pull off my outer sweater and hand it to her, “Here, blot it with this. Fast!”
I scurry from the room to find soda and paper towels, a combination Maria always uses on stains. I bump into Sam on his way to the bathroom.
“Code Red, in the den. We need a diversion — come with me,” I whisper.
Inside the office, Carolina is frantically padding the spot with my sweater. I hand the soda and towels to Sam. “Make it go away.”
“I’m so sorry!” Carolina exclaims.
“Not as sorry as we will be if he finds it. It was a gift from Omar Sharif or something like that.”
Sam is fast at work. “I thought it was the Princess of Jordan.”
“Whatever,” I say.
“Maggie! Magali?” comes a familiar voice from the direction of the dining room. “I am disturbingly cocktail-free! Where is that wallflower of a granddaughter? It is nigh impossible to find good help.”
I grab the book Carolina had been looking at. It is a Wordsworth second edition. Another valued possession.
“Don’t make me find you!” he shouts tipsily. “Where are you? Having a threesome in there?”
“Here I am,” I intercept him in the dining room.
“What were you doing in my office?” He sways as he speaks.
I hand him the volume.
“I was hoping you would give a reading. It would be a great way to rev things up,” I enthuse.
He squints at the book. “You don’t even like Wordsworth.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” I liked his poems fine; he had just come off as a pompous ass in a biography I had read.
Just then, Dan appears, looking exhausted. “He’s one of Dan’s favourites.”
“Well, in that case, Danny boy. I’d be delighted to oblige. You should join my poetry class sometime.”
Dan looks at me dumbly. I nod my head at him, urging him to reply.
“Uh — okay.”
“Come on, hunky-boy.” Archie pulls him to the living room; Dan throws a woeful look at me over Archibald’s shoulder. Sorry, sucker.
“Attention! Attention!” I hear Archibald holler. “I have had a request from this well-buffed young man, who has a yearnin’ for some learnin’.”
Inside the office, Sam and Carolina have managed to reduce the stain to a pink smear. We work on it for several more minutes.
“It’s the best I can do,” Sam says grimly, kneeling beside the rug.
“What a catastrophe,” I say in Archibald fashion.
“A clusterfuck,” Sam agrees.
“I could just apologize,” Carolina offers.
Sam and I look at each other knowingly. “It’s better if he doesn’t find out today,” I say.
“He is always looking for a scapegoat at the end of a party,” Sam explains. “And he has had way too much to drink.”
“He’ll be in baby-eating mode soon,” I concur.
“Dan!” Sam and I say at the same time.
Afterwards, we sit downstairs, four trauma victims, momentarily sapped.
“That went well,” I say.
“Not bad, everything considered,” Sam agrees.
Carolina disagrees. “I ruined his rug.”
“Minimal collateral damage,” I say. “For an Archibald Weeks party.”
“So, Dan, what’s the prognosis?” Sam asks. “Should we say, ‘I told you so’?”
Dan exhales audibly, staring at the ceiling. “He insulted my intelligence, my personality, even my heritage, not that I actually am a farm boy. He poked and prodded me and gave me a wedgie. Is there money in my pants?” He pulls out the ten-dollar bill. “One thing is for certain: I am a changed man.”
“Sounds about right,” concurs Sam.
“You survived Archibald.” I smile, squeezing his bicep in Archibald fashion. “Welcome to the club.”
“You must be Maggie,” says the young man who emerges from Archibald’s office.
“Uh-huh,” I say. I am still bleary-eyed from a movie marathon at Juliette’s last night. She’s a fellow art student I set up with Dan. They have a lot in common and both really enjoy action movies, but it seems I have created a bit of a monster. Each time I try to leave, they both urge me to stay, as if they’re desperate not to be alone together.
He approaches me with a wide smile holding out his hand. “I’m Eddie.”
“Hi, Eddie. Are you subbing for Reggie?” I ask doubtfully. He is in slacks and a pressed striped shirt and wears gold-framed glasses. No one from the business sphere usually gains admittance into Archibald’s quarters before 11:30 in the morning and it is only 10.
“Reggie? No, no. I’m the new editor assigned to Mr. Weeks’s — Archibald’s book.”
“Okay.” I shake his hand, unimpressed. He looks a little young to me, but what do I know?
“Anyway, I will be working with Archibald for the next while.”
“I mainly handle his social calendar.”
“Well, we are going to have to wipe that clean for the indefinite future.”
“What?” Had they met? Archibald existed for his social calendar. “Have you told Archibald this?”
“Absolutely, and I have taken the liberty of having the spare room set up as your office until we are finished.” He points me to the spare room.
“I know where the spare room is,” I mutter. “I was just going to get some breakfast.”
“Right. Of course. I forgot you used to live here.” He whacks himself on the forehead as if he has just remembered something of great significance.
I ignore him and help myself to a blueberry muffin from a basket in the kitchen. He follows me, like a terrier.
“I guess the point I am trying to make is that Archibald is going to be very busy over the next few weeks.”
I chew my muffin, spilling crumbs on the table as I do. “So? That’s fine by me.”
“Terrific,” says the terrier. Did he kick Maria out of her own kitchen?
“What happened to … what was his name? The really nice guy who used to do Archie’s books?”
“Bart? Archibald has changed publishers. I thought you knew.”
I yawn.
“Anyway, I specialize in, well, it was decided that I was best suited to Archibald’s needs.”
“Meaning you are gay and a part-time masseuse as well as editor?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Very good. No. On both counts. You are just what I expected,” he continues, laughing a machine-gun barrage “ha-ha-ha-ha” as he leaves the room.
I put my muffin down and examine my midsection for bullet holes. For a second, I think I smell trouble, but maybe it’s just the new guy’s cologne.
“I’ve heard he’s top notch,” Leo says wistfully from a chaise longue. We are sitting in the Deliahs’ living room discussing the taskmaster Eddie. Since Archibald has been locked away in his office on a work kick, none of his group has been around. Today, he emerged and declared it was time for a break. I had been busy, too. I had been asked to contribute three of my paintings to an exhibit at school. I had a storage room to choose from but had been working on something new. “They must think highly of your latest,” Leo continues.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Archibald spits.
“He just means that your latest book could be your best, Dear,” says Dorothy as she refills Archibald’s sherry. I am eating a large slice of bumbleberry pie, amused to think of how much Archibald’s newly enforced work ethic torments him.
“Yes, but that boy is punishing, brutally punishing. It is a marathon that never ends.”
“Finally, a punishment you don’t like, ja?” Rita chimes in. I almost high-five her. “What is it about? Your latest opus?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t.” Archibald stares into his sherry. “Let’s talk about anything else. Just not that blasted book.”
We all look at him, dumbfounded. Archibald unwilling to discuss himself or his work? Has he undergone a lobotomy I don’t know about? Maybe I would have to reconsider this Eddie character.
“Congratulations!” I say to Carolina as she opens the door. I hand her a bottle of champagne I borrowed from Archibald’s. “I heard the news! You got into medical school!”
“Thanks.” She looks really happy. “Although it means I have to move back to Regina.”
“Back home,” says Sam, taking the bottle, grinning.
“Well, it’s closer than Toronto.”
I lie on the couch, my hair, long again, spread out on the cushion, staring up at the ceiling, twirling an empty glass in my hands. Carolina is curled up on the floor beside Sam’s stereo. Sam has gone out for food.
I hum along to a Fleetwood Mac song, every inch of me relaxed. Carolina and I have eased into a solid friendship. She has proven herself generous and down-to-earth, two qualities that fertilize any relationship.
Carolina drains the rest of the bottle and flips through his CDs. “He has to have more than this. I feel like something fun. Energetic.”
“Energetic?”
“You know … Madonna or the B-52’s? No more Tragically Hip, please.”
I had always thought Sam had a pretty good selection. “He has some more CDs somewhere, I think.”
“You must be right. How about under here?” She pulls out a box from one of his cabinets.
“I don’t think so. That’s where he keeps—”
She opens the box; inside is a stack of neatly catalogued large manila envelopes.
“—his pictures.”
“Whoops,” she says, swaying drunkenly. The contents of one envelope spill out, pictures upon pictures. They make a swooshing sound as they cascade to the floor. She giggles.
“Oh my God,” she gasps.
“What?” I say, sitting up, alert, curiosity piqued. “You should be a detective, not a doctor.”
“I’m not a doctor yet.”
She is clasping one photo and then another. She spreads them out by her knees.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be—”
“Crikey.”
“Not … porn?”
“No. Maggie, have you seen these?”
“No.”
“Look … They’re all of you.”
“Huh?”
And there I am. All over the floor. Me. In black and white and colour, in an array of sizes.
He often brought his camera along. A little camera he slung over his shoulder. I had grown used to the muffled sound of the shutter clicking. I had never really thought about the end results. I scrunch beside her. It’s me. Leaning off the edge of Archibald’s balcony, waving, hair whipping around in the wind. Me. Knees caked in dirt, gardening. Me. In my painting overalls, focused on cleaning paint off my hands. Some are of Dan and me, too. In one I particularly like, I have jumped up, arms and feet wrapped around Dan, head tilted back, neck arched. It must have been on New Year’s Eve at a concert last year. A few are of Carolina and me, even. Heads pressed together, smiling, glasses raised.
“Well, it must be my folder. I’m sure everyone has a folder.”
She peers through the other envelopes, shaking her head, and holds up more. There I was again. Pupils dilated, looking terrified before the mountain bike descent. Another, running in the waves of the ocean last summer on a dare. Dan stands with his pants rolled up in the foreground.
“Maybe everyone has their own box?” I reason, swallowing uneasily.
“I had no idea! Can’t you see it?” she bursts as though she has been struck with a lightning bolt–sized epiphany.
“Well … no.” I glance towards the door nervously.
“You are his muse.”
“Nooooo.” I shake my head fervently. “No friggin’ way.”
She peers into another envelope. “Still you.”
“You are wrong. He loves you. We spend a lot of time together. Like a lot of friends. That’s all,” I stumble. “And if I am anything to him, it’s a clown. I’m always … you know … stepping in it, putting my foot in my mouth, making an ass of myself…”
She places both arms on my shoulders, as if steadying an off-kilter ship. “Maggie. Stop it. Listen to you! Are you really willing to put yourself down to protect Sam? You don’t need to, okay? I’m not an idiot. And I trust you. I don’t know why. But I do. They’re only photos. I know you aren’t fucking.”
“No … no, we aren’t…” I stumble.
“You’re such a prude. You can’t even say the word ‘fucking.’”
I open my mouth and shut it again. I swallow. “No, we aren’t fucking.”
She continues, “But you inspire him. And what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. But … they were hidden. So what does that mean?” I ask her as my friend, realizing that she is also the girlfriend of my friend.
“It means he didn’t want me to find them,” she finishes. “And he won’t know that I have, that we have, understand?”
I nod my acquiescence. It is the safest recourse.
A noise in the hallway startles us. We begin shoving photos madly back into the envelopes.
“Hope you guys are hungry,” Sam says, carrying two big bags. “What am I saying? Of course you guys are hungry.” Carolina and I share trucker-sized appetites.
He sets the bags down and tosses his motorcycle helmet on the side table. We are sitting on either side of the couch, trying to look normal, the memory of my photos wedged like the slippery sharp spine of an X-ACTO knife between us.
“Everything okay?” He picks up on the tension.
“Just fine,” Carolina says, looking at me eyebrows raised, urging my co-operation.
“Sure. Sure,” I agree, and then a beat passes. “I should go.”
“But all the food! Why?” Sam exclaims.
“Maggie, stay,” Carolina urges with an edge.
I look uncertainly from one to the other, from Sam to Carolina. Carolina wills me to be quiet with her eyes. I nod my collusion, but I find myself wishing, impossibly, that I could warp time and return to before we discovered the photos.
“Is that really me?” Dan stares at the painting of him, one of three that had been chosen for the exhibit. It’s a painting I began shortly after the Halloween night when he had scared Michael off. In it he is dressed in drag, a bulky, brawny man in a skirt and blouse. I had painted from memory and emphasized characteristics that stood out to me. His arms were bulging superhero muscles, his face tight and drawn in an angry grimace. A bulky thigh poked through a slit in his skirt and his bright fuchsia lips were pursed. It was titled “Superhero.”
