the food arrived, we all attacked it like starving refugees. But after a minute or two, I noticed Cleo and Joey making way for Simon as he helped himself two and three and four times. Simon had that effect on people.
Joey’s chatter turned into a runaway train as he tried to impress Simon with his TV and movie credits. Simon just grinned and nodded but I doubted he knew what Joey was talking about.
I said quietly to Cleo, “Simon is a bottomless pit. You don’t ever want to invite him over for dinner.”
A sly look came over her face. “I was thinking I could take him to one of those all-you-can-eat smorgasbords.”
Finally, when all the little cardboard cartons were empty, Simon rubbed his stomach and beamed angelically. “That was a nice little snack. We can get a proper meal a little later, huh, Dinah? After we’ve been out for your surprise birthday treat.”
“A proper meal? What were we stuffing into our faces just now? And a surprise? It’s after midnight, Simon. I’ve got a big day at the office tomorrow. The CEO’s coming in from the national headquarters…”
“Dinah, I’m bitterly disappointed. When was midnight ever late for you? Better face it. You’re only thirty and you’re so far over the hill you might as well just lie down and roll the last little bit of the way into your grave.” He fatefully shook his head.
I took the bait. I leapt up and began to run around, clearing up, snatching glasses out of hands and throwing away balled-up paper napkins and empty takeout boxes. “Okay, so where are we going?”
“Like I said, it’s a surprise. And I should add that I actually put some research into this.” I was very familiar with Simon’s brand of surprise. I both dreaded and longed for it.
Cleo and Joey looked at each other, then at Simon and me, and said in chorus, like two schoolchildren, “Can we come, too?”
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourselves in for. This is my whale rub friend,” I said.
“Oh my God,” said Cleo melodramatically, “not your whale rub friend? Now would that have something to do with massage?”
“Whale rub?” chirped Joey. “It sounds obscene.”
“I’ll tell you about it sometime,” I said, “when I’m really, really drunk.”
Simon nodded and chuckled. “Yeah. I’d forgotten about the whale rub.”
“Please, Simon, can we come too, wherever it is you’re taking her?” schmoozed Cleo. “I hate to be left out of the party.”
“Can we, Simon, can we?” asked Joey.
Simon moved into his inimitable and rare business mode. “I don’t know. You’re going to have to be fast. Comfortable clothes. Dark stuff. No high-heeled shoes, eh, babe?” He directed this at Cleo. “No tail ends that could hang out or get caught in or on something. We should get going, Di. We’ve got a bit of a tight and squeaky time frame here.”
I said, “What he means, is that if we don’t have the timing perfect, we’ll be like mice in a trap, squeaking our heads off. Simon doesn’t have much respect for legalities.”
“Aw, c’mon now, Di. I’ve got a most excellent lawyer. So let’s breeze on outa here,” said Simon.
Joey went back to his place to change and I lent Cleo something in black. I had a closetful. Nothing hides the fat better than black. While we were getting ready, Simon was going through my kitchen cupboards. He managed to find an old bag of sultana raisins, some chocolate chips, half a box of muesli, and a joke tin of escargot that I’d won at a New Year’s raffle. He inhaled all my remaining food supplies and announced that it was time to leave.
Simon guided us up to the roof of the Hotel Vancouver in Mission Impossible style, dodging porters and chambermaids, coaxing us through poorly-lit, forlorn hotel arteries that gave off stale and slightly greasy-smelling odors, corridors and dark places that had a vague presence of skittering creatures nearby—rats, mice, pigeons. All the way up the endless flights of stairs, he whispered, “Don’t fall behind.”
I managed to keep up with Simon. Joey, who was skinny and hyperactive, was just behind me. I sprinted along but my legs felt it around the tenth floor. Cleo, who was only interested in physical activity if there was a man dangled like a carrot at the end of her efforts, lagged about a floor behind us all, complaining that she wished she’d made her last will and testament before we’d left. We went up and up and up until we reached a door. We followed Simon out into a long musty narrow corridor lined with tiny gabled windows that looked out onto the city, a zone where chambermaids must have slept once, country girls who cried into their pillows night after night until the city was finally able to distract them.
Once he had coaxed us all out onto the roof, Simon explained. “The idea behind a good urban infiltration is to take the road less traveled, find those forgotten back routes and rooms. For example, I’ve got a friend who did an infiltration in a part of the University of Toronto. He kind of lost his way and ended up taking a tunnel to another wing that had all these more or less abandoned barrels stored there. They were full of slime. No kidding. Later he found out the barrels were used to store eyeballs. Hundreds of thousands of eyeballs. Must have been part of the ophthalmology department. That’s the fun of it. Discovering things. He said it was a pretty freaky place. Could have been a hiding place for all kinds of crazies.”
We were seated precariously on the green copper roofing looking out over the myriad of city lights under the cloudy night sky. The gray stone of the hotel plunged downward just a few feet from where we sat. We could see between the glass high-rises to the North Shore and Grouse Mountain high up in the distance. Beyond the dense bright core of downtown in the other direction I could see the Burrard and Granville Bridges, the beads of car lights in constant motion.
Simon opened his small backpack and pulled out a bottle of Brut. “For you, Di. Happy birthday, eh?”
“Jeez, Simon, if somebody had told me that I was going to toast my thirtieth birthday on the rooftop of the Hotel Vancouver, quite a different picture would have come to mind.”
“It’s exciting,” shivered Cleo, paler and stiller than usual.
Joey nodded in agreement, looking no less terrified.
Simon could have been telling Cleo and Joey that the earth was flat and the moon was made of blue cheese and they would have had the same expressions on their faces. Simon was so decorative, so distractingly gorgeous. I should have, I really should have told them what else he was. And wasn’t.
“Fascinating,” oozed Cleo.
“Absolutely,” agreed Joey.
“Now I have something to say,” I announced.
“Here, here,” said Cleo.
“I have to inform you all that Penelope Longhurst…”
“Oh God, here we go,” said Cleo.
“Penelope Longhurst has decided that I, Dinah Nichols, am a man-eater.”
“A what?” squealed Cleo.
“How quaint,”
