The mass of people around her paid her no mind and she took a series of long deep breaths. She began chanting quietly, almost to the beat of the music. Penticton, Summerland, Hope, Golden Ears, Penticton, Summerland, Hope, Golden Ears...
She craned her head to the left and looked through the landing into the mass of people dancing below. They were bouncing up and down and flowing form side to side, like nervous waves. She could feel the weight of their heat rising to hit her face and climb into her nose. Sumatra, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Paloh, Kuching, Sarawak, Sumatra, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Paloh, Kuching, Sarawak...
She wished she had a glass of water but could not bear to stand still and vulnerable in a mass of people to wait to be served. She looked at the floor through dozens of feet. It was stained with spilt drinks and extinguished cigarettes. Canberra, Wollongong, Broken Hill, Wagga-Wagga, Canberra, Wollongong, Broken Hill, Wagga-Wagga...
She took one last deep breath and headed back into the current.
As would often happen, a staggering middle aged man would walk up to her and buy a rose and then present it to her, hoping she was in the business of selling more than roses, she thought. She would ignore the man until he would slither off, then she would place the rose back in the vase to sell it again. The same thing would often happen with young milky-eyed boys, their courage fortified by drink. But men always seemed too creepy or too childish, besides she was an entrepreneur; selling roses, not looking for love. She did not see herself as cupid. Cupid could not live in a place like this. His fragile wings and delicate arrows would be deafened and mangled by the constant thump and screech of the music. His pleas for love unheard as everyone shouted into each other's ears. The smoke hanging thick in the air would make his little cherubic lungs wheeze and crash. She had hit four more pools and almost all of her roses were now sold. The ones that were left were, like her, beginning to wilt in the night's heat and smoke.
She began to feel disorientated. Her fortifications were beginning to break down. Her routines and pathways had all been covered twice over. She took a minute to lean against the wall and close her eyes, all she could see were the outlines of distant lands dancing behind her lids. It was late. Time to go. The money had all been spent. She got herself upright again and reattached her fake and simple smile. She left the bar with the same upright energy that she had come in with. She hailed a taxi. It had been a good night. She could afford it. She paid the fare and even gave the driver a small tip.
Upstairs in her apartment she let all of her fortifications fall. Her make-up lay smudged and streaked by heat and smoke upon her face. She took of her dress and flung it loose and crumpled over the back of a chair. It would hang there lifeless and smoky until Sunday evening. She had her Saturday-night dress for tomorrow. She walked to the shower and turned it on extra hot. She stood under it for a long time letting her body adjust to the heat, then embracing it. She did not use soap. She simply let the heat lift the smell of smoke from her skin and hair. She could feel the day's grime lifting, turning to steam and disappearing. She imagined her father might have felt the same way as the smell of salt and fish would leave his body when he washed. She scrubbed at the back of her hand to get off the inky stamp they had branded her with when she had entered The Banks, much like her father may have scrubbed at the fish scales clinging to his wrists and forearms. It would never completely come off.
She was tired. She had worked hard. She got into a pair of clean pyjamas and went to bed. She closed her eyes rocked herself to sleep with some of her favourite mantras and a few new ones. Anticosti, Gaspe, Chandler, Caraquet, Penticton, Summerland, Hope, Golden Ears, Dominica, St. Lucia, Grenada…
Tim Lea can hit anywhere in the order.
