Raymond attempted to see who it was and turned too far. His stump tipped and he landed with a thud on the gra.s.s. Winded, he gasped and honked for air. Rajinder was closest, so he turned Raymond on his side and said, "Relax, my friend, relax."

While her husband convalesced on the lawn, Shirley Wong smiled and introduced the young man who accompanied her. With his hockey jacket, perfectly parted hair, and gleaming white running shoes, Steamer looked to Madison as though he were visiting not from southern Alberta but from 1957.

"Why Steamer?" said David, who stood up so Shirley could sit next to Abby.

"It's a long story." Steamer took a seat on the picnic table.

"The professor's going to be twitching down there a while, I figure. We've got time."

Steamer looked at Shirley and said, "I have what a guy might call a nervous excretory system. Before a game I like to...I got to...Well, I need to go ahead and..."

"That's enough, Steamer," said Abby. "I think we understand."

"Thank you, Mrs. Weiss."

Rajinder helped Raymond to his feet. Still coughing, Raymond slouched back to his stump. This time he only put a foot on it, and leaned on his knee. "Shirley, my love, I'm delighted that you've come. It does my heart so much good to see you. You're like a balm to my soul, my everything. I wish for..."

"Shut up," said Shirley.

Rajinder flared his nostrils. "Perhaps, Raymond, you could outline your plans now."

"Yes. Yes, terrific, Rajinder. A round of applause for Rajinder, everyone, who's agreed to bankroll this project."

A round of applause ensued. Over the applause, Rajinder tried to protest. "I am uncomfortable with the word bankroll."

When silence returned, and when Raymond was finished staring at Steamer, his professorial voice returned. "The site of 10 Garneau will be a locus of Edmonton's mythic power."

"So a museum?" said David. "Big whoop."

"Not a conventional museum, no. Forget everything you know about museums. There will be no artifacts of recent history with explanations in both of Canada's official languages. I'm thinking of a more magical place. A labyrinth of our collective dream. A funhouse. Truth and energy, murder and heroism. Hockey. Immigration. Theatre."

"You mentioned a buffalo," said Jonas.

"I want input from all of you, of course, but, yes, I think we should have a herd of buffalo."

"Won't that make an awful mess?" said Abby. "And what will they eat?"

"No, fake ones."

"Maybe the fake buffalo should be flying out of the house, like ghosts, since our ancestors killed them all," said Jonas.

Shirley raised her hand. "Speak for yourself."

"So flying buffalo?" David opened a new beer. "Professor, I think you must have been smoking The Magic Flute instead of listening to it." No one laughed so David elbowed Steamer in the ribs. "You know what I mean, partner? As in wacky tabacky?"

"I don't do drugs," said Steamer.

"No. No, you don't. I'm not insinuating that. I was just letting you in on the joke there, Steamer." David elbowed Steamer again.

"Please don't do that."

David hopped up off the picnic table and Garith hopped off with him. "You're all lunatics. This neighbourhood's a goner." He walked out of the yard and into the alley, with Garith's collar bell tinking behind him.

"Should I go talk to him?" Rajinder whispered in Madison's ear.

She leaned back and placed her hand on Rajinder's neck, hot from the fire. She pressed her cheek softly against his and whispered, in his ear, "No."

"I think this is brilliant," said Abby. "But I don't know what you're talking about. What does a locus of mythic power look like?"

Raymond turned to Rajinder for a moment, and then back to Abby. "We need to brainstorm about exactly that, right now. And tomorrow I'll write something up, our vision, and fax it to some brave architects. At the top of the page I'll put an Emerson quote and maybe something about King Lear. We give them a few days to come up with something, we put a shortlist together, and we meet with them on the thirty-eighth floor."

"A few days?" said Jonas. "Artists don't work like that."

"If I hadn't chased the appraiser away today, the reprobates at the university would be writing cheques for us right now. My friends, we don't have six months or even two months."

Fatigue hung over them, along with confusion and alarm. For the moment, however, no one seemed willing to give up. So Raymond took out his African cave art notepad and pen, and they began to design the labyrinth of their collective dream.

60.

the second first date He didn't complain, but it was clear Rajinder did not enjoy being blindfolded. Thanks to Madison's poor leading skills, he had already grazed a tree with his shoulder. And only at the last second did she avoid slamming his fingers in the door of the Yukon Denali.

The closest parking spot at the Muttart Conservatorythree linked gla.s.s pyramids in the river valleywas far from the entrance. In her haste Madison had forgotten to put a coat on Rajinder after she had blindfolded him. By the time they reached the gla.s.s pyramids, he was shivering in his suit.

Madison opened the door and led him into the entrance corridor.

"Where are we?" he said. "Let me guess."

The central courtyard was decorated with curtains and flowers, and lit with candles. Madison led Rajinder to the right, into the tropical pyramid.

The automatic doors opened and a heavy blast of warm, moist air enveloped them. "The Malabar Coast," said Rajinder, with a smile. "You have taken me to India."

"Bingo."

Madison had wondered about the ethical ramifications of maxing her VISA to book their second first date, a private dinner in the centre courtyard of the Muttart Conservatory. Was it indecent, given the situation in sub-Saharan Africa, to spend hundreds of dollars on one night? Was it a thick move, given her salary and the hungry little being in her uterus?

She removed Rajinder's blindfold and he rubbed his eyes. "I have driven by this place one thousand times but I have never been inside." He took Madison's hands. "What a lovely surprise."

Together they walked up the concrete path, among the variegated snakeplant and pineapple flower. The lighting inside the pyramid was soft. Outside, in the valley, the sun had set and a few stars twinkled in the darkening sky.

Rajinder stopped under the Chinese fan palm, next to a pond with a trickling fountain. He looked down at the white and orange and gold fishes, their mouths opening and closing at the water surface as if to say, "Oh?"

And without much in the way of preparation, Rajinder put his arms around Madison and kissed her. While the fishes continued with their "Oh?" routine, Madison and Rajinder kissed and paused to smile at one another and almost speak, and then they kissed some more.

Madison had waited so long for a kiss that, in the midst of it, she was nearly overcome with the need to shove Rajinder into the bromeliads and devour him. Time pa.s.sed, five or fifty minutes, enough for Madison to explore every square millimetre of Rajinder's face and neck, and the soft vicinities of both ears.

"We only have the conservatory for two hours. We should probably eat."

"There is food as well? I thought this was our date."

"We still have a prime rib dinner, and three more pyramids to investigate."

"Tell me one has cactus. I have a special affnity for cactus."

"Rajinder, one has cactus."

"May G.o.d refrain from striking me."

Madison licked the salt off her lips and swallowed. "I didn't have much choice. It was Cornish game hen or prime rib. I figured..."

"Every Alberta boy loves the prime rib."

They started back around the concrete path, strolling past the red powderpuff and the strange crown of the queen sago palm. Ginger and gardenia and a sausage tree, the collection of orchids. It was, Madison decided, the closest she had ever come to being in a Dr. Seuss book.

Near the doors, Rajinder stopped her. "I have a secret to tell."

"Yes?"

"On the night of our last first date, I looked into your suite and saw you dancing and becoming intimate with a monkey toy."

Madison jumped behind a frond. "I knew it! I knew you saw."

"It filled my heart with...I do not know the word."

"Fear? Disgust? Confusion? Balsamic vinegar?"

"You know that part in a romantic concerto when the music slowly rises and rises and finally reaches a culmination?"

Madison did not know, not really, but she emerged from behind the frond and nodded.

"That is what filled my heart."

"So it was good stuff."

"Much better than the best balsamic vinegar."

A man in a black suit and a woman in a black dress stood waiting for them in the central courtyard. Behind them lay food on heating trays and a bottle of red wine. As they approached the table, the gentleman server hurried over to pull Madison's chair away from the table.

They sat, and the woman brought each of them a small bowl of mixed greens in vinaigrette. Rajinder said, in a whisper, "Are we allowed to talk?"

"I think so," said Madison.

"This whole complex is ours? All four pyramids?"

"For two hours, yes. Even the washrooms."

Madison hadn't been able to shake the heavy feeling in her legs since Rajinder used the word secret. Now that they had kissed, now that it was clear they were on an actual date with romantic connotations, now that Madison was certain she wasn't imagining all of this, she would have to tell Rajinder about her situation.

"This is perfect," he said, between forkfuls of salad. "This is the sort of night you look back on, from the distant future, when you are an old man, and say: 'I was very happy then.'"

Since the truth about her situation had waited this long, Madison decided to set it aside for another couple of hours. Tomorrow, or the next day. Or maybe the day after that.

61.

northlands The Jesters were down 41 in the final minutes of the third period. Thanks to a wily left-winger who seemed destined for the NHL millionaire's club, the Bonnyville Pontiacs went ahead early in the game. Shirley Wong was not the type to abandon her team, but the Jesters couldn't possibly penetrate the Pontiacs' ultra-conservative defence. Even so, she blew her horn and rang her bell, and cheered every time Steamer's stick touched the puck.

In the final minute of play, most of the remaining fans began to stand and stretch, grab their jackets and programs, and start up the tinny stairs of the Agricom. At the buzzer Shirley clapped, blew her horn, and rang her bell. Then she flopped back in her seat.

Exhausted.

Steamer had asked Shirley to wait for him. Since the guys would be going out to get wasted and pick fights, Steamer had hoped they could get a pizza and rent a movie or something.

Now that Shirley knew all there was to know about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and now that Steamer knew all there was to know about Raymond's flirtation with infidelity, they had become something like friends. Two days earlier, Shirley had baked a triple chocolate cake to celebrate Steamer's eighteenth birthday. Neither Patch nor any of the other players showed up for the party so they ate half a cake together and Steamer got about as drunk as a devout Mormon can get: on cocoa.

But this curiously satisfying relationship with an eighteen-year-old boy had only heightened Shirley's general sense of loss and fatigue. It was sad and strange and probably wrong to look forward to pizza and a movie, maybe a walk in the river valley, with Steamer from Cardston.

Shirley picked herself up and started walking to the LRT station near Rexall Place. The Oilers were also playing tonight, so the parking lots were jammed with cars and trucks. Even though she had vowed to punish professional hockey players with her indifferenceRaymond and the Oilers had both abandoned herShirley read the sports columns as though they were p.o.r.nographic essays. She had a few minutes so she walked around to the Gretzky statue, felt wistful, and returned to the LRT station to see Steamer waving.

"Sorry you had to witness that, Shirley."

"Nah, you did great."

"That number twenty-seven they got. He's the real thing."

"I saw Patch line him up a couple of times."

Steamer started into the LRT station and down the stairs. "That boy's way too fast for Patch."

They reached the bottom of the stairs and pa.s.sed the busker, an elderly woman with an accordion. Steamer placed a couple of toonies in the woman's hat.

"Really enjoyable music, ma'am. Thanks."

The woman nodded and played a little faster as Shirley and Steamer continued through the turnstiles and toward the escalator. On the platform, a group of teenage boys in sweat-suits and early attempts at facial hair smoked and cackled. Loser kids, thought Shirley, and then she was disappointed with herself for thinking so.

Steamer dropped his bag. "Hey, we heard you up there in the stands. Coach even said so. He said you're our number-one fan and that we need to get some T-shirts printed up."

"Number-one fan." This too made Shirley sad. She turned and looked south, to the autumnal concrete wretchedness of Northlands Park, and sighed. What was sadder? She imagined a small, elderly man in thick gla.s.ses, wearing a bow tie, and standing with his hands clasped in front of an empty restaurant at 7:30 p.m., candles lit on each table, waiting for customers who will never arrive.