I sleep much of the way to Vancouver. There is nothing else to do. But once we land I have an awakening of the senses. It smells very green. As soon as the plane’s stale conditioned air is released, I smell something rough and new. A bit of the mountains. A bit of the sea. My heart quickens with it in a way I don’t understand.
In the terminal one must deal with customs.
What is the purpose of your visit?
Why, pleasure. Of course.
What else?
To see this jewel. This well-designed city perched charmingly on the sea.
How long will you be here?
A few days. Perhaps a week. There is so much to enjoy!
Have a great visit!
Oh yes. Yes. Of course. I shall.
The city itself is stunning. City of Glass. Of ocean. The Terminal City, I’d seen in my research. So called because it was the end of the line when they built the railroad. Or the beginning, depending on your perspective.
My hotel is on English Bay facing the ocean. A venerated hotel that has been here since the century before the one just past, I’d read. A long time.
“Do you know Errol Flynn’s dick fell off at this hotel?” says one of the young women checking in right ahead of me. There are two of them.
“Who’s Errol Flynn?” asks the other.
“Wasn’t he with Pearl Jam for a while?” I offer, deadpan. The two girls look at each other, then give me a wide berth as they head for the elevator. I don’t blame them. It’s probably the right call.
I have arrived in the evening and it’s raining. After spending not much time in my hotel room, I grab an umbrella from the concierge and head out the front door into a light and refreshing rain. I don’t need time to think, but I’ve got time to kill and walking seems like the right call.
There is a seawall in Vancouver. It snakes around the edge of the city, a pedestrian highway at the edge of the water. I walk this now. Not thinking about my destination or if I even really have one, just enjoying the city at night.
I am in a safe area, at least at first, populated by tourists and fashionable couples. I walk on the seawall toward the city, not the big park near the hotel. After a while I have an idea of where I am going. I let my feet take me there.
I walk along the seawall as far as I can, then up a few blocks to where tomorrow I plan to do what I’ve been sent to do. And when I get where I’m going, I stand there in the rain for a few minutes, looking at the building, thinking of what approach I will take on the following day. I am so focused, and maybe so tired, that I am startled when the front door opens and a man pops out. He is energetic and more youthful than the photo I’d been sent led me to think he would be, but I have no doubt it’s he.
Though I am a few feet from the entrance, to my surprise my invisibility shield of middle-aged woman doesn’t hold and he crosses to me in a few strong steps. He does it so quickly, I have no time to collect myself and scurry away.
“Is everything all right?” he says. He is concerned. It is possible this is not a neighborhood a woman can safely wander around in by herself at night. I hadn’t known that.
“Well, sure,” I reply reflexively. “I’m a bit of a tourist. Out for an evening walk. I guess I got turned around.”
“I guess you did,” he says, and I look at him quickly, but there is nothing but warmth in his voice, on his face. Honest concern. “What’s a bit of a tourist, anyway? Never mind. You can tell me while we walk. I’m heading home now myself. Where are you staying?”
“I’m at the Sylvia.”
He nods approvingly and starts guiding me west as we walk. “In the West End. Good choice. Charming. Not ostentatious. And all the right ghosts.”
“Errol Flynn?” I say, pushing myself to keep up with his longer strides.
“Oh yeah. Him. Sure. But others. Some apparition sits on the bed in one of the rooms on the sixth floor. Something I read. You’re not on the sixth floor, are you?”
I shake my head.
“You should be all right then.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Where are you walking me?”
“I live in Coal Harbour, which is quite close. I’m going to see you home.”
“Ah,” I say, trying not to think about how complicated this is getting. And then after a while, not minding. We enjoy a companionable silence, and when we chat, words move easily between us. As we walk, he points out things of interest. He does it easily and well, and I can tell he is used to being treated like he has things worth saying. He asks what I do, and something I’d read in the in-flight magazine provides the answer. I tell him I’m a civic planner, sent to Vancouver to evaluate local design.
“A lot of people are doing that now,” he says. “I read that somewhere. Apparently we have a lot of civic design worth emulating. Who knew?”
I wonder if we’d read the same article, but don’t say anything.
“For various reasons,” he says when we reach the hotel, “I’m loath to go back to my lonely abode just yet. Will you join me for a drink in the bar?”
We sit at a table by the window. As we sip and chat, a part of me dips down to darker places. Who wants this man dead? An ex-wife? A business partner? A competitor? I seldom wonder. It’s not part of my concern. And I seldom have reason to know or find out. I try to stop myself from wondering now.
“Are you married?” I give it thought before saying the words. It might even seem curious if I don’t ask, that’s what I tell myself.
“I was,” he says. “I’m not now. What about you?” And this is another thing I find myself liking in him: his directness. Even his eyes meet mine as he asks. A pleasant slatey color. Like stone warmed by sun.
“Same,” I hear myself say. “Just the same.” And we smile as we sip, almost as though we’ve shared a joke, something like fire growing between us.
It is not inevitable that he should end up in my bed on the not-haunted third floor of the Sylvia Hotel. When it happens, though, I try not to think about consequences. I wonder at what I am feeling. As though I’d known it would happen from the moment he’d taken those few strong strides toward me as I stood outside his office building in the rain. Like nothing else had been possible. If I wasn’t certain of that before, it had become clear in the elevator, the hard length of him pressed into me, his tongue exploring the delicate lines of my ear, my chin, my neck.
By the time our unclothed bodies join in the ancient bed, I know it solidly: this was meant to be. Human touch has become difficult for me. But not here now, with him. His warmth and laughter and the touch of his skin have melted whatever reserve there might have been.
We call for room service after a while. His exertions have made him hungry, he says. And he wants something to drink. He answers the door with a towel wrapped around him and I admire the way the muscles move under his skin.
He’s ordered grilled squid and stuffed mushrooms, and a crab cake too big for its own good. We share the food and wine with the abandon and comfort of long lovers. Feeding each other and laughing together, giddy with something too precious to hold.
I like the strong, hot feel of him. And the way laughter storms his face. And the intensity with which he watches me when I speak, meeting my eyes. Watching for signs of things not said. Ever watchful.
There is a time when we sleep, feet touching, his hand cupped gently into the curve between my legs. I don’t know when wakefulness falls away, but it comes to both of us all at once. After a while, though, I wake. I pull the covers over us and extinguish the lights and try not to think about what I need to do. As I’ve said: human connections don’t come easily to me anymore. And yet I feel something easy growing more quickly than I would have thought possible. It leaves me a little breathless. Leaves me thinking about the possibility of a life that has more light.