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  My inbox pinged and I knew the file of bloody press releases had landed. But maybe something interesting and important would show up and I could make a name for myself. Who knew?

  Hey! A fabulous thought flashed into my mind, bright, white, and hot. Maybe I’d meet someone at a convention. Now that was a good idea. That was a terrific idea.

  I began flipping through them all, one by one, happily and determinedly. I now had one goal in mind: find me a man. I would pick a convention for men. A guy show. Not a gong show, a dong show. I howled at my joke. How pathetic.

  2.

  THIS HAD TO BE THE SWANKIEST EVENT I’d ever been to. I hungrily perused the long table adorned with white linen, sterling silver, and bone china. It was a breakfast buffet extravaganza with heaps of fluffy scrambled eggs, mounds of whole wheat toast, tiny pats of butter dotted with dewy chips of ice, pots of homemade jam with tartan labels, and high triangular tiers made of miniature cereal boxes. The smell of salty smoked ham mingled in the air with the sticky sweetness of maple syrup. A shiny retractable lid of a warming tray revealed a hill of buckwheat pancakes. Mmmm, my favourite.

  But I didn’t throw my face into the feast, mouth wide open like a bottom feeder. Oh no, the new me resisted temptation and daintily poured myself a small glass of a low fat strawberry yogurt smoothie from a fluted pitcher dripping in condensation. I sipped the pink froth slowly, trying to talk myself into savouring the completely unsatisfying drink. I eyed the room over the rim of the glass.

  Well, it certainly seemed as if I had picked the perfect conference from the mountain of press releases Shirley had sent me on Friday. I had charged through them with one thought in mind: where would I meet the most men? And voila! Here I was, two days later, early Monday morning, and swimming in a sea of testosterone.

  The dating site had been dead calm over the weekend, not a single bite to my tantalizing hook, but I shook off my self-doubt. I knew they would come. I wasn’t going to give up because of a slow start. I would get email action soon. But maybe no one wanted to go out with someone who didn’t drink like a fish. Shit, I’d forgotten to call the naturopath on Friday. I’d do it later today. And if my profile didn’t work, who cared, I didn’t need the internet. I was in a roomful of fine, handsome men right now.

  On the way downtown to the convention I spotted a bumper sticker that said, “The present is a gift. Open it now.” I undid the top button of my blouse.

  I wasn’t quite sure what the topic of the event was, but a fast glance at the pictures of pipes and pumps in the press release had convinced me it was a guy convention. I had signed up immediately. Nothing like a convention about mechanical engineering stuff to attract the boys. And true to my instinct, here they were, sliding like sharks around the laden buffet table in their grey and black pinstriped suits.

  I made sure my laminated media pass was pinned to my jacket lapel. It announced in large letters “PRESS,” and I wore it over my left breast in the hope the handsome guys around me would interpret it as a verb, not a noun.

  I stood up straight and held my head high. Hopefully, this would smooth out the neck situation and not make me look arrogant and unapproachable. Holding my stomach in was hurting my back, so I gave up on that and casually carried my mammoth purse in front of me, praying I didn’t look like a pregnant kangaroo.

  This was a great convention. There wouldn’t be a room full of this much maleness at any of the other options in the batch of press releases, like say, the cottage show. No, that would be filled with creaking retirees wanting to move north out of the city, or breezy young couples, looking to build their first cottage. I had rejected that press release along with the one on “Interior Designing with the New Fabrics.” I knew that would be attended by unavailable gays. Working for the Home and Garden section and living near Toronto’s Rainbow Village, I had lots of gay friends, my best friend for one, but now I needed a friend with benefits. I was tired of being alone, night after night.

  I couldn’t do much about being old, but a fat failure and a lonely alkie? That I could work on. I was so done with grieving all my many losses, including the mysterious vanishing act of my belly button.

  Sipping my low fat strawberry smoothie and scanning the crowd, eyes barely visible over the lip of my glass, I felt like a famished alligator stalking unsuspecting fish in a slow-moving river. The sense of power quickly evaporated when I could feel the pink liquid settling in the train tracks on my upper lip. I put the glass into a grey bin full of dirty dishes and quickly wiped my mouth with a stiff napkin decorated with coloured balloons. So, the convention was a celebration. I wondered what for.

  In the far corner of the room I spied a mop of curly red hair being patted into submission and recognized at once my best friend from the paper, Cynthia, aka Cindy, Dale. What was she doing here? Cindy enthusiastically covered both crime and environmental issues for the front page, which was a far superior beat to my articles about light bulbs and potato peelers. She and I had started working at the Express around the same time, long ago, when telephones were shiny black rotary dials. Over the years we had established more than a solid working rapport. We respected each other professionally, most of the time, and were now very good friends, most of the time. Our lives, in a way, had sort of run parallel. Cindy had three children to my four, and she too was a single parent, only she hadn’t been widowed. She’d divorced the jerk who had stepped out on her. From that point on, she had announced unabashedly that she was no longer interested in men and was in fact a lesbian. At the time I thought it was a passing phase, but here we were, six years later, and she was singing the same tune.

  Cindy and I rarely covered the same news, obviously, but every now and then our paths overlapped. For example, the high-profile symposium on the threat of greenhouse emissions from cow manure when used for vegetable gardens. But really, what was she doing here? I checked the brochure I’d picked up at the entrance for the title of the conference. “Deep Lake Water Cooling System” was splashed over the first page of the program along with the now familiar logo of pipes and pumps. “Valve Opening Ceremony” was the subtitle. Hence the balloons on the napkins. I puzzled over this for a minute or two, trying to figure out what on earth it meant.

  My mind wandered. Maybe someone here would like to take a gander at my valves? Maybe even open them.

  Get a grip, Robin.

  The real question was, what was I doing here? This was a far cry from writing stories about using sheep shit to fertilize roses. Whatever. Shortly all would be revealed in the upcoming keynote speaker’s address. Good luck tying this subject matter into the Home and Garden section. Maybe there would be an intersection point somewhere to justify to the paper why I was here.

  But it made sense that Cindy was at this particular convention. No doubt the “Deep Lake” referred to Lake Ontario and anything to do with Lake Ontario, that beautiful body of water on the south shore of Toronto, was of concern to environmentalists. She was probably watch-dogging it. More to the point, she was probably wondering what on earth I was doing here. Hardly a venue for a doorknob reporter. That was my last lively article. I snagged her eye across the room and gave her a happy wave. Cindy waggled her fingers back, smiling and tapping her watch and then pointing her finger in the air to signify what I assumed to mean “later.” Did she mean we should meet up after the valve opening ceremony at ten? Probably. We’d no doubt tussle over who would write up the event. I knew in advance that she would win, but I didn’t care. She could have the stupid story. As long as she left the men to me. Which, of course, she would.

  I cast my eye around the room, assessing the potential. Most of the men seemed youngish, well, okay, children really, maybe almost old enough to drive, but probably not over the drinking age. Their cheeks were smooth, their eyes were bright, their legs were strong and muscled. I dwelled on this fine observation for a moment and sighed. But clearly, they were not my age.

 
But wait. Wasn’t that Jack England? The writer from my rival paper? The Toronto Times? What was he doing here? I flipped through my mental Rolodex and came up with a quick bio. Fifty-four, crime writer, although sometimes in the sports section, journalism degree from Carlton, unlike me with my lowly English B.A. from Queens. And if my eyes served me correctly, pretty hot in a pursed mouth “I’m-a-vegetarian” kind of way. His eyes were as dark as coal, matching his black hair. He had the hungry look of a bicycle rider. Or a runner. Not my type? I had no idea. Maybe a thoughtful new age guy would work better for me now. But if Jack went so far as to read self-help books, well, I probably wouldn’t stretch to that. But maybe I would. But no Kahil Gibran. I had my boundaries. But maybe if he did read these things it would show he was on an improvement path. Like I was. So, we would have that in common. Wonder what kind of wedding he’d like.

  Ha ha ha. Look at me. Silly bird brain, Robin. Wait. Did I call myself a bird brain? I had to stop talking to myself that way if I wanted to get some self-esteem. To stop being a Fail-ure. It was all about one’s state of mind, I told myself. I had to change my attitude about myself. But still, I had been ludicrous. I’d imagined myself engaged to a guy without even knowing him. He was probably a dolt. I untangled my mind from the fantasy and the self-recriminations and focused on the room.

  Straight ahead there was some activity on the stage at the front of the auditorium. A couple of guys in blue uniforms were bending over to adjust black and red wires that snaked out of a podium. They plugged them into a large black box that was, in turn, attached to a wall socket. Probably an amplifier, I thought. I knew about amplifiers because my oldest son, Calvin, the illegal street racer, needed amplifiers for the sound system in his car. Sure enough, a minute later, one of the workers tapped the mike on the podium, sending staccato gunshots around the room. No one looked up. And no one dove for cover.

  Don’t you love Canada? Anywhere else on earth people would be diving under tables.

  I watched Jack reach inside his briefcase side pocket and slide out an iPad. So, he was here for a serious reporting, not only because the conference was a guy thing. Maybe he knew Cindy—their paths probably overlapped. Crime. Environment. Sports. Lots of places to connect. But he was mostly a crime reporter. Why was a crime writer here? But it was the sports he wrote about that intrigued me more. Pole vaulting in particular. Robin, Robin, you are sex crazy.

  The microphone was tapped again and finally the chatter subsided. Plates were stacked in plastic grey bins and slowly the sea of cute guys swam towards their seats in an ocean of aftershave. The opening address was about to begin. I found a chair at the back of the room, near the exit into the parking lot, just in case. Of what I wasn’t sure. I could see that Jack was looking at me from the corner of his eye. Maybe the red light of the exit sign brought out the highlights in my brown hair, which I tossed with what I hoped was abandon. I’d read that tossing hair with abandon was a magnet for men. I tossed it again.

  Ditching the sexual thoughts scampering through my woolly brain, I rummaged in a purse large enough to make a Sherpa guide look over-prepared. Where was my digital notepad? Finally extracting it from the contents of my bag, much like a dentist would extract a wisdom tooth from a recalcitrant jaw, I admired my shiny new piece of technology. The newspaper had finally issued iPads to all its reporters. Given that I had been astonished by the capabilities of a slide rule in Grade Twelve, I absolutely worshipped my new tiny computer. I saw with dismay some smudges on the screen from the contents of my purse. Melted chocolate? Potato chip grease? A smear of lip balm? The choices were numerous. I surreptitiously buffed what I decided was hand cream off the screen with the tail of my jacket. So much for being suave.

  The chairs around me were filling up. The air was heavy with the man odour of deodorant, hair gel, and dried sweat. I felt I was breathing in a flood of mosquito repellent. It was giving me a headache and I leaned into the aisle in an effort to grab a breath of fresh air. My jacket stretched at the seams, putting pressure on the stitching. I quickly sat back, not wanting to expose my ripe papayas.

  The fellas around me were mere boys, about thirty or so. Not a grey hair in sight, for heaven’s sake. I was many things, but pedophile was not on my list. Maybe I should have picked the cottage show. At least those people would be somewhere near my millennium. On the other hand, I knew what a cougar was and I could be a cougar if I had to be. Cougars were not pedophiles. They were adventurous women. I practiced a low growl and then looked around quickly. Had anyone heard me? Oops.

  My kids had told me one Sunday night at a family dinner what a cougar was: an older woman who went for younger guys, so I considered myself cool, knowing the current “in” jargon, even though I knew in my heart of hearts that I was, in reality, a middle-aged somewhat bleary dame who happened to be old, fat, an alkie, all alone, and what was the fifth thing? I couldn’t remember. God, I hated menopause. Not just my gums had receded; where the hell was my memory? Gone with the tide of my hormones. I dug through the mud of my brain, couldn’t find the nugget of gold I was looking for and added “stupid” to my list.

  Robin, stop demeaning yourself. You will never move forward if you think you’re stupid. You are smart! I didn’t believe it. Working on my self-esteem was going to be a trial, I could tell. Old habits died hard. But I would not be a Fail-ure.

  And then the keynote speaker entered from stage left and blew me away! Tall, dark, and handsome, he looked about six two, and exceedingly muscular. What a hunk. Plus he weighed more than I did. This looked promising.

  3.

  THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER FOR THE Deep Lake Water Cooling System Convention ambled onto the stage with the bumbling gait of a gentle giant, and stood self-effacingly in front of the expectant crowd, arms at his side. Who was this guy? My eyes were mesmerized by the way his strong, well-manicured fingers tilted the mike towards his, oh my, very soft mouth. But wait, I examined him intently. There was something about his eyes that was slightly off, a glint of steel, a coldness. Or was it evasiveness? I looked again. No, the expression was gone. I had probably imagined it. Maybe it had something to do with the lighting. I brushed the fleeting thought aside.

  No wedding ring. Verrry interesting.

  I flipped open my program to read his bio. Todd Radcliffe. Hmmm, nice name. Strong, dignified. Fifty-five. My age! Born in Toronto, undergrad engineering at Queen’s. Maybe I knew him. I’d gone to Queen’s. Post-grad from Harvard. An MBA no less. And the Dean’s Award. Sounded important, but was it? I quickly Googled Harvard’s site on my spanking new iPad and found out that winners of this award had made a major contribution to society through outstanding acts of leadership. And lo and behold, there was his name. So at least he wasn’t a liar. About that. Robin, you are so cynical. I read further. He was one of the first recipients in 1997, when the award was established. My, my, pretty impressive, I thought. Not a bad feat for a Canadian on American soil. I did the math. No doubt he was at Queen’s while I was, so we had a starting point for a conversation. Even if he had noticed me then, some thirty odd years ago, he certainly wouldn’t recognize me now. And I couldn’t place him. But if he got the Dean’s Award from Harvard in 1997, then he’d taken a break between his degrees. I wondered what he’d done. Probably showed remote African tribes how to dig wells or something sustainable like that.

  When he cleared his throat before speaking, I sat up to listen. After his first few sentences I nodded appraisingly to myself. Mr. Todd Radcliffe certainly knew what he was talking about, if his big techno words were anything to go by. Totally boring, but he had a nice voice. Smoky and grainy all at once. Soothing. My attention drifted.

  I caught a whiff of the lovely summer morning when a latecomer opened the exit door behind me and unobtrusively snuck in. My mind floated along my various thoughts: harvesting the ripe tomatoes in my garden, getting a new leash for Lucky, my upcoming coffee with Cindy, going to bed with Todd, red or brown sh
oes, my son’s new job, going to bed with Todd, and then bam, Todd Radcliffe laughed. Like a yoyo, my brain boomeranged back to the handsome speaker, with his salt and pepper hair, cleft chin, and now, freshly revealed, fantastic laugh.

  This was important. I couldn’t imagine myself with a guy who snorted like a rhino. Todd’s laugh was perfect, rich and melodic.

  This day, according to the delicious Todd, was the day when the valves would be opened, allowing the Deep Lake Water Cooling System to air condition the first few downtown Toronto buildings.

  Ah ha! There was a reason for me to be here, a connection I could use for the Home and Garden section: a new system of air conditioning for buildings. Shirley would be so pleased. Not exactly a sexy newspaper selling topic, but I didn’t mind. I would prop my drooping eyes open with a toothpick because Todd Radcliffe, the president of Everwave, the company that had stick-handled the project from start to completion in partnership with the City of Toronto, was very sexy indeed.

  I wondered if he would like me. Maybe I was too fat. I adjusted my suit jacket to hide the bulge around my waist. Dammit, I thought, I have to get rid of that muffin top. I stifled a laugh. Muffin top? It was more like the whole damn bakery. The guy to my left turned his head and smiled at me, exposing great dental work. Shit. Had I spoken out loud? I reviewed the past three seconds carefully. My memory was totally shot. What had happened to my brain? This had to be more than menopause. Plainly I had to stop drinking. I would call that naturopath as soon as I got back to the office.

  Todd fiddled with his blue and gold striped tie and I wondered if he were anxious. So endearing, I thought, imagine being apprehensive with all that education! What a fancy-schmancy business degree. He took a sip of water between sentences, “As I was saying, this one hundred and sixty five million dollar project will turn out to be a most cost efficient use of our energy dollar. Every penny will go towards clean, renewable, reliable energy. The Deep Lake Water Cooling system is blackout proof, reduces carbon dioxide emissions, reduces energy consumption of the main grids, and provides the city with cleaner water through new pipes that are situated deeper in the lake than the old ones. On top of all this, the Deep Lake Water Cooling System is the largest cooling system of its kind in the world. This is Toronto’s massive achievement and we should be proud of our accomplishment.”