CHAPTER 24—PBS CONFERENCE:
COURTYARD LAX IMPERIAL

She smoothed her only skirt, a dark-green plaid below-the-knee number, on the bed, hoping to have an opportunity to wear it and show off her newfound maturity. This clean and comfortable room delighted her. She had only stayed at a hotel on a handful of occasions. One time she’d had to console a distraught boyfriend who had spent two hundred dollars on the room only to be unable to perform sexually. On another occasion, the death of an aunt, the room in Halifax she’d occupied was rumoured to be haunted. Suzanne had spent the night listening to a broken tap drip.

This room at the Courtyard LAX Imperial had thick towels and bedding that promised “eternal” sleep. Even the wrongheaded promotion couldn’t dampen her enthusiasm. Or concern. Why had she agreed to participate in this charade? For the experience, she reminded herself, to prepare for all the other charades in life to come. She examined her lily-white arms. More than ten minutes in the California sun would be metastasizing. She would get her sunshine at the La Brea Tar Pits, which she hoped to visit somehow. Maybe the hotel had a shuttle that stopped there. Otherwise she would roam the corridors and meeting rooms of the Courtyard LAX Imperial.

She surveyed the queen-sized bed. She pictured a male in the bed, but not the usual male. Not Colin, but Gordon. She felt his arms holding her. She let herself be held. She looked up at him with dreamy eyes, music filling her mind, cascading piano notes. Pound me, Glenn. Forte. Fortissimo.

The lonely bed beckoned her to wallow. Instead, she gathered her money and room key. There probably wouldn’t be a library in the hotel, but there would certainly be a bar.

“Altitudes” attempted chic and achieved comfort. The blond wood, burgundy-shaded lights and taupe walls created an unintentional utilitarian effect. A large modern art print, a graphic mishmash, loomed in the centre of the dining area. An assortment of hotel patrons sipped their beverages at the curved bar, either waiting for a table or on their way to getting pie-eyed. Suzanne had every intention of not getting pie-eyed, but now, on her second glass of wine, she relaxed.

A woman sat next to Suzanne. She sipped a cranberry martini. She had dyed red hair and wore a blue scarf, a pale-blue knit sweater and a grey wool skirt. Suzanne guessed the woman to be in her late sixties. Her clear blue eyes were lined grey. Her face looked a little chalky from powder and her lips were coated a reddish-brown. Attractive now, this woman must have been a knockout in her youth. Suzanne felt magnanimous.

“Excuse me. Are you here for the conference?”

The woman smiled at Suzanne. “In a manner, yes. I am a friend of the hotel.”

Suzanne nodded and took a sip of wine. This woman was a hanger-on. An elderly groupie. Her sweater set did look a little pilled. Still, the old girl carried herself with a sure sense of belonging. A horrid thought crossed Suzanne’s mind. Was the old girl a prostitute? This was L.A., after all.

“I am also a friend of PBS,” said the old girl. “Where are you from, dear?”

“I’m from Canada.”

“Canada. You know Al Capone hid out in Moose Jaw for a while.”

Suzanne didn’t know that. “Is that so?”

“Yes. I had an uncle who worked with him.”

Suzanne nodded to the bartender and he refreshed their drinks. This conversation showed promise, a pleasant change from arguing the fate of public broadcasting and whispering romantic doggerel to Colin.

“My name is Suzanne, by the way.”

“Irene. Pleased to meet you.”

They shook each other’s small, delicate hands.

“Are you from Los Angeles?”

“Yes. I grew up in West Hollywood.”

Suzanne couldn’t help herself. “Wow.”

“The city’s changed quite a bit over the years,” said Irene.

“Did you ever work in show business?”

“Sure. I was a script girl at Warner Brothers. I worked with Ronald Reagan once.”

Suzanne sipped the fresh wine in front of her. This could have been Irene’s only job ever in the entertainment industry and it evoked irrepressible awe. Her mind percolated with questions. If Irene had to drop a name, Reagan’s was as good as any.

“I can’t help but be impressed, Irene, even though I’m Canadian. American history is a lot of our history, whether we like it or not.”

“Canada is a fine country.”

Suzanne ruminated. The best name-dropping she could do in Edmonton was mention Cal Nagy at the local sandwich shop and hope the staff wouldn’t spit in her turkey on whole wheat. But how often had Irene dredged up Reagan’s name to try to impress a stranger in a bar or a surly store clerk, to try to gain some leverage? Suzanne felt obliged to take the onus off Irene.

“Carl Nagy likes to eat at the Brothers’ Sandwich Shop on 116th Street.”

Irene kept smiling. “Who?”

“Carl Nagy, one of the hosts of This Day in Alberta.”

“Brothers’ Sandwich Shop? In New York?”

“No, Edmonton.”

“Oh, Edmonton. Who are your stars in Canada?”

“Well, our stars aren’t so much stars as they are public servants. Anyone not comfortable with that usually comes down here and passes themselves off as American.”

“Always have,” said Irene. “Starting with Mary Pickford.”

“That’s right. And we celebrate them in Canada because they’ve left. But we don’t celebrate too much. We celebrate in a sober, state-controlled manner. What we need now is a Ministry of Fame.”

“I guess we can choose where we live, but we can’t choose where we’re born,” she said.

Suzanne nodded and glimpsed at a chortling man behind them. With any luck we can choose where we die, she hoped. She felt programmed like a salmon to struggle upstream, go back, go back to the place of conception, of original sin, and die. For no other reason than to blot where it began.

“What’s it like growing up where the weather is like a ­narcotic?”

“I’ve never thought about it that way. Lovely, I suppose.”

Suzanne drained her wine and asked the bartender for a glass of beer. Time to switch up the beverage.

“Anything is possible down here, isn’t it?”

“Anything is possible anywhere, my dear.”

Irene smiled. She glowed with an august feminine charm. Suzanne wished Irene were her mother. Someone to listen to. And love.

“Did Reagan have political ambitions when you knew him?”

She laughed, sipped the crantini and winked. “He had ambitions, but I don’t think we ever discussed politics.”

Suzanne chuckled. Then, from the corner of her eye, she sensed a squat, blond-streaked presence. She glanced over at the entrance. Jason was sizing up the room. He looked over at the bar and met Suzanne’s eyes.

“Damn!” she cried.

“Damn? Damn what?” asked Irene.

“Don’t come over, don’t come over, don’t come over—DAMN, he’s coming over!”

“Who’s coming over? Red Rover?”

Suzanne sighed. “Just someone I work with, Irene. I’ll only be a minute.”

“That’s okay. I have to be going—”

“No! Please stay. Don’t leave me alone with—”

“Don’t leave me alone with who?” said Jason, smiling. “Hello, ladies.”

“Hello yourself,” said Irene as she steadied herself on the back of Suzanne’s bar stool. “I really must be going. There’s a hospitality suite on the ninth floor I want to visit. KWPZ in New Hampshire. They make the best butter tarts. Goodbye to you both. I enjoyed chatting with you, Suzanne.”

Jason gently guided Irene past him. He slid on the now-vacant bar stool. “Pretty hot babes at this conference,” he said, and snorted.

Suzanne grumbled. She hoped he would be on his way soon, prayed he would make an ass of himself at a hospitality suite. The good citizens that ran PBS would detect an impostor, a slick charlatan among them, a flim-flam man. Hopefully they would ostracize him for the rest of the conference.

He ordered a beer and made a hissing sound. “I gotta get out of here.”

“Yes, you do,” she said.

Jason smiled tightly. “I’ll be the one to decide.” He sipped his beer and eyed one of the female bartenders.

“You think you’re better than me, don’t you?”

Suzanne looked at her wrist to check the time. She didn’t have a watch on. “Do you have the time?”

“It’s a quarter to eight. You really think you’re better than me.”

She sighed. “Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s obvious. Because every time I’m near you, you tighten up. You’re not better than me.”

“I never said I was better than you.”

“I climbed my way up, Ms. Foley. Came from nothing. Lived above a laundromat with my mother. I became an actor. Once in a while I got a break. And now here’s another break. A potentially good break. I don’t need you looking down your nose at me.”

Suzanne shot him a look. “Yeah, well, don’t fuck it up for the rest of us who came from nothing.”

Jason pulled a bill out of his wallet and left it on the bar. “Same for me, babe. You know, I had you figured out. You’re just like me.”

Her nostrils flared. “I’m nothing like you.”

“Step Ten: No One is Unique. Similarities bind us. Let’s be civil to each other.” He climbed off the bar stool. “Maybe I’ll see you at a hospitality suite.”

He moved in closer and whispered. “Let’s make the best of it.”

Chest puffed, he left the bar. She watched him enter the lobby and weave his way through packs of registering conventioneers. He paused to read the agenda for the conference on an announcement board. Two laughing women walked by.

“Room 1227! WKLT New Mexico. Come on up, sugar!” The women leaned into each other and whooped.

Jason smiled and spread his arms. “Well, after an invitation like that . . .” and followed them.

Now drunk instead of relaxed, Suzanne knew she had to leave the bar before she got to the point of no return. Jason had disarmed her with that last repulsive gesture. Any ill will on her part now would look petty. Why did he bother her so much? Her ideology had hardened her. Suzanne wished Irene would come back and tell her more stories about Hollywood. Maybe she could find Irene at one of the hospitality suites. Sliding off the bar stool, Suzanne went in search of Irene, friend of PBS and the hotel. She needed Irene in her life.