ELAINE, THE COMPLICATED CALGARIAN: STUPID OLD NEW YEAR
In the first instalment of our serial, Elaine, a high- functioning mess, navigates the gap between resolutions and reality then strikes out in a bold new direction.
In the first instalment of our serial, Elaine, a high- functioning mess, navigates the gap between resolutions and reality then strikes out in a bold new direction.
Elaine was no longer sure where in Holt Renfrew she felt most dead inside. Was it in the Prada kiosk, trying on the riding boots that even she couldn’t afford, or at the Clinique counter when the salesgirl showed her foundation that was “excellent for older skin”? Older than what? Elaine was still in her child- bearing years. Depending on what you mean by child- bearing years. And the reality was, she didn’t want a child; she just wanted her skin to look like one’s.
After rooting through the men’s department for a makeup tie for her father ( whom she hadn’t spoken to since their blistering argument at her new concrete kitchen island while dissecting her Black Amexbill), Elaine did what she so often did: took herself to the Oak Room, where, in a kind of passive- aggressive mode, she got mento buy her drinks by looking stormy and fantastic and as though she really needed a drink but was too absorbed by her own thoughts to order one.
The encounters around the drinks followed a predictable pattern: gentleman offers penny for her thoughts in the form of a bloody caesar or Pimm’s Cup ( Elaine’s boat club go- tos). Elaine offers up details of her cruel but loaded grandmother’s wild death. Gentleman excuses himself. Elaine waits for next victim, and so on and so on until she is smashed in a civilized and barely perceptible way— barely perceptible except to herself: she of the studied, silken stroll; the 14- hour blood- red lips that don’t budge; the kohl- smudged eyes that see in triplicate on occasion, and sort it out, old- school.
Truth is, Elaine was a perfect specimen of good Western breeding, except for a moodiness borne of some recessive gene that rendered her an outsider; a downer in an upper kind of town.
On this night, after perfect spicy caesar No. 2, Elaine pulled out a small alligatorskin notebook and hunted back through pages of bitter journaling for her newyear’s resolutions, which she had recorded at this very bar what seemed like eons ago: 1. Bring comfort and joy to those deserving of them. ( Elaine struck this through; she had, since the new year, cometo understand that as soon as those deserving comfort and joy receive them, they transform into those who deserve neither comfort nor joy.) 2. Light a candle each morning in the spirit of hope. ( Elaine amended this: Light a candle each morning in the memory of hope.) 3. Shop at Mercato only in emergencies. ( Elaine struck this through as well; she had not realized that Sunterra’s hours are always earlier and later, ergo no actual emergencies possible, really.) 4. Do not complain to people about confusing interior sorrow. This last was the troubling one. Because Elaine wanted, she realized on this night, for everyone to know. About her confusing interior sorrow. Her confusing interior sorrow was what gutted her; what set her apart; what made her human in a ruthless town where her heroes were being increasingly cast aside in politics, and in the hearts and minds of her fellow citizens. Even in her own reptile- flocked journal, she felt like she should be speaking in code, as though she were a prisoner of war writing a letter to her people. But who were her people now???
And so it was that, on this night, three caesars to the wind, Elaine went online ( shopping online onlywhennon- drunk was not one of her resolutions). And as though guided by the cursor of God, she bought herself a ticket to the following night’s Calgary Flames game. Front row. Blue line.
Elaine was going to learn to be “Sunny and Funny,” one way or another ( No. 5onher list of five resolutions).
Elaine was going to a Flames game.
To be continued… S