there might be a gap in the connection. Then I realized Kovacs was adjudicating my excuse and measuring the quantity of her ownput-out-ness. I watched three Yellow Cabs whoosh through the intersection while I fought to breathe normally.
I must have passed muster and landed in the sympathy pile, because Kovacs finally said, “How awful. Did you have to give a statement?”
I turned away from the traffic, covered one ear with my hand. “Y-yes,” I stammered around the lie. “I’ve just come out of the building,” I told her. I
had
come out of
a
building—just not a police station.
“I see,” Kovacs said again.
She arranged to meet me at a café near NYU.
Political communication, international communication, communication theory, feminist studies, media and minority, the making of icons, media and activism—thinking of these topics gave me a bubble in my throat, made me choke. I could recite Dr. Wanda Kovacs’s areas of interest by heart, yet I had no idea how my thesis fit with them. She had written a much-lauded book on how the beauty ideal repressed the brunette,
Louis B. Mayer and the Making of the Blonde Icon: The Repression of Jewish Identity in Early Hollywood
. Now I had to impress her, and did I even have my notes? I had made them two days earlier,
by hand
, in preparation, but when I dug in my bag there was no spiral notebook. I had intended to type up and flesh out the notes the day before. There were reams of them on that old laptop—about fifty Word docs on different topics, all as disjointed as the individual phrases I had scrawled while flipping through magazines—but I couldn’t show Kovacs those. Of course I had an earlier draftof something I’d prepared for one of our meetings that hadn’t happened, but the last time I’d looked at it, the thesis had seemed insipid and wandering. Now, standing in the sunlight, I said to myself,
I need a phrase, just a few phrases that will sum it up
—something, in other words, that would stun and dazzle.
I was now bringing up balls of old Kleenex from the side pocket of my laptop bag, crunching them under my glasses, against my eyes, and swiping at my nose. I’d never been so emotional. Before I knew it I’d found
Karl Mann
in my phone’s directory and dialled. I just needed to be told what to say. A line, a phrase. What was my thesis about anyway? Calling my thesis adviser at a time like that was
advisable
.
“Hello—” a high, flat female voice said, and I stopped, frozen. I’d done something I had never done before: phoned Karl’s home instead of his cell.
“Grace and Karl aren’t here right now …” the voice continued, to my massive relief.
I let out a breath, and cursed myself for having punched the number into my phone directory.
“If you have the Collingwood number, you can reach them there.”
Them? She referred to the two of them in the third person? Yes, she did. She really did. Grace freaking Pargetter. Because I hadn’t met her yet, she was a different Grace then—faraway and pristine. As soon as I heard her voice, I could see her blonde, choppy haircut and her axe-like face in my mind, even though I had spotted her only once before—way down at theend of the hall in front of Karl’s office, leaning her weight back on one brown heel. The
wife
. I stabbed the cellphone off and experienced what was perhaps my finest New York moment. I paced to the curb, shot up my arm, and hailed a Yellow Cab, praying it would not get stuck in traffic and drain me of the meagre funds in my wallet.
Thankfully, it did not. Rush hour would have been another story, but even so, taxis cost less in the Big Apple than they do in Toronto. That’s right, you’re kicking. You know that this is something you might need to know one day. If we ever go back to civilization. If we survive.
I know. I promised you I wouldn’t do this again, but here I am, outside in the cold. If I can just get the satellite dish to turn, I feel like the signal will
I must have passed muster and landed in the sympathy pile, because Kovacs finally said, “How awful. Did you have to give a statement?”
I turned away from the traffic, covered one ear with my hand. “Y-yes,” I stammered around the lie. “I’ve just come out of the building,” I told her. I
had
come out of
a
building—just not a police station.
“I see,” Kovacs said again.
She arranged to meet me at a café near NYU.
Political communication, international communication, communication theory, feminist studies, media and minority, the making of icons, media and activism—thinking of these topics gave me a bubble in my throat, made me choke. I could recite Dr. Wanda Kovacs’s areas of interest by heart, yet I had no idea how my thesis fit with them. She had written a much-lauded book on how the beauty ideal repressed the brunette,
Louis B. Mayer and the Making of the Blonde Icon: The Repression of Jewish Identity in Early Hollywood
. Now I had to impress her, and did I even have my notes? I had made them two days earlier,
by hand
, in preparation, but when I dug in my bag there was no spiral notebook. I had intended to type up and flesh out the notes the day before. There were reams of them on that old laptop—about fifty Word docs on different topics, all as disjointed as the individual phrases I had scrawled while flipping through magazines—but I couldn’t show Kovacs those. Of course I had an earlier draftof something I’d prepared for one of our meetings that hadn’t happened, but the last time I’d looked at it, the thesis had seemed insipid and wandering. Now, standing in the sunlight, I said to myself,
I need a phrase, just a few phrases that will sum it up
—something, in other words, that would stun and dazzle.
I was now bringing up balls of old Kleenex from the side pocket of my laptop bag, crunching them under my glasses, against my eyes, and swiping at my nose. I’d never been so emotional. Before I knew it I’d found
Karl Mann
in my phone’s directory and dialled. I just needed to be told what to say. A line, a phrase. What was my thesis about anyway? Calling my thesis adviser at a time like that was
advisable
.
“Hello—” a high, flat female voice said, and I stopped, frozen. I’d done something I had never done before: phoned Karl’s home instead of his cell.
“Grace and Karl aren’t here right now …” the voice continued, to my massive relief.
I let out a breath, and cursed myself for having punched the number into my phone directory.
“If you have the Collingwood number, you can reach them there.”
Them? She referred to the two of them in the third person? Yes, she did. She really did. Grace freaking Pargetter. Because I hadn’t met her yet, she was a different Grace then—faraway and pristine. As soon as I heard her voice, I could see her blonde, choppy haircut and her axe-like face in my mind, even though I had spotted her only once before—way down at theend of the hall in front of Karl’s office, leaning her weight back on one brown heel. The
wife
. I stabbed the cellphone off and experienced what was perhaps my finest New York moment. I paced to the curb, shot up my arm, and hailed a Yellow Cab, praying it would not get stuck in traffic and drain me of the meagre funds in my wallet.
Thankfully, it did not. Rush hour would have been another story, but even so, taxis cost less in the Big Apple than they do in Toronto. That’s right, you’re kicking. You know that this is something you might need to know one day. If we ever go back to civilization. If we survive.
I know. I promised you I wouldn’t do this again, but here I am, outside in the cold. If I can just get the satellite dish to turn, I feel like the signal will
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