The Dilettantes (15 page)

Alex imagined his self-diagnosed ulcer swelling to the size of a basketball.

“Pay attention,” Tracy said. “It’s a very precise system. Whatever I’m keeping goes on the coffee table. Everything else—well, everything else gets garbage-bagged.”

“But there’s only a mug on that,” said Anna, surveying the frazzled state of Tracy’s living room. “And, what, seven full trash bags?”

“You’re right. I might change my mind about that mug.”

The two of them were sorting through the junk Dave had left scattered throughout the house. Tracy had woken up that day with the early-morning ambition to take charge and sort things out—starting with all the clothes and bits of paper that were almost invisible on their own, but which quickly added up to a golem of painful memories. The plan was to rediscover a space that was fundamentally
hers
. She’d already taken a few small steps. Moving the toaster from one side of the kitchen to the other that past weekend had made her so happy she’d taken the rest of the day off. But now was the real kick-off point. Tracy wasn’t wild about how feng shui the whole project felt, but she couldn’t argue with the results: already her mind felt clearer, less blocked up with residual gunk.

She’d called a few people to come and help out, but in the end only Anna had shown up. Tracy’s mom was on a work trip; her brother was back at school in Alberta. Most of her other friends sent similar long-distance sympathies, even though they still lived in town. In the end, it took another English major to understand that this whole event was primarily a metaphor.
Dummies
, Tracy wanted to tell the no-shows.
I don’t
physically
need help lifting a pile of old records. I just need you to be here while I do it
.

After an hour of clearing brush, the doorbell rang downstairs.
A few seconds later Alex’s head appeared above the banister. He held two coffees aloft.

“I only just got your message,” he said, coming around the corner. “And check it out—they put the wrong flavour in mine, so I got another one free. You’ll like it. It’s boring-ass vanilla.” When he saw Anna in the room with her, he stopped. “Oh. Hello.”

“Hi,” she said back. Alex smiled at her, dazed and helpless, as though he couldn’t think of another way to organize his face.

“Hooray, you made it,” Tracy said, walking over to him. “I didn’t think you were coming. This is Anna—she’s in my Ondaatje class.”

“We call it the Never-Ondaatjing Story,” Anna said.

Shit
, he thought,
she’s funny, too
.

“Alex works with me at the newspaper,” Tracy continued. “He’s the features editor.” Anna pointed at the coffees he was still holding. “And I suppose you couldn’t get them to mess up your order twice? Now what am I supposed to drink?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “I guess we could always just add tap water to mine and double it up.”

“Funny. And what is your drink that was so complicated to make?”

Tracy realized the direction the conversation was taking, and roughly shook her head. “Don’t even ask,” she said, wading back into the mess.

“What? It’s no big deal,” Alex said, taking a big sip for show. “It’s called a banana-raspberry latte. My own invention.”

Anna wrinkled her nose. “That sounds disgusting.”

“So you
don’t
want to share.”

“I have this policy against drinks that sound like muffins.”

“To be fair, the tap water would probably even it out a bit.”

Tracy shoved fresh trash bags at them. “Okay, you two,” she snapped, “Let’s get started. And thanks for your leftovers, Alex—just
leave it over there.” What were they thinking? They were supposed to be supporting
her
right now, not flirting like teenagers while she stood there like an idiot, knee-deep in Dave’s old wool socks. This was supposed to be a pyrrhic victory
over
relationships, not the beginnings of some new tragedy-in-waiting.

Tracy considered pouring her coffee into the trusty old mug that was sitting all alone in her pathetic little salvage pile. What was the point? She picked the mug up and threw it unceremoniously into the shiny new garbage bag at her feet.

Each spring semester, when Burnaby Mountain became overrun with fog and ice wind, Clubs Days was held indoors, the booths squeezed in along the main floor of the
AQ
. The event’s tone was completely different than in the fall. Club reps now had to engage with students walking between classes, who ignored them just as firmly as they did the credit card hawkers and psychology-experiment recruiters who normally trolled the territory. Sign-up rates were abysmal. Camaraderie gave way to full-blown jealousy. Turf wars were declared; undercover agents were sent out to snoop on clubs with similar mandates, each trying to subtly smear the competition.

The Peak
’s booth, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen. In the aftermath of the firings, they’d forgotten to reserve a spot. Claude had sent an email to the remaining editors offering to do it himself, but they’d all assumed someone else was going to respond.

Amidst this sour mood, which was only exacerbated by the constant trails of black water left by so many people taking shelter from the rain, Duncan Holtz came wandering through one sleepy afternoon. He paused tentatively in front of several different tables, asked a few questions, and took every one of the pamphlets on offer. Despite the puddles, his sneakers remained immaculately white.

He didn’t sign up for anything—signature hounds were quick to verify this—but by all accounts he seemed genuinely interested. It was whispered down the tables that maybe he didn’t have many friends at school yet, despite his immense arm’s-length popularity. Some found this cute. Said that he was a charity case they wouldn’t mind taking on, if you caught their drift. Others thought it sad and vaguely profound. Many snickered. The star of
Maximum Death
was lonely? Take a bath in money, they said. Go fly a diamond-studded kite. Cry me a river of Miley Cyrus’s tears.

Alex lay alone on the production room couch, his laptop open and balanced on his chest.

The shortcut to refresh a website is control + R
, he thought.
On a Mac, you use the butterfly key instead of control. What’s the actual name for that butterfly symbol? That’s what they called it back in elementary school. Seems silly to say it out loud now. There’s a little apple icon beside it on some versions, so sometimes people call it the apple key. But that doesn’t sound right, either. F5 also works. Once you know the shortcut, you can keep on refreshing a given page as often as you like—even before it’s had time to reload from last time. It’s a muscle that feels good to flex. Like shooting at someone’s feet, making them dance around just because you can
.

Refresh, refresh, refresh
.

No news to display
.

Start again, Facebook. Dance
.

So many useless keys on a keyboard, too. What does scroll lock do? Has anyone ever pressed it, except by mistake?

These days most websites have a built-in refresher whenever new content gets added. So, really, butterfly-R has become kind of useless. It’s like the close-door button on elevators (which don’t work either,
by the way). It gives you the illusion of control, when really, someone in a room you’ll never see, let alone set foot in, has his own plan, and he’s not all that concerned with your precious little input
.

No news to display
.

“But have you actually
seen
him yet?”

“I told you! We were in the same tutorial, but he had to switch after the first week.”

“Probably because you kept taking pictures of him during class.”

“Shut up. I was discreet.”

“It has a flash!”

“
I
could have been texting
. God. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Uh-huh.”

“God! Worst!”

“…”

“Did you hear the paparazzi were on campus last week?”

“Where?”

“I heard in Convo Mall, outside the Pub. Apparently he was super nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Like,
super
nice. Like, way nicer than he could’ve been.”

“He is pretty awesome.”

“I know! But c’mon: don’t you understand what this means for us?”

“What?”

“We could totally get onto
The Superficial
if we play our cards right.”

“…”

“It’s simple. We just follow him around and when we see a camera, boom! We jump into the frame and pose.”

“Are you kidding? Why would you even want to do that?”

“That’s how it happens now! Some designer sees you standing in a photo beside someone famous, and they say, ‘Who’s that?’”

“You’re retarded.”

“It’s true!
Look, all I’m saying is that I’d kill someone to get on that website.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious. I will switch majors. I’ll clear my schedule. I’ll bring my lucky green dress into rotation. Don’t think I won’t do it.”

Production, week three, late January.

Two more campus businesses cancelled their advertising accounts, leaving just a half-dozen or so that Rick could even get on the phone anymore. Not only that, word had gotten out about the hidden semesterly fee, as well as the brief window during which students could get their seven dollars refunded. So there was also a constant lineup of disgruntled business and science majors waiting outside Rick’s door to contend with.

The
Peak
office had always looked disorganized and endearingly filthy, but now things were downright ruinous. Most of the computers sat abandoned; the accompanying chairs had been sold on craigslist. So, too, had the drawing table, the refrigerator and microwave, one of the couches, and whatever promotional books and
CDS
Rick had been able to unload at pawn-shop prices. A few lonely cables dangled from the ceiling. The editors had always been encouraged to appropriate pens from other places whenever possible—now Rick was starting to insinuate that they might want to start looking for a photocopier and scanner to use on the sly, too.

So far the remaining editors’ approach was to try and maintain, as best they could,
The Peak
as it used to exist. To keep a stone
face and carry on with business as usual. They’d had to ditch the humour section, though—nobody was willing to even try to emulate Keith’s bizarre vision. Chip’s section was also gone. The others had been forced to accept the truth of one of the most enduring stereotypes about student journalists, at least in
The Peak’s
grand tradition: nobody gave a shit about sports. An exception could sometimes be made for the Canucks, but even then only when they were guaranteed a spot in the playoffs.

“Alex!” Tracy called, leaning through the divider window. “What does
Peak
Speak look like? Did you do it yet?”

A few seconds later he appeared at her desk, rubbing his forehead. “It’s done. It took forever, but it’s done.”

The survey had been part of Steve’s old jurisdiction, and was initially set for the scrap heap, too, until Alex saw it as an opportunity to put out some feelers, in the hopes of maybe rebranding the paper. The format was simple: you asked five randomly selected students the same question, and then took their picture. It had taken Alex nearly three hours.

He handed Tracy a printout of the page, with the content and graphics half plugged-in. It was far from finished; then again, the sun hadn’t even set yet. “‘What do you think of
The Peak?’”
she read aloud. “‘What would you like to see more of? Or less?’” She frowned. “I don’t like that last bit. It’s awkward.”

Alex shrugged. “That’s how I asked it. Nothing we can do about it now, is there?”

She thought about it. “But a real newspaper wouldn’t print it like this. So there’s the real question: do they just never ask the wrong thing?”

“I always wonder about that. How much are real papers allowed to change quotes, so they make more sense? Who’s in charge of deciding that stuff?”

“No idea,” Tracy said. “If these rules are so important, you’d think someone would’ve thought to write them down somewhere.”

From the next cubicle over, Rachel was adamant. “You’ve got to fix the quotes,” she shouted. “Take the ums out. Polish up their grammar. It’s just common courtesy. Plus, if you don’t, every quote from an exchange student makes us sound like racists.”

“Yeah,” Tracy said. “I guess that makes sense. Anyway, look at these
answers
. Three out of the five people said, ‘What is
The Peak?’”

Alex took the page back from her. “Now I don’t know whether to pat myself on the back for being such an honest editor, or jump out the goddamn window.”

The posters were bland and tiny, printed on regular-sized sheets of paper, but there were dozens of them. Duncan Holtz took a step back from the wall and craned his neck, taking in the checker-patterned rows. Low-level
SFSS
drones had spent the previous week canvassing as much of the campus as they could physically reach with reminders that elections for the 2009–10 student government were nigh. Nominations had to be in by mid-February. Two weeks of campaigning after that. A debate. Then polls were open from March 16–18, with winners declared by midnight. It was free to run, as the posters emphasized with a double underline, and also low stress; all you needed were ten student signatures. Your friends counted.

Holtz absently scratched his cheek. His lips moved along, subtly ghosting the names, dates, and locations. A small group of the actor’s fans stood off to one side, pointing and whispering in wild speculation.

He made a quick glance over each shoulder, then pulled out a pen and started writing notes onto the meat of his palm.

One girl in the fan group let out an involuntary shriek of delight. The outburst startled two students who happened to be walking past,
and whose hands fluttered over their chests in shock. They glared at the shrieker, then over to who she was shrieking at.

They rolled their eyes and kept walking.