Jayla Mile. Chapters 4,5,6

4. False Start

“From out of the crowd at the stand up bar,” Jayla tells Samuel, “Gold took hold of my arm. That gesture led to the Centre.”

“The Eaton Centre?” Samuel says, referring to a popular downtown mall.

“No,” Jay snarls. “The Centre of the Holy Order.”

But wait, go back....

5. False Prophet

Standing at the bar, the man - who would later become known to her as Gold - espies a beam of soft soffit lighting bouncing off strawberry hair. And he sees eyes, bright as winter stars, which do not notice him, shrouded as he is by the upturned collar of his navy pea coat.

From an air of mystery and a cloud of cigarette smoke he grabs the arm of the strawberry blonde as she moves through the crowd at the brass-railed bar. Without looking at her, he places her next to him. With deft manipulation of the one limb he gives her a place.

Then he ignores her.

The wine she orders arrives in its outsized goblet and tastes like vinegar. Nevertheless she sips it with some elegance and cool. Gradually, though, her eyes grow liquid and lost in the pale gold liquid and lights, lights that also reflect off red-and-pink lacquered nails that caress glasses full of pastel-coloured cocktails: pink ladies, banana daiquiris.

At last the man turns her way, and above the persistent pounding beat of loud disco music, his voice is low in her ear, soft as a cat’s purr: “What’s your name?”

“Jay,” she replies, wondering if she should tell him her surname, uncertain of herself and this stranger, who now slowly draws on his cigarette.

Exhaling and not looking at her, he asks: “And how does Jay experience herself in a day?”

She wonders whether she’s heard correctly. What kind of a question is that? But she gets the impression this man would not tolerate having to repeat himself, so she ventures a response. Thinking of her movement and acting workshops, she answers: “Through my body.”

She begins to clarify. But he is turning away.

“Sometimes,” he says with the heavy sigh of a martyr, “I think someone might know something. I am usually wrong.”

She thinks: This mysterious man has found me stupid and unworthy, but unworthy of what? Of gazing into his eyes of ice blue? Of listening to his voice of silver charm? She doesn’t know. But what she does know is that he’s brushed her off. And so she brushes off in kind. Downing the last of the vinegar-wine she turns to go, but he finds her arm again and pulls her back. This time he looks her straight in the eye and speaks directly to her, although the subject of his short discourse is indirect. He mentions “spirit” several times in response to her previous reference to “body”, which he consistently refers to as “the flesh”.

This was the first of many meetings between Jayla and Gold. For effect or for fear of being found out, he didn’t follow his line too far that night. With burning blue eyes and whiskey breath he told her: “Meet me Friday night. Club Intime. Eight o'clock.”

6. Black Lambs

“Grapefruit Pink,” Samuel says, tearing into bioflavinoids and peel, sending the screen of her past projection rolling up with a flap, bringing her back to the rainy day and him.

“What?”

“You know,” he says, handing her a section of the fruit: “Flame Red, Rose Madder and...now...Grapefruit Pink.”

“Yes,” she whispers, wandering over to his worktable to look at the small tubes of gouache. The first time she’d ever laid eyes on them, she’d recited the names of the colours as if they were poems – “Mimosa Yellow. Myosotis Blue. Mistletoe Green.” She’d added: “Mile Grey.”

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