— Karl Lagerfield
The Wonderbar Cafe is a bit of flotsam and jetsam Time washed up and forgot on a downtown Toronto street.
I walk in the doors and step back into the past eighty years or more.
The owner is an older woman named Madge that everyone seems to know.
She puts a vinyl Decca record on the turntable and the hiss of the static and the lilt of the music transports me back before the War, to a time before life became so complicated it lost its joy.
The ambiance is Thirties or Forties—Gatsby and Hemingway, and Zelda with a cigarette holder sitting in one of the window booths—except, its not them sitting there tonight, but the girl Em mentioned—and she’s breathtaking.
It’s uncanny though how this girl resembles Em and yet has this air of mystery about her. Em was right—it’s as if Sylvia Plath walked in and took over her body, and all I can think of is that I want to sit down and talk with her.
Amazingly, that’s exactly what I do. I simply walk over to her booth and say, “Do you mind if I join you?”
She looks around the diner at all the empty seats and I’m expecting her to say no, but she surprises me by saying softly, “Sure—why not?”
I sit opposite and can’t take my eyes off her. Everything about her is wild and untamed as a pale moon racing through a windy night.
I’m Evan Logan,” I manage to say.
“Althea Vickers,” she smiles.
“Do you live around here?” It’s a dumb question—sort of on the level of, do you come here often? But she accepts it at face value, and without even a hint of smirk, replies, “I live in a brownstone building on Bond Street.”
I’m staring deep into her eyes and for a moment get lost in the maze of her.
I see her in the lobby of her brownstone building with its oak-paneled elevator and matching lobby. Somehow I know it also has art-deco chandeliers and sconces.
It suits her and she doesn’t look at all out of place in that place or time—or here, for that matter, in Madge’s Wunderbar Café.
“You’re a dreamer, aren’t you?”
Her question brings me out of my reverie. I feel flustered and embarrassed.
At that moment, the phonograph plays a scratchy vinyl record. A male singer is crooning the lyrics to a wistful song:
Gone is the romance that was so divine.
’tis broken and cannot be mended.
You must go your way,
And I must go mine.
But now that our love dreams have ended…
What’ll I do
When you are far away
And I am blue
What’ll I do?
What’ll I do?
“Its sad, isn’t it, Evan? Such a sad song. And why would people want to hear it?”
“It helps, I suppose, to put into words those difficult elusive feelings.”
She looks at me with compassion. “You have trouble with that, don’t you—putting elusive feelings into words?”
I nod.
The song lyrics interpose again, like an iron alphabet clouding my mind, obscuring her face. I shut my eyes trying to wall them out.
When I’m alone
With only dreams of you
That won’t come true
What’ll I do?
When I open my eyes, Em is there—sitting in Althea’s place.
“Em?” I’m dazed and feel drugged.
“I hope you don’t mind, Evan. I came by after my class to check in on you—I was just going to pass by and go home, but saw you sitting here all alone. Did you get stood up?
I smile ruefully. “Not exactly. I met her, but she wasn’t what I was looking for.”
“Really? When I first saw her, I thought she was perfect for you.”
I get up, slide into the booth beside her, take her in my arms and kiss her.
“How could she be perfect for me, Em? She’s not you. All I ever wanted was you.”
She smiles at me, eyes moist and shining.
“All I ever wanted was to hear you say that—and to tell the truth, if you never did say it, I don’t know what I’d do.”