Through the dim, yellow light of yet another smoke-filled bar he watched her, surrounded as she was by a gaggle of handsome young men. She laughed easily and when she did, her head would tilt back slightly, tossing her dark curls across her soft shoulders. The longer he stared, the more George Mazurski knew he had to talk with this girl.
- Outside the wind nearly shook the building, it was blusteringly cold and the snow was coming down hard. Anyone who'd taken such great pains to brave the storm and socialize here on a night like this would be well worth meeting. At least George thought so.
- George timed his move and in the end, she'd been easy to engage. She hadn't come with those other fellows, nor were they particularly possessive. In fact, it seemed like they'd given George free rein.
- Her name was Felicia. She and George talked at great length. Felicia was from Honduras. She'd emigrated in search of better opportunities for herself and to escape the desperate poverty that had characterized her life and cruelly shaped the choices she'd had to make to get by. She was an artist, it turned out, she liked to paint.
- All the while as they talked, freely and easily, George suspected that like some other immigrants he'd met from impoverished nations, there stood behind her bright eyes and easy-going charm, a gutsy, gritty pragmatist. But even so, her next remark had been completely incongruous to their conversation to that point.
- "You want to kiss me'" she enquired blinkingly.
George hemmed and hawed in embarrassment, for himself and for her, because in the din of the music in the bar, she must have misheard something he had just said. He continued the conversation, trying as best he could to pick up where he'd left off, explaining at length and in different words so that there could be no misunderstanding. And then he waited with trepidation for the realization of her mistake to set in.
- George was utterly surprised when to this she responded simply, "So, do you want to kiss me'"
- It was George that felt flustered now and the colour rushed to his face. As he groped for a polite answer, his mind wandered back to other propositions he had declined in the past.
- Like the time he'd been hitchhiking home in a rainstorm just outside of Truro. The truck driver had suggested that he and George could jump into the sleeper in the cab and George wouldn't have to do a thing, just lay back and enjoy.
- Or the fellow in the elevator in the apartment building on Rue St. Denis. The one who'd explained to George in that short ride up that he was unable to experience his own erections, so he'd "like to share" George's. Sometimes it seemed like everybody in Montreal was gay.
- George tried to imagine what a world would be like where the trappings of cosmetic proclivities and superficial looks would be ignored in favour of the beauty of the person inside. But try as he might, he couldn't.
- Who was to say that logic, creativity or mental prowess should be valued any more than looks, athletic ability, loyalty or some other aesthetic trait. Furthermore, it seemed almost the very essence of human nature to want what you couldn't have, or something that someone else wanted.
- Being human, people would place value on different characteristics that meant more or less to them. It's just that some attributes, like charisma or physical charm, were much more immediately obvious than others. So it wasn't always easy for some people to strike the bargain they thought they deserved.
- George was very apologetic and offered Felicia his excuses. "I'm sorry, you're very sweet, but I'd get in trouble if I did that, I'm a married man."
- She flashed George the look of the proverbial woman who had been scorned, but her eyes conveyed her understanding as much as disappointment and chagrin.
- A short time after, they bid each other a stilted farewell and George gazed in awe as Felicia rolled away, alertly perched on a contraption that she operated with her mouth, resembling less a wheelchair than a motorized dim sum trolley.
- As her disproportionately truncated and twisted form was about to turn the corner, she gave him a final wave with the webbed pincer that adorned a thalidomide flipper where a hand and an arm might normally have been expected. George waved back and smiled. He couldn't help but admire Felicia's pleasing face, her congeniality and her honest charm.
