The Amber Griffin Chronicles
an excerpt

Opening Night: July 2007, Vancouver
Vancouver, BC
July 2007

T'ai hated guessing. Guessing implied the possibility of surprise, or some other undignified event like landing all in a heap, or being yelled at in front of people. Guessing was not a respectable occupation of time. One knew, or one did not know. At no time did one admit either. One washed or went to sleep, and woke up when everything was better; that was the way of things.

Both methods failed him tonight. He felt ungrounded, tentative of his movements in a way he hadn't felt since his lanky adolescence, when his limbs suddenly telescoped and his center of gravity seemed to shift like the Vancouver weather. It wasn't only that tonight marked the end of a long year of waiting. Something was off-center in the greater universe. He could almost believe that his whiskers detected the faintest of vibrations, as if a moth were beating its wings, far overhead.

He stared out of the big glass double-doors and sniffed. Nothing he hadn't smelled before. Dust and traffic and old petrochemicals and seaweed and garbage, the melange of downtown. Maybe a slight draft, as the sidewalk outside finally cooled off after hours under the baking sun.

The hot, windy July night had passed its peak, the moon long set. He stared moodily out at the dark street: the garish shop windows filled with things whose uses he couldn't begin to fathom, backlit signs and neon signs, the slumbering cars leaning against the curb, the parking meters winking red in mismatched intervals, and the soft ambient glow of streetlights over all. The breeze kicked up eddies of car-smelling dust and dry leaves from the boulevard poplars, sending them skittering and twisting down the pavement. T'ai would have liked to prowl around the streets, but he knew that he was better off inside, and that Carl wouldn't let him go, anyway. There was nothing to do but watch the passing taxicabs and busses outside, and wait for daylight.

Seeking distraction, T'ai padded over to the long, mahogany dining bar and leapt, landing soundlessly. He smoothed his whiskers against the wine glasses dangling from the rack above his head, and jumped when they clinked back at him.

"T'ai. Stop it. You're making me nervous."

The big Siamese hunkered down, wrapping his articulate tail firmly around his paws. He sighed gustily and settled to watch Carl finish sweeping the orderly rows of unpolished slate floor tiles, the only sound the rhythmic swish of the corn broom.

Carl glanced over, and thought that he would miss having T'ai underfoot. He had been good company. Carl knew he shouldn't have brought him at all, but after today, the cat would really have to stay home. The summer had been a sticky, dusty kaleidoscope of sanding and laying floors, moving in furniture, lighting fixtures and installing an entire professional kitchen that was designed down to the last square inch. Not to mention the thousands of telephone hours logged and a folder full of permits to be obtained from a variety of levels of government.

During the run-up this past month, Carl and T'ai hadn't even gone home. They had camped in the office behind the kitchen like a pair of bachelors, barely pausing to stretch out on the old leather sofa for a few hours before dawn. T'ai had taken to his new surroundings with equanimity, eating and drinking out of a pair of old margarine tubs and scratching around in a Rubbermaid tub in the office. He dozed in the sunny window seat all afternoon while Carl worked, and seemed to wake up just as Carl was ready to take a break. Carl was beginning to understand the natural covalence of cats and solitary folk. He wondered if he would find himself in twenty years puttering in his tiny kitchen at home with half a dozen of them underfoot.

He looked around as he swept, caught between vertigo and motion sickness.

There really was nothing left to do, and nobody he could call. Adam would be waking up soon on the east coast, but Adam did not call anybody unless it was politically expedient. Carl, in his thirty years as a high school History teacher, had never been remotely useful to Adam. They had fallen into Christmas cards soon after their university days, though they had kept apprised of one another's lives through their mother. They didn't even have her anymore. Carl thought – he hoped – that she might have been just a little excited for him, had she lived long enough to see tonight. And Farah…Farah would be fast asleep by now.

He thought ironically that most entrepreneurs relied heavily upon their friends and connections to support them in their startup years. Except for a few ex-students and colleagues, Carl had all but disappeared from public view in the year since his retirement, but instead of feeling abandoned, he felt, for the first time in his fifty-eight years, free of them.

After a lifetime of idle dreams and a thirteen months of sheer hard graft, the Amber Griffin Café was set to open its doors with the dawn. He had held nothing back; he had invested everything in the planning and execution. He was utterly exhausted and he had barely begun.

On the face of it, he was poised for a strong launch. The Amber Griffin was already being hailed in the press as a worthy addition to the recently revived Railtown area. Gerry Spence, the whimsical restaurant critic, burbled happily that "Retired History teacher, author and renowned hobby-chef Carl Whitcomb was the ideal person to restore the ground floor of this heritage building as a restaurant, and was perhaps one of the few who might be persuaded to make such a leap" in the old area that had been rebranded Railtown.

The Griffin was housed in the ground floor of a handsome brick building, three storeys high and wider than it was deep. The old building was simply made but dignified, with an air that recalled the gargoyles and engraved lintels of less utilitarian office buildings a few more affluent blocks south. The ground floor was wrapped in thick windows across the streetfront, extending back halfway down the sides. The windows of the dining area looked out on a block filled with trendy boutique shops and art galleries, and other brownstones restored to new life by firms grateful for cheap, flexible space. The smaller windows in the kitchen and back office gave onto a view of the old railway lines that were now rarely used if at all, the newer public-transit railway used by the West Coast Express commuter line, and then the gray-green sprawl of Burrard Inlet and the slate-blue North Shore beyond.

In the year since Carl had taken over the space, Railtown had become an eclectic, easy-paced area, popular with browsers and tourists as well as those who came to do business. It might have been a stroke of luck, but it felt oddly natural, as though some contagious energy was travelling down the old tracks. The architects and designers who occupied the two storeys above the Griffin had been generous with their advice and labour, and had become good friends and champions, fascinated as much by the history of the area as the open potential of their adopted space. They had gotten in the habit of meeting for a glass of wine on Friday nights, standing looking out the large picture windows, and then lounging on the comfortable old couches as the restaurant formed around them.

After a few late-night meals whipped up by Carl in the new kitchen, the upstairs tenants had agreed to take partial payment of their design and building fees in meal chits.

The Griffin was the only eating establishment for a couple of blocks in any direction, and by far the nicest. Carl was actually quite concerned for the small diners and takeaways that hung on by perilous pennies in the surrounding streets. Buying into such a rapidly gentrified area, at a time when it was beginning to attract medium-sized investors, he knew he would be thrown headfirst into Vancouver's seemingly irresolvable poverty politics. Undoubtedly he would make some enemies as well as allies among his new neighbours.

So far, they had been lucky. The Griffin had remained free of broken windows and looting, even tagging, though other construction sites were hit despite hiring security guards. Locals had been curious, and for the most part supportive. One had even gone so far as to shake Carl's hand, calling him a brave man. Others wished him luck in dubious tones.

The media had been as flirtatious as if Carl were a new pop star in town. They were quite wild with delight over the developing story of The Amber Griffin. There was socioeconomic rejuvenation in Canada's poorest postal code, there were eco-friendly and heritage-sensitive renovation techniques to be endlessly diagrammed and debated by everyone from Green Party and DERA luminaries to local MP's of all stripe. There was even an ultra-trendy rooftop garden installed by the designers on the top floor, as their meditation-cum-carbon-eating space. And there was the feelgood factor of such a lifelong, loyal high-school teacher following his boyhood dream after retirement.

For all these reasons, and the fact that he simply loved to wax expansive, Carl had averaged one interview each week for the past couple of months, and three yesterday alone.

Within the first five minutes of any interview, whether for the papers, radio spots or websites, every reporter asked the name of the Griffin's incoming head chef. To all of them, Carl answered that he was putting together an experienced kitchen team and was still in the selection process. He added that he had been trained as a cook in his boarding school, and, in after his retirement, had taken a culinary diploma to gain a more current industry background. This was considered the equivalent of a diva's refusing to reveal the sex of her unborn child, and contrary to raising red flags among Vancouver's food enthusiasts, had the effect of raising anticipation to a fever peak. Even his bank officer believed him. Which was a blessing. There was no way he could possibly respond to doubts about his ability except by rising to the challenge.

After the first month, realizing a futile cause, none of the interviewers had asked about Farah. Carl could only assume that neither she nor their old friends had gone public with their separation, and he wasn't about to second-guess his luck. He wondered if she had been deliberately quashing concerns, given her upcoming candidacy announcement in her West End riding. Stranger things had been kept from the public. He had seen nothing more of her than the expected rise in profile prior to her announcement. Either she was screening her calls or she was holding the reporters breathlessly hostage while they waited for an exclusive with the first Iranian-Canadian Liberal MP candidate for the Vancouver-West End riding, who just happened to have modelled her way through university.

Nearly two years had passed since the split, but, Carl was forced to admit, he had been so preoccupied with his post-retirement plans that jumping headfirst into a totally new existence had felt strangely normal, like moving away to university had been. He suspected that if his life ever slowed down, he would miss Farah more sharply than he could imagine. He wasn't sure whether his good prospects with the business were a result of burying himself in work, or whether he was buoyed by the astounding good fortune he had had along the way.

Farah was now in sole command of the West End high-rise ocean-view apartment that was to have been their declining-years home. Whether there was anyone else there with her was a matter not to be explored. He really didn't want to know. Farah had the apartment, the decisive support of their old circle of friends, and an approval rating with enviable momentum.

Carl had a small co-op apartment off Commercial Drive, a passing acquaintance with the young hippieish couple next door, and a bossy cat who had come with the place. It was ironic that in all the years of harsh disappointments, he found himself grateful he and Farah had no children to feel the brunt of their highly civilized separation.

He was beginning to wish he had invited her to the opening. He wouldn't phone or e-mail her, not directly, and it was too late to write. She would know all about it, anyway, and the good press leading up to the opening would guarantee her absence. If there were a campaign pitch or even pity to be had, she might...

No. That sort of thinking just proved how near to his heart the effects of the breakup were circulating, unexplored. One day he'd have to sit down and begin sifting through it.

It was a shame, he thought. This was the sort of place she'd have liked. He'd been so excited when he first had blueprints made from the many sketches he had made over the years, and she realized how serious he was. For thirty five years, he had painted vivid pictures for her of his dream-restaurant, the food and the clientele and the feel of the place. After all that time, he knew her tastes as well as he did. He'd channelled her into the vision as much as himself. Their child, enfleshed in bright stainless steel and warm wood, the ambient chatter and clink of comfort and the profound stillnesses within meaningful conversation.

Her sympathetic smile had been cold water on his head.

"Carl, you have to listen to yourself. Be reasonable. I'm sorry to be the bitch. It's a beautiful idea. You know what an unbelievably hard business it is to break into, even if you had huge financing and a big-name head chef? I'm sure our friends would help spread the word, but you don't have the name draw for the foodies or the backing to hire someone who does. You're a teacher. One of the best. You know that. And we're pushing sixty, hon. What about taking some advanced cooking classes? Hey – what about a retirement kickoff trip to Germany or Paris? You could learn from the best and then we could go take in the sights. Then you could get to all those other books you've been wanting to write. Maybe do some guest lecturing."

The threads must have begun weakening a long time before that, Carl realized, but it was a single fatal rip. And it kept going.

"Diane and Ted are going to couples counselling. They realized they have to get to know each other all over again after Ted retires. Maybe we should talk to them, see how it goes for them."

"Honey, what about an international gourmet tour? How many people ever get to do that?"

"Carl, I get that you're at a loose end, but you're driving me insane. Get back to writing or something. Anything. Nobody's taking away your toys."

"Carl, this is one hell of an important year for me, too. I know how you feel about politicians in the family, but we've talked about this for years. You always knew I'd want to run...If you'd stop living in the past for just a second and come back - "

"Farah, I've waited my entire life - "

"What about my entire life?"

Carl realized he had been sweeping the same section of flooring with a fixed intensity for some minutes. He set his broom against the ochre-tinted wall and dug the heels of his hands into his back, wincing as he straightened up. T'ai sidled over, and Carl tweaked his dark chocolate ears and sighed.

"Just about there, cat." he said, and scooped him into his tired arms. T'ai made a token initial resistance to being picked up, and together they surveyed the place.

The lower sitting room was sunk slightly below the street. Its windows, set at a seated guest's eye level, were overlaid with wrought iron security bars, hammered leaves and stems twisting around the uprights. Inside, deep, warm-coloured couches, velvet-skirted vintage armchairs and low coffee tables waited, a generous number of Ethernet jacks and electrical outlets within reach. Old hardcover editions, fiction and nonfiction, rested behind the glass doors of an antique bookcase against the wall. The low black potbellied stove sat like a Buddha between two of the couches.

On a shelf above the stove stood Montague, the tall terra-cotta Griffin statue who had given the café its name.

The great dining bar ran the entire length of the upper dining section, with eight high swivel stools drawn up. A dozen round black and green faux-marble bistro tables and chairs were arranged seemingly at random across the floor. The glass double doors opened onto street level, and four patio tables and a stack of white-painted cast-aluminium chairs waited to be taken outside at daybreak.

With the interior lights dimmed, the streetlights and blue neon from outside bounced in ripples all around the restaurant, transforming it into an underwater grotto. The walls, plastered and frescoed in sepia with trailing vines and leaves, seemed to undulate, like seaweed, or like some huge animal breathing.

Huge animal breathing? thought Carl.

"I think I'd better make us some coffee." he said, letting T'ai drop to the floor.

He headed for the gleaming kitchen behind the bar, and switched on the old-fashioned coffeemaker that took an age to heat up, but was worth every minute. He shook a packet of fair-trade organic Arabica into the basket, added cinnamon and nutmeg from a spice shaker, and left the machine to run through its cycle.

In years to come, Carl would remember that moment as the quietest and cleanest in the kitchen's long story. For twenty years after that night, order and chaos would chase each other around like a serpent after its own tail. For now, he was just happy that everything worked, and that the health inspector's comments had been nothing but positive.

He went to look at the kitchen, pristine and latent, fairly humming with readiness.

Like all restaurant kitchens, it was tightly packed, with every square inch accounted for. He had salvaged some of the original cabinets from the building, and had had them clad in stainless steel surfaces that ran seamlessly along to the industrial dishwasher and sinks. New refrigerated metal cabinets were fitted under the long serving window, where meals could be pushed from kitchen to restaurant, and kept hot under lamps. An industrial-sized glass-fronted fridge with sliding doors stood to one side of the swing-door that led to the dry-goods room, and on the other side, two white-enamelled gas ranges and ovens waited under a pair of range hoods. Off to one side was the small office. In the middle of the kitchen stood a long, stainless-steel topped work surface with a shallow, tilted drainage moat for drips and scraps to be pushed along into two wheeled garbage bins beneath. The kitchen and bar were separated by an pair of swinging saloon doors salvaged from a recently wrecked building, one hundred and twenty years old, a few doors away.

The smell of fresh coffee was beginning to waft into the restaurant.

T'ai, relieved that something was happening, fell to a comprehensive wash, but was soon interrupted by a shadow that fell through the glass double-doors at the front of the restaurant. He glanced up, startled, one paw suspended in midair.

A tall person cupped long pale fingers around its face, pressed its nose against the glass and peered inwards. Its eyes were obscured, but it was covered with shabby knitted cap over scrubby colourless hair, and a long black oilcloth coat over baggy brown trousers. Its feet were shod in old laced workboots that had, some years ago, been black.

As T'ai stared, the person waved cheerfully at him and crouched down, flickering its fingers in the way people did to catch a cat's attention. It seemed to be waiting for a response, but finding none, it shrugged and walked onwards, suddenly giving forth in burst of surprisingly tuneful song.

"So pack up your pick and be off, I say, off and away to the Klondike..."

At least it was happy, T'ai thought. As the man - for it was a man - walked away, T'ai jogged to the front doors and looked out, pressing his nose against the glass.

There's no light around him, he thought. But he's definitely not dead…

Like all cats, T'ai saw the brilliant coloured nimbuses around people, animals and plants alike as easily as their solid selves. Now he saw only the shape of the singing man, insubstantial, like a candle or a lightbulb about to burn out, as he moved into the distance. The man walked under the aureole of a streetlamp, and disappeared.

T'ai stared a moment longer. He shuddered off his discontent, and decided to burn off some energy while waiting for his saucer of coffee. The sections of the restaurant were joined by three shallow stairs, and he took these at a run.

As he gathered himself for the leap, he heard a rough voice call out, "Damn cat's inside again! Git, you!"

T'ai, heart thumping, froze and looked all over with wild eyes. Carl was still in the kitchen. It was quiet and still, without even a rumble from the passing city bus outside.

He jumped up on the nearest coffee table, and took up a vigilant watch, but nothing moved, nothing in the whole restaurant.

Oh, T'ai hated guessing.

Carl reappeared a few minutes later, with steaming coffee in a glass mug and an extra saucer, both of which he carried to a table in the lower section. T'ai meowed loudly, his blue eyes troubled, and Carl smiled as he scratched the cream-coloured ruff at the back of his neck.

"Nothing to worry about. Everything's taken care of. Can't do anything more till customers come." He splashed some coffee into the saucer and slid it towards the cat, and sank gratefully onto the corduroy sofa. T'ai watched as he stirred cream and sugar into his mug, and twitched his whiskers. Cream was divine, but he took his coffee black.

Carl propped his feet on the low coffee table, leaning back. Raising his mug expansively, he toasted T'ai, Montague the Griffin, high up on his shelf, the whole restaurant. He closed his eyes and took a heavenly swallow.

T'ai sniffed half-heartedly at his coffee and tried to slow his pounding heart.

His already shaken composure was shattered completely in the next instant as the double doors swung open and a deep voice called, "Got any coffee on?"

T'ai scurried under the sofa. Carl's eyes flew open in surprise, his feet hitting the floor.

"Just made some. Grab a seat."

"Thanks."

Carl got up and returned to the kitchen. The man strode into the lower section and sat down.

He was slightly shorter than Carl, solidly built, tough but mild looking. He wore faded but clean black jeans, a Macintosh plaid flannel shirt over a faded rock t-shirt and a black cloth cap on his head. Around his neck hung an assortment of trinkets: amulets, keys, an ornate fishhook, strings of bone beads.

"Kitchen still open?" the man called to Carl.

"Actually, it hasn't even been opened, but we might as well. I can rustle up anything you like, as long as it's breakfast."

"You mean—"

Carl nodded. "You're the first guest of the Amber Griffin. Welcome." He bowed slightly, setting the glass coffee mug on the table. There was a bad moment where it looked as though the gesture was more out of place than welcoming. But then the man stood up, doffing his cap, bowing in return and extending his hand.

"Much obliged," he said, "Me, I'm Jean-Pierre O'Donohue. Red, to my friends."

"Red," Carl took in the frizzy bright hair without comment and shook his hand, "I'm Carl Whitcomb. That's T'ai, cowering in the corner. T'ai, where are your manners? Come and say hello."

Slinking low, T'ai stepped near and sniffed the stranger's jeans carefully. When a hand descended, he drew back sharply. The fingers stayed very still, and T'ai sniffed them all over. Red smiled deeply into the cat's eyes, mesmerizingly calm.

From the corner of his eye, T'ai saw a reflection in the Griffin's long window. He saw himself, and Carl, and he saw Red. Only it wasn't Red, but a younger man with a gingery trimmed beard and moustache, sitting where Red now sat, shoulders hunched, conning over a large ledger. The man was using his forefinger to scan down the long columns. Despite the heat, the man wore fingerless gloves and a gray knitted muffler around his neck, and a thick woolen overcoat over his light suit. As T'ai watched, the man stared at the page with an expression of misery, drumming his bare, bitten fingertips on the ledger's pages.

Backing away, T'ai jumped up onto a nearby table to watch Red more closely.

"You can't do that when there are guests here," Carl remonstrated, "The Health Board won't stand for it. He's just here tonight for company," he hastened to explain.

This man is not a guest, T'ai thought. But he jumped down and crouched on the floor, blinking up at them.

"He listens to you?"

"Listens, records, reads back verbatim if I forget a word." Carl replied, heading for the kitchen.

"I don't doubt it." Red replied seriously. "That's what they're supposed to do. I have two at home. They tell me right away if I've forgotten something I said I'd do."

Carl paused in his step, and went to find the menus.

Twenty-five minutes later, they were tucking into plates piled high with grilled polenta rounds topped with sharp cheddar and salsa, creamy scrambled eggs, beef and onion bangers bursting out of their skins and fruit salad. On a plate between them were hot buttered English muffins. T'ai, who had his own helping of sausage and polenta, began to thaw.

"...It depends on the kids, mostly." Red was saying: "Street culture changes like any other. One year the drop-ins are full, the next, nobody comes. Once programs stop showing success, the funding dries up, till someone else has a great new idea to throw money at. But someone's got to watch out for the kids in the meantime, and they trust me. I must have run ten different drop-in programs in the past ten years. They know my face, and they know I won't bullshit them. It means a lot of running after 'em, right into their dealer's houses or even busting parties, but the smart ones know it's better than Juvi. At the moment I'm an unofficial street worker. There'll be a new set of contracts after the next Provincial election."

"Not an easy thing," Carl nodded slowly. Red was turning out to be one big surprise. Carl was by nature wary of letting his reserve drop among strangers, but chatting with Red in the middle of the night felt natural. As if they were catching up on old times. "How did you get into...? I mean - "

"The hard way," Red replied. "A lot of us got into street-level work from the other side. It's why they trust us. For some, it's the only reason why they trust us. We survived, so we must know something. And you're right. I've got about as much education as I look like. Not a hell of a lot. I'm not a social worker, thank God. Not many people telling me how to run my shit. Not a lot of red tape, and I don't deal with placements - just find ways to keep the kids off the streets during the day, and night referrals to shelters for the ones who fall through the cracks. Nobody stays overnight except the security guards."

"You're up late. Or is it early, for you?"

"Plenty late." Red nodded and let out a huff, raising his bushy eyebrows. "Couldn't sleep. One of my kids had a meltdown. Had to see her settled. I was walking home and saw your lights on. So how come you're up? Opening night nerves?"

Carl forked up some polenta. "This is a dream I've had for a while now." he said shortly.

Red made an elliptical sound. "Hope you get some good reviews," he said peaceably.

Carl nodded his thanks, and took a deep breath. "Got a lot invested in it. Gave a lot up. All for a cafe." he gave a quick, self-deprecating grin. "Most entrepreneurs rely on their friends to help them launch. Any of mine come near, it'll be to stare and shake their heads."

"Wait. I read something. You're the guy, you were a teacher."

"History, Social Studies, Western Civilization. Communications. Debating. Thirty eight years. Retired two years now."

Red raised his eyebrows again and said nothing.

T'ai finished his sausage and sat up to wash his face, still eyeing Red. He couldn't tell if he had brought something in the door with him, or if something had followed him through. Whatever it was, there was an electric charge in his fur as though a lightning storm were near. The sense of waiting to land on the ground was stronger than ever.

It was easier to deal with on a full belly, however. Most things were. He had the sudden notion that the man Red had come looking for food for the same reason.

At that moment Red looked towards T'ai, and smiled straight into his mind.

A heartbeat – a breath – a lifetime later, Red turned away.

T'ai didn't want to look, but out of a purely feline need to know at all costs, he glanced toward their reflection in the restaurant window. The first light was beginning to dampen the orange streetlight shadows with a pale blue glow that would not pinken for another half hour or so. A lone Yellow Cab cruised past, the driver scanning the street for fares.

T'ai was deeply relieved to see the reflections of Carl and Red laughing, eating, and gesticulating to one another like old friends. His own reflection blinked back at him, wide-eyed.