Date with Amos Loewenstein -- Part One

It was June 2nd, 2005, the day of my first "date" with Amos Loewenstein. I say "date" in quotation marks, because I wasn’t sure if it was a date. As far as I knew, he was still married. He was friendly and chummy with me over email -- we had been corresponding nearly non-stop since our media panel the week Belinda Stronach crossed the floor -- but maybe he was simply a friendly, chummy guy. I guessed I would find out. I wanted very much to look elegant that night. I knew the Royal Club and I knew the crowd at this kind of get together -- a bunch of policy wonks, Tories and those possessed of political ambition unknown to normal humans. I knew that the women would all be wearing suits and would all have perfect "anchorwoman" haircuts, i.e. shoulder length blunt cuts, matching bags and shoes and innocuous jewelry. I knew this crowd, and I knew that, thankfully, I was nothing like them. It was hot that day, very hot and humid -- Toronto can be like Manila in the summertime -- so I put on a flowy, chiffon black skirt, a strapless black and gold top and low-heeled mules. I grabbed an old, sequinned pocketbook of my mother’s from the 1950s and put on some big, hoop earrings. I wore my hair down, and when I say down, I mean it was more than halfway down my back.
I would not fit in at the Royal Club. Fine by me. I felt nervous, excited. I knew I was getting a crush. I hailed a cab outside my apartment building and went to the Royal Club. I walked in to the snooty old club, and saw a crowd milling beyond the reception desk. They were all be-suited and self-important looking so I figured they had to be there to hear someone talk about privatizing sidewalks. The man at the front desk was just starting to ask me what event I was there for, when I saw, through the crowd, Amos Loewenstein’s rotund form, and then his head, peeking out and smiling first, then waving at me. I waved back and said to the man at the front desk, "Oh, I think those are my people." The man laughed, and in I went.
I ran up to Amos and...he said "Hi," nervously. I said the same. I had wanted -- indeed, planned -- to kiss him on his little, fat, rosy cheeks. But something made me hold back. After he said "Hi" I looked down and noticed he had a box of Red Deer Reports with him. He noticed me noticing the box and said, sheepishly, "I’ve got to promote the magazine every chance I get." "Oh, of course!" I replied. He then said, casually, "And speaking of, I’m going to go promote and schmooze until dinner starts," and off he ran, all energy and ambition and cuteness. I was left standing there with no one to talk to, surrounded by women and men in suits. What, I asked myself, was I doing here? What was I doing with these people? And more importantly, who in the hell are these people? Do I even recognize one of them? I did what I call my "Terminator scan" of the room to see if there was anyone familiar. There was. Lark van Vacuumtopfen. Lark was an ex-friend of mine. She had actually been, I thought, my closest friend in the world in 2001 and 2002, when I was working at Canada’s Most Boring Magazine. She was my boss -- i.e., my editor -- until she introduced me one day to our uber-boss, the publisher of Canada's Most Boring Magazine. When he and I met, the sparks flew, immediately...and kept flying. They flew and flew and went combust all over the place and he and I entered into a passion-filled, dinners-out and talks about 9-11 and anthrax and Paul Wolfowitz fuelled relationship. And then one day he dumped me. And Lark stopped being my friend. And now I hated her for that. Especially since she claimed to be a Christian, and I could not remember where it said in the New Testament that Jesus said unto them, yea, ye shall abandon thy friends in their darkest hour. Was that part of the Sermon on the Mount? I thinketh not!
But anyway, that was all behind me. I no longer cared about Canada's Most Boring Magazine or Lark van Vacuumtopfen. And I would be damned that night if I would go and talk to her just out of desperation.
I Terminator-scanned the room some more till I saw Patrick Clerk, Canada’s second-foremost newscaster. He would have been Canada’s first-foremost newscaster, but he refused to cover Gulf War I because he had irrational fears of both camels and mirages. This earned him the nickname, "Pusillanimy Patrick." Being a coward myself, I felt kind of sorry for him, and anyway, he was standing alone, looking like he hoped someone would recognize and talk to him. So I did. I went over and introduced myself. He beamed. He was anchorman handsome. He asked me what I did, and I realized that I could now proudly call myself a "columnist." Well, okay, maybe not so proudly, since I was a columnist at the Scum, but what the heck. So I said it, "Well, I have a column at the Daily Scum." (I admitted it out loud!)
"Are you covering this?" Pusillanimy Patrick asked.
"Oh no, no. Amos Loewenstein invited me," I answered.
"Oh, how do you know Amos?"
I told him about our media panel with Charles Taylor. Pretty soon we were chatting casually, about all sorts of things and then the lights in the room blinked. We figured that meant we should be seated.
"Are there assigned tables?" I asked Pusillanimy Patrick.
"No, no. Well, except for the head table. Pierre-Marie O’Reilly and his friends will be sitting there. But come sit with me and my crew," he enthused.
"Sure."
I followed him. Pretty soon, at my table of eight, there were six men, me, and an empty seat next to me, on my left. Amos rushed over and took it. The men at the table chuckled. "I can see why you want to sit there," they laughed, gesturing at me.
This was what I loved about Conservative get-togethers. It was really easy to be the most attractive woman in the room. All you had to was wear your hair down and show a little skin.
Compared to all the mousy little things with their blah suits and their anchorwoman bobs and their "tasteful" pearl earrings, I was hot stuff.
Dinner began. The chit-chat began. I asked Amos where he stayed when he was in Toronto. "Do you stay with friends?" I asked.
"No, no," he said, "I stay at the Royal York Hotel.""Wow, fancy!" was all I said. But I was thinking, "Oh my, he’s in a hotel room. We can go back there together after the dinner and fool around!"
"Yes," he said. "It’s very nice. And I get a reduced rate because my friend Kevin Kelley -- you know, the MP for Red Deer North -- gets me the parliamentary price."
"Oh, nice!"
"Yeah." The chit-chat continued until it was time for Pierre-Marie O’Reilly to speak. His topic was privatizing Canada’s sidewalks, and I learned, through his speech, that he was the president and founder of the French-Canadians for No Government and Armed Citizens Society (FCNGACS).
His speech was kind of boring -- I didn’t see how making people buy their own sidewalk was going to help anyone -- but he piqued my interest when he singled out Amos mid-speech, giving a plug to the Red Deer Report. Amos blushed, and momentarily looked up from his Crackberry, which he had been working on all through O’Reilly’s speech. (I actually thought that was kind of rude, but Amos got the official Jane Avril Cute Man Immunity Pass for Bad Behaviour that night.) Then O’Reilly went back to ranting about sidewalks and somehow managed to segue onto the topic of George Bush. In true French-Canadian fashion, he started trashing him and making excuses for terrorists. Ugh. What was up with French-Canadians, anyways? They loved Hitler and now they loved Islamofascists.
Whatever. All I could think about was Amos and whether he was still married to Rahel with the snood or not. When O’Reilly finished his speech, there came the Q & A period. I noticed, with horror, that Polya Bratwurst was in the room, and that she was madly waving her hand, trying to get O’Reilly’s attention. Polya Bratwurst was a fixture on the Canadian Conservative scene, but no one could really say why, since she hadn’t accomplished anything substantial or noteworthy and wasn’t particularly smart. She was mostly known for sucking up to rich people (and dating them, when possible), and for promoting herself. Sadly, in Canada, this appeared to be sufficient activity with which to create a career.
After a few questions that actually had to do with the topic at hand, Polya finally got her chance. After mentioning how great she was, she said, "What do you think of gay marriage, and how it affects the potential privatization of Canada’s sidewalks?"
The room fell silent, but for a few people trying to stifle laughter. O’Reilly, to his credit, kept a straight face. Perhaps, I thought, his English was so bad he didn’t know how dumb Polya’s question was. I can’t remember how he answered, but he almost seemed to be taking her seriously. At any rate, Polya’s astoundingly stupid question topped off the event, and people got up to do a bit more milling about, before leaving.
Interestingly, Pierre-Marie O’Reilly made a beeline for me and introduced himself. "Great speech," I said, lying. "Thank you," he said. But it was more like, "Zank you," with his thick Quebecois accent. He asked what I did. "I have a political column with the Daily Scum," I said. "Oh, really?" He looked nervous, and then I realized there was an angry and slutty-looking Asian woman standing next to him. (Even though she had a serious business-suit on and serious anchorwoman hair, she was unquestionably slutty-looking. There was just something about her. I had friends who referred to women like her as "Bangkok Whores." Politically incorrect, yes, but my friends were Asian, so they were allowed to say that.) He kept casting looks her way, as he tried to carry on a conversation with me. She moved closer to him, glaring at me. Ooh, boy. I knew a jealous, pissed off Asian chick when I saw one.
I stepped back. "Well," I said, "I better go find Amos." Off I went. When I found him, Amos said to me, "If you don’t mind waiting for me to schmooze a bit more, maybe we can go get a drink." I was ecstatic."Sure!" I fairly shrieked. "And I’ll give a call to Charles Taylor and see if he’d like to join us," he added, whipping out his Crackberry.
"Oh," I said, joy and hope fast dissipating, "sure. That’d be fun."
Drat. I would not get Amos alone. And if that weren’t bad enough, I would have to listen to Amos and Charles Taylor talk about Canadian politics all night.
Sheesh. What had I gotten into? I stood by and waited for Amos to finish schmoozing. Who knew? Maybe he and I would have some time alone later. But if not, I was still determined to make the most of the night.

(Stay tuned for PART II.)