Spaza Gallery, Troyeville

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Service: * * *
Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

Linda, our model for tonight, is late. She got her mom to drive her to the wrong venue by mistake. Assumed that Spaza Gallery in Troyeville was the same as the Spark Gallery in Norwood. I'm on the phone to her mom.

"I'm VERY annoyed! VERY!" says her mom. "This is MOST unprofessional! MOST!"

"I can hear that you're really angry," I say to the shaky-voiced woman hissing into the phone. "Would you like me to meet you in Norwood? I'll hop in my car and be there in a few minutes."

"I don't HAVE a few minutes!" she says. "I've got to get back home. There's FOOD cooking!!!"

I start giving her directions to the Spaza Gallery, but then, halfway through, I change my mind. Spaza is in a SERIOUSLY dingy part of town, and if Linda's mom is THIS pissed off about being in Norwood, a GOOD part of town, I can't imagine how pissed off she'll be driving into the Bronxe.

"I'm going to drive over to New Cafe in Norwood, and I'll pick Linda up there," I say. I'm striding down to the Troyeville Hotel to my car. It's parked there to avoid it being broken into.

Linda's mom says, "I KNOW how to get to Troyeville!!!" and puts the phone down. Even if she KNOWS how to get to Troyeville, she doesn't know where the damn gallery is. I suspect that she's fleeing Norwood, heading for the highway to take her and her daughter back to the cooking food in Bryanston.

I phone back immediately. Linda answers. "I'm so sorry," she says.

In the background, I hear her mom screaming at her. "Who IS this stupid MAN?" she yells. "I want to MEET him. SO unprofessional. This is RIDICULOUS!!!"

"Linda, please tell her to go to the News Cafe."

"Okay," she says, "I'll see you there."

"Nope... confirm it with her, and then tell me it's confirmed."

"Mom," says Linda, "Roy's in his car. He's going to meet us at the News Cafe. Is that okay?"

"NO IT'S NOT OKAY! How DARE he??? How DARE he!!!!???"

I get to the News Cafe minutes later. No sign of Linda. I phone her.

"Uh... we're just round the block," she says. "Mom, he's at the News Cafe. Okay. All right, mom. Okay, Roy, see you in a moment."

The moment lasts five minutes. Linda perkily hops out of the car. I shake her mom's hand. "I apologise for the venue confusion," I say.

"I'm VERY VERY annoyed," says her mom. She's glaring so hard that one of her eyelashes seems to be a little bit singed. "Now WHAT TIME will you be FINISHED with her? We're LEAVING for CAPE TOWN at five in the morning, and Linda hasn't even PACKED!!! She's SO irresponsible. SO irresponsible!!!"

"I'll deliver her to your door," I say, quickly running a mental calculation, thinking of the three posing sessions we need, plus the walk to and from the car when it's parked at the Troyeville Hotel, plus the trip to Bryanston, "at no later than eleven o'clock. Will that be all right?"

"Not a SECOND later than eleven!" she yelps.

She stares straight ahead and drives off.

I load Linda into my car, and we head for Troyeville.

"I'm so sorry," she says.

"How's Varsity?" I ask.

"Oooooo... the whole campus is totally paranoid."

"Oh yeah!" I say. "You're at Bond. That's where that girl was kidnapped. Leigh. Is there a lot of security there now."

"They're checking car boots now," says Linda. "But the guards are a bit strange. I got into someone's boot, and when they opened it when we were leaving, the one guard said, 'Kidnapped?' I said, 'Yup, kidnapped,' and he smiled and just closed the boot on me. I had to say, 'Only joking!' before he would open it again."

"Uh... your mom hasn't seen my website has she?" I ask. "That could explain why she's so resistant."

"I hope not," says Linda.

"Does she know that we're drawing you?" I ask.

"Well, now she does."

"Linda, what did you tell your mom?"

"Well, I told her I was meeting with some artists."

"Linda."

"I didn't want her to worry about whether or not I was going to pose naked for you."

"Well, you don't have to pose naked for us," I say. "Unless you want to."

"Your site's getting very steamy," she says.

"Yeah," I say. "I think I'm actually going to stop going into details about the sexual side of things. My therapist asked me about it this afternoon in shrinkage. And she's right. If I were seeing a woman who was frigid, would I write about it on the site, going into detail? No, probably not. So I'd rather just talk about the psychological side of things. I mean, this is a huge mindfuck for me. One moment, I'm this dude who believes that he's quite broadminded, and the next, I'm forced to confront what it really means to be broadminded."

"Well," says Linda, and her lips achieve a sort of smoulder that's WAY more attractive than her mom's singed eyelash, "Roy, I'm really quite surprised that you haven't done this sort of thing before."

I'm simply NOT going to ask her if she's done this sort of thing before. We're just going to draw her tonight. And I'm going to drop her home without kidnapping her. Before eleven o'clock.