I’d been in Toronto for just over three weeks when a bellman mentioned something to me about “Expat Friday.”

"Are you going this week?" He asked. "Any new crazy and outrageous stories to share?"

“What the hell is ‘Expat Friday’?” was my response.

“Nobody’s mentioned it to you? It’s a Friday happy hour that all the American expatriates get together for. It allows you some together time so you don’t get homesick. It seems to be a popular event.”

I was always ready to meet new people over drinks so I pressed. “Where do they meet?”

“Over at Elephant and Castle, a pub on Yonge Street. It’s northeast of here, about a mile or two,” he replied. “You know what? I’m going to introduce you to Stephen the next chance I get. He’s been here three months. From Detroit. He works for General Motors. He knows everybody who’s American and staying at the hotel.”

“Except for me,” I noted.

“Right. I’ll take care of that.”

As promised, the bellman introduced me to Stephen two nights later when our paths crossed.

“A pleasure to meet a fellow American sent here to rot like the rest of us.” Stephen firmly shook my hand, smiling a toothy smile. “What’s your racket?” he asked.

“Advertising. I’m along for the ride on an international campaign we have with Absolut vodka.”

“Liquor. Can’t be that bad,” he joked. “Hey, maybe we should be coming to you for our happy hour get-togethers, eh?”

I laughed. To an outsider, working on the Absolut account sounded like a glamorous way of achieving liquid bliss I’m sure, but I’d yet to find any gift baskets of alcohol waiting for me at work or back in my room.

I broke the ice with Stephen for a little longer and he soon mentioned the weekly expat's gathering at the Elephant and Castle. “It’s a great opportunity to meet people from all over the U.S.” He ribbed my side. “It’s our own version of Rick’s Café for those of us waiting for the green light to get out of Casablanca and back to the motherland. We definitely have a cast of characters going in and out of the place. You’ll have to join us and get to know some of the people.”

Stephen started giving me some basic directions and how to get there by Metro, but we were interrupted by a shout and a low shriek.

“There you are. I thought you might be purposely avoiding me or something!”

It was Anna, standing clear on the other side of the lobby. She didn’t have the decorum to walk up to us before talking. Everybody in the place looked in her direction when they heard what was supposed to be for me, and some gave her nasty looks as she made her way over. Anna just frowned back. Nobody will ever accuse Anna of having good manners.

“What have you been doing lately? Let me guess, the hotel staff. Ha ha ha!” Anna kept laughing a nasally fake laugh in response to her own joke. I leaned outward to check the front desk to see if Olivia was there and if she had heard Anna. It must have been her night off.

I sighed lightly. “Hey Anna, what’s going on.” I didn’t want to associate with her. I didn’t even want to look at her. My mind began devising a plan that involved giant safes being dropped from great heights while she waited unexpectedly on a sidewalk below. I smiled as I visualized this.

“Same old same old,” she responded. “I thought you and I were gonna hang out and be buds! It’s so goddamn busy around work I barely even see you there.” She started rubbing her arms. “I still haven’t adjusted to the cold. It’s always freezing.” Anna was right, it was cold. Damn cold. The temperature that day had topped off at -13 Celsius, or 9 degrees Fahrenheit if you prefer. I’d finally bought a heavier jacket along with a muffler, gloves, a scarf, and some medium weight sweaters and jackets to deal with the freezing weather.

I turned and introduced Anna to Stephen, but when he attempted to mention the happy hour to her I cut him off. When Anna left I explained the situation and told him we’d be better off leaving her out of this.

Stephen finished up giving me directions. I was in. I thanked him and went up to my room, falling asleep almost immediately.

The phone rang. I looked at the clock radio and it read 11:30. Dammit, that had better not be Stephen, trying to coax me from bed for some late-night boozing in freeze-my-ass-off land.

I picked up the phone slowly, bringing it to my ear as I remained curled up in bed. “Hello?”

“Uncle Reed! Hi, you’ll never guess what happened to me today. I’m on the baseball team!”

It was my nephew Tyler. Ever since I had Thanksgiving at my brother’s house, Tyler had begun calling me to share what he felt were the important events in his life. So far those important events included wiping out on his bike, setting a new high score on Star Wars Battlefront, then breaking it two weeks later, and again another three days after that, all the A’s he was scoring on tests, and now his baseball team. I couldn’t really blame the kid, I’d brought it upon myself by suggesting he do so whenever he felt like talking. I had no idea he’d want to talk so much. I was hoping he’d just play his PS2 like every other kid.

I rolled over in bed, rubbing my eyes in an attempt to wake up and focus. “That’s great, Tyler. What position?”

“Left field, just like you played.” I realized he meant when I was a kid. Tyler must have seen pictures in my parents’ photo books.

“Are you any good?”

“I kick ass,” he replied.

“Hey, watch the language!” I chided. Great, I thought, I’m turning into a role model.

“Know what else Uncle Reed, I told Aunt Alexis she needs to stop bothering you about finding a girlfriend because you’re going to come back from Canada with one.”

I laughed. “Oh you did, did you?”

“Yeah, that’s because you’re a...a” I heard him move the phone away from his ear as he listened to somebody else talk. He was being coached, probably by his mother. I didn’t expect Peter was home before nine on a weeknight. “A ladies’ man,” Tyler concluded.

“Is that what they say?” I inquired. “Thank your mother for the help on that. Listen Tyler, do you know what time zones are?”

“Yeah, I think so. You fly into them on airplanes.”

“Sort of. In different parts of the world it’s a different time of the day. What time is it right now at your house?”

“It just passed 8:30,” Tyler replied proudly, knowing the answer was correct.

“Yes, that’s right. Want to take a guess as to what time it is here?”

It was silent on the other end of the phone. I couldn’t wait any longer. “It’s 11:30 at night here. What time do you go to bed, Tyler?”

“Nine. Mom always says nine.”

“And if I woke you up at 11:30 when you went to bed at nine, you’d be sleepy, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess.” He wasn’t getting where I was headed with this, and I was sleepy and cranky. I wanted to get off the phone but wasn’t up to the dickhead move of hanging up on an eight year-old.

“I’m going to go back to sleep now, Tyler. I tell you what, the next time you want to call me and say what’s up, do it while the sun is out, okay?”

“Okay. Goodnight Uncle Reed.”
____________________________________________________________________________________

I was late. Catherine had kept me beyond when I’d wanted to leave, talking logistics and strategy and bar placement. We talked about colors – both the hues of the vodka (they do have them if you look closely, it’s not a clear liquid), and the psychology behind the colors of the bottles and bottle labels themselves. It was very interesting, diving into the psyche and discovering how the mind reacts to colors and combinations of colors, but it wasn’t something I wanted to be engaged in at five on a Friday afternoon. By the time I made it out of the office and across town on the combination of metro lines Stephen gave me, it was 6:15 as I stepped into Elephant and Castle.

The bar itself was rather nice, a step up from the local neighborhood dives Olivia had been showing me. The clientele was much more urbane, as people in business suits and Friday casual shuffled in and out around me. I took a quick look in the back room where people were playing 501 on an electronic dart board – a travesty – but saw neither Stephen nor any group of loud, crass people resembling Americans. I walked into another section of the bar and was met with blank stares and a few once-overs.

“Hey...buddy, up here!” The voice was Stephen’s. I looked up and saw him on the second floor indoor balcony with a few people. When I had made it up there I saw the few people were more like ten.

“You made it,” Stephen began, clasping his arm around my shoulder, “I was beginning to think you were lost.”

“No, one of our brand managers sucked me into her universe and I had to deal with that for a while,” I replied.

“Well, at least somebody was getting sucked!” The voice was female, a little husky, but not like Kathleen Turner’s. I turned to see who had said it and was greeted by the best-looking body I’d seen in Toronto to that point. She closed the gap between us slowly, making sure I got a good look at her as I approached. She was wearing black jeans that hung low on her waist. Tight jeans, the kind that show off every curve. The kind women wear when they are thinking I’m going to show off my body and you are damn well going to look at it. And that I did, taking her all in, from her black leather ankle-high boots, to her over-dyed black Lei’s, to the sweater that hugged and accentuated all the right areas. This woman was probably a C cup, but pushed them up to a D with a little help from Victoria's Secret. I didn’t even notice her face until she stood directly in front of me.

“Who’s this?” she asked Stephen, not even looking at me.

I cut Stephen off before he could answer. “I’m Reed. Got here a few weeks ago. From L.A Here for two months or so.”

She looked me over slowly, making her assessments. Her face was tanned, not deep enough to match the level of the Southern California tans I was used to, but enough to be noticed in the dead of winter. Her hair was a mish mashed pattern of sunstreaked blonde and dishwater blonde, with a faint, lazy part off to one side. Her eyes were dark, foreboding, and swallowed up the light. She looked like she had much practice staring down people and fazing them with her intimidating gaze.

When she finished looking me over she simply said, “Anything more of your life story you want share with us, Reed?”

Stephen broke in. “Don’t take any meaning from that Reed, she’s all bark. This is Elizabeth. She’s a negotiator for a private defense contractor doing business here.” He turned to her. “Where’d you say you’re from?” he asked.

“Fairfax,” she coldly replied. She was still looking at me and I couldn’t tell if she was going to pounce or turn and walk away. She finally averted her eyes and began to walk towards the bar, but stopped to add “do you drink Reed, or do you just stand there looking pretty?”