Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood Read Free Book Online Page A

all over the competition, those American magazines that assumed you could only get Gucci in New York or Los Angeles. Heck, times had changed, you could get it in Edmonton! You could get it in Winnipeg!
    Kat had been away too long. There was Canadian fashion now? The English quip would be to say that “Canadian fashion” was an oxymoron. She refrained from making it, lit a cigarette with her cyanide-green Covent Garden-boutique leather-covered lighter (as featured in the May issue of
the razor’s edge)
, looked Gerald in the eye. “London is a lot to give up,” she said levelly. She glanced around the see-me-here Mayfair restaurant where they were finishing lunch, a restaurant she’d chosen because she’d known he was paying. She’d never spend that kind of money on food otherwise. “Where would I eat?”
    Gerald assured her that Toronto was now the restaurant capital of Canada. He himself would be happy to be her guide. There was agreat Chinatown, there was world-class Italian. Then he paused, took a breath. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said. “About the name. Is that Kat as in Krazy?” He thought this was suggestive. She’d heard it before.
    “No,” she said. “It’s Kat as in KitKat. That’s a chocolate bar. Melts in your mouth.” She gave him her stare, quirked her mouth, just a twitch.
    Gerald became flustered, but he pushed on. They wanted her, they needed her, they loved her, he said in essence. Someone with her fresh, innovative approach and her experience would be worth a lot of money to them, relatively speaking. But there were rewards other than the money. She would be in on the initial concept, she would have a formative influence, she would have a free hand. He named a sum that made her gasp, inaudibly of course. By now she knew better than to betray desire.
    So she made the journey back, did her three months of culture shock, tried the world-class Italian and the great Chinese, and seduced Gerald at the first opportunity, right in his junior vice-presidential office. It was the first time Gerald had been seduced in such a location, or perhaps ever. Even though it was after hours, the danger frenzied him. It was the idea of it. The daring. The image of Kat kneeling on the broadloom, in a legendary bra that until now he’d seen only in the lingerie ads of the Sunday
New York Times
, unzipping him in full view of the silver-framed engagement portrait of his wife that complemented the impossible ball-point pen set on his desk. At that time he was so straight he felt compelled to take off his wedding ring and place it carefully in the ashtray first. The next day he brought her a box of David Wood Food Shop chocolate truffles. They were the best, he told her, anxious that she should recognize their quality. She found the gesture banal, but also sweet. The banality, the sweetness, the hunger to impress: that was Gerald.
    Gerald was the kind of man she wouldn’t have bothered with in London. He was not funny, he was not knowledgeable, he had little verbal charm. But he was eager, he was tractable, he was blank paper. Although he was eight years older than she was, he seemed much younger. She took pleasure from his furtive, boyish delight in his own wickedness. And he was so grateful. “I can hardly believe this is happening,” he said, more frequently than was necessary and usually in bed.
    His wife, whom Kat encountered (and still encounters) at many tedious company events, helped to explain his gratitude. The wife was a priss. Her name was Cheryl. Her hair looked as if she still used big rollers and embalm-your-hairdo spray; her mind was room-by-room Laura Ashley wallpaper: tiny, unopened pastel buds arranged in straight rows. She probably put on rubber gloves to make love, and checked it off on a list afterwards. One more messy household chore. She looked at Kat as if she’d like to spritz her with air deodorizer. Kat revenged herself by picturing Cheryl’s bathrooms: hand towels