Left: Hollow Tree, Stanley Park; right: film set on Alexander Street, Gastown
Vancouver’s youth, like its size, is easy to overlook. From the air, the downtown commercial grid, circumscribed by salt water and shining in the sun, calls to mind a sort of a mini-Manhattan, as snugly fitted as a Lego project. But look closely, and you’ll notice that only recently have the central buildings started to poke dramatically upward; only now is a mature skyline taking shape, the last of the baby teeth being displaced. Not so long ago, this thrumming, cosmopolitan nexus was little more than old-growth forest. In 1881, three decades after St. Michael’s College was founded in Toronto, it was a rudimentary settlement of some 1,000 souls. Unlike the principal cities of the East, Vancouver is only now starting to take its place in the world, to understand the value of heritage, to unfurl a history and plot a future.
One night at the Blue Boy, a union pal of my father’s drunkenly informed me that he just might have found the cure for my virginity. He was an expert in such matters, and he figured a certain young woman in the coffee shop could be the ticket. “Partner,” he said with a wink, “why don’t you head down and give it a shot?” When he volunteered to come along for moral support, I made some excuse, but of course I headed downstairs by myself at the first opportunity.
I spotted her at once, as would anyone with a Y chromosome. She was stunningly endowed, effortlessly lovely; notepad in hand, she was absorbed in the task of taking an order. I sat at the counter, trembling and dry mouthed. Only when she came over and handed me a menu, brushing aside a tendril of blond hair, did I realize she was not a young woman at all. She was a girl, scarcely older than I. Her name was Lila; her name tag said so.
Ever since that stay at the Blue Boy, through many years in Toronto and stints of living abroad and a permanent move to the West Coast in 1989, I’ve associated Lila with Vancouver — younger than she seems, less sophisticated than she might like, undeniably radiant, proud to be attracting attention but not quite sure how to deal with it, a little self-conscious as the first complications of maturity settle upon her. You can’t help but marvel at her good fortune, her beauty. You admire the earnestness of her endeavours. You envy the wealth of her possibilities.
You wonder what she’ll become.
