OPHIR

Well-paid professions, free at last, adjust reclaimed personalities during the trek to Rose. Here they reaasert their aristocratic rights, the rich room salves the indignities of the day. Rose marble floors, rose papered walls, brass lamps hung low glow like candles. two slick bars of black marked the ends of the long room like goalposts. The population peaked at about seven. Unless you have managed to get away early and claim a table by five, it is a sweaty but nonetheless grateful stand, although a woman over by the piano looked to be having trouble relaxing, and no wonder: handbag, briefcase, cigarette, cocktail, claustrophobia: the burden appears to be too great, and she looks faint. Straightening his crouch with legs well trained for upward mobility, a young man reads alound, "Greyell Webster, Barristers & Solicitors." "Or Babblers & Scribblers. I'm a Scribbler, what do you do?" The woman who has spilled her purse jokes her way through another generic encounter. heads turn briefly toward an exclusively feminine group at a table by the window. One of them, a women's magazine moonie, drunk on wine and merciless expectations, lists her good points and whines at the god of statistics whi might well deny her the perfect mate she so richly deserve. Manless thirties loom. Rescue me. The night gathered steam, which condenses above bloodshot eyes. Throughout the room, expensive liquor releases libido into the air. Eventually, work-day fatigue wears away the magic. Weekend wallets lose their heft. And tomorrow, a careful planner would wake up and realize that this month's RRSP contribution is now sloshing in the early morning bladders of all those girls from the Exchange, waiting to be pissed away.