Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Road Trip! - Cat in the Car

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

“Whenever the cat is around, things seem to go wrong.” This week, Dave discovers a stowaway on the family road trip, with hilarious consequences. And Jess shares two more of Stuart McLean’s Postcards from Canada: from St John’s, NFLD in the east and Powell River, B.C. in the west. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. When people think about the Vinyl Cafe, I think they mostly think about the live concerts we did across Canada. Traveling around this country was one of the absolute highlights of my many years working with Stuart. What a privilege to be tasked with trying to paint a picture to capture the flavor of so many wonderful cities and towns and the people who live in them. That was a privilege we always wanted to share. So we tried hard to make it feel like you, the audience, had traveled with us too.

We're going to try to do the same today. So get your bags packed and put your shoes on. Make sure the car is ready to go, because we're going on a road trip today. Actually, three road trips. We have a Dave and Morley story for you. A story about a memorable road trip that Dave and his family took one summer. And we're going to share two more of our favorite postcards from Canada. Postcards from either side of the country. We're going to start in the West with an essay or a poem, really.

A poem about one of the most beautiful parts of the country. It should be a love poem, and I guess it is, but you'll see. From the Evergreen Theater in Powell River, British Columbia, this is Stuart MacLean with his Ode to the Sunshine Coast. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I've been here for a few days now, and I've enjoyed being here very much, enjoyed it so much that I've indulged in the sin of poetry.

This is my ode to the Sunshine Coast. If you drive the Sunshine Coast from one end to the other, you'll eventually come to the end of the road. How often can you say you've done that? Where I live, never. Because where I live, when you come to the road's end, well, there's another road, isn't there? And then another and another and on and on and on. Two lanes become four lanes, six become eight. But here, all the roads end in the ocean. To get here, take the road north out of Vancouver, and when it brushes the ocean, get on the ferry. Not one of those wistful barges that ferry you across the Mooney Rivers.

Those ferries where you stand by your car with the wind in your hair and you can see both where you're going and where you've been, the church steeple on the far bank, the bakery you've left behind. This is an altogether different kind of ferry buster, big enough for pickup trucks and semi trucks, trucks all shapes and sizes, and camper vans and family vans and cars, cars, cars, and still there's room for a little old you. Park your car in the rows of cars and go upstairs, and if you count yourself among the optimists, find yourself a seat in the front lounge. And squint over the starry bow and ponder what's coming your way. Or watch the card players if you'd rather, or that lady doing yoga. Or read a book, have a coffee, whatever you want.

Unless you're feeling blue, that is. And you want to join the love lost at the back of the boat, the girl staring at her iPhone, the guy with the briefcase, that sad young boy coming home from college, staring out at the wake, the line in the ocean that is there and is not there at all. Grab a seat in the back, if that's your pleasure, and try and figure out what you're doing on this boat as it grinds over the cold, gray sea.

Oh, yes, this is a serious ferry, Buster Bill. Seventy-five bucks serious. Before you know it, you're in Gibson's and relieved to be there. You can never be sure. When you do arrive, take a detour through town and have your picture taken sitting on the fence in front of the Persephone. The Beachcombers was the most popular television program ever produced in Canada, the longest-running TV drama in Canadian history,

the never-ending daring do of the Greek-born Beachcomber and his First Nation sidekick who hunted the seashore for runaway logs. For 19 seasons, his ship, the Persephone, sailed the choppy waters of the CBC. She may not be the Blue Nose, sleek and polished and sailing still through our silver-lined pockets. She may be landlocked in this little park, in this little seaside city, an aching stone's throw from the harbor, but in her heyday, she was Canada's most famous ship,

back when Nicodonatus was her captain, and more people tuned in to see her each week than watched the hockey. Where was I? Oh yes, heading north. North through Sechelt, past the condos and the coffee shops and the rude malls elbowing their way north at the north end of the town. North through Sechelt, don't tarry. North past Half Moon Bay, stop at the grocery store. Past Secret Cove, Smuggler's Cove, Earl's Cove, and look at you. You've come to the end of another road.

You're waiting for another ferry. Welcome to the Sunshine Coast, baby. Waiting for ferries is what we do. And you better be waiting for them, because they're not waiting for you. There's no such thing as being five minutes late. If you're five minutes late, you're four hours early. Or you're screaming down the 101, 50, 60, 70 kilometers over the limit, praying there are no cops ahead,

60, 70 kilometers over the limit, praying there are no cops ahead, howling at one another because you can't miss that ferry again. What's that? It's canceled? What do you mean it's canceled? And who called this the Sunshine Coast anyway? I haven't seen the sun for a month. But you know what I did see yesterday? I saw a guy in a gray-green 1967 Thunderbird convertible with the roof down. It's 10 degrees. It's been raining all day. And the guy's got his roof down. Speaking of gray-green, can I say a few words about moss? Because once you get north of Pender Harbor, everything changes. The road gets windy. The trees move in close. The road gets windy.

The trees move in close. And it's like you're driving a toy car between two tall green curtains. Everything is moss-covered, even the trees. The dark green of the fir and the dark green of the cedar softened with the green of the moss. Moss that is every shade of green imaginable, gray-green and yellow-green and golden-green and green-green. And suddenly you have left the road that was like driving between the two green curtains, and you are floating around in the foggy cauldron of creation,

as close to the beginning of things as you will ever get. I swear when I'm not around, the trees talk to each other. If there's one place in Canada where you're going to run into a hobbit, this is it. Or dinosaurs. Did you ever get the feeling if you walked into the forest you might run into a dinosaur? One of those loopy vegetarian ones with the long necks. It's something about the mountains. The perfectly pitched, tree-covered mountains. The mountains that fall into the sea or maybe rise out of it. The gray sea, the green mountains and the foggy cauldron of creation. And that waterfall that you

just passed that was straight as an arrow and is piercingly pretty. And the float planes and the fairies and the fairy is canceled and it's so expensive and the fog and the rain and the wind so hard it's picking the water off the street and whipping it back at the sky and the surrounding sea and the deep green forest and Cindy's coffee and the ferry is late. And just before Secret Cove, the road turns left and the ferry is late. And the bays and the inlets and the prehistoric forest and the wood houses and the rocky shores and the stone beaches and the driftwood and the logs and the loggers, the boom and the bust and the boys on their longboards and the ferry is late. And I hate it here.

And the ferry is late. And Cindy's coffee and the ferry is late. And I wouldn't leave for all the money in the world. Couldn't afford the ferry anyway. That is so good. That is one of my favorites for sure. And I know Stuart was proud of it. It's so playful. Such a different take on a love poem. That is a love poem for sure, even if it doesn't sound like it at times. I want to play another one for you now, another postcard from Canada. This is from the other side of the country.

This is an essay about one of my favorite places in Canada. This is Stuart McLean with a story about St. John's, Newfoundland. From the Arts and Culture Centre in St. John's in Newfoundland and Labrador, it's the Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. So I think over the years I have made it abundantly clear how much I love it here, here in St. John's. And because my life is such that I can do these things when I want to, or sometimes I can,

I came early this time. I've been here in your wonderful city since last weekend, which means I have had the time to hike up Signal Hill and grab a pint at the Duke of Duckworth and eat pizza at Pie on King's Road. Twice. Oh, all right, three times. But who's counting? And come on, the pizza as baked by Megan at Pie was judged the fourth best pizza in the world.

This is at some Las Vegas pizza competition in the world. And it is an easy minute and a half stroll downhill from the house that Jess found us on Colonial. And oh, my son, how happy was I when I stepped out of my taxi and realized I was going to be staying in one of the Victorian rows of jelly bean colored clabbered houses that make downtown St. John's such a happy sight. Mutter, I'm in Newfoundland and I'm living in a postcard. My house is blue with white and orange trim. My neighbors on the harbored side are green, and the ones going the other way are orange and blue. Now, if you've never seen them, the rows of brightly colored heritage homes in the heritage section of downtown St. John's are built right up against the sidewalk in the European

style. There is no walk, so I presume there is no snow to shovel in the winter. Each one is painted a different color of the rainbow, and each is attached to the next. So downtown St. John's looks like one big, happy patchwork quilt, or maybe a bouquet of spring flowers. Walking through my hood makes me as happy as walking with a bouquet and just as optimistic. It is, I would put forward, in its architecture, scale, and upkeep, as pleasing a neighborhood as any in North America. And how did this come to be? Well, I've heard all the stories of how it came to be. That it was a tradition begun in the days when the homes were owned by fishermen and the fishermen would use the paint left over from

painting their dories to paint their homes. Or who, another version went, painted their houses bright colors so they could find their way back to them in the fog. Or maybe, according to another story, used the paint they had pilfered from the railway. They're all good stories. And I have, in my time, subscribed to them all, maybe even passed them on, except the railway one, which I only heard the other day. Each version absolutely believable until someone reminds you that you are traveling in a province of inveterate storytellers, not one of whom ever let truth get in their way.

And none of them are true, though the truth, as so often is the case, is even more endearing. The truth is, as recently as 1970, this neighborhood that I am so besotted with was so derelict and had fallen into such disrepair and disrepute that you could have bought yourself one of the homes, probably the very one I am so excited to be spending this weekend, for a pittance for five or perhaps ten thousand dollars. As recently as 1970, the homes of downtown St. John's were drably painted rooming houses and brothels heated by space heaters, homes with holes in the plaster and the odd banisters kicked out. And along comes David Weber, a Brit who

arrived in St. John's in 1955, an ex-soldier, an artist who built model forts at the behest of Joey Smallwood and undertook historical research for him in Newfoundland and in the United Kingdom and eventually was hired as the executive director of the St. John's Heritage Foundation. The foundation's board had an idea. They wanted to save downtown they hatched a plan and they hired david to execute it here's what happened the foundation squeezed some money out of heritage canada and the newfoundland historic trust run at the time by your deputy mayor, Shannie Duff, and they used the money to buy some of the derelict homes. They bought them, they fixed them up, and they sold them. The idea was to make a small profit and buy some more, a sort of revolving restoration fund.

They did 10 or 12 houses along a block of Gower Street. One in such disrepair they got it for $3,000. It was David Weber's idea to paint them in the exuberant colors that had given me such delight. One guy, a handful of concerned citizens, and some well-spent public money. The economics of the thing weren't as good as they had hoped. Turned out they had to put maybe $30,000 into each reno, and they were losing or at best breaking even on each sale. Nevertheless, they got those 10 or 12 houses done. And guess what? Other folks started to come to the party.

Before long, 33 other houses had been bought and renovated by private citizens and painted those bright colors. Before long, David's idea had become a movement. Today, the houses of downtown St. John's have become iconic. You see them on T-shirts, T-towels, and TV. They're the tender that sparked the renewal of the stores on downtown Water Street, and arguably the blueprint for the

Newfoundland government's tourist program. And here's what I'm hoping. One day soon, on the other side of this country, in Fort McMurray, Alberta, some St. John's son or daughter will get the notion to paint their house the way they do it here at home. And when they do, there's a good chance Weber's palette will catch on there and slowly spread east across the prairie and west over the mountains. And before you know it, the whole country will look a little more like St. John's, and we will all be a little better for it.

Little pockets of painted joy from coast to coast to coast, and all those storytellers standing by with their versions of how it came to be. That was an essay about St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. We recorded that at the Arts and Culture Centre back in 2013. Okay, we have to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a minute with a Dave and Morley story about an unforgettable road trip. Story time now. This is one from the vaults. It's a story about a road trip that gets... Well, you'll see.

This is Cat in the Car. So I told you earlier on about some of the things that were going on, or some of the things we were talking about this summer, down at the world's smallest record store. And I know August is two months gone, but Dave has just about recovered from the summer of 1996. He took his family on a car trip, something he wouldn't have done if he had read the survey published in Homemakers magazine recently,

the survey that reported that 40% of Canadian children say that they'd rather clean their room and eat vegetables every day than go on a family vacation. Sadly, the survey hadn't been published the morning last July when Dave said to his wife Morley, there won't be many summers left, you know, when we can be together, when we could go somewhere together. Stephanie, their daughter, is 16, and Dave and Morley had always planned to drive out west with their children. We could go around the Great Lakes, said Dave, maybe into Saskatchewan. Morley said, we're not going to put the cat in the car again, Dave. If the cat's in the car, Dave, I'm not coming. Dave said, we're not going to put the cat in the car again, Dave. If the cat's in the car, Dave, I'm not coming.

Dave said, we'll find someone to look after the cat. The cat once belonged to Dave's sister, Annie. Dave and Morley had had it for over two years. They took it over Annie's protests when she left to study in Paris. I don't know, she said, the week before she left. What do you mean, said Dave. I don't know, she said. The week before she left, what do you mean, said Dave. I don't know, said his sister. It's stupid, but I don't like to say it out loud. Say what, said Dave. Whenever the cat is around, things seem to go wrong. Dave said, don't be silly. We can look after a cat. The cat is beige with black ticks.

He is lean and wiry, small, named Galway after the American poet, Galway Cannell. And when Annie brought Galway over, she brought him in a cage, and as soon as she was in the door, she handed Dave the cage and began rummaging in her purse.

And Dave began fiddling with the cage door. Wait, said Annie, holding out an envelope. Here, puss, said Dave, flipping the cage door open. door. Wait, said Annie, holding out an envelope. Here, puss, said Dave, flipping the cage door open. Uh-oh, said Annie, pushing the envelope at her brother. What, said Dave, as the cat leapt out of the cage faster than he had expected. Maybe, said Annie, maybe you should have read this before you let him out. It's okay, said Dave, thinking maybe it was not okay at all. There were three pages of typewritten instructions in the envelope Annie handed her brother. Dave forgot about his sister's letter until bedtime,

and when he remembered it, he wondered how she could have written three pages about a cat. It was typical of a sister to fuss like that, so he took the letter with him and went into the television room, and he shut the door behind him. He didn't want to read it in front of the cat. He sat down in an armchair, looked up, and was startled to find himself face-to-face with Galway again, sitting on top of the bookshelf with what Dave would later describe to his wife as a smirk on his face. It was then that Dave knew with the certainness that you know things when you know them in your heart, that if he pulled out the instructions, the cat was prepared to do anything it had to to make him hand them over.

It would rip off his clothes if it had to. It wouldn't stop there. They'd find him in the morning ripped to shreds, just like that schoolteacher in the Freddy movie. And it would get away with it. I mean, who's going to think of fingerprinting a cat? They've almost handed the letter over but thought, this is ridiculous. And he took it downstairs and put it in his briefcase and he went to bed. Or he was pretty sure he put it in his briefcase.

Maybe you threw it out, said Morley. Last night was garbage. I didn't throw it out, said Dave. The cat took it out of my briefcase. Probably, said Morley. That's probably it. The hairdryer is missing, she said. Do you suppose he took the hair dryer as well? That was last summer, the first summer Galway was living with them. The summer they made the mistake of trying to take the cat with them on a weekend trip to the Muskokas. What happened that weekend was why Morley didn't want to go in the car with the cat this summer. The car was all packed that weekend, and everyone was standing by when Dave tried to put Galway back into the cage.

His sister had brought him in, which was kind of like folding a large spring into a tin can. Galway kept popping free, then hiding behind the fridge, under a bed. Dave chasing him around the house, humiliated, thinking when he was young, fathers knew how to do things like change oil in their cars and solder things together and clean fish. Surely he could put a cat in a car.

He needed to show his family he could do this thing. It was driving him wild. When Morley found him pulling Galway through the radiator by his tail, she said, what are you doing? Why do we have to use the cage? Why don't we let him free in the car? Why do we have to use the cage? Why don't we let him free in the car? That's why, said Dave five minutes later, as the family stood in the driveway beside their packed car, watching Galway disappear over the backyard fence like a burglar.

There was a set of red scratches that looked like skid marks running up Dave's face and over his forehead. Better have those looked at, said their neighbor Jim Schofield. They can infect. What, said Dave? Catch scratches, said Jim. They infect easily. He didn't have to do that, Dave told Morley as she wiped his face with hydrogen peroxide. He had to go out of his way to go over my head. It was deliberate. It was malicious. It started to rain. They never got to the cottage. That was last summer. This summer, Dave said, I'll get Kenny to look after the cat. We'll leave him here and Kenny can come over and feed him. It's just two weeks. Kenny can do that. And so they did. They left the cat with Kenny and

they took off on a glorious Monday morning in August and drove north out of Toronto, and they got to Tober Moray in the early afternoon and had supper in a provincial park on the shore of Georgian Bay. This is what Canada is all about, said Morley. This is the heart of our country. It's too windy, said Stephanie. It's just trees. They drove aboard the ferry to Manitoulin Island in the morning. First on, first off, said Dave. Halfway across the lake, the sky abruptly darkened and the ferry started to roll in the chop. And Dave said, I don't feel so good. I'm going to the car to fetch a sweater. And he was, in fact, when he opened the trunk wondering what he should do, standing alone amongst the parked cars like a scarecrow, what he

should do if his stomach got worse. And he was therefore preoccupied and totally unprepared for what happened next. He squinted into the trunk and leaned forward, feeling for his sweater. In the darkness, his hand brushed against something soft and wool-like on top of the picnic hamper. He tried to pick it up, and then with a shock of adrenaline rushing through his body, he let it go, knowing this thing he had touched wasn't a sweater thing, but something that could breathe. It was a breathing thing. sweater thing, but something that could breathe. It was a breathing thing. And at this point, Dave lost conscious awareness of what was actually going on. The adrenaline hit some primal reptilian gland, and he became Cro-Magnon Dave, knowing only that the thing that wasn't

a sweater, the breathing thing, was big enough to be a life-threatening sort of thing. Not a cougar, but maybe Wolverine. Crow Magnon Dave made a grunting, prehistoric sort of sound that 20th century Dave had never heard before, but immediately understood to mean, get me out of here. It's, you know, when you reach into dark places, places you can't see into, and even innocuous places like under a sofa, when you reach into places like this, expecting to come up with something like, say, a newspaper, and hit instead something soft like the family guinea pig, or worse, something you can penetrate like a festering piece of fruit left there by one of your children, something you can penetrate, like a festering piece of fruit left there by one of your children.

Under the right circumstances, the most innocuous objects can kick the get-me-out-of-here gland into action. And so when you reach into your trunk in the darkness of a ferry expecting to grab a sweater and you wrap your hand instead around something that can breathe, you do exactly what the reptilian gland says, which in Dave's case was to jump back and smack his head on the roof of the trunk. And a split second later, when the breathing thing, which some part of Dave's brain noticed, bore an amazing resemblance to Galway the cat they had left behind. When this thing explodes out of the trunk, like the creature burst out of the astronaut's chest in that movie Alien, what you do is you instinctively grab it by the tail as it sails by you and you swing it in the air.

Galway landed on the roof of the car. Dave stood there feeling the blood pounding in his ears, heard the announcement over the speakers, saw his wife and children coming towards him. Now, Lord, he said, take me now. By the time they reached Sudbury, Galway had settled comfortably in what became his favorite car place, curled under Dave's seat where he could reach out whenever he felt like it and take a swipe at Dave's ankles. Tough, said Morley. Not sorry, not we could stop and get a cage, just tough. There were some nice times. An afternoon at the Science Center in Sudbury, the morning the truck driver took their picture beside the giant goose at Wawa.

I once was stuck here for two days, said Dave, trying to hitchhike to Vancouver. But mostly it was a dark and sorry week. Dave left the headlights on one afternoon in a campground near Schreiber, and they had to phone for a boost. Mostly it was thumping west along the Trans-Canada Highway to the irritatingly constant

soundtrack bleeding out of stephanie's walkman mostly it was morley and dave barely talking sam and stephanie only talking when they felt a need to point out to each other where their side of the car began or ended every night dave locked himself into the motel bathroom and dabbed at his shredded ankle with hydrogen peroxide. Now, there's no air conditioning in their car, and each day it seemed to get hotter. And on a Sunday, a day when they woke up sticky and got stickier as the day progressed, Galway started to behave funny.

I think Galway's sick, said Sam. He looks weird, Daddy, said Stephanie. There's white stuff around his mouth. Galway, in fact, wasn't sick. Galway had just been heated up, hotter than any cat should be heated. Dave said, let's leave the highway. There must be a back road. The temperature in the car was almost unbearable, and they couldn't open the windows because they were afraid Galway would make a break for it. Dave was thinking, we'll stop for ice

cream, the first place we come to, and water. We need water or people are going to start passing out. And then suddenly, they were in a traffic jam. On a Sunday, thought Dave? In Atikokan? I need a drink, said Stephanie. I don't feel so good. And Dave said, hold on. And he turned abruptly onto a side street.

He had no idea where he was going. No idea where he was. He just knew that he had to keep the car moving until they got somewhere, anywhere, and he didn't want to be stuck in traffic. He drove halfway down the block he'd turned onto and to his horror saw there was a barrier at the end of the street and he could feel the walls of the car closing in on him. I don't believe this, he said. He stopped abruptly, car closing in on him. I don't believe this, he said. He stopped abruptly, throwing the kids against the front seat. Cool, said Sam. Dave, said Morley, take it easy. But Dave was somewhere beyond easy. He pulled the car into reverse and began backing up the street faster than he should have, swinging

from side to side. There's an alley, he said. I saw an alley. And he turned into the alley and too late saw that a block away where the alley ended at the street ahead, there was a crowd of people standing with their backs to him, blocking their way. So he honked. And suddenly they were out of the alley and on the main street. And Dave turned right because everything seemed to be moving right. And he thought at last. And Morley said, Dave? thought at last. And Morley said, Dave? Dave, like it was a question. And Dave noticed the sidewalks were lined with people, not just across his alley, but all up and down the street on both sides. And Stephanie said, why is everyone waving? And Morley said, because it's a parade. We're in a parade.

And Dave started to feel sick himself. And Stephanie said, this is pathetic, and slipped out of sight onto the floor. And then before Dave could think what to do, there was an explosion like a cannon or a rocket. Loud and close close and another. It was a bass drum. Dave looked in the rearview mirror

and saw that there was a band right behind him and watched as the man in the bearskin hat leading the band about ten feet behind Dave's car hurled a silver baton high into the air. And when he caught it, the band began playing. Dave didn't know marching bands sounded so low when you were that close to them. And then he couldn't see the band anymore

because the mirror was suddenly filled with the image of Galloway hurtling from the back seat toward Dave's head like a 737. Dave ducked. The Buick lurched toward the sidewalk. He stopped the car in time, but then he had to start it again quickly, like jerkily, or the marching band was going to march right over them. And so they drove on in the parade.

Galway, startled by the music, ping-ponging around the car over all of them. Front seat, back seat, ricocheting off the windows. Flecks of foam flying from her mouth. Settling abruptly in Sam's lap. And Sam said, cool. And held the foaming cat to the window, waving at the crowd. And there were no streets to turn off onto. And Galway vomited. They turned around that night. They were sitting in the parking lot of the Robin's Donut franchise somewhere between Atta Koken and Fort Francis.

It was 8.30 and they couldn't find a motel. And Morley said, Dave, do you want to go home? Is this Saskatchewan, said Sam? Looks just like Scarborough. They got home three days later. And as they drove under the warm orange glow of the lights that hang over the Don Valley Expressway, Morley felt that she was being wrapped in a blanket. She turned to Dave.

She said, if you had to, she said. She stopped, and then she started again. I don't want to be catty, but if I asked you to, how would you categorize the holiday? Dave looked at his wife. She was smiling. He felt a wave of relief wash over him. Catastrophe, he said.

I thought for a while she said that you were catatonic, said Dave. She laughed. It's good to be home, she said. It wasn't a complete cataclysm, said Dave. Next year, she said, no car. We'll fly to the Catskills, said Morley. And eat the flesh of large, slow, dumb, moving animals, said Dave. Meat that will block our arteries and make us fat. What, said Morley? Cattle, said Stephanie. It was good to be home. There was a pile of mail on the dining room table and a note from Kenny on the kitchen counter.

Didn't see the cat for the first day or two. So I put the food out on the porch and he started eating it. He finally came in after a couple of days. Didn't let him out again. I think he missed you. He's been scratching up the furniture a bit. Dave walked into the living room, holding the note, feeling sick, hoping it was a joke, and saw Morley standing there with a suitcase in both arms, looking at her son.

Sam was coming down the stairs with a large orange cat folded in his arms. She was on my bed, he said. She's a warrior. Can we keep her, Dad? Can we keep her? I'm going to call her She-Ra. That was cat in the car. That is not based on something that happened on our travels,

but honestly, it could have been. All right, that's it for today, but we'll be back here next week with two more Dave and Morley stories, including this one. On Thursday night, the night before the exam, she vowed she wouldn't drink anything to stay awake. She wanted to make sure she got a good night's sleep. When Tommy came over around midnight, she was still up. She was sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas, her skin pale, her eyes dark. She had papers and textbooks spread all around her.

There was also a jar of instant coffee and a spoon. There were little flecks of coffee dust on her lips. I'm almost finished, she said. I can see that, said Tommy, looking at the almost empty jar. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. She went to bed at 4.20. When her alarm went off four hours later, she sat bolt up in bed, her heart pounding. This was it. Professor O'Neill proctored the exam himself, and he brought his cat, of course. himself and he brought his cat of course. Stephanie sat down at the folding table in the cavernous exam room. She stared at the exam when the student helper placed it on her desk upside down. Eight pages stapled. When Professor O'Neill said you

can begin she took a deep breath and turned it over. The first thing she felt was a flush of panic. The numbers looked like a maze on the page. The formulas seemed only vaguely familiar, like half-forgotten nursery rhymes from long ago. Her heart started to pound. She made herself read the whole thing from start to finish. She wrote her name and student number on the top of the exam booklet. And then she began on question one. That's next week on the podcast. I hope you'll join us.

Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network The recording engineer kind of looks like one of those suction cup cats That you stick to car windows Greg DeCloot Theme music is by Danny Michelle And the show is produced by Louise Curtis Suction cup Greg DeCloot And me, Jess Milton

Let's meet again next week Until then, so long for now.