“How did you get up here? From Miami?” Lise asks as I drift into a memory of lying on the bow of Starlight, rocking gently on the summer waves.
“Bus.”
“How long did that take?”
“Two days. I saw a lot of bus terminals. The border took forever.” I remember the gun hidden at the bottom of my bag and shiver.
“They let Tuff on?”
“I said he was a service dog.”
“You pretended to be blind?”
“Epileptic.”
“That’s a real thing?”
“Yep. Dad’s idea. Seizure Alert Dog.”
“Nobody asked you to prove you were epileptic?”
“I have a medical alert bracelet and I had to fake a couple of seizures along the way, like when drivers asked too many questions. And this one time when some old granny complained about being allergic to dog fur.”
Lise sits up. “You can fake a seizure?”
“Oh yeah, it took some practice, but you’d be fooled.”
“Show me.”
“What? Right now?”
“Sure. I want to see if you’re any good.”
“Maybe later. I’m not really in the mood. I just want to enjoy the sun.”
“You’re no fun,” Lise complains before she lies back down in the sand.
When we get too hot, we leave the beach and head along a boardwalk in search of the lighthouse.
“Liberty said it’s down at the other end of the island, so it has to be this way,” Lise says when I question whether or not she knows where she’s going. “And anyway, we’ve got lots of time so we might as well explore.”
It seems like we’ve walked half the length of the island before we finally see the lighthouse poking up from behind a clump of trees. It’s positioned away from the water, but it feels familiar, like a piece of home. It’s built with enormous stone blocks in the shape of an octagon, with a bright red door.
“So, is it like the one on Boca Chita?”
“Not really. The one on Boca Chita’s round and fat. It has a balcony and it’s surrounded by palm trees.”
There’s a metal sign attached to the outside of the lighthouse.
“Check this out. Some guy was murdered here back in the 1800s.”
Lise wanders over and reads over my shoulder. “I bet it’s haunted! Too bad we can’t get inside for the night.”
We sit on the beach to eat when we get hungry. I pull out a can of tuna and a sleeve of crackers, but Lise groans.
“Seriously, dude, I don’t think I can face another can of tuna ’til I’m, like, thirty.”
Then she rummages in her bag and pulls out a tinfoil pack. “I told Joyce I was taking you on a picnic and she let me make a couple of sandwiches.”
Lise hands one to me — peanut butter and honey — and I almost have an aneurysm it tastes so good.
“I had to agree to be on toilet duty for a week,” she complains between bites. “And there’re a crapload of toilets in that place. No pun intended.”
“Totally worth it.” I laugh, but Lise turns serious.
“I had to promise to bring you back, too. She says you can’t sleep out all winter.”
I hand my crust to Tuff and lick the sticky honey from my fingers.
“Don’t ruin today,” I say and stand up. I walk to the water’s edge, dig a handful of stones out of the wet sand, and try to skip them across the tops of the waves without success.
I look across the lake to where a bank of cumulonimbus clouds is forming in the distance. For now they look light and carefree, but I sense a storm building. I scan the horizon for Mom’s face and before long I find her hiding. Her head is turned away from me and she seems to be pointing across the sky. I watch until the shape shifts and her face melts into a new formation.
“We should get back to the ferry,” Lise says, coming up behind me. She’s tucked deep into her hoodie again. I shiver and notice the breeze off the lake has turned cooler.
We take a different route back to the other side of the island, down a series of winding paths and past monotone grey gardens. There are no flowers or leaves and the shrubs are bare, but there are a series of bronze statues. We pass a turtle and a bear, both upright, wearing human emotions and clothing. There’s a beaver, a goose, a rabbit hopping, and even a snail. They seem oddly familiar, like old friends or a favourite cartoon, but I can’t remember where I might have met them before. I can’t place their faces or a time in my life when we might have crossed paths.
We pass over a bridge and past an inlet before we finally come to a deserted amusement park. The antique carousel seems sad in its stillness, the teacups frozen in time. The Ferris wheel, built in the shape of a windmill, looms empty overhead. It feels wrong to be here, like we’ve uncovered a best-forgotten secret, and we walk in silence among the children’s rides. It isn’t right that the train tracks are empty, that the log flume is dry, that the bumper cars are packed away for winter, months from the next crowd of excited children.
Suddenly I want to be back in the city, where the noise and commotion distract me, where survival overshadows thinking, where there isn’t the promise of a childhood adventure that might go wrong in one black moment.
CHAPTER 11
WHEN I WAS little I used to imagine what it would be like to play in the snow. I wanted to ride a toboggan down a hill and skate on a lake. I wanted to build a snowman with a carrot nose and a scarf around its neck. I know it sounds cliché, but I wanted to have a snowball fight and catch snowflakes on my tongue. Maybe every kid in Florida dreams of snow, but, during the summer when I was eight, I was so snow-obsessed that Dad broke down and told me about his only experience with winter. I don’t know if he thought it was a funny story or he meant to make a point, but it made me double down on my wish. And it made me miss my mother.
Before I was born, he told me, he and Mom took a trip to Colorado for a week of downhill skiing. The only skis either of them had ever been on were water skis, yet for some reason they decided they wanted to hit the slopes. He laughed when he told me how sore they were after three hours of falling down and getting back up. He said they packed it in by lunch and spent the rest of the week reading by the fireplace and watching the snow fall outside. He said they never got off the bunny hill. But he admitted the snow looked pretty hanging in clumps in the boughs of the evergreen trees and that it had reminded my mother of home. He recounted the memory with so much emotion, I think I mistook his tenderness as a reverence for the snow, rather than a memory of a quiet week alone with my mother.
As I trudge along the sloppy grey streets of Toronto in my winter boots, I try to remember why I first fell in love with the idea of snow. Was it a Christmas movie I’d seen? Or a book? Did I meet another child who bragged about making snow angels? Did my mother tell me a story about her childhood in Canada that I held on to? Whatever the reason, I quickly realize the slush covering the ravine and sidewalks is anything but charming. And it definitely isn’t picturesque. It’s wet, cold, and heavy. I hate my winter boots, and feel blisters forming on the backs of both heels as I walk. But I don’t have a choice. My running shoes are already soaked through and stored in the corner of the tent. They might not dry out until spring.
“It won’t last. The first snow never does. The sidewalks will be clear again by tomorrow,” Lise assures me.
I soldier on in silence. Even Tuff is walking with his head down and his tail tucked between his legs.
“It’s not always slushy like this. The colder it gets, the drier the snow is.”
Lise is at a loss on how to handle my miserable mood. Even I’m at a loss. I’ve never felt so hopeless and scared, not even the night Tuff and I spent alone on the island in the thunderstorm. I was too young then to consider what would happen if Dad didn’t reappear.
“At least it isn’t that cold.” Lise tries again to engage me in conversation, but I can’t find any words until a car speeds past and sends a wave of cold wet slush across our
legs.
“Asshole!” I shout.
Horrified, I stop and wipe the icy water from Tuff’s muzzle and back. He shivers and lifts a front paw, and I feel the hot prick of fury at the back of my eyes.
“C’mon. I know a shortcut.” Lise tugs me down a back alley and I follow obediently.
“There’s a sandwich shop that throws scraps back here. Let’s see if we can find a treat for Tuff. He looks like he could use some cheering up.”
She pries open the lid of a Dumpster and peers inside while Tuff and I wait.
“Jackpot!”
She hoists herself over the edge and her head disappears.
“There’s, like, whole sandwiches in here. Must be left over from yesterday.”
Her voice echoes from inside the metal container and her feet kick the air. Tuff must realize something is coming his way because his ears perk up and he licks his mouth expectantly.
Lise lands back on the wet pavement with a cellophanewrapped sandwich in each hand. She unwraps one and hands it to Tuff. It’s egg salad and he sniffs it quickly before scarfing it down.
“He didn’t even inspect it,” Lise notes.
I’m too shocked to speak, and beyond that I’m angry. Tears pool in my eyes. Lise looks at me as the first ones overflow my eyelids and slide down my cheeks.
“What’s happening to us?” I ask in a quiet voice.
Lise crouches down beside Tuff and ruffles the fur around his ears.
“That was a good sandwich, wasn’t it, Tuff Stuff? Would you like another? This one is ham. Mmmm. I bet you’d love a bit of ham in that tummy of yours.”
Lise unwraps the second sandwich and tears it into pieces, then feeds them to Tuff, making him wait between bites. He licks his lips in anticipation and prances at her feet. Despite feeling overwhelmed, I smile through the tears.
“Tuff’s fine. He’s not suffering. Those dogs who’re tied up all day while their owners are at work, those are the dogs you should feel sorry for.”
I crouch down and wrap my arms around Tuff’s neck. I fill my face with his damp fur and hang on tight.
“Let me grab a couple more for later,” Lise says and leans back into the Dumpster.
A door slams and I look up from Tuff’s neck to where a man is standing above us on a second-floor fire escape. He wraps a bathrobe around himself to keep out the cold air, then looks down with disgust as Lise reappears, proudly holding two more sandwiches. He pulls a cigarette from one pocket of his robe and a lighter from the other, but instead of lighting up, he opens the door to go back inside.
“Couple of Dumpster divers out there,” he says through the doorway.
We can’t see who he’s talking to, but we hear the reply clearly.
“I wish they’d stop throwing scraps back there. It attracts more trash.”
I’m frozen with shame and yet my face burns at the same time. Lise pockets the sandwiches and shoots the bird up at the empty metal fire escape. I’m beginning to realize it’s her signature move and I consider adopting it myself.
“Let’s bounce,” she says and takes my arm. “That guy’s a jerk. It’s not like living above some sandwich shop is exactly high-class. Besides, he looked like a meth addict.”
I stumble through the alley while Lise rambles on. “I mean seriously, he was like, what, forty? And that’s the best he can do? We’re still young. We’re not going to be stuck out here forever. Right? We just need to come up with a plan. Maybe we can get jobs and find an apartment together. Like, until your dad gets here.”
“You ever have a job before?” I sniffle.
“I used to help in my uncle’s corner store after school sometimes when I lived with my mom. But I mostly just watched what was going on. And I babysat at my foster homes a lot.” Lise laughs uncomfortably. “But I got other skills. I’m resourceful. How about you? Have you ever had a job?”
I sigh. “No. I’m fourteen and I’ve spent most of my life on a boat.”
“Yeah, but you’re smart. You know all sorts of stuff about things,” Lise counters.
“I guess. Still, I’m not sure knowing stuff about things is going to land me a job.”
“I’ve heard getting a job is all about networking. Who do we know who might help us get a foot in the door?”
I draw a blank on that question and stay silent.
“What about your librarian friend, Erica? We could maybe put books away or something?”
I picture Erica’s permanently smooth grey skirt, white cardigan, and immaculate hair. “I don’t know that we’re really dressed for a job in the library.”
“Let’s go anyway and look for job ads. Like, online. Joyce is always telling me I should be working toward something. Imagine the look on her face when I tell her I got a job at Tim Hortons or someplace.”
“Maybe Brandon could hook us up with something?” I suggest, although I don’t know what makes me say such a thing when I know it will just make Lise lose her mind, which she does.
“Harbour! I swear. If you bring up his name one more time I’m going to suffocate you in your sleep and feed your tuna to the seagulls. Let me spell it out for you. Clearly. So you understand. The only job Brandon can help us with is making us have sex with disgusting old creeps. Okay? Once you go there, there’s no coming back. I’d rather panhandle till I’m ninety than do that.”
She storms ahead and keeps an uncomfortable distance between us for a few minutes before she slows her pace again so Tuff and I can catch up.
“Can we at least just go look at some job ads?” Lise begs.
For some reason Lise is pumped about the idea of finding a job, but I’m too busy worrying about getting through the day to start long-term planning. I also doubt she could land a job doing anything more than washing dishes. But I wouldn’t mind a quiet afternoon at the library where at least I’d be warm and dry.
When we get to the library, I tuck Tuff under a green shrub with a square of cardboard and my sweater to lie on. Then I tell him to stay. He looks sad when we get ready to leave, but I know he’s sheltered from the cold and he won’t get wet if it starts to snow again. As I walk away, I turn back in time to see him curl into a ball and hide his nose under his tail.
“We’ll only be a couple of hours,” I assure him. “And I’ll come out to check on you.”
Lise’s mood changes as we approach the front doors of the library. Her bravado drains onto the slushy sidewalk and her steps falter until she’s standing still. She looks at the glass atrium beyond my shoulder, then down at the curb. She watches people walk past, then glances up at the concrete-coloured sky.
“Maybe we should go to the shelter. They have computers there, too. And we can get a meal.” She pauses, then tries a different approach. “Joyce has been asking about you again. She’d be happy to see you.”
When I don’t respond, she tries again: “Maybe I should stay out here and try to drum up a little business. There’s pretty good foot traffic? Then we could spring for some French fries and coffee?”
But now that we’re at the library, I’m looking forward to sitting in a dry, warm cubicle and reading. “Just come inside for a bit. They have novels and magazines. Probably even People.”
“You’re sure they’ll let us in?”
“I come here all the time. It’s a public place. They can’t kick us out for reading.”
Lise follows me through the front doors reluctantly with her head down and a slump to her shoulders. I take a quick look at the information counter to see if I need to avoid Erica, then head upstairs to a quiet corner where we can sit together, away from the judging eyes of the other library regulars.
When I go to the bathroom to wash, the face staring at me from the mirror startles me. It’s familiar, yet unfamiliar, too. I lean in close to examine myself. I had no idea skin could look so pale and still be attached to a live person. It reminds me of the underside of a dead flounder before its eyes cloud over in death. And I had no idea I’d lost so much weight. I knew m
y jeans were loose, but my face looks gaunt, especially below the tangle of hair that hasn’t been cut in months.
I strip down to my T-shirt, then lather up a handful of soap to scrub my face, neck, and ears. When my skin feels clean, I dunk my whole head in the sink and scrub until my hair is streaming water and the water in the sink is grey. I change out the water, then roll up my sleeves and wash up to my elbows and inside my shirt. I stand on one foot at a time to clean my feet, scrubbing carefully around the blisters. The warm water feels so good I want to shrink-ray myself so I can soak my whole body in the steamy sink. I imagine myself doing the front crawl across the porcelain basin, then floating like a starfish on my back. When I’ve washed everything once, I start again. But no matter how hard I scrub, I can’t wash away the humiliation.
I pull the plug of paper towel from the sink and rinse the ring of grey from the sides. Then I stand with my head over the hand dryer and shake my hair in the stream of hot air, combing it with my fingers. I don’t mind bathing in a sink. Years of living aboard taught me how to be economical with water, how to feel clean without standing in a shower or sitting in a tub. But what I’m not used to is people barging in and seeing me, then backing out of the bathroom as if I have something contagious.
“Sorry,” an older lady says when she sees me stripped down, drying my hair. Her eyes dart from me to my clothes scattered across the washroom.
“It’s no problem, there’s another sink,” I offer.
“That’s okay. I don’t want to … uh … interrupt,” she says before the door closes and covers her horrified expression.
When my hair is dry, I collect my things, take one last look at my miserable reflection in the mirror and head back to where I left Lise. I promised to be quick and hope she hasn’t taken my absence as a chance to sneak back outside. Knowing her, she’s already set up beside the front doors with someone’s old coffee cup. As I approach the table, though, I see the back of her head and chastise myself for assuming the worst. She’s probably engrossed in some fashion magazine, I think, which is an ironic choice of reading material for a street kid who wears only black.
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