by Amy Bright
I was still back there when Poppy started calling my name, walking around the corner in time to see me chummy with a bunch of kids like her. For a second, I figured she’d be happy to see some people close to her age. The expression on her face flickered between a smile and a frown. When she didn’t come further into the alley, I moved toward her, Gregory in tow.
"Hey, thanks," I told her. "Thanks, Pops."
Poppy shoved my Blizzard into my chest and walked away.
"What’d you get?" I asked her, but I was addressing her back.
Behind me, the kids laughed.
"See you later, Poppy," one of them yelled, the one who had provided me with an address.
I scooped up Gregory and turned back onto the sidewalk, following Poppy’s sweater. Maybe Poppy knew one of the guys in the alley and she wanted to avoid him.
"Hey," I said, catching up to her. "What’d you get at DQ?"
"Nothing," she said. "I wasn’t hungry."
"Do you know those guys back there?"
Poppy took Gregory out of my hands and pulled him to her chest.
"No," she said. "And neither do you."
Then she speed-walked out of there, leaving me behind. It took me half an hour to get home. I couldn’t remember the way back.
One Saturday morning, Aunt Lynne came downstairs, phone in hand. She was still in her pajamas, striped white and blue from the Gap.
"Hunter, you have a phone call," she said and, from the smile on her face, I knew it wasn’t from my parents.
"Hello?"
I had early morning voice, froggy croak sending me back to puberty.
"Hunter," Penner said, his voice practically gleeful on the other line. "It’s nice to talk to you."
"Don’t make it sound like I’m your girlfriend, Penner," I told him. "Technically, I don’t have to talk to you anymore. I’m not a student. As the police would say, I’m no longer under your jurisdiction."
Leave it to me to crack up the old guy over the phone. He cackled out a laugh.
"I’ve missed our weekly meetings," he said.
It was different talking to him on the phone. It felt like he had a direct line to my brain, straight to the center of my head.
"How are you adjusting to Alberta?"
"Well, shit, Penner, what do you think?"
"What do I think?" Penner said, making it purposefully abstract. "I think taking a step away from the situation, and from Victoria, is probably a step in the right direction."
"You don’t think it’s running away?" I asked him.
It was something Mom had said. That leaving BC was running away from my problems.
"No," Penner said, definitively. "Is there anything in Victoria for you right now?"
"My parents," I said.
"And?"
"My parents," I repeated.
"And what’s in Alberta?"
Who knew why, but Poppy’s little face popped into my head at just that moment. Wearing her kid bangs and shoving my Blizzard into my chest. She had used some serious force on that.
"I don’t know yet," I said. I waited a beat and then said, "Anybody miss me?"
"I’m not going to talk about here," Penner said. "How about you tell me how you’ve been adjusting."
"I made a friend," I said.
"Good for you," Penner said.
"Yeah, she’s my twelve-year-old neighbor."
He kept me on the phone for half an hour. I guess between the two types of meetings I’d had with Penner—in person and over the phone—I liked the second one better. I spent at least half of the time in Penner’s office trying to avoid making direct eye contact with him. Over the phone, I didn’t have that problem. Even though Penner wouldn’t talk much about what was happening back in Victoria, he still served as an anchor back to there. Making it so I couldn’t get away from home that easily. For the first time since I’d come to live with Aunt Lynne, I thought seriously about what I’d left behind.
By the time Penner hung up, satisfied with our progress, I was wide awake and ready for the day. I took the phone back upstairs to Aunt Lynne.
"Hang on to that," she said. "Call your parents first and then your sister second. They forwarded her number in Australia."
"I’m not calling Bridge," I said. "I don’t want to cramp her Australian style."
"Call them," she said. "And then we’re meeting Poppy and her mom for brunch at IHOP. Get moving, Hunter."
"Jesus," I said, exhaling. "Tall order."
I did Aunt Lynne’s bidding, dialing home first, Bridget after. Two more anchors that secured me to Victoria. Mom and Dad tiptoed around me, mostly giving me a pie-chart rendering of their week: hours spent watching TV, working, and exercise. Bridget was better because she had middle ground to talk about, somewhere that was neither Victoria nor Lethbridge. There was still something that felt like walking on eggshells about our conversation. As if Bridget had a list, ten items long, of the subjects she could talk to me about. We all stayed pretty surface-level. I was emptied out at the end of it, tipped over and drained out.
Aunt Lynne watched me over her coffee cup, pretending to read the paper. I wondered what it sounded like to her, my one side of the phone call.
"Ten minutes, Hunter," she said. "Then we should go."
I headed to the basement to change into a clean shirt and jeans.
Maybe Aunt Lynne knew what she was doing by keeping me too busy to think. Because when I was downstairs with no more phone calls to wade through, my present situation became a little clearer. Me here in Lethbridge, and Mom, Dad, and Bridget somewhere else. I had that desert island feeling, alone with my SOS, trying to flag down help. I lay down on my bed and didn’t get up. My limbs were heavy. They were weighted by the Mafia and sunk down to the bottom of the ocean. My cement shoes. My handcuffed arms.
Aunt Lynne didn’t come to get me when it was time to leave. She left it in my hands to finally drag my ass out of bed, step into my shoes, and follow her out to the car.
We were late for brunch. The IHOP parking lot was packed and Aunt Lynne had to squeeze between two SUVs. Aunt Lynne did the frantic look-around-the-restaurant when we got there. Poppy and her mom were in a corner booth. I sat beside Poppy, and I must’ve looked in poor form because she didn’t give me any shit for the day before.
"Hey," she said.
I gave her a nod. My mouth was sandpaper dry.
Poppy’s hair was up in a ponytail again, swinging gently as she examined the menu. Aunt Lynne and Mrs. Haynes were talking reality TV, while me and Poppy studied our menus as if we were preparing for the next exam.
"What are you getting?" she asked me.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I’m not hungry."
Poppy’s eyebrows shot up and she aimed a glare in my direction.
"This was my mom’s idea," she whispered. "No one cares what you get but you better get something."
"Fine," I said. "How about I get what you get."
She turned back to her menu, studying even harder.
In Victoria I went out for brunch plenty. Before I met Niall, me, Josh, and Lee made a cool trio. We would bus downtown and wait in the long, snaky lines at the Blue Fox Cafe until a table freed up. Lethbridge didn’t have Victoria breakfast places. An IHOP is an IHOP is an IHOP; it doesn’t matter where you are.
Aunt Lynne was watching me from across the table, giving me a look when the waiter came by. Poppy ordered herself a stack of Tutti Frutti pancakes, and I matched her order like I said I would. She hid a grin in her orange juice. We spent the rest of breakfast doing the mazes and the crossword puzzles on the children’s placemats. The crayons were fat and pressed down to stubs. Then we played a game of Hangman. Poppy really put some imagination into her hanging body, adding some blood, a cool top hat, and a pair of laced-up boots every time I guessed a wrong letter.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice it at first. I was too busy sweating about not guessing the right word. It was a funny moment to get lost
in, playing kids games with Poppy, jousting with our crayons. But when I finally looked up, right in time for Tutti Frutti delivery, I noticed that we seemed to be the stars of the show. A couple of people were taking these tiny glances at us. Not many of them, just a handful or so, but some were outright staring. Did the four of us look that mismatched? Or was it something else? I hoped my eyes were looking as empty as I’d felt that morning. I looked from person to person, imagining I was Scott Summers with my pair of laser eyes.
"Hey, Pops, how come we have an audience?"
Poppy didn’t look up from the table. She gave the hangman a cane. One more incorrectly guessed letter.
"Guess we’re pretty popular," she said.
It made me wonder about Poppy and her mom. Her missing, absent dad. The Mr. Haynes who wasn’t around.
We finished our breakfast. The Tutti Frutti pancakes were better than I thought they’d be. Even if they had a girly name. When we stood up and put on our jackets, it was our final curtain call. Come on out. Take a bow.
D E C E M B E R
O n t h e B u s
The big sign coming into town said Revelstoke, checking off another stop along the way. We still weren’t even halfway to Victoria. It was getting dark outside, December deep, and the tops of the trees got lost in the dark sky.
The bus pulled into town and stopped, letting people on, letting people off, and giving us an hour to stretch our legs and stomachs.
"Bundle up, Pops," I told her. She had this skinny windbreaker on over her sweater. It was Helly Hanson, built for ski season, but it looked too thin for Revelstoke winter. Lee had given her a scarf, and she was going to have to pull it up high out here. There was snow all over the place and it was still lightly falling down. The mountains here just overlapped one another, one after the other after the other, until you didn’t know where one stopped and the next one started. I wished I’d told Poppy to bring a hat or something. Maybe a pair of gloves. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and, once the bus was parked, we headed down the aisle.
The nosy old woman was still sitting in the seat in front of Poppy. I had seen her looking at the three of us, trying to puzzle out how we all fit together. She stayed on the bus when we got off, and I wondered if she was going to spend the entire hour there. She was so curved, her shoulders rounding forward, her neck arching toward the seat in front of her. I thought I was slouched, but I had nothing on this woman.
I had this feeling, while we walked by her, that I should hold Poppy’s hand. Make it seem like she really belonged with us. Make believe she was my little sister or something. But the kid was twelve years old, and you stop doing that kind of thing when they’re close to middle school. I shadowed Poppy down the aisle, making her one of us.
"I’m setting a timer," Lee said, pushing down on the buttons running on the outside of her watch. "I don’t want to miss the bus."
"We’re not going to miss it," I told her. The bus was sitting out like a shiny worm, parked right in the middle of everything. If we picked the right restaurant, we could keep an eye out for when people started getting back on while we ate dinner.
"Thought about what you want to eat?" I asked Poppy.
"Anything’s good," she said.
"We’ll try to find one of those hundred-item-menu places," I said. "Something for everyone."
A few people were bundled on the street, pushing into restaurants or stores still open. The entire bus was out here, taking a rest from that same seat-studded interior.
I could see a pizza place, an Italian place, and a Tim Hortons from where I was standing. Lee pointed across the street, and it looked like what we needed. Bright fluorescent lights and tables by the window.
I put my arm around Poppy’s shoulders. She didn’t shrug me off. We went inside this diner-type place that was half-empty.
Half-full, Penner would’ve corrected me. Think in terms of optimism. It was tiring, trying to find the good side of a situation. Sometimes it was better just to slouch into the negative. It was comfy down there.
The three of us had run out of things to say to each other. The menus were good placeholders. Burger or Reuben. Pizza or calzone. Iced tea or Pepsi. I snuck a couple of looks at Lee over the top of my menu. Her mascara had drifted, giving her eyes a bit of a black outline. Her ponytail was falling out, dragging the elastic band down an inch from where it was supposed to be. I wanted to reach over and pull the whole thing out. Hair down and loose and around her shoulders.
Outside, a police car drove by the restaurant, the policeman inside taking a slow look through our window. I bobbed my head instinctively, panic creeping up my chest. Lee and Poppy didn’t seem to think anything of it, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of Poppy’s mom. She would know Poppy was gone by now.
Worrying over the police car made me point randomly at the menu when the waitress came. Ended up with a salad. I’d never ordered a salad at a restaurant in my life.
Me and Niall used to wander around Victoria after midnight and stop in diners like this when we found them. Niall never ordered anything other than a Diet Coke. Why it was always Diet, I had no idea, but he’d drink glass after glass of it, carbonated bubbles moving up his circus-striped straw. Sometimes you need just one place in the city to be open 24-hours. Easy, anytime access.
We all picked at our food when it came. Poppy dissected her sandwich, eating the meat, then the cheese, then the lettuce, and leaving all the bread.
"That’s an interesting way to eat a sandwich," I told her. I stole a couple of fries off her plate. She shoved it across the table.
"Finish it if you’re that hungry. Who orders a salad in a diner, anyway?" She got up and headed to the washrooms at the back of the restaurant. Me and Lee exhaled as one as Poppy disappeared. Took away some of the awkwardness between us.
But not all of it.
It wasn’t easy silence between us. It was pulled tight as a rope.
"You could’ve called," I told Lee, saying it quick before Poppy came out of the bathroom. Some people were filing onto the bus. I could see them out the window. Lee paid the bill with her dad’s Visa, signing some version of his signature. It didn’t matter that the name on the card was a man’s name. No one checked that.
Lee waited until the waitress was gone. Then she leaned across the table. Her elbow just missed a blob of spilled ketchup.
"Yeah, like your parents would give me your number," she said.
"Did you try Bridge?"
"Dude, your sister doesn’t give a shit. Plus she doesn’t live here anymore."
I wanted to correct Lee, to tell her she was wrong. Bridge gave more than a shit about what happened last year.
"How’d you find me, then?"
"Believe it or not, I figured it out through Mr. Penner. I set up an appointment to see him, like you used to every week. He said you were staying in Alberta; he told me the city; I checked out a phone book and found your last name." She touched the sleeve of my sweater, bunching up the fabric. "It was because of Josh. When he said he saw you, I thought, Why not? You left. That didn’t mean we had to let you go completely."
I shifted my arm, making it so her hand slipped over my palm.
"And you just got on a bus."
"Yeah," she said. "I just got on a bus."
"Why?"
Lee looked down at the sprinkling of crumbs on the table.
"Because I didn’t care. Not last year, when you needed someone to. You changed and I couldn’t deal with that. There wasn’t really a chance for me to take that back. Until I heard about Niall and found out no one had told you."
She held my hand across the table.
Poppy came back from the washrooms and looked at us pointedly.
"We should get going," she said. "Everyone’s on the bus."
"Guess we should," I said.
"I ate way too much," Lee said, rubbing her stomach. She heaved herself out of the booth.
"Better that than still hungry." I rubbed my own stomach, emp
tier than I wanted it to be.
The bus driver announced that we’d be passing through Salmon Arm next. Lee sat across the aisle, leaving two seats for me and Poppy. Salmon Arm. I imagined a hundred salmon swimming in the river, touching scales to scales until they formed the shape of a human arm, their pink and orange and gray-colored bodies inching past the town.
"Lee’s in a food coma," I told Poppy. It was true. Her head was against the window and her eyes were closed.
The lights in the bus dimmed. The snow outside was swirling in large, snaky movements, wrapping itself along the outside of the bus.
"What are we going to do in Victoria?" Poppy asked me. That came out of left field, a big old baseball thrown unexpectedly to home, taking out the catcher.
"I don’t know, Pops."
It occurred to me that I didn’t have an idea.
"Well, you should," Poppy said.
O C T O B E R
Aunt Lynne celebrated my one-month-long stay by buying me one of those cheapo Walmart bookshelves. She found a toolbox in the garage and set me to work putting it together. I was getting a pretty good collection of books from Language Arts classes at Poppy’s house. Mrs. Haynes was assigning about a thousand times more reading than I got back in high school, and I’d already read three paperbacks front to back.
"Are you going to give me a hand?" I asked Aunt Lynne.
"Think of it as Shop class," she said. "I’ll supervise."
She went back to the newspaper, reading out my weekend horoscope from the D pages. I tuned out like I always did when she started going on about Moons in Venus. It sounded like a Niall thing. Believing in the unbelievable.
Poppy came over when I was halfway through building my bookshelf. I had a bad feeling that I’d built it upside down. I’d have to fit the shelves in backwards or something.
Poppy padded down the stairs like a cat.
"In here," I said, flagging her down with my arm out the doorway of my room.
Poppy leaned against the wall, surveying my bedroom. Her socks were warm and wooly, straight out of Mark’s Work Warehouse. I knew because Aunt Lynne had taken me there to do some light shopping and she’d bought me three packs of socks. Me and Poppy could match.