by Various Orca
On the way to Gravenhurst we don’t see any black Lincolns, but everyone notices how the land gets rockier. “We’re getting up north now,” I call over the wind.
“North?” GL laughs. “Don’t kid yourself. This is barely even south.”
Americans think they know everything.
We hit town around four thirty. GL calls for a grocery stop. “Dinner and breakfast,” she orders, pulling out American bills.
“You prob’ly couldn’t cook your way outta a paper bag,” Al says. “The kid and I will deal widdit. Where we goin’? Full kitchen?”
“Play it safe,” says GL. “Think barbecue.”
When Al and I come out of the store, GL is yapping into a cell phone, AmberLea has her chin tucked in again and Mister Bones is just yapping. “Well, I need her,” GL snaps. “Really? I raised you didn’t—all right, Consuela raised you. Be glad I paid her; she earned every penny…It’s nobody’s damn business…Monday…they won’t even know she’s been gone…How? They’re not the damned FBI, they’re just a two-bit…Oh for god’s sake, house arrest is nothing. Little Moe used to… Listen, I’ll talk to them. She can call it community service. She has to do that too, doesn’t she? We’ll be in touch.” She shoves the phone at AmberLea, who shuts it down.
Al’s ears have pricked up at FBI and house arrest. Mine too, actually. There’s a kind of embarrassed quiet as we stash the groceries in the trunk. Then GL says, “Let’s go.” She looks tired. “I need a martini. And a Dependable.”
We take Highway 169 out of town. Torrance turns out to be a bundle of houses about fifteen minutes away. The GPS takes us past a church and a little community center. Then we turn and cross some railway tracks and chug along a gravel lane away from the houses. We cross a little channel and suddenly see a lake and cottages, and then we’re in trees. The number marker for 1050 is blue with white numerals, like at Grandpa’s. We turn down a dirt track. The trees have homemade wooden signs with family names on them. Beyond you can see cabins and cottages and a couple of places as big as AmberLea’s house. “Look for Karpuski,” GL orders.
“Karpuski?”
“An alias. For privacy. Didn’t want fans nosing around back when I bought this. And put the top up as soon as we stop. The bugs will be bad.”
We pull in at the sign. There’s another one on the tree below it. It’s got the name of a real estate company on it and it says SOLD. There’s a parking spot in the trees, beside someone’s golf cart. “Bought this in ’53,” GL says. “Not even your mother knows about it, Amby. Haven’t been here in years. I pay a local to look after it and rent it out. I told him I was coming up for a last visit. It should be ready for us.”
The first mosquitoes have started their bombing runs as the top goes up. AmberLea helps her grandma out of the car. Al and I grab the groceries.
We stumble along a path, past a woodpile and a rickety-looking outhouse painted white and green. The wooden cabin is painted brown, and the wood has been rounded to look like logs. There’s a key behind the electric meter. We crowd into the little back kitchen, one step ahead of the bugs.
“Old-timey,” Al puffs. And it is; not fancy either. I slide past him. The front room is all wood, with big saggy chairs and a couch and a huge stone fireplace. Out front is a screened porch with a hammock and a picnic table. Outside I can see a giant rock perched on a slope that goes down to the dock and lake.
It’s so familiar it’s weird. “This is exactly like my Grandpa’s cottage,” I say. “He said a cottage was for showing up, not for showing off.”
“Exactly,” GL says behind me. “They built this place from a kit you could buy, back in the thirties. There were a lot of them. Where is your grandpa’s?”
“Port Carling,” I say. That much I know. “Bala is near here, right? We go there sometimes.”
“I’ll be damned.” GL shakes her head. “All those years, all he had to do was look in the phone book.”
“Wouldn’t it say Karpuski?”
“Well, so—Oh, yes. I see what you mean,” she says and turns away. She’s headed for what I see is a bathroom at the back of the cottage. I’m glad we don’t have to use the outhouse.
Al pops out of the kitchen. “Okay, the groceries are put away. Now there’s gotta be swimsuits here somewheres. C’mon, kid.” Suddenly he’s Susie Homemaker. I go along anyway. All at once I feel how dusty and sticky I am. Sure enough, there are a couple of suits hanging in the back bedroom. I pull one on. I’d never do this at Grandpa’s. This is different, somehow. The suit is pretty big, but I don’t care— until I remember AmberLea. I wrap a towel around me and hustle out. Schwarzenegger I’m not. The dock is in sunlight, so the bugs aren’t bad. Al is already in the water, just his head and hairy shoulders sticking out. “Jump in,” he says. “Water’s good.”
SEVENTEEN
I take off my glasses and shoes and jump in. The water rips away everything I’ve been feeling. I’d forgotten it’s only June. I come up gasping and paddling.
“Geez,” says Al, “I didn’t say right on toppa me.”
As I get used to the water, I look up at the cottage. Except for the brown paint it is a lot like Grandpa’s— only I’d never jump in the lake there. No, I’d be where a slightly blurry AmberLea is right now, watching us from the screened-in porch. “C’mon in,” I call up to her.
She shakes her head. “Can’t,” she says. “No suit.” I think over the possibilities of AmberLea swimming without a suit. Is this going to be that kind of movie? I wish.
I paddle some more. Al floats on his back. He’s got more insulation than me. Except for the top of his head, he is the hairiest guy I’ve ever seen. “First time I’ve relaxed all day,” he sighs. “I’m gettin’ too old for this.”
It’s hard for me to talk back. In fact, it’s hard for me to even think back. Is that something a real mobster would say? Or an actor pretending to be one? It sounds a lot like Sopranos. Go with it or drown, I think. I’m not such a hot swimmer. Bunny is totally into water-skiing and windsurfing and all that stuff, like our cousins, but I’m not. Those things have always scared me a little, to tell the truth, and after Jer and I tipped the canoe when I was ten, I didn’t want to do that either.
In fact, to really tell the truth, when I was younger I wouldn’t even have sat where AmberLea is now. I used to have what I thought was a secret place under the porch, where I’d go to read comics and stuff. Grandpa didn’t allow electronics at the cottage, not even TV. One summer under there, I told Bun every story I could remember from this cool old TV series I’d found on video, called The Twilight Zone. And I remember being under there another time when my cousins were all playing tag, but I was watching Grandpa and Bunny down on the dock, not far away. It was really strange. Bunny was saying he was sorry to Grandpa. And when Grandpa said he shouldn’t feel sorry, Bunny said he wasn’t sorry for himself, he was sorry for Grandpa. Then DJ, I think, came running down to the dock and pushed Bunny in the water. Then Grandpa pushed DJ in. And then somebody pushed Grandpa in. Nobody pushed me in. I watched the whole thing and nobody found me.
But now I’m in.
Dinner is good. Al has made burgers and Caesar salad. “Real dressing, not bottle crapola.” Like Jer, he’s big on garlic. Right now, he’s saying to GL, “So, you really were in movies?” GL has made them both martinis in juice glasses. She’s got a second little plate beside her glass with all her pills on it.
I want to say, “So, house arrest: good times?” to AmberLea, but I’m guessing this isn’t such a great icebreaker.
She says, “Your grandpa had a place like this, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’d go up and water-ski and windsurf and stuff.” Okay, okay—you’d have said the same thing. Anyway, this is the time at the cottage I almost loved, when everyone was having dinner and talking all at once and I could just listen and not have to say anything, except maybe when I had to help Bun a little. And I’m not sure what counts more, the “almost” or the “loved.” See, th
ere’s a worm in the apple, like there always was with me and Grandpa.
I find myself telling AmberLea, “At Grandpa’s there were two picnic tables end to end, to make one big long table so we could all sit together. Grandpa would sit at the end, in a chair, to make room, and he had this trick he liked to play. The plastic table, cloth hung over the sides of the table, and when people weren’t watching he’d curl up his end of the plastic under the table—like an eaves trough—and he’d pour water into it. If you were paying attention, you’d see the water coming and lift up the plastic too, so the water would run past you. If you weren’t, it would run into your lap. And then you’d jump up and everyone would laugh.”
Grandpa got Jer a lot, ’cause Jer would always get all involved in the conversation. Jer would always laugh when he got wet. I almost cried the time it happened to me. After that, I was always worried that I wasn’t paying enough attention. I’d watch extra hard, and I’d laugh extra hard when he got someone else, just out of relief. And now I don’t even know why I’m telling AmberLea about it.
“Eww,” says AmberLea. “That’s mean.”
I think, She’s right. Weird thing is, though, it makes me feel a little bad for Grandpa. Not exactly sure why.
Meanwhile, GL is saying something about doing live TV with Paul Newman, and Al is eating it up faster than his burger. She stops to scoop up a handful of pills and swallow them with the last of her martini. She looks out over the lake. “Haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.”
After dinner, Al goes out to put the tarp from the woodpile over the car. Even though we’ve ditched the Wings, and have “clean shirts,” he says he’s still nervous about being spotted. Go with it. GL, car keys in pocket, sits on the porch in the evening sun. AmberLea and I get to clean up. I wash. She doesn’t say anything for a long time. Finally I ask if she’s seen her grandma’s movies.
“Some,” she says, drying a glass. “They’re pretty boring, except for a couple of the mystery ones. And they’re hard to find. I mean, we’re not talking Star Spawn here.”
“Thank god,” I say, scrubbing. “I hated that.”
“Oh, totally.” She nods and takes a plate out of the rack. “Have you seen Stress Fracture yet?”
“No, it’s on my Got To list. I downloaded the three trailers, but it hasn’t opened yet.”
“It has in New York. I went, before my—Anyway, it was awesome. There was this divided-screen bit where you follow all four of them and they’re all getting to where the bomb is, only they don’t know each other yet so they’re in each other’s shots from different angles and—”
“Like in Crossfire—”
“Yeah, just like that, and—”
We talk movies and TV shows until the dishes are done. It’s fun. Then I almost blow it. We’re been talking about Arrested Development, and without thinking I blurt out, “Hey, are you really under house arrest?”
AmberLea instantly turns as pink as Al’s sunburned head and her chin vanishes again. She gives this teeny nod. “It was stupid,” she says, her chin still gone. “A bunch of us were partying and we called a cab to take us home and we gave this address near all our places, and when we got there we all jumped out and ran instead of paying. It was a plan, like, but we’d been, um…you know, so we weren’t thinking too straight and the cab driver just called the cops and followed us. We didn’t even think to split up. We had to go to court and everything. We all got fines and house arrest for a month, except for writing our finals. For a while the judge wasn’t even going to let us do that; I would’ve lost my whole senior year. Anyway, the judge, she said if we liked getting around so much, we could try staying put for a while. So now I’m not even supposed to be outside, let alone here, and I have to wear—Oh, never mind. It was my own fault. I was really dumb. Anyway, ’scuse me.” She puts the dishtowel down and brushes past me into the front room.
I follow her, praying I haven’t completely blown it. I want to make her feel better, but I don’t have a clue what to say. Maybe I could tell her something dorky I’ve done. On the other hand, the stuff I’ve done is so completely dorky it would probably make me seem stupid instead of sympathetic.
When I get to the front room, Al is plunked down in a chair, texting and muttering to himself about no signal. He’s trying to message his agent, a flour company, or the Godfather, I guess, depending on what’s real. It is hard to tell. I mean, how many gangsters have I met? I don’t have a lot to go on here. For that matter, how many bakers have I met, apart from Jer and his Boys Bake club? I’m guessing there aren’t any Goodfellas hiding in there, or the philosophy department at York U either, but I could be wrong.
I look past Al. GL is still on the porch, in the last of the evening sun. AmberLea has picked up the remote for a TV in the corner. “They probably only get one channel,” I say. I figure it’s better than saying nothing.
“No,” she says. “Didn’t you see the satellite dish on the roof?”
The screen blips on. She surfs maybe ten or fifteen channels before she stops and clicks back to one. There, in glorious black and white, a blond is pointing a pistol at a man behind a desk. A familiar voice purrs, “You know, shooting a man is like straightening your stockings. A lady’s not supposed to do it, but sometimes you have to.”
“Aw, c’mon baby,” the man says, and then I don’t hear the rest because I’m thinking what Al says out loud. “It’s her.” Al has put down his cell. AmberLea and I are both leaning forward. And it is her; it’s the Gloria Lorraine I saw on the Wikipedia site. And she’s a very sexy babe in an old-fashioned kind of way, walking around the desk with a gun in her hand.
“I seen this,” Al breathes.
“Shadow Street,” says AmberLea.
“That’s Fred MacMurdo,” says Al as the man stands, pushes the gun away and locks Gloria Lorraine in a hot kiss.
“He had awful breath,” says a voice beside us. We look up to see the real thing. “He’d have bourbon for breakfast and liver and onions for lunch,” GL goes on, leaning on her cane, “and he just reeked. We must have shot that scene ten times too, because he kept blowing his tag line. I was like to throw up at the end. Probably did it out of spite because they gave the good angle to me.”
Onscreen, Fred MacMurdo in a hat looks out a windshield as he drives through the rain. “God, what a weasel he was,” says GL, “and a bum-grabber to boot. Barbara Stanwyck said the same thing. Amby, turn that off. We have things to discuss.”
EIGHTEEN
AmberLea hits the Mute button. GL says, “Now, come out here.” She’s got a map spread on the picnic table. “Here’s where we’re going.” She puts on a big pair of glasses. Her flame-red fingernail stabs at the map. We all squeeze in to look. She’s pointing to the north shore of Lake Superior.
“Terrace Bay?” AmberLea squints.
“Or Marathon. We can be there by Sunday night if we get as far as Sault Sainte Marie tomorrow. Then we can go to Jackfish Monday morning.”
“What’s Jackfish?” says Al.
“Too small to be on the map,” says GL, “but it’s right here.” She taps a little pocket of the lake where it dents in before Terrace Bay. “I have to do something there. Before I’m done, if you know what I mean.”
“Like what?” AmberLea’s chin goes away again.
“I’ll explain when we get there. A lady’s not a woman without a secret.”
“That’s from a movie too,” Al says.
“Blond Trust,” says Gloria Lorraine. “It was an ad-lib muff. The line was supposed to be ‘A lady’s not a lady without a secret.’ Normie Bly, the director, liked it so much he kept it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” says Al. “Blond Trust. That was you? With what’s-his-name, skinny guy, where he pushes—”
“—the old man in the wheelchair down the elevator shaft,” she finishes for him, “and giggles.”
“I loved that,” says Al. “You were great. They use ta play it on the late movie on Channel 7 alla time when I wa
s a kid. Grew up with a guy, Mikey, just like that. ‘Mikey,’ we’d say, ‘You’re on!’” Al shakes his head. “The stuff he’d get up to.”
“Where is he now?” I ask.
Al shrugs. “Last I saw, he was hanging off a balcony and the guy holding him remembered he had to go make a call.”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s, uh, too bad.”
“Depends on your point of view.”
“The point is,” GL brings us back, “you get me to Jackfish and you’re done. Spicer here gets his kiss and his movie, and, Al, you can take off. If you keep going west you can nip over the border into Minnesota. That would give you some breathing room. And AmberLea can run the camera and learn a thing or two from her gramma before it’s too late.”
I’m looking at the map while she says it. “Hey,” I say, “how come we didn’t just keep going up Highway four hundred? It’s shorter.”
“Because I need something from here before the new owners move in,” says GL. “From behind the deer head.”
The stuffed deer head is on the living-room wall above the couch. Al is the tallest. And the heaviest. The couch groans and sags as he stands on it. He reaches up. “Behind the base,” orders GL. Al fumbles around and comes up with something that he passes down into GL’s impatient hand. It’s a tarnished locket on a fine chain. GL totters to a chair, jams her glasses back on and struggles with the thing. She gets it open, looks at it for a minute, then snaps it shut. “Get me my purse.” AmberLea brings it. GL shoves in the locket, snaps the purse shut, then waves for AmberLea to help her stand up. “I’m off to bed,” she says. “I get the front bedroom. Amberlea, you get the middle and you boys take the back. And you two”—she swings a finger from me to AmberLea—“no hanky-panky, got it? I’m up in the night and I’ll know.”
AmberLea turns into a tomato. I look away; I can feel my own face burning.
“Early start tomorrow.” GL turns away. “Don’t burn the midnight oil.” Leaning on her cane, she shuffles into the bedroom and closes the door.