by Jenny Manzer
“I thought I could help find her.” An elderly couple behind us was having a loud and tedious discussion about the need to have an electric garage door repaired. The faulty door seemed to take on the tenor of a tsunami or killer bees. “It’s going to cost a pretty penny,” the old man kept saying, a term I hadn’t heard outside of movies. Pretty penny.
“Nico, that was so dangerous. I don’t know where to start. That man who picked you up. He could have…What if he…” Verne was about to cry.
“He didn’t. I’m fine. Verne, I think she was going to Whistler, to see Janey. I have a feeling. I went to talk with Janey when I was in Vancouver.”
“You found her?”
I felt a flicker of pride then, chased by shame. Cobain had found her, not me. Or rather, Cobain’s Nanaimo connection had found her.
“Yes, I did. She said you didn’t want her to see me, Verne. My mother’s best friend.”
“It was a confusing time, Nico. You were so little. I just wanted to protect you. The woman I loved was gone.” He kept gazing at the shadowy water. The elderly couple jabbered about a son-in-law the old man hated.
“Janey said I needed to talk to you. That there were things you weren’t telling me. You need to tell me now, Verne.” I was dirty and tired and every muscle in my body ached. The man who had once defended me from my nightmares had betrayed me. “You need to tell me the truth. Did you even love her? Did you even love my mother? You always just go around like some robot!” I shouted. The old people stopped talking.
“Nico, I did love your mother. I loved her more than anything except you.”
“Then why didn’t you—”
“The truth is that Annalee didn’t love me. Or she didn’t love me anymore. She wanted to move to the mainland.”
“What?” I felt as if my seat were rocking.
“I guess I’m not that good at loving people, Nico. I suppose I take after my dad. Annalee wanted to get away.”
“From me.”
“No, not you. She wanted to take you with her.”
“You were going to get a divorce?”
“Nico.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “We were never married.”
“But I saw the photos: Mom in the white dress at Grandma Irene’s place in Kelowna. You had strawberries on your wedding cake. Mom had flowers in her hair.”
“That was just a family party for you and for her. When we found out you were on the way. You were a surprise. Then you surprised us again when you arrived a month early.”
“Why did you lie? No one cares about that these days.”
“I wanted to marry her, Nico. But she didn’t love me enough. She had a lot of passions: her music, the mountains. She wasn’t a make-do kind of person. She was quiet but intense, kind of like you.”
I felt a chill, the way you do when you realize someone has been watching you after all, that they know you.
“She had no living relatives of her own, you know that, so I think she was drawn to someone dependable, like me. I guess dependable only gets you so far. I had been planning to go to the police academy before you were born, but then that was put on hold.”
On hold, like, forever. Verne had wanted to be a cop?
“Verne,” I started. There didn’t seem to be anything left to say. My parents had never even been married. Annalee had wanted out. But she had wanted me.
“I didn’t want her to take you away from me, Nico. You know that, right? I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
“I just really miss her,” I said, and then I couldn’t stop crying. I made this high-pitched noise, like keening, I guess. I ran to the washroom, bumping into a lady towing her toddler along for a walk. The mother glared at me. I ran into a stall and clicked the metal door shut. I sat down on the toilet and sobbed for a long time. Long enough that Verne sent a white-haired woman in an orange fleece vest to ask if I was okay. Long enough that an announcement came on: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching the Swartz Bay ferry terminal. We ask that you please return to your vehicles.” That meant I had two choices: find my way back to the bus parked in the bowels of the ferry, or hide in the cubicle until a cleaner walked in and called security.
I’d had enough of ferries. I bumped out of the stall and washed my hands, barely recognizing the girl in the mirror with the gray skin and the now-blue-tinged hair. I looked as if I needed vegetables, antioxidants, and exfoliation. Verne had done what I asked and was nowhere to be seen. Or maybe I’d finally crossed the line and he’d given up on me. The passenger lounges were now almost empty except for the uniformed workers bustling around. A lady in a white uniform and a big perm like a forsythia bush glared at me. I had a wonky sense of direction at the best of times. It would be a miracle if I found the bus.
I flew down the concrete stairs, afraid I was going to do a face-plant. I’d never noticed how much a ferry is like a prison, with all the metal doors slamming shut. Engines were revving. I had left it too late. The lower vehicle level was like an underwater cave, and the cars and trucks seemed like snarling animals with their red and yellow eyes. I couldn’t remember which end the buses parked in. It was as if I had been spun in one of those children’s party games and left to stumble around blindfolded. Then I heard Verne: “Nico, this way.”
He stood by the open bus door making sweeping Xs in the air with his long arms. As the cars started up around me, I ran, my legs scraping the sides of cars. I pounded up the steps and the bus driver shut the door.
“Look who decided to join us,” the driver barked. The ferry ramp clanked down like a drawbridge, and we rumbled out into the night.
It felt strange to be back in my room. It looked small and, well, messy. Had I left it that way, or had the police searched it? I was glad, and maybe surprised, that Verne had been so intent on finding me. I could hear him out in the hall explaining the night’s events to my aunt. Gillian had been, Verne told me, “almost hysterical” when she found out I was missing. It was hard to picture. I knew Gillian would be hurt and angry, and that part stung. She had always stood by me, no matter what.
Obe had been emailing: Where R U? Verne had called him in Winnipeg, asking if he knew where I was. Obe was still visiting his grandparents but would be back for New Year’s, just before school started again. School. I had not imagined going back to Vic High, ever. I had only been gone two days in Seattle and three days with Cobain, but my room seemed foreign. It was like going back to kindergarten and seeing how tiny all the easels and desks really were all along. Still, I swept the clothes and CDs off the bed, lay down, and closed my eyes. Let the Frog Man come. I was too tired to care.
When I woke up, it took a few seconds to cut through the netting of my dreams and remember where I was. I could hear Verne bustling around in the kitchen. His Christmas tree, the one he had been so excited about, leaned against a wall. Its base was stuck in an empty tin can full of water to keep the needles fresh, which struck me as hopeful, as if he thought I’d be back. It was still undecorated. It was just a pine tree in the living room.
“Thanks, Verne,” I said when I sat down at the kitchen table. The sun filtered through the window in a way that reminded me of party streamers. No one had made me food since Cobain had prepared me the mac and cheese. I was desperate to hear news of Cobain, but I couldn’t let Verne know how much I cared. I had already asked him twice what had happened to the man who gave me a ride. Verne didn’t know. But I also had another pressing issue: there were only a few days before school resumed. I had to make my point clear.
“Verne, I was serious. She was heading to Whistler to see Janey. We need to make the police understand.”
I couldn’t see his face, because I was sitting and he was frying pancakes and veggie sausages, both for me.
“Nico, you realize that they checked everywhere for her. Everywhere.” He looked down while he squirted some syrup on the pancakes. It was Aunt Jemima. Our budget did not extend to real maple syrup. Still, the pancakes were just what I wanted. I ate f
our, a record for me. Then I had a hot shower, soaping myself down twice. The police had still not found my backpack. I also didn’t know how I would find Cobain. I could track down Jasper Jameson’s publicist, but I would seem like a crazy fan, the type he was hiding from. I would wait.
The idea of going back to school was surreal. Obe would be home in two days. He had no idea of all that had happened to me. I felt bad that the holidays were almost over. Some Christmas for Verne.
“Verne,” I said. “Do you want to decorate your tree? It could be for New Year’s.”
He took me up on my invitation and we hung a few things on the tree. There were old decorations I had made in elementary school and a couple that were from my mother’s family: a girl elf and a china figure of Father Christmas, looking proper and British, as was my mother’s family.
I was sitting in the living room, enjoying being full and clean and wondering if and when I was going to face the music for what I’d done, when the phone rang. I figured it was Gillian or Grandma Irene, but I could hear Verne sounding stern, speaking with a forced politeness.
“And that’s all I have to say,” he said, and the phone clicked back into the receiver.
“Who was—” The doorbell cut me off. It made an old-fashioned bird-in-distress sound rather than a more melodious modern tone.
Verne came rushing in, flushed. “I’ll get it,” he said, still holding a tea towel from drying the dishes. I should have offered to help, I realized. I was feeling vacant, hollowed out.
“May I help you?” Verne asked. I got up off the couch and walked toward the door. Visitors were unusual.
There was a lady standing on the porch. She had blond hair, flat-ironed and satiny, and wore a teal raincoat. She gripped a tape recorder. There was a man positioned at the end of the drive, holding a TV camera hoisted on his shoulder. I heard her say her name, Tina something.
Through the window I could see a white van with Channel 6 written on the side parked in the street.
“No,” I heard Verne say. “We’re just glad she’s home and well.”
I wanted to get a better look, but Verne waved me back.
“I can’t comment on that, either,” he said. “The police issued a press release. You can ask them any questions.”
The police issued a press release? I watched the cameraman through the window. He hadn’t seen me, but he was filming. Just then a car pulled up. The logo of the daily newspaper was stenciled on the side. A man and a woman hopped out and also scurried up the drive. I remembered that Sean wanted to be a journalist.
“Nico,” Verne hissed from the side of his mouth. “Please go to your room.”
I did, mostly because Verne rarely gave direct orders, and I was a little stunned. I sat on the bed, waiting. I had never done anything of any importance before. Except for my missing mother, I had always been unremarkable. Was I kidding myself about Sean?
He had sent me an email, though, albeit a brief one. Hey, R U home? What are u doing for New Year’s? Might go to a show at the uni…Write me. I miss Y, Sean. The message sent me into a tizzy. Surely he had meant “U” instead of “Y.” Because who was “Y”? Or did it stand for something? The two letters were right beside each other on the keyboard.
I hadn’t written back yet. I wasn’t sure what to tell him about the past few days. Cobain. The cabin. Cobain. My night at the ferry terminal, my talk with Janey: everything, endless and nameless.
I heard Verne say something loud and emphatic and then shut the door. A pause. I heard him lock it. That sent a wriggle of chills down my shoulder blades.
“What did they want?” I asked when he came and stood in the doorway.
“They wanted you to go on camera, or barring that, me. They heard about the mystery man you were found with. The story is in today’s papers.”
We didn’t get the newspaper. Verne liked radio or TV, and I wasn’t overly concerned with current affairs. I didn’t much care for news of the real world. I liked music and art.
“I guess you can talk to them if you want to, but I wanted to let you get some rest first. You didn’t look too good last night.” He frowned. He was still holding the tea towel. It was the cheap kind bought at the grocery store in packs of three. “Hopefully, tomorrow they’ll move on to another story and we can go on with our lives.” He studied the Christmas tree, thinking. “They were asking questions about Annalee, too. This whole mess has gotten the reporters talking about the case again. They probably think I’m some kind of monster, driving people away,” he said, sounding deflated.
I heard a vehicle rumbling outside again, but it was just one of the green linen-supply trucks. I hoped our neighbors hadn’t seen the cameras, especially the old lady who lived downstairs. She hardly ever spoke to us, but she watched. She rarely left her suite, except to sweep her front steps or to sit in a cast-iron lawn chair to survey the street. When I was little, she apparently complained to the landlord about the noise my feet made scampering above her. She seemed bitter about everything, as if life had passed her by.
“Verne,” I said. “I’d like to talk to the reporters.”
“Nico, are you sure?” He looked as if he regretted telling me it was my choice. He hadn’t expected me to make that one.
“I want it to be a big story,” I said. “I’ll tell them everything.”
Almost everything.
I owned only one pair of good dress shoes: black Mary Janes. Getting ready that morning, I used about half a bottle of apricot-scented shampoo, lathering and rinsing, lathering and rinsing. The washing made my hair dull but turned down the blue a notch or two. I wore a denim skirt and a violet blouse with ties down the front that Grandma Irene had given me last year along with the Mary Janes. My tights had a hole in the heel, but it wouldn’t show. The press conference was at the police station on Caledonia Avenue, just a short walk from our place. Verne and I were awkward around each other, as if getting acquainted again. Perhaps he had imagined life without me and hadn’t liked the idea. In turn, I now appreciated his life skills, such as having more than I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in the fridge.
Verne touched my shoulder as we sat down behind a long table. There were so many lights beating down. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and gestured to the microphones in front us. “Should I do my karaoke version of ‘Light My Fire’?” he asked with a weak smile. I smiled back.
There were two TV cameras positioned on either side of the table and four reporters sitting in the rows of chairs facing us. They had handheld tape recorders and clutched spiral notepads. It wasn’t a big crowd, but of course, it wasn’t a big story. I was just another missing teenager who had been found.
It was time for me to speak, probably the closest I would ever come to giving a performance. I know what I said to them, because I read from a page torn from my sketchbook.
“I want to thank all the police officers from Victoria and the Lower Mainland who assisted me in returning home safely. Now I ask the public’s help in finding my mother, Annalee Lester.”
(I had written HOLD UP PHOTO.)
“As some of you have already reported, my mother went missing almost eleven years ago, in February of 1996. I am asking the public to think again if you saw her then or you know where she is now. Imagine what it is like to have no answers when someone you love goes missing, when they disappear and never return.”
(I had written HOLD UP PHOTO AGAIN.)
And that was the end of my speech. The rest was a blur of reporters standing up and sitting down, and someone asked about the man I was with when I was found—a passing motorist had snapped a blurry photo of him—and the room fell silent. I swear I could hear the tape recorders whirring, like bees in a hive. Even the police spokeswoman appeared interested in my response. Verne, next to me, seemed to stop breathing, his broad shoulders hitched forward.
“He was no one. He was just someone who gave me a ride. I was trying to find my mother,” I said.
The police represent
ative shut down the questions with a decisive “That’s it, ladies and gentlemen,” and led us out a back door. Then Verne and I walked home together in a light, cold rain. We said nothing, just walked. Halfway home, we stopped to wait for a red light and Verne held out his hand. I hesitated, and then took it.
“Your mother always had cold hands, too,” said Verne.
I tried to remember the last time he had taken my hand. “Did you really want to be a police officer?”
“Yes,” he said as we turned up our street. A man wearing an orange safety vest lugging yellow plastic bags from the dollar store gave me a funny look. I remembered that my photo had been everywhere, in the newspapers and on TV. Missing. I was the girl who went missing, a distinction I now shared with my mother. The house was freezing when we got home, so I cranked up the heat. I had an email tagged urgent from Obe. NICO: WTF? was the subject line. Then a single line in the body: Are you okay? Worried here.
I wrote back: Yes, okay. Long story. I think I met my real father. You won’t believe who he is. I was about to hit send; then I couldn’t, because something was bothering me. When the cops had Cobain surrounded, when he got out of that car, when Cobain was raised to his full height—he was too tall. He was simply too tall. I had tried to forget about it all the way home, the whole ferry ride, and then again when the reporters asked about the mystery man. Cobain, with his hands clamped on his head and those beautiful eyes sparking with panic, had looked tall, too tall.
So I just wrote Yes, okay. Long story. Went to see my mother’s friend.
Then I finally wrote back to Sean: Home again, thanks. And thanks for showing me around. Don’t know about New Year’s yet. Probably see what my friend Obe is doing. Then I couldn’t decide how to sign it. Hugs? Too girlie. I considered xoxo, but that meant hugs and kisses, right? Sean didn’t seem to be an xoxo kind of guy. It would be strange to tell Obe about him. It had always been the two of us.
I hadn’t faced any of the real-life frog men chasing me—my brain had been too busy—but sitting in my room reminded me of all those things. The missing CDs. How everyone at school hated me, and that big moron, Liam, who had called me a dog. I hadn’t thought about any of those miseries while I was on the road with Cobain, or whoever he was.