Frederickson took a glove and picked up the can at Jordan’s feet. “We found a few of these. So it’s definitely art.” He snorted and called for one of the junior officers to take the can and put it with the others.
“Taggers?”
“Dunno. Looks like the lads were doing a preschool art project to me.” He indicated Jordan should follow him and they moved around to the far side of the tower. “See?”
The streetlights didn’t quite reach, and it was darker on this side of the tower but Jordan could still see the broken-up arcs and whirls of the spray painted bins.
“That’s going to piss off the residents more than the four a.m. wake up,” Frederickson said. “They’ll have dirty recycling bins.”
Jordan didn’t answer. The spray paint didn’t look like the regular graffiti of local taggers. She looked at the broad swath of bins that had lines and streaks of paint. It didn’t look much like anything. Except…
“Think we can get some of that light over here?” Jordan said.
Frederickson looked at her sharply, then called for the light stands to be moved around to the far side. Jordan walked backwards as the cops set up a couple of light standards around the base. She was another fifteen feet away when she saw it.
“Frederickson. A minute?”
The older cop hustled over. “You see something?”
Jordan pointed at the roughly outlined half rays, half swords sun. “I was asked about this symbol. It was graffitied on a bunch of places downtown earlier this week? And some connection to politicians. Constable Rachel Shreve showed it to me yesterday.”
“Yeah, I saw a report about that graffiti. Good find. I’ll see when Shreve’s on shift.”
Jordan stared at the painted bins as Frederickson typed awkwardly into his phone. What had seemed like a joke or just mischief a few minutes ago somehow seemed sinister under the harsh police lights in the pre-dawn cold. Jordan shivered. Maybe Rachel had been right. Jordan got the sense of something starting, something shifting, something moving in the dark and beginning to take shape.
Frederickson began talking into his phone, then moved it away from his mouth to address Jordan. “Thanks a million, eh? Why don’t you check in with Constable Smith to sign off on the kid and get out of here. Go find a coffee and a sandwich.”
Jordan found the young cop with the paperwork, signed to take Seamus into care, then collected the youth, who looked like he’d fallen asleep sitting up. He shuffled along silently beside her as they walked to her car and got in.
“Breakfast?” Jordan said as she started her car and turned the heat to high.
Seamus shrugged. “Whatever. Nothing’s open.”
A rejection and an acceptance. Identifying wants and needs meant showing a vulnerability.
“There’s a diner across the bridge in Dartmouth that serves all day breakfast. Or the all-night McDonald’s on King. You choose. Both have coffee, and that’s all I care about.”
“Fine. Diner.”
They drove in silence. Jordan wanted to pester him with questions about who he’d been staying with and what he knew about the sun symbol. He was already mad at Jordan for hauling him back to a group home, so the chances of him opening up about his life were pretty slim. She figured she’d test the waters once he was full of bacon and eggs.
The bridge across Halifax Harbour was nearly empty, with just a few commuters, produce vans, and delivery trucks making the early morning trip. The dock shift started at seven, Jordan knew that. Her dad had been out the door at six fifteen every morning. When he’d been working, anyway. Before he showed up drunk to work and taken a fall. Her dad’s supervisor had lied on the paperwork to get him disability. Jordan had been ten. Her father had never worked again.
Jake did, though. Jordan wondered if her brother was on morning shift today as she shifted gears and pulled onto the bridge. He’d been doing swing shifts forever, two weeks on mornings, two weeks on late. Over twenty-five years at the docks, working the cranes, loading and unloading the multicoloured shipping containers from the ships. Jordan had wanted to do that when she was a kid. The orange cranes had their own kind of power and magic. She’d always been amazed how something so big could be commanded by something so small. She’d loved the precision of the stacked shipping containers, always wanting to sort them by colour even though her dad laughed and Jake scorned her six-year-old imagination.
Steven had never laughed at her. He’d brought her pencil crayons and helped her label them: crane orange, shipping container blue, security fence grey, anchor white. Steven had always tried to create a space for Jordan’s imagination. He’d been the only one who consistently worried about her having a childhood. That safety had died when Steven had. Space for dreams had also died. After that, she’d filled the hole with goals, with a show of strength, with boxing her way out of Halifax. With running away.
The last double thump of the tires on the bridge’s metal grid and the even hum of pavement pulled Jordan from her thoughts. Steven had been gone seventeen years. And it was probably time to call Jake and check in.
“You’ve got a shitty job.”
Jordan glanced at Seamus and laughed. “Not really.”
“You got a phone call in the middle of the night from the cops. You’re stuck with me until you can drop me off at a group home. And you don’t even know me.” He sounded resentful. He sounded confused.
“I know you well enough. And I’d rather the cops call than tie you up in the system. And I definitely don’t mind an excuse to have pancakes and bacon.”
Seamus didn’t say much, just pulled his toque off and ran it through his fingers before pushing it back onto his head until it sat just right.
“Jail or bacon. Those were my choices tonight.” Jordan wasn’t sure if it was a question or a reflection. “Whatever. I’m glad you have a shitty job, then, so I can have bacon. But aren’t you, like, rewarding my bad behaviour or something?”
Jordan pulled into the small parking lot beside the unassuming red brick diner.
“I have no idea what happened out there tonight or how you got involved with that group of guys. I do know you’re underage, underfed, and the last thing you want is for me to take you to the group home. I’m hoping if I fill you up with bacon, you’ll be too fat to run away again.”
Seamus’s eyes lit up, and he seemed to be working hard to fight off a laugh.
“That’s your plan? Bacon fat? What kind of shit-ass social worker are you?”
Jordan flashed him a grin and opened her car door. “The kind who’s not a social worker yet. Come on, kid. Let’s go eat.”
* * *
Meet me 4 lunch.
Jordan looked down at the text from Madi on her phone. It was nearly two in the afternoon, and Jordan had spent most of the day at her desk. After dropping Seamus off at Hart House, she’d gone home to shower. Then, feeling restless, she’d come into the office early.
I brought my lunch today. Jordan texted back, trying to focus on her computer screen. Paperwork was endless, but at times it was easier than dealing with crisis after crisis and feeling like you never had a solution to any of it.
If U choose shitty PBJ over me, our friendship = over.
Jordan laughed. That’s exactly what she had in her lunch today. That and a handful of vegetables. It was pretty depressing.
What if I’m busy? Now Jordan was just teasing Madi.
There was text silence for a bit and Jordan began to worry she’d run Madi off. Then a pic came through. A meme with a tiny kitten with big eyes that said, “why u no love me?”
You win. Where do you want to meet?
Tell Tim U R expecting me.
So Madi was already here at the front desk, but she hadn’t pushed or manipulated her way back to Jordan’s cubicle. She’d respected a boundary. It was a good sign.
Jordan grabbed her jacket and phone and closed her laptop. Getting away from her office suddenly felt like a very, very good idea.
“Hey,
Mad.”
Madi, leaning against the front desk, looked at Jordan shrewdly.
“You look like a vampire emerging from its lair. You sure you can go out into the sun?”
“Are you saying I look tired?”
“I’m saying you look like shit.”
Jordan shook her head and spoke to Tim, who was grinning behind the counter. “Back in twenty or so. I’ve got my phone.”
Tim waved them away, and Jordan and Madi walked out into the street. Traffic surged and ebbed and filled the street with sound and gas fumes as pedestrians flowed in and around the busy downtown core. Jordan followed Madi in silence, the sound of a lumbering truck filling the air too much to talk until they’d turned the corner.
“Up the hill, really?” It wasn’t actually possible to go anywhere in Halifax without climbing a hill. They were the tiny San Francisco of the Maritimes.
Madi walked backward to give Jordan the full effect of her eye roll.
“Dude. It’s food truck Friday. It’s worth the climb to the Citadel.”
Friday already, Jesus. How had that happened? Jordan rubbed her eyes and thought vaguely of the burn in her quads as the hill got steeper. She should run tomorrow. Maybe even a distance run if she got enough sleep tonight.
“Food trucks are always worth the climb, yes,” Jordan said. “I’ve taught you well, grasshopper.”
“That’s why I keep you around. These pearls of wisdom.”
They walked together in silence, and Jordan began to wonder if Madi had a reason for this outing. She considered asking but figured Madi would get around to it eventually. Or if Madi just needed to know someone wanted to spend time with her, that was okay, too.
“I’m thinking deep fried,” Madi said. “Pickles, maybe. Or a corn dog. Or both.”
Jordan grimaced. The grease from her delicious but massive early morning diner breakfast was still sitting with her.
“Well, I’m heading to the Greenery,” Jordan said, indicating the brightly painted green food truck, one of eight trucks parked alongside the roped-off Citadel at the top of the hill.
“Deep fried everything at your disposal, and you choose kale.” Madi sounded truly disgusted.
“Hey, I had a greasy breakfast. Life is all about balance, Madigan Battiste.”
Madi stuck her tongue out.
The lines were short, and Jordan and Madi ordered their food and waited along with the families with young kids and a handful of government employees with their ID tags around their necks. Once they’d picked up their orders, they wandered away from the noise of the generators and people to a couple of benches.
“So was your greasy breakfast with Ali? You refusing to cook for her the next morning, or something?”
Jordan stabbed at a forkful of Caesar salad and chewed before answering.
“You’re digging. And not particularly subtly.”
Madi licked some yellow mustard off her finger but said nothing.
“I had breakfast with a client. Kid needed a good meal, I needed coffee. It just so happened that two eggs, a pancake, and four strips of bacon were also consumed.”
Madi gave a half smile, and they ate in silence. It was overcast today and a wind that hinted at cold swept across the large, open space of the Citadel at their backs.
“What’s it like being a good person? Like, all the time.”
“I’m not.”
“But you are,” Madi said. She seemed to be getting agitated. “All the fucking time. You feed a kid breakfast, you spend half your time chopping vegetables and pouring ranch dressing, you watch Sierra like a hawk in case she’s starting to slip, and you want to be ready to catch her or steady or whatever.”
Madi took a breath, like she was just warming up. Jordan considered interrupting but thought better of it. “You spend time with an ex, which is obviously making you six kinds of fucking uncomfortable, but you do it anyway because it’s an opportunity for the gym and the kids. And me. And you answer my text in the middle of your stupidly long work day and hang out with me because you know I’m needy with a history of coming completely unglued and unbalanced at any goddamn time.”
Madi glared at Jordan over her half-eaten corn dog, then suddenly dropped her glance. Jordan wondered where to start, how to drill down to the heart of what was bothering Madi.
“Know what I was thinking as we were walking here?” Jordan said.
Madi continued to pick at her food, not looking up.
“I was grateful to have a friend who could force me away from my computer and my spinning thoughts about how ineffective I feel most of the time. Someone who knows me well enough to know I’m likely going to sit at my desk eating a PB&J sandwich. Which is a damn depressing way to spend a Friday.”
“But it’s weird, right? I mean, you bought some street kid breakfast this morning because he was hungry, and you’re buying me lunch now. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is you’re no longer a client. The difference is you have my personal cell number, which I gave you with the blessing of my supervisor and your aunt. The difference is I chose to leave the office because getting outside and having lunch with you sounded like a really great idea. Because we’re friends.”
“But we’re not really friends,” Madi said quietly after a moment. “You don’t entirely trust me. You know every damn thing about me. My entire life history including every foster family, every drug addiction, every diagnosis. And I only know pieces of you, professional pieces.”
Jordan didn’t know what to say. Madi was right, of course.
“It’s not about trust,” Jordan said. “Maybe I’m just taking some time shifting from the relationship we had to being friends. Some of it is habit and some of it is self-preservation. I’m sorry if that’s hurtful.”
Madi threw her balled-up napkins on the table and stared out across the city. Jordan wasn’t sure if she’d said the right thing or the wrong thing.
“You trust me?” Madi said. “You didn’t used to.”
“I used to worry you wouldn’t see the danger in front of you. That’s different. I trust you can handle yourself. I trust that we’re friends.” Madi closed her eyes briefly, like something Jordan had just said hurt. “Do you trust me?”
Madi opened her mouth to respond but snapped it shut. Jordan could almost hear her caustic, sarcastic, automatic response to what she obviously considered a stupid question. But she paused before answering. “Yes.”
“Good.” Jordan smiled.
“So if you trust me, are you going to tell me about spending the night with Ali?”
Jordan laughed and Madi grinned, whatever had been bothering her moments ago thrown to the wind.
“You really want to know about my night?”
“Dude, yes.”
Jordan pushed her empty cardboard carton aside and looked seriously at Madi. “It was me, a beer, and my Quantitative Approaches to 21st Century Social Work textbook.”
Madi looked horrified. “Hot ex-girlfriend in town who is still clearly hung up on you, and you’re reading a fucking textbook? Jesus, McAddie. You’re a menace to yourself.”
Jordan shook her head. She warred with herself for only a moment, thinking of their conversation about trust before asking her question.
“You think she’s still hung up on me?”
“I’d say you are eighty percent of the reason she’s even here. That’s my quantitative analysis.”
Jordan didn’t believe it. Ali had an impressive career, a condo in Chicago, and a long list of degrees. This small-town hometown seemed to hold only memories.
“I think maybe she’s looking for closure,” Jordan said, thinking out loud. That completely lined up with why Ali was back in Halifax and, briefly at least, back in Jordan’s life. Jordan’s heart hurt, though. She didn’t want it to hurt.
Jordan glanced at Madi, who was sitting quietly, clearly waiting for Jordan to continue. “I basically ran away from our relationship. Ali had her pick of three elite
colleges in the U.S. Full athletic scholarships, really good opportunities. My boxing career was just getting started. She had plans for staying together and making it work. All I could think was that I was weighing her down. So, I left her a note and I left town. This week is the first time I’ve seen her since.”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Madi said, but without any heat.
Jordan gave a short laugh. “Oh, yeah.”
“More specifically, you let your negative predictions about the future make decisions about your present.”
It was interesting, hearing her own words used back on her. Not particularly comfortable, either.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” Jordan grumbled. “And you’re right.”
“And you’re still being an idiot if you think she’s just here for closure.”
Jordan looked away from the intensity of Madi’s conviction. This was too close and too hard. She breathed in the smell of grease, sea air, and the damp wood of the bench.
“I really don’t know, Mad,” Jordan said quietly.
Jordan expected more cursing and getting called out from Madi, but she sat quietly until Jordan’s phone chimed. She grimaced and pulled it out.
“It’s Tim. I should get back.”
They started walking back down the hill.
“Thanks for getting me out of the office,” Jordan said.
“Thanks for buying.”
“I’ll see you tonight?”
Madi looked away. “No, I took a shift at the mall tonight. Next week, for sure.”
“Okay.”
Madi looked back at Jordan suspiciously. “No lecture?”
Jordan shrugged. “Nope. Just let me know what you want me to tell Ali.”
“Tell her whatever you want. My whole life story, if that will make you happy.”
“Yes, that seems like a reasonable thing to do in the circumstance.”
They were almost back at the office when Madi suddenly stopped and leaned back against the building. She fiddled with her phone, and then she pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked defiantly up at Jordan.
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