North Fork

by Wayne M. Johnston

  “Look,” he says, “I’ll tell you something the doctor told me, back in the beginning when I asked him what my odds were. He told me to live like I was going to win, then make adjustments only when it became absolutely necessary. What I took it to mean was that I shouldn’t give up and act like I was beaten until I truly was. That as long as I could walk, talk, eat and breathe, it was a good day. But mainly, even on bad days, as long as there was hope that I could get some good days again, I should fight for them.”

  “You’ve got something to fight for, Mr. Smith. Everyone likes you. The whole world thinks I’m a pervert. Even my sister. If Kristen showed up alive tomorrow, I still couldn’t go back to that fucking school. I didn’t do it, and I hate those bastards for believing I did. I’m trying, Mr. Smith, but there isn’t much to hope for. Smoking a little and listening to music is as close to a good day as it gets for me. I want out of this stinking place so fucking bad.”

  “Where would you go if you could leave?”

  “I dream about camping on the beach in Mexico, but I don’t have any money and I don’t speak Spanish.”

  “Is there anyone, a relative, you could go stay with where you could get a fresh start?”

  “Come on. Would you let a pervert stay at your house?”

  “What if you were cleared?”

  “Fat chance. Besides, I’m not that close to anyone. They all thought I was trouble before.”

  “Well, they don’t have enough evidence to charge you. Once you turn eighteen and you deal with the drug charge, they can’t make you stay around here. When will you be eighteen?”

  “Not until next February.”

  “If you knew you could leave in February, do you think you could last?”

  “I don’t know. It would be hard. I feel like I’m going to pop.”

  “Mexico’s a good thought, but like you said, it would take money and Spanish. Let’s come up with a plan that could work. If you had three thousand dollars to get started on a new life, where would you go?”

  “Where am I going to get that kind of money?”

  “You’ve been dreaming about Mexico. Just shift the dream a little. Work out real details. Figure out bus fare or plane fare, or if you hitched, food and a place to stay. You feel like you’re going to pop. That’s real, and fair enough. You’re in a trap. So, plan an escape. Like a prison break. Remember Huck Finn. He was trapped and he ran. It’s a big world out there. If you stay and go over the edge, you lose. If you attempt to build a new life and fail, at least you tried. One of my high school friends left home after graduation with a tooth brush and seventy-eight cents. He’s teaching at a community college in California now. I have another high school friend who took off like that and drank himself to death in Florida. So you can lose too, but sometimes people win. So, where would you go if you had some money?”

  “I’d have to rob a bank. I have seventy-eight cents and a tooth brush, and I’ve thought about it a lot, and I might disappear if I don’t come unglued first. But to me the result seems about the same. I’m a loser either way.”

  “I’m going to make you an offer.”

  “Why do you care what happens to me?

  “Maybe you remind me a little of myself. My offer is a loan, and there are strings, but nothing that should compromise your integrity. Listen for a minute. I just sold a boat. It wasn’t worth a lot, but it might be enough. I was going to use the money as a down payment on a better pickup, but I’m willing to gamble on you. I’m offering to loan you the three thousand dollars I got for my boat so you can get away from here and make a new start in life. I expect you to pay it back someday when you have a job and can afford payments. You don’t have to sign a paper, and if you don’t pay it back, I won’t send a collection agency.”

  “You’d loan me money? I don’t get it.”

  “If you really think you’re about to go off the deep end, take the money and go away somewhere. Start over. You’re young. You can. Seeing you get through this is more important to me now than driving a new truck. I can live with my old one. It still works fine. You decide if and when you need the money, and if and when you can pay it back. It’s a way out. But you can’t just draw on it for spending money.”

  “Why are you doing this? People don’t care about other people without a reason. You’re not gay or anything, are you? I mean if you’re here because you want me to give you a blowjob, I won’t do it.”

  “No, Corey. That’s not it.”

  “So why? I guess I can believe you think I didn’t kill her, because I didn’t, and someone should believe the truth. But people don’t go around offering money. I mean that’s just stupid. You don’t seem stupid.”

  “It would be a deal between two people on the edge, trying to hang on. A matter of trust. You’re right. When something is true, someone, someplace, should believe it. That’s why I’m offering. Maybe I am stupid. I believe you have integrity. If you take the money, it becomes a responsibility, a connection. You’re stuck with what it represents—someone believes in you enough to take a three-thousand-dollar chance. It will become part of your baggage like it became part of mine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone believed in me once when I thought no one did. I had burned some bridges and had some bad luck. Part of it was about a girl and part of it was about my parents. I felt like I didn’t have much to live for and I was pretty mad at the world. I was a little older than you, but the person who believed in me was a teacher. It changed my life. So maybe my offer is a way to repay a debt.”

  “You’d actually hand me three thousand dollars cash?”

  “I’d probably give you a check, just to make you go to the bank. It depends on the circumstances. If you truly needed cash, I would get you cash. To do it right, you should open an account, maybe get a debit card, keep track of the money, use it carefully.”

  “What if I used it to buy drugs or a gun, or stuff to make a bomb?”

  “Then I might be in trouble. At best I’d feel really stupid. I know I’m taking a chance. This is about trust. Trust is one of those important abstract things I talk about in class. For it to be real, someone needs to believe in it enough to risk it, put their money where their mouth is. I’m willing to bet three thousand dollars on you. In the big picture, it’s not very much. It could backfire. If you take it and don’t use it in good faith, it will make you feel guilty, give you one more reason to get stoned, to feel like a loser, to quit. If you’re not willing to bet on yourself, you shouldn’t take it.”

  He gets up. I can tell it’s hard for him to get out of the chair, like his back hurts or something. He moves toward the door.

  “You don’t need to decide now,” he says. “You may not need it. But it’s there. It’s part of your reality now, your baggage, one of the things you’ll carry with you. I hope it helps. I can listen too. So if you find yourself ready to let go, even if you don’t want the money, call me.”

  And he left. Just like that. And I’m sitting there, not quite sure what just happened, even more confused than the last time I saw him. I turn the music back up loud, but don’t smoke any more that day.

  Kristen

  Courage is a funny thing. It took a lot of courage for me to stand up to Grant. But I think bravery is really desperation, and when you choose the thing that may appear bold to other people, you know inside that there’s really more danger in the other choices. Even though I couldn’t have said it at the time, I had to escape Bonnie and Sterling because I couldn’t stand trading my honesty for comfort. I couldn’t face my life the way it was. I ended up in the same situation with Grant, like I was drawn there because it was familiar, and I knew how to act because I had been there before. It was easier to believe his talk and pretend it was true than to face the real truth. There were rewards for pretending. But when I let myself see him for what he is, I didn’t feel very good about myself.

  I guess I learned I’m sick of pretending. I think it costs too much and I don’t w
ant to do it any more. I got the truth from Grant. He’s a creep, and even though I’m trying to handle it like an adult, I’m really scared. If Grant doesn’t get me first, I have to go back. Both things scare me. The idea of going back feels right and it also terrifies me. But I know it’s the only way I can have the kind of life I want.

  When I imagine it, dialing the phone or just showing up, my heart starts beating fast and I get just as scared as I do when I lie awake at night imagining Grant lurking outside my window. I play out the possibilities in my head: if it was just Bonnie, I could have done it already, easily. The scariest thing about Bonnie is that you can’t touch her. For me, the valve of her attention seems shut tight. But I also know there is a bond between us, even if I don’t understand completely how it got there.

  Bonnie isn’t just Bonnie. I can’t remember when she was just Bonnie. She’s Bonnie and Sterling. She’s connected herself to him and she hides behind him. When I imagine returning to her, imagine the moment when the door opens for me at their house, it’s always Sterling who opens it, and it’s his anger I face while Bonnie remains in the shadows.

  So I’ve been putting it off. With Grant, I know what I’m scared of, although it seemed to be changing. He hasn’t been to the restaurant for several days and I hadn’t seen his car, so I’d been hoping that he’d lost interest in me and I could take my time planning my return. Except for the business with Grant, I’ve liked Victoria, and it will be hard to leave.

  At about four this afternoon, the restaurant was nearly empty, so I took advantage of the lull and rode home on the bike to get some different clothes. I planned to go straight from the restaurant to meet Ian and Char at a pub. I rounded the corner onto our street and there it was. That white SUV was parked directly across the street from the house.

  I stopped the bike to see if Grant was in it, but I couldn’t tell. Other parked cars blocked my view. I waited, heart racing, wondering if he’d already seen me. Then I made up my mind. I assumed he was in the car and that he had seen me, so I decided I would ride past him and look him in the eye, but I wouldn’t stop. Maybe it was a crazy idea, but I had learned from cutting myself that what you imagine is sometimes worse than the actual experience, so I wanted to look in his eyes and get that sharp, clean rush of adrenaline that I get when the blade breaks the skin. Since his car was facing me, he couldn’t pull out and turn around before I got to the corner. If he got out and chased me on foot, I could outrun him on the bike.

  The car was empty. I could see that before I got to it, so I looked for him in our yard. If he was snooping around, he was in the back or, worse, inside. There was no dust on the Escalade. He must take it through the car wash every day. As I rode past, I looked in and saw a pair of binoculars on the passenger seat, and wondered if they had night vision.

  I rode as fast as I could back to the restaurant. Business was still slow and Leigh saw me come in. I was sweating and out of breath, so I went into the restroom to straighten up. When I came out, he was waiting.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. He took me back to his office, which was even more cluttered than it was when he interviewed me. I sat across from him in the same chair.

  “Well?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “I just had a little scare.”

  I was about to make up a lie about a near miss in traffic, but then I made the decision. I decided to disappear again. I didn’t tell him the whole truth, but I told him enough that he offered to go back to the house with me after work so I could get some things, and to let me sleep on his couch tonight. He wanted to confront Grant. He has some friends that he said would enjoy letting Grant know what it feels like to be stalked. I told him to wait a few days, and if Grant didn’t stay away, I would call the police.

  It’s really late now but I can’t sleep, though I know I should. Leigh gave me a pillow and some blankets and his couch is comfortable and clean. My mind is swirling. I keep imagining being face to face with Sterling and Bonnie. I run through various plans in my head. There’s only one ferry to Anacortes each day and it leaves Sidney at 11:20 a.m. Going back the way I came would be the simplest thing to do. I’ve got a bus schedule and it would be easy to just get up in the morning and go to the bus stop. I’m supposed to start work at ten tomorrow morning, and since Leigh closed up last night, he’s going in late too, so that complicates that idea. I would have to do more explaining than I want to.

  I plan to leave a note saying I went home, so Leigh, Trudy, Ian and Char don’t panic and think Grant got me. They all think my home is in Seattle. They’ve all been nice to me and I’ll miss them. I don’t want anyone to be able to trace me. Grant thinks my home is in California, which is good. After I’ve been home for a while, long enough for him to lose interest in me or find someone else to bother, I intend to write and tell the people who were good to me the truth. They deserve that much.

  Leigh is being great. I think he’s asleep, but you never know. It’s quiet in there but I’m being quiet too and I’m wide awake, even with the glass of wine I drank earlier. I’m pretty sure he’s courting me too, but he hasn’t tried anything yet. Natalie says I’m naïve about boys, now men, and I know she’s right, but I also see things in people that she doesn’t see, like in Corey. I’m not worried that Leigh will come out here tonight and force me or anything. He has an innocent side too, and part of him really does want to help me, but I can tell he’s looking for pay-off.

  Once you start fibbing you get trapped, and, because I ran away, I had to tell everyone I met here a fib about myself and who I am. If you only have surface relationships, the fibs don’t matter much, but, as soon as you start getting to know someone, it gets complicated. Now I’m getting to know Leigh, and I need his help. So on top of all the other things whizzing around in my head, I’m thinking about him too, and while all this is going on, I feel the need to pee, so I get up.

  On my way back to the couch, I go to the window and peek out from between the curtains. It’s there! That fucking Escalade! Parked across the street in the shadows, far enough away that you might not notice, but with a direct line of vision to the front windows of the apartment, where I’m standing. I can’t see well enough to tell if Grant is in it, but as you might imagine, my heart is pounding in my ears.

  I fight the impulse to get Leigh up. Instead, I sit back on the couch with the blankets over me, staring at the curtains. Sometimes you just need someone to share the fright with, but I keep my head and imagine Leigh storming out into the street, which would only lead to trouble and could wind up terrible because either one of them might have a gun. So I stay put and try to think it through. I wish I knew for sure whether Grant is in the car. The apartment has a back door, and I’m imagining slipping out and down the stairs, but he could just as easily be lurking out there somewhere. I put all my stuff in my backpack and tear a sheet of paper from the notebook I write this journal in. I write this note.

  Leigh,

  In the middle of the night, I made a spur of the moment decision and decided to go home. I left some unfinished business there and this seems like a good time to take care of it. Thanks for the job. Sorry to leave you shorthanded at the restaurant today, but I know you’ll find someone to cover. You’ve been a good friend during a difficult time in my life, so thanks for that too.

  Apologize for me to Trudy, Ian and Char for not saying a proper goodbye. They have also been good friends. It’s going to be kind of crazy for a while when I get home, so don’t expect to hear from me right away, but I will write and explain when things settle down. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.

  Amy

  I put the note under the saltshaker on the table and sit quietly, listening, hoping Leigh is a sound sleeper. It’s early morning and the busses will start running soon. I peek through the curtains again and, to my surprise, Grant’s car is gone, so I slip out the back door. It squeaks and I shut it carefully and make my way down the stairs and around the building next door, then p
ast the garbage cans to an unlit side street. I left the bike at Ian and Char’s, and decide I’m better off without it. I move fast, staying in the shadows, taking a long, indirect route toward a main street where I know there is a bus stop.

  Since it’s now July, the night is short and light is beginning to show in the eastern sky, over the Valley. East is my direction today. By dark tonight I will have faced the music there.

  The city is starting to wake and there are occasional cars. I slide behind trees or bushes when I can, like Corey described. When I get to the bus stop, I stay in the shadow of a building and wait, watching the cars, watching for the Escalade.

  I still plan to take the ferry from Sidney to Anacortes, but I’ll have to kill a lot of time in Sidney since it’s so early. When I see the bus, I step out of the shadows, and it comes to a stop. It’s nearly empty. I take a seat toward the back. As it pulls from the curb back into traffic, I recognize by the bike rack the car that pulls alongside. It’s Leigh. He sees me and motions for me to come to him, which I understand to mean he wants me to get off at the next stop. I shake my head and look away. He’s still following when the bus goes through Sidney, so I don’t get off. When it gets to the BC ferry terminal at Schwartz Bay, I have no choice.

  According to the schedule, there’s a ferry leaving soon. I can get a ticket and get on if I hurry. At the tollbooth, Leigh catches up to me.

  “Amy, I got your note. I was worried.”

  I hug him.

  “Sorry I left like that, but I really do need to go back.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “Grant’s car was out front.”

  “That asshole! My friends will take care of him. You don’t have to go.”

  “I need to go home and if I don’t do it now, I may chicken out. There really is unfinished business.”

  It’s my turn to pay and I buy my ticket. “I’ve got to go now, Leigh. Really. You’ve been a good friend when I needed one desperately. I’ll write later and explain everything.”