by Vicki Grant
Anything would have been better than providing Levi with this nice mental image of me squatting, virtually naked, in the great outdoors like some big old cave woman giving birth or something. It’s gross.
And speaking of squatting, what kind of park is this anyway? You’d think they’d have bathrooms around here—but he laughed at that too. It’s a wilderness park. It’s not fully functional yet. Washroom facilities come in Phase 2. Whatever. It all means the same thing. This is a toilet-free zone. Bend your knees.
He points to the back of the beach. “Just go behind the dunes,” he says. “Don’t worry. I won’t look.”
I trudge off with the towel around my waist. The dunes form a little trench. I’d probably be okay but there’s no way I’m going to strip off right here in broad daylight. What if somebody else comes along?
I’m glad I didn’t tell him. Not for Mom’s sake—for mine. It would just make things weird. I’d be setting myself up again. I want him to like me because of who I am, not because of Mimi.
I turn and look at him. He’s sitting there leaning against his knees, staring out at the water. I can see all those little bumpy things going down his spine.
I can’t pee here. I’m too close.
I scramble up over the other side of the dunes, walk through the beach grass and into the woods. The first part is scrubby. Bushes mostly. I squat down behind one and check. If he turned around, he wouldn’t be able to see anything except my head, but still. I’d feel ridiculous. It would be so obvious what I’m doing.
He knows what I’m doing. Everyone does it. I’m normal. It’s the people who don’t pee who have the problem.
I know that but I still walk farther back into the woods. It must be the cold—I actually really need to go now. I keep sort of practice-squatting behind trees and looking out at the beach to check if Levi can see me.
He rubbed my back. He saw me in my bathing suit. He wasn’t grossed out. He wanted another excuse to touch me. He said that. I’m out here all by myself, looking for a place to pee, smiling like an idiot.
I find a little pine tree. I peer out from behind it. He could probably still see me if he was really looking hard, but it doesn’t matter. This is good enough.
I gather a bunch of dry leaves for toilet paper and make sure I position myself so that the pee runs away from my feet. I take another last look out at the beach. I start to pull my straps down. A shiver runs up my back.
I hear this raspy voice go, “What do you think you’re doing, maid?”
In some part of my brain I know it can’t be Levi because I saw him on the beach a second ago—but I guess I don’t process that.
I swing around. I go, “Levi!”
There’s a man standing there pointing a rifle at me.
27
Monday, 2:30 p.m.
Radio Mimi
In “A Rocky Start,” Mimi looks at how to step back into relationships that got off on the wrong foot.
I cover myself with my hands as if he caught me naked. I start to shake even worse than when I was swimming.
The guy wags the gun at me and says, “Who are you?” He’s got this dirty-old-man voice and an even stronger accent than Levi’s. It almost sounds like he’s saying “ye” or something.
I can’t get my mouth to work. My brain is overloaded, taking him all in, dealing with dying, suddenly needing to pee more than I’ve ever needed to pee in my life.
I’m terrified. The guy looks like Rumpelstiltskin. An armed Rumpelstiltskin. His face is unbelievably wrinkled. He’s tiny—maybe five-two or five-three—and skinny. Like a little bird or baby rat before its fur’s grown in. He’s wearing boots and long pants and a winter jacket and one of those hunter’s hats with the flaps turned up, but I can still see how skinny he is. His clothes must have been different colours at one time but they’re so dirty now that they’re all just variations on grey, as if someone took a charcoal pencil and shaded the whole picture in.
He says something that sounds like, “You durst not make me ask you again, maid. Who are you?” His voice is louder this time. He’s missing all the teeth on his right side.
“Robin,” I say because I’m not thinking. It comes out in a shaky little whisper.
“What? Louder!”
“OPAL,” I say.
He turns his head and spits. “So yer one a those, are ya? It won’t help you none here, maid. What yer doing on my land?”
He takes a step toward me. He’s got a limp. His gun’s pointed right at my belly button. Should I grab it? I’m way bigger than he is. I could take it. If I could move, that is. But I can’t.
“I just needed…to go…like…to the bathroom…sir.”
He jumps back at that. “You come here bold as brass to make yer water on another man’s land? You people with yer high and mighty ways! You comport yourself like the Good Lord gave you dominion…” He suddenly stops talking. He perks up his head like a hunting dog.
“Hey, Embree! What’s up?” It’s Levi.
The guy nods and says, “How do.” He’s not actually hiding his gun but he’s sort of pretending that it’s nothing to worry about.
Levi puts his arm around me. “I see you’ve met my friend Opal.”
The guy rubs his scraggly beard. “I did.”
Levi acts like he’s introducing me to his grandmother. He says, “The two of you should have a talk one day. Opal’s doing research on the area. I told her—you want to know something about Port Minton, Embree Bister’s the man to go to! He knows it all.”
I can tell the guy’s not too pleased. He looks me up and down as if I’m the one with the filthy clothes and stringy hair.
He says, “I thank you for that, Levi, but I’ll not be sharing my knowledge with the likes of her. I know her kind. Making her water on my property! That’s a slight I won’t forget, Levi. As you rightly implied, I’m a man with a long memory.”
Levi pauses like he’s going to say something, then changes his mind. He smiles and says, “I never argue with a man holding a gun, Embree, so I think we’ll just take off now. I’ll tell my mother I saw you. I know she was hoping you’d come into the clinic and get that foot looked at. Take care of yourself now, Embree.”
Embree has a little laugh at that. “You needn’t be worrying about me.” He pulls back his scrawny shoulders just to prove his point and says, “It’s the others what got to worry.”
We don’t stay around to find out what that means.
28
Monday, 3 p.m.
See the World with You, You and Mimi!
Long-time Mimi associate Olivia Segsworth leads a select group of adventurers on a tour of “places that touched Mimi’s heart.”
Levi guides me out of the woods as if I’m a bomb victim or something. He keeps saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay. That’s just Embree. He’s not going to do anything…”
We’re back on the beach before I can manage to get any words out. “Why didn’t you warn me?” I say.
Levi’s got this pained look on his face. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. I thought you were just going behind the dunes! You’d have been fine there. Embree never comes out in the open. I didn’t even know he was in the woods these days. He’s usually on the Island.”
I’m barely listening. I’ve got my head in my hands, trying to flush the sight of Embree out of my brain. Flush the stink of him out. When he came closer, I could smell him. Like dirty socks but kind of sweet too. Sugary. It’s enough to make me throw up just thinking about it. Can Levi smell it on me?
“Good thing I went to find out why you were taking so long. I was worried you’d twisted your ankle or something…” He puts this really serious look on his face. “Embree didn’t actually catch you ‘making yer water,’ did he?”
Levi’s trying to get me to laugh. I just glare at him.
“Then, come on, Opal. It wasn’t that bad!” He rubs my arm like he’s a dad and I’m a kid who just got cut from the soccer team.
I try to p
ull myself together and think straight. I’ve got too many questions—I don’t know where to start. I just go, “He’s a Bister?”
“Yup.”
“Is that why people call each other Bisters around here?”
Levi clicks his tongue. “People shouldn’t be saying that.”
“Yeah, well, he shouldn’t be pointing guns at people either! And he should take a bath occasionally too.” I’m on a rant. “And what’s with that cheesy pirate accent of his anyway? Like, what bad movie did he limp out of?”
Levi holds me at arm’s length. I try not to look so mean. I know that was mean. The guy can’t help being dirty. Or maybe he can. I don’t know. What business is it of mine?
“Sorry,” I say. “That was horrible. I’m just upset.”
Levi picks up the towel and our wet clothes and stuffs them in the grocery bag.
He goes, “That’s okay. You’re right. He shouldn’t be pointing guns at people. I imagine Embree’s not your favourite guy in the world right now…I doubt Embree’s ever been anybody’s favourite guy…”
“Is he always doing stuff like that?” I say. “He must be pretty bad for people to be using his name as an insult.”
Levi turns his head away from me and rubs his hands over his face. He’s not joking around any more.
“It’s not Embree’s fault. He didn’t start this whole thing.”
“Start what whole thing?” I say.
Levi closes his eyes and goes, “Oh boy…”
“What?” I say.
“You’re going to think we’re so backward…”
“Come on!” I say. “I just had the scare of my life. You got to tell me.” He pushes out his lips, he sighs, he nods. “Okay.” He takes my hand and leads me back up the boulder.
“There was a feud,” he says.
He’s right. These people are backward.
“I don’t know the whole story. I doubt anyone does any more. It happened, like, a hundred years ago or something. Anyway—see all those little islands out there? You wouldn’t know it now but people used to live on them. The one way over to the left–with the tumbledown house on it? That’s Bister Island. A long time ago, the people who lived there got really sick with some disease. They were quarantined—you know, kept separate from everyone else. That’s how the feud started. I guess the Bisters felt that their neighbours were deserting them in their time of need. Everyone else figured it was the only way to keep the disease from spreading. Things got ugly.”
“How ugly?”
“Don’t really know. I’ve heard stories. Let’s just say shots were fired on both sides. The Bisters kind of became outcasts after that. Everyone else left the islands and moved onto the mainland a good fifty years ago. The Bisters stayed.”
I look at the little rocky island sticking out of the ocean. “How did they survive out there?”
Levi shrugs. “Fishing, I guess, though people around here claimed they couldn’t live on that. I think that’s how the rumour started that the Bisters were wreckers.”
“Wreckers? What’s that?”
“People who lure ships in to crash on the rocks so they can steal their cargo…”
Is he making this stuff up? “Oh, come on. That sounds like something from a bad movie! No one would do that.”
He pats me on the head. “Your innocence is charming, my dear. Of course people did that. Not just here. It wasn’t a Port Minton thing. There are bad people all over the world. I just don’t know if the Bisters did it. Everyone around here was always accusing the Bisters of something.”
I go, “Yeah, well…maybe they deserved it. I mean, Embree’s not the most law-abiding guy by the looks of things.”
“True. He poaches deer. He makes moonshine. He spits in public. But he’s not to blame for everything. When I was little, any time anything went missing, someone would say a Bister took it. It was as if no one in all of Shelton County ever did anything wrong except the Bisters. We didn’t have bogeymen, we had Bisters. Kids didn’t go out as tramps on Halloween, they went out as Bisters. You weren’t an idiot, you were a Bister. Parents would threaten to wash their kids’ mouths out with soap for saying such a thing, but you know what kids are like. They said it anyway. Some of the adults said it too. Still do.”
He picks up a rock and pitches it into the water.
I say, “So do the Bisters still live out there?”
“No. Nobody does—except Embree, that is. About twenty years ago or something, the whole thing blew up. I don’t know what happened exactly. There was some big scandal. The government stepped in and forced them all off the Island.”
“So…why’s Embree still there, then?”
“Dunno. You’d have to ask him, I guess.”
I pull my face back in horror. Levi laughs.
“Just kidding…I only know what Dad told me. I guess Embree used to live full-time on the Island until it looked like he was going to starve. Now he only lives there in the summer. He camps out here all winter. He claims it’s his land. Claims it’s belonged to the Bisters since the King gave it to them in 1605 or some damn thing. Who knows? He might be right. Embree’s not stupid. And he’s not crazy either. But you can see why the townspeople wouldn’t want to have too much to do with him.”
“So…how come you do?” I say.
Levi shakes his head. “I don’t. Not really. When I was a kid, I was out here a lot with Dad. We’d always drop by Embree’s camp, just to keep the wheels greased, you know. Embree’s not the type of guy you can scare into doing what you want him to do. You got to kind of keep on his good side. It helps that Mum’s a nurse too. She comes out every so often to check Embree over. He never does what she tells him to, but I think he appreciates that she’s trying to help. That’s why I knew he wouldn’t shoot you.”
“You knew that for sure?”
He rocks his hand back and forth. “Pretty sure. Good thing you didn’t actually pee on his property, though. You’d have been dead meat then.”
29
Tuesday, 6 a.m.
Radio Mimi
“Making the Best of a Bad Situation.” Mimi discloses how a potential disaster turned into one of her most cherished moments.
The room is quiet. Lip-Smacking Girl left yesterday. Good for me but bad for Kay. My twenty dollars a night isn’t going to go very far to keep this place running.
I look out the window. It’s foggy and wet, but I don’t care about the weather. All I can think about is last night. It keeps coming back to me in waves—big waves that almost knock me over.
We were starving after being at the beach all day so Levi took me to this sad little diner out on the highway. It had a big sign that said World’s Finest Fish and Chips. We sat on orange plastic chairs and looked out at the water while we waited for our order to come up. We talked a bit more about Embree and the Bisters but mostly we just goofed around. Levi told me funny stories about him and his brothers having jellyfish fights and sneaking into the liquor store dressed up as old ladies and tipping an outhouse over while his uncle was inside.
I told lame stories about being an only child. He didn’t seem to notice how bad they were. He always laughed like I was a regular stand-up comedian. He kept nudging me in the side or wiping little bits of hair off my face or putting his arm around my shoulder and whispering things in my ear even though no one else was listening.
He asked about my parents. I told him my dad was a musician—true—and my mother was a relationship counsellor—more or less true. (I mean, that’s what all the ads make out. “Want a happy marriage? Let your husband spend time with another woman. Mimi Schwartz! Weekdays at 3.”) He thought it was funny—as in “peculiar”—that a relationship counsellor would be divorced, but I said it happens all the time. I think he felt sorry for me. You know, an only child, divorced parents and everything. It almost made me laugh. He’s the one who lives in this little nothing town and has to do joe jobs to go to university!
But then I looked at those eyes o
f his and that smile he’s always got plastered on his face and I thought, who’s the happy one here?
The lady at the counter called out Levi’s name. He went and picked up these huge orders of fish and chips. He poured vinegar over everything, then wolfed the whole plate down in about three minutes. I made it through about half of mine, which frankly was still pretty impressive. I would have eaten more but I felt too full. (I hate to sound corny but that’s what looking at him did to me.)
It was just starting to get dark by the time we left. I said I was cold—I got too much sun, I guess—so he put his arm around me. We were walking out the door like that when this little blue car pulled into the parking lot and screeched to a halt right in front of us. I had to jump out of the way.
Krystal and one of her skinny friends got out. I felt sick.
Sick, fat, ugly, stupid and scared.
Krystal’s nostrils were all flared up as if something didn’t smell quite right. She went, “Hello, Levi,” then gave me the once-over. “You run out of french fries to chuck at him or something?”
If she were in a movie, I would have laughed. She was right out of some teen comedy. The whole mean-girl-hand-on-the-hip thing. The big-eyed sidekick in the matching outfit. The little flip of her head.
I didn’t laugh now.
I didn’t say anything. I turned into this solid block of nothing. I saw myself exactly as she saw me. She was all perfect in her halter top and her little white shorts and her sunglasses pulled up on top of her shiny hair and there I was with my ugly bare arms and my wrinkled shirt and my belly all bulging from fish and chips.
Levi went, “Oh, come on, Krystal. Who’d go and chuck Barb’s french fries? Speaking of which, you’d better hurry if you want some. She’s closing in five minutes.” He winked at her.
He talked to Krystal exactly the same way he talked to me. The same tone. The same sparkly eyes. The same little arm-rub at the end. I felt this sob kind of bunch up in the back of my throat. I looked away and swallowed.