by Moray, Tabby
“How is that possible? He has been missing for three weeks. How can he send you a letter while he is missing?”
“Maybe he sent it before he went missing? That seems the most likely explanation.”
“Yes, I see. Where was the postage from?” he barked, his tone vaguely interrogatory.
“I believe South Africa and Madagascar.”
“Both?”
“If I recall correctly, yes.” Ava was beginning to get very nervous. The whole trip had felt last minute and strange from the outset. Now Frederic’s reaction confirmed that her original suspicions were correct. As if her uncle going missing wasn’t strange enough. Now she was getting letters from a missing man.
“I do not understand any of this,” he said with a sigh of frustration.
“Look, I got a letter in the mail telling me to call you when I arrived in Johannesburg and that’s what I did.”
“Wait--you are here? As in the continent of Africa?” He sounded shocked. In his agitation, his accent, which sounded very French moments before, sounded even more so now.
“Yes, that’s what he told me to do in his letter.” Of course in retrospect, Ava realized it would’ve made a lot more sense to have called him before she left the states. The voice on the other end cursed several times before responding. Clearly he agreed with her.
“Look—I will not be able to retrieve you until tomorrow,” he said, brusquely. “Perhaps even the day after. We will see. I am too busy here to really get away at all but I suppose I have no choice. I guess in American you have many hours to waste, eh? Not so much work as we have here?”
“It’s ‘America’ not ‘American’ and I work quite hard, thank you very much.” Ava’s temperature rose as the surly voice on the other end grew surlier.
“I certainly cannot buy last minute tickets to America as you just have,” he said, coolly. “I have to plan and scrape together paper money to make this happen. You? You decide to come and you arrive. Therefore, I assume in America--at least insofar as you are concerned--that you have an easy job where you can take off whenever you want. Am I wrong about this, Ava?”
“You are very wrong, Freddy--,”
“My name is Frederic,” he retorted.
“Look Freddy,” Ava enunciated each syllable to needle him further. She was so infuriated she didn’t bother to explain that her Uncle Tony had purchased the ticket. “Don’t worry about picking me up. I’ll get there on my own.”
“No, that is not a good idea for a single woman--” The voice on the other end was very alarmed.
Good.
“I’ll decide what a good idea is for me, Freddy.” Ava jabbed a thumb in her chest. “I’m an independent American woman who knows how to get where she needs to go without the help of anyone.”
“But--!”
“I’ll see you when I get there,” she interrupted. “All I need is the address.”
“Uncle will kill me if anything happens to you. Please do not do this, Ava.” He was pleading now, his tone conciliatory and agreeable, but she was having none of it.
“The address please.” The one thing that would definitely make Ava do something was when someone told her she couldn’t. It wasn’t one of her best personality traits, but it had helped her out on more than one occasion.
“I will not give you the address.” His cool refusal infuriated her and the thread of amusement she detected didn’t help matters. “But I will tell you, since you are a stubborn and determined American woman, the best way to get here will be to take Air Madagascar to Madagascar, then to take the Palm Cruise Line to Réunion. From Réunion, you go to Port Belle Chanteuse. Look for a large blue fishing boat. The owners name is Tanni. You must catch him before he leaves at two pm. He will bring you to Saruma and I will meet you when you arrive.”
“I don’t need you to meet me,” she said, mulishly.
“Oh, you need me. You just do not know it yet.”