Are You Seeing Me? (9 page)

“MARC…MARC! WE HAD A DEAL, REMEMBER? YES, yes, I know you think it was important to call, but this trip is more important, okay?
Much
more important.”

I returned from the toilet to find Justine leaning against the steering wheel, head pressed against her forearm. She is talking on her phone. To begin with, I didn’t know who she was talking to. I know now. Her face is hidden, but her slumped body and the tone of her voice tell me she is not enjoying the conversation. The fun we were sharing on our drive has disappeared.

I knew something uncomfortable was coming—I should have been prepared. When we first stopped, I didn’t like the dark-colored, all-metal toilet building. It looked like a prison, or one of those observation huts where scientists watch nuclear explosions from a long distance away. I did a quick seismic reading on the ground beside the car.

“Earth behaving?” asked Justine. She spoke over her shoulder as she walked between two parked Dodge Ram trucks toward the toilet.

“I’m not sure,” I replied.

She waved and opened the door to the block, which had a jammed lock and graffiti written on it. I did a second reading, this time placing the seismometer on the gravel at the edge of the paved parking lot. The result was no different from the first, but I felt
incorrect
, like I’d watched
The Accidental Spy
without any subtitles.

And I still feel that way now, only worse. Justine leans back in her seat, changes the phone to her other ear. “Marc, I do know how you feel about it. I knew the week before we got on the plane! You made your feelings very clear and your concerns have been duly noted. It doesn’t change our plans…”

I can see most of her face now—it’s red and glistening. The muscles in her cheek and jaw are tense.

“You’re worried—I get it. You’re looking out for me and Pez, you don’t want me—us—to get hurt. That’s very nice, Marc, very noble. You’re being the good, dutiful boyfriend. You’re also being the interfering, frustrating boyfriend…”

I don’t think she is going to cry. That is a relief. I don’t cope well when she cries.

“Do that. Take some time to think it over…Yes, try to see it from my perspective. Please…That’s sweet…Okay, bye.”

She presses the button to end the call and says four swearwords quickly, one after the other. She begins massaging her temples.

“All we need right now is a bit of time and space—not a guardian angel hanging over our shoulders. Right?”

“Right,” I say. I don’t really understand what Justine is asking, but I suspect that is the right answer.

“A boyfriend. That’s all he needs to be, not a hero.”

“Not a hero,” I repeat.

We sit in silence. I count off the seconds in my head. Fifteen. Thirty. Forty-five. The roar of a truck braking on the highway upsets my count at fifty-two. Tires scream. I see the white-blue smoke, the long skid marks. I smell the burning rubber. There’s a crash—the guardrail. It’s no match for a forty-eight-ton semitrailer veering off the road, out of control. Nearing the edge of the cliff, the driver jumps out of the cab. He hits the dirt and rolls as the truck flies off the edge of the cliff, hanging in the air for a second before plunging down into the rocks and trees below. The giant sounds of destruction shrink and shrink and shrink until there is silence. Someone else witnessing the accident might think it’s over. It’s not over. I count backwards from three, then cover my ears.
BOOM!
The explosion comes through the ground, up through my feet. It shakes the mountains. It blackens the sky. It pulses in my head like a—

“Boyfriend,” says Justine.

I take my hands away from my ears, wipe my nose on my sleeve, sneak a look at my sister. She is staring ahead, through the windshield and out to where the road gets swallowed by the mountains. Whatever emotions she is feeling, I don’t immediately recognize them. Her face is somehow smaller, duller, like a camping lantern with the flame turned down. It doesn’t even really belong to Justine. I take a deep breath and ask an appropriate question. “Can I do something to help?”

“Wanna drive?”

“What?”

“Kidding.” She blinks twice and lets her head flop forward. “Thanks for the offer, Pez. I’ll be okay.”

She lifts her head and turns. She pulls the rubber band on her wrist and releases so it whips her skin. I don’t like it when she does that, but it seems to be part of her routine. Her face loosens up and she smiles. It’s not a proper smile, though—it doesn’t show any teeth. Justine had that face a lot when we were in school. Whenever Dad saw it, he would say,
Lost your dentures, tree frog?
or
That’s your grin-and-bury-it look, tree frog.
She points at the seismometer in my lap.

“I just had a little rumble, that’s all,” she says. “Take more than that to shake our happy holiday.”

I nod because I know Justine would like me to agree with her, but I don’t really believe what she says. She is not happy. And I don’t think she was joking when she said she would like me to drive. But I can’t drive. One lesson per year is not enough.

Perry Richter saves the day.

That is the future.

But not today.

As we leave the small parking lot and accelerate back onto the Coquihalla Highway, I put the seismometer on the floor, holding it between my feet. I will keep it there from now on.

THERE ARE NO OTHER RUMBLES for the remaining 161 kilometers of our journey. There are only interesting and beautiful sights for us to see. In my head, I make a separate list for each. By the time we reach the
Peachland Welcomes You
and
Historic Peachland
signs, they are as follows:

Interesting
The abandoned Coquihalla Highway tollbooth
Signs for putting chains on your tires (they don’t spell
it
tyres
here) in winter
Overhead bridges that make sure moose and deer and
bears are safe crossing the highway
Fences that make sure the animals use the
overhead bridges
The change from forest mountains to desert hills
Large sections of forest that have died and gone brown
because of a pest called the pine beetle

Beautiful
The snow on the tips of the mountains beside the
Coquihalla Highway
A tiny waterfall running down the side of one of
the mountains
The jade color of the Coquihalla River
A hawk that flew in the sky above our car when we
turned onto Highway 97C
An orange Lamborghini that raced past our car at the
Okanagan Highway turnoff

The final part of the trip—down the long road that runs beside Okanagan Lake and flattens at the town of Peachland—could make it onto both lists. The lake is more like an ocean, calm and blue and reaching for the horizon. The whole town is positioned on the hillside to the right; rows of houses overlook the water, no one missing out on the scenery. It’s like a movie theater—whether you’re front row or at the back, everyone has a good seat for the show. And the movie doesn’t have the thrills and spills of
Rumble in the Bronx
or
Shanghai Knights
. Just three sailboats and a water-skier and quite a few swimmers and several people riding Jet Skis. But it does have Ogopogo, a mystery better than any movie because it is real and not fiction.

“Wow,” says Justine. “Never seen anything like this.”

“Wow,” I repeat.

We find our rental house—it is halfway up the hill, on Beatrice Road. It belongs to a stranger—
Friend of a friend, with maybe another friend thrown in there as well
is what Justine told me. She said the friend’s friend’s friend travels to Las Vegas at this time every year to earn her children’s inheritance and escape the tourists. She showed me photos of the house, outside and in, so I would be prepared. Looking around it now, I’m glad she did. Almost everything is where I expect it to be—kitchen, bedrooms, toilet, the downstairs room with gym equipment, the big glass doors. It doesn’t feel like home—that makes me slightly anxious—but it doesn’t feel incorrect either. I don’t see myself as a burglar or a trespasser or a squatter like the one they kicked out of our neighbor Mrs. McGuire’s house after she died of a stroke. This is good practice for Fair Go.

After we’ve brought the bags in, Justine wipes her brow and puts her hands on her hips. “I need to go shopping,” she says. “Gotta grab some groceries and some of your stuff so you don’t fade away, Cap’n Ahab.”

Justine has called me Captain Ahab before. She’s explained the joke to me several times (and I tried to read a few chapters of
Moby Dick
), but I still don’t find it funny. I think it’s a bit stupid. Captain Ahab and I are nothing alike. He had a wooden leg; I have two regular legs. We also have completely different occupations—he was captain of a boat called the
Pequod
; I am a senior washologist at Troy’s Car Care. One way we are similar is that he was an orphan and I am sort of an orphan because Mum left and Dad died. Justine claims the joke is good because both of us are obsessed with mythical beasts of the sea. Although that’s true, I still don’t think it’s choice material. Ahab chased the great white whale because he wanted to harpoon it, as revenge for giving him a disability. Killing Moby Dick was the only thing he was interested in—he was obsessed. I have lots of interests—earthquakes, Jackie Chan movies, washing cars. And if I found Ogopogo in Okanagan Lake I might video it or take a photo of it, but there is no way in the world I would ever want to kill it, even if it hurt me. Killing something because you were injured by it and now you’re afraid of it and you don’t understand it—that’s not being strong. That’s being a coward. That’s pathetic.

“You go,” I say to Justine, looking at her knees instead of her face. “I’ll stay here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

“Like an electric eel.” Now,
that’s
a funny joke.

“You won’t get stressed out?”

“It’s good practice for Fair Go.”

Justine waits a few seconds, then shrugs her shoulders. “Okay. Here’s my number—call me if you need me. Oh, and if the house phone rings, don’t pick up. Let the answering machine get it. Don’t listen to the message, either—that would be rude.”

“What if it’s you?”

“It won’t be.”

“What if it’s Ogopogo?”

“That’s different. Tell him we’ll see him tomorrow, maybe the day after. We’ll have tea and scones.”

I AM READY TO BE INDEPENDENT for a little while.

My wish is to do some important house chores—Justine will be pleased if I complete a responsible job or two—but there’s nothing for me to do. The kitchen sink is clear. The dishwasher is empty. The garbage bins all have new bags. The toilets all have unused rolls. Apart from a small pile of pebbles at the end of the driveway, there’s no dust or dirt to be seen. Everything is neat and tidy and in its rightful place.

Usually, I’m happy when everything is organized like this. After I’ve cleaned and waxed the cars at Troy’s, I always smile when the owner says how pleased they are with my work. And I wave when the sparkling vehicle exits the driveway. Today, the work is done and there is only disappointment. I decide to do a second tour of the house, turning on the light switches as I go. I know this is bad for the environment, but I don’t like the dark. Some people with my disability enjoy the dark very much; they find it calming and painless, and it slows their minds down so that thoughts can be put together in order and make sense. Not me—I like the light, just as most normal people do.

I take four deep breaths and return to the lounge room. There is so much wood and glass in this house. I doubt it would stay standing in a 6.0 shake. I walk to the edge of the room and press my face against the sliding door that opens onto a small patio and the view of Okanagan Lake. The glass smells like Windex and newspaper ink. A wind chime suspended above the patio sways and dings. The thought that I’m alone in a stranger’s home on the other side of the world sneaks into my head. I block it out by reciting the first-aid action plan and flicking the fingers of my right hand. For extra relief, I head for the main toilet. I take a leak, wiping up the splashes on the seat and pressing the half-flush button when I’m done. At least I can do one good thing for the environment.