North Fork (9 page)

It was a real emergency, even though I know they'll never understand. It's like they think that by giving me a comfortable life with nice things, they are taking care of me. But it didn't feel right, and now that I'm away from it, I've come to realize that I can't remember a time when it was right, when I felt close to my mother, and being around Sterling has always felt like ice water. I don't really care what he thinks, but I know Bonnie does. He gives her this life that she wants or needs, and I've been very afraid of disappointing Bonnie. I mean really afraid, like there's some memory I can't pull up from some place I don't want to go again. I'm so afraid, I will do anything to avoid a confrontation, and have lived very carefully by her rules because I believe I know what will happen if I change. But I have already changed. I've been changing for a long time. I have this terror of what she will do when she finally sees it.

I read this book called
The Color of Water
, a true story written by this Black guy whose mom was Jewish. When her family found out she was married to a Black man, they disowned her, with a funeral and everything, like she was dead to them. That's the way Bonnie and Sterling make me feel, like as long as I'm living their way, they'll provide a comfortable life, but if I quit going to church and start getting bad grades, they'll break off any connection altogether. I guess I've decided that they'll be happier believing I'm dead than having to live with the real me walking around as a blemish on their lives. That's what I probably became when Natalie got my note.

I decided to leave the car at the mall in Burlington. It's close to I-5 and I thought it would make them think I went to Seattle or Vancouver. When I first began to have the fantasy, back before I found the bike and it started getting real, I thought I would go to Vancouver. I probably could have driven there in Bonnie's car. Kids go there all the time because the drinking age is nineteen.
Carloads of kids from Western cross over every weekend, and at the border all they want to see is a birth certificate and some picture ID. Having the car would be nice, but it would have made me too visible and easy to find. I needed some time to myself in a new place, the kind of time people get in dry-out clinics or hospitals after they have a breakdown. I haven't come completely unglued yet, though finding the birth certificate made me come close. And now Grant has me hanging out over the edge.

The birth certificate was a total blindside, but one that validated what I was feeling anyway. I wasn't even really snooping, at least not at first. Bonnie has these black pearl earrings that I love. She's really clothes-conscious and spends a lot of money on her looks. It's one of the few ways we've tried to bond. She likes to take me shopping and she has good taste if you want to look like that. She's really girly and because of her, I guess, I have that side, but it's something I learned and it doesn't come from inside me. But that day the earrings were the perfect compliment to what I was wearing and I wanted to find them. She and Sterling had gone to Seattle, so I went into their room and looked in her jewelry box. She does let me wear her stuff, and I had seen her go to that drawer before to add her little touch. Otherwise I wouldn't have snooped.

The earrings weren't in the top tier of the box. It's big and has tiers like for fishing tackle, so I lifted the top layer. Still no black pearls. I started looking for something else that would work and saw the end of this envelope sticking out from underneath the box. I'm not sure what made me do it; just plain curiosity, I guess. I was alone in the house, not in a huge hurry, and I pulled out the envelope. It wasn't sealed, and on it, in Bonnie's handwriting, the words “birth certificate” were written in pencil. Inside, I found this official-looking document that was from Canada and it had my name, Kristen, as the middle name, but a different last name, MacKenzie, which even sounds Canadian. So instead of being
Kristen Adrienne Nichols, I'm suddenly Amy Kristen MacKenzie. It sent chills down my spine, really—like now I know where that saying comes from.

The birth date was different too, like a year-and-a-half before mine, which makes me nineteen now and seems old, like I should already be in college. I don't feel nineteen, and it makes me wonder where that time went. It makes me wonder how Bonnie got the birth certificate she used for me to get my driver's license. Maybe the same way I got the fake license I'm using now.

I was at this party in Bellingham with Natalie and there were some kids from our town there. That's how we knew about it. It was down below the college towards the main part of town and Cellophane Square. Most of the houses in that area are rented by students. I was sitting on this nasty couch that smelled like old beer, and a guy was trying to impress me, hitting on me. He and these other nerd guys were all talking about fake ID. He brought me some pizza and asked me if I wanted a drink from the vodka bottle they were passing around, then showed me this driver's license that had his picture on it.

“Are you really twenty-one?” I asked. He showed me another license that looked identical, but had a birth date that made him nineteen. “What does one of those cost?”

“Depends on who you are and who you know,” he said.

So I asked more questions, like could you change the name, and he said you could, but it was harder and would cost more. So I paid him to get me one with the name Amy Kristen MacKenzie on it and the birth date from the Canadian birth certificate. He thought I was crazy for not having it say I was twenty-one, and said I could pass easily if I dressed older. I said I just thought it would be cool to have and I might use it to go clubbing in Canada with my friends, but that I didn't drink that much (true) and thought it was stretching it to say I was that old. So he got me the license and it got me here.

The Canadian Customs guy at the ferry dock in Sidney hardly looked at it. The picture was of the old me and doesn't look much like I look now, so I was relieved, but I think if you look closely enough you could tell it's me. The line was short and everyone else in it was on vacation, so I fit right in with my bike and backpack. I had the birth certificate and license in my hand, ready. He took them from me, but it seemed like he was just doing it because I had them out. He glanced at the birth certificate and said, “Canadian citizen?'

I said, “Yes.”

“But you live in the U.S.?”

“My mom's a U. S. citizen.”

“Purpose of your visit?”

“To see my dad.”

Then he asked me what seemed like memorized questions about what I was bringing, like did I have any weapons or presents for anyone, which I didn't. Then he said, “Have a nice stay,” and handed my birth certificate and driver's license back to me and turned his attention to the person in line behind me. He didn't ask about the bike or to look in my pack. I don't know what I expected to happen.

I hadn't slept much in the back seat of Bonnie's car at the mall. I was afraid the security guard would come around and shine his light in the car, but he didn't. I might have slept an hour total, dozing for short periods. It was late when I got done with the change-over at Amanda's cabin and the SKAT bus leaves really early, so I only had a few hours to kill. I knew I had to be at the ferry terminal before 7:30, since the ferry leaves at 7:45.

The big challenge was getting from the mall in Burlington to the ferry dock which is way out by Washington Park, like five miles past Anacortes, and the simplest thing would have been to leave the car at the park or even in Anacortes, but that would
have been a giveaway, and I was counting on them not thinking I'm here in Victoria. This whole thing has been pretty surreal. I mean it had way too many parts to it to work, but I didn't worry about it all that much because I hadn't committed any crime or anything, so if I got caught it wasn't going to be the end of the world.

But it did work. Now I wish they would find me so I wouldn't have to make the decision myself to go back.

I was planning to take the bus from Mount Vernon to Anacortes and was riding my bike along Burlington Mall Boulevard towards the new bus terminal in Mount Vernon, trying to get there in time to catch the first bus. It was still dark and there were hardly any cars, and any cop that went by might stop me just to ask what I was doing, riding in the dark, so I had a story ready. The bus driver was my big worry because the busses are nearly empty in the morning, and even though I look way different, I would have to take the bike helmet off and the driver would likely remember me because of having to deal with the bike. It might have created a reason to look for me in Victoria.

It was a complicated plan, and it was totally strange, the way it worked out. I was on the bike near Home Depot, getting close to the Burlington side of the bridge, when this pickup pulls alongside me like I did with Corey that night he took me to his campsite. The passenger window was open, and it was this old guy who lives on Natalie's street.

“Want a ride?”

I could tell he had been drinking, and he didn't seem to recognize me. He's like old enough to be my grandfather. In fact his granddaughters go to my school. One of his front teeth is missing and he would look scary if you'd never seen him before, but he comes to a lot of school sports. Everyone seems to like him, so I didn't panic.

“I'm all right,” I said. I wanted him to go away and not attract
attention to me.

“A young girl like you shouldn't be on the road by yourself in the dark. There are bad people out here.”

“I'm all right,” I said. “I do this all the time.”

“Put your bike in the back. I'll take you home. You could get hurt.”

“I'm not going home. How do I know you won't hurt me?”

“I have granddaughters like you, and I'm no good that way anyway. I mean I couldn't hurt you, but someone else that could might come along here. Let me take you home.”

So I stopped, and he stopped the truck and I put the bike in the back and got in.

“Where do you live?”

“I'm not going home. I'm going to work. I work in Anacortes at a hotel, cleaning rooms. My car is broken and I'll lose my job if I don't show up. I was going to take the back roads.”

“I'll take you there.”

The truck was about the same year as Natalie's aunt's Grenada. The muffler was loud and you could smell the exhaust, but he kept his window open for the air, making it freezing in the cab. He didn't cross the bridge but turned onto the road that goes along the dike behind Home Depot.

“This is the shortest way,” he said to reassure me, like he expected me to be afraid of being off the main road with him. He got on Highway 20 before the Shell, scaring me with the way he let the truck wander in and out of the lane. I was sure we would be stopped, but we weren't. In Anacortes, he pulled off the highway onto the road that runs toward the marina through the industrial park.

“Where do you want me to let you off?”

“By the Safeway,” I said. “Since you gave me a ride, I'm early and have time to get something to eat.”

“Young girls shouldn't be out alone like this. You tell your
father he should give you a ride.”

“He would if he could,” I said. “You're a nice man. Thank you.”

I don't think he recognized me, and the rest was easy. It was daylight by then and the road out to the ferry is straight with only a few hills. The shoulder has a bike lane or sidewalk most of the way and the traffic wasn't heavy yet. Since the ferries go through the San Juans, stopping at the big islands where bicycling is popular, a person on a bicycle heading toward the dock is a common enough sight and doesn't attract attention. I got there with plenty of time to spare and even sat in the warmth of the waiting room until it was time to board, too tired to think much about anything. I didn't see anyone I knew, but I didn't really care. I was just putting one foot in front of the other to see how far I could get.

I had been on those ferries several times before with the school. We play soccer with both Friday Harbor and Orcas. Waiting for the ferry seemed normal and I bought the same onion bagel with cream cheese I always buy. Only this time I had coffee too, with cream in it.

It was about 7:00 when I got there, so I didn't have to wait long. It's funny how sometimes you make decisions that end up being important just because someone assumes she knows what you will do. I rode up to the ticket booth on the bike and the woman inside assumed I was taking it, so she charged me for it and I paid even though the bike seemed like a complication, extra baggage that I hadn't thought of as anything but a way to get to the ferry dock. I knew I could get a bus from Sidney to Victoria, but wasn't sure they would let me bring the bike and didn't know if I wanted to ride it that far or what the roads would be like.

The trip through the islands is beautiful. It was the weekend. There were sailboats and seagulls and sun, and that wonderful smell of saltwater that makes it feel like summer, so I just went
with it. I followed the other walk-on passengers up the steel gangplank and through Customs and found myself pushing a bicycle in Sidney, British Columbia, less than three hours from home, but in a different country, a different world. In my pack I had a few changes of clothes. I had money in my pocket and I looked like someone I hardly recognized in the mirror.

Without the bike, I wouldn't have met Grant.

Okay, so I've been in here way too long now. The novelty has clearly worn off. It has sucked from the moment the sheriff's car showed up by the sewer treatment plant the morning after she disappeared, but time went by faster in the beginning. Even if it was in a very bad way, I was treated like a kind of celebrity and got a lot of attention. Most of the time they were pretty polite, but not always. Sometimes they were downright mean, and lied to trick me into confessing. Considering what they think I've done, it's understandable, and I've thought about confessing. Just like suicide, confessing a lie is a real option, but I haven't done either yet.