The Shore Girl (15 page)

In the trailer, the after-the-storm air tasted wet and smelled like Harmony. I lay on the mattress a long time, staring at the grimy ceiling. I stayed there until I couldn't put it off any longer. I had an appointment with the detective. Farley was in his field, straddling a quad with his stubby legs, surveying the storm's damage the way good farmers do. He waved at me wildly as I drove by.

Today, Elroy
PI
wore a bright yellow shirt that billowed over his chest and shoulders like a girl's nightie. He sat on the other side of his desk, clucking into the phone while I waited, something about it'll be all right dear and you're better off now it's out in the open. I wondered if the client was imaginary, if I was his only one, and he was whispering soothingly to a dial tone to prepare me for the worst.

“My apologies for that, Jake,” he said, slamming the phone down. “Thanks for coming in.”

“Have you found him yet?” Elroy
PI
had sugar sparkles glittering on his chin. No sign of the doughnut box.

“Unfortunately, no. He hasn't turned up.”

I waited. Elroy pushed back his chair, stood, and came over to my side of the desk. He hopped up awkwardly and crossed one gangly leg over the other, grabbed onto his bony knee with both hands, leaned back and gave me a sympathetic look. I wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled.

“Don't be disheartened, Jake. There's good news in this. Morgues, hospitals, police stations — all clear. License checks — nothing. Airlines — nothing. I've been very thorough. Your brother doesn't appear to be dead or dying.”

“So now what?”

“You mentioned Mexico. Technically speaking, Mexico makes it harder. They just don't have the connections we can hook into from here.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Do you want me to keep going?”

Elroy studied me, his eyes on mine unfaltering, rock steady. He looked like he'd toned it down a notch or two, grown up all of a sudden. I admitted there might be more to the man than his bumblebee outfit. Maybe I'd been itching to slap the sugar from his chin with a rolled up newspaper for all the wrong reasons. Maybe I hadn't been listening. All I know is he was making me decide. Matt was probably not anywhere he didn't want to be. My decision what I wanted to do with that.

“Could you get to Mexico?” I asked.

“I could and I would. It's your decision.”

“For $
500
a day, of course.”

“If we keep going, it's the next logical step.”

There was nothing logical here. I handed him another wad of cash. It wasn't hope I was buying, just time.

* * *

Dollhouses are hard to find. I ended up on the outskirts of High River at a converted country house called Charlie's Dollhouse Shop. There was a swinging sign above the creaky summer cottage door with a painting of a two-storey home in the palm of a man's hand. As I entered, an old guy's voice chirped from the back, “Be with you in a minute.”

It was a small place, crammed from floor to ceiling with bins of miniatures in baggies. Little porcelain toilets and bathtubs, baby cradles, chairs that rock, candlesticks the size of matches, tea sets no bigger than a child's fingernail. Black Labs with sticks in their mouths, cats curled into circles, mommies, daddies, children of all little sizes. Cows, ducks, pigs. Crabapple trees and evergreens, tiny wicker flower baskets. Charlie had all the fixings.

“And how can I help you today, sir?” He'd come out from behind a set of red curtains. He looked like a dollhouse man, miniature himself, maybe half my height. Stooped shoulders, tiny round wire spectacles, balding head, an old-fashioned red sweater and wool pants with suspenders. I picked up a little porcelain grandpa wrapped in plastic. They could be brothers. “Are you Charlie?” I dropped the man back to his bin and extended my arm to shake hands.

“The one and only. What can I do you for today?”

We shook hands. “Name's Jake. Looking for a dollhouse.”

“Come to the right place. Got a model in mind?”

I stared at him blankly.

“Haven't seen you in here before. New to the dollhouse world?”

I started to laugh when he said this, but he was perfectly serious, so I pretended to clear my throat.

“I'm not really taking it up. I just want a dollhouse. One dollhouse. Like that one over there.” I pointed to the table display in front of the cash register.

“Ah, the Hillsdale. She's a beauty.”

He instructed me with a wave of his arm to follow him until we stood over the Hillsdale like God and his sidekick. The house was about as big as a beer cooler. Two storeys, blue-painted wood with a multi-gabled roof and a wraparound white gazebo porch. A solid country home for a farmer and his family.

“Straight out of the heartland and rich in tradition,” Charlie said.

I put my hands behind my back so as not to topple the whole thing over with my clumsy fingers, then I bent down and stuck my eye against the top-storey window. It was the farmer's bedroom. Gold-etched pictures on the walls, white doilies on the dressers, a full length mirror in a wooden frame.

“One-inch-scale furniture, moving pieces, durable all wood, pre-cut, and easy assembly,” he said.

“I'll take it. And everything inside too.”

“This is a display model, son,” he said. “They don't come pre-assembled. You have to build the Hillsdale yourself.”

“I'll take this one.”

“Sorry, that's not how it works,” Charlie shuffled behind the counter. He eyed me up and down, sniffing for danger. I wondered if he had a gun under the shelf. I figured I had to level with him or these negotiations would go sour.

“Charlie, it's for this kid I know. A friend of mine. She just had her twelfth birthday. Name your price.”

“Name's Jake, you said?”

I nodded impatiently, wanting to get on with it.

“These houses need to be personally crafted by an adult — sanded, glued, painted. They're one-of-a-kind collectibles. I can sell you the kit. Got two in the back.”

“I don't have time to build her this house,” I said, reaching into my jeans pocket for my wallet.

“But that's the whole point. It takes time to build one of these.”

“She'll be leaving soon. The girl and her mother. It'll be too late.” I was embarrassed by the way my words tumbled out.

“These houses are not toys.” Charlie took off his glasses and wiped them on a counter rag, then returned them to his face, hooking one ear at a time. His fingers were age-spotted and jittery, and I wondered how they could put together such delicate, tiny pieces. He studied me closely, cheeks crinkling, his eyes magnified behind his glasses, seeing everything.

Cracked ribs, swollen joints, bruised heart, the works.

“She's old for her age,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.

“A lot of love went into this particular Hillsdale.”

“Like I said, just name your price.”

“You're sure now.”

“Absolutely,” I replied, though I wasn't sure of anything anymore.

* * *

Last Monday, the physiotherapists told me I was finished. Our eight weeks were done. I called on Elroy
PI
and told him he was done too. He put his hand on my shoulder and said I was making the right choice.

Dr. Williamson handed me another prescription for Tylenol
3
this morning. I can breathe without wincing, but my left arm still can't unscrew a jar of pickles.

I must have banged my left side just hard enough for something inside to come unstuck. Somewhere between my falling off a rig and my sitting at this table, I decided. I'm done. I'm done with landscapes not mine, with places where I need a work visa to tell me who I am. I'll get a building permit instead, start with the foundation, and work my way up.

I've got the Hillsdale displayed on the trailer's tabletop. Charlie took his time packaging her up for me. He rummaged behind the curtain for the right-sized box, then he wrapped the furniture and tiny knickknacks in bubbled plastic. He talked the whole time, cautioning me about house moving, location-location-location, the dry Alberta air. As I was leaving, he threw in some landscaping — yellow shrubs and a fuzzy green mat for grass. He asked if I wanted the family to go with it, but I said no. I drove straight from Charlie's to the campground, the Hillsdale strapped beside me on the front seat.

I knew they were gone before I started down the little hill. I could smell their leaving in the empty air. Tidy packers. No wine corks, no bottle caps, no paper trail. No trace at all, aside from the deep grooves of tires spinning through wet ground. I parked in their empty space and sat at their empty picnic table, chipping paint with my thumbnail. Then I walked along the river. A breeze scattered the leaves in the trees, dropping speckled shadows across my path. When I got to where I first spotted them, I chose the whitest bark from the gnarly old birch tree, and carved “Rebee was here” with my army knife. Harmony was never really here; her life was tangled up elsewhere. I knew how that was.

It's a fine-looking house. The architect can scale the plan, add a few more rooms, make it fit this land. From my top-storey room, facing west, I might be able to see the pumpjack with a pair of binoculars. If Matt comes home, the main floor bedroom will save him the stairs.

I could see Farley's truck signalling at my gate. I headed outside to greet him, limping only slightly. I'd offer him a cup of coffee, see what shape his face screwed into over that.

REBEE

WE PULLED IN LAST NIGHT — HARMONY, VIC, AND ME.
We slept awful in our stuffy motel room.

Normally, Vic only has to stop fidgeting for a few minutes and she's asleep — doesn't matter where she is, sitting on the toilet, leaning against a wall.

We shared a bed and every time she rolled towards me I rolled away. My skin felt shivery and my lungs ached and I wanted to open the window but it was nailed shut. Harmony had the other bed to herself.

Every time I got up to go to the bathroom she was staring at the ceiling.

Vic smoked up a storm, and when her Players were all gone, she sent me to pick up a pack from the vending machine in the coffee shop. I felt my skin getting crisper, like burning rice paper. It hurt to breathe and a sharp pain drove through my forehead when I moved, like I'd been buried in hot sand upside down with my eyes wide open.

I don't know why I walked past the cigarettes and sat down in the red booth. I concentrated on the napkin holder, which was almost empty, only two wrinkly blue ones, like somebody had used them and shoved them back in. I stared at the salt and pepper shakers shaped like cows.

“You feeling okay?” The waitress wore nylons under her frilly orange uniform, and when she reached across the booth to put down a cup, the darker brown of the nylon showed at the top of her thick legs.

“You want a menu, hon?”

My hand felt as hot as my head. Smouldering.

“Just a coffee.” I clenched the coins for Vic's cigarettes and let them clink to the table. The waitress was back with the coffee pot before I noticed she'd been gone. I almost reached for the cow instead of the sugar. That waitress stood there beside me like a bodyguard, staring at my mallet finger, its floppy pink end. I put that hand under the table and sat on it.

“You let me know if you need anything else,” she backed away, but I could feel her stare even though she was gone.

I sipped the awful coffee and thought how nice it would be to disappear. I'd seen it happen once when the Shriners did a show in Calgary and the third-graders got free tickets. When we spilled off the bus, the boys stamped on all the girls' toes while the teacher split us into partners, and we had to hold hands as we marched down the aisle to the right row. I was the extra, two making three, and the girls let go of my hand as soon as our shoes hit the carpet. Girls were oohing and giggling, boys elbowing each other to get to their seats. I inched myself down to the end, to the open space between the front row and the stage. When I looked back, I couldn't spot a single face I recognized. An usher shoved me into an empty seat in the front row just before the lights went down. I sat by a girl with thick glasses. She had the hiccups.

First clowns and jugglers. Then a man in a glittery vest with long tails and a puffy shirt. He stood on the stage pulling fire from air and rabbits from a hat. The halo of light surrounding him surrounded me, too. He was looking right at me. Then he disappeared in a puff of smoke and the auditorium went black, and all the children gasped. It got so quiet the room stopped breathing. A beam of white shot out of the ceiling and landed right on me. I thought for sure God would strike me down even though Harmony says God is nowhere you can find him. I thought I had made him disappear. But then, poof. There he was. In the seat beside me, his face shiny with sweat, eyes twinkling. All the children started clapping; I clapped too, and the man touched my shoulder and then hopped back on the stage and bowed. The waitress came back with the coffee pot. “You sure you feeling okay, honey?”

She leaned in close. I was afraid she might reach down and touch my head.

I pressed against the plastic.

“I'm real sorry, hon. Hope things get better for you.”

“I'm good, thanks.” My throat hurt so much I nearly choked.

“Take all the time you need.”

I wanted to stay in that booth, close to the waitress who was sorry, and not go back to the sisters who weren't. The coffee tasted terrible. I swallowed a few more mouthfuls and slipped off the bench, self-consciously teetering on wobbly legs. That's the last thing I remember. I don't know how they got me out of there, whether the whole town came to gawk or whether it was just Harmony and Vic and the waitress in the frilly uniform. I don't know who said what, or whether any of it was kind, or whether my mother might have cried that day.