Through Black Spruce (26 page)

But Gordon. Why are you here? I asked him to come to Soleil’s party and he only shook his head. He’s got to know that Butterfoot and me are an item, and so this must be it. “It will be fun!” I tell him, but he only shakes his head again and looks at the floor. “You’ll meet famous people. And you know the food will be good.”

Gordon picks up a piece of paper and a pen beside him. He scribbles quick, his handwriting messier than normal.
Got things to do. But I’ll be around when you get back
.

The words anger me. “Why are you still here in a place you are scared of with somebody you don’t even like anymore?”

I’m here because
.

Bullshit. “Why?”

Because an elder asked me to do this. To watch over you
.

I shake my head. “I love that you’ve taken on this role for me. I really do.”

Gordon stares at the floor.

“But if you aren’t …” I have to phrase this properly so as not to hurt him. “If you want to go back to Toronto, you should, Mr. Tongue.” I smile. He keeps looking at the ground. “Does Old Man, Inini Misko, say you should stay with me?”

Gordon nods.

“Do you want to be here with me?”

He looks up then, holds my eyes in his for as long as I’ve ever known. They are wet now.

PGI. Party Girls International. Soleil calls us her pussy posse. She keeps three or four of us around, tells us to always remember that the world’s eyes, the paparazzi, the media cameras watch us. And she’s right. They do. Her inner circle—mostly otter-sleek American or European society girls—are interchangeable, revolve like planets around this young woman Soleil for a few celestial days or weeks, sometimes months, before a meteor of her anger or indifference or boredom slams into one and causes a high-speed ice age to occur.

Soleil simply closes her eyes and flicks her slim wrist, wriggles her long fingers, and giggles, “You’re fired.” And that’s it. The sun of the world goes out on that young thing, and she shrivels into obscurity. No more being stalked by men with cameras as she leaves New York’s most expensive restaurants or hottest nightclubs, no more car chases through night streets, cameras in pursuing black cars blinking fiery eyes. But I am in tight with Soleil. I am her Indian Princess, and unless she finds another bushwoman here in NYC, my place is secured. It’s an arrangement I can live with. I give Soleil something she thinks is exotic. I am an accoutrement on her wrist.

Soleil has invited a select few members of the paparazzi to the party tonight, and when I give her a light hug and kiss on the cheek, the cameras flash and men ask me my name and jot it down. Too much. Who would have ever guessed? There’s a chance I’ll make the papers tomorrow. I’ll be on the internet for sure. Too bad Mr. Tongue didn’t come with.

I’ve been a good girl so far, drinking sparingly, but the party’s a bit of a bore since I don’t know too many people, so I pound a couple of wines quick for a buzz. Out on the roof of this old building—always the roofs, always the top with Soleil—in the meatpacking district I light a smoke, look west to the sun setting over the continent. A ring around it. The ring of winter coming soon. Already. An east wind blows. Weather is coming. The first snows of winter. Already.

Soleil has had tall heaters spaced around the deck, and it’s as warm as spring outside. People smoke and laugh, and I spot Danny in the crowd. What can he do to me? I sneak up behind him and touch his left shoulder, then slip around to his right.

“Danny boy,” I say when he finally turns to see me. He looks surprised. The wine is working, makes my tongue loose. I look at the two men he is with, both large and clean-shaven, but you can’t hide low class. “What brings you here?”

“Soleil likes her danger,” Danny says. His friends laugh. “Or at least the idea of it.”

“I’m living here now,” I say. “Working.”

“Have you heard from your sister?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I was hoping you might have news.”

“Nope. Not me.”

“Can we be frank?” I ask, the heat rising to my ears. He nods. His friends turn their heads away when I begin to speak. “How much does Gus owe you? How much to get him and my sister off the hook with you?”

“There’s no getting Gus off the hook,” Danny’s friend says. He wears a black Hugo Boss suit, his white shirt unbuttoned to show off his chest. “I believe that hook went in a tad too deep.” The three of them laugh. Their teeth flash in the setting sun.

My stomach drops. “What does that mean?” I ask. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” The man in the black suit shrugs. The three of them turn away from me then.

Danny turns back. He gets up close, leaning in to me as if to kiss. “How about I drop by in the next while and we can have a talk oneon-one.” He smiles, but only with his mouth. His eyes are flat as a shark’s. “It might not be too late for your sister.”

I try to walk away, but he holds my arm in his hand.

“You need to tell me where she is.”

I tug my arm from his grip.

“Your sister doesn’t have to die. She just has to give back what Gus stole.” He pats my ass. I watch him disappear into the crowd. The music and voices and clinking glasses spin around me.

When I slip out, no one seems to notice. I’ve got to call someone. I’ve got to talk to Gordon. I flag a cab, and we inch through the honking traffic. Gus isn’t really dead, is he? And if Danny tells the truth, Suzanne, she isn’t. Not yet.

The elevator isn’t fast enough. What if Danny saw me leave the party? My hands shake as I fumble with the lock. I rush in, lock the door behind me, and shout for Gordon. I race from room to room. I am alone here. In the kitchen, I see the note on the counter. Gordon’s neat handwriting.
Gone now. I am failing you and this is the story of my life. Inini Misko says this isn’t the truth but I think it is. I am sorry
.

Damn it! When I need him. My fault. I need him now but have sent him away.

I pick up the phone. There’s nothing else to do. I punch in the area code, the number. The phone rings three, then four times. Pick up, Mum. I need you right now. Her voice comes on the line. I’m going to cry. Don’t. Not now.

“Hello?” she says a second time.

“Mum, it’s me.”

“Suzanne?”

“No, Mum, it’s me.”

“Oh my Lord! Annie!”

“We’ve got to, I need to …”

“You need to be here. So much is going on.”

“Mum, I have to talk to you.”

“I don’t know where to start, Annie. So much has happened.”

“Listen to me, Mum. Suzanne is in big trouble.”

She cuts me off like she doesn’t even hear me. “I’ve received some letters and postcards from Suzanne. She’s alive, Annie. You have to come home. She wrote to say she’ll be back by Christmas.”

I didn’t write that. Mum’s nuts.

“Annie. I’m confused by something. I think you should tell me what’s going on. The handwriting …”

The tears begin. My voice choked, I admit to her what I’ve been doing. Trying to ease her mind.“I was thinking of you, Mum,” I whisper. “I was thinking of you.”

“Please, Annie,” she says. “I know. It’s okay. You’re a good daughter. But I know both my daughters’ handwriting.” I’m crying hard now so that I can’t hear all of her words. “But Suzanne has been writing, too. She sent me some postcards from South Carolina. Letters from somewhere in Europe. She wouldn’t be more specific. She’s not with Gus anymore. They broke up in New York.”

What is my mother saying to me?

“Gus is in big trouble with some very bad people,” she says. “He stole money from them. Stole drugs. Suzanne is worried they will kill him. They already threatened her.”

“Mum, what are you talking about?”

She tells me all of it again. My sister is alive. Her last postcard is dated from only a couple weeks ago. I’m not hearing what Mum’s saying now. The room closes in on me. Something now about a shooting. About Marius being shot.

“What?” I almost scream.

“The police wanted to blame your uncle. But it was bikers.” What the fuck is going on? “Will’s been gone trapping all summer and autumn, though. It couldn’t have been him. Stupid police.”

“It’s bikers, Mum.” I start sobbing again. “They killed Gus.”

“Come home,” she says. “We need you here. Marius didn’t die, but he won’t be right again. Joe Wabano said Marius will come back to Moosonee soon. You have to come home, Annie,” Mum says. This is one of the only times she’s ever told me what I have to do. “You’re in the wrong place. That world isn’t for my daughters. Will, I’m sure he’d agree. Come back before the snows. Suzanne promises she’ll be home for Christmas. We can all be together again.”

Only when we finally make our promises, that yes, I’ll come home, that we’ll all be together again, that my mother not breathe a word of Suzanne’s talk about coming home to anyone until we figure this out, do I hang up.

I find a mostly full bottle of wine in the fridge. I sit on the couch, walk onto the balcony, and wander through the stark rooms of this apartment, trying to make some sense. I am lost, and the panic of it is like being lost in the bush. I need to calm down, stop running pointlessly and prepare for the coming night. This is not over.

The wind gusts as I stand outside and smoke a cigarette, gulping straight from the bottle of wine. Bad weather coming. I’ve got to prepare now. Work this out. The wind out on the balcony howls. I stand shivering in it. My scalp tingles. I need to lie down. Something bad is coming. My jaw begins to clench, and I find the couch and an old T-shirt before the pain.

I am on a soft white sofa, flying over Manhattan, trying to shield my face from the bitter wind, trying desperately to figure out how to steer this thing. It rises sudden and violent, climbs at such a pitch I’m worried I’ll roll off it and fall to my death. Then it nosedives and I slide the other way. I’m forced to grip into the fabric, dig my toes under the cushions to stop my inevitable plunge. The sofa levels off above a dark New York alley. Meatpacking district. I hover above it. I peer over the edge and look down, careful to not be seen. Kenya is below me. Her dark skin glistens on the wet, black pavement. She stares up, looks around, and senses me above, but she can’t see me.

I see movement down the alley. I watch as Soleil in a white, white gown emerges from behind a dumpster. She has something in her hand. A credit card. Danny comes out from behind the dumpster, too, catches up to Soleil, and the two skip hand in hand down the alley toward Kenya. They plan on slitting her throat with the card. I know it.

They approach her from behind. I scream to Kenya to run, and I fumble on the sofa, trying to figure out how to work it, how to make it fly. Soleil and Danny are close to Kenya now. They stop and kiss with just their tongues. Then they’re walking toward her again. They’re stalking her now.

Kenya looks up and sees me and focuses on my eyes. I’m trying to scream to her, but nothing comes out. She’s happy to see me. In her looking up to me, she’s exposed her neck. Her eyes, they become Suzanne’s eyes. They say it all.

The clicking of a lock and deadbolt. I am on the couch on my back, sweating. My head hurts. My teeth ache from clenching. I worry I’ve broken them. I spit the T-shirt from my mouth.

The light from the hallway outside the apartment cuts through the black room. A lighthouse glow that sweeps across my eyes. The pain of it squeezes my eyes shut. When I open them again, the room is black, darting minnows of light shooting out across it. I am awake, alive on my back on the sofa in the living room, and I can hear the breathing of a man, the fumbling of his hand on the wall.

The world flashes white, and the pain of it makes me cry out. I slap my hands over my eyes. I peep through my fingers, crying now with the fear.

I see the long black hair. I reach my hands to my protector, worried that he isn’t really there. He leans down, and I see concern in his dark eyes. I reach up to him, to his ropy arms and strong back. I pull him to me, and he really is here. I’ve pulled him to me on the couch. He’s really here. I cry more and slowly, I begin to calm. He holds me.

I talk and pause and talk again, trying to stitch together all of these images, the bits of cloth I’ve been handed. I try to stitch it all together into something that we can both see, that we can both begin to understand.