***
The sign that faced the world from above the café door said “Jimmy’s”, but it made me kind of wonder if Jimmy himself hadn’t passed on a long time ago.
I looked quickly up and down the street. I saw nobody I knew, but that wasn’t surprising: at two in the afternoon there wasn’t a person using the sidewalk other than me. Victoria street is four lanes wide these days, and not especially friendly to walkers. A very intermittent stream of cars and trucks came by. Again, there was nobody I recognized, so I stepped into the café and let the door close behind me.
It looked like someone had tried to start a convenience counter at the front a couple of generations ago, but had given up, leaving plywood panels and glass covered with old ads and posters.
The rest of the place looked better. I had a clear choice of sitting in a booth at the window facing the street, taking a stool at the lunch counter, or going around to a dim back room with a half-dozen tables. I chose a booth by the window, because I like watching traffic go by for reasons I can’t explain, and I like bright places rather than dim places.
Besides, who would see me in the window of Jimmy’s? Once there had been grimy brick factories across the road and probably a steady lunch trade for the café. Not any more. The long row of factories that had once crouched, dark and grimy, between Victoria Street and the railway tracks was recently gone, bulldozed like last summer’s weeds and hauled away, mysteriously, somewhere.
Each table contained a stainless-steel tissue dispenser, a glass sugar container and glass salt and pepper shakers with battered aluminum lids.
There was something of the exotic, about it. Like spies meeting in old Berlin or continental lovers on the left bank. It depressed the hell out of me.
I don’t function well in the midst of conflicting emotions and uncertainties. I find they’re like stray dogs, their faces showing no trace before they bite you or lift their heads for a pat. Or just try to hump your leg.
Oh, I’m wary of a lot of things in this modern age: the fast-food restaurants I usually choose, the laugh tracks on television comedy reruns when it’s four in the morning and I can’t sleep because the stars are too bright outside or not bright enough. The assurances of financial analysts, the solidity of pavement, the face that looks back from the mirror at five in the morning before I decide to get back into bed and hope I don’t wake Aisha.
Nobody annoys me as much as I annoy myself, the antihero of my imagination, the coward of my intentions, the little furry ball curled too often into my recliner because it’s not right to crawl under a log without explanation. I am too joyless in the midst of a world somebody made into a garden, too hesitant when adventure is offered.
Too faithful to be eager, too imaginative to be calm, I waited in a coffee shop for some sort of future.
I watched the traffic go by. The Old Guy at the counter, who may or may not have been Jimmy (he looked as old as the place) washed dishes. The sink, like most of the working area, was stainless steel and would outlast both me and Jimmy’s. As he finished each dish and cup he placed it on a shelf above the black griddle and the deep fryer.
Where was “Heather”, I wondered. And why was she so insistent that no-one see us together? Not that I objected to a secret meeting: I’d have a hard time explaining to my friends why I was meeting another girl, or woman, or whatever.
She’d phoned me the previous afternoon, after I’d got back from the pub. She wouldn’t give me her name, but insisted I meet her someplace to talk. “Someplace out of the way, to talk about Big Paul’s lost money.”
And, she insisted, I wasn’t to tell anybody, especially my friend with the map.
“Who shall I look for?” I asked.
“Name’s Heather. Redhead.” She hung up.
What’s a man to do? I justified myself by telling myself that I’d started the whole process and had to follow through. I briefly imagined having a mad passionate quickie on the arborite tables with a redhead, all these old guys having coronaries among the fried eggs and bacon, then did the wise thing, and told Aisha everything from the start.
She just laughed and advised me that if I was going to have an affair in a café, to do it on a sturdy table and not to kick the salt and pepper shakers onto the floor.
Across the road a new strip mall with a no-name gas station, an adult video store, a convenience store probably run by hard-working Koreans, a pizza place, a laundromat, and an engineering office, Chang & Van der Veeren Engineering. Two vans and a truck sat lonely at the adjoining Hertz place, with “rent me” signs in the windows.
Cars and trucks passed regularly but the sidewalks stayed empty, like they were there only in case someone’s truck broke down and the driver was forced to actually walk..
I grabbed a paper from a pile and tried to read. The counters as well as the table in my booth had been painted cream-coloured at one time, but had worn in the busy patches down to the original fake-pecan arborite. There was nothing but news in the paper.
No-one came through the door and eventually the Old Guy noticed me. He apologized and took my order for fries and tea. I usually order tea specifically because I don’t like it. It makes me look social to sip something instead of wolfing it down.
I really wish I’d invented stainless steel. My tea came in a stainless steel pitcher with a tiny stainless steel cup of milk. The stuff just keeps going.
Still nobody. I looked down the street past the family Fitness Super Club, brand-spanking new, down the street. I was pretty sure people who used the fitness club wouldn’t be having an after-exercise plate of chips at Jimmy’s.
The door opened and a woman entered. Suddenly I remembered her as one of the two women in the tavern.
I was still wondering if this was the mysterious “Heather” and was still holding the stainless steel sugar dispenser in the air when she walked up to the table and said, “Let’s get away from the window in case somebody sees us.”
What could I say? I took my tea and fries and followed her. I thought she’d opt for the dim back room, but she settled onto one of the dozen stools at the counter. I looked around: we were the only two customers in the café.
“You’re Heather?” I asked.
She picked up a couple of my fries, put some ketchup on them, and said. “That’s me. You gotta like green and blue if you come to this place.”
I had to agree. The walls had been painted a light hospital green a long time ago, as well as a lot of other things, probably more to use up the paint than to colour-coordinate the place. The stool and booth seats had been re-covered in a nice sea-blue vinyl much more recently. I canoe: green and blue don’t bother me.
An old but immaculate Hamilton-Beach milkshake maker almost matched the green. Almost, but not quite.
“But a charitable place,” I said, pointing out a crowded shelf where a glass container almost overflowed with “pop can tabs for the supply of wheel chairs for the handicapped.”
“You must like chips,” she said, still avoiding the point of our meeting.
“I should have had the chili,” I said, “It’s highly recommended by cartoon characters.” I pointed where, on the top shelf a colourful set of eleven panels advertised specials using hand-drawn replicas of famous cartoon characters. A voice balloon from Sylvester the cat adverted “delicious piping hot home-made chili-con-carne and toast, coffee extra”. Some character in the panel, probably Tweety chipped in “it’s swell” but an old egg crate hid the exact identity of this figure.
I turned around. The Old Guy was stirring a big pot in an alcove; no doubt the famous chili. After a moment he came out and took Heather’s order for a coffee.
Let me describe Heather. She was just cute enough to be worth looking at, just sexy enough to make you turn your head without quite knowing why. Some women have that aura in them; she was one.
I’d guess she was in her early thirties, somewhere around young enough to be my daughter if I’d got started early. Maybe five-six, r
ed hair and a few freckles.
Did I mention the red hair? Aisha claims I have fantasies about redheads, which seems a reasonable thing to do, if you ask me. Okay, she had hair like a campfire at night and eyes like the lakes after a storm and the evening light falls on it.
Now in most of this book I’ve just got to lie about what people were wearing because I really don’t notice, but I had long enough waiting for Heather to get to the point that I actually remember what she was wearing.
She wore a white blouse with a light blue summer jacket, and blue slacks. The colors didn’t get along with the décor at Jimmy’s but I guess there wasn’t much she could do about it by then.
The guy who did the cooking brought Heather a small pot of tea and a plate of toast with some peanut butter packets on the side.
“Hm,” she noted. “This isn’t what I ordered.”
“That often happens here,” I said. “I attribute it to a vortex of primeval chaos trapped for years behind the stove.”
“It’ll do,” she said, grinning. She poured tea from the silver pot, letting the spillage run into the saucer. “Ever have one of these teapots that didn’t spill? she asked.
“Not yet, but it’s a lifelong goal.”
“Do you think I’m cute?” she asked me, putting peanut butter on a piece of toast. She turned her head down and sideways and looked up at me.
“Actually,” I answered, “you deviate from fashion of the day only marginally. I imagine you would like larger breasts and smaller hips.” I regarded her face. “Possible a slightly smaller nose.”
“Not bad,” she said, “but you didn’t answer the question.
“You make my heart skip every seventh beat.” It was true, but I hadn’t wanted to say it. I put my hand on my heart. “If you’d been in my high-school algebra class I’d have switched schools just so I could pass grade 11.” That wasn’t quite true, but it was close enough.
“Will that be a problem?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “You’ll will just have to understand if I don’t say anything comprehensible to you.”
“I can deal with that,” Heather said. “You know why I’m here? Why I wanted to talk to you?”
“I assumed that the universe, which works in funny ways, had figured out how to get a chuckle out of old Win again.”
“You look on the unfolding of the universe and see laughter somewhere?” She finished the other toast and peanut butter, which was a shame, since peanut butter on hot toast is one of my cardinal sins and I’d been lusting after it since it got to the table.
“The world’s a stage, and we’re here for the show. We just don’t know it, but someone, somewhere, is laughing themselves silly. Like people laugh at babies.”
“If babies were smarter, they’d put on a really good show.”
“Why did you and that other woman follow Phil and I to the bar?”
“Currents of the world,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to follow them. Paddle to keep off the rocks but follow the currents. Your friend Phil phoned the Parry Sound Historical Society. Donna Parson’s Nancy’s cousin. She keeps track of inquiries about the Jeannie Rogers and the lost money. She’s a curious type and the whole thing’s a minor comedy in the society.”
“And this Nancy is the other woman in the bar?”
“Nancy Barnes is the granddaughter of Big Paul Stanley.” Heather leaned forward. “She thinks she has a claim to the money if it’s ever found.”
“Not legally,” I imagine.
Heather laughed. “She sometimes has a problem coordinating her own views of right and wrong with the legal version,”
“And you drove all the way down here to find us?”
“It was a nice day for a drive. Phil’s neighbor said he went off with you. Your wife said you were at that bar. When Nancy saw the map on your table she figured all her suspicions were right on.”
“Can’t lie my way out of this one, I guess,” I said. “Do you find me handsome?”
“In the way that north wind and moonlight on the forest floor and the sound of chipmunks in the woodpile and birch trees in spring are handsome.”
Strange that she should mention birches. I’ve been a fan of trees all my life but lately I’ve become a fan of birches.
When I was young, I admired the lone pine and the maple out solitary in the field. But lately…. Lately I like the way a birch lives with others on a sunny hillside.
Maybe I’ve been too much to myself in this life, making walls.
Maybe I like the way birches grow after fires. After a forest fire has taken the big trees, birches spring up among the ashes, and ten years later there’ll be squirrels in the autumn sunlight, playing among the old burned stumps and the falling yellow leaves.
“Eh?” I said, coming back. “I’m as natural as moosepoop in the woods, am I?”
“And you know that’s only the skin of what I said.”
“Does Nancy expect us to lead her to Big Paul’s money?”
“Your friend seemed to have something more than just speculation, but we don’t know for sure.”
“Personally, it’s been nice to see you, and I do wish that everybody but my wife had seen us together – at my age a guy can use all the idle speculation he can get – but I really can’t see any point in telling you anything Phil knows or I know. Not when we can have it all without you.”
“Nancy knows every story and most of the rumors about the money. She’s got a reasonable idea what’s been searched and what’s not been searched out there. Could save you some time.”
I nodded. “You sound logical, but this isn’t a logical venture, and I don’t really care about the money, whether it exists or not.”
“Nancy does. Doesn’t Phil?”
I pondered that. “He says he does. He acts like he does. But this is an adventure right now, and maybe he’ll look you up if nothing works out this time.”
“Cooperation would spoil the ‘adventure’ as you call it?”
I looked shocked. “Of course! Little boys can’t have an adventure and allow girls in on it too. Even if the little boys are wearing older-guy suits.” I glared. “You know that!”
She laughed, and the guy showed up with a plate of toast and peanut butter. He looked at the empty plate beside Heather, looked puzzled, then handed it to me. I thanked him and put the peanut butter on both slices at once.
“It’ll be a quest,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows, chewing toast.
“To paddle into the west, where the moon and the sun and the stars go after they’ve watched us in our little boats. To take part in the dance of the wind and the water and the leaves on every tree. To find whatever adventure awaits us.” She sat back, smiling.
“We don’t intend to go with you. Not when you two are there. Some other time.” I didn’t figure they could follow us anyway, or even know when we were there.
“The weather’s going to be good for the next few days,” she said. “A bit of light rain for one morning, which will suit you if you take the cameras.”
“Cameras?” I hadn’t told her.
“A dangerous world of lurking data bits. I googled your name.”
“May you have good weather whenever you are there,” I said. “We’ll leave messages stapled to the northmost tree on each island, so you’ll know where we’ve been.”
“Gotcha,” she said, picking up her purse.