For the next few days, though, I didn’t think much about movies. It was a week straight from the Bad Time. Meg had found out about what happened with Ty and she was all over it, meeting with me, meeting with Carleen, knowing we all wanted to make it work. The weather was cooler now. She wore clingy sweaters. They weren’t as nice as tops I could look down.
I could feel myself slipping back into my old Bad Time ways, too. I stopped talking. I looked away from everyone. I got stupid. One night after supper, Brooklynne kept pestering me to play with her doll stuff until I tipped the dollhouse over and said it was an accident. She started crying, of course, and everyone, especially Roy, was pissed off.
After that I took Matt’s bike without asking and just rode. I ended up out at the beach again. I shouldn’t have gone back; they’d wrecked it all, of course. It was windy and empty and the waves were pounding. Why I’d ever thought I could get across the lake I didn’t know. I stood there and yelled into the wind, not even words, just noise, and it was as if I wasn’t even yelling at all. I went back to the bike. It had a flat tire. By the time I walked back to town, it was after dinner. Shan was in tears, thinking I might have gone again. Matt was freaking about his bike being stolen. Brooklynne was running around yelling, and Roy was pissed all over again.
I lied about where I’d been. I lied about the bike. I said I’d found it down by the river where whoever stole it must have left it and I’d been lucky enough to recognize it. Meg got called all over again. I know we all want this to work. I’d tried not to stare at her chest.
Meanwhile, I hurt like the Bible thumpers had been beating on me, and Griffin hung over everything like a concrete nightmare. He had me second-guessing everything and everyone, including Shan. She’d say something like “You never used to like orange cheese” and instantly I’d be on guard. One time I said, “Well, sorry I can’t be exactly the way you remember. Times change.” She looked hurt and I felt as if I’d blown it, and I didn’t know how to make it better.
Griffin had dropped out of sight. That made it worse. That told me he knew what he was doing. You worry more when you’re always looking over your shoulder. Harley used to do the same thing with scams. He’d set the bait and then pull back for a few days, playing hard to get. The marks would drown in their own greed. “It’s not outta sight, outta mind,” he’d say. “It’s outta sight, in the mind.” I was learning the hard way that he was right. Knowing Griffin’s mind game didn’t keep it from working.
He had me aching to run. I had to get ready. The only place I could think of to go to was Reno. When Darla and Harley split a couple years back, Darla headed there. She said she was tired of the road and had connections at a casino there. I thought if I could find her, maybe she could help me a little. Darla didn’t owe me anything, but she’d been okay to me, and she knew I did good work. She was also pretty much the only other person I really knew.
To get to Reno, I’d have to get across the border and have money for food and bus fare plus a little padding. Toronto was a pretty big city not too far from Port Hope. I’d start by going there. On the map, it looked as if I could go from Toronto to Niagara Falls. I was sure I could cross the border there. I had a backpack, clothes, ID. I wondered if I could steal more ID from someone at Open Book. I also needed to work out the longest head start I could get and round up as much cash as I could.
First chance I got, I looked for Darla on Facebook on a library computer. She’d used a couple different last names. No luck. Then I checked Matt’s and Shan’s money stashes and got the next bad news: the money was gone. When I cornered him, Matt told me that Roy had opened a savings account for him. Then Shan came home from shopping with a bunch of new clothes, so I knew where hers had gone, and Roy hit me up for twenty-five dollars for my share of a birthday gift for her. I was down to forty dollars Canadian, all I had left from working with Dave the Garden Fairy. I wasn’t going to get far with that.
I did the only thing I could think of. I’d remembered a kind of Hail Mary play Harley had told me how to run if you were going to take off instantly and needed cash, but you needed a bank card for it. I went to the bank and opened an account with twenty-five of the forty dollars. Getting my card would take a few days, they said. Till then, at least most of my cash was hidden away from tightwad Roy—I could see him going through my dresser drawer.
In the meantime, my only chance for a quick score looked to be a family party for Shan on the weekend. With any luck, Gram and Grampy might slip me a few bucks, or I could sneak a look through some purses. I asked if Gillian could come to the birthday party with me. I told myself it was good cover for Danny, and it was. With someone else there, it would be okay if I acted a little differently. But really, I just wanted her there. Luckily, she said yes.
Gillian helped me pick a birthday card for Shan. Roy had told me to get a card we could all give to her. When I used to have time to kill in malls while Harley was busy, I’d sometimes looked at birthday cards, deciding which ones I’d have liked to get. I’d never picked one for somebody else.
“How old is she going to be?” Gillian asked as we stood at the display.
I didn’t have a clue. “Thirty-two,” I said.
“So it’s not, like, a significant birthday.”
“I guess not.”
“How about that one?” It had a picture of a goldfish in sunglasses and some kind of lame joke about hoping the birthday “makes a splash.”
“Sure,” I said. “When’s your birthday?”
“In February.” She passed me the card.
“Which one would you pick for yourself?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. You can’t do that— it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
“It’s just a game I play,” I said.
“Well, then, which one would you pick?” She’d turned it around on me.
“That one.” The card had a cartoon of four fat butts, jeans sagging off them. Inside it said, The backside of Mount Rushmore. Have a monumental birthday, and there was a cartoon of the four faces on the mountain.
“That’s what I would have picked too.”
“Get out.” I laughed. “You would not.”
“Okay, that one.” It was a perky cartoon face exclaiming, You’re cheerful, kind, talented, funny, smart, generous, friendly, helpful, sympathetic, hardworking, passionate, creative…Inside it finished with…and you’ll believe anything. Believe this: Happy Birthday! “When’s your birthday?” she asked.
It was a good question. Danny’s was in November, so that was what I had to say. I’d have to check the birth certificate back at Shan’s for the date. I was getting sloppy. The thing was, I didn’t want to tell Gillian Danny’s birthday. I wanted to tell her mine—except I wasn’t sure when it was either. There were a lot of years in the Bad Time when no one bothered to ask, and if anyone did, I always said it was the month before— I wasn’t going to tell anyone I’d forgotten. When I was with Harley and Darla, Darla asked me one time. We were up in Washington State. It was raining. We’d scored big all week.
“Whaddya mean, last month?” Harley had demanded. It was hard to lie to Harley. He could practically always tell, maybe because he was such a good liar himself. “I bet he’s just saying that. Whaddaya think, Dar? I bet he’s just scared we’ll give him the paddywhacks.”
“Could be.” Darla half smiled, reaching for her smokes.
Harley said, “All right, he won’t tell, so we get to pick one. How about today?”
“Today?” I said. I didn’t like being teased. I didn’t like paddywhacks either.
“Why not? What’s today? Check the paper.”
I remember it was a Spokane paper. I picked it up off the RV seat. “March twenty-ninth.”
“Bingo. That’s your birthday. Remember it.” Pop went Harley’s gum. That night we had pizza in a restaurant and the waiters sang “Happy Birthday” and Harley and Darla let me spend twenty bucks in Barnes & Noble. I got a book of Sherlock Holmes stories. I put the steak knife under my mattress again, just in case they remembered the paddywhacks.
I had to answer Gillian’s question, so I said, “Not until late spring.”
When I left her that afternoon, I went back to the store and bought the card she’d liked. Neither of us was going to be here in February.