North Fork (17 page)

Brad may not recognize me on Saturday.

The blinds were open because I like the light. My bedroom window faces the street and I was expecting him. Whenever I heard a car, I looked to see if it was him. I'd been seeing a lot of him. When we were with other people, he made jokes about me being his long-lost niece. Grant told me I made him happy. I filled a gap in his life that he hadn't even known was there. It was great. It was like the poverty part was gone from my pretend vacation.

He took me back to the museum. It felt like being there with an uncle or a teacher. He knows a lot about Native American and natural history. Most of the time, that's the way it was, like being on a family outing but without all the tension I would feel when I was with Bonnie and Sterling. He treated me like I was his favorite daughter. I got his full attention. We also went to the Butchart Gardens like he promised, even though the roses weren't blooming yet. I love that sunken part that was once a rock quarry.

Time with him passed quickly and I grew more comfortable with him, and it was easy to say yes when he suggested doing something. I wouldn't have given it much thought except for what happened after the bike ride with Leigh.

My spending an afternoon with Leigh wasn't even a real date. I hadn't talked to him for quite a while, but one day when we were having a slow afternoon, he asked how my bike was working now, and if I ever rode on trails. I hadn't, of course. I didn't think I wanted anything to do with trails from what I'd seen of those guys in their football armor at Whistler and the stories I heard from some of the guys at school who ride like that.

“The place I'm thinking about is different,” Leigh said. “The trail we would go on is really flat and wide, more like a logging road.”

So I went with him. He let me use an old mountain bike that he kept for riding on the street. It didn't have shock absorbers, but the tires were wide and worked better on gravel than the skinny tires on my bike would have. It was nice to get off of city streets. Even though he is quite a bit older than me and is mature enough to be running the restaurant, he has this young attitude. He likes mountain biking and rock climbing and travels around the world with his buddies to do those things. He said he doesn't want to worry about a career yet or about having to settle down, because he doesn't know what the career would be, and he's having a lot of fun. He tried college, but he just couldn't get into it, so now he's working for his dad, saving up money for another trip.

We had fun riding and talking. It was all very innocent. It would have just been another good day in my great adventure and part of what made it harder and harder to think about going back, except for what happened when he dropped me off. I noticed the white SUV right away when we turned onto my street. It was parked across from the house. We had stopped to eat on the way back and Leigh was meeting friends at a pub, so he just dropped me off and kept going. Grant stayed in the car until he was gone.

“Where have you been?”

His voice had an edge that made me think of Sterling. The first thought that came to mind was that I shouldn't have to tell him. So I answered, “On a date.”

“So, who's the lucky guy? Do I get to meet him?”

“It was no big deal. We went on a bike ride. I know him from work. He's my boss.”

“He looks young to be your boss.”

“He's still kind of a kid, like me, but he's a good boss. We had
a good time.”

“When you weren't here, I got worried. I even stopped by the restaurant.”

Then he changed the subject. It was instant and complete.

“I've got tickets to a show tomorrow night. It's a rare opportunity for us. A dance troupe from New York at the Royal Theater. I really want you to see this. It's quite special. We can go to dinner first.” He seemed pretty excited about it.

I agreed to go with him, but then I began to have doubts. I had nothing to wear and he offered to take me shopping, but I decided to decline his offer. It's funny how some little thing, a detail, can change the way you see something. The exchange of a few words and a particular tone of voice and my view of Grant had changed. He had been good to me and I didn't want to hurt him, but in spite of his insistence that we were just friends, it was clear now that he was courting me, even though he hadn't tried to kiss me romantically or tried anything else. He was jealous of Leigh.

In spite of all the favorite-niece-and-friend talk, he treated me like we were dating. He opened doors for me and held my chair in restaurants. He touched my back, my arm, my hands, but he never put his hand on my thigh or anywhere private. He had kissed me on the forehead. It had made me uncomfortable because he stayed close, inhaled deeply and said he loved the way I smelled. But he has this way of gracefully backing off and putting you at ease when you start to feel threatened. I should have seen it sooner, but I let myself get seduced even if it wasn't about sex yet. After meeting him, I continued going to work, of course, but didn't see much of my roommates. Biking with Leigh was really the first break, the first chance to break the spell, and now it's broken.

Everyone I know here thinks he's a relative, and that I'm making the connections I told them I came here for. But he's not
family. He's twice my age. I hadn't asked him if he was married, at least not point blank the way Natalie would have. My courage for that kind of thing comes and goes, and bringing up that topic would have cut through the favorite-niece game. If Natalie had found a birth certificate that raised all those questions about who she was, she would have homed in on the person who could answer them and created a storm that wouldn't quit until everything was out in the open.

Grant is evasive. Bonnie is too, but in a different way. Grant can talk for hours and keep you interested without revealing anything about himself. I recognize this kind of deceit because here, I can't reveal anything about myself either. The woman's clothes I saw in his car that first day when we put the bike in the back made me think he must be married. I asked him about the dress and blouse to give him a chance to tell me about his family, and he said the clothes belonged to a friend, a neighbor. If he has a wife, she's either out of town, or she gives him lots of space. So does his job. He has a lot of free time. Besides knowing Victoria, he knows Vancouver too. Maybe he really lives there and comes here on business. Maybe he's a lobbyist or has something to do with the government and has this family back in Vancouver. I learned more about Leigh's life in one afternoon than I have about Grant in several weeks.

So that night, the night we had our moment of truth, I was in my room waiting. I heard a car and saw the Cadillac pull up. It's a quiet street with big shade trees evenly spaced. I watched Grant come up to the front door. He was carrying flowers, yellow roses. I knew it wasn't going to be easy.

On the way to the restaurant, he did most of the talking, telling me about the dance troupe and why the chance to see them was so special. I ordered my usual pear cider and drank it down like I was thirsty, then got most of the way through another before I was able to say it.

“Grant, these past weeks have been really great. You're a good friend and you've spent a lot of time with me—”

“This sounds like a prelude to something sad. Let's not be sad.”

The cider was pretty strong, and I hadn't eaten. The alcohol was finding Natalie's bluntness for me.

“It doesn't have to be sad, Grant. I just need some space. I've been spending nearly all my free time with you. I miss having time alone. I miss people my own age.”

“Of course you're right, Amy. What's happened between us is highly unusual and happened very quickly. You should have time for your friends, but you've become such an important part of my life, it will be hard for me. Yesterday when you went off with that young man, it was torture.”

“That's what I mean. It shouldn't be torture. I'm not your wife or your girlfriend, and I don't want to be. I'm not your niece. I don't really know anything about you except that you've been nice to me. For all I know, you have a wife and family somewhere that you should be spending your time with. I've enjoyed your company, but I had fun yesterday with Leigh and I shouldn't need your approval if I want to go out with someone my own age.”

“I see. You've fallen for him and you're dumping me. That's what you'd call it isn't it? Dumping?”

Even cushioned by the cider, it was clear that he had changed. His eyes were hard. No sign of the usual smooth slide onto a more pleasant topic. The waitress came for our order. He snapped at her, icy voiced, to give us more time. He was like Sterling.

“Grant, I can't dump you. We're not going together. We're not in love. I need a friend. Friends give each other time and space. Friends tell each other about their lives. I'm going through some hard stuff right now. You've been nice to me. You said you were my friend and I believed you. I wanted it to be true. I wanted to
believe that someone could be nice to me just because he liked me.”

While I was talking, I flashed back to the feeling I had the first night at the restaurant in Brentwood Bay. The feeling about how that particular moment was the result of so many unlikely moments that it deserved the truth, or at least I had to be willing to tell the truth if I was asking for honesty from him. It had to be fair. If he had told me honestly about his life, then I would have had to tell him about mine. I had to be willing to go back to the Valley and to life with Bonnie and Sterling, if that's where the truth took me. I had to be willing to know the truth about the birth certificate, about my real father, however unpleasant it ended up being.

I said, “I just want the truth. I don't care if you're married. I don't care if you are trying to seduce me, which is what I think right now. Just tell me the truth. No more pretense about me being your long-lost favorite niece.”

“You're such an innocent,” is what he said. His eyes were still cold. They drilled into me and I shivered.

“Are you married?”

 He laughed. He sounded bitter.

“Tell me about your job. What's it like? Do you work for the government?”

The waitress came back.

“Order something,” he said softly, but I could feel the hardness behind the words, and it scared me. I ordered a chicken dish.

He ordered lamb.

Then he changed back and started talking about New York and how, the last time he was there, he saw the dance troupe that was performing tonight.

“It was a spectacular performance and even if they aren't as good tonight as they were in New York—traveling companies can be inconsistent—it will still be a good show.” His eyes warmed
and he told me I would like the chicken dish, that it was quite good. It made me think of Bonnie and my few attempts to get her to talk about my real father.

“Grant, did your wife die?”

His eyes drilled and I shivered again and got quiet. I ate a piece of bread. When the chicken finally came, I tried to eat. He was right, it was good, but I couldn't eat it. His plate had this circular rack of bones sticking up and I couldn't help but think of lambs and butchering and honesty and how much of life is based on pretense.

“We're not friends,” I said. “And I don't think you ever wanted to be.”

“You're such a fool,” he said, “a beautiful little fool.”

“That may be true,” I said, “but I'm not staying here any longer, and I'm not going to your goddamned ballet.” I said it quietly so as not to make a scene. I picked up my purse from the floor next to my chair and stood to leave. To anyone watching, I could have been going to the bathroom. He didn't look up, but paused and said,

“Pity.”

It made me feel crawly all over. Then he looked up at me and said, “Such a shame.”

The way he said it scared the crap out of me, but I kept my cool and walked out.

It would have been a long walk back to the house. I had enough money with me for a taxi but had never been in one before; they're not that common in the Valley. From the movies, and I felt like I was in a movie, it didn't seem like hailing one would be that hard. I didn't know what to expect from Grant, but I had a very bad feeling and was glad there were a lot of people around as I walked down to the harbor in front of the Empress and got a cab.

I was relieved to find Ian and Char home. They were eating
Easy Mac and drinking Molson's.

“Thought you were out with that rich relative,” Ian said.

“He's not really my relative. I thought he was, but I found out he really isn't.”

“Too bad. So will you be giving up the high life to watch the tube with us tonight?”

 “Do you mind?”

I don't sleep much now, and even though the room is dark and the blinds are thick enough that you can barely see silhouettes through them and are always pulled, I have this feeling of being watched. Often, after a couple hours of tossing around, I get up and peek outside. Sometimes I'm sure I see Grant's SUV parked in the shadows down the street.

Trish stuck around to watch Brad's reaction to the new me. She was going off to do something with one of her friends, but drank another cup of coffee and fussed around the kitchen until he came. She can be like a kid sometimes, and even with her skepticism about Brad and me, this was too good to miss. It was pretty fun. I mean when I answered the door, he was shocked. He just stood there like he didn't recognize me but sort of did, so he didn't know whether or not to ask this stranger if I was home. He was truly speechless, which was cool because you hear that expression all the time when it's not quite true, but he really couldn't speak until Trish started laughing and said, “It's her.”

Trish has a good heart and can't stand to see anyone uncomfortable for very long. What Brad said was, “Wow!”