Three Little Words (8 page)

“But I don't know him at all,” Sid says. “And I don't know the city either.”

Elizabeth sits on the couch and pats the cushion beside her.

“Sit down, and I'll tell you about him. Maybe that will help.”

Sid turns back to the window. TMI, he thinks. That's what Chloe would say. Too Much Information. He needs some time to take it all in. A huge gray ferry with a red stripe near the waterline is angling into the harbor—
Coho
, it says on the bow. It looks impossibly large for the space, a Godzilla of a ship about to crush the tiny wharf. Miraculously, it doesn't. “I'd rather go for walk,” he says. “If that's okay with you.”

Armed with a school photo of Wain and a map of downtown Victoria, Sid sets out alone, promising to be back by lunchtime. Phil says he has things to do and that he will pick Sid up after lunch. Sid worries that Elizabeth is already disappointed in him, but he needs to be alone. She can tell him about Wain over lunch.

When he comes out of the condo building, he turns left and follows a waterfront walkway in front of a hotel and onto a pale-blue bridge that looks like it's constructed of rusty Meccano. The pedestrian path is made of wooden planks that vibrate slightly as the cars go by on the other side of a metal railing. There is a red wharf to the right, and Sid smiles at the sight of it. Just like home. He can see people on a grassy verge above the wharf. Maybe he should talk to them about Wain. But as he approaches them, he realizes that they are homeless men, much older than Wain, dirty, some obviously drunk or high. Sid turns away and heads up the street. He passes small stores selling expensive clothing and explores a brick courtyard where a juggler is entertaining a crowd of kids. He knows he should be showing people the picture of Wain, but he's not ready yet. Besides, most of the people in the courtyard look like tourists: souvenir T-shirts, cameras, tourist maps.

He needs to find some local teenagers, but right now he is content to wander. Just before it's time to head back to Elizabeth's, he goes into an art supply store and treats himself to a new set of colored pens and a small sketchbook. Megan had slipped him $
200
before he left. For necessities or emergencies, she said. He left his sketchbook locked up at home, but now he wants to draw the blue bridge, the juggler, the monstrous ferry, the kayakers. He figures this counts as a necessity, if not an emergency. Around the corner from the art supply store is a bakery. He remembers that Megan always brings a small gift when she's invited to someone's house for a meal. He buys half a dozen cookies from a girl about his own age, with spiky platinum hair and a ring through one eyebrow. As she is counting out his change, he pulls out the picture of Wain.

“Have you seen this kid?” he asks.

She peers at the picture for a long moment and then says, “Who is he?”

“My brother. He's missing.”

“You're kidding.”

Sid can't tell if she's responding to the fact that Wain is missing or that he's Sid's brother.

“Half brother, yeah. He's been missing for a week.”

The girl shakes her head. “Sorry, no. Haven't seen him.”

Sid pockets the picture and picks up his bag of cookies. He feels deflated, although he knows it's ridiculous to think that finding Wain would be as easy as showing his picture to one person.

“I'll let you know if I see him,” the girl says.

“That'd be great,” Sid says. He turns to walk out of the bakery, and she grabs his sleeve, laughing.

“Name? Phone number?” she says.

Sid blushes as she holds out a scrap of paper and a pencil. “My name's Sid. I'm staying with my grandmother, Elizabeth Eikenboom. She lives over by that hotel on the harbor. I don't know her phone number.” He feels like a dolt. He should have thought to get Elizabeth's phone number before he left.

“No cell?”

“Me? No. They don't work where I live.”

“Where do you live? Outer Mongolia?”

Sid laughs. “No. On an island up north.”

The girl nods. “That explains it then.”

“Explains what?”

“Your air of—I dunno—mystery. Maybe a whiff of innocence.”

Sid blushes again as the girl sticks out her hand to shake his.

“I'm Amie. With an
ie
. Like French for friend,” she says, rolling her eyes. “My little sister's name, Harmonie, also with an
ie.
I won't tell you what my mother's name is. It's too embarrassing. I'm here seven to twelve, Wednesday to Sunday. If you bring me a copy of that picture, I'll ask around. And we could look for him together too.”

“You'd do that?” Sid says. “Why?”

Amie laughs. “Because you look lost. Because I'm a sucker for redheads. Because your brother is so young. Because I'm bored. Pick one. Anyway, it's kinda tough if you don't know the scene.”

“The scene?”

“You know. Where kids hang out. Where not to go. That kind of thing.”

A customer clears his throat behind Sid, who steps aside to let him order.

When in Doubt

“I
made Wain's favorite lunch,” Elizabeth tells him when he arrives back at the condo. “Cheese dreams and apple boats.”

“Sounds good,” Sid says, although he has no idea what a cheese dream is. “I brought cookies.” He holds the bag out to Elizabeth.

“How thoughtful,” she says. “Now go wash up and I'll pop the cheese dreams under the broiler.”

It turns out that cheese dreams are what Megan calls cheese toasties: English muffins, cheddar cheese and bacon broiled until the cheese melts and the bacon crisps. Bacon twice in one day, Sid thinks. That would never happen at home.

“I used to ask Megan to make these all the time,” Sid says. “She didn't use English muffins—no white flour in our house—and we had them with applesauce. But apple boats are good too,” he hastens to add. “If the apples aren't mushy.”

“Agreed,” Elizabeth says. “There's nothing worse than a mushy apple.”

They eat in silence for a few minutes. Elizabeth hasn't yet asked about his morning. She seems very calm for someone whose daughter and grandson are missing. Maybe she's a naturally calm person or maybe she's had to learn to be calm, with a crazy daughter and an outof-control grandson. Sid isn't used to taking the lead in conversations, but he wants her to know that he made a bit of progress, if you can call it that.

“I met a girl today who says she'll help me look for Wain,” Sid says. “Her name's Amie. She works at the bakery where I got the cookies.”

Elizabeth nods.

“So could I have some more copies of Wain's picture? And I need a contact number for people too.”

“You should have a phone while you're here,” Elizabeth says. “One of those throwaway phones criminals always use on
TV
.” She smiles. “Although you don't look like much of a criminal to me.”

“A burner phone, you mean?” Sid says, thinking of his shrinking two hundred dollars.

“Is that what they're called? I'll ask Phil where to get one. And don't worry. I'll pay for it.”

Sid starts to stutter that he can pay, but he doesn't sound very convincing, even to himself.

“I'm a rich old lady, Sid,” Elizabeth says. “And you're my grandson. I have some indulging to catch up on.”

“Okay. But I don't need, like, an iPhone or anything. There's no service on the island. And I'm not going to be here very long.”

“I understand,” Elizabeth says, and Sid believes her.

Phil buys Sid a phone at a
7
-Eleven, and when they get back to the garage, Sid goes up to the loft and calls Chloe. He knows it's long distance, but he doesn't care. He needs to talk to her. Of course, she doesn't answer her cell; even if she is in an area that gets service, his number will show up as
Unknown
. He leaves her a message. “It's me. I have a cell. Yeah, I know. I said I'd never get one, but I need one down here. Call me. Please. I miss you. I know you're mad at me for leaving, and I'm sorry.” He leaves his number, disconnects and then phones home. Megan doesn't pick up either. He leaves his number again, feeling lonelier than he has since he left the island. He climbs down the ladder and watches Phil sand a chest of drawers.

“No luck?” Phil looks up and stops sanding.

Sid shakes his head. “Is there a bike I could use?” he asks. “I thought I'd go for a ride. Check out the 'hood.”

“My bike has two flat tires—I don't use it much—but you can take Devi's sit-up-and-beg or Wain's
BMX
.”

“Sit-up-and-beg?” Sid has never heard of such a thing. It sounds like a dog, not a bike.

“You know, a ladies' bike with a low bar, high handlebars and a chain guard. Devi's bike is hot pink and it has a wicker carrier basket. And a bell.” Phil grins.

Sid shudders. He'd rather crawl on his hands and knees than ride a bike like that. “What about Wain's bike? He's big for thirteen. Should be okay.” Sid wishes he'd thought to bring his dirty gray mountain bike with him.
BMX
bikes always feel strange to him—as if he's stolen a bike from a six-year-old.

“It's on the back porch,” Phil says. “He loved that bike. For a while he talked about getting into competitive riding—he's really good—but lately it's just been sitting on the porch, gathering dust.”

“Cool.” Sid heads out the door. “When should I be back?”

“Couple of hours,” Phil says. “I thought we'd order in some pizza, strategize.”

“Strategize?”

“About Wain.”

“Right,” Sid says as he shuts the door behind him.

Wain's bike is bright green and expensive. The words
The Green Knight
are written in an old-fashioned script on the bottom bar. Sid laughs.
Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight
. Awesome. He still has an illustrated version of the old tale from when he was about ten. He remembers how the Green Knight put his severed head back on his shoulders, how Gawain confronted an ogre, a dragon, a pack of wolves. How it all turned out well in the end. He swings the bike off the porch, checks its tires and rides down the bumpy driveway to the street, feeling like a giant on a midget's bike.

He turns left and then right, heading for the ocean. At least he thinks he is. He figures he can't go too far wrong—they are on an island, after all. A bigger island than he lives on but still an island. A few blocks later he can smell the sea, and he follows a road that winds along the shoreline. He passes a marina with a life-size model of a killer whale out front. Next to the marina is a small park. A mile or so farther is another park, this one with a children's playground and a long promenade. He stops to watch some kids making a sandcastle, and then continues up a hill to another park with a boat launch. He rides the Green Knight over the rocks to the water and watches some sailboats race across the choppy waves toward an orange buoy. In the distance to his left is an enormous snow-capped mountain. It looks, improbably, like a postcard of Mount Fuji propped up on the horizon. He'll have to ask Phil its name. He thinks it might be in the United States, but he's not sure. All he knows is that everything here feels both familiar and strange at the same time. The same coast, but different. If he rode his bike for half an hour at home, he would be in the wilderness, or close to it. Here, after a half-hour bike ride, he is still surrounded by the evidence of civilization: waterfront mansions,
SUV
s, tour buses, well-dressed women walking designer dogs on fancy leashes. Overflowing trash cans. Hip-hop blasting from a car stereo. And yet, the rocks, the sky, the water, the wind, the sun—all the same. He imagines the water rushing up the narrow strait from here to the island. If he threw a message in a bottle into the fast-moving whirlpools here, maybe Chloe would pick it up in the cove. Maybe she would reply. He needs to talk to her: about Elizabeth, about his dead grandfather, about the Green Knight.

He sits for a while, watching the boats navigate the orange buoy, listening to the gulls fight over some garbage, and then hops on the bike and heads back to Phil's.

“It's not really much of a strategy,” Sid says to Amie the next day. “More like a plan. In the daytime, I'm going to spend some time downtown, show Wain's picture around. At night, Phil will drive around, talk to people.”

Amie's shift at the bakery is over and she wants to get some sushi before they start searching for Wain.

“Did you bring more pictures?” she asks. “We need to hand them out.”

Sid nods. “Elizabeth printed out a bunch for me. She's got everything—iMac, photo printer, fax machine, digital camera. She says she needs it for her career.”

“Her career? Isn't she, like, eighty?”

“More like seventy, I think. She's an actor. You've probably seen her—she does a lot of commercials.”

“Like what?”

“Well, she's the Gray Matter Granny.” Sid feels ridiculously proud when he says this, as if Elizabeth had won the Nobel Prize for peace.

“No kidding! I love that shit. It's all over YouTube. Does she know that?”

“I doubt it,” Sid says. “I don't think she's a big YouTube watcher.”

He doesn't add that neither is he. “Anyway, I put my cell number on the backs of all the pictures.”

“Good plan,” Amie says. She stops in front of a sushi restaurant. “My friend Dan works here. Come and meet him. We can ask him about Wain.”

Sid expects Dan to be Asian, but he looks like he belongs on a California beach: long messy blond hair, serious tan, blue eyes, straight white teeth. A young Keanu Reeves with a bad dye-job.

“Here's your tuna roll, Ames,” he says, handing Amie a brown paper bag. “Extra soy sauce. This the guy you were telling me about?”