Whiteout

by Vicki Delany

  “What’s your pie today?”

  “Blueberry.”

  “Oh great. I love the blueberry pie here. With ice cream. And a coffee. Joanna?”

  “Just coffee thanks.” The waitress carefully wrote their order in longhand on her pad. Her tiny wrinkled hand was dotted with liver spots.

  “Isn’t this nice,” Nancy smiled.

  They talked of the weather for a few minutes, then the waitress returned with a tray bearing two mugs of coffee, sugar, cream in a real glass pitcher and a huge chunk of blueberry pie topped with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.

  Joanna sipped her coffee. It was delicious, hot and fresh. Maybe she should have had some of the pie after all.

  Nancy soon switched to the topic most on her mind. “Some people are saying that the fire was started on purpose. By that bunch of teenagers that passes through sometimes, most likely.”

  “I think that we should wait for the official report, don’t you?”

  “Oh yes. I’m just telling you what everyone is saying. Poor Maude, it will break her heart if Tiffany is involved.”

  Joanna bristled but controlled her tongue. Mother of teenagers herself, one of them very troubled, it always angered her when people automatically associated “teenager” with “Columbine High.” Or “single mother” with “bad kids.” Instead she took another taste of her coffee. “Why does Tiffany live with her grandmother? She told me she hates it in this town. I can understand why any girl her age would. Not quite the center of the universe, is it?”

  Nancy dropped her voice and leaned closer to the table. Her grocery store smock was in imminent danger of dipping into blueberry pie. “She doesn’t have anyone else, poor little thing. Maude doesn’t talk about it much. She only had one daughter, Bev. Harvey Mitchell died a few short months after Bev was born, terrible thing. I remember my mom and dad talking about it. He was working on a farm down south for the summer and was caught in a threshing. Bled to death, my mom said.”

  Joanna shivered and took a quick gulp of the hot coffee.

  The door swung open bringing with it a blast of cold winter air. A group of workmen flowed into the restaurant like a small river swollen with spring snowmelt, breaking over its banks. They clambered into stools along the counter and boisterously shouted for attention.

  The elderly waitress bustled over, arthritis forgotten, eyes sparking with flirtatious delight.

  Nancy glanced up at the commotion, then returned to her story. “They were really in love, Maude and Harvey, Mom always said. Bev was the apple of Maude’s eye. Maude loved that girl so much. Maude was so brokenhearted about Harvey that she never remarried, although lots of men would have been glad to have her. Not just because she was such a beauty, but she was an only child herself, so she inherited all her daddy’s property when her own parents died. But she didn’t want to remarry so she raised her child all by herself. Bev was a bad seed right from the get-go. Of course, Maude couldn’t see it.”

  The waitress bustled back and forth, cutting and serving cake and pie and pouring coffee. The men teased her with loud voices and much laughter and she blushed like a schoolgirl.

  Nancy dropped her voice even lower until it was barely a whisper. “Bev moved away as soon as she was old enough. These days most of the kids leave this town the minute they can. She went to Toronto and married a man named, what was his name now?” Nancy chewed thoughtfully on her last piece of pie and scraped at the ice cream drips with her fork. She shook her head. “Can’t remember. Anyway, he took off right after little Tiffany was born. Never heard a word from him again. To this day, Tiffany doesn’t know whether her daddy is alive or dead. So Bev tried to raise Tiffany herself, just like Maude raised her. But Bev, she was never like Maude. Too weak, if you ask me. She couldn’t hold down a job, fell into some bad company.” She licked the ice-cream covered tines of her fork.

  “Maude went down there a couple of times. To look after Tiffany and help out a bit, so Bev could get a decent job. But she never stayed long. She couldn’t get along with Bev anymore. Of course Bev didn’t want her there, there was always one boyfriend or another hanging around.”

  “More pie, Nancy?” The waitress was back.

  “I really shouldn’t, but I guess this is a special occasion,” Nancy giggled. “Yes, please. With ice cream. That was great. And more coffee.”

  The waitress eyed Joanna.

  “Yes, please, another coffee.” Joanna would have loved to try the pie. She cursed herself for being a stuck-up city snob, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to eat in the shoddy little diner.

  Once again the woman laboriously wrote their order onto her pad. Nancy was silent until the waitress was behind the counter pouring the second round of coffee. The group of workmen laughed at an off-color joke. They had made a serious dent into the platters of cake and pots of coffee.

  “Well, last year Bev just upped and disappeared. Put Tiffany on the bus to Hope River with ten dollars in her pocket and moved out of her apartment. Ran off with the latest boyfriend I suspect. And Maude hasn’t heard a word from her since.”

  It never failed to amaze Joanna how thoughtless people could be toward their own children. “How terrible for Tiffany.”

  With a clatter the plate and cups were placed on the table, along with the bill. Joanna reached for her purse but Nancy stopped her. “Let me treat you, Joanna. It has been so pleasant chatting with you.”

  “That’s very kind of you. Thanks. Has Maude tried to find Bev?”

  Nancy attacked her pie with gusto. “She went to Toronto and asked at Bev’s old apartment. But no one there knew anything. She went to the Tim Horton’s where Bev was supposed to be working, but they hadn’t seen her for three months. Didn’t know what else to do. So she just came on home and tried to do her best for Tiffany.”

  “How sad. No wonder the poor girl is so angry.”

  “It’s been real hard for Maude. Not many of the people in town like Tiffany. They think she’s a bad girl. My Uncle Jack, he tells everyone that Tiffany’s just like her mother. She’ll never amount to anything, he says. It hurts Maude a lot, what people say about Bev and Tiffany. But Maude’s so proud; she’ll never let on. I’ve tried to be friendly to Tiffany, but she’s just rude back. It’s real hard, but I keep trying.”

  “I know it’s hard.” Joanna gripped her coffee cup tightly. Her eyes welled up and she fought to control it. “But you’re right to keep trying. Some kids you’ll never get through to, no matter how hard you try. But sometimes you will. Then it’s all worthwhile.”

  Nancy looked at her. Her eyes gleamed with understanding and a long-dormant intelligence. “You have children of your own, don’t you, Joanna? How are they?”

  “Fine, just fine. Hadn’t you better be getting back to work? We’ve been sitting here for over half an hour now.”

  Nancy shrugged. “Uncle Jack will be mad. Who cares?” But she swallowed the remains of her coffee with a quick gulp and carefully counted out the exact change to place on the table alongside their bill.

  Joanna did manage to get her shopping done. When she left the store carrying bulging brown paper bags to her car a group of teenagers were lounging on the restaurant steps watching the nonexistent traffic.

  It looked like three boys and two girls, but it was hard to tell in their uniform of oversized jeans, baggy coats and hair either long and straight or cropped almost bald. They passed a pop can around and were all smoking. Only one of the group noticed Joanna as she packed her trunk with groceries. Tiffany raised her hand lazily in what Joanna interpreted as a wave. She waved back and Tiffany turned away.

  She left the car in the grocery store parking lot and walked up the hill to the liquor store. It was very cold and she took long deep breaths through her mouth, savoring the sharp taste of the air.

  The street seemed very busy all of a sudden; a small crowd was descending on the liquor store and disappearing around the back. She could hear shouting and the murmur of excited voice
s. Drawn by nothing other than curiosity, Joanna went to see what was going on.

  A group of about fifteen people stood in a circle in the parking lot. She could see two old men facing off against each other, feet apart, fists bunched. One of them was Luke.

  “You bastard, you burnt down my home,” Luke shouted, his face red and contorted in anger.

  “I never,” the other man replied. He was of similar age as Luke, equally work-worn although taller and much heavier. His many-times broken nose was a bulbous red, the sign of a life-long drinker. This must be Roy McMaster, whom Luke had accused the night of the fire.

  “You been waiting to get me my whole life, you bastard,” Luke shouted. “Now you gone and done it.”

  “You stupid old man. If I wanted to get you I would take you on like a man, not sneak up behind your house and start a fire in the night. That’s the work of a coward.”

  The crowd murmured in agreement. Roy’s statement made sense to them. But Luke wouldn’t back down.

  “Well that sounds just like you to me, don’t it? I know you been having wild parties out in the woods on my property, you and your no account friends. Hanging around watching the girls, probably.”

  Roy growled. The shot seemed to have hit home. Then he snorted. “If I was gonna have a party, I can think of better places to have it than that run-down old dump of yours. And I sure ain’t seen any pretty girls round your place lately.”

  No one moved to intervene. Surely they weren’t going to simply stand by and let two old men come to blows? There was no aura of tension among the onlookers. Presumably they never expected the altercation to come to an actual fistfight. After a few minutes of both men looking nothing but ridiculous, Roy relaxed his fists and took a step backward. The crowd murmured in appreciation. Joanna crept away. As she rounded the corner, one of the onlookers invited everyone to meet at the bar in North Ridge, to commiserate with Luke on his misfortune.

  Joanna drove home deep in thought. As soon as she walked in she picked up the phone and called Maude before she could change her mind.

  “Maude, it’s Joanna. I would like to ask Tiffany to come back and continue with the computer lessons. We got off on the wrong foot, but I think we could work something out.”

  The relief in the older woman’s voice was almost physical. “That would be wonderful. I know that Tiffany wasn’t very polite to you the other day, but that’s just the way she is. She really is a nice girl.” Maude’s voice trailed off.

  “I do know. I know exactly what you mean. How about after school three times a week?”

  “Thank you, Joanna. Thank you very much.”

  “Tell Tiffany to be here tomorrow. We’ll start then.”

  Joanna put down the phone. What had she done?

  The next morning she was sitting down to breakfast when she heard a car stop on the road, soon followed by a sharp knock at the front door. She peered out the window. It was Luke.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here today, Luke.”

  “Why not? You asked me to fix that back step what’s coming loose.”

  “I thought that you might be too tired and upset, after the other night.”

  “Work’s got to be done. No matter what.” He shuffled his feet and twisted his cap in his hands. “I have to thank you. You saved my life. Thank you.” He was in an agony of embarrassment.

  “It was nothing. Come in and have a cup of tea before you go out back.” She stepped aside to let him in.

  “I’m so sorry about your place,” Joanna said as she placed a massive pottery mug and a plate of chocolate-chip cookies on the table. The front of the mug was handcrafted into a face with thick brows, bulging blue eyes and a rather foolish expression. She never noticed before just how much the face on the mug resembled Luke. She hoped he didn’t think so.

  “Yeah.”

  “And all your things as well. Have you been living there long?”

  “My daddy built that cabin. I was born there.”

  Joanna couldn’t imagine living in one town, never mind the same house, all your life. How devastating it must be, to lose it. “Where are you staying now?”

  “With my brother, Larry, and his wife, over by North Ridge. They said I could live there now, long as I like. Larry drove me here today. He’ll be back to pick me up in two hours. So I guess I’d better get to it.” Luke finished his tea in one gulp and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He looked wistfully at the cookie plate.

  Joanna took the hint. “Would you like to take some cookies outside with you? To have a break later, perhaps?”

  He smiled shyly as he slipped the remaining cookies into his coat pocket.

  “Do you have any idea what happened?” Joanna walked Luke the few steps to the back door. “What caused the fire, I mean?”

  He shook his head sadly. “Wasn’t me, that’s for sure. I ain’t been out to the shed for a couple of days.”

  “Have you had any visitors or anything? Someone who might have started it by accident, I mean.”

  “No. People have been in the woods a lot lately, though.”

  “What do you mean, ‘people’?”

  “Kids, you know. Hangin’ around, makin’ noise, playin’ loud music. I seen that no account Tiffany Jordan out with that bunch, sassed me right out when I told her to get off my property. For all I been friends with her grandma goin’ on fifty years.” He shook his head. “Stupid kids. Don’t know why they’d be out in the woods at night, no how. Weather as cold as it’s been lately.” Luke shrugged.

  “When did you see them last?”

  “Week or two, I figure. I finally caught one o’ them. Told him I’d have my shotgun out next time I found him on my property. Ain’t seen them since.”

  “Have you reported them to the police?”

  “I can take care of my own business. Don’t need no police.” The door slammed shut and Luke stomped down the steps to begin his work.

  At the request of the fire department, outside investigators were brought in to investigate the matter of the fire at Luke’s home. They visited Joanna and asked a great many questions. There wasn’t much she could tell them. She saw flames; the place was on fire. That was it.

  In due course their report was released to the volunteer fire department and in a matter of minutes the whole town knew every detail.

  The inspector’s report concluded that liberal quantities of gasoline had been sprinkled throughout Luke’s woodshed and ignited. Luke insisted that he had never spilled anything out in the shed and the town believed him.

  Chapter 9

  Tiffany sat at the computer, her regular sullen expression locked firmly in place. Joanna resolved to ignore it.

  Joanna called up Mrs. Beeton’s typing tutorial. Tiffany poked at the keys; her body language screamed, “Boring!”

  “Let’s make a deal, Tiffany,” Joanna offered. “If you can put a little bit of enthusiasm into doing these exercises, you can play with one of my games.”

  Tiffany’s eyes flickered with interest, but she tossed her purple hair. “Games, oh, goody. We get to play games.”

  “I mean computer games. I have Tomb Raider. Have you ever heard of it?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it. One of the rich bitch chicks at school has it. The kids all say it’s really cool. But I’ve never seen it.”

  “Well, do the tutorial and I’ll show it to you.”

  The girl straightened almost imperceptibly in her chair and her fingers picked up their pace.

  Joanna hid her smile. She just might be getting somewhere here. It was a nice thought.

  As she hoped, Tomb Raider and Lara Croft were a big hit.

  “Cool,” Tiffany exclaimed as the graphics unfolded on the screen. “How do they get all those pictures and movement into the computer?”

  “Now that’s something I don’t know. But it looks wonderful, doesn’t it?”

  She started Tiffany off by explaining the various key combinations, to run, to jump, to move forward and backwar
d. The girl picked it up instantly. It was nice to watch her delight as she successfully maneuvered the buxom Lara through her own home in the introduction to the game.

  She played for just a few minutes before Maude arrived to drive Tiffany home. The girl’s enthusiasm dried up the minute she rose from the computer table. Her shoulders slouched and the sullen expression returned.

  “Did you have a nice lesson?” Maude asked as Tiffany pulled on her boots.

  “It was okay.”

  From Tiffany that was a ringing endorsement. Joanna and Maude smiled at each other over the girl’s bent back.

  “See you on Wednesday,” Joanna said.

  “Maybe,” Tiffany grunted.

  But right on time on Wednesday Tiffany was standing at the cabin door.

  After an hour and a half of finishing homework assignments with Word, Joanna stood up to stretch. “You’ve done very well,” she said. “Why don’t we put on Tomb Raider for a little while until your grandma comes.”

  Tiffany enthusiastically agreed. “Joanna, do you think maybe on Friday I could ask Grandma to come a bit later? So I could play for longer. If I wouldn’t be in your way, that is?”

  “That’s a great idea. Friday night I don’t usually do much work anyway. So you can have the computer for as long as you like. I’ll tell Maude that I’ll drive you home when we’re finished. That way she won’t have to worry about what time she should come to get you.”

  Joanna was extremely pleased at how well things were going with Tiffany. The girl was obviously very bright. All she needed was a little respect and encouragement.

  Like a cat stretching every inch of its body, the kinks worked themselves out of the muscles in Joanna’s arms and legs. It felt really good to be back on her skis. She had warmed up carefully before starting out and was keeping a close eye on her watch to ensure that this time she didn’t go farther than her middle-aged body would take her.