Eighty Days to Elsewhere

by kc dyer

  After brushing my teeth and pulling a strand of hay out of my hair, I return to my seat. Outside the window, the sun glints off a distant body of water, and I feel, for the first time in as long as I can remember, perfectly happy.

  With so few passengers on this train, there is, of course, no restaurant car. After a few minutes, I stick my head out and peer down the aisle to see if Dominic is picking up morning tea from the snack trolley. There’s no sign of him, so I flop back into my seat by the window. It’s not until I’m about to lean into the aisle to look again, when I see the note.

  * * *

  —

  I’m not sure how long I sit, staring at the tiny piece of folded card with my name written on the back. Long enough for every worst-case scenario to trumpet through my brain. Long enough for every ounce of good feeling to drain out of me and puddle on the floor. Long enough for the city of Toronto to start whizzing past the windows.

  I don’t get the nerve up to read the note until the conductor has announced the stop, and reminded us to gather all our personal belongings. Everyone in my car is on their feet, and the train is beginning to slow before I can force my shaking fingers to unfold the card.

  Something has come up at home, Dominic writes, and I have to go. After all we’ve been through, one of us has to make it. It should be you.

  I turn the note over to find it’s written on the back of the card handed to him by Ganesh, first mate on the Wahash Mahat, way back when we left the ship in Mumbai.

  Looking up, I realize I’m the last passenger on the train. I collect my daypack and suitcase blindly, and head for the door.

  Behind me there’s a whoosh as the conductor rushes to my side.

  “Yours, I believe?” he says, stretching out an arm. My pink bra dangles from one of his fingers.

  “Oh, I’m sure that’s not mine,” I stammer, as a handful of straw flutters to the floor of the train.

  I brush past him and take three steps down the platform before I stop, set my suitcase down, and return to snatch it from his hand.

  “This thing’s carried me around the world,” I say. “And it’s going to live to carry me another day.”

  “Lady,” the conductor says drily, “I literally give no shits about anything before I have my coffee.”

  I’m halfway down the platform before he yells, “But you could at least have shaken the straw out of the blanket!”

  I don’t have time to reply. I don’t have time to think about anything. I race upstairs, stop at the first Starbucks, and while they’re making my tea, I log on and send a text to Dominic.

  What happened? Where are you?

  I send the same message by e-mail, and look up at the clock.

  8:00 a.m.

  For this entire journey, I never really believed I had a chance. And then, for the past week, I’ve been fighting the certainty that of the two of us, Dominic is the more deserving. I woke up this morning on the train, resigned to losing—or at best, tying—the contest.

  But now everything’s changed. Sometime since that last, perfect—even with the hay—not-quite-naked moment we shared last night, Dominic has vanished. I don’t know why or how. I can’t believe he’s morphed back into the Evil Nephew I so despised when I started this journey. All I do know is that, against all odds, there’s still a chance for me to do what I set out to do.

  It’s 8:00 a.m. on April 30th, and I have sixteen hours to save Two Old Queens.

  chapter sixty-two

  IMAGE: CN Tower

  IG: Romy_K [Toronto, Canada, April 30]

  #Ghosted #LastDay

  8846

  Union Station is the cavernous main train station for the city of Toronto, and can easily go mano a mano with any of New York’s stations when it comes to marble pillars and soaring ceilings. But my too-new-to-even-use-the-word boyfriend has vanished, and time is running out, so admiring majestic architecture is definitely not on the menu. When, after collecting my tea, I still haven’t heard back from Dominic, I plug my phone in and start to research the fastest way home.

  I’m one measly international border away from my home state. My two limitations: time and commercial aircraft. Since I’m in a train station, I check—and eliminate—that option first. The fastest trip by VIA Rail doesn’t arrive in New York until tomorrow. There is a train leaving from Niagara Falls that can get me home on time, but I have to get there first.

  I waste almost a full hour investigating my next choice, which is to throw cost to the wind and hire someone to drive me to New York. While I can’t find any actual rules prohibiting crossing the border, I also can’t find any ride-share drivers willing to take me.

  In the end, I decide on the Niagara Falls option, mostly because I can catch a bus right here, outside the station. I prepay for my Amtrak ticket online, which, if it doesn’t hit a cow on the tracks, is scheduled to pull into Penn Station by eleven tonight.

  As soon as I press “confirm” on the train ticket, I check both my text and e-mail again. Considering I have them set to push notifications through, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see there’s nothing from Dominic.

  Have I been ghosted?

  The thought makes me sick, but I can’t think of a single reason that would justify his total disappearance. I mean—even in an emergency, a quick text is so easy.

  Clutching the handle of my suitcase firmly, I swallow down the hurt that wants to eat my head right now, and hurry outside to find my bus. Above Union Station, the CN Tower points its needle nose at the sky, and I pause long enough to take my requisite tower shot.

  Spotting a line of coaches across the street, I leap aboard the first one I see with “Niagara Falls” on the sign roller, and slap the last of my Canadian currency into the driver’s collection bin.

  “Pedal to the metal, James,” I mutter, dropping my suitcase onto the luggage rack behind his seat.

  Unfortunately, the driver turns out to have excellent hearing, and informs me that his name is Abdul. All the same, I feel like the credit for the speed with which we surge out of the parking bay belongs to me.

  The bus trip is scheduled to take two and a half hours to circle around the perimeter of Lake Ontario, but Abdul and his pedal to the metal makes it in just under two. This final last day of April brings a few scattered showers, and there’s still a trace of ice along the highway. Unlike the fresh and verdant environment we left in Vancouver, the climate here is closer to the snowy reality of the prairie landscape. I’m hoping by this time tomorrow, I’ll be enjoying tulips bursting out of all the window boxes in New York City.

  In any case, two hours is far too long to dwell on climate. In spite of all my efforts not to, I check my phone at least a dozen times in the first hour. What if Dominic really has ditched me? What if everything I thought we had was a ruse?

  I finally stagger up to the front of the bus to tuck my phone into my suitcase so I won’t look at it again. And for the first time since Paris, I pull out my poor broken Canon to take back to my seat. There are no pictures to remind me of Dominic here—the Parisian purloiners saw to that by smashing the lens. But holding the camera in my hand again brings the strangest sense of loss sweeping over me. This trip, this journey of a lifetime, is almost over.

  Back at my seat, I can see the lens is truly beyond help, with little pieces of glass and plastic still tinkling around inside when I hold it up.

  But the body of the camera—even the delicate shutter mechanism—seems to be functional. Maybe if I have a job at the end of this crazy journey, I can look for a new lens.

  “Canon, eh?” says a voice from across the aisle. “I prefer this old Pentax, m’self. Course, they don’t make ’em like this anymore.”

  An old man in a pristine Tilley hat and pressed chinos holds out his camera for me to admire. “Max Hammer,” he says, patting his chest as I take his camera.

  It
’s an old one, for sure, covered in dents and scratches. “You shoot on film?” I ask incredulously. “Isn’t that massively expensive?”

  He shrugs. “Old habits die hard,” he says, caressing his camera fondly, as I place it carefully back into his hands. “Spendin’ my retirement shootin’ this country from coast to coast to coast.”

  I can’t help grinning at him. “One too many coasts in there, Max.”

  He waggles his eyebrows at me under his hat. “We got three oceans, Missy. Don’t forget the Arctic!”

  “That you have,” I agree, remembering the size of the grey waves splashing across the bow of the Arctic Björn. “So, are you adding a little taste of America today, then?”

  He gives me a mischievous look. “No chance of that. I’ve taken a stand against the current administration. When they clean up their act, I’ll go back.”

  He busies himself polishing the lens of his camera, and I get the sense our conversation is over, but I’m puzzled. “You do know this bus is bound for Niagara Falls?” I ask. “Niagara Falls is in New York State.”

  This time his smile takes on a pitying tone. “Indeed it is, young lady. But this bus is headed for the Canadian side of the falls.”

  My look of shock prompts him to reach over and pat my hand, which is gripping the rail on the back of the seat in front of me, at the moment. “Not to worry, though. If you’re headed for the other side, you can zip across the bridge in under ten minutes, I’m sure.”

  I hop out of my seat, and trot up the aisle to stand beside Driver Abdul.

  “No standing while the vehicle is in motion,” he intones, so I swing myself into one of the empty seats behind him. Which doesn’t exactly facilitate conversation. Nevertheless, I persevere.

  “Are you driving through to New York State, Abdul?” I holler.

  “No distracting the driver while the vehicle is in motion,” he hollers back.

  “I only need to know where we’re going, dude!”

  I’m pretty sure the desperation in my voice wins him over. Or maybe he likes being called dude.

  He taps the paper schedule taped to the dashboard beside the door-opening crank. I stand up to read it, and he jabs his thumb toward the back of the bus. “No standing while the vehicle is in motion,” he repeats, and I beat a hasty retreat.

  But not before I have seen the words “Niagara Falls, Ontario” on his schedule.

  I yank my phone back out of my suitcase, and take ten minutes trying to log on to the sketchy Wi-Fi. This bus might be destination Ontario, but Max Hammer is right. A bridge stretches between the two Niagaras, open twenty-four hours a day.

  As I’m about to close my phone, it pings with an e-mail from Tommy. I haven’t heard anything from him for ages, so I open it nervously. He’s not castigating me this time, but not welcoming me home either. Instead, he wants me to know that Rhianna has been missing more than a week, and that Merv is devastated. The e-mail is short on detail, but he adds they are planning a going-out-of-business sale to coincide with my return.

  Please don’t give up yet, I back desperately, but there’s no reply. With the state of the Wi-Fi on the bus, I’m not even sure it’s gone through.

  I try calling, but Merv’s phone goes straight to voice mail.

  In desperation, I call Dominic’s number too. Nothing.

  What’s wrong with these people? Who doesn’t answer their phone?

  Across the aisle, Max is out like a light. His hat tilts rakishly over one eye and he is snoring so hard, one side of his moustache is flapping gently. I envy his serenity and am furious at his ability to relax, all in the same moment.

  Leaning back in my seat, I try to practice yoga breathing. So close now. I’m so close. In a few hours, I’ll be home. This crazy journey will be over. And the bookshop will be fine.

  It’s got to be.

  * * *

  —

  I have my suitcase in hand before Abdul has even stopped the bus, and I leap out into a town that reminds me of nothing so much as Coney Island. Casinos, wax museums, and souvenir shops mingle with “like real” Falls experiences. Who wouldn’t want to watch a 4-D—maybe they throw water on you?—movie of the Falls in a theater, when the real thing is thundering right outside the door?

  There’s no time to look at any of it, of course. I wave goodbye to Max Hammer and his Pentax and sprint off the bus in the direction of the Rainbow Bridge—a fairly generic green, considering its name—spanning the Niagara River. The air is misty and the thunder of the falls overlays everything.

  The wind coming off the water still bears winter’s edge, and as I get closer to the Rainbow Bridge, I can see the water in the gorge is filled with shattered ice. Water falling on the American side carves fantastic shapes through the still-huge blocks of ice at the base.

  There’s no Wi-Fi, but I do one last desperate scan of my text messages, and then run toward the American border, jamming my phone into my pocket. The entrance to the Rainbow Bridge is through a glass door, behind which are coin machines that accept both Canadian loonies—dollar coins—and American bills. To cross, one must feed four quarters into the turnstile, hence the change machines.

  This means I have to leave and run back across the street to get money from an ATM. I feel pathetically grateful when it gives me a choice of currency, and in seconds, I have American money in my hand for the first time in over a month. I feed a dollar bill into the machine, and holding my suitcase over my head, push through the turnstile.

  In seconds, I’m through and onto the pedestrian walkway to the bridge. I dodge the dozen or so tourists posing for selfies and family shots with the frosty falls in the background, and trot toward the American side. The center of the bridge features a plaque and two flagpoles ceremoniously marking each side of the world’s longest undefended border. I know I should be taking pictures for ExLibris, but I’m too close now. At the far end of the bridge, by some miracle, there’s no lineup at customs. I force myself to walk up to the glass door, and the officer waves me inside, ready to welcome me home with open arms.

  The second I place my passport into his hands, immediately behind me, there’s a piercing scream.

  chapter sixty-three

  IMAGE: Frozen Waterfall

  IG: Romy_K [Niagara Falls, US/Canada Border, April 30]

  #NiagaraIce #AFallOvertheFalls #ABrokenRainbow

  9919

  How to tell things are bad: When a sweet-faced, thick-necked American boy in uniform swears at you. With a gosh or even a goldarn, you know there’s a problem. More than that? The writing is on the wall.

  Or in this case, over it.

  Customs Guy stamps my passport, and flips it over onto his laser reader, but as he glances over my shoulder, his smile freezes.

  “Jesus Christ,” he says. “A car seat just went over.” And in one of the smoothest moves I’ve ever seen on ice or off—and I’m speaking as an Islanders fan here—he smacks a big red button, and vaults over the gate separating the guards from the great unwashed.

  As in me.

  He spins me around as he shoulders past, and I find myself facing back through the glass door I’ve just entered. Outside, I see a small family staring, openmouthed, over the railing of the bridge.

  Even in the raw horror of this moment, I do not lose sight of my goal.

  Snatching my passport back, I run for the last glass door separating me from the country of my birth—but I’m too late.

  Customs Guy’s red button has put the place into lockdown.

  I knock on the door, trying to gain the attention of the woman on the other side. She is wearing an identical uniform to Customs Guy’s, and she has her back to me.

  “He’s passed me through,” I yell at the glass, and wave my passport for good measure. “Look! He’s given me my passport back.”

  She shoots me a side-eye, so I k
now she’s heard me, but turns her back on me all the same. Crossing her arms, she spreads her feet wide, and holds her position.

  I decide Customs Guy is now my only hope.

  Turning around, I race back outside to find a phalanx of guards—these ones wearing Niagara Parks Police insignia—have cleared everyone off the bridge, with the exception of the car-seat-less family, and me. The pedestrian bridge is separated by cement blocks from the vehicle bridge, but there are no longer any cars either.

  An icy wind whistles up from the churning water below.

  The family is car-seat-less, but clearly not baby-less. The father is holding the baby, whose nose, I have to add, is running in a ghastly fashion, while the mother speaks to Customs Guy. She has a shock of blond hair piled up in the patented “I haven’t brushed this stuff on my head for a week now, but I’m still unwilling to part with it” style, topped with rain-speckled sunglasses. Her husband’s plaid jacket flaps in the wind over a t-shirt reading “Saskatchewan Flour Power.”

  “It was my fault,” the woman says patiently. “I wouldn’t let him use the selfie stick. I’d only propped the car seat on the railing to get it out of the way of the picture.”

  Customs Guy has pulled a radio off his belt. “I saw it go over,” he says, gesturing with the antenna. “There was something inside.”

  The father shakes his head, and holds up the evidence. “No—no. Jenna’s right here. It was only the seat.” He turns back to his wife and points an accusatory finger. “You are going to have to be the one to tell your parents. That thing cost ’em three hundred bucks, and you know they’re going to hold this against me.”