Blink & Caution

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  You turn to stare at her. “I’m a Virgo,” you say.

  She shakes her head. “No way,” she says. “I am, like, so good at this.”

  “I’m a Virgo,” you say. “September fifteenth.” Somehow it’s important to set her straight.

  “Wow!” she says. “Really?”

  “Listen —”

  “Okay. I hear you. I’m out of here. Have a nice day.” She gets up to leave. There’s a strip of lining hanging down from her jacket like a tail. You want to grab it, pull her back. If she’d just slow down a bit, a little company would be nice.

  She walks about five paces away, then she spins around on her feet like an ice-skater. She plants her hands on her hips. “How about breakfast?” she says.

  “I already ate.”

  “Liar.”

  You look down. She’s a bully. You’re too tired for this.

  “You are a liar,” she says.

  “So I’m a liar — just go away.”

  But she won’t. She stabs you in the leg with her finger. “Hey,” she says again, her voice quiet. She’s bending down, her hands on her knees, to look you in the eye. “It’s on me.”

  You look up, skeptical.

  “Seriously,” she says, patting her pocket. “There’s a Tim Hortons in here somewhere. You know those little potato things? I love those. I’m going to order three of them. It’s my treat. How about it?”

  You haven’t eaten. You were so worried about getting to the station on time, you got here way too early. You are hungry, and when you look at her, she smiles and doesn’t look half as wacko anymore.

  “What’s your name?” she says. “I’m April.”

  You swallow, try to think. “Bruce,” you say.

  “Come on, Bruce. It’s chow time.”

  Next thing you know, you’re in the line at Tim Hortons. You’re in the GO train part of the station now, and it’s crazy busy with commuters arriving in droves like cattle in a cowboy movie. She’s quiet now, and you actually miss her voice.

  You glance sideways at her, through your hair. She manages a tired smile. She’s putting on the cheery routine. And for some reason that endears her to you. There’s no way her name is April. But that’s okay. She knows your name isn’t really Bruce; you could tell. So already there’s this thing you’ve got going, even if it’s only a lie.

  She’s the only person you’ve really talked to in days, apart from Alyson, and that was on a phone. Oh, and you can pretend all you want, Blink, but in your heart of hearts, you know that Alyson wouldn’t give you the time of day if it weren’t for this thing she wants you to do.

  Oh, Blink. How can I ever thank you? you have imagined her saying to you. You’re out on that manicured lawn by the water. You’re all in white, like she is. She’s holding the collar of your shirt, her face right up next to yours.

  “I’m heading to Vancouver,” says April.

  “What’s in Vancouver?”

  “My folks,” she says. “I’m a ‘runaway,’” She makes little quote marks in the air. “You, too, right?” You nod. “Figured. So is Kingston ‘home’?”

  “No.”

  Mr. Conversationalist. Oh, give it a try, son. Talk to the girl, why don’t you? She’s buying you breakfast, after all. She’s a bit of a flibbertigibbet, but there’s something about her, isn’t there, lad? Something inside those gray eyes that you recognize. Some kind of need.

  “There’s this . . . thing I’m doing for someone,” you say. “I’m kind of, you know, helping someone out?”

  “Uh-oh,” she says. “Helping out, Bruce?”

  “It’s like a favor.”

  She takes your arm and leans in close, her body pressing against your side, and whispers in your ear. “You’re not moving drugs, are you?”

  You pull your head back as if she’d shouted. “No way.”

  “Phew,” she says. “Good one. Keep clear. Believe me. I know.”

  You’re almost at the counter now, and you look up at the choices available on the menu board. You don’t want to order too much. By the look of her, she’s been living on the street, just like you. And yet she’s going to Vancouver, which must cost a bundle. So you think, a breakfast sandwich and a coffee.

  “Can I take your order?”

  The crankcase in the hairnet behind the counter looks borderline hostile. You turn to April, who nods encouragingly while she searches through her pockets. So you give your order and April adds her own, and the crankcase totes it up and tells you the price. By now April is frantic.

  “Oh, no,” she says. “My money!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My money’s gone!” She looks back as if she might have dropped it. The people in the line scan the floor, see nothing, and do not look amused. The woman behind the counter is tapping her finger on the stainless-steel counter.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” she says.

  Now April looks at you, Blink, desperate. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbles. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “Move it or lose it,” says the suit behind you.

  April swears at him, then turns back to you. “Come on,” she says, and grabs you by the sleeve. But you don’t budge.

  “It’s okay,” you say, surprised but suddenly elated by this turn of events. Then with something of a flourish, you pull the roll of bills from your pocket — the last of the windfall of Wednesday morning. “I’ll get it,” you say.

  But you don’t get it, Blink. You don’t get it at all.

  Before you can peel off a ten, April snatches the whole roll from your open palm and takes off.

  “Hey!” you shout, too stunned to move.

  “You just got took, kiddo,” says the woman behind the counter, as if she sees this kind of thing every day.

  You take off after the girl, but the commuter herd keeps pouring off the GO trains, and you lose sight of her in no time. You dodge through the push and hurry, catching electric-blue glimpses but nothing more. It’s as if she’s run into a moving, impenetrable forest. You shout her name that is not her name. You push your way through, against the flow of the crowd, the flow of everything — jostled and shoved, elbowed and insulted.

  But it’s no use. Give it up, you poor stupid boyo. She’s gone.

  It is high tide. You stop in a place where it is impossible to stand still, and soon enough the crowd carries you back like flotsam — debris from a sinking ship. That is what you are, Blink: a bit of wreckage washed up on the shore.

  Caution sits in the handicapped stall in the women’s room, counting her take. Over three hundred dollars. How far will that get you? Someone enters the restroom, and instinctively Caution climbs up onto the seat, so her feet won’t show. They’re here. They’re looking for her, and it isn’t just Merlin. It’s the others, too.

  Someone tries her door. “Oh, sorry,” says the someone, and finds another stall.

  Another toilet flushes. Someone washes her hands and leaves. The door opens, wafting in an echoey loudspeaker voice, then shuts.

  Where will she go? She hasn’t a clue. Where can she go? The answer to that is simpler. She can go up to three hundred and sixty dollars away. Is that far enough?

  But to go anywhere, she will need to buy a ticket, which will mean venturing up into the main part of the station, standing in a line, and then standing in another line for a train. A sitting duck.

  Something inside her shifts. Maybe it’s because of exhaustion. She didn’t sleep last night, didn’t dare stop moving. Adrenaline got her through the little performance for Bruce, if that was his name. What a sap. She feels this pang of regret. It’s not that he was stupid, just naive. No match for her.

  He’d been wary at first, but she’d stripped him of his wariness as easily as she’d stripped him of his cash. His problem was that he had wanted exactly what she was offering — friendship and breakfast. She could see the yearning in him as much for company as for food. She knew the feeling.

  She slithers down off her perc
h like a boneless thing until she is sitting on the toilet again, where she leans forward and rests her head in her arms. She feels empty, drained of every last ounce of spirit.

  She is almost dizzy with sleep. But she can’t afford it, so she drags herself to her feet, teetering like a drunk, and makes her way to the stall’s self-contained sink. She turns on the water and douses her face. She grabs at her hairpins: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven — pulls them all out and throws them in the overflowing garbage bin. Then she puts her whole head in the sink and soaks her weary skull.

  She looks up at the mirror, dripping wet, her eyes blinking like that unfortunate boy. The mirror is tilted forward for someone in a wheelchair. She wishes she were in a wheelchair. She doesn’t want to stand up anymore. She doesn’t want to be on the run. She is beaten. So why doesn’t she simply walk out there and give herself up?

  She leans on the sink, staring at herself in incomprehension. This has to stop, she thinks. Then she says it out loud. “This has to stop.”

  From the restroom doorway, she can see the lines snaking toward the gateways to westbound and eastbound trains. She has formulated a plan. The end of the line for the Montreal train with service to Kingston winds its way through gate 12. The man at the gate seems only to be checking tickets, not collecting them. Nodding, pointing. A woman with a baby in a stroller is his last customer. The baby is lifted up, and the gate man helps the mother fold up the stroller.

  Now.

  Caution takes off across the station, running as fast as she can, running on empty, running for her life. If Merlin is here somewhere, then he will see nothing but a blue flash, a blur. There is nothing left of her but this movement toward gate 12. He will need real magic to stop her, and she no longer believes he has any. Just an electronic toy she has already dealt with.

  The gate is closed when she reaches it. She rattles it like a prisoner and the conductor turns around.

  “Kingston?” she says, breathing hard.

  He pulls keys from his pocket as he returns to let her through.

  “Thanks,” she shouts, dashing past him to the steep escalator up to the platform.

  “Miss!” he calls after her. But she can’t stop now. She takes the escalator steps two at a time, until she is brought up short behind the woman and child. It’s a narrow escalator, with no room for her to pass, but when she stares back down, the gate man has abandoned his post. The child above Caution stares down over its mother’s shoulder at her, reaches out a tiny hand, says some baby word. The mother turns and smiles. “Just made it,” she says.

  At the top of the escalator, Caution ducks past the woman and runs to the first coach.

  “Ticket,” says the man at the bottom of the steps.

  “I didn’t have time,” she says. “Can I pay cash?”

  He makes a sour face but herds her onto the train, where she finds the first available seat and falls into it. By the time the train starts moving, she is almost asleep. A hand on her shoulder shakes her gently.

  “Ticket?” says the conductor.

  She wipes her eyes and reaches into her pocket for the roll of money. “I was late,” she says. “Sorry. How much do I owe you?”

  His face is stern, and she fears some kind of reprimand. She wonders if she has the energy to listen to a lecture about rules. His face is jowly and gray, but his eyes are a penetrating green. “Where to?” he asks.

  “Kingston,” she says.

  “Student?”

  She nods.

  “Could I see some ID?”

  She has her driver’s license, but there is no way she’s showing him that. She glances down at the floor, trying to dredge up some kind of ploy or scheme, but her mind is a blank. She looks up, pushes back the wet tangle of hair from her forehead.

  “I don’t have any ID with me,” she says. “I’ll be seventeen on November thirtieth. But if you want to charge me adult fare, that’s okay. I understand.”

  She’s not sure why, but his expression suddenly softens. “Fifty-nine eighty-five,” he says. “Student fare, one-way.”

  She hands him three twenties. He says he’ll be back with the change and a ticket. “The Kingston car is two up,” he says. Then he places a finger on her shoulder. “But why don’t you just rest up a bit, dear? No hurry.”

  Her eyes won’t stay open another moment. It is as if she were just waiting for permission to close them. There is a fluttering shape in her mind’s eye, something primary, bright and swirling and smudged.

  She marches up the hill behind the house, through the meadow to the shooting range. Her rifle bounces on her shoulder. It hurts, but she doesn’t care. She’s angry. Angry at Spence. First he doesn’t come home from Toronto at the end of the term because he’s got some kind of a job. Then they can’t even go for his graduation because Mom got the flu. Finally, when he gets home, he’s impossible to talk to.

  “Fine,” she says. “Be that way.”

  She is going to do some target practice. Spence helped her set up a target. He brought up some hay bales in the tractor, found a messed-up scrap of plywood out behind Dad’s workshop. It’s about four feet by eight feet; the bales rise above it and out about two feet to either side. They had measured out markers in the meadow to indicate 50, 100, 150, and 200 meters. They used to have shooting competitions; she even won sometimes. But that was last summer, when Spence was Spence, instead of this alien!

  She pins a fresh new red-and-white paper target square in the middle of the plywood, then trudges out to the 50-meter marker. Beyond the target is bush, thick and overgrown. She can’t see the house from here, only glimpses of the lake. The wind is behind her, strong. She swears and, with her rifle between her knees, ropes in her long black hair and shoves it down the back of her sweater.

  She loads up the Remington. He gave it to her for her fourteenth birthday. It had been his, but he didn’t buy a new rifle, which is what she expected he was going to do. Another thing that was different about him. It was as if he were leaving her, leaving her behind. When they went hunting or target shooting anymore, he borrowed one of Dad’s old rifles.

  She opens up a new box of CCI Mini-Mag cartridges. Forty-grain solids, gilded lead round noses. Solid tip, less drag than hollow point.

  She raises the rifle to her shoulder. In, out, in, hold.

  Bang!

  She squints; it looks like a bull’s-eye. She’ll shoot twenty bull’s-eyes and take down the tattered target to show him. If she knows Spence, he’ll challenge her to a competition right then and there. Except she doesn’t feel like she knows him anymore.

  Bang!

  Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees a car winding its way up Lake Road, away from their place. It’s Melody in her father’s truck. There’s a trail of dust behind her. She’s driving fast. What now? Kitty wonders. Did Spence tell her he’s heading back to Toronto on Monday? That’s what Kitty overheard him saying to Dad.

  Bang!

  Well, good riddance! she thinks.

  Bang!

  “I don’t mean that, God,” she shouts into the wind. She doesn’t expect that God is listening. And, anyway, God probably knows. All she wants is her brother back.

  Bang!

  Her hair has escaped from her jacket and whirls around her face. She pushes it aside and squints again at the target. She goes to look. There’s her first shot, pretty well dead center. Then there are three bullet holes fanning out across the target, as if her aim got worse with every shot. She had fired five times. There is no sign of a fifth bullet hole.

  You settle back in your chair by the window on the land side and watch Toronto slip away. You clickity-clack past where you slept last night on a construction site rolled in a painter’s drop cloth. The train picks up and speeds past the abandoned building where you’ve been sleeping for the last few weeks, faster and faster, until you pass by where you were born and where you lived until May, and then the Beaches, where Nanny Dee and Granda Trick lived. Live. Lived. Your whole young l
ife is mapped out along the edge of the lake. You are traveling backward in time. You are slipping right out of life as you know it, Blink.

  Pretty soon you’re speeding along the shore of Lake Ontario, and since there aren’t too many people on this early morning train, you move to the lake side of the car and stare, tired-eyed, out at the endlessness of water, so wide it seems there is no other shore to it. You ride along the crest of a cliff that tumbles down into the sun-speckled water. The Scarborough Bluffs. You’ve heard of the bluffs, but they might as well have been the pyramids of Egypt, for all you knew.

  And the lake . . . God, from up here it stretches to forever. Is this the water in the picture of Alyson? Does she live beside the same lake? You dig the picture out and hold it up to the window with the lake behind it. Could be.

  You settle back in your seat. But you can’t settle. The excitement of your escape and the anticipation of what lies ahead suddenly give way to the little earthquake that happened back at the train station. More like a blue tornado. If you close your eyes, you can still feel her fingernails scrape your palm as she lifts every last bill from your palm. You squeeze your eyes tight to fight back the tears.

  It seems that the world is achingly full of people who want to rip you off. Pretty people, which is what makes it worse.

  You have six or seven dollars in your pocket in change, and that’s it. Well, if Alyson expects help, she is going to have to pay for it. Big-time. You aren’t going to let anything like this happen to you ever again. And getting money out of her was always part of the plan, wasn’t it, boyo?

  A man comes along with a noisy cart, and you are able to afford a sweet thing that the wrapper claims to be a Danish. It’s cold and hard and stale.

  You close your eyes, but she’s waiting there for you. April. She flits in blue across your mind’s eye. Fast. Too fast for you. But you catch her, anyway, tackle her. Take the money back.

  You’re not sure which is worse: the loss of the cash or the burning humiliation.

  It’s about three hours to Kingston. You let the girl in blue go, and when you do, you feel giddy inside about what lies ahead, like when you were a kid at Canada’s Wonderland, lining up for Top Gun, hoping you’d be tall enough to get to ride it this time. You are going to enjoy this trip despite what happened. You stare out across the gray-green water, the light bouncing off the steely flatness into your blinking, tearing eyes. You squint and see a sailboat. Then, even as you watch, the sailboat keels, capsizes, sinks. All hands lost.