by Sarah Noffke
The SUV’s tires rub the curb when we park.
“Did she order my suits first?” I say.
“No, Ren,” Dahlia says, annoyed. “Your damn suits are the reason she quit. She said no matter what she did she couldn’t get them to you. She blamed the universe, saying there was something preventing it.”
“I blame incompetence,” I say.
“Well, Monet has always been a bit of a mystic. Anyway, she said she placed three orders and something different happened to each of them,” Dahlia says.
“So no suits waiting for me at the hotel?” I say.
“I’m afraid not,” Dahlia says.
“Fine, I’ll just have to deal with this on my own,” I say, pushing up the wrinkled sleeve of my stiff shirt.
Travelers reuniting with their families or friends clog the curb at San Francisco International Airport.
“He’s right there,” Adelaide says with an unusual squeal in her voice. She bolts out of the backseat and rips across the next ten feet until she’s thrown herself at a man who is my same height and build. He also has a full head of hair like me but his is mostly gray.
I think to get the child out of the car, since his mum is too absentminded to remember such things. I thrust the sticky, drooling mess into Adelaide’s hands just as she pulls back from my pops.
“Son, look at you. Vacation is treating you well, you’re even bonding with your grandkid,” Pops says.
I clap him on the back and grimace at the observation.
“Hi, Pops,” I say.
“But what happened to your suit?” he says, pulling back and looking over my wrinkled jacket and shirt frayed in places from the various “adventures” I’ve been on lately.
“Incompetence, that’s what happened,” I say.
And then Dahlia is at my side and my pops’s earnest eyes switch to her. “Oh, sweet Dahlia. How are you, my dear?” And he wraps her in his arms, holding her longer than usual, really pressing her into him.
“I’m wonderful, Reynold,” she says when she steps back but only an inch. The crystal blue of his eyes seems sharper as my pops regards Dahlia with a solemn stare.
“Wait, he knows?” I say to Dahlia.
“Well, yeah,” she says, taking my hand. “I figured that he might be able to help you. To advise you on—”
“I don’t need fucking advice,” I say, cutting her off.
“Son, she just thought I might—”
“I don’t want to hear it. This conversation is over,” I say, interrupting him.
“Wait,” Adelaide says, her knuckle in Lucien’s mouth. “He knows what? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say at once.
“Again, you’re lying. Why are we being left in the dark?” she says, angling her head at the little monster in her arms.
“It’s just you. We already told Lucien,” I say.
“What? No you didn’t,” she says like she half believes me.
“We did, because he doesn’t forget to close car doors or withhold information that keeps us from getting stranded,” I say.
“Shut up. Tell me what’s going on,” she says, looking between me and Dahlia.
“Actually, we need to get going. I planned a fun excursion and don’t want to be late,” Dahlia says.
“Your fun excursions leave me wanting to hang myself,” I say, walking back to the SUV, taking the passenger seat.
***
“It’s just up here,” Dahlia says, breathless, a few paces ahead of us. She has the whole clan following her down Marina Boulevard, the bay on our left. She halts in front of a woman holding a clipboard and wearing an indignant expression. I realize when I stop in front of the woman that she is close to my height. She’s wearing a blue ball cap on top of her smooth light brown hair. The embroidery on the hat says “Colman’s San Fran Tours.”
“Oh, for fuck sake,” I say to Dahlia. “You’ve got to be bloody joking. Did you learn nothing from the aquarium experience?”
“Ren, this will be fun. I’ve always wanted to be a tourist in San Francisco. Do you know how many times I’ve per… been to this city?” she says, correcting herself. “I want to know details. See it on foot in a way that Bobby wouldn’t allow.”
She’s referring to her head guard, Bobby, whom she can thank for keeping her alive. And what do most do the second they’re away from their protector? Go against all their best initiatives.
“Sounds like you need to tell Bobby to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge,” the tour guide woman says. “No man should tell you what to do.”
“Oh, Bobby and I aren’t together. He’s… a friend,” Dahlia covers. “A protective one. Ren is my guy,” Dahlia says, taking my hand. The woman looks down at Dahlia, a bit of an exaggeration in the movement. Then she swivels her gaze up to me.
“Really? You’re with her? I pictured you with someone your own size,” she says to me.
The remark is so off the cuff and similar to something I’d say. It catches me off guard. Maybe it’s for that reason that I don’t respond.
When Pops and Adelaide, who is thankfully carrying her offspring and hasn’t left him in a city trash bin, arrive the woman clasps her hands behind her back. The street is fairly busy but still she manages to make a path around us like a wolf circling its prey.
“My name is Stephanie Colman. I go by Ephanie. Don’t call me Steph or any other version of my name if you want to live with both kidneys. I go by Ephanie and I get enough name-calling on these streets that I don’t put up with anyone’s shit. Now this tour is approx—”
“You want me to go on a tour with a woman who misspells her last name?” I say, pointing at the cap on Ephanie’s head.
Dahlia actually laughs at this. The woman, Ms. Colman, doesn’t.
“As I was saying, this tour is approximately sixty-eight minutes long. There are no breaks for the potty or refreshments and I don’t take questions. If there’s any problems with these rules then leave now,” the tour guide says.
“Wow, way to find the guide overflowing with charm,” I say to Dahlia.
“You want charm? Go take the rainbow tour down the block. Wesley will even braid your hair at the conclusion of the tour. If you stay on my tour then count yourself lucky if I don’t throw you in the bay or push you out into traffic,” the woman says.
Dahlia turns and even under her disguise I spy the raised eyebrow and tentative look. I shrug and acquiesce to these dreadful plans she’s made. She wants to be a tourist, fine. Hopefully she’ll realize how horrid it is and get it out of her system. The only reason anyone ever seeks a tourist experience is because they think their own life is underrated. Usually waiting in a queue and having a commercial experience shoved down one’s throat makes people retreat from the notion for a year. That is, until their faulty memory forgets and they find themselves lined up for something ridiculously expensive that comes with a matching T-shirt. I shiver at the idea. T-shirts are the absolute worst. Another dumb idea the masses clung to instantly.
“All right, this is a walking tour, so keep up or get left behind,” Steph says. She turns and begins trotting down Marina Boulevard. The woman throws her hand at the building on our right.
“We start this tour of San Francisco at the Grand Ole Opry,” she says, indicating a brand new bank skyscraper. “This is the oldest building in San Francisco or as the city is commonly nicknamed, Papillon Escargot,” she says, her last words flaring with a French accent.
“None of that is true,” I say, flatly.
The crowd in front of us begins to part as we walk on the wrong way of the busy thoroughfare. A cursory glance at my back tells me that unfortunately Pops and the other monsters are still in tow. I take Dahlia’s hand, sensing she’ll like the dumb gesture as I turn back to the lady still babbling on.
“There’s roughly two hundred and seventy million people who call San Francisco their home,” Stephanie says.
“That’s absolutely false,” I say over the rush of traffic on
the street.
“The city was founded by pioneers who were trying to escape the oppression of the English crown,” she continues.
“Nope,” I say.
“The Chu-Hoe Indians were its original inhabitants,” the Amazon woman says, charging ahead, almost knocking people over.
“Wrong again.”
“It’s known for its corn fields and wide variety of licorice,” she says.
“Are you even hearing yourself speak this bullshit?” I say.
The tour guide spins around. “Not really. You’re not actually paying attention, are you?”
“Why? Don’t most people?” I say, now a bit curious.
She doesn’t grant me a response. “We will cross here,” she says, indicating the middle of an intersection. An oncoming slew of cars are hustling down the road when the woman steps out, making the first lane come to an immediate halt. The other lanes quickly follow suit, realizing that manslaughter would really delay their day. I follow behind the guide, slightly impressed by her brazen nature and then also strangely entertained. Most people act out because they’re dumb. I get the impression this woman is doing it out of pure apathy.
“Over here you’ll see San Fran is also host to a wide variety of exotic animals. Many find our streets to be like a modern rain forest,” she says, indicating a flock of flea-ridden pigeons pecking leftovers off a bum sleeping on the curb.
I turn to Dahlia, sure she isn’t having the glamorous tourist experience like she thought she was going to. To my shock she’s smiling up at a building, and then turns her head to the gray sky above it. The fog has drifted in, coating us all in cold moist air. It actually transports me back to London for an instant and those youthful days I had there with Dahlia so long ago.
“And over here we have—”
And then a commotion down the block cuts off the woman’s words.
“He’s having a heart attack,” a woman screams. “Someone help!”
The guide turns for the crowd and then back to us. “I’ll be right back. I’ve got to help.”
“How?” I say, wondering what she could possibly do to aid a bloke with cardiac arrest.
“I’m an EMT on the side,” she says.
“How is that your side job? Shouldn’t it be tour guiding?” I say.
“Well, I make more taking tourists’ money and giving them bullshit tours,” Ephanie says. Then she’s gone, sprinting into the crowd of onlookers.
“What a strange woman,” Dahlia says, staring after the tour guide.
I turn now to gauge Adelaide and Pops, who is playing with Lucien, holding him high above his head. The image reminds me of a memory I don’t have, but can envision, of him doing the same with me. Adelaide beside him reminds me distinctly of my mum and then of her love. She never withheld. Never gave me less than I deserved and usually more. My mum was a woman who most aspire to be and fall short of, realizing they don’t have the patience for such things. Like Jimmy, more than him, I miss her every-god-damn-day. They say those losses recede with time, but those fuckers are wrong. You never stop missing the people who were there in the formative years. The ones who shaped who you became.
The tour guide rushes back over to us. “All right, where were we?” she says, staring around like searching for her script full of falsitudes.
“Wait, what happened to the bloke with the heart attack?” Adelaide asks.
“False alarm,” Steph says. “He had indigestion. Common mix-up people have and confuse the condition as a heart attack.”
“So what did you do?” Dahlia says.
“I sent him to the pharmacy down the block for an antacid and told him to stop eating crap for lunch,” she says. “Now where were we?” she repeats.
“I think we were done,” I say, pulling out my wallet to tip the woman who knows zero about this city.
“Oh no, the tour isn’t done until I say so. If you weaklings have sore feet then I’ll take you back to where we started, but I always finish every tour with where I began. Things need to circle back around,” the tour guide says, and then she boldly hooks her arm through mine, pulling me back the way we came.
“Excuse me,” I say. “Stella, I—”
“You’re excused,” the woman says, a smile in her voice. Her arm is sleeved and for that I’m glad, since I don’t want to hear her thoughts.
“Now I don’t know you, but I wanted to tell you something,” she says, releasing me, but I still stay walking beside her, the others following dutifully behind us. Dahlia is lost in images of the city.
“I’m listening,” I say, a bit curious.
“Well, I’m not sure why this set of words occurs to me. I meet people every day, most of them worthless shits, but it seems to me that you could use…I don’t know, some advice maybe,” Stephanie says.
“That’s atrocious,” I say. “I’m the last per—”
“Well, it’s just that back there when I returned I noticed this look in your eyes. You looked stuck somehow. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overstepping my boundaries,” she says.
“There’s no maybe about it,” I say but then nothing else. This tour guide/EMT spotted me when I was recollecting old memories of my mum. She probably did see something trace itself on my face, but what, I’m not certain.
“Well then you can file a complaint with my supervisor,” she says with a devilish smile. “But like I said, you seemed like you had time traveled for a second to the past. Like you weren’t here with us. And I suspect, because I’m also a private detective on the side, that you’re never in the present. Maybe you spend your time fretting over the past or worrying about the future. There’s definitely a heaviness to your eyes, like you see more than most.”
“What’s your bloody point?” I say as we near the avenue where this festival of foolishness started.
“My point is that the present is a bitch until you realize it’s all you have. And when we agonize less over the past we are able to enjoy where we presently are,” she says.
“Well, I was going to tip you but not now that you’ve bestowed worthless advice on me. Do you want to read my palm now since you’re probably also a psychic on the side?” I say.
“How did you know?” the woman says, stopping and turning directly to me. “And just think about what I said. Maybe paired with other advice you’ve gotten it will make sense.”
“I doubt it,” I say, thinking of Leen’s words. Of the old gypsy woman’s forecast of the three wise women. What’s the bloody point in all this? It must be my imagination. I don’t believe in coincidences but this makes zero sense.
“Thanks for the lovely tour. It was very informative,” Dahlia says, extending a hand to Stephanie. She must not have been paying attention. That’s usual these days.
Pops and Adelaide mutter their own bit of gratitude to Ephanie.
The tour guide holds up a hand and waves to us as we turn, making our way down to our car. I suddenly get the strangest impression that the woman and I have met before. I then turn back but she’s gone. The pavement where she stood is empty.
Chapter Thirteen
The high street shop smells of fresh linens and dry-cleaning chemicals. From the second story there’s a view of Market Street below where homeless people in sorry states of varying grossness are parked against a shiny building. Businesswomen in pressed suits and sneakers hurry on their commute to work, where they’ll sit behind desks and give zero thought to the bums they passed in the morning. They’ll make deals so they can increase their paycheck and buy expensive heels that are too uncomfortable to wear on the five-block walk from the transit station. People don’t baffle me anymore. I used to chalk up half of the dysfunction to stupidity. Now I realize that most people just don’t know any better because logic isn’t engrained into our culture. Convenience and greed are the staples of our society.
“Son, why don’t you just buy one of these shirts and a pair of khakis?” my pops says, indicating a short-sleeved polo shirt hanging on a display rac
k.
“I actually don’t think that question deserves a real answer,” I say, continuing to the back of the shop where I have an appointment with a tailor to have measurements for a new suit taken.
“Do you have to wear a suit? This is your vacation,” Pops says.
“I do,” I say, not even acknowledging the tiny old man with the measuring ribbon draped around his shoulder. I simply take a spot on the measuring pedestal and hold out my arms, legs separated.
“You should be comfortable. It’s not like you’re working at that job of yours and need to keep up appearances,” Pops says.
I shake my head at him. “Appearances aren’t something you keep up. They are a reflection of pride and I’m most comfortable when I look my best.”
He nods, probably realizing beforehand that would be my answer. My pops has always been casual in comparison to me, having worked most of his life in the tiny town of Peavey. It is mostly farmers and simple blokes who covet the ways of a small town. Pops always remarked that in his bookkeeping business he would have made his clients feel uncomfortable if he dressed too formally. For all my life my father has worn the same starched plaid shirts and khakis.
“That job of yours,” my pops says, standing tall, arms crossed. “Well, I never asked about it because I know you don’t like me to pry.”
