Not Suitable For Family Viewing (11 page)

Monday, 3 p.m.

See the World with
You, You and Mimi
!

Long-time Mimi associate Olivia Segsworth leads a select group of adventurers on a tour of “places that touched Mimi’s heart.”

Levi guides me out of the woods as if I’m a bomb victim or something. He keeps saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay. That’s just Embree. He’s not going to do anything…”

We’re back on the beach before I can manage to get any words out. “Why didn’t you
warn
me?” I say.

Levi’s got this pained look on his face. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. I thought you were just going behind the dunes! You’d have been fine there. Embree never comes out in the open. I didn’t even know he was in the woods these days. He’s usually on the Island.”

I’m barely listening. I’ve got my head in my hands, trying to flush the sight of Embree out of my brain. Flush the stink of him out. When he came closer, I could smell him. Like dirty socks but kind of sweet too. Sugary. It’s enough to make me throw up just thinking about it. Can Levi smell it on me?

“Good thing I went to find out why you were taking so long. I was worried you’d twisted your ankle or something…” He puts
this really serious look on his face. “Embree didn’t actually catch you ‘making yer water,’ did he?”

Levi’s trying to get me to laugh. I just glare at him.

“Then, come on, Opal. It wasn’t that bad!” He rubs my arm like he’s a dad and I’m a kid who just got cut from the soccer team.

I try to pull myself together and think straight. I’ve got too many questions—I don’t know where to start. I just go, “He’s a Bister?”

“Yup.”

“Is that why people call each other Bisters around here?”

Levi clicks his tongue. “People shouldn’t be saying that.”

“Yeah, well, he shouldn’t be pointing guns at people either! And he should take a bath occasionally too.” I’m on a rant. “And what’s with that cheesy pirate accent of his anyway? Like, what bad movie did he limp out of?”

Levi holds me at arm’s length. I try not to look so mean. I know that was mean. The guy can’t help being dirty. Or maybe he can. I don’t know. What business is it of mine?

“Sorry,” I say. “That was horrible. I’m just upset.”

Levi picks up the towel and our wet clothes and stuffs them in the grocery bag.

He goes, “That’s okay. You’re right. He shouldn’t be pointing guns at people. I imagine Embree’s not your favourite guy in the world right now…I doubt Embree’s ever been
anybody’s
favourite guy…”

“Is he always doing stuff like that?” I say. “He must be pretty bad for people to be using his name as an insult.”

Levi turns his head away from me and rubs his hands over his face. He’s not joking around any more.

“It’s not Embree’s fault. He didn’t start this whole thing.”

“Start what whole thing?” I say.

Levi closes his eyes and goes, “Oh boy…”

“What?” I say.

“You’re going to think we’re so backward…”

“Come on!” I say. “I just had the scare of my life. You got to tell me.” He pushes out his lips, he sighs, he nods. “Okay.” He takes my hand and leads me back up the boulder.

“There was a feud,” he says.

He’s right. These people
are
backward.

“I don’t know the whole story. I doubt anyone does any more. It happened, like, a hundred years ago or something. Anyway—see all those little islands out there? You wouldn’t know it now but people used to live on them. The one way over to the left–with the tumbledown house on it? That’s Bister Island. A long time ago, the people who lived there got really sick with some disease. They were quarantined—you know, kept separate from everyone else. That’s how the feud started. I guess the Bisters felt that their neighbours were deserting them in their time of need. Everyone else figured it was the only way to keep the disease from spreading. Things got ugly.”

“How ugly?”

“Don’t really know. I’ve heard stories. Let’s just say shots were fired on both sides. The Bisters kind of became outcasts after that. Everyone else left the islands and moved onto the mainland a good fifty years ago. The Bisters stayed.”

I look at the little rocky island sticking out of the ocean. “How did they survive out there?”

Levi shrugs. “Fishing, I guess, though people around here claimed they couldn’t live on that. I think that’s how the rumour started that the Bisters were wreckers.”

“Wreckers? What’s that?”

“People who lure ships in to crash on the rocks so they can steal their cargo…”

Is he making this stuff up? “Oh, come on. That sounds like something from a bad movie! No one would do that.”

He pats me on the head. “Your innocence is charming, my dear. Of course people did that. Not just here. It wasn’t a Port Minton thing. There are bad people all over the world. I just don’t know if the Bisters did it. Everyone around here was always accusing the Bisters of something.”

I go, “Yeah, well…maybe they deserved it. I mean, Embree’s not the most law-abiding guy by the looks of things.”

“True. He poaches deer. He makes moonshine. He spits in public. But he’s not to blame for
everything.
When I was little, any time anything went missing, someone would say a Bister took it. It was as if no one in all of Shelton County ever did anything wrong except the Bisters. We didn’t have bogeymen, we had Bisters. Kids didn’t go out as tramps on Halloween, they went out as Bisters. You weren’t an idiot, you were a Bister. Parents would threaten to wash their kids’ mouths out with soap for saying such a thing, but you know what kids are like. They said it anyway. Some of the adults said it too. Still do.”

He picks up a rock and pitches it into the water.

I say, “So do the Bisters still live out there?”

“No. Nobody does—except Embree, that is. About twenty years ago or something, the whole thing blew up. I don’t know what happened exactly. There was some big scandal. The government stepped in and forced them all off the Island.”

“So…why’s Embree still there, then?”

“Dunno. You’d have to ask him, I guess.”

I pull my face back in horror. Levi laughs.

“Just kidding…I only know what Dad told me. I guess Embree used to live full-time on the Island until it looked like he was going to starve. Now he only lives there in the summer. He camps out here all winter. He claims it’s his land. Claims it’s belonged to the Bisters since the King gave it to them in 1605 or some damn thing. Who knows? He might be right. Embree’s not stupid. And he’s not crazy either. But you can see why the townspeople wouldn’t want to have too much to do with him.”

“So…how come you do?” I say.

Levi shakes his head. “I don’t. Not really. When I was a kid, I was out here a lot with Dad. We’d always drop by Embree’s camp, just to keep the wheels greased, you know. Embree’s not the type of guy you can scare into doing what you want him to do. You got to kind of keep on his good side. It helps that Mum’s a nurse too. She comes out every so often to check Embree over. He never does what she tells him to, but I think he appreciates that she’s trying to help. That’s why I knew he wouldn’t shoot you.”

“You knew that for sure?”

He rocks his hand back and forth. “Pretty sure. Good thing you didn’t actually pee on his property, though. You’d have been dead meat then.”

Tuesday, 6 a.m.

Radio Mimi

“Making the Best of a Bad Situation.” Mimi discloses how a potential disaster turned into one of her most cherished moments.

The room is quiet. Lip-Smacking Girl left yesterday. Good for me but bad for Kay. My twenty dollars a night isn’t going to go very far to keep this place running.

I look out the window. It’s foggy and wet, but I don’t care about the weather. All I can think about is last night. It keeps coming back to me in waves—big waves that almost knock me over.

We were starving after being at the beach all day so Levi took me to this sad little diner out on the highway. It had a big sign that said World’s Finest Fish and Chips. We sat on orange plastic chairs and looked out at the water while we waited for our order to come up. We talked a bit more about Embree and the Bisters but mostly we just goofed around. Levi told me funny stories about him and his brothers having jellyfish fights and sneaking into the liquor store dressed up as old ladies and tipping an outhouse over while his uncle was inside.

I told lame stories about being an only child. He didn’t seem to notice how bad they were. He always laughed like I was a regular stand-up comedian. He kept nudging me in the side or wiping little bits of hair off my face or putting his arm around my shoulder and whispering things in my ear even though no one else was listening.

He asked about my parents. I told him my dad was a musician—true—and my mother was a relationship counsellor—more or less true. (I mean, that’s what all the ads make out. “Want a happy marriage? Let your husband spend time with another woman. Mimi Schwartz! Weekdays at 3.”) He thought it was funny—as in “peculiar”—that a relationship counsellor would be divorced, but I said it happens all the time. I think he felt sorry for me. You know, an only child, divorced parents and everything. It almost made me laugh. He’s the one who lives in this little nothing town and has to do joe jobs to go to university!

But then I looked at those eyes of his and that smile he’s always got plastered on his face and I thought, who’s the happy one here?

The lady at the counter called out Levi’s name. He went and picked up these huge orders of fish and chips. He poured vinegar over everything, then wolfed the whole plate down in about three minutes. I made it through about half of mine, which frankly was still pretty impressive. I would have eaten more but I felt too full. (I hate to sound corny but that’s what looking at him did to me.)

It was just starting to get dark by the time we left. I said I was cold—I got too much sun, I guess—so he put his arm around me. We were walking out the door like that when this little blue car pulled into the parking lot and screeched to a halt right in front of us. I had to jump out of the way.

Krystal and one of her skinny friends got out. I felt sick.

Sick, fat, ugly, stupid and scared.

Krystal’s nostrils were all flared up as if something didn’t smell quite right. She went, “Hello, Levi,” then gave me the once-over. “You run out of french fries to chuck at him or something?”

If she were in a movie, I would have laughed. She was right out of some teen comedy. The whole mean-girl-hand-on-the-hip thing. The big-eyed sidekick in the matching outfit. The little flip of her head.

I didn’t laugh now.

I didn’t say anything. I turned into this solid block of nothing. I saw myself exactly as she saw me. She was all perfect in her halter top and her little white shorts and her sunglasses pulled up on top of her shiny hair and there I was with my ugly bare arms and my wrinkled shirt and my belly all bulging from fish and chips.

Levi went, “Oh, come on, Krystal. Who’d go and chuck
Barb’s
french fries? Speaking of which, you’d better hurry if you want some. She’s closing in five minutes.” He winked at her.

He talked to Krystal exactly the same way he talked to me. The same tone. The same sparkly eyes. The same little arm-rub at the end. I felt this sob kind of bunch up in the back of my throat. I looked away and swallowed.

He held the door open. Krystal’s friend must have forgotten she was supposed to be mad because she said, “Thanks, Levi!” in this chirpy voice. Krystal sauntered in after her as if she were America’s Next Top Model. She turned and sneered at him in a way that somehow still made her look pretty.

Levi and I got into the van. He went, “Well, that hit the spot!” He said it as if nothing had happened. As if we hadn’t run into them.
As if things were just like they were before. Who did he think he was kidding?

I went, “Un-huh.”

Levi didn’t make fun of me or try to joke or change the subject or anything this time. He just pulled out and drove.

I stared straight ahead and thought of that episode of
You, You and Mimi
where Diane Chisholm, PhD (Doctor of Romance), talked about “Charming Billys.” Apparently, these guys are all over the place. Charming Billys make you laugh, tell you what you want to hear, look you right in the eye. They say they’re crazy about you and they mean it. That’s what makes them so dangerous. They mean it when they say it to all the other girls they’re hitting on too.

I knew that. I knew about “Rogues” and “Panty-Removers” and “Heart Specialists” too. I watched enough daytime TV to know to stay away from them. But here I was in a rusty van with the worst kind of all. I didn’t know whether to hate him or to hate myself for
not
hating him.

I’m better by myself. I should just forget about other people.

He finally said, “I guess you’re wondering what’s up with Krystal and me.”

I was going to keep my mouth shut but I figured that would just make me look like I cared. I went, “Sort of,” but I shrugged when I said it.

“I’m not going out with her if that’s what you think. I haven’t gone out with her in two years! Honestly. We went out for a few months one summer. That’s it. It wasn’t even very serious.”

I didn’t say anything.

He went, “Nobody’s heart got broken or anything. It wasn’t like that.”

I heard him tap his fingers on the steering wheel, then he sighed and said, “I don’t know why she’s acting like that…She goes out with other guys and it doesn’t bother me…but, like, every so often she sees me with someone else and she gets all hissy. I just try to see past it.”

I could feel him look over at me. I didn’t look back.

He said, “Sorry she took it out on you.”

I said, “No problem. I don’t care.”

“You don’t care about her getting mad? Or you don’t care whether or not I’m going out with her?”

He was grinning at me. I could feel it. It was like he had a heat lamp aimed at me. I did my best to ignore it. I kept trying to make myself think
Charming Billy, Charming Billy.

I closed my eyes. I shrugged again.

“What does that mean?” he said.

Another shrug.

He poked me in the ribs.

I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling. My face was all prickly inside.

“So?” he went. “Which is it?”

“Both,” I said.

He pulled into Kay’s driveway.

He leaned against his door and said, “I don’t believe you.”

I said, “Too bad. ‘Cause it’s true.” I could keep my lips from smiling but my eyes were out of control.

“Oh well,” he said. “I tried.”

“Yup,” I said. “You sure did.”

He laughed at that. He didn’t say anything else.

I looked at my hands, picked at my weird thumbnail. I wanted to look at Levi but I couldn’t. After a while I went, “I guess I better get going.”

He said, “Me too. I got a big day tomorrow.” Then he put out his arm and leaned across me.

My lungs, my heart—everything—stopped at once as if someone had slammed down the off switch on some giant machine.
He’s going to kiss me,
I thought. I could feel my hair and my skin and every little hair on my body tingling. I opened my mouth just a little and turned toward him.

But he didn’t kiss me. He just pushed open my door and leaned back in his seat.

There I was with my eyes half open and my mouth half open and the horror of what I’d just done creeping up my neck. “You okay?” he said.

I just nodded like a bobblehead doll and got out of the van as fast as I could. I started beetling back to the hostel. I don’t know how I looked on the outside but inside, I was in agony. I was twisting up like a plastic toy dropped in a campfire.

Levi went, “Opal?”

When he says it, I don’t even feel like a Robin any more.

I turned my head halfway around and said, “Un-huh?”

He was all stretched out so he could see me through the van window. He had this huge white smile on his face.

He said, “I was going to kiss you but I was scared you’d smack me in the eye again.”