Are You Seeing Me? (15 page)

Officer Bassi takes her foot off the step and stands facing me, legs shoulder-width apart and hands on hips. She turns her head a fraction and stares at me. Her question is obvious:
Are you pulling the wool over my eyes?
I’m set to assure her I’m not when she exhales and lifts a mobile from her pants pocket. “Good speech, Perry. What’s your sister’s number?”

I tell her. She enters the sequence and puts the phone to her ear. I imagine Jus on the other end, feeling the vibration against her thigh. She whips the “cell” from her shoulder bag, stabs the green button, shouts into the receiver. Her free hand clutches her head. A line of sweat is visible on her tank top. The strands of hair not caught in her ponytail can’t hide the angry sunburn on her neck.

“Hello. Is this Justine Richter? Ma’am, I’m Officer Pam Bassi from the Seattle Police Department…Yes, yes, ma’am…Calm down—he is here with us…He is fine. Absolutely fine, ma’am…He was somewhat distressed when I first encountered him, rocking and making noises…Yes, he told me about his condition…”

I lift my legs up onto the concrete block and cross them over. For a split second, my mind returns to the scene around the corner: the two men outside the Urban Rest Stop. Is anyone searching the streets for them?

“…We are at the West Precinct on Virginia Street, between 8th and 9th…No, he’s not. Perry requested he remain outside…Yes, he was quite firm about it…You sure you know where to go?…Okay, we’ll see you soon… Yes…No problem, ma’am. Goodbye.”

Officer Bassi returns the phone to her pocket and takes a seat on the concrete block beside me. “Your sister will be here shortly.”

“Thank you, Officer Bassi,” I say. “Now, could you leave me alone?”

“I’m sorry?”

“No lie—could you leave me alone, please?”

I know I am being rude, and Officer Bassi’s features—a single arched eyebrow, tongue pushed up under her top lip—show disappointment and unhappiness. She is looking for an explanation. I have one to give her.

“I would like my sister to see me as strong. As independent. I don’t want her to think I need a policewoman to stay with me and hold my hand.”

Officer Bassi’s face changes. Her gaze shifts toward Virginia Street, then to the sky, then to her lap. Maybe she thinks other explanations are nearby, floating in the air, lying at her feet. She stands up and adjusts her belt. “Okay, Perry Richter from Australia. This is your show. You know where to go if you’re not feelin’ the strong man.”

I nod. “Thank you. I do.”

There’s a small pause. Officer Bassi opens her mouth to say something; nothing comes out except a small laugh. She shakes her head, walks up the stairs. “Take care now, Perry.”

When she’s halfway toward the “barn”, I shout out a final thank-you. She gives a small wave but doesn’t look back.

JUSTINE STILL ISN’T HERE. It’s been twenty minutes since she was called.

That’s too long. It took me twenty minutes to get from Pike Place to the police station, and I was on foot. Justine is not on foot—she has the Cobalt. Perhaps she got stuck in traffic? Or there were delays because of the building construction on 9th Avenue? Even so, she should be here. It’s been too long.

My body is beginning to shake. All over. I’m like a jackhammer on this concrete block. A big, shaking, anxious jackhammer. I think I made a mountain out of a mold hill. A huge mountain. I wanted to make my sister afraid so she wouldn’t cancel my move to Fair Go. I tried to set her free, but I went too far.

I see what is coming.

It isn’t Justine.

She’s not on her way to pick me up. She doesn’t want to rescue me. She can’t do it anymore. At this very moment, my sister is in the Cobalt, speeding back toward the Canadian border. She will get on a plane and go back to Brisbane. She is free, but I am not responsible. She freed herself.

Fair Go doesn’t exist now; I am headed somewhere different, somewhere close by. And Officer Pam Bassi will take me there. She comes out of the barn and, without a word, pulls my hands behind my back, handcuffs me. She puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles. The ground rumbles, sirens wail. The Transformer guards step out from the walls and move down Virginia Street, crushing cars and knocking over streetlights. When they move in beside Officer Pam Bassi, I see they have brought a pair of companions: the scary men in hoodies. A chill runs down my spine. My stomach turns to water. The Urban Rest Stop—the place for the homeless, the place you go when no one is searching for you anymore—that’s where they’re taking me. The hooded men close in. They smile, revealing teeth that are yellow and gross. The bearded one with the cigarette has a bike lock and a samurai sword. The other whispers, “Mo’ mountains, mo’ problems.” I scream and try to slip out of the handcuffs. They hold tight, biting into my wrists like a—

“OH, PERRY. WHAT. THE. SERIOUS. FUCK.”

The cuffs vanish. My panic evaporates. Justine is the only person on Virginia Street. Her face is full of debris. Tear tracks, like the San Andreas Fault, run from her lower lids to her jaw.

She approaches with fast, clomping strides. Eyes slitted. Teeth gritted. “What the hell were you thinking wandering off like that? I had no bloody idea if you were in trouble, or hurt, or-or-or kidnapped. Or dead!”

Storm clouds have gathered directly over her head. Lightning bolts touch down in her hair. Steam pours from her ears.

“Do you have any idea how freaked out I’ve been? For fuck’s sake, Perry, you’re nineteen years old!” Standing face-to-face, she hits my shoulder. She slaps me in the chest. “Honest to God, for a moment in the car, I thought about just driving away.”

She stops. Her eyes grow wide. She lifts a hand to her forehead. The lightning shorts out, the steam thins, then disappears. The storm clouds begin to separate; there is a cautious sun peeking behind, wearing zinc cream on its nose. I look over Justine’s body. It is smaller than usual, pulled in tight. Her hands are clasped together now, pressed against her chin.

“Oh, shit. I shouldn’t have…I didn’t mean to say…I would never actually…”

She is ready now.

Say it, Justine. Say you can’t do this anymore. Be strong and brave.

She grabs handfuls of her hair and pulls.

SHE SAYS, “YOU’LL BE GLAD to see the back of me when you move to Fair Go, won’t you?”

SHE REFUSES TO LOOK ME in the eye. I concentrate hard on her face, searching for any hint of a joke or a lie or a joking lie. There is none. I speak slowly. “So, I am still moving to Fair Go…That is still our plan, yes?”

Jus nods, grasps the middle, ring and pinkie fingers of my right hand. “Of course it is, of course.” She tightens the hold on my hand, like it’s a lucky charm she doesn’t want to lose or have stolen. “I’m so, so sorry for what I said just now, for losing it. For losing
you
. Oh God, can you forgive me, Pez? Please say yes.”

“Yes,” I reply.

“You mean it?”

“Yes, Just Jeans.”

She hugs me, lets her head flop back. She says a bad word to the sky, then looks forward again. “I want to cry but I won’t.”

WE WALK SIDE BY SIDE to the Cobalt, parked near the public library on Virginia Street. I have questions for my sister:
You can’t do this anymore, right? Why do you think I would be glad to see the back of you? How come you are so, so sorry?
I don’t ask these questions though. I keep them to myself. The answers would probably get in the way of what’s important. And what’s important is not what should’ve happened, or what should’ve been said, or why things didn’t go exactly to plan, or why people—even those closest to you—can be as confusing and random as the scene of an earthquake. It’s a puzzle too hard to piece together, a mystery too big to solve. The only solid objects I can grasp right now are the only ones worth holding onto.

Justine is free.

Perry Richter, Master Disaster, saves the day.

ON HIGHWAY 5, PASSING through the town of Blaine, I remember an essential topic Justine needed to discuss with me on our return journey to Vancouver.

“The pen pal we are going to meet, the one who rang you in Peachland,” I say. “You said you would tell me about her on the drive back from Seattle.”

Justine sits up straighter in the driver’s seat. The rhythm her thumb was tapping out on the steering wheel slows, then stops. She sniffs and tugs her earlobe. “I did tell you that, didn’t I.”