“Ranger Bill,” I mused.
“Yes. Hopefully, he can bring us up to speed.”
“So, you’re saying that you, Declan Foray, isn’t even that all sure of what we are investigating?” I asked mockingly.
“The island was a leper colony for many years at the turn of the century. A lot of men died there, Chinese mostly. That’s enough for now.”
“What is your middle name, by the way?” I asked.
“Why?”
“So when I use your name when I’m angry I can throw it in there.”
He glanced at me and smirked. “Damned if you’ll get it out of me.”
“Can I see your passport?” I asked innocently.
He quickly snatched it from the cup holder he had stuck it in and slid it into the pocket of his grey cargo pants.
“Hell no.”
“It can’t be worse than Declan.”
“Oh really, do you really want to get pulled into a discussion over who has the most ridiculous name here because that is a fight you can’t win.”
“I’m pretty sure I can take you on,” I said smoothly.
He opened his mouth to say something, then sucked it back. Finally he eyed me playfully.
“You know, Perry, sometimes I get this uncanny impression that you are flirting with me.”
It was true. I let myself feel awkward for exactly 2.5 seconds before I said, “You think the waitresses at Denny’s flirt with you, Dex.”
That was also true. And I didn’t blame them.
“Because they do,” he finally said. “Who can resist this handsome mug?” He stroked his broad jaw and I tried my hardest not to nod along.
“Complete with ra**st facial hair,” I added.
“Touche,” he said. “Tomorrow can we make fun of you? I mean, if it won’t make you cry and hole up in the bathroom for hours?”
“Ha,” was my reply. I turned my attention to the landscape. Despite it being November it almost looked as fresh as a summer’s day. Some of the trees still had leaves on them. Probably helped that, like all of the Pacific Northwest, it did nothing but rain up here. Yet on this gorgeous, clear day, rain was the furthest thing from my mind.
Dex flipped White Zombie’s “Astro Creep 3000” on the mp3 player and by the time the album was over we were crossing a bridge and heading into Vancouver, the city rising around us like a kingdom of tall glass buildings, clear water and snowcapped peaks.
We ended up staying at a Best Western right on the entertainment strip of Granville St. For once it wasn’t a motel but Dex justified the cost since we were only staying one night and we had a whole weekend of backwoods camping to do. It wasn’t even that nice of a hotel but I was pretty excited nonetheless.
We quickly got settled in our rooms and headed out the door. Dex had been on the phone with the ranger and wanted us to meet him at a coffee shop on the corner of Stanley Park. Dex had been to the city a lot more than I so we opted to get there by taking the scenic route, the seawall that took us along False Creek before it opened up into English Bay.
It was a gorgeous day in the city. People were jogging past us in next to nothing, ignoring the temperature, which wasn’t cold but it wasn’t exactly balmy either. Families pushing strollers made up the other half of the population on the seawall.
At one point it seemed like Dex was going to overthrow a stroller in order to get past their ignorant monopoly of the path.
“No patience for the wee ones?” I asked as we scuttled past the offenders before they came after us with the baby launchers.
“No patience for their parents,” he scowled, and kept walking at a fast pace. My fat little legs strained to keep up with him and the sun was overheating my yellow peacoat. When we got a safe distance in front of the stroller mob, he stuck his hands in his black jacket pockets and shot me a curious look.
“Like you’d have any patience for the ‘wee ones’ either,” he said.
I couldn’t disagree with him; the idea of babies and children always made me feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them for myself…I knew I would, some day. But that I was uneasy with them. They weren’t like animals and they weren’t like little short fat people. They were like another species altogether and one that I didn’t understand at all. And they didn’t seem to understand me either.
“I don’t have patience for a lot of things,” I said. “You and Jenn are not planning on having kids anytime soon, I take it.”
I said it as a joke, not as an actual personal question. I mean, we weren’t that close. But Dex didn’t seem to take it that way. If I hadn’t been watching his “handsome mug” as closely as I was I probably would have missed the whole thing. But I had been watching him as I always did and I saw the flicker of horror snake across his brow and burrow beneath his eyes. In a moment it was gone, but it had been there. It was a mixture of fear, disgust and shame and it matched the terror I had seen on his face many times before. Only those times he was actually in a life or death situation.
I wasn’t surprised when he changed the subject. “I think I could live here,” Dex noted.
He was staring out at the sparkling bay as we hurried along on the wall. I had to agree. The way the weak sun hit the water was hypnotic and spread out in front of us like a wavering welcome mat. The far off islands were dark lumps of green and on some of them was a light sugar dusting of snow. The sky was cloudless and cheery, bouncing off the mixture of high rises that bloomed to our right.
“Sure. If you don’t mind being Canadian,” I said.
“With our economy these days? No, I wouldn’t mind.”
“You’d probably have to marry a Canadian first.”
“Mmmm,” he grunted as we narrowly squeaked past another stroller army. “Too bad you’re American.”
I let out a shy laugh. Why did he have to say things like that?
We shuffled along in silence, his attention turned to the beauty around us. My attention was locked inside of me, where my confused emotions turned and churned like the waves that lapped to the side of us. I hated feeling like this. I hated how easily my feelings got involved in every single thing he did or said. I always thought maybe it intensified when we were apart, you know, like a celebrity you’d pine after from afar. But it only grew when we were together. Sometimes it felt like looking at his face and just accepting the way things were between us was the hardest thing in the world.