“You bet I will.” I rang off, dropped the phone into my pack, and announced to the room at large: “Bree is in Queenstown.”
Cameron pulled out his cell phone and began punching keys.
“We’ll need the plane,” he said to me. “Queenstown is on the South Island. Bree probably took the ferry and drove the rest of the way, but you and I will fly.”
Kati’s face lit up. “You will find Bree?”
“Yes,” Cameron replied determinedly. “We will find Bree.”
“Fantastic,” she said.
She hopped out of her chair again and left the living room. A moment later she returned, cradling a small and very bedraggled stuffed animal in her hands. The little owl had golden eyes, a honey-colored face, and mottled brown-and-gold markings all over his fluffy wings and body.
“Bree forgot Ruru,” said Kati. “You can bring him to her. I think she needs him.”
“I think so, too,” I said, and while Cameron arranged for his airplane to be flown to Wellington the following morning, I opened my day pack and gently tucked Ruru in beside Reginald.
Fifteen
In keeping with the avian theme my trip had suddenly acquired, Cameron and I had dinner at The Green Parrot, a noisy, lively restaurant that was, he assured me, a Wellington institution. We sat beneath a huge mural depicting well-known customers and watched as passersby had their pictures taken beside the parrot-shaped, pink-and-green neon sign.
The food was excellent—I had the scallops, Cameron, the sirloin steak, and we shared a dozen oysters—but I was relieved when we finished the meal and returned to the hotel. I longed to speak to Bill, and I had an awful lot to discuss with Aunt Dimity.
“Bill?” I said as soon as I heard his voice. “Let’s never become drunk, lazy, lying, gambling losers, okay?”
“Okay,” he replied readily.
“And let’s never get divorced,” I went on.
“Sounds good to me,” he said.
“And let’s always treat Rob and Will like the little miracles they are,” I continued fervently.
“Your little miracles drew dinosaurs on the kitchen wall last night,” Bill said grimly, “with black shoe polish.”
“We can paint over it,” I said.
“Do you know how many coats of primer it takes to cover black shoe polish? I do.” He grumbled indistinctly for a moment, then took a cleansing breath and asked calmly, “What’s going on, Lori? Why are you so spooked?”
“It’s Bree,” I said. I told him about Bree’s worrisome addiction to tattoos, her run-in with Roger, and her unannounced departure from Wellington. “She didn’t stop to say good-bye to Kati and Kitta, and she really seemed to like them. I don’t think she knows where she’s going or what she’s looking for, Bill. She’s just . . . running.”
“She’s too young to know that you can’t outrun your past,” said Bill. “And her past is pretty messed up.”
“That’s my point,” I said. “Let’s give our children a past they won’t want to outrun.”
“If they use shoe polish on the walls again, I’ll give them a past they’ll never forget,” Bill growled.
“How are Ruth and Louise?” I asked hastily, hoping to distract him from the shoe polish incident.
“They’re not tap dancing yet, but they’ve penciled it into their schedules,” he replied. “They’re doing remarkably well, Lori. Dr. Finisterre is baffled but delighted, as are we all. Did Donna Mackenzie give you the letter I e-mailed for them?”
“It’s in my day pack,” I said. “I’ll deliver it to Bree as soon as Cameron and I catch up with her.”
“Aren’t you going to quiz me about the letter?” Bill asked, sounding faintly disappointed.
“No,” I replied. “It’s a private matter between Bree and her great-grandaunts. I will, however, jump up and down on your head if you don’t tell me how you saved Cameron’s life.”
“Since my head is here and your feet are there,” said Bill, “I feel safe in saying, yet again, that it’s Cameron’s story to tell.”
I wheedled, scolded, and coaxed, but he steadfastly refused to discuss the matter, so I let it go. After sending kisses to the boys and love to Willis, Sr., I said good night to my no-good rat of a husband, plugged the cell phone into the charger, and climbed into bed with the blue journal.
I allowed myself a sixty-second rant about Bill’s juvenile sense of humor, then settled down to tell Aunt Dimity about Bree’s ill-fated stay in Wellington.
“First she cuts her hair,” I said, echoing words Cameron had spoken the previous evening, “then she cuts herself—or allows Roger-the-very-great-tattoo-artist to cut her. Heaven knows what she’s done to herself by now.”