The halls are quiet, like they usually are at this time of day, so I step into the old lady’s washroom and rifle through the medicine cabinet. There are no meds tucked away on the shelves over the sink, no oxy tablets rolling around in the drawers. I move back to the main room and check the bedside table, finding only a tube of Burt’s Bees lip balm, some hand cream, and a stack of CDs. Derrick has no fucking idea how these places run. I don’t know how he expects me to get my hands on narcotics in here.
I’m about to leave when I hear footsteps coming down the hall. I close the door. Miss Livingstone coming back already? No. Whoever it is walks quicker and with more purpose. A staff member, maybe. I can feel my heart in my ears. Then I realize that they wouldn’t know what I’ve been doing, that I’ve been looking through drawers and inside cabinets. So I’m in the old lady’s room. I was invited in here. Who gives a shit?
I look in the mirror again. This time, I see the raven.
I grab my violin and step into the hallway, turning toward Marty’s office and the old work boots and paint-spattered coveralls waiting for me. Anne Campbell, RN, Executive Director, is walking in the other direction. She pauses, looks at me.
“They just came for Ms. Livingstone,” I say, then turn around and walk away from her. I don’t look back. I just keep walking.
Marty gets me set up with primer and brushes. It felt like all my work scraping and washing and sanding weren’t making anything better, that I was just making a big fucking mess. So it feels good to finally be painting. The white covers all the tired, faded parts, making them bright and smooth. I actually feel like I’m accomplishing something.
I’m thinking all the while of the dragonflies hidden in my violin case. There are seven paintings, but the dragonflies are my favorite. There are two of them together, one larger and one smaller, the same as the old lady’s painting, and I like that. I stop when my paintbrush and primer come close to my piece, hovering on the bottom right side of the fence. I only painted one, using lots of blues and purples, the wings simple suggestions, like it’s still learning how to fly. I stare at it. I didn’t paint eyes. Mine can fly, but it can’t see. It seems incomplete now, without a partner. It glares at me, sightless, and I feel like I’m being told off. Within seconds, the white primer covers the image. I drop the brush into the pail and head back inside.
*
Derrick is waiting. After tossing my violin in the backseat, I climb into the Honda, lean over, and kiss him, a long and lingering one. He is warm and open, and as I pull away, he smiles at me.
“You’re in a good mood,” he says.
I want to forget. I don’t want to think about old ladies and islands and dragonflies that travel through decades to land in my life. They’re like ghosts. And I’m being haunted.
“Let’s go back to your place,” I say. “Play some Xbox, order pizza.” Derrick is my present. He’s my reality.
He flicks the steering wheel with his thumb in time to the music on the radio as the Honda pulls away. “Yeah. Sure. Just gotta do something on the way.”
He pulls up to Pizza Hut and hands me some cash. “Why don’t you run in and grab something? I just got to make a few phone calls.”
When I come back to the car I grab a slice out of the box and slide the rest of the pizza in the back next to my violin. Derrick’s still on the phone.
“Look, there’s no problem, I hear what you’re saying.” His voice is calm, reassuring, almost condescending. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve done this before. It will be fine.” He’s making weird faces and crossing his eyes, so I know it’s a client. He sounds sincere, but he really thinks they’re assholes.
It makes me laugh.
“I’ll see you later.”
He starts the car, dropping the phone into the cup holder of the console, and drives toward downtown, turning up Bay and then onto Banning Street. We pass a mailbox that’s been tagged. I notice these things now and try to see whose it is, but can’t make it out. He pulls the Honda to the side of the road and cuts the engine.
“Wait here.”
He takes a bite of my pizza, and then he’s gone, slamming the car door and heading up the sidewalk toward a sagging two-story house. What a dive. Derrick’s clients don’t usually live in places like this. He glances up and down the street before opening the door and entering the porch. I slouch in my seat, watching, eating my deep-crust Hawaiian. A tabby cat creeps out from beneath the crumbling concrete steps, slinks along the wall before disappearing into the long grass around the corner. The windows of the house are dark, all covered by boards or thick fabric, except one that’s draped with a Leafs flag that droops at the top corner. One of the wooden shutters has rotted through, loosening the hinge so that it hangs, crooked. Derrick hasn’t quite closed the door to the porch, and the wind shoves it open farther until it bangs against the front wall.
I’m just about to reach for another slice when I notice, barely visible beneath the front peak over the porch, a small camera, trained toward the front yard. And then I realize with a pounding heart where we are. It’s a dealer’s house. Derrick’s never taken me on a pickup before.
I look up the street and see a young couple walking hand in hand. They look like they are deep in conversation, heading slowly toward me in the Honda. A black car pulls into the driveway across the street, but nobody gets out. I don’t like this. I slouch lower in my seat. I’m just being paranoid.
Derrick’s phone buzzes. I watch the tabby cat slink across the lawn of the house next door, then dash across the street. The phone buzzes again. The young couple reaches the car and keeps walking, turning at the corner and heading down the hill toward the shops and cafés on Bay and Algoma Streets. I can’t see anyone in the car across the street, but I know damn well no one got out. Derrick’s cell buzzes again.
I look at the number. Private caller. Whoever it is seems desperate to get in touch with Derrick. I don’t know if I should pick it up. He doesn’t like me to answer his phone, but he normally doesn’t leave it behind, either.
“Yeah, Derrick’s phone.”
“Listen quick, babe, ’cause there isn’t much time. There’s a couple of bags in the glove box. Take them and get out of the car. Get out of the car and walk away.”
“Derrick?”
“Do you hear me, Morgan?” His voice sounds calm. I don’t think he is.
“Derrick, what the hell’s going on?”