The elderly bus driver, who appeared to be as rattled by the experience as Daniel, was busy telling everyone he had just loaded a bundle of toys into the hold for his twin son and daughter's birthday.
‘I swear, I only went for a smoke,’ he said in a dazed voice. ‘I should have checked again.’
A small smattering of passengers, who had also descended from the bus, confirmed they had collectively known nothing of the small stowaway.
But, the crowd of onlookers were only interested in the happy reunion in front of them. As the audience returned to normal life, Claire and Daniel made their way back to the car, where the baby remained locked in oblivious sleep. Daniel, who was being carried, had his arm curled around his mother’s neck. As they moved through the lanes of cars, the boy smiled and waved at the bus driver, who offered a relieved grin, and waved back at the departing child.
However, once they were out of sight, the elderly driver’s expression changed to that of pained frustration. He turned to one of the passengers - a large man wearing a Hawaiian shirt - and patted his broad shoulder.
‘It’s okay, Wendell,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll have plenty more chances.’
1
Vicki had already picked up the telephone handset and quickly replaced it three times, before she finally summoned the confidence to fully dial the number. She was sitting in front of the green-glass dining table, in what had once been, prior to the divorce, her parents’ beach apartment. It was a tasteful, single storey building, with smooth whitewashed walls, and a small balcony overlooking the booming ocean. A wooden deck led directly on to the bone coloured beach. If Vicki actually allowed herself to, she could remember countless seasons spent here in the cool, white sanctuary. Looking out through the patio window, she could see the sun-bleached balcony, where she had often sat as a child, blanket-wrapped upon her father’s knee, watching shooting stars streak above the sea, while her mother sat comfortably inside, sipping Earl Grey tea. Her father had pointed out constellations, and told her everybody’s lives were written in the stars, like a secret message only some people knew how to read.
But, now, she chose not to think about that; her past had been a lie.
In front of her, on the table was an iPad, displaying a moving slide-show of photographs featuring two smiling female students. Gazing intently at the pictures as they faded smoothly from one to another, Vicki barely recognized her own image, and found herself in the bizarre position of being envious of her own life - or at least, of the one presented on the screen. The photographs had been taken three and four years earlier, so she looked younger, obviously, but the difference was more than simply superficial.
Back then, Vicki had been optimistic about the world and life - and this had shown in her untroubled eyes. Partly she’d taken confidence by osmosis from the girl standing by her side in many of the photographs. They had been physically alike - petite with long light brown hair - and many of the other students had assumed they were sisters, but this shared physicality was their only similarity; at least, initially.
Vicki was a mouse-like, self-conscious young woman, whereas Laurie was confident and strong. She had to be. When she had been six years old, her father had gone out to buy some cigarettes and never returned. Laurie’s mother responded to this sudden change in circumstance by sinking progressively into a cave of clinical depression. Therefore, throughout most of Laurie’s childhood, she served as the emotional support for her mother, rather than the other way around. She told Vicki how she would often come home from school to find her mother in the dark bedroom, sitting in her nightgown, with an overflowing ashtray on one side, and her wedding photograph album on the other.
This upbringing, or lack of it, meant Vicki was both self-reliant and forgiving of other people’s flaws. Without the financial security of her family, she had managed to complete all of her assignments, whist maintaining an almost full-time job as a cocktail waitress in Jimmy Love’s Restaurant.
One Halloween, during the Social Studies Spooktacular Ball, Vicki and Laurie had excitedly dressed in matching zombie costumes purchased from Walmart, which made it impossible for anyone to tell them apart. Over the course of the evening, they had relished switching identities – Laurie was able to fade comfortably into the background, and Vicki got to adopt an air of confidence entirely foreign to her. She had moved crazily on the dance floor and made out at least two masked men.
Now, in the sterility of the silent beach house, Vicki’s past seemed like another life - one she yearned to somehow recreate.
Vicki hesitantly dialled the number, brushed her fringe from her eyes, and held the phone to her ear.
‘Hello?’ the voice sounded unchanged since the last time Vicki had heard it.
‘Hi, Laurie?’
‘Yep?’
‘It’s Vicki.’ She paused. ‘Vicki Reiner.’
In the momentary silence that followed, she anticipated the horror of Laurie failing to remember her at all. Perhaps the friendship had been nothing more than the convenience of sharing a living space, and Vicki had magnified it her mind. However, her doubts were dispelled, when she heard Laurie squeal with delight.
‘Oh my god, Vicki, how are you, girl?’
On the other end of the line, Vicki felt a mental sigh of relief.
‘I’m good,’ she lied. ‘How are you doing? What you up to?’
‘Ah, you know me. Same old underachiever, but with a little bit of style. I’m flipping burgers for six bucks an hour. Where are you?’
‘Still in Oceanside, still being a parasite, and still bumming around at my parents’ empty house.’
‘Well, honey, don’t you go beating yourself up about it. If I was down there on the Californian shore, I’d never want to leave, either.’
‘Actually, that’s why I’m calling,’ Vicki said, and took a deep breath.
‘Yeah?’
‘You fancy coming down to stay for a break, just for a change of scenery?’
‘You mean it?’ Laurie said in a breathless voice.
‘I really, really mean it.’
‘Hell yes!’ Laurie screeched.
2
At the same time as the sausages were starting to brown beneath the gas grill, Dennis McLean poured a ladle of golden corn oil onto the large griddle, and spread it around with an old three-inch paint brush he kept in a plastic jug next the hob for just this reason. He was a big man, and at sixty-seven years old, he was starting to carry his spreading weight like an uncomfortable burden. His wife was forever telling him to lay off the red meat, but with his own walk-in cold store filled with every type of animal, cutting back on the flesh was not an easy option.
As the oil began hiss and splatter, Dennis went to the double refrigerator and removed a rectangular Tupperware box. He then laid out several slices of streaky bacon on the hot griddle, and glanced through the emerging smoke at the numerous bodies filling the booth seats. Eddie Gee’s Diner had, as far as the chef could recall, never been so busy at 10:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. It was a small place, located three miles off the interstate, and run solely by Dennis. He would take care of the place up until noon, when his temperamental sister-in-law would help out. Although her version of helping basically involved standing at the back of the fire escape, smoking menthol cigarettes, and occasionally carrying plates of food to ravenous customers - if she felt like it.