“She started this,” Dean muttered, eyes locked on the oil gauge. “If she wants me to stay, she has to convince me.”
“All right. Fine.” He put a paw on Dean’s thigh and stared beseechingly up into his face. “What about me? I’m old. It wasn’t that long ago that I lost an eye.”
“I thought it had mostly healed?”
“That’s not the point. It’s November, it’s cold. I don’t want to go back to using any old thing that happens by. I like being driven about in a heated truck! Okay, I would’ve liked a heated Lincoln Town Car with leather upholstery more, but the point is, what about me?”
“I’m sorry, Austin.”
“Not as sorry as she’s going to be,” Austin muttered as the Keeper opened the passenger door.
“The booth on the right has a longer line.”
“A longer line?” Dean had been avoiding conversation by maintaining the speed of the pickup at exactly fifty-five miles per hour regardless of the gestures other drivers flashed at him as they passed. He glanced down at the cat and tried not to notice the various bits of Claire that surrounded him. “Why do you want me to use the longer line, then?”
“It’ll take more time. And the more time we’re all together, the greater the odds are that you two will make up and I won’t be tossed out into the cold with nothing but a cat carrier between me and November.”
“There’s nothing to make up,” Claire told him impatiently. “We didn’t have a fight.”
“We didn’t?”
“No.” She threw the word across the cat to Dean. “I, as a Keeper, made a decision.”
“About my future without talking to me.”
“Sounds like a fight,” Austin observed.
Claire wriggled back in the seat and crossed her arms. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Oh, no? I’m the one who’ll be riding in the overhead luggage rack…”
“You’ve never ridden in the overhead luggage rack!”
“…or the baggage compartment.”
“Or the baggage compartment!” she added, voice rising.
He ignored her. “Once again, I’ll be at the mercy of strangers. Forced to live from paw to mouth, dark corners as my litter box, cardboard boxes as my bed.”
“You like to sleep in cardboard boxes.”
“That’s not the point.”
“You have no point. And stop whining; you’re beginning to sound like a dog.”
“A dog!” He twisted around to fry her with a pale green glare from his remaining eye. “I have never been so insulted in my life. You’re just lucky I can’t operate a can opener.” Moving slowly and deliberately, he stepped down off her lap, onto the center of the bench seat, and turned his back on her.
The smile his companions shared over his head was completely involuntary.
Suddenly aware of her reflection grinning out from Dean’s glasses, Claire dropped her gaze so quickly it bounced.
Teeth clenched with enough applied pressure to make his lone filling creak, Dean steered the truck carefully into the shorter line. The sooner this was over, the better.
Only two of the five Canada Customs booths were open. Only two of the five booths were ever open. On a busy day, when the line of cars waiting to cross the border stretched almost all the way back to Watertown, this guaranteed short tempers and a more spontaneous response to official questioning by Canadian Customs officials. Occasionally, on really hot summer days, responses were spontaneous enough to get the RCMP involved.
The constant low levels of sharp-edged irritation would have poked multiple holes through the fabric of the universe had government officiousness not canceled it out by denying that anything was possible outside their own very narrow parameters. As a result, most border crossings between the U.S. and Canada were so metaphysically stable, unnatural phenomenon had to cross them just like everyone else—although it wasn’t always easy for them to find photo ID.
Later, they’d swap stories about how custom officials had no sense of humor, about how someone—or possibly something—they knew had been strip-searched for no good reason, and how they’d triumphantly smuggled in half a dozen toaster ovens, duty-free.
As Dean pulled up beside the booth’s open window and turned to smile politely at the young guard, Claire reached into the possibilities. When the guard looked into the truck, her gaze slid over Austin like he’d been buttered, over Claire almost as quickly, and locked itself on Dean’s face.
“Nationality?”
“Canadian.”
“Canadian,” Claire repeated although she suspected she needn’t have bothered as the guard’s rapt attention never left Dean.
“How long were you in the States?”
“Four days.”
“What is the total value of the purchases you’re bringing into Canada?”
“Six dollars and eighty-seven cents. I bought a couple of maps and a liter of oil for the truck,” he added apologetically.
“You’re from back East.” When he nodded, she continued, startling Claire who’d never seen anyone who worked for Canada Customs look so happy. “I’m from Cornerbrook. When’s the last time you were back?”
“I’m heading back now.”
Their discussion slid into shared memories of places and people. Newfoundlanders, chance met a thousand miles from home, were never strangers. Occasionally, they were mortal enemies, but never strangers. After it had been determined that Dean had played junior hockey against a buddy the guard’s second cousin had gone to school with, she waved them on.
“You never told me you were going back to Newfoundland,” Claire pointed out as they pulled away from the border.
“You never asked.”
“Oh, that’s mature,” she muttered. Now they were both ignoring her, Dean and the cat. It was the sort of thing she expected from Austin, but Dean usually had better manners. Fine. Be that way. I know I’m right. A sideways glance at his profile showed a muscle moving along the line of his jaw. A sudden urge to reach out and touch him surprised her into lowering her gaze.
That didn’t help.
Two spots of heat burning high on each cheek, she turned to stare out at the pink granite rising in mighty slabs up into the sky.
Neither did that.
Think of something else, Claire. Anything else. Three times nine is twenty-seven. Fried liver. Brussels sprouts. Homer Simpson…
The insistent under-tug of the Summoning suddenly rose to a crescendo. Claire’s hand jerked up and pointed toward a parking lot entrance for the Thousand Islands Sky Deck and Fantasy Land. “Pull in there.”
Responding to her tone, Dean managed to make the turn, back end of the truck fishtailing slightly in the light dusting of wet snow. “It’s closed,” he said, coming to a stop by the entrance to the gift shop that anchored the Sky Deck.
“Not to me.” This was it. The end of the line. Claire felt strangely unwilling to get out of the truck. And not only because it was beginning to snow again. You’re doing this for him, she reminded herself. He’s only a Bystander, and you have no business putting him in danger.
When he moved to turn off the engine, she steeled herself and stopped him, restraining herself from keeping a lingering grip around his wrist. “There’s no point, you won’t be here long enough.” She undid her seat belt, pulled her toque over her ears, and grabbed the cat carrier from its place behind the seat. “Come on, Austin.”
His back remained toward her, rigid and unyielding.
“Austin!”
He ignored her so completely she had a moment’s doubt about her own existence.
“What’s the matter with…” And then she remembered. “Oh, for…Austin, I’m sorry I said you were beginning to sound like a dog. It was rude.”