Golden Read online

  “Are you a real Indian?” Jess Cartwright asked loudly. When her daughter begged her to shush, she cried, “What?”

  “First Nations, Mom,” her daughter hissed. “That’s incredibly rude.”

  Lucy pretended not to have heard her, although I noticed her knuckles were white against her binder. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to become an attraction in your own home.

  Before I could apologize on Jess’s behalf, Lucy introduced herself with remarkable vivacity and explained she was going to take us through Lillooet’s Golden Mile of History, which, she insisted, was just as remarkable as it sounded. Then we were off, shuffling to the first attraction so slowly that Lucy ended up talking to herself before realizing and turning back around.

  “This is Mile Zero,” she repeated. “The Cariboo Gold Rush wagon road starts from here, running all the way to Barkerville. In fact, we used to be the largest town this side of the Rockies, but now . . . ”

  We stopped at a few historic houses that, in my opinion, more resembled the house of sticks from The Three Little Pigs than anything habitable. Some had been refinished, done out with white picket fences and 19th century settler furnishings, the timber beams still only questionably stable. The guests liked them, anyhow, fawning over how quaint everything was. The three sisters filled an entire roll of film with pictures.

  “This is how I want my house,” Grace Schatz told nobody in particular. “All cute and rustic like this. They don’t let you build anything like this anymore. It’s sad.”

  “Sans electricity, sans running water, sans climate control . . . ” the French woman who Hera had been talking to earlier shrugged. “I myself am not so tempted.”

  Ambling down the road, we passed vintage saloons and modern fast-food chains, replica ox wagons and far too many trucks to count, and gift shops galore. Then a mining museum, a pile of rocks from the gold rush era, samples of gold nuggets, and a railway station.

  “The Pacific Great Eastern Railway once operated out of here,” Lucy said. “The acronym was PGE, which the locals used to joke stood for ‘Past God’s Endurance’ because it went so far north.”

  “Or Prince George Eventually,” Hera supplied, citing another interior town. It was the first time she’d spoken all morning. “What? I read the pamphlet.”

  The last stop was a steel-and-wood suspension bridge, creatively dubbed Old Bridge. I wouldn’t have trusted it to hold a feather, let alone carry a person over the rolling Fraser River below. Pictures were taken, then we were ushered back into town for a stint in a gift shop stuffed with local artwork, imitation jewelry, cases of smoked salmon, and maple-flavored candies.

  “Overinflated prices for the gullible,” I heard the French woman mutter to Hera. “They should be ashamed, taking advantage of old fools.” Noticing something behind her, she sighed. “Like my husband.”

  He pretended not to hear and offered them both a piece of maple fudge from an embellished, gaudy tin screaming LILLOOET in gold lettering.

  I considered buying Chrissy a dreamcatcher, then thought better of it. She had no time for trinkets. So instead, I found Lucy and thanked her.

  “Ah, don’t mention it. I’ve been doing this for like, maybe two and a half years now? It’s pretty robotic.” She laughed. “The hardest part is remembering that everyone else is hearing it for the first time.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  Lucy shrugged, fingers unravelling her braid. “Depends on how I’m feeling—and on them, of course. Oldies are kind of a blessing and a curse. Lots of questions, but at least they don’t pretend to hate every second like the grade schoolers do.” She shook her head and let her hair spill over her shoulders. “Your coworker isn’t very . . . involved, hey? They didn’t make her wear the ugly T-shirt too?”

  It took me a minute to understand what she was talking about.

  “Oh, Hera? She’s a guest, not a guide.” I frowned at my shirt and winced. “Is it really that ugly?”

  Lucy giggled. “It clashes with your hair.”

  “Serves me right for being a redhead, I guess.”

  “No.” She cocked her head and gave me a coy, sideways once-over. “More like sunset colors. Gold, copper, blond . . . ”

  A crash interrupted whatever my response might have been, and we both whirled around to see someone had overturned a stack of plastic shot glasses. Everyone glanced at each other, and no one volunteered to apologize.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine,” Lucy sighed. “Where the heck is Linda? This isn’t even my shop.”

  I watched her stride into the employee-only area and returned to the dreamcatchers. A little triviality wouldn’t hurt Chrissy, I decided, selecting the brightest one I could find.

  Our hotel was situated right on the edge of town, providing an unobstructed view of the mountains. The managers confirmed all the rooms, clearly pleased with the boom in business, and after getting their room keys, the group dispersed to hunt for dinner. I was delayed trying to get in touch with tomorrow’s contacts and left to wander about by myself. I didn’t mind—if anything, I welcomed the solitude. However, I stumbled across the French couple on my way downtown and agreed to their offer to join them for dinner.

  Robbie Deslumane was a bald, slightly stooped man of eighty-three. His skin was pale, crinkled, and translucent, stretched over networks of blue veins and the marks left by a permanent grin. His wife, Perle, wore a pink knitted sweater and a grumpy enough expression that it could’ve been his face turned upside down, her hair spiked like a pixie. Robbie was a cyclist, previously a national-level triathlete. Perle made the best fruitcake in France. Paris was, in their opinion, nothing more than another dirty city. Robbie liked hats, Perle liked cardigans. They’d lived in Paris, Orléans (the old one, not the new one), Algeria, Australia (nowhere near me, though), Ottawa, England, and a tiny town in Manitoba. Robbie once spent the night in jail for stealing apples in his youth. Perle may or may not have had a career in government intelligence.

  All this I learned in the space of about five minutes while we waited for our steaks to arrive.

  “And what about you?” Perle asked, kicking Robbie under the table when he made to tell yet another story. “We have been hogging the floor.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” I said honestly. “I haven’t got anything interesting to say.”

  “That is what all the people who are interesting say.” Robbie reached across the table for his third bread roll, only to be slapped on the wrist by his wife. He reached around, grabbed one with his other hand, and began buttering it. “I am always concerned when people are convinced I will find them fascinating. I rarely do.”

  “Really, I graduated last month, had no clue what to do, so I grabbed the first work visa offered to me and hopped on a plane.”

  “Nobody is that boring,” Perle retorted.

  “Your mother was,” Robbie said, absently.

  “I have a sister with a hundredth-percentile IQ, and once I found a tarantula in my shoe.” I laughed. “That’s it, that’s all.”

  “That will have to do, then.”

  Perle clicked her tongue. “Leave the boy alone, mon Dieu! He is in the spotlight for too long already, eh Lewis? And I do not think that is a natural place for him.”

  “I’m not shy or anything, I—”

  “—just find other people are suffocating more often than not,” Robbie finished for me, not leaving any room for correction. “Those past their sell-by date can be the worst. I should know.” When I began to protest, he added, “True, seniors have their benefits. To beat them at anything, one has only to stay alive a little longer. That is how I always win at the Seniors’ Games. I simply step over those having a stroke or heart attack and—”

  “Robbie!” Perle kicked him again.

  “What?” He shrugged and winked at me. “Everyone has their own finish line.”

  “And yours will be right now if you do not behave.”

  I watched them, amused. There was nothing doddering a
bout them, nothing senile whatsoever, and no matter how much they nattered at one another, it was obvious two people had never loved each other more.

  After knocking back three full courses, we all ambled back to the hotel in time to see the sun disappear behind the mountains.

  “Well,” I said, “thank you for your company. I hope you’re enjoying your trip so far.”

  “Of course. And it really is our pleasure.” Robbie rooted around in his pocket for his room key, adding, “We must be cooler than we thought, Perle, now making friends with both the teenagers!”

  An odd expression flitted across Perle’s face.

  “I haven’t really spoken with Hera,” I said, hoping they’d perhaps managed to get her backstory.

  “You should make more of an effort,” Robbie suggested, tossing the key to Perle and straightening. “She is rather . . . taken with you, I believe.”

  “Who wouldn’t be at her age?” Perle chortled. Then she fell serious again. “But . . . be careful.”

  “Why?”

  Perle glanced around, smiling at a bellhop who passed by. When she turned to face me, the smile was gone. “Hera Wilson is not her real name.”

  It took me a minute to make sure I’d heard her right. “Not . . . but . . . are you sure?”

  “No,” Perle admitted, “but my job trained me to, ah, pick up on such things. For one thing, she only reacts to the name half the time. She forgets it is supposed to be hers. And she hasn’t got a single piece of ID.”

  “That does not mean anything,” Robbie scoffed. “My wife has not yet accepted the stifling normality of retirement.”

  I laughed uneasily. Perle retained her dead-serious scowl.

  “Anyway, bonne nuit, Lewis. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  The hotel room could only be described as generic. A boxy TV from the early 2000s; a twin bed wrapped in plush, yellowing sheets; a window rimmed with dead flies and dust; a copy of some abstract piece of art that, to me, looked like someone had vomited color over a blank canvas.

  Day One was successfully over. Tomorrow should be an easy drive, and the itinerary was one of the most relaxed.

  Perhaps that was why as I lay awake in bed, for the first time in weeks, I found my mind hooked on something other than the tour.

  Who uses a fake name to go on a road trip?

  DESOLATE DIDN’T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE THE next leg of our journey. The coastal mountain range vanished, replaced with the vast interior plateau region of the province. There wasn’t much of anything out here. Mountains were practically hills compared to what we’d left behind. Towns were practically roadside service stops and nothing more. Trees were sparse. The world was fading away.

  Passing time, however, was all too easy. The questions and competition for my attention didn’t abate, but at least today, I was able to simply chat with a few of the more easygoing guests. There was William Pritchard, the poet, whom I could only describe as quietly flamboyant. He wore layer upon layer of shabby, old-fashioned, and brightly colored clothing, like he’d been a circus ringmaster in his youth and never changed his outfit since.

  “It’s good for writing,” he said, showing me a notebook stuffed with words. “Here’s one about Lillooet.”

  After reading a number of his works (which were surprisingly good), I was dragged over to Jess and her daughter, Emily. Emily was a doctor, apparently, and Jess’s only surviving child. She seemed relieved to simply have a normal conversation. Then, of course, I was called to the back of the bus by Robbie who had, to poke fun at Perle, begun trying to unscramble Hera’s “alias.”

  “I don’t know why my wife is not helping,” he said with mock indignation. “She is the spy after all!”

  “I am not a spy!” Perle hissed.

  “Retired government clerk,” Robbie corrected himself. “Oui. But if it is an alias, the name must be an anagram for something, yes? Like Lord Voldemort, or—”

  “You read Harry Potter?” I laughed.

  “Of course!” He looked affronted. “I am a well cultured man, Lewis, not a heathen.”

  When we arrived in Williams Lake, my first thought was that were it not for the gold rush, there was absolutely nothing to warrant a road-trip stop here. As with Lillooet, the main street was a parade of shops outfitted like a western movie set, littered with too many cowboy hats and rodeo references to count. I got the impression that unlike Lillooet, much of this wasn’t done for our benefit.

  Almost everything else passed exactly as the day before. Our guide was a pizza-faced guy about my age who made it very clear he was doing this job to pay for college, not because he actually gave a hoot about history. There was another PGE railway station to visit, so the same joke about what the letters stood for was given, another “historic” house from the mining days that would’ve been considered modern in Europe, and a more enthusiastically presented explanation of the town’s proud rodeo culture. Half the time, questions were all answered by me rather than the local expert. And, of course, when the tour was done, we were let loose in another gift shop for what felt like hours.

  For “free time,” I decided to head down to the town’s namesake lake with the majority of the tourists. It was exactly what you’d expect a Canadian lakeside beach to look like: clear, cold water; sand that was pretty much just mud; picnic tables galore; and a panoramic view of the wilderness beyond.

  “Are you not coming swimming?” Robbie asked me.

  “Blimey, no! The water’s freezing!”

  “It is the middle of July.”

  Realizing I’d spoken informally, I corrected myself with a distant grin. “I haven’t got any swimming gear.”

  “He’s mad,” Perle agreed. “He acts like he’s eight instead of eighty.”

  Robbie was the only one who did decide to swim, while everyone else sat down in either the sunshine or shade and chatted amongst themselves. Even Sergio decided to join in, parking the coach and opening a book without a hint of his “this-isn’t-our-vacation” attitude.

  Perle engrossed herself in crocheting, so with nothing else to do, I brought out my stack of pamphlets and thumbed through them with glassy eyes. I hadn’t thought to bring anything for my own leisure.

  A sharp poke in my side.

  “You look bored out of your mind,” Perle said, almost accusingly.

  “No, I—”

  She jabbed her needle in the direction of the lakeside. “So does that girl.”

  Hera had a book open in her lap, but she wasn’t reading it. She was staring at the water with the same vacant expression I’d been directing at my papers, not even flinching when Grace Schatz started screaming about a snake.

  “I’d better go and see if Mrs. Schatz . . . ” I trailed off at Perle’s glare, rising to my feet.

  “You have been talking to everyone else all day. And trust me, nothing would make her happier, no matter how much she denies it.”

  “What happened to ‘be careful’?” I asked, not sure how else to react.

  Her lips twitched, almost forming a smile. “I am curious, Lewis. She won’t tell me anything. Given your, ah, advantage, you may have more luck.”

  In all honesty, I was irritated at Perle and Robbie both for making what should’ve been a simple situation far more complicated. I didn’t want to mess around with Hera’s feelings, and I certainly didn’t want to use them just to put Perle’s suspicions to rest. But now, having even a normal conversation with her would feel like I was doing exactly that. Oh, and Sergio. Telling Swierenga I was being “unprofessional” with a client would no doubt be like Christmas to him, no matter how unfounded such an accusation was. But I couldn’t just ignore Hera for the duration of the trip either.

  And I was curious too.

  Although she didn’t turn to look at me, Hera’s back straightened as I walked across the beach to sit beside her. She’d found a spot underneath a gnarled ponderosa pine, mottled sunlight creating a quilt of shade and light over the bed of fallen
needles, near a particularly marshy part of the lakeside.

  “Hey.”

  “Hello. Do you mind if I sit here?”

  Her dark eyes flickered over me, then she gave a slight nod. “Sure. It’s not as comfortable as a bench, though.”

  “All the benches are in the sun.”

  “Don’t you Australians love the sun?”

  “That doesn’t make us immune to heatstroke.” I winced. “I never expected it to be so warm so far north.”

  She closed her book, somewhat reluctantly, and leaned back into the tree trunk. “Welcome to the interior. My family has a cabin in the Okanagan, and in July and August, I swear it’s hotter than Satan’s armpit.”

  “Your family didn’t come on this trip with you?” I asked, casual.

  “No.” That was it. That was all. A single word, carrying a hint of warning and a hint of pleading.

  I tried another tactic. “What book are you reading?”

  She glanced at the title page as though she’d forgotten already. “Some corny horror novella. It isn’t very good. I’m more of a sci-fi person.”

  “Space opera?”

  “Of course.” Hera laughed, visibly relaxing. “What do you like?”

  “I’m more of a true-to-life guy. Memoirs, biographies, journals, that sort of thing.”

  “How boring,” she teased.

  “Hey, I’m not judging you.”

  “Sure you are. Nicely, though, but still judging. You wouldn’t be human otherwise.”

  “Deep.”

  “Thanks.” Another laugh, light and genuine.

  I cleared my throat, ever conscious of giving the wrong impression. “So, um . . . how are you liking the trip so far? I know it’s only been two days, but . . . ”

  “Loving it,” she replied, with what I took to be sincerity. “The other guests are . . . well, aside from the bad apples, they’re sweet. I didn’t think I’d be so comfortable. I guess that deep down inside, I’m a grouchy old lady too. All I’d change would be having you do all the tours instead of the locals.”