The Night Wanderer (4 page)

About an hour after reading her dad's note, Tiffany heard his pickup arrive and Midnight's welcoming bark. There, in the driveway, were her father and Granny Ruth. He was juggling about five or six plastic bags of groceries. It was just before the weekend and that's when they liked to do their shopping. On the verge of fifty, he looked well and fit for his age and like he'd be more at home in a duck or deer blind than in his La-Z-Boy chair. His face showed the evidence of a lot of time in the wind and sun. But it suited him. And he looked like his mother. A couple of inches taller than her, but the same laugh and slightly bowlegged walk. Tiffany was so thankful that particular genetic characteristic had lost out to her mother's DNA.

Granny Ruth was wheezing, her short legs tackling the steps with difficulty. “Not so fast, you.” She spoke in Anishinabe, but most of the country tended to call it Ojibwa. That always annoyed Granny Ruth. “What is this Ojibwa?” she would ask angrily when confronted with the word. “I ain't Ojibwa. That's just what them white people want to call us. That ain't even one of our words. I'm Anishinabe.”

Keith understood the language and could manage quite a few words and phrases when pressed. Sort of an Ojibberish. Tiffany mostly understood it when Granny Ruth spoke to her but, in a sign of the times, couldn't speak it herself. She knew it bothered Granny Ruth.

His hands full, Keith managed to hold the door open as Granny Ruth entered, her arms wrapped around a box. Still annoyed with the content of the note, Tiffany watched coldly from her perch on the couch. Silent.

“You sure we got enough food?” Granny Ruth felt that a kitchen without a ton of food for potential guests was like a heart without love.

“You always ask that. Half the time the vegetables go bad, we got so many,” he responded. “We can't let that happen anymore, Mom. Got to watch our money, 'kay?” Once she started grade three, it had taken Tiffany a while to lose the peculiar syntax of the older generation of Otter Lake inhabitants. They tend to switch and place phrases and words as the need dictated. One of her teachers had once told her it was a result of turning Ojibwa thoughts into English words. The sentence structures of the two languages were radically different, so sometimes things were lost in the translation or, at the very least, rearranged. Tiffany, when angry or just hanging out with her reserve friends or relatives, would sometimes revert to what she called Elder Verbiage. But she tried to avoid it. She didn't like sounding funny to her school friends.

“Tiffany!! You home?”

“Right behind you, Dad.”

Keith turned to see his daughter sitting on the couch, a familiar confrontational look on her face. He'd seen it before, and he knew it would be quite a few more winters before that teenage resistance might disappear. And probably reappear in a more mature form. But for the moment, it was sitting on the couch, calmly waiting to be dealt with.

He put the bags down on the kitchen table. “Did you find the note?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you do it? Put your stuff into the basement?”

Granny Ruth started taking the groceries out of the bag. “I bet two cans of corn she didn't.”

Tiffany was silent. Keith fixed his daughter with a glare. “Well, did you?”

“No.”

Keith gritted his teeth. “Damn it, Tiffany. Why can't you do one thing I ask you?”

“I don't know. Call me crazy, but I don't want to live in the basement. It's cold down there. There are spiders down there. Lots of them. Me and spiders don't get along. And it's musty. Dark. So, no, I didn't.” She turned back to the game show on TV.

The gauntlet had been thrown down. And it was picked up. “Tiffany, just do it because I asked you to.”

“Any particular reason for this banishment?”

Granny Ruth shook her head. “Always with your big words.”

With a controlled but loud sigh, Keith crossed over to the living room and sat in his chair next to the couch. His right cheek was bouncing up and down, a slight twitch he had developed recently. It was obviously stress-related or, as he thought of it, Tiffany-related. His daughter's stubbornness made it dance like dandelion fluff on a windy day. Hoping against hope, Keith thought a rational conversation might be able to avert yet another fight. It was a long shot, but as a hunter, he was familiar with making long shots count.

“Tiffany, honestly . . . we need the money. With your mother gone . . .”He was beginning to be able to say it out loud now, sometimes without the multicolored layers of pain, regret, anger, and simple puzzlement bubbling through. It was a shared pain between them. An unfortunate and unwanted one. Tiffany herself rarely spoke of the absent Claudia unless asked a direct question. Even then she kept her answers as short as possible.

“Uh, with her gone, I'm not making enough to support the three of us. Her job at the band office paid a lot of our bills. The last year has been tough on all of us, so I had to make other arrangements. We all have to adjust and—”

“Sending me underground is
adjusting?
” Tiffany interrupted. “How is me living in the basement going to help? Is there a coal mine down there?”

“You know I don't like that tone.” When Keith was young, it never would have occurred to him to talk this way to his father or mother. “We're taking in a boarder. That simple.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Why just leave me a message on a stupid piece of paper? This is so unfair. This is so you!”

“I did tell you. This morning at breakfast. Didn't I, Mom?” Granny Ruth nodded, saying, “
Ahn
,” Anishinabe for
yes
.

Vindicated, Keith continued. “You grunted a response from inside your magazine. I thought you heard me. It sounded like you did. So don't get mad at me if you don't listen.”

He did? He couldn't have. Tiffany was sure she would have remembered. She wasn't at all like him. She usually listened.

Keith stood up, victorious but not particularly pleased by it.

“Now, for once in your life, do what you're told.”

Tiffany didn't answer. She just continued to stare at the television, but nothing on the screen was really registering. Her only response was a tight and terse “sure,” which did little to alleviate the situation.

Still angry, Keith took out a printed email, neatly folded in his coat pocket, and tossed it at Tiffany. It landed on the floor at her feet. “As I said this morning, we're going to have a guest. A paying guest.” Without waiting for a response, Keith turned and walked toward the kitchen.

Granny Ruth nodded. “You read that. A smart guy, your father. He mentioned at the band office that we'd been thinking of maybe borrowing some money to renovate the basement and open one of those bread and breakfasts. And now we got ourselves a guest without even trying. Somebody up there's lookin' after us for sure.”

If this was “being looked after,” she'd hate to see what not being looked after was like. Trying to comprehend this change in her world, she corrected her grandmother without being conscious of it. “It's
bed
and breakfast. The bread usually comes with the breakfast. And why didn't anybody tell me that this master plan involved my bedroom?”

“I did,” Keith answered from across the kitchen. “A couple of weeks ago.”

“You did?”

“He did,” responded Granny Ruth. “But you were too busy getting ready to go out with that Tony to listen. Even in my day,
Kwezens
, boys always had a way of clogging up your ears.” That was Granny Ruth's pet name for her when she was upset. It meant
little girl
. And she meant it.

At the mention of Tony's name, Keith slammed cans of corn and peas into the cupboard, far too forcibly, his cheek still twitching. Granny Ruth could hear the plates bouncing. “Careful, those plates are almost as old as I am. Well, somebody sent one of those computer message thingees to the band office saying he was coming here to the village tomorrow and needed a place to stay. So they gave us a call and—”

“—that's why you're going in the basement,” Keith interrupted. “Any more attitude and you'll be sleeping under the deck.” He slammed the door, making Granny Ruth wince.

“So automatically it's got to be my room.The hell with Tiffany . . .”

Not looking at his daughter, Keith nodded, anger still evident in his voice as he mimicked her. “Yep. The hell with Tiffany. It's always about you. There's no way I could get the basement in shape in time. Your grandmother sure can't stay down there, and my room ain't really fit for guests.”

“So I'm being penalized for having a nice room? That is so unfair. Gimme a couple hours, I could make your room really nice.”

“I've thought this out, Tiffany. Why do I have to explain everything to you all the time? I'm the father. You are the daughter. So for God's sake, do as I say for once.” He looked at her expectantly.

For a moment, there was silence, then as always Granny Ruth tried to find quiet ways of changing the subject. “Your father says this man's from Europe. That will be exciting. One of them far-off places. I wonder if he likes
paashkiminsignan
.” Her word for pickles. Granny Ruth put down a small plate of pickles on the coffee table in front of them, taking a blandly yellow cauliflower for herself. One of the quirks Tiffany found puzzling was her grandmother's fondness for pickles. Dill, bread and butter, mustard, baby gherkins, all kinds. There were jars and jars of the stuff along the wall in the basement. Across from what was going to be her new room.

She uttered the unavoidable. “This blows.”

Now finished with the groceries, Keith hoped to end the conversation. “It's only for a few days. Quit whining. You'll live, so you can stop being so damn dramatic. I would suggest you get started right now.” More softly, to his mother, he added, “I'll make some tea.”

Tiffany looked down at the printed email in her hand. It was the second note for her of the afternoon, and neither one had perked up her day. Some stranger, some foreign person was going to be sleeping in her room. As they often said in math class, not only did it blow, it blowed cubed. At least she wouldn't be alone down there. She was going to be sharing the basement with a host of spiders. Spiders and pickles, every teenager's dream. And who the hell would want to stay at a bed and breakfast on a Native reserve anyway? The guy must be pretty desperate.

The email read:

Dear Mr. Hunter,

I understand that you might be in a position to help me. I will be visiting Otter Lake on the 14th of this month, and I am in dire need of a place to stay. I have been informed that you have a spare room of convenience. I would be delighted to discuss accommodation arrangements with you. I do not need much in the manner of comforts, just a place of privacy. I will contact you when I arrive. Again, I am in your debt.

Pierre L'Errant

Pierre L'Errant . . . sounded French. She hoped he wouldn't be too weird.

THREE

T
IFFANY SAT in her room—well what had been her room and now would belong to some stranger from Europe while she wasted away her existence twelve feet below—and sulked. School sucked. Life in this house sucked. The only shining light was her new relationship with Tony. Tony Banks. She even liked his name. Tony B., she sometimes called him.

Whatever damage being forced to sleep in a basement caused Tiffany, Tony was sure to be able to make her feel better. He always did. He would tell her stories of the places he'd been with his parents. Florida sounded so exotic. He talked of his plans for the future (and possibly theirs), while most of the guys on the reserve thought the future meant just this coming weekend. Tony provided the umbrella that shielded her from the dark cloud hanging over her house.

Tiffany would have to figure out something special to do on their one-month anniversary this coming Thursday. What would be a decent one-month anniversary present? Something Native like moccasins (too expensive), or something white people might like . . . stationery maybe (too boring). She would have to think about it.

While she pondered these ideas, carefully ignoring the history book on the pillow in front of her, she massaged her tender, blistered feet. Tiffany applied some lotion on them in the vain hope it would keep any swelling down. Her feet were big enough already.

As she rubbed the lotion deep between her toes, Tiffany felt the shiny silver bracelet on her right wrist slide down to the base of her hand. She loved that bracelet. Tony had given it to her just a week ago. It was his first present to her—therefore, it was the best present in the world. It fit perfectly and looked kind of classy, and Tiffany had decided she liked classy.

One month. It had only been one month since they had started going out. Of course she'd seen Tony around school for the last four years—but it was about a month ago that carburetors and
weekah
root brought them together.

When Tiffany shifted position to begin massaging her other foot, the forgotten history book fell off the bed. It hit the floor with a loud thud, forcing Tiffany back to reality. Somehow it had remained open to the page she was supposed to be reading. Something about the fur trade. The topic appealed to her about as much as the ancient mangy furs she'd seen in the local museum. All this fur-trading stuff happened so long ago, what possible relevance could it have in her life now? Canadian history teachers seemed obsessed with the topic.

Those days were long gone and though she was proud of her Native heritage, she found the annual powwow events quite culturally satisfying enough, thank you very much. The thought of herself in a buckskin dress, skinning a beaver, almost made her laugh and throw up at the same time. But while she wasn't particularly fond of buckskin, Tiffany did have a love for leather jackets. If there was only something called the Versace trade.