being paranoid. But it wasn’t hard for someone like me—on the run, with too many secrets—to be suspicious of just about anyone.
I knew the cops would have been alerted that I had hit the streets. The Foster-Boyds would have contacted CAS as soon as they read my letter, and they would have informed the police and filed a Missing Person report. But the cops had a long list of runaways; everybody knew that. They couldn’t hunt for all of them. And CAS—according to my latest caseworker, who complained about it every time I saw her—was always understaffed. They had enough problems on their hands. Sure, they’d put out the word, ask around, but that and registering me with the police was about all they could do. Besides, I was living far across the city from the Boyds’ place.
I relaxed a bit. I wasn’t interested in working for Curtis, but I figured I’d meet with him just to rule out the chance that he was onto me. If I decided he wasn’t, I’d see what he had in mind. The more I thought about it, the more I reminded myself I could do with the extra money.
A group came through the café door and took a table. A family, it looked like—two adults with a boy and a girl. The girl sat down sideways in her chair, head lowered, her back to her mother, her face half screened by long sand-coloured hair. Making a statement. The boy, around eight or nine, a couple of years younger than the girl, plunked his elbows on the table and gave all his attention to the video game device in his hands.
The dad conferred with the woman, then went to the order window. Mom reached into the pocket of her torn yellow windbreaker and peeled the wrapper off a stick of gum and handed it to the boy. Without taking his eyes off his toy, he stuck the gum in his mouth, folding it double on his tongue before he chewed, and continued with his game, rhythmically thunking the heel of his running shoe against the leg of his chair. The woman gazed vacantly at the far wall, turning a pack of cigarettes end for end, over and over, as if the motion had hypnotized her. Her pale round face looked tired and careworn. The girl worked hard at ignoring her surroundings.
The father slouched over to the table, carrying a tray of food and drinks. He distributed slabs of pizza on paper plates, then set down four cans of pop, each with a straw sticking through the zip tab hole. None of them smiled. Nobody spoke, not even to persuade the girl to eat her pizza before it got cold.
You’d never see this foursome pictured on a billboard in one of those happy-loving-family scenes created to make you feel warm and fuzzy about the product being advertised. They were just ordinary people, not too well off if their clothing was any indication.
And I would have bet the kids, each in their own way, didn’t realize how lucky they were. They took their parents for granted, knowing, without even thinking about it, that their parents would look after them. Their parents would be there in the morning when they got out of bed knuckling the sleep from their eyes. Every day.
I gulped down the rest of my milk, folded up the pizza wrapper and stuffed it into the bin on my way to the door. As I passed the family’s table the father said something to the girl. Her head snapped up. She tried not to, but she laughed. Then all of them started eating.
Curtis’s office was jammed between a Vietnamese manicure salon and a small engine repair shop that had a couple of old gas-powered mowers on display out front. It had once been a store—I could tell from the display shelf in the front window. A sign above the door read “A.T. Curtis & Associates.” I found him at his desk, his jacket hung on the back of the chair, his shirt sleeves rolled up, typing away on a laptop. A cracked plastic radio on the shelf behind him was playing middle-of-the-road music just loud enough to be irritating. The office was rundown-looking, with chipped furniture and bare floors. There was nothing on
I knew the cops would have been alerted that I had hit the streets. The Foster-Boyds would have contacted CAS as soon as they read my letter, and they would have informed the police and filed a Missing Person report. But the cops had a long list of runaways; everybody knew that. They couldn’t hunt for all of them. And CAS—according to my latest caseworker, who complained about it every time I saw her—was always understaffed. They had enough problems on their hands. Sure, they’d put out the word, ask around, but that and registering me with the police was about all they could do. Besides, I was living far across the city from the Boyds’ place.
I relaxed a bit. I wasn’t interested in working for Curtis, but I figured I’d meet with him just to rule out the chance that he was onto me. If I decided he wasn’t, I’d see what he had in mind. The more I thought about it, the more I reminded myself I could do with the extra money.
A group came through the café door and took a table. A family, it looked like—two adults with a boy and a girl. The girl sat down sideways in her chair, head lowered, her back to her mother, her face half screened by long sand-coloured hair. Making a statement. The boy, around eight or nine, a couple of years younger than the girl, plunked his elbows on the table and gave all his attention to the video game device in his hands.
The dad conferred with the woman, then went to the order window. Mom reached into the pocket of her torn yellow windbreaker and peeled the wrapper off a stick of gum and handed it to the boy. Without taking his eyes off his toy, he stuck the gum in his mouth, folding it double on his tongue before he chewed, and continued with his game, rhythmically thunking the heel of his running shoe against the leg of his chair. The woman gazed vacantly at the far wall, turning a pack of cigarettes end for end, over and over, as if the motion had hypnotized her. Her pale round face looked tired and careworn. The girl worked hard at ignoring her surroundings.
The father slouched over to the table, carrying a tray of food and drinks. He distributed slabs of pizza on paper plates, then set down four cans of pop, each with a straw sticking through the zip tab hole. None of them smiled. Nobody spoke, not even to persuade the girl to eat her pizza before it got cold.
You’d never see this foursome pictured on a billboard in one of those happy-loving-family scenes created to make you feel warm and fuzzy about the product being advertised. They were just ordinary people, not too well off if their clothing was any indication.
And I would have bet the kids, each in their own way, didn’t realize how lucky they were. They took their parents for granted, knowing, without even thinking about it, that their parents would look after them. Their parents would be there in the morning when they got out of bed knuckling the sleep from their eyes. Every day.
I gulped down the rest of my milk, folded up the pizza wrapper and stuffed it into the bin on my way to the door. As I passed the family’s table the father said something to the girl. Her head snapped up. She tried not to, but she laughed. Then all of them started eating.
Curtis’s office was jammed between a Vietnamese manicure salon and a small engine repair shop that had a couple of old gas-powered mowers on display out front. It had once been a store—I could tell from the display shelf in the front window. A sign above the door read “A.T. Curtis & Associates.” I found him at his desk, his jacket hung on the back of the chair, his shirt sleeves rolled up, typing away on a laptop. A cracked plastic radio on the shelf behind him was playing middle-of-the-road music just loud enough to be irritating. The office was rundown-looking, with chipped furniture and bare floors. There was nothing on
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