Smart Mouth Waitress (38 page)

I told Sunshine and she looked up the phone number for the school. I called with Cooper's phone, but the school's office was closed for the day. I left them both the home number and Cooper's cell phone number.

When we were half-way to New Westminster, I swore so loud it startled Cooper. “My phone,” I said.

“You remembered where you left it?” Cooper asked.

“No, it's probably stuffed between couch cushions, or at The Whistle. It didn't grow legs and walk off. If the three of us had stayed there and searched the house, we would have found it by now and plugged it into the charger.” I rubbed my forehead on my hand, ashamed of myself for being so stupid.

“We'll do that yet,” Cooper said, reaching over to grab my hand. We were stopped at a red light, so he turned to look me in the eyes, which made me feel so much better.

My uncle's
house
is what a real estate advertisement would describe as
a handyman's special
. As in, bring your decorating ideas! Plenty of opportunities to add value!

The porch is loosely held up by a network of blackberry brambles, and the roof looks like one of those enviro-friendly green ones you see in architecture magazines, except the moss and weeds that originate in the gutters are not there on purpose.

Even though I was in a panic over my missing family, I did feel a little shame on behalf of Uncle Jeff's house, and apologized to Cooper and Sunshine.

“It's cute, like a cottage,” Sunshine said as she wiggled out of the back seat of the car.

Cooper looked up at the house, then stood on the mound in the front yard and surveyed the area. “Great location,” he said, waving a hand across the view, overlooking the Fraser River. “I would paint this.”

I approached the house, which had an aura of not just neglect, but emptiness. I banged on the door, but nobody answered, so I grabbed the spare key from on top of the door frame and unlocked the door. At least if Uncle Jeff was out, he could have been with my father and brother.

Echoing my thoughts, Cooper said, “At least the three of them are all somewhere together.”

I agreed that I was relieved to not find my uncle home, though it certainly hadn't gotten us any closer to figuring out where anyone actually was. It was a Monday, but Uncle Jeff had been on disability for years, so he couldn't have been at a job, since he didn't have one.

Cooper and Sunshine stood silently, waiting for me to decide what to do next.

“Sorry in advance for the mess,” I said, opening the door to the house. They followed me in and were polite enough to neither stare at the fast food garbage and filth nor insult my intelligence by denying the mess.

“My uncle doesn't own a computer,” I said, talking it through. “So we can't check that, but maybe he's smarter than my family and has a list of phone numbers somewhere.”

“We'll find it,” Cooper said, already opening cupboard doors and drawers. Sunshine said she would go check the rest of the house and use the washroom.

“I wish I could check the phone messages at my house,” I said to Cooper. “But I don't know the password to get them from somewhere else, because we just dial star-nine-eight from the home phone.”

Cooper's eyes widened and I gasped, then both of us reached for my uncle's phone. He beat me to it, and handed the cordless phone to me.

I dialed the code, and sure enough, I accessed my uncle's phone messages. The first one was a saved message, and it was incomprehensible, just giggling and babbling.
Probably one of his train-wreck girlfriends
, I thought. The next one was from my father:

“Jeff. It's your brother-in-law, Dale. Have you heard from Peridot? I can't seem to locate her and I'm worried she's done something strange. Call me immediately.”

He didn't leave his phone number, and the next two messages were from the neighbor, asking Uncle Jeff not to water their flower beds or lawn, whatever that meant.

My uncle's phone didn't have call display, and when I dialed star-six-nine for the last number called, it was a pay phone.

I hung up and turned to Cooper, who was clearing some empty beer cans into a shopping bag. “Making myself useful,” he said. “Any clues?”

“Ironically, my father left a message, and he was worried about not being able to locate
me
.” I thought over the last day's events. “Maybe he was home last night after all.” I put my face in my hands. “I'm so sorry to put you two through all of this. I'm such an idiot.”

Cooper pulled my hands down and held them. “There's nothing wrong with you caring about your family.”

“I guess we go home and I find my cell phone before my father calls the cops.” I called the house, in case he was there waiting for me, but there was no answer.

“Well, you have to eat.” He grinned. “I know a good place.”

“Of course you do,” I said.

I leaned back against the kitchen counter, feeling slightly more relaxed after hearing my father's voice.

Cooper looked down at my legs. “You're wearing those crochet-looking leg things again, just like when we had dinner at the Greek place for our first date.”

“Oh, are we dating?”

“Some people think we are,” he said.

Sunshine hadn't returned from the bathroom yet, and I was glad to have the time with Cooper. I reached up and touched his spiky blond hair.

He caught my hand and kissed me on the wrist, which was so hot and romantic at once that I nearly died on the spot.

I was about to ask him why he'd been so cool to me after the night of the drawing class when our attention was drawn by the sound of gravel under tires in the front yard.

Sunshine came out of the bathroom and the three of us ran to the front window in time to see a beat-up old truck park on the driveway, and then a slim fifteen-year-old boy step out from the driver's side.

I ran out the front door and collided with my brother, hugging him while alternately kissing his cheek and berating him for giving me a scare on top of driving without a driver's license.

My uncle staggered a couple of steps toward the house. “Burglars!” he yelled. “I'll shoot you!” He staggered a few more steps.

Sunshine said, “Hey, you must be Uncle Jeff. We're here with Perry.”

“You're not Perry!” he shouted.

Sunshine pointed at me. “She's right there.”

Uncle Jeff turned slowly and nearly fell over when he saw me with my brother.

“Seein' things!” he yelled.

Garnet said, “He's drunk.”

“No kidding,” I said.

My uncle muttered something about watering the neighbor's lawn and began taking a wee on the flowers next door.

“I'm so sorry,” I said to Sunshine and Cooper, who were struggling to keep their faces straight.

Cooper, who had met my brother briefly at our house, shook Garnet's hand and introduced Sunshine. The sky glowed in red and gold over the Fraser River, and it was actually a nice little moment, until my uncle, still watering the neighbor's flowers, started farting, apologizing, and farting again.

I turned to my brother and said, “Has he been drunk the whole time you've been here? You were supposed to come home Sunday night, why didn't you?”

Garnet started to answer, but I cut him off with more questions, accusations, and general big-sister insanity.

Done with his business, Uncle Jeff came over and tried to hug me, but I squirmed away. “Gross! Go wash your hands,” I yelled.

This made Cooper laugh so hard he had to put his hands on his knees.

I wasn't laughing, though.

As much as I'd like you to think of me as some good-natured, happy-go-lucky type, I was seriously ticked off. My brother wasn't even sixteen, let alone permitted to drive. He could have gotten in serious trouble for driving my uncle around.

Garnet tried to calm me down, explaining that it was fine, because it was better than Uncle Jeff driving, since he'd been drunk for the last two days, plus his license had been revoked or suspended or something, he wasn't sure.

With Sunshine's help, I explained to Garnet that laws didn't work that way, with “reasonable justifications,” or anyone would be able to drive, so long as they had an intoxicated person in the vehicle with them.

A flicker of understanding flashed across Garnet's eyes and then disappeared just as quickly. He tried, again, to convince me that any cop would understand what he'd done.

Uncle Jeff invited us inside to have some refreshments—with his slurred speech, he pronounced them re-furbish-ish-mints—but I declined on behalf of the group. I sent Garnet into the house to get his stuff.

“Are you okay on your own?” I asked Uncle Jeff.

“Wooh!” he yelled.

“Good to know. Well, thanks for your help with Garnet. I'm sure he's learned a valuable lesson and seen many educational things.”

“Wooh!”

My brother came out with his backpack and we all got back in Cooper's car, me in the back seat this time, with my brother.

“You stink,” I said to Garnet.

He grinned. “Yeah, Uncle Jeff took me to some pretty crazy places.”

Cooper waved out the window to my uncle, saying it had been nice to meet him, which was generous. As we drove away, my uncle was making
grass angels
on his front lawn.

“He's usually a lot less drunk,” I explained to Cooper and Sunshine as we drove away. “Oh, who am I kidding. He's usually pretty much exactly like that.”

Sunshine turned back and gave me a smile. “Every family has one or two,” she said.

I turned to Garnet and said, “So I suppose this little intervention has been a disaster. You're going to be drinking and doing drugs with a vengeance, and pretty soon you can move right in with Uncle Jeff.”

Garnet crossed his arms. “Yeah, right.”

“You looked like you were having the time of your life.”

He looked right at me, his gaze unwavering. “I feel like one of those guys in a movie where he sees his future, and while it's super hilarious for everyone watching, it also makes you want to kill yourself.”

“Did Uncle Jeff make you sad? He didn't hurt you, did he?”

Garnet's lower lip started to tremble. “No, he didn't hurt me or anything, but why do people have to be messed up? Why can't the doctors fix whatever's wrong in their heads?”

“Come here.” I reached for him, but he pushed my arms away.

“Eww, gross, we're in public!”

“We're not in public, these are my friends.”

He stuck his hand on my face and pushed me away. We play-fought for a few minutes, exactly like we used to when we were younger and on long car rides with our parents.

Our parents.

As though he was reading my mind, Cooper turned his head back from the driver's seat and said to me, “We'll get back to your house, locate your cell phone, find your father, and
then
we'll get dinner.”

Garnet frowned at me. “Huh? I thought Dad was with you.”

“I haven't seen him since Sunday.”

He looked incredulous.

“I've got some bad news. When we do find Dad, he might not be in a very good mood, because somebody put some horrible photos on the internet, of Mom kissing some musician in LA.”

Garnet's face went pale. “For real?”

I told him I didn't know much, and relayed all the details I had, short of actually showing him the pictures on Sunshine's iPad. He'd see them soon enough, there was no need to rush.

I tried to reassure him, saying, “Everything will be normal again.”

“What if Dad drove off a bridge or something?”

“He'd never leave us,” I said, hoping my words sounded more convincing to Garnet than they did to me.

Outside of the car, other people whizzed past us on the highway, caught up in their own problems.

As we drove home, we listened to some music and Garnet chatted about all Uncle Jeff's colorful friends. The most colorful of all had been Uncle Jeff's girlfriend, a woman called Honey. As Garnet described the woman, and her children, I realized she was probably the one who'd scared him the most. Our uncle's pretty harmless and gentle, even when drunk, but the woman sounded like a nightmare.

Back in Vancouver nearly an hour later—traffic had been lighter on the way home—I had my seat belt off and was itching to find my phone as we pulled up in front of the house.

“Just wait,” Sunshine said, handing me her iPad. “I think I know where your father is.”

Chapter 24