Disappearing in Plain Sight by Francis L Guenette

Posted on Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Chapter One

ii.

Bethany leaned against the wall of the bakery shed and waited for the bread machine buzzer to go off. It would signal the next stage in a production line process that saw the Crater Lake Organic Bakery make a hundred loaves of bread and twenty-five dozen buns every day. Her mind was caught up in the memory of how her mother’s voice had sounded on the phone – almost two weeks ago now.

She had walked over to Izzy’s after getting the message that her mother wanted her to call. Then she had walked back to the A-Frame in a daze, thankful no one had been at Izzy’s to hear her end of the conversation or see her reaction to her mother’s news.

“I had to say yes, Beulah. What else could I say?”

Beulah stared open-mouthed at Bethany for a moment, “Jesus jumped up Christ, you could have said no is what you could have said. You could have told your mother that there’s no bloody way we’re looking after that kid for the whole summer.”

“She’s not just any kid, Beulah. She’s my niece. She doesn’t have anyone but me and Mom.”

“Did your mother say why? Why now?” Beulah had been getting ready to do the nightly check on the fire in the bread oven and her hand was still on the door knob.

“No . . . no . . . not really,” Bethany’s eyes shifted away from Beulah’s angry face, “She’s old you know Beulah . . . maybe she needs a break.”

“Oh, she needs a break, does she? So she’s going to offload her responsibility for that kid on us?”

“Well, if you’re going to get all worked-up about it maybe we should talk later.” Bethany got up from the sofa and retreated to the bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed. She could hear Beulah stomping and ranting around the A-Frame.

“Don’t suppose for a minute, Bethany, I don’t know exactly who’s going to be footing the bill for all of this. We both know your mom doesn’t have two loonies to rub together by the end of every month. Who’s going to pay to fly this kid out here? Don’t you think I know it’s going to be me?”

The rant ended with Beulah slamming out of the A-Frame toward the bakery shed where Bethany imagined she had vented her frustration by breaking down, cleaning and polishing every bit of the bread-making equipment – an exercise that took well into the wee hours of the morning.

iii.

On her first evening at the A-Frame, Lisa-Marie grabbed a novel from the coffee table and flopped onto the sofa. She didn’t mind spending her time with a good book but she usually got to pick reading over other options. Here there were no other options – no TV, no internet and no phone. It was like being captive on an episode of Survivor. The dogs were lounging comfortably beside the sofa and Lisa-Marie stretched out a foot every now and then to rub each of their bellies in turn. The inside of the cabin was eerily quiet – in fact the whole area around the cabin was dead quiet and dark. Never in her life had Lisa-Marie seen it so dark outside.

Beulah strolled casually by the sofa flipping a brochure onto Lisa-Marie’s lap. “Micah Camp . . . why not check it out? Maybe they need a cook’s helper or something. Maybe you could get a job . . . better than lying around on your ass for the next two months.”

Lisa-Marie had to give Beulah credit. That remark slid in like a well-aimed shiv in the prison exercise yard. And the timing was superb; her Auntie Beth had walked out of the room just moments before.

She held the brochure at arm’s length for a moment then dropped it carelessly on the floor. She already knew all she needed to know about Micah Camp – Justin lived there. She headed for the stairs to her loft, “I haven’t even been here for one fucking night. Maybe the employment police could let me get settled into this end-of-nowhere place before I need to find a job.”

Though once she was up the stairs she couldn’t believe her luck. She stretched out on the bed and flipped open the novel. The fact that Beulah’s first request was for her to look for a job at the very place Justin lived seemed too good to be true.

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