Jump Cut by Ted Staunton

Author:Ted Staunton [Staunton, Ted]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction, JUV019000, JUV013000, JUV030030
ISBN: 9781554699490
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

AmberLea hits the Mute button. GL says, “Now, come out here.” She’s got a map spread on the picnic table. “Here’s where we’re going.” She puts on a big pair of glasses. Her flame-red fingernail stabs at the map. We all squeeze in to look. She’s pointing to the north shore of Lake Superior.

“Terrace Bay?” AmberLea squints.

“Or Marathon. We can be there by Sunday night if we get as far as Sault Sainte Marie tomorrow. Then we can go to Jackfish Monday morning.”

“What’s Jackfish?” says Al.

“Too small to be on the map,” says GL, “but it’s right here.” She taps a little pocket of the lake where it dents in before Terrace Bay. “I have to do something there. Before I’m done, if you know what I mean.”

“Like what?” AmberLea’s chin goes away again.

“I’ll explain when we get there. A lady’s not a woman without a secret.”

“That’s from a movie too,” Al says.

“Blond Trust,” says Gloria Lorraine. “It was an ad-lib muff. The line was supposed to be ‘A lady’s not a lady without a secret.’ Normie Bly, the director, liked it so much he kept it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Al. “Blond Trust. That was you? With what’s-his-name, skinny guy, where he pushes—”

“—the old man in the wheelchair down the elevator shaft,” she finishes for him, “and giggles.”

“I loved that,” says Al. “You were great. They use ta play it on the late movie on Channel 7 alla time when I was a kid. Grew up with a guy, Mikey, just like that. ‘Mikey,’ we’d say, ‘You’re on!’” Al shakes his head. “The stuff he’d get up to.”

“Where is he now?” I ask.

Al shrugs. “Last I saw, he was hanging off a balcony and the guy holding him remembered he had to go make a call.”

“Oh,” I say. “That’s, uh, too bad.”

“Depends on your point of view.”

“The point is,” GL brings us back, “you get me to Jackfish and you’re done. Spicer here gets his kiss and his movie, and, Al, you can take off. If you keep going west you can nip over the border into Minnesota. That would give you some breathing room. And AmberLea can run the camera and learn a thing or two from her gramma before it’s too late.”

I’m looking at the map while she says it. “Hey,” I say, “how come we didn’t just keep going up Highway four hundred? It’s shorter.”

“Because I need something from here before the new owners move in,” says GL. “From behind the deer head.”

The stuffed deer head is on the living-room wall above the couch. Al is the tallest. And the heaviest. The couch groans and sags as he stands on it. He reaches up. “Behind the base,” orders GL. Al fumbles around and comes up with something that he passes down into GL’s impatient hand. It’s a tarnished locket on a fine chain. GL totters to a chair, jams her glasses back on and struggles with the thing. She gets it open, looks at it for a minute, then snaps it shut.

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