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Funny I should mention ‘water’, because it’s going to figure prominently in my adventure real soon.
I stop at a roadside diner for lunch. I order a cheeseburger and ask for the fries to be held. I have my map spread out on the table, and the waitress takes a peek.
“Looking for someplace?” she asks.
“Yes.” I jab my finger on a very tiny speck on the enlarged map. “It’s this town called Kelowna.”
She scrunches her freckled face. “Don’t know it. Must be off the grid. But Brett there probably knows more stuff than I do. Brett’s my manager. You want to talk to him, honey?”
Wouldn’t hurt.
“Sure.” I make to get up.
She waves me to stay seated. “Don’t you move your ass, honey. Brett will be here in a short while.” She winks. “He’s got an eye for the pretty ones, and you’d be right up his alley.”
I smile, waiting for the predatory Brett, who is a fat, middle-aged guy whom I wouldn’t look at twice unless he had an extra-huge zit. So maybe, yeah, he’s got a thing for ladies who wouldn’t find him attractive in a million years. Maybe he’s got a rejection complex. Flirt with girls you can’t have, they reject you, and you’ve got exactly what you need to reinforce your loser image.
“Hiya, little lady,” he says in that faux cheery voice of his. “Betty here’s been telling me you’re looking for Kelowna.”
“Yes. Know the place?”
“Drive past it every two months when I go visit my kids. They live with my ex.” He snickers. “Takes me all of five minutes to go through Kelowna. It’s just one main street, and there’s that. Population’s less than three thousand.”
“Indeed. Why would anybody want to live there, do you think?”
“Beats me.” He shrugs. “Mostly the older folks are left there. The new generation moves right out as soon as they can get a driving license. There’s an eccentric old millionaire who lives up there though.”
I prick my ears up. “Oh?”
“Yeah. He lives in a big house on a hill. He hardly comes to town, and who can blame him, seeing as Kelowna’s deader than my ex mother-in-law.” He laughs at his own joke. “He has a butler, can you believe? A butler who does his groceries and errands, as though he’s some sort of British lordling. And when Mr. Bigwig comes to town, he’s dressed like the Blues Brothers – all dark glasses and trench coats.”
“What’s his name?” I think I know it, but I want Brett to say it.
“Beats me,” he says again. “I’m just telling you what I hear, little lady, when I stop for lunch at their diner. Always pays to check out what other folks are serving.”
I say carefully, “His name wouldn’t happen to be Ethan Greene, would it?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
I pay my bill and tip the waitress generously. Well, as generously as I can afford to. I return to my rented car and continue the long trek to Kelowna, home to Ethan Greene for the past ten years.
I think.
Well, if I’m wrong, I would have wasted a shitload (OK, a shoestring load) of my newspaper’s money, and Sharon Contralto might decide not to give me that raise I’ve been aiming for after all. But no pain, no gain.
I hope I’m right.
*
It’s dark when I finally pull into Kelowna. I know it is Kelowna because a signboard saying ‘KELOWNA, 10 MILES’ with an arrow pointing ahead is illuminated by my headlights.
I drive on. Sincerely, I have no idea where I’m going to stay in Kelowna. As far as I could Google, there are no hotels, no inns, and no homestays. It’s a virtually dead little town, kept alive by a pencil factory, which has branched out to making pens (good for them).
Worse come to worse, I can always drive twenty miles south to the nearest town, Aberdeen, population ten thousand. At least that one has a Ramada Inn I can shell eighty bucks a night for.
Armed with more hopes than plans, I trawl the dark road that leads to Kelowna. Houses begin to spring up – leached in the twilight of all color. No one is around. At least, they are not out in the streets. What’s this about small towns? People retire early for the sheer boredom factor? The houses start to crowd closer. Sycamores grow in profusion, until I am right in the middle of what I believe is Main Street.
If it can even be considered a Main Street.
Brett was right. If I wasn’t looking out for it, I might have missed it entirely looking for something longer, wider and more interesting.
Main Street is populated by a couple of restaurants, neither of them swanky, and the usual grocery stores, launderettes, banks and others. Most of them are closed, except for the restaurants and the grocery stores. I had just stopped for some ribs and fries (yeah, I know, I should really watch my diet now that I’m hitting twenty-seven) at five o’ clock, and so I don’t feel hungry anymore.
