Karen Emilson

They said 1979 would be remembered as the year Trivial Pursuit was invented and the YMCA sued The Village People over their catchy hit song. But it was China's new one-child policy that had me all riled up; plus the fact nobody even gave a shit. They were all too busy lining their cars up for blocks to save a measly three cents a litre because the price had risen to an all-time high.

Instead of going to work I called in sick. At the corner of King and James in Hamilton, across from the Woolworth's, I held up a placard denouncing the Chinese government--a big red X through the black magic marker outline of a baby with almond eyes in a toilet bowl. Not one person honked in support but a few gave me the finger.

"They don't have toilets in China," a jerk in a three-piece suit shouted from his Nissan.

"Fuck you!" I hollered back, throwing a rock at his rear window. More like a stone it didn't do any damage, but I was ready with a real rock in case he circled back.

Guys like him would be the first in line to buy a Sony Walkman but on January 5th, 1980--the night I ran away for good--the cool, new cassette player wasn't in Canadian stores yet. Too bad, because I definitely would have shoplifted one before jumping on that bus to the west coast.

 

Thirty-eight hours later, the Greyhound pulled into the Winnipeg bus station. I spent most of the night staring out at the blue-black sky listening to the woman beside her chain-smoke her way through a disastrous life story.

I hadn't had a cigarette since 11:55 on New Year's Eve. Everyone warned me the first week was the worst but nobody said a word about non-smoking sections, how they existed only in theory, that in fact, they were as effective as an imaginary friend on moving day.

Head pounding and squinting against the bright lights on the platform, I popped another aspirin, and slinging my knapsack over my shoulder, followed Chain Smoker into the depot. Hoping to avoid the awkward we-should-stay-in-touch-but-knew-they-wouldn't goodbye, I lost myself in the crowd and slipped into the washroom.

Leaning in front of the wide mirror I used a paper towel to rub the fuzz off my teeth. Every day my hair was curled into the famous Farrah Fawcett swoop, but now it hung limp. I looked like shit but too exhausted to care, shuffled back through the noisy lounge, past the rows of passengers slumped on uncomfortable seats, muttered an indignant "sorry" after bumping into a woman standing in the ticket line.

The dispatcher's voice crackled overhead as he announced the departing gates for Portage la Prairie, The Pas, Flin Flon. Ignoring the little voice in my head warning me to pay attention I boarded the bus on platform eight without even looking up. I found a seat near the back and held up my ticket for the driver to see. Once we were moving again and everyone's cigarettes were lit, I hunkered down and closed my eyes against the smoke and street lights along Portage Avenue.

Three hours later I awoke once again to the tire bump against the curb and the driver announcing a forty-five-minute breakfast stop. The hydraulic swoosh of the door ushered in a startling blast of frigid air.

Outside, everything was white-washed in a shimmery arctic frost--the buildings, pavement, even the snow appeared covered in ice. Exhaust fog hung in the air as cars crawled down the double-wide streets past all the flat-fronted buildings. The one-pump gas station across the street seemed deserted, its metal Texaco sign swaying in the wind.

A 1972 Chevrolet Biscayne parked in front of a dinky-looking restaurant had a plastic oval stuck to the driver's window and a yellow extension cord wrapped around the side mirror. I'd had my first taste of Ontario's north the day before but ignored all the just-you-wait-and-see warnings about January in Manitoba. Seriously, how bad could it be?

"We're not in Kansas anymore," the native guy in front of me chuckled, pointing out the window. Crescent beams of light rose up on either side of the rising sun.

"A sun dog. Not a good sign." He flipped up his jacket hood as I followed him onto the sidewalk where everyone jumped from foot to foot, waiting to get through the restaurant door. The squeak, squeal, squeak of heels digging into snow dry as Styrofoam gave me the heebie-jeebies.

The native guy winced. "Oiiiiii, I hate that sound." His buffalo chest, cheerful brown eyes, and deep, soothing accent reminded me of Gramps.

Holy hell was it cold, so bloody cold my eyes watered and each breath seared my lungs. Sealing my lips tight I tucked my nose into my jacket and jammed my bare hands under my armpits while trying to make myself small. A gust of wind swirled snow around and caught in the vortex, it lifted my hair, and I turned but couldn't escape it.

"Hurry up already." It was hard to see exactly what was what because of the plywood shack plunked down on the sidewalk to keep the wind from whistling in the restaurant. As each customer went into the shack, they pulled the flimsy aluminum door shut behind them.

"Come onnnn," I whispered but the native guy heard me. He held out his hands, offering his suede, beaded gauntlet style mitts. I told him it was okay as a group of men from the restaurant filed past. The door opened again and out came a few more. I'd waited near the end of the line for only a few minutes, but that's just how cold it was.

When I was a little girl, me and Gramps would sit in front of his old black and white and watch The Andy Griffith Show, and stepping into that cafe was like being dropped down in Mayberry. The locals eating breakfast glanced up as chairs scraped across the brown tile floor.

Along the walls, against the big windows letting in too much sunshine, sat high-back booths upholstered in orange-red vinyl that made a flouffy-farty sound when you sat down. Mismatched tables with wads of napkin folded under the legs kept them from wobbling. Brewing coffee, freshly baked cinnamon buns, bacon, and a hint of last night's fried onions on the sizzling grill smelled fantastic.

Choosing a stool at the lunch counter, I noticed they'd decorated the walls with large, framed snapshots of the town in its early days. The photo directly above had Funeral Home, 1936 handwritten across the bottom. A man and a boy, both wearing suits, stood together in front of an old two storey house.

Two waitresses darted from table to table, pouring coffee and jotting orders on small blue pads, ripping them off as they hurried through the swinging kitchen door. Each time it opened, I caught a glimpse of the busty cook working the grill.

"Good morning," said the guy who sat down next to me. His eyes moved from my short, rabbit fur jacket slowly down to the Pat Benatar boots. "Cold out eh?"

Jesus Christ, I thought, not another construction worker. I'd had it up to my eyeballs with his type. Green checkered lumberjack shirt, work boots, worn out jeans. And that beard? Good God. I deliberately lifted my nose and held up the menu. Snobbishness usually ticked off low class losers, but not Lumberjack Shirt. Too dumb to notice he just kept right on talking.

"So you're not from around here?" he said, taking a sip of coffee.

"I just got off the bus." Pretending to need something in the knapsack, I started fishing through, re-organizing as I went fully aware he was watching. That's when I realized what was missing. Zipping open one pocket, then another, I started to panic, looking through them all again. You know the heart pounding, oh-my-god feeling you get halfway to work and remember the eggs you'd turned on were still hard-boiling on the stove? Well, that's how it feels to lose your wallet.

"Can I take your order?" the waitress asked.

I hesitated but only for a second. "I'll have the breakfast special. Scrambled eggs, no meat, rye toast."

The waitress smiled at Lumberjack Shirt. "The usual?"

He held up his mug and she refilled it. Obviously, they knew one another. When she left, he asked if I'd found what I was looking for.

My smile was forced. "I must have left it on my seat."

He tried making small talk but my mind was already in reverse. Where the hell did it go? Five hundred bucks of hard-earned stolen cash, gone. Now what? I scanned the room, wondering which one of those bus losers might have taken it. And then I remembered Chain Smoker. That bitch.

The waitress set our plates down and tucked the bills underneath.

"Wait," I said. "I didn't order this."

"But you asked for the breakfast special--"

"I said no meat. I'm a vegetarian. Take it off and bring it back."

"One of those," she said, snatching the bacon off the plate and in the ultimate waitress revenge stuffed it in her mouth. She stood there chewing, even licked the grease off her fingers. I stared back. If it came to it, not sure I could take Waitress Girl in a fight. She had the thick European look of a Russian gymnast. Then she smirked like she just won the gold before hightailing it back to the kitchen.

"I'm not paying for that." Probably shouldn't have said it so loud because a table of locals turned to look. Surrounded by all those farmer caps and coveralls sat a dark blue uniform with a name tag above the right breast pocket. Not a city cop but an RCMP. He looked like a cross between Mick Jagger and a hammerhead shark.

My heart did that jerky thing. I knew all about cops. They came to the shack where I grew up often enough, usually to question my fake-dad Cliff but once for my fake-mom Connie, too. Cops always asked questions and wanted to see identification. This particular cop stared hard. Pretending like I didn't care, I turned away.

"Did you see her?" I still couldn't believe it. "Where I'm from she'd get fired for that."

Lumberjack Shirt took a bite of toast. "Aggie's the manager. One of the girls didn't show up for her shift. She'll get over it."

"Aggie? Who names their kid that?"

A man sat down beside Lumberjack Shirt, shook his hand, and said something about how sorry he was to hear the news. As they kept talking, I ate fast. When a line-up started forming at the cash register, I grabbed the bill and disappeared behind a heavy-set man. When no one was looking I stuffed the paper in my pocket and slipped out the door.

Squinting into the sun I surveyed one side of the street then the other. If I was going to make it to Salt Spring Island, I needed food. Kitty-corner at the intersection stood a row of short, flat fronted buildings. The one with a red Co-op sign above the metal awning had a shopping cart below it stuck in the snow.

Bracing against the cold I bolted across, heels sliding on the snow-packed street, swear words freezing in the air. I'd bought the coat at one of those weekend blow out, all inventory must go, we pay the sales tax events and the woman who took my forty-nine dollars said rabbit fur is as warm as mink. What a load of bullshit. I pulled open the door and the wind blew me in, slamming it hard. Looking around I could hardly believe her luck.

Sometimes when she thought I wasn't watching, Connie hid food in her sweater or left items at the bottom of the cart on purpose. Once I'd asked if she might go to hell for stealing and Connie whispered, "Of course not. Why do you think God made grocery stores?"

The Co-op was a thief's paradise. Connie would have loved it. Small and cramped with plenty of blind spots and no mirrors, there wasn't a clerk in sight. Opening the knapsack I stuffed what fit inside then went to the produce section, split a banana from the bunch and slipped it in my pocket. As I picked up an apple a voice behind me said, "Can I help you?"

A less experienced thief would have spun around red-faced but holding the apple in plain sight I calmly turned to face the clerk, a native girl around my age. Just like Connie's eyes always did, the clerk's gaze went immediately to the floor as if she was the one doing the stealing.

"Do you have any Kiwis?" I asked.

Her eyebrows clenched together. "Kee-what?"

I sensed victory. "You know, small furry little fruit."

The girl stared back dumbfounded.

"Forget it. Hard finding them in the city this time of year never mind in a shit-box town like this."

I held up my wrist to check the time and a guilt pang stabbed my gut. I tried to shake away the memory of Gramps; his soft smile on Christmas morning, how his eyes shone when I'd unwrapped the gift and slipped it on my wrist.

"Oh shit, I gotta go," I said, handing her the apple. Another wave of guilt as I headed for the door and told myself to stop being stupid, it's not like they'd deduct what I took off the girl's pay cheque or anything like that.

"See you around," I said.

The pumped up feeling I always got from outsmarting someone deflated the moment I looked across the street. How the hell the bus got away so fast I don't know, but that fucking thing was gone.

 

1. THE STORY STATEMENT

Find a way to get to Salt Spring Island and start a perfect, new life.

2. THE ANTAGONISTS

The weather in Manitoba, Canada is a well-known formidable force. The intersection of Portage and Main in Winnipeg is touted as the coldest place in Canada; and if it wasn’t for the three day snow storm that shut down the province in January 1980, Jaime Dorr  would have made it to the west coast and Salt Spring Island. Instead, she ended up stranded in the small, northern town of Lundi long enough for RCMP officer Harry Dyck to see her slip out of the local cafe without paying her bill. Constable Dyck is the son of a Mennonite minister who was taught to “turn the other cheek” and growing up, was bullied because of it. He is ambitious, rigid, spiteful and likes being the big fish in a small pond. He has zero tolerance for rule-breaking both legal and moral. Harry volunteers on town committees so he can belittle and control others and force outcomes that suit his agenda. However, Harry is not a hypocrite, he holds himself to the same high standard he expects of everyone else. His only blindspot is his 10 year-old son who he adores and believes is destined for the NHL.

 

3. BREAKOUT TITLE

That’s the Problem with Rainbows

What Doesn’t Kill you Makes you Crazy

Lies for the Living, Truth for the Dead

 

4. GENRE AND COMPARABLE TITLES

Lucky by Marissa Stapley - Dec. 2021

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett - Apr. 2022

If the Wizard of Oz hired Lucky Armstrong to drive his hearse and the ghosts from Unlikely Animals came along for the ride.

Darkly comedic upmarket fiction in a domestic, nostalgic setting with a troubled but likeable coming-of-age protagonist and a host of pleasantly eccentric characters.

 

5. HOOK LINE

A runaway becomes stranded in a quaint prairie town where the undertaker believes she is his new protegé, sent to him by her dead grandfather’s spirit.

 

6. CORE WOUND, THE PRIMARY CONFLICT, SECONDARY CONFLICT

CORE WOUND - Jaime Dorr doesn’t know who she is. That’s because when she was ten years-old, the only mother she ever knew, Connie Eastwood, revealed that she didn’t actually give birth to her. Jaime assumed that she’d been adopted, which meant  that Connie’s abusive, con artist husband Cliff Eastwood wasn’t her biological father. Hoping to escape Cliff and the rundown shack where they lived, Jaime decided to find her birth mother and that forced Connie to confess that actually, she’d found her in a toilet at the Woolworth’s department store downtown. Instead of taking the newborn to the authorities, Connie brought her home, named her Jennifer, and raised her as her own. Resenting Connie but also fearing she might go to jail, Jaime kept the secret.

The one bright light throughout her dismal childhood was her beloved grandfather, “Gramps” who always took her in when she ran away. After studying the calendar on his wall and seeing a photo of Salt Spring Island at the end of a beautiful rainbow, Jaime began dreaming of a whole new beginning. And like many adopted children, she also fantasized about the life she could have had. She imagined that the wealthy, childless neighbours, Roberta and Gerald Dorr are her phantom parents. Obsessed with the character Jaime Sommers on the hit TV series The Six Million Dollar Man, she begins secretly calling herself Jaime Dorr.

PRIMARY CONFLICT - The day Jaime finds Gramps dead she jumps on a bus and takes off for the west coast. What she needs most is for people to stop judging her based on her poverty-stricken, uneducated upbringing. When nobody likes you, it’s hard to like yourself. What she also needs is to discover her place in the world, one far away from Cliff and Connie and the thing that haunts her dreams - a toilet at the Woolworth’s where she works. And if she never again sees the classmates who ridiculed her growing up, bonus!

She begins her new life by assuming the fake identity of Jaime Dorr. After becoming stranded in a small town she sees no harm in lying about who she is. But things quickly escalate. The longer she lives in Lundi the harder it becomes to deceive the kindhearted people who’ve taken her in. And they want her to stay permanently but she isn’t quite ready to give up her decade-old dream of living on Salt Spring Island. As the months pass her decision about whether to stay or leave is complicated by RCMP officer Harry Dyck who continues to dig into her background. Eventually she must decide whether to leave for the island or face the soul crushing embarrassment of confessing to everyone that nothing she has said since arriving in their town is true.

RCMP OFFICER HARRY DYCK’S INVESTIGATION - At six key points in the story Harry reveals one of Jaime’s lies about who she really is, each time causing her to fabricate more lies to cover her tracks.

SECONDARY CONFLICT - Lundi Town Politics - Brian and Bud are cousins and close friends. Brian is President of the Arena Board catering to young people who are the town’s future; Bud is President of the Museum Board supporting seniors and preserving the past. Jaime lives at the Bed and Breakfast with Bud and Ardith, but works at the funeral home with Brian. Bud wants her to come work for him at the museum. Jaime doesn’t really want to work at either place, because she is only putting in time to earn enough money to establish herself on Salt Spring Island. Meanwhile, the biggest event of the year is quickly approaching—July 1st—where Brian hopes to earn enough in donations to put in artificial ice that fall - otherwise they’ll lose a matching government grant. Bud is competing for the same dollars to pay for the museum expansion which is way over budget.

SCENARIO - One of Jaime’s lies is that her father is good friends with Toronto Maple Leafs captain, Darryl Sittler. Harry pressures her into inviting Sittler to be the guest speaker at the July 1st dinner. She has no choice but to agree. At first she isn’t worried, she’ll be leaving Lundi on April 1st and they’ll have plenty of time to find someone else. But as the months pass, and she realizes how important the event is to Bud, she starts to panic. She decides to try and contact Darryl Sittler’s agent, but of course Bud has other ideas. He doesn’t want a hockey star to be the guest speaker, he wants a historical hero. So Jaime is relieved when Bud dials up an old friend, Bill Stephenson, who he invites to guest speak the event. Bud wants it to be a surprise and makes her promise not to tell anyone. But later, when she finds out that Bill is a WW2 war hero and spy, the real life inspiration for Ian Fleming’s James Bond series and he’s 83 years-old and lives in Bermuda, she’s convinced there is no way he’ll come despite Bud’s optimism. She begs him to call Bill again but he refuses because he’d already hid the long distance charges once from Ardith and wasn’t about to deceive her like that again . . . As July 1st nears, Jaime’s panic grows. The day before the event, Harry delivers his last blow by revealing that he’d phoned Darryl Sittler himself. Darryl isn’t coming. He wasn’t even invited. But he would have gladly been their guest speaker had someone asked. And, he doesn’t know anyone named Jaime Dorr.

 

7. SETTING

The story is set in 1980 in the fictional town of Lundi, inspired by the real town of Lundar, situated near the shores of Lake Manitoba, a large lake on the Canadian Prairies. It is a hardscrabble place known mostly as a wilderness where only the resourceful and tough survive. Here the land is marginal and the rocks are plenty. The trees that do grow up—oaks and poplar, birch and spruce—root themselves against the harsh winds and deep frost, withstand droughts and floods. The ones that survive do so for hundreds of years which could explain the incredibly fresh, invigorating air. In recent times people have been known to relocate to the area because of it, but in earlier days families who came here had no place else to go.

The area was settled in the 1880s by poor immigrants of primarily German, Ukrainian, Mennonite and Icelandic descent who came with the dream of one day owning land. They made a living mostly from farming and fishing; hunted wild game, starved over winter, planted gardens in the spring. They co-existed peacefully with the indigenous people, the Saulteaux and Ojibwe who live on nearby reservations. Now they are called First Nations or Anishinaabe, but back then, we called them native or Indian. Other than that, Lundar hasn’t changed much over the years.

Lundar is mostly an Icelandic community that has an old-fashioned look and feel. With the exception of technology, it’s much the same now as it was in 1980, which back then felt like you were stepping into the 1960s. Generally speaking, Icelandic people are robust and determined. They are proud of their Viking heritage, easily offended and will argue a point to death—except the issue of women’s rights because it is an accepted fact that women are equal to men.

Many Icelanders are superstitious; they believe in ghosts, see spirits and feel connected to a hidden world the rest of you cannot see. They are family-focused and place an above average emphasis on reading and education, and areas settled by Icelanders are known to build a school before a church. Traditions and history are a priority. Children are spoiled and grandparents revered and there are plenty of multi-generational homes. Many of today’s seniors still speak the language and proving that everything old becomes a new again, many young parents still choose to give their children traditional names.

Icelandic names can be difficult to pronounce but are easy to identify. Because Iceland has a patronymic naming system, last names end in dottir or son: Hjartarson, Bjornson, Emilson, Gudbjornsdottir. This is both curious and delightful and explained here: Icelandic Naming Tradition

I fictionalized Lundar and surrounding area for the series (this is book one of three) because it is the place in the world I know better than anywhere else. I lived there for thirty years and still have a summer home on the lake. This is a perfect setting for a city girl who is lost in so many ways.

Sub-settings within the story include: Bed and breakfast, funeral home, community hall, arena, museum, hospital room, cemetery, local cafe, and outdoors along the shores of Lake Manitoba.

After the climax, five chapters are spent on Salt Spring Island, the largest and most populous of the Southern Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia. Its original inhabitants were the Indigenous Haida and later settlers included freed African American slaves, Hawaiians, and the some English, Irish and Scots.  For the purpose of this story it is worth mentioning that the Icelandic immigrants who could not tolerate the harsh Manitoba and Minnesota weather migrated to Vancouver because the terrain reminded them of home.

Salt Spring Island mimics Lundi in many ways. Both are small, tight-knit communities that can be difficult places to live since everybody knows you and they also know your business. Community leaders can be domineering and it can take a long time for a person to gain acceptance. There are eccentric people everywhere but in quaint towns, they tend to stand out. Both places have low crime rates and a laid back attitude. Key  differences between the two is that Salt Spring is only accessible by ferry, winter temperatures are mild, and the community is not as accepting of newcomers. Salt Spring has grown into a popular summer tourist destination—but in 1980, tourism on the island was just beginning.

Sub-settings on Salt Spring include: The ferry, cottage, sweat lodge, and chapel.

After Salt Spring, Jaime goes home.