‘Pretty Lies: Ghost Walking’ by Mel Anastasiou

The ferryboat rocked along sunlit Howe Sound waters on a course for Bowen Island. It carried a full load this afternoon in early July. On the car deck, doors slammed and children raced in and out among the vehicles. Up here on the Sunshine Deck, foot passengers milled about and craned at the shoreline and mountains, looking forward. Jenny Riley looked back. Her determined departure from university life, via this crowded ferryboat, was entirely different from the way Joey had left the world: in the rain, at night, slipping out of her arms while gasoline pooled through shattered windshield glass into the weeds by the road. 

A boy in a windbreaker ran up beside her and leaned too far out over the rail. He opened his fist and let go of a Sweet Marie candy wrapper so that the red-and-yellow paper swooped up and then fell into the ferryboat wake. It was a long way down the side of the ship.

Jenny caught his arm. “Don’t you want to live to grow up, litterbug boy? Don’t lean so far out.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” He pulled free, stuck his chocolate bar into his mouth like a fat cigar, and tore off down the stairs to the deck below.

Jenny leaned over the rail to watch the waves slap the ferry’s side. A light spray from the ferry’s bow brushed cold fingers against her cheek. Joey?

A man said, “Don’t lean so far over.” 

You’re not the boss of me. Jenny narrowed her eyes against the sun. Beside her a young BC Ferries officer rested his arms on the rail, sleeves rolled up above his elbows. His body cut the wind so that the full heat of the sun fell on her shoulders, and she shaded her eyes with her hand. He didn’t look much older than she was. How on earth did you get to be a ferry officer so young? She, now twenty-two, had no more idea than a puppy of what she wanted to do with her life. A seagull flapped overhead, a French fry hanging from its beak. It occurred to Jenny that it didn’t take much for a seagull to lead a happy existence.