Choices

There was something about the way the black notebook sat on the bench, centred just so on the metal slats of the middle seat, that suggested to Molly it was left on purpose, and had not tumbled from a knapsack or been set down by someone with full hands and forgotten. It seemed placed with care and the intention it be found.

The book’s spine was a rope of liquorice in the low sun, which Molly found both pleasing and painful. Pleasing, because it reminded her of Sunday afternoons at her Baba’s house in Portage La Prairie where faceted crystal dishes were perennially stocked with allsorts. Black and yellow striped squares. Gumdrops coated in baby-pink grains. Molly could taste them all. A complicated combination of sweet, bitter, salty and even sour. For a moment it almost felt like those days were not a lifetime ago. But they were, and Molly would be unrecognizable to her Baba now, if they passed on the street. The calendar had flipped from December to January three times since her funeral.

Painful, because it reminded Molly of her ever-present hunger. The night before, a drunken finance bro with hemmed pants and purple socks had given Spoons twenty bucks for fifty knuckle-pushups in the middle of Hastings Street. Spoons, who afterward declared to the crowd he would do one hundred for ten dollars more, getting no takers, bought twenty golden chicken nuggets, fries and a chocolate milkshake at the Tinseltown McDonald’s and shared with a number of corner dwellers, including Molly. The roof of her mouth was still tender, burned on her first hot bite in a week. The gnawing in her stomach was worse, but there was something comforting about the presence of both pains that made Molly less lonely.

The calendar would turn again in less than three months. Molly’s white breath almost blocked out the four lines of blue ink on the notebook’s first page. Even partially numbed, her fingers felt how thick and luxurious the paper was. Expensive. Molly flipped through the other pages. All blank. The only writing was those four lines: a street address, then six numbers, a longer string of eight numbers below, and finally a mix of numbers and letters that ran almost the entire width of the page. Was that a password?

Molly recognized the address as a few blocks west and one up on Pender, where the glass monoliths of the financial district gave way to the marble towers of Coal Harbour and, eventually, Stanley Park.

Molly started walking, feeling conspicuous in her oversized backpack and holding the pristine notebook. She wondered if someone might see her and call the police, thinking it stolen. Had it been reported missing already? Were cop cars cruising the Downtown Eastside looking for it, and her? Molly’s heart fluttered and she felt increasingly out of place as she walked west. What would she find at her destination? A person? An office? A bank? Surely a place where she would stick out dressed as she was. No, her present look would not do, and so Molly stole down the the stairs of the public washroom under Victory Square.

She sloughed off her bag and locked the door. There was no mirror, only a reflective piece of metal masquerading as one. Molly was acutely aware of how she looked. Her entire Manitoban childhood was a string of comments about how pretty she was, how she was going to be a knock-out, maybe even a star. She started believing them, to the point where moving to Vancouver at seventeen to seek stardom became a logical next step and not a pipe dream.

Funnily, Molly had been barely able to stand drama class. She cringed at the desperate and juvenile displays of over-acting. But she was too short to model. Molly was a realist. She hoped to land an agent. A few commercials a year. Maybe a national spot for chewing gum or shampoo that played during hockey games. How quickly a few wrong turns could knock you off track.

Molly trusted the first boy she met. He had an eyebrow piercing, chipped smile, and promised to show her the city he knew so well. The city that struck her as big and unfriendly. She shared a small room with a seemingly sweet girl who stole Molly’s things and couldn’t pay rent. One night, overwhelmed by the cumulative frustration of a fake agent who sent her for expensive, amateurish headshots and wouldn’t return her calls, followed by a real agent but still a year of forty auditions without a call back, Molly let herself be needled into a frightening, but effective, method of escape. How easy it was to take a left here, a right there, and then lost. Soon shame and pride were twin shackles that wouldn’t let her take even one step back.

Molly washed her face and scraped the last trace of lip balm from an empty container. Rolled tightly at the bottom of her bag were her only decent clothes: a pair of black tights, a scalloped green dress dotted with red flowers, and a thin trench. Cute, but mostly useless for keeping warm at night. Once changed, Molly floated. What she had worn laid in a heap. Sweatpants under baggy jeans, two layers of t-shirts, a long sleeve, then a holey hoodie and a parka someone had generously left in an alley. It somehow all looked dirtier when piled together, and Molly leaned against the sink to steel herself from another wave of shame. It was good she couldn’t clearly see herself.

Molly twisted the matted hair around her ears. Cut short after the first night she slept on the street, she still felt the long blond hair like phantom limbs. The hair that made her stand out. A symbol of her femininity that attracted all the wrong kinds of attention from men who saw her as a target, or worse, an asset to exploit. Maybe the street and Hollywood were not so dissimilar in that way. Molly dreamed of growing it out again. Shampooing it with fragrant foam.

Three bangs on the metal door shook Molly from her reverie. Let’s go! The voice was raspy, but not authoritative, which would have been worse. Molly didn’t want to explain herself or the book. She scrambled to corral the contents of her life into the backpack and, after a deep breath, snapped open the dead bolt and shoved her way out. The weak get eaten. She had learned that lesson. A face Molly knew turned wide eyed as she barged past. A bent shadow of a woman with severe scoliosis who shuffled the streets at near ninety degrees didn’t recognize Molly back.

Molly marched until a red light at Burrard Street. The blue-green copper roof of the Marine Building shone like a beacon. She turned left and then right at Pender. Molly watched as the numbers on the buildings rose until she saw the man in the suit.

Dressed in black, including squared sunglasses, he was posted in front of what Molly was sure was the address she sought. She slowed and tugged the straps of her backpack down like a shell. He was mouthing something and started towards her. Molly looked around. They were alone. If he decided to chase her, or worse, she was unlikely to get away, and certainly not without leaving her bag and the notebook behind.

They met after a dozen steps. He was barking and gesticulating with large, hairy hands. Molly put up her palms and began apologizing when the man grimaced at her with disdain and motioned at the blue-tooth headset jutting from his ear. He pushed past, shaking his head. Molly took what felt like her first breath on that block.

The address was chiselled into the beige and rose brick. The building was a thin slice of an old bank, but with an incongruous black door. Imposing steel with tinted glass and a thin handle, it stood out like an old wound. On its right was a number pad with nine metal keys.

Molly retrieved the notebook and punched in the number below the address. She heard an almost imagined beep, and when she pulled, the door opened. The room inside was no more than an ATM lobby. Lit by a line of fluorescent light, it was non-descript save a bank of lockboxes and a small computer terminal and keyboard. The screen called for an account number and password. A cursor flashed green. Molly entered the last two lines from the book and hit enter.

Nothing happened.

She hit enter again. Again nothing.

Molly pressed the notebook to the screen and double checked the password. After two more attempts she discovered a five entered as a capital S. Enter.

A drawer behind her sprung open with a snap, breaking the monotony of the metal wall. She tugged it open with both hands.

In the drawer were two stacks of brown one hundred-dollar bills. Each stack was banded with paper that read “Ten Thousand Dollars.” Twenty thousand dollars in total. Molly looked around reflexively but was, of course, alone. She picked up the stacks. They seemed too thin to represent so much money. More money than she had seen in her life, but Molly was not impressed in the moment. In fact, she was even more aware that they were only pieces of paper, or whatever material the shiny new bills were made of. She flipped through them like the pages of the notebook. The breeze it made was tinted with the smell of maple syrup and reminded Molly how hungry she was.

Molly carefully angled the notebook to fit in the drawer and saw a piece of paper still inside. It looked and read like a fortune. “Make good choices.” Molly put the bills in her backpack and crumpled the paper into her pocket. She set the notebook in the drawer and pushed it closed. Perhaps its owner would be happy to see it returned and be inspired to do it all again for someone else.

Make good choices. Molly meditated on the message and prickled at its presumption. Not everyone was afforded the luxury of choice. Especially those who frequented where the notebook was left. But whoever left it had not known she would find it. The message was not personal, but still, what type of person, and under what circumstances, would leave such a message for a stranger to find? And together with such a large sum? What was the allure compared to simply donating to a cause? Molly had no answers, but she had the money and that was all that mattered for now.

Molly froze at the door. She couldn’t see beyond its tinted glass. The walls shrunk in on her and it grew hotter and harder to breathe. The anxiety of what lay on the other side was overwhelming. What if it was all a prank? Or worse, a crime in which she had been implicated as soon as she entered the first digit. Molly knew holding this money and having it snatched away, would prove too much to bear. Even so, she stepped out.

The change in light was harsh and it took a beat for the street and buildings to define themselves. Molly looked left and right. The street was apocalyptic in its emptiness but the sky had not fallen. Reflexively, she gave a slight, thankful bow in case her mysterious benefactor was watching. I will make good choices. I know I am lucky to have them.

Molly would, however, allow herself one night of indulgence. A room at the Fairmont Pacific Rim. A hot rain shower. A dry martini at the lobby bar. Room service. Finally, a long sleep in a crisp king bed.

There would be more choices, tomorrow and ever after. To take a flight home or another chance. All choices better made after a good sleep and on a full stomach. But first, a feast of cheeseburgers for the old block.