Jasper
Tuesday 20th August 1984 - the night she disappears
The seasonal shifts are happening as usual. The autumn chill, which always comes early in the mountains, has arrived. Back-to-school posters are in the shop windows. Evenings are growing darker. The annual Jasper rodeo has been and gone. Tourists seem more purposeful, like they have someplace they need to get to.
For once in her life, Suzanne can relate.
It’s 8.49 pm and she’s on the Greyhound, about to head east across the prairies and around the Great Lakes to Montreal. Any second now, Julie will join her on board, grinning her widest grin. They’re both nineteen and they’ve made meticulous plans: saving money, buying bus tickets and travellers’ cheques, and mapping out their departure down to exactly how many minutes early Julie would close the shop – so as not to arouse suspicion but still give her enough time to make the 8.55 departure.
Across the street, Marmot Gifts is dark, as expected, lit only by the reflected neon glare of Freezy Fun Ice Cream’s lime-green signage. The main street glitters beneath blackening mountains and a blood orange sky.
She can’t see Julie yet. She’s not lumbering across the bus station car park with one too many bags or jaywalking across the main street, feathered hair flying behind her, shouting for the bus to wait.
When the engine rumbles to life, Suzanne rushes to the front. ‘We aren’t leaving early, are we?’
The driver sighs. He wears the regulation grey shirt, stretched tight over a bulging stomach. Were it not for his baseball cap embroidered with the Greyhound logo, he’d look like a seasoned PE teacher, impervious.
‘My friend will be here any second.’ Suzanne knows Julie will turn up.
‘We leave at 8.55.’ The driver jabs a calloused finger at the timetable stuck on the dashboard, not meeting her eye.
‘Please,’ Suzanne points at the numbers 8.52 flashing red on the dashboard.
‘Your friend has two minutes.’ He taps his steering wheel.
The bus station, which is also the train station, has a red brick façade and wide windows into a deserted waiting room, stark with bright strip lighting. Genius Geoff, who took Suzanne’s ticket, is still holding his clipboard and looking important by the door of the bus. Is he ignoring her on purpose? Where is Julie?
‘You’ve got thirty seconds to either take your seat or take your stuff and get off.’ The driver’s voice is flat and stern.
Suzanne can’t go without Julie.
Suddenly aware of attracting attention, she pivots and goes back to the seats she’d claimed in the middle after floating on board some ten minutes earlier. Two hours ago, her biggest concern had been how many bags of peanut M&Ms they would need on the road trip. And now? Now, she won’t be leaving town after all? It’s inconceivable.
The bus is about half-full and little spotlights glimmer over occupied seats. Most people have been travelling for hours already. They watch Suzanne with mild impatience. They’ve bedded down, nestled into the surprisingly plush seats with piles of magazines, Cheezies and chocolate, blankets over their legs, waiting for the motion of the bus to lull them on their way. At the back are the smokers, a few grey-faced men, and a young couple about her age, half asleep, legs tangled, on the three seats closest to the chemical toilet.
The lonely-eyed old lady in the third row, with the floral scarf draped over her shoulders, catches Suzanne’s gaze and smirks with what she probably hopes is empathy but looks more like a quiet glee. Suzanne has been stood up.