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Scott gets up, grabs an extra chair from the next table, and smiles at me as he sets it down. “I thought you’d like to sit down,” he says.
“Thank you!” It turns out that he didn’t need to bother because Renée leaves a minute later to go see another friend who just walked in, and I slip over into her empty seat. Lisa and Steve are chatting across the table, facing each other and shouting to carry on a conversation. Scott leans toward me and asks if I live in town.
I nod. “For the summer. How ‘bout you?”
“I live on the U.S. side, in International Falls. For the summer.”
“You’re American?”
“Yeah. Is that okay?”
I shrug. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I grew up in the Falls,” he continues, “and I came back to work for the summer. I live in Moorhead, next to Fargo. I go to school there.”
I nod and look around the bar. People are on the dance floor, playing pool, standing in groups, falling into each other. I can’t see Renée.
“You don’t look like you’re from around here,” Scott says. “How’d you end up in Fort Frances?”
I tell him about my dad, who’s willing to pay for me to go to university. “So I came out here to live rent-free and work for the summer. Save up some cash. Some friends were on their way to Toronto, so I caught a ride.”
“I just met a couple people who said they were going to Toronto. Were your friends driving an old VW van?”
“Yes! Where’d you meet them?”
“I’m working at U.S. Customs for the summer. I was in the booth when they crossed.”
“They told me about you. They said you were really cool.”
He smiles. “I am.”
“I bet you are.”
We’re joking, but I’m also serious. Maybe George had been overreacting a bit, but I know he had reason to worry. Everyone I’ve ever heard of crossing the border in a VW van has been hassled. But Scott didn’t stereotype or label them. Not in a bad way, anyway. That’s pretty awesome.
“Did you say you were in school?” I ask.
He tells me about Moorhead State University, where he’s about to enter his last year and graduate with a criminal justice degree. The only reason he chose that major, he says, is because that’s what Customs encouraged. He’s been an intern for the past three summers, and he’s been guaranteed a job on the northern border when he graduates.
I tell him about graduating from high school three years ago and traveling around Canada for two years afterward, trying to find my passion and calling in life. Then, still searching, I moved in with some friends on Salt Spring Island.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a little island off the West Coast, between Vancouver Island and the mainland. It’s where all the hippies went when the sixties were over. I lived with my friend in her parents’ house, since they were off working in Victoria. There were five of us, and we each had to come up with a hundred bucks a month rent to cover the bills.” I laugh. It was such a good deal. I earned that, plus spending money, selling handmade necklaces at the Saturday craft and farmer’s market.
“Awesome.”
I nod. “It’s so beautiful there. It’s magical. It has the most amazing natural beauty you can imagine. And the people are awesome, too. So open-minded and helping each other out. And they really care. They even have a cat—the whole Salt Spring Island community does!”
“A cat?”
I smile, remembering. “A few years ago, a couple people found a stray cat hanging around the movie theater, so they adopted it. The whole Salt Spring Island community adopted it. Someone built a house for it and people signed up to feed it and take it to the vet. They named it Fritz the Cat and everybody on the island knew his name.” I sip my beer and continue. “This one time, a tourist met Fritz and fell in love with him and put him in her car and headed to Victoria. When people found out he was missing, they freaked. They shut the island down. Ferry workers stopped traffic, and searchers questioned every driver.”
“Did they find him?”
I nod. “They found him and returned him to his little home at the movie theater where he belongs.”
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