I almost tell her that I’m from here. That she can drop the aren’t-we-just-the-nicest-people-on-the-planet shtick and just biff me into the body-odour-scented, cigarette-burned back seat of a City Slicker Taxi Cab, driven by an ex-con named Rooster. And I can charge Gimp’s credit card for the extra coffee pods and pillow case I tucked in my purse on the way out. But really, what good would that do? I need to get where I need to go.

“Thank you,” I say, bringing my hands into a grateful-looking Namaste position, doing a half-assed little flakey bitch bow, and trying to sound like I’m from somewhere really exotic. Like Toronto. Or BC even. “All the brochures were right. This place is truly magical. Everyone is just. So. Friendly.”

“Oh look, he’s out there now! Just go hop in and tell him where you need to go.” Then, with her grandest grin yet, she says, “Nice to see ya, Crow. Tell your mom that Corrine Burton’s daughter Julie says hi, will ya?”

Behind the wheel of the big, beige Cossack that looks like a cardboard box jacked up on monster truck wheels, plastered with bumper stickers of “Why Be Normal” and “Magic Happens” and “Welcome to Cape Breton, Set Your Clock Back 20 Years,” and with two massive spruce trees lashed to the roof, sits grizzled old Roger the handyman. He introduces himself as I try to hoist myself into the passenger seat without flashing him. His last name’s Leblanc, but here it is pronounced “Lib-Long.” His people were from over Chéticamp way. Shetty Camp.

Before I can ask, Roger Lib-long volunteers the story of the trees. “Christmas trees for the malls,” he tells me. “Cuts ’em off me buddy Skip’s land out in Mira Gut, and delivers ’em to the malls every year, for the Christmas Daddies Telethon.”

“Appreciate the ride,” I say as I pull out my phone to text Allie, hoping she’ll pick me up in Town if the highway over the mountain’s not too bad. Also hoping that my full immersion in my little screen is a clear signal that I’m not in the mood for conversation.

Roger Leblanc doesn’t get the hint.

“You from here or away?” he says.

Trick question. Damned either way. If I say “away,” I’m in for a grilling about where and why I came, followed by tales of somebody’s sister’s husband’s first cousin twice removed who visited that place once in 1981. If I say “here,” I’ll get the classic “Whereabouts?” and “What’s your father’s name?”

“Family’s here. I’m back from away,” I mumble.

“Where ya back from?”

“Toronto.”

“The big Shitty. Oops, pardon my French!” He claps a hand over his wrinkled clown smile, as if the word shitty fell out from between the gaps where some teeth should have been. As if a playful swear might offend the buzz-cut-haired, hooker-dressed, drawers-less human hangover in the passenger seat. “My brother’s son lives up there now. Works on that there Bay Street. Stuart Lib-Long. Ever hear tell of him up there?”