We jump into his shiny blue Mercedes and zoom off for the high school. The jazz concert is sold out so we can’t get in. He apologizes for not buying tickets in advance. He’s at least fifty and I wonder if he likes babysitting his colleague’s young wife. He’s close to my dad’s age. We go to this Chinese restaurant and I have no idea where I am except it’s some built-up sprawl of a once-small town. We pass huge churches with neon crosses, fast-food restaurants, malls which seem to repeat every mile, townhouse complexes. I could never navigate my way out of here. I’m at his mercy. He’s a nice guy, though, and we talk about herbal treatments and evangelical Christians, Nova Scotia, all the places Bob has worked and I’ve visited, and the people who look after me when Bob works, who make me tea, take me out for dinner and drinks and teach me foreign languages.

Pete walks me back to the boat, telling me it’s dangerous down here at night and how it’s a weird and isolated place to have a sailboat. I know it’s dangerous; he doesn’t need to tell me this. The light is on in the houseboat beside the Snapper so at least I feel a bit better, though they must be in a trance as I haven’t seen a single person in or on the boat. Pete asks me if I’ve done a self-defence course. I say no but tell him I’m really confident. I’ve got padding. I’ve got back fat, I think. I’m a walrus with invisible tusks.

He tells me he’s done Tai Chi and it has made him strong. He’s as fit as a thirty-year-old. Yeah, I say. Pete looms there like a post. He can throw someone twenty feet. Can knock them down and stop their heart. Just like that. He beams at this major life achievement.

Great, I say.

He stands there grinning, saying we must get together again. I can’t tell if he’s just being super friendly or if he’s hitting on me. I say I’ll be in the city a lot for the next couple of weeks. Years and years, I think. I’m almost at my limit with all of this.

I climb aboard the boat, waving. He’s still there under the dull yellow dock lights. So I open the lock, slide back the hatch and stick my head out again. He’s still standing there.

“Good night,” I call.

“Good night,” he replies.

I pull the hatch shut and lock it. Pete doesn’t move.

I turn on the radio for company and it’s Prince singing again. Then I see the letter from Tara. It’s fallen out of my backpack onto the floor. The white envelope is still unopened. Back in my pack it goes, because I don’t care about her news or her requests. She’s been doing this for years, finding out wherever I am and sending a letter, and asking questions and demanding I write back, which I feel compelled to do. And then inviting herself for a visit. Arriving unannounced.