Last time I came back to Marly, almost two years ago, I was in higher spirits, not to mention in my own car. Both the car and I were maybe a little worse for wear but functional and nice-smelling. But, to be fair, the town isn’t exactly at its best now either.
It’s typical as small towns go. There’s its own shred of history to which it clings with disproportionate pride: Everyone knows their heritage and proudly displays it via bumper stickers and little flags that protrude out of everything. A large population of displaced Acadians, an equally large community of farmers going back generations, and, oddly enough, a sizable community of Irish descendants. To which I suppose I belong. Other than that, there are the alliances that last for generations and feuds that last for even longer. And everybody has heard who’s cheating on whom with whom, and everybody knows whose mom drinks too much.
And of course, the town has its own town mystery, although, perhaps, not for much longer. My podcast might be dead in the water—the irony—but maybe Michelle Fortier hasn’t had her last word yet.
In any event, people are talking about Marly.
Climate change succeeded where I had failed: It put Marly, a forgettable small town lost in the Beauce region, on the map. At last, it made the national news. What it took was the river Chaudière, bloated by a record-breaking snowmelt, escaping its narrow confines and flooding the central street of Marly, along with all its small businesses and centennial buildings. The media decried a tragedy—although I doubt that any of these grave-faced Montreal journalists could have found the place on the map two months ago. The river, having done its worst, pulled back and continued its polluted slog, carrying agricultural runoff steadfastly toward the Saint Lawrence River, and left the town to deal with the mess. Many of those centennial houses had to be demolished, as had many others no one mentioned because they were of no interest to the local conservation society. Just a bunch of ugly sixties and seventies bungalows no one would miss.
In one of those bungalows, the demolition team found the remains of Michelle Fortier. Back after forty years to cause trouble.
The bus pulls up to the terminal and I get out, my tattered duffel slung over my shoulder to avoid hitting the two or three remaining passengers on my way. The doors close behind me, stranding me in a perfectly empty lot. I check the time on my phone—it’s almost thirty minutes after the supposed arrival time—and instantly know that Laura forgot I was coming.
I search my soul for any signs of shock, surprise, or, at least, disappointment. I don’t find any. I suppose there was a reason I idly checked the walking route to my destination before I got off the bus. Last time I was here, I drove, so I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that it’s a forty-minute walk at a leisurely pace. The weather sucks—the wind darts back and forth, sharp little gusts that tug at my thin coat, and I hope the little drizzle of rain doesn’t decide to pick up.
The last time I was in town might be only two years ago, but the last time I had to walk to this bus terminal was in an era just before smartphones. So, with the help of Google Maps, I start on my way.
When I came here two years ago, with my Toyota and the typical smugness of one of the lucky ones who escaped, I’d taken in all of Marly’s progress with condescending approval. Our very own Walmart, nice! A smattering of new fast-food chains had to signify progress in these parts. All the people I went to high school with who lived there still—good for them. They too can have a Beyond Meat double cheeseburger.
I was just fine in my Rosemont apartment with my glamorous job working for a local media outlet, thank you very much for asking. Now, since I failed my assignment and my podcast had been deemed unsatisfactory, the media outlet let me go. The Toyota’s sale paid for a month and a half of rent on the ludicrously priced one-bedroom. My phone bill is past due. My $38 bus ticket had to be put on my credit card. Those farms and local businesses my classmates had inherited no longer look all that bad. All I have to come back to is the O’Malley manor, the two-bedroom mobile home on the outskirts of Marly that Laura inherited from her own parents.
It’s not personal, sweetie, my boss at the media outlet said with a shrug. She had a deceptively soft voice and girlboss energy, not to mention really expensive hair. It’s just that it’s not that interesting to our target audience. Young, urban Montrealers. A country girl who disappeared long before they were born, it’s just not as relevant.
I wanted to point out that no one seemed to think so when they greenlit the idea. And had the podcast been a success, Expensive Haircut would have gladly taken all the credit. But since it wasn’t a success, the blame had to be shifted to where it wouldn’t splash mud on her $700 boots. So the moment the higher-ups deemed the podcast an epic fail, it all became my idea from start to finish. And the truth is that it’s not a question of relevance—a local, 100% made-in-Quebec true crime podcast should have been a hit. Would have been, if only there had been something, anything, to chew on. As Expensive Haircut correctly pointed out, most of it is just baseless speculation. No viable theories, no interesting evidence to support them—nothing.
In the distance, the flashy sign of a gas station and the fast-food places that flank it grow closer. Is it just me or is the rain getting heavier? I’m really just looking for an excuse to go inside and get a combo on a plastic tray with as much soda as I can drink. Maybe even a hot coffee. I wasn’t going to succumb to temptation, but something tells me Laura doesn’t have a welcome-home feast getting cold on the table as it awaits my arrival.
Distances here are always so much longer than they look. I thought I was a short walk away from the beckoning signage, but in reality, it took close to twenty minutes of trudging next to the road on the narrow strip between cars roaring by indifferently and the rigid remains of snow. I make it to the gas station muddy and winded. That fast-food trio is now more of a necessity than an indulgence. At least I tell myself so.
As I get close though, I see another problem I’d simply overlooked two years ago from the vantage point of my proverbial high horse. The fast-food place is drive-thru only. I’m on foot. How the mighty have fallen.
I ponder just how much I’m willing to humiliate myself as I watch the cars line up.
Then, suddenly, “Stephanie?”
I turn around. The F-150—nice, shiny, new, the size of my regretted city apartment—rolls toward me slowly. The window is down, and from it, Luc is grinning at me.
Back in the city, I self-styled as Stevie—to stand out from the million other Stephanies but also in a mostly subconscious bid to pander to the English-obsessed younger crowd. But I guess there’s no one to show off to anymore.
“Hi,” I say.
“Since when have you been back?”
“As of a few minutes ago,” I reply.
“So this time I finally intercepted you,” he says with a grin.
I feel my face warm. My last stay in town was meant to last a month, but I left after two weeks. We’d only crossed paths once, awkwardly, in the parking lot of the strip mall by the police station. If he was hurt that I didn’t bother to get in touch, he hadn’t shown it. But I guess it did get to him.
Fact is that there was a reason I hadn’t bothered to get in touch with him. I didn’t plan to stick around beyond my one allotted month, and after that, I planned never to come back, ever. No reason to reconnect with my high school sweetheart when the future held followers and fame and hopefully money, and, down the line, a hipster boyfriend who only wore Metallica T-shirts ironically.
I grin. You got me. “Looks that way.”
“Hey. Do you by any chance need a ride?”
Somehow, he took one look at me and grasped the full extent of my sad situation: no money, no car, no Laura, not a soul who gives a damn if I accidentally get run over by a tractor. Yet the offer is made with such sincerity and a total lack of gloating.
“Thank you,” I say honestly. Honesty is the least I can do. That, and I’m genuinely grateful when I climb into the passenger seat of the F-150 and the dry, warm air from the whirring fans envelops me like a comforting blanket.
He drives off. Thankfully, it’s not going to be a very long ride, at least not long enough to have heart-to-heart conversations about why I’m back or why I came back the first time and hadn’t even said hello. For the first few minutes, he stays quiet, and so I stay quiet too.
“So,” he says at last, and I brace myself. “Do you want me to take you there?”
I blink. “Where?”
“Oh, come on. I know why you’re here.”
He says this without a shade of malice, just a statement of fact.
“They found Michelle Fortier. Everyone knows, the town is abuzz. That’s what your show was about, right?”
“My podcast,” I correct, a little vexed.
“Yeah, yeah, your radio show.” Oh, Luc. Luc never did stop wearing the Metallica T-shirts unironically. Even now the logo, crackled white on faded black, peeks out from under his checkered flannel. He still manages to be good-looking, which is a feat considering that the majority of dudes our age who stayed on after high school (that is, pretty much all dudes our age) look like John Goodman by now. That flannel could be hiding a multitude of sins, but Luc looks fit. His face is scruffy and his hair is in need of clippers but not in an intentional way. Which should detract from the overall impression but strangely doesn’t.
And I don’t suppose he listens to podcasts much. The car’s sound system might be paired with an iPhone rather than a tape deck but the music coming out of the speakers at a low volume is still the same semimainstream nineties rock we used to listen to together in high school. I’m pretty sure we made out to this exact song a number of times. Is this resistance to new things genetically ingrained? Is it a Marly thing? A country thing? Who knows.
“Yeah, my dad told me you were here to make a documentary show on Michelle,” he clarifies. Unnecessarily, because of course someone would have told him sooner or later. “So I guess you’re here to make the follow-up?”
