crosspieces painted white and hammered into the ground. The names were
hand printed on them. The way I figured it, they were there to mark the
graves until the stones got delivered. I didn't need any insight to
recognize a once in a lifetime opportunity. If I switched them, what were
the chances anyone was going to notice? It was no problem sliding them
out of their holes. I smoothed the dirt with my hands and then ran like
hell."
Until that moment, she'd seemed bemused by my story and slightly
condescending toward me. Now there was a glint of alarm in her eyes.
"That was an terrible thing to do," she said.
"Absolutely," I said, "although the dinos think that the whole idea of
planting bodies in graveyards and marking them with carved rocks is weepy.
They say there is no identity in dead meat, so why get so sentimental about
it? Linna keeps asking how come we don't put markers over our shit. But
that's not the secret. See, it'd been a warmish night in the middle of
June, only as I ran, the air turned cold. Freezing, I could see my breath.
And my shoes got heavier and heavier, like they had turned to stone. As I
got closer to the back gate, it felt like I was fighting a strong wind,
except my clothes weren't flapping. I slowed to a walk. I know I could
have pushed through, but my heart was thumping and then I heard this
whispery seashell noise and I panicked. So the secret is I'm a coward. I
switched the crosses back and I never went near that cemetery again. As a
matter of fact," I nodded at the walls of reception room D on Tuulen
Station, "when I grew up, I got about as far away from it as I could."
She stared as I settled back in my chair. "True story," I said and raised
my right hand. She seemed so astonished that I started laughing. A smile
bloomed on her dark face and suddenly she was giggling too. It was a soft,
liquid sound, like a brook bubbling over smooth stones; it made me laugh
even harder. Her lips were full and her teeth were very white.
"Your turn," I said, finally.
"Oh, no, I could not." She waved me off. "I don't have anything so good
..." She paused, then frowned. "You have told that before?"
"Once," I said. "To the Hanen, during the psych screening for this job.
Only I didn't tell them the last part. I know how dinos think, so I ended
it when I switched the crosses. The rest is baby stuff." I waggled a
finger at her. "Don't forget, you promised to keep my secret."
"Did I?"
"Tell me about when you were young. Where did you grow up?"
"Toronto." She glanced at me, appraisingly. "There was something, but
not funny. Sad."
I nodded encouragement and changed the wall to Toronto's skyline dominated
by the CN Tower, Toronto-Dominion Centre, Commerce Court and the King's
Needle.
She twisted to take in the view and spoke over her shoulder. "When I
was ten we moved to an apartment, right downtown on Bloor Street so my
mother could be close to work." She pointed at the wall and turned back to
face me. "She is an accountant, my father wrote wallpaper for
Imagineering. It was a huge building; it seemed as if we were always
getting into the elevator with ten neighbors we never knew we had. I was
coming home from school one day when an old woman stopped me in the lobby.
