69 Women

Vancouver's shocking story "broke" not long after the bus strike of 2001. It was a story about over 50 women from my town, missing since as early as 1985. It was as if no one noticed they had been missing before. Sixteen years later, morning paper mug shots tell their story - exposing these women down and out under our careless tread. Maybe none of us sees the fine line under our toes until we're already crippled, but couldn't they have found kinder pictures to tell the story?

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I pinned my shirt cuff because it was ripped. I guess it was like that when I bought it vintage, but I was feeling poor. My skin had lost its luster. On the day the story broke, I passed by the spa on the morning bus and thought dark thoughts about the women that lay steaming inside, perking and plucking, spritzing and spratzing.

A tall, regal-looking woman boarded the bus and sat next to me, seeming distinctively out of place.

"Excuse me driver. Excuse me driver," she said.

Excuse yourself bitch, I thought. Look at her big expensive umbrella. I bet she stays nice and dry under there. Look at her leopard-skin gloves, clutching her big, expensive umbrella. Look at her bottle-blonde hair. No roots. I never used to feel this way about rich bitches, I thought.

"Driver, you're late," she said.

The woman turned to me, looked at my coffee cup and said, "Don't spill your coffee on me. Someone has already stepped on my toe."

"I won't step on your toe," I said.

This woman has never taken a bus before - not regularly, I thought. I opened my paper and saw it had published some poetry written by one of the missing women.