Here & There: A Grumpy Sunshine Single Dad Romance

1. Bryony

Maybe the full-sized camel balloon was a bad idea. It’s nearly impossible to wrangle, especially off an uneven dock onto a boat. In the wind.

In heels.

“You okay, Bryony?” my friend Deanie shouts as she jumps out of the back of the rental van. She’s got a dozen more balloons, each thwapping hard in the gusts coming off the ocean.

Nope! My life is a shitshow!

“Totally good!” I yell as my caramel brown ponytail fully whips me in the face.

I jerk the single string keeping the camel from flying over the ocean in front of us or the mountain range behind us as I step onto the boat, narrowly avoiding breaking an ankle and going overboard.

“Ma’am, I know I said it was a short ride to the island,” says the grizzled but not unkind water taxi driver as he takes the string from me. “But I can’t guarantee the safety of this horse.”

“It’s a camel!” I exclaim. “Does it not look like a camel?”

He’s too busy stuffing the four-legged creature into the cabin of the boat to answer me.

“It has to be a camel,” I say, propping a hand over my eyes and peering out at the tiny island a kilometer offshore where we’re headed. “The camel’s the whole point!”

I love camels. How could you not? They’re so adorably awkward with those big brown eyes and knobby knees. And humps!

But this camel’s not for me.

I pat the pocket of my blazer for the thing I’ve got in there. I feel the tiny reassurance of it under the fabric.

This is going to go great. She’s going to love it. It’ll change everything.

“She’s going to hate it,” I groan, hopping back onto the dock.

Deanie, who’s just arrived with another load, thrusts a box of party décor at me. “If she does, she’s nuts. This kind of ingenuity is why you’re CEO of Visionary and not me.”

But the camel isn’t for our business.

It’s for my mom.

My deeply serious mom.

Fuck, she’s going to hate it.

“You’d be a great CEO,” I say as I transfer the box to the captain.

Deanie laughs as she heads back down the little dock for what I hope is the last trip to the van. She’s still laughing as she comes back with the last of the balloons. That is, until she readjusts the balloons and freezes, looking back over her shoulder. I try to see what she’s looking at, but I can’t see through the multicolored cloud of helium.

“Deanie, the balloons,” I say. “I have to go.” I’ve only got an hour to get everything perfect on the island before Mom’s boat gets there.

“Right,” Deanie says. She absently hands them over, letting go before I’ve finished closing my hand over the ribbons. A bright yellow one—a sun with a camel on it—goes sailing up into the gray sky.

“Deanie!” I exclaim, nearly sailing off the end of the dock myself as I try to reach for it.

“Oh shit. Sorry, Bryony!”

I lose a few more as Deanie helps me readjust.

Those colorful dots in the sky feel like the last pieces of my confidence about this plan. We probably just signed an orca’s death warrant, too. Isn’t this exactly where you’re not supposed to lose balloons?

“I’m sorry,” Deanie says distractedly. “But”—she glances back over her shoulder—“did you see that guy?”

“Guy?” I wrap the ribbons around my wrists for the final trip to the boat, still looking at those balloons. Seeing a camel float away like that feels like a bad omen. And yet somehow…I’m jealous. It’s literally floating on air. Free, with no pressure; no responsibilities. Nothing to do but bob along in the sky?—

“The hottest man alive just walked into that bar,” Deanie says, cutting into my thoughts.

I glance over at the beach as we walk back down the dock. The only building there, besides a few gorgeous beach houses farther down the sandy crescent, is a pub called the Rusty Dinghy.

“Worthy of killing an endangered animal for?” I stare up at the camel balloon, now a rapidly shrinking yellow dot in the sky. My stomach churns.

“A chest as wide as that island.” Deanie says, oblivious. “The kind of biceps that could pick me up like I was a pool noodle.”

I resist rolling my eyes. Easy for Deanie to say. Her petite frame is about the size of a pool noodle. “You couldn’t even see his face from here. He could be missing teeth. Or have an offensive tattoo or something. Plus, he’s walking into a bar at nine in the morning.”

She sighs again as we reach the boat again. “I love tattoos. Ooh, maybe he’s the bartender!” She sees my single raised eyebrow. “Okay. You’re right. But you forget what it’s like to be single at our age.”

“We’re twenty-nine!”

“Exactly.”

I laugh, and I have to admit it feels good. I’m wound up so tight my teeth hurt.

Also, I’m kind of sad I missed him. I can admire a handsome guy from afar, though I don’t go gooey for them the way Deanie does. I think it’s a lifetime of knowing those gorgeous guys don’t really go for girls like me—on the plainer side of pretty, with my basic, wavy brown hair and freckles, short, and a little thicker than what’s considered ideal. I get called cute but rarely beautiful like Deanie. It’s fine. It just takes the pressure off.

But I’m not single, either. I think of Richard and how sweet it was that he volunteered to ride on the boat with my parents over here. Of course, it would have been better if he drove up with me and Deanie to help set up. Funny how immovable his golf plans suddenly were this morning.

Once the boat’s finally loaded, grizzled boat guy looking like he’s deeply regretting his life choices, I give Deanie a hug. “Thanks again for looking after things while I’m gone.”

Deanie’s my friend, but that’s because she’s also VP of the company I founded, Visionary Consulting, which specializes in company rebranding. I’ve forwarded all calls to her until tomorrow night when I’m back in Vancouver. She’s my right-hand woman, and she promised she could handle it for a few days. “Three, max,” she’d said though. “Sorry.”

No one wants my job. It’s thankless. I don’t get to do any of the fun projects anymore. I just run the show. Fix the problems. Manage the crises and nightmare clients.

Deanie grimaces as if remembering what she’s taking on. But she puts on a perky face. “Of course. It’s no problem. And maybe someday you won’t need anyone to look after things over the weekend.”

The fact that I don’t ever see that happening—at least not in the foreseeable future—is enough to make my breathing a little tight.

“When Clientzilla calls”—because it’s not if, but when—“remind her to do her mindfulness exercises.” Clientzilla is our worst but most lucrative client, who loves to text me 911 branding emergencies twenty-four hours a day. “Anyone else, tell them I’ll call when I’m back.”

“I’ll be fine!” Deanie says, waving at me as we pull away from the dock. She chews her nails, probably already having received a hundred texts from Clientzilla. But before the driver turns the boat around, I see her staring wistfully at the bar as she heads back to the van.

I laugh because it’s easier than focusing on the nerves jangling in my stomach, hoping I pull this off.

An hour later, my phone buzzes.

RICHARD: we’re at the dock.

My stomach flips with excitement. The room is decorated, and I’ve just laid out the food items on the main catering table. The owners of the resort only let me use the retreat center if I booked the whole thing—the hall and all the rooms—so even though it’s a little overkill having the place decorated just for the four of us, it’ll all be worth it to see Mom’s face.

brYONY: sounds good. I’m ready!

I’m not quite. I rush to the bathroom to change into the linen suit Mom likes—at least it’s the only one she doesn’t criticize as fitting me “poorly.”

I throw a brush through my hair and slick a last-minute coating of gloss on my lips, then rush back out. They’re arriving at the dock on the other side of the tiny island, the bigger one for larger watercraft, only a five-minute walk up to the retreat center. I know; I timed it. I wait until I hear voices from the path before swinging the main doors open.

Mom and Dad are bickering as they make their way up the path, and Richard’s on his phone behind them. As usual. I try to ignore the way that jabs at me. My mom’s birthday—the one where I told him I was taking a big risk in trying to connect with her—is kind of a big deal.

Still, I lift my chin, setting my smile back on straight.

“Hi!” I close the doors behind me, wanting to preserve the surprise.

Mom swats at a bug that’s flying in front of her face. “Bryony, really. Was coming all the way over here really necessary?”

“Brunch reservations in the city would have been a lot simpler,” Dad says, almost angrily.

They look like they’re doing me a huge favor by being here.

My shoulders threaten to sink.

Richard’s still on his phone.

It’s okay. I haven’t explained yet, and they haven’t seen the inside.

I fortify my voice with a brightness that came easy a moment ago. “Well, Mom, there’s a reason we’re here.”

“I certainly hope so,” Dad mutters.

While there was a time I was close to Mom, I’ve never been close to my dad. He was hardly home when I was a kid. Not even when…well, not even when we needed him the most. After what happened with Jessica, Mom kind of…folded in on herself, almost like it wasn’t possible for her to love me like she used to.

But I know she’s in there. Somewhere.

I focus on Mom, clearing my throat.

Here goes nothing.

“Mom, when I was little, you used to tell me and…”

I swallow as Mom blanches. Shit, I messed it up already. I clear my throat again. I don’t get nervous making presentations at corporate events. But my own parents? I lose it.

“Well, uh, when I was little, you once told us about the very first birthday of yours you remember. It was on a farm somewhere around here.” I gesture to the pastiche of sea and mountains behind them where Mom grew up.

My heart pounds.

Mom’s eyes widen.

“It was your sixth birthday, remember? You told us you saw a llama for the first time and you thought it was a camel.” It was one of the very few times I remember my mom laughing about something from her childhood.

Mom’s expression has turned unreadable.

My mother is famously secretive about her past, but when she used to talk about it, before Jessica, I remember vague mentions of the towns on this stretch of rugged coast north of Vancouver, places like Swan River and Redbeard Cove.

And the camels. Always the camels and that birthday.

“Well,” I say, nerves making my voice shake. “Last Christmas, when you were getting ready to downsize and you gave me that box of your mom’s things, you brought up your mom again. And that birthday.”

Mom’s lips purse, but nothing else.

Okay, so she’d been a bottle deep into her Pinot Grigio when she brought out that box. But I saw her face. For the first time in years, it was soft. So I’ve gone out on a limb here by bringing up her childhood. A big limb, since she never, ever talks about it. Ever.

“Well, I thought for your sixtieth, I’d try to recreate that for you. Get it? Sixth? Sixtieth?”

No reaction.

“Okay,” I say to myself. Too late to turn back now.

I turn around and push open the doors to the hall.

Inside, the room is decorated to the nines. Streamers and balloons. Bob Dylan, which she once said her mom liked. An assortment of items from Mom’s favorite restaurant in the city, and her favorite Sauvignon Blanc, which I’ve had on ice in the cooler.

“Ta-da!” I say.

Mom’s face is slack. Dad’s is disapproving.

“I reserved the grand suite here for you,” I say, my voice wavering as I take in her stony expression. “All the rooms, actually. You can have your pick. Richard and I will take whatever you don’t want. We have the reservation until tomorrow at eleven. There are muffins…”

I glance over at my boyfriend for moral support.

But he’s on his phone.

“Richard?” I say. I expected this could go one of many ways with my parents. But Richard? Was it absurd to think I might get unconditional support?

My fingernails dig into my palms. I told him about this plan. But maybe he wasn’t really listening.

He never listens.

“Richard!” I snap.

Richard lowers his phone, looking at me with alarm. Then he takes in the scene around him.

And cringes.

“Oh,” he says. “This is…interesting.”

“Interesting?” My voice hits a note that can only be described as squeaky.

“Bryony,” Dad says. “Calm down.”

I drag my eyes back to Mom, my chest constricting. Fine, maybe Richard and Dad think it’s absurd. But it doesn’t matter. This is for Mom. And when I meet her eyes, they’re wet.

My heart clenches. Oh God. I did it. I touched her.

But when her chin wobbles, panic hits. They’re not happy tears.

When my mom cries like this, it strikes that old, raw part of me, that memory of a time when all she did was cry. When we were thirteen, and Dad vanished into work, and I was left to be her sole comfort with a gaping hole by my side.

What the hell was I thinking? This is going exactly the way the nagging voice in my head warned me it would.

I ignored that voice. I pushed through with this plan because I knew my life was at a breaking point. I’m burning out, and I guess, pathetically, I needed my mom back.

I should stop while I’m ahead.

But I don’t. Because that other voice, the one that screams there’s more to life than this, the one that had me put together this cockamamie plan even knowing my mom would probably freak out, is louder right now.

I reach into my pocket, pulling out the coup de grace.

Or the worst idea I’ve ever had.

It’s a necklace. A simple thing. A gold chain with a pendant made of glass. But when I found the broken piece of it in that box four months ago, I knew exactly what it was.

I have exactly one photo of Mom’s mom. In it, Grandma presses her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. They’re both smiling. Grandma has the same hair as me—the same shade, the same little wave to it. A slightly crooked smile, just like mine.

You remind her of her mother, Dad once said to me. It was clear it wasn’t in a good way.

Grandma was a free spirit.

And in the picture, she wore a little blue camel on a leather cord. The same camel I hold out on my palm now.

“I think she wore this for you, Mom. Because of the camel llama thing. The pendant, it was broken, but I had it remade and reset…”

But I trail off. Because Mom doesn’t pick up the necklace. She doesn’t even look at it. All she does is folds her arms, leaving me holding the thing out like a fool.

“Bryony.” Her voice is tight as a drum. “Be serious. This whole thing—it’s ridiculous. There was no reason to go to this sort of trouble.”

My stomach crumples like I’ve been punched.

“It was no trouble, Mom.” My hand, still outstretched, shakes. I close the camel in my hand and stick it back in my pocket.

“It’s gauche is what it is,” Dad says, checking the time on his Rolex.

Suddenly, heat flares in my chest. My eyes burn with tears.

“No,” I say, my voice surprisingly calm. “You know what? It was a huge amount of trouble.” I look at both my parents. “I’m barely holding it together with my job—you know, the one I built from scratch despite you telling me it was a bad idea. The one where I’m trying to show you how amazing I can be without being…well, being me. Deanie’s covering me right now, on a Sunday, because I have clients who call twenty-four hours a day. About branding, like it’s a life-or-death emergency.”

My heart thunders in my chest. I’m seeing spots.

What is this, a panic attack? A nervous breakdown?

I’ve been teetering on the edge for a long time. Years, I think. At first trying to be the good daughter so they could forget about the better one they lost.

Later, burying myself in my business. Trying to show my parents how competent I am. Dating a man they love.

I fling a hand in Richard’s direction. “Richard is an absentee boyfriend who I try to engage on a daily basis but who I’m pretty sure likes you two more than me.”

Richard blusters. “Excuse me?” But I see him look to them, not me.

“And my parents, who have never spent a day thinking I’m good enough.” I turn to my mother and point at her silk-covered décolletage. “This is me trying so hard to reach that soft core I know is in that frigid organ in there.”

Mom gasps audibly.

“Bryony!” Dad snaps. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

“Nothing’s gotten in, Dad!” I exclaim. “It’s always been there!”

“Bryony,” Richard says. “Let’s calm down.”

I want to laugh, even though, yup, it’s confirmed. I’m clearly in the middle of a nervous breakdown. I look at Mom. “Just because your mom died doesn’t mean you can pretend like she didn’t exist! But that’s what you do, isn’t it? That’s what you did with Jessie!”

“She’s not dead, Bryony!”

For a moment, I think she’s talking about my sister, and I’m so confused, I blink. Of course she’s dead. We were all there. It changed the course of all of our lives.

But my mom’s face looks slightly panicked. Like she didn’t mean to say that.

My skin prickles. “What?”

“Some people are better off not being in our lives,” Mom says.

For a moment, I think she’s giving me heartfelt advice. Like she’s talking about Richard. Or…Dad. “I’m going back to the boat.”

Mom stalks from the room, pushing through the back door in a huff.

For a moment, I can’t breathe. I think, maybe, she was talking about me.

I turn to my father. I don’t think he would even have acknowledged Mom’s sixtieth birthday. I never once remember him even signing a birthday card for me. It was always Mom who signed Mom and Dad.

“Dad, is that true? Is Grandma alive?”

“I don’t know. She’s as good as dead. Now, for God’s sake, get yourself together so you can come down and apologize. Then we’ll go for dinner in the city.”

He follows Mom, leaving me shriveled. Aching.

Alone.

Except for stupid Richard.

“Bryony,” Richard says. “You…tried. I guess. I really don’t get why you didn’t just do brunch, but come on. Can you blame them for being upset?”

“You said it was a good idea,” I say quietly.

He scoffs. “I did not.”

“No, I remember. You were listening. I asked you to please put your phone away and tell me exactly what you were thinking. You said it sounded nice. You assured me it wasn’t ridiculous.”

“Bryony, sweetie. Ridiculous is kind of your thing.”

He reaches for me, but I back away. “No.”

Richard props his hands on his tan slacks. My eyes take in the man in front of me: thousand-dollar sunglasses hooked into the collar of his pin-striped button-down. Beige cashmere sweater knotted over his shoulders. Blond hair combed into a perfect swoop back from his face, somehow untouched by what had to be a strong sea wind on the way up here. But his worst accessory? That smirk. It’s the same one my dad wears when he’s talking to anyone he believes below him. Service workers. Clients with regular green Amex cards. When did Richard start taking that on? He probably practiced it in the mirror to get it just right. I feel suddenly ill.

“Come on, Bryony,” he says. “Let’s just?—”

“No,” I repeat. “I need you to take a break from all the ‘let’s.’ Let’s calm down. Let’s be serious.”

He’s so surprised by my sudden lack of acquiescence, he blinks. “What?”

I notice then that his nose is a little sunburned, and there are little indents on the bridge where his sunglasses pressed into his flesh.

I frown. “I think, actually…that I need a break.”

“Yes. Good.” He pulls his sunglasses out of his collar like the matter’s settled. “Let’s take a breather, and we’ll meet you back on the boat. We’ll just go home a little earlier than we planned.”

“No, Richard. I mean I need a break from us.”

Richard laughs midway through unfolding the arms of his sunglasses, then sobers. “Bryony?—”

“Just go back to the boat, okay? Take my parents. Go have a date with them. Date that woman at the coffee shop. I see the way you look at her. Just…leave. We’ll talk later. Right now I need…I need some air.”

I head for the doors. Then I pause, turn around, and grab a fork from the table of food I so carefully arranged.

I walk up to the camel, grab it around the midsection, and stab the fork into its hump.

Richard jumps, gasping so loudly it’s almost a scream. I kind of wish I could stick a fork in him too.

The camel wheezes helium as it lowers slowly to the floor. I feel bad for thinking that about Richard. But not that bad.

I push through the doors and walk down the path. Then I pick up speed, running as fast as I can until I realize it’s the heels holding me back. I kick them off and sprint the rest of the way down the path in my stocking feet, the cold, damp forest floor barely a thought on my feet.

I stop at the end of the dock, chest heaving, tears streaming down my face. The water taxi’s there, moored at the dock on the mainland maybe half a mile away. I could call him.

Water laps against the pilings. A bird titters in a bush behind me. The world goes on like I’m not on the precipice of flipping my life upside down.

I breathe the cool, damp salt-tinged air and consider my options.

Behind me is heavy, bone-crushing pressure. In front of me is ocean; trees; mountains.

And maybe someone who knows who I really am.

I think of the blue camel in my pocket. The woman who loved my mother in a way I knew had to be better than the way my mother loves me.

What if she’s right there? I look up into the mountains, to the town of Redbeard Cove.

The choice is obvious. I don’t even need to think about it. I point my hands in the air, bend my knees, and jump.