Chapter 5
Turns out, Zoe’s plan had a flaw we couldn’t have anticipated. Apparently, a pipe burst last night in the dining room. Minor damage.
Gunther, the head of maintenance, cut the water pretty quickly, and someone was coming in from Owen Sound to replace the corroded pipe.
But since Gunther’s guys were vacuuming all the water, they moved breakfast into the recreation area.
A room with a full view of the parking lot, which means all twenty-three residents, along with Nurse Bouchard, watched Zoe and me tear across the parking lot like two rogue prairie dogs avoiding a hungry hawk.
We were both immediately docked an hour’s wage.
Our formal warnings would be issued later when Nurse Bouchard was able to return to her office (also drying out from the pipe incident).
We were immediately assigned two duties at opposite ends of Sunnyvale.
Zoe to Mr. McNaught, who wanted someone to alphabetize his collection of swing jazz albums. I had been assigned to hard labor—hauling Kitty’s belongings down to the front lobby, as her “lawyer and trusted family friend” was picking them up later that morning on his way out of town.
“Mr. James is coming here ?” I asked when Nurse Bouchard told me my assignment.
“Who is coming is none of your business,” she said. “But yes, I do believe that was his name.”
Now, as I wait for the elevator, my arms straining with the last two of Kitty’s boxes, I could laugh at the irony that this morning’s scheduling conflicts could have been avoided entirely if I’d asked Mr. James if we could meet in town.
Still, I’m too distracted by the way the lid of the top box is cutting into my upper arms, and by the trickle of sweat sliding down between my breasts, making me shiver.
My arms give out the moment I step inside the elevator. It’s empty, so I let them go with a loud crash that echoes through the chamber. The lid of the top box pops off, and as I reach down to pick it up, my eyes land on a tiny book nestled on top of Kitty’s silky black robe.
The book is red and covered in satin. Tiny pink and blue flowers are stitched into the cover, forming an intricate pattern. The spine is leather-bound, or at least was at one time. What remains of the leather is worn and cracked. The book has seen better days.
I reach for it, morbid curiosity trumping my rational brain, which knows the number one rule of working in a retirement home is that you never ever touch a resident’s personal belongings without permission. Still, I flip it open and find page after page of loopy blue writing.
It’s a journal. Or a diary, maybe?
Suddenly, my questions from earlier this morning come flooding back. Why would Kitty name me, of all people, in her will? And why would she leave me an old, abandoned building?
What were you up to, Kitty?
If any reasonable answers are about to manifest from the pages in front of me, they are halted as the elevator dings and the metal doors slide open.
Although my eyes are on the contents of Kitty’s box in front of me, I am very aware of a looming frame standing outside the doors, watching me.
“Hey.”
It’s a single word uttered in an indistinct male voice, and yet I can tell exactly who it belongs to, even before I look up.
The dark navy suit.
That perfectly coiffed hair.
His tie—slightly askew.
“Reeve. Hey. How are you?” My mouth goes so dry my upper lip sticks to my gums. “How…What are you doing here?”
If Reeve notices the squeaky pitch to my voice—my tell, as Zoe so accurately pointed out in the stairwell—he doesn’t make any indication. Instead, he reaches for the box with a “Here, let me help you,” just as I realize I’ve left Kitty’s belongings haphazardly strewn about the elevator floor.
I reach.
So does he.
We’re too coordinated. Too fast.
Our hands move at the same time, colliding.
The diary falls from my grip. In my haste to catch it, I kick it with the toe of my sneaker, and it skips across the lobby like a flat stone on calm water.
While I stare in a helpless haze, Reeve bends down and successfully retrieves the fallen lid, placing it back on the top box.
“After you,” he says, lifting both boxes with ease. His long leg braces against the elevator door, holding it open.
I step past him, out into the lobby, ignoring how his suit strains against the flex of his biceps, trying not to think of what Zoe said earlier about Reeve’s arms.
“I was hoping we would run into each other again,” he says as he follows me into the lobby, letting the elevator doors close behind him.
“Last night was…well, not how I wanted things to go. I had this whole plan to try to track you down later today. I didn’t expect it would be this easy.
Serendipitous, right? So are you working here? Is this like a residency thing?”
My brain catches up to all of his questions, and my cheeks flush yet again when I realize what he’s asking.
Med school.
Reeve was the only person I ever told about my plans that summer.
My mom had met a WestJet pilot and moved in with him more than an hour away.
Zoe was preoccupied with dating half of West Lake because she had broken up with Dale, who was working up north planting trees for the summer, and she didn’t want to be tied down.
Then there was Reeve. I remember how he looked at me that night. He didn’t see me as Lia DeMarco’s latchkey daughter. Or that quiet girl who runs around with Zoe Buchanan, always getting into trouble.
He looked at me like I was smart. Like I could be the kind of girl who could apply to medical school, move to a big city like Toronto, and become a doctor.
Like I was full of possibility, and I basked in it.
“I didn’t end up going to med school.” I try to sound confident—cool even. As if it were all my choice. “I got a great job here at Sunnyvale. They offer excellent benefits. I really couldn’t give up the opportunity.”
Reeve sets down the boxes, his face hidden by the broad span of his shoulders, leaving me to guess at his expression.
“Benefits are always good,” he says as he stands, giving me that same dazzling smile from the first night on the dock.
It hits me just as it did then: hard and fast—right between the ribs.
We’re caught in a moment where neither of us speaks.
I mostly stare, mainly at his mouth as it parts then presses together as if he’s about to say something more but the words won’t come.
Finally, he shakes his head. “Hey, listen. If you’re free later, I was thinking maybe we could grab dinner.
Or maybe a drink? I’m in town for a few days. It would be nice to catch up.”
I bend down, seemingly preoccupied with securing the lid to one of Kitty’s boxes but really needing a moment away from those searching brown eyes.
“I don’t…know if that’s a good idea.”
There’s a long stretch of silence.
“It’s definitely not a bad one,” he says softly, with an unguardedness that was absent a moment ago.
I finally look up—just in time to catch him running his hands through his dark hair. The nervous action dishevels his tresses and my resolve along with them.
I want to say yes.
Dinner. Drinks. More.
And I hate myself for it.
How I can so easily forget how he walked away and never once looked back.
“What time are you finished with your shift?” he asks. “I could pick you up here if that’s easier—”
The rest of his question is cut off as the lobby’s glass doors slide open, letting in a cold blast of wind—almost as if Mother Nature herself has come to my rescue.
Niles James strolls inside, his wool coat pulled tightly around his neck, but he otherwise looks the same as he did an hour ago. “Ah, Ms. DeMarco,” he says, lifting a friendly hand when he spots me. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
He glances curiously at Reeve for a moment before eyeing the box in my hands. “Are those Kitty’s things?”
I hold out my arms, creating distance between the box and my body and, in turn, between Reeve and me. “Everything is packed and ready. Can I help you carry these to your car?”
“That would be very kind.” Niles takes the box with a labored grunt.
I bend down to retrieve the second just as Reeve does the same. We repeat the elevator incident—our perfectly coordinated clash—in an almost funny way.
“I can get this.” I pull the box up with me as I stand.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “It’s pretty heavy.”
“I’m pretty strong.”
Again, Reeve opens his mouth as if he is about to say something, but this time, the interruption comes from Niles. “I can show you which one is my car, Ms. DeMarco.”
I nod, shifting the box to my hip to follow him to the door, but Reeve calls out after me. “DeMarco? That’s your last name? You never told me.”
I turn, my eyes rolling of their own volition. “Would it have made any difference?”
His eyebrows crease, a deep ridge forming between them.
I turn to leave again.
“Jules,” he calls a second time. “Dinner? You never answered me. It’s just one night.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
Because that is precisely all it would be.
—
Reeve is gone when I get back. I’m unsure if the shrinking inside my chest is from relief or disappointment. Or maybe it’s the confirmation that deep down, I knew the lobby would be empty.
Except it’s not.
Not quite.
That red book is in the far corner, next to the white wall, partially obstructed by a potted ficus tree.
Kitty’s book.
I half sprint over to it, then, once it’s in my hand, I run toward the front doors, hoping to catch Niles James before he leaves the parking lot.
But just as I reach the sliding doors, I stop.
I think the book in my hands is a diary.
Kitty’s diary.
Practically worthless.
I imagine Niles handing it over to Kitty’s children, who will probably keep it stored in a dark corner of their basement until one day in the future when they’ve healed from their grief and feel ready to toss it in the trash. If they don’t toss it immediately—many do.
But I have so many questions for Kitty and no Kitty to answer them. This book may be my only opportunity.
I stare out at the parking lot one last time—guilt puddling in my belly—before sliding the book into my pocket.