Chapter 3
3
Wednesday, June 18
I find John Kalinski’s number in Nan’s address book. I haven’t seen John since his wife’s funeral more than a decade ago, but I remember both him and Joyce well. They were entwined in my grandparents’ lives.
John sounds happy to hear from me. “Stay the whole summer if you want,” he says when I ask about renting the cottage for a couple of weeks. He tells me he’s been thinking about selling it for years—the place is empty.
The offer catches me off guard—both John’s unexpected generosity and how appealing a two-month hiatus from my life sounds.
When I relay the conversation to Nan over afternoon tea, she doesn’t react with the excitement I expect. Instead, she’s silent for a long stretch of time.
“John assured me it was okay with him,” I tell her. “He can’t visit the cottage at all. He’d prefer if someone was staying there.”
And then she smiles— really smiles—for the first time since her hip replacement.
I do the math. I check my bank account. I pore over my invoices and am surprised to find that I’ve already made more than I did all of last year. The silver lining of the breakup is that I’ve been relentlessly productive.
I think about my last conversation with Elyse.
You’re even paler than usual, Alice. You look like a ghost. I’m worried about you.
I can afford to take a break. More importantly, maybe I can’t afford not to.
Everything falls into place after I call John and tell him that yes, we’d love to stay at the cottage until the end of August.
I manage to postpone many of my assignments and help find other photographers to cover the rest. I track down a physiotherapist in Barry’s Bay who can see Nan, and her post-surgery checkup goes well. John gives me the name and number of the guy who’s looking after the cottage for the summer—he has a spare set of keys.
“If you need a hand making the cottage more comfortable for Nan, I’m sure he’d be able to help,” John tells me.
As I dial the number, I find myself sinking back into memories of Barry’s Bay. Saffron sunsets. Fireflies twinkling in the dusk. The heat of the dock’s sunbaked wooden planks underfoot. A red-roofed cabin shaded by evergreen boughs.
The daydream ends with a record scratch when a man’s voice booms through the line.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Um…”
There’s more shouting, now muffled. I check my screen to make sure I’ve dialed the right number, and yes.
“Excuse me? Hello?”
I’m about to hang up when the voice says to me, “This is Charlie Florek.”
“Charlie, hi. This is Alice Everly calling.”
I hear the metallic thwack of metal on metal. A hammer, maybe.
“One sec,” Charlie says, annoyed, and then: “For the last time, Sam, will you kindly fuck off? You’re going to ruin it.”
I hear a disgruntled reply, and then Charlie says to me, “Sorry, who is this?”
“Alice Everly. I’m staying at John Kalinski’s cottage this summer.” I try to talk over the ruckus in the background. It sounds like he’s on a construction site. “Is this a bad time?”
There’s a long pause, raised male voices, and then the noise stops.
“No, I’m good. Apologies for that.” Charlie clears his throat. “Hi. Alice, right?” It’s a nice voice. Deep with a scrape of sandpaper over his r ’s.
“Right.”
A thing about me: I once broke my wrist in ninth-grade gym class and spent twenty-four hours gritting my teeth against the pain until I finally told my mom I might need to see a doctor. I don’t like asking for help, or being an inconvenience, or wasting anyone’s time. This phone call incorporates all three—Charlie is clearly in the middle of something.
So I rush forward, getting it over with. “John said you might be able to help me out. I have a list of things I need to do at the cottage for my grandmother. She’s just had her hip replaced, and I—”
Charlie cuts me off. “How are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“?‘ How are you? ’?” says Charlie, sounding amused, “is typically what you ask someone after ‘ Hello .’?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” I say, slightly thrown. “Anyway, my grandmother—”
Charlie interrupts me a second time. “I’m good, Alice. Thanks for asking.”
“Right.” My face heats. I can’t remember the last time I was chided. “That’s good. That you’re good. We’re both good.”
Another thing about me: When I’m not holding my camera, I can find it hard to speak up. In my loud, chaotic family, with strangers, with pushy art directors…It’s one of the reasons why I love shooting so much—it’s the only time I feel like a certified badass.
I clear my throat, trying to get back on track. “As I was saying, there are a few things I need to have done at the cottage before we arrive, and I was hoping you or someone you know could help. I have a list.” I fetch my notebook and begin reading off the bullet points. “Grab bars, moving furniture, moving out the rugs—”
“Alice.” Charlie interrupts me yet again.
I inhale, annoyance growing. “Yes?”
“Take a breath. I can feel your anxiety all the way in Barry’s Bay.”
“I’m trying to be conscious of your time,” I say, channeling my most professional, together self. The Alice I am behind the camera. “I simply want to ensure everything is suitable for when I arrive with my grandmother. If you’re unable to assist me, that’s quite all right. But perhaps you know someone who can.”
A low chuckle fills my ear. “Don’t worry. I’m quite happy to assist . John gave me a heads-up about your grandma’s surgery. I’ll take care of everything. Text me that list of yours, and I’ll ensure everything is suitable .”
I blink. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, but I can hear him smiling. No, not smiling. Smirking . “Just get yourself up here, Alice. Something tells me you need some time at the lake more than I do.”
The hammering resumes in the background, and Charlie curses.
“See you soon, City Girl.”
And then he’s gone.
The evening before Nan and I leave, I go back to my condo to pack. When the elevator opens at my floor, I find the cardboard box I left in the hallway still sitting there. Trevor keeps making plans to pick up his stuff and then canceling. The remains of a four-year relationship come down to a copy of The Minimalist Entrepreneur , wireless headphones, and a stray dress sock. I nudge the box inside with my foot, though I’d rather shove it down the garbage chute.
Not that it would help me forget. Every corner of this place smacks of Trevor. When he moved in, we appointed it in whites and beiges, marble and glass, everything sleek and minimal. It never used to feel so hollow—it used to feel like home. Now everything is a reminder of how much I conceded to him. The pristine white sofa we bought one Sunday after brunch—I wanted something soft and smooshy, but Trevor loved its clean lines. The Carrara tulip dining table with the uncomfortable chairs he picked out. It’s where I was sitting when he broke up with me. He’d made dinner that night. It was six months ago, and I can still smell the coq au vin—I’ll never eat it again.
I don’t know how to make you happy, Alice. Do you?
I’ve just zipped my suitcase when the buzzer trills. Heather arrives in a cloud of strong perfume and carrying a suspicious orange paper bag that she shoves at me.
“For you.”
Heather calls shopping her unguilty pleasure, and she’s always buying me clothes. The back of my closet is stuffed with bandage dresses and low-cut blouses, courtesy of my big sister.
I peer inside the bag, pushing aside the tissue paper to reveal emerald silk. “What is this?”
“Don’t look so disgusted. It’s a dress.”
I pull it out and raise a brow. “It’s a tiny dress.”
“Minuscule.” Heather grins, and it’s like a camera flash. My sister has always been beautiful, but her smile is so radiant it’s almost startling. “Green’s your color, Turtle, and if you don’t put it in your suitcase, I will.”
One of the ways I revolt against my red hair is to never wear green. Most of my clothes are neutral, with a few hints of blue. A rare splash of yellow. I set the bag on the counter, promising nothing.
Heather and I have identical hazel eyes, but our similarities stop there. Heather’s an unrepentant show-off; I prefer going unnoticed. She has our dad’s height, confidence, and coffee-brown hair, which she wears in a sharp-angled bob—part of her courtroom intimidation tactics. I get my library-soft voice and auburn curls from our mom. Heather’s the rebel; I’m the good girl. She’s impulsive; I’m a planner. And, unlike me, she’s completely uninhibited.
Both she and Dad are showboats. Luca and Lavinia are the same. At the last family get-together, my baby brother stripped off his shirt at the table to display a tattoo of a lion, a turtle, a flamingo, and a monkey across his chest, and Lavinia handed out invitations to her Muppets-themed burlesque.
I always thought I took after our levelheaded mom. But in December, when the ink had barely dried on the divorce papers, she moved across the country to British Columbia. We’d grown up hearing stories about the season she spent picking and packing cherries in the Okanagan Valley in the late eighties. The old VW van. A friend named Cinnamon. Camping in the fields. That version of Mom seemed as far-fetched as bedtime fairy tales. That is, until she announced she’d reconnected with Cinnamon and was going to work at a biodynamic vineyard in Kelowna. Our homemaker, homebody mother now lives two thousand miles away, pouring glasses of pinot noir and viognier in a tasting room overlooking Okanagan Lake.
“How’s my niece?” I ask my sister.
Heather got married young. Became pregnant young. Got divorced young, too. I lived with her for a couple of years after the split, when my niece was just a baby. Heather was determined to tackle both law school and a newborn. Bennett is thirteen now.
“Don’t use my daughter as a distraction technique,” she says, marching to my bedroom with the shopping bag. I hear her open my suitcase. “I’ll need photo evidence of you wearing it,” she calls.
I scowl at her when she returns.
“What? You’ll look hot in that dress.”
“Nan will be so appreciative.”
Heather squeezes my waist, which is currently covered by a white-and-blue-striped nightshirt, and I swat her hands away.
“What are you doing?”
“Just checking to make sure there’s a body under all that cotton. I’d forgotten.”
“Ha. Ha.”
A line appears between her dark brows. “I’m serious. Don’t let yourself disappear just because Trevor’s gone.”
I flinch at my ex’s name, then silently berate myself for being fragile. I wonder if it would be easier if he hadn’t moved on so quickly.
Heather’s face softens. “Show that dress a good time, Ali. You both deserve it.”
“We’ll see.”
She looks at me like I’m hopeless, then kisses my cheek. “I’ve got to go. Bennett’s at a friend’s tonight, and I’m meeting someone.”
“Which one?”
Heather’s too busy to date, but she has a short roster of friends with benefits.
“He’s new. Just in the city for a night.”
“Ah.”
It’s another way Heather and I differ: I’ve never slept with someone I don’t love. I can’t fathom having a one-night stand. But since I have no intention of throwing myself into another relationship for a long time, if ever, I may need to rethink my strategy.
“That sounded like a very judgy ah ,” Heather says.
“No judgment. Only reasonable sisterly concern. Be careful, okay?”
“Always.” Heather wraps her arms around me, guaranteeing I’ll smell like vetiver for the rest of the night. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“In just a few weeks.” She’s bringing Bennett to the cottage to spend a week with Nan and me. I can’t wait. Three generations of Everly women under one roof is my idea of heaven.
“And you’re coming back to the city for the show, right?” she asks.
I wince.
Elyse is about to open a gallery on Davenport, and In (Her) Camera is her first exhibition—it’s also the first major show I’ve been asked to participate in. It was a pinch-me moment: my former photography instructor, a woman I worship, wanting to represent me. Then she told me which photo she wanted to display, and I felt ill. But how could I say no when everyone knows that Elyse Cho has impeccable taste? It’s been many years since she was my teacher, but I have yet to find equal footing in our friendship. I still see her as my superior in all ways.
“We’ll see,” I tell Heather. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to swing it.”
A perk of heading north for the summer is that I have a good reason to avoid the opening night party.
“Turtle,” Heather says. “You have to come back.”
“Sure,” I say, ushering her to the door. “Love you, Lion.”
“Love you more.”
When she’s gone, I open the photos from the swimwear shoot on my laptop. They’re due tomorrow, and I’ve already edited them. Twice. In one version, the women have been “smoothed” the way Willa wants. In the other, I’ve removed a few pimples and tidied the flyaways, but I haven’t touched the cellulite.
I love photography. I’ve been shooting professionally for more than ten years, and I feel lucky to earn a living this way. But I thought if I proved myself, I’d reach the point where I’d be working to achieve my own vision, not someone else’s. That’s why I took this assignment. Like most magazines, Swish doesn’t have the big budgets that come with ad campaigns—Willa promised they’d make up for it by giving contributors more creative runway.
I think about what Elyse would do. She understands the realities of collaborating with photo editors, but she respects artistic vision. I sigh and shut my laptop. I still have one more day to decide which photos I’m going to send.
My phone vibrates with a text.
Charlie: Everything’s ready for you, City Girl. Keys are in the outhouse.
City Girl ? I may not be prepared to take a stand with my work, but I can do something about that .
Me: Thank you.
Me: But for the record, my name is Alice Everly.
Charlie: Noted. I look forward to meeting you, Alice Everly.