Chapter 12
12
Read a smutty book. Number three.
Of all the people to have seen my silly list, it had to be Charlie. I throw my notebook onto the bed and pick up the Barry’s Bay T-shirt to take it to the laundry. I lift it to my nose without really thinking, and Nan catches me.
“It smells weird,” I tell her, and she gives me a knowing look.
I try to push Charlie out of my head, but Nan spends the entire evening gushing about him.
So handsome. Charming, in a devilish sort of way. Reminds me of Robert Redford in The Way We Were. And those arms!
She’s chattier than she’s been since we arrived. When she retires to her bedroom for the night, I go down a highly unadvisable vortex of vintage Robert Redford photos. My mind keeps drifting back to the moment on the dock, when Charlie turned to me and said, “If you don’t want me to come, Alice, just say so.” It’s the way he looked at me, the way he knew what I was thinking.
Shaking my head as if I can knock him out of it, I text Luca and Lavinia.
Me: I’m going to throw a little party while you’re here.
Luca: Who is this?
Lavinia: Why have you stolen my sister’s phone?
Luca: You can’t fool us, scammer. Ali hates parties.
After ten minutes of razzing, the twins settle down. They promise to bake a cake. We’ll eat the leftovers for breakfast, the way Mom always let us when we were kids. Luca has already started a playlist. Lavinia is on wardrobe. I’m on decorations.
Sequins , Lavinia texts now.
Feathers , Luca replies.
Glitter , I write back. Like Heather used to wear. Number fourteen.
With some reluctance, I fill in the twins on Charlie.
Me: It’ll be the four of us plus the guy who’s looking after the cottage.
Luca: Is he hot?
Lavinia: Is he single?
Luca: Send us a photo immediately.
Lavinia: Do they have internet up there?
Luca: What’s his name?
Lavinia: What’s his star sign?
Me: Very. I think so. Don’t have one. Obviously. Charlie. Don’t know but big Leo energy.
Lavinia: Swoon.
Luca: Dibs.
Me: Calm down. He’s kind of a jerk.
I press send on the last one, and then I feel bad. Charlie’s arrogant, but he isn’t a jerk.
Luca: So why is he invited?
Lavinia: OMG! Are you trying to keep us away from him??!!
Luca: You LIKE him!
Lavinia: You TOTALLY like him.
Two minutes later I have a call from Heather, demanding I fill her in on the “lake babe.”
“I can’t figure him out,” I tell her after recapping my boating disaster.
“I bet that’s driving you crazy.”
It is. I keep inspecting the few pieces of information I know about him, holding each facet to the light, trying to make discordant pieces fit together.
“He’s completely full of himself,” I tell Heather. “But he’s charming. He saved me today and went out of his way to get the cottage ready.” I think of the way he spoke about his niece or nephew. “I have a feeling the bravado could be a front.”
“Sounds like he has issues.”
“Totally,” I say, chewing on a nail.
Heather makes a short mmm sound, which means she’s also thinking.
“Nan liked him,” I add.
“Did she? Well, she’s a good judge.” She pauses. “A ripped cottage hottie who daylights as a trader…that’s not your usual type.”
“Oh, definitely not. I am not going there.”
“But, Ali, your usual type hasn’t really worked for you. Trevor—”
I cut her off. “I’m not interested in any type right now.”
She ignores me. “You are a giver, and Trevor was a taker. You put all that work into his business, and he took it for granted.”
Trevor has a small but successful letterpress company. When we started dating, I began shooting all his product samples and social media content. When things were busy, I helped mail out orders. I adjusted my own work schedule so I could man the booth with him at trade shows and referred my bridal clients to him. I pride myself on being a solid friend, a helpful sister, the good daughter. But for the man I loved? I would have done anything.
“And despite what you say,” Heather continues, “you do have a type.”
I brace myself because there’s no stopping her once she’s made her opening argument.
“Ever since Oz, you’ve been with these tidy, quiet sweater-vest guys.”
Oz is one of those people who showed up at university on the first day fully formed, from the way he shot to the way he dressed. Ripped jeans. Plaid flannels. A pierced eyebrow. He played bass in a band and shot gritty, unflinching images of urban life. He was a great photographer. He still is.
“But just because they don’t have tattoos, doesn’t mean they’re any different,” Heather goes on.
But Oz was different. He paid attention to me and my work in a way nobody ever had. By second year, we were inseparable, using the darkroom together and watching docs in his Kensington Market apartment. I went to all his gigs. His family lived in Winnipeg, so he spent Thanksgivings and Easters with the Everlys. And I was secretly madly in love with him. There were so many fleeting moments where he’d look at me with affection, or when he told me no one understood him like I did, that I almost confessed. But I never managed it. Until that night in August.
It was the summer after graduation. Oz convinced me to come to a DJ night in a cramped, makeshift venue above a furniture store. We were dancing, and then his hands were on my hips, and then on my backside, and then we were kissing. When he was above me later that night, I thought my heart might split wide open. It was my first time, and it was with my best friend, the man I’d loved for years in silence.
Maybe things would have been different if I’d told Oz I’d never had sex. Maybe he wouldn’t have slept with me. Maybe we’d still be close. When I asked the next morning when we should tell our friends about us, he looked confused, then remorseful. He told me he didn’t see us as a couple, that it had been a onetime thing. I couldn’t help it: I cried an entire river of tears while he held me. When I left his apartment, I told him I’d be okay, but I stopped returning his texts. I cut Oz out of my life.
“Ali, are you listening to me?” Heather asks.
I hum.
“I was saying that you need someone who supports you in the same way you support them. You need someone who gives as much as they get.”
“I don’t need anyone.”
“You know what else I think?” my sister asks.
“That honeydew is the superior melon?” (Ew.)
“Obviously. You could use some bravado in your life.”
I frown. “Meaning?”
“Make out with Charlie in his fast boat. Slather some sunscreen on those pectorals. Fool around in the boathouse.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Ugh. You’re hopeless. Then I’ll come make out with him.”
“You don’t date.”
“But I do have sex. Unlike you.”
“Anyway,” I grumble. “New subject.”
“Fine. What are the details of your opening night? I need to clear my calendar and book us hair appointments. We should probably get our makeup done, too.”
I shouldn’t have told my sister about the show. She won’t shut up about it.
“I’m not going,” I say. “I’ll be up here with Nan. She needs me here.”
“Oh please.”
“Just drop it,” I say, though Heather won’t be satisfied until I’m standing in Elyse Cho Gallery, sweating through my cocktail dress.
“I will not drop it. So it’s not your favorite photo. Who cares? This is a big deal, Ali. It’s the gallery’s inaugural exhibition—there’s going to be a ton of press.”
“I care, and I’m not like you. I don’t love the spotlight in the same way.”
Lavinia is the actor, but all the Everlys crave attention. My father and Heather find it in the courtroom. Lavinia onstage. Luca behind the bar. My mom is more like me. We’re the reserved ones, the introverts.
“I do not love the spotlight.”
“Heather.”
“The show could open a whole new world for you,” she says. “You’re always talking about how you want to shoot artier stuff. This is an opportunity to get in front of rich people who need arty shit for their walls.”
“Arty shit?” What I don’t say is that I think I’ve made a big mistake. If people like the photo, I’m afraid Elyse will want more like it, and that buyers will, too. I’m afraid I won’t be able to say no, that I’ll find myself on the wrong road, unable to find my way back.
“I mean it as a compliment,” Heather says, then sighs. “I think you should put on your big-girl panties and one of your boring black jumpsuits, and just do it,” she says. “And Charlie while you’re at it.”
Before I turn in for the night, I scroll through the photos I’ve snapped on my phone to see if there’s anything worth sharing.
The best thing I’ve taken is a shot of Nan, looking out the window, her hands gripping either side of her walker. But I know she wouldn’t want me to post it—she hates that she needs help. There’s one of my feet in the water that I took on the island earlier today. The ripples on the surface have an interesting geometry. The tones look almost black and white. You can just make out my hair in the reflection of the lake, but you can’t see my face.
I apply my go-to filters and post it with a brief caption. Lake, June 2025 . I label all my photos this way. The subject, the month, the year. I do a quick scroll of my notifications before I shut my phone off for the night, but there’s one from an hour ago that makes my heart skip.
charlesflorek started following you