Chapter 17
17
Tuesday, July 1
62 Days Left at the Lake
Adrumroll of thunder and a string of texts from the twins greet me in the morning. They’ve sent them all after two a.m.
Luca: I’m so sorry, Ali. I have to pick up a shift tomorrow night. Or I guess tonight? One of the bartenders walked out, and I kind of need the cash.
Lavinia: I wish I could come. But I’m not comfortable driving all that way on my own. Plus we’re really tight right now.
Luca: We’ll make it up to you!
Lavinia: YES! As soon as you’re back in the city!
Luca: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Lavinia: We loooove you!
Luca: You are sooooo old!
Lavinia: But never as old as Heather!
I stare at my phone in my storm-darkened bedroom. I should have guessed. Luca is notoriously unreliable, and Lavinia accepts it. We all do. You try looking at his face and being annoyed—it’s like trying to stay mad at a puppy. And even though I’m disappointed, I transfer them $500. I don’t want them eating Mr. Noodles for a month straight again.
Lightning flashes, and I shut the window. The lake, the sky, the shore—it’s all gray. Even the raincoat yellow of Charlie’s boat is muted in the murk.
Nan is asleep, so I fix myself coffee and eggs and take them out to the screened porch to watch the storm, nestled under a blanket. Rain dapples the lake’s surface, but it’s not falling heavily. We’ve already had a good soaking—the flowers in the window box look like they’ve been tromped on by garden gnomes. The Pegasus-unicorn has been tossed onto the dock.
The party supplies I bought in town yesterday are stashed in the far corner, so they aren’t in Nan’s way. Pink balloons. Multi-colored streamers. Plastic tiaras. Glitter face gel and nail polish. My Sweet Thirty-Three was going to be the opposite of the dinner parties Trevor and I threw, when we spent our entire Saturday shopping and cooking. We used beautiful linens and plates and serving dishes, all in shades of cream and taupe, and there’d be a stunning arrangement from a flower shop in Leslieville. The lighting was immaculately dimmed. The music was classical. The candles flickered all night. Everything was just so. This birthday was supposed to be girlie and tacky and unpretentious. I wanted to see my younger siblings. I wanted them to want to spend a few days here with me. I wanted cake.
A memory surfaces from my seventeenth birthday. I was sitting on the dock with my diary, watching that yellow boat roar around the bay. I felt aimless. I had no idea what my future might look like. I remember writing, Today I am seventeen, but sometimes I wonder if I even exist. That evening, over slices of chocolate cake, Nan gave me a camera.
It was my starting line, the beginning of finding myself, my purpose, my place in the world, separate from my big sister and my parents. With a camera slung over my shoulder, dreams began to fill my head.
My phone rings, and my mother’s voice fills my ear. She doesn’t say hello; she just starts singing. A drop of liquid slides down my cheek. Mom has called to sing “Happy Birthday” every year since I left home.
“I miss you,” I tell her when she’s done. I haven’t seen her since I visited her in BC three months ago, and I hate calling. The three-hour time difference makes it so that when I’m done with work, she’s in the middle of her day. I don’t want to bother her. After the twins were born, she was in perpetual motion, but she still shuttled Heather and me to piano lessons and soccer games, made all our Halloween costumes, checked over our homework. Every night, after the twins were asleep, she had “big-girl time” with Heather and me. Sometimes we read, sometimes we watched TV—it didn’t matter what we did, it was always the best part of the day. I have no idea when she found time for herself. I figure she deserves that now.
“I miss you, too, honey.”
“You’re up extremely early.”
“Yoga,” she says.
The yoga is one of the many changes I tracked when I visited her in March. She’d chopped off her hair and let it go gray. There were no cardigans in her closet. No tennis whites. She wore chambray shirts to work and marshy green athleisure in her downtime. Her friends at the winery called her Meesh. She seemed more content, more at ease. But the mom I grew up with was gone. She’s Meesh Dale now, not Michelle Everly.
“I’m sorry the twins won’t be there to celebrate with you,” she says.
“Me too.”
Mom made every birthday special when we were kids, baking cakes from scratch and letting us eat leftover slices for breakfast the next day. I sniffle, then wipe my face and push the hurt away.
“You hanging in okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay. I’ve got Nan.”
“And cake?”
“Luca and Lavinia were supposed to bring the cake.”
She laughs, and I know exactly what she’s going to say next. “Never trust the twins with cake.”
A smile forms on my lips. “How could I forget?”
Luca and Lavinia will never live down their fourth birthday party, when they were discovered up to their elbows in Mom’s homemade Dora the Explorer cake before the guests arrived. I washed the twins off with a hose in the backyard while Mom tried to salvage what was left of Dora and Diego.
Mom sighs. “Thirty-three. How is that possible?”
“I really don’t know,” I tell her. It’s been sixteen years since I was last at the lake, but it’s almost like no time has passed. “Right now, I don’t feel thirty-three at all.”
The rain settles into a gauzy drizzle after we hang up, but as I watch the silver lake in silence, I decide I need to do something to shake off the lingering gloom.
When I need to clear my mind in the city, I run. I run until my thighs ache and my lungs burn and all I can focus on is putting one foot in front of the other. But I kind of hate it. I want to be enveloped by the trees and the mist, but I don’t have the energy for even a slow jog, so I put on my coziest clothes and head down Bare Rock Lane, deeper into the bush, focusing on the moist air kissing my cheeks.
I pass a gravel driveway with a wooden sign nailed to a tree. Florek . I keep going until I hear the rush of a stream. I follow it into the bush, where a narrow path of wet leaves trails beside it. Here, the rocks are covered with deep green moss. Yellow-capped mushrooms grow at their bases. I trod through the forest, following the twists of the water deeper and deeper until I hear the snap of twigs somewhere to my left, and fearing a bear, I start singing the first song that comes to mind. I belt out “Dancing Queen” as loud as I can as I weave my way back to the road, half panicking and half laughing at myself.
As I return to the cottage, I have a moment of clarity: I’m going to bake myself a cake. Nan and I will eat it tonight, and then I will eat it again for breakfast tomorrow, just like I did when I was a kid.
Mercifully, the grocery store is open on Canada Day. The rain must have lured people away from the lakes, because it’s packed. I’m surveying the baking section, holding a box of Funfetti cake mix in one hand and devil’s food in the other, when I see someone approach in my periphery. I take a step to the side to give them space.
“Isn’t it kind of sad to bake your own birthday cake?”
I jump at the sound of a deep voice next to my shoulder. Charlie looks like he’s just woken up. His hair is a little smooshed on one side, and his stubble has grown overnight.
“You scared me.” I shove his shoulder but end up pushing myself back. He’s that solid.
Charlie is dressed in a white crewneck sweatshirt with forest-green bands around the neck and sleeves, and—my eyes drop down the length of him—loose jersey pants. “Are those your pajamas?”
“No.” His eyes glow with wicked intent. “I sleep naked.”
“Of course you do.”
“I thought your brother and sister were on cake duty.” He looks up and down the aisle. “Or are they here, too?”
“No. They had to cancel. I’m not going to do the whole party thing.”
“Are you uninviting me?”
“There’s nothing to invite you to.”
He eyes the boxes of cake mix.
“It would just be the three of us,” I say.
“Three’s plenty. You should see what I can do with just two people.” He lifts his eyebrows, and I struggle to keep a straight face.
“I’ll leave you and Nan to it, then.”
“I should be so lucky.”
Charlie takes the boxes from my hands and sets them back on the shelf.
“Hey,” I protest.
“You’re not making your own cake. It’s too bleak.”
“Then who’s going to do it?”
He stares down at me.
“Not you.”
“Yes, me.”
“You’re not serious.” I look him over. “You can’t bake.”
“Oh, I can bake.” Charlie takes a step closer. He bends down to my eye level and lowers his voice. “I can bake all night .”
A laugh bubbles up in my throat and past my lips before I manage to school my features. I lean toward Charlie, our noses inches apart. His gaze narrows on me.
“I don’t believe you,” I say slowly. “I think when it comes down to it, you’re all talk, no bake.”
His eyes shine. “I’m going to a bake you a cake so good you’ll be ruined for all other cakes.”
“Prove.” I prod a finger into his chest, and sweet hell, it’s like poking a steel door. “It.”
“Done. I’ll see you tonight.” He turns and begins walking down the aisle.
“Charlie, wait.”
He pauses and looks back over his shoulder.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I love defying expectations, and you, Alice Everly, seem to have a lot of them.”