Day Forty-One Sober #2
“I’ve not abandoned anybody. Anyone I left behind was quite happy to see me go.”
“I can’t imagine that,” Marly said.
I thought she was being sarcastic, but she wasn’t, apparently.
“You think you’re such a piece of shit, don’t you?” she said. “Well, you’re not. I don’t hang out with shitty men. And I like hanging out with you.”
“I don’t exactly think I’m a piece of shit”—anymore—“but I do think I have a tendency to drag people down.” I couldn’t look at her as I spoke.
“I like hanging out with you, too, but…you might not like me so much when you get to know me better, that’s all.
When I’m depressed, for instance, I’m pretty hard work. ”
“Oh, so you’re trying to keep us all at a distance for our own good!
” She pointed at me as we both stood, reaching for our bikes again.
“Very thoughtful. Very silly. I’m a grown-up girl, Jones, I can look after my own emotions, thank you.
So can Charlie, by the way, in case you’ve been wondering.
And for what it’s worth, you’re absolutely terrible at shutting people out, so stop trying to be something you’re not. ”
She had to raise her voice for that last part—I was riding again, and she was chasing me down.
I thought of how hard I’d been on Charlie for being fake when she got here and winced, because Marly was probably right.
I’ve been pretending to be something I’m not, too.
Maybe it’s time to accept that I’m a really bad hermit.
I like people. I like connecting with people. And if they’re willing to hang out with me and let me into their lives, well, maybe I should let them decide that for themselves.
We headed for Windward Ridge. The sky was gray, and the bracken on the cliffs around us was turning rusty orange.
I could feel the season shifting. As I reached the ridge path, I spotted a group of figures walking slowly across the bay to our left and slowed to take a closer look.
I could see Galoshes’s pink hair, and Kim the sheep farmer’s habitual cowboy hat.
Marly came up beside me, dropping one foot to the ground. “Huh,” she said. “That’s the whole shop committee down there.”
She was already leaning her bike against the railings and heading for the steps to the beach below.
I followed her down the narrow steps cut in the side of the rock.
We made it safely to the bottom and picked our way across the sand toward the committee members.
Kim spotted us first, and nudged Galoshes.
“How are you going, you lot?” Marly called as we approached.
There was a definite response to our presence, but it was hard to say exactly what that was. Awkwardness? Alarm? Galoshes greeted us first, and then Karyn said, “Look, it’s not a coup, or anything.”
“Karyn!” Galoshes said.
“What! You know they were thinking it.”
“I wasn’t thinking it,” Marly said. “But I’m glad to hear it all the same.”
“Told you we should have met in the old pirate cave,” Kim muttered.
“I’m not hiding out in a cave,” Galoshes snapped. “We’ve nothing to be ashamed of. Just a group of locals getting together, doesn’t have to be official, we’re just ‘hanging out.’ ”
The heavy air quotes around hanging out did not reduce my suspicions.
“If you guys have concerns,” I said, “Charlie and I would love to hear them.”
“That’s balderdash and you know it,” Galoshes said. “You don’t want to hear from us. You’d plow on with everything without committee sign-off if you were allowed. I’m just updating the committee, as is my right.”
“Nobody is trying to impinge on your rights, Galoshes,” Marly said, sounding slightly weary.
This all needed dialing down a notch. I did my best to project calm.
“Galoshes,” I said, “can I speak with you privately, please?”
She narrowed her eyes, and then, after a moment, turned on her fellow committee members.
“Well, off you go,” she said, swatting them away with both hands.
They scattered. Marly went with Jerry, murmuring something about needing to discuss a calf, so it was just me and Galoshes on the beach. We began pacing slowly across the sand, following the committee’s footsteps. It’s always easier to talk while walking.
“What do you need from us, Galoshes?” I asked.
Her expression was full of suspicion. “I don’t need anything from you,” she said.
“To make you feel comfortable with the changes at the shop, I mean.”
“It’s not about feeling comfortable. It’s about what this place is, and what people like you want to make it.”
There was a lot to unpack there.
“What do you think I want to make it?” I settled on after a moment.
“Posh. Expensive. A café that sells a few local bits. Not a proper shop for the community. A gimmick for the tourists instead.”
“You’re right—we are trying to draw in more tourists. So are most of the business owners on this island, Galoshes—tourism is the key industry here.”
“You think I’m stupid? Of course I know that.
But there are some places that are ours here.
You’d get it if you’d grown up on the island.
There’s the Ormer the day visitors see—Windward Ridge, the bathing pools on Little Ormer, Karyn’s chocolate shop.
Then there’s the real Ormer. The Ormer that’s still here out of season.
The cliff paths without signposts, the ones whose names are in old Ormerese and not written down nowhere.
The bays no tourist’ll ever find. The old Ormer families, like the Nicoles—good people, island people, community people.
The shop was part of that world. And you’re turning it into the other thing. ”
For the first time, I considered the possibility that Galoshes wasn’t just being obstructive because she didn’t like change.
I allowed myself to wonder whether on some level, she might be being obstructive because she wanted to protect something important.
We were turning the shop into “the other thing”—at least a little.
And maybe that would make us easy profit and ensure we could both stay on as comanagers, but was it right?
“I hear you,” I said. “Let me think on that.”
Marly wandered back over in time to catch Galoshes’s surprised expression.
“All friends over here?” she said.
“I’ve always been friends with Jones,” Galoshes said.
I laughed.
“What! I have. I’ve always been nice to you.”
“You’ve been civil to me. I’ll give you that. But not to Charlie.”
“I’m nice to Charlie.”
“You’re not nice to Charlie.”
“Fine, I’m not. But she’s…” Galoshes pulled a disapproving face. “There’s something about her—she’s not telling us something, I’d bet my cat on it. And she’s too much. With all her pumpkin decorations and her trendy clothes and her airs and graces.”
“When people say women are too much,” Marly said, “it usually means they’re intimidated.”
“They mean that if they say it about you, because you are bloody intimidating,” Galoshes told her.
“Charlie’s got lots of ideas, and she’s driven. People like her, too. The committee might all vote with you out of loyalty, Galoshes, but I’ll tell you now, she’s won at least half of their hearts already. She’s good at this job,” I said.
“You’re being very nice about your competition.”
“She’s my teammate. Not my competition.”
“We’ll see,” Galoshes said. “I’d watch your back, Jones. Say what you like—I don’t trust her.”
I do trust her, actually. And I really don’t want to be watching my back. I want to trust Charlie. I’m choosing to. I’d rather be a hopeful dupe than the bitter, lonely man I became back home.
Bye for now,
Charlie Jones