Chapter Eight #2
“So, you’re working at the theatre camp?”
My face burned. “I had a break in my schedule. Thought it would be good to go back to basics, you know, spend some time in
nature, gather up some things to write about.”
“Oh, I wasn’t judging. I’m just surprised you and Ben get along. He’s so different from you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re an artist, and like, a really kind person. Sometimes when I have to make an ethical decision, I think back to you,
wonder what you might do. You know? You had a great moral compass. And Ben is kind of . . . shifty.”
“Shifty?”
“I shouldn’t talk shit. Sorry.”
“I’m flattered you thought I was an ethical person when we were young. That’s so interesting. I just—didn’t think you’d be the one to throw stones on the shifty front, you know, glass houses and all.”
He looked down. I didn’t mean to be so harsh. It wasn’t as satisfying as it had been in my daydreams. Perhaps it was weird
to care. I’d been nineteen, him twenty, almost twelve years ago. Maybe it was pathetic to still be mad. Still, I waited ten
long seconds for an apology, an explanation. None came.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as I often do when I’m hoping others will say it back. “I know that it was so long ago, and we were young.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Now he was the one backing away. Shit.
“Anyway, I hear my phone,” I lied, and literally ran back into the cottage. I wanted to be the one to leave first.
Real smooth. Something a nineteen-year-old with no social skills would do.
I showered. It felt like the deepest place inside the cottage where I could close the door and be the furthest away from Buckeye.
The water smelled funny. The water pressure was limp. There was no shampoo. I used the hand soap from the sink as a body wash.
There was no label to describe what it was supposed to smell like it but it filled the room with eau de melted Christmas candle.
I leaned against the shower wall trying not to panic.
I’d spent years hoping to run into him, and now there he was, and I wished he would evaporate.
It felt like a real lesson in “be careful what you wish for.” I stood there until the water ran cold.
When I got out of the shower, I wrapped the towel around me tightly.
I sat on the edge of the unmade bed, frozen, running my palms against the soft terry cloth.
Eventually, a few minutes, maybe even half an hour later, I got dressed in the one remaining outfit in my suitcase that was still clean.
I could go back to the city and get all my things today, or I could wait until the end of the week.
I could go to the laundromat, maybe the thrift store for a sweater.
I looked out the window. Buckeye was still working in the yard.
I shrunk away as though I were a vampire afraid of the sun.
I answered every outstanding email. I paid bills. I checked Facebook for the first time in months. I went deep on Ben’s Instagram
looking for evidence of girlfriends past. No clues, beyond the occasional arm around someone at a film premiere. Eventually,
I would have to re-emerge. I half expected him to knock, but the sound of his sawing and hammering away was ongoing, with
Rush at a much lower volume. Maybe he was trying to work quickly to avoid further awkwardness. After all, he was the reason
we didn’t know each other anymore.
By 11 a.m., I ran out of things to look at on my phone. If I didn’t get coffee, I would kill someone. Plus I needed groceries,
shampoo, all the things that keep life moving forward. I paid a little more attention to my skincare routine, added a neutral
pink, a highlighted cheekbone, some concealer, all things I wouldn’t have done to dash out for groceries in the city. I popped
on my sandals with the slight heel I’d brought for the parties. Stop avoiding uncomfortable feelings! That’s what Marlon yelled at me whenever I was chickenshit. Stop expressing every single feeling you ever have! I’d counter. But his way of being was better, I had to admit.
I paused at the door, trying to come up with a strategy.
I’d always been like this. Worrying about other people before thinking of my own feelings and whether or not someone else’s behaviour is bothering me.
I felt irritated when I walked out the door, not looking at him, now staining some wood.
I just charged ahead. I got in the car. We could just be awkward neighbours.
I had objectives this summer. Maybe him being around, being an ordinary human who plays corny nationalistic music and doesn’t apologize, would heal the heartbreak that had stubbornly attached to me like a barnacle for years.
Yes, I decided, accelerating up the hill, this is why we ended up here.
So that I could move on. And find love. Purpose.
Another way to live without any old hauntings bogging me down.
I drove down Main Street in Picton slowly, looking at all the bucolic shops and restaurants. I could become a regular somewhere.
I might meet new friends. I felt romantic about real small towns, places where you had to drive through lush forest canopies
on winding dirt roads, pausing beside farmers’ fields to say hello to white and brown cows huddled in hayfields, just to get
to town limits. I wondered how long it would take someone to feel like they knew everyone here. There is something soothing
about the anonymity of the city, and then the small communities you make at your workplace, in your apartment building, the
bus you take every day, or the block where you live. Does a small town just feel a bit like that every time you go anywhere?
I pulled over and dipped into a little café called the Beacon. A chalk sign outside read Life Without Coffee? Depresso. My headache agreed. I ordered some local coffee beans called Cherry Bomb and a triple latte the size of my head. I eavesdropped
on the people in line after me while I waited for my drink: a smartly dressed white woman with a Paris Review tote bag, an Asian mom in yoga pants with a toddler, an older man in a Lycra bicycling outfit. Tourists were here in full
force now. Foodland was packed. Farm stand was open again. Going to hit the beach before the crowds make that impossible. I scanned the bulletin board—lots of local theatre productions, a poetry reading at the bookstore, many art shows. There
were a few people working on laptops scattered about. I might have been in a city café, except the pace was slower; there
was an ease in the air.
I sat outside with my coffee, people watching and befriending several large, curious poodles.
As I pushed several frozen veggie burgers across the conveyer belt at the grocery store, I realized that I didn’t have a stove.
Not yet. I’d have to live on salads and cheese in the meantime, I guess.
I tried to picture the cabin’s kitchen—was there a microwave?
A toaster? I couldn’t remember. I’d been so distracted by Ben’s kiss, and then Buckeye this morning, that I felt like I’d just been floating around, ungrounded.
I bought some cans of wet cat food for Okanagan and some extra carrots for the horses.
I ducked into the thrift store and bought a pair of cut-off jean shorts, two hoodies, and a knee-length white cotton nightgown with lace trim that felt very Downton Abbey in a fun way.
At the pharmacy I stared at the brands of shampoo, picking up a pink bottle of Pantene, the brand I used to use as a teenager.
Why not smell like Goldy again? I flicked open the top and inhaled. If I used it every day, would the sense memory lose its power? I placed it next to a
triple pack of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint bar soap. In front of the sunscreen display, frozen again. What would I do if Buckeye
simply never acknowledged what he did? I suppose it would mean I’d have to let go and just accept it. And then be cordial
neighbours in the forest for the summer? This seemed impossible. Usually when something insane happened, like the coincidence
of your first love ending up in the forest with you for a summer, I would text Kate or Marlon immediately. But this was almost
too weird. Not something I could text. It deserved, at the very least, a voice memo.
I popped the top off the most expensive sunscreen brand to sniff it—pleasant, high-end coconut—and when I pulled it away,
I was awash in the smell my mother’s perfume. Unmistakable. L’Air du Temps. I looked around: I was alone in the shampoo aisle.
Was I hallucinating it? Maybe having a seizure? I peeked out into the main aisle and saw a woman about my mother’s size and
shape, ducking around the corner of the cosmetics aisle.
That can’t be her. I walked in that direction, was waylaid by a mom with three kids and a shopping cart slowly making her way in the opposite direction, and by the time I got to the front of the store, the woman was gone.
I put my things down on the self-checkout.
I walked quickly through the double doors, peering out into the parking lot.
No mom-like lady. I was clearly feeling the weight of my new responsibility to her.
I went back inside, paid, and then stood outside, reluctantly sending her a text.
Hey, did you get your dress for the wedding yet?
Thought about a present? We should touch base.
The last text I’d sent her was three full months earlier, about Katie’s birthday.
We communicated like divorced co-parents.
Thinking of my promise to Sarah, I pressed send.