Chapter 23
VIOLET
FINN AND I SPEND A lot of time by the water, the long summer days melting together, and suddenly more than a week has slipped away.
We don’t take any more long road trips, but we get up each morning and swim together in the lake. More times than not, Rose and Alba join us, occasionally with some of the other guests staying at the bed and breakfast.
Since Alistair—who works as a police officer—has a schedule that’s a bit more sporadic, he and Finn spend the mornings he isn’t working riding bikes up along the trails in the hills nearby. They take their mother to Iona for lunch one afternoon.
And while Finn spends quality time with his family, I bounce between visiting with my two friends.
I spend a day with Florence at her bakery, and she shows me the designs for her wedding cake.
I tried to tell her you probably shouldn’t make your own wedding cake, but she wasn’t having any of it.
That afternoon, she bakes a chocolate cake with something called boiled icing, which tastes like melted marshmallows, and after dinner I take the rest of it back to my cabin like the dessert goblin I am.
Florence brings me, Alba, and Alistair’s mom for the final fitting of her wedding dress.
It’s a thin-strapped A-line dress, with a low back and a deep V-neck in the front.
There’s an overlay with tiny flowers, giving it an almost whimsical, beachy vibe.
It’s made a hundred times more ethereal by my beautiful, beaming friend.
The four of us go out for lunch and they tour Eileen and I around Sydney, walking along the boardwalk near the harbour and stopping to take pictures with the giant fiddle.
I buy a postcard for my Nan and we stop at the Christmas Island post office to get a special stamp before mailing it.
Florence tells me that this is where her mom worked for most of her life, and in December, they get mail here from all around the world, just to get that stamp.
This morning, Rose, who does social media for a local florist shop, was up early to get to a big event a few hours out of town, so I didn’t see her before she left. Alba spent the first part of the day doing a few housekeeping things around the bed and breakfast while I lounged by the dock.
Now, the two of us are lying in the grass in front of her house, making daisy chains.
Are you all set for tomorrow?
Alistair and Florence are having a joint bachelor-bachelorette party. We’re loading up in a van to drive to Halifax, where we’ve planned a very jam-packed two days.
Yep, I’ve got everything I need locked and loaded, I tell Alba. I can’t wait. I’ve never been to Halifax. Well, outside of the airport anyway.
Alba doesn’t respond right away, getting slightly more agitated by the daisy chain not looking exactly how she wants it. I don’t dare tease her about it.
And you’re fine with the sleeping arrangements? She asks me this casually, but I know she’s getting at something.
Why wouldn’t I be? We’ve split off into two rooms, the boys in one, and me, Florence, Alba and Rose in another. Florence wanted to have a girls-only sleepover for the weekend, which I honestly thought was great.
Well, don’t you want to share a room with Finn? Alba asks, her tone suggestive.
I try to diffuse this, letting out a fake laugh. I get enough time with Finn.
I mean, the photos you two are posting are…
Alba stalls, twirling a piece of grass in her hand as she reaches for the words.
Pretty couple-y. I think about the photos we took up on Franey that Finn posted—and literally posted, not put up temporarily on his story.
And tagged me. When I looked at the number of women who liked the post, I felt relieved that my profile was private.
Again, that curiosity tinged with green jealousy. Which of these women was he trying to prove something to? And had it worked?
Finn’s friend Billie, I noticed, had commented almost immediately: Who is this stunning creature and when do I get to meet her???
Finn had only liked the comment.
Alba sneaks a look over at me, but I’m pretending to be extremely busy with my own daisy chain. What’s going on here, Vi? Her tone is gentle, but firm. I get the sense she suspects something is off about this whole thing with Finn. This is the closest she’s come to asking me about it.
I want to tell Alba, I really do. But saying the words out loud: So, Finn and I have concocted a fake dating scheme to piss off what I assume is a line of women back in Scotland—oh, and to get my family off my back after they tried to make me a dating profile, would bring me never-ending shame. There’s no coming back from that.
So instead I shrug, and say as nonchalantly as I can, We’re just testing out the waters.
He seems like trouble, Alba says, raising a singular eyebrow at me.
I don’t want you to get hurt. She pauses, fiddling with the stem of a small flower she’s plucked up from the field.
Listen, if you want a summer fling, then fine.
But this feels more serious from what I can tell and…
you’ve never really dated anyone before, right?
I feel the shame burn on my cheeks. We’ve never talked about this.
She would know, from our nights out in New York, that I’ve slept with plenty of people.
But my friends have never pressed me on why, exactly, no one ever seemed to stick around.
Why I’ve never had a real boyfriend to introduce them to—and I’m grateful that they haven’t pushed.
But Alba, I know, notices everything, and picks up on every subtlety.
I think about how to answer her without it being a full-blown lie.
No, I haven’t, I let out a sigh, repeating my earlier comment, Which is why we’re trying it out, to see if this could be something more.
The words make me feel physically ill because I know there isn’t a world in which there’s something more to be had here.
I try to play it off as a joke. I throw out a fake laugh, I’ve never met anyone I liked enough to keep around, so it would be a first.
Alba looks at me then, something in her eyes telling me she doesn’t believe me. She knows the truth then—that no one has ever liked me enough to stick around. I avert my gaze before continuing. So maybe it ends up being a casual, fun summer fling. Where’s the harm in that?
But there is harm in wanting something I know can’t be anything but make believe.
It’s not only about never having had a boyfriend.
I think about my conversation with Finn, my lie to him about never having time for friends.
Growing up, it wasn’t that I was so busy with my family—although in my first few years of school, we moved around so much that I never stuck around anywhere long enough to make any real friends.
But later, it was because I was very quickly identified as being different, which is never a good thing as a kid.
I was used to playing barefoot in the trees and running wild to my heart’s content.
I had trouble sitting still in class because I had never sat still for that long at home.
I would look out the window and daydream, getting into trouble for not paying attention, even though all of my work was already done.
And the other kids, I was convinced, could smell it on me. That something wasn’t quite right.
When I was nine, our family went camping one summer on Salt Spring Island.
There was another little boy my age, Ethan, who I spent the entire summer with—we did everything together.
Found minnows in pools of water along the rocks at the beach, returning them to the ocean.
Pretended we were wolves prowling through the thick brush of the forest.
It was the closest I had ever come to having a friend.
One morning, on the whims of my flighty parents, we packed up and went back to Victoria. I never got to say goodbye, and suddenly found myself living at another new address, getting ready to start at another new school.
When I went in on the very first day, to my absolute delight, Ethan was there. And he was excited to see me too—at first.
But apart from Ethan, I had trouble relating to the other kids in my class.
While I was still eager to play pretend, the other kids said they weren’t babies anymore. When I wanted to play in the dirt at recess, never caring about getting dirty, I would find myself doing it completely alone.
It was also the first time I remember feeling slightly embarrassed when my mom came to get me after school.
Her clothes would be covered in stains from chasing after my two younger siblings, she was heavily pregnant with the twins, and my brother and sister seemed like feral animals running around her.
When Ethan started to realize the other kids didn’t like me, that I didn’t fit in, he told me one day that I was too weird and we couldn’t be friends anymore. I remember crying so hard that the school eventually called my mother to come get me.
I had tried to tell her what was wrong, but she was too distracted by whatever mischief my siblings were getting into, and she seemed to forget I’d even been upset.
It didn’t matter in the end. We moved again a few months later anyway, and I was at another new school, where I would start the cycle all over again.
It became easier to other myself from the start—if I was open and accepting of the fact that I was different, I couldn’t be hurt by it when others noticed, too.
It wasn’t until Alba and Florence that I learned friends didn’t always have to be a temporary, transient thing.
And now here I am, a fully grown adult, lying to the friends I do have.
Alba’s eyes sweep over me, and I know she’s seeing that there’s still more to this she isn’t getting to the bottom of—but she doesn’t push it.
I like Finn, she says, matter-of-factly. I do too, I think, involuntarily. But I have to wonder if the fact he lives in Scotland is part of the appeal.
What do you mean?
I mean, she says sighing. If he lives across the Atlantic Ocean, and you live on the other side of the country, it can’t exactly turn into anything more serious. Not really. And maybe that’s intentional on your part.
What are you, my therapist? I try to make it sound like a joke, but I feel a burning in the back of my throat, acid riling up from my stomach.
And if he does like you, Alba continues, ignoring my barbed comment, And does want to be together, then what Violet?
Then what?
Thankfully, that’s not an option, since someone like Finn would never seriously like me, so there’s no point in even worrying about that.
I shrug, trying to play it off to Alba, who isn’t buying any of it.
I guess we’ll find out.
But I already know the answer: that it doesn’t matter anyway.