Chapter 38
VIOLET
FINN GOES BACK TO SCOTLAND, and doesn’t say goodbye.
The days blur together. I hear my own heartbeat in my ears, a constant thrumming: I am miserable. I am utterly miserable, and I don’t know how to make it stop.
Florence comes back from P.E.I. a week later, and her eyes scan over me in a way that makes me feel stripped bare. She says nothing about it, telling me about her trip instead, but I don’t speak to anyone for three days after that.
I walk along the beach for hours. I keep my phone on silent at all times. I don’t let myself think about anything to do with Finn, or my job, or my family.
The days turn into weeks.
I force myself to watch The Princess Bride, like a masochistic punishment. I bawl my eyes out, mourning something I refuse to name, and watch it again.
Alba finds me on the dock one September evening. I’m staring out at the water, working to keep my mind utterly blank—despite the thought that keeps playing on a loop: What am I supposed to do now?
Alba plops down next to me and I cringe, feeling like I’ve overstayed my welcome.
She must read something into the way I shift involuntarily away from her.
Violet, she starts. You know you can stay as long as you want here, right?
I nod. Words are beyond me.
But the deal is, if you’re going to stay, you have to tell me what the hell is going on here. She jostles my knees, which I’m hugging close to my chest. I’m worried about you.
Like a dam breaking, it all comes flooding out. Losing my job. Getting sucked back into my family’s chaos and never-ending list of demands. The dating profile they made for me. Feeling so completely and utterly lost.
I stop abruptly when I get to the moment I arrived in Cape Breton. To meeting Finn. She doesn’t let me get away with it.
And Finn?
It was real for me.
Even now, I can’t quite give up the whole story. So I only say, He asked me to go back with him to Scotland.
Alba nods, like this is the least surprising thing she’s ever heard. I’m not hearing the problem here.
How can I tell her that he’s so completely out of my league without sounding like the world’s most pathetic loser?
He didn’t really like me, Alba. Not really. It was just a summer fling.
Well apparently not for Finn—he literally asked you to go home with him.
Alba, come on, be serious. I’m here, I put my hand as low as it’ll go, resting on the dock. Jobless, basically friendless except for you and Florence, a total weirdo who only hangs out with her family and used to write Zelda and Link fanfiction.
Yeah, I’m going to need a copy of that immediately.
Ignoring her, I hold up my other arm, as high as it’ll go. And here’s Finn. With his perfect hair and his Greek-god body and his cool, sports-guy energy and his flock of women that follow him to every bar, and his fifteen billion Instagram model girlfriends.
Alba looks at the gap between my arms, something like disgust on her face.
Violet, I’m going to be real with you, okay? You have like… a really fucked up perception problem. You always have.
What do you mean?
You are way too hard on yourself and way too forgiving and generous with everyone else.
Yeah, Finn is hot. But whatever bullshit persona you decided was the real him, I certainly never fucking saw it.
I saw a guy whose entire goal this summer was to beat you at Scrabble.
And his dance moves were not giving cool, sports-guy energy, for the record.
You two looked like total dorks, possibly totally in love dorks.
I shake my head at her. You don’t get it.
Nah babe, you don’t get it. Remember what I said to you?
That part of the appeal of Finn might have been that he couldn’t be serious for you, because he lived so far away?
But then he obliterated that particular obstacle, and I think it scared the shit out of you.
She shakes her head sadly at me before continuing.
But let’s put Finn over here for a second, okay? Let’s look at all the other stuff going on and start picking that apart. And if, maybe, your view of those things turns out to be completely off-kilter, well, we can take another look at this particular situation.
How am I supposed to do that?
Start with your family. Start with your job. Then we’ll circle back to Finn.
THAT NIGHT, I CALL MY mom.
She, of course, doesn’t answer. I call Ace next.
Well, look who finally—
Shut up Ace, I say, and he does. Probably because I’ve never told him to shut up before. Where’s Mom?
I’m at her house, so she’s here somewhere. I hear him walking around, hear another voice in the background.
Is that Leo?
Yes…
Great, she can listen in on this too. Put me on speakerphone.
After my brother has successfully dragged my mother in from the garden, he says, Okay Vi, we’re all here. I don’t know if that means the twins and dad are also on the line, but I don’t really care. It’s like my conversation with Alba has dragged me out of the fog I’ve been living in for weeks.
I want to talk about the dating profile you guys made for me.
Oh, Violet honey, we don’t need to rehash all of that, Mom says and she sounds so flippant I want to scream.
Actually, we do. I try to use my firmest tone. We haven’t talked about it. We don’t really talk about anything after it happens, we all just quietly move on—and I don’t want to do that this time.
I take a deep breath. I’ve been in a pretty low place since moving in with Nan.
I went from having a job that I loved, and my own apartment in Toronto, to living with my grandmother and being unemployed.
I was already feeling bad enough about myself.
And the last thing I wanted to do was start dating—or even make myself vulnerable to the hundreds of people who would surely recognize me in Victoria, seeing as I went to about fifteen different schools growing up.
I never thought that would bother you, my flower girl, Mom says. You’ve always been so resilient, with whatever we threw at you. It occurs to me that because I’ve never said anything about it, my family has no idea how much their chaos stresses me out.
We were only trying to help, Ace says, but it’s more sheepish than defensive.
I know, but you can see how it might make me feel like a sad, pathetic loser when my entire family tries to put me on a dating app. Right?
For sure, Leo pipes in, helpful as always, before adding, To be honest Vi, I kind of always forget you went to so many schools. We didn’t move around as much by the time the rest of us started school.
Yeah no kidding. I know my siblings far better than they know me.
But, have I ever let them in? Let them get to know me? It’s possible that I’ve kept a lot of myself locked away from them.
Ace points out I’d mentioned wanting a boyfriend at one point, which is what gave them the idea. They apologize, admitting they should have asked first. They understand, I think, why it made me so mad.
It’s starting to dawn on me that for my entire life, my family has taken everything I’ve presented them at face value.
I put on a smile and got it done, whatever it was, so they figured I could take whatever they threw at me.
I never spoke up about the things that upset me—so how would they know what stressed me out, and what was something I could handle?
You know I love you guys, and I want to help you whenever I can. But sometimes I need to figure out my own problems first. My voice gets thick, and I wonder if this is the first time I’ve ever cried to my family. I’m kind of going through a hard time.
Before we hang up, my mom asks when I’m coming home.
I’m not sure yet, I say, and that’s the best answer I can give them.
After the call ends, I get a text from Leo.
Leo not Leonora: Dang girl you mean business!! Pop off queen, love you.
I snort. Only my sister would react with pride after getting chewed out.
This, I think, is a good start. Part of me wonders if I speak up more with my family, and tell them when I’ve had enough, that it will somehow bring us closer together in the long run. I make a promise to myself to at least try, but acknowledge that these changes will probably take some time.
Riding on a high, I scroll through my contacts in my phone to find Sherry. Even though I got a new number when I moved back to B.C. and intentionally didn’t give it out, I kept all of the phone numbers for my old clients.
She picks up on the third ring.
Hello?
Hey, um, Sherry? It’s Violet. Violet Ross.
There’s a pause. This was such a bad idea; I can feel the jumble of words start to fall out of my mouth. I’m so sorry about that night. It’s been weighing so heavily on me, and I was so embarrassed, but I wanted to call and apologize, I acted so unprofessionally and—
You, Violet, are a very difficult woman to get in touch with.
Now it’s my turn to pause.
When I found out that little dweeb fired you and tried to use me as an excuse, I was furious.
I told him if he didn’t bring you back, I would blast his name all over this city, which is exactly what I did.
I called around to some of the staff I could get in touch with, but no one had your new number.
They said you’d gone off to B.C. somewhere, she takes a long, almost wistful sigh.
I assumed that meant Vancouver, and that you were going to start a similar business out there. But no one I knew in Vancouver had come across you yet.
My mind is reeling. Was she trying to find me to stop me from making a fool of myself elsewhere, to warn people—
Tell me you’re finally taking clients. I have at least fifteen events for myself and a few others that I can put you in touch with right away.
Stunned, I can only manage to say, What?
Sherry laughs, but it’s not an unkind laugh. You’re the reason I kept coming back, not that insufferable fool Gabe, who is a mediocre chef at best. You’re the one who ran everything beautifully. I never had to worry about a thing if you were in charge.
But, I got really drunk, and was such a mess and—
You had a bad night, and then were heartily encouraged by me, I might add, to have a few drinks.
One bad night, when I knew it was because Gabe had upset you, does not erase years of perfectly run events.
You have exquisite taste, you bring in the best staff, plan the best menus—truly a dream to work with.
My world suddenly feels like it’s been turned upside down. How did I get this so wrong?
So tell me, are you set up in Vancouver yet? Actually, I don’t care, are you set up anywhere? I’ll fly you wherever, if need be. But I want to have the best, and you’re the best, Violet.
I feel a surge of laughter desperate to bubble out of me. This entire time, for almost two years, I’d believed that I had ruined this woman’s night—that she hated my guts—and instead she’d been trying to track me down all over the country.
I’m not sure about Vancouver, I say, adding, But when I’m up and running again you’ll be the first to know. I promise.
Well hurry up girl, I’ve got things to do!
We hang up with assurances to keep in touch.
I go barging into Alba’s house. She and Rose are on the couch, watching a movie. Alba grabs the remote and pauses it when she sees me. I feel like a completely different person from who she was sitting with on the dock a few hours ago.
That was quick, she says, clearly feeling the getting-things-done energy pulsing from me.
I think you might be right. About Finn.
Oh I’m definitely right—
What about Finn? Rose pipes up, glancing between us.
Are you sure? I ask Alba. She shrugs.
Only one way to find out.
Great, in that case I need a ride.
A ride where? Rose is laughing now, unable to follow this conversation.
Alba and I answer at the same time: To the airport.