Chapter 3
Three
“That’s what terraces are for.”
Three weeks in, Fool’s Spring had finally caved to Proper spring.
The mountaintops were still frosted white, but the skies turned a sharper kind of blue, reflected in the salty breeze rolling off the ocean.
Seagulls and herons reappeared in their usual haunts, gliders were being towed out of hangars, and the Nanaimo Gliding School was ready to start its season.
I was supposed to be up there, mentoring new pilots after completing my hundred hours.
Instead, I was perfecting the art of copier diplomacy.
To be fair, flight simulators train you for repetition, for routine, for staying calm under pressure.
And if you’re lucky, for compartmentalizing panic.
Those first few weeks at Tommo gave me something I hadn’t realized I needed: rhythm.
I left early, before Adam got out of bed, and caught the same bus.
I wore the same two pairs of navy pants on a loop.
I had a favorite mug in the breakroom, a passive-aggressive Post-it note over the printer that I’d written myself (Feed paper gently.
She’s old, not broken.), and a standing appointment with myself to scroll mindlessly through ferry schedules every Friday afternoon, while fantasizing about these famous silent retreats on Bowen Island.
Not for yoga, or whatever they really do there, but for the seductive idea that no one would talk to me for a week.
Maybe those retreats weren’t about inner peace at all.
Perhaps they were for people who couldn’t deal with grocery shopping and birthday notifications anymore.
All escape fantasies aside, I usually ended the day back home with Adam, the two of us debriefing like tired soldiers after a long tour.
“So, how’s the empire of Tommo today?” he asked, shoveling peanut butter onto toast like a sleep-deprived golden retriever.
Or a five-year-old. I decided to join him at this feast anyway. I was famished after some questionable takeout from Café Tommo, the office in-house lunch spot.
“Exciting stuff,” I said. “Today, I tried to convince a guy he couldn’t take a ferry from Vancouver to Calgary. He was genuinely surprised at the lack of a sea route. I almost envied his optimism.”
Adam grinned. “You should’ve sold him the ticket anyway. Really test your refund policy.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure we even have one. Also, I’d like to introduce you to someone. Kevin. Quiet type, judgment-free, never interrupts. A perfect friend for you.”
“What’s wrong with him? Or is he not into your peachy personality?”
“Kevin is a cactus. And he’s thriving. Unlike you or me.”
“You care,” he said, mock offended. “I knew it. You like your weird little office.”
“Don’t start rumors,” I warned.
Mia and I had found a rhythm of our own, too.
We made a habit of messaging each other through the company e-chat.
It started with memes, then reels (mostly about cats at work, or driving to work, or recovering from work).
Then, full-on plans for Wednesday lunch breaks and coffee reconnaissance missions.
One day, she messaged: “Need air + sugar. Meet me outside in three?”
We ended up sitting on the terrace with a box of Timbits and coats wrapped around us like we were preparing to hibernate.
“You’ve been extra quiet today,” she said. “Everything okay?” I liked her directness. She reminded me of Adam that way: cutting through the noise with a clean line or two.
“Sorry, just… Just a long morning. One of those days where the clouds just… hang inside your ribs. Might need an extra coffee refill.”
To be honest, today was one of those worst days in general, without a specific reason. Good days and bad days were bound to happen, I’d been told, and this was just the odd one on the recent roulette of my life.
She studied me for a beat. “Can I ask you something? About your hearing?”
I nodded. The question still made my stomach twist, but I’d known it was coming. I have barely heard of pilots with shortsightedness, not to mention those who can’t hear properly.
“Is it permanent? Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”
“It’s fine,” I lied. “I mean, not really. The left side’s pretty much useless now. Not completely gone, but enough to make everything feel… off balance. That’s why I try to keep people on my right.”
She didn’t jump in with a platitude or pity and just waited.
“It’s embarrassing,” I said. “You’re in your early twenties and suddenly asking people to repeat themselves like you’re their great-aunt Edna. Glasses are cool; contacts even more so. But hearing aids? People assume you’re fragile. Or rude. Or both.”
I rubbed the side of my cheek. “Some people stopped talking to me because they thought I was ignoring them. Truth is, I probably didn’t hear them.
Or I answered ‘yes’ to a question that wasn’t yes-or-no.
That’s my go-to trick now: automatic ‘yes.’ It’s saved me in meetings and nearly got me signed up for salsa lessons. ”
She snorted softly.
“And the flying…” I hesitated. “I tell myself I don’t want to think about it.
But that’s a lie, too. I have nightmares about getting into a glider.
And I have panic attacks when I imagine never doing it again.
So. Fun choices. I think I’m still hoping that it will just go away, like a bad headache.
And I’ve been rambling on incoherently for the past couple of minutes, and now you’ve been awfully quiet, Mia. ”
She reached out, touched my arm. Steady, quiet, reassuring.
Mia nodded slowly. “I get that.”
I looked at her. “Do you?”
She sighed. “I have a daughter. Talia. She’s four.
Her dad passed away. Didn’t plan to be a single mom at twenty-two.
Didn’t plan to work reception at a tourist ferry company in Nanaimo either.
I was supposed to go to law school in Toronto.
Now I budget diapers and shampoo like they’re stock portfolios. ”
“That’s… a lot. I am so sorry, Mia.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “He was—sorry—is the love of my life. And then, puff, he’s gone, just like that, a cancer battle lost too soon, too suddenly.
I see him everywhere: in the photos, in Talia’s eyes and smile.
Some people look at me like I’m a failure.
The girl who slipped. But I love Talia to bits.
And I stayed because my parents are here, and she loves them.
So, I make it work. On good days, I feel like I can run the world.
On bad ones, I cry into frozen mac and cheese and threaten to elope with Netflix.
So… Yeah. Mine is a different kind of invisible scar, I guess.
Some days I feel like an office child, some days like the office mother. ”
I smiled. “You’re both. And somehow, still the most put-together person I know—and definitely in this building.”
She laughed. “That’s because you haven’t seen my apartment. Or my laundry backlog.”
“So, we’re both pretending to be fine.”
“Exactly. That’s what terraces are for.”
We sat in silence for a while, the wind rustling the edge of the terrace. Then she said, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Same.”
And that is how I knew we would always have each other’s backs, no matter what life or fate threw at us.
Later that week, I walked into the kitchen to make tea and nearly collided with a small circle of laughter.
A man about my age, maybe a year or two older, was standing with two marketing girls.
Leaning against the counter, a mug in one hand, and that kind of posture that said: I know I’m being watched. And honestly? He wasn’t wrong.
Was this the IT guy? If so, I owed him an apology.
This one looked like he’d stepped out of an Arc’teryx hiking ad.
A little bit too relaxed, I thought. Tall, nine or ten inches taller than me.
Dark blond hair. He laughed: just enough of a head toss to send curls falling across his forehead.
Just standing there in a light blue shirt and tan chinos.
He seemed to know exactly what to do to make the two girls flush, bite their lips, play with their hair, and brush over his arms oh-so-innocently.
For a systems administrator or whatever his dramatic work title was, this guy seemed to be all over himself.
My first instinct was to roll my eyes and scoff.
But then I noticed something. The way his smile dropped for a second when he thought no one was looking.
The way he gripped his mug too tightly. A quick glance toward the door, like he wanted to leave but couldn’t. He shot a quick glance in my direction.
How long had I been standing here for, half-frozen? I panicked, pointed at my empty mug like an idiot, forced a half-crooked smile, filled my cup, didn’t say a word, and left. I almost tripped running back to the safety of my cubicle and opened my and Mia’s e-chat.
“Mia.”
“What’s up? Can’t talk much today, I need to leave the office in two minutes, apparently there’s a lice outbreak in Talia’s daycare and need to run to pick her up #momlife.”
“Run! Save yourself! Don’t worry about me, just wanted to debrief. We’ll talk later, nothing serious.”
“Seriously, what happened? Indulge me, take my mind off lice, please!”
“There’s a guy. Tall. Blond. Everyone’s swooning. Even Kevin the cactus turned toward him.”
“Must be Andersen. American, but born on our side of the border. Twenty-five-ish. He moved from Portland a few months ago. No one knows exactly why he moved to our world’s ass of an end.
Even I don’t know. He’s got a serious rep: allegedly slept with three coworkers, two of them older and married. What happened? What did you do?”
“Nothing, I was making tea, I looked, he looked, I ran. Now go and save Talia’s gorgeous hair.”
“He looked? Well that’s immoral.”
“That’s hilarious, Mia.”
“Why so serious, my little Joker. Talk soon. Hashtag: LiceWarrior.”
The next day, Mia messaged me.
“So Andersen. The IT guy. Just FYI: he’s been moping for a few months. Breakup hit hard, I heard. Lived with the girl.”
I stared at the screen.
“Heard it from who?”
“Reception hears everything first.”
“I’ll memorize that.”
But part of me remembered that smile: the one that said he wasn’t just charming. Oh, I knew that charm, that laughter that covers things hidden deep in the soul. We don’t speak: we let others do the talking instead, and play along to get through the day.