Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
JAXON
Griffin warned me. Said his friend Sloane had a friend who needed a ride to Calgary, that she was "organized" and "intense" and "you'll either love her or she'll make you want to drive into a lake, but either way it'll be entertaining."
Griffin undersold it.
Elise Boyd is standing in the Tim Hortons parking lot at 7:52 AM on a Sunday morning in August, wearing pressed trousers, a silk blouse, and shoes with actual heels.
For a road trip. Her auburn hair is cut into a sleek bob that looks expensive, and her posture suggests she's never slouched a day in her life.
There's a suitcase beside her that probably has a packing list taped inside the lid, a carry-on with a monogrammed luggage tag, and a laptop bag slung across one shoulder with the strap adjusted to the exact millimeter.
And she's holding a laminated document.
"You brought a canoe," she says, staring at the roof of my truck with an expression I'd describe as quiet horror.
"You brought a binder."
Her grip tightens on whatever that laminated thing is. "It's an itinerary."
"For a road trip?"
"For a four-thousand-kilometre drive across a country with unpredictable weather, limited cell service in northern Ontario, and exactly one major highway for most of the route. Yes. For a road trip."
She says it with the confidence of someone who's never taken a wrong turn on purpose, and the conviction of someone who considers wrong turns a moral failing.
This is going to be fun.
"Cool. Want a Timbit?" The box is sitting on the passenger seat. Double chocolate, old fashioned plain, and a couple of sour cream glazed because they're underrated.
Her left eye does something. A tiny spasm, barely visible, but definitely there.
"I'd like to discuss the driving schedule."
"Can we discuss it while eating Timbits?"
"Can we discuss it before you start the engine?"
My grin is involuntary. "Hop in. We'll figure it out on the road."
The eye does the thing again.
Getting her suitcase into the truck bed takes some negotiation.
She wants it covered. Reasonable. My tarp is bunched up under the canoe, which is less reasonable.
After four minutes of rearranging, her luggage is safely beneath the tarp, her carry-on is behind the passenger seat, and her laptop bag is on her lap because she refuses to let it leave her immediate possession.
She climbs into the cab, surveys the interior, and pauses.
"Is that a dream catcher hanging from your rearview mirror?"
"My mom made it."
"Oh." Her voice softens by a fraction. "It's nice."
"Thanks." My thumb runs over the steering wheel.
The dream catcher has been hanging there since the week after Mom's funeral, swaying gently over the dash of every vehicle I've driven in the last two years.
My sister Kenzie wanted to put it in a shadowbox.
Frame it. Preserve it behind glass where nothing could touch it.
Putting it behind glass felt like putting Mom behind glass. So it hangs here, catching light and dust and whatever dreams are floating around the Trans-Canada Highway at any given moment.
"Okay." Elise opens her laptop on her knees, pulls up what appears to be a spreadsheet, and adjusts her glasses.
"I've mapped our route with daily distance targets, pre-booked accommodation for the first four nights, and built in a ninety-minute buffer each day for fuel stops and meals.
If we maintain an average of five hundred kilometres per day, we arrive in Calgary on August twenty-third, which gives me two full days before my client walkthrough. "
"What's on August twenty-third?"
"Our arrival."
"No, I mean what's actually happening on August twenty-third. The date."
She blinks. "We arrive in Calgary."
"Right, but what if we find something worth stopping for on the twenty-second? Or the twenty-first? What if there's a lake that's perfect at sunset or a town we've never heard of that has the best pie in Ontario?"
"Then we note it and keep driving, because we have a schedule."
The truck pulls out of the parking lot and merges onto Queen Street heading for the 401.
Morning traffic is light for Toronto. Sun's still low, throwing long shadows off the office towers.
My camera bag is in the back seat, and my fingers itch to grab it even though there's nothing worth shooting from this angle.
Force of habit. When you spend six years turning the world into images for a living, everything starts looking like a frame.
"Can I see the itinerary?"
Elise hands it over with visible reluctance. The lamination is crisp. There are sub-sections.
Day one: Toronto to Ottawa. Distance: 449 km. Estimated drive time: 4 hours 30 minutes. Accommodation: pre-booked rental apartment on Rideau Street. Meals: lunch at 12:30 PM (location TBD based on route timing), dinner at 7:00 PM (reservation pending).
Day two: Ottawa to Sudbury. Distance: 484 km. Estimated drive time: 5 hours 15 minutes. Accommodation: pre-booked rental near Bell Park.
It goes on. For fourteen days. Every day has mileage, drive time estimates, accommodation, and meal windows. There's a weather appendix. A fuel station map. An emergency contact page that lists Sloane Barrett, two numbers for someone named "Dad," and her travel insurance policy number.
"You made this last night?"
"Between 10 PM and 2 AM, yes."
"Do you sleep?"
"When everything is organized, I sleep beautifully."
The highway opens up past Pickering, the city releasing its grip as the suburbs thin out into stretches of green.
August in Ontario is lush. Everything is overgrown, thick, alive.
The road cuts through it, and for a few minutes, the only sounds are the engine and the quiet tap of Elise's fingers on her laptop keyboard.
She's working. At 8 AM. On a road trip she didn't plan for, in a truck she didn't choose, next to a guy she met four minutes ago.
"So, Griffin says you're an events planner?"
"Event coordinator. There's a distinction."
"What's the distinction?"
"A planner suggests Pinterest boards and colour swatches. A coordinator manages budgets, vendor contracts, liability insurance, venue logistics, and two hundred people who all think their dietary restriction is the most important one in the room."
"Fair enough. That sounds like a lot."
"It's my job." She says it like her job is her whole identity. I recognize the tone because I use it when people ask why I travel so much.
Because it's my job. Not because standing still makes the grief louder. Not because my apartment in Calgary still has boxes of Mom's things I haven't opened in the bedroom closet. Just: it's my job. Clean. Uncomplicated. Nobody asks follow-up questions.
"What are you shooting in Toronto?"
"Finished a campaign for MEC. Outdoor gear catalogue. Kayaking, hiking, the whole deal. They wanted 'authentic Canadian wilderness' so we spent three weeks in Algonquin."
"And you're driving home instead of flying because..."
"I've got about forty grand in camera equipment in the back seat, and the last time I checked a bag, Air Canada sent it to Frankfurt."
A sound escapes her. Brief, accidental. Almost a laugh.
"That's not funny."
"It's a little funny. I was shooting a wedding in Banff. All my gear ended up in Germany. Had to shoot the ceremony on my phone."
"That's a nightmare."
"The couple loved it. Said it felt more real." My shoulder lifts. "Sometimes the plan falling apart is the best part."
The noise she makes is physical. An actual, audible rejection of that philosophy from somewhere deep in her respiratory system.
"The plan falling apart is never the best part."
"Never?"
"In my experience, the plan falling apart means someone didn't do their job, the client is upset, the timeline is ruined, and I'm the one scrambling to rebuild structure out of chaos at eleven o'clock at night."
"Or it means you end up somewhere unexpected."
"Unexpected is another word for unprepared."
The highway stretches ahead, flat and familiar. We pass a sign for Kingston. Elise has her phone out now, checking something on a map app, comparing it to her printed itinerary, then checking the actual road as if she doesn't trust any single source to tell her the truth.
"Can I ask you something?" she says without looking up.
"Sure."
"When Griffin described you to Sloane, what words did he use?"
"He said I was chill."
"Chill."
"And easygoing. And a good driver."
"Those are all the same things."
"They're three different adjectives."
"They're one personality trait expressed three ways." She finally looks over, hazel eyes sharp behind her glasses. "What he didn't mention was the canoe, the lack of a co-pilot itinerary, or the fact that your truck smells like campfire."
"My truck smells great."
"Your truck smells like you've been sleeping in it."
"Only twice. And both times were by choice."
That almost-laugh again. Closer to the surface this time.
"Okay, here's my concern." She angles her body toward me, laptop still balanced on her thighs.
"I have to be in Calgary by August twenty-fifth.
That's non-negotiable. I have a client who once fired a caterer mid-appetizer because the napkin folds were, quote, 'aggressive.
' If I'm late, I lose the account, and if I lose the account, I lose the referral chain I've spent two years building. "
"Aggressive napkin folds?"
"Focus."
"Right. Calgary by the twenty-fifth. Got it."
"So if we're stopping at every scenic overlook between here and Manitoba, I need to know that now, because my buffer doesn't account for spontaneous canoe detours."
The word spontaneous comes out of her mouth coated in suspicion.
"Tell you what." My hands are easy on the wheel, ten and two, because something about this woman makes me want to demonstrate basic competence.
"We follow your route. Your stops, your timeline, your plan.
But if we pass something worth seeing, I get to make a case for a thirty-minute detour.
You can veto. Final call is always yours. "