Chapter 2 #2
Her eyebrows pull together. Processing.
"Thirty minutes."
"Thirty."
"And I have veto power."
"Absolute veto."
"What constitutes 'worth seeing'?"
"I'll know it when I see it."
"That's the least reassuring answer you could have given me."
"But it's honest."
She studies me for a long moment. The laptop hums quietly on her thighs. Outside, the highway scrolls through limestone cuts and farmland. A hawk circles over a harvested field, riding a thermal so perfect it looks painted there.
"Fine," she says. "Thirty minutes. Veto power. And you stop calling my itinerary a binder."
"Deal." My hand extends across the console. She looks at it, then at me, then back at my hand before shaking it with a grip that means business.
"One more thing." She pulls her hand back and adjusts her seatbelt. "I need to know the rental situation. I've pre-booked apartments in Ottawa, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, and Winnipeg. The listings say one bedroom. I assumed I'd be traveling solo when I booked them."
"Oh."
"So. Sleeping arrangements."
"Right." My neck gets warm, which is unexpected. "I can sleep in the truck. Done it before."
"In the truck."
"I've got a sleeping bag, a camp pad. It's August. I'll be fine."
"You are not sleeping in the truck for fourteen nights."
"Why not?"
"Because it's uncivilized, and because you're doing me a favour by driving me across the country, and the least I can do is make sure you sleep indoors."
"Honestly, I don't mind. I've slept in way worse places."
"That doesn't make it acceptable."
She's already on her phone, scrolling through the booking app, frowning at something.
"Most of the one-bedrooms have a couch," she says. "You take the couch."
"Works for me."
"And I'm locking the bedroom door."
"Also works for me."
"Not because I think you're dangerous."
"Good to know."
"Because I have a routine. Night routine, morning routine. It requires privacy."
"Elise. You don't have to explain."
She stops scrolling. Her fingers hover over the screen for a second, then she nods once, sharp and decisive, and goes back to her spreadsheet.
We drive in silence for twenty minutes past Kingston, the St. Lawrence visible in flashes between trees. My phone buzzes in the cupholder.
Bro how's the road trip going. is she as intense as Sloane says.
Griffin. Of course.
We've been driving for 90 minutes and she's already reorganized my glove box.
LMAOOO told you. She's great though. Give it time.
She made a laminated itinerary.
With tabs?
No tabs. But there's an appendix.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard, but there's no good response to that.
Through the windshield, the highway bends north toward the Ottawa exit, and sunlight moves across the dashboard, catching the threads of Mom's dream catcher.
Blue and white. Her favourite colours. She made it the winter before she got sick, sitting at the kitchen table in the Calgary house with her reading glasses pushed up on her forehead, humming a song I can never quite remember.
Two years. It's been two years, and I still can't remember the song.
You're going to love her dude.
Also you're still coming to ivy hollow right? Sloane’s friend is getting married at some vineyard and there's a music festival the same week. She's already got your room at the inn sorted.
When is it?
Mid-August. Right after you get to Calgary basically. Sloane says Elise is invited too. the more the merrier.
I’ll ask her.
Ask her NICELY. I know how you ask things.
"Your exit is in three kilometres," Elise says, eyes on the GPS. "Merge right in approximately ninety seconds."
"I see the sign."
"I'm just confirming."
"Appreciated."
She gives me a look. One that suggests she's trying to decide if I'm being sarcastic or genuine and is mildly irritated that she can't tell.
Genuine. Completely genuine. But I'm learning that Elise Boyd doesn't trust anything she hasn't verified herself, and that includes sincerity.
The Ottawa skyline rises through the tree line as we take the exit. Parliament Hill, green copper roofs against the August sky. The city unfolds in front of us, and Elise straightens in her seat, consulting her itinerary with fresh intensity.
"The rental is on Rideau Street. Parking is in the rear, accessible via the alley off Dalhousie. Check-in is at 3 PM but I've messaged the host to request early access."
"It's 11:30."
"I'm aware. I planned lunch at a restaurant on Sussex Drive at noon."
"Planned it?"
"Researched it. Reviewed three options. Selected the one with the highest consistency rating and the most reliable parking."
My mouth opens, closes, opens again. "You reviewed restaurants for a road trip lunch stop?"
"I review everything."
"Everything?"
"I reviewed you."
The truck drifts slightly toward the shoulder. Correcting, I glance over. "You reviewed me?"
"Your photography portfolio is online. Your Instagram is public.
You have 47,000 followers, you post approximately every three days, and your captions are exclusively single-word observations, which tells me you prefer images over language, brevity over explanation, and aesthetics over structure.
" She pauses. "Also, your last three girlfriends all have public profiles and they all follow each other, which suggests your breakups are amicable, which suggests you leave before things get complicated. "
The truck is very quiet.
"You got all that from Instagram."
"I got all that from due diligence."
"Most people just Google someone's name and check for a criminal record."
"I did that too. You're clean."
"Thanks?"
"You're welcome."
Ottawa traffic is light for a Sunday. We cross the bridge from Gatineau, the river wide and flat below us, and find the restaurant on Sussex without a single wrong turn, because Elise has been navigating with the precision of an air traffic controller for the last forty minutes.
The restaurant is good. She was right about that.
A bistro with a patio overlooking the National Gallery's massive spider sculpture, tables shaded by market umbrellas.
She orders a Cobb salad with the dressing on the side and a sparkling water.
I order a burger and a coffee, and she watches me add four sugars with an expression that suggests I'm committing a minor crime.
"How do you take your coffee?" I ask, stirring.
"Black."
"Of course you do."
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing. It's just very on brand."
Her chin lifts. "I don't have a brand."
"Everyone has a brand. Yours is 'competence with a slight air of disapproval.'"
The pause lasts three full seconds. Then the corner of her mouth moves. Barely. A millimetre at most. But it moves.
"That's... not entirely inaccurate."
"See? Brands are useful."
"What's your brand, then?"
"I don't know. What did your due diligence say?"
She takes a sip of her water, eyes steady over the rim. "'Charming avoidance.'"
The burger is halfway to my mouth when I set it down. "Charming avoidance?"
"You're warm and likable and you deflect every personal question with humour. It's effective, but it's a strategy, not a personality."
The patio is busy around us. Tourists photographing the spider. A busker playing fiddle on the corner. Regular city noise, regular Sunday energy. And across the table, a woman I've known for four hours has just described me more accurately than most people manage in four years.
"That might be the nicest and meanest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"I wasn't trying to be either."
"Which somehow makes it worse."
She almost smiles. Almost. The muscles are there, the intention is there, but Elise Boyd does not give away smiles for free. They have to be earned, and I'm suddenly aware that earning one is going to require more than charm.
Good thing we've got fourteen days.
My phone is in my pocket and my camera is in the truck, but for the first time in a long time, I'm not thinking about the next shot or the next location or the distance between here and wherever I'm heading next.
I'm sitting still. Eating a burger. Watching a woman eat a salad and judge my sugar intake, and the afternoon feels oddly unhurried.
Which is either a very good sign or a very dangerous one.
She finishes her salad, folds her napkin into a precise rectangle, checks the time on her phone, and says, "We're four minutes ahead of schedule. The rental check-in is in two hours and twelve minutes. I suggest we walk the Rideau Canal path to kill time efficiently."
"Kill time efficiently?"
"It's a thing."
"It's really not."
"It is when you have a schedule."
My chair pushes back as I stand, leaving cash on the table because splitting the bill feels too transactional for whatever this is. She notices, frowns, and says nothing, which I'm learning is Elise's version of a concession.
We walk the canal path in the afternoon light.
She points out the distances between locks.
I photograph a heron standing in the shallows with its reflection doubled in the still water.
When the shutter clicks, she glances over, studies the screen for a moment, then looks at the actual heron, then back at the screen.
"The photo's better than the real thing," she says quietly.
"That's the nicest thing you've said to me."
"Don't get used to it."
No promises there. But something tells me I'm going to try.