Chapter Twenty-Four
Four Months Ago
The second Sunday in March was rainy and gloomy, a perfect day to spend inside at Luke’s place, cozy and warm, finalizing centrepieces and gifts for the guests. March was typically still winter in Regina, but every once in a while, it rained, and everyone got excited that spring was on its way. Sadly, not only was everyone usually wrong, but as an added punch to the gut, the rain would freeze under the newly fallen snow a few days later, and bedlam would ensue. I was planning on staying off the streets for at least a week after I got home.
Hannah’s grandma Janet was busy, and Luke felt like he’d been neglecting his daughter lately, so she was sitting at the table with us crafting something out of colourful construction paper while Luke and I were buried in our laptops.
“Sorry,” Luke had mouthed when I’d walked in and Hannah had barrelled into me for what was turning into our normal intensive hug greeting.
I shook my head and smiled. “No problem,” I mouthed back. I actually loved hanging out with Hannah. For someone who never really liked being around kids, I was finding that this joyful little girl was growing on me. With the exception of my dog friend Marty, no one in my life was happier to see me than she was. I could get used to that kind of welcome.
As Luke and I worked, showing each other centrepiece ideas, arguing about how much to spend. I checked his face, his tone, and his words for signs of acknowledgment of the escape room parking lot almost-kiss. It had been over two weeks and neither of us had said anything about it, and he hadn’t been acting any differently, so part of me thought that maybe I had imagined it. Had he wanted to kiss me? Maybe he’d just gotten lost in the moment like I had. Maybe there hadn’t been anything there.
“What are you making?” I asked Hannah, watching her cut paper of different colours into rectangles and neatly folding them over.
“Place cards for the wedding,” she said without looking up. “I Googled ‘things you need for a wedding’ and this was one of the things. You don’t have place cards yet, do you?” She grinned, her large green eyes wide, sparkling just like her dad’s.
Luke’s face tightened with barely disguised panic. “Hannah—” he started.
“What a great idea!” I finished. “Ben and Kate will be thrilled to have something so heartfelt and handmade. What a kind gift.”
Luke shot me a questing look and I shrugged. Construction paper place cards might not be exactly what Kate wanted, but it was worth it to see the glow on Hannah’s proud face.
My thoughts were interrupted by the intense stare of a seven-year-old.
“Can I help you?” I laughed and she smiled shyly.
“How did you get to be so pretty?” she said, serious like only a child can be about such things.
“The same way you got to be so pretty.” I gently tugged on one of her red curls and tucked it behind her ear. “We were born that way.”
Hannah’s eyes dimmed and the corners of her mouth tugged down, a reaction I was not expecting. “No, I mean pretty like you. I want to be pretty like you. I don’t want to look like me anymore.” Her small voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears.
Luke got up and crouched by her side. “What do you mean, sweetie? Why don’t you want to look like you?”
She heaved a sigh too large to have come from such a little girl. “All the popular girls at school have long blonde hair like Julie, not like me. I hate my hair. I hate my freckles. Can I get my hair dyed for my birthday?” She looked up at her dad, eyes pleading.
“Hannah, you’re seven years old, that’s too young to dye your hair. And besides, that would make me really sad. I love your red hair. You got that from me.”
“Amelia’s mom lets her older sister get her hair dyed. And straightened. She posts pictures of her on Facebook and gets thousands of likes every day. Thousands, Dad.”
What the fuck? How on earth was a seven-year-old worried about how many likes her classmate’s mom got on Facebook? “Are you on Facebook, Hannah?” I asked gently.
“No, Facebook is for old people.”
Cool.
“I’m sorry, Daddy, don’t be mad.” She lifted her head, tears in her eyes. “I just want to be pretty.”
“Sweetheart.” He crouched back down again and pulled her into a tight hug. “You are pretty. You’re my beautiful little girl. You shouldn’t be worrying about this kind of thing yet. How are you worrying about this already?” He directed the last question at me, eyes glistening.
She pulled away. “You have to say that, you’re my dad.”
Luke sat on the ground, his face a mixture of anger and defeat, and my heart broke. I knew all he wanted to do was protect her. But I also knew from experience that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t protect her from everything.
“Hannah.” I held her small hand in mine. “I wish I could tell you that things will get easier when you get older, but I can’t.” Luke held out his hands as if to beg me to stop making it worse. “What I can tell you though,” I continued, ignoring Luke, “is that when you get older—hopefully younger than I was when I discovered this—you will learn that what someone looks like isn’t the most important thing.”
“I know.” She sighed dramatically. “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.” She rolled her eyes.
“I know it sounds stupid, but it’s true.” I looked up at Luke, hoping I wasn’t permanently damaging his child. “It’s easy to look like everyone else. But to be yourself? To look like yourself and do your hair like you want and dress like you want, that takes courage. And I’m not going to lie, that’s a kind of courage I haven’t always had.”
“Really?” She sounded shocked. “But you’re perfect.”
I laughed a humourless laugh. “Thank you, but I’m definitely not that.”
She nodded but still looked slightly confused. I didn’t know if I should continue with my Ted Talk, but I was already this far, so I might as well either hit the point home or completely lose her.
I put my hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in her eyes. “Hannah, you are so smart and so funny. You’re kind and thoughtful. You care about your family and friends. You love animals. You’re full of curiosity and creativity. You have beauty inside that makes you shine. And even though you might not think so, even though you might not look exactly like the popular girls at school, you’re beautiful outside as well. You’re the whole package, and that, my dear, is exceptionally rare.”
She wiped her eyes and gave me a tight hug, which I returned. “Can I watch TV, Dad?” She jumped off her chair, tears forgotten.
“Sure,” Luke said. “But only for thirty minutes and then it’s time for bed.”
I watched as she slid out of the kitchen on her fuzzy socks and then I promptly burst into silent tears.
“Not you too!” Luke sat down in Hannah’s empty chair and rested his hand on my shoulder. “Why are you crying? You did so great. Everything you said was perfect. I would never have thought of the things you said. You’re really good with her, you know.”
He handed me a Kleenex and I blew my nose. “It’s so unfair that she has to deal with these things so early. When I was her age, I had no idea what women had to deal with. I was still mindlessly playing with Barbies and My Little Ponies, blissfully na?ve.”
“To be fair, Barbie doesn’t really portray the healthiest body image.” Luke grinned.
“True,” I said. “But I never thought about it that way. I never realized how hard it must be for little girls in the age of internet and social media. We were so lucky not to have had to deal with that sort of thing.”
Luke sat back. “It’s tough. Parents today are dealing with different things than our parents had to deal with.”
“What can we do about it?” I asked, hoping he had a magic answer. “How can we make it better? Take all their phones and iPads away forever?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I think the only thing we can do is be there for them. If we took their iPads away, they would find someone else’s iPad to look at. We just need to listen to them and do the best we can to be good examples. Kids see and hear everything. We need to be good role models for them and be on our best behaviour whenever they’re around.”
“You’re a good dad.” I smiled.
“Thanks,” he said. “That’s honestly all I want to be.”
It was just under a month until Quinn’s birthday party and I had done literally nothing to plan for it. I had barely mentioned it to anyone and I was feeling like a terrible friend. I’d been so busy planning the wedding with Luke that I hadn’t had time to plan anything else.
Thankfully, we had finally determined what we were going to do for the Stag and Doe—Kate and Ben had decided that karaoke was a great choice after the escape room fell through—and we had almost wrapped up planning the decor for the wedding itself.
We had decided to go simple: round tables with white tablecloths and white chair covers tied back with rose-coloured satin bows. Bouquets of Gerbera daisies would be bound together with single silk ribbons, sitting snugly in tasteful glass vases I was going to pick up at the dollar store. It turned out we hadn’t needed Marnie’s mom to do the flowers after all.
Today was going to be the day though. Today I would figure out the details of Quinn’s party and finally send an invite to the rest of the office.
“How’s the party planning coming?” Ethan dropped a package on my desk with a thud. “This needs to be shipped out.”
“I’m working on the invite right now,” I lied.
“We should get a cake or something. And Jell-O shots. And maybe play a couple of games?”
“Sounds fun,” I said. “Did you want to organize any of that?”
He looked puzzled. “Aren’t you organizing the party?”
“Sure, but didn’t you say you would help with anything I needed?”
“Did I?” He shrugged. “Isn’t that just something you say though? To be polite?”
“It is if you want to help.”
“Oh. Well, I just thought—”
“That I’d organize everything because I’m a woman?”
“No!” he said quickly, fear exploding on his face. “I would never think something like that. I’ll totally help. If you need it.”
“Great.” I stood up and handed him a yellow sticky note. “You can help with the invite then. My address is on here, along with the time and date of the party. Invite anyone you want at the office, except Marc. The last thing I want is for him to start offering all the women free massages. I’m also still mad at him about Marty.”
At the sound of his name, Marty trotted into the lobby, his nails click-clacking joyfully on the stone tile. Marc had recently decided that keeping Marty so his ex-wife couldn’t have him was no longer worth the responsibility of looking after a dog. And now that his ex wasn’t allowed to have animals in her new apartment building, he was planning on putting an ad up on Facebook Marketplace and giving poor Marty away to a stranger. I was not pleased, to say the least.
Ethan hesitantly took the sticky note with my address on it. “But Marc is my boss. He’ll know if I don’t invite him.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.” I sat back down. “I really appreciate it.”
Ethan looked around, possibly expecting someone else to pop out and take this challenging task off his hands. I watched as the features on his face comically went from confusion to reluctance to acceptance. “Happy to help,” he finally said. And then he added, “You’re cute when you’re bossy.”
“Assertive,” I corrected.
“Assertive.” He nodded. “I’ll send the invites out before noon. Oh wait.” He stopped and turned back. “Should I tell people to bring their significant others or….”
“Let’s just keep it to staff,” I said. “It’s more fun when we don’t have to worry about people who don’t know our inside jokes.”
“Right.” He winked. “Makes sense. Looking forward to it.”
“Me too.” I stood up and put on my coat. “Thanks for your help. If anyone is looking for me, I’m going to take Marty for a walk on my break.”
Whatever Ethan said in response was drowned out by Marty’s extreme excitement over hearing his favourite words. After circling the lobby five times in a blur of fur, he completed his acrobatic entertainment by jumping into my arms as I knelt down to put on his leash.
“I’m going to miss you so much, little guy,” I said, kissing him on the top of his wriggly head.
Luke had taken a day off, and seeing as he had some errands to run downtown, we had planned on meeting for a morning walk at the park a few blocks from the agency. I rounded the corner and there he was, hands in his pockets, smiling the warm smile I never tired of seeing.
“Why so glum?” he asked as I walked up to meet him. He stood up after scratching Marty behind the ears and we settled naturally into our walk, side by side, comfortably familiar.
“I’m just bummed about Marty leaving,” I said. “I love him so much, which, believe me, is something I never thought I’d hear coming out of my mouth. I’m not really a dog person.”
“Seems like you are,” he said. I had texted Luke immediately after I’d found out about Marc giving Marty away, and many times since then, expressing my outrage.
“I’m less of a dog person and more of a Marty person,” I said. “How can you not be? He’s so cute and chill. Plus, he likes me. Most dogs don’t.”
“Maybe Marty sees something in you that other dogs don’t see,” Luke said, kicking a chunk of snow off the path.
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Have you ever thought about taking him yourself?”
I had, surprisingly. But I couldn’t take care of a dog. I could barely take care of myself. I told Luke as much.
“Julie,” he said, glancing my way as we followed the path around a corner, “as usual, you’re not giving yourself enough credit; I don’t think you realize how far you’ve come. You’re a different person since I first met you at that meeting.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” We both stopped and waited while Marty snuffled in the snow, looking for a place to do his business.
“Look at me,” he said, so I did. “I know you don’t see this, but coming from someone who can see you without your biased lens, you are a kind and loving person. The way you talk about Ben and Kate. The way you are with Hannah. The way your face lights up when you tell me one of the seemingly hundreds of stories you have about Marty.”
I laughed. I did like a good Marty story.
“I think you have a lot to offer this little dog.” Luke gestured to Marty as the dog back-kicked snow in the exact opposite direction to where he had peed. “Way more than a complete stranger would. Don’t you?”
I gently tugged on Marty’s leash and we continued walking. Could I take care of Marty? I did feel like I’d gotten better in the last eight months. I still had a lot of work to do, but I had definitely grown from the selfish partier that I used to be. It would be nice to have a dog to keep me company. And, best of all, I could bring him to work during the day so he wouldn’t have to be home alone.
“If I went on holidays, could you and Hannah take care of him?” I looked up at Luke, allowing the buzz of anticipatory excitement to start bubbling up in my chest.
“If you ever do go on an actual holiday then, yes, Hannah would be thrilled to have a dog to take care of.” He smiled a smile of victory. He knew he had me.
“Marty,” I said, tears filling my eyes, “guess who’s going to be your new—”
“Mom!” Luke exclaimed.
I stopped abruptly. “Hard no.”
“Dog mom?” Luke tried.
“Again, no,” I said but couldn’t stop smiling at the thought of it.
Luke smiled back and looped his arm through mine. “We’ll work on it.”
“When did you start feeling like an adult?” I was sitting on Kate’s bed while she tried on her wedding dress. Again.
“What do you mean?” She motioned for me to come over and help her with the zipper.
“I mean I’m forty-five and I still feel like I haven’t quite hit adulthood; like I haven’t figured it all out yet.” I glided the zipper up and slipped the four pearl buttons into their loops at the top. “You look stunning.” I smiled, looking at us both in the mirror.
Kate smoothed her hands over the corseted bodice and crinoline skirt and grinned. “I do, don’t I?” She turned around so she could see the back. “This dress is gorgeous.”
I squeezed her shoulders. “You are gorgeous.”
“Now I know what you feel like every day.” She winked in the mirror and turned as my smile faded. “What?”
“I really wish you wouldn’t say stuff like that,” I said quietly.
“You wish I wouldn’t say you’re beautiful?” Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
I sighed. Corie had told me I needed to start setting boundaries. What she didn’t tell me, however, was how hard it would be. “I know you mean well, and I know you’re sincere, but the way you see me is not really how I see myself. And it makes me uncomfortable.” I lowered my head. “I just wish you saw me for more than how I look. I don’t want to be seen like that anymore.”
“Oh, Julie.” She rushed over and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry. Of course I see you for more than that. If I had known you felt that way, I would have shut my mouth a long time ago.” She stepped back. “It’s probably just my own insecurities coming out. I always felt like your less-attractive friend and I guess I mainly focused on how that affected me. I never thought about how saying that stuff affected you.” She smiled tentatively, her eyes asking for forgiveness.
“Thanks.” I took a deep breath, relieved that the hard part was over. “It’s just such a hard standard to live up to. And I’m tired of feeling like I’m failing. I don’t want to do that to myself anymore.”
“And I don’t want to do that to you either,” she said. “Thank you for telling me.”
I blew out a breath and lay back on the bed. “Do you think our parents had things figured out when they were our age? When I was a kid, they seemed so much older than I feel now. They seemed way more grown up. I mean, I know I was a bit of an extreme case before I stopped drinking, but most people I know who are in their forties still drink and go out and have fun. When I was in my twenties I thought, at some point, people just grew up and became dull.”
“Based on what?” Kate lay down beside me, our heads almost touching, just like when we were kids.
I thought for a minute. “Based on our parents, I guess. I never saw my parents party. Back then, being in your forties was old. And old people were responsible. And boring.”
Kate laughed. “Little did we know.”
“Looking back on it now, I bet my parents did go out and have fun, I just didn’t see it. They certainly went to parties and hung out with friends, and there was always alcohol around our house. I was just too young to know what was going on.” I rolled onto my side. “I always thought I’d have things figured out by now; that I’d know what to do and make the best decisions.”
Kate turned her head. “You made a great decision to stop drinking.”
“I know. That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?” Kate sat up and looked down at me.
“Never mind, it’s nothing,” I said, ignoring her look.
“No!” She nudged me with her knee. “I’m not never-minding. We tell each other everything.”
I sat up and leaned back against the headboard, making myself comfortable amongst a dozen frilly throw pillows. “Luke and I almost kissed.”
Kate gasped dramatically and leaned in. “What? Really? Tell me more! Do you like him? Does he like you? Do—”
“If you want me to tell you more, you have to refrain from the rapid-fire questioning.”
“Right. Sorry,” she said, making a motion as if she were zipping up her lips, the way she used to when we were in high school. I laughed.
“The answer to all of your questions is that I honestly don’t know.”
Kate looked disappointed. “Well, that wasn’t worth shutting my mouth for.”
“I know, sorry.”
“Did you want to kiss him?” She tipped her head to the side.
“I think I did.”
“Why didn’t you then?” she pressed.
“I don’t know. I got scared, I guess.”
Kate put her hand on my knee. “You’re a great person, Julie. You deserve great things. I hope eventually you start to see that.”
“Thanks,” I said, eyes down. “I think I’m getting there.”