Chapter Twenty-five
When I open the door of Lyle’s Grey Tusk condo the next morning, Sharon’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed, already shaking her head. She’s dressed in all black, like she’s attending the Love Boat’s funeral.
“You’re idiots,” she pronounces. “I love you both, but I am this close to putting clauses in your contracts about your whippersnapper mistakes.”
She strides into Lyle’s compact condo, which is luxurious by ski-town standards, especially for someone who lives alone.
The building dates back to the development boom of the eighties, its age apparent in the diagonal terra-cotta tiles and rustic stone fireplace.
The tight galley kitchen flows into a living space crammed with a gigantic overstuffed couch.
A shelf of textbooks covers the wall where you’d expect a TV.
Abnormal Psychology. Forensic Interviewing Techniques.
Fundamentals of Family Therapy . A framed diploma from his master of arts in counseling psychology—nothing from his PhD, though.
There’s a print of the family photo Lyle keeps in the Mystery Machine, as well as various shots of his formerly ginger, now increasingly snow-topped parents, Babe, and himself with his buddies from his former job as an expedition guide.
Coming back to Lyle’s bed with its chunky driftwood frame felt like coming home. This bed has a sense of history and permanence that felt just right when we curled up in it a few hours ago to get what sleep we could before today’s reckoning.
“I’m sorry about…” I was going to say “the fake engagement,” but that doesn’t seem like a good enough way to describe how screwed we are and how terrible I feel. “Everything,” I finish sadly.
“You meant well,” Sharon says, more gently.
“But yes, you did fuck it up. We’ll see what we can do about that.
” Sharon unpacks her briefcase onto the wall-mounted breakfast table, which folds away when the weather’s bad enough for Lyle to do yoga indoors.
The dog, freshly released from the animal hospital at a cost that made me choke, perks up her ears and trots over to lean into my leg.
Ever since we picked Babe up this morning, I’ve been her new best friend.
“Morning, Sharon. Coffee?” Lyle asks, padding barefoot out of the bedroom, hair still a little damp from the careful washing I gave it this morning, keeping the water away from his eyebrow.
Afterward, he taped a kitchen garbage bag over my arm and helped me through a one-handed shower.
It’s humbling to be cared for by him. I mean, he shaved my right armpit today, a service I’m pretty sure most people don’t request until after they’re married or own property together.
The sight of him clean and combed could stop my heart.
Every curl, every freckle, every line of his body feels as intimately known to me as the lines of my own, yet he’s a brand-new version of himself now that we’re not in camp.
His beard is freshly trimmed into a neat square-chinned shape; his curls spill over the collar of his checked flannel overshirt.
I’m surprised every time I see his jeans, new and unstained by sap and canoe repair compound.
Maybe he thought wearing his black-framed glasses would draw attention away from the two neat stitches in his eyebrow, but it’s not working.
Under the neck of his plain white T-shirt, there’s no familiar silhouette. The necklace must still be coiled neatly on top of his dresser, where I put it last night. Good.
He drops a kiss on my cheekbone as he passes, letting the back of his hand slide down my new shirt in a way that tells me exactly how good he thinks I look in it, and how much better he thinks I’ll look out of it.
Sharon’s eyes widen. “So that’s the way it is between you two. Well, it’s a blessing you’re banging, at least. The fake engagement brouhaha would be much worse if you hated the sight of each other. I’ll take that coffee—black.”
“Sharon,” I moan, hand covering my eyes.
“ Aunt Sharon,” she corrects me. “Don’t argue. It’s been a long day, and it’s not even noon. You look good, Stellar. If you do any public appearances, wear that.”
I was ready to attend the emergency meeting wearing one of Lyle’s shirts as a dress, since half of yesterday’s clothes are in the garbage and the rest of my things are at base camp.
But a little after eight this morning, a bike courier dropped off a dress bag from Grey Tusk’s most exclusive womens-wear boutique, courtesy of an after-hours call from Sloane’s very convincing publicist.
Inside, I found this stretchy white sleeveless top—bandage friendly, an excellent choice—a slim cream-colored wool skirt decorated with hammered bronze studs, and coordinating knee-high canvas lace-ups that remind me of overgrown Chuck Taylors.
Canadians don’t wear shoes in the house, as a rule, but these are new and the thick soles make me two full inches taller, so I’m making an exception.
It’s a killer outfit, more Paris than Pendleton, but I miss how I looked on the river.
Out there, I had helmet hair, sticky skin from layers of sunscreen, and clothes that were never quite clean.
But when I looked in the wavy mirror over the wash station sink, I felt good on the inside.
When I texted Sloane to thank her and ask how much she spent, she told me I was exhausting and refused to discuss it.
“Let’s get started,” Sharon says. Lyle sets a steaming mug in front of her—of course he keeps coffee in the house even though he doesn’t drink it. Babe pushes between our feet as we sit down, curling up under the table with a doggy harrumph .
“Isn’t Tobin coming?” I ask.
“No,” Sharon says. “He wants to see the meeting minutes, but he said he’s too removed from day-to-day operations to be helpful in making decisions. Now, good news or bad news first?”
“Good news,” Lyle says, right as I groan, “Bad news.”
“Majority vote wins. Good news first. Despite the deception—next time run that kind of thing by me first, please—you made the right impression on your clients. Beeswax will run a short piece by Brent Torquay tomorrow and a long-form piece in early fall. Willow Connors Torquay offered to donate the cover photo and promote it with her hundred and fifty thousand followers, so that’s a big get. Sloane will cross-promote as well.”
Willow is a well-known photographer with a giant following? And meanwhile I was arranging canoe paddles for cell phone photos? I look at Lyle, who shrugs.
“Laurie Mitchell wants to feature us in Vancouver International Bank’s internal newsletter, which lands in two hundred thousand employee inboxes.
That won’t be until next month. And.” Sharon pauses for dramatic effect.
“This morning the Mounties paid a call to Alan Fisher’s little canoe camp and detained a grad student of his—one William Trevor Butterworth— for questioning.
My source inside the detachment says his entire camp witnessed the conversation, which included the words ‘assault with a weapon.’”
“That’s great,” I say cautiously, wanting to savor the thought of Renee watching the fracas at Fisher’s camp, but knowing Sharon has another shoe to drop. “And the bad news?”
“Yes. Well. The bad news is that good publicity doesn’t necessarily translate to strong sales. As of this morning, the bookings situation is still dire. The second session is operating at breakeven. Barely. The third session… it’d be cheaper to refund people’s deposits and cancel.”
I bite my lip. “What about the other sessions? The fourth and fifth ones?”
Beside me, Lyle shifts in his chair, taking a slow, stoic breath. He sounds like he does during morning meditation when he talks about accepting what is instead of what you wished for.
Sharon leans forward. To this point, she’s been all business, but now her eyes soften.
“I’m sorry, Stellar. I meant we’d be wise to cancel all sessions after the second.
If not that one as well. We’re in an incredibly untenable position, business-wise.
Corporate espionage is a very difficult charge to prosecute.
Realistically, we’ll have to spend a metric fuckton of money on lawyers so Fisher doesn’t publish our methods, then turn around and sue us for using them.
Or we’ll have to close down the company. ”
Under the table, Lyle’s left hand encloses mine, squeezing reassuringly. A pulse of sadness hits me as I feel the empty space where his ring used to be.
Of the two of us, I’m pretty sure I’m more upset about what’s happening. Which is unexpected, considering this is Lyle’s baby, and he has no other job prospects.
But I do. Last night, I unblocked the hospital domain on my email, feeling guilty for even considering a job that’s not the Love Boat. This morning, I received a headhunting email from Grey Tusk General—an invitation to lunch with the new chief of emergency medicine.
“One last piece of bad news—”
“ Seriously , Sharon?” I rub my gritty, tired eyes.
“Yeah, I know, it’s a parade of suck. Renee Garner’s team reached out this morning.
Seems she’s ‘rethinking’ her collaboration with Fisher.
She had a podcast spot earmarked for him, with the recording scheduled for two days from now.
She’s offered it to us. Production schedule permitting, she’d air it this week. Special episode.”
A seed of hope sprouts in my chest. “This is… bad news? I mean, this might be our only hope to stay alive past next session. We could stick it to Fisher. Take back what he stole. Renee’s offering us a chance.”
Lyle shakes his head. “But look at what she’s not offering.
None of her people at our second session.
No long-term collaboration. She’ll be in damage control mode, trying to distance herself from Fisher and maybe from the whole idea of whitewater therapy.
She could help us, and she could hurt us, too. ”