Chapter 9 Sierra #2
I realize as my jaw drops open and my salivary glands engage that I am desperately, aggravatingly thirsty for Mason Grant’s secrets.
And what he’s been saying about me in front of his niece.
However, Layne is right there, so instead of asking any follow-ups, I smash a couple of strawberry-shaped stamps on a buy-ten-smoothies-and-get-one-free card and thrust it at Kaylie. I force my best customer-service smile and send them off with a bright “Great to see you! Have a wonderful night!”
“Thank you!” Kaylie calls out as her dad takes the hint and guides her out of the shop.
“See you, Sierra,” he says, as I busy myself wiping down the counter in front of me.
Sophie flips the sign to Closed behind them and locks the door.
“Are you kidding me?” I semi-shout at her. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah. What a great kid.”
“Not that. The part about how Mason keeps talking about me.”
“But we already knew that, right? He’s probably telling everyone he sees to boycott us.”
“In front of his niece? That doesn’t sound like what she meant.” But what did she mean? She seemed to think I might come over to their house again.
“You’ve been polishing that spot on the counter for a very long time,” Sophie says a moment later. “Just so you know.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I think you may be reading into things, hon.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Because you have a crush on the enemy.”
I toss my rag at her. “Stop.”
When we lock up for the night and leave, Mason is in the bar parking lot with his friends Jace and .
. . Ethan? I can’t remember his name. The other hot one, who looks like he should be in the military: muscles, commanding air, tight-cropped hair.
Jace straddles a motorcycle, a big, black Harley, and they’re gathered around it, talking loudly, laughing.
Mason looks right over at me—and stops smiling.
“Okay, I’ve seen his brother,” Soph mutters to me. “And those are his friends? Shiiit. Is there something in the water around here?”
“I know. I think it’s the cider,” I mutter back as we climb into my van and get the hell out of there.
“I wouldn’t call it a crush, per se.” I’m standing on the back porch of the Cozy Cottage, smoking weed with my best friend that she procured from some random farmhand because Sophie Moore is resourceful like that.
She breathes out a plume of smoke and smirks at me. “Then what would you prefer we call it?”
I gaze past the thicket of trees that surround most of the cottage. The back porch is the best thing about the cottage, really. From here, there’s a clear view of row upon row of apple trees. June’s, and beyond, the ones that belong to the Grant family next door.
And beyond those, the water, where dark humps of land, the Southern Gulf Islands and the Saanich Peninsula, look like sea creatures slumbering in the dusk.
The sun is going down and it’s a real bummer inside the dank little cottage after dark. Plus, I saw two spiders in there last night. I need to spring for some new lamps at a yard sale or something. And maybe inspect every inch of the walls, floor, and ceiling for cracks. I can’t room with spiders.
I take a drag from what’s left of the joint and try to explain my fucked-up feelings toward Mason Grant. “It’s more of a lust situation. I would do him, if he had the completely same body but an entirely different personality.”
Sophie considers this seriously. “Whose personality?”
I think on that long and hard as if it is serious business—because weed—and finally say, “King Kong.”
My best friend cackles. “What the hell, Si?”
I shrug. “He knows what he wants. He literally, like, climbed the Empire State Building for her.”
“I’m not sure you’ve actually seen any of the movies . . .”
“And I don’t mind a big, burly grump. As long as he’d move mountains for me.”
“This is disturbing information. How are you even gonna fuck with a giant—”
“Good evening, ladies.”
I startle, fumbling and dropping the last of our joint, burning myself in the process. I yelp and Sophie stomps the embers out, waving a hand in the air to disperse the weed smell. “Oh, hey, June. Mosquitos,” she bullshits.
June looks skeptical. Of course, she was, what, a teenager in the 1960s? She probably smells what’s up. It’s not even illegal anymore. And she’s not my grandma. Why do I care?
Because I’m high and she’s still eyeing us. She doesn’t even stop, just seems to take forever walking by on the path. And just when she’s almost out of view, she pauses. “Oh, Sierra? Didn’t you want to talk to me?”
I blink at her maybe eight times before I realize she’s waiting for a response from me, and that she’s referring to the email I sent her this morning because I literally don’t know how else to get a hold of the woman.
“Oh. Right. Yes!” I hop down from the porch, tell Soph, “Be back in a bit!” and jog after June, who’s suddenly motoring along the path again at her usual improbably high speed.
She’s carrying a broad but not deep square basket on one arm, loaded with small, leafy plants, like it’s weightless.
“I wanted to talk to you about our lease agreement.”
“Yes?”
“Well, as you know, Sunshine Fest is in just over two weeks. And my lease extends just nine days after the festival, to the end of the month.”
“I’m aware.”
“So, uh, is there a possibility, if things go well, that I might extend the lease and stay longer?” I’ve been considering what that would look like.
Advantages, disadvantages. And despite my ongoing lack of cell service and my general distaste for nature and Mason Grant, the advantages of staying in Orchard Cove, at least for a while, seem to be winning out.
I’ve decided that I’d probably hang out almost anywhere on earth right now in favor of delaying the return to my disaster of a life in the city. Thanks to losing my investment, I no longer have a venue for the rest of the year, and Cutie Fruitie is already set up here, so . . .
“For how long?” June asks me. Which isn’t a no.
“I don’t know yet. Maybe the rest of summer?” Or forever. “You’re a wiser, older woman, June,” I venture, because I’m high. “Maybe you could tell me. How long does it take to get over your ex making love to his gorgeous best friend on the Egyptian cotton sheets you bought him for his birthday?”
June stops walking. She’s reached the opening in the low stone wall that surrounds her personal yard, and I’d already stopped a few steps back.
My ability to walk properly is getting wonky.
I try not to squint, but my eyes feel very, very squinty as the weed digs its claws in. I do not handle weed particularly well.
“That’s what’s happening right now?” she inquires. “Back home?”
My eyes squinch tighter. So, so high. “Define home,” I say carefully, exaggerating the word, which suddenly feels foreign to me. Are we talking his home? My home? The city in general?
“Home is the place where you feel most like yourself,” she says easily.
I consider that. Am I taking way too long to respond? Yes.
“I’ll get back to you on that.”
“Hmm,” she says, in her June way—difficult to interpret. She could be judging me, concerned for me, utterly giving-no-shits. “Come. Let’s plant basil.”
With that, she turns on her heel and marches into her backyard.
“Um . . . okay?” I follow her carefully, along the little winding path through her gardens.
She kneels in front of a long, narrow planter box filled with rich, dark soil, and sets her basket down.
I crouch down next to her as she lifts a tiny, leafy plant from the basket, and gives it to me.
The leaves are lush and a bright green, and she rubs one between her thumb and forefinger, then brings her fingertips to her nose and inhales.
I do the same. The leaves are smooth and I rub for weirdly longer than I probably should, enjoying the silky, cool texture.
When I bring my fingers to my nose and sniff, I let out a small, uncomfortably orgasmic sound at the incredible aroma.
I greedily inhale more; it’s like mint and lemon and sugar with whispers of cinnamon and fresh green magic.
“Sweet basil,” June says. “I’ll give you some to take home with you when you go back to the city.
” She picks up another baby plant, the roots in a small clump of soil, and presses it into one of the holes she’s already dug in the planter box.
“Just press it in gently, and tuck in the soil around it so there are no air pockets. But not too tight. You don’t want to damage the roots.
” She nods toward another planter box nearby, and I shuffle over to it on my knees.
June places the basket between us and we both set to work, planting little baby basil plants in the fading evening light. They look so happy, their bright green leaves so proud and pretty against the dark, soft soil.
“How did you know I needed this?” I say in wonder.
“Focus on something tactile. Keep your mind occupied on a simple, grounding task. That’s what I like to do when I’m high as a kite.”
I blink at her. Is she for real?
She keeps planting basil, like this is a perfectly normal situation to find oneself in with someone four decades apart from you in age, and whom you barely know. “So,” she says, “you just went through a breakup. And now you’re running away from your problems.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m running—”
“Is this what you really want? You want to stay in that cottage any longer than necessary?” She raises a silvery eyebrow at me.
“Uh . . .”
“We’ll be fixing that roof soon enough.”
“Right. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I can promise you, in the time that I live here, no matter how long it is, I will fix it up. If you’ll let me.
I really love that kind of thing, and it will be my way of showing you that I’m a great tenant.
” Stoned Sierra is really running her mouth now, and trapped deep inside, sober me is unable to stop her; I just hope she’s not writing checks my ass can’t cash.
“Fix it up . . . how?”