12. Rune
Chapter 12
Rune
T he thing I love about my cousins is that even after years of seeing very little of each other, it’s almost effortless to pick up right where we left off. They take cousin time very seriously and are fully committed to ensuring that my time here is filled from morning to night. That having been said, Ella’s list of activities is madness.
We shop every thrift, antique, and boutique store within a fifty mile radius and work our asses off cross-country skiing across the lake. Courtney joins us for the skiing treks, but otherwise stays at Aunt Mairi's, studying for the bar exam that she’s supposed to take next month. Her dedication to her career is inspiring, if not mildly triggering.
Under her influence, I spent all day yesterday sending out applications for various jobs in Chicago. Unfortunately, all but one application received Out of Office replies. I doubt I'll hear back until mid-January at the soonest. But stress will get me nowhere, or so Aunt Mairi tells me. Which is why I’ve embraced Ella’s exhausting social schedule for the past four days. It’s nicer to think about used sweaters and coffee shops than whatever else is going on in my life these days.
That's why we're here, hanging out at Up North Coffee in adorable little Birch Lake, Minnesota while we wait for our daily lattes.
My car is parked on the curb just outside, already covered in a fresh dusting of the snow that’s accumulated since we walked inside. I picked it up yesterday and was pleasantly surprised at how well it drives. Charlie the mechanic, who turned out to be a woman in her early thirties, not the old guy I was picturing, gave me a bill for ninety-two dollars. She assured me that the money would cover everything, which makes me suspect that someone else has possibly paid the rest. I can't even get an oil change for that amount in Chicago. I suspect Aunt Mairi. It could also have been Finn, but I have to stop myself from going down that thought path. Despite my slight obsession over him, he remains a stranger. He also hasn't texted me at all since he left on his trip. I can take a hint.
“The thing about thrift stores,” Ella says, raising her voice to compete with the buzz of the espresso machine, “is that you don’t have to sacrifice quality for budget.”
“Stop preaching to the choir.” I scored a beautiful rose-colored winter coat at a thrift store on Saturday for $6. It's filled with down and has kept me warm even as the temps drop into the single digits.
I'm just finishing up my latte when an older lady shuffles over. She’s wearing a black wool coat, with short curled gray hair peeping out from under a felt hat.
“Good morning, Mrs. Mustonen,” Ella says with a smile.
“Hello, Ella, how have you been?” The woman pulls a chair out from the table next to us and sits down, settling in for a chat. Ella seems to know everyone, no matter where we are. I merely observe while the two chat about mutual acquaintances and some slight gossip (“Did you see that Jennifer’s house sold? A family from Michigan bought it…”). I wonder what it’s like to have roots this deep in an area, where you are intimately familiar with the rich, faceted history of the people and places you encounter on a daily basis. I’ve never had that and I wonder if I’m missing out. When, the conversation wanes a little, Mrs. Mustonen produces a flyer from her large black leather purse.
“If you girls are looking for something to do this week, we need volunteers to help with the fundraiser for the senior living center.”
“I thought that was cancelled?” Ella says.
“For lack of volunteers.” Mrs. Mustonen levels her a look. “The committee figured a little recruiting would help.”
“What do you need?”
“The Smiths stepped up to MC, but we’re still looking for help with setting up the room tomorrow and with serving during the fundraiser.”
Ella’s looking at me, waiting for me to say something. Like I’m the one planning our schedule.
“I’m leaving Friday,” I point out.
You got something pressing that you need to hurry back for?” Ella asks with just a touch of sarcasm. She’s well aware that my timeline is my own. To the old lady she says, “Put us down to help with the set up. Two energetic young women. And put us all down for dinner tickets on Saturday.”
Because I’m Midwest polite through and through, I do not argue until Mrs. Mustonen is out of earshot. When she is, I glare at my cousin. “I’m going to overstay my welcome.”
“Oh please, is that even possible?”
“Did we clear this with your mom? You know, the one whose house we're staying in?”
A crazy question, apparently, based on the way Ella’s eyes roll back into her head. “She adores you and you can do no wrong. How could she not love this idea? Besides, she knows you’re the reason I’ve stayed so long in the first place. If it was just Courtney, I’d have gone back to Duluth after the weekend.”
As it turns out, Aunt Mairi does love the idea, even if she purses her lips at Ella. “Did you let Rune make this decision, or did you make it for her.”
“She was basically begging me with those big brown eyes of hers: Please let me stay longer ,” Ella says.
“I don’t want to intrude,” I add, feeling obliged to make the statement.
“You aren’t,” Aunt Mairi says firmly. “It’s nice to have you around. It’s too bad that Jules couldn’t join us, like old times.”
I note that she doesn’t say anything about her own sister, my mother.
My parents effectively decided to raise Jules and I away from our grandmother and aunt, apart from a few scattered visits here and there. It was a veritable miracle when they decided to ship us to Minnesota for a week or two in the summer so they could go on an adults-only vacation. Jules and I didn't mind. We loved the cozy, laid-back lifestyle that Aunt Mairi crafted for her girls. We loved the way she listened, the way she allowed us to converse as if we were adults. She was the mother we wished we had.
“What is Jules up to, anyway?” Ella asks.
“She’s still traveling the world, isn’t she?” Courtney calls out from the living room, where she’s surrounded by books, coffee, and a plate of snacks.
“She is. How’s studying going?”
Courtney makes a grimace and gives a long stretch. “It’s so good, really addicting, I highly recommend.”
I snort a laugh at her wry sarcasm. “When is the bar exam?”
“End of February.”
My brows fly up. “You’re going to be at this for two months ?” This is exactly the reason why I will probably never have a stable career. I don’t have an ounce of the dedication that Courtney does.
“No, I’m studying in three sprints: two weeks of studying, followed by a half week of relaxing. Long enough to mentally reset, but not long enough to forget what I’ve memorized.”
That’s even more disciplined than I initially thought.
“Good for you, Courtney, make us all feel like degenerates,” Ella says.
“Don’t be annoying.” Courtney rolls her eyes. “You’re the only one who fits the term. Rune worked the same job for years .”
“You’ve been sitting in a classroom for years,” Ella shoots back. “I’ve actually contributed to society in that time.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
I slowly back away from the sibling spat, into the relative safety of the kitchen.
“You sure you want to stay here longer?” Aunt Mairi mutters.
“I can probably survive till Sunday.”
“You know you’re welcome to spend the holidays with us.”
Part of me wants to accept the invitation. I imagine Christmas being a warm, cozy affair with my aunt and cousins. At the same time, I don’t know what normal holiday protocol is—my family certainly didn’t have any when I was growing up—and I don’t want to intrude. “I better get back home and figure out what’s next,” I say.
“Do what you need to, just know the offer stands.”
If only I knew what I needed to do.
For now, I guess I’ll just focus on the volunteer work that Ella signed us up for.
I’ve never volunteered for anything (apart from church events that my parents insisted we be a part of growing up), and I’m pleasantly surprised by the cheery camaraderie pervading the event. And it is definitely an event in and of itself: the entire retired community has turned out to help. Many came with cookies and coffee cake, so there's a table set up that's brimming with home baked goods. I’m pretty sure they actually do not need Ella and I, apart from the fact that we’re younger and steadier on our feet.
Margaret, a woman with bright, twinkly eyes who appears to be somewhere in her late seventies, takes me by the arm and leads me to a tall ladder set up against the wall. There’s a large pile of synthetic garland on the floor next to it.
“You look as if you have some balance left in you,” she says.
“We'll find out,” I say, clambering up the ladder to drape the fake pine garland over the doorway. It's tedious; the hooks are small, and I have to twist wire loops around the garland to get it to hang properly.
Meanwhile, Margaret untangles the garland, providing both direction and entertainment from below.
“Make that loop just a little lower, would you?” she instructs.
“Quit bossing the poor girl. It looks fine,” another volunteer calls from nearby.
“Says the woman who can’t tell a crow from a raven,” Margaret retorts. Turning to me, she continues, “I found a crow last summer that had fallen from its nest. Fed it puppy chow and grasshoppers until it could fly.”
“Really,” I say, intrigued. This is wilderness living at a whole new level. I climb down the ladder and slide it over a few feet, before stepping back up to hang the next section of garland.
“Truly. It’s smart as a whip, too: it’s learned to say ‘delivery’ in its screechy crow voice to get me to open the door and visit with it. Took me a whole week to realize it was the crow talking and not the voices in my head.”
I laugh at her self-deprecating humor.
“It’s name is Delivery,” she adds with a wink. “There’s some law against keeping crows as pets. I keep telling him that, but he gets very grumpy when it’s cold and I won’t let him come into the house with me.”
“Since when has legality stopped you, Marg?” The other volunteer pipes up.
“I’m always on the right side of the law, Joan.” Margaret waves her hand and lowers her voice, as if telling a secret. “The real reason I don’t let him in the house is because he would shit all over the place. I just talk about the law so his feelings aren’t hurt.”
“Crows don’t have feelings.” Joan rolls her eyes.
“I’ll let you tell him that.”
“I’m not going near that monster.”
“He stole a doughnut from her once,” Margaret says proudly. “Stole it right out of her hand and dunked it in her coffee before eating it.”
Ella walks by, a large clear plastic box full of tableware in her hands. She catches my gaze and we grin at each other.
It’s true , she mouths.
I bite back a laugh and focus on getting the rest of the garland strung up while Margaret remains distracted arguing with Joan.
By the time Ella and I bow out two hours later, the room is fully transformed.
“See, aren’t you glad you volunteered?” Ella says happily when we’re back in the car. “I miss those ladies. I used to see them at the quilting club once a month when I was in high school.”
“Technically, you volunteered me,” I point out. “But yes, I am glad.”
“Kind of makes you want to move up north, doesn’t it?” she says slyly.
“You don’t even live here anymore.”
“Duluth is basically here.”
I give a noncommittal mumble. Truthfully, it would be nice to live some place like this: a forest far away from the big city. In Chicago, the view outside my apartment is just a sad, decrepit building. Every time I glance out the window, my stress levels drop lower. But—my friends are in Chicago. And I haven't seen any full-time jobs advertised here, even though I have been paying attention when we’ve been out and about.
“If you find a job that pays a living wage, let me know,” I tell her.
“Okay, okay, fine. We’ll look for something. What does Jules say about all of this?”
“I haven’t told her yet.”
“Seriously? I thought you two were like this.” Ella holds up a pair of crossed fingers.
“We are,” I say, which is fundamentally true, even if it feels a little bit like a lie at the moment. Thanks to our jobs—and my lack of disposable income—we’ve seen less and less of each other over the past couple of years. I don’t want my big sister to feel like she has to bail me out. And she totally would. She’d drop everything just to help me, even though she has her own life to live, traveling the world as the assistant to some CEO. “Anyway, if you find something, let me know. But I want this vacation to be a vacation. I'll think about work after.”
“Atta girl. So in the meantime, you up for another thrift store?” She tosses me a grin.
“Sure. I’ve got a couple fives left in my purse.”
“Good, take a left here. The one I’m thinking of has an incredible selection of sweaters.” Her eyes gleam with anticipation.
* * *
Three sweaters and twelve dollars later, we make it back to Aunt Mairi’s. Ella disappears for a nap, but the conversation we had about my sister has been living rent-free in my mind all afternoon. Have I made the wrong decision, keeping her in the dark? On the one hand, it’s my life, but on the other…if our situations were swapped, I would want to know how she’s doing. For that reason alone I pick up my phone with a resigned sigh and tap on my sister’s contact before I change my mind.
It’s a mere three seconds before she answers.
“Heyyyy, are you still alive?” A blurry face becomes visible on the screen, the background dark behind her, as if she’s just woken up in bed. Which is surprising, since Portland time is two hours earlier than mine and I’ve never known my sister to go to bed this early.
“Heyyyy, are you still alive?” I squint at the pixelated image.
“Why are you so blurry? I thought Chicago has great service.”
“I’m up in Minnesota at Aunt Mairi’s.”
“Oh, nice . I should meet up with you. I’m in Finland right now, which actually reminds me a lot of Minnesota. Same trees, same frigid temps”
“Finland? What the actual fuck. Since when?”
“Since I got here.” Classic Jules, keeping her cards close. It must run in the family. “Did you finally get some PTO?”
I bite back my questions about her travels, even though I’m brimming with them. “I have a work conundrum.”
“This sounds juicy, tell me more.”
So I do. I tell Jules absolutely everything: work, Sebastian, and my series of misadventures, minus the part where I saw Finn in a towel. For some reason, that feels too personal to even share with my sister. I also skip the part where he’s super attractive and probably single.
“So your shitty coworker Diana got a raise and you were kicked to the curb? Sounds like you shouldn’t have put so much effort into fixing her work. It made her look too good,” Jules says.
“Then the clients would have had to suffer. That’s not fair.”
“I mean, you definitely took the high road, but was it really your responsibility? Your boss is the one who made the call.”
“Craig had no loyalty to our clients. He just wanted the numbers to keep go up magically every quarter, like we were some monstrous corporate company without an upper limit.”
“Interesting. So basically you should have quit ages ago.”
I don’t respond to that. Hindsight is 20-20.
“You aren’t telling mom and dad, are you?” Jules asks, one brow quirked.
“Of course not. That’s why I called you.”
On the screen, Jules smirks at my emphatic reply.
Our parents aren’t the greatest at being parents. The most charitable thing I can say about them is that maybe they try. Maybe they’ve always tried. But it wasn’t enough when Jules and I were younger, and it’s certainly not enough now that we’re adults. To tell my parents something like this is to invite them to share an opinion on a topic they know nothing about: their own children. Or how life really works. My mom would tell me I should just be happy with where I'm at. My dad would tell me that all my problems would be solved if I would stop being difficult and just get married so that a man can take care of my finances.
“Anyway, I don’t know what to do.” I sigh, laying back on the faded blue bedspread in the guest bedroom where I’m staying.
“I think you do. Get that resume out there and go for what you really want.”
“So that’s another problem: I don’t know what I want.”
“Put your big girl panties on and figure it out, Rune. I know you like to play it safe, but sometimes it’s okay not to. You know that, right?”
“I guess.”
Across the world, Jules scoffs at me. “Take those marketing and design skills and do something cool. Start that bookstore you’ve always wanted. The cool witchy one with herbal teas and art classes. What did you want to call it, again? Nature and Ink? Birches and Teas?”
“Something like that.” I laugh a little under my breath. “I can’t believe you remember.”
“Someone’s got to hold you accountable for pursuing your dreams. Hey, I have to catch an early train to Rovaniemi in the morning. I’ll be back in the States in a couple weeks. How about I hunt you down then and we can spend some high quality sister time, yeah?”
“That sounds nice.”
“Okay, cool. You need any money in the meantime?”
“Absolutely not.”
She laughs. “Fine, whatever. Bye, crazy girl. Give Auntie a hug from me and don’t let Ella be a bad influence.”
“Obviously. Love you, too.”
The room seems a little emptier when the phone goes silent. I miss my sister desperately. She’s one of the few true anchors in my life.
A minute later, my phone pings with a notification: a five hundred dollar transfer to my account. The accompanying message:
Jules: You can’t tell me what to do.
I shake my head, both annoyed and grateful. I won’t use her money. I refuse to use it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not wildly thankful for the gesture. I take a picture of my middle finger and text it to Jules .
She responds quickly.
Jules: I love you, too, little sis. Now go take some risks.