Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Lola
Mom and Dad are mad at me.
They’ll come around.
Why do I do this to myself?
I don’t know, Lo, but everything will be okay. I’ve got your six. Always.
- Conversation between Lola, age 16 and Mase, age 23
The downside to buying the old hardware store is that we need to go to the next town over for supplies.
I never used to mind traveling but the thirty minute drive to Mount Bush gives me too much time to think.
Skyler and I left Henry working on laying the up-cycled wooden floorboards and because she’s driving, my mind is free to spiral to the deepest depths of insecurity.
I go through the list of things we need to buy to try and distract myself from the one thing—okay, the one person—I can’t stop thinking about.
Most of the stuff for the coffee shop is already sorted but I need a curtain rail for the apartment and new shower parts so I can actually have a decent wash instead of making do with a cloth and the sink. Glamorous life I live thee not.
We’re also going to pick up some buckets and sponges so Skyler and I can clean the glass shop front. Once that’s done, I can start drawing on the designs in window chalk.
I have this image in my head of how the shop will look when it’s finished and I keep flitting back and forth between toddler level excitement at seeing it come together and life questioning panic that the place currently looks like a building site.
And in case I needed more stress, you know to balance out the scales of the peaceful life I’ve led so far, Max still hasn’t replied about tracing the unknown number and Roman still hasn’t gotten in touch about my proposal. So much for distracting myself.
I know I told Roman to look the plan over, to think about it, but it’s been three days now.
Three days is a lot of thinking time. Maybe enough time to go from saying yes to no.
Maybe he’s realized it would be stupid to enter into a work arrangement with the girl who was voted most likely to flunk out and become an exotic dancer.
Maybe he just doesn’t know how to tell me he’s changed his mind.
“Lola. Lola,” Skyler snaps to get my attention.
I lift my head from my hand and move my elbow from where it was resting on the open window. “Sorry, did you say something?”
Strands of Skyler’s hair that have come loose from her braid play against her cheek as she looks over at me from the driver’s seat. “You went to the dark place, didn’t you?”
I sigh and put my flipflopped feet up on the dashboard. “Maybe just the light gray place.”
Skyler focuses back on the road. “He’s going to say yes.” She seems so sure and steady, her hands at ten and two on the wheel as we drive down the coastal path.
Skyler has this unshakeable confidence to her which I envy. People tend to think I’m confident but ninety percent of the time it’s just bravado. I don’t do things like bungee jumping because I’m fearless, I do it because I refuse to let my fear rule me.
I take my eyes off Skyler and watch the scenery pass us by. Late summer is my favorite time of year in Nova Scotia. The temperatures reach high twenties if we’re lucky and Skyler took the canvas roof off her Jeep, so the wind keeps us cool even as the sun heats the asphalt.
We’re driving near the cliffside at the moment and the sea stretches out behind Skyler in an endless expanse of navy blue.
I used to imagine secret islands in the waves as a kid, just beyond the horizon.
Even then there was a whole world out there I wanted to discover but until what happened with Carson, I always planned to come back home.
On my side of the car, pine trees stand like pencils, pointing up at the powder blue sky, their fallen needles piled up on the edge of the road.
Carson can try to scare me off as much as he wants but I’m glad I came back. I visited incredible places on my travels, but nothing quite compares to Pine Rock.
“Mountains or forest for the coffee shop windows?” I ask.
Skyler gives me the side-eye for changing the subject, but she doesn’t push the matter. “Merge the two? Are the illustrations going to be permanent or will you switch them up?”
“Switch them up. I want to be able to change with the seasons and also maybe highlight different places in the world, to go with the whole travel theme.”
Inside the shop, one wall will feature a large wooden map of the world and on the other I’m going to make a display out of all the T-shirts I’ve gotten from around the world.
I built myself back up as I traveled, finding little pieces of who I am and who I want to be scattered across the world. Now, I’m bringing those pieces home.
The wooden sign for Mount Bush appears, with its Mi’kmaq name printed below and Skyler flicks the blinker on.
For the rest of the morning, I vow to push thoughts of Roman to one side and focus on bringing my dream to life.
Today is going to be a good day, I manifest, naively believing that will do anything other than jinx it.
I’m in the paint aisle, my view obscured by the curtain rails stacked in our cart when I hear the commotion by the door.
“Lola!” a man shouts.
I shoot wide eyes at Skyler. “I think that’s my brother,” I say before hot footing it to the front of the shop.
Mase sways in front of the checkout, trying to look around the store clerk telling him he needs to leave.
He scoffs when he sees me. “I knew it. Knew I saw you come in here.” He stumbles a little.
I take in his half-untucked shirt and glazed eyes. “Are you… are you drunk?”
Disbelief knocks into me. It’s mid-morning and Mase barely drinks. He’s always been the responsible one.
Now, he points a finger at me. “Nuh huh, you don’t get to judge me. I’m not the one who’s ghosting her own family.”
His words bruise but the hurt melds with anger. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been keeping my distance because he upset me, because they weren’t supportive. I’m the one in the wrong. The one who’s too childish and wild to think of anyone but herself.
The store clerk turns to face me. “You know him?” she asks.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. Though this is so far from the brother I know it feels like a lie. “I’m sorry, I’ll get him out of here.”
Mase scoffs.
Pity seeps from her eyes and she turns back to my brother. She barely comes up to his chest and she can’t be older than twenty, but her voice is strong. “Sir, you need to leave.”
He draws up to his full height and glowers down at her. “And you need to stop telling me what the fuck to do.”
“Mase!” I snap at him, and he backs down, a moment of clarity and regret flickering across his face.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to the woman then I grab Mase’s arm and drag him out of the hardware shop.
Mount Bush doesn’t attract many tourists, so the street is mercifully quiet. If only the same applied to my brother.
“You need to call Mom and Dad,” he demands, shaking off my grip and turning on me as soon as we’re outside. “Mom’s worried sick.” His whole barrage is intimidating for about two seconds before he sways again and has to lean against the brick wall for support.
I shake my head. “What are you doing drinking at ten in the morning?”
He doesn’t answer me. Just stares at the bar on the opposite side of the road. A woman with long black hair and a vest-top stands in the doorway, drying a glass. She keeps one eye on Mase, and I figure that’s where he’s been hiding out.
“I thought you were going back to work this week,” I say, trying a different tactic.
He stares at the woman, some of his fight seeping away. “Well, I’m not. Which you’d know if you hadn’t run off like a sulking teenager.”
The audacity of this man to accuse me of sulking when he looks like a toddler who hasn’t got his favorite toy.
“I’m twenty-four years old. I didn’t go off in a sulk, I moved out. You don’t get to do this Mase, especially not when you stink of liquor and can barely stand up straight.”
He pulls himself to standing as if to prove a point and manages to hold himself steady while he looks at me. “It’s not going to work. This harebrained coffee shop scheme of yours? It’s going to fall apart, only this time I’m not going to be there to clean up your mess.”
My fingernails bite into my palms. My chest may as well bear his boot-print, but I tilt my chin up and meet his glassy gaze. “Screw you, Mase.”
We hold each other in a lockdown stare, neither of us willing to give in, until Skyler catches my attention from inside the shop. Through the window, she points at my brother, then herself, and raises her fists in a cartoon worthy mimic of Rocky, her eyebrows raised in question.
Her antics break the tension, and I hold back a smile, shaking my head to let her know I’m okay. Though the idea of Skyler trying to beat up my brother, a highly trained soldier, is an image I’ll savor.
“Do you often make violent friends?” Mase eyes Skyler and for some reason him judging her is a step too far for me.
“Do you often get drunk and stumble across town making a scene?” I jab back.
Anger flares in his eyes, a snarl curling across his face, but then the bartender across the street whistles. Short and sharp.
Mase looks up at her and blinks. She holds his gaze for a second before heading back inside the bar. As if the high-pitched sound was enough to clear his head, Mase deflates and runs a hand over his cropped hair.
Pain cloaks his eyes and despite how cruel he’s being, love for my brother aches in my chest. “What’s going on with you, Mase?”
He grimaces. “Nothing. Just call Mom, okay?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer before heading back across the street and disappearing inside the bar.
Skyler joins me outside the store, pushing the cart to a stop by my side. “You okay?” she asks.
I bite my lip, still staring at the bar. “Not really.”
“I’d say let’s go get drunk but...”
That shocks a laugh out of me, and I spin to face Skyler. Her chagrinned look is ruined by the sadistic gleam in her eye. “You’re ridiculous, you know that right?”
“Did I not put ‘great at making inappropriate jokes’ on my job application?”
“No. You did not.”
“Huh, strange.”
Skyler pushes the cart over to where we parked in, and we load our stuff into the back of the Jeep. We’re just about finished when the bartender from before steps outside with a trash bag.
“I’ll be back in a sec,” I tell Skyler before dashing across the street and trailing after the woman to the dumpster.
She notes my presence but doesn’t say anything.
“Hey, um, that guy I was talking to, he’s my brother. Has he um– when…” I can’t seem to get the words out.
The woman lifts the lid to the bin and swings the bag over into the dumpster. It lands with a thump. “He’s been coming in every day for the last two weeks.”
Her words hit me hard, worry gnawing at my stomach but I just nod. “Does he– is his car here?”
She keeps her face tactically blank, but her shoulders soften. “He gave me his keys an hour ago. He gets a taxi home.”
I nod again, my stomach unknotting a little. “Good. That’s good. Thank you.” I take an awkward step to the side and let her pass.
I stare at the entrance to the bar long after she’s gone back inside but Mase doesn’t reappear.
I guess, in a roundabout way, my plan to stop thinking about Roman and Carson worked, because I spend the whole drive back to Pine Rock replaying what Mase said.
I knew my mom was worried. She’s called me at least a dozen times in the last three days. I thought giving Mase and my parents space would make things easier. I’d been telling myself I was giving them time to adjust but in reality, I’m just mad.
It was never my intention to ignore them completely, but I’ve been so focused on the shop and then Roman and you know the whole almost getting run over thing, I haven’t had the headspace to battle with them.
I shouldn’t have to battle with them. Family are the people who are supposed to have your back no matter what, the people who are supposed to help you chase your dreams, not tell you you’ll never reach them.
I know my parents love me, but I think they worry about me more.
The worst thing about it is that I brought this on myself. As cruel as he was, Mase wasn’t entirely out of line. He’s had to clean up my messes more times than I can count. He’s picked me up from police stations, tutored me in school, carried my drunk ass home after partying too hard.
Despite recent evidence to the contrary, Mase is an incredible big brother. He’s the smart one, the responsible one, and the last time I screwed up it almost killed him.
Mase was ready to go after Carson, evidence or not, and if Carson hadn’t got arrested for the drugs I’m not sure what my brother would have done.
I don’t know what the hell has happened to him to make him drink the day away but he’s not going to talk to me about it, and I have a feeling the only person he will talk to is the one person I don’t want to.