11
Summer, Four Years Ago
I was twenty-five, and life was perfect. Bridget and I were both thriving at work. She’d been in the PR department of Sunnybrook Hospital for a year and had already been promoted to a more senior role, and I was killing it at the flower shop. My aunt had let me take over the bridal consultations, and she’d hired Farah, who was as fascinating as she was terrifying. I adored her.
My parents’ inquiries into when I was going to get a real job had been reduced from a weekly to monthly frequency. We’d given our apartment a glow-up, courtesy of Bridget’s larger paychecks and a set of vintage wishbone dining chairs I’d found on a street corner. Three of my friends had sworn off dating apps, but I was on algorithmic fire. There was no one serious, but I didn’t want serious. I took after my aunt—cocktails, conversation, and a bit of fun were all I was looking for.
Then, one evening, Stacy took me to her office, pulled out the pair of crystal wineglasses she kept in her bottom desk drawer, and a bottle of chianti. She was closing In Bloom at the end of the year. Business was good, but she wanted freedom to travel more, maybe volunteer at a community theater. In her words: “I’m going to enjoy my life while I’m still young and gorgeous.” (Stacy was sixty, and she was gorgeous.) She knew a florist in Rosedale who would be happy to hire me, but I loved In Bloom. I didn’t want to work anywhere else. “If there’s one thing I can teach you, Lucy,” Stacy said as I sobbed into my wine, “it’s to live your life fully, to live it for
yourself and no one else. I know how much you love this place, but I have to do what’s right for me, just as you have to do what’s right for you.”
I cried my entire streetcar ride home, and then into Bridget’s curls.
She called her mom that night. “I think Bee needs some fresh air,” I heard
her say. “I’m going to bring her home.”
My aunt paid for the ticket.
I wasn’t worried about seeing Felix again. There had been plenty of guys in the year since. Yes, I thought about that night sometimes, but we had our rules. It was a one-time thing, and I already felt weird about keeping something from Bridget. Now that I knew who Felix was, I wasn’t going to repeat my mistake.
He picked Bridget and me up at the airport. I saw him as soon as we stepped off the tarmac and into the arrivals lounge. He was leaning against the cow statue, a book in one hand, a giant smile breaking across his face like a wave when he saw us.
Felix greeted Bridget with a hug and me with a wink. On the drive to Summer Wind, he was animated, telling us about the piece of land he and his best friend, Zach, were planning to buy.
I had intended to keep my distance from Felix, but over the next few days, when he wasn’t watching, I studied him, tracking all the ways he’d changed.
He was more confident, with newfound swagger, but I couldn’t tell if it was for show or not. And he’d grown a short beard. Even though Bridget had told me about it, I couldn’t have predicted how well it suited him, how it would have the effect of making his eyes shine brighter. My memory had failed to capture just how striking they were. He was thicker through the chest and arms, and he seemed so much lighter. His smile unfolded with easy optimism like a patio umbrella, no trace of sadness. And every time my gaze found his, it was pure, undiluted electricity.
“Your brother seems happy,” I said to Bridget on our third day.
She snorted. “That’s because he’s picking up tourists like it’s a side
hustle.”
That explained the swagger.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. Zach told me he keeps this list on his phone of his recommendations on where to go—restaurants, beaches, coffee shops, the blueberry ice cream from Cows—that sort of thing. His move is offering to text it to every pretty woman who walks into Shack Malpeque.”
I was familiar with the list, though I didn’t end up getting it from him last summer. “That’s kind of genius,” I said. “And helpful.”
“Mom and Dad say he’s barely spent a night here since Canada Day. I mean, I’m glad he’s moved on, but . . .” Bridget shuddered.
Twenty-four-year-old Felix was hot shit, and he knew it. Twenty-four- year-old Felix was a hazard to be avoided at all costs.
But it wasn’t easy.
Christine and Ken didn’t chart their every move like their daughter, but there was a chore calendar. Felix and I were assigned to share grocery shopping and dinner duty for three days. We took the Mustang to the store together, and I studiously ignored how his big hand gripped around the gear shift.
I squealed when I saw the bubblegum pink package of Cows Creamery butter in the dairy isle. It had a cartoon bovine and a map of Prince Edward Island on it. Ridiculously cute.
“I don’t know what cultured butter is, but I need this in my life.”
Felix extended his hand, and I placed it in his palm. “I can make that happen.”
We were preparing pork chops, potato salad, and green beans when Christine saw me using a steak knife to trim the beans. She handed me an enormous chef’s knife and told Felix to teach me how to use it. He stood behind me, with his hands over mine, demonstrating how to curl my fingers to keep them safe, until Bridget came into the kitchen and barked, “Get off my friend, Wolf.”
Felix laughed, and I dropped the knife, red-faced.
Then I drew his name from a hat as my partner for the annual Clark family sandcastle competition. The extended family descended on Summer Wind for the tradition, with the winning duo manning the grill at the barbecue that followed (a classic Clark prize if there ever was one). When the
meal was finished and the bonfire lit, Bridget and Felix’s grandpa would bring out his fiddle.
I spent two hours kneeling beside Felix on the beach, watching him form towers and moats with the sand. When my drawbridge threatened to collapse, he cupped his hands over mine so we could save the thing together. But for untold seconds, neither of us moved. We were in wet bathing suits, the August sun blazing hot against our skin. A smattering of goose bumps prickled my arms, and Felix’s fingers flexed against mine. I turned my head.
Our eyes met, inches apart. The jolt, electric.
“Thanks. I almost lost it,” I said, voice catching in my throat.
Felix smiled. I couldn’t see the dimple, but I knew it was there, lurking beneath the beard. “I’ve got you.”
I only realized I’d leaned closer when his gaze flicked to my mouth, and I snatched my hands back so fast, the drawbridge crumbled, taking the front of the castle with it. We came in last place, which seemed fitting since I was also losing my resolve where Felix was concerned.
Bridget and I were leaving in two days. I could make it two more days.
• • •
I SAT AT THE CLARK KITCHEN TABLE THE NEXT MORNING WITH MY HEAD ON ITS surface.
“Too much rye last night, Lucy?” Christine’s voice cut through the fog of my hangover.
“We told her to eat the peanuts,” Bridget said.
“Oh, big mistake, Ashby,” Ken said from somewhere. He was an attractive man, bearded and fit, with chestnut hair, dark probing eyes (Felix got his blues from his mom), and a gentle manner. “The peanuts are key.”
“I know that now,” I said to the table. We had spent the night sitting around the bonfire, dousing ourselves with bug spray and whiskey. Before Ken and Christine went to bed, I had delivered an impassioned, hiccup- punctuated speech about how much I was going to miss In Bloom—the doorbell, the elderly woman who stopped in every Friday morning to buy
herself a fresh bouquet, the buzz of seeing a space brought to life with flowers. I’d never unload like that in front of my own parents.
I felt at home with the Clarks. They didn’t care about a bit of sand trampled in the house. They spoke over one another. They teased. They asked a lot of questions, and Bridget’s mom told you if she thought your answer was horse shit. Literally. “That sounds like horse shit to me,” was one of her catchphrases.
“I hope you’ve learned that there’s no use working yourself into this state over your job,” Christine said.
I peeled my forehead off the table. “Maybe,” I mumbled to Christine.
I hadn’t told my parents yet. I could already hear my dad, “It’s a sign, Lucy Goose—time to get a real job.” To my parents, that meant a salary and a cubicle, but I didn’t want that. I wanted In Bloom.
“Right now, it feels fresh,” Christine said. “But setbacks can be chances if you look at them from the right angle.”
“Sounds like horse shit to me,” Bridget said, sending her mother a mocking smile.
“That’s not horse shit—that’s the truth. Opportunities don’t fall in your lap because you want them to. You have to work to make them happen.”
I took a sip of coffee. It sounded smart, but I was too queasy to figure out why.
Felix, who’d been listening without weighing in, rose from the table and returned with an ibuprofen and a glass of water.
“Thought you might need these,” he said, placing them on the table in front of me. Lightning blue eyes met mine. My stomach flipped.
One more day. I could make it one more day.
