22
Autumn, Two Years Ago
As we walked to the wine bar, I pointed to my favorite neighborhood landmarks. The mural on the side of the butcher shop. The coffee shop with the best salted chocolate chip cookies. Felix had a shopping bag in one hand and the bouquet of flowers in the other. It was a good look.
“So what did you get?” I asked him once we were seated on stools around a horseshoe bar.
He pulled a copy of White Teeth out of his bag and placed it on the counter.
“That’s not like you. You usually read stuff written decades before we were born.”
He blinked at that, like he was surprised I’d noticed. “I’m making my way
through a list of modern classics.”
“Ah,” I said, surveying the wine list.
“They have a vinho verde.” Felix pointed to the menu, and I smiled. I guess he’d picked up on a few things about me, too.
We ordered tapas. I told him about Carter, and he told me about Chloe.
She’d recently moved to the island from Ottawa. They’d met in Charlottetown, when she asked him for directions to Water Prince Corner Shop, and they had now been dating for a couple of months.
“Finally ran out of tourists, huh?” I joked as the bartender delivered two glasses of the crisp white wine.
But Felix didn’t laugh. He tipped his head. “There weren’t that many.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, taking a sip. “I’m not offended I wasn’t special. I know how you used your recommendation list as a way of getting someone’s number.”
He studied me in a way that made my chest prickle. “I sent that list to a lot of people. I started compiling it because I knew I wanted to put it into a brochure for guests at the cottages one day.”
“That was three years ago. I didn’t realize you and Zach were thinking about Salt Cottages back then.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We started planning a few months before I met you. I know I seemed like a loser oyster shucker—dumped by his fiancée and living with his parents—but I was saving.”
“That’s not how I saw you,” I said. “Not at all.”
Felix shrugged a shoulder, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t believe me or if he didn’t really care what I’d thought of him.
“Anyway, I didn’t run out of tourists. That’s not what I’m looking for. I was never really a casual fling kind of guy.”
“But Joy threw you off course?”
“Partly,” he said, gaze fixed on mine. “And it’s hard to resist a woman in a tablecloth who tells you she’s wide open.” His eyes shimmered. Teased.
“Ha. With a line that smooth, how could you resist?”
“I couldn’t. It was impossible.”
“Have you always been a reader?” I asked. I thought about the copy of Wide Sargasso Sea that lay on his nightstand that first night.
“You know that I didn’t go to college?”
I nodded. “How come?”
“I didn’t see the point of it. I thought I had my future all figured out. Zach went to Dalhousie in Halifax, and when he’d come home, he had so much to talk about—new ideas, new people, new bits of trivia. Even the way he spoke changed slightly—I think he probably enjoyed showing off his vocabulary.”
He smiled. “But I felt like I was missing out, so I asked him to share his English reading lists with me. I made my way through those books, and then I kept going. At the beginning, it was about not being left behind, but I discovered how much I love reading.” His voice had deepened, turned a little
hoarse. “My parents both had year-round work and steady incomes, but that’s not a given on the island. Other than Portugal, I haven’t traveled much because I’ve been so cautious with money, but I love how books can
transport you almost anywhere.”
“Have you ever considered writing?”
He looked surprised by my question.
“I bet you’d be good at it.”
“I have a journal, but most of my writing is in the margins of books.”
“Defiling your precious novels? Felix Clark, I’m shocked.”
He chuckled, and when our eyes met, I flushed with warmth. The spark, it was there, but different. Less of a dangerous crackle and more like a comfortable hum.
“So you’ve done Portugal. But what’s next on your list?”
He ran his teeth over his bottom lip. “I couldn’t pick. Everywhere, anywhere. France or Italy. A backpack, trains, baguettes, a good book in a big park. Or England. So much literary history there. But there’s so much history everywhere. Germany. Turkey. India. I’d love to see Japan and now Australia, thanks to Miles. Scotland. Brazil.”
I started laughing. “You’re just naming all the places.”
“I’d see them all if I could. But I’d always go home. I’d always go back to Prince Edward Island.”
I sighed. “There’s nowhere I love better, either. It feels like home to me when I’m there, too.”
“Maybe you should make it home one day. You could find a few acres of land for your farm. It’s not as expensive as it is here.”
The thought had crossed my mind, but only as a fleeting fancy. My life was in Toronto. The shop, my aunt, my best friend. I could never live so far from them. And I didn’t know the first thing about managing a farm. I was still finding my feet running the flower shop.
“Can you do me a favor?” I said later, as we finished a plate of manchego drizzled with honey. The past few hours with Felix had been a relief. Maybe we could start over as friends and put the past behind us.
He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Of course.”
“Don’t tell your sister about the whole flower farm thing.”
“How come? I mean, I won’t if you ask me not to, but why wouldn’t you want Bridget to know?”
“Have you met your sister? If I mentioned the idea to her, she’d be dragging me to see acreages within a week. If she thought I was sitting on a dream, she wouldn’t let me get away with not seeing it through.” I loved Bridget’s encouragement, but I needed to do things at my own pace.
“All right. I promise I won’t say anything to Bridget about your farm.”
His mouth hooked up on the left side. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”
The following evening, Miles cooked something complicated that no doubt required going to thirteen specialty grocers and the fancy butcher. His idea of heaven. Felix and I washed up. It was simple, all four of us together.
It felt like family and friendship and something else I wasn’t sure how to name.
I saw Felix again Friday morning, a breakfast before his flight. Bridget had a six a.m. yoga class and was happy to leave her brother in my care. We ate eggs Benny, and he told me about all the work he’d done at Salt Cottages.
He wanted my advice on social media and his website and took my answers seriously, pulling out his phone to type a few notes. He even listened to my soliloquy about online reviews.
“You should come see the cottages when you’re on the island next,” he said. “It’s a bit of a drive from Summer Wind, but you and Bridget could make a day of it. Hit up Basin Head and Souris. We can do a barbecue at my place.”
“I’d like that,” I told him, grinning. This was friendship, coming into bloom. New buds on old wood, like a hydrangea plant in spring. “You got to see my baby. I want to see yours, too. And I’ll need to snoop through your bookshelf. I’m sure it’s epic.”
His smile was warm. “Maybe next summer.”
• • •
THE FIRST PACKET OF SEEDS ARRIVED THE FOLLOWING WEEK IN A YELLOW ENVELOPE.
THE FIRST PACKET OF SEEDS ARRIVED THE FOLLOWING WEEK IN A YELLOW ENVELOPE.
My name was on the outside, but there was no note, only a paper sleeve with a picture of dahlias on the front. I brought it to the office and pulled the book Felix bought me off the shelf. I studied the woman on the cover of Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden and the bouquet of orange dahlias flung over her shoulder.
After we closed that evening, I walked to the bookstore. I wandered around, not sure what I was looking for. But then I saw a beautiful clothbound edition of Wide Sargasso Sea. I mailed it to Prince Edward Island the next day. I didn’t write a note. I didn’t need to.
My gift said, I’m thinking of you, all on its own. Just as his did.
