7
Now
I approach Felix’s old bedroom with caution, afraid of the ghosts I’ll find inside. When I push the door open, I’m so surprised by what I see, I double check to make sure I haven’t entered the wrong room. Bridget told me that Christine had redecorated, but I can’t quite believe how different it is.
When Felix lived here, the room looked like a barely crashed-in crash pad, with Blu Tack smudges marring the taupe paint, memories of hockey posters long since ripped down. But now the walls are covered in cream-and- white-striped paper and framed watercolors of flower-filled vases. There’s a pink-and-white quilt on the bed, Bridget’s grandma’s handiwork no doubt.
The windows still look onto the strip of grass that becomes sand that becomes sea, but the desk that used to sit under them is gone. The books, too.
Nothing is left of Felix’s room except for the bed, a handsome wooden antique with post and spindle head and footboards. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to sleep in its sheets. I can picture us there, that clueless couple, that endless night. I’ll see him in my dreams tonight. His fingers, unraveling the braid in my hair. His body, moving over mine.
Felix. More.
I cross the room to look out the windows, which are now topped with roman blinds in a cherry voile instead of plain white drapes.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?”
I turn around to find Bridget in the doorway, studying me.
“It’s hard to imagine your mom picking all this out,” I agree. “It’s more my taste.”
Bridget gives me a funny smile. “I thought so, too.” Her eyes narrow.
“You’re a bit flushed.”
Bridget can usually read me like there are closed captions of my innermost thoughts displayed on my forehead. But she’s not herself right now, and I don’t think she suspects anything’s off.
“Just hot.” It’s a half-truth. The Clarks have a thing about air-conditioning —as in, they refuse to get it. I crank open the window.
“Do you want to unpack?” Bridget asks. “Or should we head out now?”
We always used to begin our vacations the same way, with a long, slow walk by the water.
“Are you up for it?” She looks exhausted, but otherwise, she’s behaving as if that panicked phone call never happened, as if I didn’t just put my life on hold and hop on a plane to be with her. But I know Bridget, and I know I can’t push her to talk when she doesn’t want to. Unless I’m ready to fight, which I’m not. When we argue, it escalates fast, like we’re sisters with a lifetime of combat experience at our disposal.
Our last blowout was over her dieting. I’ve seen it countless times at In Bloom—brides who shrink themselves between our initial consultation and their wedding day. I didn’t think Bridget would be one of them. It was one of the rare occasions I won the argument.
I glance at the bed. “I’ll unpack later.” My suitcase is a disaster. I used to love planning my island vacation wardrobes. But there was no careful rolling and fretting over this skirt or that yesterday. There wasn’t any time. I poured myself a generous glass of wine, shoved everything in my bag, and ordered a take-out prosciutto and arugula sandwich, which even I could have prepared had I any food in my fridge. I remembered my nightgown only as I was zipping the suitcase up this morning.
“I should give Farah a call before we head out,” I say to Bridget now.
This trip has put my work stress to an eye-twitching level.
“Don’t you dare. Farah can run that place in her sleep. She doesn’t need you.”
Farah’s precise words were: “You could go and never come back, and I’d
be fine.” She wasn’t joking.
“Thanks,” I say flatly.
“You know what I mean. You haven’t taken a vacation in way too fucking long. I know I’ve said it before, but you’re doing too much, Bee.”
Bridget has been encouraging me for months to hire another staff member. She minored in finance, manages a meaty budget at work, and has been filing her own taxes since she was a teenager. When I took over from my aunt three and a half years ago, she helped me clean out Stacy’s office. It looked like a tipped-over newsstand, papers strewn about everywhere.
Bridget was disturbed by the mess and possibly turned on by the prospect of corralling it. She’s been helping me with the administrative end of the business ever since.
I know Bridget’s right. I am doing too much, but it doesn’t cost me anything if I work long hours. I’m terrified of overspending, of making one bad decision and bankrupting the business, of my parents being right after all.
The full weight of owning In Bloom didn’t settle on my shoulders until my aunt died last year.
“Bee,” Bridget says softly. “I’m worried about you. I know you can manage the same amount of work as three people combined, but you’re running yourself down. You’re going to burn out.”
“Bridget,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Did you orchestrate this vacation so you could stage an intervention?” I wouldn’t put it past her. As brazen- mouthed as she is, Bridget has a sly side.
“No. But you do need to take a breather.”
Maybe this trip can be an opportunity for Bridget and me to unwind like we used to. Gorge ourselves on oysters and vinho verde. Relax. Talk. Throw ourselves into rule number two and really leave the city behind.
“I guess a breather doesn’t sound terrible,” I say.
Her dimples pop. “I love it when you don’t argue.”
But it’s jarring—the forced smile and the mauve crescents under her eyes —and it does nothing to conceal the worry on her face.
• • •
OUR TRADITION IS THE SAME WHEREVER WE TRAVEL: ONCE BRIDGET AND I GET settled, we go outside and we walk. It’s our way of shaking off work and urban life. Rain doesn’t stop us. Snow doesn’t, either. On PEI, we head to a beach so we can drink in the Maritime air. I always search for sea glass in the sand and never find it. Sometimes we tromp down to the shore in front of Summer Wind, but today, Bridget suggests Thunder Cove. Neither of us has been since before the hurricane, when Teacup Rock disappeared into the gulf.
We park at the end of a red dirt road, take a path through the dunes, onto the beach. It’s as breathtaking as it was when I first saw it. Red sandstone cliffs rising high above the sand. Caves and crevices, carved by the Atlantic, shaped by wind. Swishing grasses and soaring gulls. I still can’t get over how massive it is. I knew PEI had beaches, but I hadn’t known they had beaches like this.
I used to braid my hair into all sorts of elaborate styles to combat the humidity and wind, but I savor the feeling of the strands lashing against my face, my dress whipping around my legs. It makes me feel small in the best possible way. I’ve been existing on stress and spicy noodles, but that version of Lucy feels insignificant when I’m standing on the edge of the island.
The surf is gentle today, barely crashing. I feel strangely emotional when I see what’s left of the Teacup—where it once rose, majestic, is only a burnished red platform of rock in the shallows of the sea. I hear Bridget sniff.
“Are you crying?”
She touches her cheek. “I guess I am.” She laughs at herself, but the sound gets stuck in her throat and becomes a sob.
“Hey.” I touch her arm. “Let’s stop for a sec.”
I’ve broken down in front of Bridget countless times. But she’s never been much of a crier. We sit side by side on the sand, knees drawn to our
chins.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Don’t apologize. You never have to apologize for having feelings, especially not to me. It’s better to get it out.”
Her chin begins to quake, and her eyes fill. When she blinks, big round tears slide down her cheeks. She shakes her head, bewildered at herself, and then buries her head between her legs.
I rub her back, telling her it’s going to be okay. But it’s almost impossible to keep myself from falling apart alongside her. I look at the sky, blinking back the stinging in my eyes. I want to be the strong one for once. Bridget cries until there are no more tears, only a runny nose.
“Want to tell me what that was about?”
For a minute, she just stares at the waves, at the blank space where a precarious rock once towered. “It’s just gone. The cow, too.”
“The Cows Creamery statue? In the airport?”
“Yeah,” she says. “You loved that fucking cow.”
“I did. But things change, Bridget. Shorelines and airports, especially. It’s not all bad. It just is.”
She turns to me. “It doesn’t bother you that the rock has just vanished?”
“A little. But nothing is permanent. It was meant to go. Everyone knew that thing wouldn’t last forever. You saw it. The top was too heavy for the
bottom.”
She looks back at the horizon.
“Can you talk to me about what’s really bothering you?” I ask.
She breathes in. Then out. “I just want to sit here,” she says. “Please. I don’t want to talk.”
We gaze out at the water together, and eventually, Bridget rests her head on my shoulder. A tangle of blond spirals and brown waves swirl across my vision.
“It feels like things are slipping away,” she says.
I don’t tell her that I feel it, too. Natural wonders. Landmarks. My aunt.
Bridget, too. Ever since she met Miles, she’s been a little less mine.
I picture Felix’s truck disappearing in a cloud of burnt dust this afternoon.
“I’m always here,” I tell her. “I’ll never slip.”
Not again, anyway.
