One Golden Summer(5)

I don’t know how to make you happy, Alice. Do you?

I’ve just zipped my suitcase when the buzzer trills. Heather arrives in a cloud of strong perfume and carrying a suspicious orange paper bag that she shoves at me.

“For you.”

Heather calls shopping her unguilty pleasure, and she’s always buying me clothes. The back of my closet is stuffed with bandage dresses and low-cut blouses, courtesy of my big sister.

I peer inside the bag, pushing aside the tissue paper to reveal emerald silk. “What is this?”

“Don’t look so disgusted. It’s a dress.”

I pull it out and raise a brow. “It’s a tiny dress.”

“Minuscule.” Heather grins, and it’s like a camera flash. My sister has always been beautiful, but her smile is so radiant it’s almost startling. “Green’s your color, Turtle, and if you don’t put it in your suitcase, I will.”

One of the ways I revolt against my red hair is to never wear green. Most of my clothes are neutral, with a few hints of blue. A rare splash of yellow. I set the bag on the counter, promising nothing.

Heather and I have identical hazel eyes, but our similarities stop there. Heather’s an unrepentant show-off; I prefer going unnoticed. She has our dad’s height, confidence, and coffee-brown hair, which she wears in a sharp-angled bob—part of her courtroom intimidation tactics. I get my library-soft voice and auburn curls from our mom. Heather’s the rebel; I’m the good girl. She’s impulsive; I’m a planner. And, unlike me, she’s completely uninhibited.

Both she and Dad are showboats. Luca and Lavinia are the same. At the last family get-together, my baby brother stripped off his shirt at the table to display a tattoo of a lion, a turtle, a flamingo, and a monkey across his chest, and Lavinia handed out invitations to her Muppets-themed burlesque.

I always thought I took after our levelheaded mom. But in December, when the ink had barely dried on the divorce papers, she moved across the country to British Columbia. We’d grown up hearing stories about the season she spent picking and packing cherries in the Okanagan Valley in the late eighties. The old VW van. A friend named Cinnamon. Camping in the fields. That version of Mom seemed as far-fetched as bedtime fairy tales. That is, until she announced she’d reconnected with Cinnamon and was going to work at a biodynamic vineyard in Kelowna. Our homemaker, homebody mother now lives two thousand miles away, pouring glasses of pinot noir and viognier in a tasting room overlooking Okanagan Lake.

“How’s my niece?” I ask my sister.

Heather got married young. Became pregnant young. Got divorced young, too. I lived with her for a couple of years after the split, when my niece was just a baby. Heather was determined to tackle both law school and a newborn. Bennett is thirteen now.

“Don’t use my daughter as a distraction technique,” she says, marching to my bedroom with the shopping bag. I hear her open my suitcase. “I’ll need photo evidence of you wearing it,” she calls.

I scowl at her when she returns.

“What? You’ll look hot in that dress.”

“Nan will be so appreciative.”

Heather squeezes my waist, which is currently covered by a white-and-blue-striped nightshirt, and I swat her hands away.

“What are you doing?”

“Just checking to make sure there’s a body under all that cotton. I’d forgotten.”

“Ha. Ha.”

A line appears between her dark brows. “I’m serious. Don’t let yourself disappear just because Trevor’s gone.”

I flinch at my ex’s name, then silently berate myself for being fragile. I wonder if it would be easier if he hadn’t moved on so quickly.

Heather’s face softens. “Show that dress a good time, Ali. You both deserve it.”

“We’ll see.”

She looks at me like I’m hopeless, then kisses my cheek. “I’ve got to go. Bennett’s at a friend’s tonight, and I’m meeting someone.”

“Which one?”

Heather’s too busy to date, but she has a short roster of friends with benefits.

“He’s new. Just in the city for a night.”

“Ah.”

It’s another way Heather and I differ: I’ve never slept with someone I don’t love. I can’t fathom having a one-night stand. But since I have no intention of throwing myself into another relationship for a long time, if ever, I may need to rethink my strategy.

“That sounded like a very judgy ah,” Heather says.

“No judgment. Only reasonable sisterly concern. Be careful, okay?”

“Always.” Heather wraps her arms around me, guaranteeing I’ll smell like vetiver for the rest of the night. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“In just a few weeks.” She’s bringing Bennett to the cottage to spend a week with Nan and me. I can’t wait. Three generations of Everly women under one roof is my idea of heaven.

“And you’re coming back to the city for the show, right?” she asks.

I wince.

Elyse is about to open a gallery on Davenport, and In (Her) Camera is her first exhibition—it’s also the first major show I’ve been asked to participate in. It was a pinch-me moment: my former photography instructor, a woman I worship, wanting to represent me. Then she told me which photo she wanted to display, and I felt ill. But how could I say no when everyone knows that Elyse Cho has impeccable taste? It’s been many years since she was my teacher, but I have yet to find equal footing in our friendship. I still see her as my superior in all ways.