This Summer Will Be Different(20)

I’ve spent enough time with the Lams to see why Bridget loves them. They moved to Canada from Australia when Miles was a teenager, and they share the Clarks’ dry sense of humor, high volume setting, and lack of pretension. The combination of the Clarks of Prince Edward Island and Miles’s raucous Aussie relatives will make for a fun night.

There’ll be an open bar and a fiddle and a food truck with lobster rolls later at night. The dinner is eight courses, Cantonese dishes carefully selected by Miles. All I know is that it involves roast suckling pig, so I’m in. I’ve already written my speech. I’ve memorized the opening lines so I can look at Bridget as I say them.

The first time I met Bridget Clark, she gave me a ride home on her handlebars. In many ways, she’s carried me since that night seven years ago.

I plan to make my best friend weep. Assuming the wedding’s still on.

I lift the blanket to my nose, taking a deep whiff. The steamer trunk is lined with cedar, and the Clark blankets have a distinct Clark blanket smell. I’d bottle it if I could. The sea, the grass, citronella candles, and wool blankets from the cedar-lined chest—the perfume of Summer Wind.

I give Farah a call to check in. She tells me our part-timers were thrilled to pick up extra shifts while I’m away, and to leave her “the eff alone.”

“You haven’t taken a vacation in forever. I’m sick of you,” she says. I haven’t taken time off since last summer, and I haven’t come up for air since. Work. Work. Bridget’s wedding. Work. Work. Work.

“Well, I’m not sick of you.”

She scoffs. “Maybe you could have found a real date for the wedding if you didn’t spend all your waking hours with a pair of floral shears in your hand.”

Farah claims weddings are gross, but she’s coming with me, and I’ve long known she has a caramel center under her spiked shell. I love her, but she’s right: I didn’t have anyone else to bring to the wedding. It used to be that Bridget was my favorite person, but now she’s my only person outside my staff. In the past year, I’ve been so caught up with work, I’ve let my friendships dissolve. My sex life, too.

“You are a real date,” I tell her.

“I won’t grope you on the dance floor, so no, I’m not. It’s a waste of your hot dress.”

It is hot. I’ve chosen something more Bond girl than usual—dark and slinky with a slit up one thigh and a high halter neck—I wasn’t sure how I’d react to seeing Felix in formal wear, or whether he was bringing a date, but I knew I’d be as bright as a poppy.

“All clothing makes a statement,” my aunt used to say. “And I like mine to speak loudly.” Stacy was never without a red lip and a hit of red on her body. She owned precisely one children’s book that she’d read to me at bedtime when I slept over as a child. Red Is Best.

If my dress could talk, I’m pretty sure it would say, “Let’s find a dark corner and do bad things.”

“Do not sneak roses into the Mendoza bouquets,” I say to Farah, changing the subject.

“They’re going to look floaty.”

She tells me to stop worrying and to say hello to Bridget, which, in Farah-speak, is akin to a profession of love.

I tiptoe upstairs after the call, avoiding the creaky step that’s second from the top—if Bridget is sleeping, I don’t want to wake her. My suitcase is a jumble, but I find my nightgown right away. It’s an ankle-length white cotton number with a ruffle around the bottom and simple embroidery at the neck. It’s weirdly in keeping with the new vibe of Felix’s former bedroom.

With the blanket and another finger of rye, I cozy up on the outdoor sofa and open my texts. I have to scroll far down to find the conversation I’m looking for. You can’t call our messages a chain, because there are only four. I sent the first one to Felix a year ago. His reply came two days later.


Me: Sorry, I missed you. Thanks again for everything!


Felix: Always a good time.


Me: Back to real life

Felix:



A yellow thumbs-up. The universal conversation ender.

I’d told myself it was a good thing.

As the last blush leaves the sky and the horizon disappears into twilight blue, headlights shine on the side of Ken’s work shed. My arms pebble. My skin knows.

I walk along the side of the house to the driveway as Felix’s pickup slows to a stop. He takes something from the rear seat and comes around the truck, carrying an armful of groceries. Felix Clark, the most considerate man I know. He stops when he sees me.

His gaze rakes over me from head to bare toe. Despite the cool breeze, it heats me through. I’ve braided my hair into two plaits like I often do before bed. It’s me at my least sexy, but Felix has seen it before.

“You look like an olden-days ghost,” he says, eyeing my nightgown, though Felix never had a problem with the nightgown.

“Can I help?” I hold out my hands, but he moves toward the house. “Wine’s on the passenger side,” he says, without looking my way.

I walk to the truck as Felix heads inside. I open the door, and my heart leaps like a rambunctious, poorly trained puppy. On the seat is a paper bag with two bottles of my favorite vinho verde and an overnight bag.

Felix Clark has come to stay at Summer Wind.