This Summer Will Be Different(24)

“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.





12





Summer, Four Years Ago





“Bee, if you don’t stop jiggling your leg, I’ll tie it to a cement block.” Bridget tore the husk off a corncob. “You’re shaking the entire deck.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” My mind was a train station at rush hour. I was working up the courage to put sound to an idea so outlandish, I was nervous to voice it. I knew what my parents would say if I broached it with them. “Too risky.” And I knew what Bridget would say. But being on Prince Edward Island, away from the stuffed streetcars and high-rises and noodle containers that decorated my everyday life in Toronto, made unlikely dreams seem less far-fetched.

Bridget and I sat side by side on the steps, the platter of shucked corn resting between us.

“I’m thinking about asking my aunt if she’d let me take over In Bloom,” I said, plucking silvery threads from sunny kernel strands.

“Whaaat?” Bridget grabbed me by the shoulders, sending the corn tumbling onto the grass. “Tell me everything. How long have you been thinking about this? Bee! This is amazing.” Her cheeks were pink, her freckles darkened by the sun. She looked like part of the island—someone born of soil and sea and wind. So beautiful, my best friend.

“You think so? I’m twenty-five. I’ve never run a business. I’ve never hired anyone. Or fired anyone. The paperwork alone would be overwhelming.” I pictured my aunt’s bomb of an office. “I’ve been thinking about all the ways I could improve the shop and our online presence, but what if they don’t work out? And taxes! What—”

Bridget sandwiched my cheeks in her hands, and I stopped talking.

“Breathe,” she said.

I took a long inhale. “Do you really think I could do it?” I whispered.

“Yes! Of course! One thousand million billion percent! You have to do it.” Her eyes were shining with glee. “You can do anything, Bee. And I’ll help with the tax stuff and paperwork if you want.”

Ugh. Bridget’s faith in me was boundless. I really needed to stop eyeing her brother like I wanted to dip him in melted butter. I monitored her closely. “You’d do that?”

“Of course, you sweet potato. It will be fun for me. I love Stacy, but I’m sure her bookkeeping leaves room for improvement. We can talk to her about it at our next dinner. She will be thrilled.”

Stacy had Bridget and me over for dinner most weeks. She couldn’t cook, but she knew her way around a take-out menu.

Bridget shivered, giddy, then rubbed her palms together. “I’ve always wanted to get my hands on her office.”

I fidgeted with the waist tie of my sundress.

“What’s wrong?”

“My parents wouldn’t be happy.”

“Bee, your family sort of sucks,” she said gently. “The way they treat you is not glaringly awful—they’re just mildly shitty. It’s almost worse because it’s hard to recognize the ways they cut you down.”

I took a deep breath. “I know.”

“But do you?” Bridget asked as the sliding door opened behind us.

Felix was standing there, in a T-shirt and jeans, dressed the way he had been the day we met. I looked at him, and he looked at me, his smile vanishing into a frown.

“You okay?”

I took another deep breath. Other than the fact that Felix was reading me like an instruction manual, I was okay. I didn’t need my parents’ approval. I had Bridget. And Stacy. I smiled. “Yeah,” I told Felix. “I’m good.”

His lips curved, and my mind slipped back in time. His mouth on the moles beneath my collarbone. Mine on his inner thigh, tasting his birthmark.

“Mom bought four dozen Valley Pearls,” Bridget said by way of greeting. “Bee’s been given timing duties.”

Felix was competing in an oyster-shucking contest in a few weeks’ time and Christine wanted him to practice. It took place every year in Tyne Valley, and apparently it was a big deal.

“Oh yeah?”