This Summer Will Be Different(52)
I make myself smile. “I’m going to need to read the entire exchange later. This is a very big deal.”
We take our seats as the first heat of teenage shuckers are called onstage—two boys and one girl. There are three timers standing behind them, including Joy, one per shucker. Felix’s leg bounces up and down when they start, fingers tapping on his knee.
“Cut it out,” Bridget says.
“Makes me edgy to watch,” he says.
“Take a walk. Bee, go with him. You’re not good at sitting still, either.”
We can’t move three feet without someone saying hello to Felix. He’s shaking hands and making small talk like a politician. The conversations are brief, but each is a reminder: Felix Clark does not cease to exist when I leave the island. I knew that, of course, but it’s been easier to imagine him tucked safely away in his cabin in the woods—busy with work the way In Bloom consumes my days in Toronto. But Felix has a whole life I know nothing about.
“Well, aren’t you the prom king,” I say after we finish chatting with friends of his parents’.
We’re studying a table of wooden oyster crate dioramas that have been decorated by children—an octopus’s garden, a bubblegum pink hair salon, a trio of baby sharks dressed for school. There’s a fiddler onstage now—the juniors have finished, and their oysters are being scored by the judges.
Felix smirks. “I was.”
“Of course you were.” Joy and Felix, the perfect couple. “Although you don’t strike me as someone who loves the spotlight.”
“I’m not. But community matters to me.”
“That’s why you do this?”
“Yeah.” He offers me a dimple. “Ego might have something to do with it, too.”
“But you love it.”
“I love it.” He looks around the arena. “Even though I sometimes feel like I’m seventeen when I’m here.”
“And that’s bad? I seem to recall you were a seventeen-year-old shucking champion.”
His laugh is soft. “I was a seventeen-year-old jackass.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” I nudge him with my elbow. “Ray said watching you win was one of the proudest moments of his life.”
“Yeah. Did you know that I used to work for him?”
Felix and I haven’t really talked about his history with Joy and her family. “I don’t think so.”
“Ray taught me everything I know about oysters, including how to shuck them. He was my boss, but he was a mentor to me, too. There were years when I spent more time with the McInnis family than my own.” He shrugs. “When I won, I competed on behalf of their family business. It meant a lot to him.”
“How long did you work for him?”
Felix adjusts his hat. “Pretty much the entire time Joy and I dated, so almost seven years—part-time during high school and full-time after. When Joy was away at university, I saw her parents more than I did her.”
“Wow.” It seems unfair that he lost his fiancée and his job in one day. “Did you ever consider staying on?”
Felix shakes his head. “It would have been too hard, and I needed to put that part of my life behind me.”
I nod. “It’s impressive that you and Joy are friends.”
“We agreed to make an effort and be civil. We know all the same people.”
He steps closer, holding my gaze with an intention that has me shifting. “And I thought life would be easier if we could be in a room together.”
Before I can reply, someone else taps him on the shoulder.
We find our seats when the grading contest begins—apparently watching people sort a pile of oysters by size doesn’t give Felix heart palpitations. My eyes keep wandering to Joy onstage, and I don’t miss that hers travel to Felix and me between rounds. They would make sense as a couple. There’s a history there. I know their families used to be close. They’re more than just civil—they’re friends. And they live in the same province. Move in the same circles. Joy is part of the community Felix loves.
Zach and Bridget are cheering on Joy’s mom, a petite blonde who’s putting her fellow graders to shame. I whisper to Felix, “Have you ever considered giving it another shot with Joy?”
Narrowed eyes move around my face, like he’s trying to read an upside-down map. His gaze clears, as if he’s tracked down the truth from the labyrinth of my mind. He moves toward my ear so no one else can listen and says, “Are you jealous, Lucy?”
My chest heats, and Felix pulls back. I stare into his eyes, trying to read what they’re saying, but then Bridget leans over my lap.
“I think it’s time for you to go do your thing, Wolf,” she says. “The shuckers are gathering over there.” She points to where a large group is assembling at the back of the space.
Felix gives me one last look, like he knows every single dream and doubt and dangerous thought that lies beneath my skin. And then he’s gone.
25
Now
A bagpipe sounds from the back of the arena, and we turn in our seats. The musician begins a slow walk down the aisle toward the stage. He’s in his early twenties, wearing a newsboy cap and a short-sleeve plaid shirt, trailed by a group of about forty people. Directly behind the bagpiper, a man hoists an enormous wooden trophy over his head, a large oyster at its center.