This Summer Will Be Different(82)

“It was fun,” she says, her pointy neon green nails curved around a paper cup. “I’m good at bossing people around. You should go on vacation more often.”

I make a noncommittal hmm. Stepping back from work, even for a few days here and there, isn’t feasible. I can’t believe I thought for even a second that it was a good time to run away from my life.

I can tell Farah wants to push the issue, but her eyes narrow as she studies me. She waves her finger in a circle in front of my face.

“You look like an anal gland.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not right now,” I say. I have no capacity to say otherwise. I miss Felix like an organ. “But I will be.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“No.” But I decide to anyway. Farah pulls out the emergency bottle of vinho verde from the cooler, and I tell her everything that’s happened since the very first summer. I’m through with secrets.





36





Now

October





Bridget boards flight AC119 to Australia on October twenty-ninth. Miles is already in Sydney, house hunting in the inner west suburbs, so I ride with her to the airport. It’s the only time I’ve wished for heavy traffic on the way to Pearson, and the only time the roads are empty.

As we sail up the highway, I hold her hand so tightly, she complains she can’t feel her fingers but I don’t let go. Right now, holding Bridget’s hand is the only thing keeping me together. If I let go, I’ll shatter into a million jagged pieces.

Once we arrive, I load her luggage onto a cart and lift her suitcases onto the baggage scale, because Bridget is six weeks pregnant.

I walk with her to the security gate. I stay with her until the very last moment. And then I hug her until we’re both crying in the middle of the terminal and an elderly woman passes us each a tissue.

I tell Bridget she’s my best friend. I tell her that I’ll miss her. I tell Bridget that I love her more than anyone.

And then I let go.





PART THREE


        I don’t want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want you.

    —L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island





37





Now

October





“You seem surprisingly stable considering Bridget just left,” Farah says the day after I take Bridget to the airport.

“I’m never stable enough for you to quit, if that’s where this is headed.”

“No,” she says. “But I do want to talk about something. It’s been two months since you went to PEI, which means it’s been two months since you took a vacation day.”

“I know. We’ve been busy.”

“We have, but we have more help now. Things are going well. You could breathe for a minute, and we’d be okay.” She frowns, but not in the way she does when there’s a tiny dog in a customer’s handbag. She looks surprisingly vulnerable. “Do you . . .” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know . . . not trust me?”

“What? Absolutely I do. Why would you think that?”

“You waited a year to take a holiday and only left because Bridget was in crisis. You’re here all the time. You show up on your days off.”

“I—” I take a beat to figure out what I want to say. When I used to compliment Farah’s work, she’d hike her shoulders to her ears like she was in pain. Over time, I stopped doing it. I assumed she knew how much I value her. “I trust you,” I tell her. “You’re organized, reliable, and unbelievably talented. I’m sorry for not letting you know.”

Farah squirms in her seat but says thanks. Just as I think we’re done, she clears her throat. “I understand that this is your business and that nothing is more important to you, but I care about it, too.”

“I know that.” I saw past Farah’s apathetic veneer a long time ago.

“Lucy, you’re a micromanager.”

I swallow. That’s hard to hear.

“If you can step back a bit and let me help more, I’d appreciate that. I’d like some room to grow.”

I take a deep breath. “I get it.” Room to grow. “I think I need that, too.”





38





Now

December





I spend my evenings curled up with the Floret Farm book, reading about how the author’s now-famous flower farm began by growing two rows of sweet peas in her backyard. I read about how that little garden became a bigger garden and about the greenhouse her husband built. I learn about seasonal blooms and local varieties, about soil tests and succession planting and the importance of growing not just flowering species but ones that provide other material for arrangements—greens and seed pods and twigs. On my streetcar rides to and from the store, I begin to imagine.

I slowly dial back my hours at the shop. I give myself time in the workday to take care of paperwork, prepare quotes, and review my orders, and I find that it’s not so arduous now that I have more help. I take a day off and see a matinee performance of Les Misérables by myself. I sit in the dark theater, missing being here with my aunt and Bridget so badly, I’m not sure whether it’s the play or the longing that makes me weep. But when I’m back on the street, out in crisp daylight, I feel invigorated. I didn’t think I was the kind of person who could go to a show on her own. It turns out that I like surprising myself.