Summer, Fourteen Years Ago
It was easy to persuade Sue to let me work at the Tavern. But my parents needed more convincing. They didn’t understand why I’d want to spend evenings at the restaurant when finances weren’t an issue. I told them that I wanted to earn my own money and, rookie mistake, that I wanted to hang out with Sam. Considering how much time we already spent together, they found this information disturbing and, being a cunning pair of PhDs, took advantage of the drive to Barry’s Bay at the beginning of the summer to stage an intervention.
I should have known something was up when Dad came back from our bathroom break holding a twenty-pack of Timbits (a rare treat) that was heavy on the chocolate glazed (my favorite) and then passed the entire box to me to hold on to. (Red flag! Red flag!)
My parents lectured me so rarely, they muddled through it awkwardly. This one was classic:
Dad: “Persephone, you know how much we like Sam. He’s . . .”
Mom: “He’s a lovely boy. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for Sue to raise those two boys on her own, but she’s done an impressive job.”
Dad: “Right. Well, yes. He’s a great kid. And we’re happy you have a friend at the cottage, kiddo. It’s important to expand your social circles beyond Toronto’s upper-middle class.”
Mom: “Not that there’s anything wrong with our circle. You know, Delilah’s parents say that Buckley Mason is a very promising young man.”
Dad: “Though I don’t know about hockey players.”
Mom: “The point is that we’re concerned you’re spending too much time with Sam. You’re practically joined at the hip, and now with the restaurant . . . We don’t want you to . . .”
Dad: “To get too attached at such a young age.”
I told my parents that Sam was my best friend, that he understood me like nobody else did, and that he was always going to be in my life, so they better get used to it. I said having a job would teach me to be more responsible. I left out the unrequited crush part.
Working at the restaurant felt like being a part of a highly choreographed dance, all the performers working together to execute a near-flawless routine that looked a whole lot easier than it was. Sue was a great boss. She was direct but not condescending or short-tempered. She laughed easily and knew at least half of the guests by name, and she managed the crowds with ease.
Julien controlled the back of the house with unspoken power and a glare that could turn your skin icy even in the kitchen’s inferno. He was younger than Sue, maybe in his early thirties, but his back was shot from years of lugging sides of pigs and kegs of Polish pilsner. I was terrified of him until I overheard him teasing Charlie on his after-dinner-rush cigarette break: “Good thing you’re going to university soon because you’re about three girls away from running through the whole town.” Anyone who poked fun at Charlie was okay in my book.
Charlie and Julien manned the stoves, grill, and deep fryer together. They had a silent way of communicating, working off the order sheets in a system Julien first learned from Charlie’s dad. It was unsettling at first, seeing Charlie like he was at the restaurant, sweaty and serious, his forehead tight with concentration. Every once in a while I’d catch his eye, and he’d toss me a quick smile, but just as fast, he was back to focusing on the food.
Sam, being the younger of the boys, was relegated to the dishwasher and to breaking out each order. He’d pass the sheets to Julien, who’d shout out the series of dishes, and Sam would gather the necessary supplies, running up and down to the basement walkins when needed.
The best part of all of it was that Sue put Sam and me on the same schedule: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. I liked catching his eye when I brought back the dirty dishes and how the kitchen steam turned his waves into curls. And I liked cleaning up at the end of the night with him, even though Sam’s dishwashing skills often meant running a rack of cutlery through the machine twice. But I liked that, too: Sam was perfect at almost everything but washing up.
* * *
IT WAS A dry summer with fire bans across the county, and I was a tightly wound ball of frustrated teenage sexual energy. Sam picked me up on the way back from his morning runs to swim just like the year before, and on the walk over to his place, I couldn’t stop staring at the way his shirt clung to his stomach or the drops of sweat running down his forehead and neck.
Now that he was sixteen, Sam was allowed to drive the Banana Boat, and we took it to the town dock for a couple of ice creams early one evening in July. We sat on a bench by the water, finishing our cones, debating the merits of animal dissection in biology class, when Sam leaned over and ran his tongue around the rim of my cone, catching the drips of pink and blue. He’d done the same thing last summer, but this was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
“You’ve got the taste buds of a five-year-old,” he said as I stared at him with wide eyes.
“You licked my ice cream.”
“Yeah . . . what’s the big deal?” He frowned.
“Like, with your tongue. You’ve got to stop doing that.”
“Why? Are you worried your boyfriend will be mad or something?” He sounded a little angry. Delilah had been the one to convince me to keep seeing Mason, saying there was no point waiting around for my Summer Boy to get a clue. But I had explained to Sam on multiple occasions that Mason was not my boyfriend, that we were dating but that it wasn’t serious. Neither Sam nor Mason seemed to understand the distinction.
“For the millionth time, Mason is not my boyfriend.”
“But you kiss him,” Sam said.
“Yeah, sure. It’s no big deal,” I replied, not sure where he was going.
He took a bite out of his cone, then squinted at me. “Would you think it was a big deal if I told you I kissed someone?”
My heart exploded into tiny particles. “You kissed someone?” I whispered.
I could tell Sam was nervous because he broke eye contact and looked out at the bay. “Yeah, Maeve O’Conor at the end-of-year dance,” he said.
I hated Maeve O’Conor. I wanted to murder Maeve O’Conor.
“Maeve is a pretty name,” I choked out.
His blue eyes met mine again, and he pushed his hair off his face. “It was no big deal.”
* * *
THE CIVIC HOLIDAY loomed large that summer. For the first time, Mom and Dad were leaving me alone at the cottage. It was also the weekend I’d chosen to swim across the lake again. My parents didn’t want to miss my now-annual feat of athleticism, but they were headed to a party in Prince Edward County, where a dean at the university had purchased a farm to turn it into a small winery. It was a must-attend event and almost all they could talk about until they waved goodbye early Saturday morning.
The air was sticky, promising a rain that probably wouldn’t fall if the first half of summer was any indication. The grass around the Floreks’ house had long ago turned brown, but Sue was determined to keep the flower beds in shape. She went into the restaurant earlier than usual to make extra batches of pierogies for the long weekend crowds, and Sam, Charlie, and I were tasked with watering all the gardens in the baking heat before we left for our shifts.
Like most evenings, we took the Banana Boat to the town dock and walked to the restaurant. I wore my usual—a dark denim skirt and a sleeveless blouse—and I was slick with sweat by the time we got there. I splashed my face with cold water in the bathroom and redid my ponytail, smoothing down the strands that had frizzed in the humidity, then applied a little mascara and pink lip gloss, the sum total of my makeup routine.