My phone vibrates with a message. I drop the cloth I’m using to wipe out the fridge and take off my rubber gloves. For a fraction of a second while I get the phone from the back pocket of my jeans, I think it might be Will, and I hold my breath until I see that it’s an email to the Brookbanks events reservation account.
It’s been a week since the dance, and I haven’t heard a single thing from him. I know today won’t be any different. After I picked myself up off his cabin floor, I went back to the house, taking his drawing with me. I composed furious text messages in my head. I typed out a few, but it didn’t seem right sending them. He gave me so little in the end. He lied to me all summer. Despite all the questions I have, I decided Will didn’t deserve any of my emotions, even the wild, wrathful ones. I wrote a brief message saying I hoped Sofia was okay and to go through Jamie for the rest of the consultancy work. I asked him never to contact me again.
But every time my phone buzzes, a traitorous part of my brain hopes it’s him and wishes I hadn’t slammed the door between us shut so firmly. Not that I have a script for what I’d say if we were speaking. The foundation of hurt and confusion never falters. A gnawing ache has settled in my belly. I thought I knew what it was like to miss Will Baxter, but the emptiness I felt years ago was a crevice compared to this canyon.
The message is a general inquiry about a company holiday party, so I bookmark it to reply to after I get this place clean, hand over the keys, and head back to the resort in the rusty Cadillac. All week, I’ve been dreaming of the Webers burger I’m going to eat on my way home.
I promised Jamie I’d keep up with bookings while I was gone and justified the less-than-ideal timing of my trip by meeting with a few potential sommeliers in the city. I think he knew I needed space to clear my head. I’m going to take a few days off once we’re staffed up to buy a car, box some of Mom’s things, and start redecorating the house so that it feels like me.
“Forget to pack this one, eh?” calls one of the movers. I follow his voice into the bedroom, where Will’s ten-year-old portrait of me hangs in the otherwise blank space. My one-year plan is tucked behind the drawing. When I lost the streetcar pin years ago, I tore apart my apartment, emptied all my purses, dumped my dresser drawers out on the bed, but I never found it. I put the list inside the frame that day.
“I think I have an empty picture box somewhere,” says the young, bleary-eyed redhead, who reeks of the joint he smoked before getting started. I think his name is Landon or possibly Landry. “Want me to wrap it up?”
“No, that’s okay. I don’t know if I’m taking it or not,” I tell him. Maybe I’ll bring it with me. Or maybe I’ll dump it in the garbage bin on my way out the door. Fifty-fifty chance.
Landon or possibly Landry shrugs.
I take it off the picture hook and leave it on the kitchen counter for now.
The movers work at an incredible speed for two stoned twentysomethings. I hired a team from Huntsville, and they aren’t used to narrow downtown Toronto side streets. They’ve pulled half onto the sidewalk but are still blocking part of the road, and between the angry honking, passive-aggressive bicycle bells, and sneers from pedestrians trying to navigate around the giant truck, they seem frazzled and anxious to get the hell out of here. Peter is meeting them at the house since they’ll have a head start on me. I direct them out of their makeshift parking space and then start on the stove.
I’m scrubbing the oven when the doorbell rings. I look around. I don’t see anything the movers have forgotten. I poke my head out the front window, but it’s not Landon, Landry & Co. on the steps; it’s a woman in a voluminous white shirtdress, her dark brown hair falling straight to her shoulders. The man who lives in the unit above mine is a smoking-hot linguistics PhD who teaches French on the side. I assume she’s buzzed the wrong apartment.
“Can I help you?” I call out, and she jumps before turning my way. She’s stunning. The oversized burgundy leather bag she’s carrying probably costs a month’s rent. I can see how precisely winged her liquid eyeliner is from five feet away.
She studies me and asks, not altogether kindly, “Are you Fern?”
“I am,” I say, wary. Strangers don’t just show up on your doorstep in this city.
She looks over her shoulder like she’s not supposed to be here and then back at me. “I’m Annabel. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
* * *
—
Annabel and I stand across from each other at the kitchen island. It’s as though all of Will’s extremes have been softened in his younger sister. Her hair and eyes are a touch lighter, the color of pennies rather than cola. Her face is more rounded, her nose less dramatic. She doesn’t have the Will Baxter posture, but she’s every bit as put-together.
“You don’t really look like his type,” she says, unfazed by her barren surroundings.
I glance down at my grimy T-shirt, ripped jeans, and running shoes. My hair’s pushed back with a headband. No makeup. Sweat sheen. Coffee breath. I’m not anyone’s type at the moment.
“Well, I guess I wasn’t.”
“I didn’t mean that as an insult.” Her gaze drops to Will’s illustration on the counter. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
That doesn’t sound much better. “I don’t want to be rude, but why are you here? How did you find me?”
She hitches her purse strap higher on her shoulder. “I googled you. Found out where you worked and told your old boss I was a college friend.”
Fucking Philippe.
“And you did this because?” I ask. “Is Sofia okay?”
“She’s on the mend. How much did my brother tell you?”
“Only that she was in the hospital.”
She nods, as if she’s not surprised. “It was meningitis. They kept her there until she was out of danger. I called Will early Saturday morning freaking out. Sofia was shivering and vomiting. I couldn’t get ahold of our family doctor. Will told me to go to the ER immediately, and I did, thank god. It was awful.” Annabel’s eyes well, and she waves a hand in front of her face. “I won’t go into detail, but she’s going to be fine. I don’t want to imagine how fast Will must have driven to get back to the city so quickly, but he met me at the children’s hospital and stayed with us. Your friend called yesterday.”
“My friend?”
“The angry one. I didn’t really catch her name. I could hear her chewing out Will through the phone. She was going on and on, and he was sitting there saying ‘I know’ over and over. I don’t think he even noticed I’d taken the phone from him until I was yelling at her.”
“Whitney.” She didn’t tell me she’d called Will, although I’m not shocked.
“That’s it,” Annabel says. “Apologize to her for me. I may have called her some not-so-nice things before she explained that my brother had taken off on his girlfriend and that you were in the city if he wanted to make things right.”
“I wasn’t his girlfriend,” I say. It feels important to make the clarification.
“No? It sounded pretty serious from what Whitney told me and from the little Will said.”
I want to know exactly what Will said, word for word. I want to know his tone of voice, what he was wearing, and where they had the conversation. “You still haven’t explained why you’re here,” I say instead.
“My brother doesn’t really screw up—don’t tell him I said that. But according to Whitney and from what I’ve managed to get out of him, he screwed up with you.” Annabel straightens herself to a Will-like stance. “I’m here to defend his honor or whatever.”
“Will knows you’re here?” I ask, hating how hopeful I sound.
“No, he’d be pissed. He told me you didn’t want to be contacted and that I needed to”—she makes air quotes with her fingers—“?‘respect that.’ But please hear me out. I didn’t come all the way to the west end for fun.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “All right.”
“I’ve had a long, shitty week, and Will hasn’t been as helpful as he thinks—he’s just a big, mopey disaster. Anyway, his recent fuckup aside, my brother is extremely loyal to the people he loves. I think when he offered to work with your mom, he was—”