Understatement. Peter and I communicated through music. Mom called it our secret language.
According to her, Peter didn’t let a lot of people into his life— we had that in common. From how she told it (and she loved telling it), Mom had elbowed her way in long before I was born.
He didn’t know what to make of all my talking, and he didn’t know how to ask me to shut up, so after a winter of living at the house, he was stuck with me for life. Confinement—it’s how I forced him to be my friend.
I was glad she had. Without Peter, it was just Mom and me. He’d bought me my first set of headphones, and every pair since. We sent each other mix CDs in the mail, and I put them on my iPod.
“What’s on it?” Will asked, wandering closer. There was a tiny pin fixed to his collar, the word surrealist written on it. I held my screen out and he leaned over, his brush suspended in midair, reading out song titles.
“?‘Stop Your Crying.’ ‘I’m Only Happy When It Rains.’ ‘Road to Nowhere.’?” He looked down at me, eyes sparkling. “I think he’s trying to tell you something.”
“Peter likes a theme.” I was impressed Will picked up on it. “He said I sounded cranky the last time we spoke, and this is what he sent me.”
“What were you cranky about?”
I shrugged.
“Top secret business?”
“None of your business.”
Will studied me for a second, his smile unsure. “Let’s put it on.”
I ducked behind the counter and connected my iPod to the speaker system. Fiona Apple filled the coffee shop. I looked up to find Will watching me. My stomach dipped.
“I love this song,” he said. “It’s called ‘Every Single Night,’ right?”
“Mm-hmm.” So he was funny and hot and had good taste in music. Whatever.
Will returned to the mural, and I went back to my paper.
“What’s in that notebook?” he asked after a few minutes. “Are you a writer?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, but I didn’t answer.
“Poems? Diary entries? Top secret world domination business?”
“You’re a smidge nosy, you know that?”
A bright clap of laughter erupted from him. “A smidge!” He glanced over his shoulder, and I tried to glower, but I was smiling harder than I had in months. There weren’t many people who could make me smile that June.
When Will had finished the plane, I jumped out of my seat, announcing that I needed coffee. “Do you want one?”
“Yeah, please. That’d be great.”
“What’s your order?”
“A latte. With a double shot?”
“No problem.” I was hoping he’d want something with foam.
I poured hot milk over Will’s coffee, angling the cup and wiggling the pitcher in one direction across the surface then dragging it back in the other. Spiritualized played on the speakers. If the café had been full, it would have been perfection. I was in my zone behind the bar—no one paid attention to me there; it was almost as good as walking through the city.
“I’m basically done,” Will said, wiping his hands. “I’ll let this dry for a bit and then do a varnish coat. It won’t take long to apply.”
I set the mugs down on a table. “This one’s yours. Do you take sugar?”
“Three?” Will grinned. “I have a sweet tooth. It’s a problem.” Will’s coveralls were so baggy, it wasn’t obvious what he kept underneath them, but I was certain it was no problem.
He took a seat while I pulled back the cloth covering the milk and sugar station.
“You said three like you wanted four,” I said, dropping an extra packet of sugar and a stir stick on the table as I sat down. Will looked up from his drink with an odd expression on his face.
I had a latte art code. I gave most of my customers hearts. Fat hearts. Little hearts sitting atop big hearts. Rings of hearts. Hearts made them feel special. But my favorite customers didn’t get hearts.
“A fern from Fern,” Will said, his voice low.
I made ferns when someone rippled with joy, or if they seemed sad, or when they complimented the music when I was in charge of the stereo. The day Josh proposed to Sean with his poster, I topped his drink with two fern fronds, their stems joined at the center. I made ferns for my favorite people. I hadn’t realized I was making one for Will until I’d finished pouring the milk.
I pushed the sugar closer to Will. “Your coffee’s getting cold.”
He blinked, then picked up all four packets.
* * *
—
“I’m moving back home right after convocation,” I told Will after he’d taken his first sip. I ran my fingers over the soft black leather cover of my notebook. It was a gift from Mom before I went away for school—it had refillable pages and a snap closure. A grown-up journal for my grown-up daughter. I’m so proud of how you’ve turned things around, pea. “I’ve got a bunch of stuff I want to do before I leave, so I’ve been keeping track. Nothing too exciting.”
“That depends on what’s on your list,” Will said. My eyes followed the slow spread of his smile, catching on a tiny scar below his lip.
“It’s a bit of a jumble,” I said. “A bunch of it is food. There’s a restaurant in the financial district making a twenty-dollar chocolate bar. It sounds douchey, and I’m definitely too broke to blow twenty bucks on candy, but like, what does a twenty-dollar chocolate bar taste like?”
“I have no idea.”
I opened the book, scanning the list. “There are some neighborhoods: the Distillery District, the Junction. I haven’t been to High Park. Can you believe that? I’ve lived here for four years.” I paused. “Which part of the city did you grow up in?”
Will half cringed. “Right around High Park.”
“Shut up.”
He held his hands up, laughing. “It’s stunning, especially when the cherry blossoms are out in the spring. You should really go.”
I threw my pen at him. “I missed blossom season.”
“I always thought Toronto would be a boring destination unless you had a local showing you around. All the cool stuff is kind of hidden,” Will said, turning an empty sugar packet in his fingers. “Where’s home?”
“Muskoka—just outside Huntsville.” Muskoka was a large lake district north of the city, and prime cottage country.
“Must be gorgeous there.”
I stared at the milky brown puddle in my cup. “It is.”
“But . . .”
My eyes rose to his.
“There’s no but,” I lied.
Will’s gaze flickered over my face, then down to my fingers scratching at my left wrist.
“So overpriced candy, urban parks . . . what else?”
I recited a few of the bigger attractions.
“The CN Tower?” Will asked. “Isn’t that kind of . . .” He smirked, eyes dancing. “Basic?”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “You’re a snob.”
I was about to ask Will what he thought was worth seeing, but I stopped myself. I didn’t usually get along with people so quickly, but I was enjoying talking to Will. I was really enjoying his smile. A bit too much for someone who had a boyfriend. I pushed my chair out, collecting our cups and utensils and taking them over to the sink.
Jamie had been a fixture of my summers for as long as I could remember. But the summer I was eighteen, I hadn’t seen him coming. Stories of my teenage antics were spread on whispering lips through the resort, and I’d come to dread working the front desk and waiting tables at the restaurant, where too many people knew who I was and what had happened. Mom agreed to assign me to the outfitting hut for the season. So it was me and Jamie down at the docks, schlepping boats and sizing guests for life jackets and paddles.