by Marie Landry
We drift back over to our designated meeting spot where Ivy and Hugh are already waiting. Gwen and Evan come along next. Evan is carrying a small cup of soup with a slice of crusty bread balanced on top, while Gwen looks at something on her phone.
“Did you decide against the soup?” I ask when they join us.
Evan makes a little snorting sound as he takes a bite of his bread. Gwen side-eyes him, but she can’t hide her own amusement. “I already ate it,” she says.
“Inhaled it,” Evan mumbles around a mouthful of bread.
She elbows him playfully in the chest. “Okay, inhaled it. I was running around doing stuff and then shopping with Jasper this morning, so I forgot to have breakfast. Plus you know I just love food.”
I match her easy shrug with one of my own. “It’s one of the many reasons we’re friends.”
“Has anyone seen Lina?” Hadley asks as she polishes off the rest of her cheesecake. I’ve been savoring mine, turning over in my mind how I’d put my own spin on mini pumpkin cheesecakes if I were to make them for Cravings.
“She just texted me,” Gwen says, holding up her phone. “She ran into Piper and wanted to take the opportunity to pick her brain about a potential event at the bookstore. She said she’ll meet up with us later.”
“Which means we now have an odd number for pairs,” Evan says.
“Pairs?” Jasper asks.
“We thought it would be fun to split into teams of two and do a scavenger hunt,” Gwen says. “I found the idea on Pinterest and tailored it to our group. Everyone gets the same list and you go off with your partner and take photographic evidence of your findings. The winning team will have their dinner tonight paid for by Evan and me.”
I perk up at that. The idea of an adult scavenger hunt was already appealing, but the idea of a free dinner…
“I used an app that has a random pair generator to choose the twosomes, but Lina being gone means one team will have three instead of two.”
We assure Gwen we’re fine with that, so she reads off the list: “Evan is with Hugh, Ivy is with me, Jasper and Willow are together, and Hadley, you were paired with Lina.”
“Does it make me a bad person if I’m glad Lina pulled her usual crap and wandered off?” Hadley asks, drawing laughter from everyone except Jasper, who gives his sister a look of disapproval. “Can I join Evan and Hugh’s team? I’m heading to Scotland for a job soon and I’d love to pick the brain of an actual Scotsman.”
“Aye, lass, we’d be happy to have ye on our team,” Hugh says in an overexaggerated burr.
Gwen taps away on her cell; a few seconds later, a chorus of beeps and buzzes sound from all our phones. “I just sent each of you the scavenger hunt list,” she says. “Find the items, take a picture, and then check them off on the list. You’ll notice there are a bunch of random items, and there’s also a nod to each of you somewhere on the list.” She gives an excited little bounce. “Okay, go forth and have fun! Eat a bunch of good food, get to know your partner better, and try to find as many items from your list as you can.”
I move to stand beside Jasper while the others break off into their designated pairs. As everyone scatters, Gwen catches my attention and tilts her head down the street. “One of the items on the list is ‘seasonal beverage’ and I just spotted a cider stand owned by the farm we’re going to next weekend. Will you come with us and then we’ll split up?”
Jasper and I follow Gwen and Ivy to the booth for Nansom Farms—a huge farm and market situated in the county next to Bellevue—where a young woman with light-brown skin is serving cups of hot and cold apple cider. While the family of five in front of us collect their cups, Gwen asks what we want, then puts in our order for four hot ciders.
As the young woman ladles the steaming liquid into thick paper cups, Gwen says, “We’re planning a group trip to the farm next weekend.”
The girl’s face lights up. “That’s so fun! If I could just make a suggestion…” She leans across the table like what she’s about to share is top secret. “The farm gets hella busy on the weekends from here on out. It’s a huge draw for people, especially families. I know not everyone can take time off during the week, but if you could manage to come mid-week, you wouldn’t have to deal with crowds or fight off little kids for the best pumpkins.”
Gwen chuckles. “I am pretty particular about my pumpkins. Thanks for the tip. I’ll talk to everyone and see if we can rearrange the schedule.”
When all of us have our ciders in hand, Gwen tells us to hold our cups out so she can snap a picture. “First scavenger item checked off,” she says. Her eyes sparkle with a hint of mischief as they meet mine. “Have fun, you two. We’ll see you later.”
Something tells me Gwen’s ‘random pairings’ weren’t so random after all. I wanted to spend more time with Jasper anyway, so I can’t complain. We stroll in the opposite direction from where Gwen and Ivy have set off, their arms linked and heads bent close as they launch into conversation. I wonder what Jasper would do if I slid my arm through his. Probably fumble his hot apple cider and scald us both.
I pull out my phone as we walk. Gwen has already sent me the picture of our ciders, so I save it to my gallery. I switch over to the screenshot of her list and smile as I scan the items—random things like an animal wearing a sweater, a pile of leaves, Halloween decorations, live music—with the things that pertain to each of us mixed in. ‘Black cat’ is definitely for Ivy in honor of her cat Fiddlesticks; ‘something bookish’ is clearly for Lina; and I’m guessing ‘something nerdy or fandom-related’ is a nod to me.
I glance at Jasper. He’s holding his phone, although his eyes are trained on the road ahead. “Which one of these pertains to you?”
The slight tightening around his eyes tells me he just held back a wince. “I believe it’s the bank,” he says quietly.
“Oh.” My mouth stays open to say more, but no words come. I try to infuse my voice with lightness as I say, “The bank is up ahead on the corner of Campbell and Front, so that’s easy.”
We walk on in silence. Jasper has that faraway look in his eyes again. After a few more steps, I gently bump his arm with my shoulder. “Toonie for your thoughts?”
He gives a few hard blinks like he’s coming out of a daze. “I’m sorry?”
“You know how the saying is ‘penny for your thoughts’? Well, since we don’t have pennies anymore…” I trail off, shrugging. Canada discontinued the penny in 2013. To this day, I still miss finding a penny and picking it up or throwing them into wishing fountains. These days, I’d be more likely to go fishing for nickels, dimes, and quarters in fountains rather than throwing any of those coins in willingly.
Jasper releases a quiet puff of air I think is meant to be a laugh. “Clever.” He’s silent for a minute, making me think he’s gone back to his introspection until he says, “The bank. The thing my brother and his fiancée associate with me is a bank. It wasn’t meant as an insult or a slight of any sort, and yet knowing that’s all they could think of in regard to me…it made me realize how little they know about me.”
After a minute of walking on in silence, I grip the sleeve of Jasper’s shirt and steer him onto the sidewalk, out of the flow of traffic. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t walk and drink at the same time,” I say in answer to his quizzical look. “Maybe we could just take a minute to enjoy our ciders.”
Jasper eyes me over his cup as he takes a sip of his drink. After swallowing, he asks, “Do you have siblings, Willow?”
“Nope, only child,” I tell him. Then, hoping opening up will encourage him to do the same, I add, “My parents divorced when I was thirteen, and it’s pretty much been my mom and me ever since. My dad decided to be a total cliché by getting remarried almost immediately, starting a new family, and basically forgetting his old one existed.”
“That must have been difficult,” Jasper says.
“It was. But we all have our things, right? You know about Gwen’s family—her mom leavi
ng when she was little and her dad dying shortly after she finished college. Ivy’s parents both died when she was young, and she was raised by frigid relatives. And you…well…”
“I was the frigid relative,” Jasper says. At my skeptical look, he tilts his head, conceding. “Okay, not necessarily frigid. Terrified to suddenly find myself the guardian of my two youngest siblings. Worried I’d somehow mess up and they’d hate me forever. Grieving over the loss of not only my parents, but also the life I had to leave behind in order to take care of Hadley and Evan. I don’t regret it for a moment, but there are many things I’d change if I could.”
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to hug someone as much as I do right now. Jasper’s eyes are hazy again, and I’m guessing he’s seeing the past in his mind’s eye. Trips down memory lane aren’t always pleasant.
“I’m not sure how much Gwen has told you, but for many years, my siblings and I only saw each other at Christmas,” Jasper says. “We always rent a house somewhere for a week or so around the holidays.”
“Gwen has told me about how everything changed last Christmas,” I say.
“Largely thanks to her,” he says. “She was a facilitator of sorts. She brought us together in a way we were never able to do ourselves. Every Christmas, the Perry siblings came together physically—we had our traditions and we even had moments of fun—but then we’d leave our rented home and go about our lives until the next year.”
“But you’ve spent a lot more time together this year, right? Gwen and Evan have visited you in Toronto and you’ve come here. Hadley lives with you now and Evan has gone with you a few times to therapy. I bet a year ago you wouldn’t have been able to imagine being at the hospital when your first niece was born.”
Some of the tension eases out of Jasper’s face as I speak. I’m not telling him anything he doesn’t already know, and yet it’s as if hearing it from me—a virtual stranger, someone not close to the situation—makes him see it more clearly. He’s even doing that almost-smile thing where his eyes and mouth soften.
“You’re right,” he says. “I’m grateful for the time I’ve had with them and that they’ve continued to include me in their lives this past year. It’s still novel and surprising and…wonderful. But a simple, innocent thing like this scavenger hunt shows me how little they still know about me. And how it’s largely my own doing.”
“How so?”
He makes a restless gesture with his shoulders and indicates he’d like to start walking again. I fall into step beside him. “I think part of me is afraid this is all an illusion. That a misstep or certain circumstances will cause things to go back to the way they were before, with the five of us only seeing each other at Christmas. Despite being the eldest of my siblings, they all have more of a life than I do—partners, careers they enjoy, hobbies, travel, a new addition for Malcolm and Sherée. And I…well, I…” He blows out a breath and crumples his empty cup in his hand. “I’ve been examining my life lately, and it’s shown me how small it is. How unfulfilling.”
Someone knocks into Jasper, causing him to bump into me. He angles toward me, reaching out a hand to steady me as I stumble to the side. We’re now somehow face to face, and his eyes are wide as they meet mine. My intense focus on what Jasper was saying has put me in a trance-like state for the last few minutes. The noise of the festival rushes back into my awareness, along with the constant motion and bright colors around us.
“Listen to me carrying on,” Jasper says. “I should give you all my toonies in exchange for this impromptu therapy session.”
The self-deprecating humor in his words surprises me and makes me laugh. His hand is still on my shoulder, warm and solid and comforting. I doubt he realizes it or I’m sure he’d have wrenched it away by now. He’d probably put more distance between us too, since we’re standing close as people surge around us. “I’m happy to listen free of charge. That’s what friends are for.”
“Friends,” he says softly. “Gwen said something similar to me last Christmas after an unexpected heart to heart.”
“Let me guess, then she hugged you?” The thought makes me want to laugh. Considering how stiff Jasper was while hugging his own brother last week, I can imagine Gwen latching on and not releasing him until he softened.
I expect Jasper to get flustered and quickly change the subject or get us moving again before I suggest we hug each other. But I’ve underestimated him once again because I’m the one who’s flustered when he says, “As a matter of fact, she did. Should we?”
“Hug.” What was meant to be a question—to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood—comes out sounding like a grunt.
“Yes. We don’t have to, of course. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I suppose we are in a rather public place and we don’t know each other that well yet—”
I cut off his rambling by closing the small space between us and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. As expected, even though he was the one who suggested hugging, Jasper’s whole body goes tense. It takes him a moment to put his arms around me in return. But unlike the quick, stiff embrace I expected, Jasper gathers me close, his arms wrapping fully around my back, and his cheek settling on my shoulder. I’m a natural, almost compulsive hugger, and even I can’t remember the last time I was hugged like this. It doesn’t feel like a hug between people who just met. It feels like the type of hug someone who knows and cares about you gives you when your broken pieces need to be put back together.
I swallow hard as Jasper gives me a light pat on the back and releases me. The tension is completely gone from his face, although his cheeks now hold a hint of color. His eyes lock with mine before sweeping over our surroundings, his lips curved the slightest bit. He’s completely oblivious to the fact he just stirred up all kinds of feelings in me.
With his gaze trained over my shoulder, he leans toward me. I expect a confession of some sort—maybe he’s a big ball of thoughts and emotions right now too—but the whispered words out of his mouth are, “There’s a woman behind you with a sweater-clad dog. Shall I take the picture for proof or do you want to?”
It takes a minute for my brain to catch up with his meaning. The scavenger hunt. Right. A laugh bubbles out of me as I turn and see a tiny ball of black fluff encased in a hot pink sweater. Pushing the unexpected hurricane of emotions aside for closer inspection at a later time, I tell Jasper he can be in charge of scavenger hunt photography.
Over the next hour, I’m delighted to discover Jasper is a fellow foodie. We stroll down Front Street, checking items off on the scavenger hunt list and sampling food from most of the stalls we pass.
“I haven’t missed much about Toronto since moving back to Bellevue, but I do miss all the street food options,” I say as we walk away from a Vietnamese food stall. “There are hardly any food trucks around here, although Ivy mentioned something about a bunch of them down by the waterfront in the summer.”
I pause to take a bite of my mini veggie banh mi, watching as Jasper bites into his sandwich. I try to picture him lining up at a food truck during his lunch break, waiting for falafel or a gyro or a taco in his perfectly pressed suit. “You work downtown, right? Lots of street food options there. Do you take advantage often?”
He shakes his head, popping the last bite into his mouth and then carefully wiping his hands on a napkin. “Until today, any desire I had for street food ended after an experience with a dodgy kebab that left me wishing I were dead.”
I try to hold in my laughter, I really do, but between his grave tone and the way he punctuates the words with a full-body shudder, I can’t stop the giggles that erupt. I cover my mouth with my napkin, but it’s no use.
Jasper side-eyes me, his lips twitching. “I’m glad my pain and suffering could provide an amusing anecdote for you,” he says dryly, which only makes me laugh harder. “Besides, I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise to you that for the most part, I find street food messier than I’d like. I have no problem with messy food in general, althoug
h I prefer to eat it without spectators.”
“Makes sense,” I say around another giggle. I pause to throw my napkin in a nearby trashcan. Jasper keeps walking for a moment until he realizes I’m not beside him. When he peers back at me, I ask, “Are you like this with your siblings?”
He tilts his head to the side, giving me a wary look. “Like what?”
“Relaxed. Funny.”
His eyebrows wing up. “Funny? Funny? I don’t think that’s an adjective my siblings would ever use to describe me.” He starts walking again and I fall into step beside him. After a few moments of silence, he says, “You know, I’m beginning to realize I’m still…careful, I guess, around my siblings. I don’t intend to be withdrawn or hold myself back around them, but perhaps part of me is worried about saying the wrong thing.”
He stops in front of a coffee cart and asks if I’d like a drink. He orders and pays, and then we carry on with our wandering, steaming paper cups in hand.
“I wasn’t exactly a dictator as Evan and Hadley’s guardian, although now I see I was likely too strict with them,” he continues. “Caring for them was a huge responsibility, and I wanted—needed—to keep them safe. I think I’ve assumed they still see me that way and I’ve simply…continued to play that role?”
“You don’t need to play that role anymore, though. You can be the fun brother now, or better yet, their friend. You were thrust into the role of parent all those years ago, but you’re not their parent. They’re adults with their own lives, and they don’t need to be protected anymore. They’re not going to suddenly abandon you because you say the wrong thing or happen to piss them off, Jasper. You don’t always have to take everything so seriously.” I say that last part as gently as possible so he doesn’t think I’m being harsh or judgmental. Still, his brows draw together and his mouth dips down in the corners, making me wonder if I overstepped.