by Karen Swan
‘I can’t believe you’ve never tried SUP boarding – it’s so much fun,’ Ronnie said, crossing her legs and looking cute in her Nike aerosol-splash running tights and cobalt-blue vest. ‘You’ve got the lakes right there.’
‘You know me – I ski in winter and hike in the summer.’
‘Yes, and you were doing that ten years ago! Expand your repertoire. You were good. A natural!’ Ronnie said, smiling up at the waiter as he came back with a jug of water and a small bowl of dried-looking red berries. Meg stared at them, wondering what they were.
She tried one and instantly pulled a face at their sourness.
‘Gojis,’ Ronnie chuckled. ‘They’re an acquired taste.’
Meg quickly drank some water to get rid of the taste. ‘I might give it a go when I get back. I bet Lucy would be great at it – we could do it together. All her years doing hockey mean she’s got great balance.’ Meg folded one hand over the other.
Ronnie arched an eyebrow. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘What?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, God, yes, of course. How could I have forgotten?’
‘Actually, she’d be fine to do it as long as she was careful.’
But Meg wrinkled her nose. After Lucy’s fall last week, she wasn’t going to be taking any more chances. They’d all been badly shaken up.
‘Or take Badger,’ Ronnie said, watching her.
‘Really?’
‘Sure, as long as you get him to sit.’ Ronnie giggled at a scenario clearly playing out in her mind. ‘That would be so funny, him wandering up and down the board. You’d be in pronto.’
Meg chuckled too, amused by the thought of herself and Badger wobbling into the water. ‘I’ll investigate as soon as I get back.’
‘Well, send me photos. I’ll need proof.’
‘Deal—’
‘Ron?’ The man’s voice made them both look up. He was clutching a coffee, a newspaper folded under one arm and a small spaniel pulling on the other end of the lead. ‘Hey, how are you? I thought it was you.’
‘Hi, Jack!’ Ronnie said brightly. ‘I didn’t know you had a dog?’
‘Oh, I don’t. But my elderly neighbour’s just had a hip operation so I said I’d walk Pooky when I could.’
Ronnie arched an eyebrow. ‘Pooky? The dog’s called Pooky?’
‘I know! It’s terrible. Put it this way, I don’t let her off the lead. No way am I calling out that name in public,’ Jack laughed, his eyes falling to Meg as he noticed her sitting there. ‘Oh, hey, sorry for interrupting.’
‘Jack, this is my sister Meg. She’s visiting from Alberta,’ Ronnie said, motioning towards her. ‘Meg, this is Jack Burrows – we work together at St Michael’s. Jack’s a trauma specialist.’
‘Sounds alarming,’ Meg said, holding out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘And you, Meg. Are you in town for long?’ The dog strained on the lead, pulling his arm up, and he had to correct his balance.
‘Just a few days. I’m leaving on Tuesday morning.’
‘Where do you live in Alberta?’
‘Banff.’
‘Oh, wow,’ he replied, his eyebrows up. ‘Bear country.’
Meg paused and looked at Ronnie, who shook her head as if to say, ‘Not me.’ She forced a smile as she looked back at him again. ‘Exactly.’
Jack looked down at the dog, still pulling on the lead. ‘Huh. So this must be a culture shock then. I don’t suppose you get many men there walking miniature dogs called Pooky, do you?’ He pulled his eyebrows down as though they were a cap on his brow. ‘They’re men’s men over there, probably all have pet wolves.’
‘Coyotes, actually – but yes,’ Meg quipped, and they all laughed.
‘Say, do you want to join us?’ Ronnie asked, shooting an enquiring glance Meg’s way.
Meg placidly shrugged her agreement but Jack was already looking regretful. ‘Sadly I’m on my way back to drop this little princess home and then I’m meeting a friend for rackets. He’s an out-of-towner too. Just here for the weekend.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame. Well, another time perhaps,’ Ronnie smiled.
‘Yes?’ Jack asked, a note of surprise in his voice.
‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Jack,’ Meg smiled, looking up at him from behind shaded eyes.
Jack had to tear his eyes off her sister. ‘And you, Meg. Enjoy Toronto. Especially enjoy the fact that you’ve got your sister to be your tour guide. I’ve never known her to leave that hospital.’
‘Oh, right, ’cause you can talk,’ came Ronnie’s riposte as he allowed Pooky to lead him off, grinning.
Ronnie was grinning too.
Meg leaned in on her elbows and watched her sister watch him go. ‘Well, he was nice.’
If Ronnie noticed her sister’s heavy irony, she didn’t show it. ‘I know, isn’t he?’
Their food arrived and both sat back in their seats to make room for the plates to be set down.
‘And how long have you known him?’ Meg asked, wondering what the orange powder was that had been sprinkled on her eggs.
Ronnie looked thoughtful. ‘Seven months? Maybe a bit longer? He came from TGH . . . Toronto General,’ she specified when Meg looked back at her blankly.
‘He’s nice.’
Ronnie, who had been sprinkling the pink salt on her eggs, looked up at her. ‘You’ve said that already.’ She flicked her eyes towards the eggs. ‘That’s paprika, by the way.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Meg said quickly. ‘I knew that.’ She began to eat – it was heavenly! The best thing she’d tasted in months, although the Vietnamese takeout they’d finally had last night had been a winner too; her appetite, it appeared, had woken up. ‘So . . .’ She dragged the word out suggestively.
‘What?’
‘What? Really?’ Meg teased. ‘You obviously get on well together and he’s super-cute. He’s clearly into you.’
Ronnie studied her breakfast with rare interest. ‘Don’t be daft.’
‘Daft? He didn’t even notice I was sitting here at first.’ She pulled a teasing face. ‘He only had eyes for you, sister dearest. Has anything ever, you know . . . ?’
‘Of course not.’ Ronnie tutted, but a small blush was beginning to creep up her neck.
‘Why “of course”?’
‘Because he’s a resident, for one thing. And because . . .’ Her voice trailed off. There were no more becauses.
‘You should call him.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not asking him out.’
Meg chuckled. ‘And you call me a small-town girl? Of course you can ask him out!’
‘He’s senior at work. There’s no way—’ Just then, Ronnie’s phone beeped. She picked it up and read the text, her expression changing to one of surprise. ‘Crap, I don’t believe it. It’s him.’
‘And?’ Meg asked, eyes bright.
Ronnie looked up at her in amazement. ‘He’s asking if we want to meet him and his friend at Soho House tonight?’
It was Meg’s turn to look surprised, the smile fading from her lips. ‘What, you mean like a . . . double date?’
‘No!’ Ronnie pooh-poohed quickly. ‘This isn’t a date.’
‘Yes, it is. You like him, he clearly likes you. It’s totally a date.’
Ronnie bit her lip. ‘Well, will you come?’
‘No. Because it’s a date. And I’m not doing dating.’ Her tone was light but Mitch’s face was flashing through her mind like a beacon, the warning sirens in her brain louder than those of the ambulance going past on Yonge Street.
‘Well, I’m not going without you,’ Ronnie sighed, giving a careless little shrug.
‘Ron!’ Meg scolded.
‘What?’
‘You have to go!’
‘I can’t. The invitation was to us both. He’s meeting his friend. I can hardly very well turn up on my own, now, can I?’
‘But—’
‘It’s fine. You’re not doing dating. I get it.’
Meg stared at her sister, not fooled for one second by this nonplussed routine; on the other hand, there was no way Ronnie could turn up on her own. She slumped, knowing that she – and she alone – stood in the way of her sister’s potential happiness. ‘Well, there has to be a code word for if I want to split,’ she said reluctantly.
Ronnie hooked an eyebrow, eyes glinting with mischief. ‘Code word? I like it. What though?’
‘Ummm . . .’ They both looked around, searching for inspiration.
‘Got it!’ Ronnie squealed, her eyes alighting on the menu. ‘“Chorizo”!’
‘“Chorizo”? How am I supposed to casually drop that into conversation?’ Meg cried. She put on a voice. ‘“Oh, I see, Jack’s friend, you’re a tree surgeon? Oh, oh, specializing in conifers, you say? And tell me, do you like chorizo? Because personally I prefer a chipolata myself.”’
Ronnie laughed, throwing her head back and attracting an admiring glance from the guy at the next table. Didn’t her sister realize how gorgeous she was? Meg wondered as she grinned back. ‘All right, all right, point taken. It’s too obscure. It needs to be an everyday word.’
‘But not one that might naturally come up in the course of a conversation.’
‘So, everyday but not common.’ Ronnie bit her lip. ‘So not “table”? . . . Or “broom”? . . . “Feather”? . . . “Swing”?’
‘“Swing”! “Swing”? I didn’t realize “chorizo” was the high point!’ Meg spluttered.
Ronnie laughed harder. ‘I’ve got it,’ she grinned as a yellow cab trawled past. ‘“Budgie”.’
‘“Budgie”?’ Meg echoed, budgie-fashion.
‘Why not? You weren’t planning on talking about the secret lives of budgies tonight, were you?’
‘It’s not in my small-talk repertoire, no,’ Meg deadpanned.
Ronnie smiled. ‘Good. If nothing else, it’ll be amusing to find a context in which you can use it.’
‘Oh, good. Brain-teasers whilst I’m dying on my feet.’
‘It’ll be fun,’ Ronnie said, shooting Meg a glance as she texted back their reply.
Meg smiled but didn’t answer. She didn’t want to admit out loud that it already was.
Chapter Nineteen
‘You know we’re going to get back here later and think we’ve been robbed,’ Meg said as Ronnie pulled the door shut behind them and locked it. There were clothes everywhere, on every surface, which would have been easy enough to achieve in the tiny apartment, even without two panicking sisters going on a double date.
They had been relaxed to begin with, wandering over to Allen Park and sunbathing on the grass for a few hours, before wandering down to the harbourfront to catch the scene there – people lounging in deck chairs at the water’s edge, boarders and bladers rolling past, families playing on the undulating wave-decks of the famous Conundrum Route . . . And all the while they’d been chatting, talking in a way that hadn’t seemed easy or even, somehow, possible for so many years. For once, there was no Mitch or Lucy to distract Meg; no exams or clinics for Ronnie.
It was only when they’d got back home and cast their minds to the evening’s plans that the worries had set in – trousers or dress? Heels or sneakers? Hair up or down?
Meg hadn’t packed for a date, ‘obviously’. And Ronnie never went on them – who had the time? Nonetheless, she had an efficient (what else?) capsule wardrobe packed with multiple variations of jeans – blue, indigo, white and black, boyfriend, skinny, cut-offs, dungarees, torn, distressed, faded, bleached . . .
‘How can one person have so many pairs?’ Meg had cried in wonder as Ronnie opened up her wardrobe.
Ronnie had wrinkled her nose. ‘I know. I do try to buy other things but any time I go to the shops, I get so—’
‘Bored?’ Meg had asked. Shopping bored her senseless, always had. It was Mitch who used to buy her new stuff, which usually meant technical clothing like a fleece gilet or new base layer for camping trips at the weekend.
‘Overwhelmed. I just buy something denim and come home.’
‘I think you’ve got a problem,’ Meg had said, trying to count them all.
‘Probably,’ Ronnie had agreed, staring in at the stash with her hands on her hips. ‘But everyone’s got something, right? For some people it’s shoes. For others it’s bags. For you it’s hiking boots. For me, jeans,’ she had shrugged.
They came out onto the street just as the sun was peeping playfully from behind an 1870s house and throwing long shadows down the street. Ronnie’s arm was outstretched to hail a passing cab.
Meg caught sight of their reflection as they climbed in – their long hair glistening, eyes painted in a smoky palette (Meg hadn’t known three coats of mascara was a thing), the red sequins on her black Rolling Stones T-shirt catching the light. Ronnie had given over her favourite pair of jeans for the night – matt black stovepipes, rolled at the ankle and worn with a heeled boot – on account of the fact that they were her skinniest ones and didn’t fit at the moment. Ronnie herself was in a pair of white boot-legs, gold strappy sandals and a white linen T-shirt with a gold-thread stripe. Meg thought they didn’t look like themselves, or at least, not the version she kept in her head where the two of them had tangled hair that frizzed at the temples, scraped knees and wore hand-knitted jumpers made by their great-aunt.
‘Do you think I should have worn my hair down?’ Ronnie fretted as the cab pulled into the traffic, patting at her high ponytail.
‘Definitely up,’ Meg replied, finding it hard to have an opinion either way – her sister would be gorgeous bald. ‘So, have you ever been there before?’
‘Soho House? Only once. A friend of a friend who’s a member had her birthday there.’ Ronnie glanced over and saw her face. ‘What? What’s wrong?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘Not nothing. You look like you’re about to throw up. What’s the matter? You know I was joking, don’t you? You don’t have to say “budgie” if you don’t want to. We can split any time you want.’
‘It’s not that. It . . .’
‘What?’
‘I mean, Soho House. Even just the sound of it is cool. It’s not the kind of place where I fit in.’ She was remembering Jonas’s email, his recommendation that she visit there.
‘Hello? Have you looked in the mirror today? If you told people you were a model, they’d totally believe you.’ She pulled a face. ‘Yesterday? Patagonia T-shirt and Kmart jeans? Not so much.’
Meg gave a nervous laugh, smoothing out the non-existent wrinkles on her narrow thighs.
She looked out of the windows as the driver navigated the city streets, lackadaisically jumping a light at one junction and almost giving Meg a heart attack. The sky – glimpsed in long, narrow strips – was blushing into sunset, peach tints uplighting the powder-blue, west-facing windows glowing gold, and she saw that the city had a beauty all of its own. It wasn’t Banff, of course. Nowhere was. Her home was special; remarkable; rare. Rocky Mountains and emerald lakes – what got better than that? But that didn’t mean the urban landscape didn’t have its merits.
Ten minutes later, they pulled up outside a beautiful brownstone building on the end of a block, black windows breaking away from its Georgian heritage towards a more industrial edge, a double door cut into the outside corner.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Ronnie smiled, paying for the cab before Meg could think to argue and leading her into the club. The reception area was panelled and painted in a Hague blue, a staircase rising away at the back, and after giving their names, they were shown where to meet their friends at the rooftop bar. ‘Just keep going up.’
Meg peered in the various rooms on each floor as they climbed the stairs, glimpsing sofas covered in thick jewel-coloured velvet, panelled walls, oversized chandeliers, even a giant elk head mounted above a fireplace. But that wasn’t to say the look was old-school colonial – there was too much ‘loft style’ exposed brick and metal for that, the wooden floors aged and
weathered as though they’d been shipped in from old mountain huts.
Meg felt her pulse quicken again, the city’s vibe beginning to throb through her bones once more as they stepped out onto the roof terrace. A sloping glass roof and glass balconies which only came to waist height, made it feel open to the elements; small round bistro tables, partnered with green metal chairs, were set out randomly on the slate floor. There was a soft seating area at the far end and squat planters filled with feathery-headed ferns introduced a naturalistic edge.
Jack rose as he saw them, his smile growing as they came closer. The guy he was sitting with rose too – sandy blond and lightly built, he was wearing stone-coloured jeans and a relaxed, unlined chambray jacket, the trousers rolled up slightly at the ankles; he wasn’t wearing socks with his suede driving shoes. Everything about him screamed ‘metropolitan male’; he was about as far from Mitch – dark, hulking, athletic, practical – as it was possible to get, which instantly put her at ease. There was no threat here. She was as attracted to him as she was to the chair – less so, in fact, as the boots were already killing her feet and she was desperate to sit down.
‘Hey,’ Ronnie said, leading the charge.
‘I’m so glad you could come,’ Jack said, kissing her and then Meg once on the cheek, before introducing his friend. ‘This is Logan Hazard.’
‘But everyone calls me Hap,’ the man smiled, extending his hand to them both.
Ronnie got the joke immediately but it took Meg another moment to catch on; she was so nervous, her brain hadn’t yet attuned to small talk and banter.
‘Oh!’ she laughed, a full four seconds late.
‘Come and sit,’ Jack said, pulling out their chairs. ‘I ordered some wine. A white burgundy. Does that suit?’
‘Great,’ Ronnie grinned, taking the chair nearest to Jack.
‘Lovely,’ Meg echoed.
‘To be honest, I wouldn’t have ordered a burgundy as an aperitif if it hadn’t been for Hap here, but grapes are his business so when he makes a recommendation, I act on it. What was it you said about this one? Dry and jaunty.’