“Dick move, I agree,” I say, then glance at the menu as if someone treating her that way doesn’t eat me up. “Do you have any video of her high, though? I somehow doubt there’s much of a difference between normal Addie and loopy Addie.”
She lets out a gleeful cackle. “You wish.”
Oh, I do. I can almost picture it.
Adelaide Ramsay, as she is, but with a tiny bit less self-control.
“Is that an occasion when you swear as well?”
“You’ve heard Adelaide swear?” Tabitha asks. She drops her menu. “It took me, like, fifteen years to hear you swear.”
“I’m a woman with layers,” Addie says with a shrug. “What can I say?”
A waitress appears at our table before I have a chance to look over the menu. I order a water and go along with what the rest of the group decides for dinner. A feast of appetizers seems like the best option, especially when it’s pub fare.
I can’t recall the last time I was in a place like this.
When I restarted my life all those years ago, I made a conscious decision not to go into any bars. It wasn’t because they were too tempting or made me violent. It was largely due to the memories being too painful.
The Dam Drunkard blends the line between bar and pub. I can tell a lot of the customers are here just for a drink. And while I’m happy for them, a part of me wishes I could exist without thinking about my past, or how they’re going to get home tonight, or if someone here is dealing drugs, or if a fight’s going to break out and I’m somehow going to get caught in the crossfire.
Our drinks get set down on the table. Mine the only boring one, and Addie with an extravagant chocolate milkshake.
“You want some?” she asks, turning the straw my way. I take a sip as Addie’s hand slips beneath the table and squeezes my thigh. She mouths, “You okay?”
I nod. I’m better with her.
We slip into a natural rhythm of conversation, Simon and Tabitha talking about how they met, their love of Beaver Creek, a less-than picture perfect wedding day, and Tabitha’s plans for world domination—Bed & Breakfast style. I find myself laughing easily, making jokes like I do with Addie.
In an unexpected turn of events, I even find myself getting along with Simon. Not that he’s hard to get along with. I just assumed my reputation would precede me, and maybe he wouldn’t even want to try. But as we break off from the larger conversation and fall into two separate ones, a friendship forms.
“I hate the journey, though,” Simon says when we start talking about work. “You’re going back and forth a lot. How’s it feel?”
I reach for a loaded potato skin and add it to my messy plate with remnants of wings, spinach dip, and onion ring batter.
“I haven’t been going during rush hour, if you can really call it that here.”
Simon groans. “You’re right. I went to school in Toronto and nothing is as bad as Toronto traffic. I guess that’s why I moved back home to a small town.”
“But it’s still a half hour to Guelph.”
“That’s exactly the issue. I’d much rather just roll out of bed and walk to work like Tabby.”
“Be glad you don’t have to drive to work and then do hours of manual labour in the sun,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I don’t miss that part of carpentry.”
“But you do miss something about it?”
“I miss the creativity, which might sound dumb. What’s the creativity in that?”
Simon takes a bite out of his mozzarella stick and comes away with a long cheese pull. He nods as he chews, then wipes marinara sauce from the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
“No, I get it,” he says and swallows hard. He clears his throat. “You made decks and stuff, right? There’s creativity in that.”
“I’m glad you say that. Some people think, or thought, I haven’t really talked about it in a while…anyway I got a lot of comments back then about how I was just laying down wood. But it was more than that. I liked building things with my hands. Everything I build now is mental.”
“That must be quite a switch,” he says. He chews the remainder of his mozza stick, then tilts his head. Straggly black hair falls over his glasses. “But from what I hear you’re doing pretty well. Book five just came out, right?”
“It’s out tomorrow.”
