The Simple Wild_A Novel

  “Well, of course your mother will take care of it.” He waits a beat before turning to meet my doubtful smirk, and mutters in that dry British way he has, “That would be a bloody cold day in hell, now wouldn’t it?”

  Chapter 3

  “You have to go!” Diana yells over the throbbing bass, pausing long enough to flash a pearly white grin at the bartender as he sets our drink order on the bar. “It’s beautiful up there.”

  “You’ve never been to Alaska!”

  “Well yeah, but I’ve seen Into the Wild. All that wilderness and the mountains . . . Just don’t eat the berries.” She makes a dramatic show of placing a ten-dollar tip down so that the bartender notices. A trick for priority service the next round.

  Meanwhile, the bartender’s eyes are busy dragging over the plunging neckline of my cobalt-blue dress, the first thing I yanked out of my closet in my rush to change and get out the door. He’s cute but short and brawny, with a shaved head and a full sleeve of ink—not my tall and lean, clean-cut, inkless type—and, besides, I’m not in the mood to flirt in exchange for free shots.

  I humor him with a tight smile and then turn my attention back to Diana. “It’s not like that on the western side of Alaska.”

  “Cheers.” We down our shots in unison. “What’s it like?”

  The sickly sweet concoction makes me grimace slightly. “Flat.”

  “What do you mean? Flat, like the Prairies?”

  “No. I mean, yeah, it’s probably flat like there, but it’s really cold. Like, arctic cold.” Whereas our midwest provinces are home to the vast majority of our country’s farmland, nothing thrives where my dad is from, the growing season’s too short. That’s according to my mom, anyway, and the woman has a bachelor’s degree in Plant Science from the University of Guelph. If anyone would know, I’d think it would be her.

  “Arctic?” Diana’s cornflower-blue eyes widen with excitement. “Seriously, think how amazing that could be for Calla & Dee. You’re the one who said we needed to find an original angle. You said we need to get out of the city.”

  “I was thinking more a trip to Sandbanks or Lake of Bays.” New pretty and picturesque places that we can get to within a few hours by car.

  “What’s more original and out of the city than a lifestyle blogger in the arctic?” Diana’s matte mauve-colored lips curl into a hopeful smile as no doubt a spiderweb of ideas is spinning in her head.

  Last year, we started a small website aptly named Calla & Dee, an avenue to share our passion for the latest lipstick shades and shoe styles, just for fun. I should have known when Diana asked me to split the cost of a website designer that she already had lofty goals and that this hobby was going to grow legs of its own.

  Now we exchange texts about the site all day long—ideas for future posts and who’s doing what that seems to be working. Instead of a simple blog, we have entire sections—fashion, food, beauty, entertainment—and a strict weekly schedule to adhere to. I spend my commutes and lunch hours scrolling through newsletters and blog posts in order to educate myself on the latest—retailers announcing sales, fashion industry leaders announcing the latest trends, other lifestyle bloggers who we befriend online in the name of networking. My evenings are for updating links, loading content, tweaking aesthetics—tasks that Diana abhors but I don’t mind and am actually good at.

  Diana and I meet up in a new restaurant every Thursday night to bounce around ideas and taste-test appetizer menus for our “Grazing in the City” section. One Saturday a month is for scouring discount racks for trendy clothes to style ourselves with, and every Sunday afternoon we hunt for the perfect settings in downtown ­Toronto—colorful graffiti in alleyways, the spring cherry blossoms of High Park, the Distillery District’s picturesque Christmas Market. We take Simon’s pricey Canon with us, swapping out cute outfits in the backseat of Diana’s Tahoe and taking turns pretending that we’re not posing for the camera. I’ve learned far more about sight lines and shutter speed and the rule of three than I ever expected to, and it’s all in the name of grabbing that perfect lifestyle snapshot—nice outfits on park benches and in city streets, with blurred backgrounds and feel-good captions about love and happiness and spirituality.

  We get caught up in “what if” conversations all the time. What if we hit a hundred thousand followers? What if companies started sending us clothes and makeup samples to promote so we don’t have to spend half our paychecks anymore? What if we become Instagram famous?

  It’s a daydream for me.

  A goal for Diana.

  But we have a long way to go before we’re being featured on any “best of” lists, and more and more lately, I fear that all our efforts have been a waste. After a year of hard work, we have a frustratingly modest following of almost four hundred returning visitors to our website. Our separate Instagram profiles—the two halves of Calla & Dee—have more. Diana’s is triple mine, which isn’t surprising given she is obsessed with learning the latest expert tips and tricks about building an audience and curating photos and tagging appropriately; about how to word captions to be upbeat and inspirational. She responds to every last comment on her posts and spends her lunch hour interacting with strangers, hoping to attract their attention and their following.

  Still, even with all Diana’s die-hard efforts and determination, we can’t seem to gain any traction. At this point, it’s nothing more than a forty-hour-a-week hobby, grappling with finding ideas for “how to’s” and “top tens” that haven’t been done before, that people might want to read.

  My gut says we’re missing a key ingredient—originality. Right now, we’re just two more attractive city girls who love to pose and talk about makeup and clothes. There’s a sea of us.

  “It’s not really the arctic. Not where he lives, anyway. It’s . . . somewhere in between the arctic and normal civilization. It’s like . . . the last frontier?” I echo something I read about Alaska once, silently admitting that I don’t know much about where I was born.

  “Even better! And you’ll have a bunch of planes at your disposal!”

  “I doubt they’ll be ‘at my disposal.’ And I’ll be alone. How am I going to get any good shots?” We cringe in unison at the thought of a selfie stick.

  Diana’s not to be swayed, though. “Someone there will be willing to take pictures of a beautiful Canadian girl. Maybe a hot American pilot.”

  I sigh. “Have you forgotten why I’d be going in the first place?”

  “No. I’m just”—her face turns serious, her perfectly shaped blond brows ruffling—“trying to make it not so depressing.”

  We collect our martinis and ease our way out from the bar. Our spots are instantly swallowed up by the crowd. Diana wasn’t exaggerating. This club must be testing fire code violations; I can’t stand anywhere without being nudged from at least two sides at any given time.

  I suck back a mouthful of my drink as we weave through the throbbing crowd, shrugging off the male hands that graze my arm and pinch my sides in brazen attempts to gain my attention, hoping I don’t spill anything with all the bumping and jostling.

  Finally, we squeeze into a small vacant space near a pillar.

  “So, where’s Corey tonight?” Diana asks.

  “Working.”

  “Hmm . . .” Her nose crinkles subtly, as if a mild but unpleasant odor lingers and she’s trying her best to pretend she doesn’t smell it.

  I think Diana might be the only person on earth who doesn’t like Corey. It took five months and six margaritas apiece in the back of a Mexican restaurant for my best friend to finally admit that to me. He tries too hard to be liked, she said. And he’s handsy. And the way he stares at her when she’s talking feels flirtatious; it makes her uncomfortable. She simply doesn’t trust him not to break my heart.

  To say I didn’t like hearing that is an understatement. I told her she was jealous that I had so
meone and she didn’t. We parted ways under a dark cloud that night, and I woke up the next day with a throbbing head from the alcohol and an aching heart from fear that our friendship had been irreparably damaged.

  Simon swiftly talked me down from that ledge, though, as only he can do, by pointing out all the times Diana had been there for me over the years, through all the boyfriends, even when she didn’t have one, and that if she was jealous, it was more than likely because she felt her importance in my life was being threatened, a normal affliction for best friends at our age.

  Diana and I made up that same afternoon, over plenty of tears and apologies, and she promised she’d give Corey another shot. Thankfully, Aaron came into the picture a few months later and I’ve firmly fallen to second rung. I’m not complaining, though—I’ve never seen her this happy, or serious about a guy. Just two weeks ago, she mentioned buying a condo with Aaron next year, which means she’ll finally stop pestering me to move in with her. I love my best friend, but she drains hot water tanks with her long showers, she cleans everything with a skin-melting dose of bleach, and she likes to clip her toenails while watching TV. And if she can’t sleep? No one is sleeping.

  Have fun living with that, Aaron.

  “So, when would you go?” Diana asks, her gaze flitting this way and that, searching the crowd even as she talks to me.

  The sooner the better, if my dad is going to start chemo or radiation, or whatever the doctors are recommending. The only other person I’ve ever known with lung cancer was Mrs. Hagler, the old lady who lived in the house behind us. She was a longtime friend of Simon’s parents and didn’t have any family of her own left, so Simon sometimes took her to the hospital for her chemo. That went on for years before she succumbed. Near the end, she spent a lot of time sitting in her backyard wearing a knit hat that covered her sparse fuzz, puffing away on a cigarette while her oxygen tank sat two feet away. She’d made peace with what was coming by that point.

  “My dad’s friend said there was a flight available for Sunday, so . . . I guess maybe then? If it’s not taken by tomorrow. She said she’d buy the ticket, but I don’t want to fly there on her dime. I mean, what if this ends up being a horrible idea and I want to leave as soon as I get there?”

  “You’d feel like you owe it to her to stick around,” Diana agrees. She takes a sip of her drink and makes a face. The bartender mixed this round extra strong. “Get Daddy Warbucks to buy your ticket from his secret stash, then. We all know the shrink is good for it.” Diana is convinced that Simon has a secret vault beneath our century-old house and spends his nights inventorying his mountain of gold coins.

  While he does make a lot of money on fragile psyches, it’s highly unlikely that he could ever amass such riches, given my mother’s taste for the finer things. She’s even worse than me in that regard.

  “But seriously, Calla, Simon’s right. If you don’t go and your dad doesn’t pull through, you will regret it. I know you.”

  And she does, better than anyone else. Diana and I have been best friends since I started at the private school a few blocks away from our house. I was eleven and didn’t know another soul. She painted my fingernails robin’s-egg blue during recess. It’s still my favorite color. She knows all about my father and the heartache that he’s caused me over the years. She also knows all the unasked questions that I still long for answers to.

  Mainly, why is Alaska Wild more important to Wren Fletcher than his own flesh and blood?

  Still, this feels like a huge risk. One I’m not sure I have the guts to take. “What if he’s nothing more than a deadbeat dad?”

  “Then you’ll know once and for all that he’s a deadbeat dad.” She pauses. “Or maybe he’s actually a decent guy and there’s this whole other side of him that you’ll get to know and love.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say doubtfully. Another, darker worry strikes me. “But then what if he doesn’t get better?” It would be like losing him all over again, only this time it wouldn’t be just the idea of him.

  “Then you’ll have something real to hold on to. Look, we can play this ‘what if’ game all summer long, or you can get answers. Oh hey!” Diana waves to someone behind me. A moment later, surprise, surprise, Aaron swoops in.

  I avert my gaze as they share a long, movie-screen-worthy kiss, my annoyance flaring. Normally I wouldn’t care, but tonight, after the day I’ve had, I needed my best friend’s undivided attention, just this once.

  “Heard about the job, Callie. That sucks.”

  At six foot four, even in my heels Aaron towers over me. I have to tip my head back to meet his inky blue eyes. “It does. But it’s just a job, right?” Funny how that line comes out a little more easily, now that I have the distraction of my father to focus on.

  “I wish I’d get canned with four months’ pay,” Diana laments. She works as a paralegal at a midsized law firm and hates every second of it, which I’m guessing is part of the reason she puts so much energy into our side project.

  “My buddy’s a headhunter for the banks. He’ll hook you up with a new job right away,” Aaron offers.

  “Thanks.” I sigh, pushing aside my dour mood. “Nice beard, by the way.”

  He smooths a palm over the well-trimmed licorice-black hair that coats his jaw. “It’s holding up pretty good, eh?”

  “It is,” I agree, admiring the sharp lines. “Where on earth did you ever find such a talented barber?”

  “It was a barberette, actually.” He grins. “A smoking-hot ­barberette—”

  “Stop hitting on my best friend. And making up words.” Diana shoots him a stern look, but she follows it up with a wink.

  Two months ago, Diana decided that we needed to do a post called “Turn Your Bushman Boyfriend into an Urban Gentleman.” For the good of all womankind, she insisted. Or, at least, for the girlfriend of the attractive but hairy and unkempt server who plied us with copious amounts of wine and spanakopita at the Greek restaurant on the Danforth.

  So she roped in Aaron to be our guinea pig for a live demo. Being the supportive boyfriend that he is, the baby-faced Aaron went without shaving, complaining only a hundred times. But he surprised us—and himself—by growing a respectably thick layer of hair.

  Neither Diana nor I had ever shaved a man’s face before, but I have more experience with clippers, given that I’d volunteered at an animal shelter for credit during high school and spent a semester beautifying bedraggled dogs to up their chances of adoption. So we decided I was up for the task. I devoured dozens of tutorials on YouTube, in preparation. And last weekend, under the watchful lens of Diana’s iPhone camera, I transformed Aaron’s shabby scruff into magazine-model-worthy beard status.

  Aaron finally looks like a twenty-eight-year-old man instead of an eighteen-year-old boy.

  Diana reaches up to draw dainty fingers along his jaw. “That was the most popular post we’ve done yet. All those thirsty ­females . . .”

  Those thirsty females, and the fact that the company whose tools Diana bought featured our video in their social media, after we tagged them. My ears were ringing for a good half hour after Diana called me, squealing with hysteria.

  Aaron grins, earning another eye roll from Diana. He’s read every last comment on that post, his ego basking in the glory. “I was hoping Calla could freshen it up this—”

  “No.” Diana gives him a pointed look.

  “But she’s already done it once—”

  “For Calla & Dee. But that’s it. It’s too intimate. Right, Calla?”

  “I guess?” Aaron and I share a frown. “I mean, it didn’t feel that way to me, but—”

  “Besides, she’s going to Alaska on Sunday.”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I start to say, but Diana has already leaned in to Aaron’s ear to reiterate the phone call from Agnes.

  I watch his face fall. “I’m sorry, Calla. Ma
n, you’ve had a shitty day.”

  “Cheers to that!” I lift my martini in the air.

  “Well . . . my friend went to Alaska a few years ago and he still raves about it. I’m sure it’ll be an experience, even if the reason behind it sucks.”

  “Did you know Calla was born in Alaska? Yeah, her dad owns a freaking airline!”

  “It’s more like a charter plane company.” I think?

  “Like, a hundred planes!”

  “A couple dozen small planes, maybe,” I guess, because I have no idea and the last time I tried trolling my dad on the internet, I found little more than a directory listing and an Alaska Wild landing page that said “check back soon.”

  “She’s going to make her dad’s pilots fly her all over the place so she can take cool shots for the site.”

  “Awesome.” Aaron points to my half-finished martini. “I’ll get you ladies another round.” Though he has never said a word about it, I’m sure he’d be happy to not hear Diana talk about Calla & Dee for one night.

  Stealing a quick kiss from her lips—because he always kisses Diana whenever he’s stepping away from her, just like Corey used to—Aaron weaves through the crowd toward the bar.

  “I fucking love this club!” Diana hollers, shimmying her shoulders to the music. The number of “fucks” she voices is in direct proportion to how many drinks she’s had. She must be starting to feel the alcohol. I know I am.

  “Really? I was just thinking it’s getting a bit stale.” I sip at my drink and let my gaze wander over the crowd again, wondering how many people they’ve packed in here. Five hundred? A thousand? It’s hard to tell. I used to feel a rush as I stepped through these doors. I’d get giddy as the music vibrated through my limbs and all around me, a sea of revelers dancing, drinking, laughing, kissing.

  I’m not feeling that rush. It’s probably the day I’ve had, but the DJ is lackluster. His set is similar to last week’s. In fact, I’ll bet it is last week’s set. And the week before’s. And the week before that’s. I doubt I can even muster the urge to dance.