He used to say the same things over and over again to me. Nevermind the hypocrisy of it all, the words have hardly changed, beginning on the midway when I was eleven and he came to see us when we would venture close to home on the circuit.
You're so brown. So thin. So tall. He smiled and I knew he was buttering me up. I turned pink in the sun. I still had all of my baby fat, kept innocently rounded on the hard edges via a diet of sugar&fried, and I hadn't grown in three weeks. My jeans still hit the tops of my laces. That's the measurer, you see. When they part ways it's time for bigger clothes. It's a rule. Lochlan told it to me. I checked every day but nope. I never ever grew.
(Had I known I would get no taller I would have have been crushed so I'm pretty sure height was a religion back in that day.)
You're old. I return the favor. He shaves every day, I bet, but hasn't since at least last weekend. He looks wiser and handsome and a little tired and something else, only I don't know what the else is. Maybe he will volunteer it. That's what you do when you're twenty and not eleven.
This isn't a safe place for a little girl. He said it with a new look. Concern. I pay him no mind. He said it before. My parents think I'm at Lochlan's family's summer cottage. His parents think he's at mine. This is the eighties. No one checks in. Everything's great.
Are you going to stay and get a wristband for the week? I have a guy. You can get a discount.
He smiled. No, I'm interning at a firm in Toronto. I just wanted to see you before I went. I'm driving up in a few days.
Do you have to?
Yes, if I want to be a lawyer. What does he feed you?
I want to be a mermaid. You don't intern for that. You just go swim.
But what's the purpose? And you didn't answer the question,
To make the ocean even more beautiful. And he makes me eat so many vegetables. He made me eat turnip and sweet potato. Bustle sprouts and pork roast but I didn't eat the pork because it's meat so he makes me eat an egg if I don't have what the meat is.
Just today?
No, vegetables every day. At least three. Also three fruits and then two things that have to be a meat or egg and then the rest can be sugar.
I see.
Have you said hi to him yet?
No, I wanted to check in with you.
The phrase you want is 'check up on' me.
He's got you on the defensive.
I'm never allowed to play football or road hockey so no, he's got me on the side.
Sidelines.
Yes, behind the line so I don't get in the way.
I missed you while I was at school, Bridget.
I missed you too.
You did?
Yes. We walk everywhere now. I miss your car.
He broke out laughing. I gotta go. Gotta head back home to see Mom and Dad and Cole before they find out I'm back in the province from someone else.
What about Lochlan?
I'll be back tomorrow night. Tell him I didn't buy the line he taught you about the vegetables and I'll take you out to dinner somewhere nice. Be ready at six. I'll bring the car so we don't have to walk.
Only if you come back and stay for some rides afterward.
I promise.
Cross your heart and hope to die?
If I do that who's going to ride the rides with you?
Lochlan, like always. You know he doesn't have a dress shirt so let's not make it too fancy a place, okay?
Who said he's invited?
