She had not been beautiful all those years ago, and she had not matured into beauty.
In fact, she was remarkably unchanged. On the flight here he had picked out women of his age and hers, and studied them. And been reassured. That she would have changed. That she would be plump and frumpy. Or that a smooth veneer of sophistication would have chased away the elfin charm that had made him call her “cute,” a description she had always reacted to with chagrin, which only made her cuter.
But she was still cute. Not plump. Certainly not frumpy. No veneer of sophistication. Though he knew her to be his own age, thirty, she looked astoundingly like the first time he had seen her in sixth grade—her baseball cap on backward, that same riot of red-gold curls scattered around her face, those same freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her little snub nose, a pointed chin, little bow lips. Except now there was no baseball cap and that chin was lifted at him in defiance, the bows of her lips faintly downturned in disapproval.
That first time she’d had on a too-big Stampeders jersey, and rolled up jeans that showed a Band-Aid on her knee. She had been smiling, though. A smile so full of mischief and warmth it had melted his twelve-year-old heart in a way it had never been touched before. Or since.
Today she wore a too-large man’s shirt over a pair of black bicycle shorts. Silly, but he checked the knees, his eyes drifting over the rest of her on the way down. She’d mourned her boyish build all through adolescence, and as far as he could tell it was unchanged. She was willowy and slender as a young tree.
“I’ve got about as many curves as a ruler,” she used to lament.
By then she was already the ruler of his heart. It had made him blind for all time to the attractions of fullerfigured women.
He found her knees, finally, and peered through the screen.
She tucked one slim leg behind her, but not before he saw the smudge that struck him, foolishly, as being utterly lovely.
“I was out back in the garden,” she said defensively.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Anyway, you’re leaving.” She reached out and snapped the lock on the screen, as if he was some sort of barbarian, who would enter her house without an invitation, barge by her, sit on her sofa and demand tea. No. Beer.
Did she really think of him like that? Of course she did. That was why he’d been overlooked for someone with a better pedigree.
Of course if she really thought of him like that, she would know the flimsy screen door, with its fancy heritage scrolling in the corners, wouldn’t keep him out. Probably couldn’t keep a determined kitten out.
“I’m not leaving.” The words came from his mouth, all right, but they really surprised him. Because he didn’t want to be here in the first place. All the way here he had hoped and maybe even prayed for a reaction like this from her. So he could turn on his heel and catch the next flight back to Toronto. That would be enough to soothe his conscience. He’d flown all the way here, hadn’t he? Who could say he had not tried his hardest? Not made his best effort?
“If you don’t go away, I’ll call the police.”
He wondered if he should tell her the truth. About the letter in his pocket. Something told him the time was not right.
“No you won’t,” he said. “You won’t call the police.”
She glared at him. Her eyes were dark brown, shot through with gold. Immense eyes. They had always been her best feature, dancing with the light that was inside of her.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“We could always talk about the dirt on your knees.”
She glared at him, tossed her head and slammed the inside door. The beveled glass insert rattled.
Not something a man who had just traveled two thousand one hundred and twenty-five miles should find amusing.
But he did.
It wasn’t, he told himself firmly, seeing her again that was causing this sensation inside him—like a light had been turned on in darkness.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, and rocked back on his heels. He turned slowly from her door. She lived only a block or two from where they had grown up together. Her, and him. And Mark.
The community of Sunnyside. A beautiful old part of the city, bordering the banks of the Bow River. From here, on her covered porch, he could look south up her street, and see the park that ran parallel to the river for most of its journey through Calgary. A couple of runners enjoyed the paved path under huge trees.
He noticed she had a swing on her porch, full of plump gray and pink pillows and he went and sat on it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a curtain twitch angrily into place.
He rocked slowly with one foot. He liked Calgary. He’d been struck by that an hour earlier when the plane circled. That he liked this city. Had missed it.
This neighborhood was changing so rapidly. Young professionals were snapping up the dignified old houses just across the river from the downtown core and doing incredible renovations on them.
That trend had actually started when he and his dad had moved here years ago. He’d been in the sixth grade.
Her father, Tory’s, was a doctor, and had owned the beautifully kept old house on one side of his. Mark’s parents, a psychologist and a veterinarian, owned an equally beautiful one on the other.
His house, a ramshackle rental, was right in the middle. Him and his dad, a mechanic with grease under his nails, doing their best to make it after the death of his mom.
He heard the window squeak open behind him.
“Get lost!” she snapped.
“No,” he said.
The window slammed shut.
He sighed with something like pleasure. Tory in a temper.
Her name was really Victoria. Victoria Bradbury, a good name for a heroine in an old English novel, but a terrible one for a tomboy who climbed trees and had perpetually scuffed knees. And a temper like a skyrocket going off.
He looked around her porch with interest. The house was probably sixty years old or more, well kept, nicely painted—yellow with gray trim. He noticed she had a gift with flowers, just as her mother had had. The window boxes around the porch rioted with color, which was an accomplishment in the first week of June in a city with such a short growing season.
Her house, back then, had always had flowers. And Mark’s parents had had beautifully landscaped nomaintenance shrubs and bark mulch. His own yard had sported the hulks of cars.
He supposed that’s why he was staying. To show her what he had become. A lawyer now, the shoes he was wearing worth more than his dad used to pay for a month’s rent on that old falling down house.
The thing was, he remembered, she had never seemed to care what he had come from.
And neither had Mark.
They had taken him under wing from the very first day he’d moved in. They had become the three musketeers—ridden their bikes up and down these very streets, built tree houses, walked forever along that path by the river. Their doors had always been open to him, both of their mothers treating him like he was one of their families.
He felt the strangest clawing sensation in his throat.
Remembering. Those bright days so full of laughter and kinship.
Love.
That was not too strong a word for what the three of them had shared, for what passed in and out of the doors of those three side-by-side houses.
Of course, the inevitable had happened.
They got older and the love changed. He and Mark had both fallen in love with