Chapter Twenty Nine

When You Finish the Book

Salinger

As much as I would have loved to jet off to Whitehorse that night without a second glance, we weren’t the only people going, so we couldn't leave immediately. My Ata had asked Clementine to marry him and she’d accepted, claiming they’d been in love for years and this was the end of a very long courtship. Her things were packed. Her things filled the back of his truck and left only enough room for one person to go with him in the front. Clementine wanted to go with him but was persuaded to fly to Whitehorse with Veda a few days later.

I looked at the back of the truck after it was packed. “Clementine has a lot of stuff,” I murmured, completely against hoarding.

“Son,” my Ata said quietly. “Only half of these things belong to Clem.” He looked at me meaningfully and strode away like he hadn’t told me something monumental.

I chased after him. I almost asked him outright if the other half belonged to Veda. Was she moving to be with me? Stopping, I realized the truth. Whatever happened between us, she wasn’t coming back here. That part of her life was over.

No one spoke of it. Plans continued, and no one acted like Veda was doing anything other than coming with me for a visit.

Someone asked Clementine if she wanted to go wedding dress shopping for the wedding, which would be in Whitehorse. Clementine laughed, “Are you asking me if I need to buy a white dress?” She was decked from head to toe in white every day.

Before I got in that one seat left in my father’s truck, I had a few people I needed to sort things out with.

I hadn't seen Remy since we dropped him off at the hospital. They let him go that night with no nerve damage, but it was a very unpleasant cut he had achieved rescuing me. Rest and painkillers were on the menu.

I found him in our room, trying to pack his stuff with one hand and losing at it. I took over for him.

“Thanks, man,” he said as he dropped back on the mattress.

“Where are you going?”

“Calgary.”

“What for?”

“Intarsia joined Carlos' band. Do you remember him and his crew?”

I did and thought sadly what a waste it was for Intarsia to end up living a life like theirs. It was all on the road and the gigs barely paid their expenses. Intarsia wasn't going to like it. She would be back at her mother's yarn store doing the books before she knew it.

“She's going to sing backup for him,” Remy admitted. “She asked me if I would go along and do sound mixing for them. She wants to be with him so bad, but she's scared of the feeling. She wants me along in case her little romance goes awry.”

“Could it go right?”

He scratched his nose. “I wish it wouldn't.”

I did a double-take. That did not sound like Remy. The Remy I knew believed everything would work out, believed what everyone told him, believed everything. The Remy I knew didn't wish things would collapse and end.

I shut my mouth and tightened my jaw. He didn't say it and I didn't need him to. He was in love with Intarsia and he had watched her interest in his friend bloom until she was ready to run away with him. I didn't say I was sorry. Instead, I thanked him for coming to help me the night he got hurt and told him I would be happy to let him stay at my place the next time he was up north.

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He shook my hand with his good one and threw his duffel bag over his shoulder.

Then I went to Cold as stone. Pearl's parents were there doing all the jobs I had planned but hadn’t finished before everything blew up. They thanked me for everything I had done for them, apologized for not being around as much as they should have been, and sent me on my way.

The next thing was the last thing I had to do. I went to speak to Fair Isle. I got the book, put a red ribbon on it, and went to find her.

She was sitting by the large windows in the front of her house. She looked different. Her hair was longer than usual, but that only meant that it spiked out a bit everywhere instead of being the perfect pixie cut she usually wore. Her clothes were black but incredibly faded. The sweater sleeves covering her knuckles were frayed.

My instinct was to approach and say something like, “Hey, gorgeous!” But I clued into the fact that kind of greeting was incredibly inappropriate and I would have to learn to stop talking to women like that. Instead, I came up and sat across from her without being invited and said, “I have something for you.”

Fair Isle glanced at the book. “Yeah? Let me guess. Is it a blank book, so I can write a spell book of my very own?”

“No.”

“Then, if I’m not mistaken, that is the new spell book you started writing for Veda?”

I shook my head. “I never began a second book for her. It’s a spell book I wrote for you.”

Her face crumpled. “You wrote a spell book for me? Isn't it ultimately going to say something like, 'Fair Isle, you're a great girl, but you're not the one for me’?”

“You already know that. That’s not what the book is about. I didn’t go through the trouble to write you a spell book that was a rejection. This is not that. It’s something else. The only thing I have to say about it is that it is a fantasy. It’s not real, but when you’re angry, there will be a baseball bat inside that you can use to wail on anything or anyone you want. When you’re lonely, there will be a reasonably attractive man to be exactly what you want and make out with you for as long as you want. And when you’re discouraged, you can read this, and you’ll be reminded of who you really are, The Red Witch of the North. That’s the title of the book.” I put it between her hands.

Her face crumpled further until she was unrecognizable as she hugged the book to her chest. “Why can’t you love me?”

I was about to touch her by putting my hand on her knee when I realized I should not touch her at all. “Have you done readings for your own future?” I asked her.

“No. I like potions and salves and stuff you can sell.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m pretty good at doing readings and do you know what I see in your future?”

“What?” she pouted.

“I see many lovers. I don’t see you with just one man. I see legions. I see men fighting over you. I see them running each other over to be the first one to make it to you, like that will make you choose them. I see a different man falling in love with you every time you turn around. I see you being so many different things, fighting, brewing, scheming, stealing, healing… and being a woman who is everything. One day, you’ll look back over the sands of time and you’ll wonder how you could have been jealous of Veda. She’s going to curl herself into a ball and knit herself into a sweater. You’re going to see the world and knitting stockings in Whitehorse never could have done it for you. She’s an artist. You’re a traveler.”

“You think so?” she whispered, her eyes wide with possibility.

“Start in British Columbia. With my fortune teller’s tongue, I will give you one more piece of advice.”

“Oh?”

I leaned in and winked. “Pack light.”

She tore the ribbon off the cover. “Arrogant little sucker, aren't you?”

“It's the kind of book that doesn't record what you do, and the kind you can read over and over. Read it, forget me, and live well.”

I touched the top of her head once and walked away. Fair Isle watched me go, and she did not call me back.

I went upstairs, collected my stuff, and brought it down for my father to stuff into his truck. I went back to Veda’s to say goodbye. We would only be parted for three days, but I felt like I was cutting off my arm as I crossed the yard to her house.

Inside, Pearl was heartbroken in a way that only a teenage girl could be. Evander's girlfriend, Sarah, was there, sitting next to Pearl at the table listening intently while Pearl explained the trouble. She was the same age as Pearl and had a lot of advice on how to pick yourself up.

Veda sat on a new couch in the living room and put the last few stitches into the scarf she had been knitting for me. I watched her weave in the ends, proclaim it finished, and put it on me.

She smoothed it around my neck and said, “In a backward tale, there was once a scarf that kept me warm whenever the person I loved wore it. That scarf is gone. Can you promise to wear this scarf and keep me warm?”

I thought about the bet we made that started her knitting the scarf for me. It was something stupid to do with lipstick, but now I saw that things never seem legendary when you are in the midst of them, instead, they seem normal.

“I can,” I said.

And she kissed me.

THE END