Page 55 of Eye Candy

Goingto Canada would be a bad idea.

Chase and I didn’t know each other that well and had met under awful circumstances (of my making). I had no business going to Yankee Stadium with him, let alone out of the country.

Years ago, Dad had told me about incident pits for deep sea divers. My dad loved documentaries, and he especially loved sharing random facts from them with his customers at the café, usually without any indication of interest from them. Mike always said our dad was the Wikipedia of Weird. Anyway, with incident pits, the worse something got or the longer it went on, the harder it was to get out of. Which was obvious. The only exit points happened before you realized you were in trouble, and once you were like,uh oh, this is gnarly, it was the end of the line for you. Basically, things with Chase in New York were so messed up there was no way I could mend them, so I should just do whatever I wanted while I could. Like go to Canada with the hot millionaire who made me come so hard I saw stars.

So, I packed a bag and the garment box he’d sent me and got on a flight to Canada.

Lake Ontario sped by underneath me, too dark to see. Chase had arrived in Toronto yesterday but promised to send someone to collect me at the airport. He said it casually, making it sound like it was just a friend, a mate, a pal; but I knew it would be a hired driver. Chase might be philanthropic, thoughtful and down to earth, but affluence was a deep part of who he was, and his casualness about the whole thing was deeply misleading.

Arriving only hours before the party wasn’t ideal, but last week Lyssa won our coin toss, so I was the one who had to get Root Beer in his carrier and take him to the kitty dentist this morning—he was fine, but he’d cracked a tooth chewing Lyssa’s knitting needles.

As we flew, I pulled up the email my little brother had cc’d me on, which I’d downloaded before takeoff.

To: Ryman Loans

From: [email protected]

RYMAN,

MY SISTER HAS PAID THE OUTSTANDING RENT ON THE CAFÉ AND NOW WE’RE UP TO DATE. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, YOU CAN CONTACT OUR ACCOUNTANT, THIS EMAIL IS JUST TO SAY FUCK YOU.

NO REGARDS,

MIKE HOLLIDAY

The email should have made me feel good. I’d done what I’d needed to. I’d been a good daughter and a good sister. Gerard had been true to his word, and sent me the other half of the money, and I’d dolled it out where it needed to go, with a little bit left over for a new account called ‘savings’. Every time I logged into my bankingit felt like a practical joke to see it there, with actual money in it, but it wasn’t. No real harm done to anyone, right? Joe may have been a bit embarrassed, but he was a big little rich kid, he could take it.

Everything was fine, and I shouldn’t feel guilty at all.

I was going to have a lovely time frolicking in Canada. If Chase wanted a weekend with Caroline Holliday, broke show-pony with a heart of gold and an insatiable need to be the center of attention at all times™, well, he was going to get it.

The party was at a fancy chalet outside the city. Chase had reassured me none of his Manhattan friends would be there, so I was traveling sans horrible wig, and my carry-on was full of gaudy, pink showgirl shit.

When the overhead seat belt sign clicked off, I started rolling my hair in foam rollers and tucking it under a silk scarf so it would set for the party. This would have really annoyed the passenger next to me if there had been one, but I was in the roomiest airplane seat I’d ever sat in, and I had no seatmates. Flying seventeen hours between New York and New Zealand would besomuch easier in seats like this. Usually, when I got off a plane at home, I needed to go straight to a masseuse.

For about three seconds after I stepped out onto the pavement at Pearson, tugging my carry-on behind me, it was like being inside a snow globe. Magical. Perfect. Call me Elsa.

Then the cold hit me.

I was going to freeze my tassel holders off!

“You should have a coat,” my driver frowned as I shivered in the back seat.

The card on her dash said “Shelly, she/her” and was decorated with stickers of holographic smiley faces.

“I have a coat.”

“That’s not a coat,” Shelly scoffed at my subway coat. “You need a Canada coat.”

She turned the heat up as high as it would go, and we rode in silence. The snow made the long drive longer, but the car movedquietly through the night. I could tell Shelly wanted to say more about my coat but restrained herself.

Eventually we pulled into a gravel parking lot. A huge stone mansion sat in the middle of white-blanketed fields, a pointed protrusion among the natural beauty of the land. It looked like a Bond villain’s lair.

Shelly waved off my tip, and I pushed my way through the double doors of the luxury estate—which wasn’t easy; they weighed like a hundred Root Beers. Inside, an extremely organized looking person with a clipboard and a pencil skirt greeted me.

“Caroline Holliday?”

I tried not to beam at my real name. “That’s me.”

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