Page 52 of Big & Lily

“Your wish is my command,” he says with an awkward Shakespearean accent.

Dane is acting strangely—a little too anxious, trying a little too hard to accommodate—no longer the suave, sure of himself, minor celebrity who patted us on the heads on day one as he assured us all he was just regular folk while clearly not believing it.

“Let’s go,” says Lily, pulling me by the arm in the opposite direction she is sending Dane.

“We’ll see you in a bit,” I say to him as Lily hurries me down the street.

I’m starting to feel a little sorry for the guy. Which is crazy. He made his bed, pun intended. I get it, though; falling for my sister is easy. And until her husband, it’s always led to a string of heartbreaks.Theirs, not hers. She’d met her match with Eric, and he with her. Or so I’d thought. They had it all. Beauty, charisma, hundred-watt smiles, and an inviting life. A life I’d envied as the world of domesticity and responsibility closed in on me.

We duck into a shop filled with bottles of birch syrup. The sun streaming through the front window sets the dark liquid ablaze with an amber glow. A large woman in a lavender tracksuit pushes past us with enough syrup to cover her pancakes for life. “For the grandkids,” she says as I realize my face gave away my thought.

I turn to my sister. “So, your plan is to lose him in this two-block radius, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“What happened to talking to him, setting him straight?”

“That was your idea, not mine.”

“Right, instead we’re going to hide all day like a couple of teenagers.”

Lily grabs two bags of birch toffee and tucks them under her arm. “You said it yourself. We only have a few days left of the trip. Let’s enjoy ourselves. You and me.”

“I don’t think it’s right to—”

“That’s you all over, isn’t it? My sweet sister twisting herself into a pretzel to make sure everything is fair, all the rules are followed, all the i’s are dotted. It must be exhausting in that good old dependable head of yours.”

Any other day, under any other circumstances, I would have become ragingly defensive. After all, there is a reason I’m like this, and it might have something to do with those who left the shoes for me to fill. But the past few days, the fox, Brick’s council, Luna’s ring have helped me start to see things through a different lens. My sister is clearly in distress about what’s happened and what’s coming. She’s not herself. Sure, she’s always had an edge with me, that’sour schtick. But these past few days have been something else. I’m going to try not to take her deep jabs personally.

“Fine then, screw him,” I say. “Excuse the expression.”

Lily snorts. “Don’t worry about Dane, seriously. I already admitted that hooking up with him was a stupid mistake. But I didn’t drag him into that cabin. He seems like the kind of guy who’s had a one-night stand or two before and was none the worse off for it. Can we put it behind us?”

“Consider it in the rearview.” Not sure Dane sees it the way Lily’s laying it out, but she is right about one thing. It’s not my responsibility to manage the outcome of her tryst.

“Oh, cool, birch hot sauce! I’m buying some for Annie and Cam.”

“Okay, now you’re making me look like a bad mom.”

Back out on the street, holding brown paper bags filled with treats for the whole family and sucking on free sample birch syrup caramels, we glance both ways before we decide where to explore next. With Dane nowhere in sight, we run across the street, weaving between the tourists, and dash into the general store.

We are laughing like the aforementioned teenagers, having evaded the cat in our little Tom and Jerry caper, and who do we run into but Mimi, with an actual cat in her arms.

“Guess who this is!” she asks with a glint in her eye. “Mayor Aurora!”

“Your honor,” I say to the cat. “I have a tabby at home, Tiger. I think he’s elected himself mayor of our neighborhood.”

Luna walks up to us, hands filled with paper coffee cups. Past her I see an espresso bar, an actual espresso bar, and I almost cry. “Oh my, I’m getting the biggest latte they have. I’ve been waiting for this since—”

“Since Anchorage,” Lily chimes in. “We’ve heard all about it.”

Mayor Aurora decides it’s time to visit with her otherconstituents and wriggles out of Mimi’s arms. Luna hands her the coffee and gives the other one to Lily. “Take this one, I’ll go back with Bridget and get another.”

We stand in line at the register as I gaze up at the blackboard menu with the handwritten possibilities—including a moose-milk latte, which I decide is probably tongue-in-cheek but not worth taking a risk on. “Mimi looked happy with Aurora.”

“She’s delighted. She’s a real cat lady. Who is sans cat at the moment.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say.