Love Just Clicks

Chapter 2

Two

“What is that awful noise?” Bryony yells into the phone.

“What? I can’t hear you!”

“That NOISE!” The noise stops. “What the hell was that?”

“Did you not get my text?” An elderly gentleman stops and stares at the seat next to me, asking with his eyebrows if he can sit with me. Considering there are exactly one thousand other empty seats, I shake my head no and turn toward the wall.

“I’m on the ferry. I told you all about it.” The awful noise—the ferry’s powerful horn—ceases.

“I just got in last night and I have the worst jet lag.”

“How was the conference?”

“As boring as you would expect it to be. Sitting in a room with overweight, undersexed, greasy men who are all one step short of the heart attack that will send them back to Jesus … not nearly as exciting as flitting off to British Columbia for a wedding.”

“What I would give to have you here.”

“You’re going to be fine.” She practically chokes on the words. Bryony is my oldest friend—we met during freshman orientation at Portland State, so she knows how mediocre I feel in the bright light cast by my dad and brother. “You couldn’t find anyone to do the job?”

“No. I tried everyone. I even offered a bonus.”

“Your dad said he’d pay extra?”

“I was going to pay it out of my own pocket.” We both know my dad inherited his mother’s tendency toward a squeaky wallet. “I instead used the money to get an emergency hair appointment last night.”

“Did you go blond yet?”

“Still brown.”

“Chicken. Blond makes those baby blues pop!” Bryony says. I’ve been debating going blond for a while—Bry often reminds me of my platinum phase in college and how we really did have more fun. “Well, call me whenever you need me. I’m back in the office training a new girl who just got out of jail.”

“Jail?”

“You know how my boss loves her pet projects.”

“What was she in jail for?”

“Theft, I think. Apparently, she was a housekeeper and stole some diamonds from her last employer.”

“Sounds juicy.”

“Maybe she could steal some diamonds for me. Oh, boss is back. Gotta go. And Frankie—remember: you know how to frame a photo. You know how a camera works. You know how to make people smile. You even know how to make them cry.”

“Har har.”

“I believe in you!” she yells. In my head, I can see her pointing at the framed motivational poster on the wall above her desk, the one with the whale fluke cresting the wave. Her boss hasn’t redecorated since 1997.

“I’m going to go find some poutine.”

“Not even in Canada yet and you’re already speaking French. I’m impressed. Au revoir, ma chère!” She disconnects.

But I am in Canada, Bryony. My cell phone provider has already texted to remind me how expensive the next four days are going to be. They should just text a photograph of their CEO on his yacht in the Maldives with a “thanks for paying so much for cell phone service the water is great here.”

I drove to Vancouver, BC, last night, and today I’m aboard one of their very big ferries that’ll transport me and my car to Victoria. There I will somehow find my way into the city’s main harbor, locate secure parking, and probably pay a king’s ransom for four days of fees. Lastly, I will climb aboard yet another watercraft for the trip north to Revelation Cove.

I’m already tired. Could have something to do with the people in the hotel room next to mine last night. She called him Daddy a lot, and loudly. He said she was very naughty and needed to be punished, also a lot, also loudly.

I put in my earplugs at that point.

I googled the resort, and it looks amazing, owned by a couple of retired hockey players and their families. I don’t follow hockey myself, but the Google search brought up the news story from a few years ago about when the primary owner, Ryan Fielding, was attacked by a cougar and his girlfriend saved him. Heroic and romantic.

I am neither heroic nor romantic.

And cougars. Oh god, I’d been so busy worrying about bears, I forgot about cougars.

Maybe if I can find one, I can pay him or her that bonus to shoot this wedding. Better yet, maybe they can just eat Nikki Meyer and her too-perfect groom and save all of us a lot of trouble.

The trip aboard the Spirit of British Columbia is about ninety minutes, and surprisingly, I manage a short nap before the shuffling and excited twitters of people around me opens my worried eyes.

“There were orca!” a woman next to me says. She must’ve settled in after I’d nodded off. She wipes snot from the nose of the toddler sitting in the stroller at the end of our four-seat row. “I was going to wake you—we don’t see orca on every trip through—but you looked like you needed sleep.”

“Thanks.” I sit up. There’s a kink in my neck from leaning against the wall. I am sad I missed the orca.

“Your first time to Victoria?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Any plans while you’re here?”

She has just enough of an accent that I know she’s not American. “I’m shooting a wedding.”

“You’re a photographer?”

I swallow hard. “Something like that.”

“Sounds very glamorous. Everyone nowadays calls themselves a photographer, but if you’re shooting a wedding, you must be the real thing.” Her baby winds up for a scream and lets loose just as the ferry’s horn joins in the chorus. “If you need to use the washroom, the ferry will be docking in just a few minutes. Did you drive on?”

“I did.”

“Then out you go. If you’re late to your car, the other drivers will throw you the stink eye. Slows everyone down.”

“Good to know. Thank you.”

“Enjoy your wedding!”

I nod and gather my stuff before I burst into tears in front of this woman who seems very sweet. As I slide out of our row, her baby stops screaming long enough to look up at me and reach for the tassels hanging from my giant purse. I do not love this purse, but Bryony bought it for me for Christmas because she said I spend too much time with boys and I need to be more girly so her solution was a trip to the eyebrow bar and this purse. My eyebrows are back to their untidy selves, but the purse has come in handy when I’ve needed something big enough to carry the state of Oregon with me.

I move quickly enough to stop at the bathrooms and make it down to my car before the overhead speakers advise us that we’ve arrived at the Swartz Bay terminal. I exit at the first open door off the stairs—and realize I can’t remember where my car is. I step aside so as not to raise the ire of the people crowding behind me. Flat against the wall on a very crowded car deck, I close my eyes and try to remember what everything looked like when I got out of my own vehicle.

Big white van. There was a big white van because you thought it looked like a van that a kidnapper would have filled with candy and puppies.

I open my eyes again, anxiety sweat dampening the back and pits of my suddenly too-tight shirt. A scan of this area, and of the cars on the other side of the stairwell structure, does not reveal a white van. Engines are turning on—people up ahead are offloading! Oh my god, I’m going to be one of those people who holds everything up and then all these nice Canadians won’t be so nice anymore.

I skip-jog back to the doors for the stairs and go down another floor, trying to remember any other identifiers. Floor number? Remarkable cars?

The announcer is back on the speakers and all I hear are “Oregon plates” and then my heartbeat overrules any other sounds in my ears.

A guy in a hi-vis vest stands right outside the next set of doors. “Do you need some help?” he asks. The cars on this deck are already moving. Oh god oh god oh god.

My throat is so tight—I squeak. “I’m lost. I can’t find my car.”

“Are you the Honda? Oregon plates?” he asks, his tone not altogether friendly. I nod vigorously. “Come on.” He talks into the mic attached to his vest. “Found the Oregon driver.”

Sure enough, as we’re walking toward the white kidnapper van, I’m treated to the stares and glares of other drivers who’ve been inconvenienced by my terrible sense of direction. Another guy in hi-vis is trying to angle the cars behind me out of the row and around.

“I am so sorry. I’ve never been on a ferry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the guy says. “Just remember for the trip back, hey?”

Again, I nod vigorously and unlock the car and I’m in and then I keep my eyes averted so I don’t see that stink eye the mother upstairs warned me of from other drivers and ferry employees. And as I’m driving off the boat and into the foggy morning with the rest of the hurried folks around me, I realize I have absolutely no idea where I’m going and my phone with the GPS helper is buried in the bottom of the tasseled purse on the passenger-side floor.

I’m overcome by a wave of fatigue.

Please tell me the rest of this trip is going to go better than the last twenty minutes.