An actual text from Lyle, telling me that Warren Wilde had left the building, got me up and moving. I was as busy as ever at Woodsmen Stadium that day, mostly working with the marketing department about some concerns I had over their social media. That stuff wasn’t good, not in terms of the number of fans we had, but also that they didn’t even have accounts for some of the latest platforms. It was a long discussion, because they were hesitant to change, but it had helped when I pulled out the research I had on some of the other teams in the Confederation to demonstrate how it could be done right. The information on social media had taken me a while to compile, but it was so fun, it didn’t feel much like work.
It certainly didn’t feel like being at the winery with Euna, having stupid fights over ridiculous things, like our running battle over removing the dusty bowls of potpourri from the customer bathrooms. But that experience had also taught me that in the end, my boss was would win. The potpourri had stayed in the winery bathrooms and today, I let it go when these guys decided not to open any new accounts and to focus on updating their content and increasing their followers. It had been a good day, and I was glad I had left Euna, the old potpourri, and the smelly wine behind me.
Since I was only a part-time employee, around lunchtime Lyle came to walk me out to my car. César had landed in Chicago and sent me a bunch of messages while I was in my meetings, which I managed to answer while pretending to look up other social media accounts on my phone. I wanted to talk to him, to hear his voice, but at the same time, I was almost frightened to. I was frightened about what I was thinking and about what I was feeling.
Lyle broke into my thoughts as he opened the car door for me. “I’m sorry I said that about your mom,” he announced. “There are many times that I wish I’d kept my mouth shut, and this is one of them.”
“No, I’m glad you said that,” I told him. “It made me think a lot.”
That was a problem. I was thinking so much I that felt kind of giddy, so I drove home to hunker down.
Chapter 14
I picked up another picture. “There’s a cute one of the two of us. I’m doing a cartwheel and trying to eat ice cream at the same time, and you look like you’re rolling your eyes at me.”
Ellie laughed a little. “I actually remember you doing that and thinking that it wasn’t going to work. I also remember that the cone went down your top and you pulled off your dress in the middle of the street to try to save the ice cream.”
Yeah, unfortunately I hadn’t unearthed a picture of that.
“But really, Cam,” my sister went on, “do you think that today is the best time to go through your mom’s papers?”
Ellie had called pretty early this morning, but I was already awake and sitting on my bedroom floor with the bags of my mom’s stuff dumped out around me. I had thought about doing this last night, but had chickened out. Instead, I had lain in bed and talked to César about what he had done at the shoot for the commercial, which had stretched out longer than they had planned due to some technical problems, so he was finished pretty late and called me even later. I had fallen asleep to the sound of his deep, soothing voice. To my relief, we hadn’t talked about anything serious or relationship-like, nothing about Soleil and Warren Wilde—we hadn’t even mentioned that the two of us had sex. Five times, five unbelievable, mind-blowing, multiple-orgasmed times.
I hadn’t answered Ellie just now and she went on talking. “I don’t like the idea of you being alone on the anniversary of Soleil’s death. If I had known that César wouldn’t be with you, I would have flown up. I wish he hadn’t gone.”
“No, I’m ok,” I said. “And don’t blame César, because I didn’t tell him it was today.” I hadn’t wanted to think about it as it approached, and I hadn’t considered that I would be as upset as I currently was, sitting and crying over piles of torn magazine pages and receipts that Soleil had always said she saved for “tax purposes,” as if she had ever paid her taxes. There were unopened envelopes from the IRS, too.
I picked up another pile of pictures. “Oh my God, here’s one of Warren holding each of us by an ankle off the edge of a dock.”
“Yes, you both used to laugh at stuff like that. I didn’t enjoy them as much,” Ellie answered.
I remembered that, too. Warren Wilde and I had shared some qualities but I didn’t like to think of us being at all similar.
“There are piles and piles of pictures from when Soleil used a real camera,” I said. “I’ll send you the ones I found of Aunt Stellina. But you know what? Most of them aren’t of your mom, or you, or even me. Most of them are of Warren Wilde.” I hesitated. “El, Lyle at the stadium told me that he thought Soleil was in love with Warren, for years and years. He said that a lot of people agreed with him.”
There was a long silence on the
