CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Violet
The stop in Gettysburg went off without a hitch. We toured the battlefield where the Civil War ended and the site where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. In the afternoon the group took a walking tour with a local expert while I returned calls to my recruiter and sent off a few more résumés.
That evening we had another group dinner. They’re included with the tour, and fun, even if they take forever. Jennings sat with his nan and eyed me at the table I shared with George and a couple from Canada, winking at me while no one was looking.
Afterwards we went to his room and watched a movie while we waited for dessert from room service. I have no idea how the movie ended, but I’m sure I’ll catch the rest of it on cable sometime. Totally worth it.
Then—before I know what’s hit me—we’re en route to our final stop on this tour. The week I went into kicking and screaming I’m now wishing would last just a little bit longer. I’ll miss this group. It’s crazy how fast you can bond when you travel together. How quickly you develop inside jokes and find little quirks in people that endear them to you. I’ll miss the way Mrs. Jarvis stops to take a photo of every interesting door we pass. How Mr. Boero cannot leave a stop without a souvenir magnet. How Mrs. Delaine compares the coffee at every stop to Tim Hortons and how Isaac—a young man traveling by himself from Africa—insists on telling the group riddles while we travel from city to city. Except they never make any sense.
“A woman swims across a river of crocodiles to get to a party, but she doesn’t die. Why?”
The punchline? Because she was at the party.
So. Stupid. Yet he made an impression and now I’ll never see him again. I don’t know how my sister does this. I’m a homebody. I get attached. I’m already sad about saying goodbye to this group when we haven’t even parted yet.
***
Our final stop is Philadelphia, which makes me happy. I went to college here—at Penn—and I love any opportunity to visit my old stomping grounds. Just being back in the city is filling me with nostalgia. Now that I’m here, I’m kicking myself for not arranging a coffee date with my old school friends. I haven’t seen the girls since Chloe’s wedding, but I was so wrapped up in the anxiety of pulling off this tour guide gig I didn’t think of it until now. Maybe I’ll send a group text later, see who’s available.
We’re booked into a hotel downtown in the Society Hill area on a tree-lined street still paved with bricks—it’s part of the charm I love in an old city. The Delaware river is a block away and my old dorm room is less than five miles from here, just on the other side of the Schuylkill. Thinking of it reminds me of all the hope I felt at graduation. The way the possibilities of the world felt endless and all I had to do was jump.
I lost that somewhere in the four years since.
I’m not losing it again.
My attempt to get my groove back with a sexy stranger turned into so much more than I expected. More than a kickstart. More than affirmation. It gave me my life back, in a sense—reminded me of the glee of the unknown. The sheer joy of a blank slate and endless options.
Today we’re going on a walking tour of Philadelphia. It’s the final day of the tour and we’ve got a local expert who will be leading the tour. All I have to do is trail behind and make sure no one gets lost. Tomorrow the coach will make two trips to the airport to drop the guests and then it’s over. If I can get through today I’ve pulled this off. And today should be easy. I know Philly. Granted, I wasn’t frequenting historic sites much during my university years, but I’m familiar enough with each of our stops today to answer anything I’d be expected to know about this city without Daisy’s notebook.
I’m in the home stretch.
There’s a bounce to my step as I arrive in the lobby to greet the group. An actual bounce. I pulled this off—well, almost. But today will be a piece of cake, so yeah, I’ve pulled it off.
Minus the one thing.
I haven’t figured out how to tell Jennings my name is Violet yet.
Tiny detail, really.
I gnaw on my lip and wonder if he has to know. Of course he has to know, I chide myself. If this is going to continue—if we’re going to continue—I have to tell him everything. As much as I feel like what’s happened between us is real, only one of us has the facts.
I’ll tell him after. The end of the trip is so close now it doesn’t make sense to mention it today. Or tonight.
Tomorrow. I’ll tell him tomorrow.
He’ll probably think it’s funny.
It’s sorta funny. Right?
Fuck.
“Daisy!” Someone is calling my sister’s name as I walk across the lobby. I can’t place the voice and as I turn to follow it, I find a man in maybe his late thirties or early forties approaching me with a wide smile. He’s very good-looking. I’ve never seen him before, but since he’s calling me Daisy I’ll assume Daisy has—and prepare myself to fake it until I can figure out if they know each other. I say a silent prayer that they don’t ‘know’ each other.
He’s wearing a polo with a logo of the walking tour we’re taking today and holding a small white envelope that he extends in my direction.
“Hey.” I smile at the guy. It appears his name is Gary, based on a name badge pinned to his shirt. I take the envelope from his hand. Daisy’s name is handwritten on the front in large letters that appear to be the penmanship of a girl under ten. The pink glitter ink helps me narrow it down.
“Um, thank you,” I offer. Please, please fill me in on what this is about, I think to myself as Jennings arrives in the lobby and stops beside us. I glance at the envelope and back to Gary again. “This is so nice.” At least I think it is. Maybe this guy is a psycho who writes Daisy letters in childish handwriting. Why did she not clue me in on a potential Gary issue in Philadelphia? They’ve clearly worked together on this tour before; he definitely seems to know her. She never was one for formulating a solid plan though. ‘Daisy’s my pantser,’ Mom always says. ‘Violet’s my planner.’
“From my daughter,” Gary says, and I do my best not to audibly sigh in relief. “Thank you so much for helping her set up her blog. She said she’s up to three hundred followers. She’s pretty excited.” He laughs and shakes his head.
“Oh, that was so nice of—” I’m about to say ‘her.’ As in, That was so nice of Daisy to help this kid. Except I’m Daisy right now, so I’d be complimenting myself. “So nice of her to write a thank you note.” I ad-lib that reply like a pro. That was close. Time to wrap this up before it goes bad.
“She loved your photography tips too.”
“Photography tips,” Jennings mutters to himself under his breath.
“She said the way you explained moving around the shot for variety and working from the back of a scene forward changed how she sets up a shot. Whatever that means.” Gary laughs.
I laugh too, a fake ha-ha kind of laugh. “Yeah, those are my best tips.”
“She’s such a fan of your blog.”
“You have a blog?” Jennings looks interested in that tidbit of information.
“Um, thank you!” I beam a smile at Gary and take a half step away in the direction of the group waiting in the lobby. “She’s a sweetheart.” I have no idea if this is true, but everyone thinks their kid is great, so I’m sure I can’t go wrong with a compliment, factual or not.
“We should stay on schedule,” I add, pointing a thumb towards the door. “Thank you for the thank you.” I wave the card in the air and take another half step. “Give her my regards.” My regards? She’s a child. “I mean, tell her I said hi!” I quickly amend.
“Of course. Kaia adores you. She wanted to tag along again today but she had a traveling soccer game.”
I say a silent prayer of thanks, because you know who’s great at telling twins apart? Children. They’re like little bullshit detectors.
“Soccer is important,” I agree. I have no idea what I’m talking about. “So, ready to get this tour started?” I don’t wait for a response, just spin on my heel and start walking towards the group waiting by the lobby doors.
I make it two steps before Jennings has questions.
“What’s your blog about?”
“It’s a travel blog.”
“A travel blog,” he repeats. “But I thought design was your passion.”
“It is. I just do the travel blog for fun.”
“Right,” he says slowly, as if that doesn’t make sense.
Rightfully so, because who does a thing they’re not really that interested in for fun?
“Well, I’d love to see it,” he says.
“Sure.”
Hell, no. Like I need him asking me more questions I can’t answer? I don’t think so.
“I’ll show you later,” I lie. By then we’ve reached the group, so I do what any good liar does—I change the subject.
“Is everyone ready?” I turn my attention to the group and do a quick head count. “Looks like we’re all here!” I chirp in false excitement. I’m not normally this chirpy. I need to tone it down because Jennings is looking at me strangely.