by Karina Halle
But if she notices, she doesn’t show it. And she’s not always so good at pretending.
That’s one of the reasons I fell for her in the first place.
I could read everything in her eyes.
I liked what I saw.
Until I saw myself reflected back in them.
I didn’t quite like that.
“So, potato dumplings are all they do,” Shay says, keeping her voice down as if she’s afraid to offend someone. The people here don’t care. They all know me, though they pretend not to, and they’re just happy to be eating.
“When you have something that works, you do it,” I tell her.
The restaurant we’re in is the only one in the village. It’s not open every day, and sometimes only for lunch, sometimes only for dinner, and rarely outside of tourist season. It’s also an old lodge, the only place in town to stay. It’s a grand old thing, done up traditionally with a pine interior, along with the grass on the roof that Shay seems so fascinated by. To be honest, the roof could use a little trim.
“Do you know what the leading cause of death in Norway is?”
She looks at me curiously. “What?”
I point at the ceiling. “Mowing the roof. I can’t tell you how many times those lawnmowers end up crushing someone.”
Her eyes widen, so big, beautiful and brown. “Really?”
I grin at her and nod. I’ll let her believe it for as long as she wants.
“Ah, Anders I haven’t seen you in so long,” Hilde says to me in Norwegian, smiling big and showing off her missing tooth as she delivers us our plates of dumplings. She looks over at Shay. “Oh, sorry,” she says, in stunted English. “So glad to have visitors to our town. Welcome.”
Hilde scuttles her overly plump behind away to run an order to another table.
“Is she the one running the place?” Shay asks as she stares down at the meal. I know she looks a bit unsure, but in my eyes it looks fucking delicious. Fluffy potato dumplings, sausage, and boiled carrots and onions. It’s enough to feed two people.
“She runs the food and her husband cooks,” I tell her, gesturing to the corner of the room where the jug of water, cups, and coffee are. “You need a drink, you get it yourself. It’s how it’s been run for decades.” I cut into the sausage. “Trust me, you haven’t had a restaurant meal like this before. It’s what you’d call ‘the real deal.’”
She looks more than unsure. Deliriously cute. But she braves the dumpling first.
“Oh,” she says, eyes lighting up as she chews. “It’s fucking good.”
“I told you,” I tell her, and my mind flashes with a reel of memories, all sliding past each other. When we used to date, when we were together, I would do everything in my power to get her to try new things, to push herself. Whether it was going out for sushi, or trying surfing in the middle of winter on Long Island, or breaking into the community pool in the middle of the night (I didn’t say all these things were legal), she’d always protest at first and it would always end with I told you so.
But I can’t bring that up because she wants to pretend like we don’t know each other at all.
I know why she’s doing it. I know I hurt her and, even though the time has passed, I know she’s still angry. I know this because I’m still angry with myself, so I can’t imagine how she feels. Eight years is a long time to carry around a coffin of feelings, the rusty pangs of guilt and regret.
So I’m going along with it. It’s just harder than I thought. What we are to each other right now can’t be based on anything on other than what we were to each other. Even though I’d been with her for less than a year, that year left its scar on me and she was part of that. She was both the wound and the balm.
Honestly, I can’t believe my luck. I’m not lying to her when I tell her that it’s fate that brought us together. Maybe fate doesn’t have an Instagram account, but I really didn’t expect to see her on the train station steps. I was watching her stories, I knew that she was arriving in Trondheim at three p.m., but we left the town late, so I really didn’t think I had a chance of finding her. I thought she’d be lost in the city somewhere, never to be found, and she wouldn’t be here, in Todalen of all places, with me, having dinner.
I dig my nails harder into my palm.
They barely hurt, but at least I know I’m not dreaming.
Shay eats ravenously, like I’m not even here, which I like. There’s something downright sexual about watching a woman devour her food, like she might just do the same with you. Food gives you pleasure, and pleasure shouldn’t be denied. Besides, I think it says she’s comfortable being with me.
Unfortunately, she looks up from her feast and catches me staring at her. I want to look away, to at least act ashamed, but I don’t.
“Sorry,” she says through a mouthful, reaching for her serviette.
“Don’t be,” I tell her. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”
Christ, she really is beautiful, even when she’s stuffing her face. Sure, she was stunning to look at on her Instagram photos, even though they were mainly selfies, which are usually less than genuine. All posed with false purpose. But in person, seeing her now, as a woman in the flesh, she’s indescribable.
No. Not indescribable. I can do better than that. If I had to choose a word, it would be silk. Everything about her is silken, from her brown smooth skin to her thick hair, to her velvety eyes and lush lips, to the way her curves all run into each other, like a dark river on a warm night. She beckons me, to take a swim, to drown in her. And she doesn’t even know it.
I swallow and attempt to eat the rest of my food. Moments ago it looked so appetizing, but now my body is hungry for something else. My chest lights up like a flare in the darkness. There’s no romantic way to describe my erection, which is pressing against my jeans and thankfully hidden by the table.
When we’re done with our meal and Shay is rubbing her stomach in an exaggerated way, I quickly settle up the bill with Hilde and we’re back on our way.
“Todalen is such a small town that most Norwegians don’t even know where it is,” I explain to Shay as she takes in the surroundings while seeming to slip into a food coma. “What it has going for it though is an unbelievable location, right at the end of the Vinjefjorden. Back in the old days you could take a steamship all the way up the fjord to Kristiansand and the sea, though now the town is pretty much a dead-end, save for hikers wanting to head into the surrounding mountain trails or the famous Trollheimen Park. We have a furniture factory that serves as the key employer, a primary school that keeps having the threat of being shut down, a church, the restaurant-slash-lodge that you were just in, and a general store. We don’t even have a bar, but that doesn’t matter much since everyone finds reasons to party. There are plenty of farms in this valley and not many neighbors to piss off with excessive noise. And believe me, we can get rowdy.”
A knowing smile tugs at her lips. She remembers. “You sound like you could write tourist brochures for this place.”
“If I ever need a third job, I’ll keep that in mind.”
The farm is located on the south side of the fjord, past a smattering of houses that line the shore. Shay stares out the window, oohing and ahhing over the things I take for granted every day: flower-filled window boxes, houses painted marigold and cherry, fragile attic windows tucked away under ornately carved archways. The houses then give way to forests with mossy floors, streams of gold light coming through the tops of the trees. For once I feel my surroundings, just by seeing it through her eyes. It seems like a land Tolkien would have dreamt up.
I also feel this strange surge of pride running through me, like I’d just slammed back a shot of it. I guess this is the first time I’ve shown my home to anyone, let alone anyone whose opinion I care about.
“Oh wow,” Shay says as we pass by a farm that slopes to the sea, tiny red huts with moss-covered roofs. I slow down so she can roll down the window and take a picture with the mountains refl
ecting on the fjord and cows at the water’s edge, even though I know she’ll have plenty of opportunity later to walk down this road and take a million photos to her heart’s content. I can’t wait to give her one of my cameras and see her really come alive with it.
“And here she is,” I tell her, parking the car alongside the fence. “Home.”
The farm is at the very end of the road, the house a giant two-story plus attic, painted white for as long as I can remember, with rust-red trim and an overgrown roof. If the whole mowing the roofs thing were true, our house could use a trim.
To one side of the house is the lawn sweeping to a small beach, bands of aqua and turquoise in the shallows before the sea floor drops off into murky dark depths. To the other side, the mountains rise up like soldiers on guard. When I was a kid, that’s what I always likened them to, like the earth was watching over me. Though I have to say that when times got tough, it wasn’t hard to imagine them as menacing giants, waiting to crush me in my sleep.
Finally, beyond the house are the barns where we keep the dairy cows and the sheep, not that there’s a lot of them. That’s primarily our source of income, farm-wise. There are a lot of sheep and dairy farms in the valley, but I guess because my family has had this farm for over a century, we’re still able to have some influence on the community. It doesn’t pay all the bills—hence my fishing boat—but for now we’re getting by.
“I can’t believe you live here,” Shay says, taking it all in as she steps out of the car. “This is like…something from make-believe. I expect a troll to pop up behind those rocks at any second.”
“Hey,” I say sternly, trying not to smile, “don’t say anything ill about the trolls. They can hear you.”
She sticks her tongue out at me playfully and laughs.
I’d forgotten what a gorgeous sound that was. It ruptures something hard and black and dark inside me.
“There you are!” Astrid says, running out of the house. Lise is behind her, throwing a scarf around her shoulders and sipping on a mug. “We thought you’d never come back.”
I jerk my head at Shay. “I took her to Hilde’s for early dinner.”
Astrid raises her brows, incredulous. “Hilde’s?” She shoots Shay an apologetic look. “How romantic, huh? He takes you to dinner at four with all the old farts. What did you have to drink? Coffee or water?” She giggles and comes over to Shay, pulling her into a quick hug. “Glad you have you here.”
“All right, Astrid,” I tell her, making a shooing gesture with my hands. “Go run along now.”
“I don’t think so,” she says, coming over to smack me on the arm. I can smell beer on her. She and Lise have probably cracked open a few bottles already. “She needs a tour. And not the Anders tour which is just grunting at objects and kicking stuff over.” I frown at her, completely befuddled. “Come on Shay.” She grabs her arm, leading Shay off toward the house and Lise. Shay looks back at me and shrugs.
I sigh, running my hand through my hair, and get Shay’s stuff out of the trunk.
The house is old but beautiful, and if you’re into history and the way things were, especially the way things were made, then it’s practically a treasure chest. Luckily, Astrid knows her stuff about the house and is filling Shay in about my grandparents and their grandparents and so on as they go from the foyer to the mud room to the kitchen to the dining room to the living room to the sitting room. I trail behind with the bags, catching snippets of Shay’s laughter and her impressed comments over the handmade tapestries on the walls, to the rugs on the floor, the lace curtains and the wood carvings and everything that makes this house what it is.
It’s actually Astrid who has done most of the decorating in the house. When our mother was here, she put away all our family’s things into boxes in the attic, I guess to make her own mark. Looking back, that was probably a red flag in itself, like she felt she’d be erased if her stuff wasn’t surrounding her. Then, after our mother left us, we took all her things and put them in the attic. As the oldest female in the house, Astrid took it upon herself to give the house a feminine touch. I would hate to think of the place it would turn into if it were just Uncle Per and I.
Speaking of Uncle Per, he’s in the living room, watching TV and snacking on a plate of gingersnaps.
“Uncle Per,” Astrid says in Norwegian as we step into the room, sunlight sneaking in through lace curtains. “This is Anders girlfriend, Shay.”
“Hei,” I tell her sharply, my eyes flitting to Shay and back, incredibly grateful she can’t understand the Norwegian we’re speaking. “Friend from America. From high school.”
Uncle Per is staring at me with a ‘yeah right’ look on his face. He looks over at Shay, eyes her up and down and then grunts. “Tell her she is welcome, whoever she is.”
Shay has that awkward look on your face that you get when you don’t understand the language everyone is speaking. “He doesn’t speak English,” I explain to her. “But he says you’re welcome, make yourself at home.”
“Oh.” Shay looks at Uncle Per and shoots him a genuine, blinding smile that would melt the coldest block of ice. “Tusen Takk.”
Well I’ll be damned. For once, my uncle musters a smile. And even though it’s fairly easy to remember how to say thanks very much in Norwegian, the sound of it coming from Shay’s lips stirs something in my soul.
After that, Astrid shows Shay to the room she’ll be staying in, Tove’s, then suggests they all get some beers and relax by the fjord.
I have to say, as much as I would love to take part, I have work to do. I skipped on it early to go and get her, and I can tell from the way that Uncle Per is watching TV, half comatose, that he’s done for the day. Besides, I don’t exactly feel like sharing Shay with my sisters—god knows what they’ll tell her. I’d rather have her alone and to myself.
For what? I ask myself. You really think she’d be interested in you that way, after all that happened? After all this time? It’s been so fucking long.
I swallow hard and try to put myself in the right headspace.
It’s not easy.
As the girls go down to the water, I head into the fields. It’s lambing season, which means usually Uncle Per or I will be up at dawn to see if any lambs have been born during the night. It doesn’t happen that often, considering we don’t have many sheep left, and the lambing season stretches on for a few months. We’re at the end of it now, but even so, I know there are two ewes that have yet to give birth.
I feed the lambs and ewes in the lambing pen, making sure they have fresh grains, hay, and water, then head into the main barn and do the same. The cows are out to pasture, and I do a walk around the perimeter checking the fence. Tomorrow morning I’ll be taking over the early shift, getting the cows in to be milked and then it’s a full day. I was lucky to get the day off while I did.
With that thought, I head back to the house, wash up, and put the kettle on for tea. I peer through the window, craning my neck to see if the girls are still down by the water. It’s been two hours and I know Lise is in charge of dinner tonight.
“Hey.”
I whirl around to see Shay standing in the doorway, smiling unsurely at me. Her cheeks are flushed, probably from the alcohol, though I’d like to think it’s from the sight of me.
“Hi,” I respond, leaning back against the sink. “It’s getting cold out.”
“I know, I’m not built for this Nordic weather like you are,” she says. “I was going to get a sweater. Maybe a scarf.”
“My sisters should be coming now anyway; Lise is supposed to cook tonight.”
“Do you all take turns?”
“Well, I usually do the cooking when it’s just me and my uncle, but when the girls are here I have to put them to work, even when the dinner is cooked under the influence.”
She laughs. “They are pretty tipsy.”
“And you?”
She gives me a lazy grin. “I’m feeling pretty good. Though, man, can Astrid talk you
r ear off.”
I chuckle just as the kettle starts whistling. “That she does. I had to walk around with earplugs in when I was younger.”
“No…”
“It’s true. Want some tea?”
“Sure,” she says. “As long as it doesn’t keep me up at night.”
“Not this stuff,” I tell her, grabbing an extra teabag for her and pouring her a cup. “There’s no caffeine in Chamomile. I have to be up at five-thirty in the morning.”
“Why?”
I stroll over to her, handing her the mug. Our fingers brush against each other as she takes it from me, and I don’t want to look away from her eyes. They swallow me whole and I’m more than willing to go.
“Work,” I tell her, my voice low. “The cows need milking, the ewes need to be checked on. My uncle will do some, I’ll do the rest.”
She bites her lip for a moment. “Can I help?”
I can’t help but grin. “You want to get up that early and help on the farm?”
“Why not?” she says with a shrug, walking around me and taking a seat at the breakfast table. “You’re letting me stay here and eat your food and drink your cider, it’s the least I can do.”
“Yeah, but,” I start, sitting down across from her. I have to pause because the sight of us both at the table, steaming mugs of tea in our hands, in my kitchen, in Norway, is nothing sort of astounding. And more than that, it feels right.
If only I could do right by her. This time.
“But what?” she asks.
I cup my palms around the mug. “But you’re my guest here. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to lift a finger.”
She smiles shyly, a thick strand of hair falling across her cheek. It takes everything in me not to reach across the table and tuck it behind her ear. To feel what her hair feels like again. To be that close. My fingers are practically itching.
I sip my tea instead, even though it scalds my throat.
“You know I’m helping you tomorrow, don’t you,” she says after a moment.
