long live lola

five

After spending all day on Saturday trying to find evidence that Lola was anything other than kind and wonderful, I take up Mackie's offer to visit him at the surf shop, just to get out of my bedroom and away from my computer screen. There are only so many filtered photographs, emoji comments and inebriated tweets a girl could look at before she was sure she will actually begin to lose her mind. I am reaching my limit.

    It is late evening on Sunday when i pull my bike out of the garage, throw my good leg over the seat and slowly begin to pedal towards the shore where the surf shop squats on its old foundations. While the beach party was too dark for me to truly appreciate the beauty of our coastline, golden hour allows for me to marvel at it. I stay on the 'bad side' of town, cycling down roads with potholes and large cracks that I'm sure my richer counterparts don't have to worry about. Even my anger can't quell the awe I feel as I cycle down Coast Lane, watching the sun introduce itself to the horizon again.

    Frozini's is closed up, and I see a few workmen packing up for the day. There's only three more businesses left up and running along the strip, one of them being Surf and Splurge, the Macintosh families beach business, selling all sort of coastal essentials. At one point, half of my wardrobe would've been cheesy, sloganed t-shirts purchased hastily to cover up my bikini before I went for dinner at the diner next door, before that was closed down too I guess. Even now, the bottom drawer in my closet is full of old Macintosh shirts.

    The building, to some, may look weathered, but it's perfect to me. Perched right on the shore, standing on brittle, old foundations in a faded blue colour, and with a large wrap around porch covered in brightly coloured sunglasses stands, postcards and magnets all on sail. The doors are thrown open, and even from the bottom of the steps leading inside I see a small, middle aged lady pottering around inside.

    After my mother died when I was only eight years old, I needed a female figure. My dad did his best, but a girl needs someone to explain what periods are, and teach her how to grow out of being a bitchy high schooler. Dawn Macintosh took me in as the daughter she never had, since she stopped having children after her three boys. Her and my mother were never particularly close, more neighbourly than anything, but Smallshore is a small place, and one that bands together in the face of tragedy.

    When I see Dawn's face light up, I almost feel guilty. I haven't seen her since I finished high school and started college a year ago. After Duncan left, and my friends did, I didn't feel the need to traipse down to the beach anymore and wallow in what I was missing. I tried putting that life behind me in order to forget I'd ever lived it, to remind myself that my college solitude was right where I needed to be. Seeing Dawn now makes me feel silly to ever think that having a reminder of my teenage years would be anything other than supportive.

    "Little Bradley," Dawn says in that same nonchalant drawl that Mackie always did. I think everyone in Smallshore only knew me as Little Bradley. "It's been too long."

    I nod, just a small, measured movement to try and disguise the remorse. "Totally. College has been crazy," I say.

    "I bet. It's crazy that we managed to drag Mackie back home, given all the fun he was having out of state. But you know what that boy is like, family always comes first," Dawn says.

    "How is Hank?" I ask, trying not to appear as if I am searching the sunny aisles of the shop for Mackie even though I am.

    Dawn rolls her eyes. "Same old complainer. He'll be better after the surgery, able to move around more, at least that's what the doctors tell me. Are you here for Mackie? I can call him, he's just doing some inventory."

    Before I can assure Dawn that it's ok, I'm fine to wait until he's finished doing whatever work has him busy, she is hollering his name. This is how I remember the Macintosh home, so similar to mine. Siblings fighting, parents loudly talking overtop to try and establish some order. Loud, bright, warm, and homey. Everything so intrinsically linked into who Mackie is.