I Chose a New Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Last Boat

On the ferry Della learns the clip is already spreading, and gives the lake her phone.

The ferry pulled away from the dock with nobody else on board.

I stood on the open deck in my wedding dress and watched Gull Island get smaller.

On the hill, little figures in summer clothes crowded the edge of the lawn.

One of them was holding up a phone and pointing it at the boat.

"Sit," the man said. "Wind's going to be cold on the water."

He had a patch on his gray work shirt that said HALVORSON FERRY.

I sat on the bench by the cabin wall, and he put a flannel jacket over my shoulders.

It smelled like diesel and cedar.

"I'm Cliff," he said.

"Della," I said, and my voice came out thick with frosting.

He gave me a bottle of water and a stack of paper towels.

I rinsed my mouth and spat over the rail.

Then I started on my face.

The towel came away pink where the rod had cut me.

"That needs stitches," Cliff said. "Maybe not. I'll look at it in the light."

"It's fine."

"It's not fine, but it's yours to decide."

He went up to the wheelhouse and I heard him put the engine into gear.

For ten minutes I sat there shaking and did not cry.

I was angry in a way I had never been before, quiet and level.

Cliff came back with a first aid kit and crouched in front of me.

He didn't touch my face until I tipped it toward him.

His hands were rough, and he was careful with the tape.

"Butterfly strips," he said. "You'll have a line there."

"A souvenir," I said.

He didn't smile, and I was glad.

His phone buzzed in his shirt pocket.

He glanced at it and then, slowly, at me.

"It's the Ellery party," he said. "They booked both of my boats for the weekend. That's the groom."

He held it out.

I stared at the screen.

I did not want to touch anything that was in Bennett's hand.

I took it anyway and said nothing.

"Della." Bennett's voice was warm and low, the voice he used with clients. "Where are you? Turn the boat around."

"No."

"Honey. Everybody's waiting. Roxana feels terrible."

Behind him, I could hear the lawn, a party going on, a glass clinking.

"She feels terrible," I said.

"She's crying. She thought it would be funny. She'd never hurt you on purpose."

"She held my head down."

"You're being dramatic. You made a face and everyone laughed. That's all that happened."

I looked at the line of tape on my cheek.

"My face is bleeding, Bennett."

"That was an accident with the cake stand." He lowered his voice. "Listen to me. You walk off this island and everyone sees you quit on your own wedding. Come back, say sorry to Roxana, and we'll fix this."

"Say sorry to Roxana."

"You embarrassed her."

I had been about to say something, and the sentence went out of me.

I realized I was not scared of him.

I was embarrassed that I had ever been.

"Don't call this number again," I said.

"Della, don't you dare hang up on me."

I hung up.

I handed the phone back.

Cliff put it in his pocket without looking at it.

"Sorry," I said. "That was your phone."

"It's a ferry. People use it."

He sat down on the bench beside me, a careful foot away.

We watched the mainland come up out of the haze.

Bayfield was a line of white houses climbing a hill, with a church spire and a row of masts.

"Do you have somewhere to go?" he asked. "I can run you to the hospital in Ashland, or to the marina office. It has a couch."

"My things are in the bridal suite. My phone, my wallet, my keys."

"You can't go back for those tonight."

"No."

"Anyone in town?"

I thought about my apartment in Duluth, which I had given up in June to move into Bennett's house.

I thought about the cousin who had filmed me from the third row.

"My aunt," I said. "She runs an inn here. I haven't seen her in two years."

"Which inn?"

"Stenberg House."

Cliff turned his head.

"Rhoda Stenberg is your aunt?"

"You know her?"

"She's my neighbor. She yells at my dog." A small corner of his mouth moved. "She's going to want to hit someone."

"Good."

The engine note changed as we came into the harbor.

Cliff took the phone out again, thumbed the screen and stopped.

He held it out so I could see.

It was the clip.

Someone had cut it down to forty seconds, with a laughing face on the thumbnail.

It was my face in the cake, and my arms, and the two groomsmen's hands.

It had been posted ten minutes ago.

It had already been watched forty thousand times.

The title read: CRAZY BRIDE RUINS HER OWN WEDDING.

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