Page 76 of Fake It 'til You Make It

TED

If I thought my life was confusing before this trip, it just got a whole lot worse.

These looks and touches, the way we talk so easily, the way she makes me laugh, like no girlfriend or fiancée has before her, are they real? Am I just Mike and her playing a role when she does these things? Because I can’t keep up a pretense all day, and the way she stirs something inside me I don’t think is a lie. The timing is truly awful, atrocious even, and though it’s one-sided and ill-judged, I can’t help but think that I might be falling for Abbey.

I don’t have the best track record with women, putting it lightly. I was late to the girlfriend party in my teens, and in my twenties I so often had my head in a tech project or in starting my own company that relationships were few and far between.

My longest relationship to date was Fleur and look how that turned out. But despite my lack of knowledge and dubious history with the opposite sex, I’m fairly certain Abbey and I have a connection. I think I’m developing a sense of what people mean when they talk about chemistry, as if we’re two molecules thataren’t supposed to be put together, but we have been and the resultant product is exciting, bubbling away in a test tube.

But this test tube is narrow and fragile because this whole trip, this arrangement, is just a convenience for both of us. Abbey doesn’t even know who I am and if she finds out now, after all the time we’ve spent together, she’ll hate me.

There’s no point hurting her more than her ex already has. At the end of the week, she can get back on with her life and her online dating. As for me, I need to go and unravel the web of lies and mess awaiting me in San Francisco.

Though my mind is racing with an infinite number of thoughts, I’ve been locked on Abbey’s eyes for just seconds. The amount of time it’s taken us to process that the lady sitting nearby believes we are a couple.

That lady has no idea how with one innocuous sentence she sent my mind into a spiral.

‘Hello again from the flight deck, this is your captain speaking. In a little over ten minutes, we will begin our descent into Calgary. Please take this time to pack away your belongings and to use the facilities if you need to. The seatbelt sign will be switched on in ten minutes. The weather in Calgary is seventy-two degrees and sunny with a light south-westerly breeze. We should have a smooth journey in.’

Abbey has the window seat, and the captain’s words seem to turn her attention to the view outside. As I follow her focus, I see the arresting mountainous terrain of the Rockies. I’ve seen the Rockies from stateside, but never from across the border and never in their sheer enormity from the air.

Despite the time of year, the tallest of the peaks are still capped with snow. There’s a serenity amongst the view, amongst the sense I have that something new and exciting, an adventure that has me full of adrenaline, lies ahead.

And if the mountains are beautiful, the sense of calm that descends around Abbey, like an aura, an energy, is completely mesmerizing. As she observes her home, I watch her, the way her breaths are slow and peaceful, the way her entire body seems to breathe with her. It’s a slow and subtle shift but I think I might be getting a moment of insight into what Abbey looks like when she’s completely relaxed.

Between the two images I have in my sights, I feel more inspired. My worries about whether this trip is a good idea or a disastrous one seem to fall away, out of me, into my seat, out of the plane and across the surreal landscape, until they’re nothing.

As Abbey and I head out of arrivals with our luggage, amongst cab drivers and shuttle drivers, I see a guy trying to flag us down. He’s wearing hiking boots, shorts, and a T-shirt, with winter-sports-type shades resting in his short hair. He’s holding out his arms as if to say,Give me some love, and calling Abbey’s name.

‘It’s my cousin,’ she says, before picking up her pace and allowing herself to be welcomed by the guy. I hang back to allow them time together, then when he looks my way, I move closer and offer my hand, which he shakes, telling me, ‘I’m Nick. And you arenotAndrew.’

‘Happily, I’m not. Hey, I’m Mike.’ My brother’s name leaves my lips awkwardly.

It’s my first lie of the trip and it’s to a member of Abbey’s family. It’s a reminder that what started out as a bluff to fool our exes is about to get significantly bigger.

It makes me feel uncomfortable, though not nearly as uncomfortable as I feel every minute I don’t tell Abbey the truth.

‘Well, I never did care much for that douche. Nice to meet you, Mike.’

He throws Abbey a look that I think he intends to be subtle and suggestive of him having questions for her later, when I’m out of earshot. A look that makes me appreciate that not everyone in Banff is going to know that Abbey and Andrew are over, let alone the reason why, and they certainly aren’t going to know that I’m a fake boyfriend.

This is going to be interesting.

Though I’m much taller and could use the extra leg room, I’m happy to let Abbey take the front passenger seat of the SUV and catch up with Nick. I’m content to take in the view of the national park with its imposing peaks, the quaint stores and residences of Banff town we pass through. Occasionally, Abbey and Nick bring me into a conversation, but given it’s mostly about baseball and why it isn’t as good a sport to watch as ice hockey, I try not to overly engage, limiting the lies.

It’s safe to say though that having a professional sports player in a car is a talking point, and it’s clear that talking baseball is going to be one of my major pastimes whenever we’re in company over the coming days.

Nick seems nice, if a little edgy and buoyant.

It transpires he’s employed by Abbey’s father in his leisure and tourism empire, working the winters as a ski and snowboard instructor, and as a guide leading group hikes and adventures in the summer months, otherwise being a ‘jack of all trades’ when called upon. Through the conversation, I’m getting a sense that Abbey has underplayed the size of her dad’s business.

The drive takes us up hills and down valleys. When Abbey tells me we’re five minutes from home, we’re ascending the foothills of a mountain and I see nothing but trees. When we round a bend and turn off the main road, I’m surprised that thetrees open up, and a driveway emerges through the pines. It’s a driveway that just keeps going. Space like I’ve never known where I grew up, and it’s not as if I grew up in a city like New York; I grew up in suburbia, within a short walk of sand and sea. I wind down my window to be assaulted by the smell of fresh trees, clean air and newly chopped wood.

‘Soak it all in, dude. This is home,’ Nick says as he and Abbey exchange a look that says,How lucky are we?And they are. If this is home, if this is where they grew up, they’re extremely lucky. It’s magnificent.

Hearing a rhythmicchop, chop, chopand searching for the source of the sound, I see a man in khaki shorts and big boots swinging an axe in a way I’m not sure I would ever dare at a felled tree trunk. Beside him, a substantial stack of firewood shows the fruits of his labor.

Eventually, branches disperse and into view comes what I would describe as a ski resort – but I think it’s Abbey’s parents’ house.

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