Bob gives a small laugh from the side of his mouth, reaching again for Melissa. She swears she can see him blush. “Let’s just say I’ve put in some time of my own at various dining establishments. And rumor has it you’re quite the kitchen catch.” He flicks water at her from his hand.
“Oh, really? Could have fooled me.” Melissa thinks about Olivia and how the staff seem to dislike her. But maybe that’s changing.
“Nah, I’m sure you’re great at what you do in the back of the house.”
“Back of the house meaning kitchen. More slang.” Melissa squints, wanting to pester him for more information, to dig up any remaining mystery about his past, about her presence in the rumor mill. But then she says his name—Bob—in her head. Such a simple, everyday name. And does knowing it change anything? She shakes her head. I don’t need to know more. I just need to be with him and enjoy myself.
“Fine.” Melissa smiles. “First this watering hole and then the other.” She and Bob clasp hands and he pulls her gently into the sun-warmed water where they can talk and swim the next hour away before work beckons.
20
“CAN I HELP YOU?” asks the salesgirl at Pulse as Dove scans the racks.
Brightly hued scarves, knee-length shorts, and poppy-colored dresses artfully arranged look beautiful, but none of them are what Dove’s looking for. “No, thanks. Just browsing.” Dove touches a flimsy shirt, checking the price tag and then letting it go. I never used to do that. Checking the tag was for people with nothing in their wallets. Well aware of her own emptying pockets, Dove wanders the store, not sure why she’s here. Maybe because I have nothing else to do. Maybe because I’m fired after the Tahitian vanilla disaster. Maybe because all I really want to do is curl up with my textbook and write down my thoughts. But what good would that do? she wonders, nearly aloud. It’s not as though I have a place to hand in a paper, even if I did write it.
“We have a new shipment of headbands,” the salesperson offers. “They’d look great with your cropped hair.” She fetches a pale blue flowered headband with a wide strap and hands it to Dove.
Out of courtesy, Dove slips it on, pushing it far back off her forehead. She glances in the mirror, trying to shrug off the errors of the day, the hunch that everything she’s been working for isn’t worth it.
“It does look good,” Dove agrees. She considers the purchase. “It’s been a long time since I bought anything like this.” Scrimping and saving hadn’t felt bad when she’d had a goal—to save up for the trip to see William. But now, with the reality of island life washing over her—and William showing little to no interest in being with her all the time the way she’d imagined—the penniless life feels less alluring.
The salesperson smiles, her bleached teeth nearly blue in the overhead lights. “Go for it. Treat yourself.”
“I will,” Dove says suddenly. “I will treat myself.” She touches the necklace from William, hoping it holds a fortune of love after all, and then removes the headband, studying it as though it was more than a simple accessory. I deserve this. It’s not a giant thing, just a small treat for all the work I’ve been doing.
Satisfied with her impulse, Dove heads for the cash register. With the band on the counter, the salesgirl goes to ring up the purchase. Dove’s hand reaches for her back pocket and her eyes wander out the large front window to the side street where a few people stroll by. Suddenly she stops the salesperson. “Hold on,” she says. “I see an … old friend—I have to go.” Dove dashes to the doorway.
Confused, the salesperson clutches the band. “Should I hold it for you? Tell me your name.”
Dove pauses, distracted by the view out the window. “Umm … Lily … I mean, Dove.” She shudders, wondering why her old name slipped onto her tongue. “Just put it under de Rothschild.”
The salesperson writes the request on a rectangular card and stashes it behind the counter. “We’ll keep it here for twenty-four hours.”
Dove nods, completing her dash out the door just in time to grab Max’s arm as he heads up a few stone steps.
“Hey—where you headed?” she asks, breathless and still clutching his arm.
Max stares at her hand on his arm and then locks eyes with her. “Lily—hey. I’m just …” He looks up the steps to the raised storefront.
Dove reads the sign out front. “Floral arrangements?”
Max scratches his chin, nodding. “Yes. Just—picking up a few things.”
“For the house?” Dove asks, thinking about the massive tables at the Sugar Hut and wondering if maybe Max’s mother sent him out to pick up things for a dinner party.
“Not exactly.” Max bites his top lip and leans on the wrought-iron railing.
Dove looks embarrassed. “Oh … sorry—I just …” He’s giving flowers to someone. She pictures him choosing a gerbera daisy or a fluted lily and her heart dips. “Who’s the lucky someone?” she asks, feigning cheerfulness. It’s not like I care that I’m not getting flowers. But it’d be nice if William had done something for me. Some gesture instead of just half-empty words. Maybe it wasn’t just the boat that got stuck in the sand when he was supposed to get me at the airport. Maybe it was—
“Want to come in with me?” Max thumbs toward the store. “I wouldn’t mind the help.” He puts his hand on her shoulder, sending a sparkle of excitement down her arm. “If it’s not too …”
“It’s not weird. It’s okay.” Dove follows him up the stone steps and into the cool darkness of the floral house.
Inside, galvanized buckets hold elongated stems. “Bird of Paradise.” Max reaches for one. Dove shakes her head, kindly wrinkling her nose. “Too pointy.”
Max laughs. “Oh, okay. As if that’s a reason.”
Dove shoves him. “It is. Too sharp. You want something that says …” She swallows hard, avoiding looking at him. He always made her feel she could say anything, dissect or analyze without sounding too academic, as William had said. “What exactly do you want these flowers to say?”
Max roams between a rectangular bin filled to bursting with tropical roses and a tall glass cylinder that holds a multitude of wildflowers in shades of blue and purple. “What do I want this to mean? What do I want these things to say?” He touches a rose. “Everything. Nothing. I don’t know.” He sits on a bench by a twisted topiary. “How do you make a statement mean what you want?”
Dove sits next to him, small beside his tall frame. In the cool air, the flowers stay pert and Dove is reminded of being with Max in the cold air at Les Trois Alpes. How different everything was then, she thinks. I had so much to look forward to and my struggle was to keep myself away from Max. Now he’s the one with some big plan—flowers, some girl—and I’m the one with no job, nothing lined up. “You mean, like a grand gesture?”
Max nods. “Sometimes I feel like I can say what I want in writing or in words, and other times … I don’t know. Kind of lame, considering how much my day-to-day life revolves around papers and reading. Maybe it’s best to just act on something and present your idea without so much explanation.”
Dove nods in agreement. “I’m all in favor of that kind of thing. Words are good—amazing. But actions, they’re not just a supplement. I keep going back to Romantic Theory: Love throughout Literature by A. J. Samuels and that part about how grand gestures throughout history have been life-altering.” She watches Max’s face. “You know, that book that—”
Max breaks into her words. “I know the one.” His face registers the name and his eyes light up for a minute. “Do you have that book here?”
Dove shrugs her shoulders, wondering if she should say no. “Yeah. I do, actually—pathetic though it may seem, as I’m not in any way, shape, or form connected to a class that’s reading it …”
“It’s not pathetic,” Max assures her. He points to a bright purple flower. “What’s this?”
“Wild iris,” Dove says. “Why, do you want to borrow it or something?”
“The flower?” Max grins
. “Yes, Dove. If I could borrow the book, that’d be great. I could come to get it now if—”
Dove hears the town hall clock ring, signaling that morning is officially turning into afternoon. “I should go.”
“Back to work?” Max nods to the flower shop attendant and says, “I’ll be back in a minute for my order.”
Dove wonders what flowers he’ll pick, which girl is the lucky recipient, if her comments meant anything or influenced Max’s future floral purchase. “Actually … I have to get my stuff from the boat.” She squints as she steps into the bright sunlight, looking for a second at Pulse and remembering her headband. “I’m not so much going back to work as … looking for it.”
Max grimaces. “Oops. Sounds like a story.”
“One I’d rather not tell just now.” Dove heads down the steps. “But suffice to say I’m not only in need of work but lodging, too.”
Max opens his hands as if he’s offering her something tangible. “There’s always the Sugar Hut.” He puts one hand up like a stop sign. “Wait. Before you neg the idea. Melissa’s there. It’s platonic …” He looks at Dove.
But what about the girl? The flower girl? Am I really going to stay at Max’s place while he plans some giant delivery of roses for some vixen? “It might be weird, Max. Considering our—”
Does he even remember how intense things got with us at Les Trois? Of course he does. I do. Only, how can he act so normal? The warm wind waffles through Max’s hair, temporarily sending most of it to the other side of his head, which makes his green eyes stand out even more than they usually do. Dove notices gold flecks in them and backs away a bit.
“Our Past, capital p?” Max nods. “But it might not be. I mean, we were friends first, right?” He gives her a regular smile, a regular look, fixes her with an absolutely normal gaze.
Friends. The word rings in the air like bells and Dove, for the first time, feels it settle into her. Friends. “Right. Of course.”
“So what do you say? Come by after you get your stuff and stay for as long as you like.” Max turns to head back into the shop, his mind filling with ideas for the order. “And bring the book—I’ve been meaning to reread it.”
Like watching a shirt float on the water’s surface and then sink, Dove slowly feels herself pulled back to the moment. The moment where she and Max are friendly only, nothing more and nothing less. Isn’t that what I wanted after all this time? she asks herself. Dove watches him go inside, wondering just what he’ll decide to buy, and whom it’s for. She decides to go see Melissa to talk it over.
21
“SHE SAID I HAVE to pay it back,” Harley says to Bug. His head is in her lap, the heated black surface of the volcano pockmarked around them.
“Isn’t this cool? The whole island is conical,” Bug says, shielding his eyes from the light to look up at Harley.
“I know. And fringed with golden sands. You told me that already.” Her voice is laced with annoyance. “Did you even hear what I said?”
“I did. The vulture wants payback and she’ll make sure you stick to it.”
“Bug?” Harley pushes him off her lap until he sits up.
“What?” He brings his knees up so he can rest his torso on them. “Man, I’m beat.” He looks out past their observation spot to the volcanic center and holds Harley’s hand, absentmindedly playing with her fingers.
“Why haven’t I been to your boat?”
“Huh?” He swivels to look at her, his face showing no signs of anything except his trademark relaxed grin. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a pretty straightforward question. We’ve been … together … for a bit—”
“Speaking of which, I have something to discuss with you. Or to tell you.” Bug stands up, shaking his legs out and brushing off a bit of dirt from his calf.
“Wait,” Harley says. The day’s issues still hang over her head, clouding her mood and making her want to clear everything up as fast as possible. “Don’t switch the subject. All this time and I haven’t once been to your cabin. Seen where you sleep.”
He shoots her a wry look. “Maybe that’s because I need my sleep in order to do my job, and if you visited me on board, I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn’t get any shut-eye.”
“Haha,” Harley says humorlessly. “Really. Tell me.” She pauses. “Or maybe I should just show up there sometime.”
This makes Bug blanch, his cheeks suddenly paler in the light than his tan warrants. “No—that’s not a great idea.”
“Oh yeah?” Harley feels a heaviness in her chest, a weight where only a few days ago there was a buoyancy. I know this feeling, she thinks, remembering finding the smallest of things—a tiny note—in her high school boyfriend’s jacket pocket. She’d borrowed the coat and rummaged for a tissue, only to find a tiny scrap of paper that read Miss you. It was enough. “Bug—are you seeing anyone else besides me?
He sits down. “Where’s all this coming from?” he reaches for her hair, but she pulls away, gathering the locks into a bun at the nape of her neck.
“It just seems odd, that’s all. Not to have seen your place when we’ve hung out virtually everywhere else this island has to offer.”
Bug sighs, putting his hands on either side of her face. “Did you ever once consider that maybe I have no privacy on the boat? That as soon as I set foot on board I’m asked to do stuff, even if I’m not on duty?” He leans in and kisses her gently on the mouth. Despite her doubts, Harley feels herself pulled in by him. “I just want as much time with you as possible, and I don’t particularly want to share you with whoever happens to be hanging out on the boat—above- or belowdecks.”
Harley hears belowdecks and hopes no one besides her has seen his berth. Looking into his eyes so closely, she knows he’s being truthful. “So, it’s just me? I’m like this volcano?” She points to the mouth. “I’m your center, your—”
Bug doesn’t answer her; he just pulls her in for another kiss. When they pause he speaks again. “Let the record show that I am officially going to spill my guts.”
Harley’s breath comes in and out in jagged bursts, her mind a whir. “Okay.”
“I’ve got something big to tell you …” His face reveals a trace of nervousness that sends Harley’s mind reeling.
Harley waits for more. “And?”
He raises one eyebrow and peers at her as he stands up and faces the heavy railing that overlooks the volcano’s crevasses. “And when the time’s right, I’m going to spring it on you.”
Harley chucks a pebble at him and he catches it. “All that buildup and you’re not even telling?”
Bug shrugs. “I will, okay? But I have to get back to the boat. Besides, we’ve got tons of time for talking later.”
“Oh, yeah? When?” Harley asks.
“At the party. Emmy Taylor’s, remember?”
Harley nods. “I almost forgot.”
“Well, don’t—it’s apparently going down as the biggest deal of the season.”
Not that I have anything to wear, and not that it matters, Harley thinks. She stands up, wondering why she still has a feeling of doubt with Bug, though he always strings her along to the next time they’ll be together. Harley puts her feet into her sandals and looks again at the impressive volcano in front of her. Just because it hasn’t been active for decades doesn’t mean it couldn’t suddenly churn fire and lava, right? Sometimes no matter how sorted out everything seems, you can feel rumblings that tell you change is brewing.
Harley throws another pebble over the railing, knowing that no matter what changes are in store, she owes more money than she can afford to, and has no prospects for paying it back.
22
“NOT WITH THE WHOLE hand. Just with the wrist.” Matty Chase demonstrates his technique. “Of course, I’m showing you this on a carrot and you’ll be shaving bits from a white truffle.” He gives a weary sigh and Melissa continues to watch him. “And white truffles are important because …”
“Becaus
e they are rare?” she suggests, trying again to shave just the slightest edge of carrot from the stalk.
“Because they retail for hundreds of dollars a pound?” Bob enters the kitchen from the back door, standing with his arms crossed over his chest. He gives a nod to everyone else in the room and reserves his smile for Melissa. “You ready?”
She glares at him and uses her eyes to motion to Matty, hoping Bob will understand. “Give me just a few more minutes, okay, Bob?” She adds extra enunciation on Bob, and he gets the clue, disappearing outside to wait for her on the beach.
“Sorry, Mr. Chase.”
“Matty,” he corrects. “And it’s fine.” He checks his watch. “You’re two hours late wrapping up here, anyway. Why didn’t you say something?” With his hands he gestures for her to go.
Melissa puts down her knife and unties her apron. She can feel dried sweat on her scalp, her hands ache, and her feet feel like two overinflated balloons filled with sand, but she smiles. “I love it here.” She takes a breath. “And I don’t mean that in a kiss-ass suck-up kind of way, if you know what I mean.”
Matty laughs. “Glad you can clarify.” He shaves a perfect amount from the carrot and hands it to her. “And I’m glad my instincts were right about you. Sometimes, you just know it when you see it.”
Melissa nods, thinking as much about Bob as she is the job. “I guess that’s what they mean by a gut feeling.”
“See you first thing in the morning,” Matty says as he shoos her out the door. “And have fun with your … friend.” He looks to the doorway, where Bob has resurfaced. Melissa watches Matty as he stares at Bob. Bob motions to the beach.
Off the Trails Page 13
