by Claire Adams
He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! It’s something along those lines, actually. How long have we been together? Over six months. Which is a long time for someone like me to go without getting laid. And since I knew this was going to be your first time, I wanted it to be special. I wanted it to be good. I didn’t want to blow my load in the first two minutes, just because I’d gone so long without sex.”
I burst out laughing, because the expression on his face was so serious, it was as though he believed every word that he’d just said. Oh, I couldn’t wait to relay this whole conversation to Sophie. She’d probably say she was going to cut his dick off.
“What?” he asked. “I mean it.”
Shannon shot him an approving look. “That really is a sweet thing to say.”
“You know, I could almost believe it,” I said. For a second, Brian’s face looked hopeful, as though he’d pulled it off. “Except for the fact that I’m not a fucking idiot.”
His face fell. “Huh? I mean, I know you’re not an idiot. But—”
“Don’t even try to tell me that you’re here sleeping with Shannon because you wanted to do something good for me. How the hell would you know that I’d been planning to sleep with you?”
“I just . . . I was being hopeful. I figured it’d be happening soon enough.”
“Well, you figured wrong. Because now it’s never going to happen. If you think that I’m going to just welcome you back with open arms after I walk in on you fucking someone else, you are so completely wrong, it’s not even funny.”
The three of us stood there, Shannon only now beginning to put her clothes on. “Don’t even bother,” I said. “I’m leaving. You two should finish whatever the hell it is you’re doing. Don’t let me interrupt.”
She hesitated. “Really? You don’t mind?”
“I am not going to even respond to that,” I said. I left, stomping down the hallway, slamming the door behind me. It wasn’t until I was halfway to the car that I realized I’d left my shoes inside, but there was no way I was going back in for them. They’d probably started having sex again, and that was the last fucking thing I wanted to see.
So I walked barefoot to the car and drove myself home. What was that that I’d been thinking earlier? That tonight was going to be so special? I thought about calling Sophie but then decided against it, only because I’d have to relay everything that I’d just seen. She’d want details. I’d give them to her, but I just couldn’t do it right now. I needed to go home and go to sleep and try to forget about this as soon as possible.
3.
Levi
When it comes to parties, I’ve been all over the world: Mykonos, Tel-Aviv, Goa, Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam, Berlin, Koh Phangan. But Ibiza is, hands down, my favorite, the best place ever, heaven on Earth. I’m not being hyperbolic.
I flew into IBZ in Ibiza Town, bid adieu to Anders, and then hopped a cab to Sant Antoni de Portmany, also known as San Antonio, also known as Sant Antoni, but mainly known as the clubbing capital of the world. It was here I had a lovely villa of my own, bought not with trust fund money, but my own money, procured through a wise business investment I had made years ago and that Dad had no clue about. That business was a little pill we called Lush, a simple combination of pure MDMA (and when I say pure, I mean it) and Peruvian flake cocaine, not 100% pure but pretty damn close. Mix those together in a clear capsule embossed with a gold cursive L and that’s the product we’re pushing. By ‘we’ I mean myself and my business associate, Alfie, my long-time pal from Manchester. He basically handled everything and I provided the funds, which, in less than a decade, amassed us quite a fortune. Sure, there’s a legal risk involved, but Alfie was careful, and anyone else he was involved is also careful. In a way, Dad would be proud.
But something wasn’t quite right.
What the hell? I was here, back in paradise; I should’ve been feeling great, that light sort of happiness that is really only attainable when you’ve got long stretches of time ahead of you with nothing to do but whatever the fuck you want.
I had that, but I didn’t have that feeling. No, the feeling I had was like I’d forgotten to do something, or I’d done something that I shouldn’t have. It was strange, if only because I seldom felt this way.
I was sitting at Le Croissant Show, with my espresso and pain au chocolat, trying to figure out what the deal was, why I wasn’t feeling as carefree as I always felt, especially considering I was here. This was my place. New York City might be where I technically lived, but Ibiza was my home.
I took a bite of the croissant, barely tasting it. The problem was with my father. The problem was that he thought I was this lazy, completely irresponsible asshole who was just sponging off of him. I couldn’t exactly fault him for it, because for a while, that’s exactly what had been happening, but things had been different. I’d bought the villa out here with my own money, and though that money might have been from illegal activities, the fact was it hadn’t been something I’d taken from my father. I wasn’t just living carefree off of good old Dad. I needed to tell him this, I realized. In the past, I’d kept it to myself because he’d probably disown me, which was exactly what he said he was going to do before I left on this trip. So might as well come clean now, I figured.
I immediately felt better after coming to this decision, though I decided I’d put off calling him for a little while. That could wait; just having a plan of action was enough for now.
After breakfast, I went back to the villa and met up with Alfie. We slapped palms and he filled me on what had been happening while I’d been gone, which wasn’t much, other than people were partying, doing drugs, and specifically requesting Lush.
“You know, we could raise the price to forty, fifty a pill and people would still go for it,” he said in that clipped British accent of his. Alfie was about my height—six feet—but much stockier, and he had a crooked nose because it’d gotten broken so many times. Before he’d discovered the party scene, Alfie had been a bit of a street brawler, but you’d never know that now—except for the broken nose, maybe.
“Glad to hear business is going so well, but fifty is way too much.”
“Just think of the profit, though. And people would pay. Gladly. They’re all here on holiday, they’ve got coin to spend, they just want a good time. This guy from Amsterdam was trying to pass off these shitty pressed pills as a step above Lush, but people caught onto that pretty quick. Don’t expect to be seeing him around anytime soon.”
“Who cares,” I said. “Let him try to sell whatever he wants. So long as we have a good product—which we do—and a fair price, people are going to continue to do business with us. We’ve got a good reputation, and at this point, that’s all that matters. We’re not just going to start raising prices just because we can. There’s no reason to.”
Alfie raised an eyebrow. “Oi, mate, you sure your dad’s really a billionaire? You think he got to that point by acting like a socialist?”
“I’m not saying give it away; just keep things the way they are. Do you need a raise, Alfie? Is that it?”
“I always need a raise.”
“Then here.” I got up and rummaged through one of the kitchen drawers where I kept the checkbook. I wrote Alfie out a check for five thousand dollars. “Go buy yourself something nice.”
He looked at the check and then at me. “For real?”
“Sure, why the hell not?”
He grinned. “Thanks, boss. And Kip will be around at the end of this week, so we’ll need to pay him, and he’s expecting double because—”
I waved my hand. “Yeah, yeah, sounds good; just remind me at the end of the week.”
The extent of bookkeeping I did for this was glance at the bank statement every couple of months. The transactions attracted very little attention because the people at Colfax Bank knew who I was—rather, they knew who my father was and they were thrilled that I’d taken some of that wealth and opened an account with them. They didn’t blink an
eye when we’d deposit considerable sums of cash. If anything, they were happy we were doing business there.
4.
Isla
My phone was ringing.
I knew it was early before I’d even opened my eyes, but the tone I was hearing wasn’t my gentle bells alarm; it was the actual ring tone indicating a call, meaning that . . . someone was calling. I pried one eyelid open and blindly fumbled for my phone on the bedside table. My first thought was that it was Brian, so desperate for my forgiveness that he couldn’t wait a second longer to get in touch with me. I wouldn’t forgive him, of course, but I supposed it was a bit of a silver lining. Except it wasn’t him. It was Kelly, and it was five o’clock in the morning.
I picked it up.
“There is water fucking everywhere!” Kelly screamed before I was even able to get a word out. “You have to get down here now. Holy fucking shit!”
I had to hold the phone away from my ear because she was yelling so loudly. I was suddenly wide awake. She didn’t need to elaborate—she was at our gym, and that leaky pipe in the women’s bathroom had finally exploded.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said.
I jumped out of bed and dug through my drawers, grabbing the first things that I laid my hands on. Which meant an old t-shirt and some worn yoga pants. Sophie surely wouldn’t approve, but then again, this wasn’t a date.
I drove down to the gym as fast as I could, which, considering the early hour, was pretty fast since there were only a few other cars on the road. Our gym was called Form Fitting, a name we’d decided on together because we liked the message it conveyed: Yes, you could work out here and get the sort of body that would allow you to rock form-fitting clothing, but really, this was a gym that would be for every form. Every body type. Kelly had always been in relatively good shape, but I knew what it was like to be overweight, I knew what it was like on the other side. The disgusted looks people would give you, the jokes they made, not just if they happened to see you eating, but also if they were to see you trying to work out, trying to actually do something about it. People could be so cruel. I knew this firsthand.
So I wanted the gym to be a haven of sorts—another reason why I was so gung-ho about re-flooring the Lotus Room, despite it perhaps not being the wisest decision, financially—a place that anyone could go and not feel intimidated by people who looked as though they’d just stepped out of the pages of some fitness magazine.
When I got there, Kelly was standing out in the parking lot, on the phone with someone else, waving her free hand around.
“I need you to get down here right now!” she was shouting. She gave me a wild-eyed look and then jerked her head in the direction of the entrance. I hurried over and went inside, but only took about two steps before my feet were soaked.
The space was big—about five thousand square feet, all on one floor, with our offices upstairs in a partitioned loft area. From the lobby, you had to take three steps down to get to the main gym area and there was so much water it had risen all the way past the steps and was now flooding the lobby. I was standing there in about two inches of tepid water.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. It was a thousand times worse than I ever would have thought it could be. It was like we were trying to fill a swimming pool.
“I just got off the phone with Tim, the guy from the water removal company,” Kelly said. “They’re coming by right now. He’s going to charge us up the fucking asshole for this I’m sure, but that’s the least of our problems right now. Seriously, Isla, what the fuck?!”
I shook my head and started to step inside but then stopped, before I got my feet wet. I let the door shut and a cool breeze blew, and I realized then that I’d run out of the house without putting a bra on. Great. I crossed my arms over my chest.
“How the fuck did this happen? How are we going to clean this up? It’s like a fucking aquarium in there!”
“I told you, I called that guy. Tim. He’s on his way over here and they’ll get right to work. That’s what he said.”
“This is not good, Kel.” I stood there, looking into the gym, the equipment half-submerged, the big exercise balls floating on the surface of the water. I squeezed my eyes shut. “This is so not what needs to be happening right now.”
“It hasn’t even rained in like weeks!” Kelly exclaimed.
“That has nothing to do with it. This wasn’t like we had some leak in the ceiling or something and the rainwater got in. Something must’ve happened with that pipe in the women’s bathroom. The one I said that we should have looked at.”
“I thought you were calling someone to come in and check it out.”
“I was going to! It was on my to-do list. Had I known it was going to be this catastrophic disaster, I definitely would’ve moved it up to the top of the list!”
“That’s just great,” Kelly said, shaking her head. “So you’re too busy doing what? Hanging out with Brian? Is that why you didn’t make the call sooner?”
I stared at her. “Are you seriously going to try to blame me for this? Brian has nothing to do with it, and besides, it’s not me who’s leaving work in the middle of the day for a booty call!”
“Right, because you’re still a fucking virgin!”
We stood there in front of our gym, shouting at each other as the sun started to rise and the sky began to lighten.
I took a deep breath. “I think we both just need to calm down,” I said. “I’m not trying to start a fight with you and I’m not trying to point fingers.”
Kelly looked like she was about to continue the fight, but then she too took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said finally. “I’m not trying to lash out at you. I just can’t believe this is happening.” Two big trucks turned into the parking lot, the logo Kelbourne Industries, LLC emblazoned on the side in bold sans serif.
“Here they are,” Kelly said, visibly relieved. “They’re here, Isla, and they’re going to take care of this. It’s going to be all right.”
We both put on brave faces as we went to meet Tim, who was in his mid-forties with tan, weathered skin, like he was someone who spent a lot of time outside without wearing sunblock.
We introduced ourselves, and as I shook his hand, I saw his eyes glance quickly down at my chest, and then away again. Oh yeah, that whole no-bra situation. It was still on the cooler side and my nipples were little points pressing against the thin cotton of the t-shirt. I crossed my arms over my chest and let Kelly do most of the talking.
“Well, we’ve definitely seen worse than this,” Tim said. “Based on what you told me, it does sound like a block in the drainage system and that causes a backup and the pipes burst. We won’t know for sure until we can get in there and really take a look around, but that’s my estimate. But don’t you girls worry; we’ll get this taken care of for you.”
I stood there watching as the other guys he was with started unloading equipment. Kelly was giving Tim our insurance information. A car drove by, then another, and I could see the drivers craning their necks, trying to figure out what had happened.
There was no point in hanging around while they worked, so I told Kelly I was leaving and got in my car and drove a few miles to Starbucks, where I got a latte and sat at a table, trying not to feel numb. I didn’t even give a shit anymore that I wasn’t wearing a bra. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting there, staring off into space, when someone stepped in my line of vision.
“Isla,” the woman said. I looked up from my latte. It was Clara, one of the original Form Fitting members. She was in her mid-forties, a realtor, and had joined the gym because she was adamant she wasn’t going to lose her looks just because she was “over the hill.”
“I just drove by the gym! I saw the trucks out there. What happened?”
“There was a flood. A major one.”
“Oh, my. That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” She nodded to the empty chair across from me. “Do you mind if I sit for a minute?”
“Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.” I tried to sound chipper, but it was hard. I forced a smile. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, but never mind about me. What happened?”
“Something about a blockage in the drainage system, and the pipes getting backed up. So yeah, the whole place is under like half a foot of water.”
Clara winced. “I’m so sorry. But . . . in light of what I told Kelly the other day, maybe it’s a good thing.”
“What?” I said. “Did you just say that this was maybe a good thing? Because I can assure you, it’s not. And I have no idea what you’re talking about, this thing that you told Kelly.”
Clara looked at me, wide-eyed. “So she didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Fitness Universe just bought the old Wegman’s building. They’re going to be opening up a new location within the year. I probably worded that wrong, saying maybe it was a good thing, but, like I told Kelly, this might be better than dying a slow death once Fitness Universe opens up. It’s harsh, I know, but that’s the unfortunate reality of business.”
My stomach twisted. Yes, maybe these days some people were more into shopping local and not supporting the big guys, but I knew there was no way in hell our little gym could compete with some place like Fitness Universe. We wouldn’t lose all of our members, but we’d lose enough that it we’d just barely be scraping by.
“You know this for sure?”
Clara nodded. “I would never sign up for a membership there, you know,” she said. “It’s a franchise. I hate franchises.”
“They probably have a pretty good membership deal.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Maybe not for you, but it will be for some people.” I put my head in my hands. “I really can’t believe all this is happening. Am I going to wake up any moment now and discover that I’m back in bed? That none of this is actually happening?”
Clara put her hand on mine and gave me a little pat. “You know, I just started reading this new book. It’s sort of in the self-help realm—well, I like to think of it more as personal development. It’s called The Silver Lining. A little hokey, I know, but it’s really great so far. And it’s not really saying anything new, that I haven’t heard before, but it’s saying it in a different way. I know that probably doesn’t make sense. But maybe you should get yourself a copy. As I’m sure you can tell from the title, the premise is that there is always a silver lining.”
