Promise Me (The Me Novellas)

by Gates, Shelby

  “Sort of,” I said.

  He picked up the bowl and held it to his mouth, draining the last of the milk. “Well, I think I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He stood up and I marveled once again at how much taller he’d gotten over the summer. He was filling out, too, his scrawny body sporting new muscles. My little brother was turning into a good-looking kid. Which was a very weird thing to notice.

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “Mom and Dad have like hyper-focused on me. It’s your turn to take a little heat.”

  I finished the banana and folded up the peel. It had been bland, almost flavorless, nothing like the few pieces of fruit I’d eaten in Mexico. “Fair enough,” I said. “Speaking of, you know where they are this morning?”

  Joel nodded at a slip of paper on the counter. “Dad left a note. Something about the water heater at the restaurant. And Mom went to the nursery. Needed potting mix, I think.”

  He rolled his eyes and I laughed. We both knew she’d come back with more. She always did. I glanced out the kitchen window, taking in all of my mother’s handiwork. She’d worked wonders in our little backyard, transforming a small lawn into a stunningly beautiful garden. Her roses took center stage, of course. They lined the fence, bushes teeming with flowers in a rainbow of color, but she hadn’t neglected the rest of the yard. A path of brick pavers wound through the lawn to a tiny arbor crawling with bougainvillea. A wooden bench sat directly underneath. Just off to the left was a water-feature, a stack of large terra cotta pots that had been rigged as a trickling waterfall. It was beautiful.

  “I’m outta here,” Joel said and I turned my gaze back to him.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Bird Rock. Some epic A-frames this morning.”

  He could have been speaking Chinese for all that I understood. “How are you getting there?” I asked. I could drop him before I went shopping.

  “Brandon’s picking me up.”

  I felt a tiny flicker of disappointment. It was unreasonable to think he’d suddenly need or want me to give him rides to the beach like I used to, especially since he’d somehow managed to get there the entire summer I’d been gone. But I wanted to.

  He offered a quick wave and left and, after tossing the banana peel in the trash and grabbing a bottled water from the fridge, I left, too.

  I had to drive to Clairemont for the closest Bath & Body Works. It was in a strip mall filled with discount clothing stores and shoe shops and these were all busy with moms hauling around kids, doing back-to-school shopping.

  I stepped into the store and a heady array of floral and fruity scents assaulted my nostrils. A helpful clerk offered me a wooden bucket for my purchases.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I just need one thing.”

  I found the display of hand sanitizers and searched the shelves for Grant’s favorite. On impulse, I grabbed two for him and a third for my purse. As I stood in line to pay, I wondered how he’d found out about Bath & Body Works hand sanitizers. It wasn’t as if I ever shopped there. Research, I thought. Knowing him, he’d probably researched the best brands.

  I bought my items and, even though there were a few clothing stores where I could try and find shorts and shirts that would fit, I didn’t. Grant was waiting. And potentially being exposed to life-threatening diseases.

  It took less than twenty minutes to get to The Catamaran. I parked in the lot out front and grabbed the blue and white shopping bag from the passenger seat. I glanced at my watch. It was almost noon. With any luck, he’d be close to his lunch break and we could grab something to eat.

  I went through the double doors to the registration desk. He stood there, waiting, a smile on his face.

  “Hey,” he said. He was dressed in a dark polo with the hotel logo and a pair of khakis. I’d forgotten how good he cleaned up.

  I handed him the bag. “Here you go.”

  He stole a quick peek inside, then fished one out and set it on his desk. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” I leaned against the counter. “Busy today?”

  He shrugged. “The usual. It’s the end of summer. Things are slowing down a little but not much. It’s San Diego.”

  I knew what he meant. Summer was definitely the “high” season as far as tourists were concerned but we had people visit year-round. I always had to remind myself that, even in the winter when our highs barely reached 65 and swimming wasn’t an option without the heaviest of wet suits, our town was still warmer and sunnier than most of the rest of the United States.

  “Any chance you’re close to break?”

  His eyes lifted to the clock mounted on the wall. “Not really. I’m not supposed to go until two.”

  “Didn’t you start at nine?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah, but Juan doesn’t come in until then. I don’t have anyone to cover for me.”

  I tried not to be too disappointed. “Oh. OK.”

  “But I’m off at five.” He brushed at an invisible fleck on his shirt. “If you wanna hang out.”

  I nodded. “OK. I guess I’ll go shop. See about a job, too.”

  “You have any more ideas of where to look?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t have a clue. But I was pretty sure of what I’d end up doing. Going down to the restaurant and letting my dad plug me in wherever he needed me. “No. But I’ll find something.”

  He nodded. “OK. Well, good luck.” He stole a quick look around and then leaned over and gave me a soft peck on the cheek.

  “I’m gonna use the bathroom before I leave.”

  He hesitated, then pointed around the corner. “You know where it is, right?”

  I nodded. I might have been gone for three months but he’d worked there almost a year. I’d visited plenty of times and used the restroom more than once.

  “Make sure you wash your hands,” he called after me.

  I just rolled my eyes and made my way down the carpeted hallway. The hotel looked deserted but I knew better. People didn’t come to San Diego to stay in their hotels. They came to visit the beaches. I knew if I ventured outside, I’d see a few guests gathered around the pools but that was an anomaly. People wanted the beach.

  I used the bathroom, smiling as I washed my hands. Grant would probably spritz me with hand sanitizer before I left.

  The door to the restroom opened and a woman wearing a hotel uniform stepped inside. She was around my age, I thought, and looked vaguely familiar.

  She smiled at me. “Do I know you?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” I said.

  She pointed a white-tipped nail at me. “You work here, right?”

  I shook my head. “No, but my boyfriend does.”

  A look of recognition flashed and her blond curls bounced as she nodded her head. “Oh, right! You’re Grant’s girlfriend. Emily.”

  “Emma.”

  “Emma,” she said, correcting herself. “I’m Stacy.”

  I smiled a greeting.

  “You were gone for the summer, right?” she asked. She didn’t use the bathroom, just parked herself in the mirror to freshen up her make-up.

  “Yeah. I went to Mexico.”

  A frown crossed her face. “Right. To work with poor people, right?”

  “To live with them,” I said. “It was a cultural program.”

  She nodded as if she understood. “Oh, OK. Gotcha.”

  “Did Grant…did he mention it?” I asked.

  She took a tube of lipstick from her purse and applied it to her lips. “No, but another girl did. Something about you being gone and him being lonely or something.”

  My heart fluttered just a little. I couldn’t imagine Grant admitting to someone else that he’d missed me. “Oh.”

  She rubbed her lips together, evening out the red color she’d just applied.

  “I need to go,” she said, dropping the lipstick back into her bag. “We’re short-staffed at the gift shop so I had to close it for a
few minutes just to take a bathroom break.”

  I didn’t point out that the only thing she’d apparently needed to do was freshen up her make-up.

  “Short-staffed?” I asked. “You mean, you’re hiring?”

  She smiled. “I’m not hiring. I only work twenty hours a week.”

  “Well, right. But the store? They’re looking for help?”

  Stacy nodded. “Yeah. We had a couple girls leave for school over the last two weeks.” She glanced at me and said quickly, “It’s very part-time.”

  “That’s OK,” I said. “I’m only looking for something part-time.”

  “Well, come with me,” she said. “I can give you an application to fill out. You could even drop it off at the front desk. Grant can get it to the right person in Human Resources.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I was back at the front desk. Grant looked surprised to see me.

  “I thought you took off without saying goodbye.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I was doing this.” I handed him the application.

  A slight frown creased his forehead. “What’s this?”

  “An application. To work in the gift shop.”

  He looked at me. “Here?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked a little less than thrilled so I asked,“Is there a problem with that?”

  “No, not at all,” he said. He forced a smile. “I just thought you said you weren’t interested in working here.”

  “I know,” I admitted. “But I don’t know what else to do. Stacy, the girl in the gift shop, said they needed people right away. It would be easy. And I could always keep looking.”

  “Right.”

  I was confused by his lukewarm response. Confused and a little hurt. The doubt I’d felt yesterday came creeping back in. Why wouldn’t he want me around?

  “Look, if this isn’t something you want me to do…” I let my voice trail off.

  He ran his hand through his hair. “No, no. It’s fine. You need a job. And the gift shop is hiring.”

  It sounded like he was trying to convince himself, more than me, that it would be alright.

  “You’re sure?” I asked, doubtful.

  He nodded. “Yep. I’ll pass it along to Jonathan. He does most of the hiring.”

  “OK.” I managed a smile. “Thanks.”

  NINE

  “Something is definitely off.”

  I took a pair of denim shorts off a hanger and shimmied into them. Sage and I were at Forever 21 at Fashion Valley, crammed into a dressing room. She’d parked herself on the bench and was staring at me with a look of concern.

  “You think?” I asked. I’d filled her in on my visit to the hotel.

  She nodded. “Yeah. His reaction makes no sense. He doesn’t want you around.” Her eyes roved over me. “Turn around.”

  Dutifully, I spun so my back faced her.

  “Nice ass,” she said.

  “Shut up.” I was just glad they fit. I glanced at the price tag. Shopping with no money and no job wasn’t high on my list of things I loved to do, but I was there out of necessity. Twenty bucks for a pair of denim shorts wasn’t bad, I told myself. Of course, twenty bucks could have fed my family in Mexico for more than two weeks. But I couldn’t dwell on that. Not now, when I literally had almost nothing that fit me.

  I stepped out of them and grabbed another pair, khaki this time, and slipped into those.

  “So are you gonna confront him?” she asked.

  I zipped up the shorts. “What on earth am I going to confront him about?”

  Sage rolled her eyes. “The fact that he doesn’t want you working in the same building as him.”

  I studied my reflection in the mirror. My legs looked like chocolate-covered toothpicks. “Maybe he’s just concerned about me.”

  “Really?” Sage snorted. “If he was concerned about you, he’d be bending over backwards to help you find a job.”

  “Well, sure,” I said. “But maybe he just doesn’t want me working there right now.”

  She raised her eyebrows and waited. A Nikki Minaj song blared over the speakers and Sage’s foot tapped in time to the beat.

  “You know, because of the whole norovirus outbreak.”

  Her peals of laughter echoed through the empty dressing room. “Uh. Doubtful.”

  I unzipped the shorts and slipped back into my own clothes. “I’m serious. You know how he is with germs. The last thing he probably wants is secondary exposure through me.”

  Sage pulled out a pack of gum from her purse and fished out a piece. Wordlessly, she handed it to me before grabbing another piece for herself. “Those germs are gonna be gone before you even land an interview, Em. It’s not like a bed bug or termite infestation. They clean the rooms and boom, it’s gone.”

  I knew she was right but I wasn’t about to agree with her. I didn’t want to think there was something wrong, some other reason that Grant might not want me working at the hotel.

  I gathered the shorts and empty hangers and headed out of the dressing room. Sage browsed a rack of shirts as I stood in line at the cash register area.

  “Well?” she said.

  I turned to look at her. “Well, what?”

  She held a purple blouse to her chest and studied herself in the mirror mounted above an earring display. “What are you going to do?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Thankfully, she got the hint. “Fine with me. You know, I’d be happy to never talk about Grant ever again.”

  It wasn’t what I meant but I took it. The last thing I wanted to do was fight with my best friend. That wasn’t true, I realized. The last thing I wanted to do was admit that there might be something wrong with my relationship with Grant.

  TEN

  I called the hotel two days later. I’d just taken a shower and was sitting on my bed, combing the tangles out of my hair. It was almost nine o’clock, an hour before Grant was due in. The last thing I wanted was to have him answer the phone. The front desk clerk, a girl whose voice I didn’t recognize, transferred me to Jonathan in the Human Resources department.

  He picked up on the third ring, a deep baritone voice. Pleasant.

  I took a deep breath and told him who I was. And why I was calling.

  “Emma Wakefield?” he asked. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “I turned it in a couple of days ago,” I said. “I left it at the front desk.”

  I heard papers shuffling. “Hold for one moment. I’ll take a look.”

  An instrumental version of Let It Be played in my ear as I waited, nervous anticipation building. I imagined Jonathan rummaging through sheafs of paper on a cluttered desk, finally unearthing my application. Maybe he was one of those scatterbrain types, forever losing things. Or maybe he’d stuck a post-it to my papers, reminding himself to call me for an interview. Or maybe he’d handed it off to an incompetent assistant and was berating him or her at that very moment.

  “Ms. Wakefield?” He was back. “I’m sorry, I don’t see any application. You’re sure you left it here?”

  I swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Do you remember who you left it with?” His voice was cool, pleasant, but something about it made me hesitate. I didn’t know what to think about the Human Resources department not having my application but the last thing I wanted to do was get Grant in trouble.

  “No I don’t,” I lied. “I didn’t really pay attention.”

  “I see,” Jonathan said. “I’m not sure how it didn’t get to me. The protocol for passing on applications is pretty straight-forward here. If you’d like to come by and fill out a new one, you’re certainly welcome to do so. We have some part-time positions open in both housekeeping and the gift shop.”

  The seed of doubt grew ten-fold in my stomach. “OK,” I managed to say. “Thank you.”

  I ended the call and fell back onto my pillow. He hadn’t turned it in. I played the scene over in my head. Filling out the two-page appli
cation, handing it over to Grant. His reluctance. And then, when I’d noticed, his hasty reassurances. Tears stung my eyes and I wiped at them furiously. I was not going to cry over this. I closed my eyes to stem the tears and tried to think.

  I couldn’t tell Sage. She would freak, after she gloated a little about being right. I shook my head. As much as I loved her, I wasn’t ready for that reaction.

  I debated calling Grant. Confronting him over the phone, asking him just what the hell he’d done with the application I’d given him. But I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answer he was going to give me.

  I sat up, the back of my shirt damp from my wet hair. I tossed my phone toward the purse sitting on the floor. It hit the side of the bag and bounced off of it. I cursed under my breath and reached for both. I needed the phone out of sight, so I wouldn’t be tempted to call either my best friend or my boyfriend. I picked up the purse with my finger and it slipped out of my grasp and fell back to the floor, the entire contents spilling out.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  I hopped off my bed and started picking up the contents of my purse. My wallet, a pair of sunglasses, three tubes of lip balm, a crumpled package of peppermint gum. There were some receipts, too—from my shopping trip to Forever 21 two days earlier, my receipt from In-N-Out. I scrunched these into balls, intending to throw them in the trash. I reached for another piece of paper and frowned when my fingers encountered it. A heavier piece of paper, like cardstock. And then I remembered.

  The business card.

  From Dex.

  I flipped it over. It was simple in design, with a sketch of a surfboard in the lower right hand corner, a peace symbol emblazoned on the middle of it. At the top, the acronym SWS and below, its meaning: Surfers With Souls. Declan Portlock, Director. http:surferswithsouls.org. A phone number and a P.O. box here in San Diego.

  I studied the card. Surfers With Souls. The web address had an .org ending. Non-profit. My phone was still on the floor and I reached for it and opened my internet browser. I typed in the address.

  A website with an ocean background opened, with Dex’s picture in the upper left hand corner. But he wasn’t surfing. Actually, he was nowhere near the water. I squinted, trying to focus on the tiny picture made even smaller by my miniscule screen. It looked like he was in a village. Standing in the middle of a dirt road, a group of children standing in front of him.