In front of her, a piece of driftwood painted a milky turquoise announces that she has indeed found Pulse. Stark white exterior walls lead to similarly colored interior ones and Melissa makes her way from the small front stoop to the racks of clothes and soothing background music. Maybe I could work here, she thinks, excited all of a sudden. I could just ask—I mean, I’m sure they don’t have a dress code or anything.
At that moment, three identically dressed, tall, glamorous salespeople emerge from behind a thick white curtain and circle Melissa. “Is there anything we can help you with?”
Melissa shakes her head shyly. “No, just looking.” Or borrowing other people’s parents’ accounts.
“Do let us know if we can assist you in any way,” says one raillike woman. Melissa can’t tell them apart—each has dark hair slicked back in a bun, long legs accentuated by slim-fitting crisp white linen trousers, and a bat-sleeved black top.
I’m never going to be able to pull this off, Melissa thinks, gathering a couple of items and holding them over her arm. They’ll never buy that I’m a Rothschild. Or a de Rothschild. She scoops up a couple of overpriced T-shirts, a pair of everyday shorts, and a deep green flowing skirt.
“Can I put these in a fitting room for you?” asks a sales assistant.
Melissa doesn’t look at her, afraid that her eyes will give away her nervousness at using someone else’s charge. “I wasn’t planning on trying them on, actually.” She grabs a neatly folded sarong and says, “I like this” as though she buys this much clothing all the time.
“You really should go to a fitting room,” the woman says, her voice still calm but growing firm.
Melissa insists. “Really—I know my size. I’ll be fine.
The saleswoman takes the sarong out of Melissa’s hands and holds her by the elbow. “I really must insist, madam.”
It’s only when Melissa hears the word madam that she checks the assistant’s face for signs of seriousness. As soon as Melissa looks at her, she cracks up.
“Oh my—” Melissa starts but the saleswoman pushes her behind a thick frosted-glass door into a changing room bigger than the crew berths on the yacht. Once inside, Melissa turns to face her. “Harley! What the hell are you doing here?”
Harley grins, unpinning her hair from its tight coil and shaking it out. “Now do I look like me?” Melissa nods. “So … I’ve kinda been through a bunch of jobs so far.”
“I thought you were being the host to that family—Max’s family.”
Harley swipes her hair behind her ears and sits on the bench, tucking her legs up. “I do like the green on you—very becoming!” she says in a loud voice. Then, quietly she adds, “Just pretend I’m giving you great sales advice. We work on commission.”
“Oh.” Melissa checks the price tags while she and Harley talk, and feels her stomach roil with the money factor.
“So I was a host, but it was too much. They wanted me at their beck and call every minute and that’s just no way to experience the island….” Harley pauses. “Maybe the next size? And yes, we have this in a wide array of colors!”
“And now you’re working here?” Melissa adds in her own side commentary, “Terrific advice about the shirts!”
Harley stifles a laugh and hands Melissa one of the T-shirts and the shorts. “Change while I’m telling you this.” Melissa slips into a red T-shirt and the black shorts, shakes her head at the red—it reminds her of her ski jacket, which reminds her of Gabe (specifically of kissing him)—and then opts for a pale yellow instead. Suddenly Harley looks perplexed. “Didn’t you get my postcards?”
Melissa immediately shakes her head. “No. Not one.
“What about the fax I sent? That cost ten dollars to do.”
Melissa continues shaking her head. “Nothing. We thought you—” Melissa swallows.
“What? That I’d forgotten you and Dove?”
“No. Not that. I thought you were kind of angry.” She looks at her reflection in the mirror and decides she doesn’t look good in yellow. Plus it shows my bra. She puts it in the reject pile and grabs a pale pink shirt to try on.
“Angry about what?” Harley refolds the rejected shirts precisely and carefully, obviously having learned the Pulse way of how to do things. “Oh … wait—you think I’m holding a grudge about those boys? Gabe and James?”
Melissa nods. Hearing Gabe’s name aloud still makes her stomach clench. I can’t help it, she thinks. I might not ever see him again, but I will always have a part of me that longs for him. “And you don’t?”
Harley laughs her throaty laugh and then pulls her hair back into its tight bun and slicks on a coat of dark lipstick she pulls from her pocket. “I have to get back out there, but listen. First off, I could care less about the ski bums. You know by now I’m not interested in a guy unless he’s interested in me, right?”
Melissa nods, but disagrees about that sentiment for herself. I like pining for people, I guess. Or at least I’m good at it. She thinks of orange-shorts guy and rolls her eyes in the mirror. “Good. Glad to know we’re okay.” She leans over and hugs Harley. “It’s good to see you. Dove’s working on some yacht already.”
“And you?” Harley asks, taking the clothing with her.
“I’m … not. Not doing much, really.” She looks at Harley, pleading. “Any thoughts?”
“Well, after hosting and before this job, I worked in a new restaurant.” Harley grins, her mouth twisted to one side. “Guess it doesn’t take long for me to know what’s right or wrong, fit-wise.”
Melissa raises her eyebrows and tucks a sprig of hair behind her ears. It refuses to stay put. “Are you talking about knowing a job is the right one or …” She shoots Harley a look and whispers, “Or something else?”
Harley picks up one of Melissa’s discarded shirts and folds it perfectly, looking down. “Retail is right for me. For now.” She holds the shirt in her hands carefully and looks at Melissa through the mirror’s reflection. “But, yeah, I guess I feel the same way about other things …”
“Guys, for instance?” Melissa laughs. “Is there a certain someone who’s the right fit?”
“You could say that.” Harley purses her lips.
“Care to divulge any further information?” Melissa wonders what guy has the presence to snag Harley’s attention—if he’s a rich prepster on vacation, a student taking time off, and if he’s as breathtaking as the guy in the orange shorts. “So … tell me!”
But rather than open up and spill everything to Melissa, Harley shakes her head. A slight blush creeps over her tanned face. “This is different. It’s … He’s …”
Melissa nods. “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re not ready. Well, when and if …”
Harley agrees. “I should go back into the shop. But … back to your issues for one minute. The job situation sounds grim.” Harley smooths out her outfit while thinking. “You like food, right?”
Melissa perks up. “You know I love food. And I love restaurants! At this point, I’d love dog grooming, hotel cleaning, or even retail. But yes, I’m interested in this place you said you worked. Interested in anything with a paycheck. A hot dog stand on the beach would be fine.”
“Well, this place is way beyond that … but they do have beach huts in the back if you need a place to stay.
Melissa grins wholeheartedly and realizes in the mirror how much better all the clothing looks when she’s smiling. “A job and a place to stay? Two birds with one stone. Plus—you!” She hugs Harley again.
“One thing, though,” Harley cautions. “Don’t tell them I sent you. I don’t exactly have the most stunning of résumés….”
“I’ll just show up and try my best. That’s all I can do, right?” Melissa feels her stomach clench again but this time with excitement about perhaps having found a purpose for being on the island.
“Come out and I’ll ring you up.” Harley thinks for a second as she mentally tabulates the cost of the items Melissa’s picked out. “Did you d
o extremely well last week or what? I mean, I like my job but …” She lowers her voice. “Everything costs way too much.”
Melissa puts her hand over her mouth and looks worried. “Dove told me to charge it. To her parents.”
Harley grimaces but then shrugs. “Is she sure?”
“I guess she is—that’s what she says.”
Harley looks placid, her big brown eyes half closed. “You get clothes and I get commission and neither of us pays.”
Not yet, thinks Melissa as she crumples up her old clothing and adjusts her new shorts. “Think this is suitable for an impromptu job interview?”
6
“THIS IS SEA YOU Later speaking on channel nineteen. Trying to reach the Pinnacle.” Dove’s voice wavers into the ship-to-shore radio microphone as she waits for a response.
“All the boats monitor this channel, so someone from the Pin should hear soon,” Gus says, slightly amused by Dove’s obvious nerves. He watches as she fiddles with her hair, the volume control on the radio. She feels her heart pound with each passing second. What if he doesn’t answer? What if he hears me but doesn’t want to talk?
“Breaker one-nine, this is the Pinnacle Able Baker Charlie.”
The pounding in Dove’s chest gets more intense as soon as she hears his voice. She presses on the radio button until Gus grabs it from her. “No, not like that.” He speaks into the radio. “Copy that. Switch to channel twelve.” He points to the dial so Dove will switch their frequency. Gus turns to her. “Look, now you can talk, but wait for his response before you press the button. And don’t talk long. We have to make up the guest quarters, oil the wood tables, and you need to restock the galley.”
Dove grins, not caring about the binder of information Gus showed her complete with the owner’s likes (pears) and dislikes (all things with cilantro), not caring that she messed up the radio transmission, not caring about anything except hearing William’s voice.
“And Dove—” Gus says on his way out of the captain’s station.
“Yeah?”
“This is a public station. People can hear everything you’re saying.”
Gus leaves and Dove waits on channel twelve for William’s slightly gravelly voice.
“Hello?” she asks into the airspace.
“Hey! Finally we get to speak.” The gravel in his voice is replaced with a slow, easy tone. Dove hears this and wonders what else has changed.
“You sound different,” she says, looking out at the sun’s rays on the water.
“It’s been quite a time here, that’s for sure.” William breathes in deeply, then exhales. “Wait—hold on—before we say anything else. I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the airport. I even made a sign.”
Dove does a little jump for joy and then contains her enthusiasm. “You did?”
Will laughs. “Well, no. But I thought about it. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because duty called and I went.”
Dove instantly feels a pang. Why didn’t he drop everything for me like I did for him? It’s the first time she’s thought of it like this—how much she left behind to follow him and how little he seems to sacrifice for her.
“Miss you,” he says suddenly, pulling Dove from her thoughts.
“So,” Dove says, pinching herself so she doesn’t get too mushy and reveal her incredible desire to see him on public access. “Think we’ll be able to usher in the New Year together in our own way tonight?”
“Oh, man …” His voice goes down in register, causing Dove’s emotions to do the same. “What can I say? Again, I’m totally psyched to see you—really. But we encountered a bit of a problem here.”
“Are you okay?” Dove suddenly has images of him being attacked by a shark or capsizing. There’s so much to say—what he thinks it’ll be like when they meet up, how his work is going, what his plans are for after the season is over, if she fits into his plans, who he’s been hanging out with. She wonders if he’s met Harley yet. After all, Harley knew his name and could have easily bumped into him by accident or intentionally.
“We’re fine. Just run aground, that’s all. Coast guard should be coming soon but I’m guessing we won’t be on our way until tomorrow.” He sighs and Dove gets chills, almost able to feel his breath on her bare arms. “But right away—and I mean right away—I’ll show up and sweep you off your feet.”
“Roger that,” Dove says, cracking herself up with radio-speak and slightly giddy from the phone call. She thinks about adding how much she misses him, but William cuts her off beforehand.
“Sea You Later, over and out.”
Dove looks over the water in the direction of St. Kitts, wishing she were there or that she could fast-forward time until she and William are face-to-face.
With her new clothing and hair pulled back, the sun on her shoulders, and the water speeding by to her right, Melissa feels as though she’s starting fresh on Nevis.
Someday I’ll get a call from the airport and my luggage will have shown up, but until then, I’ll make do with what I have. She looks out the trolley bus window at the passing scenery—bright houses, leafy palm trees, blooming hibiscus bushes with their red and yellow bursts of color—and tries to think of what to say when she gets to the restaurant. The driver knew right away which place she meant, even though Harley never told her the name—just the adjectives new, beachfront, nice, upscale.
In her mind, Melissa pictures the kind of place she might go with a friend for a nice night out. Not too fancy, but clean and cool with a great view.
“Here we are,” the trolley driver says. “Isles Floatant.”
Melissa thanks him and gets off the trolley, momentarily disoriented. Her legs feel wobbly, but she realizes this is purely because the structure in front of her is floating. Constructed on a massive float is an all-steel frame topped with what looks like heavy white canvas—all perfectly pristine.
This is the restaurant? Melissa wonders, her mouth agape. Her spirits flag as she realizes that—at least from the outside—the place is incredibly high-end, not just upscale but the kind of place she could never afford to eat in, let alone know how to work in. And, she whispers to herself, the whole thing floats!
“Part of the design,” says a voice who overhears the whisper. “Like it?”
Melissa nods, still awestruck by the sheer magnitude of it. “I would, if … I mean, I do, it’s just that …” She turns to see who it is she’s communicating with and finds her mouth again falling open when she’s face-to-face with Matthew Chase.
The Matthew Chase, she nearly says aloud. The man I’ve seen on TV my whole life, the one whose cookbooks everyone studies to learn how and why and what. The one who’s a legend. The one who—is looking at me like I’m an idiot. Speak, she commands herself.
“So you don’t like the design? Is that what you’re telling me?” Matthew Chase doesn’t sound perturbed, just amused that a girl such as Melissa might let her real opinion leak out.
Melissa hems and haws, blushing profusely and wishing she could rewind and erase her words. “I didn’t mean I didn’t like it. It’s fantastic.”
Matthew Chase suddenly looks bored and starts to walk away. “Oh, you’re one of those.”
Melissa follows him a few paces down the beach. “One of what?”
“One of those—‘He’s Matthew Chase—I must obey and oblige his every word and whim.’ Do you know how tiresome it is to have your name in quotation marks all the time?” He pulls at his mustache and frowns.
Melissa knows she’s got to either make a bold move or risk having him walk away, disinterested in her forever. “I’m not. One of those people,” she says loudly. Matthew Chase stops walking and gives her a moment to go on. “I don’t like it. The restaurant. I mean, who wants to bob up and down while eating overpriced tilapia? Not me. I barf the minute I’m on the waves. It’s like those restaurants that spin around at the top of a skyscraper. It’s all a gimmick.”
Oh my gosh—I cannot believe I just said tha
t, she thinks. Why why why can’t I edit myself?
7
AFTER THE BIG BLUNDER of telling Matthew Chase that she thinks his floating restaurant is silly, Melissa looks at the famous chef’s expression—half horrified, half laughing. Melissa tries to explain without offending him. “I mean, it’s just … your food speaks for itself, don’t you think?”
Melissa stands in the wind on the beach as a few clouds roll in, temporarily blanketing the sun and making her feel cold. Or maybe that’s because I just spewed my thoughts to the one person on this island who could give me a great job.
“It’s called Isles Floatant,” he explains. He motions for her to come onto the wooden ramp that leads to the front door. “Floating islands.” He looks at her expectantly. “You have had them, I assume?”
Melissa bites her top lip and shakes her head. “No.”
“Oh, come on in. Everyone’s got to sample it at least once.” He walks brusquely toward the front door and the staff, clad in all white, all step aside for him, nearly bowing as he enters.
Melissa follows him into the custom-trimmed kitchen, trying her best not to fall over or pay attention to her stomach’s response to being off dry land. “What exactly is that?” she asks when Matthew shows her a large kettle. Inside, a creamy custard bubbles gently.
“This,” he says, “is our signature dessert. You scoop this up—egg whites, sugar, ginger if I’m feeling snarky, chocolate if I’m newly entranced, or plain if it’s just an ordinary day, lavender if it’s an extraordinary night.” He uses a slotted spoon to mound a pile of the fluffy mixture and then places it gently on top of the bubbling liquid. “The heat from the custard cooks the eggs, and then you do this.” He manages to pour the custard into a white dish shaped like an apostrophe. “Here—you try it.”
Off the Trails Page 4