Off the Trails

by Emily Franklin

  “Yeah. Sounds like a fun night.”

  Melissa suddenly thinks the fact that William isn’t wearing red is a big warning flag of the same color. “Um, William?”

  “Yeah?” He bounces to the music. “You know what’s so great about Dove?” he adds. “She’s a free spirit.”

  Melissa considers this. “Really? I don’t see her like that…. Granted, I haven’t known her as long as you have. But she seems more … more like she wishes she were a free spirit.” Then she worries that this came out wrong. “I mean, I have a friend who is definitely a free spirit,” Melissa says, thinking of Harley. “And she can fly off anywhere or do anything and not worry about it. And I think even though Dove likes adventure, she does worry.”

  William nods, his voice a bit unsteady. “Maybe so. Maybe I’m confusing her with …” He stops. “It’s just—she and I had a lot of time apart, you know? Phone calls and e-mails.”

  Melissa understands. “So being together in person is better than e-mail?” She feels silly but isn’t up to having such a big conversation with William when all she wants to do is find Orange Shorts and dance with him. “Of course it is.”

  “How many times have I written LilydeDove at blah blah blah? Too many times.”

  “LilydeDove?”

  “Yeah, the other name she wanted was taken. Glad I got my address so long ago.”

  “Why, what is it? SurferBoy at something something? Or, no, Boating Babe?” Melissa jokes.

  William looks around at the stoplight colors as Harley emerges from the back room rolling a metal cart on top of which sits a three-tiered cake—one layer yellow, one green, one red. The candles are not lighted yet. “Nah, my e-mail’s much simpler and less revealing.”

  “What is it?” Melissa asks. A few feet away, Orange Shorts appears, this time with the red-dressed girl he was dancing with off to his side rather than in his arms. Melissa’s gut clenches.

  “Mine’s thebug@islandmail.com.”

  “Oh,” Melissa says, her eyes and heart pulled away from the talk with William. Then something creeps into her mind, recalling the mix-up she’d had with names back at Les Trois. “How’d you get that address?” Melissa asks but as the words come out, she has a sinking feeling.

  “It’s my nickname from childhood. No one knows to call me it now, but as a kid people called me Bug.” William’s words confirm Melissa’s worst suspicions.

  She opens her mouth to protest. “You’re …”

  “I’m Bug,” William says, shaking her hand. “But forget you heard it. It’s a secret name.”

  You bet it is, Melissa thinks, her mind racing, her insides fuming as she tries to figure out the best way to proceed. Harley’s with Bug. Dove’s with William. William is Bug. I’m going to just tell him off right now. She grabs him before he walks away, but then pauses, wanting certain clarification before she accuses him.

  “Wait … just so I have it on record—”

  “Record?” William looks at her like she’s nuts.

  “Whatever. The point is—does anyone call you Bug now?” Please say no, please say no.

  “No,” he confirms. “No one would ever call me that now.” William looks down at his hands, then shoves them in his pockets.

  Melissa sighs deeply. Oh thank God. He’s not a lame cheating ass. He’s just William. “Looks like it’s nearly cake time for me,” she says. See? All a big misunderstanding. That’s why you always need to probe further and ask. She smiles.

  “No one would call me Bug,” William reiterates, grinning, “… unless I met someone incredibly special. Then she’d be the one person to call me Bug.”

  The smile on Melissa’s face fades. She feels her stomach turn, knowing that despite her rambunctious nature, there’s no way Harley is in on the duplicity. If only Dove hadn’t been so damn secretive with her precious photos of William back at Les Trois, maybe none of this would have happened. But Dove had stashed her pictures away. And Harley keeps lots of details to herself.

  She stands with her hands at her sides, wishing she didn’t know all this, wishing she didn’t have to meet up quite so soon with both Harley and Dove, who clearly were—despite the hundreds of white lights around them—in the dark about this.

  “So, how about that dance?” Orange Shorts lets his palm linger on Melissa’s bare shoulder.

  Melissa wishes she didn’t feel every pore of his skin on hers, each molecule drawing her further into the air around him. “Um, sure.” The haze of information from William engulfs her and the distraction makes her face bland.

  “If you don’t want to …”

  Melissa jolts back to reality. “No—it’s not that. I do want to dance … I just … why are guys such lying creeps sometimes?” Melissa allows herself to be led to the dance floor.

  “I can’t speak for all of my gender, but I’ll venture to say—because we don’t know any better?”

  Melissa puts her hands around his neck, for a second leaning into the dance and then remembering the red dress, his red shirt. She speaks up, her voice brash and laced with sarcasm. “Take you, for example. You come off all interesting with your hot springs scenarios and your banter and your … your …” She falters, looking into his eyes. “But then you’re here and wearing red and with the girl in the dress …” Melissa lets her hands drop, standing amid the dancing couples and feeling foolish.

  He stares at her for a minute and then taps her shoulder as if cutting in on her misery. “Pardon me. Melissa?”

  “Yeah?”

  He waves the girl in the red dress over. She appears in front of them, looking tall, with honey-streaked hair and bronzed skin, and smiles. “This is my sister.”

  Melissa suddenly feels herself turn the color of a sign—a red sign. The blush takes over her face. “So why the red shirt?”

  “Nice to meet you, Melissa. Happy birthday. I’m Bethany.”

  “Hi, Bethany.” Melissa’s voice is octaves lower than normal. The sister? Okay, feeling a little lame now …

  Bethany takes a look at Melissa and back at her brother. “I’m guessing this is the girl?” He nods.

  I’m the girl? What girl? The girl he is madly in love with? The girl who reeks of onions? The girl he spent so much time with and yet whose name he never divulged?

  “Yeah,” he says. “This is the girl that I was telling you about. The one who ran away from me on the beach today …”

  Bethany nods and leaves the two of them to talk. “So you saw me today?” Melissa asks.

  “Of course I did. You saw me, too.”

  Melissa’s chest feels as though it could cave in on itself, her legs wobbling. “So why the red then? I saw and I thought—”

  “Because I met you. So what’s the point in wearing green if the one I want to be with is right here?”

  “That’s probably one of the most romantic things anyone’s ever said to me.” Melissa can’t tear her eyes away from his mouth.

  “Not the most romantic?” He grins.

  She thinks back to Gabe on the mountain. What had he said? Something romantic. Very romantic. She pushes him out of her mind, concentrating on the steel drum version of “The Way You Look Tonight.”

  He reaches out for her and she’s about to go to him when an abrupt grab pulls her away.

  “What the—” Melissa looks up to find Max, breathing hard as if he has something important to say. She looks at Orange Shorts. “Sorry. This is my friend, Max. He’s—Can you just hold the dance idea for one sec?” She clutches his arm and feels flustered. “I’ll be right back.”

  As she stands talking to Max on the side of the room, Melissa looks back fervently to where her dance was cut short. “This isn’t really the best time, Max.”

  “Well, sorry,” Max says. “But I needed to talk.”

  “More?” Melissa asks, her memory fresh from the marathon talkage that Max had spewed the night she first slept at the Sugar Hut.

  “I wanted to say … it’s your birthday. And you—you’
re a nice person.”

  Melissa stares at him blankly. “Thanks.”

  “And I just wanted to tell you that, in case I don’t see you.”

  “What?” Melissa stops, looks at the dance floor and the impending cake table, and looks at Max.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m done with it.” He gestures with his arms around the room. “I mean,” he says, slugging his drink, “that I’m leaving. Cutting ties. Heading back to Oxford early to find solace in my books. Got the chance to talk with Dove about books tonight, as a matter of fact …”

  “I know, and she said—”

  Max interrupts. “Didn’t Shakespeare say … oh, never mind. The point is, I’m through trying to reach her.” He looks at the couples dancing, their arms moving to the music’s beat. Melissa follows his gaze and sees Bug—otherwise known as William—talking to Harley by the cake.

  Seeing him with her makes Melissa’s mouth twist into a frown. But it’s not Harley’s fault. It’s not Dove’s. It’s his—and only his. Still, why do I have to be the one to know all this? Maybe sometimes people don’t divulge things not because they’re lying, like William Bug, but because they’re scared. I should have spoken up at the hot springs and I didn’t. “Don’t.”

  Max furrows his brow. “Huh?”

  “Don’t go. Or, if you have to go, go.” Melissa flings her hand toward the ground. “But at least tell her first.”

  “Tell her what, exactly?”

  “Anything. Everything. Just spill it.”

  “I’ve done that before, if you recall … and it didn’t—”

  Melissa eyes the crowd, looking for Orange Shorts. When she doesn’t see him, she feels slightly frantic. “Just do it once more, okay? Remember what I said about grand gestures? Give the girl a little drama.” As opposed to a necklace, Melissa thinks, making a face when she sees Harley playing with the silver necklace clasped around her neck and realizes that it’s the same one Dove had on this evening.

  “Now?” Max looks prepared to bolt.

  Melissa thinks. “No. Not now. At Emmy Taylor’s party this weekend.”

  “Ah, the infamous Botanical Gardens extravaganza.” Max looks doubtful. “And why, pray tell, should that be the chosen locale for my last effort in soul-baring?”

  “Because,” Melissa says, patting Max on the back, “if you gotta get the girl—or try to—you might as well have a gorgeous backdrop.”

  Max nods. “That, my friend, is true.”

  Melissa knows she’s not a free spirit and as a result, she does worry that the moment she was in the middle of having with her true crush is over. And I don’t even know his name to yell it, even if I wanted to make a grand gesture myself right now.

  “Melissa?”

  She swivels to face him. “Yes, Orange Shorts? You see, if I’m honest, which I’m going to be now that I know why you’re wearing red … I don’t know your name.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s weird.” Melissa looks into his green eyes. “I don’t know your name but I feel like I know you.

  “Exactly my point,” he says and resumes the dance. “Looks like you’re about to blow out the candles.”

  Melissa feels a giant smile brighten her face. Nothing could make this moment better. “So, will you tell me it or not?”

  “My name?” He leans in to brush the hair back from her face, sending rows of shivers down her arms. “When the time is right, of course.”

  Melissa feels elated, not by the fact that she still doesn’t know what to call him, but because despite the way things started, the night is turning out okay. “Want to be my date to the Botanical Gardens?”

  He nods. “I’ll wear red, blue, or whatever color you want me to.”

  He pulls her to the dance floor for a twirl. They laugh and trade remarks, easing right back into their banter from the hot springs.

  “So, admit it, you’ve missed me every second you’re not with me,” he says.

  Not missing a beat, Melissa answers, “I hardly noticed when you were around.”

  “Oh, come on. You’ve loved me from the minute you saw me at the hot springs …”

  “Oh, I love you now?” Melissa jokes. “Fine. You’re onto me—you’re right. Except it wasn’t at the springs.”

  “Oh no?”

  Melissa shakes her head, her true emotions rising to the surface so that she can’t keep up the act anymore. “I should get cake—Harley wants me to cut the cake.”

  “Wait—wait a second … when did you see me first?”

  Melissa shrugs. What is the point of keeping everything bottled up? “FINE—I saw you at the dock. You don’t remember but …”

  “Of course I do,” Orange Shorts says, his grip on her waist tightening. “You lost a flip-flop and I gallantly offered to get it … but you beat me to it. Only that wasn’t the first time.”

  Melissa thinks back. “No, I’m sure it was.”

  Orange Shorts turns her chin so her eyes are locked on his. “I was there, at the airport …” Melissa looks dubious. “You lost your luggage. You had on … those same flips-flops …”

  “I’ve been wearing them nonstop.”

  “But you did lose your luggage, right? You stood there staring at a poster of Matty Chase….” He looks at her for a reaction.

  “I adore Matty Chase. And I work for him now. How’s that for serendipity?” Melissa plays with a ringlet of her hair.

  “That is some big serendipity.” He nods, looking temporarily derailed, his face flushed. “I was at the airport to pick up Bethany—she’d missed her flight the day before. I watched you waiting as all the bags went around …”

  “And?” Melissa feels her blood racing around her body, fights the urge to grab him.

  “And I kept thinking, how come she’s waiting for bags—these inanimate objects—and I’m waiting for …” He takes her hands, kisses them, pauses and looks at her, no doubt smelling the onion.

  “For?”

  “For her. For you.” He pulls her in as the music dwindles and kisses her. A rousing “Happy Birthday” starts up, and the song, the sound of waves crashing outside the rotunda, the stop, slow, and go colors swirling around her—it’s all enough. Enough to make Melissa forget that she’s the sole bearer of infidelity news for Dove and for Harley. It’s enough to make her forget her onion-infused hands. Enough to make her let go of any question she has about where she’s going in the future and instead be happy that one of her wishes, for right now, has come true.

  18

  HAVING SLAVED ALL NIGHT after returning from the birthday bash, Dove is exhausted. Her small hands ache, and her eyes are weary, and yet her pulse still races. Everything has to be perfect—just right so there’s no way I can get sacked and sent packing. In the morning light, she studies the array of food she’s worked on: miniature fruit tarts, each one glazed with melted sugar and topped with local berries, mint framboise gelée in champagne flutes, looking elegant and fresh, a large bowl of vanilla baked bread pudding with a chocolate sauce for the side, and freshly braided bread served with cheeses she managed to buy from a local goat farmer at cost. I’ll impress everyone not only with the cooking but with my frugality. She gives a self-satisfied smile as she displays all the food on the long buffet table inside.

  “I don’t want to miss any of the sunny morning,” the owner, Davina Wallop, says in passing as she snatches a mug of coffee from the table and heads outside. Without further elaborating, she manages to convey that breakfast should be served outside. In her navy blue swimsuit and stark white cover-up paired with simple flats that look as though they’ve come from a street cart but, Dove knows, have been custom-made, Davina looks every inch the boatside diva.

  Dove stands near all of the fresh foods, taking a breath before she tackles the job of moving everything yet again to the outside eating area. Of course, there are no fresh flowers out there like there are inside, and no tablecloths, but fine. I’ll do my best.

  As D
avina reads her copy of the Financial Times and waves to a few friends trotting down the dock, she glances at Dove from the corner of her eye. “Why didn’t you set up here in the first place?”

  Dove uses her formal voice as she steadies the platter of fruit on the still dew-damp white table. “The forecast called for rain. I didn’t want to have the breakfast ruined by—”

  “Rain can hardly ruin anything—it’s not as though I melt …” Davina says, but before she can continue she goes to greet her friends.

  With an image of the Wicked Witch of the West melting after water is poured on her, Dove tries to get past the initial disruption and focus on the tasks at hand. It’s one meal. It’s one job—just prove to her I’m worth having in the galley, and that’s all. Then I’ll be free to get back to my life—cooking, reading, and trying to figure out just what to do about William. Before she can get distracted by thoughts of him, by thoughts of what their date at the Botanical Gardens will be like, Dove hears her name in passing.

  As she rearranges the bread pudding, making sure the chafing dish it’s in stays warm, Dove overhears Davina apologize for the food not already being out, and the guests nod while looking at Dove as though she’s incompetent. Dove lets the criticism slide off her, knowing she will woo them with her wares.

  Gus appears, helping Dove by wiping off the extra tables and chairs and setting them up in a social circle, then offering each guest coffee or tea. But rather than accept further help, Dove shakes her head—she doesn’t want Davina and her friends to get the wrong impression.

  “I don’t need your help. But thanks, Gus,” Dove says quietly to him when he drags a chair across the deck.

  Gus looks at her for a second and then shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

  Dove smiles at the guests and brings the last of the food from the inside dining room to the deck, where the guests have seated themselves around the table.

  Dove and Davina lock eyes. Davina raises her eyebrows. “Well?”

  Dove stands with her hands clasped behind her back, her clean apron tied in a bow, her hair held back from her face with a wide light blue band. “I’m pleased to announce that breakfast is served.” She gestures to the sideboard, where all of the trays and dishes are artfully arranged.