“Right. I’m going to change, then we’re going to go out and find bad things to eat. Things we will regret later. Preferably served by a cute waiter we can flirt with.”
They found the food—it was hard not to find food in the resort—and even the cute waiter, and an hour later saw Amanda more relaxed, though still not entirely happy.
“I don’t get it,” Julie said, for at least the third time. After the last mai tai, she was having trouble keeping track of what they’d already discussed. She ticked her points off on her fingers this time, to be sure. “One—he groveled. Two—still in love with you. Three—awesome reunion sex.”
Amanda nodded. “Unbelievably awesome.”
“Three—he—”
“Four.”
“Four—he flew all the way to Hawaii to do this groveling.”
“He did do that. I’m not so sure it’s a point in his favor, though.” She sipped at her drink, fortifying herself. “Don’t you think it’s a little too much? I mean, he comes here and it makes a big impression, sure. But it’s a one-shot deal. I have no idea if he’s actually willing to change his plans. Or the way he makes plans, which is the more important thing.”
Julie thought Amanda was being a smidge unreasonable, but she didn’t blame her. Sex hormones were obviously in play. “He cared enough to take a risk, at least. Financially, obviously, but it was an emotional risk, too.”
“Yeah, as a big one-time gesture. But what happens the next time we have a big decision to make? Or even a small decision, the day-to-day stuff? That’s the part that matters. I don’t want to marry somebody if I feel like it’s a power struggle every time we try to figure out what restaurant to eat at. That’s not a relationship, it’s a series of concessions. One person always taking away from the other person, instead of building something together.”
“You guys always eat at Tito’s...”
“Yes, but it’s the principle of the thing. And I don’t think he’d eat there now, he’s turned anti-carb.”
“Is it possible that this—the way you’re worrying about it—is it possible that it isn’t really about Jeremy?” Julie knew Amanda’s parents were divorced, and that there had been animosity. But the details had never been offered, nor had she asked. Amanda never talked about it. Ever. “I don’t mean I disagree with you, just—”
“You think I’m projecting because of daddy issues.”
“Okay, yeah. That.”
Stirring her drink with the swizzle stick, Amanda sighed and thought a few seconds before she answered. “I know Jeremy isn’t like my dad. Our situation is completely different than my parents’. But the parallels... I admit, it’s a trigger for me. There are all these—these extra emotions going on, clouding things up. I have no idea how I actually feel about him by himself, without all the added junk.”
Julie nodded wisely. “Also sex hormones.”
That earned a chuckle. “Yes, they do bring the stupid, don’t they? Crap. What am I gonna do, Jules? Seeing him again, it’s like I grew back an arm I didn’t realize I was missing. It feels so natural I can’t believe I went without it for a year. But then I think maybe it’s because I’m lonely and it’s so nice to be part of a couple again. I don’t want to make a mistake.”
“God, I know. That’s so similar to where I am with Alan right now.”
“Alan? What do you—No way! Wait, seriously?” Amanda looked horrified, and all that went through Julie’s head was Fuuuuuuck. “Why didn’t you tell me you were—? Oh my God, I was hanging all over him yesterday, I had no idea.”
No more mai tais. No. More. “We weren’t, then. This is recent.”
“That was last night. How much more recent can you get?”
“Um, later last night. We danced, and I started talking to some guy, but he turned out to be a total sleazebag, and then he kissed me. Alan, not the sleazebag. Then he told me about the time he got crabs in college from wearing his roommate’s jeans. Which is a sucky way to get crabs.”
Amanda stared at her, eyebrows lifted in disbelief, her head shaking slowly. “And you believed that?”
“Well, yeah. Actually, yeah, I did. I do. It was a good story. And after that...you know.”
“He told you about his experience with venereal disease, so you slept with him? Seems logical.”
Julie recalled that Amanda was not Alan’s biggest fan. “It made more sense in context. Also I maybe, just possibly, a teensy bit—”
“Spit it out.”
“I may have been in love with him for about three years.”
“Well, duh.” Amanda flagged the nearby waiter, while Julie took over the disbelieving stare. The tab went on the room bill, so it didn’t take long to settle, and they took their conversation out to the beach. The sunset was finishing, bars of orchid, coral and lavender staining the sky to the west, vivid and beautiful as the local blossoms.
For a few minutes they walked in silence, shoes dangling from their hands, but finally Julie couldn’t take it anymore. “You’re really gonna drop that ‘duh’ into the conversation with no follow-up?”
“I thought the ‘duh’ said it all. I really don’t see what the problem is, Jules. I was startled it happened so suddenly, but in the larger sense I’m not surprised. If anything, the real question is why this didn’t happen sooner. I never could figure out why you tried to fix me up with him. You’re perfect for each other, and you yourself admit you’ve been in love for years. Which I could’ve told you.”
“I have been, but I never said Alan has,” Julie countered. She was growing more resigned to the truth of it, but the truth still had painful implications.
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Of course he has. If you don’t know that, you’re about the only one who doesn’t.”
Could that be possible? She hadn’t seen it, but she’d been so close to the situation. She’d missed a lot of things. If she viewed Alan’s behavior of the past few years and the past few days through this new lens, maybe she’d come to a different conclusion than she had. Trying to figure it out right now made her brain hurt.
Julie stooped to pluck a piece of worn shell from the damp sand near the tide line, worrying it in her fingers as she caught up to Amanda. She was sick of feelings.
“What is wrong with us? Why can’t we have a conversation that doesn’t fail the damn Bechdel test? This is a dream vacation. We’re in a tropical wonderland full of stuff we’ve never seen before. It’s amazing. We should be amazed, dammit! Let’s talk about motherfucking turtles or something.”
“Motherfucking turtles?” Amanda paused to grab a shell of her own.
“Oh, it’s something Alan said earlier.” Julie stepped to the water’s edge, letting the tide lap over her toes. She wiggled her feet, thinking about trips to the beach as a kid. When she was little she’d thought this was what quicksand was, and still recalled the chill of panic the first time she dug her feet too deep and the suction kept them buried when she tried to step away. “You’re probably going to be hearing it again.”
“Okay, then that still fails the Bechdel test. This stuff is what’s on our minds right now, Jules. And in my case there’s a time element here. You and Alan see each other every day. You can work it out over lunch if you want to. But the day after tomorrow, we go back to California and Jeremy goes back to Washington, and I feel like I need to know what happens after that.”
“You need a plan. An Amandaplanda.”
“I do. Big surprise. There is a reason we gave it a name.”
It didn’t just have a name, it had a mascot. A stuffed panda holding a tiny clipboard with a checklist on it. Julie had made the clipboard herself and glued it to the panda’s paws, then given it to Amanda when they graduated from eighth grade. Because Amanda always had a plan.
Julie did, too. It was one of the things they had in common.
She let her feet settle deeper, swaying slightly with the gentle waves against her ankles. The sky was finally dark, the second day of their trip officially over.
Julie wasn’t quite ready for that to happen yet. And she definitely wasn’t ready to find Alan, the source of all those pesky feelings she wanted to avoid.
“Here’s a plan. Let’s go to the bar.”
“Okay. How about the one near the other end of the beach, where the locals supposedly go? The kayak guide recommended it.”
“Any bar except that one.”
Chapter Twelve
After about an hour at the beachy bar, Alan had already decided he didn’t like it. Too many people leaning over his shoulder at the bar, too much aggressive good cheer. More time and beer didn’t improve things, and the dartboard seemed cursed.
It wasn’t cursed for Jeremy, who beat him three times running. Alan had declined to go for best five of seven. It was getting too crowded and loud, the average age of the patrons declining sharply around nine o’clock. He stayed out of solidarity, because Jeremy was apparently having an even worse night than he was.
“It all seemed to make sense at the time,” his new best friend grumbled into his beer. “I don’t hate California, but I figured a new start, close to my big clients, great city. And I like rooting for underdog teams. But I didn’t mean to write it in stone.”
“Right.” Beer. He was almost out, so he caught the barkeep’s eye. The next one needed to be his last, even if he had to leave Jeremy weeping into his ale.
“I never believed all that crap, you know? Before I met Amanda. Then she was there, and it was like psshhfffttthh!” He gestured with his hands, representing an explosion somewhere over his drink. “And I’ve been screwed ever since. Because I can’t think about anything else, but I don’t think she’s comin’ back, man.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t. Yeah,” he responded to the bartender’s tap next to his empty beer glass. “One more, then close me out, please. I’ll pick up his, too.”
Jeremy seemed suspiciously lucid for that conversation, but when the bartender left their vicinity he slumped back down into his half-pickled self-pity mode. Alan felt slightly less tolerant, knowing it was not entirely genuine. But what the hell, everybody needed to vent sometimes. The whole thing did make Alan glad he’d never slept with Amanda. No way he could’ve fronted his way through the supportive bro act if he had been there and done that. As it was, he knew only enough to be politely sympathetic.
“Thanks. I’ll get yours next time. We may be here tomorrow night, the way things are going.”
“God, I hope not. No offense.”
“No, this sucks. It’s so fucking happy in here I wanna hurl.”
The bartender brought their fresh beverages. Jeremy slumped even lower, holding his glass in both hands and pressing his cheek against the cool, sweating surface. “Fuck it. At least I tried, right?”
Alan nodded. He admired the guy for putting himself out there, even if it hadn’t necessarily gone according to plan. But he’d reached his limit on talking about it, and he got the feeling Jeremy had, too. “So...you going to CES this year?”
Jeremy grasped the conversational life preserver with visible gratitude. The talk ranged away from the unhealthy topic of relationships, and Alan felt mildly less anxious when he and Jeremy eventually parted ways and returned to their respective rooms. Once he was alone again, however, the angst came roaring back. What had he done wrong? Had he actually done anything wrong, and if so was it something he could fix? What would happen when they went back to work?
When he showered again, it reminded him of his last shower, so he jerked off. Then he felt sort of guilty about the way he didn’t feel all that guilty for rubbing one out to a memory that ought to be cherished and honored. He knew himself well enough to know the shower head incident was going in the permanent mental spank book, though, regardless of how things ended up between him and Julie. The start of it in particular, when she’d seemed acutely attuned to him, had been the hottest few minutes of his entire life. Even when she’d clearly gone on autopilot, she’d been amazing from a physical standpoint. It just hadn’t felt quite right emotionally.
Alan knew the danger of intense physical attraction, that it tended to make the mind play tricks. He knew that wasn’t happening to him, that he genuinely wanted to be with Julie. But he could see what it might seem like from her perspective, if he sprang his feelings on her before the first-time euphoria had even faded. It would seem like he was saying, Welp, we’ve bonked now, it was love, let’s go have babies and a minivan and a house in the suburbs, m’kay? Everything she apparently thought he wanted, and not the message he wanted to send right now, or possibly ever. He hated minivans, and wasn’t that keen on the suburbs. The jury was still out on babies. The only part he was sure about was the love, which didn’t seem like enough on its own. She was worth more.
He could only draw out the shower for so long. Eventually, pruny and depleted, he cranked the water off and grabbed a towel. He loved the heavy, creamy terrycloth of the hotel’s towels, and drying himself was a brief reminder of the best parts of the vacation. He tried to focus on that kind of experience, the unexpected luxuries of the past few days, the sheer magnitude of his luck in winning this thing. When he went back, people were going to ask him how the trip was, and he’d need to tell them stuff. Good stuff.
He couldn’t tell them the truth, that the first day had been one of the happiest in his life for reasons that had nothing to do with Hawaii, and that since then he’d been flirting with misery despite being in a tropical paradise with luxury accommodations.
Jeremy’s comment kept coming back to him, the way love had exploded into his life, and he’d been screwed ever since. Alan couldn’t pinpoint a explosion with Julie, a magical moment of fireworks in his psyche telling him that she was Ms. Right. But he was clearly living in the post-explosion rubble, so there must have been one. He couldn’t imagine not being screwed if Julie didn’t want him. He couldn’t imagine simply dusting himself off and finding some other girl. At some point in the past few years, there had ceased to be any other girl. His attempts to find one had failed miserably. Looking back, he could see they’d failed because he hadn’t wanted to succeed. He’d wanted Julie. And now it seemed his acknowledging that was only going to lead to losing her.
At ten o’clock, Alan tired of pacing the room and pulled up a movie on his iPad. After the first five minutes, he abandoned the effort to pay attention and turned the TV on instead, flicking channels aimlessly, wondering whether anyone would find out at work if he ordered porn on pay-per-view. None of the porn titles looked worth it. He didn’t really feel like watching the stuff, anyway, but it seemed as if he should be doing something with his time.
At eleven, he put down the book he’d been staring at without seeing the words, and checked to make sure his phone was still on and charged. It was at thirty percent. He put it on the charger, anyway. He composed a text to Julie, revised it half a dozen or so times, then deleted it without sending.
Another half hour ticked by as Alan checked for app updates on the phone, then his iPad, and then played as many rounds of solitaire as he could before he found himself on his feet and pacing again.
Julie had been gone for hours. How much could Amanda possibly have to say?
He didn’t want to pester her, or smother her. They’d spent most of the trip together—he wasn’t going to interrupt her with a call or text when she was finally out doing something with Amanda like she’d originally planned. Even pulling her back for a tiding-over kiss had set her on edge earlier, so Alan knew he needed to make a special effort not to be clingy. She seemed to want to play things cool, so he was going to be cool.
Looking in her window to see if she’d made it back to the room safely was definitely out of the question. Alan was no stalker.
He was also not very cool. And getting more uncool by the minute.
When midnight passed with no word from Julie, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a stroll down to the other end of the building. To stretch his legs, or smell the ocean air in the dark, or look
for some sort of amazing night-blooming flower somebody had told him about. If he happened to pass by the girls’ room, and there happened to be anything visible when he glanced in the direction of the window, would that really be so bad?
Perhaps fortunately for him, he never made it anywhere near the girls’ room. As he stepped outside his room and closed the door, he heard a quiet but distinct noise from the other side of the foliage that separated their row of rooms from the next. Somebody was crying over there. Sobbing.
What if it’s Julie? What if it’s some stranger, but they’re hurt and need help?
Knowing how it would appear if anyone caught him, Alan ducked below the level of the bushes and crept across the lawn. Once he had a better angle to see around the short privacy wall, he peered through the bushes. The moonlight was ample, and he easily discerned the person curled in a chair on the lanai of the first room in the adjacent row of cottages. Jeremy’s room.
The object of his surveillance had short fair hair, and was small enough to appear almost child-sized on the generously built furniture. She looked especially small sitting with knees pulled up, arms locked around them and head down.
Not Julie. Amanda.
Crap. He couldn’t very well stand a few yards away from her and not go make sure nothing was seriously wrong. Whether or not she’d welcome his presence, it seemed like a moral duty to at least check.
Alan straightened up and strolled through the break in the foliage, softly whistling a song he’d heard at the bar earlier, head turned toward the gorgeous ocean view. He tried to make it look natural as he glanced toward Jeremy’s room, but Amanda had already lifted her head to watch him approach. Her eye-rolling reaction to his fake double-take made it clear he hadn’t fooled her.
“Alan, seriously. What the hell?” she whispered before sniffling again.
The truth was the best defense. “I was gonna go see if I could tell whether Jules was back in your room yet. Then I heard you, so I came over here. Are you okay? Wait, did Jeremy... Do I need to beat him up or something?”
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