by Alexa Davis
“Ellie?” I interrupt again.
“Yeah?” she asks.
“There’s nothing to be nervous about, all right?” I ask. “We’re just two people trying to get to know each other. That’s all.”
“Yeah?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I answer.
She looks out the window, murmuring, “I don’t know. I’d say a trip on a private jet to someplace I can’t pronounce just for dinner seems pretty dangerous to me.”
“We’ve got pizza in the back,” I tell her.
* * *
By the time we arrive in Kola Kitanabu, both of us are ready to be done traveling. Maybe I did go a little overboard, but you don’t usually get two shots at a first date. What can I say? I shot the moon.
Ellie and I got to talk a bit on the flight, but after I let slip that there’s a small library in the back, I didn’t see her very much until we landed. As we’re finally coming through the trees into the village itself, I can’t help but wonder if it was a good idea to tell her she could keep anything she wanted.
Along with a stack half the height of my upper body and nearly as wide, Ellie’s still reading as we drive down the old dirt roads toward the boardwalk.
I should have mentioned we could keep the books on the plane, but she looked so excited when she enlisted me to help her carry her stack of preliminary choices.
It could be a nod toward the two of us finding something over which to bond, but I can’t help getting the feeling she’s trying to keep me at a distance. That particular suspicion is only strengthened by the fact the book she’s reading as we come to a stop is The Bell Jar.
Don’t get me wrong; I like Sylvia Plath as much as anyone, but her work doesn’t inspire much in the way of creating a romantic mood.
Brent opens Ellie’s door, and I can hear a couple of books falling out of the car and onto the ground. This time, Ellie doesn’t recoil in fear and confusion but instead decides just to keep reading. As I come to think about it, though, I haven’t noticed her turn the page in quite a while.
“I’m going to make sure everything’s prepared,” I tell her. “Just let Brent know when you’re ready.”
“Sounds good,” Ellie says into the book.
I get out of the car and start walking toward the beach where I had a friend of mine, a local restaurant owner, set up a couple of chairs.
On the one hand, I’m glad she doesn’t recognize me because I don’t want the impression of who I was back then to be the only thing in her head about me. On the other hand, I haven’t felt this kind of engrossing uncertainty since my roommate and I dropped out of college to start Stingray.
That turned out well enough, I guess.
“Hey!” Ellie’s voice comes from behind me. I stop and wait for her. When she catches up, she doesn’t say much, only, “It’s so beautiful here.”
We start walking, and I answer, “It is my favorite spot. You know, that’s rainforest surrounding the village.”
“I know,” she says. “While I was in the plane’s library, I might have taken the liberty of looking it up.”
“Wait until you meet the locals,” he says. “The first guy you’re going to meet is named Amin—”
“Would you mind if we just walk around for a little while before we start—you know,” she says. “I’d just like to walk around for a little bit if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” I tell her.
We get to the boardwalk, and when she catches her first sight of the beach, I let her get a few steps ahead so I can send a quick text to Amin to let him know dinner’s going to be delayed a little while. The phone’s back in my pocket before Ellie turns around, saying, “This is incredible. The beach, the ocean—that is the ocean, right?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding.
“And then I turn back around to tell you how beautiful that is and I see the rainforest on this side,” she says. “It is something. Thanks for—you know, for bringing me.”
“You’re welcome,” I tell her. “Did you want to walk around a little more or are you starting to get hungry?”
“I don’t think I’m quite ready to, you know,” she says.
“That’s the second time with the ‘you know’ thing,” I say. “Just like last time, all I’m asking for is dinner.”
“No,” she says, “I mean, yeah, I know. I just meant I’m not quite ready to …” she’s trapped mid-incomprehensible gesture, and she lets her hands drop. “You know,” she says.
“Okay,” I answer and smile. I still have no idea what she’s going on about.
So we walk for a while. The village isn’t large. It’s not the kind of place you’d put a hotel unless you wanted to ruin everything.
The sad thing about places like this is that they’re so unique, so special you want to tell everyone about it. When that happens, though, tourists descend, and the place loses its authenticity and ends up just another tourist spot, like any other.
I’ve been here enough the locals recognize me, but they don’t know Ellie, so they’re a bit wary. A lot of people have had the idea to turn this place into a tourist spot, and although I’ve been coming here for a few years now, it doesn’t seem like too many of the townspeople are past the fact I’m precisely the kind of guy who lays waste to places like this.
Well, I’m not that type, myself, but I’ve got the kind of bank account that’ll raise this sort of distrust.
The sun’s starting to go down and Ellie’s walking a little closer to me now. She says, “Thank you for bringing me here. It really is something.”
“I’m glad you think so,” I respond. “Are you getting hungry, or are you still full from the last meal on the plane?”
“I’m getting tired, though,” she says. “Could we maybe have our big dinner after I’ve had a chance to get a nap? The jetlag is killing me.”
“Sure,” I tell her. “That won’t be a problem.”
It looks like I’ve got a long night of apologizing to Amin ahead of me. I’m going to have to make it good, too. Otherwise, I might have to make other arrangements for when Ellie’s up and ready for something to eat.
We’re walking back in the general direction of the car and Ellie stops.
“Oh no,” she says.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It’s my boss,” she says. “When you picked me up, I didn’t think we were going to be leaving the country—”
“I did tell you to bring your passport,” I interrupt.
She glares at me and my mouth conveniently shuts on its own.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “What were you telling me?”
“Work,” she says. “I have work in the morning.”
“Which morning?” I ask.
“Thursday,” she says.
Teeth together, I take a slow breath through my mouth.
“It’s not the end of the world,” she says. “I’ll call him, and I’m sure it’ll be all right. Actually, it won’t be all right, but I don’t think he’ll fire me so long as I can still get the call in before my shift.”
“Yeah, it’s Thursday night in Mulholland,” I say. “We crossed the international dateline. Don’t worry; everyone loses a bit of time figuring out the difference. Unless you’re working the graveyard shift, I’d say you missed it.”
“Oh my god!” she responds, startling a nearby older local woman almost into the side of a building. “Could I use your phone?” she asks.
I pull my cellphone out of my pocket and hand it to her.
“This works here?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m on a different kind of plan.”
Actually, when you’re rich, companies will often give you stuff so people will see you with it. It’s funny: Before I had money, everything was so incredibly expensive. Just living from week to week was a gut-wrenching experience. Now that I couldn’t run out unless I worked at it, I get all sorts of things for free. Like Stingray’s tax bill. That one’s especi
ally useful.
Ellie takes the phone and frantically dials. “Do I need a country code or anything?” she asks.
“The number’s based in the US,” I tell her. “You’ll just need the area code.”
“This is an excellent phone,” she says before putting it up to her ear.
“The software’s all ours,” I start, but now’s not the time.
“Yeah, Troy?” she says. “Hey … No, what time is it?”
I look at my watch. It’s eight o’clock here, so that means it would be about five in the morning in Mulholland. If the guy can’t handle a call at five AM, he has no business owning, well, a business.
“That doesn’t seem proportional at all,” she says. “When was the last time I was late for a shift, much less missed one?”
“Mind if I give it a shot?” I ask.
Ellie rolls her eyes and hands me the phone. “You’ll be lucky to get a word in,” she says.
I put the phone to my ear and her boss, Troy, is still going. “…had to work up front yesterday,” he says. “Do you know how long it’s been since I did that? What if a customer had come in?”
No customers all day and he’s bitching at Ellie for missing a shift?
“Yes, Troy is it?” I ask.
“Who are you?” he spits. “I’m trying to speak with my employee, or should I say, former—”
“Nick Scipio,” I answer. “You can call me Mr. Scipio.”
The line’s quiet.
“Now, Troy,” I start, “you seem like a reasonable man. As I say that, you’re not all that reasonable, are you? I guess that’s just something people say before they’re about to lay down the law.”
“Mr. Scipio,” he says. “I didn’t know she was with you.”
“Does that make a difference?” I ask.
After a long pause, he answers, “I guess not, no.”
“Good,” I say. “From what I saw when I was in there, Ellie does a lot of great work for you, and I don’t think it’s couth of a man in your position to speak to her in such a way; don’t you agree?” I ask.
“Yeah, of course,” he says all too quickly. “I don’t know, it’s just early morning, and I don’t even think I knew what I was saying and—”
This man’s a worm.
“Well that’s great,” I interrupt, making sure he knows just how little I care for his excuses. “Now, I think someone as skilled as Ellie should get a raise. What do you say?”
“Vacation time,” Ellie whispers to me. “I haven’t had more than two days off in a row since high school.”
“Also, how about some vacation time?” I ask. “You know how people tend to work better, harder and faster when they’ve had a chance to recharge their batteries.”
“Of course, Mr. Scipio,” Troy answers. The cherry on top of the sundae that is this moment is when he asks, “Is there anything else I can do to make this right?”
I smile.
“Yeah,” I answer. “I think we both know you owe Ellie an apology, so why don’t you do the right thing and show us all how sorry you are.”
I don’t say anything, but Ellie’s eyes seem a bit more dilated than they were five or six seconds ago. As I hand the phone over to her, she’s stifling a smile.
“This is Ellie,” she says. The smile just grows until she’s handing the phone back to me, saying, “Okay, that was impressive. Thank you.”
“People like try to dominate everyone until someone calls them on it. After that, they’re all apologies and timidity,” I tell her.
“Well,” she says, “it worked. You know, after all of that, I think I might be up for a little dinner.”
“Great,” I respond. “I’ll send Amin a quick text and let him know we’re on our way over there.”
I ignore the multiple threats of physical violence Amin’s texted me since I notified him dinner was postponed and let Amin know we’re on our way. Troy was easy to deal with, but Amin is the sort of person you don’t jerk around: he has passion.
We get to the beach and find the two chairs set about twenty feet from the water’s edge, and we sit.
“I will say this: you live quite a life, Nick Scipio,” Ellie says as we gaze out over the distance.
Champagne comes, then dinner proper, but after the bit of excitement over her job, I’m starting to fade. We eat and we chat, but mostly, we just sit together and try to keep our eyes open long enough to finish the sunset.
By the time we leave the beach, Ellie and I are dragging our feet. We’re both asleep within minutes of getting back in the car.
Once we pull up to the airfield a few hours away, the stopping car brings us both around again. Only, now that we’re both out of the car and walking to the plane, Ellie’s not speaking to me.
For a while, I chalk it up to the jetlag, but when I open my mouth to say something to her, she jumps in first. “I’m not going to sit here and lie to you,” she says. “All this is more than slightly overwhelming, and I’ve had stars in my eyes.”
“But?” I ask.
“But you’re still acting like I’m someone that can be bought by all this,” she says. “All of this, the date, talking to Troy, I do appreciate it, but if you wanted to impress me, you’d …”
“Yes?” I ask.
She sighs. “I don’t know. You’d do something to protect the rainforest around the village or donate money to the people who live there year round, so maybe ours isn’t the last generation that gets to see what you flew us both halfway around the world to show me.”
“You know, that’s something I could—” I start.
“I’m exhausted,” she says, and with that, she’s gazing out the window again, and I’m not sure I’m any farther with her than when we left Mulholland.
Chapter Five
Adjusting
Ellie
It’s been a day or two since we got back from Kola Kitanabu, and I’m still a bit off-schedule. We weren’t there long enough for my internal clock to adjust, but trying to sleep on the way back proved to be problematic.
After I told Nick all the things I thought he should be doing, but wasn’t, I tried for a long time to ignore his presence. The same approach worked when I brought all those books in the car with me. He may think I’m a bit weird, but at least he won’t know how insanely nervous he makes me.
I don’t believe he’s too good at picking up on that sort of thing.
What I picked up on, though, was the phone call Nick made when we were a few hours from home. Okay, he made a lot of phone calls on the way home; the way there, but he only left his seat for one of them. He was trying to hide something he wasn’t trying to hide before.
At first, I just assumed it was because there was a chance he might start yelling at whoever was on the other end of the phone, but that’s not what I heard when he went back into the rear section of the plane. I didn’t hear anything.
I got out of my seat, curious as to why he’d bother hiding this call when he clearly detailed an upcoming hostile takeover Stingray is making to the CEO of the company Nick’s going after.
I pressed my ear against the door and didn’t understand the language spoken on the other side. It sounded a lot like what they were speaking in Kola Kitanabu, though I’m no expert.
Occasionally, though, Nick wouldn’t know a word, and so I’d catch an aural glimpse of the conversation. At first, this wasn’t all that helpful, but when the English words he was saying shifted from regular parts of conversation to numbers and acres it started becoming clear.
I kept my ear against the door until Nick unwittingly confirmed what I’d suspected: he was calling someone in Kola Kitanabu, or at least someone with some influence over the area. Most of the conversation was impenetrable, but I’d heard enough.
When he came out of the back, he nearly caught me spying on him. Fortunately, I have cat-like reflexes and the instincts of a ninja. Okay, the phone call ended, and I may have flailed my way back to my seat before he opened the door separating
us. But that’s not anywhere near as inspiring.
When I tell Naomi about it, I think I’ll stick with the cat/ninja thing. Ooh, I like that: Cat Ninja.
At first, I was more upset than anything. From what I’d gleaned, he was talking to someone about the rainforest around Kola Kitanabu. While a big part of me was glad he’d listened, the rest of me just took it as confirmation that he still believed the only thing between him and my affection was that he hadn’t thrown enough money around for my benefit.
When I asked who he was talking to on the phone, though, he said it was the chef. Nick said he was just giving his old friend a thank you call for the exquisite beachside dinner. That’s all he’d say about it.
That’s when I decided to give him a real chance.
To tell the truth, I probably would have had a hard enough time keeping up my defenses. You don’t talk about price-per-acre with a chef.
Now, I’m almost to work and, as I round the final corner, my stomach drops.
A large crowd is standing in front of the shop.
Ever since that day in the hotel, people around town have been giving me dirty looks. Even though no one, least of all me, got a job from Nick that day as far as I know, they think it’s my fault nobody was hired.
As I get closer to the group in front of the store, though, something happens. Everyone starts smiling.
Almost in unison, somewhere between eighty and a hundred people say my name.
I don’t know what they want, but at least they look happy.
Coming closer, I start wondering if I should turn and get out of here, but the people in front of me move to the side, creating a path for me to get to the door.
“Good morning, Ellie!” someone behind me says.
“It’s a beautiful day, don’t you think, Ellie?” someone else chimes in.
I couldn’t respond if I knew how. As soon as I open my mouth to thank someone for complimenting my outfit or to say, “Good morning,” back to someone, somebody else is trying to get my attention.
Finally, I make it to the door, and I’m a little worried about what’s going to happen next when I turn the unlocked knob. Everyone’s very respectful, though. Somebody holds the door open as I walk through, and despite my certainty of my pending demise, I’m not trampled on the way into the shop.