Diane knocked again. “I know you’re eating mine, Ansel.”
Choking down a laugh, he staggered to his feet. “Not yours,” he mumbled, palming his fly. “I need a minute. Just a minute.” Then he strode off to his room while Nicki did a quick check that no culturally inappropriate body parts were on display before opening the door.
“Hey, sorry,” Nicki said. “I was in the bathroom.”
Diane walked in, eyes scanning the living room, the hallway, the kitchen. “He’s hiding like a dog, isn’t he?” But then she seemed to see the unopened box on the kitchen counter, and her smile froze. For a moment, she didn’t move. She must’ve been running for a few minutes, at least, because every inch of her toned body was shiny with sweat, like a fitness model sprayed with water for a photo shoot.
Nicki walked past her and took out a few plates, pride at war with sympathy. “I’ll give you the biggest piece.”
Diane still hadn’t moved. Nicki felt her watching her as she went to the sink. It had occurred to her that she should wash her hands. She lathered for the full length of the birthday song, as they taught in school, then dried her hands on a fresh towel. As she lifted the box lid, Ansel wandered in with a towel slung around his neck.
“Hey, Diane,” he said. “That was fast.”
Diane responded in a cheerful voice. “I ran into Nicki at the elevator carrying banana bread. I only made it a mile before I had to run back.”
“She didn’t think I’d be able to stop you from eating all of it,” Nicki said. The double entendre caught in her throat, and she had to turn and grimace at the wall instead of breaking down with nervous laughter.
“Listen, Diane…” Ansel began. “Nicki and I—”
“Had plans for breakfast,” Diane finished. “Obviously. But I came all this way, so you can share. I’ll take mine to go.” She punched him in the shoulder, smiling so broadly her back molars were visible. And then holding it there as if a bungee cord were wrapped around the back of her head, hooked into each corner of her mouth.
“No, don’t go,” Nicki said. The welcoming, reassuring skills she’d honed from years of teaching kicked in. “Let me get you a plate. You can tell me about your job. Ansel says you’ve got a great career, but he didn’t say what—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Diane said. “It’s all the same, isn’t it? Corporations that take your youth, all your dreams and energy, until what passion you had on your first day on the job has been squeezed out of you like shit out of a toad.” She was still smiling, but her eyes were haunted.
“Jeez, Diane, what happened?” Ansel asked.
“Excuse me,” Nicki said, “but I think I should leave you two alone so you can catch up. Time for me to take a shower anyway, start my day. You know.”
“But your breakfast—” Diane said.
Nicki was already at her bedroom door. “I’m fine, I ate in the elevator. But thanks.” Then she was inside, leaning against the door, just like before.
She’d just had the best morning of her life. She could afford to share Ansel with his unlucky, unhappy friend.
Chapter 22
ANSEL WATCHED NICKI DISAPPEAR INTO her bedroom.
Again.
Watching her lose it like that, head falling back against the door…
Fifteen feet away. She was only right there on the other side of the wall, so close…
“I lost my job,” Diane said behind him. Banana bread muffled her words.
He spun around. She looked serious. “What?”
She took his piece of banana bread from him and shoved it into her mouth. “It’s no big deal.”
“Did you say you lost your job?”
“I knew you’d overreact.”
This from a woman who had more books on career planning than a college job placement office.
“That wasn’t overreacting,” he said, clutching his skull and stretching his face into The Scream expression. “Oh my God! You’re going to die!”
She rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”
“That was overreacting,” he said.
After a sigh, she opened the fridge. “Do you have any unsweetened organic coconut water?”
“No, because I’m not—” A yuppie poser, he was going to say, before he saw her face: red, splotchy cheeks, lips sucked in between her teeth, eyes staring straight ahead. “Are you crying?”
She slammed the fridge door and turned away. “Jet lag. I didn’t sleep well last night. You know how I get if I’m sleep deprived. Stupid, emotional. Stupid.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist.
“Talk to me.” He remembered how Brand had asked why she was taking a vacation. And yet he, her best friend, had been too obtuse to question her.
“Usual story. We—well, not we anymore—got bought out. New people shut us down.”
“And they just dumped everyone?”
She nodded. “We were redundant.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“It’s just business.” She lifted her head, breathing deep. “You can’t expect an intelligent corporation to pay a hundred people to do the same thing as another hundred people.”
“People aren’t interchangeable like widgets,” he said.
Smiling pityingly at him, she patted his arm. “Sure they are.”
“I thought you knew better than that,” he said. “At least about yourself. Since when did you get humble?”
“Just being realistic.”
“You think you’re no better than anybody else?” he asked. “You? Diane Gambau, power human?”
“Maybe I’m tired of trying to be perfect.”
“We all have our crosses to bear,” he said.
“I’m ready to find some meaning in my life.” She combed her hair with her fingers and then frowned at a loose strand she’d pulled out. “I’m glad I got laid off. It made me realize I was spinning my wheels, just a hamster in a cage, going nowhere.” Her voice caught.
He looked for tears, alarmed at the thought of Diane without a steady income. Entirely self-made, oldest daughter of a single mom who still worked on commission at a discount furniture chain, Diane was insufferable if any hint of poverty was snapping at her heels.
Why had she flown out to see him if she’d just lost her job? “This trip,” he said. “Taking the time, the money…”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She turned to him, chin raised. “It was just a job. I’m here to see you and have a nice time, and that’s what I’m going to do. Today, we’ll have an early lunch and tour the island. Rent a board, get a drink, be irresponsible for once.”
His worry deepened. That didn’t sound like the Diane he knew. “Let me pay for the condo. I don’t know exactly how much this place costs, but…”
“You’ve got less money than I do now, and I’ve already paid for it, and I am not going to talk about this anymore.”
He knew that tone. She was freaking out but refused to admit it. “I’m not broke.”
“You are for a while. Look, Ansel—you want to do something for me, spend the day with me. Put on something decent, and let’s pretend we’re young again.”
“We are young.”
“You know what I mean.” She walked to the front door. “I’ll be ready in twenty minutes. We can take my car. I’ve already made reservations for lunch. Okay? Great.”
* * *
They didn’t get back to the condo until after seven that evening. Diane was drunk; Ansel was sober but exhausted. Late night, bad sleep, early morning. And all he could think about was: what’s Nicki doing right now, and how can I do it with her?
Slumped in the corner of the elevator, Diane stared at the ceiling, singing a pop song in perfect pitch with a smile on her face. She was barefoot and dangled one sandal from each index finger. Her black sundress had slipped off one shoulder, exposing a lacy gray bra strap.
He’d seen her this wasted a few times before, usually after a bad breakup, but during those times she hadn’t been so
cheerful. All day today she’d been laughing and telling jokes, the first to run out into the sand when they got to the beach, the last to want to leave when the rain started.
And of course she’d had to order everything on the menu that had an umbrella stuck into it, which, at a tourist bar in Maui, included even the broccoli.
Ansel wanted to get her safely tucked in bed as soon as possible so he could get back to Nicki. When they reached their floor, he banged on the door open button impatiently.
“You already slept with her, didn’t you?”
He spun around to find Diane standing right behind him. She was petite, only a few inches over five feet, which contributed to her presently excessive blood alcohol level, and he had to press his chin to his chest to look her in the eye. She edged closer. “I thought you said you were going to fly solo for a while,” she added.
He stepped out of the elevator and held out an arm for her. He’d been waiting for her to ask about Nicki, but she never had. Now was definitely not the time. “Let’s get you in bed.”
“Not with you,” she said, scowling the way drunk people do to prove how sober they really are.
He paused near the stairwell. “Nope. All by yourself.”
“Because you want to be with her.”
He was glad they were alone. This was just Diane being possessive, the way a child would be of her favorite toy—nothing more. “No,” he said slowly, “because you and I are friends.”
“I like friends.” She sighed.
“I like friends, too.”
“I have lots of friends,” she added.
“That’s good.”
“You’re not like them, though.” She leaned one shoulder against the wall and gazed up at him.
He blanked. Could he possibly be wrong about her? She’d never hinted, not once, that she wanted to sleep with him. Even in college, it had been his idea to have sex; afterward, she’d been so unimpressed with him, she’d refused to see him under any circumstances for a few weeks. Only after he’d promised he wouldn’t try to have sex with her ever again did their friendship resume. His ego had taken six months to recover.
“I’m not like them, that’s true,” he said to her now, trying to lighten it up. “I’m better. That’s what you mean. I’m the most awesome.”
She nodded. “I think we should get married.”
Chapter 23
“OH MY GOD,” ANSEL SAID under his breath. He took Diane’s arm and tried to haul her around the corner to their hallway. “You need to sleep this off ASAP.” Get married? What had they put in that lava flow?
She wouldn’t move. Her barefoot toes gripped the tile. “Alone?”
“I don’t know who else you know in Maui, but I won’t be there,” he replied. “And you don’t want me to be.”
She tilted her head back and looked down her nose at him, frowning the drunk frown again. “It might help you sleep better. Your insomnia really gets out of hand, Ansel. I wish you’d see a specialist.”
That was the Diane he knew and loved.
As a friend.
“One thing that helps,” he said, pulling out his phone, “is keeping to a schedule. Boy, it’s late. I should be hitting the hay right about now.” He flashed the time at her, pretended to yawn, then followed it up with an even larger real one.
“Yeah,” she said, yawning too. “It’s the middle of the night in California.” She yawned again and slumped against him. Then she did let him guide her around the corner, no more talk of marriage.
She was drunk, that’s all.
God, he hoped so.
Because he kept a wary eye on her as they started walking again, he didn’t recognize the man in the hallway until they were about ten feet away.
Leaning against the wall between both of their doors, cell phone in one hand, suitcase at his feet, Brand Henry Warren looked up at them and scowled. “Where the hell have you been?”
* * *
Her next blog post would have to skirt the real issues, Nicki decided. What she wanted to write was: Sex is great, you should try it, the end. Instead, she wrote about wet suits and the importance of mastering the dead man’s float.
Her heart wasn’t in it. Would anyone notice? Who read this stuff, anyway? Fellow anxiety sufferers or just random bored people on the Internet? She didn’t allow comments on her page, for her own sanity—she didn’t need strangers to tell her she was nuts—but sometimes she thought she wasn’t helping anyone, just setting herself up as comic relief. A bad example to soothe the insecure.
While she typed the last word—which described the moment of triumph when she returned to the boat, not when the water pitcher fell to the floor and she took off her clothes—she heard the condo’s front door creak open and slam shut.
Finally. It was 9:43 p.m. Distracted by the thought of him, she’d been trying to write a single blog post for two hours.
He tapped on the door. “Nicki?”
Her lungs emptied and shut down.
“Nicki?”
Reboot. Inhale. “Yeah?” She tried to sound casually interrupted, not in the midst of erotically-charged cardiac arrest. “You can open the door.” Because God knew her legs weren’t ready to support her weight.
He peeked in. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For disappearing all day. Diane had a bit of an emergency. Since she came all this way…”
“I figured.”
“Look, I was about to make a drink. Would you like one?”
The look on his face was grimmer than she’d ever seen him. She sat up taller. “Are you all right?”
“Not really,” he said.
She got off the bed, readjusting her satin robe. She was glad she’d gone shopping before her trip, otherwise she’d be wearing her dad’s forty-year-old college sweatshirt and her oldest pair of XL granny panties. “Diane?” she asked.
He leaned against the doorway and tilted his head back. “Yeah, that too.”
“Tell me about it while you make the drinks.”
He sighed. “Okay.”
In the kitchen, he got out a carton of juice from the fridge while she climbed on a stool across from him at the breakfast counter. The blender was already out, its lid off, sitting next to a bunch of speckled bananas. He got out other cans and bottles from the cupboards, two hurricane glasses, a box of paper umbrellas, and dumped ice and various liquids into the blender without measuring. He looked like a tourist’s favorite bartender.
“I just offered my room to Diane,” he said, right before he stabbed the blender on at the jet blast level.
Her worst fears surfaced like fart bubbles in a bathtub. When the blender stopped, she said, “Oh.”
“She lost her job.” He rubbed his face, eyes closed. “That’s really bad.”
“Yeah.” She’d used up what verbal skills she had that night on her writing.
“She won’t take it, though. She wants her own place. Even with Brand showing up and insisting on taking her second bedroom.”
“What?”
“My partner.”
“I know who he is. I mean, why is he here?”
“Brand Henry Warren has decided I’m incapable of making big manly business decisions without him holding my hand.” He poured the frothy drink into two glasses. “And he’s out for revenge.”
She accepted the glass he held out and tried to focus. “He’s that mad just because you don’t want the same building he wants?” He’d mentioned the properties when they’d driven back from Wailea.
“Not revenge on me. On Diane.” He unfurled a paper umbrella and impaled a small wedge of pineapple before dunking it in her glass.
After a sip, she admitted, “I’m confused.”
“He’s still bitter about a fling they flung a few years ago.”
“Ah.”
“He’s taking her second bedroom. She refused to take mine. So I left.”
“Maybe she wants him to be there,” Nicki said.
“I don’t think so. She was just too drunk to argue.” As he stirred his drink with a long spoon, his voice fell. “We’ll find out tomorrow when she sobers up.”
He looked unhappy again. She took a longer sip, wondering what to say. It was sweet, more of a smoothie than a drink. “Is there any alcohol in this?”
“Oh. No. Sorry.” He reached up into a cabinet and gazed up into it, his back to her. “What do you want?” His gray shirt pulled across his broad shoulders, making her hesitate for a moment.
She put her nose in her glass. “Whatever you’re having.”
“I’m having a virgin.” There was a pause. Grabbing a bottle of rum, he turned, smiling faintly, and leaned against the counter. “How about you?”
Shivers tickled her spine. “I’m fine.”
“Some people think they’re too sweet.”
The glass wasn’t nearly big enough to hide her face in. “Not always.”
Nodding, he put the pitcher in the sink. “Sadly true. They do have their own way of making you feel like crap the next morning.”
She gulped down a rich, frothy mouthful. “But you get over it.”
Another, longer pause. Staring at the counter, he took a drink and wiped the foam off of his lips with the back of his hand. “Not necessarily.”
Her glass made a loud noise when she dropped it on the counter. “Oh, please. You didn’t even recognize me.”
“You dyed your hair.” He pointed at her, serious now. “And you were wearing glasses.”
“What are you, Lois Lane? Suddenly a pair of glasses is an impenetrable disguise?”
His frown turned into a sheepish laugh. He took another drink. “Good one.”
“Thanks.”
His gaze dropped to the opening of her robe. “I’d be over there right now ravishing you, but I’m tired and pissed off, and I thought you’d be better off without me.”
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