Broken Enagement

by Gage Grayson

“Nah, nah,” Audra responds.

  What? I’m officially fucking bewildered.

  “Nah, Hawaii won’t be amazing? Au contraire. You’re in for quite a surprise if you think that.”

  “What, you mean on our honeymoon?” Audra angrily swings the suitcase shut with that word. There must be something really fucking wrong if she’s worried about the entire honeymoon being ruined.

  “Whatever it is, Audra, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t?” Audra asks with caustic sarcasm while sliding the suitcase off the couch with both hands.

  Whatever’s happening, the chances of it fading quickly are shrinking rapidly.

  “I just want to know what’s going on, that’s all. We can start from there.”

  Audra drops the suitcase, and it feels like the whole room shakes.

  “We’re not starting shit! Like, ever!”

  All I can think about is how out of character this is for Audra to just throw her clothes into a suitcase like that.

  “Okay. Can we just back up a bit? What’s got you so upset?”

  “The thought of being fucking married to you.” She doesn’t miss a beat before hissing that out.

  Maybe I did pass out at the table after all, and I’m dreaming this shit. It sure feels like a nightmare.

  “Whoa, Audra, what happened?”

  “You happened, somehow.” Again, not missing a beat. “In what fucking world do you think you’re good enough for me? How do you think my family feels coming to this scuzzy fucking shithole?”

  “It looked like they were all having a good time.” It’s literally all I can think to say.

  “Like you would know. My family has real wealth, a prestigious history going back generations. You...you’re just rat shit. You’re not fucking fit to look at me. It’s sickening.”

  This could be a prank, there could be hidden cameras and some washed-up comedian waiting to jump out of the bathroom to announce how badly I just got punked.

  But it’s not. Even through this haze, it’s real fucking clear how serious Audra is. I feel her anger—and something else I’ve never felt before: her disdain.

  “Hmm.” I place two fingers on my lips, very professorial, very contemplative. “So, why now?” I inquire calmly. But inside I’m raging. Why the fuck now?

  “These are the last words I ever want to say to you.” Audra’s snarling every syllable at this point. It’s fucking intense. “Get the fuck out of my way and out of my life.”

  I get the fuck out of her way.

  And then she’s gone.

  I don’t know how much time passes before I move from where I’ve stood stock-still and drop onto the bed I blew a fat stack of cash for. It could be minutes. It could be fucking days. I don’t sleep. And for none of the reasons one would anticipate on their fucking wedding night.

  When the sun starts to peek through the window, I get back up, still in my tux.

  I check out and drive home.

  I’m completely fucking numb the entire time.

  But one thing is clear. However painful this ends up being, now is the time for action. If Audra wants to be out of my life, I need to do my part. I’m on the phone with my friend’s moving company before I’m even in my front door.

  I wander around the kitchen for a while, ostensibly to eat something, but I’m not even sure what I’m doing on any level.

  I’m staring vacantly into my freezer for some reason when Jeff rings the doorbell. He weirdly gives me a knowing nod when I answer, and he somehow has a truck and crew ready.

  Jeff, wearing the silly baseball cap he only wears at work, instructs his crew that this is a “full job” as they walk in. They’re responsible for everything, including packing. I point vaguely to a few items of furniture in the living room in an attempt at instructions.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Jeff reassures me, looking at me with a concern that I’m sure is necessary. I don’t feel much of anything right now, but when the feelings do come, it’s likely going to get real fucking bad.

  “We’ll hopefully figure out where everything’s going, exactly, by the time you’re done.”

  “Don’t worry about it. My girlfriend’s in touch with Audra.”

  It’s like the whole world’s undergoing some crazy fucking shift that I’m not in on. I don’t know what Audra’s talking about with my friends, and I don’t really want to know, either.

  When I hear the front door peel open, I somehow know it’s not one of the movers.

  I guess if I’m going to see Audra these days, she’ll be moving swiftly and angrily, giving off the vibe of some new person, someone I don’t know―certainly not my wife.

  “You motherfucker.” She actually says this on her way to the stairway. It’s ridiculous, but I’m seriously concerned about what she’s going to do in her state.

  Andrew, also known as Amazing Andrew, the short, awkwardly friendly guy who was the first in my group of friends to get married, comes half-running in after Audra.

  “I came to help,” Andrew broadcasts as he walks to the stairs. “She came peeling in ahead of me at like a hundred miles an hour. Parked half on the curb.”

  Jeff, Andrew and I follow Audra up the stairs to the bedroom.

  Audra makes it into the room well before us and slams the door. I pick up the pace when I hear the sliding glass door to the balcony open, Jeff and Andrew following closely behind.

  I nearly leap into door to open it, but it’s fucking locked.

  “Come on,” I grouse to myself as I fumble for a credit card to pick the lock.

  After fumbling, feeling Jeff and Andrew breathing nervously behind me, I find a card and pop open the door.

  My nightstand is gone, and Audra’s in midst of spiking the glass desk lamp, which used to be on top of it, down to the street below.

  “Audra.” I just say her name, calmly. I doubt she hears me. There’s no stopping her, anyway. She’s on some kind of fucking rampage.

  The lamp shatters surprisingly loudly, which seems to satisfy Audra since she turns around.

  “So much time you took from me!” Audra points at me furiously. It feels like I’m back in that fucking nightmare again.

  “Audra,” I just say. Whatever this is, I know I need to let it play out.

  “You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me! How dare you! How dare you ruin my life!”

  I almost roll my eyes before letting out another “Audra.” It’s becoming almost comical.

  Audra stomps towards me. I think my friends behind me are backing away. As they fucking should because this woman looks unhinged.

  “Fuck you,” Audra says, quiet, but full of penetrating rage.

  There’s tangible relief in the room as we listen to her stomping down the stairs and out the front door.

  “I don’t fucking know,” I lament to the open balcony door before turning around.

  “This is...crazy, right?” I plead to Jeff and Andrew. “I mean, do you guys know what’s going on?”

  “No fucking clue,” Andrew answers while Jeff shakes his head.

  Jeff is looking down, troubled by this insanity.

  “I’ll throw in extra for the moving being last-minute,” I assure Jeff, “but what the fuck do I now?”

  “Go to Hawaii.”

  Jeff and Andrew say this in unison, then look at each other with minor surprise.

  “If you can’t get a refund…” Jeff lets his sentence fragment speak for itself.

  “No, the trip is fucking paid for. But still...”

  “Still what?” Andrew is getting annoyed, which I appreciate right now. We’re on the same fucking wavelength, that much is certain. “It’s still Hawaii, is what it is. Why wouldn’t you go?”

  I can’t argue with that.

  Ethan

  There’s a small wooden sign hanging on a post leading to the fenced-off area. The white hand-painted letters read Sunset Beach Spot.

  Holy shit, I couldn’t think of a lamer fuck
ing name if I tried. This is supposed to be part of a luxury resort.

  There’s a small bar on the sand with tiki décor, a couple uncomfortable-looking, retro space-age stools.

  The only person here right now is the bartender, wearing a suit vest and pants on the beach, checking his inventory of plastic cups.

  I walk to the bar, looking to see if there are any out-of-focus figures in the distance making their way towards this part of the beach.

  Closer to the bar I see there’s a hot buffet set up under a canopy. It looks like expensive catering, like at a wedding or something. It looks awful.

  “What can I do you for?” the bartender offers as soon as I’m close enough.

  “What’s with that buffet?”

  “It’s twenty-five dollars a plate.”

  This place isn’t exactly all-inclusive. I tell the barkeep to charge it to my room number, and I pack a full plate from the fancy buffet. The china, the silverware, the food is all top notch. I’m pigging out on my plate at the bar when I see a figure approaching Sunset Beach.

  A really fucking alluring figure.

  I make out more details as she gets nearer: a toned physique with extra oomph distributed in all the right places, a wonderfully exotic look all-around, and a cerise-colored bikini leaving just enough to the imagination.

  I feel a twinge of excitement when I notice she’s walking directly to the bar. Fortunately, I don’t give a shit about the half-eaten plate of ahi poke and chicken long rice in front of me.

  The woman looks at me and my plate with cool, passing interest when she gets close enough. Her face is youthful, but she exudes confidence beyond her years.

  I think about the perfect interplay between her skin tone and her slightly darker freckles as I finally put down my fork.

  The woman sits at the other end of the bar, which means there’s one empty stool between us.

  “Captain’s Demise,” she demands to the bartender. Probably a drink, but I’m not going to fucking open by asking her about that.

  “You try the buffet?”

  I point to the table with my fork, owning my gluttony.

  “Many times,” she softly fires back, barely looking in my direction. But there’s still a friendly smile in her voice.

  “What accent is that, may I ask?”

  “I’m from Barbados, originally.” The smile in her voice is slowly making its way to her lips.

  “You’ve come a long way.”

  “Not really. I live in Portland. Pretty much everyone I know comes here for vacation.”

  “You mean Portland, Oregon, I hope?”

  She laughs. I think she’s getting me, whatever I am right now.

  “Yes, of course. It’s a short flight, which is good since I have a five-year-old.”

  I nod simply. “So, it’s just you and your kid?”

  The bartender sets down a hurricane glass, filled with a crimson cocktail, garnished with lemon zest.

  “Yeah, she’s with a resort babysitter. Just for an hour. That’s all I need.”

  “I’m Ethan, by the way. Mind if I join you for one of those drinks?”

  The woman in the cerise bikini shrugs while sipping through her straw.

  “Dominique. Take a seat.”

  I have a cocktail with Dominique, then let her get back to her kid.

  I was supposed to come here to make sweet love in a hot tub, on the beach, in a luxury resort suite, and anywhere else I could find with Audra.

  I walk back to my room, shower, make a couple vodka tonics from the minibar. Might as well max out at least one credit card while I’m here.

  I change from my bathing suit to a casual tweed blazer and a light blue oxford shirt with formal chinos and brown derby shoes. It’s not the best-constructed outfit, and after another drink, I’m getting too sozzled for solid fashion choices, but I still look overdressed for the bizarre little resort nightclub where I’m headed so I lose the blazer and roll my sleeves up.

  The club is spacious, but there’s little going on there from what I’ve seen.

  It’s still damn early in the evening when I walk through the club’s double steel door entrance.

  The place is deserted at this hour, as I expected. This is what I do now, I guess, haunting random spots at weird hours. Just a sad fucking ghost in Hawaii.

  While checking out the haphazard collection of vending machines and arcade games along the wall, I spot one person climbing the concrete stairs to the second story at the edge of my vision. Probably someone who works here.

  Bored out of my fucking mind, I follow whoever it is, although they’re long gone from the stairs by now. I power up to the well-lit second story, sort of a chill-out area, with massage chairs, a snack bar and fucking pool tables for some fucking reason.

  The last few hours of booze are catching up, but I feel loose enough to shoot a pretty good game of eight-ball if I wanted. And hey, it looks like somebody’s playing already.

  She’s standing by one of the tables. She’s blonde, wearing her hair up, a retro style that suits her features...holy shit, I’ve seen this woman. Wearing a tiger-print suit on the beach yesterday.

  Why didn’t I try to talk to her then?

  She looks fucking amazing, wearing a low-cut black top with a tiger-print trim. I’m suddenly really into this motif.

  She watches me walk towards her. Her expression looks honest and open with a dose of sassiness. Her face is stunning, and it’s even clearer now than it was at the beach that her body is out of this fucking world.

  “Hey, where’s your cue?”

  I point to a spot between her right side and the table. I look up and see her emerald eyes, and I feel a familiar stir that suggests the type of intense horniness that I thought might have died with my marriage. Thank fucking god. All is well.

  “You think I’m actually playing?”

  Her voice is strident, high-pitched, with a subtle smokiness. Hearing it for the first time is turning that initial twitch into something more. Something bigger. Way bigger.

  “You’re not?”

  She giggles with derisiveness, but it sounds like divine fucking music to my ears.

  “I thought you were serious!”

  “I am. Why aren’t you playing?”

  She shakes her head, rolls her eyes slightly.

  “Nobody uses these tables. I don’t even think you can. I’m just checking out the dance floor, trying to see what’s going on there now.”

  I know there’s a glass wall twenty feet behind me, and that the section of the nightclub which actually fucking resembles a nightclub is beyond that.

  There’s a dance floor, and there’s already a DJ spinning for what’s probably an empty room.

  “What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  I don’t know what she’s looking for, or what would interest her, but right now I’d fucking love to know how to be part of it.

  “If you want, we could get a drink while we’re waiting for something to happen. On me, of course.”

  “No,” she counters while staring past me, “that’s okay. I’m good.”

  I’ll give her this: I’m suddenly not thinking about Audra or any of the other bullshit that’s been permeating my brain day and night.

  Without a word, without even learning her name, I leave her by the pool table and go to check out the empty dance floor.

  There’s no one dancing yet, but there are two women in what look like uncomfortably tight dresses sitting at the bar with fluorescent-colored drinks. The have matching hairstyles, sort of chin-length bobs. They’re definitely regulars.

  I walk over to the woman closest to me and take the empty seat next to her.

  She’s grinning before she looks at me. She knew I was coming. Her hair is bright red. She’s what most men would think of as scorching hot.

  “Haven’t seen you around here,” she chirps.

  “It happens.”

  “Not to me, not until now.”
<
br />   “It’s your lucky day, I guess.”

  The red-head throws her head back in a cheesy laugh.

  “Is it? I’d like to know now if it is.”

  Her friend, raven-haired with chestnut streaks, turns to me abruptly.

  “Hi! I’m Collette, and this is Lita, who you decided to talk to instead of me for some reason.”

  Lita keeps grinning. A few minutes ago, I would have been happy to meet either one of these ladies and start my ritual of forgetting about why I’m supposed to be here.

  And that’s a fucking weird thought: it’s like I can forget about Audra, but not some stranger whose name I don’t even know.

  No, it’s still Audra. Has to be. I’m just processing everything in some fucked up way, most likely.

  Lita and Collette order me a drink with taurine and milk thistle extract or whatever the fuck. I don’t fucking care as long as it still has plenty of alcohol.

  As the dance floor populates, I have a couple more drinks with my new friends.

  They are friends. We’re laughing, talking nonsense while getting drunk, and I’m totally not thinking about dating—or hot, crazy sex.

  Some strange woman by a defunct pool table hasn’t just changed my life.

  Nope, it’s still just Audra making me crazy. It must be.

  But fuck, there she is! Not Audra, but the pool table girl, getting a drink at the other end of the bar.

  “Hope to see you around.”

  I leave my new friends with that as I launch myself towards the mystery woman. I have a new goal to learn her name as I try to keep my walk over to her from becoming a run.

  I’m still out of breath when I reach her.

  “I can still pay for that. I want to. I told you I would.”

  The mystery girl sighs.

  “Fine. Fuckin’…whatever. Just put it on his tab.”

  She makes the demand to no one in particular.

  “You’re used to people doing what you say. Am I correct?” I ask with a smirk.

  “Yeah, I guess. What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing.” I just think you’re fucking amazing, and I know it sounds insane coming from a guy like me—or anyone—but you’re the sexiest damn woman I’ve ever seen. “I just like it.”

  The mystery woman nods slightly. “You like it, huh?”