by Megyn Ward
His fingers work faster. “She’s nothing like the character she plays on TV. She’s got a great sense of humor and is a lot of fun.”
Liesa had Zach and now Blake. Can’t she leave one of them for me? “It’s got to be nice hanging out at her place on the canal. I’ll bet she’s got a great pool and a boat. Sunsets have to be spectacular.”
“I guess.” He finishes the shrimp. “But even the nicest prisons still have bars.”
I laugh. “That’s pretty poetic. Still, I can understand why you like to hang out there.”
“It was more fun before the season started airing. The ratings aren’t what they’d expected, so there’s all this tension. Zach is there more and the cameras are intruding. Everyone is bitchy.”
Poor Blake. He is the most easy-going person in the world. He’s the first one to help out and is nice to everyone. That’s what makes him such a great dive master and an even better friend. “I’m sorry I made it uncomfortable for you here.”
He wipes his hands on a kitchen towel and throws an arm over my shoulders. “It was my fault.”
“How could any of it be your fault?”
He backs away and reaches for the dented frying pan. With it dangling from his hand, he looks into my eyes. There’s sadness and affection in their dark depths. “I should have kept my feelings for you to myself. I knew you didn’t feel the same way, and when I saw you with Zach, I got jealous.”
I’m so stupid.
Why can’t I fall for Blake the way I have for Zach?
Blake faces his life unflinchingly and doesn’t play games. He forces me to do the same. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He smiles. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
My throat closes up again. “Here you are, this gorgeous, kind, smart, ambitious guy with everything going for you. And you care about me. Aside from my mom, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. Why can’t I fall in love with you? It would make my life perfect.”
He places the pan on the two-burner stove. “You were right that we’re better friends than anything else. I see that now. Besides, you can’t fall in love with me because you’re in love with someone else.”
That is bullshit and I won’t talk about it with him.
Zach. What are you doing right now? Fucking Liesa in her fancy house on the canal?
I pick up the butter and start to unwrap it.
The screen door squeals and Diana burst into the house. “Yay! You’re both here!”
She dances into the kitchen, plants a kiss on Blake’s surprised face and whirls me in a two-step waltz that ends with us banging into the table and knocking over empty beer bottles.
Blake lunges for the bottles before they shatter on the floor. “What’s got into you?”
Electricity bounces off her and she seems to light up the small kitchen. “Don asked me to go back to California with him.”
I want to be happy for her. Blake looks shell-shocked. Neither of us speak.
Diana’s excited movements slow and her gaze travels from one of us to the other. “And this is where you tell me congratulations and ask me all about him.”
I wait for Blake to say something but he doesn’t. “Are you sure this is what you want?” I finally manage to say.
Her eyebrows drop over angry eyes. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Don said we’d live in a house on the beach that his family owns. He’s planning on spending a month in Europe this summer. He’s going to take me to Rome to see the Colosseum. And to nude beaches on the Mediterranean. I’ll live like a queen.”
Blake turns toward the stove and plops the butter into the pan. “I’m making my famous scampi. Are you hungry?”
“Scampi?” Diana lets out a huff and puts her hands on her hips. “That’s it? You can’t enjoy this with me?”
I reach into the fridge for three Red Stripes to give myself time to think. Blake accepts his but when I hand one to Diana, she crosses her arms and glares at me. I set it on the table next to her and crack mine open. After a small sip, I say, “You know I want the best for you. And I understand that money can make life much easier. But.” Shit, why isn’t Blake helping me out? “I think you can do so much better than Don.”
She flings her arms down. “You spent a couple of hours with him. You don’t even know him.”
I agree. “Okay, tell me what you love about him.”
Blake keeps his back to her, stirring the butter to melt in the pan.
Diana reaches for her beer. “Well, he’s been all over. Like, the whole world. To India and Australia and Ireland and stuff. He’s planning on going to college, like Yale or something. But he wants to spend a couple of years traveling.”
Blake tosses in the garlic I’d minced and the wonderful smell explodes into the kitchen. It usually makes my stomach dance with anticipation but not this time. I’m too worried about Diana. “You just met him two days ago. How can you be sure he’s not lying to you?”
She pulls out a chair and drops into it. “Because I can tell. Sometimes it just feels right, you know? We hit it off and I feel like there’s something there.”
How can I disagree with that? The first time I met Zach he was wasted and he dashed out of a $65 bar bill though to be fair, he hadn’t meant to and he’d paid me in full later. The second time, he got me fired. But, again, he’d fixed that, until I ruined it with my temper. And the third time, I’d fallen into his arms. Not fallen, dove, even knowing that he was bad news. How can I get all self-righteous about what Diana is doing?
Except I know her well enough to know she’s making it up. “I don’t believe you really feel this mystic pull to him. I think you deserve better.”
“Goddamnit, Kylie.” She slams her beer on the table and it foams over. “All my life I’ve been poor. I shared a bedroom with four sisters and brothers. I never had nice clothes or ate in restaurants. I’ve worked really hard to get myself to Cayman so I can meet someone who can make sure I never have to hustle drinks and take shit off assholes, ever again.” She looks wounded for a moment, her wide brown eyes shimmering with tears. “This is what I want. Someone to love me. take care of me.”
I open my mouth to argue but snap it shut. Maybe Don will love her. He might take her to Paris and Venice. She could live with him in San Diego and spend her days learning to surf and nights keeping Don happy. And what if he gets tired of her and leaves her? Would she be any worse off than she is now? She can just come home and try again.
I pick up my beer and tap hers gently. “If you’re happy, then I am, too.”
Diana smiles at me, all forgiven. “That garlic smells wonderful. I’m ready to eat!”
Diana is leaving for California. Blake is going to school in New York. Our family, newly reunited, is about to break apart again. Both Blake and Diana are heading out to start their new lives. We’d all talked about it since we arrived almost a year ago. Their plans are working out.
It’s time for me to stop putting off my own plan for the future.
It’s time to confront my father.
Six
Kylie
It takes me over a week to build my nerve. Finally, with a pounding heart and a stern lecture to myself to get on with my life, I send Jonas’s toothbrush off with a sample of hair yanked from my scalp. And I wait.
Diana and I work every afternoon and evening at The Green Frog. Don always shows up just before closing time and whisks Diana off. She crawls into bed around sunrise and sleeps until time to start it over again.
Blake gets up early every day to head to the dive shop. I miss climbing into his beat-up Hyundai and going with him. I loved everything about working there. It’s just one more reason to curse Zach Lowery.
If you by cursing, you mean fucking, then yes, by all means curse Zach.
Restless and feeling like my nerves run on the outside of my skin, raw and exposed, I make myself wait until midmorning every day before walking to the post office several blocks away. I try to kee
p myself from strangling anticipation, telling myself the ads of a three-day turn-around can’t possibly be true. And even if they are, shipping out of the states will add extra time. But I go to the post office every day with my heart in my throat. Every day I walk home dragging my heart behind me.
On the sixth day an envelope sits in my box. The return address shows the lab where I’d sent the toothbrush. I think my ribs will crack with the wild beating inside me. My mouth loses all moisture, but my palms break out in a sweat. My fingers shake as I take the envelope out of the post office to the side of the road.
There are no sidewalks. I walk along the cracking blacktop road, barely wider than one lane. The ragged front lawns of the small, brightly painted houses fade to the pebbled edge of the road and my flip flops crunch along with my heavy breaths. I mean to wait until I get back to my house but in the end, I can’t take it. I stop halfway home, with the sun pressing on my head and the breeze tossing my hair around my face. My shaking fingers tear at the envelope flap.
I scan the letter and all the official junk. My eyes fly over the tables of figures and terms I don’t understand fully. They finally find the one word I’ve been searching for my whole life.
Match.
I belong to someone.
Hot. Cold. I feel invisible and heavy all at once. I might have stood on the side of the road for an hour. I have no idea. When I finally come back to myself, I look around. The tacky houses stand silent. The rusted cars and accumulated junk along the road and in the yards is the same as when I’d passed here before. But everything is different.
I am different.
I have a father. I’m connected to someone. I’m not alone. And I’m not poor. I will no longer be part of this world where we count every penny. I won’t stand in the grocery store and tally up my cash to see if I can afford the good cheese or if I have to settle for cheese food. I won’t have to sleep on a used mattress, stress about this month’s rent, or wear clothes I’ve owned since high school.
Once Jonas has the proof that I’m his flesh and blood, he’ll take care of me. All I want from Jonas is tuition for grad school. Once I have my masters, I can study for CPA certification, and my career will take off. With no school loans to drag me down, I’ll be flying high in no time.
Guard your heart.
Don’t hope for anything but money.
I run down the hot blacktop one-lane road the half-mile to the main highway that circles the island. Thank god it only takes a few minutes for the eastbound bus to arrive and I jump on board, fighting the fidgets of excitement. I can’t wait to tell Blake.
After what seems like a decade, the bus finally spits me out in front of the resort on the eastern tip of the island. Dive Love, the shop I worked at until a few months ago, and where Blake still works, is attached to the resort.
With relief, I see the boats are still tied to the dock behind the shop. They’ll be getting loaded with divers and gear. I race around the dive hut and the tank shed, feeling the uneven weathered boards of the dock through my thin flip-flops.
Blake is in one of the smaller boats, head bent under the shelf at the bow. Richard, one of my favorite boat drivers, waves when he spots me. He breaks into a wide grin and speaks with a thick island accent. “Sweet, Kylie. I knew Mike would see sense and hire you back.”
A pang of sadness stabs at me. The sun on the water, the give of the dock, the smell of the gas from the boat engines, salt air, the call of seagulls. It all makes me long for the days of dives and meeting new people, showing divers from all over the world the wonders in our particular corner. I clutch my papers.
This changes my whole world. When Jonas acknowledges me, I’ll launch into my grown-up world. Diving will be something I do two weeks out of the year. But that’s what I want. What Mom would have wanted for me.
It is what I want. A successful financial career.
Diving every day isn’t a real life.
Blake pops up from the bow when he hears Richard. He hurries toward me.
After a quick hug for Richard and an explanation that Mike hadn’t recanted my firing, I take Blake’s hand and pull him along the end of the dock, toward the water.
I show him the report. “Look at this.”
He glances at it, face crumpled into a frown. “What is it?”
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I let it out in a rush. “It means I’m Jonas Knightly’s daughter. You know, the guy who runs JK Investments.”
“I know who he is.” He hands me the paper and studies me. “This is why you came to Cayman, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He seems about as excited for me as we’d been for Diana’s news about Don. “I got sidetracked by working here and I lost sight of the goal. But I’m going after it now.”
“And this super-rich Jonas Knightly is the key to your happiness?” He sounds almost mad.
“It’s finally happening.” The excitement stirs in my belly again. “I’m going to make Jonas pay for what he did to my mother.”
Make him acknowledge me.
Blake gives me an amazed look. “What he did to her?”
“She...” A memory flashes. My mother, gray and wasted. Waxy skin. Ravaged to the bone by cancer. How hard she fought to stay with me. “He could’ve saved her.” I look away, shaking my head. “If he’d been around, he could’ve saved her.”
“From what you’ve told me, she didn’t want anything from this guy, your father. She kept his identity from you and raised you herself. I didn’t know her, but when you talk about the life you shared, it seems like you had a special relationship that most people never have. There’s a reason she never contacted Jonas.”
He doesn’t understand. “It was a different time. Maybe she was ashamed.”
“Of you”? His face softens. “I’ll bet it was the opposite. You were so close. She had to have loved you and been proud of you.”
Tears spring to my eyes and I blink them away. “I don’t want anything from him but money. And then, only enough to cover grad school tuition. That should be easy for someone with his wealth.”
“Money?” Blake speaks as if I’m a little kid. “I know you, Kylie. This isn’t about money. You’re setting yourself up for heartbreak.”
Why doesn’t Blake get it? “You’re wrong. I’m not like you. I’m not going to get scholarships to pay for school. The only reason I earned my undergrad degree is because Mom got practically free tuition at Harebridge.”
For the first time I see a hint of anger in his face. “You haven’t even tried. You’re twenty-years-old. You’ve got an accounting degree. You have unlimited options. Get a job, make a plan. You don’t need Jonas Knightly to set you up with millions.”
I feel myself waver. Maybe Blake is right. Maybe I don’t need Jonas. Maybe mom—it’s thinking about my mom that does it. strengthens my resolve. “He owes me. Mom should have had better care, treatments he could have paid for. She’s gone but I intend to collect.”
He trudges toward the boat. “You’re making a mistake. Money has never been the issue.”
“Issue?” My temper rises. So does my voice. “Now I have issues?”
A laughing group of divers, probably a trip arranged from a dive shop in Colorado or someplace, is loading onto a boat next to us. They stop and stare at us.
Blake turns to me and lowers his voice. “You can make money any time you want. You could’ve been with me and I’d have taken care of you. Not like Jonas Knightly, but I wouldn’t ever let you starve or go without a home.” He lets that sit for a moment, the realization that whether he wants to admit it or not, the fact that I rejected him still stings. “The point is you have options. Options that don’t include extorting money from Jonas Knightly.”
The sun burns on my head and arms. “I’m finally getting what I want, why are you so mad about it?”
This isn’t what you want.
This isn’t who you are.
He stomps toward his boat and I struggle to keep up. “D
o you hear yourself? You sound like Diana. It’s only what you think you want. It won’t make you happy. It’s not what you need.”
“If insane wealth isn’t it, what is?” Even as I say it I know he’s right. Money won’t make me happy but I cling to it, my plan of making Jonas pay because it’s all I have. Everyone leaves me. My mom. Blake and Diana.
Zach.
Everyone leaves and once they’re gone, I’ll be alone.
I’ll have no one.
Nothing.
“I can’t help you, Kylie.” He stops walking away and really looks at me. “You have to figure out that you’re good enough on your own. I can’t do that for you. No one can.”
“What? You’re crazy.”
Several divers wait in his boat. A middle-aged couple stands on the deck, handing their gear to Richard. Blake swings his head from them to me. He has to go, turn on the charm, give them the affable, competent dive master they expect for their money.
“You resent anyone with money.” He leans over, his voice quiet but harsh. You’re consumed with this idea that life hasn’t been fair. But the truth is, you had everything you needed growing up with your mother. She loved you and made sure you learned how to take care of yourself. But somewhere along the line, you got this idea that because you don’t have wealth, you’re somehow inferior. Because you didn’t have a dad, you don’t belong. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s bullshit.”
His words pummel me like fists and I drop my head against them.
“Why don’t you talk to Liesa about this?” His tone softens. “She’s been through a lot because of money. She’d probably be able to help you.”
I have this vision of Liesa and Blake, sitting on her patio, looking out over the canal that leads to the ocean. Their feet resting on padded chaise lounges, frosty drinks side-by-side on the small table between their chairs, discussing poor Kylie and her misguided ways. “When Jonas claims me and I have money, you can live with me. We can get an apartment in New York and you can go to school without worrying about a job.”