Just My Luck

by Jennifer Honeybourn

  When he leaves in search of a snack, I pull out my phone. We’re not supposed to use them on duty, but if no one’s here to catch me, then does it even really matter? I haven’t had it fixed since I dropped it again last month, and the screen is webbed. I’m scrolling through Instagram, trying to talk myself out of checking Kahale’s feed, when out of the corner of my eye, I notice someone approaching the front desk. I quickly tuck my phone back into my pocket. I glance up and my breath catches. It’s the hot guy I saw in the hall earlier, only this time all he’s wearing is a towel.

  And ohmygod, his body is incredible. He’s like a Greek statue come to life, his chest as hard and polished as cut stone. His dark hair is wet, slicked back from his face. My own face is prickling underneath my sunburn, but he doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed, even though he’s the one standing half-naked in front of a complete stranger. His friend is behind him, also wearing only a towel, and dripping water all over the bamboo floor.

  “Hey,” Hot Guy says, his eyes dropping to the brass name badge pinned on the pocket of my Hawaiian shirt. “Marty. Can you help us? We forgot our room key.”

  My shoulders stiffen as I remember that, just over an hour ago, this boy laughed at my sunburn. Okay, maybe he didn’t laugh, exactly, but he did smile at me and I’m pretty sure it was only because I look like I’m wearing a bandit mask.

  Unfortunately, my face hasn’t changed since then. It’s not easy to pretend that this doesn’t bother me, but I have to be polite—it’s kind of a job requirement—so I say, “What’s your room number?” I sound calm and professional, so there’s no way he could pick up on my inner rage.

  “7010.”

  I type the number into my computer.

  “The room is registered to my dad, Richard Foster,” he adds. “He booked the room for my brother and me.”

  His dad didn’t just book a room—he booked the King Lunalilo Suite. The Fosters are clearly in the top 1 percent, because they’re staying here for the entire summer.

  God, life is so unfair. Hot Guy gets to live in the lap of luxury, experiencing things that the rest of us could never hope to, even if we lived ten lifetimes. And he didn’t even do anything to earn it—he just happened to be born into money.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Will,” he says.

  Sure enough, there’s a note on the file about Richard’s two sons—Will and Hayes.

  “Do you have ID?” I ask.

  Will glances down at his near-nakedness. “Not on me,” he says. “I didn’t think this through, obviously.”

  Right.

  Hotel policy is not to let someone into a room without proper ID, but I’m pretty sure that he’s telling the truth, so I bend the rules and program a key card.

  “You know, the pool actually closed hours ago,” I say. This time I hear the edge in my voice, and Will must too, because his eyes skip guiltily away from me. He drums his fingers on the counter, and I notice his fingernails are chewed almost all the way down.

  “Yeah, sorry about that. We were quiet. Although not quiet enough, I guess. The security guard just kicked us out,” he says. “Listen, are you okay? You looked like you ran into those doors pretty hard earlier.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m fine,” I reply. “I just wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  His concern knocks me off-balance a bit. He seems genuinely interested in making sure I’m all right. I guess there’s a small chance I was wrong about him and he wasn’t actually making fun of me earlier. A very small chance.

  All of this is going through my head as I hand him the key card. Our fingers brush and my body starts to buzz. A slow smile spreads across his face, like he knows exactly what I’m feeling, because he’s feeling it, too.

  It’s been a while since I buzzed like that and I don’t know what to do, so I yank my hand back and take a small step away from the desk. We’re staring at each other, eyes locked, when the other guy—who must be Hayes, his brother—marches up to the desk, a striped beach towel wrapped around his shoulders like a cape.

  “Okay, you’ve got the key. Why are you still standing here?” he says to Will, without acknowledging me. “I’m freezing my ass off.”

  Will’s smile tightens. “Right,” he says, but his brother has already stormed off, heading through the lobby, leaving behind wet footprints on the marble.

  “I guess I’d better get going,” Will says. “Sorry for getting water all over the floor. I’ll see you around, Marty.”

  He walks away just as Benjie reappears, carrying a plate of muffins.

  “Let me guess, they broke into the pool and forgot their key,” he says, as Will and Hayes disappear into the elevator.

  I nod.

  “The tall one is cute.”

  I pick up a stapler, even though I have nothing to staple. “I didn’t notice.”

  Benjie scoffs. “When have you not noticed cute?”

  I frown. He’s right—every hot guy who crosses our path is usually up for immediate discussion. I don’t know why I’m being weird about Will.

  That’s a lie. I do know why—whatever it was that just passed between Will and me, it’s something I haven’t felt since Kahale. And look how that turned out. I don’t want Benjie to pick up on this, because he will never let it go.

  He sets the muffins in front of me. “You like him.”

  Okay, so obviously I’m not doing a very good job of hiding my feelings.

  “I don’t even know him,” I reply.

  “The beginning is the best part of a relationship.” Benjie sighs. “I remember those days.”

  “Those days were not that long ago,” I remind him. He’s only been with Aaron, one of the hotel’s sous chefs, for a couple of months. “And calm yourself. The last thing I’m interested in is a relationship.”

  “Fine—fling, dalliance, summer romance. Call it what you want,” he says. “I call it love.”

  I snort. “I talked to him for ten seconds.” And, okay, it was a pretty meaningful ten seconds, but still. Love is the furthest thing from what that was.

  I grab one of the chocolate chip muffins—one of the benefits of working with someone well connected with the kitchen—and take a large bite. I cry out as something crunches horribly in my mouth and an excruciating pain shoots through my gums.

  Benjie wrinkles his nose as I spit the muffin out into my hand.

  “I think I just chipped my tooth.”

  “I don’t think that’s even possible,” he says. “Muffins are practically pre-chewed. There’s nothing to chip your tooth on.”

  But he moves a bit closer to me and peers into my mouth. “Oh my god!” he cries. “Half of your front tooth is missing!”

  I groan and run my tongue over the jaggedy edge of what’s left of my tooth. “Great.”

  “Maybe they can reattach it or something.”

  “It’s not like a finger,” I say, but I dig the shard out of the spit-out remains of the muffin, just in case. My hands are shaking as I drop the shard of tooth into my pocket.

  I take a deep breath to try to calm my nerves. My luck seems to be getting worse with each passing day, and it’s starting to get to me. I’ve done everything I could think of to try to flip my karma—no sneaking out, no talking back to my mom (well, mostly), no taking things that don’t belong to me. I’ve picked up every penny I’ve come across on the street. I feng shui’d our entire house. I’ve hung horseshoes above my door, bought a rabbit’s foot—a faux one, but still. I even considered getting a four-leaf-clover tattoo, until I realized my mom would kill me dead, so I settled for a necklace with a charm of the lucky symbol instead.

  I’ve been a model citizen for an entire month. Nothing has worked. My luck still sucks.

  And I have no idea how to fix it.

  Four

  So it turns out that breaking your tooth is not a good enough reason to leave work early—at least not according to Marielle, our night manager. She points out that the dentist office won’t
be open for hours anyway, and since the pain has subsided—thanks to a few Tylenol—I should be able to hang on for a few more hours. She’s usually a stickler for presenting a professional appearance, but unfortunately for me, it’s the middle of the night and she figures I won’t be interacting with many guests.

  I swear Marielle’s out to get me. She was not happy when my mom had me moved to the front desk—apparently she’s not a fan of nepotism—and I feel like she’s just waiting for me to slip up so she can fire me.

  After my shift finally ends, I change into my slippers. I hate the ugly, low-heeled black patent leather shoes that are part of the hotel uniform, so I always take them off the first chance I get. I head down to my mom’s office and load Libby into a black cat carrier that Leo left for her, along with a Tupperware container of cat food. I know I should take Libby to the shelter, like my mom asked me to, but one look at her sweet little face and I know I can’t do it.

  Benjie is waiting for me so we can walk out together. The hotel makes us park our cars a few blocks from the hotel, in a sandy lot next to a construction site. It’s not a sketchy area, exactly, but I don’t like to walk out there alone before the sun has come up. He’s changed out of his uniform and into a white tracksuit. His unruly black curls are tucked underneath a trucker hat.

  “How much do you think it’s going to cost to have my tooth fixed?” I ask him as we head down the sidewalk. I’m worried, because we don’t have dental insurance. And we don’t have a whole lot of extra money, especially now that my dad’s gone.

  Benjie shrugs. “Whatever it costs, it’s worth it—it’s not like you can go around with half a front tooth.”

  I sigh.

  An older woman out for an early-morning stroll is coming toward us, walking a huge brown dog. Libby must sense the dog, because she shifts nervously in her carrying case. The dog clearly picks up on her, too, because it starts to bark and strain at its leash. I’m afraid of dogs—especially loud, barky ones that look like they could swallow me whole—so I’m relieved when the woman manages to wrestle control of it. My heart pounds as she crosses to the other side of the street.

  “Okay, that was seriously—”

  “Marty,” Benjie interrupts. “Watch where you’re—”

  Something makes an awful squish underneath my rubber slippers.

  “Walking,” he finishes.

  My stomach heaves. Even without looking down, there’s no mistaking what I just stepped in. The smell wafts up toward me and I gag. “Ew! Ewwwwwww! Oh my god!”

  Benjie whips around. “You shouldn’t own a dog if you can’t clean up after it!” he yells at the woman’s retreating back.

  I can’t even scrape the dog crap off—it’s embedded in the bottom of my slipper. I angrily kick off my shoe, tears stinging my eyes. I know this isn’t something I should be crying over, but it’s the end of a very long, very bad night and I can’t hold it in any longer.

  I’m sniffling as I set Libby on the ground. Benjie hands me the Whole Foods tote he uses for a lunch bag. I bend down and gingerly pick up my slipper by its yellow rubber strap. I throw it inside the bag, then bend down to inspect my foot.

  There’s dog poop on my big toe.

  Dog. Poop. On. My. Big. Toe.

  I shudder, so grossed out that I can’t even talk.

  Benjie wrinkles his nose. “Boy, you are really having a day.”

  If only it were just this day.

  I take off my other slipper and walk barefoot on the concrete, praying I still have some hand wipes from the rib place my brother and I went to last week stashed somewhere in my car. We’re almost at the edge of the parking lot when I hear a crack as loud as thunder.

  I glance up at the sky just in time to see a palm tree falling through the air. Benjie grabs my arm and we stare, openmouthed, as the tree lands with a sickening sound of crunching metal—right on top of my car.

  * * *

  “What are the odds?” Benjie says. He’s standing beside me, surveying the damage to the old VW Golf I inherited from my dad. The roof is completely caved in, crumpled like an accordion underneath the thick trunk of the palm tree. It landed perfectly on my car, not a mark on either of the vehicles parked beside mine.

  I wrap my arms around myself. What did I do to deserve this?

  “Look on the bright side,” Benjie says, putting his arm around my shaking shoulders. “No one was hurt.”

  “My car was hurt!” From the looks of it, it was totaled. It wasn’t worth much, but it was mine, and there’s no way I can afford another one.

  This time, I don’t even try to hold the tears back.

  * * *

  Benjie comes with me back to the hotel. While I stash Libby in my mom’s office and clean the dog crap off my foot in the staff washroom, Marielle arranges to have the tree removed and my car towed. I think she’s afraid I’ll sue the hotel or something, because she offers to let me use one of the hotel’s passenger vans until we’ve sorted the situation out.

  Before she hands over the keys, Marielle reminds me that this is a company vehicle and whenever I’m behind the wheel, I’m representing the Grand Palms. Benjie is standing behind her and he rolls his eyes.

  I chew my lip. “Don’t I need a special license to drive the van?” The hotel has a fleet of cars that are much smaller and more manageable than the passenger vans.

  “No,” she says. “You just need common sense and I trust you to have that.”

  But she doesn’t, not really, because the next thing she says is, “No running red lights or cutting anyone off.”

  Behind her, Benjie makes a face and wags his finger at me, back and forth, like a metronome. Normally, his spot-on impressions of Marielle make me laugh, but I’m not in the mood for any of it right now.

  After saying goodbye to Benjie, I pick up Libby and take the elevator down to the underground lot. The van is parked in the far corner, exactly where Marielle said it would be. I jingle the keys, my palms sweating. She’s given me one of the biggest vans, usually used to ferry large groups of guests to and from the airport. It’s white, with the Grand Palms logo imprinted in gold on the doors.

  I take a deep breath and climb inside, setting Libby on the seat beside me. I feel tiny behind the steering wheel, and it takes me a few minutes to figure out where everything is before I start the van.

  My hands shake the entire ride home. I keep well below the speed limit, ignoring all the cars that pass me. When I pull up to my house half an hour later, Ansel is loading his surfboard into the back of his beat-up truck. The waves are the only thing that ever gets my brother out of bed this early in the morning. His entire life is built around surfing. He’s been taking a few classes at the University of Hawaii, but his attendance is spotty at best. It annoys me that he skips so much, especially when all I hear from my mom is how much college costs. The cost of it all was part of the reason I’d decided not to even bother applying. That, and I was so sure I’d be traveling with Nalani.

  I turn off the van. Ansel walks over to me. He’s wearing blue board shorts and a grungy pair of Adidas slides that I’ve begged him to get rid of. His red hair is sticking up in every direction.

  He taps his fingers against the Grand Palms logo on the door. “Sweet ride. Where’s your car?”

  I’m in the middle of telling him what happened when he starts to laugh.

  “What happened to your tooth?” he asks.

  Libby lets out a plaintive yowl and my brother forgets about my tooth as he spots the black carrier resting on the passenger seat beside me.

  He smiles. “Mom’s going to kill you.”

  “She’s not going to know.”

  “Marty, she’s going to know,” he says. “The woman doesn’t miss a thing.”

  I rest my hand protectively on the carrier. “I just need to keep her here for a couple of days. Until I find someone who wants her.”

  Ansel shakes his head. “You don’t need to convince me,” he says. “It’s Momzilla you need to w
orry about.”

  “If she finds out—which she won’t—all she’ll do is make me drop her off at a shelter,” I say. “It’s not like she’s going to kick me out.”

  Ansel bends down to peek at Libby through the carrier’s mesh window. “You best be quiet, cat, or it’s curtains for you.” He draws a finger across his throat.

  “Stop.”

  His face straightens. “She’s not going to let you keep her.”

  “I’m not planning to keep her,” I say, but I know he can tell I’m lying. Ansel has always been able to read me. It’s super annoying.

  “I’ll ask around,” he says. “See if anyone’s in the market for a new pet.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ansel walks back toward his van.

  “Be careful!” I call. My brother isn’t reckless, exactly, but surfing is a dangerous sport. No matter how good he is—and no matter what he thinks—he’s not invincible. All it would take is one rogue wave and he could be seriously hurt. Or worse.

  He turns around and gives me a thumbs-up, but his overconfidence doesn’t make me feel any better.

  * * *

  Maybe Ansel got through to Libby, because she doesn’t make a peep as I hurry through the house and downstairs to my bedroom. When I’m safely inside, I shut the door and unzip the carrier. It’s not until she steps out and starts to explore my room, her long gray tail twitching, that I realize I don’t have a litter box. Which seems like a pretty big oversight.

  I open my closet door, like I’m somehow going to find one magically in there, stuffed in between my clothes and rarely used scuba gear. I’m wondering if there’s a way I can somehow repurpose my laundry basket, when something falls from the top shelf. It clips me on the shoulder on the way down.

  A shoebox that I could have sworn I’d buried at the very back of my closet is lying on its side. The lid has popped off, and everything I’d hidden in the box has spilled onto the floor. A pair of cherry-red sunglasses, a vanilla-scented travel candle, a hula-girl shot glass, and a luggage tag shaped like a surfboard.