Just My Luck

by Jennifer Honeybourn

  “My dad’s allergic to cats,” he says. His voice is stiff.

  I swallow. “Oh. Um, okay. I’ll come up and grab Libby.”

  I really don’t want to go upstairs with him and meet his parents—I’m scared of them by default—and from his closed-off body language, I don’t think it’s what Will wants either, but I have to get Libby.

  Will stuffs his hands into his pockets as we walk through the hotel. A truck could drive through the space between us. I can’t believe just a half an hour ago we were excitedly talking about all the places we’d go and now it’s like I’m walking beside a stranger. I know this doesn’t really have anything to do with me, but it’s hard not to take his mood personally.

  He takes a deep breath before unlocking the door to his suite. Maybe he was hoping Hayes was just playing a prank on him, because his shoulders slump when he sees a brass luggage cart sitting in the hall, piled high with expensive suitcases.

  “William? Is that you?” a man with a distinct East Coast accent calls from the other room, followed by a sneeze. A few seconds later Will’s dad rounds the corner, Libby trotting behind him.

  “William, why is there a cat in our suite?” his dad says. He’s the grown-up version of Will, dressed in a light-blue golf shirt and Bermuda shorts that show off legs that clearly haven’t seen the sun in a while. He’s holding a Kleenex to his nose.

  “Hi, Dad. What are you doing here?” Will asks.

  “Your mother and I thought we’d surprise you.” He lowers the Kleenex and smiles at me, but it feels more practiced than sincere.

  “Hello. I’m Richard Foster,” he says. His eyes don’t leave my face, but I can feel him taking in my cutoff shorts and plain T-shirt, my hair pulled into a messy topknot.

  My cheeks are on fire. I can only imagine what he’s thinking right now—his son brought some random girl up to his hotel room.

  “Hi, Mr. Foster,” I say, holding out my hand to shake his. “I’m Marty.”

  I can feel the stress radiating off Will in waves. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Downstairs having tea with the Gundlesons,” Mr. Foster says. “And you’re avoiding my question. Why is there a cat here?”

  “Right. Well…” Will rubs the back of his neck.

  “He was doing me a favor, sir,” I say, leaning down to grab Libby. “I asked him to watch her for a few days until I could find a permanent home for her. But I’ve found one—yay!—so I’m actually just here to pick her up.”

  From the way Will’s dad is studying me, it’s clear he doesn’t buy it. He’s not stupid—he knows there’s more to our story than a stray cat. But he doesn’t ask any follow-up questions, which is good because I don’t know how well that lie would hold up under cross-examination.

  “Marty works here at the Grand Palms,” Will says, and I die a little. It’s not much of an explanation—it certainly doesn’t explain why I’ve left the cat with him—but even worse, with that one sentence, Will has put a gulf between us. He didn’t tell his dad that we’re dating—he told him that I’m the help.

  “I’ll just go grab the carrier,” I say, feeling humiliated. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible. I can hear Mr. Foster’s angry whispers as I walk down the hall with Libby tucked under my arm. I scan the main room but I don’t see the carrier, so Will must have left it in his bedroom. I debate the propriety of going in to grab it, but at this point, I just want to get out of here.

  The carrier is next to Will’s bed. Libby gives a mournful meow as I put her inside the carrier. I grab a tote bag filled with her food, but I don’t bother taking her litter box—let Will deal with that—and hurry out of his room.

  When I get back to the entryway, Will’s face is red and he doesn’t look me in the eye. My heart sinks right down to my toes. His dad must have said something to him about me, and whatever it was, his words have hit their mark.

  “Lovely to meet you, Marcy,” Mr. Foster says.

  I wait for Will to correct him, and when he doesn’t, I say, “Nice to meet you, too.”

  I finally catch Will’s eye, then immediately wish I hadn’t. His face is blank, whatever emotions he’s feeling hidden where I can’t read them.

  I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. I leave the room without another word, trying not to mind that he didn’t even say goodbye.

  Twenty-one

  I’ve been sitting in the hotel van for the past twenty minutes, Libby purring on my lap. Her head is resting on my leg, her eyes closed in contentment as I stroke her gray fur, and I almost can’t take it. My chest hitches. Not being able to keep her is the worst. I can’t bear the idea of taking her back to the shelter, but I don’t know what else to do with her.

  Marielle left me a message, letting me know that Will’s parents have unexpectedly arrived and I’m no longer needed as a tour guide. I’m back on the front desk and she’s expecting me to work tomorrow night.

  My phone beeps again. I’m hoping it’s Will, but it’s my brother, asking me to meet him at Leoda’s, a pie shop not too far from the golf course where he works. I’m not in the mood, but when I tell him that, he says he won’t take no for an answer, and so I put Libby back into her carrier and start the van.

  Half an hour later, I pull off Honoapi‘ilani Highway and into Leoda’s parking lot. I can’t leave Libby in the van—it’s way too hot—so I loop her carrier over my arm, hoping that the staff will think it’s my purse.

  Ansel’s at one of the high-top tables across from the counter. I place Libby’s carrier underneath the table, then sit on the stool beside him.

  He raises an eyebrow. “They’re going to kick us out.”

  “Maybe no one will notice,” I say, just as Libby lets out a loud meow. Fortunately, the woman behind the counter doesn’t seem to have heard.

  Ansel’s knee is bouncing up and down. He digs his fork into his half-eaten piece of banana cream pie and shovels it into his mouth. He ordered pie for me—macadamia chocolate praline—but there’s another slice on the table as well. Olowalu lime. My dad’s favorite.

  My entire body tenses. “Ansel.”

  He doesn’t look at me, but his face reddens.

  I poke his shoulder. He swallows the pie and finally meets my eyes.

  “If I told you he was here, you wouldn’t have come,” he says.

  My entire body goes cold. I glance around and spot my dad at a table on the other side of the restaurant, where he’s obviously been watching us. Our eyes lock and he smiles tentatively at me, like that’s going to take the sting out of being tricked into seeing him.

  “You’re an asshole,” I say to Ansel as I slide off the stool. I snatch up Libby’s carrier, feeling stupid that I didn’t catch on when he suggested we meet here, at my dad’s favorite pie place.

  I really hate my brother right now.

  “Come on. Don’t go,” Ansel says, grabbing my arm. “You haven’t taken any of his calls. What else was he supposed to do?”

  I shake him off. “Not leaving in the first place would have been nice.” My voice is loud and I can feel the eyes of the other diners on me, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but getting out of here before I completely lose my shit, but it’s too late, because now my dad is standing in front of me and I’m going to have to deal with this.

  Six months. I haven’t seen him in six months, but he hasn’t changed. He still looks the same, in his khaki shorts and his washed-out T-shirt, three days’ worth of beard on his face because he’s too lazy to shave. But this is a trick too, because he’s not the same. This person standing in front of me is not my dad. The dad who took me camping, who spent hours searching for sea turtles, who taught me to drive—that’s my dad. And he never would have left.

  “Marty,” he says, taking a step closer to me. “Please.”

  I shake my head and push past him. I am going to cry and I don’t want to do it front of him. I don’t want him to think that I’m weakening.

  “You can’t ignore me forever,” he
says, following me outside.

  Oh yeah? Watch me.

  He grimaces. “I know you’re angry—and you have every right to be—but I just want the chance to explain.”

  I throw open the passenger door of the van and place Libby on the seat. My legs are shaking as I walk to the driver’s side. This time he doesn’t follow me. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, the same dark red as my brother’s, as I climb into the van.

  “You can’t run away from your problems, honey,” he calls as I back the van out of the parking spot. “Take it from me.”

  * * *

  I’m on autopilot. The texts are rolling in and I know they’re from my brother and/or my dad, but I ignore them. There’s nothing either of them can say that I want to hear. I can’t believe my brother would do that to me, knowing how I felt about my dad.

  I don’t know where else to go, so I go home, hoping that Ansel isn’t behind me. My stomach is in knots and I’m still shaking when I pull the van into our driveway. Everything is a mess and I don’t know how to make anything better. I don’t even know what better looks like.

  Libby gazes up at me through the mesh of her carrier. I unzip the carrier door and pull her out, settling her on my lap. She immediately starts to purr.

  Mrs. Bautista, our next-door neighbor, comes out the front door of her seashell-pink house, carrying a watering can. I watch her water her hanging baskets. Mrs. B. is a retired music teacher and she’s lived beside us for as long as I can remember. After my dad left, she came by our house every day for weeks, bringing homemade banana bread or a casserole. Checking in on us, the same way we checked in on her when her husband, Barry, died last year.

  Libby needs a permanent home and if I can’t give her that, then Mrs. B.’s house is the next best thing. I know she would love her as much as I do. I just hope she’ll take her.

  I take a deep breath and quickly wipe away my tears. I climb out of the van and walk across the lawn, Libby in my arms.

  “Marty.” Mrs. B. pushes up the brim of her floppy yellow sunhat. Her entire face lights up when she smiles. “I haven’t seen you in a while. How are you, love?”

  “Hi, Mrs. B.”

  “Now, who might this be?” She takes off her floral gardening gloves and stuffs them into the pocket of her salmon-colored capri pants, then reaches out to stroke Libby’s back. “Aren’t you sweet?” she says. “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

  “We don’t,” I say. “I’m actually looking for a home for her.”

  Mrs. B. glances at me.

  “I see,” she says. “Well, to be honest, honey, I swore I wasn’t going to get another cat after my Henry died…”

  But I can tell from the way she smiles at Libby that she’s already been won over. Mrs. B. sets her watering can on the ground and reaches for her. I pass Libby over and she nestles into the crook of Mrs. B.’s arm, like she was always meant to be there.

  “She’s adorable,” Mrs. B. says. “Thank you.”

  I nod. My throat feels thick. I reach out and scratch Libby one more time behind the ears. Tears are starting to push against my eyes again.

  Mrs. B. rests her hand on my arm. “Thank you, Marty, for trusting me with her,” she says. “You come back and see us anytime you like, all right?”

  I admit, it does make it sting slightly less that Libby is right next door, where I can see her whenever I want.

  “Thanks, Mrs. B.,” I say. “Bye, Libby.”

  I walk back toward my house. Letting Libby go is the right thing to do. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

  * * *

  I haven’t heard anything from Will since yesterday. I’ve texted him a few times and now I’m angry—at him because he hasn’t responded and at me for trusting him in the first place. I’m sure he’s busy with his parents, but he could have at least taken two seconds to text me back.

  I’m beginning to think I was wrong about him. That all I was—all I was ever going to be—was a diversion from his real life. And now that his real life has come knocking, he’s no longer interested in me.

  It feels like rejection, like catching Kahale in the limo all over again. But I still check my phone every few minutes, hoping I’m wrong.

  “You’re sure you took it the night of the bonfire?” Nalani asks. She’s leaning on the front desk, trying to help me find the owner of the luggage tag. She’s off tonight, but I’m glad she’s keeping me company, at least until Katherine, the girl I’m working this shift with returns from her break.

  I sigh and put my head down on the desk. “Yes.”

  I’ve combed through the guest records for the rooms we cleaned on that date, but I haven’t turned up anything that suggests the owners of the room were getting married. No complimentary champagne, no chocolate-covered strawberries or rose petals on the bed.

  Nothing.

  “Maybe you should check Jack’s files,” she says.

  Jack is the hotel’s wedding planner. He keeps detailed notes on all the weddings held at the Grand Palms. Unfortunately, his files are password protected.

  “I already tried.”

  I also already tried googling the names of the guests who stayed in all of the rooms we cleaned that day, but as luck would have it, they all had super-common names—Jones and Brown and Garcia. So my internet sleuthing didn’t turn up anything.

  “Did you try Facebook?” Nalani says.

  I pick my head up off the desk and look at her. “No.”

  She shrugs. “If I got married in Hawaii, I’d post millions of pictures.”

  I log in to Facebook and, one by one, I search through the names. But by the time I get to Ashley Rodriquez, I’ve started to give up hope again. How can there be so many people out there with the same name?

  But then I spot a profile photo of a girl wearing a veil.

  I sit up a little straighter. I click on this Ashley Rodriquez and, fortunately, her page isn’t private. A rush of relief goes through me as I look through her feed and find pictures of her wedding—Ashley and her groom strolling on the beach, their backs to the camera, her veil trailing behind them. Standing so close, their noses are almost touching, her hands on the side of his face, her diamond wedding band catching the light. A close-up of their feet, Just Maui’d written in the sand. And one of the two of them posing in front of the chapel at the Grand Palms.

  I smile. “You were right,” I say to Nalani. “I found her!”

  Nalani isn’t cheering, like I expected her to. I glance up and find Will standing beside her, his hair in its messy Elvis pompadour, his hands stuffed into the front pocket of his black hoodie. Those dark rings under his eyes are back.

  “Hey,” I say. The smile slips from my face as I remember that I’m mad at him.

  Nalani looks back and forth between us. “I should get running,” she says. She takes off before I can stop her.

  And before I can ask Will why he hasn’t bothered texting me back, he says, “So. I talked to my dad. It did not go well.” He lets out a breath and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I mean, I knew he wouldn’t be thrilled that I don’t want to go to Wharton, but he really freaked out.”

  “Maybe he’ll come around,” I say.

  But Will’s already shaking his head. “He won’t. You don’t know my dad,” he says. “He never changes his mind. I’m going to business school, and then I’m working for him, and that’s it. That’s my life. All planned out.”

  “What about what you want?”

  What about California? What about camping in the Redwood Forest? Staying in hostels, backpacking around the country, stargazing?

  He snorts. “What I want isn’t important.”

  “It is, though,” I say. “It’s your life.”

  “Marty, if I don’t go along with this, then he’ll cut me off.”

  “You think he’d really do that?” My mom can be a nightmare, but I can’t imagine her disowning me.

  “Oh, he’d do it,” he says. “No question.”

  “
Okay. Well, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

  He looks at me like I’ve just spoken to him in Klingon. “It’s the worst thing. I have no way of supporting myself.”

  “What about opening a coffee shop?”

  “I need money for that.” He grimaces. “It was a stupid idea, anyway. What do I know about running a coffee shop?”

  “Well, maybe nothing now, but you could learn.” I’m trying to help him, but it’s pretty clear he doesn’t want my help.

  “It’s never going to happen. It’s just a dumb dream,” he says.

  But it’s not dumb. Seeing him so defeated is the worst. I can’t believe he’s giving up so easily, just going to follow the path that his father has determined is the best one for him. I know what it’s like to be afraid, to be so paralyzed by fear that you can’t see clearly. But I also know that if he does give into it, he’ll be miserable.

  “With everything that’s happened … I can’t keep disappointing him,” he says. “So I’m going to Wharton. That’s it.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not like you, Marty. People are counting on me. I have responsibilities. You don’t understand.”

  I stiffen. He doesn’t think I understand responsibility? I’m standing in front of him, working the graveyard shift, making sure rich tourists like him have an unforgettable vacation. Will Foster has never had to work a day in his life. I may not understand exactly what his life is like, but he doesn’t understand mine, either.

  “That came out wrong,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I just … I was really hoping this would all work out.”

  I feel myself go cold all over. By “this,” he must mean me.

  It seems like he’s made up his mind about his future and, by extension, about us. I let myself believe that we could be more than just a summer romance. All it took was his father showing up and he’s suddenly aware that we come from different worlds. And I don’t belong in his.