I felt my smile waver. What did the beluga whales think about that? But whatever—it wasn’t like I had to support beluga-selfie guy.
A flight attendant named Andrea, on her way back toward the front of the plane with her cart of beverages, stopped and looked at us. She had flawless brown skin, coiled braids on the top of her head, and the straightest teeth I’d ever seen. “Oh no, you don’t want to swim in the ocean.” Andrea pointed a long fingernail out the window. “We’ve had a lot of jellyfish lately. Really painful.”
“Wait, you’re from Myla?” I asked excitedly.
Andrea blinked at me, as though this was the first time someone had asked her this all day. “Yes. I grew up there.”
“Oh wow!” I exclaimed. “What’s it like? Is there a traditional greeting I should know about? Are there any customs we should be aware of?” I wanted to be respectful of the people living on the island.
Andrea raised an eyebrow, and I realized a moment too late that I must sound like an airheaded tourist. But before she could answer me, a voice rang out from the front of the first-class cabin. “Stewardess? Um, stewardess?” A girl waved a champagne flute in the air. “Can you possibly get me some champagne that’s a little less bubbly?”
Andrea pushed back the curtain to head into coach. I felt a pang of disappointment, hoping to catch her again before the plane landed.
“Ooh, you know what else?” Elena grabbed my arm excitedly. “Someone told me some of the acts are going to do pop-up concerts on the beach this afternoon.” She widened her eyes. “Would you just die?”
I imagined Lavender doing an impromptu concert on the beach. I had never been one of those screaming überfangirls, practically fainting whenever Lavender released a new video or I came upon her picture in a magazine, but I had a feeling being up close and personal with her would be very, very different.
The plane droned on. Andrea the flight attendant scuttled all over the plane, satisfying requests. Soon, the tip of land emerged. It was all golden beach and thick, beautiful treetops. A sense of wonderment swelled over me.
“Is that Myla?” I said, pointing down.
Elena’s eyes boggled. “Maybe? It’s gorgeous.”
She called Andrea, who happened to be passing by again. “Ah, yes,” she answered, with a little bit of a sarcastic laugh. “Well, that’s the west side.”
I squinted out the window, and sure enough, I could see an airport ahead.
“Solstice is on the eastern part of the island,” Andrea added. She thumbed the top of the window, out on the horizon. “I don’t know it well at all.” I squinted. Beyond the trees seemed, well, deserted—just like the Wikipedia page said. I couldn’t even make out any roads. I felt a tug in my gut. Still, I had to believe everything would be fine.
Right?
The same brief worry flickered across Elena’s face, too, but then it quickly disappeared. She looped her elbow through mine and swigged down the rest of her champagne. “We are going to have such an amazing time together.”
“Totally,” I said. But as I glanced down the aisle again, I saw Andrea watching me … almost like she wanted to say something. But when I turned to ask her what it was, she was gone.
Text message log:
To: Marissa
From: Bethany
Hey! Just landed! Where are U? Where’s this airport’s Starbucks? I can’t find it anywhere.
(Message unable to send)
To: Marissa
From: Bethany
OMG. Just found out there IS no Starbucks here. WTF?
(Message unable to send)
To: Marissa
From: Bethany
Bitch! I know your flight got in. See it on the Arrivals board. Did you walk to the ferry without me? WTF? Why aren’t you texting me back?
(Message unable to send)
To: Marissa
From: Bethany
Holy shit! All my texts to U just bounced back. Is there cell service here? Please tell me this part of the world knows about cell phones. The airport is in the dark ages. I’m afraid to use the bathrooms. How can we know this place is clean if they don’t even have a Starbucks?
(Message unable to send)
5
AFTER A BUMPY LANDING at Myla Airport, we grabbed our carry-ons and deplaned. My stomach trembled nervously as I walked off the Jetway, but when I looked around the terminal, I noticed that though there were a few police officers scattered around the terminal, none of them were glancing my way. I guess my parents hadn’t gone totally DEFCON 5 and sent the law down here to retrieve me.
I pulled out my phone, turned it on, and looked at the screen. No signal. I nudged Elena. “Your phone working?”
She hiked her tote higher onto her shoulder and frowned at her iPhone. “No bars.”
I looked around. The Myla airport was nothing like the massive monstrosity I was used to in Atlanta, which housed every shop and eatery one could think of. But it was clean, and it was nice to see unique-to-the-Caribbean gift shops. I noticed that everyone else who’d descended from planes—most of them as young as Elena and me—were also looking at their phones in despair. “Excuse me,” one girl said, tugging on the sleeve of a woman pushing a cleaning cart into a restroom. She waved her phone in the woman’s face. “Do. These. Work. On. Your. Island?” she said in slow, exaggerated English.
The woman’s nostrils flared. “Yeah, honey, we have cell phones. But sometimes the service is spotty.”
Then she pushed into the bathroom. The tourist girl grumbled and stared at her phone. “How could people live like this?”
“I guess a tower is down or something,” I said breezily to Elena. But I could still use my phone to record a video to eventually send to Hayden. He’d made me promise to send vlogs of everything I experienced.
I turned the camera on myself, not wanting to miss these very first moments of setting foot on Mylan soil. “Um, hey, Hayden!” I said, hoping my face didn’t look too puffy and tired and overwhelmed. “Just got here. It’s sunny, and I have a feeling it’s hot outside. And here’s Elena!” I swept the camera over to her, and she waved. “I’ll film more once I get to ground transport—I mean our limo. Hope you’re not fishing puke out of the pool as we speak!” I considered making kissy-lips at the camera before signing off, but since we hadn’t kissed yet, that seemed a little forward. “Check in with you later!”
I pressed the STOP button and dropped the phone into my hoodie pocket. Elena eyed me as we stepped through a small doorway marked CUSTOMS. “So what’s up with you and Hayden?”
“We’re … friends,” I said, not meeting her gaze. Usually, it was Elena talking about boys, not me. It felt weird to admit a crush. “We’ve been talking a lot, though. He’s super nice.” To my surprise, Elena frowned. “What?” I asked.
“Just…” She shrugged. “Didn’t Hayden move here from…?”
I shot her an incredulous look, silently daring her to say the name of the small, lower-class town across the state.
“Oh, never mind.” Then she smiled. “Maybe you guys could double date with me and Steve when we get back.”
I stopped short in front of a duty-free shop. “I thought you and Steve were over.”
She shrugged, then pointedly looked away.
“Oh, Elena…” I gritted my teeth. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Elena sidestepped a family dragging what looked like ten overstuffed suitcases toward a gate. “He made a mistake, Adri. That’s all.”
I made a harrumph. So here was the thing with Steve. When Elena and I met him, we were both charmed. Steve was nice, polite, funny, and smart, and seemed genuinely interested in Elena. At first, I’d even felt a little jealous when I saw them go off together and make out! They became a couple fast. Elena dropped me for a little, choosing to hang out only with Steve. I tried to be okay with it, figuring she needed time with her new boyfriend, but once, when I was working at the diner, I saw Steve come in with a group of people—but not Ele
na. I guess he didn’t realize my family owned the place—and certainly didn’t notice me among the waitstaff. A redheaded girl sat next to Steve, and they flirted all night. Nothing actually happened between them, but I could tell that it was going to. Later, I’d texted Elena, casually poking around, asking what she’d been up to that day. Well, I was supposed to go out with Steve, but he had to go to his grandma’s. It’s so sweet that he visits her at the nursing home every week.
That was when my opinion started to change.
After that, every time we’d get together as a group, I’d be skeptical of Steve’s sweetness. I’d wonder what he was doing behind Elena’s back. He seemed to make more and more excuses to not be with her, too—though they were always noble reasons, like volunteering or tutoring sessions or helping out his mom. I wondered what he was really doing. But when I tried to tell Elena about my concerns, she looked at me like I wasn’t making any sense. “Steve’s been nothing but wonderful!” she cried.
Things came to a head, though, when Elena actually caught him cheating about a month ago. It was at a party; Elena and I hadn’t planned on going, but we decided to after all at the last minute. Elena had texted Steve she was coming, but I guess he was too busy to get the message. We came upon him in a back bedroom, making out with a redhead—a different redhead, I might add—on a daybed. Elena broke up with him immediately, and I felt grateful. Finally, she’d seen what a jerk he was.
“He came to me last week,” Elena admitted. “Sobbing. He was so upset at what he’d done. He was so heartbroken that he’d hurt me. He begged for me back.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
Elena shrugged. “Because I wasn’t sure you’d understand. But I really believe he just made a mistake. He’s not going to do it again. He loves me, Adri. I believe that.”
I felt Elena watching me, maybe gauging what I was going to say. I wanted to tell her Steve wasn’t worth her time … but I yoga breathed through my annoyance. I had to let Steve go. We were on vacay. This was all about fun.
And so I grabbed her hand and pointed excitedly at a neon sign ahead that read AUTHENTIC TROPICAL DRINKS. “Coconut-banana smoothie to get you in the mood? It’s on me!”
* * *
Customs took a while. Then the baggage-claim belt spun around and around before spitting out anybody’s bags. Other concertgoers waiting grumbled that this airport was amateur hour; nobody around here even seemed to be working. “Maybe it’s a cultural thing,” some jackass guy in a Phish T-shirt said. I wanted to remind him that the bags often took forever to hit the claim belt in Atlanta, too.
When we stepped outside for ground transport, the heat clung to me like a thick sheet of saran wrap. Even my eyeballs were sweating, and my hair, which was normally curly, turned into a frizzy puffball in the humidity. Elena and I consulted our instructions from the Solstice website—I’d printed them out ahead of time—and headed out the door to the ferry. So many young, hopped-up people were walking toward the parking lot with determination, so Elena and I fell in step with them, figuring that the lead person knew where she was going. I tried to soak up the atmosphere of this beautiful, new place, though everything looked airport generic: concrete parking structures, whizzing taxis, tired-looking people dragging big suitcases. As we passed a sea of cars in a parking lot, the sun beat down on the part in my hair, and sweat rolled slowly down my back.
“There’d better be a big glass of ice water waiting,” I mumbled.
“There’d better be a big glass of vodka,” Elena corrected.
Parking Lot A led to Parking Lot B led to Parking Lot C. Finally, after passing Parking Lot D, I saw what looked like a wide, empty lot … and then ocean. This had to be where the limos were … except I didn’t see a single vehicle. People were squashed under a tiny shelter on a small strip of sidewalk, trying to escape the sun. Elena and I strolled up next to them and managed to co-opt a few inches of shade.
“Here for Solstice?” Elena said to two tall, pretty blond girls in tie-dyed crop tops.
“Yes!” the girls squealed. “You too?”
We nodded. A bunch of other newcomers burbled about the Solstice Festival, their flights, the acts that would go on tonight, and why no one seemed to be getting a phone signal. “I heard a tower near the airport is down,” a white guy with bleached hair in a dirty attempt at dreadlocks said sagely, shrugging. But then his friend shook his head. “I heard that tower is fine. It’s something with the satellites.” One girl bemoaned, “I promised my followers I’d post every hour. I don’t want them to be disappointed!” Another guy was angry because his Fitbit steps weren’t uploading to Facebook, and if his friends saw him slacking, he’d never hear the end of it. One girl was panicking because she really wanted to skype with her cat nanny to see if everything was okay. Cat nanny?
“I can’t wait to get in a limo,” one of the blonds in tie-dye said.
White-Guy Dreads cocked his head at her. “Wait, you didn’t hear? The yacht is having engine issues. They’re sending shuttle buses instead.”
The girl looked horrified. “A what?”
“Like … Greyhound?” her friend spluttered.
As if on cue, a line of blocky, utilitarian buses chugged into the lot, straight for us. They certainly would fit more people. And as long as they had air-conditioning, I didn’t really care they weren’t limos.
But the girls in tie-dye backed away as though the buses were leaking toxic waste. “Oh no,” one said. “I will not get on those. I’ll wait for the limos.”
“Really?” I piped up. “You’re going to stand out here, baking in the sun?”
The buses heaved to a stop. The door to the first one opened, and the driver, a skinny white guy with a goatee, peered out. “Solstice?” he asked us. “Climb aboard!”
Most of us lined up, tickets in hand, eager to get out of the punishing sun. Even the tie-dyed girl surrendered, though she didn’t dare touch the stair rail or the seats. Another girl back in the pack grabbed the driver. “Um, does this bus have Wi-Fi?” she simpered. “I have to reach my cat nanny.”
“Indeed we do,” the driver said cheerfully.
The bus also had A/C, and it felt blissful. I put my face up to the vents until I began to shiver. Elena and I took a seat at the back and tried to relax. I glanced at my phone and was pleased to see an available Wi-Fi server pop up on my screen. I clicked it, typing in the password the bus driver had provided. The upside-down triangle in the upper-corner of my screen blinked, trying to connect. A message came up that a connection couldn’t be made.
“Okay, I’m going to have a panic attack.” When I glanced over my shoulder, it was a guy in a Nike tee holding his cell phone aloft, presumably also trying to connect to the Wi-Fi. “I need to reach her.”
The driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. “Is it urgent?” he asked. “Because I might be able to arrange for you to use the bus’s satellite phone…”
Nike Tee set his jaw. “Can the satellite phone open TikTok? Because that’s the only way my girlfriend and I communicate.”
His buddy, who had close-cropped hair and looked a lot like my brother, nudged him. “Dude, watch how loud you’re talking. Your real girlfriend? She’s heading back from the bathroom.”
Ripped guys in Solstice board shorts and perfect-bodied girls in Solstice bikinis pranced around passing out water, Terra chips, and coupons for a free drink at the Conch Bar on the Solstice site—“as an apology for missing out on the limo experience.” Elena, along with most everyone else, brightened at the idea of free drinks. “This is going to be amazing, Adri,” she said, snuggling close to me. “Just you wait.”
When we were filled to capacity, the bus pulled away. We turned onto a lively thoroughfare; people in resort gear strolled into restaurants and shops or rode on Vespa scooters and bicycles. Everyone knocked on the windows and waved excitedly. POINTS EAST, read a sign on the side of the road; the bus took the roundabout exit. So we were going east, then? To Myla
East? I watched the grocery stores, hotels, and quaint shops recede into the distance. I liked it over here.
The roads became pitted, twisty, and narrow, and I started to get carsick and shut my eyes. When I opened them again, we were driving along the coast, but there were no signs of life around us. Waves kissed the smooth shores. We passed a copse of pint forests with tall, thin trees with most of the growth concentrated on the top … and barely any signs of human habitation.
Eventually, the road dead-ended into sand. Another bus had already stopped and turned off its engine, and I could see people climbing down the steps and looking around, confused. Elena frowned. “Is there a rest stop around here I just don’t see?”
A boy behind me who wore a shirt with a colorful cartoon character smoking a joint looked my way. “No, the concert’s through those trees,” he answered, pointing. “But the path is undeveloped—buses can’t get through.”
“Oh,” I said. My heart skipped a beat. At long last, we were here.
6
OUR BUS SHUDDERED TO A STOP. Elena and I grabbed our luggage and filed off, the heat even stickier than before. The moment the last person was off, the bus departed, presumably heading back to the airport in Myla West to pick up more guests.
I looked around. To the left of us was the beach, the sand smooth, the water clear. It reminded me a little of the beach in the Solstice video, but no one was in the water. That surprised me, considering how sweltering it was outside. But then I thought of the jellyfish the flight attendant had mentioned on the plane. Maybe it was true.
I glanced around for a path where the other people had gone, seemingly over some dunes and into some trees. Everyone milled around aimlessly.
“So … where are we, exactly?” Elena murmured as I fanned my T-shirt away from my stomach.
Finally, a guy in red board shorts with SOLSTICE printed down the leg appeared over the dunes. “Ahoy, marauders!” he exclaimed. “My name’s Indigo! Come with me! Excitement awaits!”
Solstice Page 5