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Until today.
“Hey, Birdie.”
I never knew two quietly whispered words could hurt so much, piss me off so much, and make me so wet all at the same time.
“What’s he here for?” Wren asks, taking a small sip of her beer.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s he want?”
I look at Tess and shrug. “I don’t know.”
“How long is he here for?” Wren questions.
“I don’t know!” Both of their mouths snap closed when I shout. “Once I got over the shock and called him a piece of dog shit, I didn’t give him time to say anything else. I booked it to my golf cart and raced over here.”
“Please tell me you shoulder-checked him,” Tess begs.
“Oh, I slammed into his shoulder so hard his future grandchildren will feel it.”
Tess and Wren both clink their bottles with mine, and we’re quiet for a few minutes while we drink our beers and listen to the sounds of my mom closing everything up inside the stand.
Just like your standard, old-school ice cream stand, the Dip and Twist building is around eight hundred square feet with a brick façade on the bottom half, and from the waist-high counter and up, it’s nothing but windows on all four sides. Those windows are covered in advertisements for all the cold treats Dip and Twist has to offer. There are only two windows not covered in colorful ice cream posters, and those are the ordering window in front of the building and the pick-up window here on the picnic table side.
I can see through the pick-up window that my mom is busy doing the last of her closing list, and I know she’ll be coming out here any minute. As much as I love my mom, and even though we’re close since she’s only fifty-four and very young at heart, she’s always been closer to my sister. Wren has always spilled everything in her life to our mom, where I like to have some privacy and secrets. And my mom has an even bigger soft spot for Palmer than Wren, and I definitely don’t need that kind of negativity in my life right now. My life is enough of a mess, what with Putz, my promotion, fucking Hawaii…
Oh shit! Hawaii!
“Um, so I have to tell you both something, and your first instinct will probably be to punch me in the throat and then vow to hate me forever, but I swear I was—”
“Oh, we know you didn’t go to Hawaii and you’ve been Netflixing and stuffing your face for the last two weeks,” Tess cuts me off, looking me up and down. “Clearly. You’re so pale. It’s depressing, and it hurts my eyes.”
As I smack her on the arm with my hand that isn’t holding my beer, she laughs and shakes her head at me.
“Murphy called me when he got off work earlier,” Wren informs me. “He said he didn’t trust you to come clean, and your homemade mac and cheese isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anyway, whatever that means.”
“That old fart,” I mutter, smacking my empty beer bottle down on top of the table. “I’m so sorry. I totally deserve it if you guys are pissed at me. I know I’m the worst friend and sister in the entire world to be right here on this island the entire time instead of one 5,000 miles away and not even tell you guys. I just needed time for it to sink in that I might never get to go to Hawaii when it was right there within my grasp.”
“Eh, life’s too short to be mad at you,” Tess tells me. “Besides, Murphy sent us pictures of what you looked like during your self-isolation pity party. You’ve suffered enough, my friend. But yeah, what in the hell happened?”
“My dream vacation was ruined; that’s what happened,” I complain. “The one I’ve been thinking about since I was a little girl, the only place I have ever wanted to leave Summersweet Island for, and my dream was finally going to come true, and then it turned into bullshit.”
“Oh no, did your flights get cancelled?” Wren asks with concern.
“Was there bad weather? Shit, I didn’t even look,” Tess mutters worriedly.
“Tell me Bradley didn’t book everything through a third party or something. People get scammed with those things all the time and never get their money back.” Wren shakes her head sympathetically.
“Bradley’s asshole is too tight to even allow one penny to be taken from him.” Tess snorts.
Before I let this go any further and let them think it’s just the vacation that got cancelled, I let out the deepest sigh ever.
“I didn’t go to Hawaii. I never said Bradley didn’t go.”
I give them a few seconds for their brains to catch up before I continue.
“I got a phone call from Bradley two hours before I was supposed to meet him at the airport to tell me he was taking someone else. A new intern at his hedge fund who makes the perfect espresso for him every afternoon, isn’t that nice? She’s talented with her mouth and her hands.”
