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In her right hand, Zena was balancing a huge box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts she’d picked up on the way to the airport.
“You remembered?” Zola laughed. “I can’t believe you remembered!”
“How could I forget? Like the one thing you loved when we moved to Atlanta
was these damn Krispy Kreme doughnuts. You loved them so much, you got a little gut, and me and Mommy started calling you—”
Zola cut in with “Zollie Rollie Polie!”
The sister’s laughed together at the memory of Zola going completely insane every time she saw that dark orange Hot Now sign lit up when they passed the old Krispy Kreme window on Abernathy in the West End. One day, Lisa pulled over and bought Zola an entire dozen of the sticky and doughy sweets and told her to eat them all so she could get over her infatuation. It didn’t work. Zola’s love affair grew and grew, and soon, so did her stomach.
“I figured we could eat these before we board the plane, so we can get a little rest,” Zena said.
“Rest? After we eat these doughnuts, we’ll be bouncing off the walls!”
“Not once we get on the plane and have a little bit of that free wine!”
“The free international-flight wine!” Zola recalled, reaching for the doughnuts.
“Exactly.”
Zola and Zena tore through six Krispy Kreme doughnuts apiece—a small victory for anyone familiar with the addictive brand. They rushed toward their flight, and once aboard they celebrated Zola’s coming new life with so many wine toasts they were both asleep within an hour.
It was still a long fifteen hours in the air before their layover in Korea. Zola and Zena kept each other company by telling stories and making plans. There were baby names and shared vacations. There were decisions about what religion Zola would practice in her new home—if any. Would she and Alton become full vegans as they’d planned? Would they raise vegan babies? Zena grimaced at the thought of any child eating soy crumbles all their life.
While Zena wasn’t exactly excited to chat with Zola about these things, the subjects kept her from bringing up one of the things she promised she’d leave on the back burner until she got everything sorted out with Zola—the real future Zena was going to make sure Zola actually lived. The one where she was an attorney.
When they boarded the plane from Korea to Indonesia, frequent naps and in-flight movies filled the lull in the conversation between Zena and Zola. Once, Zena looked over at Zola sitting beside the window in the first-class seats Zena reserved for their daylong journey. She found Zola looking off into the clouds, smiling at nothing. She imagined Zola must’ve been thinking about Alton waiting for her in Bali, setting things up for their big day.
Right then, Zena felt an arresting solitude that caught her completely off guard. There was no love she could see in the clouds. No face staring back at her. No future to project. It was just her. And what did she have? Her business? Her success? Her money? She could take care of herself. She could buy anything she wanted. Go anywhere she dreamed. But she was alone. She was worse than alone—she was lonely.
A stewardess seemed to show up from nowhere with a glass of merlot. She was an Asian woman with beautiful full lips and a wide nose that reminded Zena of some of the Melanesian women she’d met during her last vacation to Vanuatu.
Similar to her other trips to parts of Asia and throughout the Pacific, Zena noticed that when she and Zora transferred flights in Korea, most everyone on the flight was Asian; however, the diversity in complexion and hair texture and facial features was wide-ranging and similar to differences she saw between white and black people in America.
“These long flights can get to you,” the stewardess said, handing the full wineglass over to Zena.
“Thank you,” Zena replied.
She took a few sips of wine and looked out into the dusky night with Zola.
Adan had asked to see her a few days before they left for Bali. Actually, Adan asked to see Zena a few times. He’d called randomly. Sometimes in the middle of the night. Sometimes text. Sometimes email. He was sounding like a friend. An old friend who wanted to catch up. “I just want to see how things are with you,” he’d said once when Zena actually picked up the phone to hear one of his lunch proposals.
Zena was always too busy. She was pleasant, cheery sounding, but too busy to see Adan.
What was there to see? What was there to talk about? She couldn’t live in a world where she talked about how “things are” with her without screaming about how things had been with her—about how things had been with them. And even still, she didn’t want to scream about how things had been with her or them. What would be the point? Why open that door? Adan was the one who’d closed the door and walked away. She was left on the inside, and she’d made herself comfortable; she’d found her own pleasure. She wasn’t ready to open up and let him back in.
* * *
The villa Alton and Zola rented for the week they’d be in Bali was less than an hour from the airport. Mahatma House was a sprawling five-bedroom architectural beauty set in the middle of a lush beachfront garden.
When Zena and Zola climbed out of the disheveled minivan charged with transporting them from the airport to the villa, both tongues were wagging. Everything was gorgeous. Everything was lovely. Everything was every hyperbolic adjective they could recall: magnificent, wondrous, amazing! But none of their words could capture what they really saw.
From the airport to the drop-off at Mahatma House, their first impression of the Southeast Asian paradise known as Bali was a racket of beauties that made a mess of their five senses. Streets filled with dogs and motorbikes carrying men, women and children, sometimes entire families all at once. Horns beeping. Lights flashing. Red and purple and yellow flags hanging. Outdoor restaurants roasting pigs on front-yard spits. The beach. Rolling waves, black sand. Someone playing hip-hop. Another person singing a Balinese love song. Pigskin popping over the fire. Flowers blooming. Women walking the roads dressed in elaborate saris and carrying bright floral offerings to the temple. Street signs pointing in every direction. The heat—stifling and arresting.
And they’d only been there an hour.
“Where have you brought me!” Zola hollered when she spotted Alton strumming his guitar by the pool in the central atrium at Mahatma House.
