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Kayla looked her sandwich, decided there was no way she was going to get to eat it while Janelle was so keen on talking to her, and set it down on the table beside her lounge chair.
“Well, if you have to know, yes. It’s that bad. I wish I never had to go back.”
“Why not just hang out here longer?” asked Janelle.
Kayla snorted. “Money? Or is that not a problem for you?”
“Not really,” Janelle shrugged. “I mean, there’s no way to say it that doesn’t make me sound like a jackass, but I come from a wealthy family. They’re the ones who sent me here, and I can probably stay on their dime for as long as I want to.”
“Poor baby,” said Kayla. Her dislike of Janelle was growing ever stronger the more they talked.
“I know, I know,” said Janelle. “But I actually hate it, you know? I mean, look at me. Do I really look like the type to go to high society parties and hobnob with the upper crust?”
Kayla eyed the woman again. In her one-piece bathing suit, cut low in the front and even lower in the back, her wiry little frame stood out even more than it had the day before.
The blue of her swimsuit contrasted pleasantly with her dark skin and brown eyes, and even though her haircut was boyish, there was something altogether feminine and cute about the way she looked.
A large, looping flower tattoo was visible on her right thigh, and Kayla thought she could just make out the beginning of another one on Janelle’s left breast.
“You look like a normal girl,” she said finally. “You don’t look high society, but you don’t look like trash either.”
“My parents hate the tattoos,” Janelle laughed. “They hate the haircut, too.”
“So you’re running away from your problems because your parents don’t like the way you look, even though you’re twenty-five years old and they really have no say in what you do with your body. That’s what’s going on with you?”
“Something like that. Of course, there’s a
lot more they don’t like about me. And I’m staying here until I get myself straightened out—according to them. Actually, I’m just using their money and their insistence on me changing who I am to get a long, free vacation out of all this mess.”
“I take it you don’t work?”
“I’m planning to find a job when I get back home,” Janelle said, waving her hand to dismiss the idea altogether. “I’m not in a big hurry.”
Kayla rolled her eyes. “Well, I have a job, and I had to use my own savings to pay for this trip. And even if I had the money to stay here longer than two weeks, I wouldn’t be able to get away from work for that long. So forgive me if I don’t feel too badly for you and your little plight.”
Janelle was quiet for a moment. Finally, she said, “You have a sour attitude. Nobody gets that way for no reason. I guess you probably do have it a lot worse back home than I do.”
Kayla couldn’t help but feel a little bad for snapping at Janelle, even if the other woman was getting on her nerves. She forced her voice to sound a little softer when she said, “No, no, I wasn’t trying to—it’s not a contest, okay? I’m just stressed out.”
“I hear you,” said Janelle.
“My family hates me too,” said Kayla. “Especially my mother. She spends all her time trying to convince me to get married to every man that walks past me. She hates that I’m just a secretary, and she really hates that I have never had a steady boyfriend. And no one in my family misses a chance to remind me that I’m running out of time to have a baby.”
Janelle groaned and flopped back against the lounge chair. “Boy, do I know what you mean! They tell me that all the time, too. In fact, they always remind me that I’m supposed to carry on the family line, and that my older sister is sterile so she can’t do it and it’s all up to me, and so on….”
“I can’t believe it,” said Kayla.
“What?”
“I can’t believe it’s true that it doesn’t matter how rich you are. You still have the same problems everyone else does.”
Janelle laughed. “I’m glad you’re finally coming around! And glad the two of us could meet up here, too. I really needed someone like me to spend time with here. The other women are all different.”
“They seem to be,” said Kayla. “I get the impression this isn’t really the kind of place for single runaways to meet.”
“You’re right about that. Almost everyone else here is paired up with someone. I’m surrounded by couples and creepy men who must have thought they were going to come here and meet some kind of island princess.”
Before she could stop herself, Kayla laughed. She had begun this conversation not wanting to encourage any more time to be spent between herself and Janelle, but now she found herself opening up easily to this woman.
