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Facing the Facts
“No, I haven’t heard back from them yet,” I said into my phone, tearing a three-by-five-foot poster of Hawaii off my bedroom wall. Nearly a week had passed since my disastrous interview, and I could feel my chances of setting foot on Hawaiian sand slipping further out of reach by the day.
Dang my short arms!
My oldest—and loudest—friend chattered away as I stood back and appraised my room. Luau decorations met my gaze everywhere I looked.
Surround yourself with items from the future you want to attract. I remembered the words from a book I’d read last month. I shook my head at the lunacy. Grandma would have said it was a load of malarkey. Mom would have called it a bunch of hooey.
Me? Well, I’d been desperate enough to swallow it, for a while at least. Now, I was pretty sure it was a steaming pile of criz-ap with a capital C. That would be the last time I took advice from a self-help book I found in a clearance bin.
I’d been sleeping surrounded by a plastic luau for the past month, yet here I was, no closer to landing that job than when I first started. One could even argue that I was farther from it than ever.
I snatched up a giant-sized garbage bag and shook my head at the cheesy decorations around me. It looked like the Hawaiian section of Peter Piper’s Party Emporium had stopped by for a visit, gotten violently sick, and forgotten to clean up before it went home.
Yes, it was that bad!
I had at least one thing to be grateful for—no one was around to see this embarrassing mess. Once I filled that garbage bag, the only evidence of the two hundred bucks I’d blown on counterfeit luau decorations would be on my credit card bill.
I put my phone on speaker to free my hands for the task ahead of me. The sooner I pulled them all down, the better off I’d be. All they did now was remind me of the worst interview of my life.
My best friend’s voice buzzed over my phone’s speakers. “Well, have you heard from him yet?”
I grabbed the six-foot inflatable palm tree standing next to my bedside table and opened the air valve. I hugged it to my chest, squeezing the life out of it and mentally kicking myself for ever telling Allie about Kai. “I told you to forget about him. I know I have.”
“Liar.” She laughed into the phone.
“You know I didn’t give him my number.”
“So you said.” I could hear the smirk in her voice.
“Why would I want to talk to him anyway? He’s the guy they probably picked over me. We don’t like him, remember?” I chewed the inside of my lip as I sat on that poor palm tree, trying to force every last bit of air out.
All the while, Kai’s face took over my imagination just like it had every night since we met. His know-it-all smile had been keeping me up way past my bedtime, which probably explained some of my sour mood.
“Sure.” Allie’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “We don’t like charming men with amazing hair, dazzling personalities, and stacks and stacks of muscles.”
I sighed. “There’s more to life than men with dimples.”
“He has dimples, too? How could you leave that detail out? I’m ashamed of you, Beth. Ashamed.”
Allie brought out a laugh in me. “He has a dimple. That’s all.”
“That’s enough. Yummy!”
I wandered to my dresser and ran my fingers across my vision board. I’d put a lot of thought into that thing—back when I still believed in the hocus-pocus that dumb book had sold me on.
The images I’d taped there were cold beneath my fingertips as hope drained away a little bit more. White sandy beaches, turquoise water, palm trees, dolphins—I had way too many pictures of dolphins on there.
My gaze landed on the cute rustic beach hut I’d taped smack-dab in the center. I was usually all about modern conveniences, but there was something special about that hut—something that caused me to romanticize about roughing it.
I leaned closer, noticing for the first time a raven-haired man in the picture. He stood off to the side in red floral trunks and held one of those cute drinks served in a coconut. I smiled. He looked just like Kai had in my daydream the other day. All he was missing was the surfboard tucked under his arm.
The smile fell away from my lips the moment I realized what I was doing.
No!
I slammed the board face down. Kai was so not a part of my vision board. But it didn’t really matter. The thing was worthless anyway. It hadn’t done anything to help me land my dream job, that was for sure. It was destined for the garbage can, just like the plastic leis I’d draped on literally everything in my room.
