Going Nowhere (A Romantic Comedy Novella) (12 page)

The car took another turn and went over a bump at the same time, making me conk Max in the head. “Sorry.”

Laughing, the driver continued on his merry way.

Max gingerly rubbed his noggin. “You pack a punch.”

“Are you okay?”

“Connoisseur Cruises,” he intoned in a deep voice. “For those who seek adventure.”

I laughed, imagining how we would look in a commercial.

Max definitely wouldn’t be a good advertisement, the way he was holding his head in his hands and looking queasy.

Finally, I started to see other cars. We’d pulled back onto a thoroughfare where many taxis were depositing passengers. Our driver pulled over to the side of the road and held out his hand. “Tip?”

Ignoring his outstretched hand, I looked out the window. As promised, there were many tourists congregating about the area, most of them from the ship. Most of them also looked calm and relaxed, as though they hadn’t had a crazy drug dealer driving their taxi. Oh well. At least I had saved a few bucks.

I got out of the car as quickly as possible. Max was right behind me, looking as though he wanted to get down on his knees and kiss the ground. I heard the driver curse behind me and speed off.

“I’m so sorry, Max,” I started. “I had no idea it would be like that.”

“That was horrific,” he said, then started to laugh. “Are they even required to take driving tests over here?”

“Yeah, they teach you how to get there the fastest.”

He continued to laugh.
“Do you want some ganja?”
he mimicked.

“No? What about heroin?”

We wandered toward the beach together, following the many other tourist types that were milling around. There was a large path that everyone was taking toward the main part of the beach.

“I wonder where that smaller path goes,” I mused aloud, pointing to a different path. It was more secluded and overgrown, but still a path.

“I have an idea. Why don’t we take the path less traveled by?”

I smiled. “Well, when you put it that way, how could I say no?”

We started down the path together and after a few steps, Max reached for my hand. As we walked, he would use his other hand to pull branches aside so they wouldn’t slap me in the face. The deeper we went, the worst the situation got, until I finally stopped.

I looked from side to side. “Do you think this path is taking us anywhere?”

“We can only know by trying.”

“I know. Do you actually think this looks promising?”

Max gestured at the dense foliage. “I think this is great. Who knows where it leads? That’s the fun part. It’s an adventure. And the path is marked, so we have no fear of getting lost. It’s the best of both worlds.”

“I suppose you’re right.” I tried to peer ahead, through the palm fronds and other tropical plants that I didn’t know the names of. “It must lead somewhere.”

“Anyway,” he said, “if we don’t find something soon, we’ll turn back.”

“Fair enough.”

We continued to walk, Max still holding my hand. Occasionally, he squeezed it when he saw something interesting. Soon, I started to hear the sound of waves cresting on the beach.

“Do you hear that?” I asked, jogging along the path until the sound got louder.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said with a frown.

“I think we’re near the beach.” I hurried along, no longer holding his hand. I was too excited.

The sound was definitely getting louder. “You can hear that now, can’t you?”

“I’m not deaf.”

“I know. I was just hoping I wasn’t crazy.”

Max hurried to catch up with me. “Don’t get carried away. This doesn’t prove you’re not crazy.”

“I think we’ll have to go off the path a little to get to it.”

He had his hands on his hips like a stern teacher. “Be careful. We’ve been walking on an incline. You don’t want to go over a cliff.”

“Will you trust me?”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

I clapped my hands together and hurried into the underbrush. I walked carefully, as Max had suggested, but it turned out to be unnecessary. After a few minutes, we emerged on the other side. The crisp, blue Caribbean was laid out in front of us and a secluded cave was situated to our right. “We made it.”

Max laughed. “I’m still trying to decide if it was worth it. We’re practically the only people here.”

“Maybe it’s an old pirate haunt! And that’s the cave where they hid their loot.”

He took a few steps toward the cool interior of the cave. “Do you want to see a pirate’s booty?”

“Sounds enticing.” From where I was standing, I was able to see that the cave didn’t go very far back. I followed him inside and leaned against one of the naturally formed walls. “It’s much cooler in the shade.”

“And more secluded,” he said, leaning closer. His voice echoed softly through the rocky nook.

I started to lean in slowly, a light breeze caressing my bare arms and the sound of crashing waves melting away my defenses. Max kissed me, pressing me against the cool wall of the cave. The sensation of his tongue in my mouth, maneuvering so expertly, made me want him to lift up my skirt and take me right there.

I ran my fingers through his hair and kissed him back. I wrapped one leg around his body, practically begging him to push harder against me. He did, slowly lifting up my skirt in the process.

It was only then that I realized my swift transition from suspecting him of fooling around with my best friend to completely rolling out the welcome wagon. I pulled away.

Max’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

“I’m sorry, Max.”

His body was a little wobbly, like a person who’d realized halfway into a dive that there was no water in the pool.

Guilt attacked me from all angles and it was all I could do not to crouch in the sand and cover my head with my bare arms. “It’s not you, it’s...”

“You don’t have to explain,” he said. “I shouldn’t have tried anything. We should go.”

I followed him back into the foliage. “Are you upset?”

“No.”

The truth rang clear in his voice, and I wondered if I could claim the same, even though I’d been the one to put the kibosh on things. I listened to the
flip-flop
of my sandals as we walked the trail back to the main road.

I wanted to ask why he never seemed to care enough to fight for me. I wanted to know if it was because I wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t that I was playing games to try to get him to fight; I was just so... scared.

We hitched a taxi, agreed to pay another thirty dollars, and had an uneventful ride back to the pier.

I thought he was going to suggest we call it a day as soon as we got out of the car, but then he said, “Let’s get our fortune told.”

“What?”

He pointed out a woman sitting by herself under the eave of an old restaurant. Her clothing was dark and threadbare. She had a scarf tied around her head and a long braid trailing down her back. Her fingernails were long and dirty.
“I don’t know, Max,” I whispered, backing away. “She looks ominous. Maybe we should go.”

“Relax. We’re in the Caribbean, not the darkest heart of Africa. Her gypsy look is merely a marketing ploy.”

Rolling my eyes, I turned my back on him. “You wouldn’t survive a minute in the jungle. Don’t you know what a threat looks like?”

“Surely I could charm my way out of any precarious situation. No?” He ran his fingers down my bare arm, eliciting a response that would prove him right.

I flinched away from his deft touch. “I’d stay in Miami if I were you.”

Max boldly turned my body back towards the lonely woman. “Come on, Kate. Let’s do it. She’s sitting there all by herself. It’s pathetic, really. Our contribution to her salary might mean the difference between life and death. You don’t want her family to starve, do you?”

“If anything happens, I’m blaming you.”

“Unless she puts a
vodou
curse on you that disintegrates your tongue like a flesh-eating virus. Then you won’t be saying anything.” He waved his fingers mockingly in my face.

“You’re tempting fate.”

He dragged me along until we were standing in front of the card table. “Hello,” he said to the woman.

“I will tell your fortune. Ten dollars.”

I sat in one of the small folding chairs and Max took the other one.

The woman stared at me‌—‌or I thought she did, as she was a little cross-eyed. I could almost imagine her poking a hole in an egg with a long, gnarly fingernail, spilling the bloody yolk onto a plate, and reading the nasty globs as though they were tealeaves. I guess I’d watched too many movies, because all she actually did was take a deck of tarot cards from a felt drawstring bag and spread them in a fan on the table.

“Pick one,” she said in a deep tone.

I deliberated over which card to choose, happy to turn over anything but the death card. Finally, I took the card at the very end of the fan. She wouldn’t be expecting that move. Ha ha!

I was about the flip the card over when the fortuneteller placed her hand over mine. “Not yet. Hold it against your heart.”

Without looking at it, I did as she requested. I pressed the worn, wrinkled card against my breast, my hand trembling irrationally.

She turned her head to Max. “Now you. Pick a card.”

Max laughed characteristically. “I didn’t know this was going to be a David Blaine-type thing.”

“Pick,” she repeated in that creepy, no-nonsense tone.

Even Max seemed to be quieted by her presence. He chose a card and held it against his heart before she could instruct him to do so.

She nodded. “Very good.”

As she sat there, silent, eyes closed, I wondered if she was about to pull a fast one on us. Push over the table, cackle, then tell us we were on Candid Camera. Better yet, she’d say,
“You’re on Girls Behaving Badly!”
and all the tourists in the square would turn out to be producers, and‌—‌

“There is much lust in your future. You will be seduced by a very powerful and desirable man,” she intoned, eyes still closed.

“Hmm,” Max said, looking up from his own card. “She’s very good.”

“I think she’s talking to you.”

“Funny.”

She snapped open her eyes and glared at me. Or Max. Again, I wasn’t sure. “The card?” she said, holding out her hand.

I gave it to her and she turned it over. It was the Empress of Swords, not that I had any idea what that meant. The fortuneteller was nodding over it like one of those infernal drinking birds.

“Yes. Much love in your horizon. Tall, dark, and handsome.” She looked up at Max.

I dreaded what she might be about to say.

“Give me your card.”

Max quickly handed it over without a snide comment.

“You are being played like a puppet,” she told him.

“Look at that. Truth in advertising,” I said in response.

She shushed me and spoke directly to Max. “One whom you think is a friend is no more loyal than a wolf.”

I gulped and rifled through my purse for ten dollars.

Max beat me to it again, producing a twenty. He laid it on the table and offered me his hand.

I accepted it gratefully and dragged him away from the tarot reader. That was a waste of time. I didn’t believe in any of that stuff. Nope‌—‌all garbage. We got back on board the ship and Max walked me all the way to my room, where I intended to hang garlic that evening or something.

“Thanks, Max. It was definitely unforgettable.”

He smiled, sunburned cheeks high and rounded in his face. “Don’t mention it.”

After he said goodbye, I went into my stateroom and fell back on my bed. I could hear the muted sounds of laughter coming from an adjacent room. Other people on this cruise were actually having fun. They weren’t terrified of kissing someone because they’d created a drama in their head about their best friend sneaking around with him. Even when, in their hearts, they knew that that said best friend was loyal.

Not only was I a mess, but my lack of social skills was going to single-handedly destroy my life.

I
WAS TEN
minutes into a nap when the phone rang.

It was oh-so-tempting to ignore it and keep sleeping, but I probably wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anyway while wondering who it was and if I’d missed something important. I rolled over and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

It was Sam. “Can we meet somewhere?”

“Sure, I guess. What about Johnny Rockets?”

“Great. Be there in five minutes.” He hung up.

Sam was sitting at the soda bar when I walked in, a hamburger and fries on the fifties-style counter in front of him. He waved me over when he saw me.

I saw next to him on a red vinyl stool. “What’s up?”

“Thanks for coming.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. What do you need?”

He leaned close to me with scarily protruding eyes. “You honestly don’t know?”

“Err... no, I don’t.”

He seemed to take a while disseminating that information. Finally, he said, “It’s about your friend.”

“April?”

He put down a half-eaten fry. “I want to take our relationship to the next level.”

I suddenly had no appetite. “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m just an associate and all, but even I know that’s a bad idea. You are considering asking her out?”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? We’ve already been out. I’m talking about sex. She is putting me off, saying she wants to take things slow, but I’ve had enough. I have needs, you know.”

“I’m very confused. Since when have you two been dating?”

Sam clasped his hands together and formed a steeple with his fingers. “Since Sunday.”

My hand moved toward my stomach, but I stopped it mid-move. I signaled a waiter and asked for water, then turned back to Sam. “This is all news to me. So you are upset that she hasn’t wanted to be intimate with you? Why are you talking to me about it?”

“You’re her best friend. You can talk some sense into her.”

“I’m not going to do that. You shouldn’t be asking any employee‌—‌especially one that reports directly to you‌—‌to sleep with you.”

He took a large bite out of his hamburger. “I will make it worth your while to help me.”

The waiter set a tall, red plastic glass of ice water in front of me. I sipped the water, crushed ice tickling my nose. “What does that mean?”