The Unhoneymooners(11)

“Well,” I say, “I’m unemployed against my will, so I think I probably need the vacation more than you do.”

The frown deepens. “That makes no sense.” He pauses. “Wait. You were laid off from Bukkake?”

I scowl at him. “It’s Butake, dumb-ass, and yes. I was laid off two months ago. I’m sure that gives you immeasurable thrill.”

“A little.”

“You are Voldemort.”

Ethan shrugs and then reaches up, scratching his jaw. “I suppose we could both go.”

I narrow my eyes and hope I don’t look like I am mentally diagramming his sentence, even though I am. It sounded like he suggested we go . . .

“On their honeymoon?” I ask incredulously.

He nods.

“Together?”

He nods again.

“Are you high?”

“Not presently.”

“Ethan, we can barely stand to sit next to each other at an hourlong meal.”

“From what I gather,” he says, “they won a suite. It’ll be huge. We won’t even really have to see each other. This vacation is packed: zip-lining, snorkeling, hikes, surfing. Come on. We can orbit around each other for ten days without committing a violent felony.”

From inside the bridal suite, Ami groans out a low, gravelly “Gooooo, Olive.”

I turn to her. “But—it’s Ethan.”

“Shit,” Diego mumbles, “if I can take this garbage can with me, I’ll go.”

In my peripheral vision, Ami lifts a sallow arm, waving it. “Ethan’s not that bad.”

Isn’t he, though? I look back at him, sizing him up. Too tall, too fit, too classically pretty. Never friendly, never trustworthy, never any fun. He puts on an innocent smile—innocent on the surface: a flash of teeth, a dimple, but in his eyes, it’s all black-souled.

But then I think of Maui: crashing surf, pineapple, cocktails, and sunshine. Oh, sunshine. A glance out the window shows only blackness, but I know the cold that lies out there. I know the car-grime-yellowed snow lining the streets. I know the days that are so cold my wet hair would freeze if I didn’t completely dry it before leaving the apartment. I know that by the time April comes and it still isn’t consistently warm, I will be hunched over and resigned, Skeksis-like.

“Whether you’re coming or not,” he says, cutting into my rapid spiral down the mental drainpipe, “I’m going to Maui.” He leans in. “And I’m going to have the best fucking time of my life.”

I look back over my shoulder at Ami, who nods encouragingly—albeit slowly—and a fire ignites in my chest at the thought of being here, surrounded by snow, and the smell of vomit, and the bleak landscape of unemployment while Ethan is lying poolside with a cocktail in his hand.

“Fine,” I tell him, and then lean forward to press a finger into his chest. “I’m taking Ami’s spot. But you keep to your space, and I’ll keep to mine.”

He salutes me. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”





chapter four

Turns out I’m willing to take my sick-sister’s dream honeymoon, but I have to draw a line at airline fraud. Because I am essentially broke, finding a last-minute flight from the freezing tundra to Maui in January—at least one that I can afford—requires some creativity. Ethan is no help at all, probably because he’s one of those highly evolved thirtysomething guys who has an actual savings account and never has to dig in his car’s ashtray for change at the drive-through. Must be nice.

But we do agree that we need to travel together. As much as I’d like to ditch him as soon as possible, the travel company did make it abundantly clear that if there is any fraud afoot, we will be charged the full balance of the vacation package. It’s either the proximity of probable vomit or the proximity of me that sends him halfway down the hall toward his own room with a muttered “Just let me know what I owe you,” before I can warn him exactly how little that might be.

Fortunately, my sister taught me well, and in the end I have two (so cheap they’re practically free) tickets to Hawaii. I’m not sure why they’re so cheap, but I try not to think too much about it. A plane is a plane, and getting to Maui is all that really matters, right?

It’ll be fine.

? ? ?

SO MAYBE THRIFTY JET ISN’T the flashiest airline, but it’s not that bad and certainly doesn’t warrant the constant fidgeting and barrage of heavy sighs from the man sitting next to me.

“You know I can hear you, right?”

Ethan is quiet for a moment before he turns another page in his magazine. He slides his eyes to me in a silent I can’t believe I put you in charge of this.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone aggressively flip through a copy of Knitting World before now. It’s a nice touch to keep magazines in the terminal like we’re at the gynecologist’s office, but it’s a little disconcerting that this one is from 2007.

I tamp down the ever-present urge to reach over and flick his ear. We’re supposed to pass as newlyweds on this trip; might as well start trying to fake it now. “So, just to close the loop on this stupid squabble,” I say, “if you were going to have such a strong opinion about our flights, you shouldn’t have told me to take care of it.”