No, this resort. I want to go home. Like right now.
I’m leaving. I walk around the room and pick up all my things, stuffing them into my backpack, then hit the bathroom and grab my incidentals. There’s a pad of paper on the desk and I scribble out a note to Bebe.
Had to go back to Denver, emergency at work, they need me tomorrow. Love you—Grace
I can already hear her when she reads this. A party-planning emergency that requires you to leave a tropical island so you can work on Labor Day? She’ll never buy it, but I don’t care. I take a long steadying breath, hike the backpack strap up over my shoulder, and leave the bungalow. I take the path that takes me to the main hotel, ducking out of sight when I hear voices, just in case they are Vaughn or one of his minions, and make it to the valet area where there are a few cabs lined up waiting for fares. The valet is busy, lots of people checking in after the resort was closed for the wedding, so I walk past the guys unloading luggage and approach the first cab in line. “Airport?” I ask.
“Get in,” he says in his Island accent.
I do get in. And as soon as I settle into the backrest I relax and breathe a sigh of relief.
It takes a while to get to the airport even though this island is small and we’re not that far from the central business district of Charlotte Amalie. It’s all the way across the bay and there are times during the forty-minute ride through the coastal traffic that I think I could’ve gotten there faster if I was swimming. But finally, the cab pulls up into the departures area and I pay him and get out.
A few seconds later, I’m alone at the airport with no ticket home.
Inside it’s a madhouse. It’s Labor Day weekend and people want to get home in time to enjoy the holiday tomorrow before they have to go back to work on Tuesday. I get in the ticketing line and wait patiently as one by one we inch forward and finally, after an hour and a half, I’m next in line.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out and check the message.
Where are you? From an unknown number. Which by now I know is Vaughn.
I consider not answering, but it’s best to just get it over with. So I text back. At the airport, on my way home. Thanks for the fun. Bye, Grace.
And then it’s my turn at the ticket counter, so I stuff the phone into my pocket and ignore the incessant buzzing as I concentrate on what they are telling me.
“First class? No, I can’t afford first class. I just want a coach ticket to Denver.”
“Miss, we have one seat left at a discounted price as it leaves in thirty minutes. You have five minutes to make up your mind and you can make that flight with the complimentary premium security access checkpoint. It’s eight hundred and seventy-two dollars. The next available flight is tomorrow.”
My phone rings in my pants and I grab it and press answer out of habit before I remember that I’m avoiding Asher. “Grace,” he says, his voice urgent. “Stay right where you are, I’ll be there to pick you up in ten minutes. Stay put, do you hear me, Grace?”
I press end and look the ticketing woman in the eye. “Book it. Here’s my card.”
I have exactly one thousand one hundred and two dollars in my bank account—that includes savings—but I do not care. I refuse to let that asshole find me stranded here at the airport like a child.
Fifteen minutes later I’m through security and I’m walking down the aisle to the only seat left in first class. I drop down into my seat, the window, so the woman next to me is put out, and stuff my backpack under the seat in front of me.
I breathe a huge sigh of relief. I hope I never see that man again. I never want to see his face, like ever. Even on TV. I’m not going to see Invisible Man 2, even though IM1 was my favorite movie last year. I am over it. Totally one hundred percent over it.
In fact, I grab my phone and bring up my Twitter account real fast. I look up for the flight attendant and he’s busy making coffee or something in that tiny galley kitchen, so I open up my account and start deleting tweets. I just want to erase Vaughn from my life. My fingers are flying down my profile page, but there’s no good way to delete them all without deleting my whole account. I consider that, out of desperation, and I’m just about to give in and do it when the flight attendant stands over my row and tsks his tongue.
“Airplane mode, please. And I can see your Twitter page, so I know you’re not in airplane mode.”
He waits there, tapping his foot, until I go into my settings and flick that little tab to airplane mode.
Well, whatever. Vaughn has no idea who I am on Twitter, but as soon as I get to my stop in Atlanta, that shit is going.