Right?
“Looks like it’s just the four of us!” Arthur declares proudly. Beneath his hiking shorts, his spindly, pale legs are alreadywobbling. How he’s going to manage this hill without a jet propeller, I have no idea.
The trailhead for the hike is well-marked, including placards to mark each of the edible fruits and herbs along the way. We see yam and taro plants as we climb: even the promised guava tree Caleb was looking for in the forest. I turn around to make some moderately clever joke about it before remembering that he’s not there, and my stomach sinks. But why do I care? I was the one who pushed Caleb away. I’m the one who told him I didn’t feel a thing for him.
“It’s invasive,” I tell Jules as she plucks a fruit from the tree. She looks at me sideways as she bites into the sweet, pink flesh.
“Since when are you an expert on Fijian flora?”
“I… read it in on a plaque.”
Jules ignores my half-hearted answer, but I’m not convinced. WhydoI care that Caleb’s not here? When I’m around Caleb, I’m easily triggered. I’m insolent. Gutsy. Unfiltered. It’s like a faucet’s been turned on in my brain that I can’t seem to switch off—something I thought I locked up after Dad died. The switch that tells me to keep my head down. To focus on nothing but accomplishment. To avoid conflict at all costs. But when I’m with Caleb, I don’t want to filter myself. It’s like the person I was once, before I threw myself into creating the life I thought would keep me safe, is starting to come back.
If Caleb won’t talk to me anymore, will I lose that too?
By the time we reach the final switchback, we’re all a little out of breath. The only one who isn’t is Arthur, who motors to the top of the hill like a man half his age.
“C’mon, slowpokes!” he calls to us from fifty feet ahead as we stop to check out an orchid the size of my fist hanging from one of the trees. “Cats to kill, contracts to fill!”
“Ugh, Dad. I hate that expression,” Harry mutters as we step back onto the trail. But in a few moments, we see why Arthur was so anxious to get going.
The lookout point at the top of the trail stretches out over the ocean, offering a sweeping view of Mamanuca’s crescent-shaped beach and the islands that surround it. In the distance, sailboats skirt across the water, hugging the wind as they fly towards new anchorages. Behind us, a small wooden pavilion decorated with shells of all sizes presides over the picturesque scene below.
I stare, awestruck, wishing I could bottle up this view and take it home with me.
“Well,” Arthur rubs his hands together beside me. He’s finished this task, and it’s time to check the next thing off the list. “Shall we?”
“Dad, don’t you want to enjoy the view?” Harry asks.
Arthur pulls out his iPhone with shaking hands and snaps a lopsided picture of the viewpoint.
“There. Consider it enjoyed. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a daiquiri down at the pool with my name on it.”
Arthur extends his walking poles and turns back towards the trail with no further discussion.
“Guess that’s that!” Jules says, linking her arm in Harry’s. “Ready for some pool time, Stelly?”
“You guys go,” I tell them. “I’m going to wait up here a while.”
I can’t bear to leave this lookout just yet—not when I only have five more days before my view reverts to the graffitied dumpsters out back of Mickey’s Pub.
“You sure? You heard what Tracy said about the rain.”
I look up. Still not a cloud in sight.
“I’m fine, Jules. Thirty minutes max, then I’ll come back and join you.”
This seems to satisfy them, because after a few cute couple pics, they all head back down the hill and leave me to my hermiting. As soon as they’re safely out of sight, I survey the cliffside for a good place to sit and settle on a landing afew yards ahead that looks down into the bowl of the island. The rock face I scramble up to get there is slick and mossy: wet with the trickle of some hidden spring that’s leaking down through the stones. Strange birds call out from the trees down below me. One of them, a teal-feathered finch with a head the color of Patricia’s ruby tennis bracelet, flits over from the trees and comes to rest on one of the bushes just below my feet. I reach for my phone, hoping to capture it before it disappears. But it flits away just as I have the phone in my hand.
An email notification dings on my screen. I guess all I had to do to get service was elevate myself by a few hundred feet. I’m about to stick it back in my pocket when I realize the email is from Dr. Rivera.
My heart flies into my chest. When I last spoke to her a month ago, she told me I wouldn’t be hearing from her until spring. Is she just checking in, or—I try to temper my excitement—does the department want me back?
I open the email.
Dear Stella,
I trust this email finds you well and rested! I’m reaching out because I just finished reviewing this new chapter of your dissertation. While I had high hopes for this next phase of your work, I’m sorry to say that I was a little disappointed in the material. I know this isn’t the feedback you were hoping for, but I wanted to catch you before you continued to put more effort into this new direction.
