Page 36 of Total Dreamboat

Hope

Separating from Felix, while satisfying in the moment, was misguided.

It turns out that to get a temporary passport, you need proof of your travel plans.

This means I need to change my airline ticket to depart from the Bahamas.

Which requires the internet. Which requires tracking down an internet cafe—yes, they do still exist, although nowhere near the embassy—and then physically printing out forms and trekking back another half hour on foot to stand in line once again.

(Did I get lost multiple times without Google Maps? Yes. Yes I did.)

The whole process takes hours, and I’m told it will be at least two days before my passport is ready to pick up.

Under other circumstances, killing two days on a tropical island would be heavenly.

In actuality, it is tragic. I’m paranoid about money, paranoid about getting fired, and paranoid about braving international travel without a smartphone.

Plus, it is so fucking hot.

I trudge back in the direction of the hotel and stop at a market to buy a pineapple Fanta.

I stand under the awning in the shade and down it in three long gulps.

It’s cold and sugary and makes me feel momentarily better, until I ask directions to Paradise Fun and learn that I’ve walked in the wrong direction and am now forty-five minutes away.

I buy another Fanta.

As I’m paying, my new phone vibrates in my purse.

The only people that have this number are Felix, Lauren, Lana, and the embassy.

I pray it’s not the embassy reporting some new hiccup that will result in further bureaucratic hell.

Even more fervently, I pray that it’s not Lana telling me that something went wrong with the media blast.

But it’s not.

It’s Felix.

At the sight of his name, I feel a mix of irritation that I’m not rid of him, and relief that I am not technically in the Bahamas alone.

I accept the call. “Yes?”

“Hey. It’s me.”

“So I gathered.”

“Look, I know you don’t want to hear from me and I truly hate to ask, but I need help.” He sounds like these words have been extracted from his throat with pliers. “I can’t find a hotel that will let me book a room without ID and a credit card.”

I instantly gather what this means.

I’m going to make him say it anyway.

“So…?” I prod.

“So, I was wondering if I could stay with you again. At Paradise Fun.”

I consider this. On the one hand, I was looking forward to never seeing him again. On the other, if I do him a favor I’ll have the upper hand. And there is the human compassion aspect, or whatever.

“Hope?” he asks.

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “Fine. I’m on my way back there now.”

“Thank you,” he says. There is so much genuine relief in his voice that for a second I feel sorry for him. He has offended me to my core and ruined the high I was feeling at experiencing real, actual joy for the first time since my breakup. But he’s not a bad person.

Or maybe he’s a moderately bad person, but I don’t want him to suffer.

I am therefore feeling quite smug and saintly when I finish the trudge back to Paradise Fun and see him sitting, sweaty and disconsolate, on the stairs outside our door waiting for me. He holds up a single, miserable hand in greeting.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” I say.

“I’m acutely sorry about this,” he says.

“Yep. Me too,” I say, walking past him to unlock the door.

“I really will sleep on the floor,” he says to my back.

“Sure. Whatever.”

He comes in behind me, carrying several shopping bags.

“What’s all that?” I ask.

“I got more provisions.” He dumps them out on the bed.

There is shampoo, conditioner, real body wash, a hairbrush, and a family-sized bottle of SPF 70 sunscreen.

Two pairs of Wayfarer sunglasses—one in black, one in hot pink.

His and hers cotton pajama sets emblazoned with BAHAMA PAJAMA!

!! in a neon airbrushed font. And a selection of bottled water, Coca-Cola, and something called Goombay Punch, all still cold enough to be glistening with condensation.

“Planning to build a new life here?” I ask.

“Well, it’s looking like I’m here for three nights,” he says. “Might as well indulge in hygiene and sun protection.”

I reach down for the Goombay Punch. “What’s this?”

“A local specialty, I’m told.”

I open it up and try it. It tastes like if pineapple Fanta had even more sugar. I love it.

“Amazing.”

He pops open a Coke and holds it out to me. “Cheers,” he says. “I guess.”

I sigh, and clink bottles.

Then we stand there awkwardly and drink soda in silence.

“Look,” he says. “Don’t feel like you need to spend time with me.”

“Definitely don’t feel like I need to,” I say.

“But,” he goes on, “I owe you a huge favor for this. Can I take you out to dinner or something? I can’t speak for you, but it was a pretty shitty day and it might be nice to go, like, be in proper air-conditioning and eat food that isn’t out of a vending machine.”

I haven’t eaten anything that wasn’t fried or wrapped in cellophane since my carb feast yesterday morning, and this idea does have a certain appeal.

Especially when the alternative is walking around alone in the heat or lying in this mildewy room playing the game of Tetris that came installed on my flip phone.

“Fine,” I say. “But I’m going to shower first.”

“I’ll see if I can find a nice place.”

I collect Felix’s stash of bath products and wash off the grit of salt and grime that has accumulated on my skin after my day hoofing it across Nassau. When I emerge from the shower he’s gone. There’s a couple of text notifications on my phone.

Felix: Got us a booking for 7pm. Back in an hour.

It’s 5:30, and I have no idea what he could be doing in the meantime, but I’m glad that he’s not here. I sprawl out on the hard, lumpy mattress and read my other text.

Lauren: Hey! Did you get a passport???

Hope: Not yet. It’s supposed to be ready in two days, and then I can get a flight the next morning. I’m going to fly back to NYC from here as soon as I get it.

Lauren: This is so fucked. I’m so sorry Hope.

Lauren: Like, it’s completely my fault.

Lauren: I took down those posts.

Hope: It’s ok. I know you weren’t trying to hurt me.

Lauren: I should have asked you. It was dumb.

Hope: It was dumb, yes.

Hope: But I forgive you.

Lauren: Love you Hopie.

Hope: Love you too.

Lauren: There’s a missed FaceTime from your Mom on your phone. Do you want me to tell her what happened?

I shudder.

Hope: ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Hope: She will panic.

Hope: Can you text her from my number and say wifi on the ship is spotty but I’m having fun and will call her when I get back? Code is 879001.

Lauren: Yep.

Lauren: Are you still with Felix?

Hope: NOT INTENTIONALLY.

Hope: But yes. He can’t get a hotel without me bc he doesn’t have his ID or credit cards.

Lauren: OMG.

Lauren: So you’re stuck with him?

Hope: Yep.

Lauren: Are you going to have torrid hate sex?

Hope: Ugh, stop.

Hope: Too soon for hate sex jokes.

Lauren: Sorry!

Lauren: Did he at least apologize?

Hope: Not really.

Lauren: Well be a bitch to him and make his life miserable.

Hope: That’s the plan.

Hope: But first I’m going to take a nap.

Lauren: kk sweet dreams.

I put my phone aside and close my eyes.

When I wake up, it’s to pounding on the door.

“Hope?” Felix is calling. “Can you let me in? I don’t have a key.”

When I open the door, he is once again carrying shopping bags.

“That ten k’s really burning a hole in your pocket, huh?” I say.

He steps inside and hands me one of the bags.

“So, I got us a table at this place called the Sopadilla Estate. Supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the country and they had a last-minute cancellation.”

He hesitates like there’s a catch.

“But?” I prompt.

“It’s quite smart. So I got us something to wear.”

“Are you Pretty Womaning me?” I ask.

“You might want to reserve judgment until you look in the bag.”

I reach in and pull out a swishy floor-length caftan printed with bright orange coral designs embroidered in elaborate gold and silver beading.

It has cape sleeves and a plunging neckline and a thigh slit.

It’s like something Lauren would own if Lauren pulled her wardrobe from the costume archives of Dallas instead of Bergdorf Goodman.

“So not Julia Roberts, actually,” I say. “You think of me more as Blanche from The Golden Girls .”

He cocks his head to one side. “Who?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Look, I know it’s not exactly your style, but I didn’t know what size you were and this said ‘one size fits all.’ But”—he reaches into his own bag and pulls out a tie with the same bedazzled coral print—“I figured if you had to wear that at least we could match.”

I take the bag out of his hands and dig around in it for the rest of the outfit. It’s a suit. And it is in a shade I can only describe as “vivid cerulean.”

“What possessed you to buy this?” I ask.

“The saleswoman told me the blue is complementary with the orange.”

“It is that.”

“You don’t think I can pull it off?”

“I think you won’t need to sleep here tonight after all, the way you’ll be beating off women in that outfit.”

“A cab is coming in fifteen minutes. I’m going to shower.”

While he’s in the bathroom I pull on the caftan.

If the foggy mirror behind the door is not deceiving me, I actually look kind of amazing in it.

It swirls appealingly around my curves, glitters in the light, and I like the thigh slit.

My hair looks insane but in this equally insane outfit my swarm of curls nearly passes for deliberate eighties glam.

I pull the tube of Dior Cruise out of my purse, put it on, and actually giggle at the final effect.

I’m stylish as hell.

I gloat, knowing that Felix is going to look absurd beside me, until he comes out of the bathroom.

Somehow, he also looks amazing. His suit is slim cut and much tighter than anything he would wear in real life. The electric blue brings out his tan.

The tie, however, is still ludicrous.

He does a double take when he clocks me.

“That looks remarkably good on you,” he says.

“I know,” I say. “If you were trying to sabotage me, it didn’t work.”

“Very little could sabotage your looks. But I was not expecting a sparkly muumuu to enhance them to quite this degree.”

I can’t help smiling.

“Shall we go?” I ask.

“Just need some shades.”

He grabs the black Wayfarers he bought from the nightstand, but I snatch them out of his hands. “No. I want these. You take the pink ones.”

I did this just to be churlish, but he doesn’t argue. And when he puts them on, he looks like Ryan Gosling in Barbie , and I regret my decision.

It’s difficult to be deeply carnally attracted to a person you are committed to loathing.

Which makes me wonder if it is perhaps not too soon to make hate sex jokes.

And perhaps not even be joking about it.