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  “Have a seat.”

  Jill climbed into the cabana and made herself at home on the far end. Her freckled face already bore the telltale pink hue of a budding case of sunburn. Under a plethora of tattoos, the skin of her broad shoulders was the same color as her strawberry blond hair.

  “You’re a writer, aren’t you?” Jill asked, resting her hands on her knees.

  During dinner the night before, conversation had inevitably turned from what everyone had selected from the buffet to what they did for a living. Finn had said she was a writer, but she hadn’t specified what kind. Big mistake. For the rest of the night, she had been cornered by a slew of women eager to tell her their life stories so she could use the details as fodder for a future book. Too bad she wasn’t a romance novelist. If she were, she had enough story ideas to craft at least a dozen books. And today was only the second day.

  “How do you do that?” Jill asked. “How do you put your thoughts on paper and have them make sense? I can talk to anyone—the phrase ‘never met a stranger’ was probably invented for me—but I can’t write for shit.”

  “For me, the opposite is true. Writing has always come easy. It’s talking that’s hard. On paper, I can be witty, challenging, and thoughtful. In person, I’m a tongue-tied doofus who can’t string two words together without stammering and thinks of the best response to a comment five minutes after it’s too late to use it.”

  “Sounds like we could help each other out.”

  “I can be the Cyrano to your Christian?”

  Jill knitted her eyebrows in confusion as she scratched her reddened shoulder. “Who?”

  “Never mind,” Finn said, deciding that unlimited free drinks and references to classic literature didn’t mix.

  “Do you want to be on my team during the pool games?”

  “What are they, anyway?” Finn remembered seeing a listing for them at noon on the daily schedule, but no description had been provided to give her an idea of what they might entail.

  “They could be anything. Sometimes it’s a relay race where team members have to pass a water balloon from one end of the line to the other without using their hands. Sometimes you play water polo or paddle kayaks for a lap of the pool. My favorite, though, is Gladiator. In that one, you stand on a surfboard armed with a padded baton that looks like a Q-tip on steroids and try to knock your opponent off her board and into the water.”

  “Sounds interesting.” If a bit painful.

  “So is that a yes?” Jill asked hopefully.

  Finn weighed the merits of potentially going home with a black eye against the thousands of words of copy the experience might provide.

  “Count me in.”

  “Awesome,” Jill said with a broad grin that quickly faded into another frown. “I wish telling Ryan how I feel about her was that easy.”

  “What have you tried so far?”

  “Everything short of a lap dance.”

  “Specifically.”

  “She isn’t a hearts and flowers kind of girl, as you can probably tell. I took her to a Leafs game last year and told her I loved her at halftime, but she either didn’t hear what I said or didn’t take me seriously. She ended up going home with some chick she met in the bathroom line.”

  “I’m sensing a theme here. Note to self: don’t stand in a line with Ryan unless you’re looking to get picked up.”

  Jill laughed and crossed her legs at the ankles like she was trying to assume a complicated yoga pose. “See? You can be funny in person, too, not just in print.”

  “Good to know.”

  “You’re a cool girl,” Jill said, eying Finn’s Indie necklace. “Why are you single?”

  “I’m on the road a lot.”

  “Researching your books?”

  “Something like that. It’s not easy to sustain a relationship when you’re never home.”

  “Maybe you’ll meet someone here and you could have a vacationship. Isn’t that what they call it when two people are dating but they live in different cities and only see each other when they’re on vacation?”

  “Vacationship.” Finn swirled the word around her mouth like she was sampling a glass of wine. “That’s a new one for the memory bank. I’ll have to work it into a column.” She caught her error and quickly corrected it. “I mean novel.”

  Jill beamed. “Remember you heard it here first. Don’t forget to give me a shout-out in the acknowledgments. It might be the only way my name ever winds up in a book.”

  “You got it.”

  “Sisters of Sappho,” Rusty Connors said into a cordless microphone as she approached the pool, “are you ready to get wet and wild?”

  “That’s our cue. Let’s go.” Jill grabbed Finn’s hand and pulled her out of the cabana.

  “What about my stuff?” Finn pointed to her backpack and beach towel. “Where should I store my things?”

  Jill waved her hand dismissively.

  “Leave everything where it is. No one’s going to touch anything that doesn’t belong to them. Everyone respects each other’s property on these trips. On my last one, I saw a woman digging through the trash in the bathroom because she’d lost a six-carat diamond ring. She thought she’d never see it again, but someone turned it in to Lost and Found the same day.”

  Finn felt like she had wandered onto the set of a Frank Capra movie. When she saw the pair of five-woman teams forming in the shallow end of the pool, she knew she was living a wonderful life indeed. The contestants weren’t universally young, supermodel thin, or classically beautiful, but they were all comfortable with themselves, at ease with each other, and eager to compete.

  “Huddle up, my little dykelings.” Rusty’s molasses-thick Oklahoma drawl grew even more syrupy the longer she spent baking under the midday sun. “You have five minutes to put your heads together and come up with your team names.”

  Finn’s teammates turned toward her. “You’re the writer,” one said. “Think of something creative.”

  Naturally, Finn’s mind went blank. “When I was in college, my roommate played on an intramural softball team called the ’69ers.”

  “Who hasn’t?” someone said with a snicker.

  “If it gets me laid tonight, I’m okay with it,” said a woman with considerably more salt than pepper in her close-cropped hair. “There may be snow on the roof, but there’s still fire in the furnace, girls. Now let’s kick some ass.”

  Rusty briefly conferred with both teams to gather their team names. “All right, my sisters. Today’s game is Gladiator. Or, as I like to call it, Battling Babes on Boards. Today’s matchup will feature the ’69ers taking on the Fabulous Femmes.” She lifted a carefully sculpted eyebrow toward her platinum blond hair. “Sounds like an average Saturday night in my house.”

  “We got this in the bag,” Jill said.

  “I don’t know.” Finn took a long look at the members of the opposing team. “Some of those femmes look like they’ve been hitting the gym pretty hard.”

  Two SOS Tours staffers swam to the middle of the pool and demonstrated the game while four resort employees held on to the surfboards to keep them steady. The SOS staffers swatted at each other at half-speed until one took a shot to the midsection and fell into the water with a melodramatic flourish.

  “Who wants to go first?” Rusty asked after the demonstration ended.

  “You have the most experience, Jill,” Finn said. “Why don’t you lead off?”

  “I said Gladiator was my favorite game. I never said I was any good at it. But I’ll try to put us on the board.”

  Jill and one of the Fabulous Femmes swam to the middle of the pool.

  “No blows to the head or face,” Rusty said after Jill and her opponent climbed on their respective surfboards and struggled to maintain their balance. “Aside from that, it’s anything goes. But remember it’s all in fun. Ready, ladies? On three. One. Two. Three.”

  Both competitors began to swing. Finn flinched as heavy blows thudded against shoulders, a
rms, and legs. Perhaps the extra words of copy weren’t worth the bruises after all. But the competition had already started. It was too late to back out now.

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  Jill won her bout in about five seconds flat, but the ’69ers lost the next two. By the time it was Finn’s turn, the score was tied at four and her match would prove to be the deciding one.

  “No pressure,” she said under her breath as she tried to find her balance on the surfboard.

  “Stay low and spread your feet,” she heard Jill say. “Make her come to you.”

  “Stay low? Make her come?” Rusty fanned herself with a copy of the day’s program. “Is it just me or is it getting hot out here? Sorry. I was having a personal moment for a second there. In the final match of the day, we have Finn from the ’69ers taking on Amy from the Fabulous Femmes. Let’s hear it for them!”

  Amy was at least six inches taller than Finn and her arms were so long Finn didn’t think she’d be able to penetrate her defenses. Thankfully, though, Amy wasn’t much of a strategist. With her girlfriend cheering her on from the sidelines, she went for the win right away. But her wild swing and subsequent miss threw her off balance. When Finn recovered her bearings, she pressed the tip of her padded baton into Amy’s ribs and pushed as hard as she could. Amy dropped one end of her baton and pinwheeled her free arm as she tried to keep from falling in the water.

  “You’ve got her going,” Finn heard one of her teammates yell over the sound of the wildly cheering crowd. “Push her in!”

  Finn pushed harder, but, just as Amy began to fall, she felt her own board start to tip. She pitched forward and held her breath as she hurtled toward the water. Amy went under first, sealing the victory for the ’69ers.

  “Aren’t you glad you played?” Jill asked after Finn and her teammates exchanged high fives.

  Finn felt not only victorious. She felt empowered. She hadn’t experienced this kind of competitive rush since one of the Bon Voyage staff photographers dared her to race against him in a 5K and she’d beaten him by half a mile.

  “Same time tomorrow?”

  ❖

  Luisa grew increasingly anxious the closer the time came for her to report to her new post. Would her colleagues ostracize her or welcome her with open arms? She had heard good things about her new commanding officer, but her former one had called her a snitch—and worse—after her efforts to expose his corruption had failed and she had gone over his head to get transferred out of his unit. She had been lucky to latch on to her new job so quickly. But if her tainted reputation had preceded her, she might not last long.

  She ironed her uniform pants until the creases were sharp enough to slice through flesh. Then she draped them and her uniform shirt across the back of the couch so they wouldn’t wrinkle overnight. She was a decorated soldier and an officer of the Federal Police. When she reported for duty at seven the following morning, she wanted to look the part.

  She looked at the clock. Just past seven p.m. Less than twelve hours to go. That was twelve hours too many.

  She tried doing push-ups to burn off her nervous energy, but the exercise didn’t help. Only one thing could take the edge off: sex. The feel of a woman’s body, the heat of her kiss, the warmth of her touch soothed her every time she felt this out of sorts. Since she wasn’t seeing anyone, she doubted she would find relief anytime soon. She could have prowled the clubs in the Pink Zone to find companionship for the night, but she didn’t want to have sex with just any woman. She wanted to have it with one: Finn.

  Luisa picked up the Porky Pig figurine and allowed reminiscences of Finn to wash over her. What was it about Finn that affected her so? Was it the urgency with which they had come together or the ease with which they had drifted apart? With no regrets and no promises for the future, but blessed with a wealth of memories engendered by an encounter Luisa wouldn’t soon forget.

  Her phone rang as she watched the lights on the Monument to the Revolution begin to twinkle to life. Unlike last night, this time she paused to check the display. And smiled when she saw the incoming call was from Finn.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  “Emotional. I think I’ve cried three times already.”

  Luisa turned away from the window, her burst of happiness replaced by dread. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Beauty makes me cry. And I’ve seen several beautiful things today.”

  “Such as?”

  “This morning, I watched a wheelchair-bound woman swim in the Caribbean Sea. This afternoon, I had lunch with a couple who have been together for fifty years but consider themselves newlyweds because they’ve been legally married for only six months. And now I’m cruising on a yacht, watching the most gorgeous sunset I’ve ever seen. I wish you were here.”

  “As beautiful as you make it sound, so do I.” Luisa sat on the couch and hugged a throw pillow to her chest. “You seem surprised you’re having a good time. Why?”

  “When I hear ‘tour group,’ I automatically picture a bored guide leading a bunch of camera-wielding tourists around at breakneck speed. When they’re done, they can say they visited some great places and checked off all the boxes on their to-do lists, but they aren’t able to say they had some amazing experiences. This isn’t like that.”

  Luisa was intrigued. “Did you become a travel writer in order to have amazing experiences or to share them with everyone else?”

  Finn was silent for a moment. “Both, I guess. No one has ever asked me that before. I suppose they think I do it for the frequent flyer miles.”

  Luisa had spent the afternoon reading some of Finn’s columns online. Articles written in cities large and small, industrial and rural, gentrified and untamed. Even without the accompanying photographs, Luisa had been able to picture where Finn had visited simply by reading her words. Now Finn was here, visiting the country she called home. What words would Finn use to describe her time here? Whatever they were, Luisa couldn’t wait to read them.

  “Of all the places you’ve been, which one’s your favorite?” she asked.

  Finn fell silent again as she pondered the question. Luisa could hear the wind whipping through the phone. She could hear glasses clinking and women laughing in the background. She could hear waves crashing in the distance. She could practically smell the salt air. She wanted to be there, too.

  “The best place I’ve ever been,” Finn eventually said, “is in your arms.”

  Luisa hoped what Finn had said about their time together was more than a come-on. But even if it was, her life was too unsettled for her to be able to pursue a relationship with anyone at the moment but especially someone like Finn—a beautiful butterfly still testing her wings.

  “I’m being paged for a group photo,” Finn said before Luisa had a chance to respond. “I’d better go before they shanghai me. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Good night, mariposa. I’ll be waiting.”

  Day Three

  Finn needed some downtime. She had been “on” for two days now, and the effort she had put into trying to fit in with everyone else instead of setting herself apart from them was exhausting. She placed the Do Not Disturb sign on her door and sat cross-legged on the balcony while she waited for a pot of coffee to brew in the small in-room coffeemaker. The sun was just starting to rise, and the resort was quiet, save a few early risers—runners who wanted to get a few miles in before the temperature got too hot, a bird tweeting its heart out as it tried to attract a mate, and a stingray patrolling the lagoon like a silent sentry.

  Finn loved this time of day. When everything was quiet and still. It was one of the few times she came close to feeling the same way.

  She took a deep breath and slowly released it as she tried to center herself. Her social anxiety was kicking in again. Her case wasn’t as debilitating as others’ were. She could function normally as long as she controlled her fear. But she could always tell when she needed to take a break from the world and
made sure to heed the signs. If she didn’t, she felt like she was being judged and found wanting.

  It had started when she was seven. When her childhood stutter had evolved from a cute quirk into a full-blown impediment. Middle school had been pure hell. She had gone out of her way to avoid talking to people because she hadn’t known from one encounter to the next if she would be able to get the words out. It had been impossible to remain silent in class, however. When it was her turn to read aloud, her throat would close up, her hands would start to shake, and her body temperature would spike like she was a menopausal woman having a hot flash instead of a sixth-grader trying to plow through a few paragraphs on caste systems in civics class.

  She could still hear the snickers of her classmates as she tried to force her faulty mouth, tongue, and throat to work. She remembered her so-called peers’ taunts in the hallway and their singsong chants of the nickname she hated. They called her Woody Woodpecker because her staccato efforts to speak reminded them of the cartoon character’s distinctive laugh. That laugh had shadowed her for years. Haunted her dreams.

  Because speaking was such an issue, she had turned to writing in order to express herself. Diary entries at first, then poems, and eventually, short stories. Writing had allowed her to be anyone she wanted. A rock star. A superhero. Someone famous. Or, more often than not, simply someone normal. In other words, everything she wasn’t.

  She had longed to go somewhere else. To be someone else. She had dreamed of moving away and becoming a writer one day. To make a living doing what she loved most. But she had never thought her dream would come to pass. Her teachers had praised her fledgling creative efforts and encouraged her to continue to hone her skills. Their positive input had eventually given her the confidence boost she needed to leave her small hometown behind and forge a new path. The path she was still treading today.

  Her stutter had gradually disappeared over time as years of speech therapy and a continued use of rhythmic control and slow speech helped to eradicate the disorder. By her senior year of high school, her stutter had practically disappeared. Now she stumbled over her words only when she was nervous or extremely tired. But she never forgot all those frustrating years she had spent as the butt of countless cruel jokes.