The next day, Sunday, was a little quieter than the rest of the week. Probably because the residents of the resort, after all the fun they had Saturday night, getting knocked up and knocked out, deemed it important to have some rest and give the party spirit a rest ahead of the new week.
After last night, after Andre’s-twin-brother’s little comment about mistaking her for some redheaded Sophia, whoever the hell that was, she realized she was getting in too deep with the man. Confirmation was how she only wanted to see him yesterday evening despite the flood of men, and women, whom she could chat away the lovely evening with.
She could barely concentrate on any other person in the event after that highly awkward conversation between her and his brother, and didn’t want to be a buzzkill to Liz or anybody else as they all appeared to be having so much fun laughing away the evening while she brooded what Andre’s relationship might have been with this Sophia. So, she cut her evening short and headed to bed.
Way to go, Colleen.
She did a mental eye roll, mock applauding herself. You played yourself.
For a second, she had even thought Andre Lourdes might be ‘interested’ in her.
Trying to put this behind her, she spent the better part of the morning overlooking the mostly empty beachside. Something about that cool morning wind was so soothing and unnerving that she lost track of how many hours she spent doing absolutely nothing.
Then, she read a novel she had bought from a subtlety that sold books in the resort. Halfway through the book, she was fuming at the writer for describing her exact situation with a certain self-centered, condescending, and arrogant dark hazel-eyed man. But part of her discipline was that whenever she picked up a book to read, she saw it to the very end, be it boring or annoying. And this one was well past annoying. Realistically annoying.
“And they called it a fantasy,” she sneered.
So, Colleen read the entire book which only got her provoked because, to round it off, the novel didn’t have a happy ending. And that is putting it mildly.
Yup, she thought again. The author was definitely speaking to me, taunting and haunting me with that very spectacular writing.
By the early hours of the afternoon, she got a weird text message from Liz saying that a Sunday surprise awaited her.
Let me tell you everything that was wrong with this text.
First off, Liz, more than anyone in the world, hated surprises. PTSD from an event that happened when she was eleven. So she never ‘surprised’ anybody nor dared to use the word. Which was exactly why Colleen had reasons to believe that her friend had been kidnapped or she was being texted by somebody other than Liz.
Now, why would ‘someone’ have Liz’s phone?
Like an arrow from a bow, she jumped out of bed, throwing a kimono jacket over her thin-strapped body con dress as she practically ran through the hallways of the East wing, over to the West Wing, and in front of Room 82.
Like an overworked woman ready to pounce on her cheating husband, Colleen kept knocking on the wooden door, each time increasing the speed and sound to show how restless she was becoming with each passing minute.
Sixty seconds later, the door flung open, effectively putting her overreaction to a stop.
There Liz Parker stood. Very alive in the flesh and very ‘not-kidnapped.’
“Did you send me this text?” She flashed her phone in her face. “It’s so un-Liz-like which made me think you’ve been kidnapped or something.”
She palmed her face. “Do you always have to think the worst?”
“Not when I can help it,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders. “What is this surprise you have for me? And why are you holding the door in? What are you hiding?”
Liz tried to shield Collen from peeping into her room. Not that it was even necessary. Whatever she was hiding in her room was behind that door.
“Oh come on, Liz. What are you hiding?” She whined like a little girl, momentarily stomping both her feet on the ground, successively.
“The surprise.”
“Why are you hiding the surprise?”
“Because that is literally what you do to a surprise. Hide it and s-u-r-p-r-i-s-e the person. That’s the tradition.”
“Whose tradition?”
“Mother Earth.”
Colleen was getting impatient. “Okay, Liz. You have succeeded in getting me surprised. Now tell. What’s behind the door?”
“At least take a couple of guesses, will you?” She urged and Colleen conceited unenthusiastically.
For a second or two, she looked to be in thought, contemplating what could make Liz confront the word surprise again. A thought found its way into the back of her head and immediately, her eyes sparkled.
In an excited whisper, she said, more of a statement than a question. “You got laid?”
Liz rolled her eyes. “For Christ’s sake, Colleen! I know you haven’t gotten any service down there in a long while but try to think less dirty and more amicably.”
“You played yourself, Liz. We are going to be here all day.” A voice from behind Liz sounded, causing Colleen’s ears to stand as well as all the hairs on her body.
Now that, most definitely, wasn’t a man’s voice.
Thankfully, Liz cut to the chase and pushed back the door to reveal the very familiar, petite, honey-skinned woman.
“Oh My Goodness!” Colleen exclaimed. Hands covering her mouth kind of exclamation as excitement and surprise coursed through her. “No way I am staring at Jessalyn Russo!”
“Alive in the flesh darling,” The woman cackled, spreading her arms to receive a Colleen who was already flinging herself to her small frame.
Jessalyn was her high school classmate and friend who left in senior year for Mexico after her parents divorced following her younger sister’s death. Just like her, she signed up for DESC and became a participant.
“My, my,” Colleen observed. “You have grown out of the good old days. How long has it been? Eleven years?”
“Ten point five,” Jessalyn countered, chuckling.
“You never stopped being good at math, did you? Oh, Jessalyn, how have you been?”
“You know, the usual in Detroit. Just hanging on for dear life. And you?”
“We’re not far apart in that department either. Except in my case, life seems to be hanging on to me.”
Liz cut their little reunion to order some food up the room and Colleen Caddell being Colleen Caddell decided to snack on olives.
“Liz here was telling me all about how you graduated from Boulder with first-class honors in Architecture,” Jessalyn noted like a proud aunt with a gleam of happiness in her eyes. “That is so impressive, darling. That award must be sitting pretty next to the valedictorian one from high school.”
“Oh, I never did get to win that,” Colleen waved it off, sneering at the thought of douche-bag Donald Harris beating her to it.
Soon, the food arrived and Liz led them to her bed where they all continued the conversation, catching up on one another’s life in the last ten years.
“How do you manage all those perverted and condescending men?” Jessalyn asked when Colleen mentioned her part-time job as a bartender in the popular Detroit Sportsbar and Grill, Hockeytown Cafe.
Answering, she said, “I don’t. I just shut up and do my job because it pays the bills. For electricity at least.”
Oh, honey.
For the rest of the afternoon, they chatted and laughed, recalling the good old days when Colleen wanted to be a part of it all; Senior prefect, make the cheerleading squad, captain the Jet club, and still come out as Valedictorian. Of course, all these ambitions came with a series of challenges. The major involved slapping the captain of the football team in the middle of a friendly game because he dumped their friend, Annabelle, at prom after sucking up to her the entire semester. Literally.
Oh, boy! Colleen didn’t show her face to school for two whole days.
As they laughed about everything, forgetting how their life had taken the opposite direction of happiness, the afternoon passed by them.
When it was about 4: 30 pm, Colleen decided to retire to her room.
On her way down to her room, her phone buzzed and she clicked it open to see the notification.
How on earth did he get her phone number . . .
ANDRE LOURDES: ROOM SERVICE! Where are you 🙂
Of course, she was going to ignore him. After all, there wasn’t any rule that stated she had to respond to the boss simply because she was staying in his-fully paid for-resort.
And so she continued to her room. To hell with Andre Lourdes! I don’t give a rat’s ass about how devilish he looks and how good he smells.
But when she pushed open the door to her room, she found him sitting like he owned the place, cross-legged, on her bed, holding her photo frame in his hands.
Her breath caught.
Andre Lourdes wasn’t kidding when he said ‘ROOM SERVICE!’