She found an empty rocking chair and pulled out her phone.
Text from Unknown: Hey Kenny, it’s J.P. Looking forward to dinner tonight. I’ll pick you up @ 6:30? Reservation is for 7.
Kenny stared at the phone in disgust. Hailey couldn’t have been back in Morgantown for twenty-four hours and J.P. was already up to his shenanigans. She wondered if he had standing reservations at Charlie’s on several nights of the week or just Mondays and Wednesdays.
Text from Unknown:Hope you don’t mind that I pulled your contact from the hospitality reservation log. Can’t believe we never exchanged numbers!
J.P. was relentless. Kenny couldn’t conceive how a man could have so little shame. It was bad enough to sneak around on your girlfriend and lead on other women. But to surreptitiously secure the cell numbers of said other women through information your girlfriend collected, that was next level. Kenny rocked back and forth in the chair and contemplated if it would have been better for her psyche if J.P. stood her up; or the actual scenario, the one where the serial dater attempted to keep the evening of deceit.
When she couldn’t come up with a reasonable answer, she remembered she had to let Hailey know that she was checking out of Pelican Pointe early. She deliberately sent the message via email rather than text. Text messages indicated friendship, and a friend was someone Kenny couldn’t be to Hailey. Knowing that Hailey and J.P. were romantically involved was the obvious reason Kenny couldn’t be friends with her. The deeper reason, the harder one for Kenny to admit, was because she felt a slight sense of guilt that she wasn’t warning Hailey she could be going down a potentially hurtful path by pursuing a relationship with J.P.
From: Kennedy Sloane
Subject: Pelican Pointe Villa #5
Hi Hailey,
I hope you enjoyed your dinner at Charlie’s on Monday night. I wanted to let you know that I had to cut my trip short, and I am flying back to New York today. I left the plantation passes on the island where I found them. It was nice meeting you on Sunday, and I wish you all the best in the future.
—Kenny
The drawn-out travel day was largely uneventful. The three hours and fifteen minutes Kenny spent in the air were easy and smooth, absent of bumps, turbulence, or hard landings. During the six-hour layover, she completed threeNew York Time’scrossword puzzles, ate at two fast-food joints, and read the latest editions ofInStyleandVanity Fair, cover to cover. Despite the low-stress, anxiety-free trip, Kenny breathed a long sigh of relief when her plane was finally taxiing on the tarmac at JFK.
When the aircraft reached the gate, Kenny reluctantly turned her cell phone back on. While all the passengers around her scrambled to pull down their carry-ons from the overhead bins and barreled through the center aisle to get off the jet, Kenny sat back down in her seat.
Missed call from Unknown.
Text from Unknown: Was just calling to say I’m running early. Will hang by the pool if you’re not ready. Take your time!
Text from Unknown: Hey! It doesn’t look like you are home. Maybe we said we’d meet at Charlie’s? I probably messed that up. See you over there!
Missed call from Unknown.
Text from Unknown: Here! I’m at the table in the corner at the end of the porch.
Missed call from Unknown.
Text from Unknown: I’m not sure what happened tonight but I hope you’re okay.
Kenny pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped the tears that were streaming down her face. She was hurting but she’d made the right decision to leave without saying goodbyeorconfronting J.P. If she could have such strong conflicting feelings—sadness, anger, confusion, hope—about him after such a short period of time, she couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if she let her guard down further.
After the last person deplaned, Kenny rolled her international-sized carry-on down the aisle of empty seats, briskly walked to the baggage claim area where she wrestled her oversized, overstuffed, and overweight large suitcase off the carousel and hustled to the taxi line.
Her hiatus was over.
Forty-One
Four months later.
“Is this really necessary?” Colby asked as he pulled the black fleece neck warmer that hugged his chin up to his lower lashes.
“You are so dramatic!” Kenny scoffed. “I’m sure temperatures got colder than this in South Dakota during the month of January. Keep walking.”
It was a Sunday afternoon and they were power walking along the Hudson River. There were signs of sunshine hiding somewhere behind a thick grayish-blue blanket that covered the sky but the cold, crisp air and chilling winds that blew off the water made it feel like it was going to snow. The city lingered in the quiet and sleepy state that occurred when the holiday season tourists, who invaded Manhattan from the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and loitered until a few weeks after New Year’s, had finally gone home; and lasted until early February, when locals who had hibernated long enough in their tiny apartments began running and biking outside with proper layers of Polartec and dined on sidewalks under heated lamps and restaurant provided blankets.
“Why can’t you be like every other single girl in New York? Curled up under a blanket on your couch with a glass of wine and swiping left and right through the catalogue of men who live on the apps in your phone. This is prime cuffing season, and you could be missing spectacular matches.YourMr. Right could’ve just been snatched up by some undeserving chick sitting in that apartment, right there.” Colby pointed to a random window of a high-rise building on Riverside Drive. “All because you’re out here in the elements. You can’t burnthatmany more calories by exercising in the cold, can you?”
