Chapter 1 #2
“What brought you to Cabo San Lucas, Mrs. Foster?” Sam asks, walking closer to my pace than what is probably comfortable for his natural stride.
I wince at Todd’s last name.
“You can call me Abby,” I say, which feels like a compromise on correcting him. He gave me a nickname to call him too. “And, um…this is my honeymoon.”
Sam cocks an eyebrow at me. It’s not a rude look. Curious, if anything, although I have a feeling he wasn’t supposed to do that because he adjusts his expression pretty quickly.
“Congratulations are in order then,” he says.
“Sorry, I should have clarified,” I say. “It was booked as my honeymoon, but I didn’t get married. Decided to come on the trip anyway! Who needs men?” I laugh too loud and Sam gives me a polite chuckle.
Oh my god, that was so weird. That’s what I get for attempting dark humor.
We walk the rest of the way to the room in silence, and thankfully it’s not far. Sam stops in front of a large, white door with a room number displayed near the top: 1078.
Sam lets us into the room, gesturing for me to go first, then following me inside and maintaining a respectful distance. True to the ma?tre d’s word, my luggage is already in here, waiting by a dresser.
My butler gives me his spiel: how I can contact him to arrange anything at all or ask any questions.
He tells me he’ll text me the activities brochure every morning, and explains the room service box.
If I order anything, it gets delivered from the outside to a small box that I can open from inside my room. No human contact required.
He leaves, wishing me a pleasant stay, and I imagine that Sam is going to march right up to his manager and ask to be reassigned because I am too awkward to deal with.
That’s probably not true. He probably deals with people worse than me all the time. Well, I won’t be weird anymore. I’ll be the perfect tourist from here out.
The room is as lavish as everything else I’ve seen here.
Dark wood furniture throughout the room creates a stunning contrast with the white tile floor, the pristine white sheets on the king-sized bed, and the mountains of white, fluffy pillows.
The walls are white, too, save for the classy, abstract artwork above the black fabric headboard.
Todd would have loved this. He always liked it when his job would put him up in really nice hotels when he had to travel for work.
He would video call me and show me the room enthusiastically, pointing out the countertops, showing me how comfy the bed was, extolling the high linen count and the view from the window.
For a split second, my chest feels tight—guilt for taking what should have been our trip and making it mine, even if I did pay for half. I try to swallow the feeling away, but it lodges in my chest.
I slide back the curtains, the blue sky and pristine pathways of the resort greeting me. Palm trees shade the path, and if I squint, I think I can see a small sandy path that leads to the white sands after which the resort is named.
If guilt is the price I pay to hang out in paradise for the next ten days, I think I’m willing to pay it.
A half a day of traveling hits me all at once, but if I sit down now, I’ll just lie down, and if I lie down, I’ll fall asleep.
I can’t have that when there’s an empty poolside chair calling my name.
But I need to unpack first. I don’t want to live out of my suitcase for a week.
Not on what is supposed to be a relaxing, distraction-free vacation.
I’ve barely unzipped my suitcase when my phone starts to ring. I assume it’s my parents calling to check in on me, but the name on the screen is “Jenny – Principal,” and my stomach flutters in the bad, anxiety kind of way.
“Jenny?” I tuck my phone between my shoulder and my ear.
“Hi, Abby, how are you?”
“I’m…good, how are you?”
I rack my brain for all the reasons she might be calling me when we’re halfway through June, my heart racing.
“Good, good. Listen, I just arrived to the school for the art camp and I see the intern—Kath—”
“Kayla,” I correct.
“Kayla, thank you. But I am not seeing…are you here?”
My heart crawls into my throat.
I told her I wouldn’t be there for art camp.
I emailed. When I booked this trip initially, we had a conversation.
I said Kayla, the student teacher who had been with me all fall and would be with me all spring, would lead the camp.
I’d felt bad at first, but Kayla seemed so excited, and I can’t remember the last time I was that excited about summer art camp at the school.
It had been years. If anything, I felt a little relieved that I didn’t have to do it this year, but now that Jenny is asking where I am, the guilt of my absence is pressing on my chest.
“I’m in Cabo, Jenny,” I say, my voice as small and apologetic as it can be.
“Oh.”
“I thought you—”
“I just assumed that since your engagement…” She trails off. I don’t have to hear the rest of the sentence to know that she thought I wouldn’t be coming on this trip because my engagement ended—and that I would be able to do the school art camps. Oh god.
I rest my head against the dresser. I feel terrible. I should have communicated better, should have sent a reminder email.
“Yeah, no I…I came anyway. Listen, is there anything I can do to put your mind at ease? Kayla is great and the kids are going to love her. She has all the plans, we went over them together and—”
“All good, Abby. Enjoy your vacation. We’ll see you in August.”
She hangs up, and I’m left with a sinking feeling and a new boulder to add to the mountain of stress on me.
This whole year at school has been the hardest one yet.
The emails from parents, the pressure from the school administration, it’s been worse than ever, and all of it on top of never feeling completely safe.
In January, merely two months after Todd broke up with me, we had an active shooter scare.
We started doing drills about four years ago. We didn’t have to do these when I started teaching elementary school art, but the world changed and the danger became more and more real, and two years ago, our school started requiring quarterly active shooter drills.
The very first one fried my nervous system.
After the first one, it took me a full two weeks to feel like myself again.
I had a migraine that lasted a full week and wouldn’t respond to my normal pain meds.
As I’ve grown accustomed to the drills, they don’t take quite as severe a toll on me physically, and it helps that the school communicates with us about when they’ll happen.
It gives teachers, parents, and students time to prepare and helps everyone stay calm during the drill.
The noise of the alarm can trigger a migraine, but I’ve learned to deal with it on drill days.
On this particular January day, the alarm went off. I panicked, worried I’d missed an email about a drill day, but the fear on my young students’ faces slapped me back to reality—this was not a drill.
We went through the routine, securing the door, barring the room, but my heart never stopped hammering in my chest. Even when the school was declared safe, and the whole incident was announced to be a false alarm—we were never really in any danger—my body could not come down from that experience.
My mind could not wipe away the whimpers of my students.
After a week, I still felt as shaky as if it were still happening.
Heartbreak and anxiety turned out to be potent motivators for me.
One sleepless night, days after the false alarm, I did two things.
I emailed a therapist, and I applied to be a student at the community college.
I’d been toying with the idea of going back to school on and off for years to pursue graphic design, but I always dismissed the idea.
I wasn’t going to abandon my career, or put the administration in a bind, and I certainly couldn’t leave my kids.
But I also couldn’t continue to live the way I was living.
Long before I ever wanted to teach, I wanted to make art. And while I’ve found it fulfilling introducing my first love to young kids, lately it hasn’t felt as fulfilling as it used to. I find myself reaching for my sketchbook more these days, eager to make something beautiful with my hands again.
And now I have an opportunity to do it. There’s an acceptance email in my inbox that I received on March 1 requiring a response from me by July 1.
I’ve been trying to pretend like it’s not there, like I never applied and got accepted. It would be easier to just go back to school in the fall and forget I ever considered leaving. But the email taunts me. Begging to be opened and reread and considered.
I am hoping this vacation cures whatever burnout I have from teaching and I can just ignore this email and pretend this little dream of mine was just that…a dream.
I think the best way to ignore this email is at the pool.
I’ve almost unpacked my whole suitcase when I find a present from Hazel.
I fight a smile and grab my phone to call her. She picks up after the first ring.
“My jet-setting bestie is calling me, oh my god! Did you make it to Cabo? How’s the weather? How’s your head?”
“No migraine yet, but I am feeling a bit confused by a present I just found in my suitcase.”
I hold up a box of condoms.
Hazel cackles, loud enough that Winnie shouts from the background.
“What is so funny?” Hazel’s wife asks. She must have me on speakerphone, because I can hear Winnie clear as day.
“She found the condoms I put in her bag,” Hazel says around her laughter.
“You’re a menace,” Winnie says. “Did you feed the dogs?”
“Not yet.”