Chapter 13
Thirteen
Text from Damien National Car Rental: Arrive in SC, Mami? My counterpart at the airport called and they are low on inventory b/c of the holiday. They offered to send a driver to your location to pick up the car and get it back into circulation. Send me your address.
“Labor Day! Right. Now the traffic makes sense,” Kenny said to her screen.
She had planned to make a trip to Harris Teeter or Piggly Wiggly to stock up on a few essentials while she still had a car.
But avoiding a trip across the island to the airport and a subsequent Uber ride back to Pelican Pointe seemed more appetizing than any provisions she’d stock in her refrigerator.
Text to Damien National Car Rental: I’ve arrived and that’d be great! I’m staying at Pelican Pointe on Sea Pines. The only Nautilus with New York tags in the lot. Will leave the keys under the mat on the driver’s side. Thx!
Text from Damien National Car Rental: I’ll let them know. Savannah throws a Labor Day party and a lot of people rent cars for the evening to go over for the festivities and fireworks.
Text to Damien National Car Rental: (Emoji: thumbs up)
And there you have it, Kenny thought.
Civilization reached a point where the rush to convey information was so urgent that even the names of historical cities were shortened.
“Savi” wasn’t Hailey’s friend, and Kenny wasn’t invited to anyone’s party.
“Savi” was Savannah, Georgia’s oldest city.
A city that was hosting a celebration to honor a federal holiday.
Since Savannah and Hilton Head were only separated by a few miles of the Intracoastal Highway, there was a chance Kenny would be able to enjoy the fireworks from the beach.
Riddle solved. Facepalm emoji.
She was a proficient unpacker, but she despised the daunting task and her nomadic career made her efficient at living out of suitcases and bags.
Knowing that she’d be at Pelican Pointe for the next thirty-five consecutive nights gave her the encouragement and sense of stability she needed to hang clothes in the closet and hide toiletries in the bathroom vanity.
She collapsed her duffel bags and stuffed them into the small black suitcase; she zipped up the hot pink Vegas suitcase inside the large black one; and rolled the Samsonite set into the hall coat closet, out of sight.
She couldn’t remember the last time she knew for certain that she would be staying in the same place for thirty-five nights.
She did know for certain that it hadn’t been any time in the last ten years.
It was almost 4:00 p.m. and Kenny had hit the wall.
She was deliriously happy to be settled in at Pelican Pointe but also starved and exhausted.
She thought about venturing out to explore and grab a bite to eat, but when she remembered it was Labor Day, she quickly nixed the idea.
She pulled up the Instacart app and started adding a few items to her cart that would hold her over for a few meals.
While she waited for the delivery of her New York staples to arrive—coffee, creamer, eggs, salsa, cheese, lemons, and nacho chips—she plopped down on the yellow sofa and stretched her feet onto the matching ottoman.
Although the open blinds let in an afternoon that was turning cloudy, Villa #5 exuded happiness.
It was cheerful and bright, just like the photos that jumped off her computer screen five nights ago.
Her attitude fed off her surroundings, and she didn’t want this feeling, this optimism, to go away.
Ever. Or at least for the next five weeks while she took her break from reality.
After years of working on serious self-assessment with Marilyn the therapist, Kenny knew she often struggled in battles that involved setting boundaries.
To fully optimize this opportunity, this chance to recharge, she would have to put some conditions on herself and the situation to avoid distraction or getting “stuck in her own head,” as Marilyn would say.
Kenny pulled her Wildest Dreams planner out of the laptop bag and flipped to the back of the book where there was a section of blank pages that simply had Goals scrawled across the top.
She tore out one of the perforated sheets, crossed a solid, black line through Goals and under it wrote Hiatus of Life Conditions List.
She stared at the blank page for a few moments and reflected on the series of events that collided simultaneously last Wednesday and rocked her world to its core like a catastrophic earthquake that continued to give off debilitating aftershocks after the initial blow.
Every time she’d regain her footing to stand up and face one situation, Wham!
Another blow would come, knocking her back down.
Kenny thought about what she needed in her life.
Maybe more importantly, what she needed to eliminate from her life.
Hiatus of Life Conditions List (in no particular order)
Exercise daily.
Eat healthy, every day.
Eliminate “to-do” lists.
Restrict alcohol.
Write (“original” ideas for novel).
Try new things.
Limit work emails.
No new male relationships (straight or gay).
Satisfied with the Conditions List, Kenny hung it on the fridge so it would always be in view, a constant reminder that following these simple, temporary life hacks could lead her to the happiest five weeks of her life.