Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
Kenny fell asleep on the uncomfortable yellow couch with slices of vegetables on her face, and woke up from the unplanned, lengthy nap when her phone vibrated from under the pillow her head rested on.
Text to Hailey: Perfect! See you soon (Emoji: smiley face with sunglasses)
Meeting at the beach bar also took away some of the pressure of deciding what to wear.
In theory, Kenny liked the idea of “No Shower Happy Hour,” but she couldn’t justify putting on a bathing suit to meet a stranger for drinks if she wasn’t technically coming from a day at the pool or the beach.
Though coming from a lazy Sunday afternoon spent in pajama pants and her new white tank top, with her hair tied up in a new scrunchie, wasn’t an option either.
She woke herself up with a hot shower and put on a short, strapless floral tunic that could pass as a sundress or a bathing suit cover-up.
It seemed like the perfect solution to the late afternoon, early evening engagement.
She laced up her white canvas platform sneakers and decided to walk to the Beach Club, rather than wait for the plantation trolley.
She took a leisurely stroll down Lighthouse Road to North Sea Pines Drive and admired how quickly the landscape bounced back from mother nature’s brutal assault the previous night.
The trees and shrubs that had been weighed down from the wind and water bounced back to life; the walkways and roads that pooled with water had receded; locals and vacationers who holed up in their homes and rental units, found their way back to the golf courses and bike paths.
She found parallels to her own day in all of it.
Instead of sulking in despair and darkness about the conversation she overheard between J.P.
and his assumed lingerie model girlfriend, she pulled herself together, went on with the day and didn’t cancel her plans.
Kenny walked up the brick steps to the entrance of the beach club and reached for her phone.
Text from Hailey: Got 2 stools! In red (Emoji: baseball hat)
Kenny was nervous and excited. She imagined this is what blind dating felt like before the time of the internet. Just as Kenny didn’t Google J.P. while she was getting to know him—although she now regretted that decision—she hadn’t Googled Hailey either.
Text to Hailey: Just got here! In a floral dress.
Kenny walked down the extra-wide pathway that dead-ended into the dunes.
She passed the entrances to eateries and a gift shop before reaching an open deck that was set with several square seating tables and was situated adjacent to an elevated covered deck with a large square bar in the middle of it.
Oh my God.
Kenny’s heart sank. She turned the corner and immediately saw the back of a tall, skinny woman with blonde curls piled high on top of her head.
Text to Colby: OMG. She’s here.
Text from Colby: What?
Text to Colby: J.P.’s girl from this morning. She’s at the bar where I’m meeting my friend for drinks. What do I do?
Text from Colby: Dear God. Stay calm. Find a seat away from her and keep your back turned. Your new friend will have to keep tabs on her.
Kenny held her breath while she anxiously watched the little bubbles at the bottom of the screen bounce up and down while Colby typed another reply. She briefly took her gaze away from the phone to scan the decks for any sign of J.P. and when she looked back down, she had a text from Hailey.
Text from Hailey: I c u silly! Look (Emoji: up arrow)
Kenny cautiously lifted her head, afraid of who she might see.
What she saw was worse than anything she could have imagined.
The tall, skinny woman with the golden curls had turned around.
She wore a red visor that hovered over her eyes and an unbuttoned, oversized white blouse draped over a tiny red bikini that drew attention to her washboard abs.
The girl enthusiastically waved her hands like she was being reunited with a best friend whom she’d been separated from for years.
Shit. This isn’t happening.
Kenny turned around, again, desperately hoping that the long and lean lady was motioning to someone standing behind her. No luck. There was no one there. Kenny turned back to face the bar. The girl giggled like a schoolgirl, pointed to her visor, and mouthed, “red hat!”
“That’s a visor, not a hat,” Kenny mumbled under her breath as she faked a toothy smile and tried to practice pranayama breathing.
She knew she didn’t have the luxury of time on her side, it would be a matter of seconds before she ended up in a full-blown conversation with her new friend turned foe.
Any gasps of air she could muster on her short walk over to the bar—or before the excitable creature pounced over the railing—would have to do.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
“Kenny! You’re even more adorable than I envisioned! I am so excited to meet you!” Hailey wrapped Kenny in a tight bear hug.
“Hailey, hi! It’s great to meet you, too,” Kenny lied through her clenched teeth, feeling pathetic and insignificant as she looked up, barely coming to Hailey’s shoulders.
The red visor that kept Hailey’s bouncy curls out of her face had the letters “O-H-H-I-O” scrawled across the front in white embroidery.
The “I” was the Hilton Head lighthouse and Kenny knew that the play on letters was a nod to the state who proudly sent hordes of residents to vacation on the island every year.
“Cute visor!” Kenny forced sincerity, having a gut feeling it was on J.P.’s head hours earlier.
“Thanks, it’s adorable, isn’t it? I acquired it this morning,” the bubbly girl laughed. “I knew the shade of red would match this bathing suit perfectly! I spent most of my childhood in West Virginia, but I am originally from Ohio.”
The only thing that annoyed Kenny more than Hailey wearing a hat that surely was J.P.
’s was that Hailey was instantly likeable.
In a juvenile, sorority girl kind of way, but that’s who she was, and it worked for her.
Kenny had been in Hailey’s company for less than two minutes, but she could tell Hailey had one of those magnetic personalities that people were attracted to.
Her physical appearance only enhanced her endearing demeanor, and Kenny doubted she had a mean bone in her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit body.
Hailey talked as fast in person as she did on the phone a few weeks ago and used as many abbreviations and acronyms in her spoken English as she did in her texting prose.
Hailey did most of the talking while Kenny listened and sipped a frozen pina colada.
The irony of the whole scenario made it too hard to truly focus on anything and she wondered if the self-induced brain freeze was a subconscious attempt to numb herself to the conversation and the inner commentary that buzzed around it.
The longer Haiely spoke, the more Kenny enjoyed her company and the greater her anger toward J.P. grew.
“Have you met any hotties since you’ve been down here, Kenny? I notice a lot of eye candy,” Hailey coyly winked. “I bet southern men are different than the guys in New York. I love boy talk with girlfriends!”
Kenny took a deep breath and stirred the plastic, red and white bendy straw in her drink while she debated how to respond.
She wasn’t sure who the villain was in the J.P and Hailey dalliance.
Maybe there wasn’t one at all and Kenny was simply collateral damage.
A victim of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong person.
Although if there was a villain, it had to be J.P.
since he was a decade and a half older than Hailey.
He could mold her into a world-class trophy wife and proudly display her alongside his numerous golf career accomplishments.
There was a slight possibility that Hailey could be the villain, though.
Perhaps she was a gold digger playing the part of a na?ve and innocent “good girl” from the gateway to America’s heartland, who’s mission was to find her way into the heart of Hilton Head’s most eligible bachelor.
“No, Hailey. I’ve learned men are all the same regardless of geographic location.
I did meet one charmer, but it turned out he was already with someone.
” Kenny kept it short and simple, deciding it wasn’t her place to insert herself into the affairs of others.
Especially people she planned to never see again.
“I’m sorry, Kenny! That’s terrible. What happened to morals? I’m so happy to be out of that rat race,” Hailey began, and Kenny looked at her with wide eyes.
Please stop talking. Make her stop talking. How can I shut her up?
It was too late. The curtain had been drawn, and Hailey was about to storm the stage with a stream of conscious monologue.
Kenny didn’t know if the soliloquy was going to be a romantic comedy, drama or erotica but she knew it was going to force the butterflies that fluttered in her stomach when she used to think about J.P.
, to shrink back into their cocoons. Quite possibly, forever.
“Hold out hope, Kenny! Your Mr. Perfect is waiting for you somewhere. Sometimes it just takes a while. You’ll never believe what happened to me last night,” Hailey opened her performance.
I can’t believe this is happening.
“Three years ago, when I started working down here for the summers, I met this guy who worked at Liberty Oaks Golf Course. Liberty Oaks is part of Low Country Hospitality. Did you know that?” Hailey stopped long enough to notice Kenny’s acknowledgement.
“We bumped into each other a lot because of work.”
There it is, Kenny thought. J.P. is a master of manipulation. He “bumps” into women; he plays down “working” at the golf course.