The Trouble with Destiny Read online

  She grabs his hand and threads her fingers through his, leaving me in awe of her boldness and totally jealous that she can pull it off. Lenny glances down at his dad, then nods, climbing out of the hot tub with Demi. Before he disappears, he turns and gives me a shrug and a half smile that seems to say, What can you do?

  Russ is still frantically trying to solve the drink problem. There’s no trash can on the deck, and if he tried for the one at the bottom of the stairs he’d have to walk right past Mr. Curtis carrying the evidence. He glances around for a solution and settles on the railing behind me, sending the drinks, cups and all, overboard into the ocean. He drops back down into the hot tub, sending a wave of water rushing onto the deck.

  “Not bad, dude,” Hillary says, giving a tip of an imaginary hat.

  All eyes turn toward Mr. Curtis. But Mr. Curtis is gone, having bypassed the stairs and disappeared into the ship. Bullet officially dodged.

  In the commotion, Huck pulled a serious disappearing act and is nowhere to be found. Which I take as my cue, because if Huck is fleeing a situation, then you know it must be bad. With Lenny dragged off by Demi (hopefully against his will?), there’s no reason for me to stay here anyway, so I stand and stretch, feigning a yawn. “I think I’m going to get a nap in before lunch,” I say.

  Hillary climbs out of the hot tub. “I’ll come with you,” she says. She takes a towel from a nearby cart and wraps it around her waist, then tosses one to me, still carrying Huck’s hat in her other hand.

  The two of us make our way down the stairs and back into the ship. We walk in silence, but as soon as we’re inside our room, Hillary squeals, “I can’t believe no one said anything!”

  “What?” I ask. She holds the fedora under my nose.

  “Look what I have!” she says. She rushes past me and dumps the contents of the hat onto her bed. She starts unfolding scraps of paper and laying them out on the fluffy comforter. I can’t help myself, so I wait to watch.

  “Who’s Marcus Wellington?” Hillary squints at the piece of paper.

  “Never heard of him,” I reply. She shrugs, lets the paper flutter back onto the bed, and returns to unfolding the rest.

  “Holy crap,” she mutters. Her eyes go wide as she stares at a tiny scrap of paper between her black-polished finger and thumb. She flashes it at me. The writing is small and messy, and the last few letters are spreading out in a damp ink spot from someone’s wet fingers, so I have to get right up next to her to see it.

  “What’s it say?” I ask. I squint down at the writing and finally make it out.

  Liza.

  Holy crap.

  My first thought is that Demi wrote it to screw with me, but the chicken scratch on the paper definitely came from the hand of a boy. And not Huck, either, who prides himself on his penmanship. The only logical conclusion is that another boy, one who isn’t my best friend, wrote it. I close my eyes and try to reproduce the lineup from the hot tub in my head. Who else was there? I can’t think of anyone except …

  Lenny.

  Lenny!

  I bury my face in the sleeve of Lenny’s jacket, which I failed to return when we left the hot tub. I breathe in the smell of it, of him, and imagine standing next to him on the upper deck where I saw Sofia, smiling into the sun, the wind in my hair, Lenny’s arm around my waist as he leans in to plant kiss number two on my lips.

  Take that, Demi. This time, I’m going to win.

  Chapter 9

  A couple of hours later, I’m following First Mate Kevin, leading a line of my bandmates as we wind our way through the lush gardens of the Poseidon Resort, a hulking structure designed to look like a coral palace sprung up from the sea. It rises twenty stories in the air, with various turrets jutting out, and is surrounded by lush palm trees, manicured gardens, snow-white beaches, and clear blue water. It’s the first of Destiny’s ports of call, the shortest one, and we’ll be spending the rest of the afternoon on the beach. We’ll be sharing space with the tourists who chose the Poseidon and the island as their final destination, and we’re under strict orders to stick to the beach and keep out of the luxury hotel.

  Since we left Destiny, I’ve kept a close eye on Lenny to see if he’ll give away any hint of his feelings for me, feelings that led him to put my name down on paper. But so far he’s mostly hung back, his eyes glued to his camera, rising only to take a periodic snap of scenery. I don’t blame him. Even though the Poseidon is painted a shocking, almost putrid pink, the building itself is pretty impressive, and the scenery is unlike anything I’ve ever seen outside of a postcard.

  “All right, now keep in mind that all the same rules apply on the island that apply on the ship, so no underage drinking, and please remember what I said before about illicit substances,” First Mate Kevin says as he walks backward like a tour guide through a cobblestoned courtyard with a marble fountain of a sea horse bubbling away in the middle.

  “You ready to get high on life?”

  I gasp as I realize that Lenny’s snuck up behind me, and when I turn, I see that his camera is trained right on my face. He presses the shutter button, and the camera gives a mechanical click-click. He lowers it and takes a peek at the viewfinder on the back, his face cracking into laughter.

  “Oh, man, you did not see me coming,” he says, his smile flashing along with his gray eyes. I feel my heart melt into a puddle at the sight of him, but I try to play it cool.

  I bat his camera down. “I liked it better when you were a theater kid,” I say, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “Yeah, but that wasn’t really for me,” he says with a shrug. “The older I got, the less I liked the spotlight. You can’t get away with quite as much when all eyes are on you.”

  I chuckle at his joke, then point at his camera. “So how long have you been doing this?”

  “Few years,” he says. “My mom got me a camera when their divorce was final, not long after that summer. But I didn’t really start messing around with it until high school.”

  “You on the newspaper staff?” I ask. Brentwood is famous for their student newspaper, which is always snapping up state and national awards. But Lenny shakes his head.

  “No way. Newspaper is dumb. You have to do what other people tell you to do, and that’s not what art is about. Art comes from here,” he says, tapping his chest over his heart, “not from here.” He taps at his temple and rolls his eyes. “Besides, they’re all ‘Rah-rah, we’re a team,’ and I’m just not that guy.”

  “Yeah, but that can be cool,” I say. “I mean, with band—”

  “Nah, I think it’s important that I be free. Just me and the camera. You know? Like when you’re listening to music and it’s just you and the tunes and you can really let yourself feel it.”

  I nod. I know that feeling. I feel it every time I’m on the field, standing on the platform on the fifty-yard line. Sometimes I just close my eyes and let the wall of sound wash over me, and I know it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. And even though there are sixty band members on the field in front of me and hundreds of fans in the stands behind me, I can for a moment imagine that it’s just me and the music.

  “That’s awesome,” I tell him. “I know sometimes when I’m conducting—”

  “Ooh, hold that thought,” Lenny says, then stops and jogs back a few steps. He squats down next to a potted plant and trains his camera on a brilliant purple blossom that’s bending over into the walkway, trying to escape its pot of soil. He snaps away, pausing to peek at the viewfinder before adjusting something and snapping again. He’s grinning to himself, and I can’t help but mirror his smile. It’s exactly the way I feel when we’ve worked our way through a hard spot in a new piece of music and finally gotten the measures down. That moment when it comes out perfectly, just as the composer wrote it, is as good as a cold chocolate shake on a hot summer day.

  “Hurry up, guys, we don’t have all
day!” First Mate Kevin calls as he leads us under an ivy-covered arbor and out onto the white sand beach. The line slows as we have to plod through the sand, so soft our feet sink deep into it. I turn to make sure everyone is still with us, and a quick eyeball of the line tells me we haven’t lost anyone. Lenny is catching up, but instead of making his way to the front of the line, he stops at the back, chatting with someone I can’t see.

  Out on the beach, the ocean is clear blue, with gentle white-topped waves slapping the sandy shore. Blue chairs and matching umbrellas dot the beach in pairs, and men in white shorts and polo shirts scurry around with trays of drinks and extra towels.

  First Mate Kevin leads us to the left, away from the paradise of the resort beach, until we seem to cross an invisible line. On one side, luxury vacation. On the other, cruise ship carnival. No more matching beach chairs, no more attendants bringing fresh towels. As we file past a wooden cart, Kevin directs us all to grab a towel off the pile and find a spot on the beach.

  Hillary quickly settles into a plot of sand and leans back on her towel, earbuds firmly in her ears. Huck takes the spot next to her, and I lay my towel next to him. I dig into my bag for a magazine, ready to soak up some SPF 30–protected sun. I keep my eye on Lenny, watching to see where he puts his towel. Even though Demi is hovering near him, he takes a place not too far ahead of me and pulls out his camera, scanning the horizon with the lens.

  “Banana boats!” Jared shouts, pointing to a dock a bit down the beach where a line of bright yellow, inflatable rafts in the shape of bananas wait for riders. Out in the water, the rafts, pulled by Jet Skis, zip across the waves at dizzying speeds. “Who’s in?”

  Clarice and Andrew quickly rise to their feet, along with half the trumpets and all the percussion. Watching the inflatable yellow rafts careen across the horizon doesn’t do much for me, but when I see Lenny ask Nicole to watch his camera and then join the group making their way to the dock, I quickly hop to my feet and jump in.

  “Liza, you sure about that?” Huck asks, probably thinking back to that time I tried waterskiing in the seventh grade. With my suit up my butt and half a lake up my nose, I vowed never to do any kind of speedboating again.

  From the back of the crew heading toward the dock, Lenny turns around and cups his hands to his mouth while plodding backward through the sand. “You coming, Liza?”

  Well, that settles it. My heart flip-flops at his invitation. How bad could a banana boat be? There are actual children riding on them, without parents or anything.

  I grin at Huck, but call back to Lenny, “Yup! Coming!” Then I trot through the thick, soft sand to catch up.

  “Too bad I don’t have a waterproof setup,” Lenny says as we make our way to the dock. “I could get some kickass shots out on the water.”

  “Are those expensive?” I ask, eager to keep our conversation going.

  “Yeah, but I can probably work the divorced parents angle. You know how it is, pit one against the other, see who’s willing to pony up,” he says with a chuckle, and I have to laugh. I’ve never done that, but from the way my dad likes to throw expensive gifts my way, I can see how it could work.

  On the dock, the line moves quickly as we board the boats in groups of four. One takes off and another pulls right up. I lean forward on my toes, trying to count to make sure I’m going to end up with Lenny, but everyone keeps moving and I lose track. It isn’t until the next boat pulls up and Brianna, Missy, and Demi step on that I realize there’s only one seat left. And it’s for Lenny. He climbs on, but when he realizes there are no more seats, he turns to me.

  “You want me to wait for the next one?” he asks, his hand over his eyes like a visor as he squints up at me.

  If I were Demi, I’d be able to say no in a way that conveys, Yes, absolutely, ride with me and we’ll cuddle and fall in love. But I’m not Demi, so instead I’m left standing on the dock watching the banana boat pull away.

  “Guess we’re up!” a deep voice booms from behind me. I spin on my heel to see that Russ has appeared and is ready to climb aboard the empty boat that’s now pulling up.

  When I don’t move, another voice, this one even deeper, grunts from behind him. “You going, little lady?”

  I lean around Russ to see our two banana boat companions, a couple in their seventies who look like they’ve spent every day of their lives covered in baby oil and sizzling in the sun. Their rough, wrinkled skin is approximately the color and texture of a leather saddle. Both of them have on heavy gold jewelry, the man’s thick chain tangled in his mass of gray chest hair. And to cap off their I’m trying to pretend I’m not actually seventy years old ensemble, they’re wearing matching leopard-print swimsuits: hers a string bikini, his a teeny tiny Speedo.

  A look of sheer horror must cross my face, because Russ glances over his shoulder once, then twice in a classic double take. When he turns back to me, his eyes are wide, his mouth stretched in an O.

  “How ’bout a Jet Ski instead?” Russ says, pointing at a row of them bobbing on the other side of the dock, each with only two seats.

  Before I can tell Russ that I’d rather just stay on the beach thankyouverymuch, a shriek rips through the salty ocean air. I spin in time to see the banana boat streak past us, now up to full speed. Demi, who must have switched seats just before they took off, is now behind Lenny, her arms wrapped tight around his chest, her head thrown back as her dark-brown hair streams out behind her. She’s several hundred yards away and careening across the ocean at an impressive speed, but I swear I see her shoot me a devilish smirk.

  Without hesitation, I turn to Russ. “Let’s do it,” I say, shrugging on a life jacket from the rack on the dock. Russ grabs a jacket and climbs into the driver’s seat, and I lower myself carefully behind him, double-checking all the buckles on my yellow-and-orange life vest. I look like an oceanic traffic cone.

  “Not too fast, okay?” I say to Russ, putting a hand on either side of his waist to hold on.

  “But that’s the fun part,” he says as he cranks up the engine.

  “Seriously, Russ, not too fast,” I tell him again. As we bob there in the water, inhaling the gassy smell coming from the idling engine, I’m having flashbacks to that summer at the lake. I didn’t know it was possible to face-plant in a body of water, but I discovered the truth on that hot Saturday. I reach up and rub my nose at the memory of water shooting into my brain.

  But just as quickly as they arrived, those images disappear, snapped out by Russ twisting the throttle with a violent jerk. We shoot away from the dock, bouncing on the waves as if we’re riding a bucking bronco. I open my mouth to scream, but whatever sound comes out gets left behind as Russ takes a sharp left turn. A massive tower of spray rises up behind us as we skid across the water. I want to smack Russ, maybe even clock him right in the head in an effort to get him to slow down, but I’m too terrified to let go. Instead, I grip his life jacket so tight I wonder if I’ll be able to draw blood through the foam.

  We jerk left and right, several times catching air on the bigger waves, and I spend the whole time with my eyes closed, pressing my face against Russ’s back, praying that I get off this thing alive.

  I’m trying out one of those Zen breathing techniques I taught Nicole when I hear the engine sputter and slow. In just a few seconds, it cuts out completely, and we’re left bobbing and drifting lazily across the surface of the water.

  I open my eyes and see that we’re several hundred yards off the shore, far enough that the whole of the resort is spread out before us. The gaudy pink of the stucco now looks soft and warm like a late-setting sun, and it complements the sparkling blue ocean around it.

  “Pretty great view, huh?” Russ says over his shoulder. He shakes his head like a dog and sends a spray of salt water across my face.

  That’s when I realize I’ve been clutching the side of his buff upper body with a death grip.


  Instantly, I let go. “What is wrong with you?” I screech, right into his ear. He jerks away, and the Jet Ski leans hard to the left. He twists at the waist until he’s practically facing me, his brow furrowed.

  “What are you talking about?” he asks, rubbing his injured ear.

  “I said not too fast!”

  “I wasn’t going that fast,” he says, his tone wounded. “You should have said something.”

  “I tried!” I cry. I finally take the opportunity to punch him hard in the arm, though he barely flinches.

  “You were hollering,” he says.

  “Yeah, in terror,” I snap. “Take me back, slowly this time.”

  “I’ll take you back, but not before you take a moment to appreciate this view,” he says. He gestures back toward the shore, where I can again see how beautiful the resort looks, almost as if it’s popped right out of my imagination, like an oceanic mirage. But it’s not until I follow Russ’s gaze in the opposite direction, out into the ocean and toward the horizon, that I see the real view.

  The water is so blue it almost looks Photoshopped, and it’s clear and smooth as glass. The turquoise of the water meets the baby blue of the sky at a point so far away that no matter how long my eyes search, they can’t seem to pin it down. The fluffy white clouds dot the sky, scattering beams of sunlight onto the water. They glitter like diamonds. And after a moment, I notice something else, too. Something a few hundred yards away is disturbing the clear water. Up and down, up and down. And as I squint, I see that it’s a group of dolphins, leaping through the water as they make their way across the horizon.

  “Worth it?” Russ says, his voice barely above a whisper, even though it feels like there’s no one around for miles.

  “Yeah,” I say, the word rushing out of me soft and quiet, like a prayer.

  We sit there in silence for a few more minutes, watching the dolphins until they disappear, then staring up at the clouds as they move lazily across the sky. And only when our skin is completely dry from the sun does Russ twist back toward me.