The next day, Katie offered to cover the shop so Maya could stay home and off her foot, but Maya insisted she would be miserable cooped up in the house.
They settled her into a chair with her foot propped up, and by the time Katie left to get them both lunch, it seemed that half the town had come in to check on Maya and wish her well.
Katie had no idea how news had traveled so fast, but it warmed her heart to see how many people cared about her sister’s wellbeing and how many of Maya’s friends offered to help her out.
“I just got off the phone with the travel agent,” Maya said when Katie came in with their lunch. “It’s too close to the ship’s departure date to get my money back. If I cancel, I’m out the full amount. The only thing they can refund is the shore excursions.”
“That sucks. Maybe I should go and pretend to be you,” Katie joked with a grin as she pulled the chicken salad wrap from the paper bag and walked it over to Maya.
“Funny you should mention that,” Maya said, returning the grin as she thanked Katie and took the sandwich. “When she said I couldn’t get my money back, I asked if I could transfer the cruise and have someone else go in my place. And she said yes. I’d just have to pay one-hundred dollars for the name change.”
“Yeah, but then you have to find someone who can take the time off to go on a cruise with only a two-week notice. Someone who won’t mind sharing a room with your friend Ben. And someone who would be willing to pretend to be his girlfriend. Good luck finding someone dumb enough to agree to all that! I still can’t believe you agreed to it!”
Maya’s grin widened. “Ideally, it would be someone who didn’t have a job commitment so they could easily go with short notice. Someone I’d trust to do right by Ben. Someone who really needs a vacation and some tropical vibes right about now.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Katie said around the bite she’d just taken, her sandwich still held in mid-air.
“Because this is the perfect opportunity for you!”
“For me?” Katie nearly choked on the sandwich bite and had to chug a few swallows of water before she could take a breath or speak. “Are you insane? I’m not going on a cruise with some guy I’ve never met.”
“Technically, you have met. I’m positive he was with us that night.”
“But I don’t know him!”
“Yes, but I do. I’ve known him for years. He’s literally my best friend. Like a brother to me. There is no one else on the planet I would trust more with my baby sister than Ben.”
“Well, that’s great. I’m glad to know you have such high standards for sending me out to sea. But you’re out of your mind if you think I’m going on a cruise with a total stranger, and you’re extra insane if you think I’d be down for playing the girlfriend character in whatever scheme y’all have concocted. No. Absolutely not. Besides, don’t you think Ben would have some opinion about this? He might want to choose his own roommate and pretend love interest. So, turn off the heat on whatever plan you’ve got cooking in your head. This ain’t happening.”
“Why not?” Maya leaned forward in her chair, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. “It’s a weeklong vacation with all expenses paid, Kate. All you can eat. Whatever shore excursions you want to do. Tropical islands. Gorgeous views. I can’t think of anyone who deserves a vacation more than you do right now. Think of all the reading you could do while relaxing on the deck. You might even get some writing done. Or not, if you don’t want to think about that right now. This would be the perfect getaway for you to be able to chill out and find yourself.”
“Find myself? By pretending to be someone else? Are you listening to the words coming out of your mouth right now? I can’t believe you’d even suggest this. You’re the one who does crazy stuff, not me. No way. Nope. Like I said, not happening.”
“C’mon. At least think about it. You’d have the time of your life. I’m certain of it. You’ve always wanted to travel, and you’ve been telling me for years you want to go on a cruise. Well, here it is. Here’s your opportunity, and it’s already paid for. I won’t get my money back either way. I’d rather you go and enjoy yourself.”
“Yes, I want to travel, and yes, I’d love to go on a cruise. With you. With my sister. Not with some random guy I’ve never met.” She held up her hand as Maya started to protest. “Okay, even if you’re right and we met one time for a brief encounter that I have no memory of, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know the guy.”
“What if we do a video chat with him, and I can reintroduce the two of you? I’m sure you’ll hit it off with him the same way I did. He’s a great guy, Kate. I’m telling you, this is the big brother we always wanted and never had.”
“I never wanted a brother, and even if I had, I certainly wouldn’t want to pretend to be his girlfriend. Ew! Look, I’m sure he’s a great guy. A great guy who’s using his best friend to lie to his parents, but hey…like you said. I’m a bit of a stickler for honesty and you, well, you’re more flexible with the concept. But just because he’s a great guy doesn’t mean I want to share a room with him. End of discussion.”
A customer entered the store before Maya could respond, and much to Katie’s surprise, Maya let it go and didn’t bring it up again the rest of the day.
It was actually Katie who mentioned it later that night as she helped Maya navigate her usual nighttime routine with the injured foot.
“Thanks, Kate,” Maya said once they’d gotten her out of her clothes and into her pajamas. “I really appreciate your help.”
“You don’t have to thank me.” Katie reached to pull back the covers on Maya’s bed. “You certainly couldn’t manage on your own, which is another reason it would be ludicrous for me to go on that cruise. You need me here.”
“No, because if you wanted to do it, I’d ask a friend to come and stay with me. And like you said, I’ll be getting around better by then anyway, so it’d be fine.” Maya put her arm around her sister’s shoulder and together, they managed to get her onto the bed. “It’s all good, though. I understand you not wanting to go. I’m sorry if it seemed I was pressuring you earlier.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to go on a cruise. I’d love for us to do that someday. But I don’t want to go with a stranger and pretend to be his girlfriend.”
“I get that,” Maya said as she adjusted the pillows behind her to sit against the headboard. “I just wanted it to work out for both of you. For Ben, I know he needs a distraction to help deal with his family drama. And for you, I know you need an escape right now.”
“Which is why I’m here. This is my escape.”
“Yeah, but it’s not the same. When you’re on a ship, there is nothing around you but endless blue water and blue sky. It’s so peaceful. It’s like you leave the world behind when you go out there. You’re able to truly disconnect. No cell phones. No emails. No Mother,” Maya said with an exaggerated emphasis and a conspiratorial grin.
“Ugh.” Katie rolled her eyes. “She called three times today. Once to tell me about a job opportunity in publishing she saw online, once to tell me some friend of hers has a daughter who does resumés, and then the third time to ask if I’d heard from Grant because she saw a guy on television who reminded her of him. I think she’s more upset about our break-up than I am.”
“Why do you answer her calls? Let her go to voice mail.”
“Won’t she just keep calling?”
“Yeah, but then eventually you call her back and she’s forgotten half the stuff she wanted to tell you. It’s much easier that way.”
Maya winced as she lifted her foot for Katie to put a pillow underneath it.
“I still feel guilty that you wouldn’t let me call them when you went into surgery,” Katie said with a frown. “Are you really not going to tell her about your injury?”
“Are you kidding me?” Maya scoffed. “She’d be in the car on her way down here, and then we’d both have to deal with her.”
“Good point. I’m already worried she’s gonna show up and put me in her car to drive me back to New York, so yeah, probably best you don’t give her any additional reason to come visit.”
“I tell Mom what she needs to know, and she doesn’t need to know a whole lot about my life. If it doesn’t affect her, and it would make her worry obsessively—which would then make her bug me obsessively—she doesn’t need to know.”
“I guess I do that too, to some extent. I just haven’t mastered it as well as you.’
“Stick around a while.” Grinning, Maya winked. “I’ll teach you all sorts of things.”
There was a time when Katie would have laughed at the idea of Maya being able to teach her anything. For most of their lives, they’d been cast in roles of one having it together and the other not, and Katie had been sure of her role. But now, she’d begun to question it all.
Maya’s unstructured approach to life seemed to have brought her a sense of joy and contentment Katie had never experienced. Perhaps she could stand to learn a few lessons from her free-spirited sister after all.
Her thoughts turned to the cruise, and part of her wished she had Maya’s courage so she could just throw all caution to the wind and go.
“I’m sorry you’re gonna miss your trip,” she said. “I know you were looking forward to it. Did you tell Ben you can’t go?”
“No. Not yet. I don’t want to bum him out.”
“You think he’s gonna be pretty disappointed, huh?”
Maya shrugged as she twisted her long, curly hair into a loose bun. “Yeah. I mean, he’ll be fine. He’s a grown man. It’s not like he can’t go away with his family for a week without emotional support. But Ben’s kind of like me in that being around his mom gets him all worked up and stressed out. I volunteered to go so he’d have an outlet. Someone there who understands. Someone he can vent to who would get it.”
“He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”
“Oh, please,” Maya chuckled as she waved off that assertion. “It’s not like it would be a hardship to go on vacation for a week. I would have had a great time! You know me—I’m always up for an adventure.”
“Yes, you are. That’s something I admire about you.”
“You’re adventurous, too.”
“Ha! Hardly.”
“You moved to New York right out of college all by yourself.”
“Yeah, but I had a job offer lined up, and that girl I knew from school had offered me a room, so I knew I had a place to stay. It’s not like I packed up a car and took off without a plan.”
“It doesn’t make it any less adventurous just because you did it the smart way. There are plenty of people who never leave their hometown or the state they were born in. You had a dream, you made a plan, and you went after it. That’s adventurous.”
“But I still failed.”
Maya’s eyes widened. “What? You didn’t fail, Kate.”
“Whatever,” Katie huffed.
“No, not whatever. You didn’t fail. This wasn’t a test like when you were in school. You don’t get a bad grade when things don’t pan out the way you’d hoped.”
Katie responded with silence and a subtle shake of her head.
“Hey, listen to me,” Maya said, leaning forward to lay her hand on Katie’s arm. “You did not fail. It’s not your fault you got laid off because of budget cuts. It’s not your fault Grant was a jerk. Sometimes, things happen that we have no control over, okay? I know that’s hard for you, Miss Always-Has-A-Plan, but there’s no pass or fail. There’s just life. When it doesn’t go the way you wanted it to, you learn what you can from it and move on.”
“But I worked so hard, Maya.” Katie plopped down on the bed next to her sister. “I put everything I had into getting to New York. Into getting that job. And now, I have nothing to show for it. All that time, and it’s just…gone.”
“Oh, sweetie. The time may be gone, and the job may be gone, but the experience isn’t. You still lived it. That’s what life is. The experience. Some days are better than others, but all of it means something. Every single day, no matter where we are and what we’re doing, we feel, we grow, we learn. We live. And there’s a lot of trial and error in that. You tried something, and it didn’t work out. So now, you try something else. And it may not work out either. And if it doesn’t, you try something else. That’s living.”
“Great. Living is a string of failures. Can’t wait.”
Maya grinned. “No. Living is a string of experiences. Love. Laughter. Heartache. Triumph. Disappointment. Joy. All of it. It’s all about the experiences.”
Katie had bent her head, allowing her hair to fall forward in hopes it would hide her silent tears, but Maya pulled the strands back and tucked them behind Katie’s ear as she leaned in closer.
“I know thinking of New York right now is painful, and I know even the good memories seem tainted by the way it all ended. But I want you to try and focus on those good ones. The things you loved about it. The things you want to carry forward.”
“Carry forward?” Katie asked, tilting her head to look at Maya.
“Yeah. On our life journey, there are things we leave behind, and things we carry forward. New York, for now, you leave behind. But you’ll always have those memories and the things you carry forward from your time there.”
“You mean, like, stuff I bought there?”
Maya shrugged. “It can be something tangible, sure, but it doesn’t have to be. Maybe it’s a new cuisine you tried and loved, or a new style of music you found there. It could be the influence the city had on your fashion. Maybe it’s the croissant at a cafe you’ll always remember. Or the glow of the sunset coming through the window of your apartment. You see, we pick up things from every adventure, every relationship, every job, every city. Even books, movies, songs, paintings. It all shapes us and shapes our journey. So, New York isn’t a failure. It’s just part of your journey. It’s part of who you are now. It shaped you. And you get to decide where your journey takes you next and what you want to carry forward with you.”
For the first time since she’d arrived at Maya’s, sleep eluded Katie. Her mind churned, thoughts racing in all directions as she replayed her life journey and contemplated where she wanted to go next.
It was hard not to compare her journey with Maya’s. While she didn’t envy the hardships Maya had gone through, and she wouldn’t have wanted to experience Maya’s struggles, she wished she had Maya’s easygoing nature, her courage, and her ability to take life as it comes and find the good in it all.
Katie’s life had always been planned three steps ahead of where she was. No decision was made without thorough research, deep contemplation, and a careful analysis of all possible outcomes. No idea was considered worthwhile unless it moved her toward a desired goal or achievement.
And then, if that goal or achievement wasn’t acquired, she beat herself up and felt like she’d let herself—and others—down. Like she’d failed.
But if it went well, she was already onto the next goal. The next achievement. The next chase.
What would it be like to just…live? If her measure of success in life wasn’t based on a particular achievement or goal, how would she know if she was doing well? If she was doing it…right?
Her whole life had been spent trying to do the right thing.
Was Maya correct in her assumption that there wasn’t a right or wrong—there was just life?
Maya certainly seemed more at peace living her way than Katie had ever been living hers.
But was Katie even capable of being more like Maya?
She’d always been told by her parents that they were wired differently. They said Maya was wired to be rebellious and free-spirited, while Katie was wired to obedient and driven. But did that mean Maya was wired to be content and happy while Katie was destined to feel like nothing was ever quite enough?
What would it be like to do something purely for the fun of doing it, without considering every possible long-term consequence or outcome?
What would Katie’s life be like if she could do something just because she wanted to, and not because she was supposed to?
To some extent, she’d done that in moving back to Florida to stay with Maya. Everyone—especially her mother—had expected her to stay in New York and find another job. They’d wanted her to pursue the same path she’d been trudging along for years. But instead, she’d cast it all aside to join Maya at the surf shop.
And since making that choice, she’d felt lighter and more at peace than she had in years.
The move was temporary, of course, but she had to admit that now having veered off that defined path, she didn’t feel any desire to return to it. If anything, she felt more intrigued by how far away from it she could go.
Maya had asked what she would carry with her, but at the moment, Katie was more interested in determining what else she wanted to leave behind. Maybe it was time to shed more than just New York, publishing, and Grant.
She felt like she had gotten a second chance to choose her path. The rest of her life lay before her, and while she wasn’t sure yet what direction it would take, she made a promise that from now on, she’d spend more time focused on the journey instead of having tunnel vision for the destination.