“WHAT A LOVELY MORNING, WOULDN’T YOU SAY?” I STAND BESIDE THE couch pullout, hovering over Charlie as he slowly gains awareness.
“Why?” is all he can manage as he rubs his eyes and laboriously swings his legs to the ground.
“Why is it a lovely morning, you mean?” I open the curtains and he moans as light tramples his face. “Just take a look at our beautiful surroundings.”
“No, why are you so damn perky? What time is it?” He rubs his face some more, squinting.
“I’m so damn perky because it’s a special, special day. Also known as Charlie the Servant Day, in case you forgot. And it’s a little after seven. I want to ensure we get a full day in. Lots to do!” I clap my palms together twice.
He groans and I have to turn away to hide the amusement on my face.
As it turns out, Mrs. Mustache used to coach cheer at her local high school in Michigan, skills that came in particularly handy yesterday when the final challenge was to choreograph and execute a synchronized swimming routine.
“You’re actually gonna make me go through with this?” Charlie squints up at me with a drowsy, pained expression.
“Oh, of course I am. I won. A bet is a bet. Now, please go make me some coffee.”
“Seriously, Sloane?”
“Deadly. Oh, and please refer to me as Your Highness.”
“Yeah, right, I’m not—”
“Well, then I guess I’ll have to send another note to Brooke, this one about how Charlie and I aren’t actually dating and his sole purpose in inviting me on this trip was . . .”
He rises to his feet, surely attempting to intimidate me with his height. “Okay, fine. How would you like that coffee, Your Highness? Black like your heart?” He says “Your Highness” like it’s the name of a communicable disease.
“Oh no, no. There will be no insults today. Only compliments. In fact, I suggest you set a timer so that every hour, on the hour, you are reminded to compliment me. And it seems as though you missed your seven a.m. so . . .”
He presses his eyebrows together, his sharp blue eyes barely slits. I almost feel bad for him. Almost.
“You are incredibly prepared should there be a zombie apocalypse,” he says through gritted teeth. “It’s rather impressive.”
“Wow, thank you, Charlie!” I say in not-totally-feigned delight. “I’ll take my coffee on the couch here. And yes, black, please. Black like this lovely plush robe.” I tug at the ties around the waist.
Not only did we get the benefit of Mrs. Mustache’s choreography skills yesterday, but Bacon Bit II was so dedicated to the win that he provided each of us with one of his collection of vacation swim caps and was even willing to cut up his floral robe to create matching sashes (tied around our waists with a bow on the right hip), a look that was met with spectacular applause from the crowd of onlookers.
I turn at the terrace door and traipse back over to Charlie. “Oh, and I almost forgot. I made this for you.” I pick up the item I’ve hidden behind the couch and hand it to him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says.
The grand prize, the items we four members of the winning team received, were plastic gold statues of a goat. Because we are, in fact, the Greatest of All Time. And being the crafty person I am, I’ve attached two strands of twine—one from the goat’s neck, the other from the tail—to turn it into a necklace. So Charlie can wear it throughout servant day.
The sun sure shines bright today.
I rise onto my tiptoes to place the makeshift goat trophy necklace around his head, my forearms grazing the tops of his bare shoulders as I do.
“Well, that looks even more wonderful than I had anticipated,” I say as I straighten the goat, then press it firmly into his chest. “Nothing worse than a crooked goat hanging from one’s neck.”
“Its ear is poking me,” he says, shoving his fingers between the goat and his bare pec. He rubs his chest gently, and I swallow hard.
“No complaining, Charlie. Not today,” I say with the raise of my left eyebrow.
“I still can’t believe we lost,” he mutters, shaking his head as he looks at the ground. “I thought we had it with our routine.”
I have to admit, their routine was on point. I knew we had them beat on looks when they showed up to the pool to perform in mismatched suits (as would be expected from a group of strangers thrown together to build a synchronized swimming routine while on vacation). They lined up at the pool’s edge, and when the music began, I pressed my lips together and shook my head. Charlie winked at me as “Drift Away” began wafting from Andres’s speaker. The song that was playing when we kissed at the bar.
Their routine consisted of sideways dives into the pool, each a half second behind the last, before they formed a line in the water to execute various viral dance moves. The song seemed far too slow for them to possibly dance to, but their moves matched the music, unhurried and even a bit sultry, and it worked. Except CrossFit Guy has little rhythm and was consistently a half step behind.
I think of Charlie’s furrowed brow of concentration in the water. He wanted to beat me as badly as I wanted to beat him.
But our routine was on a different level. We started underwater with a dramatic burst into the sky (gasping for air after miscalculating the length of the intro to our song). There were perfectly timed scissor kicks into the air and arms bending forward and back in perfect unison. Our only misstep was when Bacon Bit II faced the wrong direction in our mid-performance lineup, but I grabbed his shoulders and quickly spun him around.
And my instincts told me we needed that one thing that would imprint us in the minds of the onlookers and ensure victory. Like that moment in a game when the other player might think they’ve won, but then Arsonist Betty pulls out her soda can and chocolate or flint and shocks them with her final, fantastic effort.
“What about a lift?” I said in Mrs. Mustache’s room as we finalized our costumes. “I know Charlie can’t do it because of his bad shoulder—it might give us the edge we need.”
Halfway through our routine, I completed a backward flip, which was met with a roaring cheer from the jam-packed crowd. I can take no credit for it, because Bacon Bit II and CrossFit Girl flung me into the air with little effort and I simply had to not flail.
I’ll never forget Charlie’s face afterward, eyes narrowing in frustration while an amused grin infiltrated his mouth.
With the crowd still cheering as we climbed out of the pool, I removed my swim cap and grabbed a towel, sure to shake it so it whacked Charlie in the spray-on abs.
I’m sure it didn’t help that our song was Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space.” He isn’t the only one who can take jabs whenever an opportunity presents itself.
Today, in our room, he peers down at me. The goat bounces against him with his movement. “I feel like I’m going to need a safe word today. I’m afraid,” he says, taking a step closer so we are practically touching.
There’s a flutter somewhere down there, one I try to ignore. “Afraid?” I say archly. “There is no bumpy airplane, no Amazonian centipede to be seen. What else scares you?”
Somehow we’ve inched even closer, my breath uneven.
“You definitely scare me,” he says in almost a whisper.
I see his tactic. Trying to unnerve me with vulnerable charm in hopes I will go easy on him. I tell myself not to take the bait, though my body seems to disagree. “Kumquat,” I say, my face inches from his.
He crumples his brow. “What?”
“Kumquat. That can be your safe word. Should things get too . . . intense for you today.”
He fights the smile that’s winning control of his face. “That’s the first thing that came to mind?” He strokes his stubbled chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Wait. Is that, like, your real safe word?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” I give him a closed-mouth smile and head for the bedroom, feeling his eyes on me as I do. I don’t tell him I only said it because my juvenile self finds the word silly and it was the first thing that came to mind. His reason is far more salacious.
In the bathroom, my phone dings.
Tess: Finn is good, as am I.
Tess: Great, actually. How goes it?
Why did she add great, actually? I shake my head, too consumed with my present situation to pick apart Tess’s cryptic message.
Me: Great here as well
I text back, but can’t stop staring at the screen. Tess is my best friend, yet we are both clearly tiptoeing around each other. The succinct exchange of pleasantries with my best friend makes me feel a million miles from home, the realization that Charlie and I are alone on an island all the more palpable.
I regard myself in the mirror. I got a bit of a tan yesterday, my skin tinged pink at its high points and generally glowing. There’s an aliveness in my eyes I haven’t seen in months, perhaps years. Yesterday was invigorating in a way I didn’t realize I was missing, like I’ve been buffed clean of a layer of dust. “Playing” with Charlie made for a nearly perfect day.
Nearly perfect because my delight in watching Charlie dance in the water was cut short when I spotted Maddie, the girl from the beach, standing at the far edge of the pool, clapping and bouncing. She was still perfectly put together, despite the afternoon heat, and eyed Charlie like I regard the fresh mango slices at breakfast. I watched as Maddie rushed over to Charlie, her hands clasped in front of her, singing his praises when he climbed out of the pool.
But today, I remind my reflection, Charlie is all mine.