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2
ARRIVAL
Miles
The plane toucheddown in Lihue Airport soft as a feather, and my four days of exile began.
I grabbed my duffle bag, followed the line of passengers out the open air terminal, and hailed a cab.
“Where to, sir?”
“Do you know the Plantation B&B?” I said as I got in.
“Fo sure, brah!” The driver said, his local accent bringing back memories from what seemed like ages ago. I was born and raised in Honolulu, but I had never been back to Hawaii since I left for college over twenty years ago.
“First time in Kauai?”
“Kauai, yeah. Used to live on Oahu though.”
“Eh, you local boy, then. My name Keith.”
“Miles.”
“Where you stay now, Miles?” Keith said, glancing at me through the rearview mirror with curious Polynesian eyes.
“Los Angeles.”
“California? Right on! What you do in Cali?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Fo reals?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “For real.”
“So you here on vacation?”
No, Keith, I wanted to tell him. I’m here because my boss threatened to do something worse if I didn’t go on a forced break from work. “Something like that,” I said instead.
“How long you here fo?”
“A few days,” I said, staring out at the ocean. I should be excited about this trip. No sixteen hour days at the office and endless meetings, at least for a few days. I should be excited, but I felt nothing. Two years had passed since the divorce, since the day I came home early from a business trip and found my wife fucking my friend in our bedroom.
It was a complete shock. I did not see it coming. I thought we were a happy couple. I thought we were cool together. We knew people with failed marriages, or were in the process of crumbling, but I thought we were different.
Apparently not.
Even after I caught them I didn’t want to lose her. Somehow the thought of continuing on with my life without her was unbearable, and I was willing to write off the incident as a momentary lapse of control, a one-time thing. Maybe she was drunk, or extremely horny, or both, and I wasn’t around, and she just needed a fuck, needed it bad. I was building a tower of excuses for her to use, but when Beverly told me she had been sleeping around for some time and wanted to continue doing so, that was it.
The divorce was swift and, since we had no kids, simple. I left her the house, bought a condo near the office, and poured myself into my work. I was already good at what I did, but I became a ruthless machine, taking on the most difficult cases and shooting up the corporate ladder until I made it as a senior partner of the firm, only one step below my ultimate goal of becoming a named partner.
Two years after that incident and I was fully recovered. I was past Beverly, had forgotten her, and I had moved on. I was done with her, and with relationships in general. My work was my world, and nothing could pierce that stronghold bubble.
That was, until she showed up at the firm.
It was unavoidable, of course. I was bound to run into her at some point. After all, she was the daughter of Tom Edsel. Yes, that Tom Edsel, as in Edsel and Associates Law Firm.
My boss.
