Island Vibes

1. a model employee

Stepping off the plane, I could feel my shoulders starting to sag. My eyes were dry, my throat was scratchy, and I was in desperate need of a nap, a drink, and a shower. Probably not in that order.

I'd never visited Kipuka Island before, despite it being my parents' favorite vacation destination. In fact, they loved it so much that they'd bought a summer home here a few years back, and they wanted to retire to the island soon. Since I'd been busy at college trying to cram every single thing there was to know about business and economics into my brain, I hadn't had time to visit. Until now.

Really, it was easy to see why my parents loved the place, even just at a glance. Flying in, everything had a quaint, local feel to it, and the weather was incredible. They'd said the heat was doing wonders for Mom's joint pain. But the heat was also ruining my hair, and that quaint, local feel? That was exactly what I'd been trying to escape when I moved to Philadelphia to go to the University of Pennsylvania, a million miles away from our little hometown.

Still, Kipuka seemed like a nice enough place to spend a few months. My parents wanted me to look after the house and fix up their new investment while I was here - a little rundown café they'd bought super cheap. The town needed new amenities, and I used to love painting when I was a kid, so they figured it was a good fit. They could have a tidy little business to run as they got older, and I'd get to fix it up and spend my summer doing something productive instead of being unemployed back in Pennsylvania, blowing a ton of money on rent. I wasn't looking forward to all the cleaning and handiwork, but they promised me this Noah guy would be around to help.

And help included picking me up from the airport, but looking up and down the unexpectedly narrow street, I couldn't see anyone who seemed like they might be looking for a skinny city girl fresh out of college. There were a few cabs waiting around - just two or three, now - but I knew that they were hoping to make quick trips to the capital and back for all the tourists, not out to the little town of Maluhia. My parents had just had to settle in the smallest, pokiest place on the island - and the one furthest away from the airport. They said it made them feel like locals, but honestly? I think they just wanted to not have to deal with higher property prices.

I pulled out my phone - I had Noah's number already; my parents had passed it along in case my flight was going to be delayed, or for emergencies. Maybe this was an emergency? I mean, he was nowhere to be seen, and my flight had come in... twenty minutes ago, now. Come on. That had to be long enough to constitute an emergency. I hit dial, only to realise I didn't have any bars. A dead zone. Great.

Okay, so it was definitely an emergency, and I was going to kill whoever Noah was.

I mean, I knew who he was. Kind of. We'd never met, but he was my mom's best friend's son, and four years older than me. They'd moved to Kipuka before I was old enough to actually know him. Since I had nothing to go off, I'd been reassured over and over again by my parents that he was a 'good kid' and 'very capable' because I hadn't been totally sold on working so closely with someone I'd never met. I'd agreed to it back when I'd agreed to everything - to spending summer here, to looking after the house, to renovating the café - but this was definitely not a good start.

The eighty dollar cab I was forced to take in his absence took me the long route to Maluhia, I was sure. I flagged down the driver and he saw tourist written all over my face - until I said I wanted to head to the backwoods-iest town available to me. He'd kind of chuckled and taken my bags, and I should've known then that it was a bad idea. Eighty dollars out of pocket, I was wondering how I could get Noah to reimburse me. I mean, this wasn't fair. He'd promised to pick me up, and now I'd had to rearrange everything just because he couldn't be on time. What a model employee.

I kept checking my useless phone the whole drive up to the house, because I had to get service somewhere, right? I would've sworn that for a flicker of a second I got a single, solitary bar of signal, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. Ugh. What I wouldn't do for even 2G and a crackly line right now. Noah would be getting an earful and my parents would be scheduling the first flight out for me.

I hadn't been paying much attention to the scenery as it flew by, too stressed out by the whole situation and equally concerned I'd get travel sick watching the sloping landscape pass me by. The roads were winding and seemingly lawless, some of them narrow and treacherous, others dangerously high up and with no protective barriers. My parents wanted to live here? Um, no, thanks. Give me Philadelphia any day.

The verdant green might have been refreshing, and the clear blue sky and shining sun was certainly a positive too, but you know what's really great? Living somewhere where people actually pick you up when they say they'll pick you up. Noah was going to pay for this.