People We Meet on Vacation

I WAKE UP NEXT to Alex. He insisted that the bed in Nikolai’s Airbnb was plenty big, that neither of us should risk another night on the foldout chair, but we’re right in the middle of the mattress by the time morning comes.

I’m on my right side, facing him. He’s on his left, facing me. There’s half a foot between us, except that my left leg is sprawled over him, my thigh hooked up against his hip, his hand resting high up on it.

The apartment is hellishly hot, and we’re both drenched with sweat.

I need to extricate myself before Alex wakes up, but the ludicrous part of my brain wants to stay here, replaying the look he gave me, the way his voice sounded last night when he sized up my dating profile and said, “I would.”

Like a dare.

Then again, he was on muscle relaxants at the time.

Today, if he remembers that at all, he will almost definitely be regretful and embarrassed.

Or maybe he’ll remember sitting next to me for the length of an egregiously underwhelming documentary about the Kinks and feeling like a live wire, sparking every time our arms brushed.

“You usually fall asleep during these,” he pointed out with a mild smile, jostling his leg against mine, but when he looked down at me, his hazel eyes seemed to be part of a different expression entirely, one with sharp edges and even some hunger.

I shrugged, said something like, “Just not tired,” and tried to focus on the movie. Time moved at an oily slog, every second beside him striking me with new intensity as if we’d just started touching again and again and again for almost two hours.

It was early when the movie ended, so we started another documentary that was boring and mindless, just background noise to make it feel okay that we were riding this line.

At least I was pretty sure that was what we’d been doing.

The way his hand is spread over my thigh now sends another prickly rush of want through me. A very nonsensical part of me wants to nestle closer, until we’re touching all over, and wait to see what happens when he wakes up.

All those memories from Croatia froth to the surface of my mind, sending desperate flashes out through my body.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

I pull my leg off him, and his hand tightens on me reflexively, loosening when I drag myself clear from under it. I roll away and sit up just as Alex is stirring awake, his eyes slitting open sleepily, hair wild with bedhead. “Hey,” he rasps.

My own voice comes out thick. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good, I think,” he says. “You?”

“Good. How’s your back?”

“Let me see.” Slowly, he pushes himself up, turning to slide his long legs over the side of the bed. He cautiously stands. “A lot better.”

He has an enormous erection and seems to notice at the same time I do. He folds his hands in front of himself and looks around the apartment squinting. “There’s no way it was this hot when we fell asleep.”

He’s probably right, but I have no real recollection of how hot it was last night.

I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to process the heat.

Today cannot go the way of yesterday.

No more lounging around the apartment. No more sitting together on the bed. No more talking about Tinder. No more falling asleep together and half mounting him while unconscious.

Tomorrow, wedding festivities will begin for David and Tham (bachelor parties, rehearsal dinner, wedding). Today, Alex and I need to have enough uncomplicated, unconfusing fun that when we get home, he doesn’t need another two-year break from me.

“I’ll call Nikolai about the AC again,” I say. “But we should get moving. We’ve got a lot to do.”

Alex runs his hand up his forehead into his hair. “Do I have time to shower?”

My heart gives a sharp pulse, and just like that I’m imagining taking a shower with him.

“If you want,” I manage. “But you will be drenched in sweat again in seconds.”

He shrugs. “I don’t think I can make myself leave the apartment feeling this dirty.”

“You’ve been dirtier,” I joke, because I have misplaced my already faulty filter.

“Only in front of you,” he says, and rustles my hair as he walks past to the bathroom.

My legs feel like jelly under me as I stand there waiting for the shower to turn on. Only once it does do I feel capable of moving again, and my first stop is the thermostat.

Eighty-five?!

Eighty-five miserable degrees in this apartment and the thermostat’s been set to seventy-nine since last night. So we can officially rule the air conditioner fully broken.

I walk onto the balcony and dial Nikolai, but he sends me to voicemail on the third ring. I leave another message, this one a little angrier, then follow up with an email and a text too before going inside to search for the lightest-weight piece of clothing I brought.

A gingham sundress that’s so baggy it hangs on me like a paper bag.

The water turns off, and Alex does not make the mistake of coming out in his towel this time. He emerges fully dressed, hair wicked back and water droplets still clinging (sensuously, I might add) to his forehead and neck.

“So,” he says. “What did you have in mind today?”

“Surprises,” I say. “Lots of them.” I try to dramatically fling the car keys to him. They fall to the floor two feet short. He looks down at where they lie.

“Wow,” he says. “Was that . . . one of the surprises?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, it was. But the others are better so pick those up and let’s hit it.”

His mouth twists. “I probably . . .”

“Oh, right! Your back!” I run over and retrieve the keys, handing them to him like a normal adult human might.

When we walk out onto the exterior hallway of the Desert Rose, Alex says, “At least it’s not just our apartment that feels like Satan’s anal glands.”

“Yes, it’s much better that the entire city be this ungodly hot,” I say.

“You’d think with all the rich people vacationing here they’d have money to just air-condition the whole place.”

“First stop: city council, to pitch that bomb-ass idea.”

“Have you considered building a dome, Councilwoman?” he says dryly as we plod down the steps.

“Hey, that one guy did it in that one Stephen King novel,” I say.

“I’ll probably leave that out of the pitch.”

“I have good ideas.” I try again to give him the puppy face as we’re crossing the parking lot, and he laughs and shoves my face away.

“You’re not good at that,” he says.

“Your severe reaction would suggest otherwise.”

“You legitimately look like you’re shitting.”

“That’s not my shitting face,” I say. “This is.” I strike a Marilyn Monroe pose, legs wide, one hand braced against my thigh, the other covering my open mouth.

“That’s nice,” he says. “You should put that on your blog.” Quickly, stealthily, he whips his phone out and snaps a picture.

“Hey!”

“Maybe a toilet paper company will endorse you,” he suggests.

“That’s not bad,” I say. “I like the way you think.”

“I have good ideas,” he parrots, and unlocks the door for me, then circles to the driver’s seat as I get in and take a deep whiff of the perma-weed smell.

“Thank you for never making me drive,” I say as he gets in, hissing at the feel of the hot seat, and clicks his seat belt.

“Thank you for hating driving and allowing me to have some modicum of control over my life in this vast and unpredictable universe.”

I wink at him. “No prob.”

He laughs.

Weirdly, he seems more relaxed than he has this whole trip. Or maybe it’s just that I’m being more insistently normal and chatty, and this really was the key to a successful, old-school Poppy and Alex summer trip all along.

“So are you going to tell me where we’re going, or should I just aim for the sun and go?”

“Neither,” I say. “I’ll navigate.”

Even driving full speed with all the windows down, it feels like we’re standing in front of an open furnace, its blasts racing through our hair and clothes. Today’s heat makes yesterday’s look like the first day of spring.

We are going to be spending a lot of time outdoors today, and I make a mental note to buy enormous water bottles the first chance we get.

“This next left,” I say, and when the sign appears ahead, I cry, “Ta-da!”

“The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens,” Alex reads.

“One of the top ten best zoos in the world,” I say.

“Well, we’ll be the judge of that,” he replies.

“Yeah, and if they think we’re going to go easy on them just because we’re delusional from heat exhaustion, they’ve got another think coming.”

“But if they sell milkshakes, I’m inclined to leave them a largely positive review,” Alex says quickly under his breath, and turns the car off.

“Well, we’re not monsters.”

It’s not like we’re zoo people, but this place specializes in animals native to the desert, and they do a lot of rehabilitation with the goal of releasing animals back into the wild.

Also they let you feed giraffes.

I don’t tell Alex this because I want him to be surprised. While he is a young, hot cat lady in his heart, he’s also just a general animal lover, so I expect this to go over well.

The feeding goes until eleven thirty a.m., so I figure we have time to wander freely before I have to figure out where the giraffes are, and if we happen upon them by accident before then, all the better.

Alex still has to be careful with his back, so we move slowly, wandering from an informative reptile show to one about birds, during which Alex leans over and whispers, “I think I just decided to be afraid of birds.”

“It’s good to find new hobbies!” I hiss back. “It means you’re not stagnant.”

His laugh is quiet but unsuppressed, rattling down my arm in a way that makes me feel light-headed. Of course, that could also be the heat.

After the bird show we head to the petting zoo, where we stand among a coterie of five-year-olds and use special brushes to comb Nigerian dwarf goats.

“I misread that sign as ghosts, not goats, and now I’m just disappointed,” Alex says under his breath. He punctuates it with the face.

“It is so freaking hard to find a good ghost exhibit these days,” I point out.

“Too true,” he agrees.

“Remember our cemetery tour guide in New Orleans? He hated us.”

“Huh,” Alex says in a way that suggests he doesn’t remember, and my stomach, which has been somersaulting all day, rolls into a wall and sinks. I want him to remember. I want every moment to matter as much to him as it has to me. But if the old ones don’t, then maybe at least this trip can. I’m determined that it will.

In the petting zoo, we meet some other African livestock, including a few Sicilian dwarf donkeys.

“There sure are a lot of tiny things in the desert,” I say.

“Maybe you should move here,” Alex teases.

“You’re just trying to get me out of New York so you can swoop in and get my apartment.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “I could never afford that apartment.”

After the petting zoo, we track down some milkshakes—Alex gets vanilla despite all my desperate pleading. “Vanilla isn’t a flavor.”

“It is too,” Alex says. “It’s the taste of the vanilla bean, Poppy.”

“You might as well just be drinking frozen heavy cream.”

He thinks for a second. “I would try that.”

“At least get chocolate,” I say.

“You get chocolate,” he says.

“I can’t. I’m getting strawberry.”

“See?” Alex says. “Like I said last night, you think I’m boring.”

“I think vanilla milkshakes are boring,” I say. “I think you are misguided.”

“Here.” Alex holds his paper cup out to me. “Want a sip?”

I heave a sigh. “Fine.” I lean forward and take a sip. He arches his eyebrow, waiting for a reaction. “It’s okay.”

He laughs. “Yeah, honestly it’s not that good. But that’s not Vanilla as a Flavor’s fault.”

After we’ve polished off our milkshakes and tossed the cups, I decide we should ride the Endangered Species Carousel.

But when we get there, we find it’s closed due to heat.

“Global warming’s really hitting the endangered species when they’re down,” Alex muses. He wipes his forearm up his head, catching the sweat gathering there.

“You need some water?” I ask. “You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”

We go buy a couple bottles and sit on a bench in the shade. A few sips in, though, Alex looks worse. “Shit,” he says. “I’m pretty dizzy.” He hunches over his knees and hangs his head.

“Can I get you something?” I ask. “Maybe you need real food?”

“Maybe,” he agrees.

“Here. Stay here and I’ll get you, like, a sandwich, okay?”

I know he must be feeling awful because he doesn’t argue. I walk back to the last café we passed. There’s a long line by now—it’s almost lunchtime.

I check my phone. Eleven oh three. Just under thirty minutes left to feed the giraffes.

I stand in line for ten minutes to get the premade turkey club, then jog back to find Alex sitting where I left him, his head resting in his hands.

“Hey,” I say, and his glass eyes rise. “Feeling any better?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, and accepts the sandwich, unwrapping it. “Want some?”

He gives me half, and I take a couple bites, trying my best not to time him as he slowly munches on his half. At eleven twenty-two, I ask, “Is it helping?”

“I think so. I feel less dizzy anyway.”

“Do you think you’re okay to walk?”

“Are we . . . in a hurry?” he asks.

“No, of course not,” I say. “There’s just this thing. Your surprise. It ends pretty soon.”

He nods, but he looks queasy, so I’m torn between pushing him to rally or insisting he stay put. “I’m okay,” he says, climbing to his feet. “Just need to remember to drink more water.”

We make it to the giraffes at eleven thirty-five.

“Sorry,” a teenage employee tells me. “Giraffe feeding is over for the day.”

As she walks away, Alex looks at me hazily. “Sorry, Pop. I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

“Of course not,” I insist. I don’t care about feeding giraffes (at least not much). What I care about is making this trip good. Proving we should keep taking them. That we can salvage our friendship.

That’s why I’m disappointed. Because it’s the first strike of the day.

My phone buzzes with a message, and at least it’s some good news.

Nikolai writes, Got all of you [sic] messages. I’ll see what I can do.

Okay, I write back. Just keep us updated.

“Come on,” I say, “let’s go somewhere air-conditioned until our next stop.”