Page 1 of Here & There

Chapter 1

Bryony

Maybe the full-sized camel balloon was a bad idea. It’s nearly impossible to wrangle, especially off an uneven dock onto a boat. In the wind.

In heels.

“You okay, Bryony?” my friend Deanie shouts as she jumps out of the back of the rental van. She’s got a dozen more balloons, each thwapping hard in the gusts coming off the ocean.

Nope! My life is a shitshow!

“Totally good!” I yell as my caramel brown ponytail fully whips me in the face.

I jerk the single string keeping the camel from flying over the ocean in front of us or the mountain range behind us as I step onto the boat, narrowly avoiding breaking an ankleandgoing overboard.

“Ma’am, I know I said it was a short ride to the island,” says the grizzled but not unkind water taxi driver as he takes the string from me. “But I can’t guarantee the safety of this horse.”

“It’s a camel!” I exclaim. “Does it not look like a camel?”

He’s too busy stuffing the four-legged creature into the cabin of the boat to answer me.

“It has to be a camel,” I say, propping a hand over my eyes and peering out at the tiny island a kilometer offshore where we’re headed. “The camel’s the whole point!”

I love camels. How could you not? They’re so adorably awkward with those big brown eyes and knobby knees. And humps!

But this camel’s not for me.

I pat the pocket of my blazer for the thing I’ve got in there. I feel the tiny reassurance of it under the fabric.

This is going to go great. She’s going to love it. It’ll change everything.

“She’s going to hate it,” I groan, hopping back onto the dock.

Deanie, who’s just arrived with another load, thrusts a box of party décor at me. “If she does, she’s nuts. This kind of ingenuity is why you’re CEO of Visionary and not me.”

But the camel isn’t for our business.

It’s for my mom.

My deeply serious mom.

Fuck, she’s going to hate it.

“You’d be a great CEO,” I say as I transfer the box to the captain.

Deanie laughs as she heads back down the little dock for what I hope is the last trip to the van. She’s still laughing as she comes back with the last of the balloons. That is, until she readjusts the balloons and freezes, looking back over her shoulder. I try to see what she’s looking at, but I can’t see through the multicolored cloud of helium.

“Deanie, the balloons,” I say. “I have to go.” I’ve only got an hour to get everything perfect on the island before Mom’s boat gets there.

“Right,” Deanie says. She absently hands them over, letting go before I’ve finished closing my hand over the ribbons. Abright yellow one—a sun with a camel on it—goes sailing up into the gray sky.

“Deanie!” I exclaim, nearly sailing off the end of the dock myself as I try to reach for it.

“Oh shit. Sorry, Bryony!”

I lose a few more as Deanie helps me readjust.

Those colorful dots in the sky feel like the last pieces of my confidence about this plan. We probably just signed an orca’s death warrant, too. Isn’t this exactly where you’re not supposed to lose balloons?

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