Page 15 of Kennedy Sloane Gets Scooped
“Great, thank you, Derek. Have a wonderful day!” She chirped as she put her foot on the gas.
“You’re very welcome. I guess I’ll be seeing you around, Miss Kenny,” Derek grinned and directed the car through the gate.
She couldn’t help but smile. She appreciated the simplicity of that old-school, personal moment. No scanning, swiping, downloading, or tapping necessary to enter paradise. Rather, a friendly gatekeeper, who sat in a cozy guard house flanked by colorful hanging baskets, welcomed her to the island oasis. She was certain that the system hadn’t changed since the plantation was developed in 1956.
The speed limit on Sea Pines was 35 mph, but Kenny found herself barely pushing the gas to 20 mph. Natural beauty was everywhere, and she wanted to take a mental picture of each frame she was passing. Streaks of sun beamed through the openings of the awning formed by the towering palm and live oak trees that draped over Greenwood Drive like a piece of fine sheer fabric. As she traveled down the windy, two-lane road she noticed the paved leisure trails that clung on either side. They were sparse and serene, nothing like the congested path along the Hudson River that she was used to running. Kenny couldn’t wait to lace up her sneakers and go for a jog, with the wind in her hair and the ocean air kissing her skin.
She approached Fraser’s Circle and saw a biker in the distance who would be reaching the roundabout at the same time. Unlike New York “behind-the-wheel” Kenny, she didn’t power on the pedal to beat out the biker, who wouldn’t have known they were racing, because she wouldn’t have had time in her day to let him or her pass. As she got closer, she noticed the cyclist had something big and clunky on his back while a medium sized dog that was tethered to a leash that hung off the right handlebar ran alongside him. She always admired city food delivery guys who strapped fancy apparatuses to their bikes so they could transport piping hot pizzas or Chinese food to the doors of starving New Yorkers who didn’t know a spatula from a screwdriver; but this biker was equally, if not nimbler, at balancing all he had in tow on two wheels.
The biker must have sensed she was coming because by the time she rolled to the intersection, the cyclist was at a complete stop. Her eyes immediately took to what was strapped on the guy’s back. It was a bright red golf bag with the letters “JLP” embroidered in bold, red font on a white pocket. Her head cocked to the left and brows furrowed, trying to make sense of how that worked. How was the bag not slapping against the rear tire, burning a hole through the fabric from the friction? How did the biker keep the clubs vertical on his back, so they didn’t T-bone oncoming cyclists or get tangled up in the dog’s leash?
Kenny’s inner journalist was tempted to poke her head out the window and ask all those questions. Her gaze moved forward to the biker himself who was looking back at her with a not so confused face. She was met with a “are you going to wave me on?” kind of facial expression. The one that you would expect a biker to give the driver of a vehicle when they are both stopped at the same crossroads. She gasped a quick breath, her face now heating up red with embarrassment from staring.
Oh my God. Stop staring, Kenny.
Not only was Bike Boy incredibly talented on a bike, but he was also strikingly handsome. Piercing blue eyes popped off his perfectly tanned skin from under his navy Penn State baseball hat. His defined biceps were on display from under his white Nike Dri-FIT polo and his coy, closed mouth smile released a kaleidoscope of butterflies in her stomach. Now she was staring harder, longer, and directly in his eyes. The news producer in her wanted to knoweverythingabout this man.
Oh my God, Kenny. Are you paralyzed? Do something. Wave Bike Boy across the street.
The dog started barking and snapped Kenny back to reality. She mustered the most juvenile and pathetic version of a smile and waved him across the street. Bike Boy chuckled, extended a strong left hand in Kenny’s direction, and rode away. She hadn’t had butterflies like the ones that were just set free in her belly in years, but she was certain Bike Boy and his pup were on their way to meet his tall, thin, blonde, dog-mom of a girlfriend.
She pulled onto Fraser Circle, veering halfway around the circumference to Lighthouse Road. Miss B directed her to make a left onto Plantation Drive and then another left in just a few hundred feet.
Tucked away on a tiny cul-de-sac, Pelican Pointe could easily be missed. Three rows of light brown and beige stucco villas were linked together in a U shape and protected by a canopy of moss-covered oak trees that stood tall above them. Scrub palmettos masked the façade of the units making the living quarters chameleons to the lush surroundings. The narrow driveway could be mistaken for a golf cart path or one of the miles of leisure paths that weaved throughout the plantation. A tiny, understated carved brown sign matching the trunks of the oak trees that read “Pelican Pointe” was the only indication this small sliver of the tropical paradise hid behind Plantation Drive.
Kenny aligned the rental car with a few other vehicles that were parked in the unmarked paved plot of land outside of the villas. It was instant sensory overload when she stepped out of the car. Her legs wobbly from being stationary and behind the wheel for the last three hours, she leaned her back against the driver’s side door and gave her limbs a chance to regain feeling. She lifted her gaze to the sky. Behind closed eyelids she saw the bright aura emanating from the sun that was beaming down warm waves of heat on her face.
She breathed in the smell of pine needles and freshly cut grass and could taste the sea salt on her lips. The quiet and stillness was a welcome reprieve from the constant barrage of noise and chaos she had grown accustomed to. In the distance, she heard the staccatoping, pong, ping, pongof a tennis ball and the faintbuzzof a leaf blower.
Kenny popped open her trunk, grabbed her big and little suitcases, and rolled them down the coastal concrete walkway to Villa #5.
“Pound. Zero. Eight. Three. Zero. Pound,” she whispered as she poked the keypad on the front door with her index finger. She heard aclickand pushed open the heavy beige, wooden door. “Welcome home, Kenny. Welcome to Vienna.”
Thirteen
Text from Damien National Car Rental: Arrive in SC, Mami? My counterpart at the airport called and they are low on inventory b/c of the holiday. They offered to send a driver to your location to pick up the car and get it back into circulation. Send me your address.
“Labor Day! Right. Now the traffic makes sense,” Kenny said to her screen.
She had planned to make a trip to Harris Teeter or Piggly Wiggly to stock up on a few essentials while she still had a car. But avoiding a trip across the island to the airport and a subsequent Uber ride back to Pelican Pointe seemed more appetizing than any provisions she’d stock in her refrigerator.
Text to Damien National Car Rental: I’ve arrived and that’d be great! I’m staying at Pelican Pointe on Sea Pines. The only Nautilus with New York tags in the lot. Will leave the keys under the mat on the driver’s side. Thx!
Text from Damien National Car Rental: I’ll let them know. Savannah throws a Labor Day party and a lot of people rent cars for the evening to go over for the festivities and fireworks.
Text to Damien National Car Rental: (Emoji: thumbs up)
And there you have it,Kenny thought.
Civilization reached a point where the rush to convey information was so urgent that even the names of historical cities were shortened. “Savi” wasn’t Hailey’s friend, and Kenny wasn’t invited to anyone’s party. “Savi” was Savannah, Georgia’s oldest city. A city that was hosting a celebration to honor a federal holiday. Since Savannah and Hilton Head were only separated by a few miles of the Intracoastal Highway, there was a chance Kenny would be able to enjoy the fireworks from the beach.
Riddle solved.Facepalm emoji.
She was a proficient unpacker, but she despised the daunting task and her nomadic career made her efficient at living out of suitcases and bags. Knowing that she’d be at Pelican Pointe for the next thirty-five consecutive nights gave her the encouragement and sense of stability she needed to hang clothes in the closet and hide toiletries in the bathroom vanity. She collapsed her duffel bags and stuffed them into the small black suitcase; she zipped up the hot pink Vegas suitcase inside the large black one; and rolled the Samsonite set into the hall coat closet, out of sight. She couldn’t remember the last time she knewfor certainthat she would be staying in the same place for thirty-five nights. She did know for certain that it hadn’t been any time in the last ten years.
It was almost 4:00 p.m. and Kenny had hit the wall. She was deliriously happy to be settled in at Pelican Pointe but also starved and exhausted. She thought about venturing out to explore and grab a bite to eat, but when she remembered it was Labor Day, she quickly nixed the idea. She pulled up the Instacart app and started adding a few items to her cart that would hold her over for a few meals.
While she waited for the delivery of her New York staples to arrive—coffee, creamer, eggs, salsa, cheese, lemons, and nacho chips—she plopped down on the yellow sofa and stretched her feet onto the matching ottoman. Although the open blinds let in an afternoon that was turning cloudy, Villa #5 exuded happiness. It was cheerful and bright, just like the photos that jumped off her computer screen five nights ago. Her attitude fed off her surroundings, and she didn’t want this feeling, this optimism, to go away. Ever. Or at least for the next five weeks while she took her break from reality.
