Page 16 of Kennedy Sloane Gets Scooped
After years of working on serious self-assessment with Marilyn the therapist, Kenny knew she often struggled in battles that involved setting boundaries. To fully optimize this opportunity, this chance to recharge, she would have to put some conditions on herself and the situation to avoid distraction or getting “stuck in her own head,” as Marilyn would say.
Kenny pulled her Wildest Dreams planner out of the laptop bag and flipped to the back of the book where there was a section of blank pages that simply hadGoalsscrawled across the top. She tore out one of the perforated sheets, crossed a solid, black line throughGoalsand under it wroteHiatus of Life Conditions List.
She stared at the blank page for a few moments and reflected on the series of events that collided simultaneously last Wednesday and rocked her world to its core like a catastrophic earthquake that continued to give off debilitating aftershocks after the initial blow. Every time she’d regain her footing to stand up and face one situation,Wham!Another blow would come, knocking her back down. Kenny thought about what she needed in her life. Maybe more importantly, what she needed to eliminate from her life.
Hiatus of Life Conditions List (in no particular order)
Exercise daily.
Eat healthy, every day.
Eliminate “to-do” lists.
Restrict alcohol.
Write (“original” ideas for novel).
Try new things.
Limit work emails.
No new male relationships (straightorgay).
Satisfied with the Conditions List, Kenny hung it on the fridge so it would always be in view, a constant reminder that following these simple, temporary life hacks could lead her to the happiest five weeks of her life.
Fourteen
It was a humid, rainy Tuesday morning in Hell’s Kitchen and the gloomy weather matched Colby Jackson’s mood. His weekend on Fire Island was a bust. It was such a failure that he left an entire day early, in the most unglamorous way; he embarked on an odyssey he hadn’t made since his early twenties. Colby took the ferry from Fire Island Pines to the Sayville dock where he boarded a shuttle that deposited him at the Long Island Rail Road which eventually dumped him in the bowels of Penn Station, otherwise known as “the worst place in New York City,” according to social media.
Colby and a group of cohorts from their touch football team, Pride Pack, drove out to the large island that runs parallel to the south shore of Long Island on Thursday night to get a jump start on closing out the summer with a bang. Labor Day weekend was always one of Colby’s favorite four days on Fire Island or “Chelsea with Sand,” as many city-dwellers called it. But this weekend was different. He had an uneasy feeling since Wednesday night when Kenny ditched him at Hole in the Wall Mexican without explanation and then actively avoided him for two days, until she sent the terse message stating that she’d be unreachable for five weeks. It didn’t make sense.
Colby couldn’t remember a time since that first meeting on the treadmills at the West Sixty-Third Street YMCA that he and Kenny had gone five whole days without some form of communication. Colby had enormous amounts of respect for the dedication and confidentiality she gave to her work assignments, but even when she was embedded in the most restricted environments, she found a way to at least shoot him a text to let him know she was alive. She spent time in a women’s prison in Kentucky, two weeks at an inpatient childhood eating disorder center in Colorado, and twenty-eight days at an addiction treatment facility somewhere off of Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania, and always found a way to check in.
He always worried when Kenny was deployed on these “off the record” and “off the grid” trips but he was especially worried about this excursion. Colbyneededto talk to Kenny. If his boss, Muffin Evans, the Manuscript Eater, got to Kenny with the news that Border Books was not going to publishArmchair Detectivebefore Colby could soften the blow, all hell would break loose. When Kenny was given access to these top secret missions, she had to be laser-focused, steadfast. One slip-up at these controlled environments and production teams would get the boot, certainly eliminating any chance of an invitation back and closing the door on opportunities to ask follow-up questions.
Colby assumed she had finally struck a deal with one of her contacts at the Indian reservation, nudist colony, or religious cult compound she had been trying to infiltrate. But regardless of where in the world Kenny was for the next five weeks, no place was going to be a good one to learn that her first novel wasn’t going to be sold.
Text to Kenny: Hey Doll! Know you’re busy being important and fabulous but can you puh-leez make time for a check-in? You don’t have to tell me what weird, twisted story you’re covering, but I need to hear your voice. You were SO right about Paolo. Ran into him at The Pines and he looked like SUCH an old man. LYMIB.
At least part of the text was true. Colby did need to talk to Kenny, and he did run into Paolo, his first, much older lover at a house party on Fire Island. The whole truth was that he had to tell Kenny that they were both wrong aboutArmchair Detectivebeing a sure-fire hit. And she was wrong about Paolo. He did look “older” but was aging like a fine wine that Colby wanted to guzzle by the magnum.
The combination of running into Paolo and meeting his new boyfriend, not talking to Kenny in several days, and the inevitable twinge of dread that comes the morning after the last holiday weekend of the summer hit Colby like a Mac truck. He felt like he had a black cloud hanging over his head and knew it wouldn’t blow over until he talked to Kenny.
Fifteen
“Today, I’m most definitely seeing purple,” Kenny laughed as she gazed at the lilac and lavender floral wall-papered ceiling.
She felt almost regal tucked beneath the fluffy white comforter, atop the elevated bed frame and extra deep mattress and box spring, surrounded by orchid and violet silk throw pillows of every shape and size. The blinds in the streak-free Pella French Doors were open, allowing the morning sun to stream though. Without moving much, she had a clear view to the pool deck, which meant the women doing water aerobics had a clear view of her Princess and the Pea situation, too.
Note to self: Must shut blinds.
Kenny tumbled out of bed and into her slippers. She had no idea what time it was. Her phone was still on the charger in the kitchen from the night before. After the Instacart delivery, she had scrambled some eggs, took a long, hot shower in the spa-like bathroom, and quite literally fell asleep while she was moisturizing her legs on the folded down sheets. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror and the person staring back at her looked like she had either been asleep for a hundred years or hadn’t slept for nearly as many.
In this case, Kenny’s puffy face and the lines around her eyes were the result of a long, hard, face-in-the-pillow sleep. While her appearance said otherwise, she was refreshed and energized. She plugged in the percolator that was already prepared from the decaf pot she planned to drink after her shower and before bed the night before. She didn’t need the caffeine to function today. She just wanted that “first sip of coffee in the morning at the beach” sensation. She pulled a navy blue, oversized whale-shaped coffee mug out of the cabinet, and tidied up around the kitchen while she waited for her beverage to brew.
Kenny opened the sliding door at the far end of the living space and dragged one of the white leather bar stools onto the deck that overlooked the pool since the patio furniture was still on backorder. Cupping her whale mug, she propped her feet up on the banister and sipped her coffee as she scanned the surroundings. It was a little before 7:00 a.m. and Pelican Pointe was awake with activity. This wasn’t the “city that never sleeps” kind of activity, where people fired on the same, overextended cylinders whether it was four in the morning or four in the afternoon. This was a quiet, serene, peaceful activity, spearheaded by people leisurely leaning into the day ahead.
Four older gentlemen staked out the pickleball court while women around the same age waded back and forth in the pool, lifting aquatic foam dumbbells up and down over their heads. A dad sat on a wooden bench next to one of the landscaping ponds adjacent to the pool, reading a newspaper while his three kids crouched alongside counting the orange and white koi fish. A mother and two teen girls ate muffins at one of the bistro tables under the pavilion.
