Page 9 of That Birthday in Barbados
Two weeks.
I should have booked a shorter stay. There’s no way I won’t go stir crazy with that much relaxing. If I can even remember how.
I step into the shower, turn my back to the warm spray and then tip my head to let the water run across my hair and down my face.
Fourteen days of sitting on the beach. I can’t quite imagine.
I think about the spin class, that gorgeous man’s face popping into my mind.
Had he been flirting with me?
No.
Definitely not.
He was being nice. It is his job to be nice to guests. To get people to come to his class. He probably gets paid based on how full it is.
I recognize my own cynicism and try to remember a time when I wasn’t this way. When I could meet a man and not be suspicious of intention. B.C. Before Connor.
I wash my hair with the hotel’s lovely-smelling shampoo, rinse it out and add conditioner.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a spin class, but I’ve always loved them, and I need to work out while I’m here. I’ll pick a bike in the back of the room, and odds are he won’t even notice I’m there. Even if he does, I’ll just be one more guest he recruited for the class.
I get out of the shower, reach for a thick white towel, dry off and then wrap it around myself, searching out a pair of pajamas from my suitcase. My first night at the Sandy Lane and I’m doing PJs and room service. Madeline would not approve.
I’ll do better tomorrow.
Chapter Three
“A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.”
?Frederick Douglass
Anders
I’D BEEN CLIMBING in my vehicle, heading out for the day when my cell rang, and the hotel manager asked if I could pinch hit for a no-show bartender in the upstairs restaurant. At loose ends for the night, I’d agreed, and as I pour gin into an icy glass with one of the Sandy Lane’s majestic sunsets bowing out in front of me, I’m hit with a not unfamiliar stab of appreciation for the simplicity of my life.
It’s not the one I’d originally set my sights on, but it is the one for which I have no regrets.
I work out for a living, encourage others to do it as well, and when needed, revert to the skill I had relied on to get me through college and an MBA from Columbia.
“What are you making there?”
I glance at the end of the bar to see a man in a white shirt and navy jacket watching me intently. “Barbadian Gin punch,” I answer.
“What’s in that?”
“Genever, which is like gin, but not. Coconut water, lime juice and bitters.”
“Genever?”
“Known as Dutch gin, not to confuse itwith London dry gin.”
“Ah. Looks good.”
“Like to try one?”
“Sure,” he says. “The New Yorker in me usually can’t get away from thebourbon.”
