Tropical Depression

The papaya arrived at breakfast each morning without fail—perfectly cubed, impossibly orange, arranged like a still life on the white ceramic plate. Elena had ordered it specifically because Marcus hated it. He called it wet chalk. She'd spent three years compromising her breakfast choices, and now, sitting alone at the Four Kona, she was eating whatever she damn well pleased.

She stood at the edge of the infinity pool, her margarita sweating onto the limestone coping. Below, the ocean stretched violent and gray, nothing like the postcards. The palm fronds rattled in the wind like dried bones. Everything about this place was designed to convince you that life could be effortless, if only you had the money to pay for it.

"They're saying it might miss us," said the man beside her. He was perhaps fifty, with the kind of comfortable paunch that comes from good living and not enough exercise. His wedding ring caught the light as he gestured at the horizon. "The storm, I mean."

Elena looked at him. Really looked. She'd seen him at the bar last night, heard him ordering whiskey doubles while his wife was presumably somewhere else. "That would be unfortunate. I paid a lot of money to be potentially rained in."

He laughed, surprised. His eyes were crinkled at the corners, kind but tired. "David," he said.

"Elena."

"You want to get out of here?" The question hung between them, loaded with possibility and danger. "There's a spot down the beach. Local place. Best ahi poke you'll ever have."

She should say no. She was here to find herself, to heal, to do the goddamn yoga classes she'd signed up for. Instead, she found herself thinking about Marcus, probably back in Chicago, possibly sleeping with his assistant, definitely not wondering about her breakfast.

A calico cat materialized from beneath a pool chair, tail twitching, staring at them with judgmental eyes.

"Yes," Elena said. "Yes, I do."

And just like that, the heavy thing in her chest lightened. Not much. Just enough. She set down her drink, picked up her tote, and followed David past the pool, past the perfect papaya on untouched breakfast plates, toward something imperfect and real.