Page 12 of The Last Sunrise

I can hear the busyness of the streets below my hotel, and some sort of water sound? It’s not the waves. I sit up just as my eyes begin to close. I follow the sound and nearly slap myself on the forehead when I realize I forgot to turn the shower off. Whatever is happening to my common sense will be better tomorrow, I just need sleep. I will forget about him and the odd roller-coaster of an encounter we had. I’m not here to make enemies with some local jerk who hates tourists, and I’m certainly not going to spend my time thinking about how beautiful he was in the sunlight and somehow even more striking in the moonlight. Nope, I’m not.

Chapter Six

What about sea moss? Or forest harvest?” my mom asks, pointing to a line of nearly identical candleholders in the nearly empty ballroom. Not this again. Not us comparing different tones of colors again.

At least a dozen workers are here, dressed uniformly, standing silently as my mom and the lead planner, who finally got called by her name, Eliza, study each one like they’re examining dinosaur fossils. It takes one glance to know that sea moss is perfect.

“Sea moss?” I offer, just to end everyone’s misery. Mostly mine.

“Hmm, sea moss is pretty, but there will be a lot of lights around, will it make it look dark in here?” My mom taps her chin, deep in thought.

I’m slightly envious of her attention to detail when it comes to the candleholders. Outside of my medical stuff, I can’t remember a time when she put so much thought into me as she is into these decorations, when spreadsheets and Zoom calls are more her thing. I know damn well it’s not because of the children she’s allegedly raising money for. They won’t care about the difference between shades of dark green.

“It’s possible. We could always do black?” Eliza suggests, clicking a pen between her fingers.

“No. I hate black for this. It will make the room too dreary.” My mom instantly shuts the idea down.

“Isn’t the point of this whole thing supposed to be about the arts and marine biology for children? Do we think they will give a crap about the color of the decor?” I roll my eyes. I’m getting irritable and trying not to be rude, but this is just obnoxious.

My mother’s gaze falls on me, annoyance abundantly clear on her face. One of the women behind her is smiling at me, agreeing with my statement out of my mom’s sight. They, like me, probably remember that my mom just told them to follow my lead when it comes to the design for the event. She told them I haveimpeccable tasteand bragged about me redoing SetCorp’s office, but now she’s bickering with me over candle-holders. My head throbs.

“Oriah,” my mom exhales. “The children we are trying to help are not the ones paying for it. The ones with the checkbooks are the ones who will need to be impressed by the chairs, the candleholders, the cutlery. I get the sentiment, but we want bigger checks, right? So, at least pretend to help or you might as well go back to the beach.” Her stare drags across my sun-kissed shoulders down to my slightly red thighs. “And wear more sunscreen this time.”

I remember when I was a teenager, maybe fourteen, and my mom brought me to a “charity” event in Houston. We spent thousands of dollars in one day, getting our hair and makeup done, buying floor-length dresses from the fanciest mall, and I felt like Cinderella arriving at a ball—for about ten minutes, that is. The event was supposed to be for sex-trafficking survivors, and it was at the top of a fancy hotel in the shape of a circle. There were too many people for the small space,which I interpreted as more support, only to realize most of the people attending only came for the open bar.

During a poem read aloud by a young girl who was a survivor, the crowd was rowdy and so consumed by their own conversations that I could barely hear her speaking despite the microphone. Her voice was shaking and quiet. It made me enraged, not only because of what she had experienced, but because no one in the room seemed to care enough to even pretend to listen to her. My mother saw and felt my anger, and ended up being the highest, and one of the only, donors of the night. From that moment on, so-called “charity events” pissed me off. My mom and her company are turning this into a fiasco to show off their money and resources. I should have stayed in Dallas and had the house to myself and let my mom come here and waste these people’s time. Aside from the home nurses coming to check on me, I loved my alone time when my mom was gone.

“You know what? I think I will do that.” I nod to her, turn on my heel to walk out of the room.

“Don’t forget to charge your phone this time!” she calls after me.

Once I’m out of her sight line, I roll my eyes and repeat her words in a sarcastic, mocking, and childish way. I got an earful about safety and backup chargers, andThis is why you should have listened to me and taken the driver.In my effort to prove I don’t need her team of assistants and worker bees, it’s backfiring, making it obvious to her and myself that I’m not as capable as I’d like to believe.

I end up walking around the hotel and find the pool area. It’s empty, which, given my mood, is fantastic. I sit down onone of the dark gray lounge chairs and lean it all the way back to lie down. The umbrellas are already up, even though it’s not even nine in the morning, meaning the staff knows today’s sun will be brutal. I get the sunscreen bottle out of my bag and rub it on my legs and arms, then face and neck, and close my eyes. The salty air is so nice, and the gentle breeze helps my temper deflate a bit. I drift off into the most peaceful nap of my life but am woken up by the noise of a man’s voice. He’s on the phone and dressed in a suit, even in this heat. The sun is beaming down onto his bald head. He’s speaking in English, so he must work with or under my mom at SetCorp. I turn away from him before he looks at me and face the infinity pool, where the edge seems to disappear into the ocean.

It’s so beautiful, even with the man’s voice interrupting my peaceful pool time.

“We are working on it. Isolde has it under control. You know this is her specialty. She’s got them under her thumb; it will be any day now. The guy is stubborn as hell, but she’s a bulldozer. You know that,” I hear him say.

Taking notice of my mom’s name, I try to listen to the rest of his call, but it ends abruptly, and he walks back inside without even glancing at the beautiful view in front of him. He’s either too consumed with work or too spoiled to really revel in the scenery. Getting antsy but not wanting to be around my mom, I gather my stuff and head to the lobby to find the colorful woman with the colorful name, Amara, who works behind the front desk. The hotel isn’t massive like the Hyatt and Gaylord outside Dallas, but it’s so beautiful and a bit hard to get around because of the floor plan, which makes me love it even more. Sunbeams fall through the floor-to-ceiling windows as Iwalk down a wide hallway, dust dancing through the air around me like glitter. I might be lost.

I pass through an area that looks like the back end of a kitchen. It’s less sparkly than the rest of the hotel. I peek in and see a group of people dressed in chef’s uniforms. They’re smiling and chatting, their hands busy peeling shrimp, dicing tomatoes, chopping onions. I don’t realize I’m staring until one of them makes eye contact, raising their brow in curiosity. I bow my head, quietly whispering an apology and rushing out of the kitchen, finally finding the lobby after another ten minutes of wandering through the mazelike halls.

“Hey you!” Amara greets me with a wave and massive smile.

“Hey! Nice trick yesterday, sending me to a nude beach.” I lean my elbow on the counter and playfully glare at her.

She bows, lifting and bending one arm in front of her stomach. “You seemed like you needed a bit of fun in your life. You’re welcome.” She beams, winking at me.

I roll my eyes, and she giggles. “It was fun, though, right?”

I nod. “And beautiful… just a bit surprising at first. Which I’m sure made your day imagining me there.”

“It sure did,” she proudly agrees. “Most of the best things in life are.”

She has a point.

“The only shitty part was my phone died and I met this rude local who sort of helped me get back here but was clearly very against tourists and didn’t seem to like Americans.” I groan.

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