The Ivy: Rivals (28 page)

“WAAAIT!” Matt cried, chasing after it.

Miraculously the van stopped. A moment later the sliding door opened and Gregory popped out.

“Need a lift?” he called, a huge grin on his face.

“Oh, thank god,” Vanessa screamed, rushing over and practically throwing herself into his arms. Callie and the others quickly followed. “I was worried that we were going to have to take the ferry,” Vanessa exclaimed, “but I simply can’t because I get so seasick and what if it was too slow and we missed our other flight and—”

“Relax,” said Gregory, hefting her enormous Louis Vuitton luggage into the trunk.

Callie stole a glance at the backseat and spotted Alessandra wearing an oversized pair of sunglasses not unlike the pair Callie had borrowed from Mimi. “Looks like you made it just in time,” she remarked, giving Callie a tight-lipped smile and folding her arms across her chest.

Callie smiled awkwardly in return and then turned to help the boys with the suitcases. In the meantime Vanessa and Mimi dived into the backseat. Matt and OK clambered in next, with OK graciously offering Matt the front seat while he squished into the back.

Now only Gregory and Callie were left standing outside the van.

There was just one problem.

With all the luggage now inside there were no more empty seats.

“Shit,” Gregory muttered.

“Maybe we could . . .” Callie started, eyeing the front seat.

“No,” the driver called, reading her mind. “Is already too crowded!”

“Gregory . . .” Alessandra started, barely audible from where she was squeezed between Vanessa and the side of the van.

Just then another taxi pulled into the driveway.

Gregory exhaled with relief, motioning it forward.

“Go ahead,” Callie urged them. “We’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay,” Vanessa called. “We’ll see you at the airport th—”

The side door slammed, and the van pulled away from the hotel, making room for the cab to roll up in its place. Callie and Gregory hopped inside.

“Aeropuerto, por favor,”
Gregory said. Then he began speaking rapid-fire Spanish.

Eventually the driver nodded.
“Sí, señor, yo entiendo,”
he said, and then he hit the gas.

“What did you tell him?” Callie asked, buckling her seat belt.

“Essentially, the faster we get there, the bigger his tip,” Gregory explained. “I hope you have cash,” he added. “I only have a card.”

Callie nodded, praying that the few remaining bills in her wallet would suffice.

They made it to the airport in record time, and Callie handed the driver the entire contents of her wallet while thanking him profusely. Then she and Gregory disembarked and ran into the tiny airport. Panting and out of breath, they arrived at the ticketing counter.

“Just in time,” a pretty lady with a red suit said, smiling at them and motioning at the lone security guard to undo the rope he had just fastened between the two poles that led the way to the aircraft. “Names, please?” she asked, stepping behind the counter.

“Callie Andrews,” Callie said. “My ticket should be on hold.”

“Hmm . . .” said the lady, scrolling through the entries on her computer. “We don’t seem to have an entry on file for you.”

Callie’s eyes grew wide, but then the lady said, “Oh, wait. No, here it is under Clint Weber for two. It looks like Mr. Weber already picked up your tickets and boarded the plane.”

“So do I just go back there and get my ticket from him—” Callie began, making her way toward the poles.

“Please do not step over the line,” the security guard said, blocking her passage.

“I’m afraid we cannot let you onto the aircraft without a ticket,” the lady explained politely.

“But if my ticket’s on the plane . . .”

“Actually,” said the lady, checking the computer, “it appears that both tickets have already been used.”

“What?”
asked Callie.

“Mr. Weber picked up two tickets and appears to have used them both. Ah yes, here it is. He changed the secondary passenger’s name from ‘Callie Andrews’ to ‘Alexis Thorndike’ about twenty minutes ago.”

“Can they—they can do that?”

She nodded. “Next, please,” she said, looking at Gregory.

“But—but—isn’t this supposed to be part of the United States of America? What about terrorism and code orange and bomb threats and—”

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you not to say ‘bomb’ here in the airport or you will be escorted from the premises,” said the lady, arching her eyebrows at the guard. “Next, please.”

Gregory placed a hand on Callie’s wrist. “Do you have any extra seats left on the plane?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the lady, flashing him a smile that made it seem like she wanted Callie out of the picture for reasons other than
bombs.
“There are still three available seats.”

“Great,” said Gregory, turning on the charm. “I have a ticket reserved for purchase under Bolton, and I’ll take another seat, for her, right now.”

The woman’s smile faded a fraction, but she nodded, typing into her computer. “Very good, sir. Now will you be paying for both tickets debit or credit?”

“Credit,” he said, reaching into his wallet and pulling out his black Amex.

“Gregory,” Callie began, “I can’t let you—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he murmured.

Taking his card, the woman behind the counter scanned it. Frowning, she scanned it again. Then she looked up. “I’m sorry, sir, but there seems to be a problem with your card.”

Gregory froze.

“Do you have another one we could try?” she asked.

For a full three seconds he said nothing. Then, shaking himself, he reached into his wallet and pulled out a Visa.

“Amex doesn’t always work with our computer,” she said, taking the new card.

Gregory and Callie both stared, watching her scan it.

Once . . .

Twice . . .

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “This one is also declined. Do you have another one we could tr—”

“Shit!”
Gregory erupted suddenly, throwing his wallet on the counter. Several other credit cards spilled out. “Shit, shit, shit,” he continued under his breath, wheeling around and stumbling away.

Callie and the lady in the red suit both stared.

The lady recovered first: “Sir, is everything . . .”

Gregory appeared not to hear her, still cursing and running his hands through his hair.

“Er . . . sir, it seems you’ve left your wallet,” she tried again, raising her voice.

“Um, we’re sorry,” said Callie, reaching down to collect the wallet. “We, um, seem to have made a mistake. We’ll, uh, try to catch the next flight. . . . Come on,” she ordered, grabbing Gregory by the arm. He had gone completely silent now but seemed to be in some sort of trance, numbly letting her drag him out of the waiting area, and then out of the airport, where she hoped the fresh air might calm him down.

Gently she pushed him onto a stone bench and then sat beside him.

From here she could see the tiny plane. Silently she watched it taxi and then race along the runway until it lifted off, above the harbor and into the sky. With it went their luggage, their friends, and any hope of getting home.

Stranded.

Next to her Gregory sat motionless, doubled over with his face pressed into his hands.

“Uh . . . Gregory?” she tried tentatively.

“Just give me a minute,” he said through his fingers.

After what felt more like five minutes, he finally lifted his head. “You gave all your cash to the cab driver?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you don’t have a credit card, do you?”

“No.”

They were quiet again.

“Gregory,” she finally said softly, “why aren’t any of yours working—your credit cards, I mean?”

For a second she thought he was going to explode at her, but eventually he just sighed, massaging his temples. “It’s my dad. . . .” he started. Callie waited for him to go on, but he just shook his head angrily.

“Is that . . . Is that who you’ve been fighting with—on the, ah, phone?” she inquired.

Grimly he nodded.

Callie thought for a moment. “So he’s upset about something and because of that . . . he cut you off?” she guessed.

“Something like that,” Gregory muttered darkly.

“Wow,” said Callie. “That seems pretty extreme.”

Gregory inhaled deeply but offered nothing more.

Maybe having money could cause almost as many problems as not having money, she marveled, feeling that her funding issues regarding spring break and the Pudding seemed somewhat small in comparison to what Gregory appeared to be going through with his father.

Then again, having money right now—at least enough to afford two plane tickets back to the mainland—would certainly be preferable to the present circumstances.

However, a tiny voice piped up in the back of her head. If you
had
to be stranded on a desert island with only one other person—

“We could take the ferry back to the mainland.” He interrupted her thoughts. “We still have almost six hours to catch our other flight.”

“Doesn’t the ferry cost money, too?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah, but not nearly as much as a plane. . . . Right,” he said finally. “Okay.” He stood. “I have an idea.”

“Which is . . . ?”

“Can you walk in those shoes?” he asked.

“Of course,” Callie said, looking at her flip-flops.

“Good,” he said, holding out a hand to help her up. “Let’s go, then. This way,” he added, gesturing toward the road that led to one of the local towns situated on the harbor side of the island.

She stayed silent while they walked, sensing his stress and uneager to add to it with questions about the so-called “plan” or even mindless, void-filling chatter. Now also seemed like a bad time to bring up last night’s revelation or finally admit her feelings, which she had yet to finish sorting through. Plus, what if something went wrong? If he
does
love Alessandra, or doesn’t feel the same way about me? Then she’d be trapped—literally stuck on a desert island—with nowhere left to run. . . .

After nearly half an hour they finally arrived in town. They passed a couple of local shops before Gregory came to a halt outside a restaurant.

Callie’s stomach grumbled; she realized that she hadn’t eaten all day. However, stopping for food seemed impossible under the circumstances, especially because: how on earth were they supposed to pay for it?

“Uh . . . Gregory?”

“Wait here,” he said, opening the door. “I’ll be right back.”

In a few minutes he returned.

“Gregory, what are you—”

“Come on,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s another place right up there where Alessandra and I had lunch the other day.”

Aha! So this is where you’ve been hiding all week.

“Okay?” he prompted. “Let’s go.”

Instead of a traditional door the next restaurant had two saloon-style slats of wood that opened and closed when patrons pushed through them. The place was small but clean and crowded with customers. A waiter hurried past them and the scent of fried plantains wafted under Callie’s nostrils, making her stomach growl once more.

Gregory headed straight for the open kitchen in back, currently manned by a single chef. He greeted Gregory like an old friend, and they began conversing in Spanish. Gregory pointed to the kitchen as he asked a question and the man nodded rapidly. Finally he broke into English and smiled at Callie.

“
Si, si,
you picked a good day to stop by,
amigo
. Pedro called in sick and the sink is starting to back up
con todos los platos sin lavar
.”

Before Callie could ask what was going on, Gregory turned to her and smiled. “Roll up your sleeves,
Caliente
. I’ll wash if you dry.”

Two hours later Callie found herself wiping down the last of the lunch rush dishes. Strangely, it felt as if barely twenty minutes had passed: the time racing by while she and Gregory attempted to imagine out loud what it would be like to be stuck in a similar situation with various other occupants of C 23 and C 24—some of whom they both agreed had probably never done a dish in their lives. And even though her hair was soaked and her clothes—the same she had slept in and worn the day before—were covered in soap and grime, she couldn’t remember having laughed so hard in weeks, doubling over in hysterics at several points during the conversation.

When they were done, the chef, whose name was Jose, came over and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Good thing you don’t live around here,” he said, surveying their work, “or Pedro would be out of a job.”

“Thank you for giving us the opportunity,” Gregory said. “You really saved
el culo
,” he added, causing Jose to chuckle as he slid a twenty dollar bill into Gregory’s hand: exactly enough for two ferry tickets off the island.

“You must stay for lunch,” Jose urged them.

At the word
lunch
Callie suddenly felt almost faint with hunger, but she shook her head, “We’d love to, but we can’t afford . . .”

“Nonsense,” said Jose. “There are plenty of leftovers—if you don’t eat them, they will go to waste.”

Callie looked at Gregory. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time,” he said after checking his watch. “The ferry leaves every hour on the hour, right?”

“
Si, amigo.
Can you at least spare a minute, though? I could pack something for you to go.”

Callie’s stomach growled loudly in reply.

Gregory laughed. “I think we’d better take you up on that.”

“Yes, and thank you so much!” Callie called.

Fifteen minutes later they were boarding the ferry carrying a to-go bag filled with fried plantains,
arroz con habichuelas
(rice and beans), and
canoas
, ripe plantains shaped like canoes and stuffed with ground meat and melted cheese. For drink, there was fresh coconut water in little cardboard cartons. Soon they were sitting on the ship’s upper deck with the food spread out across their laps, facing toward the mainland, where their airplane would be waiting to take them back to Boston.