was certainly never in love with him. When I slipped the phone back into my purse the aquamarine caught my eye.
I held it up to the light, admiring the sparkling blue green stone. Why did love have to make everyone so crazy? I always thought that being in love would be smooth sailing on tranquil seas. Instead, I felt like I was being tossed around in a violent storm with only a few fleeting moments of calm. Ethan and I tried to chart a path, but we kept getting blown off track by unforeseen winds.
I put the necklace back on with determination.
I remembered some character in a Shakespeare play saying, “The course of true love never did run smooth”. At the time it meant nothing to me, but now I could see the truth of it. I guess we all sailed in perilous waters, and the best we could hope for was to stay afloat.
I for one, planned on keeping my head above the water.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FAME
The next morning we left our room to catch the shuttle that was scheduled to take us to the photo shoot. It was pretty easy to spot our group, for the dozen or so people milling about in the lobby stood out like a sore thumb among the typical Hawaiian tourists. Impossibly tall, thin girls stood head and shoulders above a couple of decidedly less glamorous, but infinitely more interesting creative types. I immediately recognized them as the stylists and makeup artists.
We joined the group, introducing ourselves, and were rudely scrutinized by a few of the more famous models, “Who are you?” a gazelle-like brunette with a Russian accent asked me, guessing correctly that I wasn’t the swimsuit model type.
“She’s the surfing consultant,” Shayla announced boldly, glaring at her.
“Oh,” her tone changed, and she pulled me aside to confess, “I’m scared of the water… I need all the advice I can get.”
The girls all seemed most interested in Shayla, eyeing her with curious speculation. I could hear them muttering amongst themselves about how she had been brought to the island in a specially chartered jet and helicoptered in at the last minute. They seemed annoyed that they’d had to fly commercial, and take a long hot bus ride to get here.
If Shayla heard them, she didn’t show it, “Marina! Come check it out!” I followed her to the edge of a large indoor pond that was on the other side of the reception desk. As soon as we reached the water’s edge we attracted the attention of a school of huge koi fish, mouths gaping and smacking at the air as they begged for food. We offered them our fingers to gum and were squealing with laughter when a waiter from the restaurant kindly brought us out some fish food for them.
I watched them greedily devour the floating pellets, jostling for position and thrusting themselves out of the water on top of each other. Their iridescent scales and colorful flashes of red and gold reminded me of Lorelei twisting and tumbling in the waves. All at once I missed surfing alongside her with a hard ache that hit me square in the chest. Images of the past flashed through my mind; joyful memories of gliding on my surfboard, laughing as the three mermaids wove in and out of the waves beneath my feet.
When the shuttle pulled up in front I sprang to my feet, slinging my bag over my shoulder, “Let’s get to the beach!”
We took our seats and bounced along merrily, grinning broadly whenever our eyes met. The bumpy road we took pierced the heart of a lush rain forest that vibrated with every known shade of green. Luscious exotic flowers hung from vines like colorful jewelry, and giant bamboo stalks soared skyward, towering over the guava and passionfruit trees that crowded the narrow passageway. Glimpses of deep blue sea peeked through the foliage, and bottomless gulches with thundering waterfalls lurked under the narrow bridges we traversed. We finally pulled off the road and descended to a beach unlike anything I’d ever seen.
It was a perfect crescent, ringed by craggy rocks with a graceful arch off to one side. It reminded me of many of the remote little coves that Lorelei had taken me to, only the sand was black! Shayla and I looked at each other with excited eyes and rushed to get out of our seats.
There was already a camera crew milling about by the shore with giant umbrella light reflectors, and