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With bright green hazel eyes widened to dinner plates and slender jaw muscles taut, Mel’s painted lips drop to a small o. Absolutely sideswiped by project leader Cecil Heimerdinger’s audacity. Mel minds herself for a moment as she searches for the right words though they swirl in her brain as a soup.
“You’re… you’re taking me off the project?”
Heimerdinger’s full mustache bounces with a scoff. How he can do so before her in this moment is infuriating in all sense of the imagination.
“No, no, no, Mel,” shaking his head ever so adamantly. “Why would you ever think—?”
“With all due respect, sir, I have been a diligent and valued member of this team for several years.” A slow step forward, narrowing the gap between the two. “My expertise in managing foreign and domestic affairs have gone beyond ensuring our objectives not being delayed, but quite the opposite.” Minimization of the space between continues, Mel pressing intensely upon him. “Speaking matter of factly, our team is moving ahead of schedule putting us in a position to save tens of thousands of dollars on this hand. At a time like this certainly it would—”
“Mel!” Heimerdinger’s voice raises with his interjection. The firmness is foreign to Mel’s ears, acclimated to the jovial tone he tends to take in his older years and by his nature of whimsy. Her brain reminds her to take a breath.
The crinkles decorating the corners of his eyes deepen with the softness latent in his eyes. “Mel, my dear, I am not letting you off this project.”
She blinks. “But you said—”
“What I am doing is issuing you a break. A vacation, to be more precise. In your years of service on this team, when was the last time you did such for yourself?” One fluffy and perfectly groomed brow lifts. “Hm?”
Mel chooses to not dignify it with a response, instead settling on a sigh that brings her shoulders down from her ears.
“Company-wide holiday shutdowns aside, even trying to further correspondences then cannot be good for you.” A disciplining wag of his finger accompanies a single back and forth rock on the balls of his loafers. “Your soul is too kind for such nonsense.”
One of the corners of her mouth twitches upward.
“All I am saying is…” His voice goes softer while sandwiching her hand between his own, “Take this as time to connect. Away from work, think of your friends, family, or other loved ones. This period of your life is not one to discombobulate and rattle genuine priorities, pushing them away.” For but a moment Heimerdinger’s eyes breaks from Mel’s, falling off to an unfocused point on the floor. As though nostalgia and an undefined heartache was beginning to break the surface he did not want anyone else to find. “Work to live, my dear, not the other way around.”
***
Mel tips her head gracelessly, resting it against the window of the plane with a soft thud. The allotted time Heimerdinger gave her was… unclear, shearing her nerves to a micrometer. Her attention flicks down with the bird’s eye view over the Lepidopterra Islands picking up a couple familiar landmarks. It had been years, over a decade even since she visited this place. Her family has a vacation home there, because of course they did. The privacy in a temperate climate was a key attraction. They used to go there on yearly vacations and family reunions and like gatherings were hosted there as well. Though it has not gotten much use out of it since her brother died.
With the press of the button on the side of her phone, Mel spares a glance at her home screen. He was a fiery spirit with an innate swagger, ready to take on the world, reach for any and everything and command forces by his fingertips. Kino was strong and smart and free, yes, but even he had to fall mercy to the might of the tides.
Her thumb flicks the power button to her phone, turning it face down on her lap. Trim nails drum against the case to a random pattern. Hearing the pilot make the announcement they were to be landing soon, Mel clicks her seat belt shut.
This should be some vacation.
Rolling her luggage into the front room of the family vacation home, Mel sets it aside quickly forgotten, taking in the overwhelming name once more. The Medarda summer home—estate, rather— is one of grandiosity built on the accumulation of generational wealth over years she couldn’t bother to count. It was a blessing and a curse. Rich dark wood panels creak under her weight with each step, the walls and frames aching to finally bow to a presence other than hired help to keep the place neat and orderly. One who carries the Medarda blood.
In the center of the estate, the small botanical garden has managed to blossom remarkably in the many years since Mel has stayed here. Not overgrown. Not unruly. Simply… finding peace in minimal disturbance. She admires it from afar. The stillness of a few birds chirping, water of the pond circulating serenely, and when the nights were cool, the luminous lightning bugs that would occasionally grace the family with their presence. Enough. She has to carry onward. Pointedly Mel avoids the paths of the estate that would inevitably lead her down the wings of her parents’ and brother’s bedrooms. The in-house library is best, a space more enticing with a path of least resistance. Perusing the shelves carefully, an unfavorable amount of dust kicks up, making her nose scrunch several times. With a promising book in her hands and a mental note for the workers to be ever mindful of the dust, Mel continues her walk through the estate, features calm and taut while bones transmute to lead.
The decorations…
The furniture arrangements…
The ghosts.
Nothing has changed here. For better or worse.
Maybe this was a bad idea and she should have just gotten a hotel.
Reclaiming her suitcase to tote it to what was once her childhood bedroom, Mel chokes, ready to asphyxiate on remembrance alone. Several art pieces clearly drawn by someone with the dexterity of a child yet to reach the big double digits decorated the wall behind her bed as a corona. The luggage is dropped haphazardly by the foot of the bed. The book, gingerly set on the bed itself. Feeling the comforter’s fabric and plush nature under her fingertips, Mel circles around, attention honing in on a picture frame propped gracefully on a side table.
The leg of the frame collapses inward, relieved of its duties for the time being.
One of her thumbs delicately trace over the faces and memories preserved behind the glass. The last summer she, her parents, and brother were able to experience a collective lightness in their spirits, poor excuse of sandcastles erected at their feet. It had been a day and time for the ages to feel so free, indulge in too many snacks and desserts, capping the night off to dance by a campfire with reckless abandon.
After her brother, it was never the same. They tried the following year, but it ended in screaming, damp cheeks, and ears covered to block the rest of the world out. Then there was her father not a decade after.
Returning full circle some fifteen years later, half of her family she has had to carry on in her heart, it suddenly feeling dauntingly heavy in acute remembrance of them.
Mel forces herself to look away putting the photo down.
Settling in and sorting clothes could be handled at a later time.
She needs to get out. Where exactly mattered not, so long as it is outside of the Medarda estate’s sphere of influence.
First things first. Clothing change. Even if her mind consistently fights her days on end getting into the vacation spirit, she can at the very least look the part. Mel does recall a pretty royal blue bikini and sarong number that caught her eye buried somewhere in her suitcase.
***
Holding her sandals by their thin straps delicately with a middle and ring finger, Mel’s toes dig into the sand warmed by the mid afternoon sun as she saunters over to a cabana some blocks away from her place of residence. When she was a young girl, her parents frequented this establishment, her and her brother tagging along to play in the sand. There were always these pretty drinks she wasn’t allowed to have because ‘adults only.’
The manager was sweet enough to still give her and her brother pretty juices with ombré colors, though. Shades of reds and yellows, and white. and Now she’s certainly of age, the options before her were limitless here.
A sharp roll of her shoulder hikes a deep burgundy colored tote bag further up to keep it from sliding. In it, the book she procured and a small sketchpad; a few options to consider depending on what or where her inspiration decided to take her. She is supposed to be relaxing. She needs to act like it. Such includes keeping her hands too busy to give into the temptation of perusing her phone in checking her emails.
“Welcome to The White Sea—” the cocktail shaker held in the host’s hands is suspended mid-air slowing the motions that once were as natural to his as breathing. “Wait a second… you look almost familiar?” It was when gray eyes widen in recognition his lips formed a single word. A name. “Mel?”
“Hi, Tāne,” she says sweetly. “It has been a while.”
He hurries pouring the drink for the customer he is supposed to be tending to before turning his attention to Mel. “I remember you being only ye high.” He gestures to below his hip Mel cannot see on the other side of the counter. “It has been some time. You’ve grown up.”
“Meanwhile you have not aged a day,” she jests.
The man’s laugh is full; deep from his belly. “Sure if you choose to pay no mind to these—” gesturing to the silvers in his hair, primed to take the majority over the deep dark brown.
“Oh, please.” A small smile graces Mel’s face.
“You were but a little lass clinging to your mother’s fingers every time your family visited. I am sorry about your losses.” Nostalgia makes way for melancholy giving his condolences.
“It was a long time ago,” Mel’s reply is a smile wistful yet understanding.
“So what can I do you for?” Tāne pivots offering a glass of complimentary water.
Mel’s fingers nimbly slide one of the menus closer to her to peruse. “How about your… classic mojito?”
“Hang tight and I will have it right here for you.” Hands quickly move for the necessary ingredients.
“You’re the best.”
A hard clap of a clean cocktail shaker fits shut. “Good at my job!”
***
“Alright then, for the lovely Mel” sliding over a tall glass clear with traces of green from the mint and lime infusion. “One classic mojito as requested.”
Gods, whether it is in the ingredients or something else Tāne did, no one can make a beverage like The White Sea. She paces herself, appreciating the immersion through drink and environment.
“Oh, Mel”, capturing her attention as she starts to slide her card over to pay her bill. “Before you go.”
Seeing the gift he casually presents before her, her heart swells twice over. “What… is this?” A bolus of the Lepidopterra Islands’ sunset poured in a tall glass. Just like— A huff of amusement passes Mel’s lips. “I cannot believe you.”
Though painted lips are pursed slipping the slender black straw past them, a smile cannot help itself making its presence known.
In the vast space between the The White Sea and the ocean water kissing the sandy shore with her drink in tow, Mel makes herself comfortable basking under the sun’s rays and warmth. Laying out a long powdery pink beach towel, she smooths out any wrinkles, feeling the terry cotton under her skin. Satisfied with her work, the drink is marginally buried in the sand as a makeshift cup holder, giving her space to retrieve her book deep within her tote bag.
Kindred’s Reckoning. Certainly it was out here in terms of storytelling relative to the her poetry collections and literature she was accustomed to. But through extremes comes inspiration and by the gods she at least needed some sort of a dramatic out-there reprieve.
Index finger and thumb readjust large circular-rimmed sunglasses higher up on her nose before extracting her drink from her sandy cup holder for a long sip. The citrus notes dance on her tongue as they keep her cool and refreshed from the inside out.
Soft crashing of the ocean’s waves along the shore wash over her as the roughness of rock smooth over by the forces of nature. Not abrasive. Not unkind. But soft, slow, and healing.
The main character is a few chapters in, contemplating the acceptance of a game of Sparrowbones raised on stakes higher than money when Mel’s attention is pulled out of the universe thanks to someone calling her name.
“Mel? Is that that you?”
Swiftly setting her bookmark in and moving the book aside for the time being, her attention is pulled to the source. A man. One tall and well-built with olive skin and brown hair slightly mussed presumably from activities about in the heavily salted ocean air. Gracing his face, a charming smile with a toothy gap broaching more towards adorable.
Large dark frames slide down the bridge of her nose, the blank drawn over her face no longer subtle.
“It is you, yes? Oh my word—”
Past the frames, elegant brows lift slightly. A question before proper words could form shape one her tongue. “And who might you be..?” Studying his features the smile and bright golden eyes lit up one of the memories tucked into the recesses of her brain, but a name is continuing to escape her.
Hit by a bucket of ice cold water, the man’s smile slowly slips from his features. A hand reaches to the top of his head. Not in a way to fix his hair per se, rather fight an anxious itch. “Well— um…” He hums to himself for a moment. “It’s Jayce, remember?” A twitch of chuckle. “We used to look at the bugs and pick cicada shells off the trees in the brushes. Does any of that ring a bell or did I make an idiot of myself?”
Mel’s face falls back in a way most fond and she finally stands to meet him properly. Of course. Of course in the way that it rings a bell, not him making a fool of himself. At least not right now. “My, Jayce, you certainly look different than when I saw you last.” Not different in a way that’s better or in a way that is worse. Simply different.
Of course Mel is different as well, time is merciless to no one. For a moment she muses on the one chubby-cheeked boy who freaked when she held a stag beetle too close to his face.
“Ah, right.” The barely there sigh of relief does not pass over Mel. “Nearly a decade of manual work and partial ownership of the family business will do that for you. In any case, what are you doing here? It’s been ages.”
“Let’s call it rediscovering roots.”
“I see. Are you alone, or is your family or a partner with you..?”Mel is forced to bite back a laugh. “Absolutely not,” fanning a hand wafting away any air of confusion between them as soon as possible. “It is just me… Oh! And this,” gesturing to the book for him to see.
“Kindred’s Reckoning.” Studying the cover art, he manages to utter a simple fascinating. Though with brows furrowed deeply, it carries the weight of a scientist taking diligent notes. “Then I’ll leave you to it. Maybe I will see you around.” A smile too sweet it rivals her abandoned drink.
Mel’s skin warms by something other than the mid-afternoon sun and alcohol having faded long ago. Rekindling. Reclaiming. Returning to roots. “Promising.”