Page 34 of Cuts like a Knife
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The hotel is … unbelievable. I haven’t done a lot of traveling and none like this. A long time ago, I did a few weeks of “backpacking” that involved staying at a lot of grungy European hostels, taking a lot of trains, and drinking so much every night, I remember almost none of it. And I did a so-called “Educational Adventure Experience” in college where I went to Ghana for a month, ostensibly to build wells to address the potable water issue there, which felt amazing at the time, and now seems incredibly cringe-worthy119.
I was so clueless, that trip was front and centre on my resume as I applied to Not For Profits and NGOs after I finished school.
But this — Great Exuma and a true resort experience — is completely outside my frame of reference. I’ve seen places like this on TV and in movies, but that’s it. And if it proves one thing it’s that the world may be a capitalist hellscape, but not if you’re rich. If you’re rich, it’s this.
It’s blue skies and bluer swimming pools, a warm breeze on your face, and the crashing ocean in the distance.
We wander the hotel grounds, with Drew pointing out the restaurants which are serving as sets for the shooting of the show, the various pools and hot tubs, one with a swim-up bar. There are palm trees and frond-covered huts, bungalows by the beach, huge bronze statues of leaping swordfish and seahorses, and strips of led lighting that I assume will be turned on at night.
We wander past various loungers, most of which hold painfully thin women in string bikinis and portly middle-aged men in speedos. There are what look to be douchey tech bros in khaki shorts and golf shirts, girls who look like they’re on a bachelorette bender, even a few families120.
And if I’m being really honest, it feels good. Really good. As the sun warms my face and the top of my head, I think there must be something to this whole vitamin D thing.
My reverie is short lived, because after we’ve had a bit of a wander, suddenly, just as I did at the desk, I hear a familiar voice. Only this time, it isn’t as pleasant or welcome as the voice of Drew Fox, childhood pal and friend-with-benefits.
It’s a voice that is pretty much the exact opposite. It’s a voice that immediately activates my anxiety reflex and makes me feel like I’m inside the circle of a spotlight, on stage, in a musical, in front of the entire school. And I don’t know my lines. And I can’t sing. And I’m naked.
It’s a voice out of the nightmare that is my past. One I haven’t heard for two years, but that I’ve imagined arguing with so often, I recognize it immediately.
“Alexis Madison? That can’t be Alexis Madison, can it?”
I turn and it’s like an evil mirage — the one I’ve imagined so many times — only it’s real. It’s him, or rather, it’s them, materialized at a table by the pool right in front of me, right here, in real life.
It’s Kelsang Aiken, my old boss and former friend. But’s not just Kelsang. It’s Kelsang, old boss, former friend (or so I thought), Editor-in-Chief of Flash, and it’s also Owen Gottfried, Publisher, and next to him is Rian McDougal, News Editor, and next to him is Adele Kramer, who was a reporter, just like me, but who’s now their Creative Director121.
At the sight of them all122, the Bahamian sunshine seems to dim. They’re all in hyper focus. It’s like that movie effect, where the background goes rushing off, while the subject seems to get clearer in the foreground. What’s that called123? Doesn’t matter.
I think I might vomit. That’s what matters. For a second, I feverishly hallucinate what that would look like — the projectile stream issuing from my mouth and slapping Kelsang’s chest like water from a fire hose. Him jumping up, his chair clattering down behind him, the vomit splashing the others, ideally hitting their faces, everyone screaming.
A short hysterical laugh burbles up in my chest, but luckily not out of my mouth.
In fact, nothing comes out of my mouth. I simply stop dead in my tracks and stand there staring at the four of them with my mouth hanging open124.
“Well, well, well. I’m surprised to see you here, Al.“
Al, rather than Alexis. Rather than Lex. Rather than Madison. Rather than Lexie. Overly familiar, and unique. Kelsang’s the only person who’s ever called me Al. It was a joke — a reference to that old Paul Simon song, You Can Call Me Al — back from when we used to be friends as well as coworkers, back when I thought he had my back, back from before he fired me on the word of his bro buddies and ruined my entire f—ing life.
Drew looks to the four faces at the table and then at me, then back to them. He seems to clock the tension and smoothly intervenes.
“Drew Fox,” he says, shaking their hands, one by one, not leaving Adele out, like so many men would. Like Callum would. Like any one of the dudes in front of me would. “You’re all from Flash, I take it. We’ve never met, but I know Jasmine Jones from ad sales, of course.”
“I don’t know anyone in advertising by name, actually,” Kelsang replies. “We’ve got a bit of a Chinese wall thing happening125. Ethical reasons. You understand.”
Why did he make the word ethical sound so pointed? And did his eyes flicker over to me as he said it? No, no. I’m paranoid. Imagining things.
“So, Al, you’ve obviously landed on your feet,” Kelsang continues. “Gone over to the dark side, I take it?”
He means advertising. That’s what journalists call it when they change careers, moving from editorial work to PR or copywriting. Citidaze has so much advertorial copy, he’s not entirely wrong, but I can’t bring myself to answer honestly.
“Something like that,” I mumble.
“Not at all,” says Drew, shooting me a nonplussed look. “I’m on that side, obviously, but Lex is a writer.”
“Who’s Lex?” Rian has spoken up from behind his mirrored aviator shades. He’s pointedly looking away, off into the distance, as if hoping to catch sight of a waiter who might refill his drink. I get it. He’s trying to say I’m beneath his notice126.
An ember of self-respect clearly still burns somewhere deep inside me, because for just a moment at the sight of his smug, pasty face with his halo of deliberately messy ginger hair, pretending I don’t even exist, I feel suddenly angry. Then I remember I have no power and the anger drains away.
