The Vacation

Hell! I'm in Hawaii!

Sitting in the often fought-over window seat, 75 years old and alone, she looked around herself at different people with the same destination: Hawaii, until it occurred to her- what had she done with her seventy-five years? Lived a life, had kids? Nah, that wouldn't do. What would she write in her story if she was asked to? Maybe she would write that she had used her one time offer to live pretty well. She had been to Heaven and Hell in her one lifetime. Everything her brain had warned her heart not to and everything her foolhardy heart had wanted, she had done. She had changed cities, addresses, names and countries in her time. She has been to almost all the places on Earth worth visiting, well, all except Hawaii. Maybe it was so close to home that they had thought that they could go whenever they wanted but never actually had.

When she finally fell in love, she had had two beautiful daughters with him, with Derek. Both of them had full lives, hers a bit fuller than his. He had college professors for parents whereas she was in a new country where nobody knew her and she wasn't answerable to anyone but herself. And she loved the much wanted and desired freedom from what she thought was the confines of a small dingy town that was her home. She loved what she studied and college wasn't hectic or difficult and in her four years at college she had done things people didn't get to do in an entire lifetime. She was a scholarship student, a hot favourite, not only among teachers but also the students, though the latter took more time than she thought it would. She made friends for life in college, met complete strangers, had one-night stands shamelessly. She met Derek at college, only she didn't know it was him. She had to wait for her heart to get broken by a man she didn't know was married before she knew that it had always been Derek for her. She was the one who kissed a famous singer when he came to perform at her college. She knew she wouldn't remember what it was like in the morning: she was that drunk, but it wasn't going to stop her from telling her friends about it for weeks to come.

She had advised her daughters against things that her heart screamed for them to try. She had always been there for her family and raised a one that had always been there for her. She had seen her elder daughter through her first pregnancy scare and the younger one with a pimple and prom a week away. She had heard her elder daughter say to her son that his mother had the best mom in the world. And then, the mom-daughter duo had hugged, cried and laughed at the same time while her grandson looked at them bewildered. It was she who was with Derek when he was on his death-bed and heard him say, "You'll probably cry a lot when I'm gone. I won't stop you from doing that but promise me you'll do one thing I never got to do...promise you'll go to Hawaii, you've always wanted to. Do that for me, please." And after a promise not to breakdown, they cried together and ultimately she promised him she would.

Sitting in the plane, she thought over it for a while and smiled till something caught her eye. She was surprised she hadn't noticed it sooner; her observations were getting poorer by the minute. Maybe it was because her daughters kept saying she was getting old. She noticed a young man keeping his co-passenger's 6- or 7-year old enthralled with a story fresh out of his head. She had seen only one other person at so much ease with a curious kid-Derek. The kid was stopping the story-teller at every mid-sentence and asking questions that'd shake the base of any story but the other was not the type to give up either. She wasn't ever like this with any kid. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't the evil lady at parties who threatened kids into silence; she tried, she really did. But Derek was always better with kids. And this man, practically a kid himself, must be 20-something, was exactly the way Derek would have been with the kid. Suddenly she realized that the older youngster had seen her staring for quite awhile. Ears burning with embarrassment, she quickly looked elsewhere. It was then that an announcement rang through the length of the plane saying they'd be landing in a little bit of time. And when they did land, she realized the travel brochures had done Hawaii justice.

On her way out, she stumbled upon a book store in the airport. A bad habit of hers has always been to stop at these stores no matter how late the rest of her group was getting or how unwilling Derek was. Now that she was finally all alone, she went in without hesitation. After searching for a bit, she saw a few of her own books. No matter how old she got, nothing would excite her more than the sight of her own work on a bookshelf. Roaming in the store she saw the story-teller from her flight, trying to decide between Burnett and Maupassant, a crime in itself. She smiled to herself thinking that if she was a whole lot younger, people would say she was stalking the boy because she had taken a fancy to him.

Walking over to where he was standing she couldn't help but say, "I'd take Burnett if it was upto me."

"Yeah? Thanks. I was having a hard time deciding", he said and smiled at her.

As the cashier was busy on the phone, they had a few minutes and the boy broke the silence, "Why Burnett?"

"Don't think I don't like Maupassant, I do. But Burnett is close to my heart. It was one of her stories that I wrote for the first time."

"I'm sorry but her story that you wrote?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, that came out weird. I...the story's not very short."

Both of them looked over to find the cashier who was nowhere to be seen. So the boy replied, "Looks like I have time."

"Well, then...when I was about 11, there used to be a cartoon that I absolutely truly adored. And when it ended, I was devastated. So I decided to write its story. Soon after I finished the draft, I found a book of the same name in my school library. Turned out even Burnett thought writing the story would be a good idea, only she came up with it almost a century ago!"

The boy laughed out loud at this. He had an infectious laugh. It was the first time since Derek died that someone laughed near her and she enjoyed it. She had almost forgotten what it was like. By then, the cashier had returned and cashed the book. He smiled on his way out and she lingered on in the store for awhile before going to look for the car her hotel was supposed to have sent for her. And by seven that night, she had had a wash, a cup of tea and was already on the beach, walking at a little distance from the water.

She remembered having to explain it to Derek on their first trip to a beach that it always took her a little time to get used to the water at a new beach. At 8:30 she had gathered enough courage to wet her feet before she turned to go back to the hotel to the smell of prawns. She went to bed not very late but with a cup of hot chocolate and Erich Segal. After she finished reading, she turned off the lights and looked around. And for the first time it hit her that Derek was gone and also for the first time ever, even though she never thought it to be possible, she was at peace with the lump in her throat that arose at the mere thought of Derek. "Hell!" she thought, "I'm in Hawaii!!"

Hey! A shout-out to everybody reading this story. This is the first time I am posting on Wattpad and I am so nervous. 

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