Keanna

 

You’d think after a day of swimming and walking all over the resort, Jett would be tired by midnight. I certainly am. I’m doing my best to stay awake though, because Jett has to fall asleep first in order for my plan to work out. We’ve watched two movies now, and we’re cuddled up on this hotel bed, which is so comfortable it’s just begging me to go to sleep. Why isn’t it making Jett go to sleep, dammit?

When the credits roll on our second movie, I glance over at him and he smiles at me. It’s the exact opposite of what I wanted to see. I don’t need his smile or his cute gaze. I want to see him passed out.

“I have to pee,” I say, crawling out of bed. I lean over and kiss him. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he says, which gives me hope that he might finally want to go to sleep, but then he reaches for the remote to select another movie to watch.

When I return, I lay a little farther away from him so that when he does fall asleep I can easily get up without waking him. My eyes keep drifting closed as sleep beckons to me, but I manage to stay awake by counting the stripes in the curtains on the wall.

Finally, when Jett’s breathing sounds like it’s slowed down and leveled out at a steady rhythm, I glance back and see if he’s asleep. He finally is.

I wait a few more minutes just to be safe, and then I crawl out of bed and tiptoe to the closet to get dressed. Then I open the hotel door as quietly as possible and slip outside.

I can’t find the kitchen on my own, so I go to the front desk where the woman gives me directions that lead me down the service hallway. The main hallways are cute and forest themed, with little fake animals against the walls, but these hallways are just bare and white. The employees don’t get the cute treatment, I guess.

I make my way down the long corridor until I reach the kitchens. I knock on the door and a guy who is about my age opens it.

“Um, can I help you?” he says, his eyes bloodshot.

“I’m Keanna,” I say. “Room service said you have a cake for me?”

He nods slowly. “Oh yeah. The cake chick. Come with me.”

He leads me into the massive hotel kitchen and to a walk in fridge. There’s a cake box on the shelf between the produce and milk cartons and he takes it down for me. It’s just a white sheet cake with pretty a pretty piped icing border. It’s perfect.

“Shandra said you’re going to decorate it yourself, right?” he guy asks. “Cause I’m just the night cook and I’m not a cake decorator. I would ruin it.”

I smile. “Not a problem. I’m happy to decorate it.”

He leads me to a long stainless steel table and shows me where the icing is kept. I get a tube of blue icing and get to work. I’m not the greatest at this, but I’m okay. I’ve piped icing on cupcakes and stuff back at home, and when it comes to a surprise birthday cake in the middle of the night, it’s the thought that counts, right?

The guy leans against the opposite table and watches me work. “So what’s this for?” he asks.

I explain about how we got stranded and it’s my boyfriend’s birthday tomorrow.

“A birthday on Christmas Eve? That fuckin’ blows.”

I nod as I lean over the cake, icing bag in my hand. “Yeah, it does. So I want it to be special for him.”

The guy nods. “You’re a cool chick.”

I look up at him and grin. “Thanks.”

On the cake, I write Happy Birthday in the best lettering I can manage. It actually doesn’t look half bad.

Then I write a big number nineteen in the middle and put little stars of icing all around it. At the bottom, I write Jett’s name, then in the bottom right corner, as if I’m an artist and this is a painting, I make a little heart and sign my name.

Perfect.

With the cake in hand, I thank the teenage kitchen guy and head back. The gift shop is open twenty four hours a day, and I can’t help but stop inside even though I know their selection of items isn’t the greatest. I set my cake on the counter and then look around at everything it has to offer.

Lots of clothes, all with the Great Bear Lodge logo on them, or the state of Texas, or both. That’s a big no. Jett and I already bought some of these clothes to wear while we’re here so clothing isn’t a good birthday gift option. There’s trinkets like shot glasses and coffee cups, but those are stupid too. There’s a whole section of kid’s toys and I go through them, wondering if there’s something here that I could use to refer to an inside joke or something fun for Jett.

But they all suck.

Then there’s board games, which make a lame present. A small shelf of books, but all of them are boring. I make my way around the store three times, and nothing here would be a good gift for Jett. Even if it is just a fun silly thing to get us by until I can give him his real gift—there’s nothing good here.

The woman working the gift shop tonight is older, probably around sixty years old. She’s been doing a crossword puzzle in the newspaper since I got here, but now she puts the paper down and looks at me. “Can I help you with something, dear?”

I sigh. “I doubt it. My boyfriend’s birthday is tomorrow and the gift I got him is several states away. I was hoping I could find something here that would make a good gift.”

She nods slowly. “What’s his name?”

“Jett,” I say.

She frowns. “Well that’s no good. We don’t have any Jett items here.” She nods toward the racks of keychains and stickers that are personalized with common names. That’s a problem I know all too well, because there’s never a Keanna keychain at gift shops either.

“Well, what does he like?” she asks.

I laugh. “Nothing that has to do with little kid water park hotels.”

This makes her laugh too. “Well, you know the best gifts are gifts from the heart. Something sentimental.”

You can’t get something sentimental in a gift shop I want to say, but I also don’t want to be rude. It’s well past midnight and I’m exhausted and stressed, so I just smile.

I decide to take one more loop around the gift shop, trying to think of sentimental items as I gaze over the selection.

And then my eyes land on a small notebook. It’s brown with the Great Bear Lodge on it, and it has fifty sheets of paper. It comes with a little pen attached to the side, and the pen has a fuzzy bear head on top of it.

“I’ll take this,” I say, setting it on the counter next to my cake.

“Sentimental?” the woman asks.

I grin. “Not yet. But it will be.”