Uncharted

UNCHARTED

a survival love story

Julie Johnson

Johnson Ink, Inc.

Copyright © 2018 Julie Johnson

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, product names, or named features are only used for reference, and are assumed to be property of their respective owners.

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This one’s for the ocean…

for teaching me not to fear the deep.

That’s often where the best treasures are hidden.

“I must be a mermaid. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”

ANAIS NIN

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Acknowledgments

Also by Julie Johnson

About the Author

Next up…

THE MONDAY GIRL

Chapter One

D E P A R T U R E

“Do you have your passport?”

“Yes.”

“What about your neck pillow?”

“Yes.”

“What about your sunscreen? Honey, you know how you burn…”

I sigh. “For the thousandth time, yes. I have everything. I promise.”

“What about—”

I cut off Mom’s next question by inflating my cheeks and unleashing a series of rapid whooshing noises as my arms rotate around my head in my best impression of chopper blades. The family of four unloading their station wagon a few feet away stare at me perplexed, but Mom just shakes her head, all too familiar with my antics.

“Yes, yes, I get it. I’m being an unbearable helicopter parent. No need for sound effects, Violet.”

I cease whooshing and shoot a grin at her. She doesn’t return the gesture. Instead, her face wrinkles into a familiar mask of concern — the same one she’s been wearing for the past two weeks, since I broke the news of this trip. “Honey…”

I brace myself.

“Are you sure you want to do this? It’s not too late to back out, you know.”

“Mom!”

She holds her hands up in defense. “Okay! Okay. Just checking.”

“You’ve checked about a zillion times already.”

“Well, you could’ve changed your mind.”

“Between now and the last time you asked, approximately twenty minutes ago?”

“You’re seventeen. You change your mind every twenty seconds.”

“Way to perpetuate a flagrant, reductive stereotype about teenagers, mother.”

Her eyebrows lift in amusement. “Flagrant? Reductive? Where was this vocabulary when you torpedoed your SATs last year?”

I roll my eyes. “Now I’m definitely getting on the plane.”

“Honey…”

“Mom! Stop. It’s only three months. You’ll barely have time to miss me.”

“But then you’re straight off to college in the fall.” Mom’s bright green eyes — twins of my own — gloss over with tears, and suddenly there’s a catch in her voice. “I just thought… I guess I thought we’d have one last summer together before everything changed. I wasn’t planning to lose you so soon.”

“Careful, Mom, you lay on that guilt any thicker and I’ll suffocate.”

Her forehead crinkles. “I’m sorry. You know I’m proud of you for taking on this new opportunity. But… the house will be awfully quiet without you.”

“After all the yelling you’ve done over the years about me blaring loud music, I’d think that would be a selling point.”

She forces a laugh, but I can tell she’s barely keeping it together. In an unfortunate show of solidarity, my own throat begins to clog with emotion. I blink rapidly to keep tears at bay. Clearing my throat has little effect.

As much as I want to go, I hate the thought of leaving Mom alone. For as long as I can remember, it’s just been the two of us — a bona fide mother-daughter-best-friend duo, much like the titular Gilmores of our favorite TV show, albeit a slightly less caffeinated version. I don’t know what she’ll do without me around this summer. Frankly, I don’t think she does either. She has a few close friends, but she’s never been one for boyfriends, despite the fact that she’s a total catch. Dad died when I was seven, and she hasn’t shown a flicker of interest in another man in the decade since. All efforts to set her up — with the sexy science teacher at my old high school, with the cute waiter at our favorite diner, with the adorable golden retriever owner who visits her veterinary practice every few months — have gone to utter waste.

I already had the love of my life, honey, she’d say with a rueful smile. You’re young, but one day you’ll understand. Anything after that kind of love would be a cheap imitation. Like wine after whiskey.

It still seems ludicrous to me — the idea that your heart could beat so utterly for another person, if they walked out of your life someday it might cease to beat at all. That the right someone could make all the other someones look like weak knockoffs, in comparison.

I’ve never had anything — any guy — come close to inspiring those feelings inside my chest. I seriously doubt I ever will. That kind of love is for fairy tales and cheesy romantic comedies.

Whenever I say this, Mom just smiles in that annoying, knowing way and shakes her head.

He’ll show up when he’s meant to, honey. Don’t rush it.

I usually laugh off her words, but I can’t help wondering… Do I even want a love like that? The kind that burns so bright, you spend the rest of your life blinking away sun spots, half-blind from the experience?

That doesn’t sound particularly appealing, if you ask me. Mom may be resigned to a life of single-motherhood and celibacy, but I’m not. Not yet, anyway.

Maybe that’s why it was so easy to say yes to this trip. It’s my one chance at a detour outside the path that’s been set for me since day one. The Life of Violet Anderson: pre-written and choreographed like the script of some cliché teen movie I can’t escape. Ballet lessons and soccer practices and student council meetings and prom queen tiaras. A high school sweetheart named Clint, who just so happens to be both homecoming king and the quarterback of the football team. And me at his side, just another pom-pom waving brunette with above-average looks and below-average test scores. Destined not for greatness, not for adventure, not for anything at all, really, except the sort of mind-numbing mediocrity only those unplagued by imagination embrace with wholehearted enthusiasm.

Even at seventeen, I know that won’t be enough for me. To never taste adventure on my tongue… never color outside the lines of a socially-acceptable suburban life… never amount to anything except the status quo everyone else in my tiny hometown always seems so content to charge toward with blinders on, like racehorses on a track.

If I stay, I’ll never acknowledge the dull ache inside my chest that screams out in the small hours of the night that there must be something more, something different, something that will make my stomach fly up into my throat and my fingertips lose circulation because they’re squeezed so tight into fists of anticipation.

So, I’m leaning into the winds of change. I’m walking away from that life, and I’m not looking back at the things I’m leaving behind.

A tiny town, with sun-dappled streets.

A farmhouse full of memories.

A promise ring from Clint on my bedside table.

And, most of all, Mom’s face, etched with incalculable worry on the curb of the Departures drop-off zone.

Reaching out, I grab her hand and squeeze. I strive for a light tone, knowing if I let a single tear trickle out, I’ll set off a show of waterworks to rival Niagara Falls.

“You’re not losing me, Mom. It’s a nannying job in the South Pacific, not a colonization mission to Mars.”

“I’d feel safer with you on Mars. Astronauts are very honorable. We barely know anything about this family you’ll be working for. They could be drug lords for all we know.”

I snort. “Dramatic, much?”

“Violet, I’m serious.”

“So am I! You have to relax. Mrs. McNally never would’ve suggested I work for crazy people.”

“Well. Maybe Mrs. McNally didn’t tell you the full story,” Mom says in a decidedly un-neighborly tone.

My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline.

“Don’t give me that look, Violet. She could have an ulterior motive, you don’t know!”

“The woman runs the church bake sale every year. She’s not a criminal mastermind.”

“…or so she wants you to believe.”

“Moooooom.” I groan. “Come on. The Flints are a normal family.”

“Normal families don’t spend their summers island-hopping around the South Pacific, or hire an au pair for their five-year-old.”

“Did you swallow a bitter pill with your coffee this morning?”

“I’m just saying.” She tosses her chestnut hair, one shade lighter than mine and twice as glossy. “What’s the point of having children at all if you’re just going to hire full-time help to raise them for you?”

“Mom, don’t you think you’re being a bit judg—”

“And, anyway, I can’t fathom why they have to go all that way for a little sunshine. Florida has perfectly lovely beaches.”

“As we’ve discussed several times already,” I say slowly, summoning composure. “Mr. Flint is a resort developer. His company is scouting potential building locations on a few different islands. There’s a whole team going — a handful of execs from The Flint Group, plus a photographer, the architect, a few marketing people…” I shrug. “Rather than leave his wife and daughter home for three months, Seth decided to bring them along. In my book, that makes him a pretty decent dad.”

Mom’s mouth presses into a firm line as she tries to formulate a counter-argument to change my mind. Even now, standing on the curb outside Boston Logan International Airport with my bags packed and my ticket in hand, she’s still half-sure she might somehow convince me to stay. I pull a deep breath in through my nose and remind myself that this overbearing, overprotective show she’s putting on comes from a place of love. She’s not deliberately trying to annoy me.

I don’t think so, anyway.

“Listen, I’m going to miss my flight.” I sling my duffle strap a little higher over my shoulder. “I have to get going.”

“Call me during your layover.”

“I will if I have time.”

Her worried look returns. “You’re sure they’re sending someone to meet you at LAX?”

“Yes, outside the baggage claim area. Mrs. Flint’s personal assistant emailed this morning to confirm.”

“I still don’t like the idea of you on one of those tiny chartered jets across the Pacific. Why can’t this family fly commercial like the rest of America?”

“It’s the Flint company jet, mother. I think, once you invest in one of those, you’re pretty much obligated to use it.” A wicked grin spreads across my face. “Plus, think of all the free inflight champagne they’ll be serving!”

She glares at me. “Violet, so help me—”

“Joking!” I interject hurriedly. “Just joking. I’m going to be babysitting, not joining the mile high club.” I pause. “You know I’ve never been one for organized group activities.”

“How did I ever raise such a smartass?”

“In your exact image,” I point out.

Even as Mom nods in agreement, her bottom lip begins to tremble. I think she’s going to dissolve into a puddle of tears but instead, she reaches out and hauls me into a crushing embrace. For such a petite woman, her hug is impressively rib-cracking.

“Can’t… breathe….” I joke-wheeze, hugging her back equally hard.

“You be safe, you hear me?” she whispers forcefully.

I nod, wishing my eyes weren’t pricking. “I will.”

“You email twice a week.”

“I promise.”

“You take lots of pictures to show me when you get back.”

“Of course.”

She grabs my face in her hands and plants a kiss on my forehead like she did when I was barely more than a baby, heading off to kindergarten for the first time.

“I love you, Violet.”

“I love you too, Mom. See you in September.”

I brush tears from my cheeks as I turn and walk away from her, scolding myself for being silly as I pass through the sliding glass doors and hike my bags a little higher on my shoulder.

Maybe if I knew I’d never see her again, I’d have taken a second glance back, in those final moments on the sidewalk. Maybe I’d have memorized her a little better, so conjuring up the slope of her nose or sound of her laughter wasn’t so hard later, when it really counted.

But how could I possibly know what would come to pass? How could I know that the summer job I’d foreseen as a free adventure in paradise would blow up my life more effectively than a block of C4 thrown into my path? How could I know that, in seeking change, I’d courted my own demise more doggedly than a suicidal bridge-jumper?

I couldn’t have.

So… I didn’t look back. Not even once.

I guess it’s true what they say about hindsight.

That bitch is twenty-twenty.

Chapter Two

B A G G A G E

Six hours and three thousand miles later, I walk into LAX deflated like a piñata at a children’s party. After the cross-country voyage, my once chic, travel-savvy outfit is rumpled beyond recognition, my carefully-curled mahogany waves have flattened into a hopeless tangle of frizz, and my neck is aching fiercely from a seemingly endless flight crammed into the middle seat between a bickering couple who refused to relinquish either window or aisle, instead preferring to argue across me for the duration of our trip.

I’m due to meet the Flints in an hour, but I can’t show up looking like this. I can almost hear Mom’s voice in my head.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, honey. How you’re dressed determines how you’ll be addressed.

I heave a sigh, adjust the grip on my backpack, and head to the baggage claim to retrieve the duffle I checked before leaving Boston. Seth, his wife Samantha, and their daughter Sophie are at the swanky private terminal across the concourse, where all privately chartered flights depart Los Angeles. It caters specifically to celebrities, VIPs… and, evidently, my new employers. A flutter of nerves zips through my veins as I realize I’ll be face to face with them in mere minutes.

We conversed by email and video-chat after I accepted the position two weeks ago. They seemed nice enough from the relative obscurity of a laptop screen, but… I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I’ve been so eager to get out of my hometown, I barely considered the fact that this family isn’t like mine. Not in the slightest. Anderson mother-daughter trips involve pitching a tent on the Saco River every summer, or hiking to the summit of Mt. Washington to see the view of the famed White Mountains that belt our state.