Romy Sommer - The Trouble with Mojitos

He waved his now empty glass at the bartender. “Your boss doesn’t like you much, does he?”

“How can you tell?”

“Because he couldn’t have sent a worse person to do the job.”

Kenzie bristled. “I’m really good at what I do!”

“How old are you … twenty two?”

She pulled her shoulders straight and thrust her head high. “ Thirty two.”

He shrugged. “No offence, sweetheart, but one, you’re a woman. Two, you look like a kid fresh out of high school. And three, you’re not from around here. This is a tight-knit community and wary of strangers. If your boss had done his homework, he’d have sent a man. Preferably a man with Caribbean connections.”

That figured. Neil always did his homework, so he’d known she was all wrong for the job and he’d sent her anyway. He made no secret he thought she was nothing more than a party girl playing at being a location scout.

The face didn’t help. Baby face genes were more a curse than anyone realised.

So Neil had given the plum pickings of the Caribbean to the other scouts and sent her off to chase the long shot, the backwater island group that had never hosted a big film shoot before. She was sure the other scouts weren’t getting the same run around.

Still, until today, she’d been convinced she could prove him wrong. That feeling she’d had ever since she could remember that something amazing was just around the corner, seemed stronger than ever.

Gran had always said she had good instincts, and from the moment she’d seen the satellite images of these islands, Kenzie’s instincts had been screaming at her.

She sighed and closed her eyes. Perhaps her instincts were lying. It wouldn’t be the first time. And after ten years of trying one job after another and never finding that dream, her usual optimism was starting to take a beating.

What did Gran know, anyhow? The last time Kenzie had visited the nursing home, Gran hadn’t even recognised her.

She didn’t argue when the bartender refilled her mojito glass. She lifted it in a toast to her drinking companion. “Sod them all.”

He raised his drink and grinned. “Sod them all.”

They drank in silence, and when she was done, Kenzie pushed her glass away. Three mojitos on an empty stomach was her limit for one day.

She needed to regroup. She needed a back up plan.

After all, she’d been in the film business long enough now to know that nothing ever went according to plan the first time round. There was always a Plan B. Or C or D. And somehow everything always worked out in the end.

She would make it. She was destined for great things, and this movie would be the beginning. She’d start with some positive thinking and an attitude adjustment.

Plastering on her best ‘I just know you’re gonna love me’ smile, she held out her hand. “I’m Mackenzie Cole. My friends call me Kenzie.”

He gave her outstretched hand a perfunctory shake. “Rik.”

“You have a surname?”

“None that matters.”

She rolled her eyes. “So Rik, what do you do for a living?”

“Nothing much.”

Hmm. So he was going to play the Mystery Man. She squinted suspiciously at him. “You’re not some trust fund baby out for a good time, are you?”

“Do I look like I’m having a good time?” The mockery was back in his eyes, but this time she guessed it was aimed more at himself than at her.

She shrugged. Whatever shadows he carried, she wanted no part of them. She was done with men who needed fixing. Besides, her plane ticket was booked for three days from now. That wasn’t enough time to fix whatever was broken with Rik My-Name-Doesn’t-Matter, even if she hadn’t already had her fill of bad boys.

She and Lee had sworn a vow – from now on they were dating nice men only. Gentlemen. The kind who didn’t bring trouble in their wake. Her BFF would kill her if she weakened barely two weeks in.

So back to work. She toyed with her glass. “How does a girl with no local connections and a burning need to be heard get an audience with the mayor?” It was a rhetorical question. She didn’t really expect an answer from either the latter day pirate or the bartender.

She should have known she’d get one anyway.

“You don’t. You go home and tell your boss not to send a girl to do a man’s job.”

Between one breath and the next, the red haze descended, staining her vision with anger. She slammed her hands down on the bar counter. “I can’t and I won’t go back a failure!”

Rik eyed the little firecracker over the rim of his glass and grinned. She was certainly living up to the flaming colour of her hair. He admired her spirit, misguided as it was.

“If you’re not going to do the sensible thing and drop it, then you’ll need an introduction. Someone who knows the mayor and can get you in the door. On this island, you convince the mayor, you convince everyone else.”

“Great. So is there anyone you know who can open the mayor’s door for me?”

Silence. The bartender, bored by the conversation, had drifted away to re-fill the pretzel bowls, and Rik suddenly found something very interesting in the bottom of his glass.

He could do it. Perhaps even should do it.

Except he hadn’t felt very much like doing anything for anyone in a very long time. Sod them all, indeed.

His glass was empty. He couldn’t even remember drinking that last drink, so the alcohol must be starting to do its job at last. But it hadn’t numbed him enough yet. He could still feel the summons burning a hole in his pocket.

He waved his empty glass at the bartender. “Why don’t you just give up?” he asked, finally catching the barman’s eye.

“Because things always work out in the end.”

He rolled his eyes. What kind of naivety was that? Clearly, she’d lived a very sheltered life if she believed persistence was all you needed to get what you want. Sometimes life just kicked you in the nuts for no damn good reason. “I suppose I could.”

“Could what?”

Not just naive, but slow on the uptake too. “I could introduce you to the mayor.”

“You? I thought you had to have connections to get anything done here. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No.”

She pursed her lips, clearly wanting a more elaborate explanation. She’d have to learn to live with disappointment. If there was one thing he’d learned in this new life that had been forced on him, it was that he didn’t owe anyone anything. And that included explanations.

“So how do you propose to introduce me to the mayor?”

She didn’t give up, did she? Like a mosquito buzzing in a room, tenacious and annoying. But at least the mosquito’s buzz was insistent enough to drive out the awareness of other pains.

He sighed. “I’ll drive you there in the morning, ask to see him. After that, the ball’s in your court.”

“That simple?” Kenzie’s eyes narrowed.

“That simple.” His glass seemed to have a hole in the bottom. It was already empty. Or had the barman not yet re-filled it? The mosquito buzz seemed louder now.

“If I take you to see the mayor, what do I get in return?” Rik asked, not looking at her.

“I have money,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”

He looked at her then, up and down the fragile frame encased in non-branded department store clothing. There was no way she had the kind of money that would mean anything to him. And since he not only had his inheritance, but also the rather handsome payment he’d been given to disappear, money was the last thing he needed.

“Not money.”

The blood ran to the surface of her near translucent skin. “I’m not giving you that .”