CHAPTER 2 - HAUNTED BY THE PAST

Business starts to pick up in this chapter as Kelly's old rival begins to make her presence felt later in. One of the Surfer's Paradise gang makes an appearance at the beginning of the chapter (see below) while talking via webcam with Kelly. One instance of language and a suspenseful moment near the end of the chapter, hence the T rating.


Back in her room at the Empress the following morning, Kelly was online on her laptop, having a webcam chat with Fin as they discussed the night out Kelly had with David the night before. When Fin asked what Kelly wore for her date that night, the Pirate Ship manager sent her the photo David had taken of her wearing her form-fitting little black dress. "Nice dress, Kelly," Fin said after seeing the dress on her own laptop and letting out a wolf whistle in reaction. "I can see why David dug it when he first saw it on you. Looks sexy, but classy at the same time."

"Thanks, Fin," Kelly said. "That was David's reaction too, except without the whistle. How about you and the rest of the gang, though? Thanks to Bummer making you guys work weekends now, Surfer's Paradise must be feeling more like Surfer's Purgatory."

"Sure seems that way sometimes," Fin remarked. "We've got ways of getting around Bummer though, so I'm not worried. Oh, do you wanna hear a new way you can get under Reef's skin that I just found out?"

"Sure," Kelly said. "I've never needed much reason to give him a piece of my mind."

"Okay," Fin said with a fiendish grin on Kelly's laptop screen. "Next time Reef bugs you or acts like a kook around you, just tell him 'Don't be such a Leslie'!"

"Leslie?" a puzzled Kelly asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't get it."

"That's Reef's real first name," Fin explained. "His mom told me about it. She's been here at the hotel since early this week, visiting Reef from Muskoka. She's been helping us get the 'Roach Motel' cleaned up, she baked chocolate chip cookies for the staff and Lo and I did her hair while she told us stories about 'Little Leslie'!"

Kelly began to laugh a little at Fin's tale about Reef's real name. "So what did his mom tell you?" she asked.

"When she came here," Fin began, "she brought Reef his stuffed pig that he had since he was a kid. I also found out he used to have butt rash because his mom checked him in the lobby to see if that rash was gone, and she told me and Lo while we did her hair that Reef used to wet his bed! She even showed us a photo of him back when he had braces and a bad haircut, which she put on his surfboard before she brought it out to him!"

Kelly was now laughing heartily and holding her sides as she listened to Fin's story. "Man, I would've paid big bucks to see Reef's reaction when he got his board back with that picture," she said.

"I would've too, sister," Fin said. "And that whole 'Don't be a Leslie' thing's catching on with the staff now since I started using his real name to mean the same thing as a loser or a squid. So now you know what to say to Reef if you ever need to."

"I'll keep that in mind," a still-laughing Kelly said. Just then, a knock came on her guest room door, which she had been expecting. "Excuse me a sec, Fin," she said as she got up from her chair to get the door. After checking the peephole, Kelly opened the door and let David in. "Hi, David," she said, greeting him with a small kiss before she returned to the desk where she had her laptop. "I was just chatting with Fin online when you came. She's on the webcam right now."

"Hey, Fin," David greeted the blonde tomboy as he put himself into the laptop webcam's view. "What's new?"

"Hey, David," Fin returned the greeting. "There's a lot that's new, but I'll let Kelly tell you about it. You guys got plans?"

"You bet," Kelly said. "David's taking me surfing at the beach at Beacon Hill Park just south of downtown, but I have to buy a new bikini first because I didn't bring mine along when I came here last night because I hadn't planned on going surfing until he offered to take me."

"Hey, cool," Fin said. "I heard conditions there today are just right to go hit the waves, so you're in luck. You both keeping in practice?"

"I try to catch a wave or two after work whenever it's possible," David reported. "And thanks again for those surfing lessons, Fin. They've stuck with me ever since you taught me and Kelly last time I was at the hotel."

"Anytime you want more lessons, David, just ask me and bring Kelly along," a pleased Fin told him.


Not long after finishing her webcam chat with Fin, Kelly went with David to Huntington Place, a downtown shopping mall on Douglas Street named for its main anchor tenant, Huntington's Department Store. Upon arrival, the couple went to the mall's lower level to window shop in front of a few stores, including in front of a swimwear store.

"See anything you like so far, Kelly?" David asked as he and Kelly examined some bikinis and one-piece suits in the swimwear store's window display.

"Hmm, there's some stuff here that looks promising," Kelly said, "but we'd have to go inside and see what else they have." As she continued looking at the window display, Kelly suddenly caught sight of something in the window's reflection, spotting what appeared to be a girl with long blonde hair standing in the distance just to her left, looking back at her. Thinking she was seeing things, Kelly blinked a few times, then looked in the reflection again and saw that the girl was gone, then turned around and saw no one resembling who she thought she had seen in the reflection.

Noticing Kelly turn around abruptly, David asked her, "Kelly, is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, it's nothing," Kelly replied as she turned back to David, not wanting to say anything to worry him. "I just thought I saw someone I knew. You want to head inside the store now?"

"Sure, let's go," David agreed as he and Kelly went into the swimwear store, but as they stepped inside, Kelly still had a nagging suspicion about what she thought she had seen in the window reflection.


A few minutes later, Kelly and David emerged from the swimwear store with Kelly carrying a shopping bag containing two bikinis she had bought. "Oh, this one's going to look great when we go surfing," she said as she pulled out the first bikini, which had teal and white horizontal stripes, to look at.

"Yeah, and that tartan bikini you also got looks good too," David said.

"It's going to be hard to decide which one I should wear when we head over to Beacon Hill Park," Kelly said as she put the first bikini back in her shopping bag. "Before we head there though, we should go rent a couple of boards. There's a shop not far from here that deals in surfboard rentals..."

As she was talking, Kelly was suddenly caught by surprise when a thick pink liquid came down on her head from above, splashing on her red sleeveless top. Some of the liquid ended up splashing on David's teal polo shirt as well. Gasping in shock after she was hit, Kelly snapped "What the...?", then looked up above her to the mall's upper levels to see who the culprit was.

David checked what kind of liquid had splashed onto him and Kelly, sniffing the right sleeve of his shirt where some of the pale pink stuff had landed. "Strawberry milkshake, that's what I figured," he said to Kelly.

"Ooohh, now I'm a mess!" a chagrined Kelly complained. "If this was some kid's idea of a practical joke, I'm not laughing!"

"C'mon, let's head for the washrooms and get cleaned up," David offered as he and Kelly began to walk in that direction.

"Now I'll have to get my top washed because of this," Kelly said. "And I'll have to go buy another one to wear afterward because I can't wear this one now." As she and David approached the public washrooms, Kelly began to think back to a time when a similar incident had happened to her during the first week of her senior year at her high school in Nanaimo just months earlier, which had both humiliated and angered her, and the incident that just happened in the mall moments ago started raising suspicions in her as to who did it.

Meanwhile, watching from a rail at the edge of the second level of the mall overlooking the lower level's centre court, the blonde girl who had been at the dance club watching Kelly the night before threw a milkshake cup into a nearby waste bin as she watched Kelly and David head for the washrooms. "Heh-heh-heh, worked like a charm," she said smugly with a malevolent chuckle and an evil grin. "Hope you enjoyed that milkshake, Kelly. This is only the beginning."


Although Kelly did not see who had dumped the milkshake over her head from the mall's second level, she was left with no choice but to buy herself another top to wear thanks to the drink messing up the red top she was wearing. After she finished cleaning the remnants of the milkshake off of her in the women's washroom, she and David went off to Huntington's so she could find the kind of top she wanted.

"I'm going to look for a new suit over in the men's wear section," David said to Kelly as he dropped her off by the women's change room after she picked out several tops, all of which were on sale at half-off regular price, to try on. "You'll be okay here after that milkshake incident outside earlier, will you?"

"I'll be fine," Kelly reassured David. "And take your time, I'm not in any hurry to choose a top."

"Okay, cool," David said. "If you're done before I am, meet me in men's wear and we'll head up to the Huntington's Café on the top floor for lunch, or I'll come pick you up if I'm done first."

After David left, Kelly ventured into the women's change room and into one of its stalls to try on the collection of tops she had brought in with her. Before entering her chosen stall, she left her shopping bag with the two bikinis she had bought on a chair just outside the stall door.

After several minutes of trying on the tops, Kelly decided on one she liked, a short-sleeved red top, then she stepped back out and prepared to take the other tops back to their racks. As she picked up her bikini shopping bag from the chair, however, she noticed something on the side of the bag and raised it up to see what it was. To her horror, what she saw on the bag caused her to drop it and the tops she was carrying on the floor. Coming down with a panic attack, Kelly was forced to sit down on the chair as she began hyperventilating and her hands shook. Once she settled down and began breathing normally again, she took her cell phone from her cargo shorts pocket and called David's number on speed dial. "David, come back to women's wear, quick," she said in an upset-sounding tone once David answered. "I need you."

Kelly had gathered up her bag and the tops and emerged from the women's change room just as David arrived. "Kelly, are you okay?" he asked his girlfriend out of concern. "You sounded upset over the phone."

"Take a look at this," Kelly said as she handed David her shopping bag, indicating what was on the side of the bag she saw that had spooked her. David looked at the side of the bag and was astonished to find, written in coral-colored lipstick, the word "WHORE" in capital letters. "How did this get on here?" David wondered aloud as he showed Kelly the written slur against her again.

"I don't know," Kelly, still feeling uneasy after the incident, said about the bag. "It wasn't on there when I went into the change room earlier and I left it on the chair outside my stall. I didn't even hear anything going on outside because of the background music playing in the store." After seeing the word written on the bag, Kelly had flashed back to another such incident in high school during her senior year, when she found that same word written on the door of her hallway locker as part of a smear campaign against her by a clique of so-called "popular" girls at her school.

"Well, whoever did this must've used the background music as a cover to sneak in quietly, write this on your bag and then leave without you knowing," David said. Putting his hand on Kelly's left arm to calm and reassure her, he added, "If you don't feel safe here, we should take what you want to buy and pay for it so we can get out of here. We can always grab lunch someplace else."

"Sure, good idea," Kelly said with an uneasy smile as she and David went off to return the other tops to their racks and take the top she wanted to a checkout counter to pay for it. "I'm gonna need some fresh air anyway after this."

From another part of the women's wear department, after Kelly paid for her new top at the checkout and then went with David out the store's third level entrance into the main mall and toward an elevator, the blonde girl, who had managed to stay out of Kelly and David's sight among racks of clothes, watched the couple leave Huntington's, then took a look at the coral-colored lipstick she was brandishing and snickered in satisfaction. "Nice work, real smooth," the blonde girl said to herself. "By the time I'm done with you Kelly, I'll have you so messed up you won't know which way is which. I am sooo gonna enjoy playing you like a violin again like I did back in school."


Coming up, what does the blonde mystery girl have in store next as Kelly and David hit the waves for a surfing session?