Part III

Candace and friends are off to Australia for a three-week internship at an urban Brisbane youth hostel. The journey poses challenges for which the trio are completely unprepared. Will serendipity bring Candace and Dake back together - or will she discover that true love has been on her doorstep this whole time? Hearts will break and heads will roll (figuratively speaking) in the third installment of Sand, Sugar, and Salt.

Chapter 25: Email Correspondence

Auntie,

Our first week in Brisbane has been fantastic. Exhausting, yes, but fantastic. Belinda needs all hands on deck this time of year. I'm just glad we can be here to help.

You wouldn't believe how many kids move through this place in a week. I've met kids from Israel, Russia, the Philippines, South Africa, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain... There are others, but I can't think of them right now.

Maybe it's just because of the stark contrast, but it seems like December in Australia is hotter even than the hottest July in Sweet Amoris. Everyone in the city decorates their storefronts and apartment balconies with Christmas lights, just like they do back home. They even decorate evergreen trees - sometimes with palm fronds and ferns mixed in.

Nathaniel was off to a slow start, but I think he's finally adjusting now. Lysander likes to go see the sights around the city in his spare time. I don't know where he finds the energy.

To answer your questions, no, the water in the toilets does not swirl the other way down here, and yes, Steve Irwin jokes are still taboo. (I don't think there will ever be a time when Steve Irwin jokes will be okay.)

I'll check in with you again before Christmas. I want to hear all about the parties you've been working!

Love you and miss you,
Candace

Satisfied with my message, I hit 'send.'

I sat in a broken swivel chair front of one of four clunky desktops in the rec room of the youth hostel. All of them were occupied and had at least two kids anxiously waiting, so I had to hurry.

I heaved an exhausted sigh and composed a new email in which I could confidently bare my soul. The story I told Auntie was much more lighthearted and optimistic than the one I would tell Castiel.

Castiel,

How have you been? I'm doing fine, except I'm kind of in misery.

I know you don't especially care, but Nathaniel just keeps getting worse. I think it's because he regressed and started abusing Amber's Ritalin again for finals, and now that he's away, he's had to quit cold turkey. It's making him nauseous to the point where he can't keep meals down anymore - which is disruptive. And disgusting. We've been here for a whole week, so it's getting harder to vouch for him by blaming it on jet lag.

Speaking of vouching for people, what exactly does Lysander think he's doing, sneaking off before work and not coming back until after dark? I haven't seen him hardly at all the past few days. I've tried to ask him what's going on, but he keeps making up excuses that don't make any sense. I don't want him to get in trouble with Belinda - or worse, with the law. If it's none of my business, fine - but if he's doing something stupid, try to talk some sense into him, will you?

Anyway... Christmas is coming up on Tuesday. Like I said before, Auntie will feed you if you go visit her. (If that burnt-up shingle you called a grilled cheese sandwich is the extent of your cooking abilities, it's probably been too long since you had a decent home-cooked meal.) I'm sure she'd be happy to see you, even if I'm not there. Any friend of mine is a friend of hers, she said.

Until next time...

Always,
Candy

I logged out of my email account and let the French girl waiting to use the computer take my seat. "Sank you," she mumbled tiredly.

"De rien," I replied, but she couldn't hear me over the ruckus. A foursome of Portuguese boys at the other end of the room were loudly taunting each other over what seemed like a very complicated card game.

The rec room consisted of the Internet terminals, a few round tables and threadbare upholstered chairs, a milk crate overflowing with outdated magazines, and a wall-mounted display with slots for colorful brochures and maps. I walked out into the lobby, which was empty at the moment, since it was just a few minutes after noon. Once the rush hour traffic in the street outside died down, the lobby would be full again with tour groups, classes on field trips, and young couples honeymooning on a budget. I had been looking forward to interacting with all these kids - talking to them, learning from them - but for the past week, the extent of my interaction with them was cleaning up after them. Most of them ignored me completely, but when they did talk to me, they assumed I was stupid or braindead.

This wasn't at all what I'd had in mind when I first read the flyer back at Sweet Amoris.

I felt foolish and small. I'd allowed myself to believe not only that I was going on a fun-filled adventure, but that along the way I could actually find Dake. But real life wasn't like a made-for-T.V. movie. All I'd found so far were blistered fingers, sore muscles, and a heavy, homesick heart.

And, to make matters worse, I missed Dake more than I ever had. The pain of pining for him had been dulled somewhat back at Sweet Amoris, with day-to-day schoolwork and my new friends to take my mind off of him. Now, I lived and breathed the memories, hearing the familiar inflection of his voice every time an Australian spoke.

"There you are, Candy!"

I flinched when I heard Belinda call my name. Belinda, the manager of the Brisbane Loving Arms and my temporary boss, came into the lobby, her tan face screwed up into an accusatory frown. The slender, athletic thirty-something wore a blue polo shirt embroidered with the Loving Arms logo - the same as the ones Lysander, Nathaniel and I were given to wear, only ours were yellow. She automatically called me "Candy," just like all the other Australians I'd met so far. Apparently, giving people diminutive nicknames was a cultural thing.

I always thought Dake called Candy because... because he...

Belinda knew she only had three weeks to take advantage of her new interns, so she saddled us with the grunt work her Australian employees wouldn't do: dusting the baseboards, scraping the black scuffs off the walls with a sponge, bussing tables and washing dishes in the canteen, disposing of uneaten food. All too often, since Nathaniel was sick and Lysander was AWOL, I would end up doing the work of three people all by myself.

Today, it seemed, was going to be one of those days.

"Where'd your friend Lysander run off to?" she asked incriminatingly.

"Um... I'm sure he'll be along. Probably stepped out for a smoke," I contrived, even though Lysander didn't smoke.

Belinda shook her head disapprovingly. "At least they sent me one good one," she mumbled, not intending for me to hear. "Alright... It looks like we've got a group of thirty American kids coming in this afternoon. They'll need thirty and thirty-four clean before they get here."

I counted on my fingers, trying to figure out how many bunk beds were in the rooms she specified. Both were the largest kind the hostel offered, meant to sleep twelve to eighteen. "Those are both still dirty from those choir kids that checked out earlier. When is the American group supposed to be here?"

"Fifteen minutes ago. I'd get started straight away, if I were you."

I nodded reluctantly and went to retrieve the cleaning supplies, trying to stifle my quickly increasing animosity.

When Lysander comes back, I thought angrily, I swear I'm going to gag him with a toilet brush.