Hello Adventure

Chapter 16 - Marrakesh, Morocco

"You're where?!" My thumbs stabbed the phone screen.

A few nights later, I went to text Brooke to remind her of the next day's flight time, when she texted me saying she was already at the airport en route to Marrakesh:

"I changed my flight so I could fly out with Dale tonight. But don't worry: I'll see you at the first shoot. XO sugar tits!"

I cursed aloud. Why, oh why, did I have to open up my dumbass mouth and encourage Brooke to run away with Dale? I didn't mean for her to do it right now! I thought it went without saying that she had to finish up her commitments here and get divorced first—and then she'd be free to run off into the sunset with Dale whenever she damn well pleased.

I face-palmed myself. Even though I had been up Brooke's ass for the last few days I had still managed to lose her. I swear I was one step away from getting her one of those kiddie leashes.

The original plan was for Dale to fly out alone tonight so he could get started on the Doux Marrakesh desserts, whereas the rest of us would stay in Italy and finalize the last of the work. But now that Brooke flew the coop, she'd be completely out of my control up until I landed tomorrow afternoon and corralled her.

I took a break from text-yelling at Brooke to get on the phone to the airlines to see if I could make Brooke and Dale's evening flight out of Milan, but there was no way I'd make it time-wise. There was nothing to be done. So the next day I was with Leo, Samuel, and Cairo at the airport. No one got us upgraded, but I gladly sat in coach next to Samuel and Cai and reviewed our shoots for Marrakesh at the next hotel, La Sultana.

Brooke's blog was pretty useless in terms of preparing me for Marrakesh ("Summer Sweaters: How to look cool when it's hot as balls in Morocco" and "How to Accessorize your Caftan So It Doesn't Look Like A Tragic Muumuu"), but Cai knew a lot about it having been to Tangiers, Casablanca, and Marrakesh before. (The names alone were enough to have me rippling with excitement.) Cai was starting to get comfortable speaking to me now, and I felt bad for writing him off as shy. Sure he was soft-spoken, but after sitting beside him on the plane, I soon learned he was also clever.

It was another thing traveling gave me: more time with strangers I claimed I had nothing in common with. I was learning to enjoy the in-between spaces—the nowhere-lands stretching from one destination to the next. These hours in the airport; the long thundering train rides through mountain byways; the uncomfortable backseats of a stop-go-stop-go taxis; and the ripped-off chunks of time spent whizzing through the heavens so fast that you're not sure you're even moving—I was rarely alone in these liminal places.

It's funny what happens when you start talking to those strangers who are on the road beside you. That day, had I not been forced to sit next to Cairo on the plane, I would have never heard what he said next.

"So you know how places are like people, right?" he asked me then, as the plane soared down the coast of Spain toward North Africa. It was a brilliant blue day—perfect for a joyride through the skies. "So like, Lake Como is a woman who knows how hot she is, she's blatant, deliberate."

"So true—I fell in love with her at first sight," I admitted to him. "And I'm still thinking about that hot bitch!" I said, recognizing that I was starting to sound more like Brooke with each passing day I hung out with her.

Cai smiled, his irises wet and brown-black like morello cherries. "But wait until you meet Marrakesh. She's much more mysterious. Yes, you may fall in love with Marrakesh at first sight too—she is enigmatic and a little bit dangerous in the most compelling way—but it will take you years to get to really get to know her. You'll see."