Amy Maxwell's 6th Sense by Heather Balog

up, but you’ll have to cut me some slack. I knew this vacation was a bad idea from the get go. So if you will just stamp my ticket or scan it or whatever the heck you do, I will be out of here and on my merry way.”
    Fiona shakes her head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
    I stare at her, open mouthed. Why are the gods screwing with me today? “I can’t stay here,” I manage to whisper, those pesky tears breaking free and tumbling down my cheeks.
    “No, you’re right. You can’t,” Fiona agrees as she feverishly clicks away at her keyboard. I hear the printer on the counter whirling to life. “That’s why I’m sending you to Hawaii.” She beams at me as she slides my newly printed ticket across the counter.
    I stare at the ticket in my trembling hand. “Hawaii? By myself?”
    Fiona nods. “Yes. Ten nights and eleven days in completely uninterrupted bliss.” She steps out from behind the counter, and suddenly her arms are loaded with paperback novels. “These are all for you.”
    I accept them, clutching them to my chest, my once tears of sorrow, now turning to joy.
    “But you’ll also have to work on your blog,” she instructs with a waggle of her finger.
    “I will!” I promise as I skip down the jet bridge toward the plane destined for Hawaii.
     
    “Mom! Can you hurry up?” Lexie’s voice cuts through me like glass as I rise from the toilet bowl. God forbid I go to the bathroom without an audience, I muse. Then I remember that we only have one bathroom for this lovely vacation. This is going to be a daily occurrence.
    “I’ll be out in a minute. I’m sure you can hold it! You’re a big girl now,” I shout back while I turn the tap on to wash my hands. The water flow spurts, and then trickles. I turn it off, deciding not to wash my hands. I will most likely end up with soap caked on my palms with this lack of water pressure. Why is it that every hotel we ever visit has absolutely no water pressure?
    “I don’t have to go to the bathroom,” she calls out through the door. “We need to go get me a bathing suit!”
    “And I need shoes!” Colt chimes in.
    “And I’m out of mascara!” Allie adds.
    Are they all just standing around, waiting for me to get out of the bathroom? I’m glad I didn’t know that before I went in. I might have had performance anxiety.
    “Fine,” I say, throwing open the door. “I guess we will have to see where the nearest store is. If there even is a store.” I point to the desk that is crammed in the corner of the room. “Get the map.” I direct the statement at any one of my children who would like to oblige me. None of them move.
    Sighing, I realize I need to be more specific for my instruction-ally challenged children. “Allie, get me the map.”
    Huffing with annoyance, she stomps over to the other side of the room (the whole twenty feet), stepping over Evan, who is pretending to make a snow angel in the middle of the carpet—I shudder, the thought of bedbugs crawling all over the carpet.
    Allie throws the map book on the bed while I flip open the lid to my suitcase, searching for my own bathing suit. Might as well be prepared for the beach when we get back.
    “What do I do with it?” Allie asks as she stares at the book, like it has been retrieved from the library of a colony of lepers.
    “Open it and tell me where the nearest store is.” I head back into the bathroom to put my bathing suit on.
    “What? I don’t know how to read this!” Allie screeches at me through the door. I lean my head against the mirror. High school junior— doesn’t know how to read a map. What do they teach them in school anyway? How to text while eating a bowl of soup?
    I strip down to my bare skin and call back, “Ask your father then!”
    “He’s not here! He left when you were in the bathroom!” Allie reports.
    I start to tug the uncooperative suit over my jiggly thighs and my heart stops momentarily. How could I miss the fact that he wasn’t in the