Double Rainbow

Rich turned the key in the door of his 2004 Toyota Corolla and heaved a sigh. Last night's storm had dissipated to a light sprinkle, now coating his windshield with a fine layer of opaque glitter. He reached into the car for his scraper and began attempting to rectify the situation, but it was useless. The sparkling mist was still falling. Surrendering, he dropped into the driver's seat, glitter fluttering from his clothes into every crevice of his freshly detailed car.

Damned near impossible to get the stuff out.

The windshield wipers battled valiantly against the continuous stream of glitter, to no avail. Rich gripped the steering wheel, white-knuckled, as he drove over the pass toward town. He missed the exit for the airport, his brain autopiloting him toward work. But today was not a work day.

For the first time in seventeen years, Rich was on vacation.

Andrea had insisted upon it when she'd booked her flight to visit him -- without consulting him, naturally. "How can we spend quality time together if you're working nine to five every day?" she'd whined.

Quality time, his ass. He and his sister hadn't spoken more than five words to each other in years. But her call had taken him by such surprise that he'd put in his PTO request before giving it any real thought. Her words had that sort of effect on him.

And now here he was, on his way to the airport for the first time since arriving on this island seventeen years ago, and she was probably on a plane navigating the landing pattern right this minute.

The goddamn glitter almost made him miss the exit for a second time. "Can't hardly see," he grumbled at no one, before swerving to avoid another car drifting into his lane.

By the time he'd parked along the curb at Arrivals, the pulsing veins in his forehead and his permanently creased brow were apparently enough to head off the neon-vested traffic cops trying to maintain a semblance of order in the pickup lane. Rich waited in the car, scanning the hordes of dazed tourists for a familiar face.

A shockingly orange and hot pink dress blocked his view, and Rich rolled down the window to berate its wearer --

"Oh, Rich, it's so good to see you again!" A behatted blonde woman who seemed twice Andrea's height spoke in his sister's voice. Rich peered at her quizzically. But -- yes, that was her face. A face he hadn't seen in years, a face masked by makeup and bleached hair and a frilly sunhat, but still he recognized her.

"Andrea," he said, a bit belatedly. He fumbled with the door, but she was already tapping on his rear windshield. Fine, let her and her six-inch platform wedges go ahead and wrestle that absurdly large suitcase into the tiny trunk.

She collapsed into the car with a pleased sigh. "Now that I’m here I can't believe I never visited you before. What's it been, fifteen years since we last saw each other?"

"Seventeen, I think." And three months and twenty-one days, but who was counting?

Andrea's smile didn't falter. "And now we're finally here, together. The Magic Isle, at last! I've been dying to visit, truly."

"Silly tourist-trapping nickname, that." A neon vest on its way to chastise him approached; Rich shifted the car into drive and headed for the airport exit.

"Is that glitter in your hair?" She reached across to inspect his head with bedazzled nails.

He flinched away, but in a moment of guilt attempted to disguise it as a glance into his side mirror as he merged onto the highway. "It rained earlier."

But Andrea wasn't listening. "Ooh, look! A double rainbow!" Indeed, below the mist shrouding the tops of the green mountains, two bands of refracted light formed an arch centered precisely over the road back to Rich's side of the island.

"They happen every day. The atmospheric conditions, you know. It's always raining around here."

"That's just amaz -- wait. Those aren't -- just there, sliding down the rainbow -- they're not fairies?"

Rich harrumphed. "Kids today. Don't they know this is a highway?"

"Rich." Andrea's voice had taken on a wondering, awestruck tone. "What is this place?"

"It's a volcanic rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean." Tourists, Rich thought to himself, still irritated by the crowds and cops back at the airport. If he never had to go back there again, he'd live a happy life. Andrea could take an Uber for her return flight.

She stared wide-eyed out the window at the columns of waterfalls carving creases in the bright green mountains. "I'm never leaving," Andrea said.

#

"So, what about your big, fancy LA actress life?" asked Rich over lunch in a waterfront restaurant. The storm had passed, and now the sun lit up the turquoise sea. Rich wiped sweat from his forehead and cursed the tropics.

"What about it?"

"Well, surely you're quite…attached," Rich said.

Andrea snorted. "If you're asking if I'm married yet, the answer is no, and not ever," she said. "Honestly, I thought everyone in the world knew that. Every detail of my life's practically public record." She stabbed at her smoothie bowl with a spoon, toppling the mountain of tropical fruits garnishing it.

Rich grunted in vague agreement, or disagreement. Whatever would keep her talking. The longer Andrea spoke, the longer he could avoid reciprocating.

A hummingbird appeared at their table and took a polite sip from Andrea's smoothie before zipping away to the next table. Andrea laughed in delight. "Did that bird just wink at me?"

"Birds don't wink. And that's unsanitary. I'll get the waiter --"

"No! No, it was…it was magical." Andrea's bliss practically radiated from her skin. Her smile never faded, not even when they got the bill and Rich nearly choked on his umbrella-adorned cocktail at the price.

#

"So, what do you normally like to do when you're off work?" Andrea asked that night, her feet propped up on his frayed, faded-blue couch. "I've done no research for this trip, you know, I figured you would have some ideas."

Rich hid his wince at her bright smile, her eager eyes. What sort of question was that, anyway? Rather prying, he felt.

"I'm not usually off work. This is my first vacation."

"…Ever?" Andrea laughed, as though he couldn't possibly be serious.

"Ever," confirmed the couch.

For the first time in a long time, something pierced Rich's veil of indifference.

Andrea leaped from her seat as though she'd been burned. Rich hoped she hadn't heard his yelp of surprise over the sound of her own shriek. "What the hell was that?" Andrea demanded.

Rich had witnessed some strange goings-on since moving to this island, but never in all his years had a non-sentient item -- in his own home, no less -- entered into conversation with him. "I…I think it was the couch," he said.

"I prefer 'sofa,' as per my factory label, but fine," said the couch, whose voice was rusty from disuse.

"Right," said Rich.

"I'm Andrea." His sister offered her hand before realizing that the sofa was, in fact, an article of furniture, and would not be accepting a handshake anytime soon. She dropped the hand and looked at Rich in panicked confusion.

"Hello, Andrea. Pleasure to meet you," rasped the sofa. "You've made a bit of a misstep in trusting your brother here with the itinerary. The man doesn't leave home but for work. When he is home, all he does is sit right here" -- the worn spot on the chaise section where Rich preferred to relax seemed to glow slightly -- "and watch movies all night."

Andrea's brows furrowed, her mouth slightly open. She looked at Rich, a sort of shyness in her eyes. "You…do you watch my movies?"

Of course he did.

Of course he followed every story about her in the paper.

Of course her success was the greatest -- and only -- joy in his life.

"Have to make sure you don't besmirch the family name," he said gruffly.

She choked on a laugh that might have been a sob. "That's good," she finally said. "That's nice."

"Rich, old boy," interrupted the sofa. "Why don’t you take the lady down to the beach tomorrow? Get outdoors, and that."

Rich thought of the wonder on his sister's face as they drove under the rainbow, of her amazement at the hummingbird in the restaurant. Of the joy and pride he saw in her eyes when she learned that her estranged older brother still watched her films. And it occurred to him that he'd like to be the reason she looked like that again. "You know what? I think I will."