*** Beth ***

Beth had always assumed that if Fate singled her out of the crowd it would be to hit her with a meteorite.

"You won," whispered her sister, Ray, disbelief oozing from both words. "You won!" she shouted, this time ecstatic. She started jumping up and down, pushing on Beth's back. "I can't believe it, you actually won!"

This couldn't be happening, right? A meteor was going to come crashing through the ceiling any second now.

Ray continued running the gamut of emotions for her, which was handy, because so far Beth was not able to register the fact that she was the grand prize winner of an All Expenses Paid Vacation for Two in Paradise—Hawaii, specifically.

"And will the lucky lady step on up and claim her prize?" the graying announcer called on the microphone, waving Beth to the stand with the winner's coupon. "Step on up, that's right, I don't bite, although sometimes I nibble," he said with a wink to several violet-haired senior women sitting in front. "I'll take that and you...can have...this!" He took Beth's winning stub and placed the glossy picture of a sandy beach and aquamarine ocean in her uncooperative hands. Huge gold letters across the blue sky spelled out, Paradise is waiting for you! Lackluster applause pattered from the crowd in the food court. Most of the people were there because they had wanted to win the vacation.

"So tell me," he continued, squeezing her shoulders, "what's your name?"

My name? she wondered.

"It's Frances!" Ray shouted from the floor.

"Frances, huh? What a lovely name, for such a lovely girl." he said, hamming it up for his admirers.

"That's not actually my name, that's my sister being....It's our Aunt's name....I don't know why she...." What she really wanted to tell everyone at that exact moment was that the last six months of her life had been so incredibly awful that she was sure this was some kind of Twilight Zone nightmare where you think that finally, for once, something great has happened to you, but by the end of it you are up to your neck in a sand pit about to be devoured by amphibious sharks flopping out of the ocean. Plus, she was considered to be an intelligent person, in case the audience had any well-founded doubts.

"Your real name, sweetheart?"

"Beth. My name is Beth and I am so happy to have won. I really can't believe it. This is so amazing. Thank you and thanks to the Heart's Desire Travel Agency for giving this to me," Beth said, nodding like a bobble-head.

"All right then; another round of applause for our big winner! Isn't she lovely? Well, she's not the only lovely lady here tonight, and we've got some more great prizes to give away from the Denver Mountain View Shopping Mall!"

Beth found her way off the stand and back to her sister's side in a daze. She had never won anything in her life, as far as she could remember. In fact, she usually had fairly bad luck with even basic contests like Easter egg hunts.

"This is so amazing. Hold it up, I have to take your picture." Her sister shoved her phone in Beth's face and snapped a shot. "I'm calling Mom. I have to post this. Who are you taking? Say you'll take me—please, please, please!"

"No. Stop, Ray. Post the picture and calm down for a minute. And no, I am not taking you, so don't ask. I have a year to figure this out and get there, but I am most definitely taking someone more my own age and not in the family."

"A year? How could you wait a year? You should go tomorrow! Look at that picture, can't you just feel the sand and the sun and the ocean waves...and the tan coming on?"

"I am feeling it and I would like to feel it with someone...whose company is relaxing," Beth said. She watched Ray's pointer finger jabbing her phone furiously to post the picture and tell everyone the news in her Connections sphere. A paid vacation for two. What was she going to do with it? Go twice? Now there was a thought. Beth loved Ray to death, but honestly, a week at the beach with a bouncing teenager screaming, 'Oh. My. Gawd!' every two minutes? Who needed that kind of punishment?

Seriously, though, could she invite anyone besides her sister? She mentally ran through the list of everyone she was friends with or at least didn't have to duck into the bathroom to avoid talking to. That was the problem; she couldn't think of anyone she could invite. She would not be going with Brian—that was the bitter truth. Her two best girlfriends were recently married, her sister was the previously-mentioned teenager and her mother, well, her mother was not exactly relaxing vacation material, either. Maybe someone from work....

"Look at this, I've already got eight party balloons for my post! Buy me an iced latté!" Ray squealed.

Beth took her sister's arm and firmly steered her out of the too-bright food court and towards the parking lot. She needed a drink and for that, she would have to go home. Nothing better than watching a black and white movie and having a drink to celebrate, she mused. She ignored her sister's excited chattering on the drive to their mother's and finally dropped her off in the driveway.

Only a little while later, she reached her own house where one Roman Coke turned into two fairly quickly. She enjoyed a spiced rum and coke, or Roman Coke as her dad used to say before he passed on, with her movie nights. Movie nights were pretty much every night.

"Here's to you, Dad! The best dad a girl ever had," she lifted her glass high. From her spot deep in the sofa, she waved the drink around in front of the TV screen where the crazy aunts in Arsenic and Old Lace were giving poisoned elderberry wine to an unsuspecting gentleman. Not a single day had gone by since her father passed away that she had not regretted losing the only truly caring man she knew. Plus, he was buried in some cemetery an hour's drive from the city. If she could go back in time, she would try to talk her mom into putting him in the cellar.

Two drinks must have turned to three or four or maybe five during the movie and, before she knew it, she was waking up on her sofa, the TV still on, eyes gummy, mouth dry, and thoughts cloudy.

What time was it? She tried to focus, but only managed to roll onto the floor. Her watch informed her it was 8:18. Not even that late. She turned off the TV, but the house seemed unusually quiet and she was still feeling disoriented. Something was not right. Something was off. Yesterday, she had gone to the mall and won the vacation prize. That was all right. Winning stuff was good. The giveaway had been held on Thursday. Yes, definitely on Thursday. She collapsed, face-palming the scratchy carpet.

She had to be at work in twelve minutes.

*** Russell ***

Russell started Friday exactly the same as every other day during the week or on the weekend.

By 5:10, his eyes were staring at the ceiling and he was asking himself if he was going to get up, or just lay there and wish he were somewhere else for a while. Twenty minutes later, he got out of bed and wandered into his basement to cut out the next piece of the wooden cabinet he was making with his circular saw.

By 7:30, he was at work, staring at his computer screen, clicking through his emails and rechecking a couple of deadlines for various articles he was supposedly writing. He was writing the articles, he corrected himself, not supposedly writing them. He just wasn't writing them yet, and he did not have very many more days before he had to give his finished pages to his editor. Nothing like good old-fashioned procrastination to spark inspiration. Colleagues went by his desk and he very politely said good-morning to each of them.

By 8:15, he finished his fourth cup of coffee. He had quit smoking recently, and taken up coffee and woodworking to replace the cigarettes. He was also staring into space more often, he realized as he poured his fifth cup, catching himself studying the speckled grey and white wall paneling. Quitting smoking had not been too hard or much of a loss; he had only been smoking for about four years, and he originally had taken up the habit to fill the empty air around him. It had been comforting to see the smoke curling up and outwards in thin tendrils throughout the empty space. Now he was staring at where the smoke used to be.

By 8:27, he was sitting in the meeting office at the end of the hallway, waiting for Jerry to start the day's project meeting.

By 8:30, the meeting had started. He fiddled with his laptop, taking notes and pulling up his calendar, saying yes or no whenever someone asked him a question.

By 8:43, Beth arrived. Finally. She was one of the few reasons he was still working at the magazine, or working at all. Of course, she was married. She would be; the voluptuous, delicious, enticing female that she was. She tried to hide her feminine curves under straight-cut business suits, to keep others from noticing that she was a woman by pulling her hair back and frowning with dead seriousness while everyone rehashed the same old article ideas. She talked quietly and earnestly about enhancing her portfolio and taking advantage of career opportunities, but then she would accidentally laugh too loudly at randy jokes Donna or Mike told. He knew she was hiding who she truly was from the world and maybe from herself. He was an adept at hiding, himself.

In some other life, maybe he would discover what she was hiding and who she was. He would enjoy being able to open the locked boxes in her soul one by one and pouring through the contents, cherishing those little secrets she would certainly reveal. Some other life, some other place, perhaps. He pretended to take notes while she apologized to everyone and took a chair.

Something that Erica had once said popped into his head. "For the love of all that is holy, if I have something weird on my face, let me know. Finding it myself the next time I go to the bathroom is ten times worse than the embarrassment of being told."

***

Welcome, readers!

There are two things you should know about Two Tickets to Paradise before you continue:

#1: This story is part of the Paid Stories program. In other words, there are several free chapters to go, and then the rest of the story must be unlocked with coins. This means that I, the writer, will be earning money for the story I created and worked on for months, which is great, because I can continue doing what I love most, and you get a hot romance!

#2: About the hot romance...there is steam ahead, involving, shall we say *cough* tropically hot, adult situations? You've been warned. Get a cold and drink and turn on the fan.

This story was inspired by the year I spent in Hawaii among the palm trees and on the beaches. The islands are beautiful and the people are wonderful, we all need to protect and appreciate the incredible beauty of nature that is around us and sustaining us every day. Enjoy!