Fly Free

Calli walked back to her beach house with a basket full of fresh groceries in one hand and strawberry ice cream in the other. She happily ate her ice cream as she pushed her sunglasses up her face. Late May in Anaheim was one of the most beautiful times of the year. The temperature was only in the late 70’s but with the cool wind it wasn't all that bad. This was her first time in California and she had never been happier.

She was able to walk the streets without any fans or paparazzi following her around. No one in America knew who she was and she loved it. She was glad that she took her agent’s advice and lied about where she was going to be on vacation. Her hit crime/drama show Deadliest Millionaires had just finished season 2. She would be heading back to Vancouver in September to start filming season 3.

She ate the last bit of her ice cream as she stepped into her beach house. She placed the basket of fresh groceries from the farmers market onto the kitchen counter and took her sunglasses off. Her older brother and sister were flying in from Edmonton that night to join her for two weeks for a fun vacation. Calli was excited to see her older siblings again since she had been so busy filming her show. She couldn't wait to catch up.

The big clock on the kitchen wall let her know that it was only five o’clock on the evening. Her siblings wouldn’t arrive for another hour or so, so she decided to kill some time and read out on the beach. She went to the beach every day since she arrived to Anaheim because she had loved it so much. She nor either of her siblings had ever been to the beach before so all three of them were excited for this vacation.

She grabbed a beach towel from the linen closet as well as a new book she had bought earlier that week before heading to the beach. It was right in her own backyard and was less than a quarter of a mile away. The beach wasn’t too crowded since the locals were able to go to the beach any time they wanted. It was noisy enough for her to not feel alone but quiet enough for her to concentrate on her book.

Her nose was buried deep into her book until a Frisbee hit her from a distance. She abruptly dropped her book into the sand and covered her forehead as the spot where the Frisbee had hit her began to throb. She quickly rubbed the spot, doing everything she could to get it to stop hurting.

“Shit, are you alright!?”

Calli winced as the stranger grabbed her wrist to remove her hand from her forehead. The cut wasn’t too bad but there was some blood coming out of it; the stranger knew it had to hurt like hell.

“Of course she’s not alright Dave! You hit her with a god damn Frisbee!” The other man scolded.

“It was an accident!” David swore. “Hey, how many fingers am I holding up?” He asked her, holding up three fingers.

She squinted her eyes as she looked up at him. She could barely see his face with the sun being in her eyes. “Three,” she answered.

“Come with us and we’ll get you cleaned up,” David said, helping her off of the ground.

She shook her head as the other man picked her things up for her. “It’s okay, really. I live right over there,” she pointed in the direction of her house, but neither of the men knew which house she was pointing to.

“Can I at least clean up the blood?”

Calli agreed to his gesture and followed David and the other man to where their cooler was. There was a third man sitting on the sand as he waited for his friends. Once they reached their spot, David pulled out a water bottle from the cooler and told Calli to sit down on top of it. The next thing she knew, she felt a cold compress to her head.

She winced as David carefully wiped the blood off of her forehead. He apologized to her even though she knew he was only trying to help. Once standing up from the cooler, the second man handed her things over to her. She thanked him and gave him a light smile as he smiled back.

“Thanks for uh, cleaning my head up.”

David grinned, “Sorry for hitting you in the head. Are you going to be okay walking back by yourself?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Just make sure you don’t hit anyone else in the face, alright?”

She waved goodbye to the three men and walked back to her beach house. She tossed her things onto the kitchen table before walking to her bathroom where she had a little first aid kid. She put some ointment on the cut and a band aid over it as she heard a car horn coming from the driveway. A big smile was plastered on her face as she ran back down the stairs.

Her older brother walked through the front door with a bag over his shoulder. Once seeing his baby sister, he threw the bag onto the floor and hugged her tightly. He squeezed her and lifted her off of the ground as their oldest sister walked through carrying the rest of the bags. It was a typical move for James to leave it to their oldest sister to carry everything up.

“What the hell happened to your face?” James asked, looking down at his baby sister.

She groaned, “Some guys were playing Frisbee on the beach and hit me in the head.”

“I wasn’t talking about that, I was talking about the rest of your face!”

Calli rolled her eyes and roughly pushed James out of the way as he laughed at his own stupid joke. Her oldest sibling greeted her with a hug almost as tight as James’. “Nice place you picked out here,” Lucy smiled. “Are you really spending the whole summer here?”

“I’m going to try to,” Calli responded, “Everyone else thinks I’m in Italy.”

Shortly after, Calli showed her siblings to the rooms that they would be sleeping in for the next two weeks. Lucy was excited to see a big bathtub in her bathroom while James was excited that he had the perfect view of the beach from his room. The girls had no doubt that he would try and check out a few girls while he stayed.

She let them settle in before she and Lucy got started on dinner. The girls were busy chopping away as James came down eating the rest of the beef jerky he had bought while they were at the airport. He sat at the breakfast bar that had a smooth, marble counter top. He drummed his fingers against the cool counter as he watched his sisters cook.

“So, do you plan on visiting home anytime soon or are you going to stay here all summer?” James asked.

Calli shrugged her shoulders as Lucy glanced over at her. “I don’t know. It’s not like I never see mom and dad. Vancouver is only an hour and a half away by plane.”

“Mom is always complaining how you never visit enough,” Lucy added. “Maybe you should at least visit for a week or so.”

She rolled her eyes at her older siblings. “She’s acting like I never call or Skype them.”

“You Skype and call dad, not her,” James corrected. “You know how mom is. If you don’t show her enough attention as you do with dad, she gets jealous.”

Calli rolled her eyes as Lucy ordered her to stir the contents in the pot. “What’s the point? She and I always fight about something.”

Lucy gave James a warning look, telling him to not say anything else to Calli because she didn’t want their two week vacation to be ruined. They didn’t have to pay for a thing expect for their passports because their baby sister had been so generous to pay for everything. Instead of sitting around, James decided to go set the table out on the back patio as his sisters finished up with dinner. He stayed outside for the rest of the time until his sisters came out with dinner.

Calli loved the warm feeling of the sun hitting her face as she ate dinner. As much as she loved Canada and was a proud native, nothing could beat the warm California sun. She had been eating out on the patio every day for the past week and she wished she could do it more often. She was going to do the best she could to convince her siblings to do as many outdoor activities as they could during their stay.

Half way through their dinner, Lucy and Calli were holding their stomachs from laughing so hard. James was telling one of his famous stories that always made his sisters laugh. Calli couldn’t even remember the last time she had laughed to the point where she was nearly in tears. After they ate and cleaned up their dishes, Calli convinced them to go out to some ice cream shop she fell in love with. Luckily for their full stomachs, the shop was only four blocks away. She was even there earlier that day.

She stood off to the side, looking at a few pictures on the wall as she drank her milkshake. Her brother James was paying for their ice cream while he was waiting for his sundae.

“So your head looks a lot better.”

Calli quickly turned around with the straw in her mouth to see who was talking to her. She scrunched her eyebrows together as she looked up at the man who stood before her. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“My name is Sam. My friend David hit you in the head earlier at the beach.”

Her eyes widened in recognition. He was the one who gathered her things together for her. “Oh! I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

“Don’t worry about it, there was a lot going on. How’s your head doing?” He asked before scooping his ice cream into his mouth.

She smiled as she pushed her hair out of the way to show him the band aid. “It’s a little better, I think. It still hurts a lot though.”

“Put some ice on that and you’ll be fine in no time. Listen, I gotta run. I told my friends I’d meet them for drinks. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, maybe. Thanks again for helping me.”

Sam gave her a smile before exiting the ice cream shop. She joined her brother and sister as they were already seated eating their frozen treats. James was like a five year old and had ice cream stains in the corner of his mouth. Lucy just gave Calli a look and rolled her eyes at James’ childlike manner.

Lucy smacked her lips together after licking them clean. “So what are we gonna be doing for the next two weeks, baby sis?”

Calli shrugged her shoulders as she took James’ spoon out of his hands. “I don’t know yet,” she said, scooping some ice cream onto the spoon and eating it. “There’s a lot of carnivals and stuff we can do,” she handed the spoon back to James as she could already feel his glares on her. “You guys just need to be careful on what you post on twitter. I told my fans I was in Italy and I can’t be seen in any pictures you post up.”

Her siblings nodded at her, saying that they understood. It was amazing how many followers they had gained on twitter for just being related to Calli. They talked about some of the outdoor activities they could do for the next two weeks while they ate their ice cream. They even took their time walking back home where James ended up buying some beers at the nearest convince store.

Once arriving at the beach house, they took the beers out onto the patio and finished off the small six pack. Lucy suggest that they’d watch a movie before headed to bed for the night where they even let Calli pick out the movie. Minus the warm weather, she felt like she was back in time to the summers where she and her siblings would stay up late to watch movies. This time they didn’t have their mother yelling at them to go to bed.

She had a feeling that this summer would be different from the rest.

A couple of days into their vacation, Lucy and Calli were laying out on the sand working on their tan, as if they really needed it. The Cardinal family were Native Americans and basically had a base tan all year round.

James jogged over to his sisters after a match of volleyball with a few strangers that he had met. While Calli’s eyes were shut tightly to block the sun, he bent down and picked her up to throw her over his shoulder. She kicked her legs and yelled at James to put her back down because she knew what he was up to. As they got closer and closer to the water, Calli begged him to not throw her in. But being the mischievous older brother that he was, he wasn’t going to let her get away that easily.

He threw Calli into the water as far as he could before running back to get Lucy. She was already running back into the house by the time she realized what was going on. Calli stood with the water up to her knees as she could see James grab a hold of Lucy. She was partly frustrated with James but knew that he was just trying to have fun. As she walked out of the water, the same Frisbee that had hit her in the head a few days before was laying on the sand.

Seconds later, a cute little dog trotted up to fetch the Frisbee. “Hi there, cutie!” She grinned widely as she pet the eager dog. He let out a loud bark before he licked her fingers, making her giggle in the process.

“Hey Jimmy! I see you made a new friend!”

Calli smirked up at Sam as she stood up to hand him the Frisbee that Jimmy had forgotten all about. “You guys really need to be careful with this thing,” she said as she placed the bright yellow Frisbee in his hand. “Cute dog that you have here.”

“He’s not mine. He belongs to David, the one who actually hit you in the head,” Sam reminded her. James finally came running with Lucy over his shoulder to throw her into the water as well. Lucy was feistier than Calli was and ended up bringing him down in the water with her. “Your friends seem…nice.”

“They’re my siblings,” she said with a sigh. “I think you guys just played volleyball with my brother James.”

Sam nodded as he wiped his sweaty forehead. “He’s a pretty cool guy, I mean you both are. You guys should come to our cookout later if you’re interested. I promise there won’t be any Frisbees!”

Calli smiled and agreed to the invitation. Sam gave her the address of where he and his friends would be staying at, which was only five houses down. He told her that she and her siblings could arrive around 5 o’clock but they wouldn’t be eating until almost six. He waved goodbye with Jimmy following close behind him as James continued to dunk Lucy in the water. While James was preoccupied with Lucy, she took the opportunity to lay back down on her towel to dry off.

She could hear Lucy yell at James from the distance as she read her book. It was only the middle of the day and there was still plenty of time before she and her siblings had to get ready to head to Sam’s house. She flinched as she felt James plop down beside her, sending water droplets to splatter on her book. She sent him a little glare but he made nothing of it since she and Lucy always gave him that face.

After spending another hour on the beach, Lucy suggested that they’d head inside for lunch. There were enough bathrooms in the beach house for each sibling to use. Yet they still found themselves racing each other like there was only one bathroom. She and her siblings found themselves doing things that they used to do as children and it felt like no time had passed at all. She knew that once the two weeks were over, she would be asking them to return again.

Once showering, Calli sat at the kitchen table while Lucy made lunch. She was checking her Twitter since it had been a few days since she had last been online. She replied to a few fans before making a tweet about how she loved Italy and didn’t want to leave. She felt guilty for lying to her fans because she truly did love them but she loved how she could walk around without being noticed. Shortly after making the tweet, James finally walked into the kitchen with his shirt tossed over his shoulder.

“You can judge me all you want but I’ll always be me!” He sang as he slipped his shirt on.

She gave him an unimpressed look as he sat across from her. “Are you really singing a song from that kid movie I did?”

“I’ll always love myself for who I am!” He continued to sing, making Lucy laugh quietly as Calli flashed him the finger.

Regardless of being annoyed with James, Calli even found herself chuckling. The movie that which she was referring to was the animated Disney movie Aqua which was a spin-off of the movie Frozen. She played the main character named Serena, who just like Elsa, got judged for having powers. Even with the movie being released worldwide, Calli hardly ever got recognized because she wasn’t physically in the movie. If anyone recognized her, it was because of her television show.

After lunch was all cleaned up, Lucy decided to bake a pie to bring to the cookout. Calli was excited because she loved it whenever Lucy baked. She made the best blueberry pies in the world and Calli wanted nothing more than to eat the pie. The two sisters went to the local farmers market and picked up a few fresh ingredients while James went to go take a nap.

On their way back to the beach house, Calli’s cell phone rang from its position in the cup holder. Looking at the caller ID, she rejected the call and carefully tossed it back into the cup holder. Lucy raised her eyebrows as she drove the car.

“Everything alright?”

“Derek called,” Calli groaned. “This is the second time today he called me.”

“Just answer him. What harm could it do?”

Calli scoffed, giving her sister an “are you kidding me” look. Just the mention of his name made her blood boil. It was her summer vacation and she didn’t want to deal with him at the moment. Derek used to be one of her co-stars on their show Deadliest Millionaires but his character got killed off by the end of season one.

She and Derek dated during season one of their show but broke things off when Derek was offered a lead role in a movie. He thought the movie role was his big break, which is why he chose to leave the show. In the end, the movie flopped and he had been trying to get work ever since. Calli and some of her other co-stars believed that Derek was getting in contact with her again just so he could use her to get another job.

“I can’t wait for tonight,” Calli said with a sigh. “I hope Sam has beer.”