Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
With extra schmear?
Man, he hoped the ghostwriter hadn’t jotted that line down.
Kara’s sister was in way over her head.
And Jay was in his ear, tearing him a new one. Avi was in there, too. Doing his best David Bowie, accent and all.
“This is Ground Control to Major Tom…”
“You’ve been MIA all night, Jonah. And then I find you in the middle of a clash of the Hollywood Titans? What the hell?”
“Circuit’s dead…something wrong…”
“Turn your mic off if you’re gonna sing, Wolfson. Or better yet…Jonah, I’m moving us to a closed frequency.”
Jonah heard a beep, dead air, and then Jay’s voice even clearer.
“You need to stay away from Kara Koff, Jo.”
“But Jay, she –”
“She’s got her own people on board to fight her battles.
I know you want to play SuperMensch, especially after last year’s debacle.
But seriously. I’ve got enough on my plate without you turning the Baller into your own action movie.
I don’t need a class action lawsuit on my hands!
There are hundreds of people on this ship, and they are all my concern.
Reggie could’ve really capsized us this year, but Rebecca, thank God, jumped right into her old role and has righted the ship.
All of our friend crew has stepped up. Except you.
Because only one person is of concern to you. ”
He had never heard Jay so livid. He flopped into an easy chair near the line for the caricature booth, which was almost as long as the one had been for Libby’s cookies.
“I wish you’d let me explain…”
Explain what, exactly? That Kara wasn’t Kara? And that she seemed to have no own people on board? And ghosts of her sister’s co-stars past and present haunting her every time she turned around on this ship?
Jay continued to rail at him. And Jonah continued to watch the woman he had spent the entire evening with, out of the corner of his eye.
She was pacing, she was texting. She was biting her lip.
She looked so much like Rosie Bloom, all grown up and in a real jam.
What happened to smile, look pretty, wave, and fake it?
Tzipi was busy on her phone, looking up the SparkNotes’ version of every movie Kara had starred in with Hannon. Sure, she had seen them…when they premiered. But not since. And if someone in the meet and greet line asked a deep original canon question and she froze…
“You’ve got this,” she whispered to herself. “You were an actress. Rosie Bloom! You’ve done this a thousand times.”
Yeah. Fifteen years ago. When you had a script. And a waistline.
“How long does it take to get a ginger ale?” A familiar voice rang out.
It was the striking brunette from earlier, who had been overseeing the props at the photo booth. Its Broadway theme had helped them with their ruse.
Now, the woman was leaning on the doorway to the salon, a hand on her stomach. “Oh! Hey. Have you seen – whoa, dizzy spell!”
Max was on his feet in an instant, but she waved his concern away. “Nine years on this boat, that’s literally never happened before. Beck went to get me a ginger ale but the lines must be brutal. You don’t –”
The woman’s words trailed as she paled, and she sank to the ground.
“Medical cabin, Beck…now!” Max barked to someone through his mic, dropping to his knees next to the prone woman. “It’s Nora!” Whoever was on the other end of the earpiece must’ve asked a question, because he followed up with “No, meet me there.”
“Hey, Papa Bear,” Nora said weakly. “And Goldilocks!”
Tzipi watched helplessly as Max gathered the woman in his arms, hoisting her like she weighed next to nothing. Her head rolled back against his shoulder. And she smiled wanly at Tzipi hovering close by.
“You’re right, JoJo, she looks like an angel from this angle.”
“Papa Bear’s got you, Nor.”
She hurried behind them, warding off on-lookers with the push of her hand. Luckily, Max seemed to know exactly where to go.
“She fainted,” he said to the staff, as they ushered him into another room. “And she is pregnant.”
Before Tzipi could even wrap her head around this intel, a commanding woman in a blue mermaid dress touched her on the arm. “Sorry to bother you, Ms. Koff. But does this walking barf bag belong to you?”
Tzipi turned.
“Ham?”
True to his word, the security guy who’d said goodbye to her on the dock looked positively green. He tried to get up from the cot he was on, but thought better of it, clasping one hand to his mouth and the other against the wall.
“When I heard…” he rasped, “Max didn’t show, I jumped…
” A wave of nausea wrinkled his features.
“…I jumped on board to find you…and then the boat did this.” He made a violent teeter-totter motion with his arm, before smacking it back to the wall again, as if it were the only thing keeping him from rolling out of the medical bay, across the dock and right under the railing into the sea.
“I’m sorry, Miss K. I shouldn’t’ve jumped. I shoulda crawled.”
“The boat left the dock,” the woman in blue informed him. “It was a very smooth cast-off.”
“Max didn’t show…?” Tzipi echoed in a whisper.
Ham slowly shook his head, then groaned, regretting it. “His wife…went into premature labor, and…our dispatcher didn’t log the absence.”
How silly the human brain is. Because the first thought that crossed Tzipi’s mind was a disappointing one: Max is married? Followed by the realization that the guy she was thinking this entire time was Max, the guy that led her to believe he was Max, was…who the hell was he?
“Jonah!” A frantic man in a tux burst into the waiting area.
“Was a woman just brought in?” He peppered the staff. “Nora Ruben? She’s my girlfriend.” His wild gaze landed on the woman in blue, who rushed toward him. “Rebecca, is she okay? Where is she?”
“With Jonah. This way.” She guided him out without a glance back.
Max is not Max. I’ve been relying on a stranger to keep me safe…and letting him get close.
Max returned. No…not Max. His name is Jonah. Just some guy. Some rando. Probably a creepy Kara-fan.
“Alright, everything’s okay…”
“No, not okay!” Tzipi brandished her metal clutch, like a weapon. “I should have someone call security. Real security…not you, you fake rent-a-cop! Better yet…I’ll call myself.” She swiped at his radio. “If that earpiece even real!”
He dodged her flailing arm, covering his ear. “Yes, it’s real! Let me explain…”
“What? That you’ve been posing as my bodyguard, pretending this whole time –”
“I accidentally pretended. What’s your excuse?”
“Excuse me?” Outrage dueled with a prick of panic.
“You! This.” The guy gestured vaguely from head to toe. “Convincing, but…where’s Kara?”
Oh, he had some nerve! “Stay the hell away from me.”
She stormed out, blindly stumbling in the direction of fresh air. She needed air, she needed space. She needed to not be on this stupid boat with a stupid guy who had lied to her stupid face for hours.
A stranger. He knows.
The thought kept circling, a hamster wheel of humiliation.
And he’d just…kept playing along. Kept flirting.
Her heels clanged on the metal stairs toward the top deck.
She climbed higher, away from the party, away from the music, away from his stupidly sincere face trying to explain itself.
On the top, she tried to catch her breath.
A buzzing emanated from her clutch. She pulled it out with shaking hands, needing that lifeline to her sister more than anything.
But it wasn’t Kara. Max.
She had to stop calling him that. Jonah.
It was the text chain starting with the frying pan. From back when she had felt just mildly out of her depth.
Out of the frying pan now, and into the fire.
Please let me explain.
I’m sorry.
Where are you?
A white strip fluttered out of her clutch, landing at her feet.
She bent to pick it up and turned it over—the first round of photos from the booth. His white Phantom half-mask, her sequined Star Princess mask. Two people hiding in plain sight.
She'd thought she was the only one pretending.
Who was this guy? Posing behind that mask, lying about who he was. A stranger.
She shoved the strip back in her clutch before the tears could start, then deleted the messages.
Frying pan and all.