Chapter Three
Three
“You’re here early,” Nina said when I arrived on deck the next morning.
She sat at a table in the galley, polishing a knife with alarming energy.
I looked between her and Ollie, taking in his rigid body language as he wiped down the counters.
I’d missed either a fight or a make-out session. Maybe both.
I set my purse on the counter. “I couldn’t stand to be away from you,” I said.
Truthfully, my condo had been too quiet.
All morning I’d moved through my usual routine but found myself restless, fixating on the electricity humming through the walls, my pulse thudding in my ears.
I’d stepped onto the patio to make sure my plants were still alive.
My neighbor, Belva, took care of them during charter season, and I’d been both relieved and angry to see they were even better than I’d left them.
The camellia shrub was heavy with blossoms, and the sword lilies were tall and vibrant.
Work, even with a pissed-off Nina, was better than letting my sadness and anger expand into the silence.
The guests for that day’s charter were four college friends celebrating twenty years of friendship with a cruise down to Miami.
They were fun but high-maintenance. And not only was I adjusting to having one less stewardess, but Nina and Ollie refused to speak to each other, leaving me to relay messages between them.
Ollie’s mood deteriorated even more when the guests asked if we could throw a “Boob Funeral,” to mourn the perky breasts of their youth, and requested a breast-shaped cake.
“I didn’t train at culinary school to make fecking boob cakes,” he muttered, and I sprinted from the galley before he could direct his anger at me.
When I wasn’t mixing drinks or trying to avoid being flashed by the guests, who, for being disappointed with their middle-aged breasts, sure didn’t mind showing them off, I was busy crafting a boob-shaped pinata and filling it with miniature bottles of tequila.
After lunch, when RJ took the guests out on the Jet Skis, Nina finally radioed for me to take my break.
I hadn’t had a chance to catch my breath all morning and collapsed onto my bunk for a twenty-minute nap, then wandered into the crew mess for some food.
Sitting at the counter with a peanut butter sandwich, I picked up my phone for the first time since arriving at work and noticed several notifications, all from one person—my niece Mia.
I scrolled through the messages, my anxiety growing with each one.
Landing!
Where are you?
JO!
WTF JO!
***
I called Mia, leaving my half-eaten sandwich on the counter. Did she mean landing here, as in Palm Beach, here?
“What the hell?” Mia said, answering on the first ring. “We’ve been waiting for you for hours.”
“Not hours,” Kitty, her younger sister, said. “One hour and eleven minutes.”
“Whatever. Too long.”
“Waiting for me where?” I asked.
“At the airport, duh.”
The airport? The girls and Samson had come down for a few weeks every summer since I’d moved to Florida, but I’d assumed that wasn’t happening this year. The last time I’d seen them was the first week in March, when I’d come up for Samson’s funeral.
“Is your mom there?” I asked. Maybe it was a surprise. Or perhaps a spur-of-the-moment family vacation.
“Uh, no,” Mia said, sounding as if it were the dumbest thing she’d ever heard.
“Which airport?” I asked.
“The Palm Beach airport.”
“It’s the Palm Beach International Airport,” Kitty said.
“Kitty, shut up.”
I ran over the conversations I’d had with Beth lately.
She hadn’t said anything about the girls visiting this summer.
And then our phone call from the day before came to mind.
Are you ready? Do you need me to send anything?
I’d thought she was talking about the end of charter season.
But now, everything made sense. Beth and Mark were taking a break from the girls, not from each other. A small relief.
I tried to keep the panic from my voice. “How long are you down for?”
“All summer,” Mia said. “So Mom and Dad can work things out. Which means they’re definitely getting a divorce.”
Divorce? My relief deflated in an instant.
“They are not getting a divorce! Stop lying!” Kitty whined.
“Are you coming to get us or what? I’m starving,” Mia said.
Right. I looked out the window of the crew mess. We were in the middle of the ocean. No way Captain Xav would turn the boat around for a scheduling hiccup. “I’m sort of on the yacht right now. I don’t know how to get you.”
“Seriously, Jo?” Mia said. “Haven’t you ever heard of Uber? Just text me your card info.”
“I—”
“Do you have a key under the mat?”
“No, but Belva has a spare.”
“Well, can you call her and have her let us in?”
An image of the girls getting kidnapped by a seedy Uber driver came to mind. “Can minors even use Uber?”
Ollie, who’d wandered into the crew mess, gave me a confused look, but I waved him off.
“Minors with fake IDs can,” Mia said.
Oh God. “Listen, I’m going to send Belva to get you. She’ll let you into the condo. And I’ll text my card info so you can order some food,” I added, thinking of my bare kitchen cabinets. I’d need to “borrow” provisions from the boat—milk, cereal, and maybe a bag of chips to bring home.
“Ugh, fine,” Mia said, hanging up without so much as a goodbye.
I set my phone on the counter, staring at it until it vibrated again with another text from Mia.
Card info?
“Right.” I dug my wallet from my purse and snapped a photo of my credit card. Then I called Belva, who was more than happy to pick up the girls.
“What was that about?” Ollie asked when I’d finished talking to Belva, but thankfully Nina’s voice called for me over the radio.
“Go for Jo,” I radioed back.
“The guests are in the Sky Lounge and very inebriated. Can you head up here?”
“On my way.” I shoved my phone into my pocket and ignored Ollie’s raised eyebrows as I headed for the stairs.
When I made it to the Sky Lounge, Nina took one look at my face and stopped me. “You good?”
“Family drama,” I said. And before she could ask more, I stepped over to the bar and made some margaritas for the guests, who were topless again and snort-laughing over their college days.
Nina followed me behind the bar. “What’s going on?”
I picked up a glass and avoided looking at her. “Mia and Kitty are at the airport right now waiting for me to pick them up.”
Nina nearly dropped her radio. “Like right now, right now?”
“Yup.” I kept my hands busy polishing some glasses. “Apparently, they’re here for the entire summer, but I don’t remember making plans with Beth. I don’t know how, but I really fucked up.”
“How are you supposed to get them? Doesn’t Beth know you’re supposed to go to Europe next month?”
“Belva is on her way to the airport now. As for my trip . . .” I shrugged. “I haven’t told Beth about it. I’ll cancel it. I can’t just send them back.”
Nina pried the cloth from my hands. “How can I help? Do you need a Xanax? A good travel agent? How about a houseplant?”
“A houseplant?”
“They reduce stress. I read it in Psychology Today.”
“You read Psychology Today?”
“I’ll have you know I’m an avid reader of many things,” Nina said. “Just tell me how I can help.”
I shook my head, unsure anyone could help. “You can help by taking your break.”
“If you’re deflecting, Jo, I—”
“Break,” I repeated, snatching the cloth back. I steered Nina by the shoulders to the stairs, sending her belowdeck so I could be alone. As alone as one could be while hovering over topless drunken guests.
One of the guests called me over to see if they could change the flavor of the boob cake, and I stole from the room, checking my phone on my way down to the galley.
I had two texts from Mia: one informing me that Belva’s car smelled like cigarettes, and another saying they’d arrived at the condo safe and sound.
Another from my credit card company notifying me of a thirty-dollar purchase from China Sky.
And then I noticed a fourth text, this one from my sister, and my worry flamed into guilt.
are you at work
My thumbs hovered, hesitant, but then a slew of texts appeared on the screen, one after the other.
you were supposed to pick them up
are they with you
is everything okay
Was everything okay? I had no idea. Something had gotten lost in translation, and now I’d earned the title of worst sister ever.
How had I missed something as big as the girls coming down for the entire summer?
How had I dropped the ball when my sister needed me?
She’d only just started going back to work, was only now talking to her friends and going to church again.
Everyone thinks I’m coping, but I’m not, she’d told me after finishing her first week back at the hospital where she worked as a nurse.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this, Joey.
I’m only moving because I have to. I want it to get better, but it never does.
It scared me, my big sister feeling so out of control.
I couldn’t give her anything more to worry about.
Everything’s fine, I replied. Belva is getting them from the airport.
ill call you after my shift 7pm, Beth’s reply read. I imagined her walking the halls of the hospital, her sneakers squeaking across the floor. I mentally apologized to her patients, whose IVs she was likely placing with a little too much force.
I slipped my phone into my pocket, bracing for Ollie’s inevitable freak-out when I told him he’d have to remake his cake, and returned to work, hoping I was prepared for whatever disaster might happen next.
—