Continued, Love, Lists, and Fancy Ships
JUNE
Returning home from months at sea is like waking up from one dream right into another.
Charter season is four months of sunshine, the bluest water that ever existed, and lots and lots of money.
But it’s also sixteen-hour shifts, sleep deprivation, and late nights scrubbing the vomit of hungover billionaires from white carpet.
Yet at the end of the season, we always come to Mitch’s, an Irish pub that puts the “dive” in “dive bar.” Mitch’s is dirtier than someone who cleans a twenty-million-dollar yacht for a living would like, and the dust on the bookcase beside our table is likely a health violation, but seeing as it’s the first mess in months that isn’t my responsibility to clean, I couldn’t care less.
Some people never experience déjà vu, but I feel it all the time.
More and more as the years pass. Every time I slip into this booth at Mitch’s, for instance.
Jo, the Serendipity’s second stew and my soon-to-be former best friend, says I’m just bored.
But I disagree. How can I be bored when I work on a giant boat and run away to the Caribbean four months a year?
How can I be bored when I get paid to see the places most people only dream of?
As Jo’s nieces would say, I am living the dream. Usually, I don’t disagree.
Usually.
But as I stare across the table at Jo, nightmare is the word that comes to mind.
I can see her mouth moving, but I don’t hear a word.
I’m distracted by the sudden ache in my bad knee, which, after the last four months working barefoot, is aggravated by even the lowest of low-heeled wedges.
In a few days, my knee will adjust to life on land along with the rest of me.
All I have to do is ignore the pain until it fades.
But what Jo’s just told me? I won’t adjust to it. I refuse.
“Nina?” Jo’s voice comes back into focus, the feeling of déjà vu slipping away. Her gaze darts from me to her fiancé, Alex, beside her.
“It’s an awful idea,” I say. It’s all I can manage, because this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Jo quitting the yacht? To help Alex run a restaurant?
Jo frowns into her drink. “That’s all you have to say?”
“You can’t even cook, Josephine. They don’t pass out Michelin stars for knowing how to operate a microwave.” I gesture to Alex. “How are you going to help this man run a restaurant? Sure, he makes a great cheese Danish, but the sex can’t be that good.”
“I’m trying to focus on the part where you compliment my cooking,” Alex says.
“Don’t.” I shoot him a glare.
“I won’t be cooking,” Jo says, twirling the straw in her margarita glass as she speaks. “I’ll help manage the place.”
Alex puts an arm around Jo’s shoulders, and though I love him for loving Jo, I also want to punch him in the ribs.
Not hard enough to break one, but enough for him to understand how all of this is making me feel.
Enough to make breathing difficult. I haven’t set foot on a balance beam in years, but the thought of Jo quitting the Serendipity knocks the wind out of me, reminding me of when I busted my knee during Olympic team trials, ending my athletic career with one poorly timed dismount.
A better friend would smile, buy a round of shots, celebrate this new phase of her friend’s life.
But I am not Jo’s better friend, I’m her best friend.
And as such, I can’t help but think of all the things I’m losing.
You’re upset because she’s choosing him over you, the bitchy voice in my head says.
The voice isn’t wrong. Of course Jo is choosing Alex over me.
He’s the fiancé. I’m the best friend. That’s what happens when people get engaged, or land their dream job, or find something else they can’t resist.
“This is worse than a secret fetus,” I whisper into my drink.
Alex tenses in his seat. “A what?”
I wave a hand at Jo. “I thought you may have impregnated her. She’s been acting weird all week.”
Alex looks at Jo, beer dribbling down his chin.
“I’m not pregnant,” she says. “You’ve seen me drinking all season. We shared a fishbowl at that weird pirate bar—”
“Davy Jones’s Locker is festive, not weird.” I fiddle with one of the dangling unicorn earrings I only take off to shower and sleep. “You could’ve been pregnant. I don’t know your life. How am I supposed to know if you adhere to the CDC guidelines for pregnancy?”
“You do know my life,” Jo says. “Which means you also know I never planned to work in yachting forever. I never planned to work in yachting at all.”
The three of us fall silent. Mitch’s walls are littered with photographs and ticket stubs and dollar bills, making me feel as if I’ve stepped into a stripper’s scrapbook.
I glance at the wall beside us, my heart cartwheeling in my chest when I spot the Polaroid of me, Jo, and Ollie, the Serendipity’s chef before Alex.
I decide that our current chef, Amir, is my new favorite.
His food isn’t as good as Ollie’s or Alex’s, but at least Amir has never broken my heart.
Ollie and I started on the Serendipity the same year, when both of us were new to yachting. We’d worked together for eight charter seasons, and it was in this very bar, almost two years ago to the day, I’d found out he was leaving to become sous-chef at Miami’s illustrious Il Gabbiano.
Don’t think about him, the bitchy voice in my head chides. But how can I avoid it when he’s staring right at me from that damn Polaroid? I lean over and grab the photo, yanking it free from the wall with one sure pull.
“Nina,” Jo says. “What’re you—”
“Souvenir.” I shove the photo into my bra. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it: burn it, tuck it into a book, sneak back here in a week and staple it to the wall again.
“Shots!” a voice sings out.
Beside the table is Britt, the annoying little sister I never had, and the Serendipity’s third stew. She grins at us, completely oblivious to the tension at the table, four shot glasses crowded in her hands.
I take two of the shot glasses and glare at Jo. “None for you, traitor,” I say, tipping Jo’s shot down my throat before chasing it with mine.
Britt scoots into the booth energetically, nudging me against the wall and blocking me into this hellscape.
“Lord help me, sitting next to you all night,” I say, shoving Britt over until half her ass hangs out of the booth. “Where’s RJ? He’d let a girl have some peace of mind.”
Britt snorts. “I doubt it.”
I’ve never heard RJ, the Serendipity’s bosun, string more than a sentence together at a time, and I’ve known him for as long as I’ve been in yachting. Jo and I exchange a look that says What’s that supposed to mean? But I look away when I remember she is now my former best friend.
“Shouldn’t you be somewhere mooning over Amir anyway?” I ask Britt. Their love affair had done nothing positive for the efficiency of the interior crew this season.
“I’m letting him miss me,” Britt says. Her gaze is unfocused, and I wonder how many shots she’s had already.
“What is it with stewardesses and chefs?” she muses.
“Is it the knives? I mean, it’s got to be more than a coincidence.
Me and Amir, Jo and Alex, you and—” I raise an eyebrow at her.
She mimics my expression, realizing her mistake. “Uh, Chrissy Teigen.”
“Is Chrissy technically a chef?” I ask, twirling the two empty shot glasses on the table before me.
“There was an enthusiastic debate about it on Twitter a few weeks ago, and I don’t remember what the consensus was.
” Alex opens his mouth to answer, but I cut him off.
“Rhetorical question, Alex. I don’t want to hear anything from you.
It’s bad enough you’ve stolen away my former best friend. ”
Jo looks stricken. “Former?”
Britt sighs unsteadily against the table, nearly toppling out of the booth. “They told you, huh.”
Impossible. “You knew about this?”
“Britt!” Jo hisses.
“Surprise!” Britt says, flashing drunken jazz hands at me.
“She’s taking over for me,” Jo explains.
Which means Xav, our captain, already knows about this too. “Next you’ll tell me RJ found out before me.”
“That may be my fault,” Britt slurs. She grabs Jo’s unfinished margarita, but I pry it from her hands, passing her my water instead.
“She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone,” Jo says.
“RJ made me tell him,” Britt says. She leans forward, trying to catch the straw for the water in her mouth and missing.
I ignore the revelation that RJ actually speaks to someone and turn to Jo. “When?”
“When did Britt tell RJ?”
“When are you leaving me?”
Jo bites her lip but doesn’t answer.
“When, Josephine?”
“Two weeks,” Alex says, putting Jo out of her misery.
Two weeks? No, no. Clearly, she hasn’t thought this through.
“Britt can’t take over for Jo. She always does Med season.
” Almost every photo Britt posts is either of her on the Serendipity or the Talisman, the superyacht she works on in the Mediterranean Sea after we finish charter season in the Caribbean.
The woman only lives on land October through January. I elbow Britt. “Tell them.”
“Screw Med season,” Britt says, her cheek pressed to the table.
I look between my two colluding stewardesses, the cartwheels in my chest becoming Tsuk vaults and back handsprings.
“I need another drink,” I announce, forcing Britt to sit up and move out of my way so I can escape.
“Now, now, girls, let’s just talk this through,” Britt slurs.
“You’re drunk,” I tell her. “You’re all drunk!” I add, waving to Jo and Alex. “But she’s the drunkest,” I say, pointing to Britt. “So keep an eye on her.” I’m more than a little tipsy myself, but I can’t be trapped here in this booth, not right now, or I’ll say something I regret.
“Nina, don’t go,” Jo says.