8. Amy
CHAPTER 8
AMY
K ai hadn’t been kidding when he said that at this level, a lot of business was done over restaurant tables and on the decks of yachts. Since the moment breakfast had finished on day two of their vacation, Kai and Jason had been holed up at the interior dining table, looking very stern as they talked over graphs, spreadsheets and “merger agreements.” Half of it sounded like a different language. Amy had spied on them from a distance for a little bit, peeking through a window from on deck, fascinated, like watching exotic sharks swim around an aquarium. The illusion was broken, however, when one of the boat’s staff brought out coffee and pastries to fuel their business meeting.
Then it got to a point where spying on the boys went from innocent interest to kind of creepy and probably breaking some sort of business confidentiality contract, so Amy made herself walk away, down to the lower deck of the yacht. There were big waterproof sun chairs arranged out here with a jacuzzi bubbling away in the background. And there was Jess looking like a model for a shampoo commercial, which might have been a very specific description, but Amy felt it was an accurate one.
Jess was taking selfies and apparently not happy with any of them, scowling at the screen as she scrolled and scrolled and scrolled.
“Am I interrupting?” Amy asked, feeling like she was definitely interrupting.
Jess looked up in surprise. She’d been so absorbed in her own little world that Amy had managed to sneak up on her. “Sorry, what?”
“Is this… for work?” Amy asked, feeling horribly awkward trying to start up a conversation but trying, nonetheless.
“Yes.” Jess sighed. “Usually if we go on vacation, I have a bunch of posts scheduled and ready to go while we’re away, but this was so last-minute, I didn’t have time to do that.”
“Seems like I’m the only one not working on this vacation,” Amy said, jabbing a thumb back in the direction of the boys, who still hadn’t emerged.
“That’s a good thing,” Jess said with a bright smile. “Enjoy it.”
“Having trouble getting the right angle?” Amy asked, feeling herself being drawn into Jess’s cheerful gravity whether she had a say in it or not. There were definitely worse gravity spirals to be swept up in.
“Yeah.” Jess sighed again. “I kind of just threw a bunch of stuff in a bag and I ended up leaving some equipment behind, like my selfie stick. Which is fine, no big deal, but I might have to wait an hour or two and try again because the sun is just at a really weird angle on, like, every part of the yacht, and it’s not quite working with a selfie. But I need to post a selfie because I haven’t in a while, and it’s better to mix things up, you know? And it’s just a bummer because you know how sensitive algorithms are, and posting a couple of hours later than I planned is really going to mess with my analytics.”
Jess shrugged as if she was resigned to her fate, and Amy had to take a second to try and process everything she’d just said. Most of it flew straight over her head though.
“It all sounds a lot more complicated than I thought it would be,” she admitted, and Jess nodded but with a smile.
“Just technical. Gotta appease the social media gods, you know?”
“I hope you don’t have to make any sacrifices to them or anything.”
Amy cringed internally. God, why did she always have to pepper in some sort of dark joke? She braced for the conversation to end, but Jess just giggled.
“No, no sacrifices,” she said. “But maybe I should try that next time.”
“Did you want me to take a photo?” Amy offered suddenly, surprising herself. “You know, if the selfie angle isn’t working out… then you can maybe get a post up at the right time?”
“You absolutely don’t have to,” Jess said, sitting up from her relaxed pose. “It’s, like, technically work, and you’re here for a vacation, remember.”
“It’s okay,” Amy said, holding out her hand. “I’m happy to. It’ll take ten seconds.”
“Only if you’re sure,” Jess said, but Amy took the phone. It really only did take a matter of seconds, Jess posing back against the lounge chair with ease, knowing exactly what she was doing, the crystal water spreading out in the distance behind them.
“You know if this catering gig ever gets boring, you’ve got a good eye for photography,” Jess said, looking over Amy’s images with a pleased smile on her face. Amy just shrugged, but Jess was so genuine that she couldn’t help the little bit of pride that had started warming her from the inside out.
“Come here, we’ve gotta take one together. Just for us.”
Without further notice, Jess wrapped her arm around Amy and pulled her in close, taking photos of them sitting together. Amy didn’t have time to feel self-conscious, automatically smiling like she was a kid on school picture day.
“Oh my God, cute,” Jess announced, sliding her sunglasses onto the top of her head to keep her hair out of her face, turning the screen so Amy could see.
The photos were cute, both of them smiling and windswept, cheek to cheek and Jess’s arm wrapped tight around her, like they’d known each other for years.
“You’ll have to text them to me,” Amy suggested.
“Oh, my God, yes,” Jess said, thrilled and immediately thrust her phone upon Amy so that she could type in her number. And Amy did, feeling embarrassingly brave over something so simple, handing Jess’s phone back and feeling like a kid making friends at the playground with a stranger.
“What are you ladies up to?” Jason said, his loud voice carrying over the wind as he and Kai approached, having emerged from their business den. Amy was glad to see them both in one piece after she’d witnessed how serious they’d looked together at that table.
“I got a bunch of those work posts ready to be scheduled!” Jess said cheerfully.
“Well done, baby!” Jason congratulated her enthusiastically, kissing Jess on the top of her head and collapsing onto the chair beside her while Kai continued wandering over, hands in pockets.
“Amy helped,” Jess said, tapping his knee.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, look at these photos she took. I told her she’d make a great photographer.”
They continued debriefing each other about their respective mornings as Kai sat down next to Amy and nudged her with his knee.
“Glad to see you’re making friends,” he said with a tiny smirk that only she could see. She nudged him straight back.
“Well, you were busy.”
“Sorry, didn’t know you’d be such a clingy fiancée.”
Amy was interrupted from rolling her eyes when Jason wrangled them all together to have lunch, ushering them around like he was a mother hen at a kid’s birthday party.
Jason had thrown Amy off at first with his larger-than-life voice and mannerisms. She’d thought it was all an act, this cool-guy persona thrown on in order to be more “relatable” or whatever. But it turned out that he really was just an actual cool guy. He was loud and big and started half his sentences with “Hey, man.” But he absolutely doted on Jess; it was obvious that he loved her to bits. He always made sure that nobody was hungry or thirsty and that everyone had sunscreen if they needed it. And he looked out for Amy too, making sure to include her, to ask her questions, to give her attention or some space if needed.
In short, Amy’s first impressions of Jason and Jess had been entirely shattered. She actually liked them. That was the most unexpected part of it all. Amy was on this trip to help Kai out of the hole he had dug for himself, but if she achieved only one other thing this week, she was going to try hard to lower her walls. She was going to give these people a chance, and she was going to give herself a chance, too.
It was still weird sleeping on a boat. No matter how big it was, Amy could still feel the waves pushing them about and it was a disconcerting experience. Every time that she halfway drifted off to sleep, a larger than normal wave would come along and jolt her awake, making her feel like she was falling. At least she hadn’t gotten seasick at all. That definitely would have put a damper on things.
“Can’t sleep?” Kai’s drowsy, muffled voice drifted over from the couch where he was cocooned in sheets and blankets like a giant caterpillar. Amy flipped over in the bed so she could face him. It was dark without any lamps on, but through the small window there was enough moonlight shining in to highlight the edges of Kai’s face.
“Not really,” Amy said.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Lots of stuff. About how Jess is really nice,” she said, her voice quiet in the dark even though there was no way their conversation could be heard by the others on this massive boat.
Kai hummed in agreement. “She is,” he said. “She literally wouldn’t hurt a fly. Wait until she invites you to one of her dinner parties. It’s basically the equivalent of a ball from the eighteen hundreds. Apparently, at one there was a string quartet and everything.”
Amy pictured herself in a nice dress, standing beside Jess instead of off in a corner, separated from the beautiful people who usually took up all the space and attention in the world. She pictured herself being brave enough to step into a role like that, to think of herself as being worthy of all that attention.
“You think she would?”
“Hmm?”
“You think she would invite me?” And God, Amy knew how pathetic she sounded, like that high school kid being left out all over again and pretending it didn’t bother her. But if she’d learned anything from that reunion, it was that it did still bother her.
Kai shifted around on the couch so his face was more visible in the dim light. “Yeah. She really likes you. She was showing off those photos of you two from on deck trying to decide which one she was going to frame as, like, a memento for the trip. Jason was telling me how hard it’s been for her to make friends because she is so nice. She wants to give people the world and then people take advantage of her because of it. They just want her for her money or connections. They get that and then leave her in the dust. He said it’s happened so many times that poor Jess has some serious trust issues because of it.”
Amy didn’t know how to respond to that. Mostly because she felt guilty about her own first impressions of Jess, only looking skin-deep and assuming she knew everything about this woman. She could fix that, though.
“I’ll be her friend,” she said.
Even in the dark, even from this distance, Amy could see the smile on Kai’s face. “I think she would really appreciate it, Amy. And it would be good for you too, you know. Having a new friend.”
“I have you,” she said, but it was only met with silence. Just when she was about to properly start panicking about why Kai hadn’t responded, he started talking.
“I feel like…” Kai drifted off again.
“What?”
“I feel like you just stopped getting in touch so often, you know. Or I’d reach out to invite you to something and you’d always be busy or just couldn’t make it. I thought…”
“That I didn’t want to be friends anymore?”
The silence was answer enough. And maybe it was because of the darkness, the silence punctuated only by the dull sounds of waves against the side of the yacht, but Amy suddenly felt brave enough to match Kai’s honesty. To actually be vulnerable for once.
“I don’t know how to be rich,” she said, just letting the words form organically.
“Oh… okay?”
“I mean… our lives are so different now. You want to include me in things and invite me to events and whatever and…”
She trailed off, feeling her face turn red in the dark and shuffling the bed sheet further up under her chin.
“It won’t hurt my feelings,” Kai says gently. So Amy sniffed and tried to keep talking despite feeling like she’d exposed herself on a whole new level.
“I don’t like you paying for things or giving me gifts or whatever.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“This whole engagement thing is different because it’s like a favor I’m giving you . I’m helping you out. But going to dinners and stuff and fancy parties or events is awkward. I think maybe you sometimes forget that I can’t afford that stuff and… I sound like a spoiled brat complaining about you wanting to invite me to do fancy, cool things.”
“No, you don’t,” Kai said firmly. “You had to fight and scratch for everything you have.”
“So did you.”
“Yeah, but we’re in different places because that’s how life works. I embrace this sort of money, this sort of life, and it makes me feel better about growing up the way I did.”
“For me,” Amy said, focusing on the threads of the bed sheet beneath her fingernail, “it just makes me feel like I’m the little kid sitting on the sidelines. Which is stupid, I’m twenty-nine…”
“Amy,” Kai said, voice still gentle. “When we get off this boat, do you want to go get burgers in a random parking lot somewhere?”
Amy laughed. “Yeah. I actually really would.”
“Good, because the food here is great but far too healthy. I desperately need something deep fried in a vat of oil.”
“Same,” Amy said. “That’s all I need, you know. To sit in a car with you and eat burgers.”
“Okay,” he said, voice soft and warm. “Let’s do that, then.”
He paused before tacking on the next sentence. “Thank you for telling me that.”
“It’s okay,” Amy said.
The conversation drifted off after that, mostly because Kai was falling asleep in front of her eyes. But after getting all of that off her chest, Amy found herself with a much quieter mind, able to follow him into sleep.