Chapter 20
The guys were going strong. Sarah stood near DJ Pancake, her arms crossed over her chest. She wasn’t supervising him, exactly, but she was keeping a closer watch.
Shawn had been complaining about Pancake since they got on the ship, ever since Shawn said “Push it!” to women dressed like Salt-N-Pepa and Pancake had started to play “Whatta Man” instead.
She had already started a list of other DJs for subsequent cruises.
There was no coming back from not living up to Shawn’s expectations.
The little stage was crowded with Talkers, and Sarah had to squint to find the guys.
Shawn was in the crowd on the left-hand side, trailed by his security guard, and Scotty was on the right side, waving his arm back and forth in sync with a fleet of women dressed like members of Pearl Jam, with long, messy hair and flannel shirts tied around their waists.
Keith and Corey were leaning against the back bar of the stage in opposite corners, listening patiently as drunk, adoring women shouted into their ears.
Terrence was MIA, no doubt having sex with his wife somewhere he shouldn’t.
Sarah saw Bobby a few feet away and hurried over next to him. “Hey,” she said.
“Thanks for catching Keith earlier,” Bobby said. “He’s quick when he wants to be.”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “That’s my job.”
“Mine too.” Bobby pointed with his chin to the other side of the DJ booth. “Unless that motherfucker tries to steal it.”
Jonathan was standing at the top of the stairs.
He was wearing hemp shorts and a pair of clogs, and his beard fluttered in the wind like a puppet on a string.
He was bobbing his head side to side in the general neighborhood of the beat.
There were so few men on the boat that they all stood out like buoys in the ocean, and Jonathan stuck out more than the rest. Sarah had worked with other white guys with beards like that. They were never, ever good news.
“You think he’s okay?” Sarah asked.
“Who, that narc? No, he’s not okay. He’s on my shit list. I keep seeing him scurrying around in the background like a goddamn rat on the subway tracks.
If he was a man, he’d come and talk to me in my fucking face.
Excuse my French.” Bobby was shooting daggers, but Jonathan looked totally unaware, just grooving to his own internal beat.
“No, Keith.”
Bobby shrugged. “You know he hates the cruise.”
“And I won’t take that personally. It just seems worse this year, doesn’t it? For him, I mean. I think it’s going great—the Talkers are happy, the events have been great. He just seems like he’s going through it, you know?”
Bobby put his hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “Listen, we got him on the boat. Next year, that’s all we have to do. Just make sure he gets on the boat again. Take it one year at a time.”
Sarah frowned. “That’s harsh, man.”
“Come on, don’t be like that,” Bobby said.
“I’m trying my best. You’ve got the five guys in the band, you’ve got security, you’ve got JackRabbit, you’ve got the Talkers—it’s a lot of people to let down.
He’s a good person. I don’t want to see him depressed either, but it’s not just about him.
Believe me, I think about Keith all the time.
I’m just trying to think about the big picture, too.
” There was a slight roll and the ship moved, causing the whole crowd to take a step to the left, like they were climbing stairs sideways. “We just gotta hang on.”
Jonathan clapped along, having finally found the beat.