Chapter 22
Annie readjusted her bow, which was poking her in the ear.
It had migrated from the back of her head to the side, which had to be giving off a certain Punky Brewster look.
It wasn’t that Annie was lying down, precisely, but she also wasn’t really sitting up.
There was a pillow behind her head, and Annie knew that if she let her eyes stay closed for longer than one normal blink, she’d be toast, and so she was trying her best not to blink at all.
It could be worse. Annie couldn’t remember the last time she was awake at two in the morning that didn’t involve a delayed flight or a stomach virus, but here she was, mostly upright on a couch opposite the entrance to the John Travolta Disco.
Maira had sidled up to the bouncer, the same bouncer from Photo Day, the redheaded Thor type.
He should have been capable of repelling a five-foot-three woman with very little effort, but Maira was relentless, and Annie was pretty sure she’d even seen the man crack a smile.
“Okay,” Maira said, hurrying back. “That’s our new best friend, Lars.
” She sat next to Annie and gently shoved her body into a more vertical position.
There had been so many drinks. In another life, Maira would have been an excellent cater waiter because she kept a close eye on Annie’s glass and made sure it was never totally empty.
Sometimes they had water—they weren’t monsters—but mostly it wasn’t water, unless one counted the ice that composed the slushy part of the Sexy Sunrise.
“It’s full right now, but once at least five people come out, we can go in.
We can’t line up, but we can stay right here.
” She gave a salute to Lars the Viking, and he looked at the floor, blushing.
“They’re just hanging out. It’s like backstage,” Maira said. “But drunker.”
“Mm-hmm,” Annie said. “Got it.” That didn’t make it feel any more welcoming.
A clump of people came out, pushing past the Viking—Freddie Mercury and a passel of women. They were laughing and had their arms thrown over each other’s shoulders. Annie sat up as straight as she could and tried to make a face that was somewhat alluring or mysterious.
“Did you just fart?” Maira asked and then let out a peal of laughter.
“No!” Annie said, swatting Maira. “I don’t think so.”
Freddie Mercury was handsome. She could see that even with his fake mustache starting to slip off.
She watched his butt as he and his friends walked down the hall toward the atrium.
Part of Annie wanted to follow him just to see where he was going, but then Maira pulled on her arm, and then they were through the door, into the dark of the disco.
It took a minute for her eyes to adjust. Cruise ships really were incredible, Annie had to admit, that they could contain so many different environments at the same time, like a zoo with different climates for lions and penguins and tropical birds.
It made her feel better about all the ads she’d ever placed for cruises, though the ones that advertised in Opera Weekly were very, very different than this one, she imagined.
The disco was pumping the same kind of music they’d been playing on the deck, but in this one small room, it felt warmer, cozier.
Sexier—could she say that? She pulled off her bow and shoved it in her waistband.
Maira, all confidence, walked straight into the middle of the dance floor.
Annie wasn’t much of a dancer, not really, but she followed Maira, her hands in the air, doing a little side-to-side wave.
There was a man with his back to them, and Annie could tell that it was Shawn Fiore.
Right there, dancing to the same beat, breathing the same air.
The back of his shirt was drenched with sweat, and she could see his back muscles shifting under the damp cotton.
Maira shook her boobs at Annie, her eyes wide, and Annie suddenly felt much more alert, if a bit clumsy.
Shawn started doing the running man, and everyone backed up to stand in a circle around him.
Maira started a “Go, Shawn! Go, Shawn!” chant, and it caught like wildfire.
He danced in a half circle until he was facing her, and then Shawn and Maira started doing the Kid ’n Play dance where they kicked each other’s feet, and it was incredible, like they’d been practicing for weeks, and then Shawn hugged Maira and spun off in a different direction, blowing someone else’s mind.
How funny to be able to do that. Annie wondered what it felt like.
Maybe the divas at the Met felt like that right before they opened their mouths, knowing they’d make the chandeliers shake and the patrons cry.
“Want a drink?” Maira asked, shouting into Annie’s ear.
“No, I’m okay,” Annie said. Maira wrinkled her nose and mouthed the word Huh?
Annie leaned down so that Maira could hear her better.
“No, I’m okay,” Annie said again. From her hunched-over position, Annie could see through the halo of Maira’s hair over her shoulder, across the room.
It was dark but not so dark that Annie couldn’t make out Keith Fiore and Scotty Sanchez tucked into a booth along the far wall.
Shawn was a peacock loose at a zoo, meant to be looked at.
Keith and Scotty were doing something else—they were having a conversation.
No one was interrupting them. No one was anywhere near them.
It was like the rules of normal society, almost, where people would just let other people be.
Keith looked up and they made eye contact.
It was a funny term, eye contact. No parts of their bodies were touching.
They were on opposite sides of the room, with dozens of sweaty people moving through the space in between them, but they were looking right at each other, and Annie could feel it as much as a touch on the arm.
More, even. She blinked once just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
He was still there, still looking at her.
“Last call, last call,” the bartender called out.
“I’ll be right back,” Maira said. “Scotty!” she called out.
He was sliding out of the booth with Keith, and Annie watched as Maira and Scotty collided in a friendly half hug on their way to the bar.
It wasn’t until she saw them speak to each other that Annie realized she’d doubted Maira’s claims of knowing him, or any of them, more than any other superfan.
Every person on the boat thought they were special in one way or another—the biggest fan, the one with the most authentic connection—and it was surprising to realize that sometimes it might actually be true, that some of these people really had pierced the veil.
Annie looked back at the booth, but Keith wasn’t there anymore.
“Shit,” Annie said, shaking her head. She wasn’t sure why she was disappointed, really.
She wasn’t one of the chosen fans. She didn’t have a wristband or a folder full of photographs or a matching tattoo.
She was just a person who had wound up at sea.
Annie craned her neck toward the bar and saw Maira holding two drinks over her head and shuffling back toward her, the only person in an invisible conga line.
“You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to,” Maira said.
“I was just already there, you know? It’s like when they have a two-for-one sale on English muffins.
What am I gonna do, only buy one? That’s crazy.
Do you want to go smoke a cigarette? I never smoke, really, except on the cruise.
” Maira handed Annie one of the drinks and then plucked a slightly dented pack of Marlboro Lights out of her bra.
How long had those been there? Maira was a woman of surprises, that was clear. “Ta-da!”
“Okay,” Annie said. She had smoked before Claudia was born.
She’d smoked in restaurants, in bars, in bed.
It was the ’90s! Annie had loved smoking, as a matter of fact.
It had been twenty years since she’d been a proper smoker, but like riding a bike, some things never really went away.
Maira headed toward the door, and Annie followed in her wake.
She looked over her shoulder, but Keith had vanished.
Maybe it had been a mirage anyway. He’d been staring into space like anyone at two in the morning.
She’d been standing in his way, a nonentity, a solid that was also just an empty space.
Together, she and Maira tumbled out the door, past Lars the Viking, and back into the well-lit corridor of the American Fantasy. Maira knew where to go.
It was windy on the deck. There were only half a dozen people standing out there—maybe it was more populated during the day.
Maira burst out into a little razzle-dazzle hello to one clump of people, leaving Annie standing alone for a minute.
She walked to the balcony and leaned over, an unlit cigarette in her mouth.
She felt like she had when she was twenty-two and had just moved to the city, a kid with nothing but possibility ahead.
The ocean sprayed down below, and Annie closed her eyes.
“Need a light?”
“I don’t know,” Annie said. “It feels so good already.” She peeled her eyes back open and turned to her right.
Keith Fiore was leaning on the balcony next to her. He held up a lighter, and Annie nodded. She straightened up and put the cigarette in her mouth. It took a few tries—the wind, the wind, and also because Annie was holding her breath.
“I don’t really smoke,” she said once the cigarette was lit.
“Me neither,” Keith said.
“I like Bob Dylan, though,” Annie said.
“Me too,” Keith said. He looked down at his clothes. “I must have left my hair somewhere.”
“Oh, I hate it when that happens,” Annie said. She looked at his face, his mouth, his eyes. “What else do you like? To listen to, I mean.”
Keith gave a little half smile, and Annie realized that most of the people on the boat could rattle off a list of whatever he was about to say. “Lots of stuff,” Keith said. “As long as it has heart.”
“Do you ever listen to any opera?”
Keith’s eyebrows went up. “That’s not what I expected you to say.” He took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled a thin plume of smoke over the waves. “My mother loved opera. The Italians. Puccini, Rossini. I don’t know much, but I know that opera makes me think about my parents’ kitchen table.”
“I love that,” Annie said. “There’s really nothing like the kitchen table, is there? Mine was more like Barry Manilow.”
“Barry Manilow had some great songs,” Keith said, and smiled.
Maira came barreling up and threw her arms around Annie’s waist. “Awooga!” she said. “Hi, Keith.”
He nodded at her and took a drag of his cigarette.
“I thought you quit!” Maira said.
Keith shrugged. “I did.” He stubbed his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe and tossed it into the giant concrete ashtray affixed to the side of the ship. “See you,” he said to both of them.
“Oh, shit,” Maira said when he was gone. “We got the fucking unicorn. All we need now is to get Corey West doing some coke off somebody’s belly button, and it’ll be perfect.”
Annie watched Keith disappear through the swinging doors.