Chapter 30
The assigned seats were the same for all the performances. Maira took one look at the empty seats on the floor level and hurried Annie along by her elbow.
“It’s okay,” she said. “They’ll tell us to fill in the empty seats anyway.
This way we just get to pick the best ones.
Come on.” Maira was in a pair of purple cotton shorty pajamas.
She was the kind of tan that either came from a spray nozzle or years in the direct sun, and Maira was from New Jersey.
The color of Maira’s skin reminded Annie of her maternal grandmother, who had retired to Florida and spent the last twenty years of her life baking in the sun and drinking Tab soda.
It was hard to say which one had given her cancer.
Still, she’d enjoyed every ounce of her life in a way that Annie found aspirational.
They went down a carpeted staircase and past a security guard to the center aisle, where there were two empty seats in the third row.
“There we go,” Maira said, clearly satisfied with herself.
Annie sat down but checked over her shoulder. “Are you sure?”
Maira nodded once, firm. She took out her phone and started scrolling through videos that other people had taken on the beach. “Looks like Keith was seasick, huh?” she said. “He should stay on the ship, like me. It happened once before, on the second cruise, I think. That one went to Cabo.”
“Actually…” Annie said. She hadn’t been sure if she wanted to bring it up, but this wasn’t high school, no matter what the accessories looked like.
“I heard a few women talking about you—or another Maira—and I wanted to ask you about it. I wouldn’t have thought they were talking about you, but I guess what you said the other day—”
Maira put up a hand, cutting Annie off. “Oh, it’s me. What did they say? Who was it? Was it Crystal? Theresa?” Her mouth was a tight line.
“I don’t know who it was. They were all wearing airbrushed T-shirts, but that’s, like, everyone.
” Annie paused. “They said something about lying? I don’t really know.
” She kept her voice low. All around them, women were chattering, drinking, waving to friends across the theater.
Annie wasn’t sure if she wanted the women she’d heard talking to be proven right or wrong.
It didn’t actually matter. What was good or bad anymore at this stage of their lives?
Annie wanted to live and let live. No matter what, Maira was her roommate for the next two days.
She missed her sister, whose broken leg could have stuck out into the aisle so easily.
They probably could have sat even closer.
Katherine would have gotten even more attention than usual. She was a Leo, like Scotty.
“Oh, please,” Maira said. “Like I said, people get really jealous. I used to work for Scotty, I told you that, right? When he got started with the SkinSentials, a lot of Talkers joined his team, and it was so small then, we had a lot of time with him—on the phone, in private Facebook groups, that kind of thing. And some people just don’t know how to act.
If they’re not good at their business, that’s not my problem.
” It wasn’t much of an answer, but Annie didn’t need a microscope to understand what Maira was saying.
Of course Scotty’s businesses were multilevel marketing schemes—that was obvious.
And they weren’t the only ones on the ship—Annie had passed so many rooms with elaborate Avon and Mary Kay displays, and there were a lot of women in LuLaRoe leggings.
Maira didn’t seem like an evil person. It was impossible, in this context, to identify anyone as genuinely crazy because they were all crazy.
Claudia hated when she said things were crazy—“So ableist, Mom”—but how else could you describe what was going on?
Half the people in the theater were wearing pajamas, and the other half would be in a couple of hours.
They were walking down Bourbon Street in the middle of Mardi Gras.
They were children trick-or-treating. It was sanctioned, organized madness.
A waitress came by and held her pen expectantly.
“Two Sexy Sunrises, please,” Annie said, and then turned back to Maira.
“I’m reading a book that has dragon sex in it, like the dragons are having sex with each other, but I’m pretty sure this one woman is actually going to have sex with an actual dragon too.
” There was no point trying to resist. Operas were full of women going mad, and so was the cruise.
If Maira was a liar, it didn’t actually matter to Annie.
This was not the time or place to draw lines.
Annie was having more fun than she’d had in years—so many years that it would depress her to do the math.
Everyone in the room was going to start screaming; it was just a question of when. Maira nodded in approval.