Chapter 5 #2
“Stella!” Harry’s deep baritone booms as we approach, and he spreads his arms to wrap me in a huge hug.
At 5’7, Harry is a good two inches shorter than me, which puts me at the perfect height to see his sunburnt almost-bald spot.
He’s dressed in his characteristic polo, but this time is sporting a pair of grey paisley shorts that have my sister’s groovy taste written all over them.
“Hi, Harry,” I mumble, still trying to scoop my jaw off the floor.
“No ‘hi’s’ allowed, Stella!” he tells me. “They say Bula, here. It’s like aloha, but for everything!”
His eyes take on a horrified expression as he glances at the duffel on my shoulder.
“Jim, why is Stella carrying her own bag?”
Jim looks at him sheepishly, and I realize that I’ve made a mistake.
“It’s my fault, Harry,” I cover quickly. “I insisted.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Stella, we’re full service here! The only bags you’ll be carrying on this trip will be from the boutiques!”
Harry motions for Jim to come over, and I let him slip my bag off my shoulders to reveal the sweaty skin underneath. Harry turns, waving his arms towards the rest of the ship like the circus ringmaster.
“Welcome to the Vela Bianca!”
Jules grabs me around the waist, squashing my frame to hers, and we follow Harry up the carpeted ramp that extends from the dock to the boat’s massive swim step.
It’s a literal red carpet, and it’s no surprise why: from this close, the Vela Bianca is even more insane.
It towers four stories above us, as if to remind the other boats it could easily swallow them whole.
Twin staircases from the back lead up to what Harry calls the aft deck (apparently that’s ‘back,’ in boat speak) flanked by spotless dark glass.
I feel like I’ve stepped out of real life and into Conde Naste magazine.
“I hope your flight wasn’t too bumpy! We hit some turbulence on the way in that had your sister squealing!”
“Oh, please,” Jules shakes her head. “You were the one death-gripping my hand!”
“It’s true,” he says conspiratorially. “Any excuse, am I right?”
But I’m too busy short circuiting to listen. Because girls like me and Jules do not belong here. But unlike me, she’s walking up the shimmering steps like she was born for this.
“Where are your parents?” I ask Harry, steeling myself for the inevitable encounter with the King and Queen of Warren Media. But there are no mummified billionaires in sight. Have they decided stay home? Could the sea gods be so generous?
“Delayed by a day, unfortunately,” Harry says. “My father had an emergency board meeting he couldn’t miss. Didn’t you read the welcome document I sent?”
Harry is, to put it kindly, a planning fanatic. I should have known that skipping the welcome guide would give him more anxiety than it was worth.
“Of course I did!” I lie unconvincingly.
I have a bad habit of raising my voice an entire octave when I’m making something up.
Jules used to call it my QVC voice—the one I used when I was trying a little too hard to sell her on something.
“There was so much to take in, I guess I must have forgotten that part.”
I look down at the electric purple jellyfish that float through the crystalline water below us. So swimming back is probably not an option, then.
“Enough standing around,” Harry says. “Let me give you the tour!”
“I’ll meet you in a few,” Jules gives me a squeeze before dropping my arm. “I’ve had to pee for like, two hours.”
“Jules,” I whisper-hiss. “Don’t you dare—”
But she’s already sidling back down the stairs. I should have known that in her book, this whole week is going to be one big bonding opportunity between me and her shiny new family.
I put on my best “not monstrously uncomfortable” face and turn back towards Harry.
“After you!”
He guides me up the staircase to the second deck, where a gorgeous woman with honey skin and a waist-length, black braid is waiting for me with a sherbet-colored cocktail and fresh white lei. She drapes it over my shoulders and hands me the drink.
“Thank you—“
“Gia!” she finishes for me. Her accent sounds Spanish. Or Portuguese?
“Nice to meet you, Gia.”
“I’ve been dying to meet you!” Gia tells me. “Jules says you’re a very accomplished artist.”
I can feel my cheeks flush. I spent a brief year at art school before I stopped kidding myself and switched over to academia, but I’m fairly certain the only person who still thinks I have any talent is my little sister.
“Definitely not accomplished,” I tell her.
“And this is Allie.” She points towards the tiny blonde girl beside her who uses a pair of gold tongs to hand me a towel from a bowl of ice.
“Oh, let me put my bag down,” I say, gesturing to my purse. Gia and Allie look shocked.
“We’ll take it, Miss Olsen,” Allie says, whisking the bag from my shoulder. Maybe she doesn’t want my ancient handbag soiling the surface of the grand table that stands beside us.
“Thank you, but you don’t have to—“
Before I can finish, Harry grabs my shoulders and pivots me to the rest of the waiting crew.
Three men and a woman stand in a uniformed line against the opposite railing, their pleasant expressions cemented across their faces like identical wax dolls.
I swallow. I feel like I’m in one of those Hallmark movies where the princess-nee-waitress meets her new palace staff.
Except this time, I’m the one being sized-up.
“Stella,” Harry tells me, “You’ve already met Jim, our First Mate. This is Remi, Russ, and Yara. Our deckhand, chef, and engineer.”
I smile, trying to commit the names to memory.
Remi, Russ, Yara. Renni, Ross, Yama… how many people does it take to keep this thing afloat?
I swallow the low-grade panic that’s building in my chest as Gia hands me a pair of green velvet slippers while staring down at the cheap plastic flip flops on my feet.
“Oh, I’m ok,” I say, trying to refuse the slippers. But Harry shakes his head.
“No outside shoes on the ship, I’m afraid,” Harry tells me. “But don’t worry—Jules told me your size!”
I fake an uneasy smile. If anything, the shock of this insanely luxurious boat only strengthens my resolve to stick to the plan: keep a low profile, do my best to fit in, and speak when spoken to.
And looking at this ship, it’s a safe bet that I could find a corner to hide in and not be discovered the entire twelve days.
“Is the captain already on the bridge?” Harry asks.
“The bridge?” I ask, wondering what it could possibly connect to.
“It’s what we call the control room,” Harry explains. “Where most of the magic happens!”
“He is,” Jim answers, “We’re all set to go whenever you’re ready, sir.”
“Wonderful,” says Harry, who’s practically bouncing on his heels. In the brief time I’ve spent with him, I’ve discovered that his many virtues do not include patience. And fresh off a twelve-hour flight, he’s clearly chomping at the bit to get to sea.
“Stella,” he offers, “why don’t I give you the grand tour while Gia unpacks your bags.”
My stomach twists in embarrassment as I think of Pepe, my threadbare stuffed hippo, sitting at the top of my suitcase.
“She really doesn’t need to—“ I protest, but Harry’s already moving. He takes my hand and pulls me to the left side of the tinted glass wall.
“Open sesame!”
I gasp as he waves his hand in front of him and a door panel on motion sensors slides open to admit us.
Inside, the Vela Bianca’s main salon unfolds like the pages of a magazine.
The room is three times the size of my apartment, its ceilings vaulted to make room for the ridiculously ornate chandelier that illuminates the dark marble floors.
I’m not in a movie, I repeat to myself over and over.
This is really happening. But it’s hard to believe the scene before me is anything but a dream.
Cream leather sofas angle around a large round table that looks out to the sea beyond, and a wet bar fit for 007 himself takes up the rear.
But instead of James Bond, Jules’s soon-to-be brother-in-law sits languidly on one of the leather barstools, a double scotch I can smell from here balanced in his hand.
Next to him is a slim, handsome Asian man in a white linen jacket.
“Nice of you to greet our guest, Matthew,” Harry snaps at him as he walks me through the living room. “Or can’t you be bothered to pry yourself from the bar?”
“Pleasure,” he says, easily conveying that it’s anything but.
He’s good-looking in a morally-questionable frat boy kind of way: tall with dark eyes, muscular shoulders, and curly dark blonde hair that I’d bet took longer for him to style than it did for me to drive here.
He’s definitely more Jules’s usual type than Harry is, if only because he reeks of bad decisions.
Or maybe it’s just whiskey and expensive cologne.
Matthew sticks out his hand lazily at the same time I go in for a hug, resulting in an awkward near-boob punch that makes me wince in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” I try to cover, “Don’t have my sea legs yet. I’ve never been on a boat this big before.”
Matthew’s lips flatten out into some sort of disapproving grimace.
“I would never have guessed,” he says sarcastically.
“Ignore him,” the man in the linen jacket tells me. “He gets crabby when he flies.”
From what I’ve heard from Jules, Matthew’s crabby anytime he’s not stone drunk. I hold out my hand to shake the stranger’s, but he grabs it and kisses it before I get the chance.
“Steven Xin,” he says, “Best friend and official Matthew handler.”
I chuckle, instantly relieved that I’m not the only non-Warren on this trip.
“Nice to meet you, Steven.”
“Steven and Matthew have been best friends since the ninth grade,” Harry tells me. “His father’s on the board at Warren.”
“I hope you’ll forgive me for crashing the family trip,” Steven says conspiratorially. “But don’t worry, you won’t have to share your room.”