Chapter 21
The shuttle bus smells like diesel and anticipation, and I’m wedged between Bess and the window watching Iceland’s landscape turn increasingly alien.
We left Reykjavik twenty minutes ago, and the colorful buildings have given way to something that looks like the moon decided to take over the planet.
Black lava fields stretch in every direction, covered in neon green moss that glows against the volcanic rock.
Steam rises from random spots in the ground because apparently geothermal activity doesn’t believe in subtlety here.
Wes sits across the aisle, looking relaxed in jeans and a sweater.
He’s fully in off-duty captain mode, which is somehow more distracting than uniformed captain mode.
Ransom sits beside me, quiet but present, staring out the window with that expression he gets when he’s thinking too hard about things he can’t control.
Meanwhile, Nettie is reading a brochure about the Blue Lagoon as if it’s Scripture.
“It says the water is thirty-seven to thirty-nine degrees Celsius.”
“That means nothing to me,” Bess says.
“It’s about a hundred Fahrenheit,” Ransom pipes up.
“That’s a hot tub,” Wes admits with a nod.
“That’s a volcanic hot tub,” Nettie corrects. “A completely different experience.”
Bess shrugs. “Volcanic hot tub—regular hot tub. My thighs do not care about the geology of the situation. They’re going to jiggle whether Iceland likes it or not.”
I’m only half listening. My brain keeps replaying Marina’s face when she accused me of spying on her. The hurt in her voice. The way she looked at me as if I’d betrayed her.
Maybe I did. Maybe pushing for answers when someone clearly doesn’t want to give them is its own kind of betrayal. Maybe all of these investigations as of late have made me immune to what a real friendship entails.
The bus rounds a corner and there it is.
Below us, a pool of impossible turquoise glows against the dark volcanic sprawl, so bright it looks lit from beneath. Steam rises off the milky water in ghostly columns, and even from this distance I can make out bodies drifting along without a single care between them.
The facility to the left is all modern glass and dark wood, somehow managing to look both futuristic and ancient at the same time.
“Oh my word,” Bess breathes. “This place is stunning!”
“It really is,” I say. “Like someone spilled a vat of Tiffany-blue paint into a volcano and called it a spa day.”
We file off the bus into icy air that holds the scent of sulfur and minerals.
The Blue Lagoon is basically organized chaos.
Tourists speaking a dozen languages, sleek Scandinavian design, and signs pointing in every direction.
We check in at a counter staffed by an efficient Icelandic woman who hands us waterproof wristbands and rattles off instructions so fast I catch maybe half of them.
“Showers are mandatory,” she says, making intense eye contact. “All guests must shower before entering the lagoon. Attendants will supervise.”
“Supervise?” Nettie repeats.
“For cleanliness.” The woman’s expression suggests this is non-negotiable. “This way.”
We follow signs to the locker rooms. Men to the left, women to the right. Wes and Ransom veer off, and we head in the opposite direction with no idea about what might be waiting for us.
The women’s locker room is all clean lines and blonde wood, smelling like chlorine and expensive soap. We claim lockers, start unpacking our swimsuits and towels, and that’s when the attendant appears.
She’s tall, blonde, and stern. She also happens to be built like a woman who doesn’t tolerate nonsense and never has. She’s holding a laminated sign that reads SHOWER INSTRUCTIONS in multiple languages and flashes it at us.
“You must shower before entering lagoon,” she announces to the room at large. “Remove all clothing. Use soap. Scrub thoroughly. Hair, body, everything. I will observe to ensure compliance.”
The room goes silent.
Bess turns to me, her face the color of Icelandic snow. “Did she say…”
“Remove all clothing,” I confirm.
Bess leans in. “In front of…”
“Everyone,” Nettie finishes, staring at the communal shower area visible through an archway. Multiple shower heads. Open space. Zero privacy. Currently occupied by several European women who are completely naked and completely unbothered.
“Oh, I can’t do this,” Bess whispers.
“You have to,” the attendant says, because apparently she has very good hearing. “It’s mandatory and a non-negotiable.”
“But…”
“No exceptions.” The woman’s expression could freeze the lagoon solid—and I’m guessing it might have a time or two. “Shower now. Thoroughly!”
I take a deep breath. “All right. I’m forty-nine years old. I’ve given birth. I can handle a little public nudity.”
This is a lie. I cannot handle public nudity.
But I also can’t handle being the American tourist who causes an international incident over shower protocol, so I start stripping down with the grim determination of a woman preparing for battle. A very naked battle.
Have I mentioned that both my bottom and my legs look like wrinkled, dimpled piles of flesh? It’s off-putting to even me, and I happen to own this body.
Bess and Nettie follow suit, with all three of us trying very hard not to look at each other or anyone else.
Other women move around us with casual European comfort, chatting away while completely in the buff, and I focus on counting ceiling tiles because that’s apparently where I am in life.
Trust me, it’s better than counting boobs.
We shuffle toward the showers in a small mob made of flesh, passing throngs of nude women of every shape and size who are chatting away as though they’re at a coffee shop instead of completely naked in a public space.
A woman approximately my age is having a full conversation in German while soaping her elbows.
Two younger women are laughing about something while shampooing their hair.
An elderly woman is scrubbing her feet with the casual confidence of a woman who stopped caring about public nudity sometime during the Nixon administration.
Nettie leans close. “Everyone here looks so comfortable.”
“That’s because they’re Europeans,” Bess mutters, as though that explains everything.
“I need to move to Europe,” Nettie declares. “I could get used to this.”
“You would.”
We spot three available shower heads in a row and claim them like prime beachfront property. The attendant watches like a prison guard with a personal vendetta against dirt. I turn on the water, it’s blessedly hot, and start scrubbing away.
Nettie’s soap slips out of her hand and onto the floor between us, and she offers me a pleading look.
“Don’t think about it,” I say, soaping my arms with unnecessary vigor.
“How can I not think about it?” Bess says. “We’re NAKED.”
“In ICELAND,” Nettie adds, and she sounds downright cheerful as she scoops up her soap and gets right back to the act of lathering up. Nettie scrubs away with a smile on her face.
The next thing I know she’s humming.
Then clapping.
Then.
“CONGA LINE!” she shouts from the top of her lungs as she skitters away from her shower in what looks like a potentially hip-shattering move.
“NETTIE NO,” Bess and I say in perfect unison.
“Come on! When in Iceland!” Nettie grabs for the nearest naked stranger’s shoulders.
The woman looks alarmed. The attendant looks homicidal. But before we can stop her, Nettie has at least six different women dancing, laughing, and most horrifically slipping as they attempt to parade around the tiny facility. NAKED.
The attendant calls for backup on her radio, and I take that as my cue. I lunge for Nettie and physically redirect her back under her shower head.
“We are not doing a naked conga line in Iceland,” I practically hiss as I steer her away from other able and willing bodies.
“Why not?” Nettie actually manages to look affronted by this.
“Because we’ll get deported,” Bess hisses.
“And because most women are much better at doing the conga when they’re wearing a bra,” I point out.
“She’s right,” Bess says. “The risk of knocking yourself out and breaking a hip goes down dramatically.”
She’s not kidding.
“Don’t drop the soap, ladies!” Nettie cackles, and both Bess and I groan. It’s as though Nettie has been training for this her whole life. Either this or prison.
“That joke is inappropriate in seventeen different ways,” Bess says, scrubbing harder.
“Only seventeen?” Nettie chuffs. “I was aiming for twenty.”
“Nettie.”
“Fine. Eighteen.”
The attendant circles us like a shark. “More soap. Don’t forget the hair.”
I soap my hair up there, down there, I soap everything. I scrub as though I’m preparing for surgery. Finally, FINALLY, the attendant nods with approval, and we’re released back to our lockers where we face the next challenge—putting on swimsuits while dripping wet.
This might prove to be more of a challenge than doing the conga on slippery tiles.
I grab my one-piece and start what amounts to a wrestling match. The fabric sticks to my damp skin, bunching and rolling and refusing to cooperate in the most hostile way possible. I’m hopping on one foot, trying to get my leg through when Bess lets a few loose expletives fly.
“Okay, note to self. Do not try to squeeze into a bathing suit while you’re sopping wet.” I pant, finally getting both legs in. “It’s like trying to stuff yourself into a sausage casing.”
“I think my casing is broken,” Nettie announces.
“That’s because it’s inside out,” Bess tells her.
Nettie growls down at the tangled roll of fabric bunched around her thighs. “That explains so much.”
By the time we finally get dressed, and I use that term loosely, you would think we just finished an intense aerobic workout. We’re just that exhausted. Our hair is wet, our dignity is definitely compromised, and somehow that makes us prime candidates for a geothermal soak.
We emerge from the locker room to find Wes and Ransom waiting, looking relaxed and comfortable in their swim trunks.
Men really do have it so much easier in life.
“Ready?” Wes asks with an easy smile that assures me he did not participate in a conga line in the locker room or spend twenty minutes wrestling with spandex.
“Define ready,” I say.
Ransom takes one look at me and his mouth curves into a naughty smile. That man has a one-track mind. But as long as that track is focused in my direction, I don’t mind one bit.
We walk together toward the pool area, and the first full view stops me cold.
The Blue Lagoon spreads out in front of us like something from another planet—and I mean that in terms of both appearance and sheer size, because this thing goes on forever, carved into the black lava rock in every direction like the earth just decided to fill itself in with something beautiful.
Milky turquoise water steams against black lava rock formations, wooden bridges cross the expanse, and people float in blissed-out suspension holding drinks they got from the bar that’s literally IN the water. The sky above is gray and moody, making the blue even more dramatic.
Bodies are everywhere, all ages, all shapes, all looking like they’ve found paradise in geothermal minerals.
“That actually looks worth the trauma,” Bess admits.
“I’m still voting for another conga line,” Nettie says.
“No,” Bess and I say together.
Wes gestures toward the steaming expanse. “Shall we?”
I take a breath, looking at the volcanic blue water, the black rocks, the steam rising as though Iceland itself is exhaling.
Marina is still hiding secrets.
Ransom is still unemployed.
There’s still a killer sailing on the ship with us.
But right now, there’s also a hundred-degree volcanic hot spring and the promise of at least an hour or two where none of that matters.
“Here goes nothing and everything all at once,” I say, and step toward the water.