6
While he waited to board the catamaran, Matty approached Leo on the pier. They’d been up late, and Matty hid his bloodshot
eyes under the rim of a weathered bucket hat. “Who do you have your eyes on?” he asked. “It’s hard to tell. They move in a
pack.”
The pack in question was at the end of the pier: Daphne, Ayesha, Vicky, Sebastien, and July. They huddled around Daphne, who
had seemingly launched into one of her lectures.
“Not sure what you’re talking about,” Leo said.
Matty flashed a grin. “Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t lie to your best mate, or at least your best mate on this trip.”
Leo had met Matty in London a few years back. They were mates, but barely so.
“If I were a betting man, and God knows I am,” Matty went on, “my money is on Miss Jones.”
“She low-key hates me,” Leo mumbled, which he was not wont to do.
“The kids say high-key when a thing is painfully obvious.”
“Is it obvious?”
“It’s not looking good,” Matty replied. “She exited the party the second you entered.”
And just before, she’d slid him a glance as sharp as a dagger. This morning was a different story. He’d made her smile. There
was hope yet.
“Who’s on your radar?” Leo asked.
“You think Victoria’s into men with checkered pasts?”
“Which past are we talking about? The book that bombed last year?”
Matty laughed. “If only!”
“What, then? The divorce?”
Just then, the pack erupted in laughter with Vicky doubling over. July laughed like a piano out of tune. She was performing
exuberance. Her true nature was calm. She wasn’t one to belly laugh at jokes. But how did he know this? They were strangers.
“Sometimes I wonder if we’re the hunters or the prey,” Matty muttered.
Leo couldn’t say for sure. Earlier this morning, July had him on his heels. Her beauty stunned him. The round chin and soft
cheeks of her early twenties were gone, replaced with sharper angles. Looking into her brown eyes made him uneasy. She looked
straight through him, saw the things he kept buried: ego, guilt, pride, shame. He’d felt naked before her, although the opposite
was true. She wore practically nothing: bikini top, shorts, sunglasses, and her usual smugness. There, before her, he wasn’t
prey. He was the willing sacrifice.
“Am I the only fossil here?”
The tinny voice of Richard Carlisle, once hailed for his Southern Gothic fiction by The Paris Review. He sauntered down the pier in his expensive boat shoes. Well into his sixties, he was the most senior member of the group
now that Fox had dropped out.
“I believe I am,” he snickered. “Fox may have had the right idea.”
“Relax, old man,” Matty said good-naturedly. “We’re among friends here.”
“In that case, call me Dick.”
Matty grinned. “If you insist.”
Leo was about to introduce himself when Dick cut him off. “The keynote went to you.”
“It did.”
“Don’t you think they should have gone by order of seniority? Or established legacy?” Dick asked.
“You may want to take that up with management,” Leo replied evenly.
Dick’s watery gaze washed over Leo and Matty. “There’s an erosion of respect for seasoned writers who labor over every word.”
Ah . . . Leo thought. Are we in for a rant?
“And we don’t?” Matty asked.
Dick balked. “You rely on artificial intelligence. Cranking out a book a year . . . You’re not fooling anyone!”
“Hold on!” Matty cried. “Just because you crank out a book per quarter century doesn’t mean we spit plot points into a chat
bot and call it a day! We ‘labor’! With varying results, but we put in the work.”
There was no need to get heated. Leo knew Dick’s type. The jockeying for a position increasingly hard to hold because he was,
in fact, a one-hit wonder. The man was too insecure to follow up a surprise blockbuster hit with anything that might tarnish
the legacy. Now legacy was all he had.
“I may take it up with management,” Dick snapped.
“You do that,” Matty retorted.
Dick walked off, sauntering down the pier in his boat shoes.
“There goes a cautionary tale,” Matty said wistfully.
“I’ll let him have the keynote if he wants it that badly,” Leo said. “I haven’t even started on it.”
“Don’t you dare,” Matty growled. “I don’t care if it’s his dying wish. Let him sit in the audience and eat humble pie.”
“I’d enjoy that,” Leo admitted.
Matty slapped his back. “Good man!” he cried. “Now back to more pressing matters. July and Vicky are extremely close. I suggest
we divide and conquer.”
Daphne delivered the gossip on the pier.
“All I know is that his ex-wife took him for half, which left him with nothing. Since then, he’s been down on his luck.
It’s sad, because he’s a good guy. He’s bad with money, bad at marriage, and maybe bad at life, but he has a good heart.
I like him. Always have. That’s why I invited him to join us this year.
He could use a break. Leo, on the other hand, is like a brother to me.
He never calls or texts, but my actual brother doesn’t, either.
I owe him for filling in for Fox and being so gracious about it.
He’s single, too. His fiancée kicked him out shortly after they’d moved in together.
He’s been on the road since the breakup. ”
“It’s settled,” Ayesha announced once they’d boarded the boat. “Big Money trumps No Money. I hate to say it, but Matty is
disqualified. A shame, too, because I really do like him.”
“Not necessarily,” Jules said. “Vicky doesn’t need his money.”
“But does he need hers?” Ayesha asked.
“Good question,” Sebastien said. “This economy is rough.”
“He’s a talented writer,” Jules said. “He’ll bounce back!”
“But does she want to be the trampoline he bounces back on?” Ayesha asked.
Vicky didn’t say anything, which Jules flagged as odd. She sat quietly, rubbing sunscreen onto her bare legs.
Later, the captain rounded them up and presented a brief exposé of the undersea ecosystem along with some blunt remarks. “Don’t
touch the reef!” he cried. “Don’t trample over it. Don’t snap off a piece. It won’t bring you luck. It won’t cure your illness.
For fuck’s sake, just leave it alone! If you touch it, it dies. This reef is the third largest in the world and supports a
unique ecosystem. We want to keep it that way. That said, welcome on board and enjoy yourselves!”
Soon, they arrived at the site of a dilapidated lighthouse, its carcass rusting in the sun. Leo, shirtless, a nicotine patch
on one arm, grabbed his snorkeling gear and, without hesitation, leaped into the sparkling water.
“I’m going in!” Jules announced. “Anyone care to explore the reef?”
Ayesha declined. “You heard the man. If you touch it, it dies. Maybe we should leave it alone, relax, grab a mimosa, and chat.
We can explore the coral online. There are plenty of videos.”
“Oh, no,” Jules said, wiggling out of her cutoff shorts. “You got me out of bed. You got me on a boat. We’re going to see
the coral. Suit up!”
“As the only certified diver here, I’d like to point out that we don’t need wet suits,” Sebastien said. “But I’m with Jules.
Let’s go!”
“You were eager for this excursion,” Vicky reminded Ayesha, already fitting on a pair of fins. “Don’t half-ass it.”
They dove in with Jules taking the lead. The ocean absorbed her. Her perspective softened and blurred. Before she regained
focus and marveled at the technicolor underwater world, before she swam among the schools of blue tang and yellowtail snapper,
before a barracuda brushed her ankle, and she paused a moment to study but not touch the structure of the reef, a thought
brought her up short. Her mother had been in her room last night. Vicky might have come and gone, but her mother had been
there. She was sure of it. Her mother had shown up somehow, materialized from thin air, and sat at the foot of her bed. Jules
hadn’t imagined it.
No . . . that’s crazy!
Am I going crazy?
The distress weighed her down, pushed her to the ocean floor.
She must have set off some alarm bells, because Leo swam over and caught her by the elbow.
Through his goggles, she read the concern in his eyes.
While he fussed with her snorkel, she wished there was some way to tell him that she wasn’t a newbie in need of constant supervision.
Nor was she a city girl who’d never left the five boroughs of NYC.
She routinely dove off cliffs and swam with dolphins.
Could her eyes convey all this? Not likely, because he went one step further and reached for her hand, squeezing it tight.
Jules felt instantly reassured. She was calm again, and last night’s dream (because what else could it have been?) vanished from her mind.
Even so, she wiggled her hand free. She wasn’t used to this much attention.
She didn’t want it, didn’t need it. Too much care and she could die.
With her free hand, she motioned for him to follow her and took off, kicking.
The morning slipped by. They dove, splashed, snorkeled, sunbathed, sipped flat mimosas from plastic cups, snapped group photos,
and left the captain with big hugs and tips. When they made it back to the marina, it was time for lunch. They crowded the
patio of a seafood shack in Bahama Village and filled up on lobster rolls, slaw, conch fritters, and fries. Afterward, they
started the slow procession back to the inn.
They looked nothing like a cohort of esteemed visiting scholars. With their crunchy salt-stiff hair, damp bathing suits, flip-flops
slapping the hot pavement, they blended in seamlessly with the tourists.
Their group had splintered into smaller groups. Ayesha had joined Daphne, Dick, and Sebastien at the head of the line. Leo
and Matty stuck together. Jules and Vicky were already trailing behind before Vicky wandered off to take a call. She was on
her phone now, giving someone a piece of her mind. When she finally ended the call, she jogged to catch up with Jules and
gently drew her farther away from the others.
“You’ll never guess,” she whispered. “That motherfucker gave away my cat!”
“To the Humane Society?” Jules asked, properly scandalized. Kit Kat was as part of her life as anyone’s. At home she had a
bed in storage and a drawer full of treats for that fat, grumpy cat.
“To his cousin in New Jersey!”
“Why?”
“He had a last-minute invite to the Hamptons and took off!” she flared. “When I asked him how he could leave my baby with
a stranger, he said it was ‘all good’ and pointed out that he and I are practically strangers. The worst part? He’s right! I’ve only known him a month. Why did I trust him with my baby? Kit
must be so confused. All this because I didn’t want to leave him at the vet . . . or with Barbara.”
“Take a breath,” Jules said. “Maybe the cousin in Jersey is wonderful with animals.”
“That’s what he said, but what if they have a teenage menace who knocks off cats for sport?”
“Kit’s a killer. He can hold his own,” Jules replied. “Just in case, get their number. Ask for proof of life.”
“Not enough. I’m going to do the unthinkable.”
“Which is what?”
“Ask Barbara to send a car to New Jersey to pick up Kit.”
“She’ll think you’re nuts.”
“Oh, that was settled long ago.”
“Fair point.”
Vicky sent out a couple of rapid-fire text messages, then pocketed her phone.
“Where does this leave you and Big Money?” Jules asked.
“Fuck him!”
“Great,” Jules said. “I was rooting for Matty.”
“We’ll see about that. Now I’m pissed.”
Jules did her best to console her. “It’ll be alright. Big Money always gave me the ick.”
“He’s not even my type!” Vicky cried. Then she shook off her frustrations with a breath and a toss of her wet hair. “While
I have you alone—”
“You don’t.” Jules pointed out that they were surrounded by people, nosy people, who were all within earshot.
Vicky lowered her voice. “How are you doing?”
“I’m cool.”
“Sure, but are you okay?” Vicky asked. “Ayesha isn’t around. You can tell me the truth.”
If there was one test to their newfound friendship, it was Ayesha’s deeply rooted belief that most of life’s problems could
be prayed away. She was from a family of high achievers and wasn’t raised to dwell on imaginary problems. Leave it to the Lord was her customary response.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Jules said.
“I’ll worry if I want.” Vicky’s phone pinged with a text message, putting an end to the interrogation. “Good news!” she declared.
“Barbara is sending the driver for Kit, so she won’t have to hear me bitch about it for the next five years.”
“A mother’s love knows no bounds,” Jules quipped.
“Truly.”
“Are you ready for later?” Jules asked.
Tonight was her night. She and Sebastien would open the lecture series.
“It’s in the bag,” Vicky assured her. “What I’m really looking forward to is the ghost tour. I hear they dress up and everything.
It’s going to be epic.”
Given the choice of communicating with people or spirits, Vicky would always choose the latter.
“Do you mind taking a picture with me for socials?” Vicky asked.
“Looking like this?”
The phone was out, and the photo snapped before Jules could do anything about it.
“Thanks, doll,” Vicky said. “It’s more authentic this way.”
“Christ,” Jules whispered.
“One last question,” Vicky said. “Do you need meds?”
“Vicky!”
Jules looked around to make sure Leo hadn’t overheard.
He was walking ahead, speaking with Matty.
Vicky’s question wasn’t indiscreet. Her friend hadn’t crossed any lines.
Jules was open about this sort of thing.
Her prescription dose was often party chatter.
In their circles, everyone was on something.
Life was tough. They had to cope somehow.
However, they were no longer in the city with their ragtag friends.
This was a very different circle and Jules wanted to put her best foot forward. Why? She couldn’t say.
“Barbara’s doctor can get us anything,” Vicky said. “Just ask.”
“Thanks, but I’m good.”
Jules was far from “good.” She was accustomed to hearing things, but now she was seeing or feeling things, which ratcheted
up her paranoia. If she was having an episode of some kind, shouldn’t she seek treatment? Vicky’s inquisitive gaze hooked
into her, and Jules squirmed like a caught fish. She prayed for mercy, hoping Vicky would release her into the gulf and set
her free.