Chapter 36
thirty-six
ALANA
On the deck of a yacht in a glistening harbor off the Mediterranean coast, I’m, like— totally being held hostage by Shakespeare.
Not, like, the actual William Shakespeare— he’s dead, which is honestly probably the only thing that could make him tolerable at this point— but by an actor who believes he is the spiritual reincarnation of William Shakespeare, or at least the closest living approximation, which is somehow worse.
Reginald Ashcroft is sitting in the lounge chair beside mine, wearing a white linen shirt unbuttoned to a degree that suggests either confidence or a fundamental misunderstanding of buttons, and he is reciting something.
He has been reciting something for forty-five minutes.
I know this because my attendant— a lovely woman named something…
I don’t know, I can’t remember… is currently holding my sunglasses above my face, hovering them there so that the bridge doesn’t leave marks on my nose.
This is a service I require. Sunglass marks are violence against the face, and I will not tolerate violence against my face unless I'm the one committing it, which has happened, but that’s a different story.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Reginald declares, and the question is clearly rhetorical because he does not pause for my input before continuing. “Thou art more lovely and more temperate?—”
“Reggie,” I say, without moving, without opening my eyes, without disrupting the sunglasses hovering above my face. “Who are you comparing to a summer’s day?”
“You, darling,” he says, in that voice— that rich, plummy, deeply British voice that sounds like it was raised on private schools. “I am comparing you to a summer’s day, because you are?—”
“I know what the poem is about,” I say. “I’ve seen the movie.”
“There isn’t a movie of Sonnet Eighteen.”
“There should be. They could cast you.” I say this because it will distract him, and it does— his face does the thing where he’s pretending to be humble but is actually already mentally accepting the award— and for a brief, merciful moment, the Shakespeare stops.
The yacht— my yacht, technically, or at least the yacht I am currently occupying by virtue of having befriended the man who owns it and then having gently, lovingly, suggested that he let me stay on it indefinitely— is anchored in a harbor somewhere off the coast of southern Italy.
I’m not totally sure which harbor. They all look the same from this angle: blue water, white buildings stacked up the hillside like sugar cubes, little boats going back and forth.
The sun is golden and the light on the water is so pretty it almost makes me mad, because beauty shouldn’t be this easy.
It should require effort. A filter, at minimum.
I'm wearing a pink bikini— Valentino, custom— and my nails are fresh, and my hair is behaving, and I have a drink in my hand. The garnish is a tiny paper umbrella. I like the umbrella. It makes me feel like the drink is on vacation, too.
So here I am. On a yacht. In the Mediterranean. Totally rich since I robbed The Twin Ledger’s vault. Sitting with a famous British actor who is real and knows me, which I told Billie approximately one million times and which she never believed.
I sent her a video three days ago. One where I showed her the vault and the yacht and tried to get Reggie to say hi and he didn’t because he was “in character,” which— okay, I get it, you’re an artist, but also we're on a boat, and the character you should be playing is “person who says hello when asked.” Billie sent me a heart emoji as an answer and said “Thank you for the donation,” because I donated to her new non-profit and Billie is always polite.
Billie and Rodrigo are happy. I can tell. Not the kind of happy where you post about it constantly and use hashtags. The kind where you post a blurry photo of a lemon painting on your Instagram and don’t even bother with a caption because you’re too busy being alive to curate it. That kind.
And now, I want my own version of that happiness.
Which brings me to the vision board.
It’s propped against the railing on the upper deck, right next to the champagne bucket.
I made it this morning. I make all my vision boards in the morning because that’s when the manifesting energy is strongest. It’s a big board— poster-sized, with a white border— and I’ve covered it in images cut from magazines the crew brought me from shore.
Pictures of sunsets. Pictures of couples holding hands on beaches.
A picture of a golden retriever, because I’ve always wanted a golden retriever but my lifestyle has historically been incompatible with pet ownership due to the running from authorities and the international travel.
But the centerpiece of the vision board— the big image, the one in the middle, surrounded by hearts I drew with a pink marker— is a picture I cut from a bridal magazine. Two people. Looking at each other. Just looking, with that expression that says: I see you. All of you. And I’m staying.
That's what Billie and Rodrigo have. I saw it on the rooftop in Rome, when he was bleeding and she was crying and they were looking at each other like the rest of the world had been politely asked to leave. I saw it, and I thought: oh. That’s the thing.
That’s the thing I’ve been replacing with yachts and vault codes and vision boards full of material goals.
That’s the thing that no amount of stolen money or designer bikinis or Mediterranean sunlight can substitute for.
True love.
I know. I know. It sounds, like, so basic. Alana, international woman of mystery and occasional felony, wants true love? It’s embarrassing. It’s pedestrian.
But I want it.
My old operating principle was simple: everyone is out for themselves, so you should be out for yourself harder and faster and with better accessories.
This is a principle that served me well for years.
It got me the vault combination. But Billie taught me something different.
There are some people in the world you can count on— only a few, but they exist. I want to find real love.
The kind that makes you selfless, or at least… makes someone selfless towards you.
“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May!” Reginald announces, having apparently resumed his recitation at some point during my internal reflection, which is rude, because I was having a moment.
He has stood up from his lounge chair. He has moved to the railing, where the yacht meets the open air and the Mediterranean stretches out.
He is standing there, one hand on the railing, one hand raised to the sky, silhouetted against the sun.
“And summer’s lease hath all too short a date!” he continues, his voice rising with a conviction that says believes the harbor needed this. “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines?—”
I look at him. I really look at him. Reginald Ashcroft.
Famous. Handsome. Rich. Owner of this yacht.
Star of that show I used to watch— the one where he plays a brooding detective who solves murders while being emotionally unavailable, which, in retrospect, should have been a red flag about his personality.
I thought I wanted this. I thought: yacht plus famous actor plus Mediterranean equals happiness. It was on my old vision board.
The one from before. Before I met Billie, and saw what she had with Rodrigo, and thought: I want that with someone.
I’ve been on this yacht for two weeks, and here is what I’ve learned about Reginald Ashcroft: he talks about himself in the third person.
He refers to his own face as “the instrument.” He once made the chef remake a salad because the lettuce wasn’t “crunchy to fulfillment.” He recites Shakespeare at every possible opportunity and several impossible ones.
He asked me yesterday if I thought his left profile or his right profile was “more Hamlet,” and when I said neither, he didn’t speak to me for three hours, which was actually the best three hours I’ve had on this boat.
He doesn’t see me. He just likes having an audience.
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? That’s the difference between what Reginald offers and what I actually want.
So. Step two of the new vision board: find true love. Step one of the new vision board: get rid of Reginald Ashcroft.
I stand up from my lounge chair. My attendant, sensing the shift, withdraws the hovering sunglasses. I take the sunglasses from her, put them on— marks be damned, this moment requires eyewear— and walk across the deck toward Reginald.
He is still at the railing. He is still reciting. He has moved on from Sonnet Eighteen to something I don’t recognize.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends!” he proclaims to the harbor. A seagull passes overhead, unimpressed. “Once more, or close the wall up with our?—”
“Reggie,” I say, arriving beside him.
He pauses. He turns to me. “Yes, darling?”
“This has been really fun,” I say. I mean it. Parts of it were fun. The champagne was excellent. The harbor is pretty. The yacht is nice. “But I’ve been thinking about my vision board, and you’re not on it.”
His face does something complicated— a journey from confusion to offense that plays out across his features with dramatic clarity.
“I beg your?—”
“It’s not you,” I say, which is a lie— it is entirely him, it is so uniquely him that if you looked up “it’s you” in the dictionary there would be a picture of Reginald Ashcroft reciting Shakespeare to a seagull.
“It’s me. I'm on a journey. A love journey. And the journey doesn’t include—” I gesture at him, at the unbuttoned shirt, at the hand still raised toward the sky in a gesture that has forgotten it’s no longer performing. “This.”
“Alana,” he says, drawing himself up to his full height. “I am Reginald Ashcroft. I am a three-time BAFTA nominee. I have been called the finest classical actor of my generation by very esteemed critics and?—”
I put both hands on his chest and push.
It’s not, like, a hard push. It’s a firm push. A decisive push. Just a little extra “oomph” if you will.
Reginald Ashcroft— three-time BAFTA nominee, Shakespearean enthusiast— goes over the railing with the poetic grace of someone whose body has been trained to fall dramatically.
His arms pinwheel. His linen shirt billows.
His mouth opens in an O of profound and theatrical surprise, and I think, for one brief moment, that he looks like a painting.
He hits the Mediterranean with a splash that is, honestly, better than anything he did on his show.
I lean over the railing. He surfaces— sputtering, his hair plastered to his forehead— and he looks up at me with an expression that combines outrage and bewilderment. It’s quite striking— I can see, now, why he won the BAFTA.
“So sorry!” I call down to him, and I wave— a real wave, friendly, the kind you give to someone you’ve had a nice time with but won’t be seeing again. “It’s not gonna work out!”
“I— you— this is— I am Reginald Ashcroft!” he sputters, treading water.
“You’re gonna be fine!” I shout. “The harbor’s right there! Swim toward the sugar-cube buildings!”
I turn away from the railing. The Mediterranean sun is warm on my face, and the breeze is doing nice things to my hair, and somewhere below me a famous actor is learning to swim with humility, which is probably good for him, honestly. Character development.
I walk across the deck to the crew member standing near the bridge stairs— a man with a white uniform and a face that suggests he has seen unusual things on this yacht before and has made peace with the pattern.
“Can you tell the Captain something for me?” I say.
“Of course, ma’am.”
“Pull the anchor up. I’m thinking it’s time to try Ibiza.” He looks at me like he’s not sure he should listen to me, so I walk over to my purse and pull out a few thousand euros. “Maybe this will help?”
He nods. He turns and walks toward the bridge, and within seconds I hear the anchor chain beginning its heavy, mechanical ascent, and the yacht hums beneath my feet with the vibration of engines waking up.
I’ve commandeered a yacht. I’m basically a pirate. Fun!
I walk back to my vision board. I pick up the pink marker. In the space beneath the picture of the couple— the one in the middle, the one surrounded by hearts— I write, in my best handwriting:
Find true love.
I cap the marker. I look at the board. The sun catches the magazine cutouts and the glitter glue and the hearts, and it looks, from this angle, like the most important document I’ve ever created.
The yacht begins to move. The harbor slides backward.
Reginald’s voice carries across the water.
He’s either shouting for help or still reciting Shakespeare— it’s hard to tell over the sound of the engine roaring.
His voice fades as we pull away, and then it’s gone, and there is only the water, the possibility, and me.
I settle back into my lounge chair. My attendant reappears with the sunglasses, hovering them into position with wordless precision. I close my eyes. The yacht points itself toward the horizon, toward Ibiza, toward whatever comes next.
I think about Billie, in her stone house in Tuscany, being loved by a man who took a bullet for her. I think about how she told me to get therapy. I should probably get therapy. I should also probably stop pushing people off boats.
“Hey— whatever your name is?” I ask the attendant. “Look up remote therapists, would you? Get me three names by like, later tonight.”
“Of course,” the woman nods.
I’ll see a therapist. But growth is a process, and I am— as of today, as of this yacht, as of this vision board— in the process.
Somewhere ahead of me: Ibiza. A dance floor. A person I haven’t met yet. Someone who can handle the show.
I smile. The sun is warm. The sea is endless.
The future is a thing I am sailing toward with both rings in a safe I’ll never open again, millions of Euros richer, one British actor shorter, and— for the first time in my life— genuinely, stupidly, embarrassingly hopeful.
My true love is out there. I just know it.
Oh, and I look incredible, by the way.
Just in case anyone was wondering.
* * *
For an excerpt from “He Needs Boundaries,” Book Two in the Chaos & Chemistry Romantic Comedy Series, keep reading!