Chapter 3
I stayed up, piddling around online mostly. Posting an edit here. Reviewing PowerPoints for various sessions there. Texting
my sister about how things are going. Thinking about Hugh. Worrying over little nothings.
I checked my phone a few (hundred) times.
For a while I just flipped it over and took quick peeks as I focused on my work, but eventually I gave up and flipped the
phone face up as I sat crisscrossed on my bed, typing—one eye ever on the time.
Maybe Nash wasn’t even going to go. He was pretty raw at dinner; I wouldn’t be surprised if he fell asleep and forgot about
the whole thing.
Didn’t matter, though, did it?
I was here to see the sky show, not him, great companion though he may be.
At two o’clock on the dot, I swing my legs over the four-poster bed, slip my feet into my furry loafers, and make my way up deck. It’s quiet in the halls. The sconce lights are dim, and perhaps I’m imagining it, but I feel the tiniest sway of the cruise ship as the wallpaper goes up and down.
The sailor in the oil painting stares at me, and I stare back as I take the elevator up, my thoughts wandering.
When I reach the deck, Nash is standing beside a column, alone.
The moment he spots me his face does that little tilty smile of his and I smile back, like we’re two kids at camp who agreed
to sneak to the dock of a lake and watch the stars. It does feel oddly “not allowed” up here, all alone. But I mentally note
his posture is an expectant one; he clearly didn’t overthink any of this like I had.
To him? We agreed to meet. Watch a shower. Enjoy the moment. Nothing more.
“You ready?” he says, and before I can even answer, he pulls on a cord.
The rows of incandescent bulbs hanging overhead go off in an instant, leaving us surrounded by nothing but the tiny glow of
floor lights at the pool stairs behind.
I blink a few times, my eyes trying to adjust.
Everything is shadows. The lounge chairs blobs. The pool glowing a peaceful Mediterranean blue. It’s hard to distinguish just
where the tasseled umbrellas end and the sky begins. I take a couple messy steps forward.
He meets me, his gait infinitely steadier than mine. “I’ve had them off for a while. I’ve adjusted,” he explains to my wordless
question.
I take a couple of shuffling steps, slow as molasses, watching the ground.
“Want a hand?” Nash asks.
There’s a hesitancy in his question, as if to imply he’s offering out of respect, not as a romantic gesture.
The way he always asks, with that border around his actions to say, “We are friends, nothing more.”
“Sure,” I say with a breathy little chuckle, to show just how silly this is (but also yes-most-definitely-please).
I feel his rough, calloused hand slipping into mine. A hand that just very casually pulled a rattler from his boot, held the
reins of a horse, made his own fire, and went on to write beautiful, emotional sonnets inside a big, beautiful head.
No big deal. Just ordinary things ordinary men do.
“We both know if you break your shins on one of these concrete things, they’ll all be after me.”
“Oh, they absolutely would.”
Hugh and Neena and the lot of them would get after Nash relentlessly for turning the lights off and having me break my leg
and fall into the pool and spend the rest of the week hobbling around. I can just see motherly Neena now, tsking with her
arm wrapped around me, saying, “And to think she just went through that incredibly awful and embarrassing mental breakdown in front of the whole universe . . . Oh, you didn’t hear about it, Nash? I believe Ricky caught the whole thing on camera, hang on . . .”
“They look like they bought out a dying ornamental garden store.”
“I have wondered what this does to the weight capacity of the ship,” I say.
By the time we’ve reached where he’s landed himself, my eyes have adjusted and I can see he has indeed been here awhile, since
leaving the parlor this evening is my guess.
His belongings are strewn across a pool chair beneath one of the umbrellas to our right. Closed laptop. Coffee cup. Discarded
leather bag. Hat.
“It’s just starting. I’ve already seen a few meteors,” he says.
We skip the upright chairs and move out under the direct sky, popping our beach chairs down almost as low as they’ll go, and
gaze upward.
We watch for a few minutes.
Somebody slips around a corner, sees us, and slips back.
“We’re going to get in trouble,” I hiss, watching the server glide away.
“Turning off the lights. Terrible offense,” Nash says, tucking his hands beneath his head. “I hear they have prisons on these
ships.”
“Or you walk the plank.”
“Or they ration our pistachio pudding servings. Oh. There’s one.”
We both watch as a star streaks long across the sky.
He continues, “No, I think you and Jackie have successfully secured us one of those luxury cruise liners that’ll let anything
slide, so long as you’ve paid for your ticket. If you request they fill the pool with Jell-O tomorrow, their next question
will be ‘What flavor, miss?’”
“Benefit of being famous authors, I suppose.”
“Benefit of paying a ridiculous sum for this excursion.”
I smile to myself. That was the one fun thing about planning this work trip.
If I had to go, I might as well enjoy going somewhere insanely nice for free.
“After everything that’s happened, I’m giving myself this one,” I say. “I’m fully intending to eat all the pistachio pudding
here and do all the paint classes. How do you feel about orange for the Jell-O pool?”
“I’m a cherry man myself.”
“Alright. Cherry it is.”
“So what happened?” Nash asks.
“When?” I say. And then remember. Shoot.
“You just said you’re giving yourself a break this trip given what’s happened. What’s happened?”
But then I cry out and swing my finger toward the perfect diversion. Three stars burst simultaneously onto the sky stage and
race with fiery competition to the other end of the world.
He turns.
Mission success.
The meteor shower goes on for another hour at least, and together we watch in quiet, taking it all in. Nash no doubt sees
this stuff all the time, but for me it’s breathtaking, a once-in-a-lifetime view, and for an hour at least I’m wholly satisfied.
My breath slows, my eyes begin to droop, and somewhere in there a fluffy pool towel ends up covering me. I lie there for who
knows how long, in peace.
I fall asleep, and I tell ya what. My sound machine by my bed has nothing on the real thing.
Nash doesn’t break my moment, but somewhere along the way I hear the quiet clacking of his laptop, a calming rhythm to the
stillness of the world around me.
The first thing I see when I wake up is the stars, brilliant but unmoving.
The show is over.
I look around.
Nash has moved himself quietly over to the table. His laptop is open. The glow of the screen lights up his face, and he looks
up mid-typing, catching my eyes. I begin pulling up the back of my pool chair and sitting up again, and he shuts the computer.
“Sorry. Realized a new piece for my ending.”
“Sure,” I say, totally getting it.
I totally don’t get it.
Personally, at least. But I do have two eyes and have watched plenty of times the extreme means by which Hugh works in words.
And Neena.
And all the others.
Inspiration strikes and suddenly they’re gone, usually physically, but at the very least mentally.
No matter how inconvenient.
In the middle of lunches. In the middle of important Zoom calls. In the middle of award shows.
Just . . . in the middle of anything.
They all get this look and—poof—they’re gone.
Which reminds me.
“Have you noticed anything off with Hugh lately?” I say, tucking the towel under my chin to keep out the chill.
“It’s Hugh. How would you define off?”
“Oh, you know, different. He’s been . . .” I hesitate, not sure of what to say. “Strange tonight.”
Nash shakes his head. “Hugh’s always strange in that luring sort of way. It’s why we all follow him. The whole group would
follow him off a bridge.”
“Well, I don’t know about a bridge, but I know what you mean. But this was . . . it was different. Tonight he . . .”
And then his absurd promise he had me make comes to mind, and against all better judgment, I shake my head.
But obviously Hugh doesn’t mean Nash.
Then again, it was obvious he couldn’t really be serious about anyone—Gordon, Neena, Jackie, Crystal, or Ricky.
Okay, maybe Ricky.
But not everyone else, surely. Surely. The whole idea was just beyond logical.
“I know Hugh’s been dealing with a block on his next book. It’s been driving him crazy,” Nash says, filling in the gap of silence between us.
I nod, knowing all too well about the “book that will kill me” as Hugh has repeated at least ten times a day the past four
months. “Yeah . . . there is that . . .”
Nash shifts in his chair. “The stress is getting to him.”
“Maybe . . . the trip will do him good,” I say, still unsure. “Give him something else to think about for a while.” I drag
my knees up on the lounge chair now, abort the stars, and face him fully. I consider my words. “I worry about him.”
And to this, Nash laughs. “The man is seventy-five years old and sharp as a tack. I don’t worry about him. I worry about every
other poor soul he’s ever made contact with.”
A.k.a. me.
Him, too, and all the other authors who have endured some crazy things for the sake of “research.”
“Sometimes I wish he wrote romance,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely. Be forced to go to plays and try out new coffee shops for research. Suffer through five-star dining at the top
of the Eiffel Tower. Be forced to have breakfast in bed overlooking Fifth Avenue at the Peninsula. Be a grumbling plus-one
through Christmas-themed train rides across the country.”
“Go diving at exotic islands.”
“I did that, remember? Hawaii. Last November,” I say, lifting my finger. “It was horrifying. Not the cutesy foot-long snorkel
kind. The here, Pip, just hold your breath and swim through this cave underwater in under thirty seconds while the tide’s in or you
die kind of thing.”
Nash laughs. “You? No.”
“Yep.”
“No.”
“What choice did I have? It’s my job.”
“Plenty of choice. You could’ve told him no.”
“I can’t tell Hugh no.”
Once I stood outside at three in the morning beside the 65th Street train in Queens with a mysterious paper sack I was ordered
not to look inside, and when he strode in at 3:20 a.m., he was both deliriously excited and irate that (a) a character he’d
created just like me would actually be so dumb as to obey direct orders, and (b) I, Penelope Mae Dupont, was actually so dumb
as to obey direct orders.
I never heard the end of it.
“And how does that work out for all of us?” I say. “Saying no? Does he ever really lose? Anyway, I had to go to therapy afterward.
For the record.”
“Not a fan of closed spaces anymore?”
“Not a fan of closed spaces underwater,” I correct. “Let’s just say I didn’t ask Hugh permission to spend an obscene amount of trip money for bedrooms above sea
level.”
“I did wonder if the wallpaper was real gold.”
“It’s actually possible for what he—or really, you all—spent. Sorry.”
“What do I write for, if not for you to enjoy wallpaper made of real gold?” he says with a little smile.
His laissez-faire words flip around in my stomach.
I purse my lips.
“Well,” he says, rubbing his nose, “for what it’s worth, I’m sorry he made you do that diving trip. Sometimes he gets himself
so wrapped up in his ideas he drags us all under.”
He looks away to the black distance of the sea beyond, and I see a little squint between his brows that makes my brows crease as well. “Heavy talk for one of the fabulous Seven, Nash.”
When he looks back at me, though, he stands up, brushing away the moment. “Ignore me, Pip. I’m just dead tired. I don’t think
I’ve had a good night’s sleep in a week. Walk you back?”
He gathers up his things while I fold the towel and put it on a stack with the others.
“You don’t need to follow me all the way to my door. I think it’s fair to say I’ve made it,” I say, pausing at Nash’s door.
“You sure? I don’t mind.”
I laugh. Swing my head left. Spy my door. Look back.
“I’m five doors down. I think I can manage.”
He shuffles his feet uncertainly, as though seriously pausing to think whether he’d be neglectful if he let me walk thirty
feet alone. It’s so humorous I pat him on the shoulder. “Good to see chivalry’s not dead, though. Good night, Nash. Or . . .
enjoy those good three hours before we have to do this all again. See you for the eggs and bacon.”
“And pistachio pudding.”
“And pistachio pudding.”
He chews on his lip thoughtfully as he watches me walk safely down the five doors, his hand on the knob of his own door. We’ve
claimed the whole wing up here, eight doors for the seven authors plus myself. The library beyond it that will be used for
our morning meetings and evening recaps, the dining hall around the corner. It’s the only spot on the ship with double-locked
security: keys for entry once you get off the elevators; keys to get inside your rooms. It makes sense, I guess. The most
luxurious rooms reserved for the guests with the most money, possessions, and, consequently, paranoia.
As I’m turning the key to my room, he calls out, “Er, listen, Pip. I haven’t said it before, but you know you can always count on me, right? If you ever need anything, anything at all, I just want you to know that . . . I’m here.”
For a moment, I don’t know how to reply.
“Thanks, Nash,” I say at last. “And . . . I know.”