We quickly sat down, but her father remained standing, raising a glass of champagne. “A toast to my daughter,” he said. “This is the first time Tilde has graced us with her presence in the dining room.”
“Could it be,” said one of the twins, “that she wanted to show off her boyfriend?” And both of them gave us creepy Shining grins.
I opened my mouth to deflect the question, but Tilde spoke first.
“Sorry, but no,” she said. “Enzo and I are not interested in each other that way.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Appletini. “I knew he wasn’t Italian.”
“Galicchh, galocchh McBroogie!” said the guy in the kilt.
And since I had no response to that, I took a long sip from my champagne—which, for Tilde and me, was just sparkling white grape juice. Fake, like everything else about this.
The attention mercifully shifted away from me to the Blather CEO, who answered every question about his social network with shifty eyes, like he had been cornered by investigative reporters.
“Oh, let’s not blather about Blather,” said his stunning wife/rent-a-babe/companion android. “After all, this is a vacation.”
I busied myself eating bread, and Tilde stared at the spread of silverware before her, a little intimidated by it. “Where I come from, one fork, knife, and spoon is enough,” she said, but only to me.
“Where do you come from?”
She leaned closer so the others couldn’t hear. “I told you.”
“No, you told me a pack of lies.”
“Not really. I told you half-truths.”
The captain, seeing that we were having a private conversation, tried to draw us back into the table talk. “So, Enzo, I understand that you hail from New York.”
“Yeah. Brooklyn.”
“Oh!” said one of the twins. “We have a nephew in Brooklyn. His name is Mike Last-name-in-one-ear-out-the-other. Perhaps you know him.”
“Yeah, he’s in my math class,” I told them. “He owes me twenty bucks.”
The twins were baffled by my response, and Tilde snickered but pretended it was a cough.
“Perhaps, Enzo, you and Tilde could be pen pals after your cruise is over.” The captain had an annoying way of repeating my name every time he spoke to me, made worse by the fact that it wasn’t actually my name.
“Maybe,” I said. “What’s a pen pal?”
“It’s what people used to do before these hideous online social networks,” said the starboard twin. The other twin cleared her throat and nudged her to remind her who was at the table with them, and when the first twin realized what she had done, she tried to backpedal, getting all red in the face. “Oh! Not that there’s anything wrong with it. I’m sure Blather is perfectly wonderful for young people of today.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Everyone I know has the Blather app on their phone and bleats like fourteen thousand times a day.”
To which the CEO guy said, “I’m glad to hear it. But please be advised that neither me nor my associates can be held responsible for the use and/or misuse of Blather and its subsidiary companies.”
• • •
Dinner lasted forever, what with so many utensils. I guess the captain didn’t just go down with the ship; he was also the last out of the dining room.
“I can’t stand this,” Tilde whispered to me. “Do something to end the meal!”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“You’re smart; you’ll think of something.”
And I did. I reached over as if I was reaching over for the coffee creamer and “accidentally” knocked Mrs. Appletini’s coffee onto her. Since she was already complaining that it was lukewarm, I figured it wouldn’t burn much.
She stood up with a gasp, her fingers shaking so much her diamonds became like a disco ball shining tiny lights around the dining room, and she spouted the kinds of words in Italian that I actually knew.
I immediately apologized and tried to blot her breasts with a napkin, which, for some reason, only made her more angry.
The captain handled the whole thing calmly, the same way he might handle an iceberg strike.
“These things happen,” he said, standing. “I will replace your gown at my personal expense if it cannot be dry-cleaned.”
Now that he was standing, everyone else stood as well, and the meal mercifully concluded.
“You’re a genius,” Tilde whispered to me, then turned to her father. “Enzo and I are going to the Garden Deck. I’ll be back whenever.”
As furious as I was at Tilde, I didn’t mind an evening stroll on the Garden Deck. As this was the only time in my life I’d ever be dressed like royalty, I figured I would take advantage of it. And now that we were alone, it was time for answers.
CHAPTER 14
DROWNING SHEEP, RUDE POCKETS, AND THE GUILTY CONSCIENCE OF A CAPTAIN
THE GARDEN DECK FEATURED A HUGE PARK WITH actual trees from around the world. A massive curved glass windshield protected it from the wind, so no matter how fast the ship was moving, the most you ever felt was a gentle breeze. They called it an arboretum, which sounds more like a place they stick dead people, but the only dead person would be me if my parents found out what I’d really been up to.
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing,” I told Tilde as we strolled through the arboretum. “Smuggling people on your father’s ship? You’re asking for trouble, and I don’t get it.”
“Things aren’t as they seem,” she said.
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
She didn’t say anything for a while. All I could hear was distant music from various parties and the rustling of leaves that had no business being this far from land.
“What I told you about my mother is true,” she finally said. “Years ago, my father was a junior officer on a different ship. He met my mother, Beatriz Nuñez, in Cozumel, and saw her once every week, for many months. I do not know if they were in love, because my mother never spoke of those days. All I knew was his name and that he was Albanian. He was transferred to another ship, and she never saw him again.”
“So he didn’t know about you?”
“Oh, he knew. My mother made sure he knew. And he would send money to make himself feel less guilty.”
“Hey, at least he did something. Some guys would just cut you off and pretend you didn’t exist.”
“Which is worse?” Tilde asked. “Having nothing honestly or surviving on blood money?”
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know. I’ve never had “nothing.” I mean, our family has had its share of money troubles, but “nothing” was never part of the bargain. If the restaurant ever fails, we could lose our house, but even then we wouldn’t be left with nothing.
“My mother would give most of that money to the rest of her family,” Tilde said, “but everyone knew the money was for me. People secretly resented it. Even though I took my mother’s last name, my eyes were a little lighter, my skin was a little paler. From the time I was born, I felt like an outsider. So his money did not help me.”
“Sounds like you really hate him.”
She looked away. “No. Not hate him. But he has a lot to prove to me. After my mother died, I made the decision that it was time for him to start proving it. When I found out he was the captain of this new ship, I came to the port in Cozumel, and I demanded to see him. Even though the guards would send me away, I kept coming back, until finally he came down in his shiny white suit. I had never even met him before, but I told him who I was, and that my mother was dead, and that he was going to take me on his great ship and I would live there with him, and he did not have my permission to say no.
“He didn’t say no, but still the ship sailed without me. I thought that was the end of it, but then two weeks later, he found me on the streets of Cozumel, doing what I’ve been doing si
nce I was little. Selling silver crosses to tourists. He had gotten me an Albanian passport, probably the same way I got those passports in Jamaica, and he took me on board.”
“So you’re half Albanian, half Hispanic,” I said. “So what does that make you? Alpanic?”
She ignored me. “He told me my last name was now Pajramovic instead of Nuñez and he bought me new clothes and said that this was my new life. Only it’s not that easy. Because your old life is still there, and you look at your new clothes and you feel dirty for wearing them, and you think about all the people you know who don’t have a ship’s captain in a shiny white suit to save them. And then you realize that maybe you can do something about it. . . .”
She looked to me to say something then. What was I going to say? That I thought it was okay what she was doing? Part of me did think so, and part of me didn’t, and part of me just wanted to enjoy being all dressed up with a beautiful girl, and part of me wanted to ditch it all and lose myself for the rest of the cruise on the waterslides and roller coaster and go-cart speedway.
“Well, I guess you’ll do what you have to do, then,” I told her.
“We are in Cozumel tomorrow,” she reminded me. “I would like to show you where I come from.”
“Show me?” I asked. “Or help you get people on board?”
She looked insulted and turned away. “I don’t need your help for that. In fact, you’ll only get in the way.”
“Then why waste your time showing me around?”
She didn’t have an answer for me, so I guess, amazingly, I had the last word—because at that moment, we were interrupted by another couple coming down the winding path.
There had been other people passing us in the arboretum, but we hadn’t given them much attention until one particular couple wove their way toward us. It was Lexie and her walking wall of blond chest hair, although, as before, the chest hair was most hidden behind a shirt that was intentionally too tight. He stopped when he saw me.
“What is it, Gustav?” Lexie asked.
He struggled for the words. “I am see guy you knowing.”
I spoke up rather than make Lexie suffer the embarrassment of having to figure out who it was—although I’d like to think that I’d be her first guess.
“Hi, Lexie,” I said.
She stiffened a little. “Hello, Antsy. Would I lose my bet if I wagered that you are not alone?”
“I’m with Tilde,” I told her.
“I guessed as much. Although not much of a guess—I could hear those wobbly heels from a mile away.”
“Well,” said Tilde, “we cannot all be born with a silver stiletto in our mouth, can we.”
I took a step between them before claws started coming out. “Hey, we’re all friends here, right? And who could be mad while surrounded by trees of the world?” I looked over at Gustav, who just stood there trying to decipher our English. He looked both neglected and intimidating, like a Rottweiler left tied to a tree.
“Are you still in your tuxedo?” Lexie asked, then, not waiting for an answer, she reached up, pressing her hands to my chest, and moved them up my lapel until she found my bow tie and straightened it. “Hmm,” she said. “There are far better fabrics for formal wear, but it is a rental, after all.”
“Lexie, vee go, ya?” said Gustav. He turned to me. “Vee go balls now.”
“Excuse me?”
“Gustav is taking me bowling,” Lexie explained.
“How does a blind girl bowl?” sneered Tilde.
I swear I could actually feel Lexie bristle. “I’ll have you know that Dale Davis, a blind man in Iowa, bowled a perfect game! On the other hand, some people can have all their senses and still be completely senseless.”
I tried to move Tilde away from Lexie before nuclear fission could occur. “Iowa! Imagine that! Isn’t Iowa amazing.”
“Lexie, vee go, ya?” said Gustav again, and came forward to guide Lexie away.
“Bye, Lexie. It’s been fun,” I said, but got no response.
I couldn’t help but notice as they left that Gustav had slipped his hand into her back pocket and gave a little squeeze. Normally Lexie would have slapped several layers of skin off of anyone who did that, but this was not normal Lexie. Instead she slipped her hand into his back pocket, too.
• • •
Lexie wasn’t the only one acting bizarrely on this cruise. When I got back to the cabin later that night, my parents had informed me that Howie hadn’t shown up for dinner, and they sent me out to find him.
“Just make sure he hasn’t drowned in the wave pool or gotten himself trampled on the horse trail,” my dad said. “You brought him; he’s your responsibility.”
I went to the teen lounge figuring I’d find him there, but it was mostly empty.
Lance I’d-eat-my-own-thighs-in-the-wild was there, though, cleaning up after the international conglomerate of teenage slobs. Someone had spilled something sticky on one of the alien eggs, and the beanbags in the psychedelic section looked like they’d been cannonballed by fat kids.
“I’m looking for a kid named Howie,” I told him. “My size but a little shorter. Talks like me, but more so.”
“Howie . . .” said Lance with a pained little grin, making it clear he knew Howie all too well. “Yeah, he left a while ago. You’re his friend Antsy, I’ll bet. The one who forged his birth certificate.”
Now it was my turn to give a pained grin. “He told you about that, huh?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna turn you in, mate.”
I wondered if the “mate” was obligatory Australian, like the Jamaican cabbie’s “mon.” Lance’s accent wasn’t quite as strong as the guy from Outback Steakhouse, though.
“So you haven’t seen him?” I asked.
“He was here most of the evening, but he left a while ago.” Then Lance looked at me thoughtfully, although I don’t know what Australian survivalists think when they look at you. Maybe that you look like a turkey.
“You should talk to him,” Lance said.
“I do all the time,” I told him. “Believe me, it’s no picnic.”
“Maybe not,” said Lance, “but you should definitely talk to him.”
Then Lance got back to the business of cleaning other people’s messes.
• • •
Howie, it turns out, had returned to the cabin while I was looking for him. He had spent the last couple of hours at the ship’s salon, where he had his hair styled and colored—or I should say decolored—because now it was as blond as Lance’s and cut the same way, too. Moppy on top, short on the sides.
“What the hell did you do to yourself?” I blurted out when I saw him.
Howie looks at me, all injured. “I’m going for a new look—you got a problem with that?”
I open and close my mouth like a fish. Then my mother comes in, takes one look at Howie, glares at me like it’s my fault, then leaves, not wanting to know about it.
Her skill at removing herself from unwanted situations amazed me, and I thought maybe I could learn this behavior, too. You should definitely talk to him, Lance had said. Well, sorry, but my plate was already full from my trip to the international criminal buffet. So if Howie wanted to be Lance’s mini-me, I wasn’t going to stop him.
“It looks good,” I told him, even though it didn’t, then I dismissed it from my mind and got ready for bed.
• • •
I had trouble sleeping that night, and not even the gentle roll of the ocean could lull me. I tried counting sheep, but they kept jumping off the railing in my head and drowning in the open sea. It didn’t help that my shins were still wrapped with a ridiculous amount of gauze from my seriously exaggerated “near-fatal fall.” I tried to peel it off, but I think every single leg hair was caught beneath the tape, which got me wondering how girls can wax their legs and not g
o into immediate cardiac arrest. Who needs waterboarding when you’ve got body-hair waxing? So I’m lying there, in that very specific place between discomfort and misery that gets no sympathy from anyone, and the sheets are so over-starched that whenever I try to move, it sounds like I’m playing the maracas.
I forced myself to stay still, closed my eyes, and listened to the gargling bleats of drowning sheep in my head, beginning to wonder if maybe I oughta start “bleating,” too. Just get online, sign on to Blather, and bleat out my own SOS, if I could figure out a way to keep it to 140 characters—but, of course, doing that would mean I’d have to slide out from beneath my covers, and the friction alone might set the room on fire. So I lay there, watching my flock of brain sheep leap into the Caribbean Sea, their bodies stretching out behind the ship like a trail of fluffy bread crumbs that, if I followed, might lead me back to where I started and maybe home to a normal Fourth of July.
Yeah, that’s right, tomorrow was the Fourth of July. Independence Day for the USA and, if Tilde’s plan worked, independence for a whole bunch of illegal stowaways, too. And if it didn’t work, I suspected that the fireworks flying tomorrow would not bring joy to the masses.
With cotton on my legs and waterlogged fleece on the brain, my mind drifted to the time Wendell Tiggor insisted that cotton came from sheep and then beat up a kid who couldn’t restrain himself from calling Tiggor a freaking imbecile, even though he knew it might lead to black eyes and tooth loss, because some things simply must be said, regardless of personal cost. Lately, though, I haven’t been saying much myself, even though I probably should have been. And maybe that was the real reason why I couldn’t sleep.
Somewhere in the midst of my cotton-wrapped legs and the trail of sheep, I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, my dad was shaking me awake, with far more enthusiasm than any parent has a right to have.
“Up, up, up!” he shouted so brightly I needed sunscreen. “Tulum! Tulum! Ancient Mayan ruins! Today’s the day!”