Devon walks inside and we wait on the deck until he returns wearing a dry shirt and shorts, carrying two large white towels with large omega symbols on them. Leah wraps her towel around her shoulders and I tuck mine around my chest, securing it under my armpits.
Leah follows Devon inside the cabin, and I am right behind them, walking lopsided from only having one shoe. We walk through a living room bigger than the apartment I had back in Pittsburgh. The walls are paneled in shiny, rich mahogany cut in modern lines. Looking up, I see a honeycombed ceiling illuminated with soft white light. Around the room, furnishings of white creamy leather look like they haven’t ever been sat in.
We pass another bar area, a media room, a gym, and down a corridor where two staterooms sit at the end of the hallway. If I wasn’t so in awe of my surroundings, I’d be nervous about the situation. You know, following a stranger down the hallway of a floating vessel. But if I were to die, this isn’t a bad place for it to happen.
Devon stops and holds his hand out, motioning for us to enter one of the bedrooms. Leah and I do, but Devon remains outside.
“There are robes and towels in the bathroom. You can shower and warm up in there. I’ll have someone come for your clothes so we can dry them. There’s a phone on the nightstand. If you call the hotel, they can get your passport numbers. It will help expedite the process.” Devon’s voice is authoritative. He’s being polite, not entering the room. It’s very southern gentleman. I appreciate his boundaries. “Can I get you anything?”
“No. Thank you. This is more than accommodating.”
With a curt nod of his head, Devon closes the door, leaving Leah and I inside the stateroom of, what I can only guess is a multimillion-dollar yacht.
“Holy crap, where are we?” Leah starts to laugh.
I let out a huge breath of air and an hour’s worth of tension. “When you dragged me out of bed this morning, I was not expecting this. How loaded is this guy?”
“Crazy rich. Did you see the sauna we passed by the pool? It was like a spa.”
“What about the artwork that was in the living room, or whatever that was? I’m pretty sure those were originals.”
“This is only the bottom floor. I’m dying to see what’s upstairs.” Leah looks around the room, opening drawers.
“What are you doing?” I pull her hand away from a handle.
“Trying to see how the mega-rich live.” She says, and then her eyes bug out as realization strikes her face. “Do you think the girl is still here?”
I blink at her until I understand who she’s talking about. “I would hope if he were getting busy with some woman last night, he’d have the decency to let her stay the night.”
“Devon was not who I saw yesterday. Trust me. I watched for a long time and that was not him,” she says, stressing the word long. “And the girl, if I see her, I’d definitely notice her. She was tall and thin with jet black hair and—”
I snap my fingers to gather Leah out of her trance. “Listen, we can’t stay here. You get on the phone and call the hotel. I’ll shower and then we’ll switch. I need to get out of these clothes. I’m starting to smell like fish.”
Leah leans into me and takes a sniff, pinching her nostrils together. “Yeah, you do.” She lifts up her arms. “How about me?”
I return the favor and give her a once over. “Same. I’ll be quick.” I say and turn around and head into the bathroom. Flicking on the light and locking the door, I look around the space.
This is a bathroom. It’s a guest bathroom. It’s a guest bathroom on a boat. And it’s nicer than any latrine I have ever been in my entire life.
I don’t know a lot about rich people. Leah and I grew up in a normal, middle-class neighborhood. Our dad is a history teacher and our mom a homemaker. We lived in a three-bedroom house with one full bath. It’s the same one I’ve been using the last six months since having to leave my house and job in Pittsburgh and go home for rehabilitation and mourning. It’s a good bathroom. It gets the job done. But what I am quickly learning about rich people is they know how to bathe in style.
A marble steam shower big enough for four, a vanity, a toilet, and a bidet, plus a mahogany dressing table with everything a guest could possibly need during her stay. Deodorants, creams, shampoos, soaps, perfumes . . . yup, it’s all here.
On a teak bench there’s a plush robe and a pair of slippers. Two of each, actually. After my shower, where I thoroughly scrub using sea salts and lather my face in seaweed, I wrap my hair in a fresh towel and put on the robe and slippers. I give my hair a quick dry using the blow dryer and brush it straight. I have to remind myself not to be too long. Leah needs to get in here, and we have to get back to the hotel. I apply some of the creams to my face and body before opening the door.
“Long much?” Leah asks, her tone sarcastic. She is wearing nothing but the towel Devon gave her earlier.
“Once you go in there, you are not going to want to come out. Where are your clothes?” I ask.
“A maid came by asking for them. She said she’d dry them for us. Thanks for locking the door because I had to drop my drawers in front of her.” Leah holds up a piece of paper. “Anyway, I have the passport numbers. I’m gonna hop in the shower while you bring this to Devon.”
“Sure. As soon as our clothes come back.”
She leans into me, her hands on her hips. “That could be an hour. You are beyond covered up. That robe hides everything.”
I look down. She’s right. The robe falls at my calves and wraps around my body, snuggly up to my neck. “Fine.” I say, taking the paper from her hands.
Exiting back into the corridor, I follow the way we came in, peering into rooms looking for Devon.
