I laughed. “Not exactly. I didn’t even know yacht stewardess was a thing until I got this job. But it’s about as close as I can get to my childhood dream.”
“Which was?”
I turned to him. “Promise you won’t make fun of me?”
“Promise.”
“My dad was in the Navy before I was born, and he used to tell me and my sister stories about all the places he’d seen.” I smiled, thinkingof Dad, who was soft-spoken and private, with the rigid habits of a military man. He’d had a love for opera and poetry and was a poet himself. The three of us, Mom, Beth, and me, adored him. Sometimes at dinner, he’d read poems he’d written for us, and we’d laugh ourselves silly. “When I was in kindergarten, I didn’t really understand what the Navy was, and I thought my dad had been a pirate. I was always telling people I wanted to be in the Navy, but I really wanted to be a pirate.”
“There are actual pirates, you know,” Alex said. “You don’t have to settle for being a yacht stewardess.”
“You promised no teasing.” Alex held up a hand in apology. “I just like being on the water,” I continued. “My dad was always as close to it as he could get, so it makes me feel like I’m with him. He died when I was twelve. Brain aneurysm.” There was more to it than that, of course. My guilt. How my mother gave up on everything, including me. Beth getting pregnant and moving in with Mark. “I like the job, though, even if I’m just a maid on a fancy ship.”
“Hey, maids are great. And you aren’t just a maid on a fancy ship. You’re more a maid/bartender/waitress/party planner on a fancy ship.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. People tended to have one of two reactions when they heard about my job: they either thought it was super glamorous (as ifIwere the one enjoying all the amenities the yacht had to offer) or looked down on me for having a service job. It was hard toget itunless you were in the yachting world. Shitty Peter never seemed to understand how exhausting my job could be—the constant cleaning and serving and entertaining. Whenever I was too tired to go out, he’d say that ifanyoneshould be tired, it was him.You get to have fun all day, while I’m stuck at a desk making sales calls for eight hours.Whenever I’d call him out on trying to guilt me, he’d tell me I was crazy and high-maintenance, which only made me more upset. I’d end up in tears, and he’d pull me to him and say something likeI just want to show off my beautiful girlfriend.So I’d get dressed up and spend my Friday nights at whatever bar or club we were meeting his friends at, when all I really wanted to do was binge-watch the shows I’d missed during charter season or have a vintage board game night at Nina’s.
After swapping celebrity guest stories (Alex had cooked for a Kardashian, though he wouldn’t say which one, mine was JLo), we pulled into the marina. I was surprised how quickly the drive had flown by. It always seemed longer when I was by myself. But at least my fears of awkward silence had amounted to nothing.
“Regret being my carpool buddy yet?” Alex asked after he cut the engine.
Buddy, I thought, a safe, friendly term for what we were. That was what I’d tell Nina and the girls when they teased me. We were buddies! Or maybe buds? Bros? No, definitely not bros.
I squinted at Alex. “Too soon to tell. The coffee was a nice touch, though.”
Alex grinned, but then his phone rang. He looked at the screen, all the humor draining from his face in an instant. “You go on ahead. I better take this.”
“Sure.” I wondered who could strike such a sudden change in him as I exited the van. At that moment, Nina stepped from her convertible a few spaces away. She spotted me, then glanced at the van. When I caught up to her, she pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and made a big show of looking around the parking lot.
“No car? What’s this, Josephine?”
“It’s nothing. We’re carpool buddies.”
Nina laughed as I dragged her over to the dock. “It sure doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
—
“You’re having awhat?” Nina said when we set the table for lunch.
“A Zac Efron movie marathon,” I repeated. I draped one of many colorful leis over a chair, decor for the luau-themed lunch we were throwing.We’d pulled out grass skirts for ourselves and the guests and made Alex promise to wear one when he came up to check in with them after the meal.
“He’s the guy from those singing basketball movies, right?”
“Yup.” I was grateful Nina had latched on to the subject. She’d done nothing but tease me about carpooling with Alex all day, despite my insistence that we were buddies.I know exactly what type of buddies you two are going to be, she’d said with a wink.
“Oh, I amsoin.” Nina fanned out palm fronds on the center of the table. “He’s as dreamy as they come. Though maybe he isn’t your type. You’re more into guys with minivans, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, and it’s a man van, by the way. Why do you have to be such a horny old lady?”
“Who’s a horny old lady?”
We turned to find Alex standing behind us, hands in his pockets.
“My nieces and I are hosting a Zac Efron movie marathon,” I explained. “And where’s the skirt? We’ve got ours on.” I swished my hips, and the grass skirt rippled around me.
“Ah, yes, the Zefron-a-thon,” Alex said. “Greyson told me. Still doesn’t address the horny old lady thing. And I’ll wear the skirt, I promise. But I don’t think it’ll be as good if I catch it on fire while I’m cooking.”
“A Zefron-a-what?” Nina said.
