“That was unreal,” one of them said. Her door-knocker earrings were so big that they rested on her shoulders.
“We met earlier,” Annie said, by way of explanation, even though he’d metallof them earlier—literally everyone. She thought of her time in bed that afternoon and felt warm with both shame and arousal. He was an actual person. She’d seen proof. Whatever just happened meant that he’d seen her back.
“I’m a Keith girl,” the woman said, and put her hand over her heart.
“Yes or no, don’t tell me to go,” a teenage Keith sang over the loudspeakers. Annie and everyone else turned to watch as Bob Dylan played along on the harmonica. The wind blew Annie’s ponytail straight up into the sky. It didn’t matter if he was really playing or not; the crowd loved it, and they wouldn’t have been able to hear it anyway. Even on the upper balcony, the crowd was so loud that Annie’s ears were ringing. Shawn didn’t seem to mind and had leapt from the stage into the crowd, where he was jumping up and down, the clock around his neck slamming against his chest over and over again.
20
Saturday, 12:09 a.m.
Deck 11
The guys were going strong. Sarah stood near DJ Pancake, her arms crossed over her chest. She wasn’t supervising him, exactly, but she was keeping a closer watch. Shawn had been complaining about Pancake since they got on the ship, ever since Shawn said “Push it!” to women dressed like Salt-N-Pepa and Pancake had started to play “Whatta Man” instead. She had already started a list of other DJs for subsequent cruises. There was no coming back from not living up to Shawn’s expectations.
The little stage was crowded with Talkers, and Sarah had to squint to find the guys. Shawn was in the crowd on the left-hand side, trailed by his security guard, and Scotty was on the right side, waving his arm back and forth in sync with a fleet of women dressed like members of Pearl Jam, with long, messy hair and flannel shirts tied around their waists. Keith and Corey were leaning against the back bar of the stage in opposite corners, listening patiently as drunk, adoring women shouted into their ears. Terrence was MIA, no doubt having sex with his wife somewhere he shouldn’t.
Sarah saw Bobby a few feet away and hurried over next to him. “Hey,” she said.
“Thanks for catching Keith earlier,” Bobby said. “He’s quick when he wants to be.”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “That’s my job.”
“Mine too.” Bobby pointed with his chin to the other side of the DJ booth. “Unless that motherfucker tries to steal it.”
Jonathan was standing at the top of the stairs. He was wearing hemp shorts and a pair of clogs, and his beard fluttered in the wind like a puppet on a string. He was bobbing his head side to side in the general neighborhood of the beat. There were so few men on the boat that they all stood out like buoys in the ocean, and Jonathan stuck out more than the rest. Sarah had worked with other white guys with beards like that. They were never, ever good news.
“You think he’s okay?” Sarah asked.
“Who, that narc? No, he’s not okay. He’s on my shit list. I keep seeing him scurrying around in the background like a goddamn rat on the subway tracks. If he was a man, he’d come and talk to me in my fucking face. Excuse my French.” Bobby was shooting daggers, but Jonathan looked totally unaware, just grooving to his own internal beat.
“No, Keith.”
Bobby shrugged. “You know he hates the cruise.”
“And I won’t take that personally. It just seems worse this year, doesn’t it? For him, I mean. I think it’s going great—the Talkers are happy, the events have been great. He just seems like he’s going through it, you know?”
Bobby put his hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “Listen, we got him on the boat. Next year, that’s all we have to do. Just make sure he gets on the boat again. Take it one year at a time.”
Sarah frowned. “That’s harsh, man.”
“Come on, don’t be like that,” Bobby said. “I’m trying my best. You’ve got the five guys in the band, you’ve got security, you’ve got JackRabbit, you’ve got the Talkers—it’s a lot of people to let down. He’s a good person. I don’t want to see him depressed either, but it’s not just about him. Believe me, I think about Keith all the time. I’m just trying to think about the big picture, too.” There was a slight roll and the ship moved, causing the whole crowd to take a step to the left, like they were climbing stairs sideways. “We just gotta hang on.”
Jonathan clapped along, having finally found the beat.
21
Saturday, 2 a.m.
Deck 7
Keith knew that his room was silent, but it didn’t feel that way. He just needed a little break from the party, but it seemed like the party had come along with him, his ears still whooshing and thumping from the loud music and all the screaming, as if he were lying on the bottom of the ocean instead of flat on his back on his bed.
His phone vibrated, and Keith flipped it over on the bed. Steffani had finally written back, or rather, it seemed like she’d responded hours ago, but the message had just arrived.
Having a good time? Seems like nice weather. Tell Scotty I love him.An image popped up, still loading, and Keith watched the little pizza pie of data fill in until the picture emerged. It was Madison, sitting at the kitchen table, smiling at her mother. Another message appeared—Maybe there’s another cruise after, just to chill.His heart sank. She didn’t want him home. Keith understood; it was easier when he was away. He couldn’t do anything embarrassing, he couldn’t say the wrong thing, his sadness couldn’t make her sad. Keith started to write back but remembered it was the middle of the night, so he put the phone back down. He thought about texting Sarah to thank her, but she’dprobably gone to bed, and he wanted to respect her boundaries. He hoped she didn’t mind what had happened earlier. It was so hard to tell now where the line was between human empathy and being a creep.
Keith thought about the woman from the morning, the one dressed like Madonna. They’d met Madonna a few times, gawky teenagers gaping at her cone-shaped bras. She’d been small and strong, as ifI don’t give a fuck what you think about mecould become a person. It had been a long time since someone had actually looked at him like a human being on the cruise. This woman—a stranger!—actually seemed like she would have waited to hear his answer. To her question, to any question. The only questions Steffani ever asked were knives.Are you seriously going to wear that? Why would you think that I would want that?Now all Keith did was worry that he was going to say the wrong thing, so mostly he kept his mouth shut, which she also didn’t like.
