Saturday, 12:07 p.m.
Deck 1
The Beach Games were supposed to start at noon, and guests had been lining up to get on the tenders that would take them to the island all morning, boats that could carry more than a hundred Talkers in enormous straw hats and colorful sarongs across the shallow water to the dock at the beach. A few sarongs had Corey’s or Shawn’s faces printed on them, the guys’ eyes knotted around waists and hips. These women would customize anything—and had. If JackRabbit were smart, they would have made more merch, or at least offered supplies. A crafting afternoon! They could have split the profits with Boy Talk—Sarah would mention it to Bobby; that seemed like a good thing for BT Cruise 6. New ideas were good, not that the Talkers really needed them. The cruise itself was the idea that mattered—the men, the women, no exit. Everything else was secondary.
The ship had anchored off the coast of American Cay in the night. Only the cruise line called it that—on the maps, it was still called Horsefly Cay, which didn’t have the same kind of ring to it. American Cruise Lines had purchased it some years ago, and now the short cruises always stopped for a day, pumping tens of thousands of dollarsin alcohol and floaties and beachside jerk chicken lunches back into the cruise ship’s pockets. It was a real island, but the cruise line had done as much work as possible to make it feel like one gigantic resort—safe, with chicken fingers. There were a few Bahamians who worked at the souvenir stands next to the bathrooms, but otherwise it was all the same people, just in their bathing suits. Everyone at JackRabbit hated it because they couldn’t comfortably wear their Carhartt and boots without sweating to death. Every year, Sarah told everyone to pack a pair of shorts, but some people just did not want to listen. Tyler had rolled his eyes so hard when Sarah mentioned sunscreen and a hat that she thought he might actually be having a stroke.
She and Bobby were standing at the elevator doors, waiting. They’d tried it a few ways—holding one of the tenders for the guys and walking them down the sandy path to the beach venue—but it took a long time, and the guys had complained that too many people talked to them while they were en route, adding an easy forty-five minutes to the otherwise ten-minute journey. This year, the plan was to get on the tender and then from the tender onto a small speedboat that would bring them straight to the stage via the water. “A water landing,” Corey had said. “Like Normandy.”
They would wait until most of the women were already on the island, mostly so the guys would have to be in the sun for the shortest period of time possible. It was hard to say which day the guys enjoyed less, Beach Day or Photo Day. They were both bad, Sarah conceded. “They’re all bad,” Keith had said to her once, his voice low, and Sarah had watched as he realized he’d said something that might offend her, his face falling.
The elevator door opened. Scotty was wearing all white—a tank top, a Panama hat, and shorts that showed off all his impressive thigh muscles. “Aloha!” he said. Terrence and Kelsey were kissing in the back corner. They unhooked themselves from each other’s mouths andsauntered out. “I love the beach,” Kelsey said. Her sunglasses took up the top half of her face. “Me too,” said Terrence, and he casually readjusted his half boner. Terrence did not love the beach. Before meeting Kelsey, Terrence had tried to swap Beach Day for literally anything else every single year. Sarah had explained that the Talkers did not want to go on ghost tours of Old San Juan or learn about the Haitian Revolution. Keith’s seasickness never seemed to be reason enough to ditch it, either. The Talkers wanted what they wanted, which was to drink on the beach and watch the guys get a little bit wet.
“Okay, that’s almost half,” Sarah said. Bobby chuckled.
The next elevator opened, and it was Keith, Shawn, and Jonathan. Shawn was staring at his phone, texting, and Keith had on his darker sunglasses and a baseball hat. Jonathan was wearing board shorts, flip-flops, and a bright white strip of zinc oxide on his nose like a lifeguard in Malibu. “Morning,” Keith said.
“The party last night was lit,” Shawn said. “But someone needs to talk to Pancake about how he keeps missing my cues, and I’m about to leave him on this beach if he keeps doing it.”
“Heard,” Sarah said. “Bobby, why don’t I get these guys on the boat, and you wait for Corey and then come meet us. Sound good?”
Bobby nodded, and the guys and Kelsey all followed Sarah out the small metal doorway and down the gangway. Jonathan was last and paused after everyone else had climbed aboard.
“I like how you work,” he said, tapping the tan skin under his right eye. “I’ve got my third eye on you.”
“Thanks, I think,” Sarah said.
24
Saturday, 12:15 p.m.
The Atlantic Ocean
TheAmerican Fantasywas so big that Keith hardly felt it moving, and his patch worked well enough to keep his seasickness at bay. The second his first sneaker touched the deck of the small boat, though, Keith’s stomach began to revolt. There were small waves rocking the boat back and forth, and every time the boat dipped, Keith felt like he was mid-drop on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. He hurried on board and took the seat closest to the center of the boat, which he had been told was the steadiest on any vessel. Keith breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth.
“This is crazy. I feel like we’re on a lifeboat getting rescued, and I’m Kate Winslet, and you’re Leo DiCaprio, baby,” Kelsey said. She slid in next to Keith, knocking him a little bit sideways, and his stomach lurched again. “Sorry!” Kelsey said, looking over at him. Keith shook his head and waved her off, unable to speak. Terrence’s wife was closer to Keith’s daughter’s age than their own; he wasn’t mad at her. Keith closed his eyes. Steffani would never have said something like that to him, not even when they were young and first dating and never in frontof other people. He’d never been into PDA because people were always watching him anyway—why give them a free show? Maybe he would have felt differently about it if the person who was kissing him seemed like she was really enjoying it. Steffani used to, at least he thought so, but when Keith thought a little harder, she’d always been the first to pull back, to turn away. That made Keith’s stomach feel even worse. Terrence stroked the inside of his wife’s thigh with his thumb.
“Maybe you should have waited on the ship,” Scotty said, hopping onto the deck. He pretended to surf.
“It’s too late,” Keith said, or started to say before he felt telltale acidic popping in the back of his throat, and he lunged to the side of the boat and threw up into the ocean.
“Awwwww,” some Talkers said from above. The large tender was still there, accumulating more passengers, and a row of women had lined up along the side to watch the guys board the smaller boat. It was the sound new parents made when their constipated baby finally pooped. There was nothing too disgusting to be loved.
Shawn hopped onto the boat and rubbed his brother’s back. “Need a mint?” Keith nodded. Shawn flipped open a tin of Altoids like it was a case of Cuban cigars, and Keith plucked one out. Sarah crouched down next to him with a bottle of water.
“Here you go, champ,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’ll be a short trip, I promise.”
The rest of the group appeared on the tender and slowly made their way onto the boat until everyone was aboard. Jonathan stood in the middle, his hands up, balancing. He made Keith nervous, or more nervous. It was hard to tell which discomfort to pay attention to at the moment. Corey was the last one on, as if he was trying to make this boat ride take as long as humanly possible, and Keith glared at him. All the seats were taken, and the three bodyguards stood in the center,holding on, their reflective sunglasses sending beams of sunlight back in the opposite direction, as if the men were protecting the group from the sun too.
The boat started moving, and Keith gripped the side tightly with both hands. Water sprayed up in his face, which felt good. The bathrooms on the island were pretty bleak—a single stall in the seafood shack where they usually set up the karaoke stage. He would need to clean up a little bit before everything started. The only thing worse than doing the cruise was the idea of doing it badly, of doing a job that the Talkers would complain about.
“All right!” Sarah said, loud enough for everyone to hear her over the motor. “Captain Steve is going to pull us in as close as we can, and then everyone’s going to hop off and wade up onto the beach. Sound good? The teams are already set up and waiting, so it’s one game of volleyball and then karaoke, and then we’ll get you back on the ship—depending on the tide, we’ll either come back this way or use the regular tender. Everybody good?”
Keith let out a little moan.
“You want to be the ref? Instead of playing?” Sarah reached into her pocket and pulled out a whistle. It dangled in front of Keith’s face, and the swaying made his stomach feel worse. He grabbed it and held it against his chest.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said.
