“Mine,” she said.
The elevator banks were empty. The hallways too. Greg didn’t hold her hand, but he stayed close enough that they kept brushing against each other. Everyone was either in bed or on the deck. Annie passed the room of doom, where all the photo groups assembled, and the casino and the empty nightclub and then made her way down the last flight of stairs to her room, Greg at her heels.
It was empty and neat. Maira was a tidy roommate, thank god. She shut the door behind them, and Greg’s mouth was on hers again. He set the bucket of beer down by the door, and Annie let him push her back toward her bed. She hadn’t had sex in a twin-size bed since she was in college—it seemed physically impossible. She and Chris would not have been up to the challenge, but Greg pulled his nightdress over his head and then Annie’s, and their bodies were already pressing together. She thought she’d feel self-conscious, but she didn’t feel conscious at all, just present and enjoying what was happening. There was nowhere else for their limbs to go but on top of each other, intertwinedwith each other, pressing, pressing, squeezing, holding. Annie closed her eyes and just paid attention to what her body was feeling: Greg’s mouth on her neck, Greg’s hand slipping between her legs. He was thin but strong, and Annie felt the muscles in his arms flex as he held his body above hers.
“Can I go down on you?” Greg said into her sternum. Annie mumbled, “Yes, yes,” and then Greg was moving down her body. Some part of him fell out of the bed, and they both laughed. Greg yanked Annie’s body to the edge of the mattress and kneeled in front of it. For a second it felt like a gynecological appointment, with her butt hanging over the edge of the narrow bed, but Annie pushed it out of her mind. It had been a long time! Greg threw her legs over his shoulders, and Annie couldn’t think anymore. She was replaying it all in her head, everything that had happened that night, all while the temperature in her body was going up, up, up, but instead of Greg pulling her through the crowd and up the stairs, it was Keith Fiore. Instead of Greg’s face so close to hers, it was Keith’s. The shape of his lips. The stubble on his cheeks. She imagined Keith leaning in, pressing his body against hers. Her body started to shake.
The door swung open, and the hallway light flipped on. Annie scooted back all the way onto the bed, leaving Greg crouching at the end in his underwear. Maira stood in the doorway and crossed her arms.
“Oh, god,” Annie said. “Sorry, Maira, I thought you were upstairs…” Annie didn’t know why she was apologizing, but an apology seemed necessary. They hadn’t been doing anything in Maira’s bed, but it was a small room, a shared space.
“She’s your roommate?” Greg asked, looking from Maira to Annie and back. Annie couldn’t tell who he was talking to.
“Yes!” both Annie and Maira said.
Greg felt around for his nightshirt and pulled it back on. The open door had knocked over his beers, and he picked them up one at a time, leaving a trail of ice cubes in his wake. “She’s crazy,” Greg said to Annie. “Just so you know. Everyone knows she’s crazy.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve had sex with half the women on this ship!” Maira said.
Greg shrugged. “See you around, Madonna.” He winked and angled his body through the door, which Maira then slammed behind him.
Annie held the sheet up to her neck. Maira turned around to give her some privacy.
“It’s okay,” Maira said. “You’re not the first to fall for him.”
But Annie wasn’t really listening. She hadn’t fallen—she’d jumped. It didn’t matter if Greg had done whatever with whoever; that had nothing to do with her. Annie pulled the cover over her head and tried to go back, just for a second, to the way it had actually felt. Annie’s impulse was to apologize, to cater to everyone else’s feelings. She was a mom. She’d been a wife. She was ahelper, like Mister Rogers always suggested, a person who went out of her way to make things easier for other people. If Katherine had been on the ship, she wouldn’t have brought Greg back to her room. Annie wouldn’t have fooled around. Fooling around! What a phrase, to be a fool on purpose. She had enjoyed being a fool. Annie wanted to be a fool again, as much as she could, until she dropped dead.
There were little noises in the room—Maira was doing whatever she’d come back to the room to do. Annie slid the cover off her head and watched as Maira plugged her phone charger in to the power strip and leaned closer to the mirror to redo her lipstick.
“To be clear,” Annie said, “I’m sorry that you walked in on that, but I’m not sorry I was doing it.” She was saying it more for herselfthan for Maira, who paused with the tube of lipstick an inch away from her mouth.
“Good for you,” Maira said, and winked. “Want to go back to the party?”
Annie did. “Let’s go smoke a cigarette first.”
Maira clapped her hands. “Now we’re talking!”
33
Sunday, 2:59 a.m.
Deck 5
Keith hated the costume. It wasn’t even a costume. It was underwear and a button-down shirt and some socks. It was literally all from his own closet. The elaborate costumes were more fun—he would have been happy being Bob Dylan every night. Just wearing underwear seemed so cheap, liketheywere being cheap. Keith understood—it felt good to give people what they loved. That was the whole point, to give people something that made them happy and to be happy in return. At least Maddy never saw him dressed like this for the fans, unless she’d seen it on YouTube. Keith exhaled. She probably had.
The John Travolta Disco was quieter than the night before. This happened every year—a little lull on day three where people decided to catch up on a few hours of sleep before the crush of the last day. Scotty was dancing, sliding around in his socks and yellow Crocs. He had tied the button-down around his waist, and he had squeezed into a too-small T-shirt someone had tossed to him onstage that saidBoys forever. Keith hadtoldShawn that Pajama Night was a bad idea, but he didn’t listen. Keith added it to the list of things that he had argued against and lost.
Shawn was leading about twenty Talkers in a line dance. He didn’t really know how to line dance, but it didn’t matter. He was making it up on the spot, and they were loving it. Scotty was dancing too. Shawn shouted, “Do-si-do!” and threw his baseball hat in the air. Someone caught it, and Keith watched as the women touched the hat as they passed it back to Shawn, as gentle and careful as if they were carrying an infant to safety.
There was a reason Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. did Vegas. In Las Vegas, you could sit down and have a drink, and the floor wouldn’t move underneath you. In Las Vegas, the only people who took off their clothes were the showgirls, the burlesque dancers, and the guys atMagic Mike Live. Keith didn’t want to go to Brazil. He didn’t want to go to the Philippines. He didn’t want to go anywhere with Corey and Shawn. He didn’t even want to do what he was already doing! Boy Talk couldn’t do it forever—they just couldn’t, not like this. Why did it feel so bad to say so out loud? Shawn was going to go down swinging until the day he dropped dead, and he didn’t care if he killed Keith in the process.
On the other side of the room, Jonathan was dancing, his thin hips jerking side to side in what looked like drooping yoga pants. Keith wanted to get off the ship and never get on again for as long as he lived. He felt like he was doing an army crawl out of a battle zone, and his brother was holding on to his legs.
Shawn grabbed a microphone and shouted, his voice hoarse and faint, “Let’s rock this fucking boat!” And everyone jumped up and down, including Jonathan. Scotty pointed at Keith, who pointed back. They were all great atpointing.
Day Four
Sunday
