The words smeared all my thoughts together like an old, dirty makeup sponge. I closed my eyes and took a calming breath and then another. Pretended I was at a head spa with a heated eye mask and someone spraying my scalp with warm water and that my email inbox was empty and that I didn’t stare up at the ceiling at night wondering why being so busy didn’t keep me from feeling so alone—
No, no! Back to the eye mask and the scalp massage! And also there was someone massaging my feet. And a hypoallergenic puppy snoozing on my chest. And someone to cuddle me for an hour afterward, because the only person I had to cuddle was my best friend, Winnie Baker (and, okay, her adorable baby too), but I was always working so much, and so I never saw her or the baby, and—
—this wasn’t working.
How was I supposed to do the rest of this cruise withAugusthanging over my head? I needed to talk to my team, because maybe August was too soon. I mean, arguably it was too late, given that I was thirty-three years old, but it was coming up so fast, and I hadn’t had any time to prepare, and maybe I just needed to push it back a quarter, rearrange the kanban board. Otherwise, I wasn’t going to be able to pay full attention to Lemon Tree, and if Lemon Tree failed,everything failed.
Okay, yes, that was what I needed to do! I clapped my hands together even though I was alone, delighted with myself. I should have remembered that there wasn’t a problem a revised schedule couldn’t fix.
On my way to my bedroom, I noticed Krysta’s door was closed, with not a single lumen of light seeping from underthe door. Just in case she was still awake, I made a (nuanced,restrained) show of going into my room and closing the door and rustling loudly atop my covers, in case sounds could travel through our shared wall. And then I checked the clock. Ten forty-five. I needed to make my move sooner rather than later.
I quietly changed into jeans, a white T-shirt, and a collarless tweed jacket, slipped on my vegan leather tennis shoes, and crept down the stairs and out of the suite. And internally thanked Teenage Addison for her youthful indiscretions—I now had the dubious gift of being able to sneak out of any place, at any time. Sadly, there’d be no making out at the end of this foray, but such was the pain of being in your thirties, I guessed.
The ship, I was happy to see, was lively even at this late hour. The pools were splashing, the lazy river was full of half naked people soaking in the starlight, music leaked from the different clubs and bars as I made my way to the stern. I stopped to take a few selfies, complimented some influencers on their swimwear, and reached the hot tub right at eleven.
It wasn’t as loud back here—there were only a few guests in the tub, gathered at the infinity edge to look out onto the dark waves as they drank and talked—and I couldn’t hear any of the music. Just the wind and the water and the low murmur of voices.
I found a spot at the railing nearby and scanned the area for my would-be villain. But aside from an influencer making her friend take an unreasonable number of pictures of her, there were no obvious evildoers nearby.
I checked my watch, then took out the note and reread it.11 PM.That was now! Didn’t potential blackmailers have schedules too?
I would wait thirty minutes. As much as I wanted to put this particular anxiety to bed, I also needed to putmyselfto bed, because the sunrise yoga class was happening whether Iwas there or not, and I needed to wake up with enough time for under-eye masks and an espresso shot. (A furtive espresso shot... I did a whole piece with Goop extolling the benefits of cutting caffeine and drinking dandelion coffee instead, and until my dandelion-coffee-sponsored posts were done, no public caffeine for me.)
I turned to scout the deck, thinking maybe my malefactor was hiding behind one of the potted lemon trees, and ran right into a wall of cedar-smelling hoodie.
I tilted my head back to look up at Krysta’s unamused face.
“Hi!” I squeaked.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she asked. Her voice was low but serrated. Pissed.
It was kind of hot, actually, but given that she was staring at me like I’d eaten a Nature Valley granola bar in her car, I knew better than to turn the moment flirty. I also knew better than to tell her the truth. She’d just make A Thing of it and refuse to let me fix this, and I had to fix it.
So. No truth for Krysta.
“I wanted to make sure everyone was having a good time tonight and that everything was running smoothly. Like a good hostess. I was hostessing!”
She stared down at me. “The rules,” she said and nothing more.
I thought back to the short list I’d found in my email.No sneaking off alone.
“Okay, but can you even sneak out on a cruise ship?” I asked innocently. “Sneaking out implies amysteriousout, an out away from thein. But on a ship, they’re one and the same! There’s no other place! So really—”
Krysta had already taken my elbow at this point and was guiding me—firmly—away from the hot tub. I cast one last desperate look around to see if anyone new and dastardly hadappeared, but Krysta was walking too fast, and I had to scurry to keep up. Her hand had moved to my upper arm, and her grip was so, so strong. The kind of grip that could pin both your wrists above your head.
Mmm.
“Look,” I said, “if you’re going to interrupt my hostessing, the least you can do is swing me by the twenty-four-hour snack bar for some fries.”
“You can order room service,” Krysta said, navigating me through the outdoor pool area with the blank-faced efficiency of a Secret Service agent.
I was aghast. “Orderfriesfrom room service?”
“Is there a problem with room service fries?” she asked.
“They won’t be the right temperature! They’ll be too cold!”
“So? It’s the same ingredients. They are the same fries.”
