He was going to board the ship. He’d have courteous conversations with Matt, whom Cord had never been crazy about, but whom he now detested. Regan would try to win back her man, and Cord would be forced to watch. He’d squire his mother to buffet dinners and the Twitters Comedy Club, gritting his teeth as she pointed out his possible wives. Cord would pretend he was proud of Lee, who had taken her talent and squandered it, who was shallow and vain. (To make matters worse, her shallowness and vanity were a bit like Cord’s, so made him feel not just annoyed but culpable.)
Cord did understand what he was doing. But the thing about being an addict was that itdidn’t even matterthat he understood what he was doing—that he’d done the same thing a hundred million times and every time it had come to ruin. It was reptilian: familiar, appealing, seemingly unavoidable. An alcoholic’s chain of logic, excuse after excuse, zipping up a close-fitting suit of martyrdom: he had to board the ship, and in order to stay on theMarveloso,he was going to have to drink.
Hurray!
He could taste a fruity concoction already, something pink and heavy with rum. Ah, a shot! The fire on his tongue and a welling up from the pit of his stomach: instant ease and well-being! The pain of his multiple lives would disappear. He could buy into the myth that they were happy. For the hours he had booze in his system, Cord could forget what he owed Giovanni.
The porter was gesturing frantically now, waving both arms in the air like a nutjob at a Yankees game. “The ship!” yelled the porter. “The ship is closing! The ship is leaving! Hurry, please! You must run!”
If Cord stayed still—just didn’t move a muscle—he would be okay. The ship of family dysfunction would set off into the Aegean and he’d be on solid ground. “Cord?” said Handy. “You there, man?”
“I’m losing you,” said Cord.
“Okay, man, call me when you—”
“Can’t hear you,” said Cord. He pocketed his phone, picked up his bag, and began to sprint. A series of people in white jumpsuits with Splendido name tags welcomed Cord, checked his papers, took his bags, escorted him through a metal detector, and pointed him down a hallway. A large door was propped open, and outside it, a metal drawbridge led into the ship. For a moment, on the drawbridge suspended above the water, boyhood Cord rose up within him:Wow! A ship!
Boyhood Cord was weak, vulnerable. Cord stuffed him down.
He pressed on, into a mirrored hallway lined with portholes. He picked a direction at random and found himself inside a futuristic discotheque. The walls were seemingly made of glowing boulders, and the chairs looked like the ones aboard theStarship Enterprise—armless, blob-like. One entire wall was made of booze: rows and rows of backlit bottles of every shape and color. Cord’s salivary glands woke up and began clamoring for grappa, Jägermeister, crème de menthe.
Cord glimpsed a trivia contest in full swing: groups of people crouched around bar tables, scribbling with tiny pencils. A young blonde with a German accent, perched on a stool, read an answer into her microphone. “The color of a polar bear’s skin? Is? In fact? BLACK!” she cried.
Some passengers cheered, but several looked crestfallen. “I’m so sorry,” an older man implored his wife. “I really did think it was pink.”
“I know you did, honey,” said his wife morosely, peering into her empty glass.
Cord spied a grand staircase and began to ascend it, trying not to mar the gleaming banisters by touching them with his sweaty hands. He had never seen so much chrome in his life! Everywhere, everywhere, there were sweeping expanses of metal, polished to reflect flashing lights so bright Cord hoped none of his fellow cruisers were prone to seizures.
Above theJetsonsdisco, Cord wandered down a hallway lined with the most awful artwork he had ever seen. An enormous painting of Michael Jackson and Ringo Starr riding tigers was placed next to one of a gorilla gazing into the eyes of an airborne owl. “Please, peruse,” said a dark-haired woman who had materialized in front of him and slipped a glass of champagne into his hand. “This one,” she said, her voice husky and accented. She gestured to a painting of Robert De Niro wearing a white suit, brandishing a gun in front of a neon-colored lion. “Is special,” she said. “Is a limited edition.”
“It’s so special,” Cord agreed.
“Drink,” said the woman. “Is a compliment.”
Cord clutched the glass. Who would know if he brought it to his lips?
“Champagne auction, it takes place tomorrow,” said the woman. “But for you, it takes place today.”
“Uh,” said Cord. He kind of did want the painting. Gio adored kitsch. They could hang it over their bed, or in the living room above the fireplace.
Later, he would wonder what it was that had made him buy the art—the woman? The peaceful, knowing lion? De Niro’s “devil may care” expression? But in the moment, it felt like nothing. He handed the woman his Sail-N-Shop card. “I’ll take it,” he said.
After signing the papers that would commit him to almost a thousand dollars for a joke of a painting, Cord wandered along a dim hallway lit with sconces. He skirted a bizarre statue of a girl petting a giant egg, rushed past an entrance labeledSPORTSMAN’S BAR, and climbed down some stairs.
In the bowels of the ship, he discovered a strip mall with a gelato stand, a coffee bar, and a multitude of shops. Rows of overpriced things no one needed lay before him: watches, M&M’s, Marveloso room diffusers, neon-colored sarongs. The ceiling was somehow covered with shining stars.
Were theyunderneath the water? Cord tried not to freak out.
Three clean-cut youngsters in uniform stood behind a precarious configuration of perfume and cologne bottles. They sprayed the pricey liquids liberally, but a cigar bar at the end of the mini-mall dominated Cord’s olfactory input. “Free champagne and two-for-one Versace pour Homme eau de toilette natural spray?” asked one of the perfume team, a tall girl who’d gone to town with her green eye shadow.
“Why would I want two?” said Cord.
“I no speak English so much,” said the girl, giggling fetchingly. She handed Cord another glass of champagne and spritzed, moving her arm in a dizzying figure eight. Cord sipped deeply, breathing in cigar smoke and European cologne.
The Marveloso truly was a marvel, a Xanadu dome of pleasure. Cord entered a room that could have been Liberace’s ballroom, had Liberace installed ten stories of stairs inlaid with cut crystals and invited a few thousand frumpy guests to mill about his ballroom in bathing suits. There were maroon banquettes with glittering chandeliers above them. Potted palm trees rose from herringbone-patterned carpet. The walls looked to be made of marble, and fountains lit with neon strobes exploded every ten feet.
In the center of the room, a birdlike woman in a ball gown pounded on a grand piano. The woman’s bony shoulder blades were a sight to behold as she gave the notes of “Memories” her absolute all, her head thrown back in ecstasy, giant beehive hairdo remaining, remarkably, intact.
