“Smile, sir!” cried a guy with an elaborate camera around his neck. Dutifully, Cord smiled. A flash blinded him, and when his vision cleared, he saw the singer.
A man so massive he could have played linebacker for the Georgia Bulldogs, the tuxedo-clad singer employed a big set of lungs to fill the room with sound. “Touch me! It’s so easy to leave me! All alone with the memory…of my days in the sun!” A cadre of women in flip-flops and oversize T-shirts, their hair still wet from the pool, swayed piano-side and sang along.
Cord approached a glass elevator, stepping in when the doors opened. It was the brightest space he’d ever inhabited, and when it started to rise quickly above Liberace’s ballroom, he was honestly awestruck, staggering backward into two teenage boys holding soccer balls. “Watch it, old man,” said one; the other said something in Italian and they laughed. Flushed with humiliation (was he an old man? Really?), Cord got off the elevator at the next stop, and found himself standing next to a jam-packed indoor pool. Four hot tubs were full to the brim.
“Two-for-one Nutella crêpe?” asked a man in a toque.
“Pardon?” said Cord. Something was happening above him; he glanced heavenward to see that a retractable roof was sliding open, exposing a purplish sky. “Whoa,” said Cord.
“It’s two-for-one Nutella crêpes,” the guy next to Cord repeated. “You buy one but you actually get two.” Was Cord disassociating? He felt as if he were on acid. The crêpe man was looking at him expectantly. A line had begun to form behind Cord, and a man with a ton of body hair wearing only a Speedo was standing too close. The crêpe man winked. Did Cord imagine it?
“Oh, sure,” said Cord, handing over his ship card.
He walked through a set of double doors, emerging on the outdoor pool deck. People were everywhere: oiled up, carrying plates piled high with food, slurping drinks, dancing, reading, dead asleep (or—eek—dead?). A three-story waterslide snaked above him. Cord nibbled his warm, sweet crêpe. A DJ spun Salt-N-Pepa’s classic “Push It,” and Cord’s hips started to sway to the beat. Despite himself, he murmured, “Oooh, baby, baby. Baby, baby.”
Where was his luggage? Where was his family? Where was his dignity? Could he stay on this ship for the rest of his life?
Push it good. Push it real good!
From the football-field-size pool, jets shot into the air, then fell in arcs back into the turquoise water. Glass panels lined the edge of the ship, and beyond was the deep, mysterious sea.
Cord craned his neck to see three massive smokestacks belching plumes of exhaust into the evening sky. The lonely voice wanted to talk about climate change, about being a part of the solution and not the problem, about droughts and famines, refugees in the water, and the demise of humankind, but Cord didn’t want to listen.
Beyond the “Aqua Zone” was the entrance to an insane buffet. There was mediocre food as far as the eye could see: burgers, pizza, fruit salad, chafing dishes filled with pastas, stews, and casseroles; cakes, pies, Jell-O molds, éclairs, slabs of meat being carved, and why were there framed drawings of Native Americans in headdresses behind the dessert station? Why the marzipan piano? Who cared? Honestly, seriously,who cared?
Cord grabbed a warm, clean plate (don’t think about germs, no, don’t even think about salmonella) and filled it, humming “Push It” and eating taquitos directly from the tray underneath the sign readingPLEASE USE SERVICE UTENSILS AT ALL INSTANCES.
Yo yo yo yo, baby pop—yeah, YOU! Come here, gimme me a kiss. Better make it fast, or else I’m gonna get pissed.
He ate a burger, ate some kind of noodle and salmon dish, finished off a slice of apple pie and a marzipan mouse. He just abandoned his empty plate and floated into a hallway, down some stairs, and into a packed Las Vegas casino.
The casino walls were painted with murals of other locales: Havana, Istanbul, Monte Carlo. Marble columns sprouted metal palm fronds and globular lights. It couldn’t have been 8:00P.M., but women in sequined gowns tossed chips, and tuxedoed staff spun roulette wheels. There were the ever-present grayish-skinned guys zombified before a row of slot machines.
“Free champagne and two-for-one cash money bingo?” purred an adorable fellow who emerged from nowhere (from Cord’s wildest dreams?).
He would have one, just one drink, and then he would go back to the open-air Aqua Zone and watch the sky turn crimson, the clouds purple above the vast, astonishing ocean. It was so easy, after all the pain, and all the sober, sad, plodding work.
All he had to do was say yes.
REGAN AND MATT HADnot had sex in over a year. It was excruciating to be alone together, jammed in a tiny cabin. Matt was sprawled on the bed, and Regan sat as far away as possible, brushing her hair at the vanity table. How much she’d once loved touching him! But now the thought of being physically close to her husband made her feel ill. Regan tried to remember the last time they had even been alone—it seemed as if the girls were always with them, or within earshot.
Matt turned to her. “Come here, honey,” he said. “You’re so far away.”
Adrenaline throbbed in her veins as she steeled herself, moved toward the bed. Maybe this was how spies felt as they girded themselves to steal state secrets. Matt opened his arms. “Too many clothes,” he said.
Regan pulled her silk top over her head and stood before her husband, the full glory of what he’d once called “the absolute best boobs in Georgia” on display. Her heart hammered in her chest. She hid the stretch marks on her stomach with her hands. The chilled cabin air was giving her goosebumps.
“Oh, my sweet one. I’ve missed you,” said Matt.
She wanted to say,I’ve been right here all along.Was Matt saying that he missed sex, or that, seeing her now, he remembered everything they had to lose? She lowered herself to the bed, and it felt like the scariest thing she’d ever done to allow herself to be held.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she lied.
Her life before Matt had been so painful and bare. It was as if she’d been living without skin, and he’d coated her in love. She had once thought it would ruin her to feel that way again. But now she was like a panther in the zoo, casing the enclosure night and day, alert for a chance to escape.
Regan knew what she had to do. She just needed to shut her mouth and open her body to the man who had turned her from a naïve idiot into whatever she was now—a predator, a woman who daydreamed of murder.
“Kiss me,” said Matt. She could do it, and she did.
