by Matayo, Amy
“Teddy, do you have—”
“No Sabrina, I don’t have a People or an Inquirer or anything else but this.” He holds up some non-fiction self-help book that looks boring as sin. “And it’s US Weekly you’re quoting, Dillon. Get your tabloids right.”
“Oh sorry. All I remember is a picture of you pumping gas. My little boy is all grown up and driving a Tesla.” She giggles, and I can’t help a smile at their good-natured ribbing. That’s one of the nicest things about being friends with someone as famous as Teddy. If I didn’t know him, I might assume, like the rest of the world, that he was nothing but a pampered diva surrounded by people eager to fulfill his every beck and call with a yes sir, no sir, whatever you say sir. That’s the image celebrity gives off, right? But real life is different than assumptions. In real life, he’s surrounded by a lot of yes people…but he’s also surrounded by people who regularly call him on his crap.
Dillon is one of those people. She’s also his very favorite person. The realist people are the best people, no matter how good your life seems to everyone else.
“Shut up, Dillon,” he says. “I seem to remember you begging to drive that Tesla only last month.”
She comes up on her elbows. “I also remember you telling me no because you were afraid I’d break it. Brat.” She sticks out her tongue.
“I had my reasons. And just in case you don’t remember, you were the one who—”
“If you say ‘broke your Chevy’ I will wet the end of this beach towel and pop you with it. I did not break your car.”
He adjusts his ball cap and leans back with his face to the sun, completely relaxed and not at all bothered. “You drove it into a curb and bent the wheel. What do you call that?”
“Beginner’s bad luck,” she says with a sigh. “Not my fault they moved the curb…” She mutters that last part to herself while the rest of us try not to laugh.
“Beginners bad luck that cost me five hundred dollars in high school. I had to work all summer to pay my dad back.”
Dillon chucks her sunscreen toward his head, but he catches it. “At least now you’re a bajillionaire. Now you can buy him a house.”
“Damn straight. Now stop talking and let me bask in all my glory in peace.”
Dillon lies back down with a grin on her face. “All your glory…”
Teddy winks at me, and I shake my head. Who needs a nightclub when you have this family for entertainment?
“Man, the way you two go at it, you’d think you hated each other,” Chad says, sounding more than a little bothered by the whole exchange.
Dillon shields her eyes and looks over at us. “Nah, I could never hate Teddy. He’s like the brother I never had, and I love him to death. Besides, he did end up buying me a car last year and someday I’ll need a new one. Best not to burn that bridge.”
At that, he laughs.
“Are you two done?” Sabrina pipes up. I’m pretty sure we’d all momentarily forgotten her. “Because I still need something to read.”
“Just lay back and enjoy the quiet, Sabrina,” Teddy says. “It’s not every day that you get this much solitude. I, for one, plan to enjoy it.”
The words barely escape his lips before another voice joins our little group.
“Excuse me, are you Teddy Hayes?”
No one groans, but the atmosphere around us definitely deflates. As for Teddy, he sits up with a smile and holds out his hand. “I sure am.”
You’ve got to give it to the guy. Even when his plans are interrupted, he still has the ability to be gracious.
And then there’s me. While he talks up the fans, I lie back and finally go to sleep.
It’s pleasantly silent when I wake up, so silent that when I pull the towel off my face—When did I put it there? I don’t even recall—I fully expect to see that everyone has left. But no, Chad is listening to music with his head tilted back, earbuds in, volume turned up high enough that I can make out the faint melody of Toto’s “Africa.” It really is one of the best songs ever written.
Teddy is sprawled on his stomach, free of adoring fans and sound asleep. He’s snoring and weirdly on beat with the lyrics I bless the rains. He’s in tune with his craft even subconsciously. As for Dillon, she’s reading a People magazine. Someone must have ventured back to the room to retrieve it, and my guess is she was the one to do it. How do I know this? Because Sabrina whispers a harsh, “are you almost done?” and Dillon ignores her.
Honestly, the love this family has for one another wouldn’t be apparent if you didn’t know where to look.
Dillon gives her a slow look before handing the magazine over and tilting her face toward the sun. For a few minutes, we do nothing but float and listen to the sounds of human activity around us. Children swimming. Men ordering drinks at the nearby bar. Families discussing dinnertime and sleeping arrangements. Teenagers asking for money to visit the arcade. It’s all very eclectic. But the best part… absolutely none of it is my responsibility.
This is what I’m thinking, basking in the glory of having no pressure or plans or a schedule or anything that I’m required to do for the next week. Until what can only be described as the largest, loudest, quite possibly most dysfunctional family in existence descends like a falcon with a hundred-foot wing span. All shadowy and imposing and giving me a very strange desire to run for my life.
I squint to see them. As God is my witness, there’s at least a thousand of them crowded around me.
“Have you all been hiding here this whole time?” Teddy’s great aunt Ruth—Rose?—brushes her bare thigh against my arm. It’s an accident, but I flinch anyway.
“I wouldn’t say we’re hiding, considering we’re out here on an open deck next to the pool.” Teddy says without lifting his head.
“Yeah, what he said,” Sabrina pipes up, flipping a page in her magazine and bringing it up to her nose. She sniffs, then rubs the paper on her wrist and sniffs again. She is weirdly obsessed with that tabloid.
“Thanks for backing me up, Sabrina,” Teddy says.
“You bet,” she says, then flips again.
I just sit and say nothing. As for Dillon, it seems she’s planning to do the same. Until her grandmother slaps her on the thigh with a sun hat.
“Dillon, we just came from the casino. There are several single men playing the slots right now. You should go check them out.”
“Sounds like you already checked them out for me. All the hard work is done. If I’m lucky, I should be able to just walk in there and pick one.” She squints at her grandmother. “Hey, is there a chapel on board? Because maybe I could talk one of them into marrying me tonight!” She flings an arm over her face while the women start to discuss the odds of a chapel and a last-minute wedding. I turn my head to keep from laughing.
“You know, Sabrina is single too,” Dillon says, the words muffled by her arm. “Maybe everyone could spend a little time focusing on her love life.”
Sabrina barely spares a glance before turning yet another page. “I hate men, so don’t bother.” Apparently, the girl was once left at the alter and still hasn’t recovered from it.
“Oh Deary, your day will come.” This from yet another aunt. A chorus of well-meaning older women look at both girls with pity before one speaks up again. “We came to tell you that dinner is at six o’clock, and tomorrow we’re going on a family excursion. All fifty-nine of us are going on a Dolphin cruise! Doesn’t that sound like so much fun?”
Fifty-nine? Seems like so much more than that.
Dillon rolls her eyes when her aunt claps her hands together. No one points out that essentially they’re trading one cruise for another and calling it an excursion—heck, I’ve seen three dolphins from my spot here on this deck.
“Sounds great,” Teddy speaks up, standing and reaching for his water bottle. “But if you don’t mind, I’m going for a swim. I’ll catch you guys at dinner.” He walks off, bottle dangling between his fingers. A quick escape. Those of us left behind all wish we�
��d thought of it ourselves, especially when two aunts sit down at his vacant chair and kick their feet up.
“So back to this wedding. If I can find a chapel, would you really want to get married on this ship, my dear?”
I don’t hear Dillon groan, but I feel it.
I’m pretty sure the whole ship feels it.
CHAPTER 5
Dillon
The odds of me going on this family group excursion are about as high as me diving off this ship and living The Little Mermaid life for the rest of my existence. Actually, those odds are higher. I saw a rock a couple miles back that I could live on. I could grab a fork before my escape and use it to comb my hair. With luck, maybe a dark-eyed sailor boy could sail by and offer to save me in exchange for my voice. I don’t sing that well anyway, so it wouldn’t be much of a loss.
I love my family. But I’m a couple seconds away from killing at least a few of them. It was bad enough listening to my aunts discuss the likelihood of me getting married on this ship yesterday in front of Teddy and his friends. But when they offered me up to the waiter last night in exchange for an extra bread basket, that was when the final straw snapped.
What would it take for you to bring me more of those pumpernickel rolls, my aunt asked the guy taking our order. We’re running low, but I’ll see what I can do, he replied. There might be a bonus for you if you’re successful, she practically purred. And then she winked at me.
Winked.
At.
Me.
Swear on my life, half of our table laughed. The other half suddenly found interest in the ceiling, the floor, the salt shakers, the butter pats—they looked everywhere but at me. As for Teddy and his friends, they thought it was hilarious. Everyone but Liam. That might excuse him in my eyes if he had actually defended me. Instead, he reached for a lemon and squeezed it into his tea. It made me irrationally angry. I’m a strong girl, I can take care of myself. But it’d be nice if occasionally a man would step up and do a little rescuing.
From now on, I’ll be my own rescuer thank you very much.
We’re supposed to meet downstairs in a half-hour. I grab my phone, bag, and passport, intent on heading that direction right now. But that’s where my family’s plans part ways with mine. This cruise continues for another five days; today, I need a break.
“Mom, I’m heading downstairs,” I call through the bathroom door. She’s still giving me the silent treatment after our fight a few minutes ago. She’s also still in the shower so I’m not entirely sure she can hear me.
“I’ll be out in a minute. If you see your father, tell him I’m coming.” Her tone is clipped. She heard me.
“Okay, I will.” I practically sing just to irritate her. “See you in a few.” My father went downstairs nearly an hour ago to help finalize our plans. According to the schedule, we have the next thirteen hours to explore before we need to be back onboard for a midnight sail. That gives me plenty of time to come up with my own plan, head out on my own adventure, and be back here before getting into too much trouble. My parents will be angry, but not as angry as they were when I slipped out my bedroom window in tenth grade to sneak off to a dance after they told me I couldn’t go. I was grounded for two weeks when they found out, and lost my car for a month. But they got over it.
They’ll get over this too. And this time they can’t take my car away, because now I’m an adult.
An adult who drives a car her cousin paid for. Whatever.
I close the door behind me and head down the hall, thankful that no one spots me and asks to tag along. Making an escape will be tricky enough without having to shed a relative or three. In the elevator, “Getaway Car” plays over the speakers like a direct attack on my behavior, but after a minute I own it and hum along to the badly translated version. If Taylor Swift can be a badass who doesn’t give a crap about anyone’s opinion, I can sneak off for a few hours without asking my dad. A rebel with a cause. For today, it’s my self-dubbed, personal slogan. I smile at my little inside joke and step off the elevator, then follow a line of people off the ship.
I’ll let you in on a little secret to making last-minute plans: it gets a bit harder to do when you haven’t researched anything at all. The idea—find my own secret excursion and head off by myself. The reality—this concrete dock is filled with people holding up signs that say things like Snorkeling, Scuba Diving, Shopping, Dolphin Cruise. I spot Chad already waiting in that line so I duck and walk the other direction. The problem? All the people with signs have crowds around them, and all of them have been pre-arranged by the cruise line. I don’t want anything crowded or sponsored by the ship and yes, I’m well-aware that goes against code and could possibly be dangerous. But today, sailing with my family would most definitely be more dangerous. If not physically, then at least mentally. Sailing with someone else’s family could cause the same issues.
Today I want something private and secluded. If I can’t have that, I’ll sit on the beach by myself.
That’s when I notice a man in the tan floppy hat standing away from the crowd. He’s a local; short, aging but not old, and he’s holding a sign that reads Snorkeling. Someone from the cruise line is speaking sharply and attempting to shoo him away, as if he doesn’t have a right to be there. It irritates me. The man ignores him and continues to hold his sign, and the cruise representative storms away. Good for the man, not giving into the bully attempting to stifle his right to make money and live his own life. We’re the same, he and I. I think.
Either way, I look over my shoulder to see if anyone’s watching. Discovering no eyes on me, I use the moment to make my move and approach him.
“Excuse me, I’m interested in snorkeling. How much for the morning?”
He quotes me a price that might be a tad high, but I’m determined. Some say I have a knack for making irrational decisions, but some aren’t here now, are they?
“Deal. Can we leave now or are you waiting for others?”
He nods twice and speaks in broken English. “We leave now. Only you?”
Relief begins to ease the tension in my neck. “Only me.” Exactly the way I want it, but I keep that part to myself. Maybe it’s wrong of me to leave like this. Maybe I should suck up my pride and all the awkwardness that would inevitably occur today when various family members continue to point out my unmarried status, but I can’t. I need a break. I’m aware that some might worry; I’m also aware that for today, I don’t care.
It’s bad enough to get your heart broken, but it’s awful to keep being reminded of it, especially when you’ve temporarily fled the country and just want a freaking break. For that reason, I follow behind the man, feeling whatever caution I might’ve had leave my brain the farther from the ship and its inhabitants we go. That feeling lasts all the way down the dock.
Right up until I hear footsteps slapping the pavement behind me. I stiffen, ready for a confrontation with my mother or father or great aunt or heaven forbid—my grandmother.
“Where are you going?” A male voice, and not my dad’s, brings me to a halt. I turn and look straight into the eyes of Liam. Figures it would be him. Why couldn’t it be Teddy or Chad or anyone else I could demand to leave me alone? Liam leaves me tongue tied and jittery, and I don’t appreciate it.
“I’m going on an excursion by myself. And I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention it. I’d rather not have the entire cast of Modern Family join me today.” I sigh and step into the boat that my guide is already untying from the dock. At least it didn’t take much time to get to; anything longer than thirty seconds would have given me too much time to second-guess my decision.
Liam doesn’t leave. “By yourself?”
Apparently he isn’t the only one whose English needs work.
“No, I’m going with him. His name is…what’s your name?” The man answers me, and I give him a satisfied grin and look up at Liam. “Oliver is taking me to snorkel, and then he’s going to drop me off at the beach, where I plan to lie down and
read this for the rest of the afternoon.” I hold up a copy of Gone With The Wind that I bought in the bookstore late last night. Classic literature isn’t my favorite, but reading smut in front of my family didn’t seem like the greatest option and besides, I want to appear intelligent. The People magazine was humiliating enough, or maybe it was the conversation that accompanied it. Hard to separate the two at this point.
I slide my cover-up off my shoulders, feeling a little self-conscious standing in front of both men in a bikini, but you can’t snorkel in jeans and a t-shirt. I shrug into a life jacket and slip my passport into an interior pocket. It’s sealed in a zippered plastic bag to keep from getting wet, a handy tip I read about online. Google really is a national treasure for those of us who don’t always know what we’re doing.
Liam steps into the boat.
“What are you doing?”
What is he doing?
“I’m going with you.”
He’s going with me?
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.” He slips off his t-shirt, and I forget what we’re arguing about. I saw him shirtless yesterday, but we were surrounded by people, and I couldn’t just openly stare. It would’ve been rude. But we’re the only two here and this is my excursion and he’s being the rude one now.
I can’t stop staring. My mouth goes dry.
“You’re not going with me.” Even I can hear that the protest sounds weak. My voice is all wobbly and hesitant. After a couple seconds, I peel my eyes from his ridiculously toned arms and catch him staring at me.
Pretend you’ve bought a chocolate bar at an upscale candy shop and you’ve waited all day to eat it, only to discover that you accidently left it in your hot car and now it’s all melty and warm and soft. That’s the same color of his eyes when he looks at me. I pick at a piece of nonexistent lint and silently command the butterflies in my stomach to stop flapping their wings.
