Colorful streamers littered the boardwalk from the mega ship’s just-finished Bon Voyage party. Bits of dissolvable confetti clung to the sea-worn wood like rainbow dandruff.
It had taken Addie all morning to convince me to go on the trip. Then, I’d dragged my feet at every stop. I glanced at my phone. I was running down to the wire to get on this boat.
“Ma’am?” A tall, skinny blonde guy in a white steward’s uniform came up behind me.
“Yes?”
“First trip with Escape?” he asked with a knowing grin. His nametag said Ed, and his breath smelled as if he’d gargled a gallon of Listerine. A thin strip of moustache clung to his upper lip like a stubborn milk stain, and his hair was parted straight down the middle and slicked with what could have been Vaseline. He gave me the distinct impression of a well-groomed albino ferret.
Hmm. Death by ferret attack. That might be my new favorite cartoonish way for my cousin and ex-fiancé to meet their violent ends.
“Yes, first trip,” I said.
“Well,” said Ed, “welcome aboard. You’re in for a treat.”
Ed handed me a claim stub for my luggage. One suitcase was stuffed with every article of summer wear I owned. The other, with thirty-seven mystery novels I hadn’t gotten around to reading.
He grunted as he lifted the suitcase full of books, but he did it with a smile on his face. I tipped him well. Attentive service if nothing else.
Chapter Three
“Hello?” I peered around the terminal. It was one room, no frills. The walls were freshly-painted white. A single, sad ficus tree stood in the corner. I expected to be greeted with some alluring tropical scent, but instead, was overwhelmed by the smell of Pine-Sol.
Give me five hours, twenty dollars, and a well-stocked flea market, and I could have transformed that place into a portal to paradise. As it was, it reminded me of an abandoned office supply store.
In the middle of the room was a single, uncluttered desk. And not a soul in sight.
Double-checking the time, I still had half an hour before the ship was set to sail.
“Hello? Anyone here?”
A petite girl stumbled out of a storage closet, her arms full of brochures. Her hair was cut into a dark brown bob with an electric blue streak running through it, made all the more prominent against her pale skin. A thick fringe of bangs nearly covered her eyes.
I rushed over to help her with the stacks of paper.
“Hi, there,” she said, her voice squeaking like a chipmunk. The girl’s top two teeth protruded the tiniest bit, furthering the impression of a small woodland creature. Her name tag said Jenna, and her smile was so enthusiastic, her whole face quivered. “What can I do for you today?”
“Well, umm, I’m ready to go on my cruise.” I smiled back. It was kind of contagious.
“Oh.” Her expression didn’t falter, but I could have sworn I detected a note of alarm in her eyes.
“I have the reservation number if you need it,” I said.
“You do?” Her voice rose an octave. “I mean, uhh, name please?”
“Piper Monroe.”
Click-clickity-click-click. She tapped on her keyboard.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have a reservation under that name.”
“No, the reservation would be under Lance Carruthers.”
“Ohh … ” Her alarm switched over to confusion. Click-clickity-click-click-clickity. Faster and faster, she typed.
“Sorry.” My marital status (or lack thereof) might have caused a glitch in their system. “It could accidentally be under the name Piper Carruthers.”
Saying the name out loud made me want to vomit a little.
“Carruthers?” Her face fell a little. “I see. I … umm … this is … well … ” Her voice drifted into silence as she stared at the screen, frowning in concentration.
“You can go ahead and keep the room charges on the card on file,” I said. Truthfully, I had been banking on it. Mine was pretty maxed-out from the wedding. I’d paid for almost all the ceremony and reception expenses. Lance’s contribution had been this trip.
All the more reason to go.
“It’s not that,” said Jenna. “It’s … oh no.”
Her cheeks reddened as her gaze fell past me.
“Is there a problem?” a deep tenor voice barked from behind me.
I jumped nearly as high as Jenna did and whirled around, half-expecting to see a drill sergeant.
A tall man of Asian descent with a clean-cut jaw stood ramrod straight at the door leading to the ship’s gangway. There wasn’t a speck of dust on his perfectly pressed uniform, and his hat was balanced on his muscular forearm. Which was kind of hot.
He strode past me, laser-focused on Jenna.
“I said, is there a problem?” He braced his forearms on the desk, pushing the sleeve of his shirt up over his well-tanned muscles.
Poor Jenna shook her head in such rapid-fire little jerks, I worried she’d give herself a neck spasm.
“N-n-n-n-nothing’s wrong, Silas … I mean … I mean, n-n-n-no, sir.”
Cut the kid some slack, Silas. But no, Captain Frownyface had only begun to glare. He stooped next to Jenna and lowered his voice.
“We can’t have any more issues today. First, I had to deal with the matter with Mrs. Bosley. We all know how she feels about white roses.” He gestured to a bouquet of them ripped to shreds, shoved in the trash. “If we have to delay departure, it could cost us huge docking fees.”
“I know that, Silas.” Poor thing was about to cry. “But—”
“Call me by my rank, Jenna.” He dropped his voice even lower. “This week of all weeks, I don’t have time to babysit you. If you can’t handle check-in, I’ll have to find someone who can.”
What? He was going to fire the poor girl? Not on my watch.
“Actually”—I gathered myself to full height and stared him directly in the eyes, er, chin—“Jenna here was doing a fabulous job. She was just about to assign me my cabin.”
I had no idea what she was or wasn’t about to do. Sir Scowlsalot squinted at us as if unsure whether he should believe his subordinate’s nervous stuttering or my stamp of approval.
“Carry on then,” he finally said.
“The thing is we only have one room left,” said Jenna.
“The honeymoon suite, I assume.”
“No, that’s taken.”
“It is?” That suite was supposed to be mine.
“Unfortunately, yes. There seems to have been a mix-up, and the only available room is … well, it’s … ”
“It’s perfect,” I said, pushing away my irritation. “Whatever it is, it’s fine.”
“Oh, but it’s—”
“Is it on the boat?” I asked, ready to get away from Silas and his unnerving stare.
“Well, yes.”
“Then I’ll take it.” And while you’re at it, I’ll take a margarita as big as my face, thank you very much. I’d keep that last part to myself until I was safely on the ship obeying Addie’s relaxation orders.
Jenna wasn’t able to keep incidental expenses on Lance’s credit card, so I reluctantly handed mine over. I mentally crossed off the list of excursions I’d had planned. No way could I afford them on my dime. And I’d need to keep close track of those margaritas lest I hit my credit limit.
“Very good.” Silas tapped on his watch as he marched through the metal detector toward the boarding area.
I saluted his retreating back.
“You’ll have to excuse Silas, I mean, Yeoman Purser Goode-Tripp,” said Jenna while she processed my passport. I was still bummed about the credit card. But, hey, Goode-Tripp? Now, that was my kind of omen.
“He’s in charge of keeping everything running smoothly for departure,” said Jenna, “and it can be stressful. But he’s not usually that snappish. This week is extra crazy with—”
She waved her hand as if brushing away whatever she had been about to say.
“I’m
sorry about your room,” she said instead. “Are you really okay with it being so—?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Whatever word she was about to use to describe my new room—smaller, windowless, situated over a shark tank—I figured it still beat sleeping on Addie’s couch with her dad snoring like a water buffalo in the next room.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Chapter Four
It was pointless to go to my room before my luggage was delivered, so I killed time strolling around the upper deck. Like the terminal, the S.S. Escape was sparsely decorated. What little decor they did have was painfully out-of-date. Someone had hung a group of square prints of flowers in a perfect grid along the stairwell entrance. Unfortunately, they reminded me of garage sale fodder from 1987.
The late afternoon sun settled onto my shoulders like a warm blanket. It was a perfect display of spring weather in the south. I nestled into a deck chair and answered a couple—fine!—five emails.
Then I opened my drafts folder and scowled. I’d begun to write the message to my clients to let them know I’d been dumped at the altar but kept starting over. I’d lost track of which version I was on.
The words “unfortunate but mutual decision” had figured prominently in all my attempts, but Atlanta was a small town wrapped in a big city shell. Once word of what had really happened got out, it would travel faster than a cat in heat.
Brides were a notoriously superstitious and finicky lot.
One whiff of bad luck or stray kismet or whatever you wanted to call it, and my clients would skitter like spooked show ponies. Now was the time to tread very carefully. Keep the calm. I squeezed my eyes shut, searching for the words, but none came. I wasn’t in the right headspace to write this email yet. Once we were out to sea, and I’d had a chance to decompress, the words would come more easily.
My silence was interrupted by an oh-so-recognizable nasal voice.
“Ahem, testing. One-two-whatever.”
Excitement bubbled through my veins. Bebe Bosley stood ten feet away, leaning against the railing. A row of Sabal palms and the skyline of historic Charleston made for a charming backdrop behind her. She faced an empty deck chair, three spaces down from me.
“So here I am,” said Bebe as if she were conversing with a friend and not thin air. “Stuck on this cruise ship … if you can call it a ship. More like a rowboat.”
Ouch. To be fair, I’d had similar thoughts, but that was before I’d come aboard. Clearly, the crew took good care of this place. Yes, the decorations were outdated, which frustrated me as a wedding planner because those details could easily be switched out and updated. Just last month, Tracy Barlowe-Johnson found out nine hours before guests started arriving that Sienna Rollins had already done a bohemian nautical theme not one month prior.
Total meltdown.
Three cans of spray paint later—along with eight pallets of wood, two rolls of twine, a rusty old chandelier, and a lot of ingenuity—Tracy was now the proud originator of the new flea market glam trend sweeping Atlanta wedding receptions.
Stressful as it was, I’d loved every minute of it, reminding me of my early planning days. Guerilla décor.
“So this week should be a treat,” continued Bebe, rolling her eyes so far back her false eyelashes looked like spiders perched on hard boiled eggs. “That is, if you enjoy watching me suffer through forced family time. Yep. Preston’s on board. ”
I craned my neck to see who she was talking to. A camcorder was perched on a tripod a few feet in front of her. A thrill raced up my spine. She was taping one of her infamous video diaries for Being Bebe. Ooh. This should be good. She always brought out the super-catty stuff in these, and then she’d “accidentally” let the contents slip to her friends after she’d spilled something particularly juicy on tape. It would turn into a huge uproar by the end of the episode.
And I would get to watch it all live.
“Ugh,” said Bebe, whipping around to face the dock behind her. “All those bystanders in the background. Move out of the way.”
I peered over the edge, but I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. A handful of workers scurried about doing last-minute things, along with the porter and another crew member. But with television, you’d have to either get releases or blur faces out, which would be extra work for someone.
“You!” she yelled at no one in particular, stomping her foot like a petulant child. “Get out of my shot. You’re ruining it. Urghh. I won’t be able to use any of this.”
Bebe grabbed her camcorder and packed it up with a huff.
We were probably getting close to departure, so I decided to check out my room. As I navigated the narrow hallways through the innards of the ship, it reminded me of a labyrinth. The crew had placed other passengers’ luggage outside their rooms. I’d have time to freshen up before dinner.
Small as the boat was, it had most of the amenities you’d expect from a large cruise, just on a mini scale. Plus a few details that you couldn’t find on one of those modern ships. Real hardwood floors were polished to a gleam. Shiny brass fittings lined every porthole. A cheerful old clock with more dials than I could count whirred and ticked at the center of the atrium.
Winding through the halls, I passed a spa, a library, and a lounge area past the info desk. I experienced glorious visions of myself cozying up on one of those squashy chairs reading or sipping a cucumber-infused water while some Scandinavian guy named Sven or Magnus kneaded every last bit of stress out of my shoulders.
When I reached my cabin, I was disappointed to see that my bags hadn’t arrived. The room was tiny as a closet and apparently they’d hired a Spartan to decorate, but it was immaculate. The mattress was the perfect mix of soft and firm, and the linens were high quality.
I decided to lay down and rest when—
Kathunk
Huh. The odd noise had come from behind the wall.
My eyelids drifted closed again.
Kathunk
Ehh, maybe I’d skip the nap. In the day bag that I’d kept with me, I had my swimsuit and toiletries, so I pulled out my toothbrush. I couldn’t wait to try on some of the new outfits I’d bought for this trip, refusing to think of them as my bridal trousseau, rather … a well-earned shopping spree. A spree that had stretched my already strained credit cards to their limit, but I’d worry about that later.
Kathunk
Okay, that didn’t sound good. I wondered if it was something I should report. I pressed the guest services button on the phone but got a busy signal. My stomach rumbled. Addie and I had eaten lunch before leaving Atlanta five hours ago, so I was getting hungry. Maybe I could grab a quick bite on my way to report the noise.
Just some nice, healthy fresh fruit. Perhaps a shrimp or two. Or eleven. And maybe check to see if they had any crab legs out. Ooh. Or cupcakes.
I was surprised I could stomach even the thought of cupcakes after the amount of cake I’d devoured over the last couple days. Addie had promised to deliver the rest of it to a homeless shelter before it went stale.
If there were any left when I got home, I’d be too tempted to march over to Lance’s place and smash the whole thing against his smarmy face.
It was easy to let outrage course through my veins unchecked, but as I consciously slowed my breathing, a gnawing lurch settled in my stomach. Of all the emotions that had cropped up since Lance had ditched me, one fueled and simmered under every one of them.
Shame.
I was a failure.
A complete and utter failure.
From the outside, I had it all together, but that hadn’t stopped Lance from cheating on me. (And with my own cousin, that dried up rat turd.)
Nope.
Positive thoughts.
I was on a cruise!
I had a whole suitcase full of adorable, new Lilly Pulitzer frocks to wear this week!
I, umm, didn’t have a horrible case of stomach flu! Yet. (Okay, my Pollyanna juice was running a little low, all right?)
&n
bsp; Kathunk.
I really needed to have that sound checked out. The door handles were old-fashioned and had to be locked from the outside. I tried unsuccessfully to insert my key into the lock—it was being stubborn as a stuck pig. My neighbors from across the hall opened their door. Behind me, I heard the man swear under his breath as he struggled with their key, and we backed straight up into each other.
“I’m so sorr—” My breath evaporated from my lungs as I turned to face my neighbors.
Lance and Tammi.
Chapter Five
“Piper?” Lance stood there blinking at me, like a blind cavefish dumped into a sunny pond.
I let out a squeal that sounded like a cross between a stepped-on mouse and a dying platypus.
My palms grappled with the door handle, which suddenly seemed to be coated in butter. I tried once more to jam the key into the lock. It was as if the key had forgotten what a key did, namely get me in the stupid door so I could flee the man who had stripped me of every last shred of dignity.
“Arghh!” With a final fruitless swipe of the key against the handle, I shoved it in my pocket and tore off down the hallway. If I were a cartoon character, there would have been a Piper-shaped puff of smoke in my wake. I took the steps to the top deck two at a time.
I had to get off this boat. That was all there was to it. Homeless, shmomeless. I’d rather sleep on my parents’ couch—or, heck, under a pile of cardboard boxes—than across the hall from my sleaze of an ex-fiancé and tramp of a cousin. I’d only asked Tammi to be a bridesmaid because my mom had guilted me into it. The two of us hadn’t been close since childhood. Not that that made her treachery any less atrocious.
The thought of being trapped on this ship with the two of them for a whole week sent icy shudders of revulsion down to my toenails.
I forced myself to exhale slowly to keep from hyperventilating. The boat wasn’t scheduled to depart for another ten minutes or so. I had plenty of time to find a crew member to help me disembark. I didn’t even care about my day bag. Keep my dang bikini and toothbrush. No way was I going back to that cabin. I’d grab the rest of my luggage on the way off the ship.
Death In A Deck Chair Page 2
