Sweet

by Emmy Laybourne

  “I’ve got a tape,” I say. “We’ve got to get it to the captain!”

  “Come,” Rich says. “Talk to me.”

  He draws Laurel and me away from the crowd. The bodyguard follows. We go down the hall to where the crystal chandelier hangs in the atrium with the elevators. From here we can hear the sounds of people below us partying, fighting, and screaming.

  “This is hell on earth. Listen to them,” Rich says.

  “Look,” I say. “We just came from the dining hall. I don’t know if you know what happened, but kitchen workers were killed, and the chief security officer was ripped apart by the mob.”

  “Oh my Lord,” Rich says. His face goes ashen.

  “The passengers broke into the kitchen and took all the Solu,” Laurel adds. “That’s why they’re … like this.”

  “Tamara is on the stuff. I tried to keep her from eating more, but I couldn’t do it.” I tell him.

  Rich looks at me, and I see his eyes dart to the bodyguard he’s with. He swallows.

  “Rich, are you okay?” I ask.

  “I’m … I’m a little scared right now. A little terrified. That’s all.”

  “We are, too. But we have to warn the world, Rich. We have footage of the riot on this camera,” I say. “We need to get it to the bridge.”

  “But it’s not going to do anything,” Rich blurts out. “I mean…”

  He takes a breath. I can see him telling himself to get it together.

  “What I mean to say is that everyone on the mainland is already aware of the problem. The captain has sent out a distress signal. Help is on the way.”

  He looks away from us, his eyes scanning the hallways below.

  “Thank God!” Laurel exclaims. “They’re on the way?”

  “That’s what I’ve been told. The coast guard. In full force.”

  “Nevertheless, I have to talk to the captain. He needs to send this tape through the satellite—”

  “This is hardly the time to be thinking about your exclusive,” Rich snaps.

  “What?! Don’t be insane! I don’t care about that!”

  “The public needs to know about Solu, Rich,” Laurel butts in. “They need to know how dangerous it is.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess … I guess I don’t really want the bad news to get out. But of course, it should. It has to. I’m sorry. I’ve been up for days. This is the greatest disaster of my or anyone else’s career. Ever.”

  He’s crying now.

  “Hey,” I say. “No one’s going to remember a goddamn thing about who did the publicity for this. It’s a nightmare. It’s a tragedy. But it has nothing to do with you.”

  “I know. I know,” he says.

  “Can you get us up to see the captain?” I ask.

  “No! No. You two should hole up and stay safe. I’ll take the camera and the tape back to the bridge. They’re expecting me back.”

  “I’d really like to talk to him—”

  “No!” Rich says. “Trust me. It’s awful up there. So many people and everyone’s shouting. They probably won’t even let you in.”

  He takes the camera and the kit from me.

  “Cubby said there’s a way to plug it directly into the communications system—”

  “I’ll get it done. Just promise me…”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Promise me you’ll get hidden and stay safe.”

  “We’ll stay safe.”

  We shake hands, then I pull him in and hug him. He’s really a good guy.

  “We’ll come through this, Rich,” I tell him.

  He nods, looking at the deck, and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

  Laurel puts her arms around him and hugs him, too.

  “I was right about you two, you know that, right?” he says. “I’m the one who told you to kiss.”

  Laurel blushes.

  She pecks him on the cheek.

  “You were totally right. You stay safe, too,” she tells him.

  “I’m trying,” he answers.

  Rich leaves to take the camera up to the captain. I see Laurel looking into the small boutique that is up here. It’s been ransacked.

  “Maybe they have some snacks?” she says.

  Some of the clothes are now hanging off the hangers and the rest are scattered on the floor. A jewelry case has been smashed, but it doesn’t look like anyone has taken anything.

  They destroyed the store with rage. Not greed.

  I stick my hand into the case and pick out a pair of gold hoops, each hung with a little diamond.

  “These would be nice on you,” I say.

  “Oh yeah?” she asks. “Because I thought these would be nice on you.”

  She holds up a pair of men’s argyle socks.

  I laugh.

  We’re alone in a trashed boutique and this is the first moment since the day began that I feel I can relax.

  “I don’t see any snacks,” I say.

  I pick through the stuff in the store. It’s just sunglasses and jewelry and belts and handbags and makeup.

  “Tom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m really, really glad we met,” Laurel says. She’s still holding the socks and says it so straight, I burst out laughing.

  “I mean it. I mean, I think if we hadn’t met, I might be dead by now.”

  It’s a funny thing to say, but she’s not trying to be funny.

  I step to her, over the broken glass and a scattered collection of trampled evening gowns. I collect her to me, pulling her in, and we kiss.

  It’s a hungry kiss, a life-affirming kiss.

  I’ve never experienced one like it before. We’re telling each other, somehow, that we are in a scary, horrible situation and that we’re so damn glad for each other. It’s a whole conversation in kissing and it’s desperate and joyful at the same time.

  Then her stomach growls.

  I laugh, just a little. She rolls her eyes.

  “Physical needs!” she scoffs. “So irritating.”

  “We need food,” I say. “We should go find food and then go back to my room.”

  Laurel raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Believe me, I’m not just trying to pick you up.”

  “We can’t forget Viv,” Laurel says.

  “Right.” To tell the truth, I had forgotten.

  “I think we go get her and we put her in your room so she can sleep it off safely,” I say. Laurel nods.

  “Maybe if she’s away from the others, she’ll be able to rest,” she says.

  I look at her for a second. I really like her freckles.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” I answer. “You’re pretty.”

  She elbows me, but I see her smile.

  LAUREL

  DAY FIVE

  DOWN BELOW DECK, the halls are almost empty. We come across a bone-skinny man trying and failing to get into his room and I realize I know him. It’s Hal! Hal from my snorkeling excursion.

  “Hal!” I say. “It’s me, Laurel, from Cozumel? We met on the catamaran.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  There’s no warmth on his face, only suspicion.

  “Where’s Peggy?” I ask.

  “Who knows!” he roars. “She went off with someone and maybe they’re inside! The door is locked! My key won’t work! They locked me out! LET ME IN!” He pounds on the door.

  “Okay,” Tom says. “We’ll help. But calm down.”

  Hal shoves his key card at us.

  “It won’t work. I’m trying it and trying it and I can’t get in.”

  “What’s your room number?” I ask.

  “Room 6207, of course. 6207. 6207!”

  Tom looks at me. Without saying anything, he steps to the next suite. (Hal was trying 6205.)

  Tom double-taps the key card to the lock.

  It opens.

  “Ugkk,” Hal spits. “Of course.”

  He storms into the room and suddenly turns.

  H
is eyes narrow, becoming wary.

  Hal tries to slam the door, but all the doors are designed to shut slowly and gracefully, so he ends up leaning on it, trying to make it close faster.

  He eyes us all the way, like we’re going to push past him and steal the Solu he obviously has inside. It’s surreal.

  “A friend of yours?” Tom asks.

  “Two days ago he was the nicest man I ever met,” I say.

  “One guess as to what he’s got hidden in that room,” Tom says.

  “How could they have gone so wrong in the formulation?” I ask. “I mean, what about the testing? Don’t they have to do a bunch of testing?”

  “In the packet I read to prepare for the gig, it said they did extensive research. So, who knows?”

  We go down a flight of stairs and approach the curving stairway that leads down to the Aurora Restaurant.

  “We have to move the bodies out of the way,” a man raves. “So we can get at it. You people over there, you’re not listening!”

  We edge up to the doorway.

  There are unconscious, maybe dead bodies lying on the floor and around fifty addicts scavenging. Some are walking, some are on their hands and knees. They’re sniffing, licking, sucking.

  The one who’s yelling at everyone is trying to get people to help him move some of the fallen bodies out of the way so he can look for Solu under them.

  I make a sound of disgust and Tom squeezes my hand.

  We step into the room and cross to the area where I saw Viv last.

  Tom starts hauling unconscious bodies out of the way. They’re all intertwined. There’s blood on everyone, but I can’t tell who it’s from. It’s horrible. It’s a battlefield.

  Some of the fallen have their eyes open and are clearly high. Others are sleeping it off. Some might be dead and I don’t even know how to tell!

  “Thank GOD,” the raving man says. “Finally some HELP! I kept telling everyone we need to organize. We need to move these dead or comatose people out of the way so we can do a PROPER search. No one listens!”

  Tom and I share a look and keep working.

  “Good! Good!” the man praises us. “Pile the bodies over there!”

  I see my best friend’s hand. I recognize her aqua manicure.

  “Viv!” I say. “There she is. Viv!”

  Viv is lying under a table, with two other people collapsed over her. Tom tries to pull her out, but the other people are too heavy. He has to get down on his hands and knees and try to shove his way under the table.

  Finally he can get his hands under Viv and lift her out of the ghastly dog pile.

  “Jesus,” he says. “She’s like a doll. She weighs nothing. I mean, I carried her not two days ago and she was a decent weight.”

  “But she’s breathing? She’s breathing?” I say.

  Tom nods. We go to my room.

  * * *

  Tom lays Viv on the bed.

  “Is she going to be okay?” I ask him. I know it’s a stupid question. I’m kneading my hands together in worry. I can’t seem to stop.

  “I … I don’t know, Laurel. There’s nothing broken. She’s just … she’s knocked out.”

  “I know. Of course you don’t know. Okay, get it together, Laurel,” I say out loud to myself. “Washcloth!”

  I walk to the bathroom and get one of the fancy washcloths and soak it with cold water.

  Then I come back in and lay it tenderly on Viv’s face.

  Then my sweet friend Viv opens her eyes and starts talking.

  “You slippery little skank! Why did you take me away? I was having such a GOOD TIME?!”

  “Viv, what do you mean?”

  “I finally have a boyfriend and you go and take me away?! Do you think you’re my mother? Because you’re acting just like her. Did she tell you to watch me? Did she tell you not to let me have any FUN—”

  Viv pulls herself to standing and starts walking, shakily, toward me and I don’t know what to do.

  I just start to back up.

  Her breath is awful. Like roadkill.

  “Stop, please, Viv. You know I’m your friend. I only want the best for you.”

  “Sometimes I think they love you more than me! Laurel’s so CREATIVE and so TALENTED—”

  “Viv! Stop!” I yell. “Please! Look, we’re going to leave you here. You need rest. Please go to bed, okay?”

  “Did you know we call you the church-mouse at my house? And we LAUGH at you! We LAUGH at your boots and the way you say HERmeees instead of Hermès. You want to be so cultured but you’re just TRASH, just trash.”

  Tom is pulling me toward the door. Viv is spitting in my face.

  My hands are raised up in front of me. For protection.

  “Please stop,” I cry. “Vivika!”

  “We’re leaving,” Tom says. “She’s not herself.”

  “‘She’s not herself. She’s not herself,’” Viv mocks. “Says the musclebound oaf—”

  Tom pulls me out of the room and shuts the door in Viv’s face.

  I bury my face in my hands.

  I sob against his shirt.

  “It’s a break. A schizoid break,” Tom tells me.

  He leans over, tipping my head up so I will meet his eyes.

  “Laurel, listen, I did a guest star on Criminal Minds. I played the brother of a character who acted like that. It’s called a schizoid break. I researched it. That’s not what she really thinks. None of it.”

  My sweet Vivika. Saying those awful things.

  “Forget everything she said. Just put it out of your mind.”

  I can hear Viv raving inside the room. Talking to herself.

  He puts his strong hands on my shoulders and rubs them. “Erase everything she just said. She didn’t mean a word of it.”

  “I know,” I say. “But some of it must be true! Don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t. I really don’t. Let’s go to my room,” Tom says. “I don’t think … I don’t think she’s going anywhere. She seems so out of it. I don’t even know if she could figure out how to open the door.”

  I nod.

  I’m starting to feel weak. It must be two or three in the afternoon by now. I haven’t eaten anything but an Oreo, eight lifetimes ago.

  “But first we should find some food,” I say.

  “Thatta girl,” Tom says. He hugs me.

  Vivika is still talking, behind the door to our suite.

  “Oh God,” I say. “My guitar’s in there.”

  Tom looks at me.

  “I don’t think it’s worth going in there for it,” he says. “But it’s your call.”

  I exhale.

  “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  Call me a coward, but I don’t want to face her again.

  TOM

  DAY FIVE

  LAUREL AND I head to the Club Cassiopeia. It’s a club at night, but it serves a seated breakfast to people who don’t want to go to the buffet on the pool deck. They have an omelet bar. It’s where I’ve been getting my 6:00 a.m. egg whites.

  We push the doors open and can hear a momentary sound of people talking and then the talking stops immediately.

  “Who’s there?” comes a nervous voice, just as another voice shushes it.

  I exchange a look with Laurel.

  “It’s Tom Fiorelli. I’m—we’re clean. Just looking for food.”

  My eyes adjust to the darkness.

  Club Cassiopeia has a dance floor at one end, near where we’ve entered, and lounge seating going up in tiers around the stage. The room is dimly lit by strands of lights set into the floor edging around the tiers and steps.

  At the back of the space, raised up by the gradual incline of the room, is the bar with two kitchen doors behind it.

  “Hello?” I say. “Who are you?”

  “We are just some of the crew members,” comes a voice. This one’s got an Indian accent. “Just looking for food ourselves.”

  “Jaideep?!” Laurel bursts out.
/>   “Yes. It is I. Who’s asking?”

  A thin Indian waiter carrying two bags of hamburger buns steps out into the light.

  “It’s me, Laurel. The seasick girl.”

  “Laurel!” he says. “You’re safe. I am so glad!”

  She strides up the aisle and hugs the guy, then holds him by the shoulders, and hugs him again. “I’m so glad to see you,” she says.

  “And I you, Laurel!”

  I step up behind Laurel and put my hand on her lower back.

  Yeah. I’m showing that she’s mine. That’s how you do it. I know the guy’s just a skinny waiter, but it’s the code.

  “My friend Viv, she’s gone crazy,” Laurel tells him.

  “I am not surprised,” Jaideep says. “Everyone who has taken Solu seems to have gone mad. You should see the crew quarters. Though we were prohibited from taking Solu, many, many people seem to have broken the rules.”

  I’m just standing there, forgotten, so I clear my throat.

  “Tom, this is Jaideep. I met him on the first day. He helped me when I was really seasick.”

  “Hello, Mr. Fiorelli. My mother is one of your biggest fans. It is a pleasure to meet you. And I will introduce you to my friends,” he says. “Guys, come here.”

  Four people come out from the kitchen. There’s a short Filipino girl who looks way too young to be working on a ship, a chubby blond guy, an Indian man who’s the oldest of all of us and has a bandage on his head, and a black girl carrying a bag full of oranges.

  Jaideep names them: “This is Anna, Milo, Vihaan, and Kiniana.”

  “We’re a walking United Nations, by the look of us,” Jaideep says.

  We all shake hands.

  Milo makes a joke: “It’s the end of the world, pleased to meet you.” He’s got a South African accent.

  “What are you guys doing?” Laurel asks.

  “We’re fending for ourselves, that’s what we’re doing,” Vihaan snaps.

  “Whoa, whoa, Laurel’s all right. She’s not like the others,” Jaideep says. He explains to us, “The passengers have been attacking us. Wanting us to get them Solu.”

  “A woman threw a bottle at my head,” Vihaan says.

  “And we can’t stay in the crew quarters,” Kiniana adds. Her accent is … Creole? Haitian? “The first mate is tossing all the rooms. He’s on Solu and he’s got the master key.”

  “And below deck, people are almost as bad as the people upstairs. They’d kill for Solu,” Milo says.