High Seas Drifter (Cruise Confidential 4)

by Brian David Bruns

  “I see,” Mr. Arno said, turning back to his business. “Could you send Lisa over when she has a moment, please?”

  “Sure,” Wayne replied, recognizing the dismissal—surprisingly. He trudged obediently off. Finding Lisa was not something he needed much urging to do, after all.

  2

  Lisa held up a pair of tights, face smirched in thought at the fat purple stripes. They stretched horizontally, making the garment look like something from a circus. She crumpled them up and tossed them back in the pile of laundry. Though she was fishing through the heap of garments, she didn’t really know what she was looking for. She only knew she needed something different. But most of the clothes were hers, anyway. Her roommate’s clothing was often dry-clean only—having the money for that was just another perk of being a member of the prestigious Emoting Society. No, most of the clumped tights and underwear were Lisa’s. Most no longer fit. How could she grow out of spandex in just a week?

  Working the pile, Lisa became agitated. She stopped digging and began tossing. Soon the apartment—occupied by two young women and not very tidy—became a real mess. Lisa didn’t care. Throwing things kept her from crying, and that seemed the more preferable of the two reactions. At the bottom of the heap, something caught her eye.

  She pulled out a wide black leather skirt. Cat was a voluptuous woman with hips aplenty, but her place was in the library or in the theater, not in some meat-market gym. Conservative as that might sound, Cat was anything but conservative. She would gleefully wear such a short leather skirt into any hallowed institution of learning. She was fond of saying education and flair need not be mutually exhaustive… or was it mutually exclusive? Something like that, Lisa didn’t know. She only knew that Cat’s miniskirt would look regular on her—and cover her own rapidly widening hips. Though in the dirty pile, she had no other choice; classes were starting soon. She wriggled them on.

  Lisa stared at herself in the mirror. The skirt looked terribly out of place. She was a spunky, happy girl—a girl of pink and glitter. She didn’t own a single article of clothing that was black. Even her tights were brown. But so what? She was also just another poor college kid, trying to survive on Ramen and a prayer. So what if she borrowed her roommate’s clothes? She really had no choice anyway: she couldn’t fit into her pants anymore. Oh, her tops fit fine, she mused sourly. Her hips and thighs grew huge, but her chest stayed as flat as ever. Figures!

  Indulging in a moment of self-loathing, Lisa meandered past Cat’s sewing table. It was cluttered with a variety of fabrics: purple satins, black lace, silver crepe. Catherine Ebonaugh was an extraordinary woman with an extraordinary wardrobe because she made most of it herself. From that cluttered, scarred tabletop emerged gorgeous, decadent full-length Victorian gowns and stitched leather bustiers. An old, but lovingly maintained, sewing machine waited patiently for its next moment of passion. Lisa’s eyes shot to the open closet, slid along the array of well-endowed halter tops and bodices. Cat wore double D’s. Lisa couldn’t fill those things even if her butt got three times as big!

  Standing in the quiet apartment in her roommate’s skirt, Lisa pondered. Her body was going through changes that made no sense. She was reminded of puberty. God knows she didn’t want to go through that again! Yet she felt the same frustrations as a teen; her body was changing, she didn’t understand why, and she didn’t understand what it was becoming. The only thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t like the way it was going—and, of course, that she was helpless to stop the changes. Above all, she worried about the end result. But this wasn’t puberty. This was weight. But she didn’t eat. She had done nothing to deserve this!

  Lisa returned to the mirror, this time stepping up close in order to hide her figure. Her hair was tussled, but she didn’t care. If only people would look at her hair instead of her everything else! Lisa leaned in even closer, closer to the hated glass. Her eyes were puffier than ever. They tingled, too, threatening tears again. Too bad she couldn’t hide her eyes behind a quick fix like Cat’s skirt. Then again….

  Lisa reached for Cat’s makeup.

  3

  The break room made her sigh. Small, cramped, and squalid was a generous description. The walls were concrete, painted a dull yellow. Light from the wall of vending machines turned everything a sickly orange. It was a restaurant, but management would be damned if it actually served the employees any food. Not that Lisa had eaten much of anything in the last week. As her waistline grew monstrously, she’d eaten less and less. Now she survived by sipping soup. Yet still her thighs grew. So did her frustration. She couldn’t think anymore, couldn’t focus on anything. Her script stayed by her side—her big, ugly side—read and reread, but never remembered. She was losing her grip.

  To add to her misery, Wayne entered the room. Desperate, Lisa had spent a few days practicing lines with him—much to his joy. The feeling was not mutual. The punk memorized everything in no time, reciting Cyrano de Bergerac as if he’d been studying it since childhood. He only needed the script for three days! Lisa had been working it for a month, yet still struggled with it every day.

  “Wayne,” she greeted lukewarmly.

  “What’s up?” he replied. He wore blue jeans and, for some reason, only a tank-top undershirt of knit cotton.

  “Nothing much,” she admitted, putting away her script. “Just toying with lunch. None of this stuff looks any good, though.”

  “What do you want, some peel-and-eat shrimp?”

  She gave him a withering look. Wayne just smirked back, proud of himself. This was not an unusual occurrence.

  “Lisa,” he said suddenly. Frowning, he leaned forward and asked, “Are you wearing makeup?”

  Lisa’s face flushed. Irrational anger flashed through her. She managed to hide it behind a puckered forehead rather than the rant that came to her tongue. With her best acting skills, she remained casual and said, “Yes.”

  “Why? You look good without it.”

  “I thought I would try something new,” she replied carefully. “You don’t like it?”

  He cocked his head to the side, studying, looking like a confused dog. Finally he admitted, “Not really. What’s with the black lipstick?”

  Her inner frown hardened. He was right, of course. It wasn’t her style at all. She hated makeup and hated lipstick most of all. It made her lips feel greasy, like she’d just eaten fried chicken. She’d never before worn makeup because she never had to. If she had, no doubt she would have chosen bright pink lipstick. All Catherine had was somber tones.

  Lisa shrugged and said, “We’re not allowed to wear red. They say it makes us look trashy.”

  “Well, black makes you look dead!” Wayne retorted.

  “Dead isn’t against the rules,” Lisa observed. “Trashy is.”

  “Huh,” Wayne said. “Well, you look tired, too. You got some nasty purple under your eyes.”

  “Thanks,” she accepted dryly. She didn’t know whether Wayne was being sarcastic or if he didn’t actually realize she was wearing smoky eye mascara. Either way, she felt like dirt. Her hair was frizzy and unkempt. Her hairdryer was still broken and she’d had no chance to get a new one. Thanks to Mr. Arno, she had to rush straight from work to class. By the time she got out, the stores were closed. She didn’t have the money for a new hairdryer, anyway.

  “What’s with this guy?” Lisa blurted. “He’s up to twenty plates today. Twenty! How can he eat so much?”

  And still be thin? It was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back.

  Somehow Mr. Arno had lost half the weight he’d gained—in just a few days, too. For two weeks he’d just gotten bigger and bigger, eaten more and more. Then it just stopped. Not the eating, of course—he still ate an additional plate every day—but the weight gain just ceased. Worse, it receded. There he was, eating fifteen plates of shrimp, sixteen, seventeen… and losing weight! Yet she ate less and less, and was bigger than ever. It wasn’t her period, that much was obvious. She’d ga
ined several sizes and ate practically nothing. So that left stress. But how much stress could it possibly be? Opening night was less than two weeks away.

  “Yeah, he’s really screwed up,” Wayne agreed.

  “He’s a nice enough guy,” Lisa defended, though she didn’t know why. She hated the guy, but not really. Mostly she just wanted to be contrary to Wayne. “And he tips well, so don’t make fun of him.”

  “Hey,” Wayne called, “I won’t.”

  Wayne pulled from his pocket a plastic jar. It was labeled with jagged lightning bolts and screamed energy propaganda. He opened the jar and tossed back the entire contents. Lisa’s puffy eyes widened as she heard the clicking of a dozen pills striking his teeth before being swallowed.

  “Jesus, Wayne!” she cried. “What are you doing? You trying to overdose right in front of me?”

  “These?” he said, holding up the bottle. “Protein Bombs, baby. Protein and carb pills. My training partner Thad gave ‘em to me. They’re designed to maximize your body for weightlifting. You can eat as many as you want, ‘cause you just piss out the rest of the nutrients your body can’t absorb. It gives you energy, too. Tons of B vitamins and branched-chain amino acids. Want one?”

  “No,” she protested in disgust.

  “Really,” he pressed. “They’re great. Protein Bombs Xtra Cherry. You just piss it out. If you want you can have one, ‘cause you just piss it out.”

  “Wayne, why are you here in your undershirt?” Lisa asked, changing subjects. How many times did he have to say ‘piss it out’? It was vulgar. Wayne never realized that he was repeating himself, so it was up to others to change the topic.

  “You mean my tank top?”

  “That isn’t a tank top, Wayne. It’s an undershirt. You know, like underwear?”

  “This? Naw. Thad wears these all the time. They make him look huge—and I’m right behind him.” He flexed for Lisa, for himself, for Thad, or pretty much anyone and everyone. Though trying to hide it, Wayne viewed his reflection in the vending machine glass with great satisfaction.

  “Wayne, please.”

  “I can’t wait till I gain another ten pounds. Then I’ll be as big as Thad. I’ll be really huge.”

  “Wayne,” Lisa chided, “It’s all going to your butt.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s all going here.” He flexed again, running a hand over his rounded biceps. He winced, then rubbed a muscle under his arm. Still in full-on bragging mode, he admitted, “I gotta take a day of rest. Sleep is where your muscle actually builds, you know. I was isolating my biceps this morning. I strained my coracobrachialis.”

  “Sounds like something from Jurassic Park,” Lisa muttered. “And it is all going to your butt. You should quit steroids. That Thad guy isn’t doing you any favors.”

  Maybe that’s why her butt was getting so big, she mused sourly: proximity to all of Wayne’s nasty steroids.

  “What’s this...?” He pulled on a flyer folded beside her script.

  “Wayne, no...!” Lisa cursed and reached for it, but it fell to the floor. Wayne had already retrieved the item by the time she scrambled from her chair.

  “29.5 pounds, 29.5 days, 29.5 dollars. It’s magic,” he read aloud.

  “Wayne,” she said scathingly, “Put that down. It was my bookmark.”

  “My ass!” he retorted.

  “Your big ass!” she snapped back.

  “Look who’s talking,” he shot right back. “How much have you put on in the last week or two?”

  “That’s none of your damn business,” Lisa snarled. Real anger kept tears at bay—for the moment. She couldn’t hide her obvious changes, but it hurt to have them noticed, nonetheless.

  “Well, I’m trying to gain weight,” he defended in his usual droning manner. “I’m huge. I’m getting bigger. Maybe if you hit the gym, some of that fat would turn to muscle.”

  “Shut up, Wayne. Just shut up!”

  Wayne’s mouth opened as if to retort, but then closed. Glancing at her thick body with an unusual look, he slunk off.

  Bastard, Lisa thought. Typical male: obsessed with appearance. Perception is everything, ha! Lisa always knew that Wayne wasn’t really interested in her because of her personality, but he’d been after her for years. Since before high school, in fact. In all that time, he’d never given her a look like he had just shot. Disgust. That was it: he was disgusted with her body. How could someone so smart be so shallow?

  Truth be told, Lisa was disgusted, too. She was terrified to think about her weight gain. She tried to pass it off as stress, but wasn’t that stupid. There was no way stress would pile on over fifteen pounds in two weeks. Less than two weeks, in fact. There was really only one explanation: she had that bloating thing the other waitress had—the waitress who died. KBS. But she didn’t have the money to see a doctor.

  The sting told her tears were coming. She fought hard to keep them at bay. What kind of a loser was she, crying in the break room at work? Try as she might, though, she couldn’t hold back her sorrow. Sobs overwhelmed her. Wayne wasn’t the only one to comment on her weight gain—merely the latest. Last night the director of Cyrano had not been kind, not at all. “Two weeks before opening night is the wrong time to suddenly decide to get fat,” he’d said angrily. “You forget there’s an understudy?” Jerk.

  All her plans were falling apart. If she didn’t get the part—even after earning it in tryouts, earning it in rehearsals—she wouldn’t get the grade. That meant she wouldn’t get into the Emoting Society. That meant she would be a waitress forever—a stupid, loser waitress. She was scared. For the first time in her life, she was scared. Was she going to die? Maybe Mom and Dad could help her see a doctor. But they’d told her that acting was a waste of time and that she’d be on her own if she went down that path. She gripped her script tightly and tried desperately to distract her mind. But she couldn’t.

  People looked in, but nobody else ventured into the break room. They didn’t know what to say. How could they?

  4

  The front door thrust open, blasted by leather boots and falsetto. Catherine spun in, the cord of her headphones arcing wide, skirts flaring wider. Her eyes clamped shut as she struggled to reach a high note that was utterly beyond her. She may have looked like an opera diva, but certainly didn’t sound like one.

  Though cousins—both sharing Tony as an uncle—there was little enough resemblance between Lisa and Cat. While Lisa was attractive without being pretty, Cat was definitely both. Her features were exquisite, with high, noble cheekbones and bold, curvaceous lips. Her figure, too, was bold and curvaceous, not to mention extremely tall—over six feet, in fact. And her breasts were magnificent. Indeed, it was not a “she” who dominated a room so much as a “they.”

  And Cat was Goth. She wore a flowing skirt of vertically striped black silk and burgundy crepe, and above that, a matching jacket of Victorian cut, silk on crepe, all the way up to her expansive cleavage. From the ends of her long sleeves dripped hands neatly enfolded in sheer lace gloves. Deep ebony hair was tied up to reveal a milk-white neck. She was the very model of Victorian elegance, albeit with cleavage to stun even modern sensibilities. Only her purse was solidly of the modern era—black and graced with cute spiderwebs.

  When Cat finally opened her eyes, they lit upon a shopping bag rumpled atop the counter. She stopped up short with all the theatricality of Romeo declaring, “But soft!” Yet her words were anything but those the Bard had plied upon the boards. “What the fuck? Lisa!”

  “I’m right here,” Lisa called from the mirror. She had been busy putting the finishing touches on her eyeliner. Smokey eyes were her last defense in hiding extreme puffiness. Noting Cat did not hear her above her music, Lisa shouted, “I’m right here! Turn off your tunes!”

  Cat yanked the earbuds free, letting them sweep down. Her eyes, elegant with black eyeliner and burgundy mascara, narrowed in disdain. She pointed a laced finger at the offending bag, then pointed it accusingly at Lisa. Yet upon
seeing her roommate wearing her black leather skirt, Cat’s frown softened.

  “Oh,” she said. “You coming to the dark side? Squee!”

  Squealing in delight, she swept across the apartment to embrace Lisa. Cat’s greater height, amplified by high-heeled boots, brought Lisa’s face flush with her ample bosom. The poor girl nearly suffocated in Cat’s enthusiasm. After a long, rocking embrace, Cat pulled back. Still holding Lisa by the shoulders, Cat leveled her gaze authoritatively and said, “Oh, you know I love you, my little Baby Bat, but I will not allow any Goth-in-a-Box in my house.”

  “Goth in a…,” Lisa stammered. “Baby what?”

  “No commercial Goth kits on my watch,” Cat continued with a flourish. “If you’re going Goth, you’re doing it right.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lisa finally demanded.

  “You’re wearing my black skirt,” Cat answered, tone indicating the obvious. “You’re wearing makeup for the first time in your life—and wearing it heavy. I assume you’re trying to go Goth. And thank God. Life’s too short for boring clothes.”

  Crossing one arm beneath her breasts, Cat stroked her chin musingly and added, “And you need help, my dear. That much is obvious.”

  Seeing Lisa’s dumbfounded look, Cat explained with great patience. “Black and bats do not a Goth make. Now don’t look all embarrassed. How would you know? You’ve never asked about my world. Like everybody else, you just assume whiny teens and brooding vampires make Goth. Fuckin’ spare me.”

  Cat put an arm around her student and led her to the couch. Physically, Cat towered over Lisa even more than the broad Wayne. She was buxom to the extreme. “Sit, and learn.”

  Lisa obeyed.

  “Lesson number one: just because it’s black, doesn’t mean it’s Goth. A nice perk, of course, is that black’s a slimming color. I like who I am, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t look better minus five pounds! Anyway, black and stenciled spider webs are all you’re going to get at Hot Topic.”