Still, even if it was something manageable, Freddy should know about it. When they were little kids riding in the back of the family Buick, poking, prodding, and kicking each other until one of them cried for help, Annette was prone to dramatically announcing that one day she and David would be gone and all they’d have was each other. It didn’t stop the name-calling, but it did curb the physical attacks. Come to think of it, why hadn’t she or Mitch ever repeated the same to Rachel and Darius the second they heard the first cry of “he/she touched/ruined/broke my phone/sweatshirt/racket”? Guilt worked, better than any form of grounding. Mitch was Catholic, for crying out loud. His mother loved to kiss the cross around her neck and talk about the eventual day her kids would bury her. To think Annette thought she had nothing in common with Marie Connelly!
Elise did one last three-hundred-sixty-degree twirl around the casino floor. Satisfied that Freddy wasn’t there, she set her drink down on a cocktail table and decided to check the teen arcade, where her brother was just as likely to be sitting on one of those pretend motorcycles, racing against a ten-year-old.
But as she headed for the stairs, she spotted someone that looked a lot like Natasha, pulling the lever on a giant “Price Is Right” wheel and laughing like she’d just heard the best joke in her life. The arrow must have lined up on a big prize because Natasha—yes, it was definitely her in the platform slides and jeans skirt—started jumping up and down. A man in a white naval uniform, tassels on the shoulders and gold buttons gleaming even from a distance, gave Natasha a high five and a more-than-amigos shoulder squeeze. The guy was tan, muscular, and rugged and basically Freddy’s physical opposite in every way.
Hmph. Elise stalked over to Natasha, finding herself suddenly overcome with a protective force that she’d thought she could only muster for her children.
“Where’s Freddy?” she asked, tapping Natasha’s shoulder from behind.
“Elise, I didn’t see you were here,” Natasha said, clearly startled. “Freddy’s working in the room. This is the captain of the boat, John McPherson.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” said the captain in a sportscaster’s deep baritone. “I’ve been having a lovely time with Ms. Kuznetsov in the casino. I’m about to show her the bridge, if you’d like to join us.”
“The bridge is where the captain steers the ship,” Natasha said to Elise.
“I knew that,” Elise said, even though she didn’t. “I think I’ll pass. I need to find my brother. What’s your cabin number?” To the captain she added, “My brother is Ms. Kuznetsov’s boyfriend.” Captain John seemed unfazed by the revelation.
Natasha glared at her.
“He’s on a very important conference call,” Natasha said. “I don’t think it’s a great time to go up there.”
Conference call! Freddy! My God, how stupid did this woman think she was? His last gig that Elise was aware of was hawking juicers. She’d only bought one because she felt sorry for him. Come to think of it, where was that thing?
“Fine. I’ll wait for dinner,” Elise said, casting an “I’m watching you” stare at Natasha before she turned away.
Elise gave her watch a quick glance. Two hours until dinner, where she’d be forced to gush over the moo goo gai pan, pickled herring, and baklava so that nobody realized anything was wrong. Tomorrow morning was their first disembarkation. She planned to call Michelle Shapiro and beg one last time for a lifeline. If she needed to photograph herself sitting in a lifeboat begging for mercy, so be it. Some people did better with visuals.
EIGHTEEN
Mitch was about to tackle the twelfth hole at Augusta National when he remembered why he didn’t play golf. He had a bad back, an inflamed rotator cuff, and stiff hips, all of which were activated the moment he took his first drive. After an hour trying to suppress his winces, he bid adieu to the other guys in the golf simulator—a periodontist from New Jersey, a contractor from Ohio, and a schoolteacher from the Bronx—and went back to his room to take a monster dose of Advil and lie down.
They all wished him luck as he took off, because he hadn’t been able to resist talking about his professional plans. There was something about the four of them wielding nine irons that made these perfect strangers feel like lifelong friends, and within minutes of exchanging pleasantries he was running projected numbers with Joseph Lichter, who taught AP calculus in a rough neighborhood. Joe had pointed out a couple of flaws in the assumptions he’d made in his business model, which Mitch had pulled up on his phone, and it seemed he needed an extra thirty thousand in start-up capital if he was going to be able to keep the website afloat before the ad revenue kicked in.
Rubbing his aching shoulder, Mitch lay in bed with his laptop. He’d hoped Elise would be there. It had been so long since they’d had a midafternoon quickie. The last time was when he had been promoted to managing editor. His predecessor had had a debilitating stroke and twenty-four hours later Mitch was named the highest-ranking employee on the editorial side of the Bee. He’d driven home and found Elise in the kitchen making chicken cutlets, her hands slicked with egg yolk. In the adjacent den, Darius and Rachel were doing homework with the TV on.
“Come upstairs,” he’d said to Elise, surprising her enough to make her drop a slab of raw chicken into the sink. He had pulled her by the tails of her apron, locked the door to their bedroom, and made love to his wife in a way reminiscent of the first few years of their marriage. He loved thinking back to that day, almost as much for the way he and Elise had celebrated as for the cause célèbre. Now with just one more year before they became “empty nesters”—though he took exception to the negative connotation of that phrasing—Mitch couldn’t begin to comprehend why Elise was so broken up about it. The freedom to enjoy each other anew, to rule their household once again, it was a future condition with enough mass to more than fill the void created by the absence of dirty socks on the floor and empty orange juice containers on the counter.
Regrettably, he had found that Elise was not in their room and his text messaging didn’t work on the boat. Instead he was scrolling through his emails, which were mostly work related, closing matters he had to attend to. One email caught his eye and caused him to jolt up in bed. It was a Google alert. The subject was Frederick Feldman. Years ago, he’d set up a web alert for every member of the Connelly and Feldman families. It wasn’t as stalkerish as it sounded. All journalists set notification alarms for the things they cared about: stories related to their beats, favorite sports teams, companies in which they held stock, and, naturally, family members. The Feldmans rarely appeared. Until recently, the only articles bearing the Feldman name were about unique deliveries David had performed (quintuplets in a snowstorm; a singleton on an airplane). More often, he came across articles about his youngest brother, Mikey, who was a little too familiar with the holding pen at the local precinct in downtown Chicago, where he lived. Mikey was a regular in the Crimes & Misdemeanors column of the Chicago Sun-Times. But Freddy? Never had Mitch seen his name before.
Mitch opened the email, convinced it was going to be about a different Frederick Feldman. The article was from High Times. Mitch hadn’t seen a physical copy of the dope rag in decades, not since it used to be distributed for free on campus, and he had no idea it was still around. The headline forced him into a goggle-eyed gape. Multimillionaire? Pot world? Freddy? This was the person who lamented the prior evening that the resident manager wasn’t dealing with the roaches in his condo. The same guy who once asked Mitch for seven hundred dollars in secret so he could pay back a bookie. Had it been that long since Mitch had wired the money to a Western Union in Colorado? Come to think of it, he’d had to bring Darius along because Rachel and Elise were at a birthday party, and if memory served him correctly Darius had been wearing his Little League uniform. He remembered the teller saying, “Good luck, slugger,” and Darius just staring back blankly.
He read on with urgency. If the article was
to be believed, his slacker brother-in-law, the underdog for whom Mitch had always had a soft spot, was halfway to being a hundred-millionaire. Well, that certainly explained his high-roller situation on the Ocean Queen. And his smoke show of a girlfriend. Elise clearly had no idea. Nor did anyone else in the Feldman family.
A selfish thought popped into Mitch’s head. What if Freddy became a seed investor in his literary journal? He clearly had the money and it would lend his brother-in-law the legitimacy he possibly desired. “Publishing investor” certainly had a more elevated ring to it than “pot magnate.” But Elise. Was there any chance she would approve? His wife wasn’t one to put her hand out for anything, especially not charity from her brother. He shrugged off the momentary high. High. What Mitch wouldn’t do for a toke right about now . . .
The article delved into Freddy’s upbringing and Mitch almost glossed over it, familiar with the Feldman family roots, until he noticed the pull quotes: “Uptight . . . demanding . . . materialistic . . . goody-two-shoes sister.” He had to make sure nobody ever found out about this article. Obviously Annette and Elise didn’t read High Times, but there was the possibility that the Associated Press would reprint it. The legalization of marijuana in Colorado and other states was a popular news story and the pot business was a burgeoning sector of the economy. The idea that a college dropout (actually an ejectee, even more salacious) could amass tens of millions of dollars from some marijuana farming and a few retail stores was staggering. Hell, if he was still at the Bee, he’d want to write about it. Mitch would have to use his connections to get the online version of the article scraped of the Feldman family commentary. What was his brother-in-law thinking saying those things? It must have been the work of a wily reporter. Mitch knew all too well that a skilled journalist could pull confessions from a reticent interview subject with a few simple tricks. He himself had done it many times, aware of the collateral damage but needing to do his job.
It was almost time for dinner, but Mitch didn’t feel the least bit hungry. Now he had two secrets from his wife: quitting the Bee and the Freddy affair. Where was Elise? Mitch wondered again. And where the hell were his kids? They’d been practically MIA since the boat set sail. He had seen Darius earlier in the day playing foosball with an Asian girl, but when he’d waved at him, his son had pretended not to see. Or maybe he really hadn’t seen him. It was impossible to tell with teenagers. They always had the same vacant look in their eyes. Rachel was hardly any better. The curly-haired princess he used to bounce on his knee was now bored by everything, consistently seeming a low level of pissed off.
Mitch got up from the bed and reached for another Advil. His bad shoulder was now the least of his concerns. Rubbing his temples, he ran through his mental Rolodex. Who did he know who could connect him to an editor at High Times? Maybe the new kid who’d just joined the Bee from the Denver Post. It was a good place to start. He combed through his emails and tried to find the newbie’s contact information.
NINETEEN
1700 hours. 200 miles to A. C. Wathey Pier, Sint Maarten.
Julian looked at himself in the mirror before heading out the door. In his slim-fitting sports jacket and expertly tailored gray slacks, he looked—in his own estimation—rather good. Young, professional, maybe even hot. He was glad he’d let his trainer Aldo back into his life. After a tough breakup that involved multiple long emails explaining why he simply didn’t have the time to work on his biceps and draw out the six-pack Aldo claimed was lurking beneath the shallow layer of soft flesh on his torso, Julian had decided to give the gym routine another go. And it seemed to be paying off. Certainly Roger thought so, attacking him more than usual. Their sex life waxed and waned with no apparent rhythm. Could it possibly be tied inversely to the girth of his waistline? Doubtful, since Julian was the more shallow of the pair. Once his middle sister, after too many daiquiris, had said he had the depth of a kiddie pool.
Tonight was the boat’s around-the-world gala, a signature dinner on all Ocean Queen cruises that took gluttony to the next level. Forty different countries were represented and many of the guests seemed hell-bent on sampling from at least thirty of them. It wasn’t normally his favorite night on the boat. Instead of getting on stage to introduce a show or warm up the audience before the comedian came on, he was meant to flit around the room making small talk with the tables. He’d have to be a chameleon all night, ready to talk hunting with the Southerners, football with the Texans, finance with the New Yorkers.
But tonight was different.
He was truly looking forward to stepping into the Grand Ballroom and gliding among the tables, slowly making his way toward one in particular. Two dozen of the most attractive gay men Julian had laid eyes on in a long time were on board the ship, an affinity group out of Los Angeles called Buoys II Men. They were, collectively, the best thing to happen to a Speedo since Ryan Lochte. And for some reason, every one of them had wanted to get a picture with him on the first night following the cabaret show. Julian had to admit that his bawdy jokes had been spot-on at the late show. He reassured himself that Roger wouldn’t mind. They were both gay men, flooded with hormones pent up from years of hiding who they were, and it didn’t really matter where they got their appetite. As long as they came home to each other for dinner. They were fully committed to one another. He just couldn’t figure why Roger was so desperate to make it official.
Julian was admittedly jaded about marriage and family, it was true. The boat did that to him—to everyone who worked on board for more than a few years. You couldn’t help feeling depressed by the married folks knotted for too many years, sentenced to travel everywhere together like salt and pepper shakers. On the first night or two, Julian might see the conversation flowing as they clinked glasses and toasted the week ahead. But by the third or fourth night, the chemistry seemed about as bubbly as the soda from the always broken tap in the staff lounge. Because there was only so much that a chocolate fountain, the premium beverage package, and the rhythmic waves could do for a marriage that had run its course. And don’t get him started on the kids—whiny brats, most of them.
An email from Roger popped up on his laptop as he was about to leave his cabin. The subject line: Miss me? The body of the email read: Hope you’re having fun! xoxo, R. As if Julian had time for fun when he was at sea. With three thousand passengers milling about, clawing their way into buffet lines and demanding the utmost in service and entertainment, and he marionetting it all with his clipboard, megaphone, and walkie-talkie, free time was a laugh. This particular moment was probably the worst of all. He was already running late to the dinner and needed to run a sound check with the World Vibrations band. Why couldn’t his partner realize how much damn work it took to run things on the ship?
* * *
—
“These are the Feldmans,” Lindsay whispered in Julian’s ear after consulting her seating chart. “Grandma’s b-day. She’s Annette. Two are VIP. Rest are regs.” He nodded and his assistant discreetly slipped away.
“And how are we all doing this evening?” Julian asked the Feldman family, who were seated at a round table, poking at the lingering food on their plates.
They didn’t look overly enthusiastic, unlike the other tables he’d visited. The evening had overall proved a success. World Vibrations got a good chunk of the guests onto the dance floor and the ice sculpture had serendipitously fallen to the ground during the African drum circle so barely anyone heard the crash. Buoys II Men, as Julian had predicted, had been delighted when he came over to their table to greet them and had insisted he join them in a shot of tequila. As he licked the salt from the rim of the glass, he caught a glimpse of a tall man in a velvet blazer who looked quite a bit like Roger carefully dipping strawberries into the chocolate fondue. Julian blinked hard twice and he was gone. No more alcohol on the job for him.
“Oh, just fine,” said the older woman. Birthday grandma. “Lovely evening.”
> “What are everyone’s plans for tomorrow when we reach Sint Maarten?” Julian asked. It was an easy entry point of conversation, especially on the night before the first disembarkation. This was when everyone was anxious to get off the boat and didn’t realize yet the hassle of the onshore excursions—the piling into vans, the interminable queues, the overpriced nature of everything. By the next night, everybody would be grumbling about the same thing: Two hundred dollars for a thirty-minute snorkel? Seventy-five dollars for a tour of a maritime museum the size of a walk-in closet? It was as predictable as the seasickness.
Julian looked at the teenage boy. Gimme something I can work with, kid.
“I dunno,” Darius said, woodpeckering a chopstick. “I guess the parasailing.”
“We’re doing the downtown tour by van,” Annette said, pointing at herself and the older man at her side. Julian wondered if he should tell them how painfully boring the driving tour of the island was. Sometimes letting guests in on boat secrets was very effective, because most people liked to feel like insiders, but other times it backfired completely and it was like filling in the customer complaint forms for them.
The Floating Feldmans Page 19