After the burglar girl left, I tried to play the whole thing over in my head so I could remember every little detail. By my own unreliable eyewitness account, she wore jeans that were torn at the knees and shredded at the cuffs. Her pale pink T-shirt had stains on it—or it might have been a logo that was so worn out, you could barely see it. People pay a lot of money to look that poor, but that wasn’t the case here. This girl was not fashionably frayed; she was the real thing—which made me wonder what she was doing on this ship at all.
I wanted to report her, but what if I did and what if she got caught and then she squealed about how Howie’s birth certificate was a forgery? A federal offense like that is worse than petty robbery—so even though she was the real criminal here, I could have ended up like Howie’s dad, getting injected with baboon hormones in federal juvie, if there is such a thing. At the very least it would have gotten us all booted off the cruise. So I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut.
And then I realized something: The only way she could have known about the birth certificate was if she heard me say it. Which meant she had been in the room all along—that’s why the door was ajar when we first went in! Where had she been hiding? The closet? The shower? Underneath one of the beds? It creeped me out. I felt violated. It was worse than when Ann-Marie Delmonico watched me undress the one time I forgot to close my curtains.
I went out to meet Howie, who was now riding the glass elevators up and down in search of ghostly reflections in the glass—but I couldn’t say anything to him about the girl. That was okay, though, because it meant I could at least try to put it out of my mind. The suite door was locked now, and she couldn’t have a key, right? But then, how did she get into the room in the first place? Maybe the cabin steward let her in! Maybe it was a conspiracy! My God, I was starting to sound like Howie!
“What’s up with you?” Howie asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did you? Did you get a picture?”
• • •
I have to admit with so many things to do on the ship, I was able to put all the weirdness out of my mind. The faller had been my imagination. And the girl? She only got away with five bucks. What was five bucks compared to a roller coaster that dipped to the surface of the ocean, and a zip line longer than a football field, and an entire laser-tag deck? “Distractions,” the cruise director had called these things in his welcome-aboard announcement. “I’m sure you’ll find a hundred different distractions on board to make this the best vacation of your life.”
That’s what makes up a big part of our lives, y’know? The distractions. Lots of times, we’re like moths fluttering around a porch light. Bugs’ll swarm around that bulb, all distracted, forgetting in their minuscule insect brains that there’s something else they should be doing, like biting people or making more bugs. We’re like that, although our brains are generally larger, Wendell Tiggor being the exception that proves the rule.
Human distractions are bigger, better lightbulbs. We got TVs and computers. We got blinking casino lights and live bands on cruise ships playing yet another version of “Hot, Hot, Hot” until you wanna puke, but in the end, they’re all just porch lights. So we go from one bright bulb to another until we hit the bug zapper, and it’s all over.
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. What fun would life be without our chosen porch lights? But every once in a while, we get these moments where we look away from the lights, and it scares us, on account of there’s nothing but darkness until our eyes adjust. And that’s when we get to see the stars!
You don’t see many stars in New York City. Sure, everyone knows that they’re there, but knowing and seeing are two totally different things. I can honestly say that, had I not met Tilde, I might never have seen the darkness. Or the stars.
CHAPTER 4
THE PRINCESS OF THIEVES PAVES MY ROAD TO A HIGHLY UNPLEASANT PLACE IF YOU BELIEVE SISTER MARY MARLENA
I DIDN’T SEE MY PARENTS UNTIL AFTER THE LIFEBOAT drill, which took place right before we set sail. Let me tell you, it’s a real skill whipping a shipload of clueless people into a well-oiled machine of disaster readiness. Howie and I tried to hide in a bathroom, just to see if we could get away with it, but we were flushed out, so to speak, and handed dorky orange life preservers by a guy who had, ten minutes before, been handing out dorky drinks with umbrellas.
They packed everyone like sardines in neat orderly rows on the lifeboat deck, which you can also play shuffleboard on when the ship isn’t sinking. “These are your ‘muster stations,’” a crew member in a neon-green baseball cap loudly announced. “This is where you will come if you hear the emergency signal sound.” He then told us that we should not blow the whistles attached to our life preservers, which was like telling little kids not to eat the chocolate. Dozens of whistles blew.
Now that they had a captive audience, an announcement came on telling us all not to sit on balcony rails, and not to throw burning material overboard, and a dozen other prohibited things that stupid people have done and probably sued the cruise line for when they either died or got horribly maimed from their own stupidity. The announcement would have been fine, except that it was repeated in six different languages, one of which may or may not have been Klingon. All the foreign announcements begin to lull my brain into a Zen-like trance, like my dad gets when he’s raking sand, and I realize that the life preservers are so stiff, and we’re packed in so tight, I might actually be able to fall asleep standing up and no one would know.
In this state of altered consciousness, I began to think about that balcony-sitting rule, and it reminded me of the guy I thought I saw fall. I never actually saw a face—and the mind can make you think you saw something you didn’t. Before getting on board, I did see pelicans soaring low across the bay. Those things have a pretty huge wingspan. So, what if one of them dive-bombed some fish next to the boat, and I looked out just in time to see it? That was a much more logical explanation than some poor schmuck falling off a balcony.
By the time the announcement had switched into pig Latin, or whatever, I was totally over it and was one hundred percent convinced the faller was all in my imagination. The girl in my cabin, however, was very real . . . but I could live with the loss of five dollars and was determined not to let it ruin my good time. But then, what if she came back to steal more?
The horn blasted, concluding the lifeboat drill and waking me out of my stupor. The neat orderly lines of emergency-prepped passengers now became a slow herd of bright orange cattle. I found my parents in the crowded stairwell. Apparently they had finally found our suite in time to be rushed out for the drill.
“Did you have to eat all the good sushi?” Christina asked. I pointed out that I left her all the octopus, but like me, she won’t eat things with suction cups.
“Listen, there’s a safe in the closet,” I told my dad. “When you get back to the room, make sure you put all your valuables in it, because I hear there’s already been a theft on board.”
“Where’d you hear that?” my dad asked.
“I don’t know. Around. Just make sure you put your stuff in the safe and lock it, okay?”
“Stop worrying your father,” my mom said. She tried to smack me, but the life preserver was too tight and she couldn’t get any leverage.
• • •
Of the ship’s gazillion Jacuzzis, the best one by far was way out on the very tip of the bow, like a foaming zit on the tip of the ship’s nose. The bow Jacuzzi was a little bit of genius because it allowed you to be King of the World while still being massaged by patented therapeutic bubbles.
This was where I went as the ship set sail. It amazed me that so few people took advantage of this prime location as we left port—just me, a middle-aged couple covered in so much sunscreen, they looked like they had been dipped in Cream of Wheat, and some buff guy with more body art than the Sistine Chapel.
The ship was one big party now. Confet
ti was flying everywhere like it was New Year’s, and a live band played reggae that was pumped through speakers all over the ship. The burglar girl and the phantom faller were fading into the past as I luxuriated in the Jacuzzi while sipping a virgin piña colada.
After a few minutes, the sunscreen couple went to find some shade, and the tattooed guy went to get himself a bucket of beers, leaving me alone in the bubbling water.
So there I was, up to my chest in hot water, looking out beyond the front of the ship, and when I turn back around, there’s someone else slipping into the tub. Someone in a faded shirt and torn jeans. She’s actually wearing jeans in the Jacuzzi!
“Hello, Enzo,” she said “Nice day for a soak.”
I’m speechless, which is unusual for me and usually the sign of a fever—but the only heat I’m feeling is from the Jacuzzi. Was the burglar girl following me all this time? And if so, why?
“It’s Antsy, not Enzo,” I told her.
“Antsy is a stupid name. I like Enzo better.”
“There is obviously something very wrong with you,” I told her. “Do you even have a bathing suit?”
She shrugged. “I don’t need one. Besides, I have to wash my clothes eventually, verdad?”
“Are you even a passenger on this ship?”
“The fact that I’m on this ship makes me a passenger, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I mean a paying passenger.” The question was only half serious. It was meant as more of an insult than anything until she said:
“Why pay when you can travel for free?”
Now my annoyance with her was being replaced with a sick sort of curiosity.
“You can’t be serious . . .”
She just smiled.
“You’re a stowaway?”
She lifted a finger to her lips “Shhh,” she said. “Loose lips sink ships.”
I was struck with fever-like speechlessness again. I used to daydream about stowing away. Sometimes on a plane, sometimes on a boat, sometimes on a spaceship. I’d make up some adventure, then slip past authorities, which I could always do, because in your own head you’re always smarter than the goons trying to stop you. But this girl was the real thing, and it scared me, because to successfully stow away, you had to be a whole lot smarter and a whole lot crazier than me.
“I want you to stay away from me,” I told her.
Her response was to move across the bubbling foam of the Jacuzzi and sit right next to me.
“Is this far enough?”
I couldn’t tell if she was flirting or just being obnoxious, and before I could figure out which I would prefer, the Sistine Chapel guy returned with his girlfriend, Rosetta Stone, who had words on every part of her body that her string bikini didn’t cover and maybe beyond. It occurred to me that neither of them could see that the girl with criminal intents sitting beside me was fully dressed beneath the foam.
“I like your ink very much,” Crime Girl said to Rosetta. “¿Es bíblica? Is it biblical?”
“No,” the girl said, looking at her arms and whatever part of her midriff she could see beneath her bikini top. “It’s the lyrics to all of Madonna’s hits.” Which explained why her belly button was labeled LA ISLA BONITA.
“Hi, I’m Tilde,” said Crime Girl. “And this is my boyfriend, Enzo.”
I suddenly started to gag on my virgin piña colada.
“Nice to meet you,” said the illustrated couple.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I better get out of here before I puke and make the bubbles less therapeutic.”
“Espérame, Enzo,” said Tilde. “Wait!”
She followed me, revealing her soaking wet jeans for all the world to see. When we were finally far enough away from the reveling masses so that no one else could hear, I turned to her and gave her one of those loud I mean business whispers.
“I told you, it’s Antsy, not Enzo, and I don’t want to have anything to do with you from now until the end of time. We never met; I never saw you. We’re done. End of story.”
Then she crossed her arms and got way too smug. “According to US documentation laws, the penalty for forging a birth certificate or passport is a fine of twenty thousand dollars and up to three years in prison.”
I just stared at her, increasingly aggravated that she could throw me so off balance. “How do you know this?”
“That is my business,” she said.
“Fine. Turn me in. I don’t care anymore. Just leave me alone.”
“I don’t want to turn you in,” she said gently. “I just want your help.”
I told her something I won’t repeat, then tried to escape, but she wasn’t done with me.
“The difference between you and me, Enzo, is that I don’t care if I get put off the ship.”
That stopped me cold, because if that was true, then she could blackmail me, and I had no defense. She smiled, knowing she had me. “Meet me in the Neptune Lounge after dinner,” she said, “because we have a lot to talk about.”
“Why me?” I asked. “Why not some other idiot?”
She shrugged. “Because you’re the idiot I met.”
• • •
I know how to play chess, but I’m not very good because I don’t have patience, and I take things personally. There was this kid I knew—star of the chess team. Joey the Chin, we called him on account of he didn’t have much of one; he was all overbite and Adam’s apple. Anyway, he challenges me to a chess match and on, like, the second move he threatens my queen with a measly bishop. I’m ticked off at being threatened, so rather than running away, I capture his bishop for spite, and he’s all, “What did you do that for? Now you lose your queen!” And he takes it with a pawn. I lost the game, of course, but not before making him chase my king around the board like a spider on the kitchen floor that you just can’t kill.
My point is that I tend to go kamikaze if anyone gets in my face and threatens me—even if it makes the situation ten times worse for me. So, if you follow my habitual pattern, you’d expect me to expose Tilde the second she tried to blackmail me, no matter what the consequences.
But I didn’t do that, because deep down there was a part of me that found her interesting, and a little dangerous—like maybe she was this year’s illegal firework, ready to blow something up spectacularly on July Fourth.
• • •
Everyone’s luggage arrived at our suite before dinner except for mine. “They’ve got a lot of luggage to sort,” my father said. “It’ll show up eventually.” But that was little consolation. All I had to wear to dinner was the bathing suit I was smart enough to pack in my carry-on and the clothes I came on board with. Well my bathing suit was wet, and my clothes stunk to high heaven because in my excitement that morning, I forgot to put on deodorant.
Howie was still out ghost hunting, so, still in my wet bathing suit, I wandered into the adjoining suite, figuring I could hang a little bit with Lexie. Her luggage had arrived, and she had already dug out her flute and was playing. She plays really well for a first-year student, and I figured the music might lighten me up a bit and get my mind off of blackmail and my own desire to either strangle or make out with the blackmailer.
As much as I tried to slip in without being noticed, few things slip in under Lexie’s radar.
“How was the water?” she asked. “Warm enough?”
I couldn’t help but smile, because I knew her MO so well. She could smell that there was someone in the room who had just been in a chlorinated situation—but she didn’t know who it was or what the situation had been—pool, spa, or waterslide. Only when I answered would she know who was in the room and where I’d been—but Lexie is masterful at hiding what she doesn’t know and making you think she’s the blind Sherlock Holmes.
“Let’s just say someone turned up the heat in the Jacuzzi,” I told her.
“Better hot than tepid,” she said.
“Right, tepid,” I repeated. Lexie had a habit of teaching me vocabulary words I wouldn’t use except in a conversation with her.
“Do you like this piece of music?” she asked. “Do you think it shows off my skill as a flautist? I want my parents to see how much I’ve learned already.”
“Even if you weren’t a beginner, I’d think it was impressive.”
“Then you’re too easily impressed.” She returned to practicing, determined to knock her parents’ overpriced European socks off when they arrived.
Lexie’s great, but she hasn’t been able to escape her own lap of luxury. Even the flute her parents got her is gold plated instead of silver like a normal one. And because her parents are never around, her grandfather has treated her like the center of the universe all her life. I guess it’s hard not to fall into that gravity. She tries, but in the end everything is always about her.
I guess that’s natural to an extent. I mean, we can’t help but be at the center of our own worlds. But every once in a while we gotta see the bigger picture. I know, I should talk, right? I’m always the center of some stupid drama. The thing is, though, I tend to shove myself into other people’s dramas and then don’t know how to get back out again.
• • •
When my suitcase hadn’t arrived by dinnertime, my father took pity on me and offered me what may have been the ugliest shirt in the history of man-made fabric. I didn’t even know there were such shades of brown or that they could be tortured into such painful paisley shapes. I decided BO was less assaulting on the senses and stuck with my Neurotoxin T-shirt—which, under the circumstances, was appropriate since I was close to being declared a biological weapon.
Dinner on a cruise ship is old-school eating: multiple courses served over two hours in a grand five-story dining room as opposed to my usual five minutes of snake-like inhaling. I might have had patience for a long, drawn-out dinner if I didn’t know I was expected in the Neptune Lounge by a girl who was admittedly cute but probably a sociopath—which is like a psychopath with enough social skills to form a cult or become class president. Whatever the case, I knew this girl was not going to be good for either my health or my sanity.
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