Sweet Reality

by Laura Heffernan

  “What the hell happened to your head? Did Justin tell you? Are you making fun of me?”

  Telling Ariana all about my recipe woes sat high on the list of things I’d get around to right after Hell froze over. “Making fun of what? Your perfect hair? By shaving my head?”

  She planted her hands on her hips and tossed her head. “Whatever. Never mind. What are you doing here?”

  “We have to talk, Ariana. Now. It’s important.”

  “Of course now is the moment you’d want to talk. When all the attention is on me,” Ariana said.

  All the attention would stay on her for at least the next five minutes, but not in the way anyone wanted.

  “That’s not it, I promise. But you need to come with me, and we need to talk over there.”

  “Anything you say to me, you can say here.”

  Above her head, the video screen flickered. Ariana’s face moved, but no sound came out. The screen paused. I tried not to smirk at the realization that Janine’s attempts to ruin my life were being hindered by technical difficulties. Still, the image on the screen didn’t have movie clarity. Shadows covered much of the screen, but the chairs, table, and ocean in the background clearly established that she was somewhere on the cruise ship.

  The doors leading to the elevator bank parted, and Justin appeared. For the first time all cruise, I wished he’d been as far away from me as possible. I didn’t want him to see this, especially when I couldn’t get to him to explain first. He came and stood beside me, kissing my cheek. “Is everything okay? I got a weird message from you.”

  “No, it’s not okay. I made a video and the producers stole it and I can’t make it stop. We need to get Ariana off this deck now.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Ariana asked.

  At the same time, Justin said, “Slow down. Start over from the beginning.”

  But there was no time. Gasps echoed around the deck when the video started to play again, this time with sound. Whispers buzzed all around us. The audience had grown while we were talking. People were catching on that this video wasn’t part of the scheduled entertainment.

  Helplessly, I pointed at the screen. The color drained from Justin’s face. In front of me, the much smaller Ariana whirled around to see everyone watching her and Dominic on the big screen. When she turned back, rage contorted her face. “How dare you? You had no right to spy on me. You had no right to air my personal business to everyone.”

  “I didn’t! I mean, yeah, I made the tape, but I only ever meant to show it to you. I was going to tell you that, if you tried to get between us again, I’d tell Justin that you only brought Dominic on the cruise to break us up.”

  “That’s not why Dominic’s here.” A tear trickled down her face, but she didn’t wipe it away. She’d probably taught herself to cry on command. “Obviously, you know the truth, since you were watching us.”

  Her voice cracked, and for the first time since we met, I believed she was showing true emotion. A wave of pity hit me. “Yeah, I saw you with my ex-boyfriend. Thanks for the visual.”

  She sniffled. “This was never about you. It was about me.”

  Something in her tone set my hackles up. “Really? Trying to break up me and my boyfriend wasn’t about me?”

  Justin stood horrified a few feet away, eyes swiveling from the show on the screen, now replaying from the beginning, to me and back. Other people’s eyes remained riveted to the screen as if I hadn’t spoken, so I turned to my foe.

  “You had your shot with Justin, Ariana, on the show. You lost. He picked me. You had a chance to figure out a way to deal with it and move on. Instead, you set out to ruin my cruise. I didn’t want it to happen this way, and I’m sorry for that. But I’m not sorry that finally, people will see who you really are.”

  Instead of watching the screen, I watched the Ariana in front of me as the video continued to play. Her jaw dropped, but no sound came out. Over her shoulder, Justin’s face moved as he watched the film. When his mouth dropped open in horror, I knew he’d gotten to the part where Dominic kneeled between her legs.

  Ariana’s face turned white. With one hand over her mouth, eyes glistening, she turned and raced inside.

  Before I could follow her, Justin and Dominic appeared at my side.

  Not surprisingly, Justin’s wide eyes and clenched jaw told me he was furious. My heart sank. I’d wanted him to see who she really was when the cameras weren’t on her, but not like this. No one deserved this type of public humiliation.

  “What the hell did you just do?” He asked.

  “I’m so sorry, Justin. I tried to stop it. I just wanted her to leave us alone.” I summarized what Ed told me and my conversation with Janine.

  He shook his head, his entire body practically shaking. “You don’t know what you’ve got there. Dominic, tell her.”

  My ex’s face turned red, and he stared at the ground. “You know I can’t. I’m sorry, man.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “He can’t tell you because of medical privacy laws,” Justin said.

  I blinked at him a few times, but those words didn’t start to make any more sense. “Dominic’s Ariana’s date. They’re sleeping together. She’s pregnant, and they’re getting married. Medical privacy laws don’t stop him from talking about his own baby. Besides, it’s all on the video.”

  “No, it’s not,” Dominic said. “Jen, think about it. What do I do for a living?”

  The missing pieces of this puzzle started to click into place. “You’re a traveling nurse?”

  “Exactly.”

  Lightbulbs started flashing: almost running into Ariana in the infirmary the first day; the weight loss; the fact that she’d brought my ex here in the first place. Rachel saying she was stumbling and looking ill at the rum factory tour. The reason both she and Justin had such a negative reaction to my newly shaved head, at least until Justin got the full story.

  “Is Ariana sick?” I asked, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole.

  Dominic avoided my gaze, which gave me all the answer I needed. Thanks, HIPAA.

  Justin pressed his lips together in a firm line. “She’s got about three months to live, Jen.”

  Chapter 22

  More from the Guppy Gabber, Saturday:

  Tammy Rae: Damn. If I’d known, I probably would’ve asked the cheerleader to do something else when she lost the bet.

  Ed: Oh, shit. That blows. I wish I’d thought to leave the room before watching the video Jen sent me. But Janine was apologizing for messing everything up back in Jamaica, and I bought it. I’m an idiot.

  *Rachel enters the confessional wearing a baseball hat, sits down, opens her mouth, leaves. A moment later, she enters again. She opens and closes her mouth, leans back, blinks, removes her hat, rubs her head, then walks out a second time.*

  Oh, my god.

  My heart pounded in my ears. My head swiveled from Justin to Dominic and back, waiting for someone to tell me this was the least funny joke ever. When no one replied, my eyes filled with tears. Poor Ariana. She was so young. Too young to have the next forty years snatched away from her. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like, being given my own expiration date at this point in my life.

  I sniffled. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I feel terrible for her.”

  “That’s why we were so surprised to see your shaved head.” Justin said. “I wondered if you’d figured out she’s been wearing a wig all week. The treatments made her hair fall out.”

  Just when I didn’t think anything could make me feel worse. “Oh, no. I had no idea.”

  He said, “The ‘service’ she and Dominic were talking about is her funeral, not a wedding. And she’s so thin because the medication makes her sick. She can’t keep anything down.”

  “Why would she tell you all this when she was keeping it secret from everyone else?” I asked.

  “Remember when I got hit by the golf ball?”

  H
ow could I forget? Ignoring the growing queasiness in my stomach, I nodded.

  “I went to the infirmary. On my way out, I overheard her talking to one of the doctors. She didn’t know I was there. In fact, when she came out and saw me standing there, she looked horrified.”

  “When you saw me hugging her on the balcony, that was about comfort, not sex,” Dominic said. “Sometimes, she needs a shoulder to cry on.”

  That all made sense, but one thing still bothered me. “Then why were you kneeling between her legs?”

  “Pain killers,” Justin said. “She needs shots, and only a nurse can give them. But she didn’t want anyone to see the track marks, so she gets them in her upper thigh. We spent all day Wednesday talking while you two were in Jamaica. That morning in our room, she came in looking for Dominic because he hadn’t arrived at her suite to give the medication. That’s why she was wearing a robe.”

  “You said they had a couples’ massage planned.”

  “I couldn’t tell you the truth then, but now the cat’s out of the bag.”

  My mind flashed to Monday, during the bake-off. I’d wondered why she went tanning in a knee-length skirt. And now I knew. All the air rushed out of me. “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah, that about sums it up,” Dominic said.

  Ignoring him, I turned to Justin. “Did you give her the shot while we were in Jamaica?’

  “No way. She went to the infirmary.”

  The growing pit in my stomach turned into a chasm. “I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

  He swallowed. “I know how miserable she made you in the house. Made both of us. She never made any secret about hating you. And her joke about the baby on Sunday was in horribly bad taste. She shouldn’t have done that. I get why you don’t like her.”

  “Don’t like” was a massive understatement, but I didn’t correct him. It didn’t matter any more.

  “Still, I’ve spent a lot of time with her this week, and she’s sorry for the way she behaved, both in the house and on Sunday. She’s trying to make amends. Can you say the same?”

  My face grew warm. “I never should’ve sunk to her level. Or what I thought was her level. After we made up, I should’ve left well enough alone. I’m so sorry, Justin.”

  “I get it. You didn’t know. But I’m not the one you need to apologize to. Go find Ari.”

  Biting my lip, I nodded. “I will. I have to make this right.”

  * * *

  My feet pounded against the deck, but Ariana had a head start. I raced to the elevators, hoping she was still waiting. No one stood in the foyer when I got there. The elevators on this ship moved at the speed of drunk turtles, so I went for the stairs, hoping I could race down and catch her before she exited.

  At each landing, I paused, listening for a telltale ding. No luck at the fourteenth, thirteenth, and twelfth floors. When I got to the eleventh floor, the doors of the middle elevator opened to reveal an elderly couple, probably en route to their cabin: this floor contained nothing in the way of entertainment. No one else stood in the tiny space.

  Maybe she’d taken the bank of elevators at the far end of the ship instead. Not knowing what else to do, I raced across the ship to see if she were over there. A sign for the gym and spa sent me dashing up three flights, but to no avail. She was gone, and I had no idea where to find her. It would take the rest of the cruise to search the ship end to end.

  For the first time all week, not a single member of the production staff stood within my sight. Of course not. They were probably all in the control room, celebrating what a great show this would make. Under my breath, I cursed my luck. Then I spotted a couple of passing members of the cruise staff, wheeling a cart full of linens toward the elevator.

  “Have you seen a tall, very thin woman with dark skin and long black hair come this way?” I asked, desperate. One of them was Julio, from the buffet. The other wore a tag identifying him as Hamid from Tehran. I hoped he spoke English. “Impossibly beautiful?”

  “No, but I wish I had,” Hamid said.

  “Come on,” Julio said, “you’d never get a woman like that in a million years. Me, on the other hand—”

  “So you haven’t seen her?” I didn’t have time to listen to their banter, witty as they thought they were. “Ariana? One of the reality show contestants? She was on The Fishbowl with me.”

  They both stared blankly at me. I was about to leave when Hamid spoke again. “I’m afraid we don’t get a lot of time to watch television while we’re working, ma’am. There are no televisions in our cabins.”

  Her cabin. Duh. I knew how to get to Ariana’s cabin now. Why had I wasted time searching half the ship for her? To think they called me the smart one. If I ran from the Lido Deck sobbing after being humiliated on national television, hiding in my room made a lot more sense than slinking to the back of the theater or something.

  No one responded when I knocked, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in there. Besides, there was more than one way to get her to talk to me: what were adjoining balconies for if not stalking the archenemy you inadvertently destroyed? Using my key card, I slipped through the dark room Justin and I occupied earlier and out onto the deck.

  Sure enough, quiet sobbing reached my ears. Shame washed over me. “Ariana?”

  No response.

  “Look, I’m sorry. Dominic and Justin told me everything.”

  “Go away!” She yelled over the partition. “I hate you. You’ve ruined everything.”

  Going away was not part of the plan, not after I spent half an hour tracking her down. And not after I’d realized how insufferable I’d been. There may be no excuse for my behavior, but I needed to try to make things right.

  The adjoining door between balconies, not surprisingly, was locked. But if I were extremely careful, I could climb around the partition. As long as she didn’t shove me off into the ocean. The lowest end of the wall came up to my ribcage. Hoisting myself onto it would be doable, but if I slipped, I’d find myself plummeting face first toward open water. That wouldn’t work at all. If accidentally killing myself would make Ariana forgive me, I didn’t want to know.

  A flash of inspiration struck, and I dragged one of the deck chairs up against the partition, placing the back against the wall separating me from the sea. Standing on the chair gave me a full view of the balcony next to ours. My breath caught in my throat.

  Ariana was on the balcony, as expected. However, instead of standing on firm ground or sitting safely in one of the chairs, she sat on top of the wall, gazing out over the water.

  “What are you doing?” I said slowly. The last thing I wanted was to make any sudden moves or sounds that might send her toppling forward.

  “I said, ‘go away.’ Or do you suck at following directions as much as everything else you do?”

  I bit back a sarcastic reply. She didn’t mean it. Okay, well, she probably did, but I still couldn’t leave until I knew she was okay.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Not until you come down off that ledge.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “I can’t believe Justin and Dominic told you. I should sue Dominic, or report his ass.”

  “He didn’t really say anything. It was mostly Justin. Ariana, I had no idea. I’m so sor—”

  “Don’t.” She lifted one hand, cutting me off. “Just don’t. Let’s not pretend we’re friends now. You never liked me.”

  “Nope. And you never liked me. But I don’t want you to die. And I certainly don’t want you to kill yourself. You’ve still got three months left to live your life. Please come onto the balcony.”

  Moving slowly so I wouldn’t scare her, I swung my left leg over the wall, leaving me straddling the partition between the balconies, my back to the ocean. The wind shoved me toward the ship, leaving me hugging the dividing wall, and I sent up a prayer of gratitude that it wasn’t blowing in the opposite direction.

  The good news: I couldn’t see the drop. The bad news: Short of falling onto my butt, I also d
idn’t see a good way to get to the ground from here. I’d have to kind of stretch for the deck and hope for some long-overdue good luck.

  While Ariana’s attention was on the ocean rather than on me, I slid to the ground, bringing my right leg around the wall and landing with a hard thud on the deck.

  Thanks to my death grip on the wall, I stayed upright. There. At least we could talk while on the same patio. And I was safe, but Ariana still needed to move out of the wind before it shifted or the boat changed direction.

  She sat, still as a statue, staring at me with her face in a perfect mask. Only her red eyes betrayed how she felt.

  “Ariana, please come down from there.”

  “Why bother? Are you worried if I jump, everyone will think you pushed me?” She let out a peal of laughter. “Oh, that would be perfect, wouldn’t it? If I’m going to die either way, at least I could take you down when I go. Or maybe I could grab you and we could go over the edge together.”

  We stood on the eighth floor of the ship. Other than the main levels, the ceilings here weren’t quite as high as a normal house, so a fall wouldn’t exactly be as bad as jumping off a skyscraper. A person might survive the drop, but I didn’t want to find out what it felt like to hit water at this distance.

  Using another chair for balance, I slowly climbed onto the wall to sit next to her. Not too close, since I still didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. But close enough that we could talk without screaming over the wind. As long as the boat didn’t sway or turn, we’d be fine.

  “Ariana, listen,” I said. “No, we’re not friends. But you have friends who care about you. Friends like Dominic.”

  “Dominic isn’t my friend. He’s being paid to hang out with me.”

  “Maybe that’s how it started, but he definitely cares now. I see it in his eyes.”

  “Whatever. He’s only here as part of the show,” she said. “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t know he was coming in advance. When the Network invited me on the show, I was in the hospital. My agent told them I’d need a caregiver, and they set it up. I didn’t know who he was to you until we ran into his ex-wife at the purser’s desk while getting upgraded to this suite.”