The Trouble with Destiny

by Lauren Morrill

  “Game!” Russ shouts out, the verbal equivalent of a starter’s pistol. Brightly colored balls whiz through the air at high speeds. Players leap, splash, and dive, shrieking and yelling. Missy is cowering behind one of the burlier members of the Mechanicals, who’s pretending she doesn’t exist. Demi seems to have worked her way toward the edge of the pool, where she’s half playing, half posing for Lenny, who is snapping shots of the madness from his deck chair. I can’t tell if he notices her or not, but I definitely do, and I don’t like it one bit. I don’t like that he has barely acknowledged my presence, either—he hasn’t even looked my way.

  Now that I’ve admitted my crush on Lenny, the truth of it is coursing through my veins, making me practically drunk on lusty thoughts. It’s exactly why I avoid the love stuff, but now I’m too far gone to stop it. Dammit, Sofia. This better not throw me off my game.

  I turn my attention back to Huck. He wades toward a forgotten green ball floating near the edge of the pool, dunks it, then sends it flying. Only it doesn’t head toward the opposing team. Instead, it sails over their heads toward the tiki bar.

  “Incoming!” Huck shouts, then disappears beneath the surface.

  Mr. Curtis shouts and then launches himself in front of Ms. Haddaway, his arms out like a human shield. For a lifelong band geek, he has surprisingly good reflexes. The front of his banana-yellow polo takes the brunt of the hit. The ball bounces off him and lands with a soggy thump, leaving behind a darkening wet spot.

  A mottled flush works its way up Mr. Curtis’s neck. But before he can start yelling, Ms. Haddaway bursts into peals of laughter. She runs her hand over the wet fabric on Mr. Curtis’s chest. This time, when his cheeks redden, I know he’s not angry. She gestures to him and he nods. They proceed to retrieve their drinks from the bar and take a seat at a nearby table, deep in conversation.

  Completely distracted … by each other.

  I don’t believe it. Huck’s plan actually worked.

  Thwack!

  The sopping ball straight to my face causes me to nearly topple off my chair. I blink the water out of my eyes and wipe away the wet strands of hair now stuck to my forehead. Unlike Huck, my attacker doesn’t have the good sense to duck and swim.

  Russ is standing in the pool biting his lip, looking sheepish. The blood begins to pound in my ears. I can’t figure out if Russ enjoys annoying me, or if he’s too dumb to realize he’s doing it. Either way, I curse Principal DeLozier for the fiftieth time for sticking me with him on this trip.

  I don’t know if it’s a breeze that picks up or the water dripping off the ball that’s now resting in my lap or the throbbing hatred of our star quarterback, but I start to shiver like a drowned Chihuahua. Not my finest look. I cross my arms over my chest as if they can act as some kind of full-body shield.

  “Here ya go, take this.” I look up to see Lenny unzipping the blue track jacket he’s wearing. He sheds it and passes it to me. “I don’t want you to get cold.”

  I remove the ball from my lap. In the pool, Russ holds up his hands for a catch, but I drop the ball on the ground. It rolls under my chair. Russ’s smile fades. Lenny only laughs.

  “Thanks,” I say. I take the jacket from Lenny and wrap it around my shoulders, even though it must be at least eighty degrees. “That’s really cool of you.”

  “Please, as if I didn’t spend the entire week at camp giving you my sweatshirt,” he says with a playful grin.

  “It was cold in that theater!” I say. I smile back at him, and he immediately raises his camera and snaps a picture. He lowers it and hits a button, checking the image on the display.

  “That’s a good one,” he says, glancing down at me from beneath his hair. “You’ve got a great smile.”

  “Hey, sorry about that, Liza!” Russ calls from the pool. I see Lenny peer over my shoulder at Russ, so I quickly wave my hand at him to indicate yeah, whatever and please stop talking. I lean over so that I’m blocking out any view of Russ, and bring Lenny’s focus back to me.

  Suddenly, Demi is out of the pool. She marches over to Lenny, reaches back, and wrings out her long brown hair, which has the side effect of arching her ample chest directly toward him. His eyes dart to her, then back to his feet, and he shoves his hands awkwardly into the pockets of his shorts.

  Undeterred, Demi loops her arm through his. I wonder if they’ve already met, or if Demi is just exercising some of her trademark confidence. And suddenly I get a surge of jealousy, and worse than that, the swinging vertigo sense of watching history repeat itself. Demi’s got her eye on a prize, only this time, it’s one I’m hoping to win. Two, in fact, because I plan to get Lenny and the $25,000 check. And unlike when we were kids, I’m not going to back down. Maybe it’s my newfound commitment to crush the Athenas, but suddenly I don’t want to roll over for Demi. I want Lenny.

  But Demi isn’t going down without a fight.

  “C’mon, Lenny,” she says. She arranges her lips into a tiny pout. “Hot tub time!”

  Before he can reply—or protest—she drags him along with a surprising amount of force for someone whose hobbies include singing and dancing. Several of the dodgeball players climb out of the pool and follow, including Missy, Russ, Hillary, Jared, and a few of the Athenas. Huck pulls himself onto the deck after them.

  “Come on,” Huck says, and grabs my arm. His eyes settle on Lenny’s track jacket, and he gives me a knowing look. “This time you don’t have a choice.”

  “What? No way!” I try to dig in my heels, even as he hauls me to my feet, but the polished wood of the deck combined with the dripping bodies that went before us makes this impossible.

  “Liza, listen to me. Curtis is occupied. He won’t be investigating any time soon. Besides, the boat isn’t sinking. And there’s no performance tonight—we’ll have all day tomorrow to get back on track in rehearsal. So could you just take a minute and relax?”

  I’m about to respond that watching Demi fawn all over Lenny will not be relaxing, but just then, a flash of yellow catches my attention. Across the deck, Sofia and a man in a white linen shirt are leaning over the railing. There must be a higher wind up there, because her gray hair is escaping from her french twist and whipping across her face. She reaches over, plucks the straw hat off the man’s head, plops it on her own, and smiles.

  Take the strawberries. Fall in love. Surely I can have both, right? I want to save the band, but I also want to kiss Lenny again. I want that smile of his for myself. So I loop my arm in Huck’s and follow the crowd toward the hot tub. For once, I’m going to let myself have all the strawberries I want.

  Chapter 8

  The words “hot tub” usually conjure up an image of a square fiberglass setup bubbling away in someone’s backyard, or an embarrassing, booze-fueled YouTube video waiting to happen.

  This? This is no hot tub.

  Roughly the size of the shallow end of the ship’s main pool, this hot tub is plenty large enough for the ten or so of us who are dropping into it. Perched on a private, elevated deck, it’s the perfect place from which to keep an eye on the pool below without actually being seen ourselves.

  An elderly couple in matching floral suits climb out as my classmates and friends step in, disrupting their relaxing afternoon soak. They’re clucking quietly to each other, so the only words I can make out are “such a ruckus” and “act like ladies and gentlemen.” I snort, wondering when Demi last acted like a lady. Probably around the same time Russ acted like a gentleman, and by that, I mean never.

  Lenny moves into a corner, and Demi immediately slides in next to him. Missy gasps and gives a tiny hop when she sits down right in front of one of the powerful jets. Hillary takes a spot by herself off to the side, as if Demi’s perkiness is a disease that’s catching. Russ settles in next to Huck, who gives him a healthy side eye before scooting a little bit away.

  I take a seat on the ledge and dip my t
oes into the warm, bubbling water, partly because hot tubs skeeve me out (seriously, it’s like all those germs and skin particles are cooking in there, making some kind of disease-filled stew. No thank you!), and partly because I don’t want to take Lenny’s jacket off. I love the way it smells like whatever detergent his mom uses and his woodsy deodorant.

  Once again, I look up to see Demi wrinkling her nose in my direction as if to say Who invited you? But Lenny ducks under the water next to her and emerges with his hair slicked back, immediately distracting Demi from the fact that there are band kids at her hot tub party.

  “Truth-or-dare time!” she chirps. But her eyes are laser focused on mine, an eyebrow raised.

  My stomach drops. I’ve played T-or-D plenty of times, but always with my friends, who I know won’t judge or make me do anything that could seriously risk my life or my dignity. At band camp last summer, Hillary dared me to do a lap around the practice field in my underwear (which I totally did). But one look at Demi tells me a dare like that is just a warm-up for her. I’m having flashbacks to our childhood games of Trivial Pursuit, where Demi was completely brazen about “accidentally” taking a peek at the answer on the back of the card. There’s no way a ten-year-old knows the date of the Peloponnesian War.

  “I was thinking maybe you might want a friendly wager, Liza,” Demi says, sugar dripping from every syllable. I recognize the voice as the one she used to use with our ballet teacher when she wanted an extra few bars of a solo. “Winner gets the loser’s practice time?”

  I pause. “How can you win at truth-or-dare?”

  “Whoever fails to complete their dare or spill their truth loses,” she says, her voice light while her brain is already concocting a winning strategy. I can’t even imagine what that might look like, but the chance to win extra practice time is exactly what we need, especially after my epic meltdown today. And if we can win it while stealing some of the Athenas’? All the better. So against my better judgment (and deep history of losing to Demi at board games), I agree.

  “I’m in,” I say, leaning back against the warm bricks surrounding the hot tub.

  Before Demi can speak again, Huck turns to Russ, one eyebrow raised.

  “Russ,” he says. “Truth or dare?”

  Russ hesitates for a moment, glancing around the hot tub as if weighing the risks of either option. His eyes pass over me, almost stopping for a moment, before moving on to Demi and Missy. “Truth,” he says finally.

  “Boooo!” Missy says, giving him a thumbs-down, but Huck’s face glows with a wicked expression.

  “Why did you dump Demi?” Huck asks.

  Russ’s face goes white, and Missy gasps.

  Demi splashes Huck. “As if! I dumped him,” she says. She gives Russ a stern look. He glances at her, then back at Huck.

  “She’s right,” he adds, and shrugs. A momentary chill passes through the hot tub. Everyone is suddenly very interested in the jets or clouds or readjusting their suits. I expect to see Demi glaring at Russ, or even Huck, but when I look over, she’s giving me the evil eye. What did I do?

  After a moment of silence, Russ turns back to Missy.

  “Okay, Missy, truth or dare?”

  “Dare!” she yelps as Demi pokes her in the ribs just below her Tennessee Vol–orange bikini.

  “Good girl,” Demi coos. I have a flashback to the time in fourth grade when Demi staged a Miss America swimsuit competition in her backyard … in January. The thought makes me shiver, so I tuck myself farther into Lenny’s jacket. Immediately, Demi scoots closer to Lenny.

  “How about you—” Russ starts to say.

  But Demi steamrolls him. “I dare you to score us some drinks.”

  My trouble meter starts beeping at a high frequency. I catch Huck giving me a look that says Chill out, Liza, so I keep my mouth shut and shift uncomfortably on the bricks surrounding the hot tub. All I need right now is to get caught drinking, or being around people drinking, since I don’t actually drink. I mean, not that I don’t drink. There’s always beer at the band parties, smuggled in Nalgene bottles or hidden in neoprene sleeves disguised as soda. But I think beer tastes like bread-flavored spit, so I usually just volunteer to be the designated driver, giving me an easy out. Regardless, if we came all this way on a half-crippled cruise ship only to get disqualified for a pilfered margarita, I think I’d throw myself overboard.

  “No problem.” Missy lifts herself out of the hot tub as if there are paparazzi waiting to take her picture. Her long black curls cascade down her back. She gives a shimmy, I presume to shake off the water, but probably also to show off her petite body to everyone with eyes.

  “Okay, while she’s gone, let’s do something fun,” Demi says. She leans into Lenny. Now her chest is practically in his lap, and I have to look away so I don’t barf into the bubbly water. Demi reaches into the mesh beach bag she’s brought along and pulls out a small notepad. She roots around some more until she produces a handful of pens. “What we’re going to do now is write the name of our number-one crush on a slip of paper. Then we’ll put them in a hat and draw them out one at a time, trying to guess whose is whose.”

  She snatches Huck’s fedora off his head and places it on the deck behind her, then starts tearing out scraps of paper and passing them around. I expect Huck to snatch the hat right back, or at least object, but he just goes with it. Britt starts scribbling away. I see Hillary glance around the circle before writing. Huck takes to the paper right away. Lenny scribbles, his cheeks going red.

  I look down at my piece of blank paper. The group is too small; everyone will notice if I don’t write something. But I also don’t want to actually reveal my number-one crush. My eyes go to Lenny, who is handing the hat to Russ. He deposits a slightly soggy folded slip of paper into it. My stomach does a little flip.

  As the hat gets closer to me, I give up and settle on Marcus Wellington, the name of a character in one of my mother’s trashy romance novels she keeps hidden under her bed, so that I don’t have to incriminate myself. I scribble the name and drop it into the hat after Hillary.

  Missy appears back on the deck holding three half-empty cups. One looks like a beer, and the other two are filled with slightly melted frozen drinks topped with soggy bits of fruit.

  “Done and done!” she says, placing the drinks down on the deck.

  Demi wrinkles her nose. “Missy, are those drinks used?”

  “No one was using them anymore,” Missy says.

  “That’s so gross!” Demi cries. She turns to Lenny. “Isn’t that so gross?”

  Lenny half smiles and shrugs. Huck and I trade a glance that says we are totally not shocked that Missy would be dumb enough to steal half-empty drinks from strangers. Russ sort of sinks farther down into the water, maybe to get a better angle on that jet. I’m surprised he doesn’t take one of the glasses and pound it. I’ve heard the football team knows how to put it away.

  “They were totally carding! What did you expect?” Missy huffs and drops back down into the hot tub.

  “I think that’s a dare fail,” Huck declares, nodding at the glasses.

  “Is not!” Missy snaps.

  “Uh, it so is,” Hillary says. She lifts one of the glasses, which appears to have a cigarette butt floating in it. “The dare was to score us drinks that we could, you know, drink. And unless someone is willing to down this right now, it’s a dare fail.”

  “That’s crap!” Demi says through clenched teeth.

  “Looks like we get your practice time,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. I take the glass from Hillary and wave it toward Demi. “Unless you’re willing to bottoms up?”

  “No! No way,” Demi says, her cheeks going red. She’s starting to panic. She throws a pleading look at Lenny, like he’s the referee or something, but he just shrugs.

  “Russ told the truth, and you confirmed it,” Huck says.
“Are you saying he lied?”

  All heads swing to Demi. But she’s unruffled. She crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow. “Um, no,” she says. “I’m saying Russ doesn’t count as part of the band. Y’all still have a turn.”

  “Russ is absolutely with the band,” I fire back. Demi can try to win on some half-baked technicality, but I’m not going to let her. “Principal DeLozier sent him on the trip with us. He wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for the band.”

  I glance over at Russ, shooting him my trademark Do as I say drum major look. And even though he hasn’t spent an entire season responding to my commands, he still seems to catch my meaning.

  “She’s right,” Russ says. “I mean, I’m definitely not with the Athenas.”

  Demi’s nose scrunches up in a tiny flinch, a sure sign that a major tantrum is on its way. But she recovers, and immediately turns a sugary sweet smile in Lenny’s direction.

  “What say you, judges’ panel?” she practically purrs.

  “I didn’t realize I was judging, but …” Lenny pauses and rubs his forehead. “It seems like they’re right. The band won, fair and square.”

  Suddenly my stomach is doing a tango with my heart, because Lenny is standing up for me. Not Demi and her skimpy bikini and syrupy smile.

  The celebration is short-lived, though. Russ gasps and points at the pool, where Mr. Curtis is making his way toward the stairs to the hot tub. “Incoming!” he says, and lunges for the drinks. Even though no one even thought to sample them, they’re still incriminating. Russ gathers them, then leaps out of the tub, leaving a wake of water that washes over Lenny, Missy, and Demi. Lenny takes the chance to duck under the water and slick back his sandy hair, but Demi and Missy screech and jump up, as if they’re not already soaking wet.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Demi hisses to Missy, cocking her head toward the steps. She shoves Huck’s hat at Hillary, then turns to Lenny. “You coming?”