Sweet

by Emmy Laybourne

  Back at the table, Rich and Tamara are talking about the next day’s shoot.

  Rich starts applauding as I walk up.

  “Now that is what an ambassador does! He gets the crowd moving!”

  “Thank you.” I laugh. I down a bottle of water. “I actually like to dance.”

  My mom keeps pressuring me to go on Dancing with the Stars.

  But I don’t know—that seems like a last resort.

  I haven’t given up hope on film.

  “Tom, you are one intriguing fellow,” Rich says. “You should be the new ‘most interesting man in the world.’ The teenage version.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Tamara says. “I’m going to text Molly.”

  “It’s what I do, people,” Rich says, twisting the ends of his mustache with a flourish.

  Rich really is some kind of a publicity genius. His age is a secret, but he can’t be more than twenty-two or twenty-three. He’s known for big ideas and apparently only takes on one client a year. This year it’s Solu.

  I signal for more water.

  “Wow. You are really sweating,” Tamara observes.

  I’ve soaked through my tux shirt. Even the bow tie hanging round my neck is drenched.

  “Yeah,” I say. “When you’re in shape, you sweat a lot. That’s what my trainer says.”

  “You have some serious moves,” Rich tells me.

  I do a little pop and lock. I grin.

  “I can really work with this. I got some good shots,” Rich says, showing me his phone.

  Then it happens—the new single from Daft Punk blares out, blasting over the end of the slow song.

  It’s the song my routine is set to! And I’m feeling good. Endorphins, probably.

  “You want some video?” I ask, giving Rich a crooked grin. “Something worth posting?”

  “Hells yes, I do,” he sings.

  I toss back the rest of my water and throw the bottle on the ground.

  I step out onto the dance floor, Rich close on my heels.

  “Shoot it! Shoot it, y’all!” Rich calls out, recruiting others to take video.

  On the floor, I dart back and forth, clearing a little space, top-rocking. Three bounds and I drop. Lots of handwork, a set of swipes, then windmills, working into my power moves, then I pop up onto my elbow.

  Derek would be proud. I’ll have to send him the footage.

  I circle up on the tip of my elbow—I stole this move from him, with his blessing.

  Everyone is screaming for me, hollering with surprise. Egging me on.

  Rich is taping. I see him at the edge of the crowd.

  I roll up into some footwork, now, a little break.

  Then I knee-drop into some CCs. Up for some flares.

  I feel good. I feel alive.

  I wonder, for a second, if Sabbi’s arrived yet.

  I do a swipe to launch myself up onto my feet.

  Only—SHOOT—the floor’s too wet. My own darn sweat. I slip.

  I fly forward, my feet coming out from under me, and I slam into a girl.

  We go down.

  THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LOSE CONTROL, I’m shouting at myself in my head. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TRY TO HAVE FUN!

  ’Cause now this is what will run on YouTube—me trying to b-boy and then wiping out and taking this girl down.

  Oh, man, I’ve flattened the poor girl.

  “So sorry,” I say. “I’m an a-hole.”

  And then I see who it is.

  LAUREL

  DAY ONE

  I AM COVERED WITH TOM FIORELLI’S SWEAT.

  Actually, I am covered with Tom Fiorelli and his sweat.

  I’m on the floor. It’s cold against my back, and Tom’s body is hot and slippery on top of me. His face is buried in my neck.

  (I cannot describe how incredibly good this feels. Even though my head hurts and I can barely breathe.)

  He’s heavy and muscular and now he’s pushing off me so I feel his weight shift over me.

  He takes his hand out from behind my head.

  He starts apologizing and cursing himself.

  My hip hurts, I realize. I must have taken the fall on my hip.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I realize that I have a handful of the wet, slick cotton fabric of the back of his shirt clutched in my hand. I let go.

  People are pulling us up now. Together.

  Tom’s massaging his hand. I think he hurt it.

  “Are you all right?” he asks. He’s shaking off the people around him. Rich, my friend from the gangplank, is there.

  “I’m okay,” I squeak.

  Rich is right close to us. “You okay, girl?”

  “You sure?” Tom asks me.

  I nod.

  “Kiss her,” Rich says, under his breath.

  “What?” Tom asks.

  “Trust me. Just kiss her.”

  Tom looks at me, a question in his eyes.

  I blink.

  Is a blink a yes? Because then Tom leans forward and takes my face in his hands and kisses me.

  I feel shocks running through my body as if I’ve been touched by a live wire.

  It’s a very, very thorough kiss.

  It’s a whole-body kiss.

  The people around us burst into huge CHEERS.

  They are going nuts.

  I realize my hands are holding Tom’s back. The muscles under my hands are firm and rippling.

  It’s the best kiss in my life.

  I’m flooded by feelings—and suddenly I realize under all of it I feel anger.

  He’s using me. This kiss is some kind of impromptu publicity stunt.

  (And it’s such a good kiss.)

  But no.

  I put my hands on his (sweaty, hard, cut) pecs and push away. The people around us are screaming and hollering in delight.

  Tom releases me and the guys around him are slapping him on the shoulder.

  “Epic!” one of them says. “You rule!”

  The crowd surges around us. Mostly people surrounding him and I get pushed away from him.

  Viv’s in my face. “Oh my God, Laurel!!! I can’t believe that just happened.”

  “I want to go,” I say.

  “But we can’t go now!” she yells. “You just got, like, famous!”

  “Vivika.” I grab her and look hard into her eyes. “I’m leaving!”

  I storm away and I hear someone ask Viv, “Who is that girl? Is she your friend?”

  Viv stops to answer and I get out of there.

  * * *

  (Hooray for me) I make it back to the room without getting lost or throwing up.

  I take a shower to get Tom Fiorelli’s sweat off me.

  My hip is red—there will be a bruise there.

  I let the hot water pound me from three different fancy nozzles.

  He kissed me because Rich told him to.

  He kissed me.

  He kissed me because he knocked me over and made a fool out of himself and the kiss would give people something else to think about. Make it look like a victory, or a plan, or something.

  Tom Fiorelli kissed me.

  And I hadn’t liked the circumstances, but I sure as hell liked the kiss.

  Rats.

  I try to untangle my feelings about it as I get into our (whoa, the softest sheets ever) bed.

  The shades have been drawn for us and the bed is turned down.

  There’s a chocolate on each of our pillows—a Solu chocolate, of course.

  I put mine on Viv’s pillow. I’m not going to take any chances of the nausea coming back.

  It would have been easier to hate Tom if it hadn’t been for one thing.

  His hand.

  He protected my head when we fell.

  I remember him shaking his hand out—he hurt it when my head slammed down on it.

  Somehow—in our jumbled bodies colliding with each other and then the floor—he had put his hand out so my head wouldn’t hit the dance
floor.

  And in the dark, in the king-size bed in our luxury cabin, I smile.

  It may be hard to stay mad at Tom Fiorelli.

  TOM

  DAY ONE

  “HEY, MAN!” COMES DEREK’S VOICE. “I was wondering when you’d call. How’s the ship?”

  It’s good to hear his voice. Really good.

  “All right,” I say. “Pretty sweet, actually. You should see my room. And I did the set.”

  “What?! How’d it go? Wait, no. Give me your food first and then I want to hear all about it.”

  I tell him everything I ate during the day.

  That’s how we do it.

  People wonder how celebrities stay in shape. We have trainers like Derek. He’s my secret weapon.

  “Sounds good, but watch the steak,” he tells me. “When they serve you a giant slab of meat like that, it’s easy to eat more than you need.”

  “Got it,” I say.

  “So, tell me about the set. I can’t believe it! How did it go?”

  “Terrible. I was sweating so much I slipped when I tried to flip onto my feet.”

  “Did you hurt anything?”

  “I hurt my hand. Nothing major. But I sort of crushed this girl.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I could’ve really hurt her. I should never have tried it.”

  “Tell me about the girl.”

  “Oh … you know. Strawberry blond. Pretty. Curvy. Freckles. Really pretty, actually, but she might be a hippie.”

  “Huh.”

  “Don’t,” I tell him.

  “Sounds special.”

  “You’re the one who told me to lay off the girls,” I remind him.

  “Oh no. I told you to lay off the starlets. Big difference.”

  “Then you’re not going to like hearing about Sabbi Ribiero.”

  “Teens of New York Sabbi Ribiero?” he asks.

  “They’ve set us up for a thing.”

  “Tamara talk you into it?” Derek asks.

  There’s not a lot of love between Derek and Tamara. He thinks she’s too mean and she doesn’t like how much “influence” he has over me.

  “You ready for something like that? Sabbi Ribiero is a force.”

  “Tell me about it!” I laugh. “I don’t know. Not really.”

  There’s only one person I feel comfortable talking to about this kind of stuff and Derek’s it.

  “Well, you can say no. Tamara is supposed to be working for you. She doesn’t own you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. But it’s good publicity.”

  “Ahh, my ambitious friend. Yes. But that shit can take a toll on your heart, man.”

  This is sort of a theme between Derek and me. He tries to remind me about feelings and stuff. It’s because when we first met back when I was twelve, I was still “eating my pain,” as he called it.

  He came by my dressing room early to pick me up to train and found me sitting on the couch, eating my lunch off the coffee table.

  Eight hot dogs, a bag of Doritos, and a two-liter bottle of Pipop.

  “What’s this?” he said.

  “What? It’s my lunch,” I said.

  He watched me inhaling dogs for about a minute and stood up to leave.

  “I can’t do it,” he said. “Sorry, little man. Catch you later.”

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  “Out of here.”

  “WAIT!” I cried. “Wait, what’s wrong?”

  He came back in and shut the door. Threw his duffel bag on the floor.

  He stood there looking at me for a minute. I think I had a half-eaten bite of hot dog hanging out of my mouth.

  He knelt down in front of me.

  “You got dealt a shitty hand, Tom. All this pressure—all this fame—it’s too much for you and you’re stuffing your face to avoid the pain. You’re eating your pain, and it’s going to take you down.”

  “But I’m hungry,” I said.

  “Of course you are. You’re a growing boy and you’re not getting any nutrition. There’s nothing you need in this crap. It makes you fat and, worse than that, it makes you feel fat. Know what I mean?”

  I did. I felt lethargic and sad and useless, despite the antidepressants my doctor had put me on.

  “You need protein and greens, son.”

  “Okay,” I snuffled. I may have been crying.

  “And you need to get some friends.”

  I nodded. Then I asked him to be my friend.

  And he said yes.

  “Well,” Derek says. “I like the sound of Freckles, if you ask me.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” I say.

  “You always do. Talk to you tomorrow,” he says. “Lay off the steak.”

  I think about the girl, after I hang up with Derek.

  I rub my hand. The meat between the thumb and pointer finger hurts. Real tender. I should probably ice it.

  I left the club after the incident with the girl. Sabbi was probably pissed, but we have six days to play it up for the cameras.

  I needed to get some sleep. I’m working the cruise.

  The strawberry blonde.

  I should find out her name.

  That’s probably a good place to start.

  LAUREL

  DAY TWO

  “GOOD MORNING AND WELCOME to the second day aboard the Solu Cruise to Lose! I don’t know about you, but my waistband is already feeling a bit more comfy!”

  I turned on the TV, and the cruise director, Lorna Krieger, is on the screen.

  “Make her stop!” Viv moans from the bed.

  “Today we will be docking at artsy, quirky, and beautiful Key West. Whether you’re headed ashore for beach time, shopping on historic Duval Street, or jetting off for an excursion, you’re sure to have a fabulous time. Maybe we’ll catch sight of Luka Harris out surfing the waves at Lux Beach, the private beach owned by the operator of the Extravagance, Lux Cruise Lines! But please remember, do not take any Solu off the ship. Right now, Lux Lines has the exclusive right to offer you Solu, and we don’t want to share!” She winks.

  Viv throws her pillow at the screen.

  I shut the TV off.

  “Ugh,” she says when I open our window shades. “How can she be so chirpy? What time is it?”

  “Nine. She’s chirpy because she didn’t stay out all night partying.”

  “How you feeling?” Viv asks.

  “Meh,” I say.

  I had hoped my seasickness was gone, but as soon as I set my feet on the floor, the lining of my stomach came up to say howdy to the bottom of my throat.

  “I gotta get off this ship,” I say.

  “Nice,” Viv says. “My dad would love to hear that.”

  “Because of the seasickness,” I answer.

  “You,” Viv says, rolling onto her side and watching me get dressed, “are basically famous. Everyone kept asking me who you were and how do you know Baby Tom-Tom and was the whole thing planned. I need coffee.”

  “Settle for a Diet Pip?” I ask.

  “Okay.”

  I hand her one. I see that whoever turned the bed down last night also refilled our mini-fridge.

  I make a mental note to take a couple ginger ales when I go ashore. We might have to pay for stuff on the island and I’d better save my fifty.

  Viv cracks the top on the soda, as I put on my navy one-piece and pull on my jeans shorts. Over this I wear a faded white jeans shirt.

  “Are you really not going to tell me about it?” she finally says.

  I shrug.

  “You didn’t like it?”

  I sit on the floor to pull on a pair of hot-pink knee-high socks. There’s a hole in one toe, of course.

  “LAUREL! What was the kiss like?”

  I sigh and lie back on the fluffy-soft carpet.

  “It was amazing,” I say.

  Viv echoes my sigh.

  “It looked amazing. So romantic.”

  We both sigh together. (Oh, brother.)

&nb
sp; “No. Actually. That’s the problem.” I sit up. “There was nothing romantic about it! He didn’t actually even want to kiss me. It was Mustache Rich, the publicity genius of the universe.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “After Tom crashed into me, Rich said, ‘Kiss her!’ It was just to distract everyone from the fact that Tom fell during his big show-off dance.”

  “That dance was awesome!” Viv objects.

  “Viv, he kissed me to cover up for his goof. That’s all. There’s nothing between us.”

  “It didn’t look like that,” she says.

  I pull on my cowboy boots. I feel like I need a sharp toe today.

  “Really? Cowboy boots? We’re in Key West. Have you never met a flip-flop?” she complains.

  “I’m going to go to the buffet to get some fruit. Do you want anything?”

  “Yeah—whatever they have with Solu. I swear, Laur, I’m losing weight already.”

  “You’re beautiful already. You’re perfect the way you are.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t see any former child stars tackling me on the dance floor,” she says, shooing me off.

  “By accident,” I add.

  “By accident, by choice. You’re lucky and you don’t even care,” she says.

  “I’m so lucky I’m going to spend the rest of the cruise avoiding him.”

  Viv throws her second pillow at my head.

  * * *

  I read in the leather guidebook in our room that there’s a buffet breakfast available on the pool deck each morning.

  I’m alone, standing at the head of the buffet, and trying to decide if my stomach will allow me anything more substantial than honeydew melon, when I hear an argument coming from behind a swinging metal door. It must lead into some kind of small kitchen.

  “You should put him ashore,” a female voice says.

  “Please! I did nothing! I did nothing!” a man pleads. “I’m just crabby in the morning. I just needed some coffee!”

  “You threatened me with a knife!” the lady snipes.

  I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but a knife?!

  The door has that one little window that waiters see through when coming and going, but I can’t see anyone. I hear three voices, though.

  “It was just in my hand! This was just a little kitchen tiff. It was nothing! I just need a cup of coffee to settle my nerves.”

  A waiter asks if I need anything. I shake my head and smile.

  He goes in the service door and I get a glimpse of a skinny, scruffy man clutching a crumpled chef’s hat and a plump, self-satisfied-looking female chef. They’re both pleading with a ship’s officer with his back to me.