DOUBLE KNOT (9 page)

Mother and I watched, both a little dumbfounded, as Jess rambled around at the butler’s
bar and mixed herself a stout Bloody Mary. She plopped down beside me. “So, do you
smoke? Do you have any cigarettes?”

Fantasy showed up before I could think of how, or even if, I should answer Jess.

Mother pulled a pan of biscuits from the oven. “Davis, go get that man and that girl.
I didn’t cook all this for my health.”

I kicked off our first official 704 meal by stating the obvious: The door was still
locked; the V2s were still dead. I asked if anyone had any bright ideas. They didn’t.
I asked who took the knives. (No, I didn’t.) The next twenty minutes were marked by
the clinks of forks, dull butter knives, and whimpering. (Jessica.) The food disappeared
and we sat around a white table full of dirty dishes.

Mother stood and pushed her chair in. “We’re going to make the best of this situation
and have a lovely day by the pool.” Then she passed out marching orders. She started
on her left. Jessica. “Young lady, get some clothes on.” Next was Poppy. “I guess
you do whatever it is you’re supposed to do, then you’re welcome to join us.” She
got to Burnsworth. “I don’t believe in mixed bathing. No offense.” He surrendered—none
taken. Then me and Fantasy. “You two do the dishes.”

“Why do we have to do the dishes?”

“We’re splitting the kitchen chores, Fantasy. I cooked; you and Davis can clean.”

Fantasy opened her mouth to protest and I cut her off. “It’s fine, Mother. We’ll do
the dishes.”

“Lunch is at twelve sharp by the pool. I’ve made us a nice chef salad,” Mother said.
“I’ll see you all at the pool. Except you,” she said to Burnsworth. “But you’re welcome
to join us for lunch.”

Fantasy waited to kill me until everyone else left the kitchen.

I looked around to make certain we were alone. “Someone took the knives! Every knife
in the kitchen!”

“I know! It was
me
, Davis! I took the knives!”

NINE

We couldn’t find the dishwasher.

“If I’d known it was you who took the knives I would’ve fought the dish fight harder.”
I was under the kitchen island.

“You didn’t fight it at all. And how was I supposed to tell you in a room full of
people?” She was under the sink. “Was I supposed to butter a biscuit and say, ‘Oh,
by the way, Davis. I hid the knives so these people won’t stab us’?”

“Did you hide the dishwasher too?”

We looked in the least likely places, having struck out in the most likely. I looked
inside the cabinets while she pulled open the warming drawers between the wall ovens.
I looked in the skinny cabinet to the right of the refrigerator while she disappeared
into the walk-in pantry. “I found an herb garden,” she called out. “How can I find
an herb garden and not find a dishwasher?”

It had been twenty minutes on the dishwasher search already—wasted precious time,
considering we’d been ordered to the pool and I knew better than to keep Mother waiting.
It wasn’t that I was in such a hurry to get there and act like (I wasn’t pregnant)
nothing was wrong, it was that I had way bigger and better things to worry about than
the dishes. Not to mention I had to find something to wear to the pool. I didn’t own
any poolside fashion for the truly expectant.

“We need a bucket,” Fantasy said.

“A what?”

“A big basket. A big container. Something we can fit these dishes in.”

“And then what?”

“We hide them until we find the dishwasher.”

“Let’s just wash the dishes in the sink, Fantasy, with Dawn, like people do.”

“Yeah? Where’s the Dawn?”

Another thing we couldn’t find—a drop of dish soap.

We stared at the tall stacks of dirty white plates, serving bowls, coffee cups, silverware,
and greasy skillets.

“Would a tote bag work?” I asked. “I might have a tote bag.”

She snapped her fingers and shot out the kitchen door. She was back in a flash. She
popped open a Louis Vuitton bandoulière, held it against the edge of the kitchen counter
with one arm, then wrapped a crooked arm around the plates and slid them into the
bag. They did not go quietly. “What the hell are you doing, Fantasy?”

She stopped. Dead cold. “The dishes.”

We peeked out the kitchen door, right and left, the $3,000 Louis between us. We didn’t
see a soul, so we made a mad dash to my room. We closed the door behind us and fell
against it.

“Good news.” She nodded to the pile of clothes and loose scattered jewelry, probably
a million dollars’ worth, she’d dumped out of the Louis Vuitton and onto the floor
of the sitting room. “I found you a swimsuit.”

“Yay.” I rolled my eyes.

We lugged the bag full of busted dishes between us to the balcony doors, slid them
open, poked our heads out, cleared the area for witnesses, scooted across the deck,
then lobbed Bianca’s Louis bandoulière into the Caribbean Sea. The wind caught it
like a vacuum and it was gone. Forever. Fantasy dusted her hands. “Well.”

“I can’t believe we just did that.”

“Davis?” I was facing the Caribbean, from which Bianca Sanders’s Louis Vuitton bandoulière
would never return. Fantasy was facing my bedroom. “Look there.” She pointed. “Look
at your cat.”

Anderson Cooper stood at the open balcony doors. With a $25,000
Probability
poker chip between her front paws.

* * *

“I don’t like that man.”

“Mother, there aren’t many men you do like.”

She’d saved me a perfect sun chair. One that gave me a panoramic view of the glorious
Caribbean on one side and a full view of the salon on the other. I’d be able to see
the Navy SEALS my husband was surely sending if they dropped from the sky, climbed
over the deck railing, or busted through the front door.

“Davis, that’s mean spirited and not true.” Mother slapped her
Woman’s Day
closed, tipped the brim of her sunhat, so big it looked like an open umbrella on
her head, and got a good look at me. “Heavens to Murgatroyd. What are you wearing?”

I was wearing the only swimsuit option I had. I was supposed to be in a photoshoot
in front of a Picasso in the ship’s art gallery on Deck Eight all morning wearing
a Saint Laurent lace mini dress, and in another photoshoot at a waterfall in the middle
of the ship’s botanical garden on Deck Ten all afternoon in a Givenchy hot pink satin
cape blouse over hot pink satin pencil capris. My cruise itinerary looked exactly
the same every day: photography sessions in different inappropriate outfits all over
Probability
. The only clothes I’d packed for myself were of the comfort variety to wear between
the shoots, in the suite, or to sleep in. No lounge-by-the-pool time had been built
into my schedule, so I had to wing it. I was at the pool winging it in the only thing
Bianca packed that would even halfway work, a string bikini (I know…) (you should
see my bellybutton) she actually sent with the intent that I have my picture snapped
in it (not a chance in all holy hell), and the only thing I could find to wear over
it, a sheer gauze Madonna robe fringed in thousand-foot-long white silk ribbons. The
train on the robe trailed a half mile behind me and was earmarked for yet another
page in the Pregnancy Album, this one shot in the
Probability
portrait studio and against a solid white backdrop and a pose Bianca called “Baby
Belly.” My instructions were to wear the robe, barely wear the robe and only the robe,
wide open, the shot a profile of my naked body with the mile of robe sprawled out
behind me. Bianca had an instructional note card with the robe, handwritten on her
gold-foil Dempsey & Carroll stationery: “
In Baby Belly, you are to gaze lovingly at Ondine as you caress her, David, and it
aggravates me to no end to have to REMIND you to have a daily manicure
.
Essential
for this particular photograph and for God’s sake, have a salt scrub at least 12
hours beforehand. GLOWING, David. I want to GLOW in this photograph.
”

(No.)

(No. No. No.)

“Could you not have gone to the shopping mall, Davis? Could you not have gone to the
T.J. Maxx or the Marshalls and bought yourself a decent swimming suit?”

“I really didn’t think about it, Mother.”

“Well, you look ridiculous.”

(I knew.)

The air was pure, the view spectacular, the soundtrack of slicing through the sea
in a luxury liner glorious. Because of the cool breeze blowing the fringe of silk
ribbons all over my face, and for a split second blowing away my terror, I couldn’t
really gauge the temperature. Definitely warmer the farther south we traveled, but
not blazing hot, and without a single puff of a cloud in the sky. I could see where,
under any other circumstances, this would be the vacation of a lifetime. And because
she was who she was, more comfortable at home than anywhere else and uncomfortable
in any social setting outside of Wilcox County Alabama, my mother was enjoying herself
tremendously. Making herself right at home in 704. Her face was smooth and unlined,
her posture relaxed, her temper tucked away. She was still my sharp-tongued mother,
but she didn’t appear to be the least bit upset at being confined. With one caveat,
the loudmouth whiner, and now, she informed me, two.

“Why don’t you like him?” I asked.

“Who?”

“You said you didn’t like the man. Burnsworth.”

“Well, I got sidetracked by you being out here in your birthday suit.”

We’d covered that. “Burnsworth?”

“He has buggy eyes. I don’t trust men with buggy eyes.”

“How are buggy eyes an indication of trustworthiness, Mother?”

I slipped off the Madonna robe, because I was tired of batting down the billowing
silk ribbons, and if ever there was a time for her to say something about the two
humans inside my body and right in her face, it was now.

She didn’t.

I carefully positioned myself for the drop to the sun chair and, not without sound
effects, lowered myself and stretched out. All belly.

“How long has she been doing that?”

Jessica DeLuna, having shed her
Probability
robe and now parading around shamelessly in her blood red skivvies (I’m one to talk),
was on the other side of the pool, her body bent double, the top half of her hanging
over the deck railing. With great flourish, she righted herself, gulped in as much
sea air as her lungs could hold, and flung herself over the rail again, mouth moving
furiously. Screaming for help. I was twenty feet away and couldn’t hear her. There
wasn’t a doubt in my mind no one else could. Next, she flipped over and screamed up,
her back bent over the rail, trying to get someone’s attention above us, again, to
no avail.

“For half an hour, at least,” Mother said. “That girl doesn’t have the sense God gave
a goose. And how do you lose your clothes? Where’s Fantasy?”

Following Anderson Cooper around in my stateroom to find the stash of
Probability
casino chips. The velvet gift bag in the sitting room was intact—Roberto Coin bangle
bracelet and all. The casino chips were coming from somewhere in my stateroom and
Fantasy stayed behind to find out where. “She’s changing. Why?”

“I hope she had the good sense to pack a decent swimsuit.”

The exterior styling of
Probability
704’s deck space was minimalist, with a strong artisan touch. Running the length
of the suite, there was, now that I gave it a good look, almost as much outdoor gathering
space as there was interior, with three separate social areas made up of loungers,
chairs, and fire pits, a private sun terrace, and an outdoor dining room that seated
eight, all on wide-plank spice-colored teak decking. The fabric covering the furniture,
the many outdoor rugs, and the dozen sun umbrellas was all the same parchment color,
and everything pointed to the sparkling pool. Past the pool, as far as we could see,
the Caribbean.

“I think he’s been in my room.” Mother talked to me from behind her
Woman’s Day.

My heart stopped beating.

“Who?” I knew who.

“Buggy eyes.”

“Did you see him in your room?”

“No.”

“Is something missing? Is anything disturbed?”

“Not that I could tell.” She rolled her magazine into a weapon. She shook it at me.
“But that doesn’t mean he’s not a rapist. And I don’t know why he’d bother me with
that around.” She aimed her magazine at Jess. “She’s his best bet.”

It was official. I would need to keep Mother close. Very close.

Jessica took a break from calling for help and flung herself facedown on a double
chaise lounge, her dark hair spilling down to the teak, her limbs slack and dangling,
the physical definition of utter defeat.

“If I could get up I’d go get her.”

“Don’t you dare go get her.”

“She’s pitiful.”

“Leave pitiful alone.”

“Are you talking about me again?”

Fantasy could wear a one-piece on a New York runway. This one was an off-the-shoulder
maillot in mocha, almost the exact color of her skin. Long and lean without an ounce
of fat, everything fit Fantasy, which I’d never paid much attention to until recently,
because nothing fit me. And she had
three
children. Three boys, whose father was leaving their mother. Something she had yet
to say a single word to me about. She took in the scene. “Is this beautiful or what?”
She pulled her sunglasses down and peered over them. “Is Jessica passed out again?”
Then she looked at me, barely shaking her head no. She hadn’t found Anderson’s casino
chip stash.

“Fantasy, you sit over here.” Mother pointed to the chair on her right. “I don’t want
you two ganging up on me, whispering and giggling. This isn’t high school. I want
to talk to you anyway.”

“And I want to talk to you, Mrs. Way.”

Uh-oh.

“Start at the beginning,” Mother said. “Tell me everything. I want to know why you’re
getting a divorce. Everything. Spill the beans.”

“Mother, Fantasy doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Davis,” Mother said, “this is a conversation between me and Fantasy. Stay out of
it.”

I stayed out of it and cracked open
The Compass
, the big blue book I was given when I stepped aboard
Probability
. I was looking for a chapter on “Secret Stairways in Your Suite” or “Hostage Holding
Station.”

“Are your parents divorced?” Mother asked Fantasy.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Fantasy asked.

“I’m wondering if you had a good example set for you growing up,” Mother said.

“It doesn’t seem to have worked for Davis. You and Mr. Way aren’t divorced and look
at her.”

I propped
The Compass
against the babies and did my best to lunge in Fantasy’s direction. “Leave me out
of this.”

“Well, Davis is a different story altogether. You can’t use her for an example of
how to tie your shoe.”

“I’m right here, Mother.”

Then Burnsworth was right there.

“Burnsworth!” Fantasy snapped. “Don’t sneak up on us!”

He cleared his throat. “I thought you might like something to drink.”

“No,” I answered too fast. “We’re fine.”

“Speak for yourself, Miss Manners,” Mother said. “Yes. We’d like drinks. Fruity drinks.
With umbrellas.”

If Burnsworth was in on it, we’d be dead after one sip.

He took our order, then crossed the deck to Jessica, who’d already had three breakfast
Bloody Marys. “I hope she’s ordering water,” I said.

“That’s a strange bird,” Mother said.

“Jess?” Fantasy asked. “She’s out of her mind. I wonder what her story is.”