Girl at Sea (13 page)

He had on cargo shorts and a T-shirt from some event at Yale called “Tuesdays at Mory’s.” (Clio guessed that he probably had a lot of Yale-related T-shirts.) Again, the clothes were too big.

The hair was a little flatter today, coming down over his forehead a bit. Clio liked it better that way. He wasn’t bad-looking at all. Just a little conceited and annoying. Elsa could take care of that, though.

“So you’d rather have a bunch of chemicals?” she asked.

“Everything’s chemicals,” he said dismissively. “I don’t care.

Give me a nice cold can of corn syrup and delicious caffeine any day. What’s on your head?”

“My hat,” she said.

“Do I get a hat?”

“Nope,” she said. “You only get a hat when you get a job.”

“I have a job,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Can’t tell you,” he answered, smiling a little.

102

“Why?”

“Your dad said not to. He’s the boss. He has a hat too.”

Clio turned back to her cutting board and onion. She could feel him watching her steadily turn the onion into a pile of evenly sized squares.

“You look like you know what you’re doing with that knife,”

he said.

“I took a cooking class in Japan once. They’re serious about knives there.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “Must be cool to be rich.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. He was bringing her headache back and reminding her that she was not having a good time at all.

“So you’re telling me you’re not rich?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” she said, chopping evenly, rocking the blade back and forth on the board.

“We’re on your dad’s
yacht
. You probably see why I’m having a hard time with that one.”

Clio pushed the onion into the frying pan, where the hot bacon fat sizzled. Then she wheeled around, still holding the knife. Aidan backed up.

“Two things you should think about,” she said. “One, things aren’t always what they seem. Two, never piss off a girl with a very big knife.”

“I get it,” he said. “Your dad is one of those rich guys who likes to keep it real. So you’re not rich, rich. You’re just
theoreti-cally
rich. That’s why you have a job and a hat. And a knife.

Which
is
big.”

This wasn’t cute. It wasn’t funny. It was insulting. Clio hated 103

people assuming that she was rich, hated having to explain that they weren’t. It wasn’t that she was angry about not being rich; it was that the questions were so probing. They were about something very painful in Clio’s life—the loss of all they’d made, her parents’ breakup.
Most
people got the hint that maybe this wasn’t a great topic. But not Aidan.

He watched her cook up the vegetables in the pan, slurping and smirking away.

“Leave some runny,” he said, nodding at the eggs as he slipped back out. “I like them that way.”

Clio clenched her teeth. She poured the eggs into a pan, carefully layered in the vegetables, crumbled in the bacon, and sprinkled on the cheese. It was a perfect frittata. Or it could be.

But as she stuck it in the oven, she resolved to keep it in there until she was absolutely certain that the eggs were as dry and rubbery as erasers.

“These eggs are a little dry,” her father said, poking at his slice of frittata. “Something wrong with the stove?”

The sun streamed in through the glass doors, causing the leather sofas to glow a pristine white. The group had gathered for the breakfast-lunch at the white lacquer dining room table.

Aidan threw Clio one of his narrow-eyed looks across it.

“I’m not an actual chef,” Clio said. “Results may vary.”

It was a shame, really. It would have been so good. Still, it had been worth ruining the frittata to see Aidan have to chew a bit harder.

“So,” her dad said. “Did you pick all of your classes for next year yet?”

104

“A few months ago.”

“Did you give any more thought to taking Greek on the side?”

“Not really.”

“What kind of Greek?” Julia cut in.

“Greek . . . Greek,” Clio said.

“Julia knows three variations of Greek,” her father explained.

“Mycenaean, ancient, and Koine.”

Clio wasn’t sure how to respond to this. Not too many places to go with that one.

“Is that what you teach?” she finally asked.

“No,” Julia said. “I teach conservation methods, how to deal with manuscripts, history. Not language.”

“Julia’s a working archeologist,” her father cut in again. “Also a conservationist. Kind of like your mom.”

Clio really didn’t want to hear her mother and Julia being compared, especially by her dad. There had to be some kind of rule about that.

“It’s wonderful that your father took you to learn Greek,” Julia said, breaking the awkward silence that followed the last remark.

“I heard all about it. You’ve led such an interesting life.”

“You could say that,” Clio said.

“Do you have ketchup?” Aidan asked, still poking at his eggs sadly.

“I don’t think so,” her dad answered.

The smell of food drew Elsa down from the Champagne Suite. Again no makeup, nothing fancy. Just snug, soft red shorts and a white shirt. Her hair tumbled loose and had curled up a bit. Even with no effort at all, she had the natural beauty thing going on. She dropped down at the table, shook her head at the 105

eggs, and reached for the coffee. Clio watched Aidan’s gaze automatically shift to her. It was natural, like being drawn to a fireplace on a cold day.

“We’re going somewhere?” she asked, her British accent sounding both morning-sexy gravelly and chipper at the same time.

“You sound tired,” Julia said. “Long night?”

A crackly mother-daughter vibe passed between them. Clio didn’t exactly get what was being implied, but it looked like Julia knew about the champagne.

“Oh, right,” Clio’s dad said. “Are you . . . feeling better?”

Elsa looked understandably confused. Clio had never mentioned the monster case of cramps that she had bestowed upon her the night before.

“Where
are
we going?” Clio asked, changing the subject.

“And when do we get back tonight? I never got a chance to make my calls.”

“Right . . .” he said, pushing aside his plate. “Come up to the wheelhouse with me.”

They got up from the table and went upstairs together to where Martin was waiting alone, driving the boat.

“I’ve got it, Martin,” he said, taking over. “Go grab some breakfast.”

“Can’t wait,” Martin said with a smile. “I’ve been smelling that for the last half hour. I’m starving!”

Her father assumed the controls haughtily. There was no doubt that the boat was full of fancy and complex widgets, but the truth was, the little tiny wheel and the lights on the panel looked like the controls of a complicated video game. Plus it 106

wasn’t like the boat required complicated steering. The GPS

seemed to be telling the boat where to go anyway.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “We’re going to be out on the water for two weeks.”

Obviously, he thought that if he just slipped it in there like that, all quick, it would somehow be okay. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.

“Two weeks,” Clio repeated. “You just took off from shore without telling us that we were going to be gone for
two weeks
?”

“Well, you were sleeping,” he said. “From what I understand, you were sleeping off some champagne. And I know about Aidan being in your room. Don’t think I missed that. You’ve already violated three of the rules. You overslept and didn’t do your job. So you can’t complain.”

Even if she had been busted, this was totally unacceptable by any standards.

“What about Internet access?” she said, her desperation increasing. “How do we get that?”

“We don’t have it,” he said. “Like I said, your mom knows you’ve arrived. What you need to do now is follow the rules, Clio. We’re all in this together out here.”

“I can’t believe you,” she said. “You just cut us off from the world?”

“It’s only for two weeks,” he said. “It’s good for you. People spend too much time staring at screens, playing with devices.”

Clio looked at the many, many screens and devices on the control panel. He was one to talk. No. No, this could
not
be happening. If she had to wait two whole weeks before calling Ollie, who knew what would happen? Who knew what that 107

slutty Galaxy girl, Janine, could be doing to him at this very moment?

“Now,” he said. “I could have yelled, but I think you’ve learned your lesson, so why don’t you get back downstairs and finish breakfast with the others? Let’s start fresh, from now. This is the beginning of a great journey.”

108

Kidnapped

“He’s kidnapped us,” Clio said, staring down at the eggy plates that had been left on the lacquer table. “My father has
kidnapped
us. He’s turned us into slave labor. That’s illegal, right? That’s insane.”

Elsa yawned widely, rubbed her eyes, and reached for the coffee.

“I have to send an e-mail at least,” Clio said. “This is war. I’m not kidding.”

“You know,” Elsa said. “I honestly don’t mind. It’s probably better this way.”

“How could this be better?” Clio asked.

“I can’t call. I can’t write. I’m just gone. I remember reading something about how they used to cure people of things like heroin by putting them on slow boats. Like slow boats to China, where they couldn’t get any drugs. They go through withdrawal, but they arrive cured.”

109

“Alex?” Clio asked.

Elsa nodded. “You don’t know what I’d give to be cured of him,” she said. “I didn’t sleep well. I haven’t been able to for a while. I always dream about him. It’s sort of easier not to sleep.

That way I don’t see him. But I always
do
fall asleep, and there he is. If I dream about someone every night, does that make me obsessed?”

“No,” Clio said. “It just means you’re upset.”

Elsa smiled. Even with her eyes puffy and her hair tousled, it was hard to imagine how anyone could break up with her.

“So,” Elsa continued. “As long as we’re stuck out here, I can’t make drunken phone calls late on a Saturday or send long e-mails about how I’m angry, or how I understand, or how he’s a bastard. . . . It changes all the time, the stuff I want to write. Now I can’t do anything. It feels kind of good.”

“Well, now we both need Aidan for something. You need him to help you get over Alex. And I need him for Internet access.”

“Your dad just said there isn’t any,” Elsa said.

“He was lying. I’m sure of it. Plus this boat is wired all over the place. You should see the wheelhouse. It looks like mini-NORAD up there. They just don’t want us to use it because they are being very, very weird.”

“Wow,” Elsa said. “You’re really observant. And I guess it’s not surprising. My mom is kind of secretive about her work.

This time, a little more so than normal.”

Clio’s com crackled to life.

“Number Five and Number Six!” it said. “Number Two is going to take you on a safety tour when you’re done.”

Elsa tried to help with the dishes, but she was tired and slow.

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Clio stuck her on the sofa, where she promptly fell asleep. Clio looked down at her peaceful figure and tried to decide whether her bunkmate was an insomniac or a narcoleptic. Then she put in her earphones and plowed through the dishes. It took her an hour to restore the galley to order.

Martin came down, as promised, from the locked session in the wheelhouse. Aidan and Julia did as well, but they continued right downstairs.

“Where are they going?” Clio asked.

“We have a workroom down there,” he said. “A little one.

Come on. Let me show you the safety features. Your dad walked me through them last night.”

There wasn’t a lot to see. Their home for the next two weeks wasn’t even the size of a small house. What had seemed like such a magnificent boat last night quickly shrank to a seagoing veal pen.

“There’s a lot of white furniture in here,” Clio said. Along with the white table and chairs, the two sofas and the chair and a half were covered in white leather.

“It all came with the boat.”

“I don’t really trust people who buy leather furniture,” Clio said, looking at Elsa’s sleeping figure on the sofa. “Furniture is supposed to be soft and welcoming. Leather is sticky and gets hot and cold. There’s something
inhuman
about a leather sofa.

And
white
leather. That’s not designed for any kind of real life.

It’s too sterile. It’s like something in a mental hospital. Where did this boat come from again?”

“There was quite an ugly divorce,” Martin said, sliding open the glass doors and leading Clio outside to the deck. “A banker and his wife in London. This boat was the husband’s toy, and the 111

wife sold it off at a fraction of the cost. Still expensive, but . . .

crazy things happen in divorces.”

“I know,” Clio said.

“Right,” Martin said, catching himself. “Well, I think this one was a lot more uncivil than your parents’. In any case, let’s look at some of the safety issues. I’ve always enjoyed those safety displays the airline staff does before takeoff. Tell me how I do.