Sea (A Stranded Novel) (10 page)

Emily studied Lisa in silence. Lisa seemed almost desperate. Emily thought about the nasty things Mason had said about Lisa putting out and she shook her head. She just couldn’t understand how Lisa could let that jerk use her in that way. Her shoulders slumped and she sat down on the bed facing Lisa.

She tilted her head to the side and looked at Lisa with compassion. “Who lied to you? Who told you that you aren’t worth more?” she asked softly.

“What the hell are you talking about!” Lisa stormed.

Emily held her hand up in a stopping gesture. “No
, really, Lisa, I’m not being mean. I used to think that you were this shallow, selfish, empty girl but I’ve seen that there is more to you on this trip. I mean, think about it. You know you’re gorgeous and I know you’re smart or you wouldn’t have had the grades to win this trip to Disney Land. I’ve seen you be thoughtful and funny too. So with all that going for you, why would you want that jerk to be your boyfriend when you deserve so much more?”

Lisa opened and closed her mouth half in anger and half in confusion. “I…you…if you just let him go
, we can be together!” she finally said in desperation.

Emily shook her head, “You know that’s not true
, Lisa. If you’ve been “hooking up” since before we started dating then why weren’t you guys a couple?” When Lisa didn’t answer her, Emily went on. “I did break up with Mason. I was actually going to do it when I came upstairs last night and found you guys together. This morning he tried to get me to forgive him and stay his girlfriend. He told me that you didn’t mean anything to him and when he saw that I wouldn’t change my mind, he told me that at least he could get you to put out! I’m really not trying to be mean. I just want to understand why you would let him treat you like that. He’s using you like…like…Kleenex! Every time he needs one, he uses it and then throws it away. You’re worth more than that!”

Lisa wouldn’t look at Emily. She stared at her hands folded into her lap but Emily could see the tears dripping off of her chin. She tried to find the words to reach the girl.

“Everything is different now. It doesn’t matter who was popular in high school. All that matters now is survival. Taking care of each other and getting home. If you really think that Mason is the guy for you then go for it, but make sure that he treats you right! You need to be able to count on him. I couldn’t and I deserve better, so do you,” she finished and slid off the bed. Emily left the room and Lisa to think over everything she had said. All she felt was sadness for a girl who could have it all but didn’t believe that she deserved it.

Lisa laid in her canopied princess bed and looked around at her pink bedroom. The elegant white with gold accent furniture gleamed in the soft morning light. She loved her room and everything in it. From her walk in closet full of beautiful clothes to the spa
-like ensuite bathroom that was hers alone, but nothing in the room could make her feel better this morning. She had caught a flu bug somewhere and had been up all night throwing up. Her hair was matted from sweat and her skin felt and looked greasy. Her normally tan skin had a greenish cast to it and she had deep dark bags under her eyes.

Lisa slowly rolled out of bed and staggered to the door. She needed to go to the kitchen for some water and crackers to
soothe her aching stomach. She made her way down the hall to the stairs and clutched the gleaming banister to steady herself on the way down. Looking longingly at the stylish furnishing in the front sitting room, Lisa wanted to rest on one of the elegant Queen Anne chairs but knew her mother would shriek if she caught her on it. The front room was only for guests. Her head swam with dizziness and she had to take deep breaths to control the nausea that threatened to erupt. Getting sick on the imported African hardwood floor was not an option in this house.

She finally managed to make it into the kitchen and had to lay her head against the cool marble countertop before she could go any further. She had just closed her eyes briefly when her
mother’s shrill voice cut through the air.

“Lisa, just what do you think you are
doing!”

Lisa raised her head and looked at her
mother through blurry eyes. As usual, she looked like she had just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Every hair was in place and her dress had not a wrinkle in it. The only thing not beautiful about her mother was the ugly scowl that was on her face as she looked in disgust at her daughter.

“I’m sick
, Mom. I need some water and crackers and medicine,” she told her in a weary voice.

“Well
, I can see that! You look absolutely haggard. You shouldn’t have come downstairs without cleaning yourself up first. What if we had company! Being sick is no excuse for looking like that. Now go to your room and I will bring you what you need and I don’t want to see you out of that room again until you look presentable, young lady. Really!” Her mother lectured with no compassion.

Lisa slowly made her way back to her room wondering what it would be like to feel her
mother’s cool hand on her forehead like she had read in books. Her parents had always given her anything she wanted - clothes, trips to the spa and even a new little convertible car for her sixteenth birthday, but never affection. Image was everything to them, and as long as she looked the part of their little princess, they were happy. Lisa remembered when she was little and she wanted to join girl guides with her friends but her mother refused because she said the uniforms were too ugly. It was the same with school and sports. Soccer was a no because she would get too sweaty and good grades were a must but not extra credit projects because her mother said boys didn’t like brainy girls.

Collapsing onto her bed with the room spinning around her she wished briefly for different parents, ones that only cared about her happiness and not just how she looked to the outside world. Her
mother came into her room carrying a breakfast tray with her sickroom supplies and placed it beside the bed. She studied her daughter with a frown.

“You will need to get past this quickly
, Lisa. You have a football game tomorrow night and as Captain of the cheer squad you need to be there. Besides that, I’m sure Mason will miss you if you aren’t there.”

Lisa groaned, “Mom, Mason isn’t my boyfriend. I think he’s going to ask out Emily, his tutor.”

Her mother waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t be ridiculous! He’s the quarterback and you are the captain of the cheerleaders. You two are supposed to be a couple. You just need to be more persuasive. What reason would Mason have for dating this brainy little farm girl? Unless…she’s giving him something that he really wants!” She raised her eyebrows at Lisa until she looked up from the cracker she was nibbling. “Lisa, there are certain things that a woman has to sacrifice to get what she wants…Keep that in mind. I expect you to be with Mason on stage for prom. You two will make a beautiful Queen and King. Don’t let me down. Now, get some rest and then clean yourself up. I will see you at breakfast tomorrow.” With a sharp nod of her head, she turned on her stylish high heels, and left her daughter’s room.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

Lisa sat on the bed with her arms wrapped around her drawn up knees. Tears streamed down her cheeks as Emily’s words rang in her head. Lisa found herself reevaluating her life and the decisions she had made. She thought about her beautiful, perfect mother and the things she expected from her daughter. She remembered how her mother had taken her to the doctor for birth control and how she had reminded Lisa to do whatever it took to get Mason. She felt shame wash over her at the memory of the first time she had sex with Mason and the heart-stopping humiliation of seeing him walk the hallways two days later holding Emily’s hand. The sharp, biting remarks from her mother encouraged her to make herself available to Mason whenever he wanted her that way. Lisa saw all of that in a new light thanks to Emily’s words. She had let him use her and she was a fool. At that moment, Lisa hated her mother with every fiber of her damaged soul.

Rage filled her. Rage against her
mother for not caring about her happiness, only her image. Rage against Mason for the casual way he used and discarded her. Never again would she allow others to dictate her actions. Emily was right, she was worth more and she would never settle for less again.

Lisa stayed in the bedroom for the rest of the day thinking about the person she wanted to be and the choices she would have to make to survive in this new world. She knew that the others thought that she was oblivious to the situation they were in but she had heard every word of the grim future that they had painted. Things would be different when they got home. High school was over and the main things in life would be finding or growing food. She would not be her
mother. She would never again sell herself to some man to provide for her. Lisa vowed to make amends to Emily and David and beg them to teach and help her to learn the things she would need to provide for herself. Spa treatments and manicures would no longer be in her future. She looked over to the nightstand where there was a bottle of pink nail polish sitting. She reached over and picked it up. Slowly turning it in her hand she said goodbye to Princess Lisa and leaned over and dropped it into the waste can beside the bed.

No one on deck knew of the major shift going on under their feet. Emily and David sat talking quietly at the front of the boat. They were making plans to go their own way once they got to land. They did this while Mason kept stealing looks at them. Mark sat beside Mason with an amused smirk on his face. He was enjoying the tension coming off of Mason. It wasn’t very often that his golden
-boy best friend got shot down and it was a nice change for Mark.

Mark was one of five boys in his family. He was the second youngest and was often ignored. His older brothers were all big like him
, and until he hit his growth spurt, had often bullied him. He had to learn to fight back and took out his frustrations on his only little brother. His mother was always tired and never seemed to have time for all of her children. She worked long hours and the boys were often left to fend for themselves. Mark’s father was also absent most of the time. He worked on oil rigs up in the northern part of Alberta and stayed in camps. When he did come home, he only wanted quiet in the house so he could watch sports on TV and drink huge amounts of beer. Mark had intimate knowledge of the back of his father’s hand from getting between him and the TV.

Never first place with five other boys at home to compete against; Mark was often filled with rage and bitterness. He was smart enough to know that he didn’t have the looks or the right clothing to be popular at school so he joined the football team in junior high and let his size take out anyone in front of him. Even back then he saw how Mason shone and how everyone wanted to be near him. It had been easy to get in with the star of the team and he stuck like glue all the way into high school, earning himself a spot in the popular crowd by association. But once again Mark was not first. Always in Mason’s shadow, he had learned to temper down his bitterness.

Now was his chance. Good looks and sports talent wouldn’t be enough in this new world and Mark knew that with his size and brutal nature he would finally have his spot as number one. He wasn’t ready to make his move yet but it would be soon and in the meantime he enjoyed watching Mason stew in defeat.

Tim stood at the wheel and watched all of this unfold on his boat. He didn’t regret taking all these kids along but he would be happy when they landed and he would go his own way. He had put his time in and had no desire to relive high school politics. He really liked Emily and David and he suspected that they were planning on going their own way. It would probably make the difference between surviving or not. From all that he had observed so far, Lisa would be a dead weight that they would have to carry and Mark was volatile enough that there would be a power struggle somewhere down the road. Mason could go either way. He could man up and be the team player that they needed or stay petulant now that he was no longer the star of the show.

“Hard to tell what will happen.” he mused. “I hope they make out okay, but I’m glad I won’t be around to deal with it.”

Tim breathed in the salty tang of the sea air and tilted his head up to the sun. They had been incredibly lucky with the weather so far but he knew it wouldn’t last. The closer they got to home
, the greater the chances of a storm. Springtime in Washington wasn’t known for its sunny skies. Scanning the ocean ahead of him, he also knew that they would start to see more stranded vessels soon. Four or five days to go and he’d be headed to his family cabin. He sent a prayer up that his family would be there waiting for him.

Dinner that night was a silent and tense meal of rice and canned tuna. David and Emily sat at the table and ate quietly. Mark ate his meal standing at the counter and Emily kept her eyes away from him as he shoveled the food in to his mouth. Mason took two bowls up on deck for himself and Tim and Lisa hid in the bedroom. Emily was worried about the girl and when she finished her meal
, she was going to go and check on her.

Emily stood and gathered her and David’s bowl to put them in the sink when Mason came back down and brushed past her. He went straight to the bedroom door and knocked briefly before entering and closing it behind him. As Emily turned to go back to the table, she met Mark’s eyes and wasn’t surprised to see the amusement in them. She felt a small shiver go down her spine and quickly looked away. There was something sinister about him and Emily was counting the days until she could get away from him.

She helped David spread the maps across the table and they bent their heads to study them together. They were trying to determine the best route to take through Washington State. They wanted to avoid the major population centers but they also had mountains that they would have to get around or over. Emily cursed for the thousandth time the lack of technology. A few minutes on Google Earth and they would have a much better understanding of the terrain and populations of all the towns listed on the map.

The sound of a door being thrown open and slamming into a wall was like a gunshot in the small cabin. All eyes turned towards Mason as he stormed out of Lisa’s room. His face was furious and as his gaze found Emily
, he let out a snarl. He came to a stop in front of the table and stared at her in anger. She waited for him to start yelling but after a minute of staring at her, the anger in his eyes seemed to slide away and before he whirled away to stomp up the stairs, she thought he was going to cry. The look in his eyes said he was lost.

Mark’s head swiveled from the empty stairs to Lisa’s now closed bedroom door and then back to the stairs before turning to look at Emily. There was a beat of silence before he let out a sharp, hard bark of laughter. He slapped his leg and laughed some more.

Emily looked to David in confusion but he just shrugged his shoulders. He was just as mystified by Mark’s reaction as she was. Emily looked to the closed bedroom door and sighed. Lisa must have taken her words to heart and turned Mason down. For a brief moment, she felt sorry for Mason. In one day, he had lost his girlfriend, lost his mistress, for lack of a better word, and now his best friend was clearly enjoying his misery. She shook her head. Mason had made the choices that brought him to these circumstances and he would have to live with them.

Mark had stopped laughing and was looking at Lisa’s door intensely before he turned and followed Mason up the stairs. Emily looked at the door too and was trying to decide if she should go and talk to the girl when David squeezed her arm and shook his head.

“Just leave her. She will come out when she is ready.”

“I know. I just hate all this drama. It’s so…so…high school!” she laughed. “This crap is the last thing we should be worrying about, right?”

“Yeah, I know. It will straighten itself out. A few more days and we will be too busy trying to stay alive to worry about anything else.” He went back to the map for a minute and then let out a laugh.

“What?” Emily asked.

“Just thinking this would make a really good reality TV show. It’s the end of the world as we know it so we put a bunch of kids from different social groups on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean and watch them tear each other apart! I bet that would make prime time!”

Emily laughed at his announcer voice. “I never was much of a reality show girl but I know what you mean. I can’t help but think of all the things we will never have again. Do you know how many times I’ve reached for my phone to text Alex? It just feels like so much is gone and at the same time none of it really matters. TV, cell phones, internet, it made things easier but we can live without all that stuff.
It’s other things that I’ll really miss, like my swim team, for one. This is the longest I’ve gone without swimming in four years, all that work and training and now…no Olympics. I’ll never have a shot at winning a gold medal. It’s going to be really hard to let that dream go,” she said quietly.

David gently squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry
, Em.”

She gave him a small smile and turned back to studying the map.

Up on deck, Mason stood at the bow and watched the empty ocean slide by. He was miserable, and the worst part was he knew it was his own fault. He had ruined everything, and he didn’t know what to do to fix it. When Emily had first started to tutor him, he had used his charm on her figuring she would be easily swayed by it. The more he flirted with her, the more she looked at him with contempt. There was something so fresh and real about her that he found himself looking forward to every conversation. When he let go of the fake charm and just talked to her she warmed up to him. They started to talk on the phone and their conversations grew longer and longer. He found himself confiding in her. Things he hadn’t told anyone or hardly even admitted to himself, he told her. There was just something so attractive about Emily and the way she wasn’t impressed by his status in school. She was interested in him, Mason the person not Mason the quarterback. When they were alone together he felt like he could be himself and she made him feel like he was a good person.

Mason knew what he was doing with Lisa was wrong but she made it so easy. He had thought it would be the one time but even after he had started dating Emily, Lisa had made it clear that she would be with him in that way. He knew deep down that Lisa wanted to be his girlfriend and she was only having sex with him to try and persuade him. He knew he was using her but he had just pushed the guilt down.  He thought about Lisa’s tear
-filled face and the sadness in her eyes when she had told him she was done being used and that she deserved better. He thought about Emily’s heartfelt plea for them to be friends when she had every right to be furious with him for what he had done. But what really brought it home was how he had felt sitting alone in the golf cart after he had left Emily in the middle of the street during the gunfire. He had felt like a selfish coward and he realized that that was exactly what he was.

Lost and alone, he thought back on the past few years of his life. Always being compared to his older brother had driven him to be a better football player and more popular in school. He had been so absorbed in being better than his brother that he stopped caring about anyone but himself. Mason didn’t want to be that person. He wanted to be the guy that would be there for his friends and put others first. He knew that if he couldn’t find a way to make amends and change his ways, he would end up all alone in this new world.

Standing at the rail and looking out at the empty ocean with the sun setting behind him, Mason had no way of knowing that Lisa had come to the same conclusions hours earlier. He just knew that everything he thought about himself and others had just shifted and it would take a lot of hard work to stay there.

Mason heard Mark’s lumbering footsteps before his friend joined him at the rail. His friend just stood beside him for a minute before speaking.

“Tough day for you, bro. Shot down from all sides!” he exclaimed.

Without even looking at Mark, Mason muttered, “It’s my own fault.”

“Whoa! Looks like little goody goody Emily’s influenced more than just Lisa,” he laughed.

Mason turned to look at him with a frown. “It was wrong. I was wrong. I treated them both badly.”

Mark laughed, “It’s only wrong if you get caught, buddy, and you are so busted!”

Mason looked away and rubbed his hands over his face. He tried to remember why he was friends with Mark and couldn’t come up with anything. They played football together and hung out in the halls and at parties but Mason couldn’t think of anything that really connected them. It was just one more way he had been selfish and self-involved. He turned back to Mark and tried to do better.

“We haven’t really talked about what’s going on. Are you worried about your family?”

“As if!
The last thing I would want to do right now is have to fight my brothers for food. Trust me, they’re fine. Besides, I’m sure my mom is just happy she has one less mouth to feed,” Mark said sarcastically.

Mason studied his face and realized that he meant what he said. “Wow, that’s cold.”

Mark shrugged, “That’s life. Don’t sweat it. I’m not.” He grinned in a not nice way. “So are you and Lisa done? Is she back on the market?”

Mason shook his head. There really wasn’t anything to this guy. “Yeah, good luck with that
,” and he turned to look back out at the passing ocean so he didn’t see the smirk on Mark’s face.

“Well, it’s a brand new world, anything could happen.” he said in a bland tone and turned and walked away.

Mason thought about Mark’s words. It was a brand new world and he was determined to be a brand new person in it. Tim called out to him from the wheel and he went to join him there. There was still a lot to learn about sailing and he would do his best to help get them all home.

Mark came down into the cabin in time to see Emily and David disappear into David’s room and shut the door. He gave a smirk and laughed to himself that Emily hadn’t taken very long to move on. He looked to Lisa’s closed bedroom door and then back up the stairs. After a moment, Mark settled down onto the couch and closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before he heard Mason come down and go into the other bedroom for the night. Tim would stay up on deck at the wheel for most of the night. He had told them that as they got closer to land they would run into more and more stranded vessels and they would have to keep a close watch so they didn’t run into any of them. Tim had said that this would be the last night he would keep sailing in the dark. They would anchor at night starting tomorrow.

It was an hour later and Mark hadn’t heard any noises coming from the bedrooms in a while. He eased himself off the couch and quietly made his way to just beside the stairs to the deck. Peeking around the corner, he could just see the edge of Tim’s arm at the wheel. He backed up further into the cabin and crossed to the other side of it. It was only a few steps before he was standing at Lisa’s bedroom door. He leaned his forehead against the door and closed his eyes, listening for any sounds from within. Standing there he let his mind go back to all the times she had put him down and used her nasty sarcasm to wound him. He let the cold rage fill him and he took a deep breath before opening the door.

The soft light of the bedside lamp shone over Lisa who was sitting back against the pillows on the bed. She was reading a book and glanced up when her door opened. It took a moment before her brain processed that it was Mark in her room and not Emily. Shutting the book with a snap, she scowled at him.

“What do you want?” she demanded. A shot of fear went through her when he didn’t answer her but continued to stare at her. “Mark, what do you want?” she asked again.

He stayed where he was with his back to the door and cocked his head to one side. “I thought we should talk about what’s going to happen in the future. You understand that everything is different now, don’t you?” he asked softly.

Lisa frowned in confusion. Mark had never really spoken to her about anything and he hadn’t really seemed all that concerned with the current crisis. She wondered if he was starting to worry about his future too.

“Yes, I know that things are different and I know how hard life is going to get when we get off this boat.”

He nodded his head. “Good. I wanted to make sure you understand that only the strong will survive and that nothing will be free from now on. In this new world, everyone will have to be useful or have something to barter if they want to live.” He paused and looked at her thoughtfully. “It seems to me that you won’t be very useful. You’re the kind of girl who will have to be taken care of and now that you dumped Mason, there’s no one who will do that.”

Anger filled Lisa. As if she needed this jerk to tell her how inadequate she was to deal with and survive what was coming. She had spent all day coming to terms with that very thing.

She snarled at him, “Get out!”

Mark didn’t seem to hear her as he took a step towards the bed. “I don’t want you to worry. You have something that I value. I’ll take care of you and make sure you live as long as you take care of me.”

He took another step towards the bed.

Lisa pushed herself further up against the pillows. She was angry and scared at the same time. There was a blank glaze to Mark’s eyes. “I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself. Just get out of my room
,” she said the last with a slight tremble in her voice.

He took one more step and he was up against the bed. “The people with power will rule now. If you want to live
, you’ll need to make them happy.”

He reached behind his back and pulled out a small handgun. He held it in his hands and stared down at it almost lovingly. At Lisa’s gasp, his head whipped up and their eyes met. The blank glazed look was gone and in its place was cold as ice determination.

“This gives me the power now and you will make yourself useful to me or you won’t be making it off this boat. You will want to be quiet now or things will go very badly,” he told her in a flat, hard voice.