The Shippers(77)

This really was a family emergency.

“I just—need to catch Cooper, and he went ashore.”

At that, Ashley started crying again.

“But I’ve got this,” I declared, meeting my dad’s eyes and giving him a nod. “I’m on it.”

“Great,” my mom said, ripping all her notes out of their pad and handing them to me. “The address is here. The seamstress is Yolanda.” She glanced over at Ashley. “Sweetheart, toss me that sunscreen.” Ashley tossed it, and my mom caught it one-handed without missing a beat, flipped open the cap, and started applying it to my shoulders. “You know,” my mom went on, “you don’t have to stay at the tailor’s. You could drop the dress off and then go find Cooper.”

Sure. If he wasn’t already prop-planing his way across the Atlantic by now.

“Just as long as you make it back to the ship by four o’clock,” my mom said. “That’s when we shove off, and they won’t wait for you.”

“They won’t wait for you?” I asked.

She shook her head like she’d heard some horror stories. “They set sail when they set sail, and if you’re not here, they leave you behind. They’re very tough-love about it.”

“They really leave without people?” I asked.

My mom nodded.

“What if you’re literally running down the dock waving?”

But my mom just gave me a firm headshake, like we mustn’t even speak those words. Then she said, “Let’s not find out.”





Twenty-Six


I WAS HOPING I might see Cooper once I made it ashore.

But I didn’t.

I did, however, see the three cruise dudes from the MS Decadence while waiting in line at the taxi stand. They were all, once again, wearing beer shirts: BEER ME, IT’S BEER O’CLOCK, and JUST HERE FOR THE BEER.

I stood behind them in the taxi line, holding Ashley’s dress—on its hanger, gently encased in a dry cleaner’s thin plastic bag—with the greatest respect. I can’t say for certain how many sheets to the wind the cruise dudes were at nine in the morning on this fine Wednesday, but I can tell you that they all three decided at one point to pee on the same clump of sidewalk weeds at the same time.

That’s not a visual you can unsee.

Near them, but not with them, was another guy in an island shirt and a straw pork-pie hat.

Bold choice.

I’ve never seen anyone pull off a pork-pie hat in real life. Have you? That’s a tough look.

I tried very hard to not particularly notice any of them and just enjoy the island breeze.

Especially when Pork Pie started trying to flirt with a woman who was both wearing noise-canceling headphones and clearly had no interest in talking to him. At all.

Read the room, Pork Pie!

It all started when he sidled up to her and asked, “Where are you headed?”

She didn’t reply. Because she was wearing noise-canceling headphones.

But rather than just put the pieces together and move on to some other activity, like crushing ants with his shoe, Pork Pie decided to act offended.

“Hello?” he said, waving his hand in her face until she saw him.

She gave what I think anyone would describe as an I-have-no-interest-in-talking-to-you faint smile, and then looked back down at her phone.

Dismissed.

Another opportunity for Pork Pie to find, ya know, anything else to do.

And yet he kept waving. “Hello! Hello? I asked you a question!”

Finally, she looked up and pulled the headphones away from one of her ears.

“I asked,” Pork Pie said, now stroking his goatee, “where you were headed.”

She frowned at why on earth he’d think she’d answer that question, and then she shook her head. “I’m just busy here,” she said, holding up her phone to indicate where “here” was.

A reasonable decline, I thought.

But Pork Pie disagreed, and so did his face, which seemed to be getting pinker. “What’s your deal? Did your mom tell you not to talk to strangers?”

At that, she frowned, pressed the headphone back against her ear, and turned back to her phone.

Was she friendly? No. Was she afraid of strangers? Possibly—who knew? Did she have any interest in talking to that dude? Absolutely not.

All of this had to be clear, right? It’s hard to imagine anyone could have people skills low enough to not read these signs. Her signals were clear as glass.

And yet, he couldn’t let it go.

I watched it all, aghast. I would never want to talk to a person who had no interest in talking to me. Conversations aren’t fun unless they’re mutual, right? Like everything else in life?

But Pork Pie? The more disinterested the woman was in talking to him, the more he needed to make her do it. Maybe he was embarrassed to be so flatly rejected. Maybe he liked a challenge. Maybe he had the tragically misplaced overconfidence to genuinely think he could charm her, if she’d just give him a chance.

Or maybe he really thought that the choice wasn’t hers.

Whatever it was, he kept at it so long that I felt like somebody had to do something. I glanced at the cruise dudes, who were scuffling around on the sidewalk, trying to wedgie each other.

I sighed.

When he tried to grab her phone, I had to act. “Hey,” I called to Pork Pie. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”