Reckless Girls
Rachel Hawkins
For Daddy and the Rachel K
PROLOGUE
Salt water and blood taste the same.
She’d never thought of that until now, until she was drowning in both, blood gushing from the wound in her temple, the sea rushing into her mouth.
Both are warm, tangy.
Both threaten to consume her.
It’s dark, but she can hear the waves lapping against the side of the boat, hear the frantic arguing somewhere above her. Moments ago, that argument mattered to her, but now she only cares about the pain in her head, the stinging of the salt, the ache deep in her chest.
In a way, it’s easier to let go. To let it happen.
Isn’t that what she’s been doing this whole time? Isn’t that what led her here, to this lonely spot in the Pacific Ocean, woozy and drowning and alone?
She breathes deeply.
It hurts, water rushing in where there should be air.
But after the pain, there’s a kind of peace. It’s over now. All of it.
She slips under.
She doesn’t come back up.
Up until World War II, Meroe Island was best known for the shipwreck that gave it its name. The sailors of the HMS Meroe were marooned on the island for more than five months, and the handful of survivors were eventually tried in England for the murder of their shipmates. Dark rumors of cannibalism surrounded the trial, the details of which were considered too gruesome to even be mentioned in newspapers. Only one of the eight survivors, a Lieutenant Thornton, was convicted. His hanging drew a crowd of thousands, including such luminaries of the day as Lord Byron and J. M. W. Turner. Meroe Island became a sort of grim footnote in the annals of nautical history until the 1940s when its strategic location made it useful to Allied forces in the Pacific. Since then, it has been more or less abandoned, although in recent years, it’s become a popular destination for a more adventurous brand of traveler.
—Hidden Histories, Traveler’s Press, 2010
NOW
ONE
Sometimes I wonder if people on vacation think they’re actually on another planet.
Or maybe just another dimension?
It’s the only explanation I have for the shit that I’ve seen in the six months that I’ve worked at the Haleakala Resort in Maui. And I’m not just talking about the weird stuff you’d expect—sunburned couples asking if I’m interested in “joining them later that evening,” the groups of women who wear coordinated tank tops emblazoned with the phrase GO-GETTERS! while they spend several thousand dollars on tequila shots and eventually get into a weepy argument at the lobby bar, or the douchey Wall Street bros who leave lines of coke on the bathroom counter, then accuse the maid who serviced the room of snorting them.
Those were all messes I ended up cleaning up—one way or another—but I’m talking about the truly unhinged moments, like the guy who offered me $200 if I’d eat a whole pineapple in front of him （I didn’t）， or the senior citizen who spent the entirety of her weeklong vacation in her suite ordering adult movies off the TV and endless french fries from room service （honestly, good for her）。 There was also the time I went to clean a room where some frat guys had stayed, and found concentric circles of urine all over the carpet （someone’s dad whipped out an Amex to pay for the replacement after I provided management with photographic evidence of the damage）。
Which brings me to today, as I stand in the middle of the Makai Suite, looking at the array of sex toys laid out on the bed, considering where this particular moment falls on the spectrum of disgusting, disturbing, and deranged.
“This is so fucked up,” Maia mutters next to me, her arms still full of damp towels. “It’s like Stonehenge, but with dildos.”
I snort, already pulling on a pair of gloves. “To be fair, I only see two—okay, no, three—dildos. That one”––I point to the hot-pink disc on the right—“is a vibrator, and that purple thing is … yeah, I don’t know what that is, but anyway, good for these people, they’re clearly having a lovely time here on the island.”
Maia shakes her head, moving back toward the laundry cart. She’s shorter than me, and the skirt of her uniform hangs down past her knees. It should make her look dowdy or frumpy, but Maia is incapable of that. She looks like a hot actress on some CW show who is merely deigning to play a maid.
“I’m not against anyone having a good time, Lux. I just sometimes think they forget that, like, people will see this shit.”
“Or they wanted us to see this shit,” I counter, pulling a plastic bag stamped with the hotel’s logo off my own cart. “Maybe that’s part of their whole deal.”