DOUBLE KNOT Read online

  “Press the map on V2, Madame.”

  I pressed; the phone pointed.

  “Your concierge will arrive momentarily to escort you,” Corwin said.

  “I’ve got this, Corwin,” Jess said.

  “No, I’ve got this.” I’d had about enough of her. Just then, the computer in my hand buzzed. The screen said I was getting a call from the Bianca Casimiro Sanders Suite.

  “So, your thumb,” Jessica said. “You answer the call with your thumb.”

  I pressed my thumb against the sensor.

  “It’s me.” My partner, Fantasy. “Do you know what I’ve been doing for two solid hours? Getting your mother and Anderson Cooper in this room. You’d better get your pregnant self up here before I jump off this boat.”

  “It’s a ship,” I said. “You call it a ship.”

  “You’re going to need what I call a lifejacket if you don’t get here and take care of your mother and Anderson Cooper.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  Probability’s transportation system, Zoom, consisted of individual spaceship capsules that seated six and ran on a suspended oval track around the perimeter of Deck Three. Just above the water line. Think Disney monorail, but private, with plush carpet, chocolate brown leather seats, and Ultra HD 4K televisions displaying Probability amenities. Of which there were many, including Zoom, which felt like flying. If my mother didn’t pass out on this, I’d be surprised. Of more concern to me, at the moment, was how Anderson Cooper fared, because that was a stowaway smuggling situation.

  Zoom stopped and I stepped off. A red dot popped up on V2, with a corresponding red dot blinking above one of five glass-door elevators in front of me. I scanned V2 against the elevator control panel, the doors opened, and I stepped into the casino. Not the actual casino—the back wall of the elevator was an LED screen panning the casino on Deck Eight that would open at seven tonight. This was my first peek and Probability’s casino was spectacular.

  The promenade featured larger-than-life ice sculptures; I saw Neptune, Captain Jack Sparrow, and either one of the Weeki Wachee Springs mermaids or Morticia Addams. I couldn’t tell. Along the west wall were table games: poker, blackjack, roulette, craps, and baccarat. The east wall held a massive glass bar and plenty of luxurious lounging, the color scheme throughout was navy and silver, waterfall prism lights floated and twinkled above everything. The best part was in front of the bar. Back to back in two rows of twenty-five were the stars of the show—Probability’s slot machines—Knot On Your Life—one with (Bianca’s) my name on it.

  I studied V2, wondering how to ask for a casino pit stop; might as well (avoid my mother) check it out on my way to the suite. I love casinos. But before I could talk myself into it or out of it, the elevator doors opened and spilled me out on Deck Seven. So I took the path I was destined for: Suite 704.

  The casino wasn’t going anywhere.

  I had a whole week.

  With my mother.

  Standing at the door, I had no idea how to get in. I shook V2 trying to figure it out, but before I did I heard gear clicks and bolt slides. It opened.

  “Get in here. Do something with your mother. Look at you! You’re so cute!”

  “Thank you!” (Finally.) My partner, Fantasy Erb, whom I’d seen about twice in the past six months, held out her arms and I began filling them: V2, my sunglasses, the encyclopedia, my purse, little sweater, then grabbing her arm for balance, my shoes.

  “Are you going to take off your clothes too?”

  “Maybe.”

  The vestibule was like a museum, and just to prove it, directly in front of me was a statue of some sort. “What is that?”

  “A Chinese antique,” she said. “You break it, you buy it.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  Our heads whipped the other way when the front doors began beeping and flashing red warning lights from the thick steel frame. “Oh, good grief.” Fantasy’s V2 was in the pocket of her jacket. She juggled my things until she could get to it, pulled it out, then pointed V2 at the doors. They hushed, then closed decisively, with the whir of motors and a notable catch.

  We stared at the doors.

  “This way,” Fantasy said. “Are you ready?”

  “No.”

  From the narrow vestibule we stepped into the salon, a magnificent room with an exterior wall that was a seamless wraparound window separating this room from the terrace. Like being inside and outside at the same time. The salon was sparsely decorated, showcasing spaces rather than things. What struck me first was the simplicity of the interior design and the clean lines, the overall unassuming feel of a space so magnificent. Everything I could see was either white or very close to it. In the middle of the room on a silver rug, four long white linen sofas formed a square around a large slab of glass sitting on an ancient fishing boat propeller. The only thing on the table was a tall clear vase holding a dozen perfect white tulips. I got a little misty; I knew exactly who they were from.

  My mother sat at one end of a sofa staring at Anderson Cooper, who sat at the other end, staring at her. Mother looked as angry as I’ve ever seen her. Not that Anderson Cooper looked happy. Without taking her eyes off Anderson my mother said, “It’s about time.”

  My mother thinks that next week, after the cruise, she’s being admitted to St. Vincent’s in Birmingham, Alabama for a complete mastectomy and simultaneous breast reconstruction surgery. Caught by diagnostic mammogram at Stage 1A, Mother’s tumor was the size of a pea, completely contained, and zapped out of existence. She was on the freedom side of chemo and radiation, all follow-up tests were back and clear, and according to my father, the surgery was my mother’s idea. He said she sat down at the breakfast table one morning and announced, “Samuel, I believe I’d like new bosoms. I’m tired of looking at these old ones.” He told me she approached the subject no differently than if she’d said, “Samuel, I believe I’d like new shoes. The heels are worn down on these old ones.”

  Two weeks later, the scheduling nurse called Daddy. Mother denied having been recently treated for cancer (“Poppycock,” she told the nurse), insisting her medical records were confused, and refused to discuss it any further. It caught the attention of the augmentation consultants. They ordered a pre-op psych evaluation, fearing Mother wasn’t “providing informed consent” and when they tried to discuss it with her, she excused herself, saying she’d be back in a jiffy.

  She got in her car and drove home to Pine Apple. The scheduling nurse told Daddy that unless Mother could be honest with herself about why she was having the surgery, she’d need to have it somewhere else or reschedule with them after counseling.

  Daddy sent her on a Caribbean cruise with me in lieu of counseling.

  “Daddy, just find another surgeon.”

  “One with less scruples?” he asked. “One who doesn’t care about your mother’s wellbeing?”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Davis, I want you to take her with you. Get her out of the kitchen. Take her on a beautiful vacation and help her deal with this.”

  I don’t have enough influence over my mother to help her deal with a paper cut. Much less what she’d been through or the surgery she’d signed up for. At the time, just weeks before the cruise, I wasn’t even sure I could get her on the passenger list, and there was no getting her out of the kitchen.

  I didn’t agree to it fast enough.

  “Don’t worry about it, honey.” Daddy looked so tired. “I’ll find another way. I understand if you don’t want to spend a week with your mother.”

  Well, when you put it that way.

  I didn’t think there was even a remote chance Mother would agree to spending a week with me, and I was stunned when she went along with it. A week? Me and Mother? Together? She started packing and
I wasn’t about to protest. Her diagnosis had scared us all to death. And here we were. Scared to death.

  The problem was my mother doesn’t particularly enjoy my company.

  And she sure didn’t like Anderson Cooper’s.

  Anderson saw me and jumped into my arms. We found a seat on the linen sofa opposite Mother.

  “Davis.” Mother clasped her hands in a prayer and leaned my way. “I can’t believe you snuck a cat on this boat.”

  “It’s not a boat, Mother. It’s a ship.” Anderson tried to get comfortable in my shrinking lap, gave up, and settled in beside me.

  “You have a contraband cat on this ship, Davis.”

  “Mother, everyone on this ship thinks I’m Bianca Sanders.”

  “What does that have to do with your cat?”

  “The Bellissimo owns this ship,” I said. “Bianca can sneak her cat onboard if she wants to. She sneaked you onboard.”

  “I’m not a house cat, Davis, and you’re going to get us all arrested.”

  “Who’s going to arrest us, Mother?”

  “The Coast Guard. Or the casino. Surely someone will.” She eyeballed me from just over the edge of her peeper glasses. “And I’ll tell you something else. I don’t know what in the world you were thinking when you named that cat. If I’m going to spend the next week with it, you better believe I won’t be calling it Anderson Cooper. I am worried sick about what you’ll do when the day comes that you’re responsible for naming a human.”

  I stole a sideways look at Fantasy. See?

  She barely batted an eye in acknowledgment. She saw.

  Not only had my mother refused to face her own truth, she had yet to acknowledge mine. Which I believed to be the real reason Daddy pitted us together in the middle of the Caribbean. So my own mother might notice I’m pregnant.

  “I named her Blizzard, Mother, but it didn’t stick. Because she looks just like Anderson Cooper.”

  “Well, Davis, that’s ridiculous.”

  If I had a nickel.

  “And before this boat drives off—” Mother was on a roll, “—you call Bradley and have him come get your cat or I will. Either me or that cat is getting off this boat before it leaves.”

  “Mother, it’s a ship, Bradley’s on his way to China, and Anderson is deaf.”

  “So you say.”

  “She’s stone cold deaf. She can’t hear a thing.”

  “I understand what deaf is, Davis.”

  “I couldn’t leave her. I can’t leave her. I wasn’t about to leave her. I’m the only one she talks to.”

  Fantasy, a mile away on the other end of the long white sofa, whistled a little tune and studied the beadboard ceiling.

  “I have news for you, Davis,” my mother said. “That cat doesn’t talk to you.”

  I suspected Anderson couldn’t hear when she was six weeks old. Her veterinarian confirmed it. It’s called Waardenburg Syndrome, and it’s something about the gene for deafness being located between the genes for white fur and blue eyes on the DNA ropes. The hearing gene gets skipped. And she really does look just like Anderson Cooper.

  “Where does Bradley think your cat is?” Mother asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “He doesn’t know, does he?”

  Mother slept for four months. We had to wake her up to get her in the car, then wake her again to get her in the outpatient doors of the Cancer Center in Greenville, Alabama, twenty miles from my parents’ home in Pine Apple. She slept the whole time. For four months she didn’t wake up until noon, then she was back in bed an hour later. “It’s just a stage,” my father said, over and over. “She sleeps all the time because she’s feeling a little blue.” (I guess so.) (We all were.) (We were purple-black-blue.) Mother finally woke up when her treatments were complete, and boy, did she get up on the wrong side of the bed. She woke up mad. Mad at the world. Mad at my father. Mad at Donald Trump. Mad at telemarketers. Mad at the weather. Mad at her bosoms. Mad at me, which really wasn’t anything new, but she was also mad at my sister Meredith who she never got mad at. “It’s a stage,” my father explained. “Her bad temper is a defense mechanism. She’s trying to distance herself.”

  Mother and her defense mechanism stared at us. We squirmed under the scrutiny. My Caribbean cruise was off to a choppy start. First Jessica, now Mother, what next?

  THREE

  Probability Stateroom 704, all three thousand and eight hundred square feet of it, had one owner’s and two grand suites. In addition, there were crew quarters somewhere: one for the butler, one for the stateroom attendant, and one for the chef. The owner’s suite was (Bianca’s) mine. Fantasy and Mother were in the grand suites on the opposite end, a good jog away. Between all the suiteness were luxuriously appointed living spaces, including a totally private veranda that ran the length of 704 on the starboard side of the ship. The balconies were staggered from deck to deck, so we were the only ones with access to ours and no other passengers could see us. In the middle of the veranda, a pool. Behind the pool, a private sundeck. Each of the fifty suites on Probability were just as secluded as ours and had private pools. In spite of things not going quite swimmingly just yet, we had everything we could ever need or want for a fabulous vacation.

  Let the fabulous part begin.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked Mother and Fantasy.

  “Not long,” Mother said.

  “A while,” Fantasy said.

  “Have you looked around?” I asked.

  “I unpacked,” Mother said. “Then I pressed my blouses with my travel iron. They were creased from my Samsonite.”

  “I snooped,” Fantasy said.

  “What’d you find?” I asked.

  “I just poked my nose in the doors,” she said. “I didn’t dig through anyone’s luggage.”

  “Well, I should hope not,” Mother said. “That’s rude.”

  “Which way is my room?” I asked.

  Fantasy pointed. “It’s gorgeous. And I would’ve snooped through your luggage but you have too much.”

  “Davis.” Mother said. “It took those men an hour to bring in your luggage. Ten minutes for everyone else’s and an hour for yours.”

  “It’s for the photography, Mother.”

  “Well, it’s ridiculous.”

  “Fantasy, when you were snooping, did you find anything to drink?” I asked.

  “Fantastic idea.” Fantasy stood and crossed the room to a fully stocked sidebar. “What’s your poison, ladies?”

  “Surprise us,” I said.

  “This will surprise you.” Fantasy pushed a button somewhere near the sidebar and with a swoosh, the wraparound glass wall slid into the ceiling. Now we really were inside and outside.

  Probability Suite 704 was magnificent.

  We stepped all the way out with our drinks and settled around an iron bistro table in a chocolate finish, sinking into thick cushioned chairs under a canvas umbrella. In the distance, I could see the Bellissimo—my husband, my home, my work—and it looked so far away.

  “This is delicious.” Mother knocked back half of hers in one long pull. “What is it?”

  “It’s a cranberry sparkler,” Fantasy said. “Cranberry juice and champagne. Davis, yours is sparkling with ginger ale.”

  “Cranberry juice and champagne,” Mother said. “This would be nice at Christmastime.”

  I picked up the pitcher and topped off Mother’s sparkler.

  “Nice weather.”

  “Very nice.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Not too hot.”

  “No.”

  “Just right.”

  “Not too cool.”

  “No.”

  “A beautiful afternoon.”

  Fantasy
crossed and uncrossed her long legs three times, Mother nervously twisted the gold anchor buttons on her jacket, and I petted Anderson in long smooth strokes, waiting for the ice to crack. Before it could, the table vibrated. Even Anderson felt it; her ears stood up. It was V2, letting us know the front door had opened. V2 said Jessica DeLuna and Andrew Burnsworth had entered Suite 704.

  I wasn’t in the mood for any more Jess.

  “Who is Andrew Burnsworth?” Fantasy stared at her V2.

  “He’s our butler,” I said.

  “Which means?”

  “I’m not sure. What do butlers do other than open doors?” I asked.

  “Why do we need someone to open the door?” Mother asked. “Are we expecting visitors?”

  “Surely he does more than open doors,” Fantasy said.

  “Does this mean we’re going to have a man here?”

  “We have a butler, a stateroom attendant, and a chef, Mother. I think the butler is a man.”

  “What in the world is a stateroom attendant?” Mother asked.

  “She cleans,” I said.

  “We have a maid?” Mother asked.

  “I feel like I’ve won the lottery,” Fantasy said. “An entire week of not worrying about anything or anyone, no kids, no dishes, no laundry. Just fun and sun.”

  “How are we supposed to fun and sun with a man here?” Mother asked.

  “It’s not like he’ll be with us the entire time,” Fantasy told her. “The staff gets several hours off in the afternoon.”

  “And we won’t be in the room the whole time, Mother.”

  “So we’re leaving a man in here while we’re gone? All day?”

  “And all night,” I said. “He’s part of this suite’s staff. The staff stays in the suite.”

  “A man? Where’s he supposed to sleep?”

  “That way.” Fantasy pointed. “Three small bedrooms that way.”

  “Three small staterooms that way,” I said.

  “They have beds, dressers, and closets,” Fantasy said. “I call that a bedroom.”

  “A man?”