DOUBLE KNOT Page 4

  I poured Mother another sparkler.

  “And what do we need with a chef?” Mother reached for her glass. “I thought there were restaurants.”

  “There are, Mother. We have a chef because we have a kitchen, so we have the option of eating in.”

  “A butler, a cook, and a maid?” Mother rolled her eyes. “Which one of you intends to make a big mess? I don’t know about you, Fantasy, but Davis was raised to pick up after herself. And surely, Davis, you can still make yourself a salad or a sandwich. Surely to goodness you’re not so spoiled by all this,” she gestured wildly, “that you’ve forgotten how to heat a bowl of soup or make yourself cheese toast. And I’ll tell you another thing.” Her crooked index finger took off, aimed at no one in particular. “I don’t want anyone making my bed. I make my bed as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning. I strip back the comforter and top sheet and pop up that bottom sheet. I give it a good shake and tuck it back in all four corners.” She pantomimed her precision tucking. “Every day. And I strip the bed to the mattress on Thursdays mornings.” Mother paused to check her mental calendar. Scheduling her maritime bed stripping. “You can’t tell me there’s a maid in the world who will take the time to pop up my bottom sheet. You’ve heard of bed bugs? That maid isn’t touching my bed.”

  “She’s on edge,” my father reminded me again on the phone this morning, something I already knew and had been smack dab in the middle of (my whole life) for months. “She’s wound tight as a tick, Davis. Be patient with her and don’t say or do anything to upset her. No stress, no surprises. Give her a day or two and she’ll settle down and relax.”

  “I’ll tell you something right now,” Tight as a Tick said. “I’m not exactly fond of the idea of sleeping under the same roof with three strangers. Especially a strange man.” She appeared, however, very fond of the cranberry sparklers. I poured her another. Maybe if I liquored her up she’d settle down and relax sooner than the day or two Daddy said it would be, because it had only been an hour or two and I wasn’t sure I’d make it a day or two.

  The V2s buzzed again, telling us the door to 704 had closed.

  “What’s up with the front door?” I asked Fantasy.

  “It’s the only way in and out of here,” she said. “Which, if you ask me, is a bad idea. Not to mention a fire hazard.”

  “Oh, forevermore.” Mother added five-alarm fire to her worry list and polished off her third sparkler. My mother had never touched a drop of alcohol or allowed it in the house until the day she was on the receiving end of a positive biopsy result. In the months since, she’d discovered that “a little something for her nerves” went a long way. And everyone agreed.

  “Well, there are security doors and then there are security doors,” I said. “The doors here are a little much. Like Alcatraz doors.”

  “What a great idea,” Fantasy said. “Repurpose this boat as a prison, just don’t give the prisoners a V2.”

  “It’s a ship, Fantasy. And you could fit five thousand inmates on it. This would make a hell of a prison.”

  “You should know.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  “And watch your language.”

  This was going to be a long long week. My mother could bring up every mistake I’ve made in my life at a single red light. Yes, I’ve been incarcerated.

  Several times. All work-related misunderstandings.

  And somehow, she managed to remind me of it ten minutes into our week together. Lest I forget. It’s a good thing 704’s pool deck was so big; Mother would need every inch of it to air my dirty laundry.

  “So!” Jessica DeLuna stepped out of the salon. “Burnsworth is here!”

  The man beside her, Burnsworth, was built just like me, short and pregnant with twins. He wore a starched white tuxedo shirt with a little black bow tie and black pants. Shiny black shoes. He was olive skinned, with a two-inch track of clipped black hair that wrapped behind his head from ear to ear, a little black moustache, and widely spaced dark eyes.

  Jessica was busy taking a head count. “Where’s Poppy?”

  “Who?” Mother asked.

  “Poppy Campbell. Your stateroom attendant.” Jess’s fingers flew across the screen of her V2. “There was a last-minute stateroom attendant shuffle and you got Poppy. Three hours ago.”

  “I’ve been here two,” Fantasy said. “I haven’t seen a Poppy.”

  From absolutely nowhere, a Poppy appeared. “Right here.” She waved.

  I don’t know if the girl dropped out of the sky, materialized out of thin air, or if she’d been somewhere on the veranda the entire time. I do know Poppy Campbell couldn’t possibly have been old enough to drive. Her blond hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, her bright face free of makeup, and she had a definite athletic air about her. Nothing about her said maid. Everything about her said high school cheerleader, surfer girl, teenage teleporter.

  “Poppy?” Jessica said. “Where’d you come from?”

  A very good question. Along with where had she been?

  Poppy opened her mouth, possibly to explain, but didn’t get a word out before the table buzzed again. Jess’s V2 vibrated in her hand. She stared at it curiously. “It’s dead. My V2 went dead.”

  I leaned over. The screen on my V2 was black.

  Fantasy gave hers a bang against the table.

  Jess shook hers. “So, no! No!”

  “Hold on.” I picked mine up and examined it all the way around. I found what might be a pin dot power button. I used the stud of my David Yurman Chatelaine earring to depress what might be the power button on V2. Let’s reboot this fun-sized computer.

  Nothing. The V2s had no power.

  “The system must have overloaded,” I said. “I’m sure they’re working on it and it will be back up in a minute.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” my mother said.

  “It means,” Fantasy said, “we’re locked in this room until the phones come back on.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous.”

  FOUR

  Bianca Sanders had been in comfortable maternity loungewear for six straight months. She wore Swiss voile cotton, cashmere, and silk ensembles from Séraphine in London. She looked pretty, she moved around the bed easily as she had no zippers or turbo elastic to deal with, and in true Bianca fashion, she never wore anything twice. Maybe because she dribbled pizza sauce on everything, but more likely because she was bored out of her skull and didn’t want to look at the same $2,000 jammies again.

  With her, comfort and expense were king. The more it cost, the better it felt. On the flip side, when it came to what I wore to represent her in public, photographs, and on social media, it was all about cutting-edge style. I tried to steer her in a more Kate Middleton Duchess of Cambridge direction when it came to my wardrobe, but she wouldn’t have it. “Please, David.” She dismissed the glossy magazine coverage of expectant Kate. “She looks like she splits atoms all day. And those absurd hats.”

  “Bianca, she’s a maternity fashion icon. She looks elegant. And regal.”

  “Says you, David.”

  Bianca had yet to choose actual maternity clothes for me to wear. The Vera Wang jumpsuit she had me in for the Welcome Aboard party was a two-tone scuba knit and silk, cream on the top, black everywhere else. V-neck, sleeveless, banded waist above the babies, and overall a beautiful piece. If, that is, you don’t buy it in size linebacker, then have an alteration team slash it to size five-foot-tall pregnant. It lost a little in translation. My mother nailed it.

  “Davis. You look ridiculous.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  “I think you look great and I like your positive attitude.” Fantasy checked her watch. “The party starts in thirty minutes.”

  We gathered in the salon. It had been an hou
r since our V2s went black and in that hour, the sun had set, I’d put Anderson Cooper to bed, located Vera Wang, changed into her, and in all that time the phones didn’t budge. No one knocked on the door. There’d been no ship-wide communiqué to tell us all was well. Nothing. I’d checked my V2 every two minutes and it hadn’t made a peep. Given that this was the inaugural voyage of Probability, hiccups were to be expected. But who would ever dream they’d include communication and captivity?

  Fantasy and I returned to the sofa we’d claimed earlier. Mother sat across from us, trying to kill a piece of chewing gum, her jaw clenching, unclenching, clenching. Jessica DeLuna was totally occupied with her V2, stomping the length of the room. She went one way, tried her V2, made a two-point turn, then tried the V2. Then again.

  “How long has she been doing that?”

  “The whole time,” Fantasy said.

  “That man and that girl have disappeared, Davis,” Mother said.

  “They went that way.” Fantasy tipped her head in the direction of the crew’s quarters.

  “They’re probably in their rooms getting settled in, Mother.”

  From behind us, Burnsworth cleared his throat. He hadn’t been in his room. He’d been lurking in the shadows of the dark veranda. Fantasy and I exchanged a quick look.

  “Burnsworth?” I asked.

  “Adjusting the outdoor lighting, ma’am.”

  Dots of soft flickering light illuminated 704’s outdoor living space.

  “Would you mind finding Poppy?” I asked Burnsworth.

  When I turned around she was standing in front of me.

  “Poppy?”

  “Yes?”

  Again, out of thin air. My nerves were shot. “Everyone have a seat. Let’s talk.”

  Burnsworth took two giant steps forward; Poppy took one. Jessica claimed an empty sofa and threw down her V2 on the table in front of her.

  I addressed my fellow 704 hostages. “Chances are, like us, most of the passengers were in their suites settling in when the system went down. I’m sure someone is working hard to get the V2s back up and everyone out. In the meantime, we need to make the best of our situation and be patient. It’s not like we’re stranded in a dinghy in the middle of the ocean with no food or water.”

  “So, what about me?”

  I’d seen this side of Jessica the day I met her. It wasn’t attractive from a distance and decidedly less attractive up close. “What about you, Jess?”

  “I so don’t want to be here!”

  “Oh, brother.”

  “Mother.” I turned to her. “Please. Jessica’s upset. She’ll be fine. Won’t you, Jessica?”

  “I am so not fine.”

  “Yes, you are,” I said. “We’re all fine.”

  A fine silence settled over the salon of 704.

  Mother, who just couldn’t stop herself, broke it. “Are there not regular wall telephones here?” she asked. “Why isn’t there a phone on the kitchen wall? Has anyone checked the kitchen for a regular phone? Like a house phone?” Her head whipped around. “Where is the kitchen, anyway? Why can’t we pick up a good old-fashioned telephone and call the front desk? You young people and your portable phones.” She slapped at thin air. “It’s ridiculous. Look at every one of you, lost without your playthings. Davis, get your regular portable phone and call someone. Tell them we’re locked in here.”

  “Mother.” This would be the fourth time I explained the same thing to her. “The minute we stepped on the ship, our personal devices stopped working. It’s part of the security system. The broadband on the ship doesn’t recognize any digital signal that isn’t directly connected to Probability’s system.”

  “Which is SO DOWN!”

  I took a deep breath of fortitude. “We know that, Jess.” Like talking to a six-year-old. “And you need to settle down.”

  “Well, my portable phone works just fine.”

  All heads whipped Mother’s way.

  “What?” Fantasy asked.

  “Mother! Where’s your phone?”

  She’d had the same phone for twenty years, an old-school flip phone, nothing smart about it. It was the dinosaur of mobile communication, with no Wi-Fi, camera, or texting capabilities, which hardly mattered because Mother would text a message exactly never. The Probability system hadn’t recognized her old analog phone, so there’d been nothing to disable.

  “It’s in my room,” Mother said. “I called your father and told him you brought a cat on this boat.”

  Six months ago I would have been up and had the phone in my hand in under a minute. Today, I needed a crane. Before I could even think about getting myself and the babies off the sofa, Fantasy flew past me in a blur. “I’ve got it!”

  “It’s on the nightstand,” Mother called after her. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my bed alone.”

  Short of breath, Fantasy returned. She dropped Mother’s Casio flip phone into my waiting open hands. I stared at the relic, as dense as a rock, and was overwhelmed with unexpected emotion at the thought of just how much communication had passed between Mother and me on this one prehistoric device. My eyes found hers.

  “What, Davis? What are you waiting for? World peace?”

  Moment over. I flipped open the phone and for the life of me had no idea what to do. Whatever directions had been on the raised black buttons were long gone, and I’d had a phone similar to the Casio four hundred phones ago.

  “Well, Davis,” Mother said, “turn it on.”

  I depressed the black circle in the middle, which was clearly the wrong choice, because it triggered a long and loud horn blast that reverberated through the open terrace and scared the living daylights out of everyone. I yelped, tossing the phone through the air, and like a bolt from the blue, Jess dove for it, screaming, “No! So, no!” She landed on the glass table; tulips, V2s, and water went everywhere. Mother, Fantasy, and I were plastered against our cushion backs, staring at Jessica, who was facedown and spread eagle across the glass table, her shoulders heaving, her head hanging off one end, long dark hair pooled on the silver rug. Her hand rose as she displayed the phone she caught midair and my mother broke the shocked silence when she said, “There was no need for that. You can’t hurt that phone, young lady. I’ve run over it with my Chevrolet twice.”

  Fantasy and I exchanged wide-eyed looks of wonderment. Before we had a chance to (get Jess off the table) recover, three staccato horn blasts shook the walls again. So loud Anderson Cooper had to have heard it. The horror-movie scream was courtesy of Jessica, who wound up on the floor at my feet, the F-bombs were courtesy of Fantasy, and my mother shrieked, “Oh, my stars! Oh, my stars! Oh, my stars!”

  Fantasy straddled Jess, pried the flip phone from her claws, and handed it to me. “You don’t have much time.” She peeled Jess off the floor and lobbed her back onto the sofa she’d flown off of a few minutes earlier. Then she dusted her hands and took a deep breath. “The ship must have pulled up anchor,” she announced. “We’re leaving. The horn blasts mean were leaving. Everyone calm down. It’s all fine.”

  “It is NOT FINE!” Jess lunged at her. “You need to SHUT UP! You are SO not in charge!”

  Fantasy pushed up her sleeves, balled her fists, and was on her way to get a piece of Jessica, me yelling “Stop! Stop! Stop!” the whole time. My mother, trying to disappear into the corner of her sofa, said, “You’d better believe I’m telling your father about this.”

  I propelled myself to my feet by sheer will and caught Fantasy by the back of her shirt. “Everyone please settle down! Just settle down!” I pushed Fantasy back down into her seat and started with Jessica. “Really, Jess, dial it back. You’re making it ten times worse.” Next, my wild-eyed partner. “Fantasy, I understand you’re not in a good place and you’d love nothing better than to kick someone’s ass—”<
br />
  “You watch your mouth, young lady.”

  (Really?)

  “—but not hers,” I stabbed a finger at Jess, “and not now. Right now this phone,” I shook Mother’s Casio, “might be close enough to a cell tower on land to pick up a signal, and if the ship has pulled up anchor, it means I have very little time to make a call. So everyone calm down and let me do this. Mother?”

  “What?”

  “How do I use this phone?”

  * * *

  I didn’t know anyone’s number. I could dial 911 (not a bad idea), but I didn’t know individual phone numbers. I programmed numbers into my phone, seeing them once and immediately forgetting them. I knew Bradley’s number by heart because (I’m married to him) his is the number our Mr. Lau’s Dim Sum delivery account is set up under and I have to repeat Bradley’s number to the Dim Sum operator who’s standing there looking right at the caller ID with my number displayed. As if I would lie about what phone I’m using to call in our hot chicken peanut and beef and broccoli with extra fried rice and eggroll order. But Bradley was somewhere over Ohio or North Carolina right now, and even though he probably had cell service, I didn’t want to panic him. There wasn’t a thing he could do but have the pilots turn the plane around, and by the time he got to us, which would take landing in Biloxi again, then getting on a boat, or at that point, a helicopter, to reach us, chances are we’d be well out of our luxury prison by then and I’d have worried him and disrupted his schedule for nothing. The person I needed to talk to was my immediate supervisor, No Hair. Whom others call Jeremy Covey. (Long story, but easy to figure out: Jeremy Covey has No Hair.) I couldn’t call No Hair. Even if I knew his number, he was somewhere on this ship and his personal phone was disabled. I could only communicate with No Hair by V2.

  Which wasn’t an option.

  We had no options without V2s. So, I did what I’ve done all my life when I ran out of options. I called my father.

  “Daddy! Daddy! It’s me!”

  The phone dropped the call. I pulled it away from my head and looked at it.