DOUBLE KNOT (4 page)

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 hour 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—”

“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.

“What?” The collective question from my very attentive audience.

Mother’s phone was so old it didn’t display signal strength, but I didn’t need to
be told I didn’t have much reception. “I’m going outside.”

Fantasy helped me up and we marched out to the deck single file. I immediately dialed
Daddy’s number again, too soon for Mother’s old phone, and got clipped beeps. Poking
buttons until I ended the call, I tried again and got through.

“Sweet Pea? Is that you?”

“Daddy! It’s me! We need help!”

“What, honey? What? You’re breaking up.”

“Daddy! We’re locked in our suite on the ship. We can’t communicate with anyone. Call
No Hair, Daddy. Find a way to call this ship and have No Hair get us out of here!”

“Yes, your mother said the ship is beautiful.”

His words were drowning in static.

“Daddy, we’re STUCK in our suite! We’re
STUCK
!”

“You’re what, honey? I can’t hardly hear you.”

“STUCK, Daddy!
STUCK
!”

“Davis, I hope you’re not using that kind of language in front of your mother.”

And the phone gave up.

First it was a single pop, like a toy gun. It came from the dark sky. The initial
pop was followed by ten more. We rushed toward the deck rail to see a starburst of
multicolored explosions lighting up the night, the ship, and the water. Then another,
then more, then hundreds. A dazzling fireworks display celebrating our departure burst
a thousand feet above our heads and spilled down for the next fifteen minutes. When
silence and night fell around us again, Mother asked, “Why would they be shooting
off fireworks when they’re supposed to be opening the doors?”

Why, indeed.

“And if everyone’s locked in their room,” Mother said, “who’s up there at the fireworks
party?”