If storms were on the way, you’d never know it. The next day, the sky was like blue cellophane. The turquoise waters of the Port of Miami glistened in the Saturday-morning sun. All last night while packing for the trip, I tried to ignore the fortune-teller’s words, but they rattled me anyway. My instincts told me not to believe a carnival psychic, but Madame Fortuna’s reading was pretty specific. Could she be right?
Maybe the trouble had already started. This morning, Lorenzo was supposed to drive me to the port, but we had a minor problem at my house. In my room, he fingered through my suitcase casually, like he was looking for spare change. “Where did you get this dress?” he asked, plucking out a sexy little sundress I had bought a few days earlier. So much for a nicely packed bag.
“My mom bought it for me,” I lied.
“Your mom bought you this?” He tossed the offending dress onto the bed like it had burned him.
“Yeah, why?”
He grunted, hands on his hips. “There ain’t no way you’re wearing that. Why don’t you leave it here?”
“Why?” I stared at him.
He didn’t say anything. I think he surprised even himself with that stupid remark.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a dress, sweetie.” I took the dress and started to refold it.
Lorenzo laugh-snorted. “Yeah. One that you’re not wearing on that cruise.”
I let the dress slide out of my hands and onto the bed.“Excuse me?” There was a charge in the air between us. It felt like it would ignite with even the slightest spark.“You heard me.” He didn’t even wait for a challenge, just started to turn and leave my room.
“You … I … I can’t believe you’re being like that! It’s just a stupid dress, Lorenzo! I’m not going to hook up with any other guys, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He stopped and eyed me. I never called him Lorenzo. It was always baby or sweetie. “I don’t care. I’ve never seen that dress before, and you snuck it in your bag. You obviously didn’t want me seeing it, so leave it behind and we’ll be cool.”
At first, I was too stunned to say anything. Then it hit me how much he sounded like all the other guys in his family, and it pissed me off because I always thought he was different than them. “You’re kidding me. I can’t believe you’re making such a big deal about this!”
“Hey, I’m not the one going off on a cruise with my friends without you, packing away hot little dresses for other people to see me in!”
I wanted to point out the obvious, that he would look a little absurd in a dress, but I didn’t think it was the right time. Besides, I couldn’t believe we were having this argument in the first place. He’d never gotten this mad over anything before. “You need to trust me is what you need to do!” I yelled.
“Don’t tell me what I need, Fiona.” And he left. Just like that. So my mom ended up taking me this morning. I should’ve just left the dumb dress in my closet, and everything would’ve been fine, but I repacked it after he left. He was being completely unreasonable.
As soon as I kissed my mother good-bye outside the port and passed customs, I’d almost forgotten the whole thing. The Temptress was the nicest ship I had ever seen—a pearly, floating city, radiating personality next to the dull concrete port. I imagined how the ship might feel if it were a real person: eager to reach open sea and be free, full of possibility.
I don’t know why this appealed to me so much. My future was already mapped out. I was accepted to the pastry arts program of the French Culinary Institute in SoHo. I’d finish within a year, then move back to Miami. I’d work as a pastry chef at a five-star restaurant, marry Lorenzo, whose father owned the chain of local drugstores, Peralta Discounts, and have a family. Never would I worry about my next paycheck. Always I’d be close to home. Yes, my mother had my life all figured out.
Not that I didn’t want this, but the plan gave me no room to breathe. It was all go, go, go! Besides, last night, Madame Fortuna’s reading made me realize I might not know anything about my fate. What if it was me she was talking about when she said, “One of you will not come home”? What if I was destined to fall overboard on the way to the Virgin Islands?
I couldn’t worry about it anymore. A bunch of stupid cards were not going to mess up my fun. At boarding, Killian and Alma clearly were trying not to let things bother them either. Their laughter contrasted with the calm aura of the old folks ahead of us. We probably looked like annoying teens with no respect for quiet queuing.
“‘We’re not jesting’!” Killian imitated Alma’s back talk to Madame Fortuna last night. “Oh Lord, Alma, that was so funny.”
“Right?” I agreed, looking around, getting a feel for the other passengers. There were some old people, some our age, some families with kids. My eyes were drawn to a skinny guy with a cowboy hat and sneakers and his blond, fringy-shirted girlfriend. They just looked odd to me, like strangers in a foreign land. I wondered if one of them would end up murdering me or my friends at the end of this voyage.
Augh, morbid thought! Get out of my brain!
Alma turned to me. “Fiona, I was seriously about to crack up when Fartuna said that.”
Yoli peered at Alma over my shoulder. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about this, you guys. You don’t know if she can hear us right now.”
Killian made a tsk sound like an egg frying in oil. “Yoli, please. If that lady was really psychic, would she be working the Bay High Fair?”
Alma laughed, a low rolling chuckle. “Exactly.”
“You didn’t seem so blasé about it last night,” Yoli said to Killian. “I saw you, you were scared of her.”
“No, I wasn’t!” Killian made a face.
“Yeah, actually, you were. You should’ve seen your eyes,” Alma said, suppressing a laugh.
Killian adjusted her shoulder bag with a little hop. “Well, you should’ve seen yours when she grabbed your hand.”
“Maybe we should all think more openly,” Yoli said, all spiritual-womanlike. “Some people are sensitive. They can pick up feelings. My cousin has weird dreams, and most of them come true.”
“How do you know they come true?” I asked. God, Yoli would believe anything.
“They do!”
“Your cousin is a sucker for attention,” Killian said, fanning herself with her boarding pass.
And you’re not? I could almost see the words floating above Yoli’s head as she stared at Killian. It was a little too quiet. Yoli started picking her nails.
Killian drummed her fingers on the metal railing. “Look, it’s like Alma said, she probably overheard us talking. Fair workers do that. They get information and prey on the gullible. Then everyone’s all surprised. It’s total bull.”
“Can we please just forget all this already? I need to have fun,” Alma said, rocking back on the railing. An old lady with a gold, quilted purse in front of us kept looking at her.
“Yes, please,” I said, shaking out my legs, which were starting to feel numb. “So remember we agreed to keep an eye on each other. No wandering off all alone. Nothing can happen to us if we’re all together.”
“Speaking of which, Yoli, where’s your brother?” Alma asked. Ahead of us, other passengers were beginning to board.
Yoli searched the crowd behind us. “Somewhere.”
Killian flipped her boarding pass in her hands. She flashed a flirty smile at someone walking by and we all turned around to look. Two cute guys in tight Ts, about twenty. One blew her a kiss and the other wagged his tongue at her. Gross. The bigger the loser, the more Killian found him appealing, something I never understood for such a beautiful girl. “Woof. Bangable. Check it out.”
“I’m checking, I’m checking.” Yoli’s eyes grew huge too.Since when? She’s always liked standard nice boys, not tongue-flicking dorks. She leaned into me. “Did you see his smile? Was that not the best smile?”
“The best,” I muttered. He was pretty cute, but his attitude killed it for me right there.
“Those guys are fools,” Alma said, pushing the railing a little harder. The lady in front of us would chastise her any minute now. She didn’t understand that Alma hadn’t smoked in over an hour and we were about to board a smoke-free vessel.
“You’re the fool,” Killian shot back. Her gaze was fixed on the cuter of the two. Light brown hair, blue eyes. “The tall one is hot.”
“Yes, that one,” Yoli chimed in.
“Please.” Alma sighed and rocked so hard the railing sprang back, bumping Grandma’s gold quilted bag.
“Excuse me, miss!” she barked.
“Excuse me what?” Alma hissed back.
“You’re shoving this and it’s hitting me!”
“So move if it bothers you!” Alma retorted, and fifty people turned to look at us. I smiled at the crowd, as if it would do any good. I knew that Alma’s bark was worse than her bite. Acting tough was her way of holding herself together after her mom had withered away in hospice a few years back.
The old woman turned back around. Poor thing.
“Relax, Almacita,” Killian said, putting an arm around her. She had a way of calming Alma down, maybe like tickling a pit bull’s forehead when it’s focused on … oh, a helpless bunny, for example.
“Wench.” Alma fumed.
One of the faces in the crowd peered at us over a brochure—a guy with brown eyes. He was really, and I mean, really, truly good-looking. Killian would never like him, because, well, he actually might be decent.
“Eight days of strife and storms,” Yoli muttered, shaking her head, like the prediction was already coming true.
We inched forward on the gangway. I fought back the idea that we were being herded onto a death ship.“Enough,” I warned. “No more Madame Fortuna. It was just a trick.” But I had to admit it was a damn good trick. I didn’t completely rule out that it was Killian’s prank either, even though she hadn’t pulled one in a while.
No sooner did we cross over from gangway to floating fortress did a photographer immediately squish us together and step back. “Welcome to the Temptress, ladies! Can I get a smile?”
The four of us put on our best college girl grins, and the camera flash went poof!
Our cabins were on the Florida deck, a level that looked like the Everglades mated with Las Vegas. We still hadn’t found Santi and Monica, but we were let on the ship anyway since we already had our boarding passes. We towed our bags down a carpeted hallway heavy in grass designs.
“Aren’t their rooms on the same deck as ours?” I asked, out of breath.
“Right next to us,” Yoli huffed. “Huge oversight if you ask me. They have copies of all our keys.”
“Ay, Yoli.” I laughed. “Like you’re going to be so wild on this cruise that Santi is going to break in on your hedonistic behavior.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, leading us down a narrower hallway. “The oversight is having their cabin next to ours. I don’t want to hear them.”
I tried not to think about that, but my brain wouldn’t cooperate. “Ew?”
“Exactly.”
Behind us, Killian called out, “I can handle that!” She’d always had a huge crush on Santi, even before she hit puberty, so she wasn’t kidding.
Yoli sneered over her shoulder. “Why do you always have to be so gross? Sex is not a sport, Killian.”
“It’s not?” Killian laughed loud, enjoying the sound of her own voice.
Yoli turned to give Killian an annoyed glance.
Alma groaned aloud. “‘One of you will not come home’!”
“Shut! Up!” Yoli snapped.
We reached our cabin and Yoli dropped her bags to run the card key through the slot. The green light came on, and she shoved the handle down.
“Hey, ladies.” Santi was there with Monica in his arms. “Just checking out everyone’s cabins.”
“Sorry,” Yoli said sheepishly, although I didn’t know why. It’s not like they were naked or anything.
Monica smiled. “Don’t worry. We weren’t doing anything.” She brushed her shorts with her hands.
“That’s the problem,” Santi joked, only I got the feeling he wasn’t really. Maybe they’d come on this cruise for more than to help us out. They looked like they needed a break themselves. “Come in, girls.”
We pushed our way into the tiny room. “Hey, Fee, we got the room with the window.” Yoli bumped her brother’s shoulder by way of greeting.
“We?” Santi said, looking back at Monica and chuckling.
“Didn’t we?” Yoli looked confused.
“Well, we are the chaperones of this excursion, and you are on this cruise because of us,” he said. “Why? You girls want this room?”
Yoli looked at me. “You wanna let them have it?” The window wasn’t that big a deal, although it let in some light from outside.
“I don’t plan on being in here all that much, so why don’t we let them take it?” I said.
Santi shrugged and looked at his wife. “I guess we’re here, then.” If a little window would make Monica look happier to be here, then I wanted them to have it.
We moved to the hallway and separated into the other two cabins. Killian and Alma in one, me and Yoli in another. A few weeks ago, I had suggested we flip coins for picking roommates, but Killian and Alma announced they were already paired up, leaving me and Yoli together. Which was fine—I love Yoli and everything—but I was hoping to avoid her heinous snoring and talk of TV shows we’d outgrown three years ago. Thanks, girls.
I unpacked while Yoli went on and on about her brother and his wife and their relationship, and how she wanted to be like them when she got married, and how the baby had only brought them closer together. Interesting. They didn’t look like soul mates to me, but who really knew how they were with each other? Even Yoli couldn’t possibly know everything.
I set aside khaki shorts and a light blue halter top for our big departure and impending mandatory life-vest drill. Yoli got quiet suddenly as she unpacked.
“What’s up, chica?” I asked.
She inspected a wayward elastic thread on her pair of what looked like Gap Kids underwear. “What do you think she meant by strife and storms?”
“We weren’t going to talk about it, remember?” I started changing into the other shorts and shirt.
“How can we not, Fee? I mean, the woman knew we were coming on this cruise.”
Sigh. “Maybe it’s supposed to rain. Maybe she watched the Weather Channel.”
Yoli dropped her folded clothes into a drawer. “Whatever. You think it’s funny.”
“Yoli, I don’t think it’s funny, I’m just not going to obsess over it. What can I do to stop fate from happening anyway?”
She didn’t answer. Being the big believer in extrasensory voodoo feelings, Yoli should’ve accepted that she was powerless to stop anything from happening, tarot reading or not.
“I guess you’re right.” She sighed. Then, as quickly as she’d brought up the subject, she ended it, standing up straight. “Let’s go find some guys.”
Pardon me? Yoli going out to find some guys was like Columbus going in search of red onions. What happened to her usual topics, like Gilmore Girls’s Rory and her transformation of self? Or the top ten reasons why MGM Studios was still her favorite of the Disney theme parks? Yoli and boys were simply two things that were difficult for me to imagine together. Maybe she was taking this “fresh start on life beginning with the cruise” thing a tad too seriously.
“Guys for you, maybe. Not me,” I reminded her.
Nope, Lorenzo Peralta had me. And right at this very moment, he was pissed that I was even here without him.So I wasn’t about to make it worse by scoping out the male population. That was Killian’s job. And apparently now Yoli’s?
Someone knocked on the door. I got up to open it.
“Ready?” Killian stood there, a huge, mama-jamma, orange life vest covering the bikini top she’d changed into, so it looked like she wasn’t wearing anything but the vest and her little purple shorts.
“Where’s Alma?” I asked.
“Coming. Ready for our first assignment?” Killian asked.
“What assignment?” I didn’t like the sound of that. What was she up to?
“You’ll see,” Killian said, checking me out. “Wow.”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. Your boobs look big in that top.”
“Yep,” Yoli agreed from the bathroom.
“Is that good or bad?” I looked at my chest. I guess it was good. Whenever I dressed sexy, people told me I looked like Jennifer Connelly.
Killian wrinkled her nose. “Are you kidding me, Fee?Come on.” She linked her arm through mine. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”
That’s exactly the kind of comment that made Lorenzo nervous about leaving me with Killian, but she was just stating the obvious. He wasn’t here to keep an eye on me. Neither was my mom. And even though I felt a little guilty about that, I smiled. It was about time I started having fun.