The Finley Sisters returned to the boat together, and they were inseparable for the rest of the day.
Mona expected the Carnival employees to drag her to a barely lit dungeon deep in the belly of the cruise ship and thrash her soundly until they were satisfied with the explanation for her tardiness. But all of the staff on the boat knew about the incident with Dwayne already, and they were the ones who were apologetic. Even the lieutenant who gave Rene and Dawn a hard time said he was sorry for not being more understanding, and he hoped the ladies could get past the commotion and enjoy the rest of their cruise.
The friends retreated to their individual cabins to shower and change into casual dresses for dinner. They met up again in Mona’s room and tried to wrap their minds around the freakish incident.
“So, did Dwayne have to stay in Progresso by himself?” Rene wondered.
“I think I heard his uncle say he would stay, too,” Mona reported.
“Wasn’t there three more people in their group?” Dawn asked.
“Yeah,” Mona said. “He said those were his cousins.”
“Do you think they’re going to be mad at you?” Dawn asked.
Mona balked at that. “It’s not my fault Dwayne went crazy. I wish they would say something slick to me. Shit. I wish they would.”
“Did you see how scared that lieutenant looked?” Rene asked her friends.
“Which one was he?” Mona asked.
“The one with the blue uniform,” Rene said. “He was Polish, or something. When we got back on the boat, he looked like he was the one who did something wrong.”
“I saw that, too,” Dawn said. “I thought they were going to be mad at us, but they weren’t.”
“Everybody’s acting nice,” Rene went on.
“I think I should sue,” Mona said.
Rene frowned. “Sue? For what?”
“Think about it,” Mona said. All three ladies sat on the bed together. Mona leaned with her back against the headboard, and she was the only one with her feet on the mattress. “Why would everybody be acting so nice unless they know they did something wrong?”
“Like what?” Rene asked. “Trying to stop me and Dawn from getting off the boat?”
“That, too,” Mona said. “But I’m talking about them letting Dwayne on the boat in the first place. They’re probably liable for that.”
“You’re not serious,” Rene said.
“I don’t know,” Mona said. “I always get suspicious when people are acting nice…”
“Maybe they feel sorry for you,” Dawn offered.
“I can’t see how you’re thinking about suing anybody,” Rene said. “If anything, Carnival could probably sue you.”
“What for?” Mona asked with a roll of her neck. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“How can you say that?” Rene asked.
“It’s not my fault that boy was crazy,” Mona said.
“But you didn’t have to sleep with his crazy ass,” Dawn said.
“And then you rejected him the very next day,” Rene reminded her.
“That don’t mean he had to jump in the ocean,” Mona said.
“I know that,” Rene said. “But you can’t run around treating people any way you want without expecting some consequences sooner or later. Maybe ninety-nine out of a hundred men would just go on about their business. But there’s always gonna be that one percent who do something stupid.”
“He might have tried to hurt you,” Dawn agreed.
Mona knew there was some truth to what they were saying, but she wasn’t the type of woman who could sit quietly while people lambasted her—especially if one of these people had been crying for the last two days. “You let your man hurt you anytime he feels like it,” she told Dawn. “So how are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”
“That’s not right,” Rene said.
“Naw, it’s okay,” Dawn said. Mona may have thought she would hurt her feelings, but Dawn was done crying. And she was done being depressed on this ship. “You’re right. I do let my boyfriend hurt me.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Rene said.
“Yeah, it does,” Mona said. “If she’s going to tell me that what I’m doing is wrong, then she needs to be doing something right herself. You, too, Rene. You let your boyfriend cheat on you, and you’ve been faithful to him for two years.”
“That’s right,” Rene said. “I have been faithful. I’m surprised you even know what that word means.”
“I don’t have to be faithful,” Mona spat. “ ’Cause I’m not some weak bitch who’s gonna let a man mess with my head. I got to–”
“So you mess with theirs instead?” Dawn asked.
“I got, what?”
“I said ‘So mess with their heads instead?’ ”
“I’m not messing with nobody’s head,” Mona said. “I live my life however I want to. I didn’t ask nobody to fall in love with me. I didn’t ask nobody to propose to me, and I didn’t ask nobody to jump in the goddamned ocean either.”
“Of course not,” Rene said. “This is Mona’s World. Whoever gets stepped on or chewed up and spit out—it’s their fault for getting trapped in your web.”
“I’m sick of y’all talking like I’m some damn black widow,” Mona growled. “You must be jealous or something.”
“Please,” Rene said. “Trust me, I’m not jealous of you. I don’t even–”
“Hey, chill!” Dawn interrupted. “We been though a lot today, and we all got a bunch of stuff on our minds. But it ain’t no sense in arguing with each other. That’s what the devil wants. Why don’t we go eat dinner, and we can talk about this some more later?”
Rene rolled her eyes and pushed off the bed. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Mona cut her eyes, too, but she got up and slipped into her pumps.
***
The girls weren’t in the best of moods during supper, but it’s hard to stay mad when you’re on a luxurious ship being catered to like a queen.
For dinner that night they had a choice of fried black tiger prawns with a breaded fish fillet, bourbon and honey glazed roasted spring chicken, or grilled filet mignon over Mediterranean couscous. Each of the Finley Sisters ordered a different selection, and they sampled from each other’s plates graciously.
After dinner Mona wanted to drink, and after the wild day they had had, even Dawn thought that sounded like a good idea. The ladies went to the Society Bar, and Mona ordered apple martinis for everyone. While sipping the concoction, Rene spotted a group of kids headed for one of the teen lounges on the same deck. She was almost to the point of not caring about her camera, but she said, “There he goes again,” as an afterthought.
“Who?” Mona asked.
“That boy with my camera.” Rene sighed in resignation.
But Dawn sat up straight and eyed the crowd curiously. “Who has your camera?”
“That boy with the long hair. I think…”
“So why you just sitting there?” Dawn asked with a frown.
“What am I gonna do?” Rene asked. “Go over there and take it from him?”
“Yeah,” Dawn said. “Come on.”
Rene got a chuckle out of that, but Dawn hopped off her barstool and headed straight for the hooligan.
“Wait. Dawn!”
Rene got up, too, but she didn’t make it in time. She watched in horror as Dawn walked right up to the long-haired kid and forcibly snatched the camcorder from his hand.
“Boy, gimme that!” She turned casually and handed it to Rene. “Here. Is it yours?”
“Oh, snap…” Mona left her drink at the bar and stepped cautiously to her friends, shaking her head in disbelief. “I know she didn’t…”
The response to Dawn’s action was immediate, and it was bad. The long-haired boy just stared in awe, but his hyper friends came to his defense.
“Hey!”
“What’d she do?”
“She took Aaron’s camera!”
“Hey, lady, give it back!”
And to make matters worse, it wasn’t just kids Rene had to contend with. Aaron’s parents had been there the whole time. His mother turned around, and her claws extended as she morphed into a protective mama bear.
“What happened?”
“She stole Aaron’s camera!” one of the friends yelled.
“He stole it from her first!” Dawn corrected.
“He didn’t steal it,” the friend said. The boy was getting red about the face and ears, and Rene knew shit was about to hit the fan.
“Did you take his camera?” the mother asked.
The father struck a menacing pose next to his wife, and Mona came and stood next to Rene and Dawn.
“Someone stole my camera,” Rene explained. “I thought this might be it, bu–”
“You don’t take something from a child just because you think it might be yours,” Mama Bear said. “My son does not steal! Give it back to him! Now!”
“She didn’t take it!” Dawn barked. “I did.” She took a bold step forward, and Mona braced herself for war.
“My son does not steal!” Mama Bear yelled again. “Tell her, Aaron!” She pushed her boy into the fray. “Tell her you got that camera from your uncle.”
A good number of bystanders had surrounded them by then, and Rene had never been so embarrassed. Her only saving grace was the fact that the main person who should’ve been asking for the camera back hadn’t said a word. Aaron looked worried rather than upset. His guilt was so obvious, you could read it like a roadmap.
“Tell them where you got that camera!” Mama Bear demanded.
“I, uh, it was, um…”
With that, Rene took a moment to inspect the Samsung. She flipped the screen open, and there was a small splotch of red fingernail polish in the upper right corner. It was ruby raspberry, to be exact.
The room suddenly felt ten degrees cooler. Rene looked up slowly and stared Aaron dead in the eyes. The boy knew the gig was up, and he looked down at his grubby sneakers.
“This is my camera,” Rene announced boldly. “He stole it from my bag the first day we got here. I can prove it.”
Mama Bear watched Rene’s eyes closely, and her defiance slipped a little. She noticed her son was trying to will himself to disappear, and then she knew for sure.
“Did you, did you steal this woman’s camera?”
Still looking at his shoes, Aaron shrugged. “I found it. It was just…”
His friends’ mouths fell open, and Mama Bear’s nostrils flared.
“You told me your uncle gave that to you.”
“It was, I mean…”
KLAT!
The blow came hard and swift. One moment Mama Bear had her hands at her sides. And then there was a blur. And then her open palm impacted the back of Aaron’s neck so hard spittle flew from his mouth. It was so unexpected, everyone within earshot flinched.
“OW!” Aaron threw an arm up to ward off any additional blows, and then he looked around at the commotion his one stupid act caused. His eyes filled with tears, and he decided running away was better than crying or getting a whooping in front of his friends.
“Get back here!” Mama Bear yelled. She started to go after him, but she turned back for a second and spoke to Rene.
“I am so sorry. I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am. He’s going to apologize to you. I’ll ge–”
“It’s all right,” Rene said.
“No, he’s going to apologize,” Mama Bear insisted. “I’m sorry. I got, uh, I’ll be right back!” She pushed her husband aside and went after the opportunistic thief. “Aaron! Get your ass back here!”
Rene watched for a few seconds, and then she and her friends returned to the bar.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said to Dawn when they took their seats.
“I can’t believe she hit him like that,” Dawn said. “I thought white people put their kids in time out.”
“I, I got it from my uncle,” Mona mimicked and laughed. “Did you see the way his hair flew up when she smacked him?”
“His eyeballs almost fell out,” Rene said.
“I know her hand hurts,” Dawn said, and she laughed, too.
Rene pushed a few buttons on her camcorder and didn’t immediately find anything out of order. “Thank you,” she said to Dawn. “I would’ve watched that boy for the rest of the cruise and never said anything to him.”
“Girl, that’s what friends are for,” Dawn said. “You know I always got your back.”
Rene smiled. She did know that, and it gave her a greater sense of security than any insurance premium she ever purchased.
***
The girls had another round at the Society Bar, and then they went to the main pool to watch a limbo competition. Xavier and Bart approached the trio while they were out there, but Mona didn’t leave to kick it with them as everyone expected.
“I’m chilling with my girls tonight,” she told Bartolo, and he smiled.
“That is good. Friendship is greatest treasure. Maybe we spend time tomorrow…”
“That would be nice,” Mona said. She smiled with seductive eyes, and Bart gave her a flirty wink.
At sunset the Finley Sisters took margaritas to the upper deck so they could watch the stars appear in the sky. They sat around a small table, and Mona thought this was a good time to get some closure on the issues they were discussing before dinner.
“So, y’all think I’m living my life wrong?” she asked her friends.
“What are you talking about?” Dawn asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Rene said.
“Yes, you did,” Mona said. “Earlier you were talking about how that thing with Dwayne was my fault because I don’t care about people’s feelings.”
“I don’t want to argue,” Rene said. She reclined in her chair and looked up at the purple sky. It was a pleasant seventy-six degrees now. A soft breeze ruffled her hair and felt good on her face and arms.
“I don’t want to argue either,” Mona said. “I just want to talk about what you said. Y’all hurt my feelings.”
Dawn didn’t think that was possible. She looked up and saw that Mona was smiling. “Yeah, right.”
“No, for real,” Mona said. “Y’all did hurt my feelings. I felt like y’all were coming down on me.”
“Well, we weren’t.” Rene said. “And besides, you were right. How are we supposed to judge you when we can’t get our own shit together? I know I’m not in a position to say anything about anybody.”
“Me neither,” Dawn said.
“Somebody’s got to be right,” Mona insisted. “We can’t all be messed up.”
“Let’s take a vote,” Rene said. “Which one of us has our shit together when it comes to men?”
The sisters looked around, and no one’s hand went up.
“I thought you said you were doing just fine,” Dawn said to Mona.
She sighed. “Sometimes I think I am, but, I don’t know. I guess y’all are right. I mean, I always get my needs taken care of, but I don’t care about a man’s needs. That, that’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“It depends on how you look at it,” Rene said.
“Yeah, maybe that’s what works for you,” Dawn said.
Mona shook her head. “I don’t need y’all to tell me it’s fine. I want you to tell me what’s wrong with me.”
Rene was shocked by that request, and it looked like Dawn was, too. “You want us to tell you what’s wrong with you?” she asked skeptically.
“I’m not gon’ cry,” Mona promised. “I want to hear the truth.”
Rene looked at Dawn, and Dawn shook her head. Rene figured she had the most insight, so she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, well, first let me tell you what’s wrong with me.” She leaned forward in her seat and her friends did the same.
“When I got a divorce from Terrence,” Rene said, “I was only nineteen years old. I thought I had my whole future planned out, and when I found out he was cheating on me…” She looked away, and her traitorous eyes filled with tears. “It was the worst feeling I ever felt. I mean, to this day I never felt that bad about anything.”
Dawn felt her pain totally. Mona also looked forlorn.
“I made a promise to myself,” Rene said. “I promised that I would never let something like that happen again. I wouldn’t play the fool anymore. I promised I wouldn’t let a man control my future like Terrence did. I wouldn’t love anybody that much anymore.
“And I, I really thought that was the answer. I lived the next ten years like that. There were a lot of guys who fell in love with me, but I let them go. They got mad because I wasn’t feeling the same thing for them, and instead of opening my heart, I thought it was better to release them, let them go find somebody who wanted to love them back.”
Dawn nodded. Mona did, too.
“But I was just cheating myself,” Rene said. “A couple of those guys…” She closed her eyes. “A couple of them really could’ve been the one. I think about it sometimes, what it would’ve been like to stay with Stephen or Marcus. They wanted to marry me, but I wouldn’t accept their ring. I did that because of pain I was still holding onto from Terrence. I cheated myself, and I didn’t even know it. I didn’t know it until I came on this cruise, and we talked about that oath we made.”
Dawn thought that was tragic. “You still have time to fix it,” she said. “You can make it right with Blake, can’t you?”
Rene chuckled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s too late for him, too. Blake has been cheating on me for at least a year. I know it, and he knows I know it. Her name’s Rosalyn. I can tell you what she looks like.”
Mona was shocked.
“I thought you didn’t know for sure,” Dawn said.
“No, I told you I didn’t know for sure,” Rene said. “But I do know. I just didn’t want y’all to think I was stupid.”
Dawn still couldn’t believe it.
“But it’s my fault,” Rene went on.
“No, it’s not,” Mona said right away.
Rene chuckled and nodded. “Yes, it is. And I’m okay with it now. See, Blake is no different from any other man. And I treated him just like all the others. There was a time when we could’ve been more. There was like, there was this moment when I made a pivotal decision. I knew he wanted to fall in love with me, and he wanted me to love him back. I couldn’t do it. We never really talked about it, but that’s when he started looking for someone else.
“We still stayed together because the relationship we had was special, and it was convenient. But every man needs a woman to love him. I couldn’t do that for Blake, so he found somebody who could.”
Dawn was astonished by the ease with which Rene told her story. She never knew her friend had so much strength and resolve.
“As far as you,” Rene said to Mona, “I think your problem is kind of the same, except there was never any incident that made you the way you are. As long as I’ve known you, you were the one who had to be on top. You always have to win. You need to be in control. And I think the idea of submitting to a man and letting him be dominant in your life—that goes against your personality. I think that’s why you treat men the way you do.”
Mona inhaled sharply, and she nodded. “That’s right. That is how I feel.”
“But the problem with that,” Rene went on, “is you hurt people’s feelings right and left, and you couldn’t care less. You don’t care if you break a man’s heart, and you don’t care if you make them cry. And anyone who goes through life like that is–”
“Heartless,” Mona said. “You think I don’t have a heart.”
“No, I think you’ve got a wall up, just like I do,” Rene said. “You don’t want to feel love because you know that will make you weak. You can’t imagine losing control of your feelings, even for a little while, so you keep your heart in a cage. That way no man can ever control you.”
“You’re right. That’s me,” Mona said. She shivered and rubbed the goose bumps on her arms. “You’re like a psychiatrist.”
“Now do me,” Dawn said, and they all giggled nervously.
Rene shook her head. “I can’t figure you out, Dawn. I know things can get bad sometimes, but I don’t understand how a woman can go home to a man who beats on her. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to explain this one yourself.”
Dawn nodded and sighed. She knew it would come to this, and she had plenty of time to think about it when she was holed up in her room last night.
“I guess it started right after high school,” Dawn said. She looked up at the stars, and her friends were very quiet, hanging on her every wood. “When we was in school, we was popular,” Dawn recalled. “Ever since middle school, we was together. Everybody respected us. Some people feared us. We always had each other’s back, and nobody messed with us. We promised we would always be there for each other, but we wasn’t.”
The seriousness of that childhood promise weighed heavily on Mona and Rene’s hearts, and they didn’t like where this story was going.
“I tried to go to college,” Dawn said, “but it was different without y’all. I wasn’t good at nothing. I wasn’t smart in high school, either, but y’all always helped me. You let me cheat off your chemistry tests sometimes,” she said to Rene.
Rene nodded and offered a weak smile.
“But when y’all left town, I found out I wasn’t popular,” Dawn said. “I was just a dumb, fat girl. I didn’t have no friends except for y’all. And when y’all stopped calling after a while, I felt like nobody liked me. I got depressed, and I started getting bigger, and from that point, it was all downhill.
“Tim’s daddy, I knew he was gon’ leave me. I got pregnant on purpose, but he left me anyway. Luther’s daddy was the first man that ever hit me. He got real mad when I got pregnant, and he kicked me in the stomach one time. He took off while Luther was still in diapers.”
Mona put a hand to her mouth, and she saw that Rene was crying again.
“I had a couple more boyfriends before I ended up with Henry,” Dawn said. “Henry, he calls me fat, and he hit on me sometimes when I don’t do right. Sometimes I don’t think he likes me at all, but he comes home every night. He don’t cheat on me.
“I’ll tell you the truth: I stay with him ’cause I don’t think I can do no better. I know don’t nobody else want me. I got two kids with two different daddies, and I’m not all pretty like y’all are…”
“You are pretty,” Mona said.
“And it doesn’t matter how big you are,” Rene added. “You don’t deserve to be treated like that. Nobody does.”
“But I don’t –” Dawn sniffled. “I don’t have nobody else.”
“Yes, you do,” Rene and Mona said almost in concert.
“You have your family,” Rene said. “And you have us. We let you down after high school, but we’re back now. We’re all going to be there for each other from now on. No matter what.”
Mona nodded, and she gave Dawn a tender smile that spoke volumes.
Dawn had no doubt they would keep their promise this time, and her whole body felt warm.
“Whew!” Mona said with a sigh.
Her friends laughed, and that broke up some of the tension.
“So, what now?” Mona asked Rene.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the psychologist,” Mona said. “You got us talking about what’s wrong with us. What’s supposed to happen next?”
Rene grinned. “I don’t have to plan a second step because we already did it. We made an oath to live love the fullest. If we all do that, it will solve every problem we just talked about.”
The girls mulled that over, and Mona asked, “So are you going to stay with Blake? You gonna tell him you’re ready to fall in love?”
Rene shook her head. “I know I said it was my fault he cheated on me, but I can’t take all the responsibility. If he wanted someone to fall in love with, he should’ve broke up with me. Even if I opened up to him now, I could never trust him. What about you? Are you going to marry Dennis?”
Mona laughed and she shook her head as well. “I can’t marry that boy. If I do decide to settle down and fall in love with one man, it can’t be Dennis. I like what he does for me, but I don’t respect him.”
“Maybe you could learn to,” Dawn offered.
“It’s too late for that,” Mona said. “I can’t go from bossing him around for the last eight months to bringing him breakfast in bed. Either I have respect for you in the beginning, or I don’t. I could probably string Dennis along for another year if I want to, but I’m going to break up with him—just for y’all.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” Rene said.
“All right. I want to do it,” Mona decided. “I want to fall in love. I wanna see what it feels like. If I don’t like it, I can always go back to the real me, but I’m going to fulfill my oath. It’s worth a try.” She laughed.
“What about Bartolo?” Rene asked with a wily smile. “Are you going to fall in love with him?”
“I doubt it!”
“You’re not going to string him along, too, are you?”
“No,” Mona said. “But I am going to have sex with him. He’ll be my last fling. I promise! After him, I’m going to find somebody to fall in love with.”
That cracked everyone up.
“What about you?” Rene asked Dawn. “Are you going to leave Henry?”
“Yes,” she said. Her smile went away, except from her eyes. “If y’all gon help me through it, I’ll do it.”
“Me and Rene wanna cut off his dick,” Mona informed her.
“What?” Dawn laughed. “Naw, just leaving him will be fine.”
“Then it’s official,” Rene said. “Technically, we’re all single again. I know that’s not a new feeling for you,” she teased Mona.
“Not really,” Mona confirmed.
“So I guess you’re gonna get started on Bartolo tonight,” Dawn said.
“No.” Mona shook her head and downed the rest of her margarita. “I already told him I’m kicking it with my girls tonight, and that’s what I’m gonna do. You down to drink some more?”
Dawn looked up at the starlit sky. It felt like 1999 all over again. “Yep,” she said. “I’m down with whatever my sisters are down with.”