Page 2 of Mister Daddy

Both of my friends snorted.

“Unnecessary? Hardly. If anything, Abby, it’sverynecessary because you can be such a stick in the mud sometimes. Now put the tiara on, otherwise we’re going to find something evenmorespectacular for you to wear.”

Now, I was really scared and eyed Jess’s bag with apprehension. Visions of props danced in my head, from frilly pink tutus to a cape with the words “Old Maid No More” on it. I couldn’t risk it, and so with trembling hands, I set the tiara on my head.

“Does it look okay?” I managed in a weak voice. Both my friends whooped and crowed.

“It looks amazing, Abs. Now here’s your drink and let’s par-tayyyy!”

Oh god. I wasn’t looking forward to non-stop debauchery, but here we are now on a cruise to the Caribbean. We’ve just left port and are standing on the deck of the ship, waving to a crowd below. Who knows who’s in that crowd? I have no idea, but the cheers and claps make my friends look and feel like celebrities.

“Wee-hoo!” screams Jess.

“Wa-wee!” bellows Cait, not to be outdone.

I cringe internally. Oh my god, my friends can be so embarrassing sometimes with their outlandish cries and those flower leis too, don’t forget. But Cait and Jess are pretty twenty-somethings, and when you’re an attractive woman, you can get away with a lot. To my surprise, some of our fellow passengers also begin to bellow, and high fives are shared all around.

“Come on, Abs!” screams Cait. “Get into it!”

I let out my own small “Wee-hoo!” with a feeble smile and a small wave.

“Great work,” nods Jess, taking another sip of her drink. “We are ready to go!”

By now, the ship has pulled back from the port and the audience on the dock is nothing but mere glimmers. Not a moment too soon, if you ask me.

“So now what?” I ask Jessica. “We’re officially sailing so can I take this off?” I ask, pointing to the tiara. Fortunately, I have very curly hair, so my locks puff up around the small headpiece, semi-obscuring it. Hopefully, the other passengers don’t notice that I have rhinestones on my head.

But my friends are on a roll, and Jessica pumps her arms furiously up and down, like she’s doing a lift.

“We’ve only just begun!” She tries to sip her drink again, but the pineapple shell is empty. “I need a refill, and you need a drink.”

I try to make excuses.

“I don’t know, Jess. It’s pretty early.”

“Come on, Abby,” Caitlyn wheedles. “You’re on vacation, remember? Time doesn’t matter on a cruise ship.”

I think I read that in one of the hundreds of brochures the girls left on my desk over the last year, but I didn’t believe it until I boarded the ship at eleven this morning and found people already enjoying beachy cocktails. It is clear by the noise level that for most of them, the blended drinks in their hands aren’t their first. Or second, to be frank.

I follow the girls toward the closest bar, searching for an excuse to pass on joining in their alcoholic festivities, but Caitlyn thrusts a freshly blended strawberry daiquiri in my face. She knows it’s the one drink I can’t resist.

“Fine,” I say with a sigh. “But only because we’re on vacation.”

The two girls cheer. A gust of wind whips Caitlyn’s red hair into her face, causing her to sputter, which makes us all laugh. She pulls her curly locks into a messy ponytail and holds her piña colada up.

“To vacation!” she shrieks while doing a little shimmy with her backside. Behind us, a couple of girls we don’t know repeat the cheer and hold their glasses up to ours. Spinning around, we all clink our drinks together and take long, alcohol-filled sips. The rum burns my throat, but the sweetness of the frozen strawberries cuts through the awful taste.

“To friendship!” Caitlyn adds, taking another long sip of her drink.

The same group of strange girls cheer again. They look younger than us, probably having just barely turned twenty-one compared to our twenty-seven. But they seem relatively normal, and hey, part of a cruise is making new friends. I face the new girls and smile.

“Are you on a friendship cruise, too?” I ask.

A particularly pretty co-ed with a red-lipsticked mouth smiles at me.

“We didn’t call it that,” she says with a sweet southern accent, “but that sounds about right. We just graduated from college, so we thought, why not take a trip before real life starts?”

“Good call,” I say ruefully. “Hope you enjoy your vacation.”