Page 13 of Total Dreamboat

Hope

Usually when I have a crush, I feel pressure to make myself seem more cool and mysterious than I actually am. To be bold-print alluring.

With Felix, I forget to put on the femme fatale act. I’m just myself—and he seems to dig that.

Normally I might be nervous at how much I like him. I have the bad habit of getting infatuated too quickly. But the fact that there’s an automatic end date between us makes me feel safe to relax.

Besides, I feel more like myself since I met him. I used to pride myself on being captivating and sexy, but since Gabe, I’ve felt like a drab little mouse. A girl with no real career, no real prospects, and nothing to offer.

I came here to shake that feeling. Granted, my intention was to do it by soaking up books and sunshine, not canoodling with a boy.

But the canoodling is helping.

I feel desired. It makes my brain sharper.

When we get back to the port, the water in the bay is markedly darker than it was when we arrived, and there are waves lapping up along the edges of the pier. The captain of the tender warns us that the wind has picked up and tells us to hold on to the posts inside the boat.

The woman who got sick on the way here goes ashen.

She’s probably regretting ingesting three kinds of rum.

Felix and I sit down on a bench in the middle section of the tender to avoid getting splashed. As soon as the boat leaves the dock, I go lurching forward and almost fall over.

Felix puts his arm around me to steady me.

When I’m steadied, he doesn’t remove it.

All thoughts of seasickness vanish.

We stay that way for the entire ten-minute ride back to the ship.

“What are you doing tonight?” Felix asks as we walk back onto the boat.

My breath catches. Is he going to ask me to hang out, even though we’ve spent all day together?

I really, really hope so.

“Lauren and I have a reservation to do the tasting menu at the Italian restaurant,” I say. “And then after that, definitely Elvis.”

“Definitely Elvis,” he agrees. “My sisters have already made me promise to go. Want to meet us there?”

“Sure,” I say, trying to infuse my answer with chill rather than the five exclamation points I actually feel.

He grins at me. “See you then.”

I float back to my room.

My joy must be apparent, because as soon as I walk into our suite, Lauren looks at me knowingly.

“Well I’ll be,” she says. “I guess the lipstick worked.”

I throw myself down on the bed, smiling. “He’s so nice. We hung out all day. And he asked me to meet him at the Elvis thing after dinner.”

“Shipmance!” she squeals. “Can I interview you about it for my Insta?”

“Absolutely not. You know the rules.”

“Come on!”

“Don’t you have your own exploits to talk about? How was the hike?”

“Arduous,” she said. “I’m so sore. But I met a new beau. He’s sixty, divorced, lives in Fort Lauderdale, and does Muay Thai. He invited me to go for a jog around the deck tomorrow morning before breakfast.”

“Sexy.”

“Some of us have to suffer for our art.” She gestures at a shopping bag with the cruise ship logo sitting on our dining table. “By the way, I got you a prezzie.”

“Lauren, no!” I say. Gifts are her love language, and she’s constantly giving me things. But on my budget, I can’t reciprocate, and it makes me feel terrible.

The gulf between her wealth and generosity and my constant financial straits has begun to cause us tension.

Not because she resents helping, but because it embarrasses me that I need it.

We were two broke girls making our way in the city for years.

And then, all of a sudden, her reality show changed her life, and she ran with it. She’s very, very good with business.

I’m really proud of her.

I’m just ashamed I’m still floundering.

“Hopie, open it,” she says, waggling the bag over my lap.

I pull out the tissue paper and look inside.

It’s an emerald green wrap dress made of impossibly delicate silk. Just from holding it up, I can see the cut will be perfect for me—long sleeves, low neckline, cinched waist, fluttery skirt. I can also see that it must have been very expensive.

“Where did you get this?” I ask.

“One of those boutiques on the Metropolitan Deck.”

“Thank you, it’s beautiful. But there’s no way I can afford it.”

“Just lean into the glam, darlin’. They gave me a ten-thousand-dollar credit to use however I want on the cruise. I also booked us a spa day tomorrow. You’ll be nice and relaxed for your man. Now try on the dress.”

I do, and it’s magnificent.

I usually go for vintage clothes, as they tend to have silhouettes that flatter my figure. But this shows off my boobs, hips, and ass to perfection.

I can’t wait for Felix to see me in it.

Lauren goes to shower and I flat iron my hair into smooth waves I hope a certain boy will find alluring. I’m interrupted by a FaceTime call from my dad.

I go out on the terrace to answer it. When I accept the call, he looks haggard.

Old.

It breaks my heart.

“Hey dear,” he says. “You look pretty.”

“Thanks. This cruise is so fancy. I have to doll myself up to fit in.”

“Had any fun adventures?”

I tell him about the cooking class and the otherworldly pineapple. I leave out Felix. After my meltdown over my breakup, my parents fear for me in any romantic relationship.

Their divorce no doubt has something to do with it. They’d been together since college and seemed happy my whole life. Until somehow, last year, they fell apart.

I still don’t understand why. No one cheated or had a midlife crisis. It just… stopped working. Just like that.

They had one of those love-at-first-meeting stories everyone longs for. It always gave me confidence in my own tendency to fall fast and hard. After all, they did, and for forty years, they were rock solid.

Now that seems naive.

It terrifies me that people can fall out of love as quickly as they can fall into it.

But it shouldn’t surprise me.

Not after what happened with Gabe.

Mom and Dad have already separated—they sold my childhood home in Burlington a few months ago and both moved to smaller apartments. Now the only thing left to do is empty out the cottage, put it on the market, and finalize their divorce.

They’ve divided up the month—two weeks each alone there to take what they want and split up the packing. Dad got the first shift.

“How are you holding up?” I ask him.

He blows out a breath. “A lot to do,” he says.

He’s dodging the real question. My parents are New Englanders to their core—kind and loving, but undemonstrative and uncomfortable talking about anything too personal. I credit my friendship with Lauren for helping me to open up. She only wants to talk about the personal.

“I don’t want to bother you on your vacation,” Dad says, “but I wanted to check in because I’m going to start packing up your room tomorrow. Wondering what you want to hold on to.”

He doesn’t need to tell me it can’t be much. Both of my parents’ apartments are small one-bedrooms. And there is not the slightest extra inch of storage space in my studio.

“Can you keep my quilt from Granny?” I ask.

“Of course. Anything else?”

“Hmm, let me think.”

I try to picture the room—the antique dollhouse my great-grandfather made for my mom. The handsewn cushions on the window seat. The old brass bed in which I have spent so many hours and days and weeks of my life reading.

The books.

My entire youth’s worth of books, many passed down over generations. Some so beloved that I have parts of them memorized.

It devastates me to think of them being tossed out.

“I have a small storage space in town,” Dad says. “I’ll keep the books for you.”

Tears spring into my eyes.

“Thank you.”

“Yep. All right, dear. I’ll let you go. Have fun.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

He hangs up before I can tell him I love him. My small, broken family makes me feel achingly lonely. I’m envious of Felix’s.

Maybe that’s part of his appeal.

Lauren emerges from the bathroom. “Oh no!” she exclaims. “Why are you crying? You’re going to mess up your makeup.”

I inhale, centering myself. “Just my parents,” I say. “My dad called and he looks and sounds terrible.”

She clucks sympathetically. She’s become close to my parents since her own father died our freshman year of college. She’s estranged from her mother, so I took her home with me for a week and we all gathered around her and helped her plan the funeral.

She and I were already best friends—we bonded the first day of school when she flounced into our randomly assigned dorm room and immediately gave me a makeover—but that week, she became family.

“They’re going to be all right, my love,” she says.

“I know. It just makes me sad to see them both so unhappy.”

“Well, we’re going to make you beautiful and then carbo load your pain away.”

She grabs a makeup remover wipe from the mess of cosmetics we’ve both strewn along the vanity table and gently dabs mascara away from my eyes. Then, biting her lip, she reapplies concealer with the skill of a professional makeup artist.

“Perfect,” she pronounces. “You just need the magical lipstick.”

She dabs it onto my lips.

“Ooh, hold still for a sec. That light is perfect.”

She snaps a picture of me with her phone and holds it up. It is indeed a beautiful photo.

“That could be my funeral portrait,” I observe.

She glares at me. “Stop being macabre and come on. It’s time to OD on pasta.”