Page 33 of Total Dreamboat
Felix
I had hoped never to speak to Hope Lanover again.
Judging by the panicked way her eyes are darting between me and the departing ship, the feeling was mutual.
Hope is drenched with sweat and out of breath. She looks like she’s been crying.
In fact, she looks like she’s been crying for hours.
She looks like she’s having the worst day of her life.
She looks the way I feel.
“The boat left,” I say.
“Yes, I see that, obviously,” she snaps. She gestures to the kiosk. “Did you speak to someone? Is it coming back?”
“The guy at the information desk said there’s no way to get back on. We have to contact our embassies.”
“Oh, please,” she says, like I’m the greatest idiot who has ever lived. “It’s right there . I’m going to talk to him.”
I go sit on a bench and watch her have the same dead-end conversation I just had. She returns a few minutes later looking shell-shocked, carrying two pieces of paper.
She wordlessly hands me one of them.
It’s the contact details and hours for the British High Commission in Nassau.
The first thing I notice is that the office closed at five p.m.
“Is your embassy still open?” I ask Hope.
“Nope,” she says dully.
She looks so despondent that I almost feel bad for her.
“Fucking nightmare,” I say. I pull out my phone to google what to do if you’re stranded abroad with no identification. The low battery message pops up. The charge indicator is at six percent.
“Great,” I say. “My phone’s about to die.”
“At least you have one,” she mutters.
“What?”
“I forgot mine on the boat.”
A push alert pops up on my phone from my credit card company.
It’s a potential fraud notification asking me to verify a ￡3,201.22 charge.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
“What?” Hope asks.
“My wallet was stolen and now someone’s trying to use my card.”
Her eyes go wide. “Was your ID inside?”
“Yep.”
“So to recap,” she says. “We’re both stranded in a foreign country without our passports, and you have no money or ID, and I have no phone.”
“And my phone’s about to die, for good measure.”
“What do we do?” she asks.
I close my eyes. There are so many layers to this catastrophe that I’m not sure which problem to attempt to solve first.
And the fact that there’s a “we” here is not helping.
“I don’t bloody know,” I say.
We both stare off into middle distance, where we can still see the Romance of the Sea chugging serenely away.
“To be very clear,” she says. “I have no desire to be in your presence. However, under the circumstances, I think we need to work together. If you can convince yourself this isn’t part of my master plan to steal your fortune.”
I don’t have a choice. Hope may be a manipulative person, but she’s the only one I’ve got at present. And all she’s missing is her phone. I’m missing money and my entire identity. In the hierarchy of who is more fucked, I’m at the top.
“You’re right,” I say. “We need to team up.”
She rubs her temple with an air both tragic and weary.
“All right,” she says, “here’s the plan.
We’re not going to be able to apply for passports tonight.
And you’ll probably need to file a police report to document that your ID was stolen in order to get travel papers. So we need to find a police station.”
“Yes,” I say. “Which will require my phone not to die. So first, phone charger.”
She nods. “Let’s ask where the closest place to buy one is.”
The kiosk guy directs us to a shop on the high street across from the port. Hope buys a charger, and I ask the clerk if I can plug in my phone for a few minutes. We sit down on the floor next to an outlet. Hope is silent while I methodically cancel my credit cards.
A text message from my sister comes through.
Pear: Where are you? We’re waiting.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I forgot about the dinner. As an anniversary gift to my parents, I arranged a ten-course private tasting menu for my family tonight at the chef’s table. We’re due to meet for pictures with the cruise ship photographer beforehand.
My family is going to go mental. And I, once again, am the self-destructive twat who can’t be trusted not to destroy their happiness, even when I try to do something thoughtful.
I am awash in a shame I haven’t felt since about six months into my sobriety, when I finally began to believe I was worthy of earning back their trust.
It’s been a torturously slow process to rebuild it.
This will completely ruin my parents’ anniversary—my family’s whole trip—and it’s because of me.
“Don’t panic,” I type. “But I missed the boat.”
I immediately get a FaceTime call. I accept it to see my entire family, all of them trying to talk into the phone. The noise is cacophonous.
“I’m okay,” I say loudly. “It’s going to be fine. Please, calm down.”
They do not calm down.
“Pear, can you give the phone to Dad?” I ask.
My father rarely gets riled about anything—at least not on the surface. This can be a fault, but under these circumstances, I’m hoping his chill will reassure my mother and sisters.
“Felix,” he says, stepping away from their noise. “You’re still in Nassau?”
“Yeah. I’m so sorry. My wallet was stolen and I wasn’t able to get back in time.”
“So you have no money?”
“Nor identification. But Hope is here. Between the two of us, we should be able to figure it out.”
“Fine, good,” he says. I’m very glad I did not tell my family what happened between the two of us this morning. It was going to be self-evident eventually, and I didn’t want to talk about it.
If they knew, they would be even more worried about me.
“It might take a couple of days to get the travel documents in order,” I say. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“I’ll call Lord Shanks,” Dad says crisply. “He’ll have a contact at the High Commission. Perhaps something can be expedited.”
I wince. Hope can hear all of this. I’m not excited to add to her impression that I’m a coddled rich boy.
But the sooner this is solved, the better.
“Thanks,” I say. “Also, can you wire some cash tomorrow when you get to St. Martin?”
“Of course,” he says.
“You’ll probably need to send it to Hope since I don’t have ID. I’ll get you the details in the morning.”
“Very good. Take care, son.”
“I will. Tell Mum not to worry.”
He gives me a wry smile. “Your mum will be apoplectic. Nothing to be done about that.”
No. Nothing to be done.
I hang up and hold my phone out to Hope. “Do you want to call Lauren?”
She looks at me blankly, like she hasn’t heard me.
“I forgot,” she whispers.
“To call Lauren?”
“The press release. Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. What time is it?”
“Just after six.”
“Give me your phone.”
I hand it to her and she starts frantically tapping it, cursing. She looks like she might have a heart attack.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, just taps on the phone like she’s diffusing a bomb.
“Fucking finally,” she says, and dials a number. “Pick up pick up pick up.”
I hear an answer on the other end.
“Lana,” Hope says. “Thank God. Okay, are you at the office? Good. I need you to go over to my workstation and log in to my account. The password is DorotheaC@us@bon4598!.”
Over the next five minutes, I listen as she gives step-by-step instructions about something work related.
“Okay, it’s out? You’re sure?” she asks.
“Check for bouncebacks. We can’t miss anyone.
” She pauses, nodding. “You’re a rock star, thank you.
Listen, I’m stranded in the fucking Bahamas with no phone.
Yeah, I know. She’s going to kill me. Can you text me at this number if anything comes up?
I don’t know how long I’ll be offline. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Uh-huh. Bye.”
She ends the call and drops the phone in her lap, sinking back against the wall.
“What was that?” I ask.
“Oh, just me probably getting myself fired,” she says.
She bends over and puts her head in her hands.
She seems like she’s going to stay that way indefinitely and the minutes are ticking by, so eventually I say, “Um, well, if it’s all sorted, we should probably look into a hotel.
Book something before it gets too late.”
“Okay,” she says. “Let me just text Lauren first so she’s not looking for me.”
She takes my phone, types a few messages, and hands it back to me. I deliberately don’t look at what she’s written. I assume it’s something like “trapped with the goblin.”
I google hotel availability in the area. “Looks like there are rooms at a Marriott a short cab ride away,” I say. “I’ll just book—”
And then I realize I can’t book anything. I’ve already canceled my cards.
I clear my throat. “Erm, do you mind paying for it with your card? I’ll reimburse you as soon as Dad wires me money.”
She looks up from her shell-shocked stupor. “Who’s the gold digger now?”
“Yeah. I’m aware of the irony. But I thought we had a truce?”
“It’s fine,” she says. “Whatever.”
“I really appreciate it, Hope. I have no idea what I would do if you weren’t here.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, unmoved by my sincerity.
Well, whatever indeed. We don’t have to be friends. We just have to survive the night.
I give her the phone back so she can enter her card details. She lets out a bitter laugh.
“Felix. These rooms are over three hundred dollars a night with taxes and fees.”
“Like I said, I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”
“The problem is, my credit card is almost maxed out, I have nine hundred dollars in my bank account, and I don’t get paid until next week, assuming I even still have a job. It could take days to get documents. If for some reason wiring money doesn’t work out, I’ll be screwed if I spend this much.”
I try not to let my shock show.
Clearly I’m not successful, because she narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t look so horrified. We can’t all be heirs to the baronet.”
I refrain from pointing out that my relative financial stability has nothing to do with my family’s money, which I haven’t taken a quid of since school.
“Is there something cheaper?” I ask.
She scrolls through hotels. “Paradise Fun Guest House,” she says. “A hundred bucks a night before fees.”
“Sounds about right,” I say.
“There’s one room. We’ll have to share.”
I try to keep my face even. There is no point in conveying that I’d really rather sleep at the police station than in the same room as her. I can see by her expression she feels the same way.
“Is that okay with you?” I ask.
“Not really, but we don’t have a choice.”
“Right.”
She pulls out a card and books the hotel.