Chapter 22
More from the Guppy Gabber, Saturday:
Tammy Rae: Damn. If I’d known, I probably would’ve asked the cheerleader to do something else when she lost the bet.
Ed: Oh, shit. That blows. I wish I’d thought to leave the room before watching the video Jen sent me. But Janine was apologizing for messing everything up back in Jamaica, and I bought it. I’m an idiot.
*Rachel enters the confessional wearing a baseball hat, sits down, opens her mouth, leaves. A moment later, she enters again. She opens and closes her mouth, leans back, blinks, removes her hat, rubs her head, then walks out a second time.*
Oh, my god.
My heart pounded in my ears. My head swiveled from Justin to Dominic and back, waiting for someone to tell me this was the least funny joke ever. When no one replied, my eyes filled with tears. Poor Ariana. She was so young. Too young to have the next forty years snatched away from her. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like, being given my own expiration date at this point in my life.
I sniffled. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I feel terrible for her.”
“That’s why we were so surprised to see your shaved head.” Justin said. “I wondered if you’d figured out she’s been wearing a wig all week. The treatments made her hair fall out.”
Just when I didn’t think anything could make me feel worse. “Oh, no. I had no idea.”
He said, “The ‘service’ she and Dominic were talking about is her funeral, not a wedding. And she’s so thin because the medication makes her sick. She can’t keep anything down.”
“Why would she tell you all this when she was keeping it secret from everyone else?” I asked.
“Remember when I got hit by the golf ball?”
How could I forget? Ignoring the growing queasiness in my stomach, I nodded.
“I went to the infirmary. On my way out, I overheard her talking to one of the doctors. She didn’t know I was there. In fact, when she came out and saw me standing there, she looked horrified.”
“When you saw me hugging her on the balcony, that was about comfort, not sex,” Dominic said. “Sometimes, she needs a shoulder to cry on.”
That all made sense, but one thing still bothered me. “Then why were you kneeling between her legs?”
“Pain killers,” Justin said. “She needs shots, and only a nurse can give them. But she didn’t want anyone to see the track marks, so she gets them in her upper thigh. We spent all day Wednesday talking while you two were in Jamaica. That morning in our room, she came in looking for Dominic because he hadn’t arrived at her suite to give the medication. That’s why she was wearing a robe.”
“You said they had a couples’ massage planned.”
“I couldn’t tell you the truth then, but now the cat’s out of the bag.”
My mind flashed to Monday, during the bake-off. I’d wondered why she went tanning in a knee-length skirt. And now I knew. All the air rushed out of me. “Oh, no.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Dominic said.
Ignoring him, I turned to Justin. “Did you give her the shot while we were in Jamaica?’
“No way. She went to the infirmary.”
The growing pit in my stomach turned into a chasm. “I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”
He swallowed. “I know how miserable she made you in the house. Made both of us. She never made any secret about hating you. And her joke about the baby on Sunday was in horribly bad taste. She shouldn’t have done that. I get why you don’t like her.”
“Don’t like” was a massive understatement, but I didn’t correct him. It didn’t matter any more.
“Still, I’ve spent a lot of time with her this week, and she’s sorry for the way she behaved, both in the house and on Sunday. She’s trying to make amends. Can you say the same?”
My face grew warm. “I never should’ve sunk to her level. Or what I thought was her level. After we made up, I should’ve left well enough alone. I’m so sorry, Justin.”
“I get it. You didn’t know. But I’m not the one you need to apologize to. Go find Ari.”
Biting my lip, I nodded. “I will. I have to make this right.”
* * *
My feet pounded against the deck, but Ariana had a head start. I raced to the elevators, hoping she was still waiting. No one stood in the foyer when I got there. The elevators on this ship moved at the speed of drunk turtles, so I went for the stairs, hoping I could race down and catch her before she exited.
At each landing, I paused, listening for a telltale ding. No luck at the fourteenth, thirteenth, and twelfth floors. When I got to the eleventh floor, the doors of the middle elevator opened to reveal an elderly couple, probably en route to their cabin: this floor contained nothing in the way of entertainment. No one else stood in the tiny space.
Maybe she’d taken the bank of elevators at the far end of the ship instead. Not knowing what else to do, I raced across the ship to see if she were over there. A sign for the gym and spa sent me dashing up three flights, but to no avail. She was gone, and I had no idea where to find her. It would take the rest of the cruise to search the ship end to end.
For the first time all week, not a single member of the production staff stood within my sight. Of course not. They were probably all in the control room, celebrating what a great show this would make. Under my breath, I cursed my luck. Then I spotted a couple of passing members of the cruise staff, wheeling a cart full of linens toward the elevator.
“Have you seen a tall, very thin woman with dark skin and long black hair come this way?” I asked, desperate. One of them was Julio, from the buffet. The other wore a tag identifying him as Hamid from Tehran. I hoped he spoke English. “Impossibly beautiful?”
“No, but I wish I had,” Hamid said.
“Come on,” Julio said, “you’d never get a woman like that in a million years. Me, on the other hand—”
“So you haven’t seen her?” I didn’t have time to listen to their banter, witty as they thought they were. “Ariana? One of the reality show contestants? She was on The Fishbowl with me.”
They both stared blankly at me. I was about to leave when Hamid spoke again. “I’m afraid we don’t get a lot of time to watch television while we’re working, ma’am. There are no televisions in our cabins.”
Her cabin. Duh. I knew how to get to Ariana’s cabin now. Why had I wasted time searching half the ship for her? To think they called me the smart one. If I ran from the Lido Deck sobbing after being humiliated on national television, hiding in my room made a lot more sense than slinking to the back of the theater or something.
No one responded when I knocked, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in there. Besides, there was more than one way to get her to talk to me: what were adjoining balconies for if not stalking the archenemy you inadvertently destroyed? Using my key card, I slipped through the dark room Justin and I occupied earlier and out onto the deck.
Sure enough, quiet sobbing reached my ears. Shame washed over me. “Ariana?”
No response.
“Look, I’m sorry. Dominic and Justin told me everything.”
“Go away!” She yelled over the partition. “I hate you. You’ve ruined everything.”
Going away was not part of the plan, not after I spent half an hour tracking her down. And not after I’d realized how insufferable I’d been. There may be no excuse for my behavior, but I needed to try to make things right.
The adjoining door between balconies, not surprisingly, was locked. But if I were extremely careful, I could climb around the partition. As long as she didn’t shove me off into the ocean. The lowest end of the wall came up to my ribcage. Hoisting myself onto it would be doable, but if I slipped, I’d find myself plummeting face first toward open water. That wouldn’t work at all. If accidentally killing myself would make Ariana forgive me, I didn’t want to know.
A flash of inspiration struck, and I dragged one of the deck chairs up against the partition, placing the back against the wall separating me from the sea. Standing on the chair gave me a full view of the balcony next to ours. My breath caught in my throat.
Ariana was on the balcony, as expected. However, instead of standing on firm ground or sitting safely in one of the chairs, she sat on top of the wall, gazing out over the water.
“What are you doing?” I said slowly. The last thing I wanted was to make any sudden moves or sounds that might send her toppling forward.
“I said, ‘go away.’ Or do you suck at following directions as much as everything else you do?”
I bit back a sarcastic reply. She didn’t mean it. Okay, well, she probably did, but I still couldn’t leave until I knew she was okay.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Not until you come down off that ledge.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I can’t believe Justin and Dominic told you. I should sue Dominic, or report his ass.”
“He didn’t really say anything. It was mostly Justin. Ariana, I had no idea. I’m so sor—”
“Don’t.” She lifted one hand, cutting me off. “Just don’t. Let’s not pretend we’re friends now. You never liked me.”
“Nope. And you never liked me. But I don’t want you to die. And I certainly don’t want you to kill yourself. You’ve still got three months left to live your life. Please come onto the balcony.”
Moving slowly so I wouldn’t scare her, I swung my left leg over the wall, leaving me straddling the partition between the balconies, my back to the ocean. The wind shoved me toward the ship, leaving me hugging the dividing wall, and I sent up a prayer of gratitude that it wasn’t blowing in the opposite direction.
The good news: I couldn’t see the drop. The bad news: Short of falling onto my butt, I also didn’t see a good way to get to the ground from here. I’d have to kind of stretch for the deck and hope for some long-overdue good luck.
While Ariana’s attention was on the ocean rather than on me, I slid to the ground, bringing my right leg around the wall and landing with a hard thud on the deck.
Thanks to my death grip on the wall, I stayed upright. There. At least we could talk while on the same patio. And I was safe, but Ariana still needed to move out of the wind before it shifted or the boat changed direction.
She sat, still as a statue, staring at me with her face in a perfect mask. Only her red eyes betrayed how she felt.
“Ariana, please come down from there.”
“Why bother? Are you worried if I jump, everyone will think you pushed me?” She let out a peal of laughter. “Oh, that would be perfect, wouldn’t it? If I’m going to die either way, at least I could take you down when I go. Or maybe I could grab you and we could go over the edge together.”
We stood on the eighth floor of the ship. Other than the main levels, the ceilings here weren’t quite as high as a normal house, so a fall wouldn’t exactly be as bad as jumping off a skyscraper. A person might survive the drop, but I didn’t want to find out what it felt like to hit water at this distance.
Using another chair for balance, I slowly climbed onto the wall to sit next to her. Not too close, since I still didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. But close enough that we could talk without screaming over the wind. As long as the boat didn’t sway or turn, we’d be fine.
“Ariana, listen,” I said. “No, we’re not friends. But you have friends who care about you. Friends like Dominic.”
“Dominic isn’t my friend. He’s being paid to hang out with me.”
“Maybe that’s how it started, but he definitely cares now. I see it in his eyes.”
“Whatever. He’s only here as part of the show,” she said. “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t know he was coming in advance. When the Network invited me on the show, I was in the hospital. My agent told them I’d need a caregiver, and they set it up. I didn’t know who he was to you until we ran into his ex-wife at the purser’s desk while getting upgraded to this suite.”
I didn’t want to believe her, but she gained nothing at this point from lying. And I certainly wouldn’t put it past the show to invite people on the cruise purely to create drama. “Either way, he likes you now. Madison cares about you, too. Rachel. Even Justin.”
“Oh, yeah? Where are they? Why aren’t they here, trying to talk me down off this ledge? Whose brilliant idea was it to send you?”
I forced myself not to roll my eyes. Voluntarily talking to Ariana was like a sleeping bear inviting a stick to poke it. “I asked them to let me come apologize. I feel horrible for what I did. I misinterpreted everything in the video. I didn’t have a clue that you were sick. But honestly, if I’d known I’d find you sitting on this wall, I’d have sent someone you don’t hate to talk you down.”
“I don’t want your pity,” she said.
“It’s not pity. It’s empathy. Twenty-three is too young to die, and even though I’ll probably never like you, I didn’t want any of this.”
She turned her head away from me, white knuckles clutching the top of the wall. Good. Maybe she didn’t want to die, after all. “All I ever wanted was to be famous, you know? I thought my good looks would get me acting jobs, but there are lots of pretty girls out there. Then I thought Daddy’s money could help. And it did, a little: a few bit parts in a few crappy movies.”
“I watched all of those movies,” I said. “To see you.”
“Oh, yeah? They sucked.” She was right, so I didn’t respond. “I suck. I’m a terrible actress. I’m not good at anything.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “You make an excellent reality TV villain. Much better than J-Dawg.”
The one thing almost everyone on The Fishbowl agreed on was that Joshua made a complete fool of himself trying to act like the bad guy. My words had their intended effect on her.
Ariana grinned at me before responding in a perfect imitation. “Whaddup, losers? The J-Dawg is here to stay, so all the imposters gotta play!”
Any other time, her impression would’ve cracked me up. I was too tense to laugh. Still, her joke seemed like a good sign. Maybe I could get her to turn around and come inside with me after all.
“I really didn’t know you were sick,” I said. “And I know I shouldn’t have sent that video to Ed, but he never would have displayed it. No one’s seen Janine since that day in Jamaica. I had no idea he and Connor finally tracked her down, at the worst possible moment.”
“I believe you. I guess it’s just not my year.” She paused. “You probably won’t believe me now, but I really did come to the cruise to make amends. Kind of like a twelve-step program for the dying.”
Since she was perched on the edge of the wall, I didn’t want to piss her off, so I chose my next words carefully. “You have a strange way of showing it.”
“I’m such a mess,” she said. “The thing in the hall with the baby? That was a joke. A bad joke, but yeah . . . for some reason, whenever I’m near you, I see red. My brain takes a vacation. You’re so smart and pretty and everyone likes you and no one ever likes me. All I want is to bring you down, and I don’t care what it takes.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “the feeling is one hundred percent mutual. For a second, I really wanted to share that video. If I hadn’t been tempted, none of this would have happened.”
“Don’t feel too bad,” she said. “If I had something like that, I’d have shared it in a heartbeat.”
“That doesn’t surprise me even a little bit.”
“Best enemies forever?”
“I guess so.”
She sighed, running one hand through her hair before yanking it off her head. I’d almost forgotten Justin said she was wearing a wig. “I hate this thing, you know. Screw it. Let’s all be bald together.”
When she chucked it off the side of the ship, I burst out laughing. Never in a million years would I have guessed Ariana Sassani would voluntarily walk around bald in public, especially in front of TV cameras.
“You’re still one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen,” I said. “Hair or no hair.”
“Thanks. I know.”
The ship lurched.
Voices shouted overhead, and I turned to see Justin and Dominic waving from the deck a few floors above us. I couldn’t make out their voices over the wind, but I’m smart enough to guess they said something like, “Don’t be stupid. Get off that wall and come inside where it’s safe.”
I pointed and waved. “See? And your friends are on the deck, waiting to have a drink with you and watch a movie under the stars and make some memories. What do you say we go find them?”
“Will you be there?”
I sighed, but it wasn’t like I wanted to hang out with her, anyway. All I wanted was to go home. “Not if you don’t want me to be.”
She thought for a second. “I guess you can stay, as long as you and Justin aren’t playing kissy face.”
“I think we can manage that.” I didn’t move, holding my breath, waiting for her to turn around before I climbed down myself.
Before she could decide, the ship lurched, throwing us both off balance. Ariana put one hand over her mouth and heaved. Vomit poured through her fingers, into her lap. She swayed and fell to one side. She caught herself on the wall, but then heaved forward, sending another wave of vomit into the wind.
Above us, a scream split the air.
My blood ran cold, and the world slowed. If she went over the edge, it would be my fault. And as much as I loathed her, I didn’t want to see her dead. Not now, and not in a few months. Poor Ariana. The past year with Justin’s mother had really given me a newfound respect for living life to the fullest, but Ariana would never get that chance. Especially not if she fell overboard.
The ship lurched again. Ariana rolled forward, toward the open water. Without thinking, I lunged for her. At the same instant, she caught herself. The ship rocked backward. Ariana rolled off the wall, into the room. My fingers brushed the fabric of her shirt as I flew past her. My fists closed on absolutely nothing. And then I realized my mistake in trying to grab her without grounding myself first.
Sitting on the edge of the balcony wall, my momentum propelled my upper body away from the ship. My ass came up off the wall. Too late, I tried to pull myself back. My arms scrambled, seeking anything to grab, but my fingers closed only on the open air in front of me. With nothing to hold onto, I tumbled over the side of the railing, hurtling toward the open sea below.