Save yOurSelf
The Convey
OPINION: The Ocean Is Our Great Equalizer
(why the newest Atlantic disaster seems to spell K-A-R-M-A for the one percent)
Mike Grady
The Camerons—a family of four headed by television darling Lila Logan and business tycoon Francis Cameron—have been reported missing after their multimillion-dollar sailing yacht turned up eighty miles offshore without a single person onboard early in the morning of June 9. Authorities and reporters have leaped into extensive action. The Atlantic has already been tempestuous at the beginning of this year’s hurricane season. Potential upcoming storms have given the search a dangerous time component in an investigation reminiscent of theTitan, the infamous submersible that imploded with five passengers aboard on its way to see theTitanicwreck. The world had plenty to say about theTitanand its affluent victims, and this latest oceanic mystery has the potential to play out the same.
Francis and Lila Cameron both had modest childhoods, but thanks to the entertainment industry, the business world, and the good old Americandream, they have skyrocketed into the fraction of Americans who own multiple homes (Palm Beach villa, LA bungalow, and a sleek Aspen chalet, if anyone’s wondering), not to mention the multimillion-dollar sailing yacht that came up empty in the early hours of yesterday morning. While I’m not necessarily here to say that the Atlantic Ocean is doing a better job than God or taxes to rid us of the elite, I do want to pose a big-picture question while authorities are sussing out thehow did this happen?andwhere did they go?of it all. My question instead to you, dear reader, is this:Why the Camerons?
Chapter 2
Tia Cameron
Call sign: Thimble
The Day Before Departure
The Old Eileenwas waiting for Tia Cameron. She felt the ship’s magnetic pull as she stepped onto the dock of New Haven Marina. It was the way the waves must feel, building themselves up high only to race back to shore and shatter upon the sand.
An inevitability.
Sweat spread under the arms of her school uniform as she dragged her suitcase over the wooden slats of the dock and laid eyes on her family’s boat.
The Old Eileensat like a swan among sea gulls, her body streamlined, her gold lettering immaculate. She’d been swabbed and de-fouled until she shone a brilliant white and gave off a mild scent of chemical lime. She was as stunning as she’d been the day Tia’s father bought her when Tia and her twin brother, Rylan, were small.The Old Eileenhad been a part of their lives every summer since in the same way other families had ski lodges or beach homes.
But this trip would be different from all the ones that had come before. This was no childhood day-sail hugging the coast or vacation spent inside a bay. This trip would take themout to sea for a week to celebrate that high school was now behind them and the real world loomed ahead.
For Tia Cameron, this trip marked the end of something.
“My beautiful daughter!” a soprano voice chimed out from the deck of the ship.
Tia’s mother was poised at the stern on tiptoes, one hand on the back of her sun hat, the other tilting up her heart-shaped Saint Laurent sunglasses. The image made Tia think of the ship log she and Rylan used to keep, where they had given everyone onboard descriptions and call signs.
Lila Logan Cameron. Glamorous actress and mother of two.
Call sign: Cassiopeia.
Meaning: The mythic Greek queen who boasted so much that her daughter Andromeda ended up chained to a rock in monster-infested waters.
Or, as Rylan preferred,Cassiopea: the scientific genus for upside-down jellyfish. Beautiful. Lucid. Deadly.
The moment Tia crossed the catwalk and was in reach, Lila clasped her face, kissed her on both cheeks, and announced, “My darling girl, I am going to make you a drink. What would you like?”
“Anything but tea.”
Lila laughed. “Then a pair of strawberry daiquiris, coming right up! Put your suitcase in your room.”
Tia hoisted her suitcase to the ship’s companionway. “Okay, Mom.” She knew better than to halt the breathtaking momentum of Lila Logan.
The hatch to the companionway was open, sunshine streaming into the salon below. Tia lowered her suitcase down and climbed after it, then walked through the salon and the short hall to the center bedroom. Her brother’s stuff was already unpacked neatly in his half. Even his swim trunks had been folded. There wasn’t a maid onboard, but Tia couldn’timagine her unkempt, daydreamy brother taking the time to fold every article of clothing and swimwear.
And it wasn’t like her mother would have done it herself.
When Tia climbed back on deck in her polka-dot two-piece, Lila was draped across the chart house in a lavender shell-scoop bikini. She sat up long enough to hand her a glass of pink, sweet-smelling liquid before they lay back side by side.
