At that, Ashley started crying again.
“But I’ve got this,” I declared, meeting my dad’s eyes and giving him a nod. “I’m on it.”
“Great,” my mom said, ripping all her notes out of their pad and handing them to me. “The address is here. The seamstress is Yolanda.” She glanced over at Ashley. “Sweetheart, toss me that sunscreen.” Ashley tossed it, and my mom caught it one-handed without missing a beat, flipped open the cap, and started applying it to my shoulders. “You know,” my mom went on, “you don’t have to stay at the tailor’s. You could drop the dress off andthengo find Cooper.”
Sure. If he wasn’t already prop-planing his way across the Atlantic by now.
“Just as long as you make it back to the ship by four o’clock,” my mom said. “That’s when we shove off, and they won’t wait for you.”
“They won’t wait for you?” I asked.
She shook her head like she’d heard some horror stories. “They set sail when they set sail, and if you’re not here, they leave you behind. They’re very tough-love about it.”
“They really leave without people?” I asked.
My mom nodded.
“What if you’re literally running down the dock waving?”
But my mom just gave me a firm headshake, like we mustn’t even speak those words. Then she said, “Let’s not find out.”
Twenty-Six
I WAS HOPINGI might see Cooper once I made it ashore.
But I didn’t.
I did, however, see the three cruise dudes from the MSDecadencewhile waiting in line at the taxi stand. They were all, once again, wearing beer shirts:BEER ME, IT’S BEER O’CLOCK, andJUST HERE FOR THE BEER.
I stood behind them in the taxi line, holding Ashley’s dress—on its hanger, gently encased in a dry cleaner’s thin plastic bag—with the greatest respect. I can’t say for certain how many sheets to the wind the cruise dudes were at nine in the morning on this fine Wednesday, but I can tell you that they all three decided at one point to pee on the same clump of sidewalk weeds at the same time.
That’s not a visual you can unsee.
Near them, but not with them, was another guy in an island shirt and a straw pork-pie hat.
Bold choice.
I’ve never seen anyone pull off a pork-pie hat in real life. Have you? That’s a tough look.
I tried very hard to not particularly notice any of them and just enjoy the island breeze.
Especially when Pork Pie started trying to flirt with a woman who was both wearing noise-canceling headphones and clearly had no interest in talking to him. At all.
Read the room, Pork Pie!
It all started when he sidled up to her and asked, “Where are you headed?”
She didn’t reply.Because she was wearing noise-canceling headphones.
But rather than just put the pieces together and move on to some other activity, like crushing ants with his shoe, Pork Pie decided to act offended.
“Hello?” he said, waving his hand in her face until she saw him.
She gave what I think anyone would describe as an I-have-no-interest-in-talking-to-you faint smile, and then looked back down at her phone.
Dismissed.
Another opportunity for Pork Pie to find, ya know,anything elseto do.
