The Unsinkable Greta James(57)

“You were brilliant,” he said simply.

The picture had appeared online the next day. The photographers were mostly there for the band going on after her, far more famous at the time than Greta, so it hadn’t gotten much pickup. But later, once the album came out and interest in her romance with the handsome Aussie producer started to be of greater interest, the photo resurfaced.

And now here it is again: under a headline that inexplicably announces her engagement to Luke Watts.

She takes the phone from Ben and stares at it.

“That’s not…” she says, then starts again. “I’m not…”

“Then why would they say that?”

“I don’t know,” she says, pushing the phone back into his hand. She starts to walk along the rail of the ship, not exactly sure where she’s going. “Because they’re trying to get you to click.”

He follows her. “Well, there must be some truth to it. Or else why would they—”

“Ben,” she says, spinning around. “I’m obviously not engaged.”

His face is hard. “Maybe that’s not as obvious as you think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs. “We only just met. How would I know if you’re really—”

“You’re one to talk,” she says, sparking with sudden anger. She pushes open the door to the inside of the ship, her ears ringing as she leaves the rushing wind behind. “You’re the one who’s married.”

“That’s different.”

“Yeah,” Greta says, “it’s worse.”

“We’re separated,” Ben hisses as they pass a family on their way to the buffet. Greta ignores him, continuing down the red-carpeted hallway toward the elevators. “And that’s not really the point here. I don’t think it’s crazy to see a headline like this and wonder if my—”

“Your what?” she asks without turning around. At the elevators, she hits the button too hard. Ben appears at her side, blocking the doors.

“Are you seriously so immature that we can’t even talk about this?”

“I guess so,” she says, and when the bell dings and the door opens behind him, she raises her eyebrows. “Are you seriously so immature that you’re not going to let me on?”

With a look of profound disappointment, he steps to the side, and Greta hurries into the elevator. She presses the button for the seventh floor, her heart pounding faster than it should, and for reasons she can’t quite explain. Ben’s face, as he stands there, is caught somewhere between baffled and disappointed.

“For the record, I’m not engaged to anyone,” she says, and then, right before the doors close, she adds: “It’s just me.”

All the way up, those last few words thrum through her head. She’s not even sure why she said them, but she feels them all the same, deep in her bones, in some true and unexamined place.

It’s just her.

In her room, she takes out her phone, which she’d turned off earlier to save the battery. As it powers up, it begins to buzz madly with notifications. The texts pile up one after another, from Howie and Cleo, from her agent and publicist, even from Atsuko and Nate. There’s one from Asher that says, It’s not true, right? and another from Yara that says, This better be fake news.

There’s nothing at all from Luke.

She switches off the phone again, her heart thumping, and peels off her hiking pants and sweatshirt, throwing on the same black dress she’d worn the first day. Then she grabs her jean jacket, stuffs her feet into a pair of Vans, and walks with purpose back down the hallway, as if she knows exactly where she’s going, as if she ever does.

To get off the ship, she has to show her plastic passenger ID card to one of the officers, who scans it on a computer, then gives her a sharp nod. “Make sure you’re back by six p.m.,” she says, and Greta starts to walk out into the sunlight. But after a few steps, she turns back.

“What happens if I’m not?”

The officer looks surprised. “Well, the ship leaves without you.”

“And then what?”

“You either find your way to the next stop, or you go home,” she says, then adds with a grin, “Or I guess maybe you live here now.”

It’s nearly four, and the water is glinting in the late-afternoon sunlight as Greta walks along the harbor. At the end of the pier, two kids in wellies are selling bait from a metal bucket. A fishing boat glides into the bay, tiny against the backdrop of the cruise ship. Everything feels muted by the impossible scope of the landscape around them, and she imagines what it would be like to actually live in a place like this, to wake every morning in a little red house huddled beneath the enormous sky and the towering mountains.

Greta finds it almost painful sometimes to think about all the different lives she could be leading, to know that every choice she’s made has meant the loss of so many other possibilities. Every day, more doors close. Without even trying, simply by moving forward, you end up doubling down on the life you’ve chosen. And the only way to survive is to commit to it fully, to tell yourself it’s the right one. But what if that’s not true?

Closer to town, a little girl has set up a lemonade stand with a plate of Oreos and a jar for tips. At her feet, a husky puppy is chewing on an antler like something right out of an ad campaign for the state of Alaska.