The Lion's Den(31)

I wiggle into my workout leggings. “Something tells me we don’t have much choice in the matter. At least you can use your phone in town.”

“Okay.” She throws the covers back. “For that I’ll get up. What happened last night? You were, like, doing some shit to the door.”

I hesitate. “Apparently they lock us in at night.”

Her eyes go wide. “What?”

“Yeah. Weird, right?”

“That’s so sketchy.” She shivers.

I couldn’t agree more.



Bernard and Vinny escort us on the tender to the mainland, their black suits incongruous with the bright day. We’re quiet as we skim across the glassy sea, too tired to bother raising our voices above the hum of the motor. I want to ask Wendy and Claire if their door was locked, too, but decide that for now it’s probably better not to rock the boat. Literally.

The Spin class is up a short path, in an open-air studio under a portico overlooking the sea. The teacher is a ripped Italian guy with an almost impenetrable accent, and I struggle to keep up, feeling like I’m slogging through mud for the first few songs. But the breeze is fresh, the view is incredible, and once I warm up, I’m actually glad I came.

By the time we finish, the day has begun to heat up. We wipe the sweat from our faces with cold, eucalyptus-scented washcloths and thread our way down the hill. As I fall into line behind Summer, I overhear Rhonda telling her what she really needs to do, if she wants to keep John, is to get pregnant. Summer grabs her by the elbow and pulls her aside as the rest of us file into the tiny café near the little dock.

I don’t know what Summer says to her, but when they join us in the café, Rhonda’s quiet. Summer peers over my shoulder as I shoot a pic of my espresso with the view in the background.

“Nice pic,” she says.

I know her friendliness is skin-deep, but I much prefer it to the alternative. “Thanks!”

We perch on a bench in the shade and sip our drinks. “Do you think Emmanuelle is pretty?” Summer asks.

“Which one is she?”

“You know, the short-haired crew girl that was flirting with John last night.”

“I mean, yeah. But not nearly as pretty as you.”

“You’re sweet,” she says. “She was throwing herself at him. Girls are always throwing themselves at him right in front of me. It’s so rude.”

“I don’t think she was…”

Brittani slides onto the bench and throws her arm around her big sister. “I’ll smack a bitch.”

“I don’t like her,” Summer muses. “I’m gonna have her fired.”

“I don’t know if that’s necessary,” I object. “I think she was just trying to do her job.”

“What are we talking about?” Wendy asks.

“The crew girl that was flirting with John last night,” Summer says.

“Oh, I didn’t notice.” Wendy cocks her head. “Which one?”

“The hot one with the short hair,” Brittani says.

“See? You think she’s hot,” Summer points out. “It’s a problem.”

“But you’re way prettier than she is,” Wendy reassures her. “I mean, look at you. You’ve just finished a Spin class and you’re glowing. You’re not even sweating. Do you have pores?”

“I knew I kept you around for a reason.” Summer laughs. “But I don’t know…She’s got that French thing going on. I think I’m gonna have to get rid of her.”

It’s clear nothing I say is going to change Summer’s mind, so I take the opportunity to slip away as the other girls feed her compliments. Not a game I feel like playing, even if we are here at her invitation. I sit on the steps that lead down to the dock and check my phone. Service is spotty, but my signal is strong enough that a message pops up letting me know my phone and watch have finished syncing with the cloud. God only knows what my data roaming charges are going to be, but without Wi-Fi, I have no choice but to use data.

I haven’t checked social media in over twenty-four hours, and I have a ton of notifications, mostly from people commenting on the photo of all of us girls on the steps of the jet (2,684 likes), and the photo of the shore from the tender (1,736 likes). I scroll through the comments, then check my in-box. Six new direct messages, but none of them are the one I’m looking for.

I click on Dylan’s profile. It’s empty, nothing but his first name and a profile picture of a mountain. No other info or pictures. He must be the last person of our generation that refrains from sharing his entire life on social media. Which is cool, but also annoying. Makes him really hard to Internet-stalk.

I click on the direct message icon and write:

Hi stranger! Somewhere off the Ligurian coast, headed to Saint-Tropez. You over here?



Then immediately delete it.

Maybe he hasn’t seen the pics I posted yet. He probably doesn’t check his feed much, though I know he does at least somewhat regularly, because he often likes my posts. I’ll wait one more day, and if he hasn’t written, I’ll write him.

I’m not unhappy to put it off—my feelings about seeing him are complicated, to say the least. Not to mention, the chances of Summer allowing it to happen are slim.