Neverworld Wake(21)
So what were they up to? And why did the question fill me with such dread?
* * *
—
I had thirty-three minutes.
There were forty-seven minutes between the time I woke up in the Jaguar and the time the Last Hurrah cast off for Bermuda. By minute thirty-three it was too late. There were too many crew members buzzing around not to be spotted. I was caught a million times.
“Excuse me? Who are you?”
“Hey!”
“You’re not authorized to be here.”
“Is this the Dream Weaver?”
“Is this Cleopatra III?”
“I’m looking for Captain Martin. I’m his niece.”
I’d leave, stuttering apologies, ignoring the looks of suspicion as I snuck back to my truck. I’d watch as Wit and Cannon boarded that same yacht and took off into the open sea.
My only hope lay in immediately, the instant I woke, grabbing Cannon’s car keys and sprinting to his Mercedes—twice as fast as my truck—taking a shortcut along a dirt service road, and barreling ninety miles an hour through marshes and sand into the Davy Jones’s Locker marina.
I’d park behind a tree and speed-walk to the small cruiser beside Last Hurrah, where, pretending to be boarding that boat, I’d wait for the teenage deckhand to check his cell phone, at which point I had twenty seconds to dash up the steps and duck into the first door I came to. It led into an ornate game room with a jukebox and pinball machines. I then had fifteen seconds to slip up three flights to the staterooms and vanish into the bedroom at the end of the hall.
It overlooked the marina. It was there that, by cracking the window, I was able to eavesdrop on the outrageous scene—or, rather, con job. Whitley and Cannon, posing as newly married college sweethearts from Columbus, Ohio, had just been informed of a critical problem with their rented yacht, thereby leaving their honeymoon in tatters. Loudly they lamented their plight, which happened to be overheard by the owner of Last Hurrah, Ted Daisy of Cincinnati, who invited the poor young couple aboard.
“Why don’t you spend the week with us? Plenty of room here for everybody.”
“That’s very kind, sir,” said Cannon. “But we couldn’t.”
“Nonsense. The downside is you’ll spend your honeymoon with a bunch of old geezers. But we promise to stay out of your way. You’ll have a chef, an activities director, and a range of toys at your disposal.”
“What do you say, sugar?” Cannon asked Whitley.
She nibbled a fingernail. “I’m not sure, honeybun.”
I marveled at the way they had their act down, like a couple of seasoned Broadway tap dancers. How many wakes had it taken them to figure out the perfect formula for eliciting the invitation to board the yacht? Ten? Ten thousand?
“You kids are coming with us. I insist on it. Ted Daisy. This is my wife, Patty.”
“Artwell Calvin the third,” said Cannon.
“Anastasia Calvin,” said Whitley, shaking her head. “I really don’t know what I did in a previous life to deserve such kindness. I think I’m going to cry.”
* * *
—
What had I expected aboard the Last Hurrah? A relaxed vacation cruise? A beautiful, distracting dream where Whitley and Cannon could forget the Neverworld?
That wasn’t it. Not at all.
I should have known. Their relationship at Darrow had always been incendiary. They had sex in closets and classrooms, on rooftops, in the woods, on the balcony of the chapel, never once getting caught. They stalked hallways with their arms around each other like boa constrictors, students and teachers alike eyeing them nervously, though no one complained. They were in the top five of our class, after all. Whitley talked about their love as an insatiable need. I saw it as a lethal bullet speeding toward a target. Whether that target was one of them or some unsuspecting third party, I had no idea. They fought, made up, hated each other, couldn’t live without the other for even one second.
They called each other Sid and Nancy. They stole things for fun. Anything on campus, no matter how big or small, could be targeted, like Mrs. Ferguson’s AP Physics exams; a $12,000 seascape from an art gallery; Rector Trask’s XXL tartan vest, which he notoriously donned for Darrow’s Holiday Feast; even a John Deere excavator from the library construction site. They’d help themselves to whatever it was, resulting in a weeklong uproar of faculty announcements and threats of expulsion, a few unsuspecting students being summoned into a dean’s office to detail what they knew—until, with equal quiet and swiftness, the object reappeared. Their knack for burglary was not due to the usual reasons for acting out, like anger or some perverse craving for attention. It was a simple love for the art of deceit—being a step ahead of everyone—not to mention their ongoing need to outdo each other.
Everyone whispered they’d be legendary if they stayed together. I secretly thought their connection was too close, like twins. Cannon didn’t have Whitley’s temper, but he had her intensity and knack for manipulation, dropping a word here, an inference there, that would be the gram of uranium to turn a benign situation nuclear. They broke up couples, made teachers cry. When they finally called it quits senior year, their breakup was eerily silent, a biological weapon that had abruptly dispelled with hardly any smoke, defying all scientific explanation.