This rom-com debut has the fierce girl energy of the movie Booksmart, blended with the awkwardness of Kelly Quindlen’s Late to the Party, topped with a thrilling international meet-cute a la Love and Gelato.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and the first two chapters from Lauren Kay‘s We Ship It, which is out now!
Olivia Schwartz has a plan. It’s even color-coded.
And the plan is this: a perfect SAT score, a prestigious college, and a straight path towards her dream of becoming a doctor.
The last thing she wants to do—the summer before her senior year of high school, no less—is go on a cruise. Especially with her parents, younger brothers, and all the unspoken things between them since her older brother’s death so many years ago.
Then Olivia meets Sebastian. He’s everything she’s not: charming, exciting, willing to take risks and run with them. For the first time, Olivia feels like she can have fun…
But there’s a lot bubbling up under the surface on this cruise, and when past secrets begin to come to light, Olivia must face all the truths that she’s ignored for so long: about herself, Sebastian, her brother, the past she thought she understood, and the future she’s always planned.
ONE
TWO DAYS BC (BEFORE CRUISE)
I turned my computer screen so my parents could easily see the title slide of my just-completed PowerPoint presentation: a cruise ship behind a very large red X.
I had hastily thrown the whole lecture together in the three hours since my parents had oh so casually dropped the world’s worst news on me.
They had booked a spring break cruise for our family.
It left in two days.
I cleared my throat. “A list of reasons why Olivia Schwartz should not be forced without her consent onto a weeklong spring break cruise.”
My parents looked up at me with mildly bemused expressions as I clicked on the next slide, featuring a Brown University pennant and a photo of my tattered College Board prep book, which I had already completed three times.
“I could be studying to retake the SATs.”
“Objection,” my dad interrupted, raising a finger in the air. “You scored in the ninety-ninth percentile.”
“Objection overruled,” I said, rolling my eyes at his inability to ever turn off lawyer speak. “You know what’s better than a score in the ninety-ninth percentile? A score in the one hundredth percentile.”
“I don’t think that’s even possible, sweetie,” my mom said.
“Regardless.” I hit the remote, and the screen flashed to a photo of two sad-looking marooned baby sea lions.
“Do you recognize the massive damage the cruise industry is causing to our environment and marine life? And how by going on this cruise, we are offering our complicit support for that destruction with our wallets?”
“I don’t think winning Temple Beth Shalom’s Hanukkah raffle is going to mutilate any baby sea animals,” my dad said with a wry smile.
Stupid Temple Beth Shalom and their stupid raffle.
“Okay, well, have you considered—” I clicked on the next slide: a photo of three teens lying on a beach, smoking what I believed to be a joint.
“Drugs? So many drugs. And alcohol. Are there even laws about this at sea?”
I saw my dad bite back a smile as my mom crossed her arms. “Yes, yes there are.”
I should have seen that one coming. Questioning my two lawyer parents about, you know, the law was an amateur move on my part.
I clicked again, powering faster through the rest of the slides. “Boats. Water. What if I get thrown overboard? Death would be all but certain. And speaking of—the Titanic. History is known to repeat itself. Finally, fires. What do you even do if a boat catches fire—leap into the ocean? I don’t think so. See point one—”
I could tell I was losing my parents’ attention, so I jumped to the final slide, a blown-up version of my yearbook photo. It was the one day of the year I had wasted a precious fifteen minutes of sleep in order to get up and blow-dry my hair and dab on undereye concealer. I generally didn’t care about that kind of stuff, but I knew how far high school photos could go. I didn’t want my legacy to include seventeen-year-old me with bedhead and giant raccoon circles under my eyes. A photo like that could come back to haunt you in the future that you are so carefully crafting for yourself.
“In conclusion, I am a perfectly behaved, responsible child. Why would you want to risk—excuse the bad pun—rocking that boat?”
My dad stepped around the table and laid a hand on my shoulder. “You are a wonderful child, who is clearly in desperate need of a vacation,” he said, giving my shoulder a squeeze.
“Says who?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“Says the ten-page PowerPoint presentation you just put together for fun. I think it’s time you put aside technology for a few days and just . . . relax.”
Ugh, relax—my least favorite word in the English language. With travel trailing right behind. I didn’t get why people got so excited about relaxing and traveling. What about their own lives was so bad that they needed to escape? I was perfectly content with my meticulously organized, fully booked, and color-coded daily schedule, thank you very much.
A schedule that included the science research fair my best friend, Shruti, and I were entering in ten days. The one I’d scheduled into my calendar two years earlier.
“I just don’t get why we have to go now. You know I have the research fair next week. The one that Dr. Klober is judging.” Every year, Dr. Klober offered the winning team an extremely prestigious internship. I needed that internship. Without it, I didn’t stand a chance at my dream program—Brown’s eight-year combined undergraduate and med school program, which boasted a less than 5 percent acceptance rate. I felt butterflies whenever I pictured myself on the beautiful Providence campus, my boots leaving footprints in a fresh coat of snow as I sprinted from a lecture to a lab. All taught by top medical professors and researchers, of course.
“Sorry, hon, but we just realized the tickets we won expire this month. The cruise is all booked, and I think our family is overdue for a vacation.”
I snorted. That couldn’t be more of an understatement. My parents were infallible when it came to scheduling appointments and behavioral aides and preschool performances for my five-year-old twin brothers, Matt and Justin. But when it came to vacation? Leisure time? They were 100 percent genetically related to me. Which is why trips always got pushed to the last minute—and then never booked.
Except for this one. They had managed to book the last possible cruise date the voucher allowed—which left in forty-eight hours.
“But then I won’t get to meet Dr. Klober, and I won’t get that internship, which means I won’t get into Brown and—”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down there, Ms. Worst-Case Scenario,” my dad said, cutting me off. “What if you work on the research on the cruise and have Shruti present for your team?”
“But I still won’t get to meet Dr. Klober, which is the entire reason I want to go.” I had emailed her a few times, letting her know how interested I was in the internship and expressing how much I was looking forward to meeting her at the fair. It would look horrible and unprofessional of me to just not show up. Very much not ideal-future-intern behavior.
“What if I stay home and watch Mr. Snuggles Factory? You know how much separation anxiety he suffers from, which causes his eye infection to flare up and—”
“Olivia, you know Doug and Karen have watched Mr. Snuggles Factory many times before. He will be just fine for a week. He is a cat.” My mom got up and picked up a folder from the counter. She opened it up and then pulled out a pamphlet, which she slid across the table to me. “Take a look at all the fun events the Regal Islands offers, on and off the ship.”
I glanced down at the glossy paper, which was filled with clearly staged photos, an array of smiling, fake families. My mom was still staring at me, so to humor her, I flipped to the next page, which listed all the ports the cruise would be docking at, over the course of nine days. The first, second, fourth, and last days were spent at sea. The other days were spent at different islands—St. Kitts, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbados . . .
But when I got to the final port, every blood vessel in my heart coiled up.
Antigua.
When I was younger, my parents didn’t get home from work until nine or ten at night. My brother Logan—who was six years older than me—was left in charge, which meant that the majority of our meals came out of bright red cardboard packages.
But these meals were anything but boring. We would dress up in the fancy clothes reserved for our cousins’ bar mitzvahs, and Logan would act as my waiter. Some days we did “dinner and a show,” which involved a very quick meal followed by our two-person musicals—usually Rent, but occasionally Annie or Les Mis.
When I came home from third grade after a bad day—I was bullied a lot that year, for always shouting out the answers and for being a good six inches shorter than the rest of the class—Logan immediately knew something was wrong. At dinner, he arrived downstairs with an eye patch, a cardboard sword, and a bandanna wrapped around his fiery-red hair.
“Aye, matey,” he greeted me, tapping me lightly with the end of his sword. “On tar-night’s menu, we have mozz-ARRR-ella flatbread”—Celeste pizza—“and h-ARRRs d’oeuvres”—frozen hot dogs.
“Cap’n Plank” served our dinner on our parents’ forbidden china plates. (I always made sure to wash them extra carefully when we were done; Logan never failed to break something when he was on dish duty.)
After I had cleared the plates, Logan smiled at me, his eyes gleaming. “When you take over the world as CEO of”—he swung his makeshift sword around, until it was pointing directly at our discarded pizza boxes—“Celeste pizza, you will . . .”
“Live in a castle with one wing just for cats and . . .”
“One wing for me. And at night . . .”
“We’ll star in Rent at the theater we own. And during the days we’ll . . .”
“Float in the sea. And explarrre shipwrecks!”
“You can do that,” I said, wrinkling my nose, already feeling claustrophobic. “I’ll watch you from the shore.”
“We shall do it—strapped togetharrr!”
Knowing Logan, he would find some way to convince me. He was the courageous one, the spontaneous one, the one willing to try anything once. I was the cautious one, but when I was with him, I took risks.
“Where is our castle, though?” I asked. We had told so many different versions of this story, but by the time I was eight, I was a Planner. I didn’t care how fantastical the plan was; it just needed to be concrete.
So Logan led me into our parents’ office. He sat down in my dad’s giant leather desk chair, closed his eyes, and spun the globe on the desk. Then he placed his finger on the revolving sphere, opened his eyes, and pronounced:
“Antarctica? Hell no!”
I laughed and Logan spun again, this time landing on Russia.
Finally, Logan gave up on letting fate decide and instead examined the globe until he found a group of islands. Then he put his finger on one of the tiny specks.
“We’ll live in Antigua.”
“Antigua,” I repeated with a smile. I loved how easily the name rolled off my tongue, the comforting, neat way it started and ended with the same letter.
“It’s a plan,” I said, extending my hand to Logan.
Over the years, we’d added on more and more to the story, putting up photos of Antigua’s white-sand beaches on our walls and begging our parents every Hanukkah for tickets.
But we never got to go to Antigua.
Logan died two days before my eleventh birthday.
I looked back up at my parents. At the tufts of soft gray hair on my dad’s head that seemed to be inching farther and farther back each year. The permanent crease between my mom’s eyebrows—one I already had a faint but noticeable matching imprint of. They looked tired—not just normal tired, but life tired.
“Fine. I’ll go.”
My parents exchanged a look. “That was a quick change of heart,” my dad said.
I shrugged. “I assume I don’t have any say in the matter, anyway.” I hesitated, briefly considering whether I should bring up the real reason I had agreed to go so quickly. But I decided against it, wanting to avoid the awkward tension that filled the air whenever I brought up Logan, how my mom always found a way to change the subject.
My mom gave me a small smile. “I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the trip. They have so many great activities for teens.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I highly doubt I will enjoy any activity that includes the descriptor ‘for teens.’ ” I pictured rotating disco balls and awful, outdated “slow dancing” music, like the forced fun my high school attempted.
“There’s even a track on the ship, so you can get your runs in,” my mom said, still working hard to sell me on this monstrosity at sea.
“There’s a track . . . on the ship?” I repeated. I knew my mom was just trying to be nice, but these new details were making me dread the upcoming ten days even more.
“Yes, and I believe it’s the standard regulation, four hundred meters.”
“That’s . . . insane.” Just how big was this thing? Bigger didn’t mean better in my book. The one time I had volunteered to accompany my dad on a trip to IKEA, I had taken all of five steps into the endless maze of shelves before my breathing had gotten shallow and I’d had to leave.
“And I’ve heard wonderful things about their cruises from the members of our support group. Matt and Justin will even have their own aide.”
“That’s good.” I might be in my own personal hell for the next week and a half, but at least my parents would have a little time to themselves for once. We hadn’t been on a vacation in years—years before Matt and Justin were born, and they were already five. After they were born, my parents had given up their partner-track law firm jobs in New York and established a family practice out of our home so they could give the twins, who were both on the autism spectrum, 24/7 care.
“And oh,” my mom said, clapping her hands together. “I almost forgot the best part. Cindy Lee and I were catching up on Facebook, and it turns out their family booked the same trip!”
“Jules is going to be there?” I hadn’t seen Jules in years. We’d attended all the same summer camps as kids. The last time I had seen Jules was at Logan’s funeral. She had texted me a few times after but had eventually stopped reaching out.
“Yes, isn’t that nice? You’ll have a friend to hang out with.”
“I guess.” Parents had a funny way of defining friends. As if someone you were friends with at four was automatically a friend for life.
Jules had always been fun to hang out with, but I doubted we had much in common anymore. And this wasn’t exactly ideal timing for a friendship reunion. I might be physically going on the cruise, but I would be spending all my time camped out in my room, writing my research paper.
I closed my computer and tucked it under my arm. “Guess I’d better start packing.”
I trudged back to my room and pulled out my cell.
Code blue, I texted Shruti.
At dinner, Shruti responded. A-minus on a math test code blue or bleeding from the esophagus code blue?
Yes, I responded.
My phone lit up a moment later with Shruti’s name.
“This better be good,” she said. “Or bad, I guess. Because I’m going to have to suffer through another one of my father’s ‘Cell phones are destroying this generation’ lectures.”
I exhaled dramatically as I dropped down onto my bed. Mr. Snuggles Factory let out a little sleep whimper at the sudden noise. “My parents are making me go on a cruise.”
“Ha ha,” Shruti said. “Very funny.”
“I wish I were kidding.”
“Wow,” Shruti said after a brief pause. I could hear her dad shushing Terry—her Yorkshire terrier—who was yapping loudly, probably trying to gain entrance into Shruti’s room. “I’m sorry. Like deeply. And for real. When does it leave?”
“In two days.” I buried my face in Mr. Snuggles Factory’s soft, white belly, missing him already. “Even though they know we have the research fair next week.”
“It’s like they’re purposefully trying to obliterate your future career in medicine.” Shruti was being sarcastic, but the reason we were so close was because we understood one another. We had different approaches to school—Shruti was a natural genius who crammed last minute and still miraculously got all As, while I worked on papers weeks in advance just to eke out the same grades. But our end goals were the same. Top GPAs. Densely packed, passion-driven résumés. Acceptance to our dream schools.
I had felt a little bad about asking Shruti to partner with me, since she didn’t really care about the internship. But she had agreed, since she wanted to go into science research, and the winning paper would get published in a real medical journal.
I knew if Shruti did want the internship, she’d have no qualms about competing with me for it. Which was another reason I loved her so much—she prioritized end goals over silly emotional drama. The year before, Bridget Sherman, the valedictorian, had chosen not to apply early to Yale so it wouldn’t hurt her best friend’s chances. Her best friend still ended up getting rejected, and Bridget ended up at Princeton. But still. Just the idea that someone would jeopardize their dreams because of a hurt feeling was incomprehensible to me.
“Okay, deep breaths. There’s gotta be a way around this.” Shruti went quiet again, and even without being able to see her, I knew she was twirling her long black hair around her finger, her go-to move when she was deep in thought. “What if you video chatted in for the presentation? That would show you were extra committed and would help you stand out.”
“Do you think they’d let me?” I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before, but it wasn’t a terrible idea. I wasn’t sure exactly what the at-sea Wi-Fi situation was in this day and age, but I would figure out a plan.
“You never know unless you ask! And . . . you’ve got nothing to lose.”
“I guess,” I said, already sitting down at my desk and drafting the email. Shruti was right—this was my only option. Plus, this gave me another reason to email Dr. Klober and tell her just how interested I was in the internship.
A few minutes later, a new email appeared.
Presenting online is no problem. Enjoy your trip. —Dr. Klober
I tore apart my room that night as I packed. It was good I didn’t generally bring friends home—other than Shruti—because even I had to admit I had gone a little overboard in the decorating department.
Above my bed was a giant multimedia flowchart I had been adding to for the last five years. The bottom row was for high school—featuring an array of old report cards and certificates from volunteer trips. The row above that was “the shrine to Saint Brown,” as Shruti called it—different Brown paraphernalia I had purchased on the annual trips my parents took me on, as well as a beautiful tapestry my parents had gotten me for Hanukkah the year before. The final row consisted of a series of framed photographs—Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker—all famous female doctors whose life stories I had committed to memory.
It was a bit much, but it was helpful to wake up every morning surrounded by reminders of what I was working toward. Getting into Brown. Graduating with a medical degree at twenty-six. Finishing residency by twenty-nine. Becoming a real doctor by the time I was thirty. Not wasting any precious time toward achieving my dream.
I walked over to my printer and collected the hundred-plus pages of journal articles I had printed (along with duplicates, to be safe), which I would need for the paper. Luckily, Shruti was an amazing friend and had helped me come up with a new plan—I’d read through the articles and draft the paper while on the ship, and Shruti would be in charge of editing the drafts and doing the final, in-person presentation. I was doing the majority of the work because I a) wanted this more and b) didn’t completely trust Shruti to take the lead, especially if a school grade wasn’t attached.
I packed the articles alongside my laptop, highlighters, stapler, note cards, notebooks, and scientific calculator (you never know). Then I began throwing anything seemingly beach-appropriate into my suitcase. I didn’t even know if I still had a bathing suit that fit, much less anything I could even ironically attempt to pull off as “beachwear.” A little more than forty-eight hours’ notice would have been nice.
As I ravaged through my sock-slash-random-knickknack drawer, discarding lone wool socks and cat figurines left and right, my fingers grazed a hard surface.
When I looked down to see what I had touched, my breath caught in my throat.
My journal.
The last gift Logan had ever given me.
I was blindsided by the sudden rush of memories that came flooding back. Spending the week after the funeral paralyzed, lying in bed. My dad knocking on my door and telling me Logan had left me a gift. My mind struggling to piece together the impossibility of those words, a gift from someone who no longer existed.
My dad had found the present while cleaning out Logan’s room. Logan had wrapped it in the haphazard way he wrapped gifts—tons of packing tape and no folded corners anywhere.
I gingerly removed the journal from the drawer and ran my fingers over the beautiful embossed golden island on the cover. The island was surrounded by blue waves, and in Logan’s slanted, left-handed writing, he had Sharpied in Antigua.
I slowly opened the journal to the first page and stared down at the message Logan had written. I could practically hear the high-pitched enthusiasm in his voice, the way his thoughts took off like a runaway train whenever he got excited. How everything he spoke, no matter how far-fetched, was pronounced as fact—and how I always believed him.
Olive—can’t believe you’re turning the big ELEVEN! These next 525,600 minutes are going to fly by so fast—and I just know this is going to be a great year for you. By the time this journal is filled, I’m sure you’ll be the CEO of Celeste pizza, and we’ll be living in our castle on the shores of Antigua. And explarrring shipwrecks fer treasurrre.
Love, Cap’n Plank (Logan)
After my dad had given me the journal, I had shoved it to the bottom of my sock drawer and hadn’t taken it out since. It hurt too much to be reminded of Logan. Of all the promises and plans we had made that had vanished along with him. I couldn’t imagine how disappointed he’d be if he could see me now.
I closed the journal, looking again at the cover. It was hard to ignore the significance of Antigua. Maybe Antigua would finally give me some answers. Maybe when I got there, I would feel closer to Logan. And maybe then I would start to understand what had happened to him.
Because who dies from a heart attack at seventeen?
TWO
DAY ONE AD (AFTER DEPARTURE)
When the taxi from the airport dropped us off at the dock, I had to throw a hand over my mouth to keep myself from bursting out laughing.
The Regal Islands SS NY Sea was the most garish eyesore I’d ever laid eyes on. I had read on the website that the ship was 1,200 feet long—a quarter mile, the length of five freaking city blocks. But reading that distance is different from seeing it in reality. Because the ship wasn’t just 1,200 feet long, it was also freaking enormous in every other way—a gazillion stories tall, over 50,000 tons, and painted in bright, neon colors you couldn’t look away from.
I glanced over at Justin, who had an adorable smile plastered on his face. He was pointing and repeating, “That’s the ship, that’s the ship, right?” Matt’s face, meanwhile, was drawn in confusion. He tugged on my mom’s sleeve. “But if we’re in Puerto Rico, why is the ship called NY Sea?”
Great question, kid. We lived forty minutes from New York City, and back when my parents used to work there, they’d bring Logan and me along whenever we had off from school. Then we’d get to spend the day going to restaurants and seeing a Broadway show—always Rent, never anything but Rent. I was enamored with the city, its grittiness and bright lights and fast pace. Taxi drivers shouted obscenities, and people glared at you as you walked by, and I loved everything about it.
I looked back at the SS NY Sea, its sparkling clean white exterior and the neon-green Statue of Liberty painted on the side—with a grossly heretical bright red smile plastered on her face. This ship couldn’t be further from NYC if it tried. The masses of people climbing on board were laughing and carefree—clearly not New Yorkers. Their sole purpose was to be entertained with cheesy, off-off-off-Broadway performances while they drank cheap wine and ate extremely fake and culturally appropriated dishes.
I gave the overly chipper Regal Islands employee my ticket. He handed me back an electronic “passport.” “Enjoy your time at sea!”
As I took my last step on land and my first step on board, I kissed the air twice, said “Thank you God,” and kissed the air twice again. It was a tic I had developed after Logan had died, that my body now did as a reflex, whenever something bad could happen—when I got on a plane or in a car or when I felt really anxious. I wasn’t religious—I didn’t even know if I believed in a god, and I always did the act so quietly, more or less just mouthing the actions, that even someone standing right next to me wouldn’t notice. I had never told anyone—not even my parents or my best friend, Shruti—that I did it.
I snapped back to attention as a mechanical voice shrilled, “Welcome aboard the SS NY Sea! Enjoy your Big Apple faux-tini!” A bartender robot was standing in front of me, its metallic arm holding out a martini glass, containing what appeared to be apple juice.
I wasn’t sure how to politely turn down a robot, so I just kept walking, following the long line of people in front of me up an escalator. When we stepped off, I blinked twice as my dad let out a low whistle.
The two-story main promenade was decorated as the Coney Island boardwalk—wooden planks, hot dog stands—even a giant two-story Ferris wheel. But it had about the same effect as a pig wearing lipstick—you knew what it was trying to do, but the juxtaposition couldn’t have been more glaring. Coney Island was Coney Island because of its history, because the old boardwalk games hadn’t been changed in years (minus the price tag), because of the cracks in the boardwalk and the chipped paint on the signs.
Meanwhile, everything in this ghoulish version of Coney Island shimmered and shined with its newness, its artificiality. The combined effect made my chest constrict, reminding me that I’d be trapped in this fake city for the next week plus.
The twins seemed just as terrified as I was. They held my hands tightly as we walked past carnival games and flashing neon signs.
I matched their strong grips, not wanting them to get lost among the seas of people.
It’s only ten days, I reminded myself. No matter how bad it was, it would all be over in ten days.
Let the countdown begin.
We made our way over to the elevator banks and headed up to the ninth floor, where our combined staterooms were.
I began unpacking in my linen closet–sized room (although I was grateful my parents were bunking with the twins and had let me have my own room), debating the best organizational system for the few belongings I had brought.
As I was searching for a spot to stow my suitcase, a siren began blaring. My chest seized up—the boat hadn’t even left yet, and there was already an emergency? I knew a 55,000-ton floating mall was a terrible idea.
“This is not an emergency,” a voice boomed from the in-room speaker. I let out a breath, but my heart continued to race, oblivious to the lack of real danger. “Please make your way to the muster drill station labeled on your cruise passport. This is a mandatory drill, and the boat will not depart until all cruise passengers have checked in to their muster stations.”
My family and I found our way to our station on the fifth floor, the Coney Laugh Lounge. We took seats toward the front and waited as the theater filled up with hundreds of people.
After twenty minutes, a blond man and woman took the stage—they looked like they could be siblings—and introduced themselves as our “muster captains,” Michelle and Dan. They then began performing a horrifying song and dance that stated the rules of the ship and what to do in case of emergency.
I wondered if they had spent years studying musical theater, only to end up on a cruise ship rapping about life preservers. Yet another reason I was glad I had a safe plan. Med school graduates ended up as doctors, not as actors attempting to rhyme “water safety” with “don’t be late-y.”
After they had finished and everyone politely applauded, Michelle looked around the room. “So for this next part of our presentation, we will need a volunteer.”
I sank down farther into my seat, in case they were as loosey-goosey with the definition of “volunteer” as my math teacher was.
But hands flew up all around me. It was clear that we were no longer within a 200-mile radius of NYC, where no one would ever willingly step forward for this type of public humiliation.
Michelle’s face lit up at the enthusiasm, and she pointed toward the back of the crowd. “The boy in the gray hoodie—come on up!”
A boy with messy dark hair stood up. A much larger guy next to him began cheering and stomping his feet, as if his friend had just won the lottery and not a free ticket to embarrassment central.
“What’s your name?” Dan asked, shoving the microphone in the boy’s face.
“Sebastian,” he answered. When most people spoke into a microphone for the first time, their voices were either muffled or far too loud. But not Sebastian. His voice was low and crystal clear. This was obviously not this boy’s first time in front of a crowd.
“Sebastian, welcome on board the SS NY Sea! Where are you from?”
“Kansas City,” he said, which was met with another series of woots from the large guy who had been sitting next to him.
“And who are you cruising with this week?”
“A few friends.”
“Lovely! For this demonstration, I would love if you could model how to properly put on this life vest.” Michelle handed him the bright orange vest, and he followed her instructions like a model student, nodding and smiling. He took his time and cheated out—turning his body toward the audience—so that he could be sure everyone in the room saw exactly how to buckle the vest and pull the safety straps.
“Now just blow some air into the oral inflation tube.” As Michelle said those words, a loud cackling erupted from the back of the theater. I glanced behind me to find the group Sebastian was cruising with all laughing and nudging one another. I rolled my eyes.
When Sebastian was finished, he was met with a round of applause, as well as fervent foot stomping and cheering from his friends. The applause kept going, even after he’d found his way back to his seat. People were clearly smitten by his performance—not that he’d done anything actually impressive.
But I guess these were just the type of people I’d be surrounded by that week. Happy-go-lucky vacationers who were easily impressed. So not New York.
A smiling woman in a green Regal Islands polo walked up to us. “Hi, I’m Shari,” she said, shaking hands with my parents, me, and then the twins. “I’ll be the twins’ aide this week.” I eyed Shari up and down. Her hair was tied back in a crisp ponytail, and she had a small stud on the left side of her nose. She looked more like an overeager camp counselor than a real adult.
“How old are you?” I blurted out. My mom shot me a look, but I ignored her. After all, the twins’ lives were going to be in this person’s hands. I wanted to make sure she was at least legal.
“Twenty-one,” Shari answered.
“You look young.”
“Just ignore her,” my dad said with a wry smile.
Shari laughed. “Don’t worry; I’m used to it. So, can I take you on a tour of the ship?”
“We’d love that,” my mom said. “There’s so much to see; we don’t even know where to begin.”
“I know!” Shari’s ponytail bounced as she spoke. “This is my seventh time on the SS NY Sea, and I still find myself getting lost!”
Not really selling yourself here, Shari. I wondered how soon would be too soon to request a new aide.
“That said, this ship is definitely much better organized than other cruise lines,” Shari continued. “I also worked on”—she looked around, as if she were about to divulge top-secret information—“the cruise line with the animated mice,” she loudly stage-whispered. “Where I was a godmother chipmunk in training. And let me tell you, the Regal Islands is so much better.”
Shari paused briefly, as if she were waiting to be asked why.
“Oh, is it?” my mom finally asked. Shari was clearly a talker, but she had found the wrong audience. My parents and I were not oversharers. Far from it.
“It totally is! Because on that cruise line, you work six days in a row, but here you only work five. And also there, you have very limited eating hours and cuisines. But I think the best thing here is the individuality that Regal Islands allows. Like, I would never be allowed to wear my nose ring on that other cruise line.”
“I see,” my dad said. When Shari turned back around, my dad exchanged a small smile with me. I smiled back and shook my head, glad my dad at least shared my sense of humor.
We followed behind Shari as she took us to one of the large glass elevator banks at the back of the ship.
“Can I press the button?” Justin asked, just as a large group crowded in behind us.
“Sure, buddy,” Shari answered. “Can you hit three?”
Shari started by showing us the laughably large three-story theater where the nightly “Broadway” performances of Kinky Boots would be held. The theater had thousands of seats and purple overhead lights, and apparently held some giant ship-wide karaoke contest that always “went down in history.”
We then spent over an hour exploring the dizzying array of activities on the ship—the three-story main dining room; the main cafeteria (Penne Station); the kids’ pool deck, which consisted of an entire water park and a 130-foot-tall (!) waterslide; the main pool deck (Pool Time Square); an entire floor dedicated to a wave pool for surfing; and too many additional restaurants and bars and coffee shops to keep count.
In that time, we had learned Shari’s entire life story. That she was from Orlando, but her football allegiance lay with the Eagles because she went to Penn State. That she had studied musical theater and dance, which was why she originally worked on that other cruise line, but then she fell in love with cruise ships in general and thought maybe she wanted to go into special ed or something?
Shari was very serious about her job and was determined to show us each and every restaurant, bar, café, pizzeria, lounge, pool, spa, and knickknack on the ship—and she made sure to also include exactly why each place made the Regal Islands superior to the other cruise line. There were about a gazillion different eateries, but they all mostly looked the same, like the cafeteria at my grandparents’ retirement community in Florida.
I zoned out as Shari spoke, only focusing on the few spaces that would actually be useful to me—the small business center filled with a few old PCs and a single printer. The café closest to my room, where I could stock up on Frosted Flakes and turkey sandwiches—safe, easy fuel to get me through my research sessions.
My parents now had their very-patient-client smiles pasted onto their faces. Matt looked like he wanted to cry. Justin, on the other hand, was overjoyed, thrilled at all the neon-colored attractions.
“We can probably skip any future bars or casinos,” my mom told Shari, her patient facade finally cracking. “We’re not really big drinkers.”
That was the understatement of the century. The only time I ever saw my parents go near any type of alcohol was on Jewish holidays. And even then, it was just a few sips of Manischewitz.
Logan had snuck me a glass once at Passover when I was eight; he had mixed it with water and served it as “juice.” I had nearly blown our cover and spit it out after the first sip—it was sickly sweet and gross.
“Okay,” Shari said with a false smile. She was clearly disappointed; I wondered if she made a commission on any additional purchases we made that week.
She began leading us into a restaurant with dark wooden paneling and a Jenga-style assortment of steak knives that towered almost to the ceiling. “Welcome to the Empire Steak Building!” Shari said, clapping her hands together. Ah. The knives were meant to replicate the actual building. Cute.
“Is this included in the standard food-and-beverage package?” my dad asked. My dad was very adamant about not getting suckered with upcharges. I once heard him using his lawyer voice on the phone for two hours with Verizon, just so he could save seven dollars. Which was why he had firmly declined the unlimited-drink package and the ship’s Wi-Fi.
“It’s not about the money,” my dad said, repeating the line I’d heard countless times before. “It’s the principle of the matter. I don’t want to raise wasteful children.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not included,” Shari said. “But believe me, it is worth it for a special night out! This is actually where I went to celebrate my three-month anniversary with the Regal Islands. Which I also referred to as the celebration of three months of freedom from that other cruise line, ha ha!”
“I think we can skip this, then,” my dad said. “I don’t want to get the boys’ hopes up if we might not eat there.”
Justin was now doing his impatient wiggle. “Maybe we could just focus on the top few, no-additional-cost attractions you recommend?” my mom asked as she smoothed back Justin’s hair.
“Sure,” Shari said. She then rushed us through each and every “must-see”—the jazz club, the comedy club where our muster drill had been held, Rockefeller ice rink (which had a fully decked out Christmas tree . . . in the middle of March), Central Park (nothing like the real thing), the Brooklyn Bridge promenade (ditto)—which instead of offering a view of the Manhattan skyline, was crowded with vintage cars for sale, a Katz’s Deli, and a “genuine NYC” hot dog stand (also ditto). The only thing that seemed genuine to NYC was the actual Starbucks sandwiched in among the row of airport-style clothing and perfume stores.
“And make sure you don’t miss out on the famous Coney Island Mermaid Parade!” Shari trilled. “It may be even better than the real thing!” I highly doubted that.
“And this,” Shari said, gesturing to the three lanes of red we stepped onto after exiting the elevator, “is the ship’s running track. Yet another feature that no other cruise line can compete with.” Finally—something I would actually be using. The track, as promised, was exactly 400 meters. The lanes were narrow, but at least there were three of them. The view of the ocean was blocked by rows and rows of lifeboats, but I didn’t mind. At least that meant it would probably remain pretty empty.
Shari then showed us the rest of the deck, which consisted of a spa (which we would not be using, as it was a surefire upcharge), a fitness center, basketball courts, Ping-Pong tables, a mini golf course, and two giant rock walls that seemed destined for major injuries and lawsuits.
“Let’s head back to the elevator banks. We’ll be finishing at what will be Justin and Matt’s home base—the Little Flippers Lounge!”
I found myself exhaling an audible sigh of relief but did my best to cover it up with a fake cough. This had seriously been the longest tour of my life.
When the elevator doors opened, Shari’s hand flew up to her mouth, and she locked eyes with me. “I almost forgot!” she said, coming to a screeching halt and opening the door in front of her. “Welcome to the teen club!”
“Awesome,” I said, doing the world’s worst job at feigning enthusiasm.
“Do you want to take a peek inside?” she asked.
“That’s okay!” I said, eyeing the time on the display. We had been on the tour for a full ninety minutes. “It looks really . . .cool, though.”
“Oh, it is! So many great friendships—and romances,” she said with a wink, “have started there.”
I couldn’t even begin to imagine the type of people who would fall in love on a mustard-yellow couch as disco lights danced overhead, but I managed another polite nod, knowing we were finally nearing the end of this impossibly long tour.
Shari held her card in front of the door. A moment later, a green light flashed and the door clicked open.
I eyed the play area. It looked similar to the day care the twins had attended, all squishy blocks and rainbow-colored carpets. No pools in sight. But Justin was a runner—what if he escaped the area without anyone noticing, and found his way to a pool? There were a lot of pools on this ship. I had just received an extensive education on all eight of them. And drowning was the leading cause of death for children under the age of six.
My parents listened and nodded as Todd, the director of the Little Flippers program, explained how everything worked. Each set of parents was given a pager so that they could be reached at all times if there was a problem. There was a 1:2 ratio of staff to children and a daily itinerary of activities they could participate in.
When the director finished speaking, I raised my hand. “How do you make sure the kids don’t sneak out?”
Todd pointed to the door handle and explained that it was too high up for kids to open on their own. And that this was one of the few rooms on the ship where staff needed to swipe their cards to enter or exit the room. Which sounded like a fire hazard, if you asked me. But I didn’t even want to think about what it would be like if there was a fire on board the ship.
“Right, but what if someone enters the room and leaves it open and a kid sprints out?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
Todd nodded, as if he were taking my rapid-fire questions seriously. “We have a strict ‘enter and close’ policy that all staff are well aware of. They close doors behind them as soon as they enter, with all eyes on the doorway in that brief instant, should a child try to leave the premises.”
“Has that ever happened?”
Todd smiled again—he seemed used to this type of inquisition. “Once or twice, a child has made it a foot or two outside, and then has been redirected safely back to the play area. If we find a child has difficulty abiding by our guidelines, then we will discuss with the parents whether Little Flippers is the best place for them. Safety is our number one concern.”
My dad placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Maybe give the director a little breather, prosecutor? Our friends have assured us this is a safe environment for the twins.”
I shrugged. “Okay.” But I still couldn’t stop picturing Justin running out and diving into a pool, his little, helpless body sinking to the bottom, never able to be resuscitated. My heart sped up as I pictured his small fingers, the vision as real and horrific to me as if it were actually occurring.
I breathed in and out, trying to erase the picture and bring myself back to the present. My mind had become a constant battlefield of unwanted images ever since the twins had been born six weeks early. But my instant, overwhelming love came alongside a fear so great it often felt paralyzing. When the twins came home after a month in the PICU, I stood for hours just staring into their cribs, checking to make sure they were still breathing.
Now any time we entered a new environment, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining worst-case scenarios. These thoughts kept me up at night, and I would scroll for hours, looking up stats on SIDS and other accidental deaths. I would caress the dark, soft fuzz on their heads, unable to stop picturing all the ways those heads could get squished. When my parents babyproofed the house, I babyproofed their babyproofing. It took me months to trust myself enough to hold the twins; I was so scared I would drop them and they would die.
The therapist I had briefly seen after Logan’s death had labeled this “catastrophic” thinking and told me that it was completely normal. But she hadn’t given me a way to stop the thinking. Because there was no way to stop it. Catastrophes did happen. As I was all too aware.
I glanced back over at Shari. Justin was already clinging to her leg, and Matt was even holding on to her hand. She was a bit annoying, sure, but she did at least seem to be good with kids.
My mom caught me staring at Shari and put a hand on my back. “You’re a really good sister, you know that?”
I shrugged and mumbled “Thanks,” caught off guard by my mom’s compliment. And wishing I could accept it.
Because I wasn’t a really good sister. If I was, Logan would still be alive.
