Page 28 of Head First
It’s our first real meal together with Miguel and Aaron included, and Vanessa wastes no time attempting to drive the conversation forward in what feels like a corporate group bonding exercise. First, we go around and say our names and where we’re from. When I say Columbus, Ohio, I notice the corners of Natalie’s mouth tighten.Don’t ask about our trips, I think, crossing my fingers underneath the table.
‘Who had the longest trip to get here?’ Vanessa asks next.
I remain silent, hoping Pippa and Andrew will speak up. London must be a longer trip than I had.
‘Isn’t Ohio the furthest away?’ Natalie asks, peering at me across the table. Since we boarded the boat, I’ve managed to avoid her completely, although I’ve seen Pippa talking to her once or twice. Pippa was laughing, a sign Natalie might not be as bad as I thought, but I still couldn’t shake my paranoia that they were discussing me.
‘Did you come straight here from Ohio?’ asks Miguel, his soft brown eyes connecting with mine. ‘That must be an eighteen-hour flight.’
‘No,’ I respond, ‘I had a connecting flight.’ I want this conversation to end more than anything in the world. The last thing I need to relive is beating out Natalie for a first-class seat and the more we discuss it, the more worried I am that she is going to ask why, at that time, I was going by Andi.
And if Hugh picks up on anything being amiss, he’s made it very clear he’s not the type to let it go.
‘Where’d you connect through?’ chirps Pippa through a mouthful of salad. She’s trying to be nice, but I want to throttle her.
‘Dallas,’ I say quietly.
Natalie cocks her head at me, a habit of hers I find extremely unnerving.
‘We were on the same flight,’ she says with a tight smile.
I try to return Natalie’s grin, but I panic. ‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ I say, cutting her off and clambering off the bench, squeezing down the hallway towards the miniature restroom.
I lock myself inside and steady my hands on the walls to take deep breaths while my heart rate slows. I try to tamp down the feeling in my gut that Natalie is out to cause trouble.She has no reason to care about my name, I remind myself.She doesn’t care about me.
I unlock the bathroom door once I hear laughter, and I’m confident the conversation has moved on, but I can’t seem to shake the uneasy feeling that’s perched in my gut.
I get back from the bathroom in time to hear Vanessa ask us to pick our Great Barrier Reef ‘mascot’. We work our way around the table. Derek chooses a stingray, Natalie a seahorse, Pippa a surgeonfish, Andrew a clownfish (which got a laugh, because they each picked theFinding Nemocharacters). I waffle on what to choose and land on a flounder because they blend in. When Hugh proudly announces that his mascot is a butterfly wrasse, I choke on a piece of black bean burger. Pippa slams a palm in between my shoulder blades, and it dislodges. I immediately turn beet red and murmur a quick ‘thank you’ to Pippa before staring at my plate. I refuse to look at Hugh, although I can tell by the way his shoulders are trembling in my peripheral vision that he is laughing. I clench my hands into fists under the table.
Pippa, sensing my agitation, pours me more water from the communal pitcher and hands me a full glass. In contrast to my mixed emotions about Hugh, most of which are extreme annoyance, I love Pippa already. She’s perceptive, friendly and has a shrill laugh that seems to be constantly echoing off the walls of the boat. She’s always next to Andrew but simultaneously gravitating to my side. When she sat at dinner, she put some much-needed space between Hugh and I, another notch in my reasons to like her company.
I have done my best to avoid him since he got me in trouble with Vanessa. Who, after the Derek drama had died down, pulled me aside to tell me that I ‘had to be more careful’, and that she ‘was going to have to recommend shorter dives if I couldn’t keep up’. I saw Hugh watching our interaction out of the corner of my eye. As far as I can tell, Vanessa didn’t give him the same lecture. I have never wanted to punch someone so badly.
Now, we’re listening to Aaron tell us about the time he captained a boat for a famous reality TV star to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. I catch him hinting that the reality TV show in question wasThe Bachelor, but despite how interested I usually would be in the story, I can’t focus. If Vanessa is serious, and she restricts my dive time, that means less opportunity to spot the butterfly wrasse. Despite my effort not to pay him any more attention, I can’t help but glare at Hugh.
As my eyes narrow in on the slope of his nose, I see Miguel looking my way out of my peripherals. He looks down at his plate and I do the same, busying myself with my few remaining bites of food. I wonder if he is like this with everyone – I’ve already seen him laughing plenty with Andrew.
Derek interrupts Aaron to tell a story about how his boss and the famous guy Aaron mentioned have some sort of rivalry over a factory in Vegas. I watch Vanessa’s spine stiffen ever so slightly. She gets up to clear our plates, graciously manoeuvring around us as she takes things back to the kitchen. I don’t think anyone else notices the slight side-eye she gives Derek. She may dislike me, but after what happened earlier, she dislikes him more.
Miguel, Natalie and Derek shot up their flares right after we got back on the boat. They seemed to surface just in time, right before Vanessa really blew her lid. She pulled Derek aside immediately, wagging her finger at him like an angry schoolteacher, mentioning his camera repeatedly. Her voice returned to normal at the end of their conversation. Derek looked close to tears until she switched to a gentler tone and said, ‘I’m glad you’re OK.’ I had forgotten until that moment that everyone on board pays Vanessa, so there’s probably a protocol where she can’t yell at Derek. I almost wished he had gotten yelled at. What he did was worse than me! Hugh and I technically never even got lost. Plus, if you can’t keep up with the group when you’re taking photos, then you shouldn’t be taking photos.
Surprisingly, given his acerbic personality, Hugh was making quick friends with Andrew, who seemed to think he was hilarious, and it appeared he had even won over Miguel. He had an easy conversational way about him, and a sincere way of listening to people – his head would gently lean to the right, his eyebrows would furrow a centimetre closer together and the blue of his eyes would deepen.
I shake my head to free my thoughts from Hugh. Now that he’s proven himself to be someone who isn’t a team player, and who is clearly distracting me and sabotaging my mission for my sister, I can’t afford to waste any more time thinking about his eye colour.
After dinner, Vanessa teaches us a card game called Hook Line Sinker, where everyone places bets and takes card tricks. She keeps count of points on a massive notepad. Hugh picks it up quickly and I get into it too – soon me, Hugh, and Andrew are competing for top spot. Andrew wins and hoots with pleasure, getting up from his chair to do a victory dance that sends everyone into bouts of laughter.
When the game is over, everyone seems to scatter. Natalie claims the sea weather dries out her skin, so she heads downstairs to do a face mask. I’m not ready to be in a small cabin with Hugh, so I huddle on a towel on the platform by the hammock, and Pippa joins me for a glass of wine.
Andrew, Derek, Miguel, Hugh and Aaron are all chatting over beers on the benches near the captain’s chair. Every now and then I hear Andrew’s boisterous laugh and Hugh’s low chuckle. Goosebumps rise over my legs, but I don’t know if it’s the breeze off the ocean or the sound of Hugh’s voice on the wind. I have a big sweatshirt on, the only one I brought on the trip, and I pull it over my knees to keep the chill off. It’s my ex’s sweatshirt, from a small town in Michigan where he used to vacation with his family. I stole it after the first night we slept together and never gave it back. I’ve had it for so long I often forget it wasn’t originally mine.
Pippa asks me about Ohio, but I deflect. I haven’t perfected talking about Millie while calling her Andi yet, and I don’t want to try to lie, especially when I’m drinking wine. Instead, I ask Pippa about Andrew. She confesses they’ve been talking about getting engaged, and we chat about how they met and where they live. They’re moving in together soon, and Pippa’s nervous about sharing a bathroom.
‘Sometimes he’s in there for hours, I swear,’ she says, both of us collapsing into giggles. ‘Multiple times a day!’
Eventually, we grow uncomfortable reclining on the hard shell of the platform and we stand up, resting our palms on the railing and gazing out at the dark ocean. The moon is bright, and the sound of the waves is peaceful.
‘I love it out here,’ Pippa says, gesturing with her hands towards the ocean. Just then we hit a wave, and she fumbles, her plastic cup falling out of her hand and down towards the water.
