“No, he wasn’t, especially when I puked all over the deck and passed out.”
She paused as she recalled coming to in a bathroom not much larger than a closet, slumped on a stainless steel toilet seat in her bra and panties, the stink of vomit clogging her sinuses. Shoe was adjusting the spray in the tiny shower stall.
“Where are my clothes?” she asked thickly.
“I threw them overboard,” Shoe said. He had, too, but he’d tied a line to them. “You were sick,” he said. “It’s in your hair.” He helped her to her feet and steered her toward the shower stall. “In you go.”
“Wait,” she said. She reached behind her back with both hands and unhooked her bra, letting it slip down her arms and fall to the floor. Holding his arm, she stepped out of her panties. If Shoe was discomfited by her nudity, he didn’t show it, which pissed her off for some reason. She got into the shower, gasped as the water hit her, and slumped to the floor of the stall. Shoe closed the clear plastic curtain, then collected her underwear and left her there, huddled in the warm spray.
How long she stayed that way she wasn’t sure. At some point, though, when the water started to cool off, she struggled to her feet, found a bar of soap and a cloth, and scrubbed herself from scalp to toes. There was a bottle of dandruff shampoo, and although she’d always hated the nasty stuff, she used it. As she was rinsing, Shoe knocked on the door.
“Everything all right?”
She didn’t answer.
The door opened. She stood, arms braced against the wall, head bowed in the spray, water coursing down the length of her body.
“Getting a good look?” she said, without opening her eyes.
The door closed...
“Vic?” Kit said.
“Sorry,” Victoria said, returning to the present. “Anyway, Shoe cleaned me up and gave me one of his sweatshirts to wear—it hung to my knees—and put me to bed to sleep it off. I didn’t sleep, though. I could hear him moving around in the deckhouse, making up his berth. Then the phone rang. ‘Yes, she’s here,’ I heard him say. A second or two later he said, ‘Pardon me for saying so, but you should have thought of that before you started sleeping with her.’”
She paused and drank some of her cooling tea. Despite the passage of time, her recollection of what happened next was mercilessly clear and it made her squirm with shame and embarrassment to recall it. She wasn’t sure she could get it out, but she owed it to Kit—and herself—to try.
“I went up to the deckhouse and asked him if it had been Bill on the phone. He said it was, that he’d called to make sure I was all right. ‘I bet,’ I said. Then I pointed to the berth he was making up and told him it looked awfully small, that he could sleep down below with me if he wanted. He said he’d be fine and I told him I wasn’t asking him to have sex with me. But I was, of course.
“‘I’ll sleep here,’ he said.
“‘Have it your way,’ I told him. ‘There won’t be another offer.’ I started to go below, then turned back to him and said, ‘What the fuck’s your problem anyway?’
“‘I’m not sure I understand the question,’ he said.
“‘I just offered you a free piece of ass,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’m not at my best right now, but men aren’t supposed to be that picky. I know you’re not queer, so what’s the problem?’
“He said, ‘I make it a rule to never sleep with the boss’s girlfriends. Or take advantage of a lady when she’s had too much to drink.’
“‘I do some of my best work when I’ve had a few too many,’ I said to him and tried to undo the string of his sweatpants.
“He grabbed my wrists and told me to go below and sleep it off. I twisted away and swore at him and told him I’d cut his fucking balls off if he tried anything. Then I fell down the companionway steps.
“He came down and tried to help me, but I hit him and screamed at him not to touch me. I pulled off the sweatshirt he’d given me to wear and threw it at him. I remembered I’d had a backpack when I’d left Bill’s. ‘Where is my backpack?’ I shouted. ‘Where are my clothes? I’m getting out of here.’
“He told me I’d left it on deck. When he went up to get it, I went into the head and locked the door. I found a bottle of acetaminophen tablets in the medicine cabinet. The bottle had a childproof cap, and I when opened it, the top popped off and half the tablets fell onto the floor. I poured the rest into my mouth, washing them down with handfuls of water from the faucet, then got down on my hands and knees and began picking tablets off the floor and popping them into my mouth. Shoe knocked on the door and asked me if I was all right. I didn’t answer. I just kept popping tablets into my mouth and crunching them between my teeth. They tasted awful. He told me to unlock the door. I told him to fuck off, to leave me alone, so he broke it down.
“Christ, I must’ve been a sight, naked on my hands and knees gobbling pills off the bathroom floor. He picked me up and hauled me out into the cabin. I fought, clawing at him, raking his arms and face with my nails, gouging his flesh, but he held me in his arms, restraining me the way my father used to when I was a child and had thrown a tantrum. I screamed at him to leave me alone, that I wanted to die.
“‘No, you don’t,’ he said.
“‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘Yes, I do.’ But suddenly I was terrified. I realized I didn’t want to die and begged him to help me. ‘I’ll help you,’ he said, and held my head over the galley sink, pried my jaws open, and stuck his fingers down my throat.”
“Yuck,” Kit said. There were tears on her cheeks.
“I threw up most of the pills,” Victoria said. “Then he wrapped me in a blanket and took me to the Vancouver General ER.”
“If he didn’t save your life,” Kit said, “he probably saved you from serious liver damage.”
“Actually,” Victoria said, “I think it was later that he really saved my life. After I was released from the hospital, he helped me get my life on track, maybe for the first time since my mother died. He drove me to my appointments with the shrinks. He helped me find a place of my own to live. He even talked Bill into giving me my job back. He was there for me whenever I needed him, with no strings, no expectations. And I needed him a lot. At that point, I think if he’d asked, I’d have moved in with him, or maybe even married him. Thank god he didn’t ask.”
“There you go again,” Kit said. “I don’t understand. If I dug men, I might consider him a good catch. He obviously cares about you. And he seems nice enough. Nicer than Hammond, that’s for sure. Maybe even nicer than me. Which isn’t hard sometimes,” she added with a grin. “Not that I’m trying to talk you into anything, but what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know,” Victoria said. “Maybe it’s just that he knows me too well.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“You tell me.”
“I dunno,” Kit said with a shrug and a smile. “Maybe I just don’t know you well enough yet.”
Kit climbed off her stool by the counter. She removed the forgotten English muffin from the toaster oven and dropped it into the trash. Splitting another, she put it in the oven.
Victoria looked at her. “How do you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?” Kit replied, starting the toaster.
“Deal with it.”
Kit didn’t answer right away. Victoria waited for her to ask, “Deal with what?” But when she finally answered, she said, “Smoke and mirrors, kid. It’s all just smoke and mirrors.”
Precisely