As suddenly as an earthquake, the most gut-snarlingly terrifying engine kicked into gear above my head. What the fuck?
Wait—room seventeen. Maybe this was why nobody wanted it. Well, I was going to put a stop to whatever maniac was using an industrial gravel crusher directly above my room. I headed out. As my door clicked shut, I realized I had no key. Crap.
I inspected my new neighbourhood, and it was like a hotel, really: creamy wool carpeting, light coming from sources recessed into walls, and framed photographs of TV network plutocrats holding up jumbo marlins. My room was alone on the port side. The other rooms, to starboard, were luxurious and spacious to judge from the generous gaps between the doors.
The noise from the gravel smasher above me grew in its anger. Fucking hell. I found a staircase and climbed it. Pushing open a door, I saw a row of industrial-sized washing machines—huge honkers that could easily accommodate your next-door neighbour’s Fiat, let alone a boatload of beshatted sheets. I wasn’t in there for five seconds before a Samoan cheerfully passed me, headed out the door; he threw me a fob with several keys as he went. “This laundry room now be your shit job, not mine. You have a happy and gracious apocalypse.”
“Thank you very much.”
The door closed behind him. This was my chance to find clothes that might fit me better. I pushed an OFF button and opened the door to what turned out to be a dryer holding a load of laundry mixed in with kitchen trays, cafeteria-sized cans of Heinz ketchup and beans and, well, just about anything one might find unbolted on a glamorous TV network yacht. Good on my Samoan friend for getting a bit of fun out of his sack-of-shit life situation.
What now? I went back down to my floor. None of the keys worked in my door, so I embarked on a fishing expedition along the hallways to see if any of the keys worked in any of the doors, and I was richly rewarded. At the front of the boat, I entered a stunningly designed glassed-in area that stopped me with its beauty: perhaps Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie might live in a place like this. Rare woods and sleek crystal light fixtures, exotic potted ferns and expensive-looking canvases on every wall. A tray rested on a polished marble side table, and on it sat several bottles of chilled Sauvignon Blanc and six glasses. Time for a toast to myself, I quite reasonably thought, for having navigated yet another level of the TV network lifestyle.
Raymond, you’re a survivor, you are.
Why, thank you, Raymond, I was just thinking that myself.
Delicious wine, isn’t it, Raymond?
Why, yes it is, Raymond, yes it is.
I think we all need quiet little moments like this to remind ourselves of how far we’ve come in life. The moment didn’t last long, however. An American male voice came from beyond a set of glass doors to a patio area on the deck, intruding on my almost religious state of bliss.
38
“Oh, fuck me ragged!” A squash racquet narrowly missed my wineglass. “Herry Fuckbuddy Potter, what the hell are you doing in my suite? And dressed like the Hillside Strangler. Get out now, before I call security. How did you get in here?”
“Stuart, calm down. The door over there was open,” I lied. “I’m just doing some reconnaissance. A mutinous Samoan has just trashed the ship’s laundry. I wanted to make sure he didn’t go further.”
“He what?”
“Stuart? Stuart, honey? Who’s that?” Sarah’s voice.
I called out, “It’s just me, making sure the ship is all shipshape.”
Sarah came in through the glass doors, magnificent in a knit bikini, her limbs glistening from a recent application of tanning oil. “You’re on your legs again! I’m so glad. Have a glass of wine with us.”
“Sarah, what do you possibly see in this pathetic English gimp?”
Sarah stared sternly at her loathsome boyfriend. “Raymond has rescued me twice from dangerous situations with highly menacing men. You should give him a handshake, Stuart, not your scary outdoor shoo-the-raccoons-away voice.”
Stuart could only acquiesce to his goddess. “Right. Pour yourself a fucking drink and then leave.” He stalked out, vibrating with rage. My wineglass became a goblet filled with my enemy’s tears.
“Just ignore him,” Sarah said soothingly. “He’s in a state because so many of the locals have abandoned ship and the production. We’ll never get the series shot at this rate. But at least the cast arrived, although your ex-wife had to go back and find some replacements.”
It was most unlikely that Fi would screw up on her job, the one thing that meant anything to her. “Were some of the contestants unfu—inappropriate?”
“No, she did a great job, but a bunch of them caught a wicked strain of norovirus in the LAX waiting lounge while it was shut down.