Luck and Last Resorts - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sarah Grunder Ruiz is a writer, educator, and karaoke enthusiast. Originally from South Florida, she now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and two children. She holds an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University, where she now teaches first-year writing.

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1

June

Returning home from months at sea is like waking up from one dream right into another. Charter season is four months of sunshine, the bluest water that ever existed, and lots and lots of money. But it's also sixteen-hour shifts, sleep deprivation, and late nights scrubbing the vomit of hungover billionaires from white carpet. At the end of the season, we always come to Mitch's, an Irish pub that puts the dive in dive bar. Mitch's is dirtier than someone who cleans a twenty-million-dollar yacht for a living would like, and the dust on the bookcase beside our table is likely a health violation, but seeing as it's the first mess in months that isn't my responsibility to clean, I couldn't care less.

Some people never experience déjà vu, but I feel it all the time. More and more as the years pass. Every time I slip into this booth at Mitch's, for instance. Jo, the Serendipity's second stew and my soon-to-be former best friend, says I'm just bored. But I disagree. How can I be bored when I work on a giant boat and run away to the Caribbean four months a year? How can I be bored when I get paid to see the places most people only dream of? As Jo's nieces would say, I am living the dream. Usually, I don't disagree.

Usually.

But as I stare across the table at Jo, nightmare is the word that comes to mind. I can see her mouth moving, but I don't hear a word. I'm distracted by the ache in my bad knee, which, after the last four months working barefoot, is aggravated by even the lowest of low-heeled wedges. In a few days, my knee will adjust to life on land along with the rest of me. All I have to do is ignore the pain until it fades. But what Jo's just told me? I won't adjust to it. I refuse.

"Nina?" Jo's voice comes back into focus, and the feeling of déjà vu slips away. Her gaze darts from me to her fiancé, Alex, beside her.

"It's an awful idea." It's all I can manage, because this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Jo quitting the yacht? To help Alex run a restaurant?

Jo frowns into her drink. "That's all you have to say?"

"You can't even cook, Josephine. They don't pass out Michelin stars for knowing how to operate a microwave. How are you going to help this man run a restaurant? Sure, he makes a good cheese Danish, but the sex can't be that good."

"I'll try to focus on the part where you compliment my cooking," Alex says.

I shoot him a glare. "Don't."

Jo twirls the straw in her glass. "I won't be cooking. I'll help manage the place," she says.

Alex puts an arm around Jo's shoulders, and though I love him for loving Jo, I also want to punch him in the ribs. Not hard enough to break one, but enough for him to understand how all this is making me feel.

A better friend would smile, buy a round of shots, celebrate this new phase of her friend's life. But I am not Jo's better friend. I'm her best friend. And as such, I can't help but think of all the things I'm losing. You're upset because she's choosing him over you, the voice in my head says. The voice isn't wrong. Of course Jo is choosing Alex over me. He's the fiancé. I'm the best friend. That's what happens when people get engaged, or land their dream job, or find something else they can't resist.

"This is worse than a secret fetus," I whisper into my drink.

Alex tenses. "A what?"

I wave a hand at Jo. "I thought you may have impregnated her. She's been acting weird all week."

Beer dribbles down Alex's chin when turns to look at her.

"I'm not pregnant," she says. "You've seen me drinking all season, Nina. We shared a fishbowl at that weird pirate bar-"

"Davy Jones's Locker is festive, not weird." I fiddle with one of the dangling unicorn earrings I take off only to shower and sleep. "You could've been pregnant. I don't know your life. How am I supposed to know if you adhere to CDC guidelines?"

"You do know my life," Jo says. "Which means you also know I never planned to work in yachting forever. I never planned to work in yachting at all."

The three of us fall silent. Mitch's walls are littered with photographs, and ticket stubs, and dollar bills, making me feel as if I've stepped into a stripper's scrapbook. I glance at the wall beside us, my heart cartwheeling in my chest when I spot the Polaroid of me, Jo, and Ollie, the Serendipity's chef before Alex. I decide that our current chef, Amir, is my new favorite. His food isn't as good as Ollie's or Alex's, but at least Amir has never broken my heart.

Ollie and I started on the Serendipity the same year, when both of us were new to yachting. We worked together for eight charter seasons, and it was in this very bar, almost a year ago to the day, that I'd found out he was leaving to become sous chef at Miami's illustrious Il Gabbiano.

Don't think about him, the voice in my head chides. But how can I avoid it when he's staring right at me from that damn Polaroid? I lean over and grab the photo, yanking it free from the wall with one sure pull.

"Nina," Jo says. "What are you doing?"

I shove the photo into my bra. "Souvenir," I say. I'm not sure what I'll do with it: burn it, tuck it into a book, sneak back here in a week and staple it to the wall again.

"Shots!" Britt, the Serendipity's third stew, appears beside the table with four shot glasses crowded in her hands. She grins at us, completely oblivious to the tension she's walked into.

I take two of the shot glasses and glare at Jo. "I need this more than you." I tip Jo's shot down my throat before chasing it with mine.

Britt scoots into the booth energetically, nudging me against the wall and blocking me into this hellscape.

"Leave some room for the Holy Spirit, won't you?" I shove Britt over until half her ass hangs out of the booth. "Lord help me sitting next to you all night. Where's RJ? He'd let a girl have some peace and quiet."

Britt snorts. "I doubt it."

I've never heard RJ, the Serendipity's bosun, string more than one sentence together at a time, and I've known him for as long as I've been in yachting. Jo and I exchange a look that says, What's that supposed to mean? But I look away when I remember she is now my former best friend.

"Shouldn't you be somewhere mooning over Amir anyway?" I ask Britt. Their love affair had done nothing positive for the efficiency of the interior crew this season.

"I'm letting him miss me," Britt says. Her gaze is unfocused, and I wonder how many shots she's had already. "What is it with stews and chefs?" she muses. "Is it the knives? I mean, it's got to be more than a coincidence. Me and Amir, Jo and Alex, you and-" I raise an eyebrow. She mimics my expression and realizes her mistake. "Uh, Chrissy Teigen."

I twirl the two empty shot glasses before me on the table. "Is Chrissy technically a chef? There was a robust debate about it on Twitter a few weeks ago, and I don't remember what the consensus was." Alex opens his mouth to answer, but I cut him off. "Rhetorical question, Alex. I don't want to hear anything from you. It's bad enough you've stolen away my former best friend."

Jo looks stricken. "Former?"

Britt sighs unsteadily against the table and nearly topples out of the booth. "They told you, huh?"

"You knew about this?" I say.

"Britt!" Jo hisses.

Britt...