“Get some rest,” Carmen said. “I’ll come get you before we meet for lunch.”
Shy looked at her hovering near the door. “Thanks for telling me about Rod,” he said. “Guess I shouldn’t even ask about Kevin and Marcus.”
“Marcus is here,” she said. “The people on the second boat fished him out of the ocean.”
“So he’s not sick?”
Carmen shook her head. “He’s been holed up in his room the past couple days trying to fix some portable radio. He found it at the bottom of a huge puddle, though, so I have my doubts.”
“And Kevin?”
Carmen shook her head, looking at Shy. “He wasn’t on any of the boats.”
Shy nodded.
Not only did he feel exhausted, he felt empty. Just a few days ago they were all hanging out together on the ship for Rodney’s birthday. Now Rodney was sick. And Kevin, the strongest and smartest of all of them, was missing. Drowned, probably. Or mauled by a shark. It proved to Shy that the most important part of surviving was dumb luck.
Carmen stared blankly at the floor a while. “Look,” she finally said. “A lot of bad things went down. We both saw the footage of what the earthquakes did.” She shook her head. “I can’t even sleep really ’cause all I do is think about my family. And Brett. And whether or not they’re still alive.”
Shy nodded.
“But me and you are still alive,” Carmen said. “And we’re going home. That’s what we need to focus on, you know?”
“You’re right,” Shy told her.
“Now get some rest. I’ll come wake you up in a few hours.” She picked up one of his room keys and slipped it into her pocket.
“Thanks, Carm.”
She smiled. “You’re family, too, Shy. Remember that.” She turned to leave but then stopped herself and looked back from the door. “Before I go, you know the rules. Give me one thing I don’t already know.”
Shy looked out at the ocean, thinking. Carmen had just told him the truth about Rodney and Kevin. He wanted to tell something truthful, too. “You know that girl Addie?” he said, sitting down on the bed. “The one I was out there with?”
Carmen nodded.
“She’s actually not that bad. I probably never would’ve made it back without her.”
Carmen stared at him for a few long seconds, like she was trying to figure out what he meant. Then an understanding came over her face and she said: “I’m happy you had someone.” She smiled at Shy and stepped out of his room, slowly pulling the door closed behind her.
Shy lay back on his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. He thought about everything he and Carmen had just talked about, and he thought about Kevin and Rodney. He was definitely grateful to be where he was. Alive. Back on land. About to return to California on the research ship. But at the same time he felt guilty, too.
Why should he live and Kevin die?
What made him any more worthy?
Nothing.
He closed his eyes, remembering Kevin following him to the Lido Deck on the first night of the voyage. Warning Shy about the guy who’d been asking about him. Saying with his eyes that he had Shy’s back.
Kevin was a good guy. He was probably a better guy than just about anyone else Shy had ever known, including himself.
44
Giving Thanks
Shy felt like he’d just fallen asleep when he opened his eyes and found Carmen shaking him awake. “Sorry I can’t let you rest longer,” she said. “But we need to find out about this departure.”
Shy sat up. “How long was I out?”
“It’s one already. So almost three hours.”
“For real?” Shy wiped the sleep from his eyes and got to his feet. He followed Carmen out of his room, saying: “I probably could’ve slept for three days.”
Carmen stopped in the middle of the hall. “So which room is hers?”
“Who?”
“Blondie,” Carmen said. “Ol’ girl you were stranded with.”
Shy gave her a confused look. “What are you talking about?”
“Just gimme the room number, Shy. I decided me and her are gonna be friends.”
Shy was still too asleep to know what he thought about this. He reluctantly gave her the room number and followed her down some stairs and through a hall. Before he fully comprehended what was happening, they were standing together outside Addie’s room.
“Go ’head,” Carmen told him. “Knock.”
Shy did.
As they waited for Addie to answer he got a strange nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. Carmen and Addie, together? It was too weird, like worlds colliding.
The door opened slowly, and there she was. Blond hair tangled in her face. But she looked alert, like she’d been up for a while. She smiled at Shy, then turned to Carmen and said: “Oh. Hi.”
“Addie, meet Carmen,” Shy said, trying to act like it was no big deal. “Carmen, Addie.”
He watched them smile at each other and shake hands like two businesspeople. Then it got all quiet and awkward.
“You feel better?” Shy asked Addie.
She shrugged. Something was seriously bothering her.
Shy thought he understood what it was. “I know you wanna look for your old man,” he said, “but everybody’s supposed to be coming to this meeting, right? So I guess…”
“He’ll either be there or he won’t,” Addie said, finishing Shy’s thought. She glanced down at the ground, all sad-looking.
It went quiet again, so Shy told Carmen: “Addie’s dad was on the ship.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that out,” Carmen said.
“No, but then he got on a boat and headed here,” Shy added. “She’s not sure if he made it or not.”
“Oh,” Carmen said. “Sorry to hear that.”
It went quiet again, until Carmen said to Addie: “No offense, girl, but you look like you might need to spend some time with a bar of soap.”
“Come on, Carm,” Shy said. “She was in here resting.”
“I know that, Shy. I’m saying, I can show her where the freshwater pool is. We still got time before people start showing up at the restaurant.”
“Wait, what?” Shy tried to imagine them hanging out, just the two of them. “Or how about we could all go together,” he said.
Carmen rolled her eyes and looked at Addie. “You see how this vato is, right? Next he’s gonna wanna soap up your back.”
Addie smiled uncomfortably and looked to Shy for help. But before he could say anything, Carmen was walking into the room and grabbing Addie’s stack of fresh clothes off the foot of the bed. She linked her elbow in Addie’s and started them out the door, telling Shy: “Meet you in the restaurant in fifteen, Sancho.”
Addie looked over her shoulder at Shy, but he was helpless. Carmen did what she wanted. Nothing he said was gonna change that.
Shy sat down at an empty table inside the buzzing restaurant. There was food on a buffet-style counter near the miniature stage: chips, cookies, pretzels, oranges, bags of beef jerky and hundreds of personal-sized bottles of water. Nothing that needed refrigeration, because, as Shoeshine had told him, the island didn’t have electricity.
Shy started wolfing down everything he could get his hands on, and he looked around at all the survivors. A couple of them had worked with him on the cruise ship. Everyone else had been a passenger. They were all wearing clothes left behind by previous hotel guests or the people who worked on the island.
Shoeshine wasn’t there.
Neither was Marcus.
But he recognized many of the other faces. One of the women the oilman had shown the ring to by the pool. An older gray-haired man from Shy’s muster station. A mustached guy he always saw at the blackjack table in the casino. When Shy noticed that someone was staring back at him, his stomach dropped.