Matt de la Peña: The Living

Shy stands alone on the Honeymoon Deck. Cooler full of ice-cold water bottles strapped across his chest.

Waiting.

It’s day six of his first voyage as a summer employee of Paradise Cruise Lines. Towel Boy at the Lido Deck pool by day. Water Boy at night. But the money’s good. Like, game-changing good. He calculates again how much he’ll have pulled by the time school starts back up. Three eight-day voyages, plus tips, minus taxes. Be enough to help his mom out and still score some new gear and a pair of kicks, maybe take a female out to dinner.

Shy moves to the railing, picturing that last part.

Him with a girl on an actual date.

He’d get a reservation at a nice spot, too. Cloth napkins. Some fine girl sitting across from him in the classy-ass booth. Maybe Jessica from the volleyball squad. Or Maria from down the street. All eyelashy smiles as whatever girl glances at him over her menu.

“Get whatever you want,” he’d tell her. “You ever had surf ’n’ turf? For real, I got you.”

Yeah, he’d play it smooth like that.

When it’s overcast at night, the moon above the cruise ship is a blurry dot. The ocean is black felt. Can hardly tell where the air ends and the water starts up.

You can hear it, though.

That’s another thing Shy never would have thought before he landed this luxury cruise gig. The ocean talks to you. Especially at night. Whispering voices that never let up, not even when you sleep.

It can start to mess with your head.

Shy spots a passenger stepping out of the Luxury Lounge. The thick glass doors motor open long enough to let out a few notes from the live orchestra. Inside there’s a formal event going on called the Beacon Ball. Harps and violins and all that. Hundreds of dressed-up rich folks drinking champagne and socializing. Shy’s job tonight is to offer water to anyone who steps outside for air.

Like this dude. Middle-aged and balding, dressed in a suit two sizes too small.

Shy moves in quick with his cooler, asking: “Ice-cold bottle of water, sir?”

The man looks at the sweating bottle for a few seconds, like it confuses him. Then a grin comes over his face and he digs into his wallet. Holds a folded bill toward Shy between two veiny white fingers.

“Sorry, sir,” Shy tells him. “We’re not supposed to—”

“Says who?” the man interrupts. “Take it, kid.”

After a short pause, for show, Shy snatches the bill and buries it deep inside his uniform pocket. Like he always does.

The man uncaps the water bottle, takes a long swig, wipes his mouth with the arm of his suit jacket. “Spent my entire life trying to get to this place,” he says without eye contact. “Top scientist in my field. Cofounder of my own business.” He looks at Shy. “Enough money to buy vacation homes in three different countries.”

“Congratulations, sir—”

“Don’t!” the man snaps.

Shy stares at him for a few seconds. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Say something real instead. Tell me I’m fat.”

Shy glances at the ocean, confused.

The guy’s definitely fat, but if Shy’s learned anything during his first six days on the job, it’s that luxury cruise passengers don’t want anything to do with real. They want a pat on the back. “Tell a dude how great he is and get paid.” That’s his roommate Rodney’s motto. But this guy isn’t fitting the formula.

The man sighs, asks Shy: “Where you from, anyway, kid?”

“San Diego.”

“Yeah? What part?”

Shy shifts the cooler from his left side to his right. “You probably never heard of it, sir. Little place called Otay Mesa.”

The man laughs awkwardly, like it pains him. “And you’re trying to congratulate me?” He shakes his head. “How’s that for irony?”

“Excuse me?”

He waves Shy off and re-caps his bottle. “Trust me, I know Otay Mesa. Right down there by the border.”

Shy nods. He has no idea what the guy’s getting at, but Rodney warned him about this, too. How eccentric luxury cruise passengers can be. Especially the ones whose front teeth have already turned pink from too much red wine.

It’s quiet for a few seconds, Shy readying himself for his exit, but the man turns suddenly and points a finger in Shy’s face. “Do me a favor, kid.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Remember this cowardly face.” The man taps his own temple. “It’s what corruption looks like.”

Shy frowns, trying to find the logic.

“This is the face of your betrayer. Me, David Williamson. Don’t you ever forget that! It’s all in the letter I left in the cave.”

“Not sure I’m following, sir.”

“Of course you’re not following.” The man uncaps his water bottle again and turns to the ocean. He doesn’t drink. “I’ve made a career out of hiding from people like you. But tell me this, kid: how am I supposed to go on living with all this blood on my hands?”

Shy abandons his search for meaning and focuses on the guy’s comb-over. It’s one of the more aggressive efforts he’s ever seen. The part starts less than an inch above the left ear and dude’s expecting a few wiry strands to cover a serious amount of real estate.

Maybe that’s what he means by “hiding.” Down to three defiant hairs and still believing he has that shiny-ass dome fully camouflaged. It reminds Shy of little-kid logic in a game of hide-and-seek. How his nephew Miguel used to bury his face in a couch cushion, thinking if he couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see him either.

Shy hears flutes and harps again and turns his attention to two older women who’ve just come out of the lounge in sparkling party dresses. They’re both laughing and holding their high heels in their hands.

“Hello, ladies,” he says, moving toward them. “Care for an ice-cold bottle of water?”

“Oh yes!”

“Honey, that sounds marvelous!”

He hands over two bottles, amazed that wealthy women can get so worked up over free water.

“Thank you,” the taller one says, leaning in to read his name tag. “Shy?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, that’s a curious name,” the other woman says.

“Well, my old man’s a curious guy.”

They all laugh a little and the women open their waters and take well-mannered sips.

After the Paradise-recommended amount of small talk, Shy steps away from the women and goes back to looking at the dark sea that surrounds them. Thousands of miles of mysterious salt water. Home to who knows what. Big-cheeked bottom dwellers and slithering electric eels, whales the size of apartment buildings that swim around all pissed off they don’t have real teeth.

And here’s Shy, on the top deck of this sparkling white megaship. Two hundred thousand tons and the length of a sports arena, yet somehow still floating.

He remembers his grandma’s reaction when she first learned he was applying for a summer job on a cruise ship—two weeks before she got sick. She ducked into her room, came out seconds later with one of her scrapbooks. Turned to several articles about the rise in shark attacks over the past decade.

Shy had to take her to the local library and pull up an image of a Paradise cruise liner on the Internet.

“Oh, mijo, ” she breathed, all excited. “It’s the biggest boat I’ve ever seen.”