The Ups and Downs of Being Dead (25 page)

“It’s got an alarm.”

“Duh. So what? I jump in the car and we’re gone.”

“What if they come after you?”

“This is rehab, not prison,” she said. “They got their
money. What do they care?”

“Sounds too simple.”

“I’ve done it before,” she said, searching her fingertips
for a sliver of nail that she could get her teeth on. “Why don’t you come with
me?”

Robbie sat and gazed at the TV for so long that Robert
decided he hadn’t heard the girl’s invitation.

But then he finally said, “I better not. My attorney will
have a cow.”

“Whatever.”

Suzanne was proud of Robbie for sticking to his guns. All
Robert could do was laugh.

“The night is young,” he said.

When a bell chimed, all the slugs in the lounge heaved out
of their seats and shuffled to a dining room. Robert and Suzanne followed
Robbie. He sat next to the girl, who was propping her head up with her hand
like she didn’t feel well. She took a couple bites of her meal, then dropped
her fork.

“I’m gonna barf,” she announced, and dashed out of the room.

A nurse sitting one table over watched the girl flee with
her hand cupped over her mouth. After giving it five seconds consideration, the
nurse went back to her meal.

Robbie sat with a fork gripped in one hand, his knife in the
other.

“The battle begins,” Robert said. “I give him thirty
seconds.”

Sure enough, Robbie calmly laid his utensils down, wiped his
mouth, and casually stood.

“I’ll go see if she’s okay,” he said to the nurse, and
slowly strolled to the door.

“Oh, no!” Suzanne said.

“Oh, yes.”

He and Suzanne scurried to watch. The girl was already at
the end of the hallway. She pushed open the door and immediately an alarm went
off.

Robbie lowered his head and sprinted after the girl. An
orderly shouted for Robbie to stop, but he surged on, then dove into the open
back door of a car and it sped away before he could even get the door closed.

“That’s my boy,” Robert said as they watched the taillights.

“I don’t believe it! He’s jeopardizing his court case.”

“You don’t get it. He doesn’t care. He assumes someone will
fix it. They always do.”

“You always did.”

Robert held up his hands in surrender. “Not me. This is all
Amanda’s doing.”

“I want to see where he’s going.”

Before Robert could even object, Suzanne disappeared.

“Oh, for the love of God,” he huffed. Then he concentrated
on the taillights far in the distance, and zipped forward to catch up.

* * *

The car parked in an underground garage of some fancy
Buckhead highrise. Robert had ridden on the roof, refusing to get in the car
with the others.

Robbie and the girl tumbled out of the back seat while the
driver and his girlfriend staggered toward the elevator.

Suzanne eased out of the empty car and stood watching the
four stumble and giggle.

“Happy now?” Robert asked from the roof.

Unaware of his presence, Suzanne jumped. Then she furrowed
her eyebrows at him. “I thought you didn’t want to know what he was up to.”

“I’m not here for him,” Robert said. “I’m here for you.”

Her jaw dropped slightly at the comment, and Robert pinched
his face into a snarl. “Can we just go to the airport?”

At the port in Ft. Lauderdale, hundreds of people waited in
a holding area to board the ship. Robert wasn’t sure he’d ever seen so many
Hawaiian shirts and straw purses in one place before.

He and Suzanne headed right for the front of the line. Just
beyond the gangplank, the ship’s photographer had stopped a large family to
take a picture. It took a bit of juggling to get grandma and grandpa front and
center, with mom and dad flanking the right and three bratty kids all jostling
each other on the left. When one of the boys continued to tease his sister, dad
reached over and whacked the kid on the back of the head. He immediately turned
around and smiled for the camera.

“Could it really have been that easy?” Robert asked.

First on Suzanne’s agenda was to investigate every inch of
the ship. That was okay with Robert, since they had to wait for the other two
thousand and sixteen passengers to get on board before the ship sailed.

It really wasn’t any different from a five-star hotel, but
Suzanne oohed and aahed over wide staircases and chandeliers. Not only did she
check out the main dining room, she went into the kitchen. The staff was
already busy slicing and dicing for dinner.

On another deck, a small café had laid out a buffet of hot
items, and cold make-your-own sandwiches, salads, and ice cream sundaes.

As passengers boarded, they dropped off their carry-on bags
and made a beeline for the food.

“Good God,” Robert said as a rather portly man balanced a
plate of hot foods in one hand, and a seven-layer sandwich in the other. “Let
the feasting begin.”

“I’ve always heard about the food on these cruises,” Suzanne
muttered. “Look at that child.”

They watched as a little boy glopped every syrup available
over a small scoop of ice cream.

“He’ll be sick before the ship leaves port,” Suzanne said.

The tour continued deck by deck. Robert was dismayed to see
all the bars. There was a nightclub-type bar with a stage for shows; there were
bars near every swimming pool; and cute little grass shacks that offered beer
and wine.

“I’d hate to be an alcoholic,” he said. “Or dead. All this
booze, and nary a drop to drink.”

Every available space on the upper decks was lined with
lounging chairs, all perfectly aligned and waiting for sunbathers. At the front
of the top deck, Suzanne stopped at a door to read a sign: ‘Nude sunbathing.
Adults only’.

She turned and smiled at Robert.

“Don’t you even say it,” he warned.

After Suzanne found the largest stateroom on board and
claimed it as hers, they wandered back to the gangplank.

People were still pausing for a photo before getting
shuffled off to their cabuns.

A woman in a wide-brimmed hat caught Robert’s attention. She
wore a Spandex tube dress in fuchsia that rode high on her hips. Her heels had
to be four inches.

“Dang! I hope we don’t hit any rough water,” Robert said.
“Or she’s going down.”

She lolled on the arm of some greaseball with dark
slicked-back hair and a knock-off of a Nat Nast shirt. The two paused for their
photo, and she pressed her ample bosom against his arm.

“Must be a boyfriend,” Suzanne said. “Or newlyweds.”

“I’m guessing she either answers the phone at his used car
lot, or she’s the one who sprays the deodorant in the shoes at his bowling
alley.”

Right behind the couple, a husky man wearing what looked
like a mechanic’s coverall stomped up the gangplank, talking way too loud.

“Filthy whore,” he said. “You goddamn cheating slut!”

“Whoa!” Robert said.

“How did he get past security?” Suzanne wondered.

The man and woman ignored his ranting and locked lips for
another picture before moving on.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” the mechanic yelled.

Suzanne shook her head. “Do you think he’s talking to the
woman in the hat?”

“I can’t believe they’d let him on board dressed like that.”

The burly man stormed right past the cute girl with the
camera and the bell captain directing passengers to their rooms.

Suzanne’s mouth dropped open, but Robert laughed. “Looks
like we’ve got another ghost on board. Maybe they’ll seat us together.”

Robert and Suzanne stood at the railing with three thousand
other people and watched the sun set as the ship pulled away from the dock. As
Suzanne promised, Calypso music tinkled from speakers. Kids chased each other
between deck chairs. Couples snuggled arm-in-arm, dreaming of idyllic days to
come on the open sea.

Once the skyline began to fade, most of the passengers
hightailed it to one of the bars or for the next
all-you-can-stuff-in-your-gullet meals. Robert and Suzanne stayed on deck.

As he gazed out at the churning water below, Robert said, “I
guess you’re waiting for me to make some comment about Robbie.”

“You were pretty quiet on the flight. I figured I should
just leave you alone.”

“I kept telling you what a loser he is, but I guess a small
part of me hoped the rehab would get him turned around. I knew better than to
get my hopes up, but I still did.”

“I was disappointed, too,” she said. “As soon as Robbie and
his friend got in the car, the girl in the front seat gave them both some
pills, and then they passed around a pipe. What kind of friends are eager to
bring you back down into the mire?”

“He’s always associated with losers. Even as a little kid,
he was always in the play-group that got time out for misbehaving. If paint got
spilled, if a fire alarm went off, you can bet Robbie was right in the middle
of it.”

“You always point out the negatives of Robbie, but surely
you can remember some good times, too.”

Robert guffawed, but he knew Suzanne wouldn’t let him off
the hook that easy.

“I guess when he was a baby, he was pretty cute. And Amanda
was still a semi-celebrity. I was golden, opening new stores every six months.
We’d take Robbie with us for grand openings and the shoppers loved it.

“Robbie really ate up the attention, too. Even before he
learned how to talk, he was babbling to strangers. Everyone adored him.”

“He was a star,” Suzanne said.

“Exactly.”

For a while, Robert studied the wake the ship made on the
water, as it churned to a foamy white and then settled back into ripples.

“But then some tabloid ran a picture of Amanda on the beach.
Her hips had gotten pretty big, and she had quite a belly of fat. It was really
cruel, and she took it hard. She started refusing to go to openings.”

“Those newspapers are so vicious. Every time I go to the
grocery store, they’re lambasting someone. Usually women.”

“I think one of the biggest reasons she got pregnant again
was to have an excuse for looking the way she did. That sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Women struggle so much more than men do with self-esteem.”

“After Rachel was born, Amanda was huge. And this was before
personal trainers and all the fancy gyms. There were a few exercise places in
Atlanta, but Amanda couldn’t bring herself to go there. Afraid she’d be
recognized. Now all the fatties are on TV flaunting how bad they looked before
they joined some weight loss program.”

“She hates the way she looks, then she overeats, then she
hates herself even more.”

“You got it,” he said. “And with Rachel in the mix, Amanda
was exhausted. I remember coming home lots of times to find all three of them
crashed out on the bed, sleeping.”

“What did Robbie think of Rachel?”

“Oh, he hated her. The little prince got kicked to the
number two slot, and he didn’t like it.”

Robert turned sideways at the railing to look at Suzanne.

“You know, that’s when he started getting so obnoxious. He’d
do crazy things, like tipping over her bouncy seat, or yanking a bow so it
pulled her hair and made her cry.”

“It’s odd, isn’t it? I’ve read studies on how children
misbehave when they know, without a doubt, that they’ll get slapped, or
spanked, or even beaten. But they crave any kind of attention they can get. And
the more Robbie acted up, the more attention he got from Amanda, right?”

“Yeah. And Rachel was such a quiet little thing that it was
easy to just let her go off in a corner and play by herself. Robbie was the one
that had to be watched like a hawk.”

“We saw that all the time in the classroom. Children
demanding, and getting center stage.”

“I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see what was
happening.”

Turning from the railing, Robert drifted over to an empty
deck chair and slumped onto it, lying back to stare up at the stars. Suzanne
perched on the chair next to him.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. It happens a lot more than
you’d think.”

“Did Angie come between you and your husband?”

“Oh, she tried. And believe me, sometimes she succeeded.”

Easing back, Suzanne reclined on her chair.

“But Phil and I both insisted on good behavior. We weren’t
tyrants, but we kept Angie within general boundaries.” She shrugged her
shoulders. “Maybe we just got lucky that she had a more easy-going personality,
like Rachel.”

“Why only one child?”

“I had a lot of trouble with Angie, both the pregnancy and
her birth. Then there were two miscarriages. We talked about going to one of
those fancy specialists, to see what was wrong, but our insurance wouldn’t pay
for it.”

“I have a feeling if you’d had ten kids, they’d all be
well-adjusted.”

“I’m beginning to question how we raised Angie. How could
she be falling for that weasel, Mark?”

“He’s a good guy.”

“Whatever.” Her toes tapped together rapidly, like she was
agitated but refused to argue any further.

The dinner crowd came up on deck to walk off a few calories,
and the drinkers brought their cocktails out so they could enjoy the sea breeze
and a smoke.

A young couple, probably newlywed, stood at the rail for a
moment before he pulled her toward Suzanne’s lounge chair. He flopped down
first, and Suzanne jumped away before he tugged the woman down on top of him.
There was instant groping and wrangling.

“Exhibitionists,” Robert grumbled as he rolled off his chair
to stand beside Suzanne. “Why don’t they take it to their room?”

“Maybe it’s an onboard romance,” Suzanne suggested. “They
just met, and they aren’t ready to take it to the next level.”

“Oh, trust me, he’s ready to take it up a notch. He’s just
waiting for her to give the signal.”