Spencer stiffened, wanting to say no. But before either of them could move, Naomi nudged her body in front of Spencer’s, grabbing Reefer’s hands. Spencer tried to hold her ground, but then Naomi gave Spencer a little shove with her hip. Spencer staggered backward. Her heel caught on the uneven stones, and she wheeled her arms for balance. The moments in the air felt like an eternity, and suddenly her body hit cold water with a loud splash. Water gushed into her ears and drenched her dress. Her butt hit the bottom of the pool, and she quickly pushed off and swam to the surface, coming up sputtering.
She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked around. The music was still playing just as loudly, but a lot of people on the dance floor had stopped and were staring at her. Waiters froze in place, trays in hand. Reefer’s mouth hung open. Naomi’s eyes were wide. After a moment, she stepped carefully toward the pool’s edge.
“My goodness, Spencer, are you okay?” she said in a fake-concerned voice. “You should be more careful!”
Spencer wanted to grab Naomi’s ankle and pull her in, too, but Naomi had already glided back to Reefer, assuming, perhaps, that they were going to continue dancing. But Reefer turned to a waiter, who rushed forward with a towel.
Spencer climbed out of the pool and let Reefer wrap the towel around her shoulders. “That was weird,” he murmured, oblivious, as he ushered her back to their table. “Maybe we shouldn’t have danced so close to the pool, huh?”
Not with Naomi around, Spencer thought bitterly. Her phone beeped from inside her tote, and she bent down. One new message from Anonymous.
She glanced behind her. Naomi stared out the window, her phone in her lap. There was a wisp of a smile on her face, as if she was keeping a delicious secret.
Spencer eyed Naomi, who was now gliding toward the exit with her head held high, as if her job here was done. Then Spencer peered down at the text.
If you know what’s best for you, Spence, you’d stay away from him. There are plenty of fish in the sea. Or, after I get through with you, the prison yard.—A
15
A PICTURE’S WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
On Friday morning, Aria and Noel stood in the ship’s kitchen at separate workstations. In an attempt to do something together, they’d signed up to volunteer in the all-natural, all-organic kitchen. Little did they know they’d be assigned to the breakfast shift at 6 A.M.
Aria peeked into Noel’s bowl and frowned. “I think you put too much flour in the batter,” she whispered, glancing surreptitiously at Bette, the large woman who was in charge of the kitchen.
Noel’s brow furrowed, and he peered at the laminated recipe next to him. “It said twelve cups for this size of a batch. I think that’s what I did.”
Aria fluffed the batter with a fork. “I think it’s supposed to be thicker. It’s way too flaky.”
Noel snickered. “You’re flaky.”
He tickled Aria’s side, and she swatted him with an oven mitt. She had to admit the early morning breakfast thing was fun: They were the only kids in the kitchen, there was a romantic classical-guitar station on the radio, and the air felt fresh and clean, not yet tropically humid. True, Aria hadn’t realized most of her kitchen chores would involve handling meat: removing thousands of strips of free-range turkey bacon from the freezer, frying up lumpy grass-fed beef sausages, even dealing with something called scrapple, which she was convinced contained pig snouts—albeit organic pig snouts. But even that was a small price to pay for having some solid Noel time.
Noel poured more milk into the batter. “Hey, since we’re up early, we should go for a walk on the beach. I could show you the rap Mike and I are going to do for the talent show on Sunday.” He nudged her.
“That would be great!” Aria said, but then bit her lip, remembering. “But I can’t today. I promised I’d mini-golf with Graham this morning.”
“Oh.” Noel stared into his bowl. “That’s cool.”
Aria tossed another tray of bacon onto the griddle. It sputtered loudly. “I’m really sorry. If you’d asked me earlier, I could have rearranged things.” They’d had dinner with a big group of kids last night. Aria and Noel had barely talked.
“I said it’s fine,” Noel said stiffly. “You sure are spending a lot of time with that Graham guy, though.”
Aria wrinkled her nose. That Graham guy? That was something her mom would say. “It’s not like I’m into him. He’s one of those guys who dresses up in armor and goes to jousts.”
“But is he into you?”
She laughed. “Definitely not. I’m trying to get him to talk to his crush, in fact. His old girlfriend died, and he’s too shy to talk to her on his own.”
Noel looked up, surprised. “How did she die?”
Aria bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. “Um, I’m not really sure.”
Really, she shouldn’t have told her friends about Graham, either—they couldn’t get it out of their heads that Graham might be A. Yesterday evening before dinner, when they’d met to go through their hula routine, Emily had told her she’d seen Graham lurking around one of the halls. And Hanna, who was hanging out with them even though she was now doing an act with Naomi, remarked that it seemed like Graham didn’t have any friends on the cruise—he was always sitting alone at meals. “What if he came aboard for other reasons—like stalking us?”