“You ready for a break?” I asked.
And just like that, the room went silent. He stared at me. I thought he was going to be angry or offended or something. But he leaned into the mic and said, “We’re taking five. Thanks for listening.” The band was down and in the crowd before I could even blink. I stood onstage alone now and someone below me yelled up. “Awesome party, Maddie.”
“To Maddie!” someone else yelled. Then everyone cheered and raised their drinks.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. This feeling was much different than the last party I had thrown. And I wasn’t going to lie; it was a nice feeling.
Seconds later, the other music, Trina’s playlist, came through the overhead speakers. I listened for a moment to the first song and the group in front of me cheered even louder.
Over the heads of the cheering crowd, still in the back corner, I met Blaire’s eyes and cringed. I’d forgotten she was there, babysitting my stuff. I jumped off the stage and wove my way in and out of the crowd to get to her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I got called away. Are you okay?”
“It’s just loud,” Blaire said. “And I don’t know anyone. Where did you disappear to?”
I pointed vaguely over my shoulder. “Upstairs to take care of a guy threatening to jump.”
“Someone jumped?”
“No, I think he was bluffing but I bribed him out of it.” I used both hands to usher her up. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
She slid her way out from behind the table. I grabbed my shoes and keys and led her through the crowd and up the stairs. A different set of stairs led us to an enclosed hallway flanked by locked doors, which I assumed were the captain’s living quarters. We continued down the hall to the end. I knocked on the closed door.
“Yes?” a voice called.
“It’s Maddie … the person who rented the boat for the night. Can I come in?”
A lock was unbolted and the door opened. Patrice stood in there, a big row of windows behind her providing the perfect view of the ocean. On our side of the windows were the ship’s controls. Lights and switches and knobs and wheels all blinking or lit up.
“Hello, Maddie,” Patrice said. “Come in. Check out my ocean.”
“This is amazing,” Blaire said. “And quiet.”
“Do you live on the yacht?” I asked Patrice.
“I do. It’s the best home in the world.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“And why?” Blaire added to my question.
“Do you need to ask why after seeing this?” Patrice moved her arm across the view in front of us. “I’ve lived on it for about five years. Before that I owned a sailboat. That was a different experience altogether but it made me love the ocean. Places like this have an amazing way of helping you discover who you are.”
I smiled, staring out at the endless dark sea. It did seem like the blank canvas of discovery.
Patrice looked at her watch. “It’s time to start heading back to the shore, though. Are you ready?”
I nodded. “This has been great. Thanks for taking us out.”
“I would say you’re welcome, but you are paying me to do it. I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
I laughed. “True.”
Blaire and I walked back out to the hall.
“I think you’re the most popular girl in school now,” Blaire said.
I wasn’t sure that was a compliment, coming from Blaire. “Does this make me sinister?”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “We’ll see.”
I squeezed her hand and she squeezed back.
I woke up groggy the next morning. By the time the boat was docked and everyone left and people were paid and I dragged myself home, it had been well after two o’clock. Waking up at eight for work had sounded easier the night before. Now I just wanted to pull the blanket over my head and go back to sleep. I didn’t need to work. Why was I still working?
I groaned and rolled out of bed. To make matters worse, when I got to the zoo, Carol assigned me to bucket cleanup—my least favorite station. Buckets were used for everything: manure, feeding animals, picking up trash, and on and on. Occasionally the dirty bucket count would get so backed up that we’d have to go to an area with a big hose, something resembling a toilet brush, and soap to clean them up. That was what I was doing today. But at least Seth was there to keep me company.
“Hey,” I said, joining him by the hose. That’s when I realized we weren’t alone. Louis was lining up a row of buckets to the right.
“Batwoman!” Seth said.
I scowled.
“Batwoman?” Louis asked. “Why do you call her that?”
“Because she loves bats,” Seth said with a smile. “And anteaters.”
Louis tilted his head, probably because it made no sense, but he continued lining up the buckets.
Seth studied my eyes. “You look tired.”
I stepped out of my shoes and pulled on the knee-high rubber boots. “I am.”
“You want to call in sick? I’ll cover for you.”
“How can I call in sick when I’m already here?”
“You can leave now and I’ll let Carol know.”
“You’re already trying to get rid of me?”
“Never.”
Louis chimed in, “I want to call in sick.”
“The offer doesn’t apply to you,” Seth said.
“We could all call in sick and go rock climbing like we did that one time, Seth.”
Seth waved his hand in Louis’s direction. “Pay no attention to the man who is claiming I am irresponsible.”
I smiled at him and went to the shed on the side of the building to get the scrub brushes.
“Why are you tired?” Seth tied the rubber apron around his waist.
“There was this party last night.”
“Oh, right. The party.”
“I heard about a party last night,” Louis said. “It was on a yacht. A bunch of kids from my school went.”
My eyes shot up to look at Louis, to see if he knew more than that. If he knew my connection to the party. He was holding a bottle of liquid soap high in the air and trying to make the stream land in a bucket, oblivious to my nervousness.
“And you didn’t go to the party?” Seth asked him.
“I didn’t hear about it until after.”
“I went,” I said cautiously. With Louis here, now wasn’t the right time for confessions, but I was tired of hiding things from Seth.
“Yeah?” Seth seemed impressed. “How was it?”
“Pretty good.” Except for the stress and money talk and trying to keep multiple groups of people happy at once. I wondered if a party I wasn’t in charge of would’ve been more fun. “How about you? How was Grandma’s eightieth?”
“She survived.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” I went along the line of buckets Louis had set up and started scrubbing.
“You look familiar,” Louis said to me.
I frowned in confusion. “That’s because I’ve worked with you before.”
Seth, who had attached the hose, squirted Louis once in the face. “Hey, idiot, this is Maddie.”
Louis batted at the water and let out a yell of disapproval. “No, I mean outside the zoo familiar. Do you go to Century High?”
“No, I live in … ” I almost said Tustin but then remembered that Louis was the one who knew the lottery winner was someone from Tustin. I was afraid that would jog his memory. “No, I don’t.” This secret was becoming bigger than I wanted it to. In that moment, I almost wished Louis would out me so it would be over with. Almost.
Louis huffed. “Oh, you don’t want to tell me where you live? Like I might stalk you or something? I see how it is.”
“I wouldn’t want to tell you where I lived either,” Seth said.
“Good thing I already know where you live,” Louis retorted.
Did everyone from the zoo, except for me, hang out with Seth outside of work?
For the next thirty minutes, as we scrubbed and squirted out buckets, Louis kept giving me sideways glances.