But that’s not what it is.
Shamefully, that is not what this is.
I’m jealous that she can speak to him in this language I don’t know, that I’ve never bothered to know because I’ve never traveled alone in any meaningful way. I’m jealous that he knows it, and I didn’t know that about him.
It’s ridiculous. Mortifying. I’m his hostage, for God’s sake. I shouldn’t be dying to know things about him.
He makes a joke. Her laugh is musical, easy. Then she makes a joke. And he laughs.
I turn away, going to the far corner of the shop, wrestling down this childish jealousy. It’s not nearly far enough, and of course he sees.
Of course he’s there, the cool-water presence of him surrounding me, cornering me. “Your pick of anything in here, princess.”
I turn to face him, putting a smile on as I do. “Did she give you a good deal?”
That same sharp grin transforms him. “I didn’t ask for a deal.”
“You flirted with her for no reason, then.”
He lets a beat go by. My cheeks burn up, and I pretend to become absorbed in a tunic the color of cherries.
Poseidon plucks it from its hanger and puts it in my hands. “You don’t shop here without chatting. Nothing to be jealous over.”
I make a sound that’s supposed to be a laugh but misses the mark. “I’m not jealous.”
“Good. Because I paid her enough to buy out the whole place. We’ll leave some for the next customer, but choose what you want. I have other places to visit.”
We leave half an hour later with a canvas bag overflowing with outfits and a pair of soft shoes on my feet. Poseidon curls the straps of the bag in his hand and shakes his head. There are three more shops on this block to visit. One is a pharmacy, where he buys several bottles of something with labels in Spanish, some sunscreen, and some combination shampoo/conditioner.
“Three bottles of medicine?” I ask him.
“Tylenol,” he says on the way out. The Tylenol goes into the bag with my clothes, and he hands the sunscreen to me.
“Are you running low?”
“Not on Tylenol. Just information.”
“About what?”
He doesn’t answer. I wish I had more time to bother Nicholas about this. Another tiny boutique carries women’s undergarments, which is as much a relief as the dress shop. Poseidon wasn’t lying—he chats with this shop owner, too. Makes her laugh. I never see the exchange of money, which I’m beginning to think is the point. I want to ask him why he’s so at ease in places like this. I don’t.
On the next block, he makes three more stops, buying small items at each place. A brush for me. New chapstick. A cardboard strip with elastics for my hair. The chatting makes curiosity into an itch that can’t be scratched. I try my best to ignore it.
The morning stretches to the afternoon. He buys me lunch at a restaurant the width of an alley, with a window looking out over the street. The kitchen inside is loud and hot, and Poseidon doesn’t ask me what I want. He orders, then tips the folded paper into my hands. Two tamales, both of them so good I could cry. We eat them on our way through a series of turns that lets us out at Poseidon’s next destination.
It looks like a jewelry store, but as soon as we’re inside, I realize the jewelry is for the front displays. The rest is a pawn shop. Poseidon leans over the counter in the back and calls to someone hidden behind a beaded curtain—a man who comes hurrying out, brushing his hands together, a big smile on his face.
Poseidon launches into his questions, which have to do, I think, with a pearl. La perla. Like the one I found in his chest? Does he need more?
I don’t interrupt to ask, and neither man looks my way.
Poseidon puts a hand flat on the back counter as if he wants to lean in, but he doesn’t. He keeps himself upright and apart until the other man shakes his head. Frowns. Rubs a hand over his mouth. And then, quickly, quietly, he says one more thing.
He doesn’t put anything on the counter, but there’s money in Poseidon’s hand, and then it’s hidden in a handshake and then we’re leaving.
At the end of the street, before I can work up the courage to tell him I was eavesdropping, he pulls me into one more shop.
In this one, he buys a sweater for me that’s as soft as everything else in the bag from the first boutique. Softer. Thicker. I could wear it at night on deck, if I was cold. I could wear it at sea.
It’s perfect.
The rest of my questions fall away into an easy, foolish bliss. Easy, because it’s warm and beautiful on the water. Foolish for every obvious reason. But a person can’t spend all their time being afraid, trying to figure out a way to escape. I’ve done that for days. For this moment, I’m going to enjoy the walk back to the dock and the ride back to the ship. The sea breeze plays with my hair and the hem of my sundress. Poseidon watches.
I like the heat in his eyes.
God help me.
It’s not God who carries the new things he’s bought up to the railing and lifts us over. It’s not God who gives orders for the dinghy to be brought in and for the cook to start on dinner. It's not God who takes me back to his quarters and tips the bag over his bed so I can look through the new things.
It’s Poseidon.
My heart swells with gratitude, heightened by the sun and the food and the shopping trip.
I’m about to thank him for it—thank this man who is holding me hostage—when his phone rings.
His eyes are like lightning over the water as he pulls it from his pocket. All that warm, fuzzy gratitude freezes up and splinters.
“You waited too long to make your transaction, Joseph,” says Poseidon, his eyes on mine. My stomach drops. I was so warm, almost content, and now the only thing keeping me together is willpower. I don’t have much of it left. The sundress seems like less than nothing now.
I can’t hear what my father is saying. Poseidon’s mouth twists. “Yes, I know you’ll pay,” he says. “Unfortunately for you, the price to get her back just doubled.”
15
Poseidon
Tears fill Ashley’s big, blue eyes, but she doesn’t let them fall. She watches me hang up on her father and toss the phone into a corner of the room. I don’t care if it breaks.
I hate those tears.
I hate them as much, if not more, than I hate her pathetic asshole of a father. He has enough money to send an army after her, and he hesitated.
Now he’ll face the consequences.
Rage runs through my veins like acid. It’s dangerous to feel it. For me. For anyone else in my line of sight. It burns along the punched holes of old hurts and digs in like rusted nails. Like a pair of hands around my neck and a boot in my back. Hollow anger rushes in at the banks of me. It’s a shallower feeling than the rage, but depth doesn’t matter with things like that. A person can drown in an inch of water. A person can drown fifteen feet from the shore.
Joseph Donnelly’s voice makes me crave a rampage.
He’s not here.
His daughter is, with tears in her eyes and a sundress that doesn’t hide her tits.
I put her in it to humiliate her, and it didn’t work. She walked around town all day like she was on cloud fucking nine. As if everyone who caught her in the right light didn’t get a full view of her nipples. She gave them a show. I gave her one. Just like her piece-of-shit boyfriend would have done, but he would have haggled, he’d have counted his trust fund pennies and made her pay half.