“Why don’t you go?” she says to Asher, trying to imagine spending all that time on a boat with her dad. The Alaskan cruise had been her mother’s idea. It was all she talked about for nearly a year, right up until March, when an artery ruptured in her head and the whole world seemed to stop.
Now it’s only a month away. And her dad is still planning to go.
“We can’t let him do this alone,” Asher says, ignoring her question. “It’s too sad.”
“He’ll hardly be alone,” Greta says as she wanders into the bathroom. “He’ll have the Fosters and the Blooms. They’ll take care of him.”
She stares at her reflection in the mirror, her face still made up from the shoot. Red lips, white skin, green eyes lined with charcoal. Her dark hair, usually so wild, is now sleek and tamed. She sets the phone down on the sink and switches to speaker, then twists the tap and begins to scrub it all off.
“He’ll be a fifth wheel,” Asher insists, his voice bouncing around the bathroom. “It’s depressing. One of us has to go with him.”
“Right,” Greta says. “You.”
“I can’t.”
She straightens again. Her skin is now pinkish, but she looks more like herself, which is always a relief. She grabs a towel and pats at her face. “The thing is,” she says, picking up the phone again and walking back out into the room, where she flops onto the bed, “he actually likes you.”
“Greta,” he says, impatient now. “You know I can’t do it.”
She knows this, of course. Asher has a wife and three girls under the age of five. He has a job with a boss and a regular work week, an HR department, and a set number of vacation days, which mostly get used up when the kids are sick. He hasn’t been on a plane in years.
Greta’s already been on three this week.
She sighs. “What are the dates again?”
“End of May, beginning of June.”
“I’ve got to be in the city for Gov Ball on the fifth,” she says, almost indecently relieved to have a legitimate excuse, no matter how much she’s dreading it. But this does nothing to deter Asher.
“Lucky for you,” he says, “it gets back on the fourth.”
“You know this isn’t just any show. It’s important.”
“More important than Dad?”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s not like I’m asking you to choose,” he says. “You’ll be back in New York in time to do your thing. And I’ve heard Alaska is beautiful this time of year. Still a little cold, maybe, but that was just Dad trying to save some money—”
“Asher?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think I can do it.”
“Sure you can. You love the water. Remember that time we took the canoe out on—”
“You know what I mean.”
He goes silent for a moment, then says, “It wouldn’t just be for him, you know.”
And that’s what finally gets her.
Chapter Two
Greta stands beneath the wide shadow of an enormous ship, wondering how such a thing could possibly float. It’s a hotel on rudders, a skyscraper tipped on its side, a monolith, a beast. And it’s her unlikely home for the next eight days.
The name of the ship is painted across its broad white side. It’s called the Escape, which is the only thing so far today that’s made her want to laugh.
Hundreds of people are milling around her, fancy cameras dangling from their necks, all of them eager to climb aboard and begin their Alaskan adventure. To the left, the city of Vancouver disappears into the sky, which is now silver, heavy with the threat of rain. Greta was here once for a show, but as with so many of the places she travels to, her views were pretty much limited to the inside of a music venue.
“It’s got eleven decks,” her dad says, stepping up beside her with a map of the ship. He’s wearing a too-thin windbreaker and a baseball cap he got for free when he opened a new bank account. It’s been three months now since her mother died, and for the first time in his life, he looks every inch of his seventy years. “And eight different restaurants. Four of them buffets.”
If her mom were here, she would’ve said: Wow! She would’ve said: I can’t wait to try them all. She would’ve squeezed his arm and beamed up at the ship, all eleven decks of it.
But Helen isn’t here. It’s only Greta, who still can’t believe that Asher managed to talk her into this.
“Cool,” she says, an attempt at enthusiasm, but it obviously falls flat, because her dad simply gives her a resigned look and returns to his map.
This was supposed to be a celebration, a fortieth-anniversary trip; they’d been planning it for nearly a year and saving up for it even longer. Last Christmas—a full five months ago now—Helen gave Conrad a calendar with photos of glaciers, and he got her a new fleece to replace her old one, worn and thin from years of gardening in it. They bought a pair of binoculars to share, the kind that hang heavy around your neck, and every time there was an article about Alaska in the newspaper, Helen would clip it out, put it in an envelope, get a stamp, and then mail it—actually mail it—to Greta with a Post-it note that said “FYI,” as if she were going too.
That new fleece—light blue and impossibly soft—is in Greta’s bag, which is currently being carried aboard the ship. Her mother never ended up wearing it. She’d been saving it for the trip.
The ship’s horn blows, and the line to board moves ahead. Behind her, the other four adults—even at thirty-six, Greta can’t help thinking of them this way—are already making plans, debating between the casino and the musical for their first night out. They’re longtime friends of her parents’ and each couple has their own reasons for being here: the Fosters both recently retired and the Blooms are about to turn seventy. But everyone knows the real driving force was Helen, whose excitement about this trip was so infectious, she somehow talked them all into it.
A steward walks past, and Greta watches him pause and take a few steps back in her direction. He points at her guitar case, which she’s had slung over her shoulder since they stepped out of the taxi.
“Would you like some help with that, ma’am?” he asks, and she tries not to flinch at the ma’am. She’s wearing a short black dress with Vans and sunglasses. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun at the top of her head, and there’s a leather jacket draped over the arm not carrying the guitar. She’s not someone accustomed to being called ma’am.