The shallow bobs and repetitive lap of water against the junk’s hull were oddly calming. I lay on the cushions on the top deck of the small boat we had rented, complete with a stocked bar, salad buffet, and enough snacks and other goodies to last a month, and put on ten pounds.
“This was a great idea, Scar.”
My sister turned to me and lowered her suspects down the bridge of her narrow nose. “Told you.”
“I’m so glad it’s just you and me, all alone. No other tourists.
Private tours are the best. Pricy, though.”
“They are,” Scarlett agreed. “But I never go with the throng. Avoid the tourists like the plague. It’s something you learn if you live here.
Sometimes I think every person who lives in Thailand hates the tourists.” “Well, weren’t you once a tourist?”
Scarlett frowned. “Yeah. I suppose I was.”
“God, this kind of humid heat is somehow welcome. Can you believe that? How strange does that sound?” I wiped the sweat from my upper lip and then dabbed my forehead with the back of my hand. “See! I’m practically dripping. And I like it!”
Scarlett pursed her lips. “It’s alright, I guess. I prefer drier heat, but I suppose if you don’t get to go inside a sauna all that much, the sub-tropics can feel pretty good. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to be going on a hike in this weather. Or walk to work in it.”
“No,” I agreed, making a face at just the thought of so much wet
clothing sticking interminably to my body. “What’s this barge we’re going to again?”
“It’s a private restaurant, Maya. I already told you. It’s not a barge, either. It’s like… a floating platform.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “It just floats out in the middle of the sea?”
“Well, no, it’s off the coast of a private beach. That’s where the club is. I’ll see if I can swing us an invite to get there.”
“An invite?”
“Yeah. It’s very exclusive. You need to be invited. It’s a club called Club Soria.”
“What does Soria mean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. A billionaire recluse who owns it, but I don’t know how much truth there is to that rumor.”
“What?” I blurted, laughing. “You can’t be serious. Is he also a James Bond villain?”
“I am serious, Maya! Never seen him or anything, but those are the rumors.”
“And the floating restaurant?”
“It’s pretty cool. It’s got like this internal swimming pool which is just a big hole that leads down to the sea. The water is so clear, you can see right to the bottom. I mean, it’s blue just like a swimming pool. Of course, since it’s close to the beach, it’s not very deep. There’s coral and stuff, too. Tons of fishes. Clownfish, too. They’re so cute. You could swim down and play with them. Some of the fish will eat the dead skin off your feet.”
I laughed at Scarlett’s manic speech and tried to picture it in my head, a boat that could somehow float with a big chunk of it cut out in its middle. “And it’s private. Like, exclusive?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been before?”
“No, not to the club on the beach. To the restaurant, yes.” “Well, how did you manage that?”
Scarlett propped herself up on an elbow, and I did the same. Her arm was far thinner than mine. “What do you mean?”
“Like, how did you get access?”
“Oh!” She grinned. “It’s mostly a private getaway for rich and shady business types in Thailand, strictly for foreigners, and I mostly deal with foreigners at work. One day I met a man through my business, and he told me all about it. He was trying to get rid of some chest of drawers which I guessed was probably an antique, though he didn’t know it.”
“Just like that? He just told you?”
“Well, no.” A sly grin parted her lips. “I agreed to accompany him as his date to some red carpet-event in Bangkok. He’s a film director. Some Hollywood blockbusters were being filmed out here. Why he lugged his furniture out here for a six-month shoot I’ll never know.”
“When was this?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. I loved film, and would probably know of the movie if I knew the name.
“Oh, three or four months ago.” Scarlett waved her hand vaguely in the air.
I blinked. “Wait, but weren’t you still with Jimmy?” “Technically, yes. But things were bad already.”
“He was already, um…”
“I suspected, but had no proof.”
“But did you, you know, with the film director?”
“What? God, no.” Scarlett feigned disgust. “I’m not that easy.” “Of course.”
“He was only a second unit director, anyway.”
I met my sister’s eyes for a moment before we started giggling together. “Can’t bear slumming it, can you?”
“I never settle for less than the best,” Scarlett said through a snort.
We lay in silence for a moment, the remnants of our laughs just quite grins. My sister was still on her elbow, and my back was flat against the cushions. The sky wasn’t completely clear there were dark rumblings on the horizon but this was Thailand. It rained every day. Soon those grey clouds would spread inland, shower the land for perhaps just twenty minutes, and then cease until the next day at roughly the same time. It was dependable. Completely dependable.
“Are there sharks out here, Scarlett?” “No idea. Why?”
“Just wondering,” I said. I shook my head. “Wow, it’s been so long since I just let my mind wander like that.”
“You mean think about sharks?”
“Not specifically. Just… you know. Daydream. I’m thinking about it right now, and I haven’t daydreamed in so long.”
“Never?”
“I don’t know. Maybe now and then. But I don’t remember thinking about stuff. Gosh, things were so bad between Bradley and me, and I just couldn’t see it at the time. The atmosphere was so poisonous. We were just being passive-aggressive to each other all the time.”
“That’s how people are, Maya. For some reason, we stick our flag into a pile of dog shit and refuse to leave until we’re forced to eat it.”
I wrinkled my nose, not quite understanding the point she was trying to make. “Ew. You’re so vulgar all the time. Haven’t changed a bit.”
“The rules on being a lady are more relaxed out here. It’s freeing.”
I furrowed my brow. I wasn’t sure that being a lady had anything to do with not being vulgar, but I discarded the thought. “Was it like that between you and Jimmy?”
“Oh,” Scarlett sighed, reaching over and patting my arm. “Me and Jimmy weren’t like you and Bradley, I guess. I always knew I’d catch him with someone else one day. That’s just who he is. I mean, he was convenient for a while, like, the first few years, you know? He knew the lay of the land, had access to a bunch of different things, and had connections with Thai people which helped me as a new foreigner. I learned some Thai from him, too. He’s fluent, you know?”
“But the sparkle faded?”
“It was never really a sparkle. More like a burst of heat or
something. A solar flare. I mean, I won’t lie… the sex was great.” She laughed, blushing. “Great.”
“I don’t want to know!” I cried, feeling my cheeks grow hot. But not because my sister was telling me about her sex life, but because I was dreading that the question might come up about mine.
“But seriously, Maya, wow. But once that died down, once he got bored… or maybe I got bored. I don’t know. Once that happened, it was all downhill from there. We just… well, ‘we’ just stopped being fun.”
“I don’t even know if I would ever describe my relationship with Bradley as a burst of heat.” I looked over at Scarlett and made what I was sure was a pathetic face.
“Then what?”