And these are my relations?
“Do you think,” Dianna says, examining her large toe, “that Lil’Bit Parsons will be there?”
This is such an unexpected question, so out of left field, that I say nothing as the terrible feeling of other people knowing something I don’t descends upon me like a shade blocking out the sun.
“Lil’Bit Parsons?” I croak.
“I don’t want to upset you, but I read in the Star that she’s in Europe. Vacationing with her two kids.” Diana screws up her face as I begin hyperventilating and stumbling around the deck, unsure as to whether or not I’m going to throw up, and she says, “There was a picture of her in . . . Saint Tropez?”
“That fucking BASTARD,” I say, somehow getting ahold of myself and tripping down the stairs and into the galley, where Paul, the captain, is talking in whispered tones to the cook, whose name I can never remember.
“Where’s my husband?” I ask.
Paul and the cook exchange looks. “I think he’s on the aft deck. Getting ready to go scuba diving.”
“That’s what he thinks,” I snap, making my way to the back of the boat, where Hubert is pulling on a dive skin.
“Hi,” he says nonchalantly.
“What are you doing?” I ask coldly.
“I’m going to scuba dive into the port. I thought it’d be cool.”
“That’s a smart idea,” I say sarcastically. “Maybe you’ll get ground up by a propeller.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“You just don’t give a shit about me, do you?”
“Leave me alone, huh?” he says, pulling the dive skin over his shoulder.
“I am so sick of your shit,” I scream, running to him and hitting him until he grabs my wrists and pushes me roughly away. “What the FUCK is your problem?” he says.
I reel back, stunned. Recovering somewhat, I say, “I want to talk to you.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t want to talk to you.”
Has my husband ever spoken to me like this before? “I HAVE to talk to you,” I say. “Right now.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” he says, shoving his feet into a pair of flippers.
“Get what?” I demand.
“That I am sick and tired of you trying to control me all the time. Okay? Just let me be. Just let me do my thing for a change, okay?”
“Your thing? All you do is your thing.”
For a moment, he says nothing and we stare at each other hatefully. Then he says, “What do you want from me, Cecelia?”
I want you to love me is what I want to say, but can’t.
“I came on this vacation for you, okay?” he says. “You wanted to come on Dianna Moon’s yacht and we’re on her yacht. I’m here. You’re always complaining that we never do what you want to do. And when we do it, it still isn’t enough.”
“Then how come we have to go to Princess Ursula’s this afternoon? We always do what you want to do.”
“Princess Ursula is family, okay? Do you think you can understand that concept?”
“It’s not that. . . .”