Green Tea Won't Help You Now! (19 page)

Gus remained in his sleek command bridge, only sometimes he turned on the autopilot to have a snack or go to the bathroom. He hardly ever talked to us. But when we came back from our session of cosmetic applications, he announced we would be in Tartuga in an hour.

"Incredible," I breathed and fell back onto the couch, overcome by nerves.

Tina sauntered to the command bridge in front. "Will you explain me your buttons?"
 

"Won't you ever stop?"

"With what?"

"With your rude remarks, it's really tiresome after a while."

"It wasn't a rude remark, I'm truly interested. This is a crazy ship! You can stir it with your phone!"

Gus guffawed. "Yeah, right."

"Fuck off, Gus. I was trying to be nice." She disappeared.

"Why, of all people, did
she
have to come?" Gus asked me but I had no leisure for conversation. I was rehearsing what I would say to Alex if I saw him. I would do everything, except prostate myself on the floor.
 

The last hour went by way too fast for my taste and without any announcement, Gus slowed down to mooring speed.

"What? There already?" I whimpered.

"Yes. Brace yourself. Get out of the stupid jacket. You don't want to look like a moronic stalker. You'll have to help me fix her to the quay. I don't think Toxic-Tina will be of help.

"Sure."
 

I had a lifetime of experience with yachts and I did not think for a moment I would not be able to fix a rope to a hitcher, no matter who was out there.

"I'm going to pull in right next to the Unicorn Moon. Fortunately, I have parking assist. This boat is not meant to be one-handedly moored. Come, out with you."

I stood frozen to the ground.
 

He pushed a button and the black shell opened. He came up behind me, took me by the shoulders and pushed me out.

I had not calculated on the sensation the Nonsuch would create. I had only counted on her being fast and never put a single thought to the effect she would have on the yachting community. There were quite a lot of small to mid-sized yachts moored there, most of them charters operated by Kyle's company (as I well knew, but did not care) and everybody seemed to come out on their decks to watch our arrival.

Gus shoved me out on deck. "Jump across, I'll throw you the rope."

I had performed this manoeuvre a thousand times and I jumped, landed, caught the rope and wrapped it around the hitcher. Only then I lifted my head and looked right at Alex.

He stood on the aft deck of the Unicorn Moon, struck by lightning. A group of people were with him, intently marvelling at our vessel.

My legs turned to jelly. I held onto... well, nothing.
 

Gus jumped down next to me in alarm. He saw what I saw.
 

Alex saw Gus. "I don't believe this."
 

"Alex," I blurted.

His face was stony, but his eyes were very bright, almost feverish. His voice was bitter. "I see you found another victim."

"No." I shook my head vehemently.
 

"Brother, if you want to spare yourself some trouble, get on that shiny boat of yours and make it out of here."

"Ho, ho, ho..." Gus protested, raising his arms in self-defence.

"No, you're wrong. I'm not with him."

"See? She's trying to save her skin. Get lost, Laetitia."

"No. I came here for you!"

"Right, you came here for me with
him
. What's
wrong
with you?"

"Gus... Baby..." said a silky voice behind us. "Can you come in and help me with my sun lotion? Oh, are we there yet?"
 

Everybody turned their heads. Tina, clad in the skimpiest bikini imaginable, was leaning on the rails, sticking out her well formed behind. No rap video starlet could have done it better.
 

"Laetitia, daaarling, have you found that man of yours?" She clapped her lashes at Alex. "Oh, hi. Hello. Hi..."

She lasciviously pushed a button and the rear gangway descended to the pier. With absurdly swaying hips she came towards us, took Gus by the hand and led him back onto the boat. He played his role well and followed her like a lap dog. "Come on, tiger. We wanna give those two some privacy, don't we?"

There was no privacy to speak of but Tina's presence of mind had caused Alex's jaw to drop and I thought he should be more accessible to my reasoning now.

"Please, listen to me," I begged.
 

He did not say anything.

"I'm so sorry, I can't tell you how sorry I am, I was so stupid but I was so scared you'd never want to get to know me."

He still did not say a word.

Somebody else did though. Here was the inevitable cameo by a certain yacht broker.

"My my, Titia, darling. An Olympic champion and such beautiful pleas. How well I remember them."

"Shut your face, Kyle," I snapped without even looking at him. "I knew you were going to turn things nasty today, but you know what, I don't care."

He swaggered into my field of vision and I relished the fact that he had put on some weight and his eyes were puffier than before. He was still fucking beautiful, though.
 

"Ok, do you want me to say the words for you?" He started to wail in a distorted imitation of my voice. "Please, darling, please don't go, don't leave me, you can't, I love you so!"

I took a step closer to the Unicorn Moon. Alex stood still like a rock.

"Please, darling," Kyle continued to wail, "please. If you go I'll tell my brother and he'll buy your company and
he will fire you
!"

"I never said that."

"Oh, yes you did, you were so high, you don't know what you threatened me with."

I belatedly realised my sister had been right. It was a grave mistake to come to Tartuga.
 

My desperation to see Alex had been so overwhelming and I had underestimated the effect meeting Kyle would have on me. Also, I had plainly forgotten—like a mother forgets the pain of childbirth—how
mean
he was. He had been booted out of a seven billion dollar fortune at the last minute. He would not relent. You, dear reader, will, of course, have expected it, as would any straight thinking person. But I was not thinking straight.

Since Alex was rooted to the Unicorn Moon like a tree and did not threaten to budge in the near future, I made a gut decision to tackle Kyle first.

I turned on him. "I should have threatened you with worse, you egotistical bastard. You would have gone to prison for the things you did to me."

"Oh, please. You wanted to do them. Hey, I have a nice bit of Columbian cut on board the Maya Cima. Why don't you come and lick it from my hands. You used to love it."

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, you're nothing but filth."

"Remember how you snorted from the toilet seat?"

Tears stung my eyes but I would not be silenced by him. This was my fight. This would be my catharsis.

"I was a sad, distraught, lost little soul and you,
YOU
Kyle, you preyed on me like the vulture you are. All you ever wanted was my money. You never cared a piece of shit for me, nor for anybody else. You're a dealer and a pusher. You're the worst kind of person and I'm happy I got away from the likes of you. You're a sad, twisted and grasping individual."
 

He made a step towards me.
 

"You're scum, Kyle, just look at you. You'll be dead in ten years. I'm not denying it, I was fucked up as hell, but I at least have pulled myself out of the crap. You on the contrary are still on the hunt for a gullible heiress, willing to sponsor your addiction."

"Hey, mate," he called to Alex. "Wanna know how to shut the slapper up?"

He slapped me and I lurched back.
 

The onlookers on the other ships and on the promenade gasped in unison.

A figure dropped from the sky. It landed right in front of Kyle. He was lifted from the ground and his face contorted into a grotesque grimace. Then he flew several yards through the air and into the water. The audience hooted and applauded.

Alex turned to me. He came very close, looming above me, blocking out the sun.

I did not dare to blink.

He came even closer and leaned forward. He took my chin into his hand to examine my face.
 

His mouth was at my ear.

"Get out of my sight."

I staggered back onto the Nonsuch and through her automatic doors. I came crashing into the lounge, where I found Gus and Tina.

Having sex.

Yes, dear reader, I
know
, you also expected
this
. Again, I did not.

I stumbled backwards into a cabin. With my clothes on I sat down in the shower, but I never turned it on.

Twenty-Nine

"Titia, are you in there?" Tina asked from behind the bathroom door. "Please tell me you did not cut your wrists."

"No," I said.

"How did it go?"

I burst into roaring laughter.

I laughed and laughed. I could not stop myself. I careened out of the bathroom and fell onto the bed, still laughing.
 

"You missed it," I wheezed. "Oh my God, you missed the show of the century because you were fucking Gus. Oh, oh God, I can't, I can't—hahahahaha."

Tina blushed dark red. "Sorry."

"Ahahahaha, hahahahah. Ha! Ha!" I rolled back and forth, well knowing I was suffering from a nervous affliction.

Tina pressed her lips together, walked up to me, caught my arm and slapped me. Not hard, but it broke the spell.

"Cheers, girl. You're the second one today. — He did not want to see me."
 

"Shit."

"No, no, it's all right, I guess. At least I have my answer now. And he threw Kyle into the sea."

"He did?"

"Yes. You missed a great spectacle out there... when you were otherwise engaged."

"I don't know how it happened, it just happened."

"Well..."

"I can't stand him."

"Yes, you were clearly not standing. Neither of you."

We both chortled stupidly. I fell back on the bed and she fell down beside me. We both stared at the ceiling.

"
He
says we're heading for St. Barths now," she stated, "because we can't make it back to Antigua without a fuel stop.
He
also needs to sleep before he can go on."

"Does
he
."

"Oh please, Titia, It was a one time thing, I swear."

"Hmm...hmm... Aunt Clothilda and Giordana are in St. Barths. We might wriggle some food out of them."

"I didn't think you would have an appetite."

"Unlike you, you mean? No, I feel cleansed now, sobered. I can move on. I will be sad for a long time, but I won't harbour any unrealistic hopes anymore. The agonising days are over."

A great serenity came over me and when we went aboard my aunt's yacht, "Black Sledge," (!) for lobster and oysters galore, it turned out to be a memorable evening. Watching Tina and Gus trying to pretend nothing happened was a treat in itself.

Clothilda and Giordana took us back in time with the stories of their failed loves and it helped to put things into perspective. Both of them had lost their first husbands in the war. They had loved married men in times when divorces where impossible and there had been unwanted pregnancies, too.

"Oh, aunt Claude," I sighed over coffee. "I don't want to complain and I'm sure I'll be fine one day. I just don't feel like returning to Pink Pebble's where everybody is so in love and having babies and se— fun all the time."

Tina and Gus both focused on spots far out on the horizon.

"Why, you don't have to," cried Giordana with such vehemence her heavily lifted face showed timid signs of movement. "Why don't you come with us? We're going to Kitzbühel the day after tomorrow and I promise you, nobody will have sex or babies as long as you're with us."

Thirty

It may not be the best idea to journey to an upmarket Austrian ski resort if you want to get over a ski racer. That is especially true when the ski resort's world cup slope has a dangerous section called the Silverston Flanke, which is overlooked by the Silverston Bar, named after the record title holder.
 

I, on the contrary, thought it was a very good idea. It would neutralise my magnified rapport with skiing by giving it new facets and by making new memories for myself. It also had the undeniable advantage of being on another continent than California.

Kitzbühel is a gem of a town in the Tyrolean alps. Its cobbled streets are lined with medieval houses painted in all the colours of the rainbow. Some even sport a certain type of devotional alpine fresco, an early harbinger of Kitsch.
 

In Kitzbühel, we - as in
the jet set
- can be ourselves. Where else will you see snake skin covered ski helmets? Where else can you buy diamond encrusted goggles? Fur lined ski boots?
 

Giordana owned a chalet above a lake called the Schwarzsee. Chalet might be an understatement, it was a mansion to be honest. Or to be even more honest, it was a sanatorium. Both Clothilda and Giordana employed an army of health workers who were constantly at their beck and call. Wheel chairs and lifters littered the house. One thing was definitely true: nobody was having sex or babies in there.

Admittedly, Kitzbühel is not the only town connected to the ski resort itself, which is one of the most extensive and most modern in the world. There are Jochberg and Kirchberg, too, and it even reaches as far as the Hohe Tauern National Park with Austria's highest mountains, Großglockner and Großvenediger. You can choose from as many as 431 miles of slopes and there are also tourists who do not go onto the mountain dressed to the teeth in Bogner ski wear.

I for one, went dressed to the teeth in Hard Pack. Well. Not quite true. I only wore the jacket. I did not want to give it any extra meaning by throwing it away or framing it on the wall. It was a jacket, nothing more. A very good, high tech ski jacket and very yellow. Should I have an accident or be swallowed by an avalanche, Pamela Anderson's alpine counterparts could find me right away.