Page 114 of Save the Date
“Surprise!”
Shaz jumped up on the sofa and laid across her mistress’s lap. Reunited at last.
Jack just stared.
“Zoey? What are you doing here?”
She offered him a weak smile. “I came back.”
“So I see. Why?”
Zoey put the beer down on the floor. “What do you mean, why? I came back because I missed you.” She kissed the top of Shaz’s head, and the adoring puppy rewarded her with a lavish lick on the chin.
“What about Jiminy Cricket? Won’t you be missing him?”
Her lips were dried and cracked, but she still managed to form her signature Zoey Ackerman pout.
“Jesus H. Christ, Jack. For the millionth time, his name is Jamey. Jamey Buttons. And for your information, that’s all over.”
“I thought you were on a cruise ship. For like six weeks. What’d you do? Swim back to shore?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I happen to be pretty damn sick. Ever hear of a thing called norovirus?”
“What? That’s the name of your boyfriend’s new band?”
“Ha ha. Don’t you ever watch the news? Norovirus is a highly contagious virus that’s like, the scourge of cruise ships. We were just off Raritan on our last trip when people started getting sick. I was teaching a Pilates class on the sunset deck when all of a sudden, I just, well, I barely made it to the bathroom. And the next thing I know, everybody else in my class is barfing and… you know.”
“Diarrhea?”
She shuddered. “I barely made it back to my cabin in time. Ten minutes later, here comes Jamey—and now he’s sick!”
“Too bad,” Jack said.
“Have you ever seen one of the bathrooms on those cruise ships? They’re like the size of a telephone booth. And we had to share it!”
“Poor you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You think it’s funny, don’t you? I thought I was dying. For two whole days, I couldn’t leave our cabin. And neither could he. It was beyond disgusting. And there was like, nobody to help us. Almost everybody on the whole ship was sick. I kept ringing for the steward, but he was sick too. Finally, somebody brought some Gatorade and some saltines, but I couldn’t keep anything down. I lost six pounds in three days.”
“But you lived,” Jack said.
“No thanks to that jerk Jamey.” She sighed dramatically. “We are so over, it’s not even real. I guess you never really know somebody till you’re locked up in a shoebox-sized room with them with raging diarrhea and nausea, huh?”
“Words of wisdom,” Jack said. “Very sage. But you still haven’t told me how you ended up back here.”
“They had to turn the ship around and go back to port in Lauderdale two days early,” Zoey said. “They gave all the passengers discount vouchers for another trip and stuff, and the cruise line wanted me to stay on, and work on another of their ships, because now they have to completely sanitize the one we were on, but I was like, no effin’ way. I hope I never see another cruise ship as long as I live. Or Jamey. I got off the boat Wednesday, but I was too sick and weak to travel, so I got a room near the port. Then, this morning, I drove straight here.”
“To my place.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. “Our place. I live here, Jack.”
He squatted on the floor beside the sofa so that he could be at eye level. “Zoey, you left me. You said you were in love with another guy, so you packed up your clothes, and you left.”
Huge tears welled up in Zoey’s blue eyes. “It was a mistake,” she whispered. “I, I can’t explain it. That thing they say about women, going for musicians? It’s true! He had like a spell on me. But it wasn’t real. I figured that out. The whole time I was sick, I just kept thinking, if I get off this boat alive, I’m going back to Jack, and I’ll never leave him again.”
She grabbed his hand and clutched it to her chest. “I missed you so much, Jackie.”
His cell phone rang. He stood, awkwardly, and pulled it from his pocket, checking the caller ID. It was Cara.
