Wendy Wax - The House on Mermaid Point

“We’ll have to work that out, I guess,” Thomas said.

Dustin stuck one thumb in his mouth and began to suck on it. Maddie yawned.

Troy and Anthony leaned back against the railing and shot it all. For the moment Kyra seemed to be more into shooting her surroundings than trying to shield Dustin from the network camera.

“I’m ready for a bed and something to eat,” Nicole said. “Not necessarily in that order.”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Troy and Anthony move.

“You can see the whole island from up here.” Avery leaned out over the railing, which Nicole sincerely hoped was less rickety than it appeared.

“Can you show us to our rooms?” Nicole asked, more than ready to unpack and relax. “And tell us where we can find food?”

“Yeah, I didn’t notice any other structures on the island. Are we staying in the main house? Or are there guest cottages tucked away somewhere?” Maddie asked.

Troy began to pan his camera from out over the railing up to them. So far in Nicole’s experience this was never a good sign.

“I thought the network would have explained the sleeping arrangements,” Thomas said carefully. He looked so uncomfortable Nicole wouldn’t have been surprised to see him whip out a Tootsie Pop.

“The network prides itself on never explaining anything they might be able to surprise us with,” Deirdre said.

Nicole followed Thomas’s gaze and the network camera’s lens. Over the railing and down along the dock.

“Actually, you’ll be, um, staying on a houseboat,” Thomas Hightower said.

There was a silence as they processed this. Following the camera lens, Nicole spied Deirdre’s luggage piled on one of the houseboat’s decks.

“The crew is staying on the other one.”

“Holy crap!” Avery said.

“This is a joke, right?” Nicole studied Thomas’s chiseled face but saw no hint of humor in his dark eyes.

“The network crew is on the smaller one. You’ve got the bigger houseboat—it has multiple sleeping areas, a complete bathroom, and a kitchen/dining/living room combination. You’ll have it all to yourself.” His voice trailed off as they stared down at the houseboat in horror.

“All five of us and Dustin on that one boat?” Maddie asked.

“Yes.”

“And how many bathrooms did you say it has?” Deirdre asked.

“Why, um, just the one?” Thomas’s response turned into a question.

They stood frozen and silent as they all took it in.

“But there is a port-o-let, too,” Thomas was quick to assure them. He pointed beyond a grouping of bushes to a dented phone-booth-shaped object. “Plus the houseboat has a rooftop deck and air-conditioning units. And the galley kitchen has a refrigerator that’s stocked with groceries.”

Troy and Anthony didn’t bother to hide their smirks.

“Jesus.” It was the only completely formed word that sprang to Nicole’s mind.

“The network seemed to love the idea,” Thomas said, moving away from the railing—and them—as if in self-protection. “They thought it was perfect.”

“No doubt,” Nicole said. “Stuffing us on a houseboat tied to an island sitting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is absolutely perfect. Absolutely perfect for them.”

They stood wedged into the main cabin of the houseboat surrounded by closed doors and built-in cushion-covered ledges that were supposed to pass for furniture. Moving would have required orchestration or at least a game plan, neither of which any of them seemed able to muster.

Troy and Anthony were pressed against the bulkhead recording their first sight of their floating barracks. To say that it was a tight fit was like saying that the Atlantic Ocean, on which they bobbed, was just a little bit damp.

“Well, it’s compact. And kind of ingenious, really,” Maddie said, running a hand over the galley’s ancient Formica countertop.

“I feel like a sardine,” Nicole said. “And it smells kind of fishy here, too. Does your glass really always have to be so . . . half-full?”

“I can’t believe they think they’re going to get away with this.” Deirdre was pressed against a door that Nicole hoped led to a heretofore-unnoticed second bathroom. A cosmetics case was locked in Deirdre’s arms. The rest of her luggage was piled up on the deck.

“They already have. And last time I checked there was no ‘no houseboat or island makeover’ clauses in any of our contracts,” Avery said. She gave Deirdre a look. “Unless your agent managed to slip one into yours?”

Deirdre remained silent.

“Didn’t think so,” Avery said.

“Well, the kitchen is small but it seems to have pretty much everything,” Maddie said.

“Yeah,” Kyra said. “It kind of reminds me of that Barbie Dream Kitchen I had. Or wait, maybe that was the Easy-Bake Oven I’m thinking of.” She’d sat Dustin on the dining room table, a Formica rectangle surrounded on three sides by a vinyl-covered banquette. The space was so small that hiding him from the camera was pretty much out of the question.

“Well, at least there’s a blender.” Nicole eyed the small, if ancient, appliance on the counter. “And I have a bottle of rum in my bag. Did anybody bring anything to blend with it? Not that I wouldn’t consider drinking it straight from the bottle right now.”

“No, but I’ve got Diet Cokes in the cooler and some snacks,” Maddie said. “Let’s see what we’ve got and figure out the sleeping arrangements. Then we’ll take some food and drink upstairs and watch our first Keys sunset.”

In addition to the built-in dinette, a compact kitchen ran along the hull, forming an L in the corner. Shallow cabinets were arranged around a narrow rectangular window and beneath the counter. There was a built-in microwave, a cooktop, and a compact refrigerator. A very small, very ancient television sat in a cubicle.

“I’m pretty sure that the dinette and the couch convert into beds,” Maddie said as if this were a good thing.

“I’m going to hold out for something that resembles an actual bedroom,” Nicole said. She’d slept on the floor when they renovated Bella Flora and in far worse circumstances as a child; a bed and a door meant something to her.

“Okay,” Avery said. “Let’s see what lies behind door number one. Can you all move so I can get that door open?”

They inched to their left so that she could reach the door closest to the kitchen counter. Avery pulled it open as far as she could, given the wall of bodies in its way. “It’s a shower room.”

“By itself?” Deirdre asked. “Is that all that’s in there?”

“Well, there are two hooks on the wall.”

“Great.” Nicole groaned.

“And door number two?” Maddie asked.

“Sink, vanity with mirror, toilet.”

Maddie managed to peek over Avery’s shoulder. “Gosh, that’s small. I mean, compact. Or is that ‘efficient’?”

“Well, at least the shower and the toilet/vanity area are separate. That means more than one person at a time can be doing something,” Avery said.

“But there are five of us,” Kyra said. “I never thought I’d say this, but thank God Dustin is still in diapers and won’t need to get potty trained in here.”

“If there’s not another bathroom tucked away somewhere I may have to start wearing diapers myself,” Nicole said. “I will not be using that port-o-let.”

“It’s not like we’ve never shared a bathroom before,” Maddie said.

“Yeah,” Avery conceded. “I never thought I’d be nostalgic for the bathrooms at Bella Flora or the Millicent. They were a wreck, but they were real bathrooms.”

“And they were on land,” Nicole added. “A distinction I never fully appreciated before.”

They thought about this while Avery pulled open the remaining doors.

“That’s it for bathrooms,” Avery said. “But it looks like there are three sleeping spaces—I’m not sure they deserve to be called bedrooms.

“The first one has a set of bunk beds. And . . .” She peered in the opposite doorway. “This one has what looks like a full-sized platform bed. And a couple of built-in cubbies on the wall.”

The room that adjoined it had no door, just an angled opening. “This one has a double bed, too. But there’s pretty much no storage.”

“This place gives the term ‘bare bones’ a whole new meaning,” Deirdre muttered.

They shifted again so that Avery could climb up the small ladder that ran up the wall. She remained on the steps as she looked around. “Two platform beds divided by a low partition. Two small windows—one of them has an AC unit in it and there’s a door onto the upper deck.” She disappeared into the space. When she backed down the ladder she turned to face them. “It’s tight and the ceiling’s low. I can just stand upright.”

“Dibs on the ‘penthouse,’” Deirdre said, sounding pleased. “We’re compact. It’ll be perfect for us.”

“You might as well enjoy calling it that while you can,” Avery said, “because once you see it you’ll have to stop.”

“Shall I pass up my luggage?” Deirdre asked.

“No. It’s probably better to carry it up the outer stair, but you’re on your own with that,” Avery said to Deirdre. “There’s a couple of hooks and a built-in set of drawers. Other than that there’s no storage in the ‘penthouse.’ Every inch is pretty much spoken for.”

“But where am I supposed to put my things?” Deirdre asked.

Avery shrugged. “You can sleep with them, as far as I’m concerned. Anything that ends up on my bed or in my way will be sleeping with the fishes.”

Deirdre harrumphed.

“Why don’t I take the bunk room?” Kyra suggested. “I can put Dustin on the bottom bunk and put cushions on the floor. That way Mom and Nicole can have their own rooms.”