Chapter Text
It starts with a voucher to the Las Vegas YMCA—“Swim lessons,” Deborah announces with a cackle sharpening the edges of her words.
“Thanks, D. But really, less shame in just dying.” Ava tucks the envelope under her thigh and turns back to her phone where she’s been reading the reviews of Deborah’s final show and trying not to think about the panicked response she sent to Jimmy after they landed back in Vegas.
Deborah shrugs. “Well, I tried. I’ll have Marcus make a note of your refusal in your contract.”
“Why? Planning on pushing me into your pool?”
“No. Overboard.”
Ava’s brow furrows, and she forces herself back up into a seated position, finally noticing the bags under Deborah’s eyes, the way her hair is rumpled, like she’s been running her hands through it in the way she only does when she’s frustrated or nervous. “We’re going on a boat?”
Deborah lets out a huff of an exhale and sinks down onto the cushion Ava’s feet have only just vacated. “A cruise.” Her lips curl around the words, a sneer playing about the corner of them.
“Um…why?”
Deborah’s fingers rake through her hair, and Ava can’t help thinking how much she’d like to be the one doing that instead—which is, you know, wholly inappropriate because Deb’s her boss, and also one forwarded email away from kicking Ava out on her ass. “It’s a long story.”
“I got all the time in the world.”
Deborah swats at Ava’s thigh. “You’re supposed to be thinking about edits to the act.” And that’s another thing Ava’s noticed. It’s not my act anymore—just “the act.” Like ownership of it has entered some vague, murky ground where maybe it’s theirs. Or maybe Ava’s just been listening to too many TikTok lesbians and is reading way too far into things.
“Try me anyway. Short version.”
“QVC is sponsoring a Carnival cruise to Europe. Ages ago Marcus and I agreed to build some international brand promotion into some of my contracts in exchange for a rather significant hike in my earnings. They never took me up on it. Until now. It seems they’re cashing in for an onboard entertainer.”
Ava frowns. “Sorry. Wait. You’re gonna go be a cruise comic?”
Deborah grits her teeth and smiles. “A gig’s a gig, kid.”
“Okay, but, like…you’ve been in residence at one of the biggest Vegas clubs for decades. I mean, no offense, but you’ve gotta admit this is a step down.”
“I got publicly bought out of my contract by one of the biggest Vegas clubs, then bombed the launch of my first really new material in decades. Not exactly a hot commodity at the moment. Again,” she mutters under her breath, looking a little lost for a moment. But then she rolls her shoulders back and stiffens her spine. “So we regroup. Shows four nights a week. Constant new material. Captive audiences. It’ll be good.”
“That’s how Marcus sold ya on it, huh?”
“It will be good,” Deborah repeats, a little of that old steel infusing her voice. “We get back with a polished act, hit up a few of the clubs where the owners still owe me favors.” She shrugs. “Do well enough then, and we’ll have a whole tour lined up after.”
“When do you leave?”
“We leave in two weeks. So get your passport sorted. I can only imagine it’s buried somewhere in your suitcase covered in matcha powder.”
“I—what?”
“Passport. Tell me you have one.”
“Uh, maybe?” She’d gone on spring break during her single, horrible year in college, and she doesn’t think they expire that quickly…
“Talk to Marcus. Get it sorted.”
And there’s nothing really to do except nod and promise to get her shit in order.
---
All of which is how Ava finds herself sitting beside Marcus in the backseat of an Uber XL on her way to the docks with all of Deborah’s luggage piled up around them. (Ava still isn’t sure how she lost that rock, paper, scissors with Damian and ended up here instead of next to Deborah. Actually, she has her suspicions. Damn her tendency to always choose scissors—gotta commit to the bit—and damn Damian for managing to remember that fact.)
The uncomfortable silence is wholly expected. It doesn’t make it suck any less.
It’s stretched on for so long that Ava barely registers it when Marcus does start talking.
“What?”
“I said, don’t fuck this up for her.”
Ava tilts her head and lets out a little laugh. “Excuse me? I’m not the one sending her on a fuckin’ cruise for three weeks when she should be honing the act out on the road. Instead she’s gonna be pandering to people shoveling down all you can eat shrimp cocktails.”
“I think we both know you’ll be one of them.”
“Um, yeah, but it’s not embarrassing for me because I didn’t pay for the privilege.”
Marcus shakes his head, the corners of his mouth tightening. And woah, okay, maybe he’s cruise people. Ava’s on the verge of apologizing when he cuts in. “You don’t get it, do you? Everything’s a goddam joke.”
“If we’re doing it right,” she tries, getting a stony look in return.
“Deborah is lucky Jimmy and I got her this.”
“Dude, people bomb all—”
“Never call me that.”
“Fine,” Ava groans. “Marcus. People bomb constantly. It’s part of the gig.”
“Sure. People have bad nights. Bad shows.” He holds her gaze. “Most people don’t have tell-all emails from their staff leaking to the press.”
Ava feels her heart stop for a long moment before thudding back in triple time. Her skin is hot and cold and prickling, and her organs kind of feel like they’re about to fall out her asshole. “What?” she gasps.
“You think I don’t know? You think anything happens on this team—anything happens that threatens Deborah’s well-being—that I don’t know about?”
Ava swallows hard, but it only seems to make her throat drier. “Look, I can—”
“I so, so don’t want to hear it. What I want you to do is get on that boat and make sure Deborah kills it every single night. I want rave reviews. I want people actually laughing again.” Ava swallows back a bitchy jab about cruise people being the very last people to get the new material. It’s for the best; Marcus is on a roll anyway. “And when you come back to a PR blitz from Jimmy’s people to salvage Deborah’s reputation, you’re going to spend two very public weeks in the same rehab facility DJ went to. Then you’re going to make yourself scarce, never to be seen or heard from again. Do I make myself clear?”
Ava can barely breathe, let alone think about responding. This—this was it. Her lifeline. Her second chance. Her last tether to a world that’s made it so abundantly clear it doesn’t want her anymore. But somewhere along the way it turned into so much more. It wasn’t just a job. It was Deborah—Deborah and everything about her. “You can’t—you can’t forbid me from…from…”
“I can. And if you won’t listen, I have a dozen lawyers ready to enforce it for me.”
Ava manages a shuddering inhale that does nothing at all. She wants to ask Marcus if it seems like the oxygen is slowly disappearing from here, if maybe they should have left the vents open—screw the air pollution or whatever. What’s the possibility of lung cancer in her 80s when a stroke might well kill her at 50? And jesus fucking christ, her mom—she’s gonna have to move back in with her mom.
The car rolls to a stop, and Ava’s halfway down a spiral she doesn’t know if she’ll ever come back from.
“Now get out,” Marcus orders, already shifting right back into his perfect employee smile as he opens his door and strides around the back to get Deborah’s luggage for her. And fucking hell, Ava can’t even begrudge him it. She’s pretty sure she’d have done a hell of a lot worse to anyone who said half the shit about Deborah that she did in that email.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Deborah asks, actual concern lacing her voice.
It’s nearly enough to send Ava to her knees. Because that concern is never coming back. Nothing about this moment ever will.
“Seriously, we haven’t even gotten on the boat yet, and you look half-ready to puke.”
Ava shakes her head and forces something like a smile onto her face. “Just worried about drowning. That, uh, that’s all.”
“You can’t say I didn’t try. Got you your own door to float on and all.”
Ava’s lips quirk up into a real grin despite everything. “Clearly Rose could’ve learned something from you.”
“Many things, surely. Now come on, Jack. Grab your shit.”
“You gonna let me paint you?” Ava can’t help asking, a teasing lilt to her voice as she traipses behind Deborah, an overstuffed duffel bag flung over her shoulder and bouncing off of her backpack. There’s something about being around Deborah that makes things feel almost doable, like her life has some potential left in it, like she’s someone worth being around. And it’s fucking intoxicating.
Deborah lets out a loud bark of laughter—a sharp, staccato ha! “You find me an iceberg, and then, maybe.”
Ava stops dead, breath whooshing from her chest. It’s a riff on a joke—not even a particularly creative one—but all Ava can think is that she is the fucking iceberg. The big, stupid thing about to destroy everyone around her.
The self-loathing that follows on the heels of the shock isn’t even a surprise anymore, just another wave of the same old shit that’s been trailing behind her since hearing Jimmy’s voicemail.
Swallowing down bile, Ava hurries to catch up with Deborah, humming and nodding along with whatever she’s saying about logistics and rooms and the first show tomorrow night.
Little things. Ava can do those. She can check herself in, have her luggage scanned, show her passport. She can follow Deborah down to her room—a decent one with a big window and private balcony that promise stunning views when they’re out at sea—before finding her own room—smaller, but with a little window and a cozy bed that she thinks she can cry herself to sleep in no problem. She can go collect their welcome packets and meal tickets and all the weird little things that make her feel like she’s back on a third-grade field trip only with fewer children, more pina coladas, and about the same number of adult men in khaki cargo pants.
It's good. It’s fine. One task at a time. Little by little. So long as she doesn’t contemplate the vast, yawning abyss that is her future.
Like she said, so fucking good.