Billy Billionaire Comes Aboard

Not long after I made my way to the South American coast aboard Delirium, I started to hear rumblings of a tour de force even greater than Billy Basso headed my way: the yacht's owner, Billy Billionaire.

I'd get tipsy on the dock with Ginger and she'd say something like "Oh he's just going to eat you up!" Then Billy Basso would chime in with something similar, but less encouraging, like "Oh yeah... he'll eat you alive."

("Don't worry," they said. "It's all in play," they said.)

But I wasn't worried about all of that. After all, I'd cast off the lines of my suddenly-quite-dreary-seeming former life for the barefoot work of a suntanned deckhand in the tropics. I'd sailed off into the blue yonder with dolphins jumping at our bow, I'd swum in the ocean with green eels as big around as my thighs, I'd toured through steaming jungles and sat salt-sprayed helm watches in the middle of stormy nights and woken up to butterflies landing on our little ship when there was no terra firma in sight for 360 degrees. I'd had small near-daily word-nerd epiphanies on the nautical etymology of everyday language like "learning the ropes" and "giving leeway" and perhaps most importantly, I'd managed to not get myself fired. In fact, while learning that seasickness was, inexplicably, not really a problem for me on Delirium, I'd also managed to learn a fair amount about sailing in a short time and even though there were absolutely no Billys on any foreseeable horizon of mine in this new unpredictably nomadic life, I'd fallen in love with the water. I'd become smitten with the work of sailing in proportion to my growing competence on-deck. Yeah, I still had my occasional late-night moments of lonely mourning over Billy Builder when he'd cross my mind from halfway around the globe, but I'd made a couple friends and started to see the world and the related distractions were many. I wasn't invincible, but I was on the upside of life. I was ready for Billy Billionaire.

Or so I thought.

We prepared for days before he was to arrive: Ginger provisioned and cooked some of his favorite things, Billy Basso and I scrubbed and polished every surface, I made up the stateroom with 1,200-thread-count sheets and fancy towels and Godivas tucked into nests on every pillow, and at night we ate dinner and I received what, in retrospect, should maybe have been a disconcerting amount of coaching about how to "handle" Billy Billionaire.

"He just..." Ginger offered, trailing off. Expectantly-raised eyebrows did nothing to revive her sentence. That was all she had.

So here are the things I had heard:

He's in his seventies. DO NOT let this fool you, because:

• His visit will mean big changes to your daily routine.
• He likes to snorkel and sail to new snorkel spots all damn day. ALL. DAY.
• He drinks every night.
• He drinks nothing but gin martinis.
• Cocktail hour will be your cue to get out of uniform and ready for the town. All three crew. Every night.
• Gin causes him to get outrageously funny.
• No really, he drinks nothing but gin.
• He is hilariously, self-deprecatingly charming.
• He is generous to a fault. Money is nothing to him.
• He lives for other people's drama.
• He will try to get your life story out of you for said drama.
• You must not tell him your life story, because he is your boss and he will never ever forget anything you say.
• You will have to drink martinis with him. It is literally part of your job.
• However, you will love drinking martinis with him.
• You will invariably drink too many martinis with him.
• This will not help you to refrain from telling him your life story.
• He will tell you his life story. And it is fantastic.
• He will get adorably animated.
• He will spill lots of gin.
• He will love it if you spill more.
• You will probably start to spill more.
• The man. Is fueled. By gin.
• He will make friends with the entire bar, every bar, every island, every time.
• He will never *ever* have a bad time. He is always at his best.
• He is invariably a center of laughter.
• He will sneak off to bed once everyone else has set sail for blackout island.
• He is happiest when everyone else is having a roaring time.
• Your roaring time will not keep him up and you will continue to roar. Later than you should. You late-roaring imbecile.
• He will always be up early in the morning.
• You will always have to be up earlier.
• He will get you to drink too many martinis for this crack-of-dawn bullshit.
• GodDAMNit.
• You'd better be bright-eyed anyway.
• Sunglasses on the morning sails are your friend.
• Fuuuuuuck.
• There is no point even hiding it. We're all in the same boat (literally).
• He will invite you to share $100 wine at lunch. Do this if needed.
• You will be excited about the evening by the afternoon sail.
• All of the above: repeat daily.
• You will be exhausted, relieved, energized, and sad when he leaves. Except your liver, which will just be exhausted.

(I... am... failing to see any problem with this.)

So, the first day Billy Billionaire came strutting down the dock, an utterly unassuming-looking dude in a t-shirt and cargo shorts escorted toward Delirium's slip by a suitcase-toting Billy Basso, I stood barefoot at the edge of the teak with Ginger. He came aboard with hugs, immediate at-ease jokes, high fives, and smiles. And the night proceeded to follow the above script near-verbatim, until he fell down his stairs putting himself to bed. Ginger and Billy Basso both commented that even for him, this was a new level of drunken merrymaking. "I think you're in," they said.

I loved the guy.

But then, the next morning, with Billy Basso and Ginger and I all at the ready in our polos and khakis at sunup, Billy Billionaire failed to emerge at his usual early hour. According to them, this was absolutely unheard-of.

We waited. We joked about how my presence might have been the overstimulation that sent him over the edge the night before. We listened occasionally at his door for audible signs of life (there were none). And hours crawled past.

By eleven, in the neighborhood of four hours past his usual rise-and-shine, some serious worry had developed. What was the responsible course of action here? After all, he was the yacht owner, we were the help, and disturbing him was the last thing anyone wanted to do. But... what if he'd hit his head on that stair fall and was in bed with a subdural hematoma? What if he was just dead on the floor from alcohol poisoning or aspirating his own vomit or something in there? Finally, when I couldn't take it any more, I knocked.

There was no answer.

(Time for Plan B.)

It was "agreed," in a sort of ro-sham-bo loss, that I should go in for reconnaissance. It made sense: I was new, he seemed to think I was cute, and if he was mad about having his privacy invaded I could at least fall back on one or both of those excuses.

I cracked the door. Inside, in the dark, I could make out an inert human shape under the comforter.

Maybe six steps separated me from the edge of the bed. I squinted in the dimness, hoping to at least detect the up-down motion of breathing coming from the covers. No such luck.

Two steps closer. I could see now that the bed was a tangled mess of linens, covered in dark streaks. Ohgodohgodohgodisthatblood??ohgodohgodohhhh... The bed is absolutely destroyed. It looks like there has been a struggle. Now, as my eyes adjust, I can see definitively that some of the bloody streaks are clearly trailing handprints. And there is still no movement from Billy Billionaire's form.

Another two steps closer. Those blood streaks are so ominous now, so clearly not just the evidence of a nighttime nosebleed that I feel like I might throw up. OhgodohgodohgoddidI*kill*himlastnight? ThatistheONEwayIcouldpossiblystillgetmyselffiredGATDAMMIT!  I'm right next to the bed. I whisper Billy Billionaire's name but of course, nothing but silence and dread are in that room with me. I reach out to where I'm guessing his shoulder should be. I hesitate, taking a deep breath. OhgodohgodohgodOK...SoldierUPohgodohhh--and just as my fingers touch down on the corpse, the en-suite bathroom door bursts open and Billy Billionaire, looking a little haggard but freshly-shaved nonetheless, finds me bent over the bed in horror.

"Thought the old man shit the bed, huh?" He asks, with his trademark wry twinkle.

I'm still catching up with my pounding heart, barely processing that he meant "shit the bed" quite literally as opposed to the figurative meaning I'd been convinced of, as he shuffles past me to the door. Over his shoulder, he adds with a touch of reproach, "Oh for Christ sakes, it's chocolate. You hide those goddamn chocolates in a drunk man's bed, that's what you find in the morning."

And as I'm still clearly dumbfounded, he pauses in the doorway. "C'mon kid. Let's get some coffee."

(...Or therapy. Either one.)

And that, on what turned out to be the first day of the Billy Billionaire years, is exactly what we did.

Meet the White Rabbit

For your sake, I hope you have that girlfriend.

I started to recognize her in passing long before I knew her name. As it turned out, even though we worked on two fairly professionally-isolated floors of the same agency in Billy City, she knew through the grapevine who I was months before we ever actually talked, too. 

See, we were two of a slim selection of single young Susies in a big office building populated heavily by Good Ol' Billys (who, true to the profession-based cliches, frequently tended toward the socially-stunted side). Add to that a smattering of middle-aged, big-haired secretary-type dames who wouldn't hesitate to bite you right in the jugular over office supplies, and you get a workplace dynamic such that she and I actually first genuinely bonded, one random day, over the tandem wakes of suggestive workplace gossip* that we both had trailing us.

*(For the record and much to his credit, the Billy Big-Wall interlude, which happened after I'd already put in notice but nonetheless would have been one piece of actually-legit fodder among otherwise-baseless bullshit, never even hit on the catty-rumor-spreading radar.)

And so, as sister tailored-shirt-wearing black sheep (black is the new... black) there in the sea of ill-fitting oatmeal-colored slacks and tie-dyed socks that is the Aging Federal Workforce Where Fashion Goes To Die, it was only natural that we became either arch-nemeses or fast friends. Obviously, we went with the latter.

(...and that is assuming we're grading on a curve around here, Billy.)

Lest you think I'm just humblebragging for myself about the undeserved default attention (both friendly and saboteur) that comes an even marginally-attractive Susie's way in a male-dominated work environment, allow me to divert your attention with a shinier object:

This Girl.

She's this beautiful, athletic sexpot with a wicked sense of humor and a wonderfully no-bullshit approach to everything, who also just happens to be a brainy engineer.

She's the sort of girlfriend who, every time you assess your lives over drinks, unwittingly inspires your resolve to seriously tighten up your ship and step up your game to a more adult level - she's raised a lovely tweenage daughter solo while building a real power-career and yet her outfit's never ever mismatched and her hair's always goddamn perfect, for fuck's sake!

But also, virtually every time I spend time with her, the hours seem to spiral down a rabbit-hole of increasingly bizarre or hilarious or just pricelessly stupid adventures that simply do not happen to real grown-ups this side of the looking-glass. 

She is The White Rabbit. And I fucking love her.

(Well, wrong Rabbit, but right idea.)

So, 'twas a time in life when The White Rabbit and I were both online dating, and possibly due to the stream of ensuing stories hashed over in our lunch-hour Sushi/Sake Thursday tradition, we hooked a third single coworker, Jen, into enlisting on the same matchmaking site, too. And Jen, being a sweetly-optimistic country-mouse kinda gal, and maybe not having much extracurricular experience with The White Rabbit on which to base a wiser decision, divulged to us the details of an upcoming first date she had set up with a fellow and asked for advice. "I mean, y'all go on dates all the time, but I ain't gone out in years! I'm bad at it! I get so nervous! Y'all gotta help me!"

The White Rabbit and I sprang into action: our naive lil' small-town girlfriend needed us! What if we came on the date with you? we asked. Jen was skeptical but we persisted: What could go wrong? we countered, grinning like jackals. Jen worried that we would make her even more nervous, but we were already sold on the idea and thus had a majority vote. You'll never even know we're there! we promised, fidgeting with anticipation. After all, Jen wanted feedback. Jen wanted backup in case he was a crazy. Jen wanted coaching. Jen had no goddamn idea what she was agreeing to. We'll just... you know... assess from a distance. Like date-insurance! If things aren't going great we can bail you out! If there are snags we can throw you a line! We can all triangulate our impressions after the fact! It'll be a fun review session next Sushi/Sake Thursday!

Jen was a supremely good sport. So the deal was done: we had a 4-way date.

(What Jen's response by all rights should have been.)

It was a lunch meetup, and so on the ordained day, we all met up at the elevators of our building, then The White Rabbit and I took off in a car ahead of Jen. We quickly scurried to the bar while she was still parking, scanning madly for whoever might be waiting around to meet her. We were going to do some good today: we were here for Date Assistance.

Several potential candidates were present. We flipped through online photos, trying to recognize the right suitor, as Jen came through the door and they spotted each other. But then, before we could even really take stock of anything about him, they were ushered to the general restaurant seating, far out of our visual and auditory range. Now the pressure was on: The White Rabbit and I had to find a casual way to immediately change our locale.

"Can we maybe get a booth?" The White Rabbit called out to our bartender. "We just..." (looks at me and smiles) "...we need some privacy."

(Definitely doesn't think we're lesbians. Nailed it.)

Shortly thereafter, a surly hostess led us into the dining room, to the one available booth.

But it wasn't any better. We were still separated from Jen's rendezvous by a half-wall stacked with silk plants and Italian-themed tchochkes! This would not do. As discretely as possible, we again summoned the nearest waitress.

"Um, this table isn't quite what we were looking for," ventured The White Rabbit. The waitress, clearly unamused by our section-hopping, glanced around the rest of the full dining room in no hurry. Her gum snapped. The ice in our cocktails, on a tab that had not yet even been transferred from the bar to our current table, continued quietly melting. On the other side of the partition, Jen's first date was progressing rapidly without our witnessing presence. We were approaching a crux.

"I mean, could we get... a table?" asked The White Rabbit, eyeing an empty but uncleared four-top closer to Jen's. I was acutely aware of what pain-in-the-ass customers we were being, but desperate times, man. We were missing our goddamn date, here. Jen needed us!

(We. Are. Stalking. Capisce?)

"I'll see what I can do," said our waitress. What she could do, and (possibly justifiably) did do, was hurry away, never to return.

Half the date had already escaped us by now. Still undefeated, we agreed to make the best of it and take turns going to the restroom, to gather what little information we could as we passed their table. The White Rabbit went first, but when she got close, she lost her nerve and bolted past without even turning her head. I could see she was trying not to laugh.

I stood up and started their way. And right then, Jen caught my eye for the first time in this operation and gave me an impossibly brief but unmistakable "get your shit together" look. She was watching our floundering this whole time! It was not, as promised, like she'd never even know we were there - and yet, despite our bumbling background interference, she was motoring through it like a true champion actress. She was the undercover agent! She was acing her date while we were choking!

Deflated, I hurried to the bathroom, and when I emerged, being as how it was taking place under a lunch-hour time restriction, the date was drawing to a close. Fuck a duck! The White Rabbit and I had to position ourselves for this! We'd blown the rest of the thing, but we sure as shit weren't going to miss the ending!

I quickly descended on our table, communicated my panic in the most Dude way possible...

(Calmer'n'you are but C'MON, we gotta roll!)

...and we scrambled out the door before the smitten couple so we could position ourselves to casually observe their goodbyes. But they were goddamn efficient diners and check-payers and they were emerging right after us! And here is where things took the White-Rabbit turn:

On a wordlessly synchronized decision, we sprinted. Directly into the shrubbery.

I'm not kidding: we literally dove into the bushes. This is The White Rabbit's magic: what shoulda-coulda-woulda been a mildly-interesting, low-key lunch date of professionals with anyone else had somehow been turned into a fifth-grade ninja debacle with her.

(Just play it off, noooobody noticed...)

Let me see if I can sum up the scene accurately:

• Jen (the self-proclaimed "terrible dater"): culminating a fruitful, adult date with friendly conversation, eye-contact, and plans for another meetup.
• The White Rabbit and I (the smooth "coaches" to aforementioned "terrible dater"): awkwardly vying for the more hidden position amidst the landscaping trees of a family-friendly chain restaurant, suffering seizures of laughter at ourselves, punctuated by prodding and mutual eye-shusshing, causing renewed laughter, spurring more shusshing, etc.
• One of these things is a picture of normal dating success. One is not.

I'd like to say, for dignity's sake, that at least we remained undetected. But then, this: they parted ways, Jen coolly shot daggers out of her eyes in our general direction, and he started walking toward his car.

Which was right next to us.

Which triggered in both of us a pathetic freeze-or-flight reflex so powerful and moronic that instead of, say, just staying still (and at least possibly-undetected) behind leaves and trunks, we opted for the alternative: colliding into each other in stooge-like panic as we broke and fled.

(Ohhh honey. Just NO.)

Did he see us? Did he recognize us as recurring extras from the cast of his earlier dining experience? Did he wonder what the fucking fuck two grown-ass women in well-pressed business-casuals were doing crashing around in the trees outside of Macaroni Grill? These were the fleeting thoughts that accompanied us as we ran, mission completely aborted, around the back side of the stucco building, in full view while Jen's Billy slowly drove away.

Curiously enough, we were not invited on Jen's second date with him to find out the answers to these questions.