Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Her response is much the same as it was the day before.
This is fine, Casey, but truly we need that interview!!!
Three exclamation marks seem like three too many. I’m doing everything I can. I’ve looked for Phillip all day, and he wasn’t in the dining hall, neither was he at yoga or up by the pool. I’m not going to stoop so low as to hunt him down in his suite. I’m really enjoying my time on board Aurelia, and I’d rather not be hauled off by security just yet.
When the sun’s too hot to manage and I’ve done just about as much swimming as I can handle in one day, I venture down to the spa to join the others for our complimentary treatments. Yes, complimentary! This job. I can’t even handle it. Getting paid to get a massage? Yes, please! I can’t believe I’ve been toiling away fact-checking while other journalists were living it up like this!
Sienna’s waiting for me outside the spa, and she does a double take when she sees me.
“God, look at you. A sun goddess. Now I regret not joining you down by the pool even more. No work-around, though. I had videos I needed to edit and post, and I phoned my parents.” She waves her hand. “They worry about me with all the travel. Silly, I know, but I’m their only daughter.”
“Well, lucky for you, we still have six more days on board to soak up some sun. How are you feeling?”
She frowns for a moment, confused. Then her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, after yesterday? Still sore a bit, but it’s nothing a good masseuse can’t work out.”
She shimmies her shoulders as she says this, and then she links her arm with mine and tugs me into the spa.
Now, I’ve been in lots of spas in my life. Dozens. At least.
Okay, truth, I’ve never been in one, ever.
If ole Jean Hughes was feeling like treating herself (and me), we’d get manicures at a salon that would run a two-for-one special on Wednesdays, down the road from her old house. Only catch? We had to use the same color, and my grandmother always picked. I rocked fire-engine red nails until high school.
But even if I were a frequent flyer at spas, I have a feeling this one would still take the cake. We enter a foyer with plush carpet, serene shimmery wallpaper, and a round table almost completely covered by a cascading floral arrangement tucked beneath a dripping chandelier; tranquil music plays quietly in the background. Two attendants greet us with glasses of fresh lemon-infused water and then direct us to where we can stow our items and change into custom-designed Hermès terry cloth robes (which we get to keep).
They were smart to space us out throughout the day so it’s not a huge group filing in at once. I’m one of six, and the two attendants who come to collect us from the changing room—Brigitta and Ana—explain that we’ll each be able to choose three services from the spa’s overflowing offerings, which include things like seaweed wraps, HydraFacials, massages. As if all that wasn’t enough, we’ll then be whisked over to the salon for our choice of hair and makeup treatments.
I feel like a princess being pampered before a royal ball.
I start with a facial, and next I opt for a full-body citrus wrap, and then finally a decadent massage. I am so relaxed by the time my session is over, my worries don’t even exist. They’ve left my body.
I’m merely a vessel for lemon water and facials. Thank god for Sienna, though. She’s the one who had the sense to recommend we get our hair and makeup done at the salon, so we’re ready for the show.
“That way, we don’t have to worry about doing it ourselves. God, it’s such a treat not having to blow-dry all this hair.”
“Good call.”
I sit in the salon chair while some heavily accented blond man named Viktor—I think he’s Russian, maybe?—inventories all the things wrong with my hair. I didn’t see it before, but I certainly understand exactly what he means once he’s done with his diatribe. What was I thinking, keeping it this length? And no layers? How was it supposed to breathe? My god. I’m as offended as he is. Get the scissors!
He does his thing, working flawlessly and efficiently. I’m stunned with the end result. He’s cut my hair; I know he has, and yet, somehow, it looks longer and fuller than ever. How did he . . . who is he . . .
“Flawless,” he tells me, and I glow under his admiration. I’ve known him for forty-five minutes, and I’d trust this man with my life.
When I stand up to move to the makeup chair, he shouts at me not to slouch, and I straighten my back immediately lest I accidentally piss him off.