“Oh, and don’t you love the coconut pillow? I thought they would be fun for everyone.”
“It’s very coconutty. Maybe too coconutty. Then again, I’m not sure how coconutty a pillow is supposed to be.”
“It’s the perfect ratio of coconut to pillow, I think. I simply cannot sleep without one anymore.”
Phoebe feels a tiny headache start, the kind she gets when she waits too long to drink coffee.
“I need some coffee,” Phoebe says, reaching for the pot.
“Oh, no. Don’t,” Lila says. “Even in a five-star hotel, the room coffee is shit. It’s simply a rule of hotels. Let’s order some. It’s going to be a long day.”
It is. Phoebe’s first day back to life. Because if she is not going to die, she is going to have to live. She is going to have to book a plane ticket. Email Bob. Think of something wise and life-changing to say to Adam. Return to St. Louis. Bury Harry, which is already more than she can think about right now.
“Do you take your coffee black?” Lila picks up the phone.
“Cream,” Phoebe says. “And sugar.”
“Thank God. People who take their coffee black are always so smug about it, you know? Marla this morning was like, Oh no, no, I don’t need things in my coffee. I like it just black, thanks. And it’s like, Well, I’m sorry, excuse me, but I happen to be a human being and I like sugar.”
Then she dials room service.
“Yes, I’d like to order coffee with cream and sugar,” Lila says into the telephone. “Two eggs. And the Patriotic French Toast.”
“Patriotic French Toast?” Phoebe asks when Lila hangs up. “What war did it serve in?”
“Maybe it’s shaped like a flag or something,” Lila says.
“Maybe it votes.”
Lila gives a half laugh, like a horse caught by surprise. “For a suicidal person, you’re kind of funny.”
“Thanks.”
Lila walks to the door but looks at Phoebe as though she’s leaving behind a sad couch at Goodwill.
“So this is what is going to happen,” Lila says. “You’re going to eat your patriotic breakfast, and then join us in the lobby to sail at two.”
“Why would I come sailing with you?”
“Because I want you to.”
“Why would you want a random depressed woman on your sailboat?”
“You honestly don’t seem that depressed,” she says. “And the captain said we need a certain number of bodies in the boat to keep it balanced. And most of the people here are apparently too hungover to be on a boat right now. And if you don’t come, I’ll have to ask my mother to come. So don’t even bother telling me you have plans, because I know you were planning on being dead right now.”
Yes, Phoebe is supposed to be dead. She is supposed to be a cold slab at the morgue right now, but instead she is going to eat Patriotic French Toast and go sailing. Because isn’t that why she had chosen the Cornwall with Matt? To go sailing on an America’s Cup winner? To feel the ocean breeze in her hair? To be the people who ordered ridiculous breakfasts to their rooms?
“But I have to check out at eleven,” Phoebe says.
“No need,” Lila says. “I already told you I would book the room for the week.”
“And I told you not to.”
“Well, I don’t want any more randos coming in here. You’re the only acceptable rando.”
“I’ll be sure to put that on my tombstone. Phoebe Stone: the only acceptable rando.”
But Lila doesn’t laugh. Instead, she lifts her eyebrows in alarm.
“I’m kidding,” Phoebe says. “And besides, I don’t have anything to wear sailing. All I have is that … dress.”
They both look at the green dress that Phoebe left crumpled on the floor. The dress looks like a corpse, fallen where it was shot dead. Phoebe wonders if she’ll ever be able to touch it again.
“I’ll have this laundered,” Lila says, picking up the dress. “For now, buy something in the gift shop. The stuff there isn’t too awful.”
“But I don’t even have anything that will get me to the gift shop, other than this robe.”
“I see.”
They scan each other’s bodies to have that moment that women often have with each other—will my clothes fit you? Do we have the same body? And the obvious answer is no. Lila has the spindle legs of a Shaker table. Meanwhile, Phoebe has the body of a woman who has been drinking gin and tonics in bed for a year.
“I’ll get something from my mother’s,” Lila says.
Phoebe objects, but Lila cuts her off.
“It’s fine. It makes her feel like a better woman every time she donates,” Lila says. “This is actually a service you’re doing for her.”
“Well, in that case,” Phoebe says, “okay.”
